A GARDA will be sentenced next month after pleading guilty to passing a confidential report to a newspaper reporter.

A massive manhunt was launched tonight after a popular publican died when he was tied up during a violent robbery.

GARDAÍ expect to have carried out risk assessments on more than 1,000 sex offenders living in the community within the next three months, it emerged yesterday.

MORE than 6,000 people have been arrested and 640 firearms confiscated as part of a major crackdown on organised crime.

Over €3m worth of cocaine has been uncovered as part of an extensive garda operation to tackle organised crime, it was confirmed today.

THE bitter row between Michael McDowell and Fine Gael over garda figures re-ignited last night after the Justice Minister sent a letter to all 220 TDs and Sentators standing over his figures.

CRIME capers don’t come much more sensational than the saga of the Northern Bank robbery.

An excavation taking place in Co Wexford as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Fiona Sinnott almost eight years ago was tonight called off.

Two men involved in possession of more than €4m worth of drugs found in a farmyard in Clonee, Co Meath have been jailed for eight years each by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Louise Hogan

One of the four men involved in an attempted bank robbery in Abbyleix in 2001 in which a garda was accidentally killed has been jailed for eight years by Judge Michael White at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

THE man at the centre of a major child pornography investigation has not moved out of west Cork, despite local concerns about allegations he had taken sexually explicit pictures of young girls and posted them on the internet.

A MAJOR breakthrough in the international trade in child porn images may have been made with the arrest of a man in his mid 20s, whose computer equipment was seized during a raid by detectives.

Two men arrested at the weekend in connection with a massive €13m drugs seizure in Lusk, north Co Dublin, are to appear in court this morning.

A FULL investigation into one of the largest illegal dumps uncovered in the country is expected to take several months to complete.