Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is open to holding a public inquiry into claims that repeated Garda failures to arrest a Lithuanian man who later killed an Irish man in a hit-and-run have been covered up.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said childminders who work in the home but who are registered with the State's child agency, will be eligible for the new childcare package announced in the Budget yesterday, writes Daniel McConnell of the Irish Examiner.

There was an echo of Ballyporeen when the former first lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, was laid to rest beside her husband Ronald in the grounds of his presidential library in California over the weekend.