In The News

In 2024 the Criminal Assets Bureau seized assets and money totalling just over €17 million and sold 20 houses that had been bought with the proceeds of crime. The sale of 20 forfeited homes – the highest number to date in any one year – took in early €5 million.

And next week, in an auction timed for Black Friday, a haul of designer goods, ranging from Canada Goose jackets and Chanel handbags to Rolex watches and designer trainers, all bought with dirty money and all seized by the Cab, will go under the hammer – with the proceeds going to the exchequer.

It’s...

So now we know, the World Cup play-off fixtures have been announced: Republic of Ireland will play Czech Republic away on March 26th, and if they win, they will play Denmark or North Macedonia in Dublin on March 31st.

Northern Ireland will play Italy away, and if they win, they will be away again to Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The playoffs are knockout matches so it could all end on March 26th, but what if it doesn’t?

Can Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrímsson bring the team to the World Cup...

The Epstein files are a vast cache of documents which include legal files, witness testimonies and flight logs, collected during an extensive US Justice Department investigation into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his now jailed associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Epstein died in prison while awaiting trial having been charged with running a network of underage girls for sex.

President Donald Trump could have released them to the public at any time – it was a presidential campaign promise of his – but he fought for months to stop lawmakers voting through a bipartisan petition to r...

There has been a sense for some time that Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe’s next move was never going to be to some other role in Leinster House.

Instead it has long been expected that his side gig as President of the Eurogroup since July 2020 would lead to a top job on the financial world stage - the IMF was mentioned regularly. The question was when might he hand in his notice.

Yesterday Donohoe announced that he had resigned his job and will start his new job as number two at the Wo...

Like a whole generation of young Irish men, John Mackey emigrated to the UK in the 1950s in search of work.

At 87 and living alone in north London, the Kilkenny man who never married was sociable, charming and always dapper in his trilby hat. He was beloved by his nieces and nephews.

On May 6th he headed to his local supermarket for some shopping and, as he’d increasingly stopped cooking for himself, a takeaway of chips and sausages.

On his way home he was set upon by Peter Augustine (59) wh...

We're happy to share an episode Early Edition, a new podcast from The Irish Times that brings you four of our top stories in under ten minutes. Find it in your podcast app and hit follow to get updates each morning from Monday to Friday. On today's episode:

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris asked his Polish counterpart for help in resolving a child abduction case involving a young girl with dual Irish-Polish citizenship. Orla Ryan has the story.

A leading psychologist diagnoses the causes behind Ireland's lengthy waiting lists fo...

For generations, Irish speakers north and south of the Irish Border have fought to keep their language alive. And today, what was once dismissed as a fading tongue is undergoing an exhilarating and vibrant revival.

The Republic’s newly elected president Catherine Connolly has made it clear the Irish language will play a central role during her time in office and says she wants to see the native tongue of this island flourish.

Meanwhile, north of the Border, the Irish language is also making headlines. In October, attendees at the annual Oireachtas na Sa...

In hard hats and high-vis jackets, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris and Minister for Housing James Browne looked the part at Thursday’s launch of “Delivering Homes, Building Communities, 2025-2030″, the Government’s latest grand plan to tackle the housing crisis.

By 2030, it is committed to delivering 300,000 new homes. It’s an ambitious target.

But who is going to build these new homes and how can that target be met given successive governments’ failure to meet far more modest goals?

Will private developers be tempted to ramp up the deliver...

Few conflicts have caused as much horror and devastation to people’s lives as Sudan’s civil war. And yet, the country’s ongoing death and destruction remains largely unnoticed, and often ignored, by the rest of the world.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed, and 14 million people displaced, since the country was plunged into civil war in April 2023 after a power struggle broke out between the country’s army and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Last month, the RSF captured the city of El Fasher, the last major ur...

Last Friday, two men appeared before Portlaoise District Court as part of a Garda investigation into an alleged terrorist plot by an extreme right wing group to attack Galway Mosque.

The two men were arrested on Co Laois on Tuesday during a cross-Border antiterrorism operation and were charged with possession of explosives.

A video found by gardaí on one of the men’s phones revealed a ‘practice’ recording of what the extreme right wing group intended to release after its planned attack on Galway mosque.

A major inquiry is now under w...

On Monday, the COP30 climate summit officially opened in the Brazilian city of Belém at the gateway to the Amazon rainforest.

Brazilian organisers have insisted this will be the “COP of implementation” where measures needed to combat the climate crisis will take precedence over more promises and never-ending negotiations.

This year’s global summit marks a decade since the highly lauded Paris Agreement – the landmark agreement signed by almost 200 countries and designed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Its main goal was to limit future gl...

For most people, the process of buying a house can be quite disheartening. The lack of housing supply across the country means houses often sell for way above asking price and usually after an excruciating bidding war.

While the Government promises to address the supply issue, is there anything that needs to change about the way we buy houses? 

In the UK, a major reform of the house-buying system has been proposed by the Labour Government. The plan aims to cut costs, reduce delays and make the whole process more efficient for bu...

Every November, Irish Times restaurant critic Corinna Hardgrave looks back at her year to produce a list of the top 100 restaurants across the country.

This year, with the help of the writer Joanna Cronin, readers are treated to a plethora of options for every occasion from new and quirky eateries to heritage restaurants which have stood the test of time.

It’s also an exciting period for the Irish dining scene.

In February, Dublin will host the Michelin star ceremony for the first time, the convention for unveiling new Michelin st...

On Tuesday New Yorkers elected socialist and Democratic Party candidate Zohran Mamdani as mayor. Mamdani, the city's first Muslim and African-born mayor and the youngest in over a century, was harshly criticised by President Donald Trump throughout the campaign.

But his win, along with the election of several other Democrats in races across the country, has forced Trump to start taking seriously the threat of a Democratic resurgence in next year's midterm elections. And Democrats are starting to feel hopeful, even if Mamdani's election poses questions about what the party has become and exactly how it...

On Saturday, the story broke that broadcaster and former Fine Gael politician Ivan Yates had provided interview and debate coaching to Fianna Fáil presidential candidate Jim Gavin before he dropped out of the race.

This was at a time when he was co-presenting the political podcast Path to Power and doing stand in shifts on Newstalk radio.

The story gained momentum in the days that followed as news emerged that senior Fianna Fáil politicians, including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, also received media training from Mr Yates.

How has thi...

On Monday afternoon, in a packed courtroom at Dublin’s Circuit Criminal Court, former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for fraud. 

In July, the disgraced sportsman pleaded guilty to ten counts of deception involving thirteen individuals. 

It’s a stunning fall from grace for the Kilkenny man, who was once the most celebrated hurler in the country. 

For years, Carey spun a web of lies, convincing friends, acquaintances, and even strangers that he was battling terminal cancer and needed large sums of mone...

There are many things An Garda Síochána know about the woman whose skeletal remains were found in 2021 during the construction of a greenway in Co Cork.

They believe the woman was 70 years or older when she died, that she was 157cm tall and had a large frame. They think she wore dentures made in the 1960s while she also suffered from arthritis. Carbon dating suggests she died between 1985 and 1987.

What they don’t know is her name.

They commissioned Prof Michelle Vitali, a director of the Institute of Fore...

Saipan: it’s the one word that can, even 23 years later, cause a row and Irish football fans still divide into two camps.

When it comes to events in Saipan where the Irish team were acclimatising before heading to Japan for their first game in the 2002 World Cup, everyone has an opinion. You’re either Team Roy or Team Mick.

A new movie that captures the simmering tension and eventual blow up between Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy and team captain Roy Keane will hit our screens on January 1st. But already Saip...

In the early 1970s Mary ‘May’ and Seamus ‘Shay’ McGee were parents to four young children. On her second and third pregnancies, May had experienced complications so severe that her doctor advised that her life would be in danger if she had any more children.

The GP prescribed a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly to help prevent pregnancy. These had to be imported and were seized by customs with the couple told that if they attempted to import contraceptive devices again, they could be prosecuted.

The couple went to the High Court in 1972 in an attem...

In early September, worshippers gathering for dawn prayers at several locations across Paris discovered a gruesome and spiteful scene – bloodied pigs’ heads discarded on the doorsteps of their mosques. A deeply offensive act, Muslims are forbidden from eating pork and consider pigs to be unclean.

Soon after, a farmer in Normandy in northern France, who had seen news reports of the dead animal heads appearing around the city, contacted police to say two people driving a vehicle with Serbian number plates had purchased ten pigs heads from his farm.

Further investigations by French auth...

Journalist Khadija Haidary left her home in Afghanistan in October 2024 after spending three years trying to survive as a working woman in a Taleban-controlled country.

When universities closed to women in late 2022, Haidary joined an underground “resistance” network teaching maths, physics and English to girls.

Ms Haidary, who is editor of the Zan Times, now reports from her new home in Pakistan. She talks to Sorcha Pollak about the oppressive reality facing women inside Afghanistan. But while the situation is grim, some are pushing back.

Plus: Stefan Smith, spokesperson for the UN’s...

A Belfast court delivered a not-guilty verdict on Thursday in the trial of a former British Army paratrooper accused of the murder of two young men in the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry 53 years ago.

It was the first-ever trial of a former British soldier accused of killing unarmed civilians during the massacre.

The veteran, referred to as Soldier F for legal reasons, was accused of the murders of James Wray and William McKinney during a civil rights march in the city on January 30th, 1972.

By the end of that...

Crimes carried out by a loose syndicate of about 60 teenagers spread across north and South Dublin, who are more interested in capturing their joyriding escapades on social media than making money, are on the rise.

Known as the Lucky Dip Gang, these groups of young, low-level criminals focus on burglaries and vehicle theft. These often failed and haphazard attempts to steal bikes and cars contrast starkly with the other side of the burglary trade, which is dominated by tight-knit, dangerous organised gangs known for their forensic and meticulous planning.

But if the Lucky...

In chaotic and violent scenes reminiscent of the street riots in Dublin city centre two years ago, around 1,000 protesters outside the Citywest IPAS centre in Saggart threw missiles, set fires, used fireworks as weapons and roared racist chants on Tuesday evening.

They had gathered in response to news that a man had been arrested in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year old Irish girl outside the centre, which is home to mostly Ukrainians but also international protection applicants.

The man, a failed asylum seeker in his 20s, has been in...

On Tuesday, almost six months after she took her own life, the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre went on sale. ‘Nobody’s Girl’, which was completed by Giuffre before her death, details how she feared she might “die a sex slave” at the hands of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre also says she was made to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions.

Prince Andrew, who has always denied any wrongdoing, and who reached a financial settlement with Giuffre in 2022, announced last week he would voluntarily no longer use his titles, including the Duke of York. H...

Shortly after 9.30am on Sunday, when the Louvre in Paris had just opened its doors to visitors, alarm bells started to ring out through the halls of the world-famous museum.

Four thieves had managed to access the building via the first floor balcony facing the river Seine. Seven minutes later they escaped on motorbikes carrying priceless French crown jewels.

The robbery has sparked outrage across the French political spectrum – the country’s president Emmanuel Macron called the raid “an attack on our history”, while the leader of the far-right National Rally party Jordan Bardella...

Scam call centres are paying up to €1,200 per person for the contact details of potential Irish victims.

And once they have a name and number, it’s game on, with highly-trained fraudsters working the phones to persuade victims to part with their money via bogus investment “opportunities”.

Analysis by The Irish Times has identified 31 Irish victims who lost a combined total of nearly €300,000. This includes a 76-year-old man who lost €61,720, and a high-ranking diplomat who lost more than €31,000.

Details of the transactions are contained in a vast data leak - including reco...

Eleven years after the bodies of Anthony Keegan (33) and Eoin O’Connor (32) were discovered buried on Inchicup Island, Dublin woman Ruth Lawrence (45) has gone on trial for their murder. She has pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution has laid out its case: alleging that Lawrence worked “as a unit” with her South African boyfriend Neville van der Westhuizen to kill O’Connor, a drug dealer and his friend Keegan.

Van der Westhuizen was in considerable debt to O’Connor.

It was further alleged that Lawrence and her boyfriend had “spoken openly” about “the mur...

Irish Olympic swimmer Shane Ryan can now take all the performance-enhancing drugs he wants as part of his training plan.

And if anabolic steroids, human growth hormone (HGH), or testosterone supplements show up in his system next May when he competes in Las Vegas, the organisers will congratulate him for playing by the rules.

The Enhanced Games dubbed the Steroid Olympics – was dreamed up by Australian businessman Aron D’Souza as a sporting event that lets competitors maximise their performance by doping.

Ryan, who was the first swimmer to compete in t...

The number of people falling victim to online fraud, and in some cases losing their life savings as a result of being scammed, is skyrocketing. Banks have warned of a sharp increase in phone calls and text messages from criminals purporting to be delivery companies or Government agencies. However, in some of the most disturbing cases, victims are targeted with the promise of love and romance.

Romance scams are not new – lonely people have always been targeted by criminals. But with the omnipresence of social media in people’s daily lives, and the rapid development of AI, crim...

On Monday, more than two years after the conflict in Gaza began – a war which has killed tens of thousands, including an estimated 20,000 children – the remaining living Israeli hostages returned home.

Meanwhile, about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners – including 1,700 from Gaza who have been held by Israel without charge – were released and reunited with family.

The return of hostages and release of prisoners is all part of the first phase of Donald’s Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.

Trump, who spoke before the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on Monday, told cheering lawmakers that the “long an...

Michael D Higgins will shortly finish his two terms as President of Ireland, having served 14 years as head of State.

In 2011 he said his tenure would be “a presidency of ideas”. But what are they and where in his background and in his impressive and varied pre-Áras career did they come from?

And how has his outspokenness on a wide range of subjects, from foreign affairs to army pay, been received by successive governments? To what extent did his personal popularity insulate him from criticism and even censure when he was perceived to have...

It was Micheál Martin’s worst week in the job as leader of Fianna Fáil and it began on late on Sunday evening when the party’s campaign for the presidency imploded. Its candidate Jim Gavin resigned following media reports that, 16 years ago, a tenant had accidentally overpaid him by €3,300 and despite repeated requests, the former military man and presidential hopeful had refused to return it.

The failure to repay a debt – and a landlord’s debt at that – had caused a sensation when news of it was reported on Friday.

Gavin was Mart...

So now we know what’s in Budget 2026 but for most people, what’s not so clear is what’s in it for them.

As he has done every year on the day after the budget Irish Times personal finance expert and assistant business editor Dominic Coyle put a call-out to readers for their own queries and then he answered them.

For In the News he picks out the ones that exercised people the most and explains how he answered.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. 

Hosted on Acas...

What is in Budget 2026 for you? Not a lot, probably - as expected, Ministers Paschal Donohoe and Jack Chambers have delivered a much tighter package than recent years. Out are universal payments to help with steep energy bills and most bonus social welfare payments.

But the budget did deliver some help for some groups. Conor Pope runs through the main points.

Plus: Cliff Taylor on why, eleven months after a general election campaign that featured many spending promises, the Government has instead decided to tighten its belt.

Hosted on Acast. See...

It’s budget day and one thing we can almost certainly expect in Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe’s spending announcements is an increase in the price of cigarettes. This year, the cost of a pack of cigarettes is set to increase by 50 cents, bringing it to almost €19 for a pack of twenty.

And while this price hike may help reduce smoking levels in Irish society, and improve the overall health of the population, it is also driving Ireland’s rapidly growing black market tobacco business.

More than one in four cigarettes smoked in Irela...

Fianna Fail’s presidential candidate Jim Gavin's sensational withdrawal from the presidential race has plunged Fianna Fáil into crisis. There’s dismay among party backbenchers, anger at Taoiseach Micheal Martin, and uncertainty over what kind of presidential election race we now have. 

Earlier today, Jack Horgan Jones and Ellen Coyne talked to Hugh Linehan on our sister podcast Inside Politics about the affair. In the News will be back with another regular episode tomorrow.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can it happen that a doctor who has been sanctioned or even struck-off in one country can simply move to another and continue working?

Shouldn’t the various medical registration bodies have robust recording and information sharing systems that would make that impossible. Most patients will assume that to be the case but a new global investigation has found serious flaws in the system.

And it is happening in Ireland: 11 doctors who have faced serious sanctions in the UK, including being struck off, remain registered in Ireland.

In each case, th...

The long-awaited MetroLink line, which will finally connect Dublin Airport to the city by rail, has been approved by An Coimisiún Pleanála, three years after planning permission was sought.

The 18.8km rail line, expected to cost more than €10 billion, was first proposed a quarter of a century ago and is anticipated to begin operations in the mid-2030s.

Travelling mostly underground, the remote-controlled, driverless trains will run every three minutes from Swords in north Dublin to Charlemont close to Ranelagh in south Dublin. The route will have 16 stops serving areas including Dublin Airp...

The body of 23-year-old Kelly Lynch was found in a canal in Monaghan on the morning of St Patrick’s Day 2024.

For 30 hours, her mother Julieanne had been unable to get in contact with her daughter who had travelled over the Border to visit her boyfriend. Increasingly worried, she got in the car to drive to Monaghan to find her.

While she was in the car she received a call from the Garda with the news every parent dreads. An Garda Síochána initially determined that the young woman had fallen and that...