Former Vita Cortex workers have urged company boss Jack Ronan to accept new recommendations to end their four-month sit-in and let them “go home to their families”.

Attempts to mediate a dispute in the redundancy row at the Vita Cortex plant in Cork have failed, it was announced this afternoon.

IRISH TIMES editor Geraldine Kennedy and managing director Maeve Donovan were each paid a basic salary of 296,000 last year, less than two years after the newspaper’s financial crisis and near-collapse that saw approximately 250 job losses.

THE SMOKING ban unravelled further last night as it emerged that more categories are likely to be exempted from regulations.