The David O’Brien-trained Ballinahow Lady (pictured) cropped up at 10-1 in the featured eight- runner Miceal Fitzgibbon Memorial EBF Mares’ Novice Chase at Thurles yesterday.

Two men have died after a light aircraft crash-landed near Birr, Co. Offaly this evening.

The FBI has accused two Irish students of being among the ringleaders in one of the world’s most disruptive internet hacking organisations.

The FBI has accused a county councillor’s son of tapping into a conference call the agency had with the garda fraud squad as it investigated an international hacking ring.

A SENIOR Department of Enterprise official was accused of allowing the head of his department mislead an Oireachtas Committee about concerns over a multi-million euro Fás training scheme.

SCANDAL-HIT agency Fás paid twice as much for a new head office than a property consultant’s value, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) revealed today.

A 44-year-old Dublin man has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for withholding information in relation to a murder in Co. Offaly over six years ago, in the Central Criminal Court today.

THE organic retail sector in Ireland continues to grow despite the difficult economic times, Minister of State Trevor Sargent declared yesterday.

THE survival of the corncrake is one of the main aims of an agreement reached between the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Irish Farmers’ Association for the Shannon Callows Special Protection Area.

The Government’s troubled plan to take thousands of civil servants out of Dublin has suffered a further setback with only 15 out of several hundred workers at Enterprise Ireland willing to move, it was claimed today.

SIPTU representatives and FÁS management have resumed talks at the Labour Relations Commission in an effort to resolve the ongoing dispute about decentralisation at the jobs agency.

Workers at FAS head offices in Dublin are protesting today outside the offices of the minister overseeing the decentralisation scheme.

Workers at FÁS head offices are to hold a further half-day protest against the Government's decentralisation plans today.

FAS workers in Dublin are planning to down tools for a number of hours this morning to protest against the decentralisation of their jobs.

Ambitious plans to relocate 10,000 civil servants out of Dublin are impossible, the Government chief whip admitted tonight.

SIPTU members working for FAS have voted in favour of strike action over the planned decentralisation of their jobs.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday told the Fianna Fáil agriculture and food conference in Birr, Co Offaly, that the party had an ambitious blueprint for the future development of the Irish agricultural sector.

Evelyn Ring

Louis Osbourne, the oldest son of veteran rocker and reality TV star Ozzy Osbourne, today married actress Louise Lennon in Co Offaly.

Tánaiste Mary Harney T.D. has officially opened Birr Technology Centre, a 21,000 sq ft (1,950 sq m) fully-serviced technology building developed on the site of a derelict mill on the banks of the River Camcor, in the heart of Birr, Co Offaly.

THEY are young, free and most definitely single and for your convenience ladies, they have been compiled in neat calendar format for you to peruse at your leisure.

A man who was charged with illegally importing sheep during the foot-and-mouth crisis in Ireland has been given a 12 months suspended sentence and fined €10,000 for making incorrect tax returns.