The CEO of the country’s largest community education organisation, which Minister for Children Katherine Zappone helped found, has warned the crisis at creches in disadvantaged areas is not confined to Cork.

A teenager found guilty of the false imprisonment of Joan Burton during the Jobstown protest has commenced proceedings to have his conviction overturned.

Throughout the hearing yesterday the boy — who cannot be named as he is underage — quietly took his own notes of the proceedings while his mother sat beside him.

Former tánaiste Joan Burton has told a court she was frightened and did not think she had the alternative of being able to get out of a garda car surrounded by people shouting abuse during the Jobstown water protest.

A REPUBLIC is no longer a republic if democracy does not matter. Democracy stops mattering if the right to dissent, and to protest, is not protected, if the rights of minorities are ignored, if government does not listen to the people. A republic stops being a republic the day fear is used to manipulate public discourse.

Tánaiste Joan Burton's car has been blocked by protesters in south west Dublin this afternoon.