They've done it with soft drinks, wine and beer, so why not independent blind-tastings of the new local water supply.
Speaking during a video presentation on the scheme by a firm of consulting engineers at Trim Urban Council, Cllr Peter Crinion said it was "unbelievable" that Meath County Council would employ such a panel when there were 5,500 independent water-tasters in the town who could tell what the water was like.
"The UDC and Meath County Council has been besieged by complaints from local residents about the taste of the town's water supply in certain areas since the new £4 million waterworks came on-stream. In response to demand, local super markets have begun stocking large supplies of bottled water, with many families forced to pay up to £10 per week just so they can have drinkable water to make tea," the Meath Chronicle said.
At Abbeyfeale Court, a man who spat on a garda's shoe, and then bent down to wipe if off on the instruction of the garda, was convicted of a Public Order Offence, according to the Kerryman. Asked by the defendant's solicitor if he told the defendant to clean his shoe, the garda replied: "Yes, but he only half-cleaned it."
The Corkman reported that "the suspected robbers of the Irish Permanent in Tralee on Tuesday had to take a taxi to Mallow with their £12,610 booty because they couldn't get a train from Tralee." There were works on the line at the time.
It's not long ago that in rural Ireland public discussion of people's psychological problems was taboo. But the Westmeath Independent's lead story showed that the personal growth movement has reached Mullingar. The front-page headline said it all: "Mullingar psychotherapist says people are finding it too difficult to cope with life".
The psychotherapist, Ms Frances Heery, has been "inundated" with work and "she admits that she has been somewhat surprised by the demand" since returning to her native Mullingar from London. "Relationships are breaking up at an alarming rate and violence and aggression are growing," the newspaper said.
The Western People took up the navel-gazing, stating that "we are a country fast losing ourselves in our new-found wealth with pretension and habits leading to unhealthy and dangerous lifestyles . . . It is time to get a grip!"
Turning its focus to the suicide of Father Sean Fortune, the Kerryman commented on the "truly awful string of appalling abuse which has now come to light".
Criticising the Catholic Church's handling of sex-abuse charges against members of the clergy, it stated that "time and time gain as this sorry saga unfolded we have been treated to a series of excuses from churchmen, the most incredible of which is that church leaders didn't know, even as late as the 70s and 80s, the true nature of paedophilia. What a load of arrogant, self-maiming nonsense."
The Wexford priest's death raised disturbing questions in the local Wexford press. Father Fortune was known as "Father Goldfinger" for his fund-raising success, the Wexford People said. It described him as a "domineering, manipulative cleric" whose house was "almost like a church". It was "stocked with more clerical vestments and religious paraphernalia than a typical rural church anywhere in the country".
Ms Ellen Lynch, who had taken Father Fortune's lucrative media course, wrote in the Echo of how his use of a rented room at UCD for the course gave the misleading impression that it was connected with the institution. He used high-profile people from RTE and the national press to deliver lectures, but he would frequently arrive and interrupt proceedings.
Father Fortune was hectoring, continually lecturing on punctuality and deducting marks for homework assignments not done, behaving "more like a national school teacher in charge of unruly kids than a professional tutoring a group of well-educated adults".