A group representing some of the biggest credit unions in the country said they plan to make a splash into the mortgage market, with €400m in new lending.

More than €1m worth of cars and parts have been seized from a yard in West Cork. The discovery was made as part of the investigation into the theft of high-end vehicles across a number of counties and in the North.

Gardaí and Revenue Custom Services have seized a large amount of stolen car parts in a number of containers at a storage yard in City West, in Dublin.

NAMA is expected to pick up the pace of Irish hotel sales in the coming 18 months — so far, it has sold just 19 of the 136 in its control, and so has 117 left to sell, a conference organised by the Irish Hotel Federation heard this week.

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith, the Irish Examiner, in City West

Newstalk presenter Chris Donoghue battled cancer at 23, and the death of his mother when he was just 14, he tells Jonathan deBurca Butler

MICKY WARD, the former world champion whose life was portrayed in the Oscar winning movie “The Fighter” has been brought in by Corkman Gary Hyde to train his light welterweight sensation, Levan “The Wolf” Ghvamichava.

NEW heavyweight sensation Tyson Furey stopped Nicolai Firtha in the fifth round of their scheduled 12 rounder at the King’s Hall, Belfast on Saturday when Willie ‘Big Bang’ Casey shared the limelight with an eighth round stoppage against Daniel Kodjo Sassou to re-launch his career.

WILLIE ‘BIG BANG’ CASEY’S return to competitive boxing has been put on hold after a problem with the venue emerged yesterday.

ANTHONY FITZGERALD was handed the opportunity of a lifetime with a shot at the EBA European middleweight title as chief support bout to the Guillermo Rigondeaux-Willie Casey WBA title fight at City West on March 19 but he was also handed a difficult opponent in Affif Belghecham.

WILLIE “Big Bang” Casey and Guillermo Rigondeaux came face to face at the Montenotte Hotel in Cork for the first time on Saturday ahead of their world title fight in March.

DOWN’S All-Ireland final banquet in the City West Hotel had the potential to be the toughest gig of Paddy Kielty’s lucrative career.

REGIONAL airports, including Kerry, Galway, Donegal and Knock, face closure under Government plans to stop funding them in its capital spending programme for the next five years.

LOVE or loathe them, one has to admit that it has been a great year for the GPA.

Portuguese teenager Pedro Figueiredo cruised to an impressive seven-shot victory in the AIB Irish Amateur Open at Royal Dublin today.

Five Irish internationals have made an early exit from the West of Ireland championship at Rosses Point.

England’s Jonathan Hurst has set his sights on the West of Ireland Amateur Open title after a level-par 71 gave him the first round lead at wind-blown Rosses Point today.

A Garda is seriously injured and two men have been killed in a head-on collision on the Naas road this morning.

Two people have been killed in a road crash in Dublin this morning.

TWO teenagers who drowned in Dublin’s Grand Canal during a night out with friends were intoxicated with ecstasy and cocaine and had gone swimming to cool down, an inquest heard yesterday.

The majority of the Government’s projects under Transport 21 will miss their completion deadlines.

There are two top class clashes tonight in the Skybet World Darts Grand Prix at City West in Dublin.

FINE Gael has categorically ruled out getting involved in a bidding war on tax cuts and spending promises during the party’s ard fheis in Dublin this weekend.

THE main opposition parties were yesterday accused by Fianna Fáil of ramping up “reckless” spending promises in the run-up to the General Election.

The Irish anti-war movement is to hold a major protest outside the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in City West in Dublin on March 24 next.

FOR 18 months, when a series of opinion polls showed the Government parties doing badly, the reaction from Fianna Fáil ministers was predictable.

PRIVATELY contracted driving testers began work yesterday hoping to knock more than 3,200 drivers off the test backlog over the next month.

Growth predicted for the rental sector in the first quarter of the year has failed to materialise, according to a new report from property site Daft.ie.

TERENURE PRINTERS of Dublin is to close with the loss of more than 160 jobs.

A new exhibition promoting social awareness among teenagers is set to become almost double the size of the established Young Scientist Exhibition, it was claimed today.

PÁDRAIG Harrington must be wishing that the golf season isn’t coming to an end after the outstanding form he has been showing over the past month.

AT the start of George Orwell’s magnificent novel 1984, its anti-hero Winston Smith hears the loudspeakers drone that Oceania is at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia.

IT was doubles up for Brian Kerley at City West yesterday as he topped the leader board after the PGA Trainees’ pro-am tournament on the Lakes Course and also led in the winning Paddy Power team.

Political Editor Harry McGee believes the results of the Irish Examiner/Prime Time poll are beginning to suggest everything is not as it appears in East constituency.

The Fine Gael Árd Fheis continues today at City West in Dublin.

CHRISTMAS or not, Eddie O’Sullivan showed no mercy yesterday when he omitted Anthony Horgan and Malcolm O’Kelly from the Irish squad for a pre-Six Nations training session at City West on December 29 and 30.

IT’S a good indication of how many international matches Ireland play these days that left wing Denis Hickie will be winning his 38th cap against England on Sunday.

The line-up for the PDC Paddy Power World Grand Prix 2002 is now complete following the All Ireland Paddy Power Play-offs at the City West Hotel.