"Your Irishman is not an investor. He's a punter." By Giles Merrit

In a special opinion poll conducted for Magill a huge majority in the 26 counties expressed themselves in favour of the re-broadcasting of BBC I on a second channel rather than RTE 2. By TOM O'DEA

"The 'Yes, but' style of reporting concedes the right to strike but makes explicit propaganda against the exercising of the right." Gene Kerrigan analyses newspaper coverage of the Ferenka dispute.

The career of one who left school at the age of 14 to work as a waiter and who later became Professor of Economics at Trinity College, exemplifies all the traditional virtues Fianna Fail likes to extol and defend.'

A profile of Martin O'Donoghue, by Joseph O'Malley, political correspondent of the Sunday Independent.

How do members of the 21st Dail rate in their attitudes to women? Mary Holland examines a recent survey and comes up with some surprising answers.

Did the equine VD, which now threatens the bloodstock industry in Ireland and Great Britain, originate in this country? PAMELA READHEAD reports on the history and financial repercussions of the disease that has swept the paddocks.

In the past few months, and in particular since the Ferenka dispute in Limerick, the Marine Port and General Workers Union has emerged as the media's No. 1 trade union bogeyman. But the truth behind the headlines is rarely as simple as the harassed subeditors would like to think. LIAM O'TOOLE analyses the recent history of the MPGWU and, in particular its 'troubled relations with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

The appeal by an English girl and three Irishmen, currently being heard at the Old Bailey in London, 'says something most unpalatable about the attitudes of English courts to Irish people and their acquaintances'. John Shirley wrote the ITV documentary 18 Months to Balcombe Street, and is co-author of a Penguin on the English police, The Fall of Scotland Yard.

By JOHN SHIRLEY

An investigation into the Garda fingerrprint affair reveals the following disquieting results:

• The former Minister for Justice, Patrick Cooney, seriously misled the Dail on the matter, either knowingly or unknowingly.
• Several senior Garda officers were and possibly still are involved in a systematic cover-up of the 'mistaken' fingerprint identification.
• The 'mistake' in the affair was of such seriousness as to question the reliability and integrity of the entire Garda fingerprint section.

Short articles from the Magill File, October 1977