The Courts Service opted for a soft opening of their massive new courthouse complex in Cork yesterday — so soft that one man didn’t get to hear at all about the criminal courts’ move to Anglesea St.

A situation of unprecedented gravity is being revealed before our eyes.

The Irish human rights watchdog is to press the Government to ensure that measures to protect against exploitation are included in any conditions, for access to employment, for people living in direct provision.

The Department of Justice failed to examine all available evidence when it wrongly refused some Magdalene laundry survivors access to redress payments.

Making control and domination in the home an offence will save women’s lives, Safe Ireland has claimed.

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform in the US is urging the country’s 50,000 undocumented Irish not to panic about President Trump’s clampdown on immigration — as it will only impact undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records.

Opposition parties have demanded Enda Kenny “stand up to” Theresa May in Brexit talks after they accused him of being “very flat-footed” in his response to date.

Holidaymakers are being warned to check their passports are in date as soon as possible as sheer demand has led to longer processing times for the essential documents.

I watched the Late, Late Show in awe as a brave young woman, Hazel Behan, recounted her horrific account of being raped, by a masked intruder, in Portugal some years ago. 

In her column (Opinion, July 24) Victoria White has cobbled a ragbag of factoids together in a disjointed and illogical proposal that, “we have a duty to stand with the Palestinians”.

There are still massive gaps to be addressed five years after the publication of the Ryan report, a group that supports young people in care said yesterday.

So a referendum on same sex marriage is being put before the people who never asked for it on the basis of a vote by a Constitutional Convention made up of 66 randomly selected citizens, two of whom happened to have been Labour local government candidates, a third a chairman of a Fine Gael party branch.

Fine Gael’s failure to understand why scenes of Enda Kenny being glad handled in Denis O’Brien’s company are a legitimate cause of concern is understandable, at least in the context of the hypocrisy of that party’s attitude to the findings made against one of their own when compared to what its reaction would have been if Mr O’Brien had close links with Fianna Fáil and was pictured with Brian Cowen.

Laois-Offaly TD Charles Flanagan has vowed to fight any downgrading of services at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.

COUNTS were continuing late into the night in Galway West, Laois Offaly and Wicklow last night to decide who will take the final seats in the 31st Dáil.

A BIG funeral for a giant of a man.

SENATOR Kieran Phelan, a Laois auctioneer and father of five, died yesterday.

PADDY BARRY, the 82-year-old grandfather of magician Keith Barry, died almost a week after he was found unconscious following a break-in at his Waterford home.

CONVICTED drug dealer Kieran Boylan will be free to get a road haulage licence in 18 months even though the one he has will be revoked within weeks.

FACING mounting pressure, the country’s top judge has said more of his colleagues will volunteer to pay the pension levy.

SPORTS Minister Martin Cullen has said an undeclared payment made to him by a business in his constituency was above board.

THE law supposed to stop a convicted drug smuggler from getting a road haulage licence was not clear enough to keep him from setting up a new importation business.

The Government has only published one piece of scheduled legislation since January despite promising 18, it was claimed today.

JUSTICE Minister Dermot Ahern is putting a stop to the glossy brochures, extravagant information campaigns and fanfare surrounding launches by state agencies under his department.

ARRESTS for gangland crimes have increased by more than 50% in recent months with gardaí arresting 224 people a week as a result of the crackdown on organised crime.

DRUG dealers and users are bearing the brunt of a Garda crackdown on the narcotics trade.

People appointed by the Government to State boards must be vetted by the Oireachtas, the Dáil heard today.

JUSTICE Minister Brian Lenihan has been accused of burying the Morris Tribunal report by releasing it on the day the new taoiseach was elected.

A 30-year-old man shot dead in a north Dublin pub last night was named by Gardaí today.

FINE GAEL has called on the Government to mount a targeted six-month operation to “take the knives out of communities”.

JUSTICE Minister Brian Lenihan yesterday accepted that crime rates which included 17 homicides since August 1 were far from acceptable.

President of Ireland Mary McAleese today led condemnation of the shooting of an unarmed Garda officer in the centre of Dublin.

WHAT Enda Kenny unveiled yesterday was entirely new, entirely surprising, entirely different from what we expected, a radical change from the last Dáil.

A FARM trailer had to be hired by gardaí to transport a shoplifting suspect in Laois recently, it emerged yesterday.

Former Dáil deputy Charles Flanagan has announced that he will not contest the forthcoming local elections for Fine Gael.

The loss of many high-profile candidates in the 2002 election has shocked experienced observers.

Fine Gael's enterprise spokesman, Charles Flanagan TD has called on the Tánaiste to seek an early meeting with AIB executives in the wake of the fraud investigation into AIB subsidiary Allfirst.

The Fine Gael party tonight called for an end to efforts to recruit workers from overseas.

The Taoiseach’s refusal this afternoon to even contemplate involvement in the rail dispute is severely affecting business and tourism, warned Fine Gael’s enterprise, trade and employment spokesman, Charles Flanagan TD today.

There has been a call for the Government to establish a Midlands action plan to rejuvenate the region.

The Government has been asked to meet with the nation's financial institutions to ensure sympathetic treatment for people who have been hit by the foot-and-mouth disease.

There are calls for the review of planning regulations that restrict Slane to just one concert a year.

Fine Gael has warned that major infrastructural development is under threat from the construction workers' strikes.