THE widow of one of Bertie Ahern’s dig-out friends expressed relief when a personal cheque she was expecting from the Taoiseach dropped through her letterbox last year, the Mahon Tribunal heard yesterday.

FORMER plasterer Paddy Reilly warned the Mahon Tribunal legal team yesterday not to accuse him of lying over a £16,500 cash “dig-out” he and other friends gave Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in September 1994.

The Mahon Tribunal has been told that Bertie Ahern at first refused to accept so-called "dig-out" money from friends to help pay his marriage separation legal costs.

EIGHT days after last year’s story hit the headlines that close friends had given him a financial “dig-out” in 1993, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern repaid a total of €90,867, the Mahon Tribunal heard yesterday.

POLITICAL and business leaders joined members of Charles Haughey’s family yesterday in a requiem Mass for the former Taoiseach at Our Lady of Consolation Church in Donnycarney.

MUNSTER might be top of the rugby world but Leinster can lay claim to one important title as a Wexford woman was yesterday named as Mum of the Year 2006.

PAULINE O’REILLY’S seven adopted children have never heard their mother curse or shout or say anything bad about anyone.

IRELAND'S top party person of 2002 last night admitted to feeling slightly confused and undeserving of the accolade which acknowledges her as the country’s most die-hard night owl.