NewsBank (Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland))

Drumleck House, Ceanchor Road, Baily, Howth, Co Dublin

Q I live in a housing estate. There are no apartment blocks or commercial units, just houses. The "common areas" consist of landscaped grounds. For the first two years the maintenance budget was grossly overestimated and there was a surplus. According to our lease and the Multi-Unit Development (MUD) Act, they are supposed to credit on account, annually, the members against the...

There had been some considerable rumbling in recent weeks around whether World Athletics would or needed to impose an outright ban on Kenya. Given the worrying rise in Kenyan doping cases this past year, 40 per cent of all positive tests globally, it would mean a ban on arguably the country's biggest export - it's best distance runners.

EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY

It is 18 months since the devastating cyberattack on the digital infrastructure of our national health service. In the middle of the pandemic in May 2021, the State was held to ransom by a cybercrime group believed to be based, according to intelligence agencies, near St Petersburg in Russia. Within a week, however, the group unexpectedly provided the Irish authorities with a decryption key to re-

We have all become dependent on our smartphones for capturing photographs of important memories, from long-planned family events to spontaneous days out.

Thousands of manufacturers across the UK are set to receive a productivity boost thanks to a new data innovation hub and test bed led by Ulster University. Backed by £20 million (€23.2 million) in funding from the UK government's Made Smarter Innovation programme along with £30 million from industry and other partners, the smart manufacturing data hub (SMDH) supports small and medium-sized...

KEVIN COURTNEY

SID LOWE in Qatar Luis Enrique, the Spain coach, has asked himself whether it might be better not to win Group E and instead finish second to avoid Brazil, which is precisely why his team will not try to engineer an easy route through the World Cup.

JESSICA DOYLE

The Tuesday just gone, it being her 190th birthday, I wondered in passing if it might be time to cancel Louisa May Alcott, much-loved author of Little Women.

The late broadcaster Gerry Anderson once quipped from his Radio Foyle studio that Derry is a lot like Cuba - you have to see it before it changes. Typically, his off-the-cuff humour spoke to something deeper.

OLIVIA KELLY Dublin Editor Unprotected plastic bin bags are to be banned from Dublin city's streets, more than eight years after legislation was introduced to end their use.

Fleetwood Mac star Christine McVie has died following a short illness at the age of 79, her family have confirmed.

Sir, - Thank you for "Gifts for good: give a present that makes a difference this Christmas" (Kathleen O'Callaghan, Special Report, November 28th).

Sir, - As yet another outbreak of avian bird flu is detected in Co Monaghan, the case for a radical shift away from the intensive rearing of poultry is both compelling and urgent.

Enda Kenny had TBSCITWIWTDB. Micheál Martin is currently rocking HITSMISIFIT. And Leo Varadkar has, from December 17th until whenever, to come up with an equally snappy acronym to define his time as taoiseach. That DKAAHF from his previous stint really doesn't cut the mustard.

DANIEL McLAUGHLIN

Sir, - Lara Marlowe in "French learn to embrace right to be lazy" (World, November 30th) notes how a new study claims France is in the grip of "an epidemic of laziness".

NAOMI O'LEARY

Sometimes, things just click. And when they do, it can open up whole new worlds of opportunity. In chemistry, this kind of click resounded a couple of decades ago, when various scientists converged on new and efficient ways to "snap molecular entities" together quickly and efficiently - sometimes to even "live" in living systems.

EDWARD WHITE in Seoul SUN YU in New York GLORIA LI and PRIMROSE RIORDAN in Hong Kong

BRIAN HUTTON

Polymer and metal samples developed in a lab at Dublin City University (DCU) will launch for the moon today aboard a new lunar rover to study the way moon dust sticks to different surfaces.

JACK HORGAN-JONES

Sir, - Companies that manufacture mattresses without handles should be strung up. - Yours, etc,

SALLY HAYDEN

For the first time, less than half the population of England and Wales identifies as Christian, according to the latest UK census data. And not because Christianity has been outstripped by other religions followed by immigrants - though some wishing to whip up sectarian moral panic have tried to prove otherwise.

BILL CORCORAN

New draft laws would give ministers the power to ban telecoms equipment made by Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, and any other group with kit deemed a security threat. So long as national security is cited, such companies can be ousted from the Irish market without any need to publicly document the reasons.