What the banking inquiry really exposed was that there was no ‘gotcha’ moment, just a long period of bad politics, negligible regulation, and reckless trading, writes Michael Clifford

I used to work in a bunker. At least, that’s how it felt.

The Imma affair has thrown into sharp relief the glorious aspirations for government reform and transparency trumpeted by Fine Gael in its New Politics document, writes Michael Clifford.

A couple from Co Westmeath have collected their cheque for €500,000 at the National Lottery offices.

A senior Siptu official told a hearing "the Abbeylara scenario was on everyone’s minds" when trying to defuse a five hour stand-off between the Garda Emergency Response Unit and a council worker four years ago.

In the last 30 years we’ve had a plethora of tribunals, commissions, investigations and reports, so many in fact it is hard to understand why we do not live in a perfect society.

The Thing About December

The man suspected of murdering mother Patricia Kierans shot her shortly after she arrived home, before going on a drinking binge leading to an eight-hour siege in Bailieborough, Co Cavan.

Westmeath’s defending champion, Robbie McCarthy, has retained his All-Ireland Softball (60x30) Men’s Open Senior Singles title, defeating second-ranked Eoin Kennedy (St. Brigid’s, Blanchardstown), in two games at Abbeylara in Co. Longford.

It looks increasingly unlikely that the Government will make a decision on which Oireachtas sub-committee will carry out the bank inquiry before the Dáil rises for summer recess on July 19.

Yesterday, on a residential road in Mitchelstown, I passed a man and a woman with a Rottweiler.

THE sister of John Carthy, who was shot dead by gardaí at Abbeylara more than a decade ago, has said an Oireachtas inquiry would never have been sufficient to investigate the killing.

There are pros and cons to granting full investigative powers to Oireachtas committees, writes Regina Hennelly

CIVIL servants will finally be allowed to lift the lid on controversial government policies under rules that will come into effect if the referendum on Oireachtas inquiries is passed.

ROBBIE McCARTHY created another piece of history on Saturday evening in Mullingar when he became the first Westmeath handballer to secure the All-Ireland senior softball championship crown.

Eoin Kennedy's bid for an eighth successive M Donnelly All-Ireland Senior Singles Handball title was derailed by Westmeath's Robbie McCarthy yesterday.

MOVES to give legal protections to whistleblowers have been thrown into doubt after plans for an autumn referendum on the issue were abandoned.

JUDGES will be hit with pay cuts if the public agrees to it in a super-referendum to be held on the same day as the presidential election later this year.

THE country will go to the polls later this year in a referendum to give the Oireachtas powers to bring key players in the banking crisis before a committee of investigation.

A CROSS-PARTY committee is to examine whether the Constitution should be changed to give TDs and senators greater powers of investigation.

IVOR CALLELY has gone to the High Court to challenge his suspension from the Seanad and sue his fellow senators who recommended the sanction.

RESIDENTS in the Croke Park area are contemplating the possibility of taking a class action against the GAA as a result of the ongoing dispute over the handball and community centre beside the Dublin stadium.

There was no psychiatric expert available to the gardaí to advise on the best way to deal with a psychiatrically ill man when they were confronted by John Carthy, an armed manic-depressive, at Abbeylara in April 2000. They ended up shooting him dead.

THE Garda Síochána is leaving itself “open to repeating” the Abbeylara tragedy by not having formal mental health expertise available to it to deal with barricade incidents.

VICTIMS of the November floods have described a cross-party investigation’s inability to come to any firm conclusions on what caused the crisis as “a typical political response” to the major problem.

GARDAÍ across the country want armed officers on the street on a permanent basis to combat an “increase in armed violence”.

“ROSES there for the blessing of the relics. Anyone for the roses?”

A man has died in a crash in Co Longford.

AN ELITE unit of heavily armed gardaí will begin patrolling the streets of Cork from this morning.

A HEAVILY armed and highly trained Garda unit is to hit the streets of Cork from Monday week.

The weekend’s handball action went according to the script, as all the top seeds survived their respective DALKIA Senior Singles Championship clashes to confirm quarter-final spots.

The N55 is completely blocked at Granard in Co Longford this afternoon following an accident involving a truck.

THE armed response units are being set up in the wake of barricade incidents, such as Abbeylara, and a rise in the availability of guns across the country.

LEGAL gun owners are not to blame for tragedies such as the shooting rampage in Virginia, Irish firearms representatives said yesterday.

THE Government yesterday authorised the use of non-lethal energy devices to the Garda’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU).

Elite armed gardaí are to be supplied with more non-lethal weapons like stun guns, the Government decided today.

THE editor of the Sunday Independent, Aengus Fanning, has apologised for any offence caused by his newspaper’s coverage of the death of a garda who died while giving birth to twins but defended the story as being of “interest to the public”.

THERE was widespread condemnation yesterday of newspaper reporting linking the death of a female garda during childbirth to the part her husband played in the shooting of John Carthy in the Abbeylara siege.

JOHN CARTHY’S family said last night the breadth of recommendations in the Garda Inspectorate’s report showed that the force still had a long way to go to avoid a repeat of Abbeylara.

The Garda authorities have agreed to implement a new set of procedures on how they handle sieges.

A new report is expected to recommend the introduction of new measures to improve the safety of gardaí in siege situations.

ABBEYLARA siege victim John Carthy may have left his house to look for cigarettes when he was shot four times by armed garda officers, his sister says in a new book published yesterday.

WITH aggravated burglary on the rise in Ireland, the vexed question perplexing home-owners up and down the country is whether force can be used in self-defence against intruders — and what constitutes “reasonable” force.

THE Garda Ombudsman yesterday confirmed it could review the internal garda investigation into the shooting of an armed man by officers in Gort, Co Galway.