OWNERS of cash businesses are on heightened alert after a businessman was brutally assaulted in his home in front of his partner and children.

PAY, pensions and protest action will dominate much of the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) in Galway over the next three days.

Homework clubs and counselling schemes for schoolchildren nationwide face being axed over plans to cut back a key service for vulnerable young people, it was warned today.