The credibility of our police has taken a battering over recent years.

Had Northern Ireland’s attorney general John Larkin proposed ending Troubles-related prosecutions some weeks after the publication of Justice Peter Smithwick’s shocking report, his suggestion might not have provoked such a visceral, hostile but dispiritingly predictable response.

In describing the findings of the Smithwick Tribunal report as “absolutely shocking”, Taoiseach Enda Kenny spoke for the vast majority of the Irish people, north and south.

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said he is horrified by the findings of Garda collusion in the murders of two senior RUC officers in 1989.

One of Ireland’s oldest breweries is to be transformed into a €3m visitor centre which is set to open its doors in less than a year.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has hit out at republicans who have refused to give evidence at the Smithwick tribunal into IRA-Garda collusion.

Drinks giant Diageo, the maker of Guinness and Baileys, has reported a 5% year-on-year fall in net sales at its Irish operations for the first six months of the year.

SINGER Frances Black, who has battled multiple addictions over many years, yesterday described addiction as “soul sickness”.

Pickets are set to go on Guinness plants from 6am tomorrow as a last ditch peace effort in the row collapsed overnight.