Outright favourite Ballymac Matt produced another faultless display, when posting the fastest time of the second round of the Boylesports Irish Greyhound Derby on Saturday night at Shelbourne Park.

Animal rights activists are urging organisers of the Puck Fair in Killorglin, Co Kerry “to take the live goat out of the festival”, saying tradition can never be used to expose animals to physical and psychological damage.

The media monitoring group, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, or FAIR, studied 1,617 on camera US sources on the reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq between March 20 and April 9, 2003.They found 71% of all US sources were pro-war, only 3% anti-war.

Liz Nugent

As always, Day Two of the Dublin Horse Show was a two-horse race between a string of elegant ladies on parade and their less-fancied four-legged counterparts.

Your morning cuppa looks set to become the latest casualty of climate change, writes Oliver Moore

AFTER the taking of Tallinn, we were officially on Phase 4B of the circle of managerial life — as devised by you-know-who and applied to every Ireland gaffer in recent memory, except perhaps Gilesy.

FAIR dues to Edmund Honohan. The master of the high court has called it as he sees it. His job means that he has the role akin to air traffic controller in processing legal debt conflict.

FAIR play to Lucinda Creighton for highlighting the utter hypocrisy of Fine Gael attacking Fianna Fáil over its unhealthy wheeling and dealing with property developers and reliance on lavish corporate fundraising events while being obviously partial to similar means of financing its own party machine.

FAIR play to both Offaly and Galway for producing the game of the championships in Croke Park last weekend.

FAIR play to Green party leader and Environment Minister John Gormley. Speaking at his party conference in Waterford recently he said Fine Gael should stop abusing the planning process and stop accepting corporate donations.

VICTIMS of IRA violence expressed disbelief last night at the revelation that a senior police officer in the North had been sent to Tripoli to train Libyan police.

KATE Winslett has defended her controversial Vanity Fair photoshoot, saying it was her last chance to show off her body.

FAIR play to Prof John Crown and cardiac surgeon Maurice Neligan for speaking out about the shortcomings of our health service.

Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness is to have face-to-face talks with victims of IRA violence, it was confirmed today.

A group supporting Protestant victims of the North's Troubles said tonight that plans to hold a major Dublin rally had been ruled out after a meeting with the Government.

The FAIR group in the North concerns itself exclusively with the victims of republican violence.

THE news last week that senior garda officers have tentatively sanctioned a second Love Ulster rally in Dublin this summer must be viewed with some concern.

GARDA associations yesterday said police and the public could not be exposed to the same level of violence which marked the Love Ulster rally last year.

Con Brosnan, a Free State officer, managed to get safe passage guarantees for republican players like John Joe Sheehy and Joe Barrett to play games, and they used football to overcome some of the bitterness.

REFRESHING signs of Ireland’s changing political climate will be seen on the streets of both the Republic and the North this summer.

A group supporting Protestant victims of the troubles will meet with senior gardaí today to get permission for a major rally in Dublin.

A 19-year-old man who set two gardaí alight by throwing petrol bombs during riots at the Love Ulster parade in Dublin last February has been jailed for five years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

YOUR editorial of March 20, in which you welcome the decision by Willie Frazer of FAIR (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives) to seek permission to hold a Love Ulster march in Dublin next September is, in my view, very regrettable.

William Frazier, of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), the South Armagh Protestant Victims group, wrote to An Garda Síochána and the Department of Foreign Affairs last week, seeking a meeting to discuss the possibility of organising another Love Ulster march in Dublin for mid-September.

Phone-tap evidence that could have seen scores of terrorists convicted in the North should be allowed, a human rights group said today.

Four cross-party politicians are joining forces and their singing voices in the name of charity, it emerged today.

Republicans were tonight preparing to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands with a number of events throughout Ireland.

Loyalist victim's group FAIR has denied claims that it has abandoned plans to re-stage its parade through Dublin city centre.

IN an ideal world, there should be no problem about victims group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) holding a rally in Dublin, but unfortunately we know we do not have such a world.

I LISTENED to the radio with horror as events unfolded in Dublin last Saturday.

The organisers of last Saturday's contentious loyalist march in Dublin have said they want to restage the event at a future date.

The organisers of a loyalist rally in Belfast at the weekend are considering staging a similar event in Dublin, it emerged today.

Loyalists delivered more than 200,000 newspapers today as part of a new campaign urging resistance against an alleged slide towards a united Ireland.

FAIR play to John O’Riordan for his letter headlined ‘Anglo United - the new Irish dream team’ (Irish Examiner, February 19).

A TAXI hardship payment scheme has failed to help drivers and their dependents left in severe financial difficulties following overnight deregulation, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Gardaí are to travel to England to question a former agent about an IRA campaign of torture and murder along the border, it was claimed today.

THE State could be forced to pay out over €15 million to taxi drivers who lost money after the industry was deregulated.

A former spy who infiltrated the IRA went to the west Belfast home of the man who denies being British Army agent Stakenife today in a bid to force him into court.

THE Dublin-based lobby group that represents the wives, widows and partners of pre-deregulation taxi drivers yesterday described Transport Minister Seamus Brennan’s plan to ease their hardship as a sham.

The British government was today facing fresh calls in Northern Ireland to reopen investigations into unsolved murders in south Armagh during the Troubles.

THOUSANDS OF taxi drivers are to stage a 24-hour strike in protest at the Government’s failure to address their grievances over deregulation.

THE Government should stop issuing new taxi plates immediately and rethink its entire taxi policy, the Oireachtas Transport Committee heard yesterday.

CLOSE to €50 million has been amassed from the sale of taxi plates since deregulation, it emerged as a top level EU delegation arrived in Ireland on a fact-finding mission.