Safety includes ensuring that plant personnal are properly equipped for the invironment they find themselves and that correct procedures are followed in the day to day running of a plant. Intrinsic safety has become a more and more important feature as dangers previously ignored or unrealised in plant operation are targeted.

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National and supra-national bodies, such as the EU Commission are producing directives which manufacturers and suppliers ignore at their peril. This issue headlines the impact of the EU's new RoHS and WEEE directives just published at the end of 2008.

An item reprinted from Control Design highlights the importance of proper access to operator panels to both safety and security.

Always with an eye on current issues and the automation Jim Pinto asks "Whether the Automation business?" A pertinant question in these suddenly chaotic times. And the editor quotes no less a person than Marcus Tullius Cicero in 55BC to show that there is nothing new under the sun! "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

Training features and this feature includes a description of the opportunities in Instrumentation in the Advanced Physics and Instrumention Department of the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT). It also reports the presentation of state-of-the-art flowmeters as paart of the continuing programme of assistance from Endress+Hauser. There is also a discussion on distance learning which is becoming more and more attractive as the economic woes continue.

The usual mix of products, people, publications and applications feature in this issue. One interesting story is that of the Irish Cadets who paid the final tribute at the graveside of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963. Among them was Malachy Hanley, later founder of the Hanley Controls Group.

The next issue of Read-out wil feature a report on the mtec Exhibition and will have features on environmental and green issues.