The assistant garda commissioner has pleaded with youths not to get involved in the drugs trade at any level. We must provide initiatives to help, writes Cormac O’Keeffe.

People in positions of power need to go out to communities battling drugs, crime and neglect and put resources into them and give people living there “a chance”, a conference on young people and gangs has heard.

You don’t have to be Bear Grylls to pull off the perennial Great Outdoors look.

It is what’s on the outside that counts, or so the fashion cognoscenti have declared with the humble coat being heralded as the autumn/winter ’14 hero piece.

Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest manager of investment alternatives to stocks and bonds, said fourth-quarter profit more than tripled as the value of its fund holdings increased and the firm sold assets at a profit.

With a cold spell due and storms into March, we have the hot fashions to keep you warm. AnnemarieO’Connor reports