More news in brief
The High Court has granted an injunction which will permit the country's only stag hunting club to resume hunting for the remaining six weeks of the hunting season.
The Ward Union Hunt yesterday secured the order pending the outcome of its legal challenge to conditions imposed on its licence by Minister for the Environment John Gormley which amount, it claims, to an effective hunting ban.
British embassy strike deferred
A one-day strike which was due to take place at the British embassy in Dublin today has been deferred for 24 hours to allow for talks.
The row centres on moves by the embassy to let go three senior staff in its trade and investment section.
The union Unite, which represents the staff, said informal contact was initiated over the weekend between its representatives, embassy officials and the former chairman of the Labour Court Finbarr Flood.
The embassy had earlier declined to attend a hearing at the Labour Relations Commission. The union said it would take part in facilitated mediation with an agreed third party.
14-year term for drug-trafficking
A man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, with four suspended, at Naas Circuit Criminal Court for his involvement in the trafficking of more than €5 million worth of cannabis.
Philip Breen (32) Sheepmoor Avenue, Blanchardstown, Dublin, is one of three men who were convicted at Naas Circuit Criminal Court in connection with the haul.
He was arrested while he was loading cannabis into a Ford Transit van in the yard of a house in Carbery, Co Kildare, in August 2005.
Three Irishmen and a Spaniard were charged with the drug offences after a joint operation between the Garda National Drugs Unit and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation recovered cannabis with an estimated value of up to €5,040,000. The Spanish driver was acquitted.
Judge Michael White heard yesterday that when he was arrested, Breen admitted he was about to deliver some of the drugs to Dublin.
Det Garda Jim McGovern told the court that Breen was co-operative and said he was to get €1,500 for driving the van. He accepted that he was acting as a courier to move the cannabis.
John Elmer, defending, said his client was living in fear after the arrest. The court was told he had been shot up to six times in the chest while in his bed last August and was lucky to be alive.
Judge White said the aggravating factor in this case was the size of the drugs shipment and its value. He sent Breen to jail for 10 years, suspending the final four years.
€600,000 for fall while pregnant
A woman who was six months pregnant when she fell at Dublin airport and whose child died just after his second birthday has secured €600,000 in settlement of her High Court action.
Nora O'Reilly (43) claimed that she suffered "horrendous injuries" as a result of tripping on a mat at the airport.
The injuries were attributed by medical experts as being the cause of her newborn child's severe health problems.
Her son Liam was born three months after the incident, was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy and died shortly after his second birthday.
Ms O'Reilly, Shanowen Park, Santry, Dublin, had sued Aer Rianta (now the Dublin Airport Authority) over the fall at the airport on December 12th, 1996, which occurred when she was pregnant with her third child.
The airport had conceded liability and the case proceeded before the court only to assess damages.