Gardaí suspect that high-strength ecstasy pills — rather than contaminated ones —played a role in the death of an 18-year-old in Dublin at the weekend.

Two seven-year-old girls have handed ministers a petition signed by 30,000 people demanding a judge lead the inquiry into church-run, state-sanctioned institutions for single mothers.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has led tributes to popular novelist Maeve Binchy, who has died at the age of 72.

FILM director Jim Sheridan and his wife, Fran, have been allowed by the High Court to specifically itemise alleged defects in the construction of their luxury seafront home at Dalkey, Co Dublin.

DAVID KELLY and his young family say they have noticed a marked difference in the “comfort” of their 1960s bungalow since they got its exterior insulated – using the state grants available to householders.

The detail of a €4m claim by film director Jim Sheridan and his wife, Fran, over alleged defective works on their luxury seafront home in Dalkey, Co Dublin, has been challenged in the High Court.

BROADCASTER Vincent Browne has put his home in Dalkey, Co Dublin, up for sale to pay off debts he incurred from weekly news magazine Village.

A JUDGE said it might be a case of not being able to see the woods for the trees when lawyers for Michelle Rocca and her neighbours squabbled over the legal definition of what was a shrub or a tree.

COULD someone please explain to me why the closest living relatives of Daniel O’Connell were not invited to the opening of his refurbished crypt at Glasnevin on October 21.

DARRAGH CROWLEY believes the Health Service Executive’s broken promise on having a new cystic fibrosis patients’ facility at St Vincent’s Hospital by 2010 will cost lives.

The extinction of playwright and columnist Hugh Leonard’s dazzling energy has left Ireland a poorer place, his funeral heard today.

President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Brian Cowen have paid tribute to playwright and self-styled curmudgeon Hugh Leonard.

A man has been arrested today in connection with a fatal knife attack in south Dublin.

Attempts to extradite an American right-to-die activist over the alleged assisted suicide of a woman in Dublin over five years ago has hit a legal quagmire, an inquest heard today.

ONE of the heirs to the Smurfit fortune has died after being found on fire in a London churchyard

THE FAMILY of murder victim Siobhan Kearney made an impassioned plea yesterday for her killer to be caught.

FOUR more people died on Irish roads this weekend, bringing to 70 the number of Irish people killed on the roads so far this year.

TWO Irish rowers who nearly died when their boat capsized in a transatlantic race have not ruled out another attempt at the challenge.

THE failure of gardaí to act for 10 years on information regarding the possible location of a dead baby was yesterday described as “incomprehensible”.

One of three men convicted in connection with the death of student Brian Murphy was today granted bail pending the outcome of his appeal.

Three former pupils of one of Ireland’s most prestigious schools were jailed today after a teenager was beaten to death in a drunken brawl.

The parents of a teenager killed in a drunken brawl outside a nightclub spoke today of the devastating impact his death has had on their lives.

One of four former public schoolboys tried in connection the death of an 18-year-old student was cleared today of manslaughter.

THE transfer of one of the State’s longest-serving prisoners to an open jail has been welcomed by human rights campaigners.

FOR author Sarah Webb, life is sweet and fulfilling. She has signed a two-book deal worth “a generous six-figure sum” with British publisher Macmillan and is expecting her second child in February. Fruitful times.

A man jailed for abducting an American woman he met in a Dublin pub was freed on bail by the Irish Court of Criminal Appeal today after the presentation of new evidence relating to the victim of the incident.