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Yet another G8 summit is upon us and no doubt the outcome will be usual high minded promises to eradicate poverty and address climate change. But as we have seen from previous summits these promises are empty and self serving.

Despite claims to the contrary by members, the Catholic Church's position on abortion and embryonic stem cell research is not about saving lives. It's about saving souls.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Irish people are pro-life. But even if the reverse were the case, and the majority supported the pro-choice position, this would not then make such an attitude right.

Apparently the US is building an enormous embassy inside the green zone in Baghdad.  Covering 104 acres and costing $600 million, the complex will be the biggest and most expensive US embassy on the planet.  In a way, it is a perfect metaphor for the runaway hubris of the current US administration. Normally an embassy is about diplomacy.

The privatisation of yet another tranche of Ireland's energy reserves drew a step closer this week with the announcement that a Strategic Environmental Assessment (S.E.A.) is to be carried in relation to the Porcupine basin off the south-west coast of Ireland.

The vindictive nature of the British judicial system was again in evidence yesterday (Monday) as county Tyrone woman Róisín McAliskey had to face court allegations which many believed were decisively dismissed a decade ago.

Fianna Fail, to paraphrase novelist Alasdair Gray, may be in danger of becoming the ‘party that will bake and eat itself'. Having overseen prosperity and renewed promise it is now stands on the verge of imploding due to internal strife. The electorate is about to be seated at the banquet table and it is unclear as to whether it will opt for the sweet new crème brulee of Fine Gael and Labour, garnished perhaps with a Green sprig, but most definitely with a cherry on top, or old Bertie's tried and tested recipe served on a tough PD base.

The public declaration by former MLA John Kelly that what he terms dissident Republicans are now engaged in a process that will see any future demand for a united Ireland made in the context of peaceful means cannot go unchallenged.

Two FF TDs, Mary Coughlan and Pat "The Cope" Gallagher, are set to comfortably retain their seats in Donegal South West.  It is truly astonishing that support for Fianna Fáil remains solid in a rural constituency which stands out for all the wrong reasons. 

What's wrong with you people? If the latest polls are to be believed Fianna Fáil are actually going up in the polls according to the latest polls! One would have thought the voters were dying to get their revenge on Fianna Fáil for all their litany of broken promises and years of underinvestment in areas of key infrastructure such as the health service, public transport, education and housing, but to name a few, not to mention Fianna Fáil's complicity in the Iraqi war by allowing U.S.