Urban dwellers might think they are living through an unprecedented economic boom, but the crisis in farming proves the nation is "sinking alarmingly" into a "recessionary hole", according to the Northern Standard.
"Owners of small to medium-sized farms, with no financial reserves and who manage from year to year, are faced with ruin," the paper warns, and local retailers are "looking forward with anxiety to the Christmas trading period". "The small holders just don't have the money to spend, and the farmers on the larger holdings are taking a diminishing return that will make them very cautious about dipping into their reserves."
The Tuam Herald has even more ominous warnings for Dublin residents who objected to the inconvenience caused by farmers protesting on the streets of the capital.
"Now that the urban classes are riding on the tiger's back they can sneer, but they little realise that if things are allowed to continue as they are, their lives could be disrupted on a more permanent basis by a new influx of people driven off the land by European agricultural policies that do not reflect the reality on the ground."
However, the Louth paper, the Argus, takes a different editorial line from most papers outside the capital. "By taking to the streets, farmers have given more ammunition to those who maintain they have been feather-bedded for far too long by EU subsidies."
There has always seemed to be "a reluctance on the part of farmers to pay their share of the public burden", the paper says. "Greedy" farmers had undermined the esteem in which their profession is held by "exposing the public to unknown health risks by feeding growth supplements and other chemicals to their stock".
If farmers are serious about generating public sympathy for their plight they should "join forces with consumers" and "show greater urgency and desire to police their own industry", the Argus concludes.
The Kerry Eye ponders the lessons of the controversy over Cork by-election candidate Sinead Behan's RTE interview and concludes that candidates for the Dail should be compelled to take an exam to prove their competence in current affairs.
Padraig Kennelly notes that "to gain United States citizenship, the applicant is expected to answer questions on the constitution and on the United States itself to the satisfaction of a judge". He suggests candidates for election to the Oireachtas attend a course on "taxation, the health services, local authorities, unemployment and aids for citizens from the State".
This would help remedy a situation where "at present you can become a TD without any intelligence criteria being met".
The Southern Star's editorial asks whether the Cork South Central by-election was "really worthwhile". It suggests exploring the option of using designated substitutes when a Dail vacancy arises, to avoid the need for a "very expensive exercise" which often makes "no change in the arithmetic of the Dail".
The housing crisis preoccupies many local papers. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful legal challenge by local couple Stephen and Annette Butler against the practice of "gazumping", the Kildare Nationalist and its sister newspapers carry two pages of features on the increase in house prices in the east and the midlands.
The Nationalist's editorial questions whether the construction industry can be trusted to regulate itself on gazumping. Instead legislation should be introduced to outlaw it, which "would give some confidence back to a sector that is largely honourable but is being brought down in the public mind by quick profit merchants".
Some light relief from the generally gloomy tone of the local papers this week is provided by the Longford Leader which reports on the homecoming function for the "popular Ballinalee heart throb", Mick Cahill (27), who was recently crowned "King of the Culchies".
Mick, who runs a small farm and works part-time as a milkman to supplement his income, was given a hero's welcome when he returned to his home town after opening a new mart in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo.
The Longford News adds that Mr Cahill had to undergo "some arduous tests" on the road to glory, the most trying of which was to "prove his gender for matchmaker Biddy Earley".
"She gave me a bit of a rattle to check everything was there," said the victorious Mick. At least one farmer had something to smile about this week.
