With the promise to bring a splash of fun and excitement into the darkening gloom of an Irish winter along comes an unexpected touch of summer, Ann Summers that is, the 25 year-old British company which specialises in naughty but nice lingerie, marital aids (not to be confused with martial aids, but yet.... ) and "novelty " sex items, whatever they might be. The company, which franchises its outlets, also encourages enterprising ladies to directly sell these cheeky lifestyle enhancers to giggling friends at discrete home-based parties. Summers is planning to open around eight retail outlets in Ireland, depending on the level of interest from local investors. Apparently for the past 15 years the company has been coyly titillating the libidos of blushing Irish housewives - presumably not card-carrying members of the Legion of Mary - with its saucy little numbers selling like sponge cakes at a parish fete. Summers' androgynously-named marketing manager, Ms Georga Douglas breathlessly enthuses that the party plan "is really big in Ireland ".

And where are the Legion of Mary as the nation shudders under such licentiousness? Rest easy. I suspect the moral brigade is already organising a picket on the first outlet.