Eight Limerick men facing a variety of charges including violent disorder, making threats to kill and demanding money with menaces will stand trial together in March next year.

Eight Limerick men arrested as part of an investigation into extortion appeared briefly at the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.

A court today turned down an appeal by the DPP against the leniency of prison sentences given to two Dublin men who were jailed for an intended Continuity IRA pipe bomb attack on the city's northside.

Two Dublin men who admitted having a pipe bomb on the city's northside were sentenced to six years imprisonment, with the final three years suspended, by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.