MONDAY

She's back. Tired but clearly delighted to be home, Goal worker Sharon Commins can scarcely believe the impossible after 107 days in captivity. No more mock executions. No more fear of men constantly waving guns at herself and fellow captive Hilda Kawuki. No more threats to deny the kidnapped volunteers food and water. Just a new appreciation of the power of comradeship. "You could die in there of sadness if you didn't lift your spirits. We both acknowledge we would not have made it out alive longer than two weeks [without each other]. It was just so incredibly sad every morning. It was such a heavy burden to continue." It took guts to survive the ordeal, but guts too to describe her kidnappers in such forthright terms. No waffle about circumstances driving the women's kidnappers to desperate measures. They were "evil". She's right and she should know.

TUESDAY

Fianna Fáil backbenchers throw out the 'social isolation/nail in the coffin of rural communities/what's wrong with having a couple of pints and getting into the car anyway?' defence against Noel Dempsey's perfectly reasonable proposal to bring the drink-driving limits down to international levels so fewer people die or are seriously injured in alcohol-related crashes. Cliona Murphy, acting director of Alcohol Action Ireland is flabbergasted. "I'm at a loss to understand why a person's right to have a pint and drive overrides my right to drive on roads free from alcohol. If you talk about reducing costs, it's €3m per fatality and that's not including the human cost."

Meanwhile, the softening up process over the budget hardens. Brian Cowen tells the Dáil and the unions that public sector pay and pensions will have to be cut and work practices changed.

But the economic downturn means nothing in the courthouse in Omagh where they listen to a recording of the 999 call made by 13-year-old Caroline McElhill as she pleads for help when, clutching rosary beads and her phone, she tries to save her four little brothers and sisters from the fire believed to have been set by her father, Arthur. "Help me, she says, "I am burning…"

WEDNESDAY

It seems we can expect a pre-budget lecture a day on how bad it is. Brian Lenihan reiterates the austerity message. The design of the hairshirt is as yet unclear. Irish Congress of Trade Unions representatives are told by the Department of Finance that they can have a hand in the accessories, such as curbing allowances and overtime, but the bottom line is they've got to cut their cloth by €1.3bn.

Shelter for the homeless is provided by Pope Benedict XV1 with his Vatican solution to a women's problem. The leaders of over 400,000 Anglicans who left the protestant church because they opposed women priests will now be able to qualify for immediate unity with Rome under a new apostolic constitution announced by the pope.

THURSDAY

There's nothing like freedom of speech and the oxygen of publicity to expose a racist bigot. British National Party leader Nick Griffin's controversial invitation onto the BBC's Question Time is greeted by protests and public order problems. But he does a nice job of scuppering his own credibility as a politician with any sort of broader right-wing appeal by supporting the Ku Klux Klan, claiming Winston Churchill would have been a member of his own party and hitting out at "militant gays" kissing in public. But worst of all, the "Dr Strangelove of British politics", as he has been called, is out of his depth and plain boring.

Swine flu panic takes hold again as rates of infection double and the death toll climbs to nine. Children's hospitals report large numbers of cases as the highest rates of infection are among school children aged five to 14. Vaccines are being delivered to 1,800 GPs who have agreed to take part in the scheme but ridiculous rows continue over insurance which should be capable of resolution.

FRIDAY

Mail columnist Jan Moir says "sorry" to the Gately family "if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral". Moir, who wrote that his death was "not, by any yardstick, a natural one" and that the manner of his death "strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships" reckons she was willfully misunderstood by some of her critics and the target of an orchestrated campaign. Perhaps Jan, it was, as you say yourself, "a failure of communication".

No failure of communication, however, from GAA star Donal óg Cusack whose appearance
on The Late Late Show is another step in ensuring teens who are gay can step out on a pitch, as he says himself, knowing that the prejudices of "fools with megaphones or runny mouths just don't count".

Learning Curve

"To continue the grant that was available would be unconstitutional because it was being given to the protestant denomination and being refused to the Catholic denomination"

Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe on the "government decision" to cut €2.8m of grants to protestant schools, but he declines in the interests of transparency to say why he looked for constitutional advice, or on what grounds the decision to cut funding was arrived at