OUTREACH AWARD

EVASIVE Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has said he is too busy to accept TV3’s compromise for tomorrow night’s televised debate.

The new Fianna Fáil frontbench

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is on the cusp of defeating the Fianna Fáil rebellion after backbenchers lined up to show loyalty to their leader.

THE last vestige of credibility evaporated from the Progressive Democrats from the moment Michael McDowell hoist the petard that the PDs were exiting government — only to subsequently change their minds.

FORMER defence minister Willie O’Dea, who slandered a local election candidate and then swore in an affidavit that he hadn’t, said last night that he intends to contest the next General Election.

THE Clare publican who was abducted by an armed gang in Sierra Leone returned to Parteen yesterday after his terrifying ordeal.

WILLIE O’DEA, recognised as one of the biggest Fianna Fáil vote catchers in his bailiwick, was born in Limerick in 1952.

SOME months ago members of the Scottish parliament visited Limerick to have a look at the huge regeneration plan for four of the city’s rundown estates.

FORMER Cork TD Barry Cogan has said the downturn in the economy scuppered any chance five retired politicians had of qualifying for its lucrative pension scheme.

The Defence Minister has said it is not up to ministers to remove bishops from their post

BY exploiting economic fears, the Yes side changed tack emphatically in 16 months.

A FIANNA Fáil county councillor yesterday called on Taoiseach Brian Cowen to sack Defence Minister Willie O’Dea for making representations on behalf of prisoners who included a rapist and a man jailed for attempted murder.

PROGRESSIVE Democrat members will be told to bow out with dignity or face ridicule when they are addressed by former leader Mary Harney at today’s crunch meeting on the party’s future.

PAYMENTS by cheque of EU-funded or co-funded schemes will no longer be permitted from October 16 next.

LIMERICK’S three electoral constituencies have been radically revised with 13,146 voters being transferred to the constituency of Kerry North under controversial recommendations made to the Government yesterday.

The number of Dáil TDs should remain at 166 but changes must be made to several constituencies, a state body said today.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey faced calls for his resignation tonight over the scrapping of the Shannon-Heathrow link.

ACTING PD leader Mary Harney is pressing Senator Fiona O’Malley to contest the next general election in her native Limerick.

Joan Burton has been elected the new Deputy Leader of the Labour party.

SHANNON Airport employees angry at Aer Lingus’s decision to end its Shannon-Heathrow flights have sent an estimated 2,500 protest letters to the six Fianna Fáil TDs in the region.

FIANNA FÁIL’s mid-west TDs could be left red-faced over the Shannon issue when the Dáil resumes later this month.

AER LINGUS’s decision to remove its Heathrow slots from Shannon Airport will dominate the first Cabinet meeting of the new political term today.

FIANNA FÁIL has called for Kerry constituencies to be redrawn as a single five-seater in the next general election — resulting in the loss of one of the county’s six TDs.

THE mayor of Limerick Cllr Ger Fahy yesterday called on the Government to support the Ryanair EGM resolution to reverse the transfer of the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow routes to Belfast.

THE mayor of Limerick Cllr Ger Fahy yesterday called on the Government to support the Ryanair EGM resolution to reverse the transfer of the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow routes to Belfast.

LABOUR has tabled a Dáil motion criticising the Aer Lingus decision to scrap its Shannon-Heathrow air services and calling on the Government to take all appropriate steps to ensure the service is maintained.

IT IS hard to imagine a more resounding expression of disappointment with the Government and with Aer Lingus than that revealed by today’s poll.

WORKERS reacted angrily last night to news that 44 jobs were to be axed at Shannon after its lucrative Heathrow route was scrapped.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern’s decision to increase the number of junior ministers was again criticised by the opposition yesterday.

HAVING just won Dáil seats, two successful candidates yesterday went along to the monthly meeting of Limerick County Council only to learn they were no longer members.

The formation of the next Government will become clearer today as the final votes are counted in an extraordinary General Election.

The election’s top vote-getter (so far) Willie O’Dea had an army of 700 canvassers knocking on doors, it emerged tonight.

Fianna Fáil's Peter Power and Michael Noonan have been elected on the second count in Limerick East.

It could be the first time in almost half a century that a TD from the O’Malley dynasty will not be in the Dáil, while other political families prospered in the General Election.

Bertie Ahern appeared to be on course for a third term as Taoiseach this afternoon.

Ministers Willie O'Dea and Mary Hanafin became the latest high-profile Fianna Fáil candidates to be re-elected to the Dáil this afternoon as they were returned in Limerick East and Meath West respectively.

Out-going Minister of Defence Willie O'Dea has polled more than double the number of votes he needed to be elected on the first count in Limerick East.

As counting continued around the country this afternoon, signs emerged that a number of high-profile candidates appear unlikely to make it to the 30th Dáil.

THE strained relations between Fianna Fáil (FF) and the Progressive Demo-crats (PDs) took another turn for the worse yesterday, when the FF director of elections in Limerick East put out a newspaper advertisement dismissing the role of the junior government partner.

A CONTROVERSIAL solicitor yesterday sparked a security alert when he tried to brandish a plastic toy sword at the Taoiseach.

THE campaign of outgoing Limerick West Fianna Fáil TD John Cregan was left with ministerial egg on its face yesterday.

GOODWILL to all men — even those of a Fine Gael or Labour persuasion — has broken out in the office of a leading FF strategist in Limerick.

DEFENCE Minister Willie O’Dea was last night at the centre of a bitter row between two Fianna Fáil candidates.