22 Dublin staff to lose jobs as Irish edition also axed

THE Irish edition of the News of the World will cease to exist along with its parent operation following its last run off the presses this Sunday.

The newspaper, which employed 22 full-time and staff in its Dublin office, had already been implicated in the hacking scandal after allegations the e-mail account of an ex-British secret service officer was hacked.

In March, the BBC Panorama programme alleged that in 2006, News of the World’s then editor in Ireland, Alex Marunchak, hired private detectives to break into the email account of army intelligence office Ian Hurst. This was in an attempt to find out information on Freddie Scappaticci, who was a senior figure in the IRA until he was outed as a British spy.