The Central Bank is introducing strict new rules for car insurance from today.

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is hiring outside expertise to make sure letters and forms for customers are written in plain English.

One minute, you’re at your first-ever concert wearing kitten-ears, waving a pink balloon and singing your little heart out. The next, you’re screaming, your innocence shattered, your bones broken, your secure and happy world fallen apart.

The Department of Social Protection has had to draft in additional resources to deal with queries because a new version of the Jobsireland.ie website has been experiencing “teething problems”.

About 1,000 applications are being made every day for government help with the cost of sending children back to school.

A university graduate earning €200 weekly who says it is “near impossible” to get accommodation in Dublin below the €350 monthly limit for rent allowance payments has brought a legal challenge over a “Kafkaesque” decision refusing rent supplement towards his monthly rent of €450.

A weekend of back-slapping has just passed as Michael Noonan and his fellow ministers clap each other on the back at his success in getting the boys in Europe to let Ireland pay back the money its predecessor borrowed from the IMF.

The minister for data protection has accused the National Car Testing Service (NCTS) of flying in the face of the spirit of data protection law by refusing to release NCT results to a mother whose daughter died driving a defective car.

The Data Protection Commissioner is investigating Irish banks’ interpretation of data protection legislation that requires customers to give the bank photo identification

Ireland’s levy on pensions may last indefinitely in the light of the Government decision to change the operation of employees’ defined benefit schemes.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has said getting the deficit reduction target below 5.1% of GDP in the budget will not cause any unnecessary hardship for households.

The Data Protection Commissioner has been urged to open an immediate investigation into how HSE patient files are protected, after a string of unencrypted records were lost or stolen from the system.

The penalty points scandal saw Alan Shatter be so slippery he was able to obscure its real point in an attempt to avoid penalty himself.

Enda Kenny has dismissed calls for Alan Shatter to resign over his use of confidential garda information against a political opponent during a live television broadcast.

Kelly searching for balance on Facebook

Director of Consumer Protection at the Central Bank, Bernard Sheridan, has warned customers about firms charging to handle their claim for being mis-sold payment protection insurance.

Enda Kenny pledged to break “suspicious” links between business and politics, and promised that politicians guilty of corruption would be banned from running for the Dáil for 10 years.

Enda Kenny has ruled out any possibility of a second referendum on the EU fiscal compact treaty no matter which way the people vote.

Private companies could be paid thousands of taxpayers’ money for each person they take off the dole and place in a job, under radical plans to return people to work.

Gardaí have been asked to investigate how sensitive patient information from Tallaght Hospital got into inappropriate hands.

SINN Féin leader Gerry Adams yesterday launched his new front bench pledging his party would strive to be the main opposition in the new Dáil.

PAYMENT protection insurance sellers are not sufficiently explaining the reasons why claims could be rejected, according to the Financial Regulator.

EUROPEAN Union Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection Markos Kyprianou, who is on a four-day visit to Brazil, has been urged by the Irish Farmers Association to tell the authorities there that beef exports which fail to meet EU standards are not acceptable.

EUROPEAN Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection David Byrne recently spoke at the West Cork Leader seminar in Kinsale on local food production in a globalised market.