Several hundred civil servants braved pouring rain to demonstrate in Belfast and Dnderry today against the delay in implementing an equal pay deal promised by Executive ministers last year.

Civil servants in the North were today accused of wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on high-priced airfares.

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s aid yesterday, saying Ireland should be allowed “a short period of reflection” following the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.