The President of the High Court has directed that the education minister allocate four hours and 15 minutes of additional resource hours weekly to schools where two children with Down syndrome are attending.

Helen O’Callaghan talks to five people in highly pressured jobs and lifestyles about how they manage their work/life balance.

Cousins Aidan and Kieran Murphy beat Ulster pair Thomas Mackle and Sean Donnelly in the last shot of the Dunmanway Hospital and Daycare joint-benefit event at Derrinasafa on Sunday.

Mr Justice Paul Carney may have been in confident form when he wrote the following in his contribution to a collection of essays titled Criminal Justice in Ireland back in 2002: “People have been murdering and raping each other from time immemorial and, accordingly, the law in relation to these crimes is well settled.

THE Supreme Court has upheld an appeal by a divorced businessman whom the High Court had ordered to make better provision for his ex-wife, including paying out €1 million to buy her a second house and an additional €600,000 for her own use.

CARLOW IT claimed the IRCU Division 1 title with a very impressive 30-17 win against Athlone IT at the CIT campus, Bishopstown yesterday evening.

WORLD CHAMPIONS Aidan Murphy and Eamon Bowen Jnr shared the limelight at the weekend, winning their opening rounds of the Pat Barry Cup and the Mick Crowley Cup respectively.

TOP prize money drew livestock exhibitors from all corners of the country to the Bantry Agricultural Show in west Cork last Sunday.

THEY say you can take a white horse anywhere, but it seems Midleton horse trainer Dan Rohan can take his bay mare anywhere and win.

IT was a week when the true meaning of life sentences became clear.

MR JUSTICE Paul Carney’s annoyance at the Court of Criminal Appeal is understandable. In January 2007 he sentenced Gerard Kelly to life in prison for rape, but the sentence was for more than that crime.

Amid all the recent calls for a constitutional referendum on children’s rights and talk of the need for measures to protect children from paedophile abuse, the overturning yesterday of the life sentence imposed on a 45-year-old paedophile for the rape of two young boys is being met with a degree of stunned incredulity.

A Cork man who orally raped a foreign national has been jailed for 13 years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.

A convicted Cork double-rapist will be sentenced on Friday for orally raping a foreign national in the city last year.

A thief who pushed his way into the homes of vulnerable people in his locality to steal from them has been given a four year sentence for terrorising a mother of two and a 74-year-old man.

A HIGH COURT judge yesterday described as “derisory” a €700,000 settlement that the family of one of two schoolgirls secured arising from an accident in which both teenagers died after being struck by a tractor/trailer carrying silage bales.

THE reputation of Cappamore Show as a shop window for quality cattle was underlined at this year’s event, when exhibitors came to the Co Limerick event from as far away as Donegal.

CALLS have been made for changes to taxation policy and a cull in the amount of schoolbooks needed by children as the cost of education continues to soar.

THERE was keen early season competition in the various horse and cattle classes at Bandon Show last Sunday.

AQUILA, a five-year-old mare by Quiletto out of a Mr Lord mare, bred by Paul and Jan Turfery, Caheragh, owned by Brian Mangan, Fermoy, and ridden by Rose Marie Ahern, Carhue, Bandon, dominated the hunter classes at Clonakilty Show.

LIVESTOCK exhibitors are back on the roads of Munster, heading across the county lines in search of winners’ red rosettes.

A HIGH Court judge yesterday wished a “happy life” to a divorced woman and her brother-in-law who had successfully challenged the constitutionality of laws preventing them marrying.

AN estimated 10,000 people attended the Bantry Agricultural Show last Sunday.

Stocks regained some momentum today as fresh economic data suggested inflation remains well under control, but volatile oil prices gave investors some pause late in the session.

The bears returned to Wall Street today, sending stocks lower as oil prices rose, a downbeat outlook from Cisco Systems weighed on technology shares and investors started having second thoughts about this week’s interest rate hike.

Oversold tech shares led Wall Street higher today as investors brushed off high oil prices and brokerage downgrades of General Motors and focused on strong earnings.

MICHAEL RICE is out of the UCC team to face Limerick IT in today’s Datapac Fitzgibbon Cup semi-final at Athlone IT Grounds (3.30pm).

The Preliminary Leinster Schools trial teams have been announced.

GERALDINE KENNEDY has been appointed editor of The Irish Times, becoming the first female editor of a national daily newspaper.