Ballinlough Festival Committee was pulling down the shutters on a highly successful end-of-summer event in the community park when some of the children who had been in attendance came racing through a nearby housing estate shouting “Douglas is on fire, Douglas is on fire”.

Shoppers have described the scene of the fire which caused extensive damage to Douglas Village Shopping Centre car park this evening.

A jury has heard that a set of keys confiscated at the scene of an attempted theft from a cash-in-transit van later opened four similar vehicles at the company’s depot.

A jury has been told that a man accused of attempting to steal €1m from a cash-in-transit van over four years ago was acting under duress from gangland figure Eamonn Dunne.

FINE GAEL and Labour moved closer to an eventual general election pact yesterday when the two parties decided to canvass together in Kildare.