A senior Siptu official told a hearing "the Abbeylara scenario was on everyone’s minds" when trying to defuse a five hour stand-off between the Garda Emergency Response Unit and a council worker four years ago.

The man suspected of murdering mother Patricia Kierans shot her shortly after she arrived home, before going on a drinking binge leading to an eight-hour siege in Bailieborough, Co Cavan.

It looks increasingly unlikely that the Government will make a decision on which Oireachtas sub-committee will carry out the bank inquiry before the Dáil rises for summer recess on July 19.

The Labour Court has thrown out a claim by 80 Tesco workers that they should receive up to €1,400 each for relocating to a new store around 1km away from the old store.

THE sister of John Carthy, who was shot dead by gardaí at Abbeylara more than a decade ago, has said an Oireachtas inquiry would never have been sufficient to investigate the killing.

There are pros and cons to granting full investigative powers to Oireachtas committees, writes Regina Hennelly

CIVIL servants will finally be allowed to lift the lid on controversial government policies under rules that will come into effect if the referendum on Oireachtas inquiries is passed.

The referendum to reverse the Abbeylara judgment, if passed, is likely to lead to a banking inquiry. The temptation for cheap point-scoring will have to be resisted, writes Michael Clifford

THE country will go to the polls later this year in a referendum to give the Oireachtas powers to bring key players in the banking crisis before a committee of investigation.

MIDDLE-RANKING gardaí have slammed the continuing failure to provide formal mental health expertise to gardaí dealing with barricade incidents.

A CROSS-PARTY committee is to examine whether the Constitution should be changed to give TDs and senators greater powers of investigation.

IVOR CALLELY has gone to the High Court to challenge his suspension from the Seanad and sue his fellow senators who recommended the sanction.

There was no psychiatric expert available to the gardaí to advise on the best way to deal with a psychiatrically ill man when they were confronted by John Carthy, an armed manic-depressive, at Abbeylara in April 2000. They ended up shooting him dead.

THE Garda Síochána is leaving itself “open to repeating” the Abbeylara tragedy by not having formal mental health expertise available to it to deal with barricade incidents.

THE gardaí still do not have formal mental health expertise available to them to deal with barricade incidents, three and a half years after the Garda Inspectorate urgently called for it.

Gardaí will begin to be armed with pepper spray over the coming weeks, it was confirmed today.

THE Garda commissioner is to press ahead with plans for armed regional support units despite strong opposition from middle-ranking gardaí.

Two men who attempted an armed robbery of a bookmaker as he travelled back to his office from the Irish Grand National have been jailed for a total of 15 years by Judge Katherine Delahunt.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has been elected after the first count in the five-seat Mayo constituency with an excess of nearly 3,000 votes.

THE human rights of children in Ireland came under fire yesterday in an international report.

THE Government yesterday authorised the use of non-lethal energy devices to the Garda’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU).

Elite armed gardaí are to be supplied with more non-lethal weapons like stun guns, the Government decided today.

The editor of the Sunday Independent newspaper yesterday said he never meant to cause the family of the late garda Tania Corcoran any distress.

THERE was widespread condemnation yesterday of newspaper reporting linking the death of a female garda during childbirth to the part her husband played in the shooting of John Carthy in the Abbeylara siege.

THE number of gardaí trained to use guns will increase and all members will wear bullet-proof vests and carry pepper spray on the beat as part of the force’s response to the Abbeylara siege.

JOHN CARTHY’S family said last night the breadth of recommendations in the Garda Inspectorate’s report showed that the force still had a long way to go to avoid a repeat of Abbeylara.

Senior garda officers in charge of two major siege situations last year were not fully trained in dealing with the crises, the Garda Inspectorate revealed today.

The Garda authorities have agreed to implement a new set of procedures on how they handle sieges.

A new report is expected to recommend the introduction of new measures to improve the safety of gardaí in siege situations.

ABBEYLARA siege victim John Carthy may have left his house to look for cigarettes when he was shot four times by armed garda officers, his sister says in a new book published yesterday.

WITH aggravated burglary on the rise in Ireland, the vexed question perplexing home-owners up and down the country is whether force can be used in self-defence against intruders — and what constitutes “reasonable” force.

An internal garda enquiry has been launched into the siege in Gort, Co Galway, which ended with 39-year-old Anthony Burke being in a critical condition in hospital, having been shot once by the gardaí.

The Garda Inspectorate is to examine the shooting of an armed man who barricaded himself in his home in Gort, Co Galway, for almost a day.

IN the wake of the apology by gardaí for the death of John Carthy, family members want an independent body to monitor a committed overhaul of garda structures.

THE manner in which the country’s top garda has finally apologised to the family of John Carthy for shooting him dead in the Abbeylara siege six years ago is less than edifying.

The sister of John Carthy, who was shot dead by gardaí in Abbeylara Co Longford in April 2000 is to write a book about his life and death.

IN light of the unrelenting savaging which the Garda Siochána received from the Morris Tribunal into garda corruption, any assurance from Justice Minister Michael McDowell that there would be no toleration of such appalling behaviour is worthless.

The Garda Commissioner has reportedly apologised to the family of John Carthy over the fatal shooting of the 27-year-old in Co Longford more than six years ago.

The new Head of the Garda Inspectorate has said it is important that the force learns lessons from the killing of John Carthy in Abbeylara, Co Longford, six years ago.

I AM disappointed by the reaction of the gardaí to the report on the killing of John Carthy.

AFTER six years and a cost of €18 million, we eventually have the truth behind the appalling circumstances of John Carthy’s death.

THE continued failure of the top management of the police to take responsibility for the negligence surrounding the death of John Carthy in Abbeylara indicates how arrogant and out of touch the force is with the public.

THE scandal of using Irish prisons as ‘psychiatric waiting rooms’ — the equivalent of A&E trolleys in overcrowded hospitals — is a damning indictment of the State’s failure to address the problem of mental illness in society.

The Minister for Justice says that very substantial progress has been made in modernising the Garda since the fatal shooting of John Carthy in Co Longford six years ago.