The study, which involved more than 15,000 school children, is supposed to be the most authoritative insight into the health and wellbeing of the country’s children.

Teenagers are now budgeting for cocaine along with a dress or suit for their debs, a leading addiction therapist has claimed.

Last week’s grotesque discoveries, a casual murder at a student party and several crime-related shootings, must finally disabuse Ireland of the of the notion that this is an idyllic backwater immune to drug-related crime or violence.

In this week's podcast we spoke to Michael Guerin, a senior therapist with the Cuan Mhuire treatment group.

Children as young as 13 are getting caught up in the cocaine boom sweeping the country, an addiction counsellor has warned.

According to counsellors at the Cuan Mhuire treatment centre for women, addiction to crack cocaine was unheard of until recent times.

Refurbished B&B sat idle because of funds dispute

A rehab charity has called on Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy to intervene to help open a stepdown facility which has been lying idle for a decade.

A step-down facility for the homeless, which has been unused for more than a decade, could be open within six weeks if State funding is sanctioned.

The tee shots may not have travelled as far as they once did and the swings were not quite as well grooved but the former South of Ireland champions who assembled at Lahinch yesterday demonstrated they could still teach the modern tigers a thing or two when it came to manoeuvring a golf ball around a links in demanding conditions.

The latest phase in the 125th-anniversary celebrations at Lahinch Golf Club gets underway this morning with the first qualifying round in the Pierse Motors South of Ireland Championship and continues until Monday when many past champions will be honoured in a special competition followed by a gala dinner.

A bag of grain — because he always produced “top quality grain” — and a copy of The Farmers Weekly — because no week was complete without it, were placed on the altar for the funeral Mass of Anthony O’Mahony, 74, the farmer who died in an incident involving a teleporter (truck-mounted lift) while on his way to check on his spring wheat at his lands in Rattoo south of the village last Tuesday.

Des O’Sullivan reports on significant collections amassed by two Munster collectors at Mealy’s latest auction.

Shannon Airport’s celebration of 70 years since the first commercial transatlantic flight into an Irish airport has been marked with a photographic exhibition featuring the many famous people who passed through — and the one who didn’t.

Woodwards will offer a large stamp collection on November 30 in Cork city.

Noel Pyne reaches a remarkable milestone when he makes his 50th successive appearance in the South of Ireland Championship at Lahinch next Saturday.

NEWMARKET Drama Group, which has won many acting, production and setting awards on the amateur drama circuit since being revived 12 years ago, has chosen John B Keane’s hilarious comedy Moll as its festival production this year.

MOVES continued behind-the-scenes, yesterday, to resolve another row that has split officers and directors at Killarney Golf and Fishing club.

MALLOW’S Mervyn Owens lived up to his intention to “keep everything simple” as he captured the Shell South of Ireland Championship at Lahinch yesterday.