RUGBY star Paul O’Connell is a safe pair of hands on land or sea and yesterday the Munster and Ireland kingpin was presented with an Irish Water Safety award for his brave rescue of a stricken surfer.

THE outcome of a High Court challenge to the constitutionality of laws under which a statutory minimum wage and working conditions were fixed for 25,000 hotel workers outside Dublin and Cork will have significant implications for 250,000 workers whose wages and conditions are fixed under the same laws.

SOME 15 businesses have been closed down so far this year over fears of grave risks to public health, it emerged yesterday.