Talks between the Government and trade unions on cutting public sector spending by €1.3bn have collapsed and the Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said that they will have to plough on with cuts in next week's Budget.

Anti-Lisbon website Voteno.ie launched their 'No to Lisbon' referendum campaign today, claiming that many people intend to use their vote to protest against the Government.

TRADE union leaders opposed to the Lisbon treaty have called for the group tasked with providing objective information on both sides of the Lisbon debate to step down amid claims of pro-treaty bias.

Supporters of the Lisbon Treaty have welcomed the legal guarantees agreed by EU leaders this morning in an effort to get Irish people to vote 'yes' to the document later this year.

WHEN capitalism founders, the left flourishes.

Kieran Allen, from VoteNo.ie has claimed today that the surge in support for the No side shows that the strategy of the Yes campaign has backfired.

The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) has today urged its membership of more than 45,000 workers to vote against the Lisbon Treaty.

A letter instructing EU staff to postpone "politically sensitive discussion" on the Lisbon Treaty until after the Irish referendum has been leaked to No campaigners, according to the editors of VoteNo.ie.

Key figures of the "vote-no-to-Lisbon campaign" today accused the "yes" camp of evading discussion on the details of the Treaty and of trying to "frighten and bore" people into voting yes.

A group of disaffected trade unionists has launched a campaign to oppose the new social partnership deal.

THE controversy concerning the Centre for Public Inquiry is cast as a tussle about the respective bona fides of Frank Connolly and Michael McDowell.

SIPTU leaders at the union’s biennial conference in Cork last night cancelled a crucial vote on whether to enter negotiations on a new social partnership deal, and are now set to make participation in talks conditional on Government guarantees on job displacement and employment rights.

The Socialist Workers Party are to launch its campaign for a ‘No’ vote in the citizenship referendum today.

Peace activists are to hang a "No To War" banner from the N11 overpass in south Dublin later today in an effort to generate support for this Saturday's anti-war march.

There is an internal rift in trade union SIPTU over the Nice Treaty.

A civil liberties lobby have today launched a campaign expressing concern about a general clampdown on civil liberties. The group says the clampdown has begun here following September 11 events.