Pre-tax profits at the consultancy firm that carried out a report into the pay at Irish banks last year increased by 54% to €9.57m.

New York came to sunny West Cork as Clonakilty got its bite of the Big Apple’s Hurricane Sandy mop-up and 2,500 athletes worked up a pre-Christmas appetite at the town’s third Waterfront Marathon series of races.

A bank official who confessed to gardai that she had handled a large amount of cocaine that belonged to her boyfriend has been sentenced to four years in prison by Judge Katherine Delahunt.