THE hidden scandal of how Irish employers take advantage of foreign domestic workers without work permits has been exposed by an EU study.

EMPLOYERS are pushing to dismantle the structure that regulates overtime and Sunday working for lower-paid workers in the catering, hotel and construction industry.

PRISONS are overcrowded in more than half the EU, including Ireland, while a quarter of prisoners are awaiting trial and more than half in some countries are foreign nationals.

IRELAND intends to maintain the target of contributing 0.7% of gross national product for development aid by 2015, despite the economic crisis, Jan O’Sullivan, Minister of State for Trade and Development, said.

IRELAND’S focus remains firmly on getting a cut in the interest rate on its bailout, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said as eurozone ministers agreed the details of a €78 billion loan for Portugal at a lower rate of interest.

GREECE began negotiations to boost its bailout with fellow eurozone finance ministers in Brussels last night clouded by the arrest of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York on charges of attempted rape.

PORTUGAL’S outgoing government and opposition parties appear to have accepted the terms of a €78 billion EU/IMF bailout which is likely to come at a lower interest rate than Ireland’s.

EU member states that do not protect their external borders effectively against illegal migrants could find themselves temporarily cut off from the Union under proposals from the European Commission.

INDIVIDUAL European Commissioners have been shocked to learn the price ordinary Irish people are paying for the crisis, Ireland’s Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has said.