The decision to shut every school, college and childcare facility in the country, as well as cultural institutions, was done without Cabinet approval, it can be revealed.

Reunification of Ireland and the future status of Scotland are issues “definitely on the table” as a result of Brexit, the former head of the UK Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service has said.

Fianna Faíl says it's in favour of establishing an independent pay commission for the Defence Forces and wants to restore an Army brigade which was disbanded in 2012.

Junior Defence Minister Paul Kehoe has refused to rule out using a veto to prevent the association representing enlisted personnel, PDForra, from becoming affiliated to ICTU.

Officers are sleeping in barracks in rooms where there are rat and mice droppings and when they can't avail of limited living-in accommodation they're forced to travel long distances to postings or pay exorbitant rents.

The association representing over 1,000 Defence Forces officers claims members are leaving because they are being sought out by other areas of the public sector.

The country's military officers have warned their patience is running thin and said if any other organisation had been treated as badly as the Defence Forces they would have taken industrial action by now.

A powerful House of Representatives Committee will examine the decision to stay at Trump International Hotel, 180 miles away from the Vice President's official business in Dublin.

An event management firm here that attracts Heads of State and company CEOs to its events has been ordered to pay €90,000 in compensation to a Speaker Director for his unfair dismissal.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence has been urged to visit Naval Service headquarters to investigate for itself how bad manpower levels are.

A pay review is to be undertaken in the next three months aimed at addressing the exodus of highly trained engineers and technicians in the Defence Forces, especially in the Naval Service.

A long-running campaign to get a posthumous medal for an IRA Volunteer has finally come to a successful conclusion.

Retired Lieut Col Dan Harvey said the Defence Forces is "broken" and "in crisis" with "morale at an all-time low," because they are "overlooked and undervalued, overworked, underpaid, over-stretched and undermanned."

President Donald Trump has delivered a sharp warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, telling him the weapons he is acquiring "are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in grave danger."

Minister of state Paul Keogh has announced measures which he hopes will stem an exodus of personnel from the Defence Forces.

In this extract from the Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Michael Foy writes that Michael Collins’s intelligence operations had a reputation for omniscience and, though this was not the case, the myth became a political weapon.

Latest: White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has been fired after less than 10 days in the post.

Minister of state for defence Paul Kehoe has said he has written to the Defence Forces seeking a report on claims that an Air Corps whistleblower is facing dismissal and that documents key to legal cases against the State were deliberately shredded.

The stepfather of a soldier who died after falling ill at his army barracks told his funeral yesterday he was very proud when the late Daniel Donougher called him Dad for the first time.

The White House has barred several media outlets from a press conference held by President Trump's Press Secretary, Sean Spicer.

Michael Mallin’s letter on the eve of his execution offers a moving insight into his mindset, writes Brian Hughes

Authorities dealing with Europe's migrant crisis have lost track of around 10,000 unaccompanied children over the last 18 months.

One in 10 officers has resigned from the Defence Forces in the past two years after becoming disillusioned with the job.

Worldwide reaction to Ireland's recent Yes vote in the Marriage Equality Referendum has been broadly positive.

William Kelly, 24, continued a growing family tradition in the protection of the State yesterday.

Soldiers attending the state funeral of former taoiseach Albert Reynolds had to scrounge clothing from fellow troops because many of them did not have full ceremonial uniforms required for such occasions.

The Defence Forces Chief of Staff is hoping to replace the Air Corps’s ageing fleet of Cessnas and purchase a third new ship for the Naval Service within the next five years.

Some army officers with young children may be forced to seek Family Income Supplement because they can’t afford to travel to new postings due to the disbanding of a brigade.

President Barack Obama is hoping his opponent in the 2008 presidential election will help sell the idea of US military intervention in Syria to the nation.

The new Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces is Major General Conor O’Boyle.

It was a journey that gathered pace from what is now known as Earley’s Barn in Cloonelt to the house in Gortaganny that came with his father’s job as principal of the national school, before ending on the other side of the country in Newbridge.

Nurit Tinari-Modai of the Israeli embassy (Letters Sep 8) takes your correspondent Dan Buckley to task for suggesting that Israel’s 1967 attack on its Arab neighbours was a bid to grab land and resources.

The Arab League will call on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution creating a joint peacekeeping force for Syria.

The Arab League will call for the UN Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest effort by the regional group to end the 11-month old crisis that has killed more than 5,000 people.

THE apology issued by the Minister for Defence and by the Chief of Staff for the failures that resulted in the deaths of three Irish soldiers in Lebanon in March 1989 is to be welcomed.

DEFENCE Minister Alan Shatter has said it “was absolutely clear” the road where the men died should have been cleared of booby traps before being used to source stones to fortify bases.

Bereaved families of three Irish soldiers killed by a landmine in Lebanon 22 years ago said they have finally been vindicated.

The first photos of US politician Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot in the head in a mass shooting five months ago were released early today.

A 50-year-old soldier has died following a shooting incident at Government Buildings in Dublin.

MY GRANDFATHER, Pat Harris, spoke proudly of marching to Macroom on Easter Monday, 1916, and of being arrested with Terence MacSwiney on August 12, 1920, at a meeting of the officers of Cork No 1 Brigade in Cork’s City Hall. But he never spoke about what the First Cork Brigade did in the two years that followed.

US President Barack Obama announced today that his National Security Adviser, General James Jones, is stepping down after helping to shape foreign policy for nearly two years.