Fianna Fáil leader, Michael Martin, says “that just like the Church, the Republican movement saw the institution of the Republican movement as more important than individual victims.”

Exasperated staff at the country’s only mother and child detox unit have been told by the Government to apply for lottery funding in a last-ditch effort to keep the unit open.

New laws to combat the street sale of tranquillisers are expected to form part of a government action plan to be published this year.

A cousin of a traveller shot in the back at a family funeral in Sligo 1999 has said the deceased man shouted "I’m shot, I’m shot" before collapsing into the drivers seat of a moving car.

The identification process on remains of those killed in the World Trade Centre attacks is continuing as more rubble is pulled from Ground Zero.