The Irish National Teachers' Organisation and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have rejected the possible extension to the Croke Park agreement.

Doctors voted yesterday against Croke Park II proposals which, they claimed, aimed to impose large pay cuts and much longer working hours on them.

President Michael D Higgins is under growing pressure from the Labour Party to cut his pay further.

Public service union leaders say the Croke Park II proposals, which emerged yesterday, were the best that could be achieved by negotiation.

The briefest consideration of two events yesterday may not be the perfect way to illustrate how people in the same society exist in parallel universes, but it is better than most.

Dairy farming is entering an era of great opportunity with the end of quota restrictions in 2015, says incoming Irish Co-operative Organisation Society chief executive Seamus O’Donohoe.

ROUGH sea conditions off the Co Waterford coast once again prevented the bodies of five fishermen being recovered yesterday from their sunken trawler.

The Iseq index slipped 14.30 points to 5435.15 at 11am.