With educators crying foul over the introduction of water charges in Irish schools in recent weeks, most people will be confused as to why the introduction of water charges to State run schools would be such a big issue for educators. Surely, as schools are State run, the final bill will fall to the Department of Education and the State anyway, so where's the beef?

As people came together to celebrate the New Year yesterday, many people will be reflecting on 2007 and wondering what it will be remembered for locally.

Christmas, we are often told, is a time for giving and receiving, though we often seem to spend more time spending money than spending time with each other and just enjoying the time off, and, if you are religious, the spirit of the season.

Spending Christmas in Galway depends on a number of factors each year, including how well you get on with your relatives or in-laws, the social outlook for the Christmas period and New Year and/or the proximity of babysitters. Likewise, sp€nding Christmas in Galway will depend on the availability of products, prices and the big Christmas mood killer, parking.

Galway City Council is continuing to make great inroads in terms of the development of parks across the city with the latest opened just off the Barna Road on Sunday. However, questions have rightly been raised about the safety of children accessing the park, with no pedestrian crossing connecting the nearby Knocknacarra to the site.

If the Oral Hearing into the proposed Galway City Outer Bypass is anything to go by, Galway motorists could be waiting a long time in traffic before the first sod on this project is turned. The hearing, never mind the project, has been beset with delays that could serve as an ominous sign of the problems that could yet lie ahead.

With murder, death on our roads and mayhem in our hospitals preoccupying much of our brain space on a weekly basis, it's hard to see anything good about our city, especially at this time of year when we are being told that we are facing into tough economic times in the run-up to an expected tight budget. And then there are events that make you sit up and remember.

If John Gormley was on the other side of the Dáil Chamber these days he might be having a go at An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern about the merit of his recent €38,000 pay increase. If Deputy Gormley wasn't in bed with Mr Ahern, he might be pressing the man he once described as the 'L'Oreal Taoiseach' to admit that he gave himself a major pay increase at a time of alleged turmoil in the Irish economy 'because (he thinks) he's worth it'.

The Minister for Transport has succeeded in appeasing the thousands of provisional driving license holders by doing a U-turn on controversial new driving laws. However, whether he will succeed in reducing the number of road deaths in this country remains to be seen.

One in ten people living in Ireland now come from somewhere else and it's not hard to understand why. According to the latest edition of Lonely Planet Bluelist 2008, Ireland is the friendliest country in the world, with optimist citizens who think anything is possible. You gotta want a piece of that. Or do you?