The Irish Times reports that "Britain and the European Union have abandoned efforts to reach a deal on the Northern Ireland backstop ahead of Wednesday’s EU summit after they failed to agree on whether it should be time-limited."

"Dear God. If you picked a number of schoolchildren at random, they would have made a better case for themselves" - no, not a review of the Brexiteers latest jingoist declarations, nor an analysis of the weekend's contestants on Strictly. No, that's Una Mullally's take on Saturday's RTE presidential debate. A nation sighs in weary agreement. 

The ASTI is to ballot members on new entrant pay measures without a recommendation, while in the Irish Examiner, Caroline O'Doherty writes about the complexity of industrial relations and the work of the WRC, while Pat Leahy says the jig is up for this 'zombie' government (now more reliant than ever on the support of a certain Mr Lowry).

Elsewhere, news is emerging of a Ryanair crew in Malaga forced to sleep on the floor when their flight was delayed due to bad weather. The Irish Times are following up on the story, more on that as it comes in.

Your moment of Zen this morning comes back to Una Muillay's assessment of the race for the Áras. I especially enjoyed these:

As a lineup of candidates, the triumvirate of Peter Casey, Sean Gallagher and Gavin Duffy, evoke the aftermath of a “Reaching Your Potential” conference. I can’t help but picture the likes of them as the stragglers leaving the last “networking opportunity”, cradling weak tea in a hotel lobby as inside a conference room named after an Irish mountain, gravy congeals on leftover plates...What do these three candidates in particular stand for, besides solidifying the sentiment of that contemporary T-shirt slogan, “Lord give me the confidence of a mediocre white man”?

Quite.

Have a good week.