A round-up of today's other regional news stories in brief.
Allegations bus driver had sex with girl
• GARDAÍ in Co Waterford are investigating allegations that a Bus Éireann driver had sexual relations with an underage girl on the back of a bus in the last two weeks. A married man in his mid-40s has been questioned by gardaí after a complaint regarding an adult allegedly having unlawful carnal knowledge of a 15-year-old girl on the bus on December 5th, writes Ciaran Murphy
Supt Tom O'Grady last night confirmed a file is being prepared for the DPP on the matter. "This [news] has been doing the rounds but we're very limited in what we can say. Gardaí are carrying out an investigation involving an adult and a young person." Supt O'Grady said "rumours that a statutory rape was carried out are incorrect".
A forensic examination of a bus was carried out by investigating gardaí on December 6th. Gardaí could not comment on reports that a locker had been searched at Bus Éireann's depot on the quay in Waterford city and a mobile phone was found, which was included as evidence in the investigation. It is understood the man was working on an out-of-city service and not a school bus.
Fatal fire alarms were miswired
• A coroner has called for the wiring on all smoke alarms to be readily identifiable by colour after an inquest heard that both smoke alarms found in a house where a fire claimed two lives were miswired and the live and neutral wires were the same colour, writes Elaine Keogh.
Louth county coroner Ronan Maguire returned verdicts of accidental death in relation to Marion Moran (25) and her son Brandon (3).
The inquest heard the fire in their home in the Farndreg estate, Dundalk on April 2nd, 2005 began on the cooker - two of the rings had been left on and one had a saucepan on it. The coroner expressed concerns that a miswired smoke alarm could short out and fail to work. He called for wiring on alarms to be "clearly marked live and neutral".
Consultants earn 3m in Kerry
• Consultants - mostly consulting engineers - earned almost €3 million from one local authority in Kerry in 2008, but most of the money will eventually be paid out by Government departments and bodies, a county council meeting has heard, writes Anne Lucey.
Over €42,000 was spent on translating documents into Irish, but this money must be paid almost entirely out of council funds. Council sources say the Irish language documents are seldom consulted. The sum paid to consultants was some €1.5 million less than the previous year in Kerry, according to the report by the council's head of finance John O'Connor.
Clare schoolboy missing for week
• Ennis town council has called on the immigrant community to help gardaí find a teenage boy from west Africa who has been missing for over a week.
Raphael Twumasi Ankrah, (16), who arrived in Ireland one month ago, was last seen on Tuesday, December 9th when he left a school in Ennis at 12.30pm for lunch.
He did not return after the break and failed to meet his foster parents after school.