A woman rearing her family on a widow’s pension since her husband was killed in a workplace accident 14 years ago has failed in a bid to have a €795,000 damages award paid out to her under the State-backed Insurance Compensation Fund.

The Footsie index of 100 leading stocks is up 22.8 points at lunchtime after the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee's decided to keep the cost of borrowing at 5.75%.

The FTSE-100 Index is within a whisker of the 6,000 barrier as technology and telecoms stocks boost the London market by 57.1 points.