Gardaí have made two arrests after a man was doused in petrol and set on fire at a house in Cork.

Last month’s gruesome attacks are indicative of a trend in violent crime that cannot be divorced from the effect of cuts to policing and other services, says Security Correspondent Cormac O’Keeffe.

Keith Greaney, 23, was with his girlfriend, Nicole O'Leary, when three men broke into his home, dragged him from his bed, beat him with a car exhaust pipe and attacked him with a machete just before 4am.

A teenager who slowed his car and made threats against a young woman out walking her dogs, will be sentenced next week on the charge of engaging in threatening behaviour.

A teenager whose mother, father, and brother all took their lives at different times in the family home failed in his appeal yesterday against a conviction for assaulting a man in a pub.