Legislation needs to be urgently enacted to address mounting difficulties with securing access to justice in the civil courts, particularly in the context of complex commercial litigation, the Supreme Court has said.

Des O’Driscoll shares his highlights for the week ahead

Pro-Brexit campaigners have offered a €66m prize to any voter who can correctly predict every result of the European football championships in a novel bid to engage people with the debate.

Maybe there is a game more romanticised, more mythologised than rugby.

Disgraced former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm should be hauled before the banking inquiry after his failed US-protected bankruptcy application.

Get a taste of some of the interesting and quirky happenings in Europe from our Europe correspondent, Ann Cahill.

Once described as the "poster boy for the worst excesses of the Celtic Tiger", fraudster businessman Breifne O’Brien has been jailed for seven years for running a Ponzi scheme that cost his victims millions of euro.

Fraudster businessman Breifne O’Brien has been jailed for seven years for running a Ponzi scheme which costs his victims millions.

Businessman Breifne O’Brien used money stolen from investors to pay for an extension to his house, a new car for his wife, and the stamp duty on new properties, in a multi-million euro Ponzi scheme, a court has heard.

A report in the Washington Post (April 4) reveals that in June 2009 “Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison” for defrauding investors of at least $18bn and “in the past five months, at least three Vietnamese bankers have been sentenced to death”.

Greg LeMond believes Lance Armstrong was capable of a top-30 finish at best in the Tour de France with a level playing field.

American fraudster Bernie Madoff commanded respect from staff and was “ironically” anxious that his “prestige and reputation” should be protected, a High Court judge in London said today.

HSBC’s interim results reveal that the company made a $250m (€188m) settlement in the Irish High Court as a result of investments in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

The brother of Bernard Madoff, the man behind the largest Ponzi scheme ever prosecuted in US history, is poised to plead guilty to criminal charges.

Today we describe the case of self-confessed fraudster Breifne O’Brien who, over 15 years, cheated relatives, friends and friends of friends. He used his privileged position — an affluent family, raised in a castle, private schools followed by Trinity — to swindle millions from others in his haute bourgeois milieu.

The length of time being taken on the Anglo Irish Bank investigation is deeply worrying. It is to be hoped that everything is being prepared properly to ensure that any prosecutions are warranted and, given the cost involved in the three-year investigation, then successful.

Jon Corzine has gone from a possible candidate for US Treasury Secretary to the man who presided over the fall of MF Global and the eighth-largest bankruptcy in American history, writes Michael Daly

JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter has expressed his disappointment that former Anglo chief executive David Drumm is not co-operating with Garda investigations into suspected offences at the bank.

THE WIND blowing through Queens is wreaking havoc for the New York Mets fans at the concession stands behind centre-field.

FINE GAEL yesterday said Taoiseach Brian Cowen must speak to gardaí about a controversial phone discussion with Anglo Irish Bank boss Sean FitzPatrick in March 2008 to aid any possible criminal investigation.

BERNIE Madoff has begun the second year of his 150-year prison term in the US.

THE new chairman of Anglo Irish Bank has called for the investigation into the potentially criminal behaviour of his predecessor, Sean FitzPatrick, to be completed as soon as possible.

THE Dáil has passed the NAMA legislation to bail out the bankers who have done so much to bring about the present economic mess.

I WISH to commend Fergus Finlay on the first balanced article I have read on public service cuts (November 17).

POLITICAL and other spin doctors know how to manage a crisis. The critical factor is to hang on. They believe virtually all news media cycles are “nine-day wonders”.

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has admitted he is “as frustrated as any other citizen” that no senior banker has been jailed over the scandals to have hit the sector.

“I’m as frustrated as every other citizen in this country that we’re not seeing bankers in jail yet,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told RTÉ’s Prime Time on the eve of the anniversary of the Government’s €400 billion bank guarantee scheme.

ANY prosecutions arising from investigations into alleged wrongdoing at Anglo Irish Bank should be “proceeded with ASAP”, Taoiseach Brian Cowen insisted yesterday.

AIB and Bank of Ireland shares jump after NAMA is introduced. Surprise, surprise. Further evidence that NAMA is a crude bail out of greedy, reckless bankers.

“TAX dodger”, drones Joan before reaching for the “chance” card.

THE Taoiseach has been warned by two of the country’s most senior trade unionists that his Government’s economic policies are pushing the country towards significant, prolonged industrial unrest.

SARAH PALIN says she accepts chat show host David Letterman’s apology for remarks about her daughter.

IRISH Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton bowed to the inevitable yesterday and announced that he will, after considerable pressure from Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, retire at the end of the month.

Bernard Madoff has agreed to give up the rights to his disgraced investment business and his company's prized artwork and entertainment tickets.