Saturday/Sunday
The European Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, continued to deny he had received a cheque for £50,000 intended for Fianna Fail from a property developer, Mr Tom Gilmartin. However, it is expected that Mr Flynn will be called before the Flood tribunal.
Meanwhile the Fianna Fail TD for Dublin West, Mr Liam Lawlor, said he would be consulting his accountant to ensure he had complied with the tax aspects of a contribution of £3,500 a month for three or four months from Mr Gilmartin in the late 1980s.
He has insisted that the payments were political donations and not consultancy fees.
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, and Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, have differed sharply on the issue of arms decommissioning.
Mr Hume told his party's youth conference that the issue was a diversion and had been exaggerated. Mr Trimble repeated his party's demand for the disposal of paramilitary weapons.
Sonia O'Sullivan's racing year ended with a victory in the Great North Race in Newcastle. She won her first fully competitive race over the half-marathon distance, beating the reigning European marathon champion, Manuela Machado.
Monday
The Combat Poverty Agency said in a submission that it was unacceptable that up to one-third of Irish children were living in poverty, when the State's budget surplus was expected to top £900 million.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre reported that the number of calls to the Centre rose by 30 per cent last year and that half concerned child abuse, which was up by 4 per cent.
The President, Mrs McAleese, continued her visit to Canada and thanked the Canadian people for making Gen John de Chastelain available to the Northern Ireland decommissioning body.
Tuesday
Free shares given to the 200,000 members of First Active started trading on the Stock Exchange at £2.25 each, 40p below the lowest price predicted by the company last month.
Members of the former building society would only receive £1,012.50 instead of the £1,500 they might have expected. However, strong trading on the first day meant that the value of the former members' allocation increased to £1,305.
The Government is to sue three companies in the Goodman Group for meat irregularities discovered during the beef tribunal. It is not, however, taking any action to recover £70 million in fines imposed by the EU for irregularities in the beef intervention process. The judgment in relation to the fines was delivered in favour of the Commission last week.
Wednesday
The Revenue Commissioners are investigating whether banks gave false information about the extent of bogus non-resident accounts when making secret multimillion-pound tax settlements in the early 1990s.
If this proves to be the case penalties may be imposed. The investigation will look at the generally accepted view that by the early 1990s banks had many millions of pounds on deposit in non-resident accounts which they knew to be bogus.
There is no evidence to suggest that there has been an overall reduction in hospital waiting lists despite an allocation of £70 million in the past five years, according to a report from the group appointed by the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen. There are currently 34,331 people on the waiting lists.
Thursday
The Government is considering the setting up a watchdog regulatory body for the financial services sector following the latest banking revelations.
The latest row, which has caused widespread anger, is over a story in Magill magazine which said the Revenue made a secret multi-million-pound deal with AIB for a fraction of the money due in DIRT tax. The president of SIPTU, Mr Jimmy Somers, said there would be a "fearsome backlash" from PAYE sector workers if there was not action on the issue.
All charges against the Dublin woman, Ms Elaine Moore, have been dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service in London. She was to attend court next week on charges of possession of explosives and conspiracy to cause explosions.
The chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Mr Jim Mitchell, said he has evidence that gardai accessed telephone records for a newspaper and members of the Oireachtas. He told the committee he believed this applied to all newspapers. The records gave an account of all calls made to and from journalists and politicians concerned.