The fiasco involving letters that the Taoiseach sent to his justice minister is a sad and sorry indictment of Irish politics at the highest level, writes Michael Clifford

The State “kowtowed” to churches for decades when it came to the care of children and the Government’s proposed constitutional amendment is needed to put things right, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said.

Water charges will be more vehemently opposed than the household tax and a mass grassroots campaign will be launched on every estate, town and village in the country.

Backlash over planned water charges has deepened after campaigners warned of a one million strong household boycott.

DUBLIN CENTRAL - FIRST COUNT

A SERIES of protests against the budget began yesterday with the People’s Movement delivering a briefcase to the Dáil containing suggestions for a more equitable approach to the economic crisis.

THE organisers of the Claiming Our Future citizens forum are planing events across the country in what they claim is an attempt to give voice to the ground swell of support for progressive social and economic policies.

RELATIVES of people who died in the Stardust inferno have stalled an attempt to open a pub on the site of the doomed nightclub.

A petition objecting to the reopening of a pub on the site were 48 young died in a fire was today handed to Dublin District Court.