The ultimatum from Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary this week has brought into sharp focus just how badly Cork Airport has been let down by Fianna Fáil. Cork is facing the worst possible outcomes as a result of political, not managerial decisions.

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The eircom Premier League’s top scorer packs his bags this week and follows in the footsteps of former Cork City players Kevin Doyle, Shane Long and Alan Bennet to Reading FC.

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It's congratulations and commiserations time again for all of those who have endured the Leaving Cert 2008.

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Bill Clinton famously said that when it comes to elections "It's the economy stupid," and whatever you may think of his many faults, on that particular issue he was absolutely spot on.

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Any new measure introduced to stem the continual rise of alcohol abuse in this country can be seen as a positive development, but it is difficult to see the sense in the government's move this week to close off-licences after the hour of ten o'cloc

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As three English criminals face up to the prospect of spending the rest of their adult days in Irish prison, there has been much congratulation and back slapping here regarding the way the case has been conducted.

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A caller to RTE Radio 1's Liveline show during the week informed us that he would rather take a reduction in the minimum wage than join the dole queue at his local social welfare office.

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So the big squeeze is here at last. Predicted since long before the last general election, the tightening of belts that has been happening in households throughout the country has finally manifested itself in Brian Cowen cutting a new notch on his

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Tonight's meeting in the Curtis Auditorium at Cork School of Music is something that many in Cork would not have been expecting to sit down to, barely one year after the long-awaited facility finally opened its doors.

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It may have seemed for a while at least that the worst effects of what is increasingly looking like an oil crisis may have passed Ireland by.

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The Irish Road Haulage Association’s meeting in Cork last night to discuss industrial action is the latest story this week concerning the adverse effects of rising fuel costs.

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Last Friday, Germany became the fourteenth EU nation to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. As the remainder of Europe's governments debate the pros and cons of this ammending piece of legislation to the failed EU Constitution, Ireland’s public have been ask

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There were those yesterday who broke into a chorus of 'ding dong, the witch is dead', and there were those who bemoaned the nation's political landscape as a now poorer place.

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This week saw all of the major teaching unions, the INTO, the TUI and ASTI hold their annual conferences. The mood at all of them was militant and Education Minister Mary Hanafin knows now, if she didn’t already that 2008 will not be easy for h

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AS the floats and parades roll out over the next few days, Ireland's Ministers take their annual leave of our annual celebration and head for foreign lands to spread the 'Irish message', like modern day Crusaders.

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The despair of the pharmacists this week and their concerns about their ability to continue to deliver community drugs schemes, forces us to again take a step back and look at the state of the health system.

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The disturbing revelation that the lives of women in Cork may be being put at risk due to inadequate gynaecological services only adds more doubt to the questions surrounding the effectiveness of our health system.

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THERE has always been tenuous debate surrounding the idea of whether man’s negative influence on the environment is greater or lesser than the environment’s negative influence on man; a debate which will again no doubt be ignited following the announ

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The future of Cork Airport was thrown into doubt this week when Transport Minister Noel Dempsey threatened to prevent the airport from becoming independent from the Dublin Airport Authority if a compromise on the outstanding €200 million debt ca

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One would have to be forgiven for waking up this week and questioning who they are, where they are from and if they would actually be able to cast their vote in the upcoming elections (and I'm not talking about the 2009 locals.)

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Tip O'Neill once said that "all politics is local" and he knew a thing or two about politics it must be said. Another wily old political dog, the British Conservative Rab Butler described politics as "the art of the possible," another catchy truism

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The Cork Independent was present this week at a focus group consultation chaired by Cork City Partnership which examined integration strategy in Cork city.

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The time of giving has come around once more and Cork’s public, as always, has not been found wanting. Tales of charity throughout the city and county have reached this paper over the last couple of weeks - from a handful of euro to the thousan

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This Tuesday morning, it seemed that the whole country wanted to talk about the previous evening's Primetime programme on RTE which took an apparently microscopic look at cocaine use in Ireland. Correspondingly, after watching the programme it seemed

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Several weeks ago, in light of the revelations of breast cancer mis-diagnoses, this column described the Minister for Health's position as 'embattled' and 'indefensible'.

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While many people are more than happy to convince themselves that prostitution is an option taken up as a last resort by those existing in small pockets of our country where poverty is rampant, this is far from the case.

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Poor old Bertie. Hearts bled across the land this week when our unfortunate Taoiseach bemoaned to his Dáil Eireann colleagues that, not only was he much maligned in reporting that suggested he was ‘better off’ than many of his global counterparts,

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The sight of an embattled Mary Harney defending increasingly indefensible positions has become a common one on our television screens over the last couple of years.

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There are some things that are described as imponderables. Imponderables are things, events or ideas that while seeming commonplace or every day, defy logic or explanation.

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“There’s a perception in some circles that the Cork Jazz Festival is a granddaddy event,” says Jack MGouran, Programme Director of the long-running event. “Next year we want to take a fresh approach, explore niche areas and bu

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Casting ones' mind back to the 2002 General Election, there was definitely a connection between Deirdre Clune's lost seat in the Dáil and her failure to grab (until too late) the importance of the incineration issue in her Cork South Central

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The devastation visited on families across the country this Monday, once again brought home the terrible and often avoidable tragedy of deaths on our roads.

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