IRISH smokers could soon find their regular consignment of cheap cigarettes from holiday destinations will dry up following proposals to dramatically increase the tax on tobacco throughout the EU.

EU fisheries ministers last night agreed a €600 million emergency package for the beleaguered Irish fisheries industry.

MOBILE phone companies are ripping off customers who send texts from abroad and have failed to reduce their charges despite warnings.

SMOKING kills more people than Aids, murder, drugs, road accidents and suicide combined, but governments and the EU are allowing tobacco companies to influence their policies.

RESEARCH on why Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty should be complete by September, in time for Taoiseach Brian Cowen to keep his pledge and report to the October EU summit.

MORE than half of European Parliament members have backed a call for an EU-wide alert system for missing children following a campaign by Kate and Gerry McCann.

IRISH troops have had more than 200 encounters with armed bandits and have come under fire while defending refugee camps in Chad, the mid-term review of the mission to the embattled African state has been told.

THE special seatbelts used for children on airplanes are unsafe and must be changed, the European Parliament has warned.

AN EU-wide missing child alert system will not be established because member states do not have such a process in place.

HEART healthcare in Ireland was rated as mediocre and well below the EU average in the first Euro Consumer Health Index.