Saturday/Sunday
The group of former Chernobyl Children's Project workers who had criticised the Labour Party's presidential nominee, Ms Adi Roche, denied they were politically motivated or were waging a vendetta against her. One, Mr Denis Murphy, said Ms Roche's style of running the organisation was "Stalinist" and claimed that "power went to her head".
Monday
The Labour Party dismissed a story of an unpublished tape of Ms Roche allegedly berating a female employee as part of a "dirty tricks" campaign. Ms Roche said she would "not be bullied out of the presidential campaign. In fact, all this has done is shown me that I have more qualities and strengths than I ever suspected". She said it was evident from the response that people were outraged at the "scale and venom" of the attacks upon her.
One of her campaign managers, Mr Fergus Finlay, said there was a strong element of "sexism" in the campaign against her and that if characteristics of grit and determination were evident in a male candidate they would not merit mention.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, was accused by opposition politicians of having abandoned Fianna Fail's "zero tolerance" policing policy after he said he had never intended that gardai would be denied their right to discretionary policing.
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader, Mr David Trimble, said he would lead his party into the Stormont talks to demand that Sinn Fein be ejected on the grounds of recent IRA statements and the Markethill bombing.
Tuesday
The UUP confronted Sinn Fein at the Stormont talks for the first time with an "indictment" in which they argued trenchantly that Sinn Fein was wedded to the IRA. Afterwards, Mr Trimble said there was no need for his party to engage with Sinn Fein in the talks. The party's security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, had a "blazing row" with Northern Ireland Secretary, Ms Mo Mowlem, alleging that the British government was more concerned with having Sinn Fein in the process than the UUP.
High Court judge Mr Michael Moriarty was appointed by the Government to head the second tribunal of inquiry into payments to politicians.
The presidential candidate, Dana, Ms Rosemary Scallon, was a guest of honour at an official Catholic Church lunch in New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, sitting at the top table beside the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O'Connor, and other archbishops and bishops.
Wednesday
The Stormont talks made a major breakthrough when agreement was reached to move to substantive issues early next week. The procedural agreement allowed the parties to move past the decommissioning item on the agenda where proceedings had been deadlocked since July. The parties also agreed to the appointment of Gen John de Chastelain as chairman of the independent body to verify the decommissioning of weapons.
A spokesman for the Taoiseach denied any Fianna Fail involvement in a smear campaign against Ms Adi Roche.
Ennis won the £15 million Telecom Eireann Information Age Town competition. The town will now be turned into a informational technology showcase for the future.
The dissident Catholic priest, Father Pat Buckley, was offered the use of the Unitarian Church in Dublin to conduct a funeral service for his nephew who had committed suicide. Earlier, he had been refused the use of a Catholic church by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Connell.
Thursday
The Taoiseach initiated an internal investigation into new revelations about the procurement of planning permission from Dublin County Council in the 1980s. This followed a Magill article which quoted a letter from a builder, Mr Michael Bailey, to a landowner, Joseph Murphy Structural Engineers (JMSE), offering to effect the "procurement" of planning permission and a majority vote of two meetings of Dublin County Council in exchange for a 50 per cent shareholding in the land. The letter was written a few days before a representative of JMSE, accompanied by Mr Bailey, paid an unsolicited £30,000 cash donation to Mr Burke for his 1989 election campaign. Mr Burke was not a member of Dublin County Council at the time.
Former Fine Gael TD and junior minister, Mr Michael Keating, denied in the High Court that he is or was a director of a company currently being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau with regard to the laundering of drugs money.
Labour Party chairman Mr Jim Kemmy, died aged 61, after being ill for some time with a bone marrow disorder.
The UUP leader, Mr Trimble, defended his decision to remain in the Stormont talks despite the involvement of Sinn Fein without any IRA disarmament. He said the union could not be defended from "long distance".