Could they all be wrong about Sinn Féin? Could it be that those who suggest it is not a normal political party are being spiteful, opportunistic, fearful?

TDs and Senators have claimed over €37,000 buying top of the range phones over the past two years.

With the Dáil set to return later this month for the last session, those hoping for a summer general election might as well forget about it.

"I'm happy I've made the right decision. I need to do things for myself and my family now. That's the way it is."

Fine Gael's problems in Waterford have escalated as Fine Gael Senator Paudie Coffey has announced he will not contest the next General Election in Waterford.

It's the saga that has sparked a thousand memes and has had people chattering in pubs, golf clubs, office canteens, and taxi cabs.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's re-election hopes are at risk of being undermined after Government minister Jim Daly became the eighth sitting Fine Gael TD to say he will quit at the next general election

Veteran Fine Gael TD John Deasy is considering working in the US after revealing he will quit the Dáil after the next general election.

The government's special envoy to the US Congress since 2017 made the announcement today.

Not since the days of Big Tom and the Mainliners Showband tours has the country been traversed as extensively and in rapid-speed.

The former head of Fine Gael in Waterford says TD John Deasy should consider stepping down.

The bitter feud in Fine Gael’s Waterford organisation which has exploded this week has been a long time coming.

Waterford Fine Gael TD John Deasy has hit out at party rivals Paudie Coffey and Maurice Cummins saying he won't listen to people “who couldn't get elected to the Dáil”.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he will be stepping in to sort out a party dispute in Waterford that has seen a vote of no confidence in a sitting TD.

An ally of Fine Gael TD John Deasy has lodged a formal complaint with the Taoiseach over alleged “bullying and intimidation”.

Waterford Fine Gael TD John Deasy has demanded the local Fine Gael organisation be stood down as he hit back against a motion of no-confidence in him.

Fine Gael members in Waterford unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in sitting TD John Deasy late last night.

This is a man’s world. The airside tarmac, as Air Force One touched down in Shannon, was dotted in men

Fish and chips, sirloin steaks and piña colada cocktails were the order of the day at a relaxed dinner attended by US President Donald Trump at his Doonbeg resort on Thursday night.

The people of Waterford voted to reject the proposal of a directly elected mayor by the narrowest of margins of just over 1%.

The plebiscite was rejected by a margin of just over 700 votes - with 22,437 voting against it against 21,718 supporting the motion.

In four reports, they haven’t made a single finding of fact. We knew more about what happened in that foster home before this inquiry than we do now, writes Fergus Finlay.

Fresh efforts to secure special work visas for Irish citizens in America will go ahead after talks between Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and US president Donald Trump.

Leo Varadkar faces many challenges on this visit to Washington DC for the St Patrick’s Day festivities. But no task will be as crucial as ensuring that the peace process - threatened by a chaotic Brexit - is promoted on the world stage, writes Juno McEnroe in Washington DC

Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin has insisted he is not trying to block any of his front-line TDs from running in the European elections amid a flurry of rumours over the future of his most experienced colleagues.

A man acting as a carer for an 81-year-old wheelchair-bound neighbour was fined €1,200 and given a suspended five-month jail term for using the pensioner’s bank card to steal cash.

A motorist using the Merchants Quay car park in Cork City caught a member of staff by the throat, video-recorded him and threatened to knock him out.

A hospital patient who videoed a nurse and threatened to follow her home was given a suspended eight-month jail term yesterday on serious assault charges after evidence that he had successfully attended for treatment for his problems.

A Young Offenders cast member who admitted shoplifting twice at Blarney Woollen Mills had a horrendous history of offending, the sentencing judge said.

Garda surveillance cameras were used to prove a case against a man for dealing ecstasy tablets in Cork City centre in the early hours of the morning.

A 74-year-old man allegedly threatened to kill his wife and attempted to choke her in the family home in Cork on Monday night, it was alleged yesterday as gardaí objected to him being released on bail.

A young woman was put in fear when a stranger approached her saying she was a beautiful angel sent from God and when another woman intervened the man called her a slut and spat in her face.

Gardaí have made 36 arrests for begging in Cork City so far this month as part of a crackdown on a new wave of ‘commercial begging’ activity in the city centre.

A woman stepped out of her bathroom late at night to see a stranger in her apartment and yesterday the culprit was jailed for nine months for burglary.

A motorist who had what a district judge described as being as bad a driving record as one was ever going to see had a five-month jail sentence and seven-year driving ban imposed on him yesterday.

Paul Reynolds wasn’t fed any scurrilous stuff about Sergeant Maurice McCabe, he told the Disclosures Tribunal yesterday, writes Michael Clifford.

Unlike Enda Kenny, John Bruton and Michael Noonan before him, Leo Varadkar is in total control of his party, writes Daniel McConnell.

Former Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has said she never sought to influence RTÉ coverage of the O’Higgins report into complaints from whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe, adding: “I have no idea how anybody could come to that conclusion.”

Nóirín O’Sullivan didn’t hear all the bad stuff that was going around about Maurice McCabe a few years back. She didn’t speak to anybody about it either.

A hospital patient who videoed a nurse and threatened to follow her home had sentencing in his case adjourned for a fortnight yesterday.

Five young men were arrested and charged yesterday with engaging in violent disorder at Skehard Rd in Cork just over a year ago.

Gardaí were notified in a 999 call of a man running around a residential area of Cork with a shotgun, but yesterday a man admitted to making the call as a hoax.

A teenager appeared at Cork District Court yesterday accused of spraying insulting comments about a garda in graffiti on four different schools in the Blarney area, leaving them with a total bill of €1,200 to remove the paint.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the kind of evidence heard at the Disclosures Tribunal over the last week would have caused shock and outrage.

A hospital patient filmed a nurse on his phone and then threatened to follow her home on a night where he “lost the plot” and assaulted security staff by spraying a fire extinguisher at them.

A young woman had her buttocks prodded with a pencil when she bent over at the beauty counter where she worked and when she looked around she saw the man who did it laughing at her.