Serving sailors and former comrades of a Navy man who died helping to save the crew of a Spanish trawler held a special commemoration to remember him 30 years to the day of the tragedy.

Hundreds of women are choosing not to have their baby at the Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise (MRHP) because they are “nervous” about the care they might receive.

IT IS not surprising that the ghost of Donogh O’Malley, the Fianna Fáil minister who introduced free secondary education, was invoked this week at the annual teachers’ conferences. On Monday, INTO president Angela Dunne urged the current minister, Mary Hanafin, to emulate O’Malley in standing up to the Department of Finance on the issue of overcrowded classes in primary schools.

SCHOOLS are being left without the proper support to help foreign children who now represent almost one-third of new pupils in many areas, it was claimed yesterday.