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"This is the best day of my life": John Bruton on the day of Prince Charles' visit to Dublin. Now Gay Mitchell suggests a future role for a British head of state in Ireland. Over my dead body!

So, many of today's students fail to make the grade in the working world, top business chiefs have claimed. According to them, too many of the so-called text generation have little interest in learning on-the-job, they take no pride in their work and they struggle to turn up on time. This is an appalling and outrageous slur on all young people and I demand that Ibec apologise for, and withdraw, these disgraceful remarks immediately. Maybe if these allegations are true, Ibec should ask theselves why this might be the case.

I have some modest proposals for Dáil reform. In future, if a TD is absent from their Dáil seat, a blow-up sex doll should be placed in their empty seat with the name of the absent TD displayed on the doll. As the TV cameras span across the possible circus of inflatable TDs this should insure the debating chamber will be full in future.

The appearance of Croke Park-sponsored "bring your litter home" advertisements on the big screen in Croke Park this weekend is obviously a direct response to the controversy surrounding the same advertisements taken out by Dublin City Council.

Apologists for the Israeli government claim the ongoing slaughter of Lebanese civilians and attacks on ambulances, hospitals, sewage and water works are for their own good. And it's all for the cause of peace. Do they really mean a piece of Lebanon, a piece of Syria and a large piece of Palestine?

The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Irish Anti-War movement are calling for diplomatic relations with Israel to be cut, and boycotts and sanction to be enforced against Israel until it pulls out of Gaza and Lebanon and ends its four-decade-old occupation of Gaza, east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

RTÉ outdid itself in the shame stakes last Saturday night (15 July), returning to the days of Section 31 with Miriam O'Callaghan's interview of film director Ken Loach. Just as in the censorship era, when anyone with a sympathetic republican view was interrogated rather than interviewed, Loach was subject to the most insensitive, overly simplistic, biased, derogatory questions O'Callaghan could muster.

John Waters is right that guilt can be a part of charitable giving (Village 29 June). Simply being born in a place like Ireland at once puts us at the head of queue for the distribution of good fortune. We are all better off than most of humanity.

There are no circumstances in which Florida governor Jeb Bush, a prominent neo-con and signatory of the notorious Project for the New American Century, should be welcomed to speak in this country. How often do we have to kow-tow to blatant American imperialist interests before we wake up to see the Stars 'n' Stripes over Leinster House?

Yet again, Russia has assassinated a president of Chechnya and displayed his bloodied corpse on national television. The killing of Abdul-Khalim Saidulayev mirrors that of Aslan Maskhadov in March 2004.