The Taoiseach says his Health Minister is “to be admired” for ending the confusion and fear around cuts to disability services.

Enda Kenny is backing James Reilly who faces a motion of ‘no confidence’ in the Dáil in less than 2 weeks time.

The Taoiseach says the Minister acted quickly to reverse the decision made by the HSE.

He was speaking in West Dublin this morning.

“You term this a as a mistake; I said the Minister had the courage to say ‘I’m giving instruction to the HSE not to proceed with the extent of this particular cut in regards to where personal assistance for people who are concerned’”.

“The Minister had the courage to do that and do it quickly”.

“And he’s to be admired for doing it so quickly and effectively and ending the confusion and the fear” he added.

Almost 4,000 people slept rough or at accommodation for homeless people on Census night last year.

The CSO has today released figures which show that on April 10th 2011 3, 808 people were accounted for this way.

2, 539 were male and 1,269 were female.

While 12% of those were children.

1,660 of the adults indicated that they were in the labour force at the time.

Almost 1/3 of the homeless population rated their general health as being ‘Fair’, ‘Bad’ or ‘Very bad’ compared with 10% of the general population.

Spokesperson for the Simon Community is Niamh Randall.

She says these figures do not even show the full extent of the problem.

“So it just tells us some part of the story – and I suppose one of our concerns is that it doesn’t include everybody”.

“So for example it wouldn’t include all rough sleepers, it wouldn’t necessarily include those in squats; and it wouldn’t include those known as ‘sofa surfers’ – or those staying with friends and relatives” she added.

The father of a family found murdered in the French Alps has been identified as Saad Al-Hilli who was originally from Baghdad but lived in Surrey.

A father, mother and grand-mother from the same family were found dead in their car yesterday following a shooting in which another man also died.

Two daughters from the family survived.

One remains in a serious condition in hospital while the younger child is being looked after by police after lying undiscovered in the car for 8 hours.

The incident has shocked holidaymakers at the campsite where they were staying.

This man says everyone is shaken-up.

“This is obviously going to create a chill; one can see that the people in the camping ground are shaken up” he said.

“They’re talking among themselves – I don’t know how this is going to affect morale on our holidays, obviously it will”.

“And there were children too” he added.

Bond sales across Europe are pointing at a possible upswing in the Eurozone in anticipation of good news from the ECB.

A French bond auction saw almost €3 billion worth of 10-year bonds sold at historic lows.

The Eurozone 2nd-biggest economy paid an interest rate of 2.21% compared with 2.53% during the last similar operation on July 5th.

Financial markets are waiting on for the results of an ECB governing council meeting later.

It could include details of a revamped ECB bond-buying programme.

Earlier this morning Spain borrowed €3.5 billion at lower rates owing to market expectations of an ECB decision.

Job seekers with a sweet tooth can celebrate today as the Jelly Bean Factory expands its Dublin operations.

It is opening a new manufacturing facility which will see the creation of 25 positions.

Newstalk’s Jack Quann has more.