I have to take issue with your editorial (Irish Examiner December 3) with regard to the industrial action taken by the two post-primary teacher unions, the ASTI and the TUI.

A Cork primary school principal has said teachers are still having to prepare students for entrance exams in the city, despite them being banned almost 30 years ago.

The Department of Education’s decision that schools not be told until this week of cuts to extra teaching for children with special needs, has been criticised by education figures.

I refer to Stephen Rogers’ article on school principals seeking alternative trade union representation and an assertion therein by the TUI that it represents school principals and deputy principals through its structures.

It was billed as a day of destiny and so it proved.

A federal lawsuit has been brought by four sisters who believe their breast cancer was caused by a drug their mother took during pregnancy in the 1950s.

Barring any late setback, Pandorama will make his long-awaited return to action in the Grade 1 Lexus Chase at Leopardstown later this month.

The IHFA Open Day takes place on Wednesday June 20 on the farm of Tom and Maura Murphy at Swiftsheath, Jenkinstown, Co. Kilkenny.

It is obvious now that the DES and the Minister for Education and Skills have little understanding of the logistics of running a school or of the level of essential support services necessary to help students following the decision to make career guidance teachers part of the normal staffing allocation.

BERTIE AHERN’S former partner Celia Larkin was given an unsecured £30,000 loan by Fianna Fáil 15 years ago — but it was only repaid “in the period since Christmas”, the Mahon Tribunal learned yesterday.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday accused lawyers for the Mahon Tribunal of trying “to set me up and stitch me up”.

Ozzy Osbourne is set to return to the venue where he infamously bit the head off a bat - for the first time in 25 years.

THERE’S a school of thought which suggests the word honcho derives from the Basque term jauntxo, which means boss man.

STUDENTS are losing their entitlement to a full education as teacher training is being provided during school time, a managers’ leader claimed yesterday.

HAVING attended three YES (Your Education System) meetings so far, it is time to ask the Minister for Education and Science to waste no more of taxpayers' money and stop this farce.

FOUR Democrats were locked in a tight race last night on the eve of Iowa’s presidential caucuses, with John Kerry clinging to a narrow lead, according to a poll released yesterday (Pic: Howard Dean).

A MAN protesting against student debt completed the bizarre stunt yesterday of rolling a monkey nut

WE live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.

The Government has received expressions of interest from 13 business consortia to build a new private terminal at Dublin Airport, according to reports this morning.

HUNDREDS of Irish women whose mothers were prescribed a drug aimed at preventing miscarriages face more than double the normal risk of breast cancer.