All eyes fix on Brendan, then quickly jump to Sean and then anywhere but either.

THE father of the late 21-year-old Ennis man Eoin Ryan has said there are no words to describe the hurt the family is going through.

A FARMER was given a 10-month jail sentence for the “callous and cruel” treatment of his cattle which were not fed or cared for properly.

THE Department of Education must immediately introduce strict new guidelines to protect physical education (PE) teachers who have to enter changing rooms with students from “accusations of inappropriate behaviour”.

TEACHERS’ leaders have described efforts by Tánaiste Mary Coughlan to allow schools worst affected by a ban on management promotions as piecemeal and insufficient.

AFTER taking a tentative step onto union turf for the second day running and reaching the podium intact, Mary Coughlan was getting used to facing down crowds seething with rage.

The Minister for Education is expected to receive another frosty reception when she visits her second teacher conference in as many days.

TEACHERS must not be tricked into supporting a “con job” Government deal which “picks up the debts of banking executives” while slashing public sector salaries and essential school services.

THE Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has unanimously voted against the public service pay agreement and threatened potential strike action from September in response to the latest Cabinet cutbacks.

A union representing secondary school teachers has ruled out industrial action before this year's exams.

ON Thursday representatives of states from around the world will gather to sign an agreement aimed at strengthening the protection of economic, social and cultural rights for individuals.

MORE than 55,500 students getting their Junior Certificate results today have been urged to stay on at their studies – whether they are teenagers or have just returned to education.

AROUND two-thirds of people applying to study in some further education colleges have been unsuccessful because of a cap on places imposed by the Government, a union has claimed.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) today outlined new figures which show that the number of applications for places in Post Leaving Certificate (PLC) courses in colleges of further education has risen sharply with the economic downturn.

ALMOST 47,000 applicants have been offered a college place this morning, with about 20,500 of them receiving an offer of one each from their Level 8 and Level 7/6 course lists.

THE war of words deepened yesterday between a teachers’ union and the Department of Education over the number of teaching posts to be lost in second-level schools this autumn because of budget cutbacks.

THE Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has described as “utter nonsense” calls by IDA chief Barry O’Leary that wage cuts of up to 15% were required to restore competitiveness.

WAR-weary from an attack by rebel forces on home ground, Batt O’Keeffe emerged visibly shaken from the melee of a mutinous teachers’ union conference in Cork yesterday.

STRIKE action was yesterday unanimously endorsed by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland in opposition to the education cutbacks, which include the loss of teaching posts and the abolition of the book grant scheme.

THE head of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland urged the public to “wake up” and realise that decades of corruption and greed have brought the country to its knees.

A SPOKESMAN for the 477 workers who are to lose their jobs at the Banta RR Donnelly plant in Limerick said yesterday they were “pretty happy” with the redundancy package offered.

More than 60,000 teachers are to be balloted for industrial action.

The Teachers Union of Ireland has reacted angrily to the Government's decision to allocate 51,000 additional training places to FÁS.

A SURVEY that has previously highlighted government failures to reduce the number of young people dropping out of school is to be axed by the Department of Education.

THE insistence of parents and teachers that the education budget cutbacks must be reversed was as strong in Cork at the weekend as it was when thousands protested outside the Dáil almost a month ago.

OPPOSITION to the Government’s cutbacks in education is expected to intensify following the discovery by the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) that budgetary restraints are more far-reaching than previously thought.

TEACHERS should provide unpaid supervision of classes when colleagues are away with students for class activities or sports matches, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe has suggested.

A CORK couple has scored a bitter-sweet victory after the High Court refused an application to have them extradited to the US to face charges of kidnapping one of their grandchildren.

A couple today defeated an attempt by US authorities to extradite them from Ireland for allegedly kidnapping their grandson.