A contingency fund should be set up to ensure sub-contractors are paid what they are owed after massive delays and liquidations of two main firms involved in a school building public-private partnership (PPP), some TDs and senators believe.

A DISCARDED cigarette may have started the house fire which claimed the life of a father-of-five in Cork yesterday.

A teenager who several times threatened to kill a young woman while subjecting her to an orgy of sexual abuse has been sent to Trinity House for three-and-a-half years.