A High Court judge who, be- fore being appointed to the bench wrote a magazine ar- ticle uerying the source of funding of Libertas — the lobby group founded by busi-nessman Declan Ganley — has been asked not to deal with any pre-trial matters in Mr Ganley’s defamation ac-tion against RTÉ.

A number of left-wing organisations have launched a joint campaign for a 'no' vote in the forthcoming re-run of the Lisbon Treat referendum.