The Ballyfermot area has been designated the 46th RAPID area by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív. Under the RAPID (Revitalising Areas by Planning, Investment and Development) Programme, the area is now eligible for funding from a range of programmes including the Dormant Accounts, from which it will get €300,000.

The ISPCC has said the State guidelines on reporting child sexual abuse are not working. The criticisms of the Children First guidelines are contained in the ISPCC's submission to the Office for the Minister for Children. In the aftermath of the Ferns report, the Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, announced a review of the guidelines. The Children's Rights Alliance, representing over 80 organisations, also said the guidelines were not working in their submission to the office.

There has been no independent assessment into the health impacts of the new runway at Dublin airport. The only assessment that has been carried out is an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and this used out-of-date information when assessing the runway's impact on public health, according to Dr Anthony Staines, Professor of Epidemiology at University College Dublin.

Emily Logan talks to Emma Browne about how the Irish Government has failed children by rushing through legislation that discriminates between girls and boys and that allows child victims of abuse to be cross-examined in court

Youthreach, the programme for training early school-leavers, receives none of the special education-needs services that primary and post-primary schools do, yet 70 per cent of the people they deal with have special education needs.

Health Service Executive figures show that 1,144 female victims of domestic violence were turned away from HSE Eastern region accommodation centres in 2004. The situation has changed little in the Eastern-region since 2001 when 1,104 domestic violence victims were unable to be accommodated by the HSE. The refusals were due to a lack of available space. The latest figures available are from 2004, however it is likely that there was a similar situation in 2005 as there have been no additional spaces in the centres since then.

As Miriam Lord moves from the Irish Independent to the Irish Times, here's a sample of what Irish Times readers can expect and Indo readers will be missing

Several major US television stations and news networks are being investigated for broadcasting "fake" news segments produced by major corporations and the Bush administration.

Proposed rezoning of New Street in Waterford at odds with city development plan. By Emma Browne

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, University Church in Dublin commissioned a replacement of its 19th-century copies of Raphael's Sistine Chapel cartoons. Conservation experts are unimpressed and there is confusion as to whether they are temporary or permanent. William Laffan and Emma Somers report. Pictures by William Hederman