The group of ‘harder-Left’ TDs comprising People Before Profit, RISE, and three members of the Independents4Change technical group has insisted that a left-focussed minority Government coalition is still possible.

Solidarity-People Before Profit look set to have a disappointing election and possibly only return two or three of its five outgoing TDs.

Paul Murphy’s new group wants a new socialist movement in society. Yet even Fianna Fáil once had a self-proclaimed socialist leader in Bertie Ahern, writes Michael Clifford

A new approach to a common material makes this Rise home shine, says Rose Martin

"I wasn't aware that it was alcohol that was making me feel darker, that was making things worse."

A man will be sentenced later after he threatened to kill a woman and put her in the boot of his car as she collected her son from school.

CORK CITY €175,000 (OFFERS OVER)

THE planned development of an addiction treatment centre on a remote part of the rugged Rathlin Island, off the coast of Co Antrim, will be a case of bringing it all back home to her father’s birthplace for one of Ireland’s top performers.

HUNTS will be exempt from registration or inspection fees for their puppy kennels under last minute changes to the contentious Dog Breeding laws which were rushed through on the last day of Dáil term.

The Government’s latest piece of animal welfare legislation was comfortably passed in the Dáil today after it was altered to secure the support of the Greyhound industry and pro-hunt lobby.

GROWING dissent in Fianna Fáil led to the resignation of three of the party’s senators for “conscientious” reasons ahead of today’s vote on the Civil Partnership Bill.

Campaigners opposed to a new bill to ban stag hunting say they believe up to four Fianna Fáil TDs could vote against the legislation.

Green Party leader John Gormley launched a withering attack on Labour TDs tonight accusing them of cynically abandoning principles in favour of pick and mix politics.

A Cameroon national who used a false name to obtain a €15,000 loan from the Credit Union has been given a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to repay the remanining balance of €3,300 by next March.

Pro-hunt supporters today vowed they would not be knocked off course by today‘s publication of a draft law outlawing stag hunting with hounds.

MORE than 200 rural campaigners yesterday voiced their anger over new laws to ban stag hunting, and to defend what they call “traditional rural sports like hunting, coursing, shooting and angling”.

PRO-HUNTING groups have promised a campaign of major protests aimed at pressurising rural Fianna Fáil TDs to block what they say are attempts by the Green Party to “attack the lifestyle of the ordinary people of the countryside”.

Up to 5,000 people attended a pro-hunting demonstration at the Green Party’s conference in Waterford today.

LARGE numbers of people opposed to Green Party legislation on field sports are expected to take part in a public protest at the party’s national conference in Waterford city this weekend.

A RISE in gas and electricity bills couldn’t come at a worse time, consumer groups warned yesterday, after the announcement that Bord Gáis was set to apply for an increase.

S Club 7 have picked up the Record of the Year 2001 award.