Should Leo Varadkar call a general election on the issue of Brexit? Fresh from his northern excursion and riding high in the opinion polls in the south, the taoiseach has to decide soon whether to announce an election date after next week's EU summit, or wait until the autumn, or even next spring.

A briefing note to secretary of state Karen Bradley, accidentally emailed to journalists by the Northern Ireland Office, show her ‘lines to take’ on a border poll are that she believes nationalists would not win it, the Good Friday Agreement test for a poll is therefore not met, so as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said, discussing it at this time is “unhelpful and unnecessary.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service is facing serious questions after a convicted killer was able to abscond while on accompanied temporary release in Belfast city centre.

BETWEEN now and his visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families in just two months, expect to read lots about how Pope Francis is coming to a very different country than that which embraced John Paul II in 1979.

As someone who spent a number of years working in the Ulster Unionist Party (although I was only in the press office from mid-2008 until January 2010) I can understand the need for internal discipline.

The recall of more than 2,000 patients under the care of Dr Michael Watt was unprecedented for the Northern Ireland health service but as the weeks pass, the serious issues of concern about his work have become more apparent.

In the course of the increasingly chaotic Brexit negotiations, various claims have been put forward about the number of public roads which actually cross the Irish border.

There’s nothing new about the ‘horrific catalogue of inhuman treatment’ at Dunmurry Manor exposed by the Commissioner for Older People.

Former Alliance leader Lord Alderdice has quit the Presbyterian Church in Ireland over its stance on same-sex relationships.

Next week Arlene Foster will attend the PinkNews summer reception at Stormont, currently only being used for such events because there has been no government sitting in 18 months.

Dealing with mass illegal immigration is a complex issue challenging countries in Europe and other parts of the western hemisphere.

There has been some surprise that President Michael D Higgins has yet to confirm whether he is prepared to seek re-election for another seven years this Autumn.

ANDREW J Shaw (May 2) has added blinkers to his rose-tinted glasses in his perception of the horrific actions of the Israeli army on the edge of the open-air prison camp (as described by ex-UK prime minister David Cameron) that is Gaza.

IF anyone, including the Irish government, were in any doubt about their central and indispensable importance in the affairs of the north then the events of the past few weeks should allay those doubts.

THE outgoing President of the Methodist Church here, the Rev Dr Laurence Graham, addressed the Sinn Féin ard fheis at the weekend on the matter of reconciliation.

As a society, it should sit uncomfortably that children find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system, even more so that some of them require to be held in custody.

A considerable debate has taken place over the difficulties surrounding some cross-border broadcasting arrangements involving RTÉ, particularly when major sporting events are under way.

Theological disputes erupt on a regular basis on The Irish News letters page.

THIS is the question – where are the peacemakers now in the year 2018 in a divided society in Northern Ireland? A few years ago in Washington DC I stood on a step at the Lincoln memorial where Martin Luther King delivered his ``I have a dream speech.

A mere 26 weeks before Christmas comes a list of this year's 'must have' toys.