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Martin wades into abortion debateAs the Dáil committee hearings continue on the abortion bill, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has waded into the debate saying it is important that Christian believers "be, and seen to be, on the side of life, especially when life is most vulnerable".
Payment cuts see families pay rent shortfallLimits on rent supplement payments set by the Government are forcing thousands of families to make undeclared top-up payments to landlords to secure places to live.
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Anger as North Korea launches another missileNorth Korea fired a short-range missile from its east coast, a day after launching three more of these missiles, a South Korean news agency said.
How Star Trek predicted the futureWHEN Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up the concept of a television show based in the unexplored universe of Outer Space in 1964, the world was a very different place.
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Warnings over future of eurozoneThe eurozone is heading towards a break up unless there are moves towards much closer political and fiscal union, according to chief economist with State Street Global Advisers, Chris Probyn.
Bruton defends corporate tax rateIreland will be able to maintain its current corporation tax code in the face of international pressure to prevent multinational corporations avoid paying their fare share of tax, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton said yesterday.
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Mayo’s statement of intentGalway 0-11 Mayo 4-16 Five minutes to go in Salthill yesterday and James Horan was still cajoling his men to sew it into Galway.
Wilkinson inspires Toulon to gloryASM Clermont Auvergne 15 Toulon 16 Not for the first time this season, a matchday performance and the result have made a mockery of the statistics.
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What Lenny did nextLENNY Abrahamson has directed three feature films: Adam & Paul, Garage and What Richard Did.
Clothes maketh you madTrying on clothes, said Ewart, produced "sensations which bring deep peace and perfect contentment" to the female mind.
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Breaking stories
Model tells of relief as rapist gets 23 years
A model who was raped and left for dead on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca has revealed how speaking out has helped other victims of horrific crimes.
By Tom Wilkinson
Cheryl Maddison, aged 25, from Tyne and Wear in Britain, was speaking after Moroccan waiter Mohamed Fadel El Anssari was jailed for 23 years for sexual assault and attempted murder. She was “really happy” with the sentence, which had given her “justice”.
Maddison, who waived her right to anonymity, told ITV show Daybreak she had received an “amazing” reaction from the public since she faced her attacker in court.
“I’ve had little messages on Facebook off girls who have been through similar things, saying I am helping them, giving them a bit of courage to come forward. If I am helping one or two girls, it means so much.”
She was attacked in May 2008 days after arriving on the island to work in a bar, and suffered multiple stab wounds and a collapsed lung.
The waiter told her he would kill her if she was not quiet, raped her, then tried to kill her. She survived the onslaught by pretending to be dead. She needed an emergency operation and spent 10 days in hospital.
She gave evidence last month at the trial which, though tough, was “worth it”.
She told Daybreak she believed her assailant would never be caught, until Spanish authorities contacted her to say an arrest had been made.
“I got an email and I stopped breathing for a second,” she recalled. “I got used to the fact he was not going to get caught. It was such a shock and I didn’t expect it. It was amazing.”
Maddison said that, for two years after the attack, she was a different person. “One day I thought: ‘This is not me, I need to get back to my old self,’ ” she said.
She has been in a relationship for around a year and described how she decided to tell her boyfriend, Kaine McDonald, about the ordeal before they went to Majorca for the trial.
“We kind of really didn’t speak about it until the trial was coming up. I thought: ’We will have to sit down and speak about it. I don’t want you to hear stuff over there for the first time,’ ”
McDonald said he was “unbelievably proud” of his girlfriend and said of the sentence: “I don’t think there’s any amount of time you can put on for justice.
“I am satisfied that Cheryl’s satisfied.”