The government has announced an extra €50m in funding for RTE but put off making a long-term decision on supporting the troubled broadcaster.

The outgoing Cork North Central TD insisted that he has been “compliant” with Leinster House rules

There is a growing sense that the Government is losing the battle against crime, Micheál Martin said.

Every home and farm would benefit, he told community leaders, business people and other politicians at the launch.

Cabinet Ministers met from early this morning to sign off on the National Broadband Plan contract.

The Government is set to sign off on the €3bn National Broadband Plan contract at its weekly meeting tomorrow.

The European Commission has officially approved Ireland’s controversial National Broadband Plan (NBP) under EU state aid rules, at a value of €2.6 billion.

As it was put to me yesterday - the Maria Bailey fiasco was such a Fine Gael type of scandal, while the 'Vote-gate' row is a classic Fianna Fáil one.

Latest: The Government has said “every resource and support available” will be offered to a primary school in north Dublin which has been damaged by a fire.

Single use plastics like knives, forks and straws are to be banned while the carbon tax will also increase.

Fianna Fáil has ruled out pulling support from the Government over their opposition to the current €5bn rural broadband plan.

The Government has announced that Cork is to receive an investment of €290 million to deliver fibre broadband to almost 75,000 homes in the Intervention Area (IA).

Alison O’Connor There is a well known approach to delaying something, frequently employed in politics, known as “kicking the can down the road”.

Communications Minister Richard Bruton received correspondence pleading for the retention of An Post’s mail centre in Cork — but not on behalf of any of the others threatened with closure.

Like virtually any initiative coming from Government, last week’s announcement that the TV licence would be replaced by a new kind of fee was greeted with orchestrated bile and rejection on social media.

So that’s nearly Friday wrapped up. Here’s some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening.

Communications Minister Richard Bruton has warned there will be "no way" to avoid the new phone and laptops TV licence fee - even if people can prove they are not watching RTÉ or only using devices for Netflix.

People using phones or laptops to watch TV are set to be hit with new charges as part of a clampdown on those who avoid the TV licence fee.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said he "walks a lot" to bring down his carbon footprint.

A group claiming to represent around 100 members of staff at An Post’s Cork Mail Centre has vowed to campaign against the company’s decision to close the Little Island facility.

The Department of Communications has insisted it has no role in deciding which of An Post’s four mail centres is to be closed, following the passing of a Dáil motion calling on the Government to instruct the company to keep its centre in Cork.

The Government is legally prohibited from saving An Post’s Cork mail centre from closure, Communications Minister Richard Bruton has told the Dáil.

The Government has been accused of engaging in “Celtic Tiger economics” by sanctioning rent increases that are more than twice that of wage hikes and of again ruling out freezing rates.

Fianna Fáil has raised concerns that the HSE will have overspent by “several hundred million” by year-end after the health minister revealed that it had run up a revenue deficit of more than €116m by the end of April.

The government has been accused of engaging in “Celtic Tiger economics” by sanctioning rent increases that are more than twice that of wage hikes and of again ruling out freezing rates.

Communications Minister Richard Bruton has yet to make a decision on Eir's new broadband proposal.

If there was any doubt about the Government’s view on the proliferation of hateful and harmful content on the internet, you’d need only to sit quietly for a moment and wait for the echo that has been making its way around the corridors of power to reach you.

The fallout from An Post’s decision to close its Cork Mail Centre in Little Island with the loss of 240 jobs continues, with questions surrounding the reason it has been slated to be axed.

The Taoiseach has indicated that the Government could restart the National Broadband Plan (NBP) tender process after Eir claimed they could deliver the high speed network for one third of the current price.

The former state telephone company, Eir, will today claim it could have delivered the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP) for under €1bn, one-third of its estimated final cost.

The broadcasting watchdog’s appeal for special powers to regulate online content and social media has come under fire, with one critic claiming the authority lacks the “right institutional instincts and experience” for the task.

Agriculture Minister Michael Creed is to bring a proposal to Government this week to phase out fur farms.

Anyone who publishes photographs or identifies the two teenage boys who murdered Ana Kriegel will feel the full force of the law, a judge has warned.

The Department of Public Expenditure’s top civil servant has refused to come before an Oireachtas committee investigation into broadband today.

Opposition calls to take Eircom back into state ownership to run the National Broadband Plan could cost up to €9bn, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Timing is everything in politics. There are signs that Fine Gael has got its timing badly wrong again in the run-up to local and European elections, now only nine days away.

Cross-party support for an Oireachtas committee investigation into the €5bn national broadband plan is likely to be agreed as the Government urges opposition parties to back the plan.

The consortium behind the Government’s multi-billion euro national broadband plan will be “entirely on the hook” to pay any extra costs if the project continues to surge over-budget.

The €3bn State investment in the controversial National Broadband Plan has been labelled “the worst deal ever seen” after it emerged that the private operator chosen to deliver it will only invest €200m equity in it.

The Communications Minister has also refused to say how much of the €5bn broadband rollout cost will be footed by rural homeowners and businesses.

Communications Minister Richard Bruton has refused to say how much money a private firm will have to invest in the rollout of broadband despite pressure from opposition parties.

Finance and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has overruled his most senior officials to back the €3bn broadband plan in what he deems is “digital fairness” for the whole country.

Families and businesses in the most isolated parts of rural Ireland may have to pay extra fees out of their own pocket under the Government’s €3bn broadband plan.

There is an onus on the Government to deliver broadband to rural Ireland, ministers have said ahead of Cabinet debating a €3bn plan to roll out a national high-speed network.