A heroin addict was found lying across a pew in a Cork church last Christmas Eve with the paraphernalia of drug use scattered around him and yesterday the 28-year-old was jailed for eight months for that and a series of shoplifting offences.

A case where a man armed himself with screwdrivers and a knife to intimidate two others who had threatened him to leave his home within 24 hours for singing, ended with a one-year jail sentence yesterday.

Estimates of a bumper year of Irish hotel purchases look set to be met, with figures showing nearly €650m having been spent on such transactions in the first nine months of the year.

A Dublin man has been jailed for 10 years for the manslaughter of 19 year-old Brian Mulvaney, who was beaten to death in a south Dublin suburb in March 2000.

An 18 year-old man who was convicted in April of the manslaughter of Brian Mulvaney today pleaded guilty to charges arising from two other assaults he carried out on the same night.