FIRE officers came to the rescue in more ways than one when they saved a young mother of three from a house fire in Tallaght, Co Dublin, and then arranged for Santa to visit her children in hospital to replace presents destroyed in the Christmas Day blaze.

A bishop has become the highest-ranking US Catholic indicted on a charge of failing to protect children after he and his diocese waited five months to tell police about hundreds of images of child pornography discovered on a priest’s computer.

IRISH cinema-goers have bought approximately 17.6 million cinema tickets this year, an increase of about 200,000 on 2003 figures.