The family of a young Offaly man who were promised an inquiry into how gardaí investigated his death say they have been left in the dark for the last nine months.

Well this is something you don’t see every Monday.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

Counselling is being provided to students at a rural Co Offaly school after an 11-year-old pupil died yesterday morning in a road accident.

A Trinity College graduate and three men who were intercepted by armed gardaí outside the premises of a firearms dealer have received sentences ranging from six to seven years for the possession of firearms and ammunition.

A Trinity College graduate and two men who were intercepted by armed gardaí outside the premises of a firearms dealer have been found guilty of the possession of handguns and ammunition.

The prosecution case has concluded in the trial of a Trinity College graduate and two men who are charged with the possession of firearms and ammunition.

During the first half of the last century, 163 people were officially executed throughout the island — 149 in the 26 counties, and 14 in the North.

A prominent member of socialist republican group Éirígí is one of four Dublin people who appeared before an out-of-hours sitting of the Special Criminal Court this evening, charged with possessing two handguns and ammunition.

Four people arrested this week in connection with dissident republican activity are due to be charged at the Special Criminal Court this evening.

Four people have been arrested outside Tullamore in Co Offaly as part of an ongoing investigation into dissident republican activity.

THE prosecutor in the money-laundering trial in Cork described the presence in Navan of Phil Flynn on the same date that the accused received £500,000 in cash from Bulgarian business associates as an interesting coincidence.

IT’S a fine big house, but this detached property at Rahan, Mallow, hides a secret — a mirror image basement.

A Co Offaly man has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill three men he blamed for the drowning of his son after the State entered a nulle prosequi on the original charge of soliciting a man to murder another man.

An Offaly man “solicited” another man to kill a man he “blamed” for the drowning of his son, the Central Criminal Court heard today.

CORK North Central will benefit from the transfer of populations from two other constituencies to make up the glaring deficit of population that became obvious in the 2006 Census.

A van driver has been hospitalised following a crash in Co Offaly this morning involving a bus carrying students.

The Garda investigation into the death of a schoolboy in the Offaly bus crash was hampered by a lack of proper equipment, it was claimed today.

The driver of the schoolbus involved in this month's fatal crash in Co Offaly was reportedly driving without a full licence.

The school bus at the centre of the fatal accident in Offaly was unlicensed, it emerged tonight.

Tragic though it was, with the death of a 15-year-old boy, it was exceptionally fortuitous that there were no more fatalities in yesterday’s horrendous school bus accident.

Pupils at a secondary school in the Midlands were tonight numb with shock after a bus crash claimed the life of a 15-year-old boy and injured many others.

Thirty people, including a number of children, have been injured in a school bus crash in Co Offaly.

THE number of road deaths since the start of the year has jumped by more than a quarter compared to the same period in 2003.

A youth who sexually assaulted and strangled an elderly nun in the grounds of a convent in Co Monaghan has been jailed for life for murder.