“We are particularly conscious that in many parts of Ireland - and in rural Ireland especially - that the numbers of children cycling to school have fallen off a cliff.”

A senior garda told a court yesterday that a number of residents “were in fear of their lives” over the staging of an unofficial boy-racer rally in Clare last year.

An undercover garda who posed as a boy-racer at a late night car rally said that if one of the cars performing ‘doughnuts’ had spun out of control, "it would have resulted in carnage".

The Examiner’s football correspondent Liam Mackey likes a good argument when he hears it, and he’s got strong views of his own. Today, and every Tuesday, he will be acting as referee on your opinions on the Premiership. Let him know what you think and he’ll argue the toss with you. We’ll be offering a free sports prize to the star contribution each week.