Regulars

One of my philosophies in life, both personally and professionally, is not to the type of person who tells people what they want to hear for the 'sake of peace' or to merely avoid differences of opinion.
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The Irish love doing things at the last minute. We seem to get a kick out of it. Perhaps this national affliction can is down to a general laid back attitude, or perhaps a collective indifference. Produce a deadline for anything, and the result will always be the same – only at the eleventh hour, will action be grudgingly taken.
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I have a thick skin. It goes with the territory. Don't get into broadcasting or journalism unless you're willing and able to take the odd tirade against yourself. If I write or broadcast something that gets under peoples skin, or upsets them, or that they find insulting, I've got to be willing to take the flak and answer the questions that will arise.
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For the past fortnight, those of us who have been directly affected by cancer in Cork have watched with mixed emotions the excellent documentary on the opening of the new Marymount hospice. For me, the long corridor of the old Saint Patrick’s brought back memories of the time my father lost his battle with throat cancer under the loving care of Sister Marcella and her remarkable team.
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Tomorrow night (Friday), an Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD makes a rare visit to Leeside to address the modern day 'merchant princes' of Cork. This is a city that has been burned, been through wars, and depressions worse than the one we are currently enduring.
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Dear Jack, You don't know me, but then, how could you when you won't answer your phone? Maybe, however, you'll read this note, and I thank you in advance for doing so.Jack, I was lucky to learn how to cover industrial relations from two of the best IR reporters in the business, Peter Cluskey and John Murray.
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I have a good friend who lives in England. To protect her anonymity I will call her 'T'. 'T' gets some pretty awful bouts of depression. Nowadays, she has learned how to work through those tough days, but she wasn't always that strong.
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Albert Einstein once wrote that "the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." For those who deal daily in levies, credits and allowances, the contents of the letters posted by the Revenue Commissioners in the very first week of 2012 would have made perfect sense.
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Happy New Year, one and all.I tweeted on New Year's Eve, that “2012 will be a good year – that's not my hope or my wish – it's my decision.” It was a tweet I had been planning for a while, after spending some time in November and December, working on a course with a guy called Michael O'Doherty, in conjunction with Neil's show on 96FM.
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I had the pleasure recently of speaking to a Limerick man, Séamus Sherlock, whose story is similar to thousands of other ordinary Irish people whose lives are being haunted by our ongoing economic nightmare.
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It's about a year ago now since I wrote a piece here about reconfiguration in the HSE. It's something I'm continuing to follow, and while the plans for changing hospital and other services are complex and very ambitious, I could, and still can, see where they are coming from.
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Well, we fell for it.   For the past few weeks, selective leaks of what could be in the budget had the nation almost paralysed with fear. Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil best summed up the mood in the Dail during Leader's Questions late last month, when he accused the Taoiseach of “frightening the living daylights out of people around the country that ‘this is going to happen, and that’s going to happen’ and then coming up with the cynical line (that) we signed off on nothing.
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I'm in two minds as I sit down to write this. On the one hand, I had decided not to address the matter in print at all, because far more influential figures have by now written reams about it, but on the other, it's a topic that has cast part of my profession in a very bad light.
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Never make a promise in haste.  Promises are like babies. They're easy to make, but hard to deliver. Before Ireland went to the polls on 25 February, the electorate was swamped with promises that few voters could honestly have believed would be delivered upon.
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