Senior Government members are standing firm saying that the budget as annonced last week stands and calls for a reversal of cuts to child benefit and respite care grants won't be entertained. 

Minister Pat Rabbitte says the worst of the budgets are now over and that as the economy grows next year things will become easier. 

He says backbenchers and Ministers have known since the day they decided to go into Government just how tough things would be.

A 29 year old man has been remanded in custody after being charged with the manslaughter of Eoghan Dudley who was crushed to death by a bus in Dublin last week. 

Dublin District Court heard that Edward Connors with an address at Judge Darley's Hostel said he was "sorry" after the charge was put to him at Pearse St. Garda station. 

A signing interpreter was sworn in for Edward Connors who is deaf.

He's due to appear before Cloverhill District Court on Thursday. 

Taoiseach Enda Kenny was on Oslo today as the European Union was been officially awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Chairman of the Nobel Committee said the prize recognised that Europe had turned from a continent of war to a continent of peace.

But the prize was collected by three representatives of the EU, Jose Manuel Barroso, Hermann Van Rompuy and Martin Shultz.

President Barroso said EU leaders would stand by the Euro, and he pledged continuing efforts to maintain peace.

A Dublin court has heard that two economic migrants who answered an ad for a gardening job were tricked into living in primitive and horrendous conditions in a cannabis growing operation.

30 year old Xiabin Huang and Yong Chen aged 35, both of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the cultivation of cannabis plants at Millennium Business Park, Ballycoolin on March 7 this year. 

The 900 plants worth around €800,000 euro were discovered at the industrial unit - but one of the men was never paid the money he was promised for his work.

Australian police have warned that inaccuracies in Apple Maps could be "life threatening". 

Apple's software was universally panned on its release in September with the company's CEO admitting the firm has "screwed up". 

But now police in the Australian state of Victoria have revealed they've been called to help a number of drivers stranded in searing heat without food or water in Mildura National Park after they'd followed the software's directions.