The Government’s willingness to revisit the FoI Act is a welcome indication that it intends to try and lead a cultural shift towards greater transparency, write Tom Felle and Maura Adshead

Tipperary 0-16 Carlow 1-14

In the face of a barrage of criticism from opposition leaders yesterday, Taoiseach Enda Kenny defended measures introduced in the budget to rake in €3.8bn in savings and taxes.

ENDA KENNY is under intense pressure today to clear-up serious questions surrounding the donation of $50,000 to Fine Gael by the winners of the most lucrative licence awarded in the history of the state.

A SURE sign that Tony O’Reilly is no longer in control of Independent News & Media was provided by the way the newspaper giant closed down its Sunday Tribune title.

GUNS N’ ROSES star Axl Rose, who kept the world waiting 15 years for his comeback album, has been declared the greatest lead singer of all time.

LEINSTER’S latest South African prop seems to be settling in well to his new surroundings in the Irish capital, and Heinke van der Merwe should feel equally at home in Wembley on Saturday.

A HUMAN river of despair flowed through Dublin yesterday, only to crash into a wall of indifference at the gates of Dáil Eireann.

Ronnie James Dio, whose soaring vocals, poetic lyrics and mythic tales of a never-ending struggle between good and evil broke new ground in heavy metal, has died at 67.

Nearly 5,000 businesses in the North will be among the first to receive superfast broadband, it was announced today.

A GROUP of 16 lesbians will do a full monty photo shoot in Limerick next Sunday for a fundraising Christmas calendar.

AN AIDS awareness video is using an Adolf Hitler lookalike to illustrate its point that “AIDS is a mass murderer”.

ON most journeys a green light signals forward momentum – for this government it usually just means another U-turn by John Gormley and Co.

BRIAN COWEN is going nowhere. Official. It is the one thing everyone in politics agrees on — though they have polar opposite views on what it means.

Perfect Truth’s odds for the Investec Oaks have been slashed following a welter of support today.

FIANNA FÁIL has enough problems facing it without the distraction of fighting a byelection in Dublin South to retain the seat made vacant by the untimely and premature death of the excellent Seamus Brennan.

Jimmy Fortune admits connections are still unsure how good Rainbow View could turn out to be as she bids to maintain her unbeaten record in Saturday’s Meon Valley Stud Fillies’ Mile at Ascot.

Government partners were tonight facing a potential rift as moves to target high-income families for college fees was thrown in to the spotlight.

SINN FÉIN’S drive into the political mainstream was boosted last night as Labour joined forces with the party for the second time since the general election.

LESBIAN and gay teenagers are being driven to suicide because they ‘come out’, a Limerick priest has warned.

IF Finance Minister Brian Cowen’s stamp duty reform was on the property market, some slippery estate agent would no doubt describe it as “niche and bijou”.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern’s decision to increase the number of junior ministers was again criticised by the opposition yesterday.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern’s decision to increase the number of junior ministers from 17 to 20 clearly contradicts the strong views he expressed 12 years ago when the new Rainbow was formed.

THE expected Green tide last night turned direction and drowned the party’s hopes of substantial General Election gains.

After the bruising, rollercoaster ride of election 2007, Political Correspondent Shaun Connolly summarises what each has on offer.

THE last opinion poll published before today’s General Election shows that the outcome remains very much in the balance.

ENTERPRISE Minister Micheál Martin launched a personal attack yesterday accusing senior Rainbow figures of scare-mongering over job losses.

PRESSURE has increased on the Rainbow parties to reveal when they plan to bring in stamp duty reform after they again offered only vague hints.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern last night insisted he had not been panicked into offering first time buyers a backdated “bribe” on stamp duty.

The Government launched its National Women’s Strategy 2007-2016 yesterday.

STAMP duty and the economy opened up as the central battlefields of the phoney election war last night as the Government and Rainbow Alternative locked horns.

Justice

PD leader Michael McDowell recently declared his party would not join or support a government as “unstable or incoherent” as one involving Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens, saying he believed a second election would be preferable to the establishment of a non-viable Rainbow government.

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny yesterday insisted he had been “courageous” in trying to spark a national debate on immigration.

IN his response to the latest figures which show violent crime to be soaring, Justice Minister Michael McDowell has claimed the increase is in line with what might be expected given the large increase in the population over the last five years.

I WAS interested in Diarmaid Ferriter’s column arguing for a merger between the Labour Party and Fine Gael (Irish Examiner, December 28).

WHEN Michael McDowell removed his teeth from Bertie Ahern’s leg long enough to whisper “We’ve survived,” it was an awful let-down to two groups.

TÁNAISTE Michael McDowell put the PDs on an election “war-footing” yesterday as he launched a hunt for high-profile candidates to boost the party’s chances at the polls.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern effectively launched the General Election campaign yesterday — and made it clear it would be the longest one in history.

THERE could be a hike in taxes if Fine Gael and Labour get into Government, warned Tánaiste Mary Harney.

POLITICS is rarely as it appears on the surface. A point brought home again to me while waiting around in the White House press room on St Patrick’s Day.

LABOUR will not cut a deal with Fianna Fáil after the next election, the party’s deputy leader Liz McManus insisted at its annual conference.

JUSTICE MINISTER Michael McDowell yesterday called on Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton to “square up to him man-to-man” in a row over garda figures.

With his second Budget unveiled, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen is finally emerging from the long shadow of his predecessor Charlie McCreevy.