THE MOST basic failure of governance in one of the State’s premier teaching hospitals raises serious doubts yet again about the quality of our public health system. There had been a sense that the various breast cancer scandals of 2007 and 2008 represented a nadir in the litany of failures involving healthcare; the revelation that some 58,000 x-rays remained unreported within Tallaght hospital’s adult x-ray department for a prolonged period means that public confidence in the health service has been dented even more severely.

While the economic crisis has forced cuts in spending, a return to the vision of the National Development Plan in relation to science and technology is critical, writes PATRICK CUNNINGHAM

The renaissance continues for Renault in Ireland. This time the firm has abandoned frugality in favour of fun and ferocity, writes PADDY COMYN

At the Model UN conference, TY students relished their roles as leaders of oppressive regimes, writes PETER McGUIRE

Manchester United 4 Milan 0 (Agg: 7-2):In the end all the hype, all the hooplah which surrounded David Beckham's return to Old Trafford was just that. Style, not substance. How often has that been the case in the career of the most famous footballer on earth?

‘ The Hurt Locker’ – and Irishman Richie Baneham – were winners in an Oscar night of mostly agreeably dignified speeches and an odd, no more than glossily competent, ceremony

INTERVIEW:FEW PEOPLE HAVE the required mix of chutzpah and creativity to make an appointment with a revered dead poet. Neither is a problem for Mike Scott, however, at least if his upcoming Abbey show An Appointment With Mr Yeatsis anything to go by.

FOR CENTURIES composers have pulled out all the stops when it comes to music for the Lenten season. Nowadays we seem to have got it into our secular heads that Lent is about “giving things up”, and maybe shedding a bit of body mass in the process; but the great choral works of the Christian tradition have always offered a more subtle, nuanced approach to this season of self-examination, writes ARMINTA WALLACE

The Killruddery Film Festival celebrates ‘lost, overlooked and forgotten’ films, writes STEPHEN DIXON