Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey was told by a legal adviser to put Transport and Sport Minister Shane Ross “in his place” on the eve of a crunch meeting in Rio on Sunday night.

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Ireland remained Europe’s fastest growing economy last year after expanding at a pace not seen since the heyday of the Celtic Tiger 15 years ago.

Update at 9.45pm: The dead garda was understood to be aged in his 30s and a married father of three young children. Another man died and a woman is seriously injured as a result of the shooting incident in Co Louth.

Mortgage holders are set to reap the benefits of a looming price war between the major lenders with one cut already promising over €1,000 a year in savings to mortgage switchers.

For years, I have waited for postcodes, so that Ireland PLC could finally take its place among the coded nations of the Earth. No more, I thought, will I have to worry about purchasing from Amazon.com and adding a fictitious post code.

The country’s largest mortgage-selling group has forecast a rise of only 5% in home-loan lending next year, suggesting the modest interest-rate cuts by lenders will do little to lure first-time buyers into the market.

Did I blink during the RTÉ live coverage of Albert Reynolds’s funeral or did no prominent member of the unionist/loyalist community come to Dublin to pay their respects to the former taoiseach?

Despite the recession Midleton remains a thriving town for business and its chamber president says that is in no small part due to the town council cutting its rates by 9% over the last three years.

TWO men have appeared before a special sitting of Fermoy District Court in connection with one of the largest finds of cocaine in the history of the state.

Two men have been remanded in custody, charged in connection with a drugs seizure in Cork on Thursday worth more than €5m.

It remains unclear this evening whether Dana Rosemary Scallon will withdraw from the presidential race after her dramatic statement on last night's Prime Time Presidential debate.

A WOMAN who pleaded guilty to keeping a brothel has received a €500 fine at a district court.

A NIGERIAN woman charged with brothel keeping has been remanded in custody.

WHEN a political leader comes to a constituency, the standard event sees him or her make a carefully orchestrated speech in a public forum – say a town hall or hotel conference room.

The hometown of the young student, Wayne O’Donoghue, convicted of killing schoolboy Robert Holohan is fully prepared for his imminent release, it was claimed tonight.

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen, still hasn’t signed the Railway Order which would enable work to start on Cork’s €139 million commuter upgrade.

AMBITIOUS, determined and talented, Rory Carroll’s intrepid journalism has taken him across Europe, Africa and, inevitably, to Iraq’s volatile capital Baghdad.

Ambitious, determined and talented, Rory Carroll’s intrepid journalism has taken him across Europe, Africa and, inevitably, to Iraq’s volatile capital Baghdad.

THEY’RE the cream of the crop.

A San Francisco appeal court overturned an estimated 100 death sentences in Arizona and elsewhere today because the inmates were sent to death row by judges instead of juries.

ON a recent Aer Lingus flight from New York to Dublin I was somewhat shocked when it came to serving the so-called ‘meal’ on board.

A THIRD man appeared in court yesterday on a charge relating to the death of 45-year-old Portuguese national Sergio Abreu, whose battered body was found in a field at Whiting Bay near Ardmore, Co Waterford last Saturday.