Work on removing potentially lethal asbestos on the Naval Service ship LÉ Orla has been completed, although it will be a few weeks before she becomes fully operational again.

The Naval Service is preparing to use drones as part of a plan to improve its surveillance operations while policing the county’s 1 million square kilometres of territorial waters.

The Naval Service will this year make history when it tests new kite sails which will have the combined effect of providing enhanced surveillance and saving fuel.

Time and tide wait for no man, as Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney should well know.

The Naval Service will hold a special decommissioning service on the LÉ Emer next Friday and the vessel is to be sold off through public auction on Oct 23.

Engineers from the Naval Service are assessing damage caused to the LÉ Aoife after the 65-metre-long patrol vessel crashed into a pontoon at the deep water quay in Cobh, Co Cork.

A manuscript of Samuel Beckett’s novel Murphy has sold at auction for just under €1.2m.

A new generation of ships being built for the naval service will carry unmanned planes along with deep sea search and rescue robot submarines.

A "RUTHLESS sexual predator" was last night beginning seven life sentences for terrorising England's Home Counties in a year-long "sustained and vicious campaign of rape" against women and girls as young as 10.

A 49-YEAR-OLD man accused of carrying out a series of rapes in south-east England asked a 10-year-old girl to “pretend they were lovers” during a five-hour ordeal in his car, a court heard yesterday.

A “DANGEROUS sexual predator” who raped eight women and girls “prowled” areas around the M25 in Britain in a bid to find victims in quiet open spaces, a court heard yesterday.

A former railway worker raped eight women and girls in the space of a year, using motorways to find secluded open spaces where he could “prowl” for his victims, a court heard today.

A 48-YEAR-OLD rail worker was last night charged in connection with the “trophy rapist” sex attacks on young girls and women across the south east of England.

A 48-YEAR-OLD man was last night being questioned by police hunting a serial rapist who has been terrorising the south east of England.