The French Interior Minister has defended police who failed to spot a 4-year-old girl who hid for 8 hours in the car in which her parents and grandmother were shot dead.

Local police left the car untouched with the three corpses inside because they were concerned about compromising the work of a forensics team that was travelling from Paris.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said that proper procedures had been followed.

Valls reiterated that the authorities were not ruling anything out in the investigation despite a theory that the murders were as a result of a family feud.

GRN Reporter Catherine Field says police are still refusing to name the family despite the press having done so.

“The post mortems are due to get underway about now – they say that they’re not giving anymore information about that until later in the day” she said.

“They say they’re still waiting for DNA samples of the family to come from the British authorities”.

“Police are being very cagey about giving out the names and details of this, because they say the bodies are in such a state they don’t want to cause offence in case they’ve identified the wrong person” she added.

Authorities in Australia have launched a murder inquiry after an Irish man who was assaulted in Melbourne last month died over-night.

30-year-old David Greene from Dun Laoghaire in Dublin had been in Australia for about 2 years.

He worked and lived at the Saint Kilda hostel where the attack took place on August 26th.

Another Dublin man – 28-year-old David Byas – is recovering at a rehabilitation centre after also being injured in the same attack.

Detective inspector John Potter says a 31-year-old Australian man has already appeared in court.

“A man has been charged in regard to this matter and is currently in custody” he said.

“However, this matter has now become a homicide squad investigation”.

“We don’t believe anyone else was involved; but we do ask for anyone with information that may be able to help us with that regard to come forward”.

“I’m not exactly sure whether they were known to each other – they were certainly co-residents of the backpackers hostel” he added.

Gardaí have arrested a man after an incident in south Dublin during which a Garda vehicle was rammed.

The incident happened when Gardaí attempted to stop a car on Daltry Place in Ballycullen shortly after 10pm last night.

The 3 occupants of the car abandoned the vehicle and fled the scene.

A short time later Gardaí arrested a 25-year-old man and recovered a firearm.

He is being questioned by Gardaí in Rathfarnham.

Up to 290 jobs have been announced today across the country.

National Pen is hiring some 250 workers at its Dundalk plant, while Malone Engineering is creating 30 new positions in the capital.

And online store MyToysDirect.com is recruiting 10 new workers.

Newstalk’s Jack Quann has more.