The head of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has survived a motion of no confidence as members of the force consider a Labour Court pay deal.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone has been forced to deny any row with Fine Gael over the Government’s childcare plan.

Fianna Fáil has more power now than it if it had entered a minority administration, the Government chief whip has suggested.

The Government will not base the upcoming budget on claims Ireland’s economy surged by 26.3% last year, despite insisting that the eye-catching rate is “not wrong”.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan and his department have said the Brexit impact has been within anticipated limits.

Fine Gael has been forced into a U-turn on suggestions it is willing to talk about water charges after Irish Water said that axing the bills will threaten its entire existence.

Tánaiste Joan Burton has staked her party’s place in Government on winning over struggling working families, after revealing that Labour will give first-time buyers €6,000 to buy their first homes as part of a €180m “save to buy” scheme — if re-elected to power.

The HSE’s delayed 2016 budget plan is at least €150m short of what is needed to meet hospital, staff pay and service demands, forcing Government into a political crisis weeks out from the general election.

Environment Minister Alan Kelly is looking increasingly isolated over his plan for rent certainty, after a senior official in his own party declined to say the issue remains a “red line” matter.

The Coalition ‘rent certainty’ row shows no signs of calming after Fine Gael figures said Taoiseach Enda Kenny is not planning a meeting with Environment Minister Alan Kelly to negotiate a truce and dismissed any cap on prices out of hand.

Mooted Government plans for a national audit of all buildings and apartments constructed during the boom are likely to be rejected over concerns it will be too expensive and cause too much disruption for people living in or using the sites.

The Government is set to benefit from an unexpected €100m income boost this year due to a tax most people do not even know they are paying.

Just weeks before the budget, business group Ibec yesterday stepped up its campaign to persuade the Government that spending big on infrastructure will help rebalance the skewed over-development of Dublin that it says is disadvantaging other regions.

Irish Water needs to be abolished and have its responsibilities given back to local councils in order to save the taxpayer money, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has insisted.

Government ministers have closed ranks to defend Taoiseach Enda Kenny from growing opposition calls for his resignation, backing the Fine Gael leader’s claim the Fennelly report has cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Nurses may take industrial action later this month to highlight continuing overcrowding in emergency departments.

Senior figures at two third-level colleges in the southeast have given positive soundings about the prospect of restarting talks on a university for the region, despite serious problems highlighted in a plan.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has claimed the Greek coalition government party Syriza made a “disastrous political decision” when it asked the public to give its view of the EU debt deal.

Long-serving current and former civil servants who have entered civil partnerships or who plan to get married to their same-sex partner have been refused the right to upgrade their single person’s pension to a spouse and children pension.

Low-paid public servants could be as much as €2,000 better off by the end of 2017 under a public service deal which was still being negotiated between the Government and trade unions late last night.

Even the National Association of Anticlimaxes would have refused the spring statement entry to its ranks for fear of reducing its already disappointing reputation to an all-time low in the minds of right thinking people.

The scope for reversing cuts to public sector pay and pensions is set to be outlined in the looming spring budget statement.

IT seems that the Government has finally accepted that if the water charge regime is to succeed and sustain its legitimacy, then they must establish a mechanism to collect the charge from those who can pay but refuse to.

And they are off!

Government officials will sit down with union leaders this summer to negotiate the first pay rises for public servants since the dying days of the Celtic Tiger.

The Government has just published a three-year plan to overhaul the civil service which it says aims to provide a 'world-class' service.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has denied the budget amounts to a string of pre-election "smart-alecky tricks".

Officials behind health service budget cuts are "not facing up to the preventable funerals" their painful slashing of supports is causing.

Budget expectations

The question on everybody’s lips in the education sphere will be whether Jan O’Sullivan can maintain the same kind of favourable treatment for her department’s budget as Ruairi Quinn before her, writes Education Correspondent Niall Murray

Workers are being warned to talk to their union or representative body before making a disclosure under the new whistleblower legislation to ensure they are fully protected under the laws.

New Health Minister Leo Varadkar must ensure hospitals are given "realistic and truthful" budgets based on genuine service needs instead of wider Government requirements if he wants to solve the overruns crisis.

The biggest political topic of this week is inevitably going to be the Cabinet reshuffle.

Long-awaited measures to regulate the lobbying of government and senior civil servants has been met with a mixed reaction.

HSE plans to save money by filling key hospital roles with interns and graduate nurses is putting budgets before patients’ lives.