THE EXPULSION OF THREE SOVIET DIPLOMATS LAST September resulted from espionage activities involving NATO nuclear Submarines, according to a US State Department report. The Irish government has consistently refused to give the reasons for the expulsions and a government source was this week unable to say why the State Department should apparently have inside information on the incident.
WATCHING GARRET FITZGERALD IN THE DAIL LATELY ONE GETS THE impression of a boy who has learned to ride a bicycle all by himself. He still wobbles -.the fumble factor will never be entirely under control - and he can't help glancing warily over his shoulder at the school bully on the opposition benches ready to send him sprawling. But he's piloted his government's first independent budget through and the New Ireland Forum, has the merit at least of keeping Fianna Fáil quiet and showing FitzGerald to be busy about the nation's unfinished business.
Charles Haughey and the Press, by John Horgan
Before Christmas, some of the gay blades in Dail Eireann hit on a new game to while away the long hours of parliamentary ennui. Careful personality study, they deciided, could reveal all the secrets of a TD's childhood. There was a unanimous verdict on Fine Gael's Gay Mitchell - a fretful child, may be even a bedwetter, guaranteed to get violently sick on major outings. They were just as sure about John Bruton - a happy secure little boy, earnest and unselfconscious, arranging his toy world with the same unquestioning certainty that he would later bring to bear on government.
At a meeting of Labour's Parlia¬mentary Party following the an¬nouncement of his resignation from the Cabinet, Frank Cluskey received a standing ovation. Tributes were lavished on him, and according to one member present, the atmosphere was such that if anyone had criticised his action, "they would have been torn to pieces". The reaction of the Parliamentary Party gives some indication of the strength of Cluskey's support within that group.
Sean Doherty and the Dowra affair and the MacSharry/O'Donoghue bugging episode and transcript. Two excerpts from "The Boss - Charles J. Haughey in Government" by Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh, published this week by Poolbeg Press at IR£6.50
Just AS NO ONE ELECTED HIM, no one bothered to come along to watch his fancy inauguration. A German tourist who was passing by asked one of the few who stood outside Dublin Castle what was happening.
Mary Raftery examines the reasons why the Labour vote was so low in the Dublin Central by-election.
EVERY SINGLE TD in the Dail is subsidised to the tune of £13,84 tor food, every day the Dail sits. This is the breakdown of the £200,000 subsidy of taxpayers' money to the Dail restaurant. By Gene Kerrigan
Gene Kerrigan reviews the first official report of the proceedings of one of the new Dail committees - proceedings which three TDs described as farce.