A live rodent in an open wall cavity, rodent droppings under a pizza oven, and human excrement overflowing from a workers’ toilet were just some of the reasons that health inspectors closed a number of food businesses in January.

An Environmental Protection Agency investigation into “appalling and overpowering” odours in a Co Clare town has uncovered one source of the smells.

Shannon Development reported a net loss of 174 jobs in the Shannon Free Zone last year.

THE proposal by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to donate valuable state land in return for putative low-cost housing somewhere else is a betrayal of the citizens of the state and especially of those in need of housing — a fraud of vast proportions and, in its structure, a highly dangerous precedent.

Three men were charged with ammunition and explosives offences at a special sitting of the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today, following a Garda Special Branch investigation into the activities of dissident republicans.