A 30-year-old man has appeared in court in Dublin charged with robbing a city centre shop with a syringe last Saturday night.

Ruadhan Tracey of no fixed abode has been remanded in custody for a week.

A staff member remains in hospital after the raid just before 10pm last Saturday night at Spar on St. James’s Street.

It is understood he collapsed having wrestled with the raider who threatened him and another employee with a syringe.

Today Mr. Tracey of no fixed abode appeared in court charged with robbery and possession of a syringe.

He stood on crutches through the brief hearing.

Garda Niall Godrey of the Crime Task Force in Kilmainham told the court that he made no reply when charged and cautioned at 11.15pm last night.

There was no application for bail.

Judge Denis McLoughlin remanded him in custody to Cloverhill Prison for a week and recommended that he receive appropriate medical attention.

There has been a fall in the number of people on the Live Register.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that on a seasonally adjusted basis there was a decrease of 2,300 last month to 437,300.

However when unadjusted the Live Register total in July stood at 460,323 with the rate of unemployment remaining unchanged at 14.8%.

Over 44% or around 200,000 of those signing on are long-term claimants having been out of work for more than a year.

Mark Fielding  is the Chief Executive of the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME).

He says the government is not doing enough to address the crisis.

“Most disappointing I suppose is that it’s a continuing rise in long-term unemployed – 5.3 percent increase – and the loss of young people” he said.

“And again you can see the number of people under-25 reducing month-on-month for the last 2 years; but it’s reducing because they’re emigrating”.

“So certainly not enough being done” he added.

10% of parents could be having to choose between paying their household bills or preparing their child for going back-to-school.

Children’s charity Barnardos talked to 1,000 parents when putting their new figures together.

On average parents are paying €355 for a child in senior infants, €390 for children in 4th class in primary school and €770 for children going into 1st year.

Barnardos Chief Fergus Finlay says some parents are having to choose between their bills and kitting out their kids.

He says if things are that bad you should not pay the voluntary contribution.

“We surveyed…just under 1,000 parents and what we found is that about 10 percent of them are making that kind of choice” he said.

“But up to 70% of them are really, really struggling; they’re going without in all types of other ways”.

“Perhaps not making a choice between a basic household utility and a school uniform” he added.

Over two-thirds of the United States is now suffering from the most widespread drought since the 1950s.

Farmers are reporting total crop failure across parts of Illinois.

3/4 of the corn and soybean crops there are produced in 9 mid-western states where the extreme drought conditions have increased in the past week.

Concerns now growing that food prices will soar as entire crops are decimated.

Animals are also having to be slaughtered early because of the lack of grass.