The MV Matthew, a Panamanian-registered bulk carrier, was seized in a joint Revenue, Naval Service, Army Ranger and Garda operation off the south coast in September 2023. On board was 2,253 kilograms of cocaine, worth an estimated €157 million, amounting to the largest drugs seizure in Irish history. Mr Cody told the committee disposal of the vessel is a key priority for Revenue. The MV Matthew has been berthed in Co Cork since it was seized in September 2023. [ No firm timeline for sale of drug-smuggling ship costing €110,000 per week to detainOpens in new window ]

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen has made seven changes from the side that beat Harlequins for Friday night’s Champions Cup clash with Leicester Tigers. Harry Byrne’s selection at outhalf and a first start for All Black Rieko Ioane will capture most of the headlines. Cullen explained: “Harry played in this game previously, so he’s experienced the atmosphere over there before and he knows what to expect. We weren’t quite sure at the start of the week how he would be. Leinster: J O’Brien; T O’Brien, R Ioane, R Henshaw, J Lowe; H Byrne, J Gibson-Park; P McCarthy, R Kelleher, T Furlong; J McCarthy, J Ryan; J Conan, J van der Flier, C Doris (capt).

Executives from the pharmaceutical industry were gathered around a table in the Italian Room inside Government Buildings. The motivation was to improve smaller or poorer EU states’ access to new drugs coming on to the market. Internal documents show key meetings with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Mr Harris earlier this year gave them their first indication that they had been heard. Shortly afterwards the Government came out and publicly opposed cutting the level of “protection” companies enjoyed over new drugs. The result is as close to a total victory as the pharmaceutical industry could have expected to get.

María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela's opposition, arrived in Oslo hours after her Nobel award was collected on her behalf by her daughter. Ms Machado also met Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Store, who offered his support to her struggle. Reporters estimated several hundred people protested against Ms Machado’s prize in central Oslo on Thursday. Ms Machado said that the Maduro regime had been sustained by “a very powerful and strongly funded repression system. From drug trafficking, from the black market for oil, from arms trafficking, from human trafficking.

Labour finance spokesman Ged Nash hit out at Sinn Féin’s Mark Ward accusing him of using “unparliamentary language”. Accusing the Government of a “Scrooge-like response the week before Christmas” he said blister packs “are not a luxury. Pharmacists have written to patients proposing to charge a minimum of €20 to dispense blister packs from the beginning of January. Mr Carthy said the Government had found billions for developers, banks and landlords but with older people, dementia patients and disability payments “the approach suddenly becomes penny pinching”. He said to repeated interventions that if he had done that, Mr Carthy would be “in here today with the same cant as always that we’re not taxing enough”.

The State agency tasked with identifying illicit drugs has sounded a warning over “the rising threat” of synthetic opioids drugs here after identifying 10 new drug substances or unusual presentations of drugs last year. Dr O’Donnell said that between 2022 and 2023, FSI identified several nitazene (synthetic opioids) variants in small seizures of tablets and powders. Some of the new drug substances identified by the FSI last year included protonitazene, which is a synthetic opioid “significantly more potent than heroin”. The number of overall cases submitted to FSI by the Garda and other State agencies last year was 25,170, which included 10,595 drug and toxicology cases. The report says 997 cases were aided during 2024 by some 766 hits on the national DNA data base

According to the SCSI, the average cost of constructing a two-bedroom apartment ranges from €480,000 in suburban medium-rise schemes to €650,000 in an urban development. Photograph: Getty ImagesThe latest report from the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland (SCSI) on apartment costs here perfectly encapsulates the circular nature of Ireland’s housing problem. The only way we’ll get housing supply up to the 50,000 units-a-year mark, the Government’s target rate, is to build higher-density housing, including apartments. But it remains to be seen if building high-cost apartments will do anything to square the affordability circle at the heart of the country’s housing challenge. The declining rate of home ownership has created an oversubscribed rental market, which these new apartments will presumably feed, with rents seemingly on an inexorable path upwards.

Irish businesses need to “urgently” prepare for making the switch to electric vehicles (EV). Electric cars have hit their highest-ever share of the new car market in 2025. This is a trend that Irish businesses have to catch up with. Photograph: Getty ImagesJohn Shiel, chief executive of GEV, told The Irish Times that the secret to charging anxiety for businesses is simple – flywheels. Will such innovation be enough to push more Irish businesses through the electric barrier?

Nato chief Mark Rutte has urged ‍allies to step up defence efforts to prevent ‍a war waged by Russia that could be “on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured”. The time for action is now,” Mr Rutte said. Russia ‌could be ready to use military force against ⁠Nato within five years, Mr Rutte said. Mr Zelenskiy indicated the talks were hastily arranged as Kyiv officials scramble to avoid getting boxed in by US president Donald Trump’s demands for a swift settlement. Next week, Ukraine will co-ordinate with European countries on a bilateral level, Mr Zelenskiy said late on Wednesday.

The Luas Green Line in Dublin will gradually resume services from 6pm, the operator has confirmed. It said maintenance teams and engineers have worked “around the clock” to address the issue within the “critical low-voltage safety system known as the 48-volt system”, which caused the Green Line power failure. This safety system is designed to shut down power to the overhead lines in the event of an emergency, it said. The Green Line links Broombridge on Dublin’s northside to Brides Glen, near Cherrywood, in the south, crossing the city centre. Luas Red Line services are running as normal.

Orbit x Glasses      Price : €49 Website : https://findorbit.com/ Opens in new window Where To Buy : OrbitThere is an order to the things that go missing in my home. While there are plenty of tags you can attach to your keys or wallet, there are few suitable for glasses. But when it came to the slightly disorganised child and his eye-wateringly expensive glasses, a better solution was needed. The likely candidate, Tile, discontinued its glasses tracker, but one solution popped up: Orbit x Glasses, a tracker that works with Apple’s Find My. Orbit x Glasses claims to be the world’s smallest tracker, and is designed to sit discreetly on the frame.

In this brave new world, AI agents could carry out tasks with minimal human intervention. AI agents could reroute shipments in the supply chain when an issue is identified, or autonomously detect and deal with cybersecurity threats. That is, presuming the AI companies could persuade their customers to go for it. Of those that implemented AI agents, more than half said there were productivity gains. Like the metaverse, AI is an expensive bet on a new technology.

The company saw earnings decline in its customer supply business and gas-fired power plants in north Dublin, but rise slightly in its renewable energy portfolio. While the price was not disclosed, the deal is believed to have put an enterprise value on the business of about €2.5 billion. It is one of the longest-established providers of renewable electricity in Ireland, supplying about 17 per cent of the island of Ireland’s total electricity requirements and 20 per cent of its total wind power. The customer supply business saw earnings fall 28 per cent to €55.5 million amid lower margins. This reflected higher wind output, though it was partly offset by lower energy prices.

[ Irish nursing homes are ‘at a critical juncture. It also had €288 million of bank and group company loans at the end of 2023 – leaving it with €59.2 million more of stated liabilities than assets. Nursing Homes Ireland, the sector lobby group, said in a pre-budget submission in August that the average Fair Deal rate in Ireland is about €1,232 a week, some €737 less than public rates. French care home group DomusVi, the fifth main operator, made its entry in January 2021 by acquiring Trinity Care. Its Irish unit reported a €4.96 million loss last year, bringing losses for its first four years in the market to €16.9 million.

We tend to imagine ancient materials as crude or primitive, but Roman concrete was more sophisticated than anything in use until the modern era. Our current concrete recipes use cement, sand, and coarse aggregates in varying proportion and are, by comparison, extremely carbon intensive. This is where Roman concrete becomes more than a historical curiosity. Roman concrete contains ubiquitous white crystals called lime clasts, formed by quicklime mixing at high temperatures. This is a rare positive feedback loop: more valourised waste, less aquatic pollution and reduced carbon footprints in construction.