A round-up of today's other stories in brief
State oil reserves agency fails to suspend bonus scheme
The State agency charged with holding national strategic oil stocks has not complied with official requests to end its performance bonus scheme for top management.
Department of Finance officials told Minister for Finance Michael Noonan in briefing material that the boards of all non-commercial State-sponsored bodies had been asked to suspend such performance-related award schemes.
It said that one agency had not, to date, complied with this request.
The Department of Finance yesterday identified the body concerned as the National Oil Reserves Agency.
The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, under whose aegis the agency operates, did not disclose the nature of the bonus scheme.
Ryan report funds 'not paid over'
Religious congregations have paid over only a fraction of the cash they promised to contribute following the publication of the Ryan report into clerical child abuse, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has been told.
After the report was published in 2009, the congregations made offers totalling €348.5 million, according to Department of Finance officials.
However, to date only €20 million of the original cash offer has been received.
Meanwhile the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which produced the Ryan report, has cost the Department of Education €21.5 million in legal bills.
Security alert after bomb warnings
A security alert on the northern side of the Border near Newry was continuing last night as PSNI officers investigated a suspicious vehicle beneath an underpass on the A1.
In Louth northbound traffic was being diverted on the M1 from junction 18 through Carlingford and Omeath while in the North police closed the A1 southbound from the Sheepsbridge interchange north of Newry.
The PSNI said the alarm was raised shortly before 11pm on Thursday when two bomb warnings were received by a charity and a hospital. The vehicle was later identified parked on the A1 in Cloughogue.
Madden to get Government press role
On the nomination of the Labour Party, former Newstalk journalist Cathy Madden is to be appointed as assistant Government press secretary next week, according to senior sources within the party.
Having previously worked as crime correspondent for 98FM, Ms Madden began working with Newstalk as a general news reporter in 2008.
She left the organisation last year and began work with the Labour Party in a media advisory role.