With one gold medal already secured after the victory of Katie Taylor yesterday attention is now turning to Ireland’s other boxers.

Paddy Barnes from Belfast is up first.

He battles against Zou Shiming from China for a place in the light-flyweight final with that fight due to kick off at 1.30pm.

Half an hour later John-Joe Nevin from Westmeath is up against Lazaro Alvarez-Estrada from Cuba in the semi-final of the Bantamweight division.

And later this evening Michael Conlan from  Belfast will take on Robeisy Ramirez-Carrazana of Cuba in the flyweight semi-final at 8.45pm.

Team Ireland head boxing coach Billy Walsh says all 3 men are in with a chance.

“You don’t get into the semi-finals in the Olympic games unless you’re an exceptional boxer” he said.

“Yeah – we’ve 2 Cubans and a Chinese; two powerful nations in the world of sport and in boxing, in particular”.

“We’ll probably be honoured with most of them – and we’ll cherish that, being honoured, because these guys don’t know when to stop and when to give up” he added.

It is a case of ‘deja vu’ for Paddy Barnes as he goes for gold against the same competitor in the same round in which he won bronze in Beijing 4 years ago.

His Dad Paddy Barnes senior describes how his son’s preparing for today’s fight.

“Keeps himself to himself – he just lies down and listens to music; just lies down, saves his energy and has some food” he said.

“He’s trained for 14 years to get to this moment” he added.

The Chief Executive of Bank of Ireland says hundreds of workers will be made redundant from the bank in the coming year.

Richie Boucher made the comments as Bank of Ireland reported an increase in losses for the first half of the year up from €556 million to €1.2 billion.

It has also set aside €941 million to cover bad loans which is also an increase on last year’s figure.

Richie Boucher refused to give an exact number of redundancies but he said the bank is keen to maintain its branch network.

“We’ve been putting a huge amount of effort into reconfiguring our branches, reducing the cost to serve in those branches and re-training our colleagues in those branches and making our branches more customer friendly” he said.

“On that basis we’ve been reducing the cost within the branch network – but I think we’ll be keeping broadly the same footprint” he added.

The Property developer Paddy McKillen has lost his High Court action in London against the billionaire Barclay brothers.

McKillian had sued the brothers over control of 3 of the top hotels in London.

It is expected that Mr. McKillen will appeal now the decision.

Britain is increasing its financial support to rebel fighters in Syria.

It will not supply weapons but is offering 5 million pounds sterling of extra funding.

The money will go towards things like medical and communication equipment.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague says victims of the Assad regime need help now.

“The people of Syria cannot wait indefinitely” he said.

“People are dying and are often trapped without food and shelter; they’re at the mercy of a regime that is hunting down its opponents, an army that has turned it’s weapons against civilians and militias that are committing barbaric crimes” he added.

Nearly 80% of construction firms say they have come across black economy operations in the last 3 months.

The survey from the Construction Industry Federation also shows that over half believe they’ve lost a number of jobs to the black market.

It has also suggested ways for consumers to ensure they are using a legitimate company.

Newstalk’s Jack Quann has more.