A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Three arrested after €1m drugs seizure
Three men have been arrested following the seizure 135 kilogrammes of cannabis with a street value of €1 million, gardaí said last night.
Gardaí arrested the men in the Ranch area of Ballyfermot in west Dublin yesterday.
The three men, one aged 24 and the others aged 35, were taken to Clondalkin Garda Station for questioning, where they are being detained under section two of the Criminal Justice Drug Trafficking Act. A car and a van were also taken and impounded during the raid.
Air controller talks adjourned
Talks between the Irish Aviation Authority and the trade union Impact over staffing levels among air traffic controllers at Dublin airport have been adjourned until next week, writes Martin Wall, Industry Correspondent.
Impact said last night that progress had been made at the talks with the authority, which have taken place over the last three days. Unofficial action by air traffic controllers led to the closure of the airport to flights for an hour last Friday week. The controllers claim a shortage of staff has led to a system that is dependent on overtime. Impact said last night that it was maintaining its advice to members that they should make themselves available for overtime on a voluntary basis to facilitate the current talks.
Memorial service for Dr O'Donohue
A memorial service for poet, author and philosopher Dr John O'Donohue will be held at noon today in Galway Cathedral. The service, which will celebrate the writer's life and work, will be addressed by a number of writers, artists and close friends, including many who have travelled from abroad. Dr Donohue (52) died unexpectedly in his sleep on January 3rd while on a visit to the Avignon region of France.
Phone services in Dublin disrupted
There was severe disruption to telephone services in south Dublin city yesterday afternoon, writes Genevieve Carbery. Some 26,000 Eircom business and residential customers in Dublin 2 and Dublin 4 areas were without telephone and broadband services for several hours. A power outage at the Beggar's Bush telephone exchange meant that many customers had no phone lines until 6pm, albeit some lines were restored by lunchtime.
Eircom said it would investigate the cause of the power outage. Paul Bradley, the company's head of communications, said the back-up system's battery kicked in once the outage happened. However, he said the battery only lasted an hour and ran out of power by the time the technicians got on site.
According to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, numerous retailers were not able to do electronic transfers by laser and credit. This particularly impacted on retailers dealing in large sums, and many would have lost half a day in transactions, according to the group. Lines were also down in a number of Government offices.
Peaceful Corrib pipeline protest
The first protest of 2008 against the onshore Corrib gas refinery in north Mayo passed off peacefully yesterday, apart from a harmless snowball or two thrown at Shell signage and perimeter fencing.
About 50 activists gathered outside the main terminal gate at 7am, where they were marshalled by gardaí. At no time was incoming or outgoing traffic to the terminal, which is due for completion at the end of next year, affected by the protest. Dublin Shell to Sea, which organised the rally, said it was timed to coincide by the announcement by Shell of its gigantic annual profits, totalling over $26 billion (€17.6 billion).