PEOPLE in Sligo are being expected to go through one of life's most excruciating medical procedures without anaesthesia.

That got your attention, didn't it?

But the Sligo Champion pat it another way: "No cause for alarm, Board tells women".

Well, it all depends on your point of view, whether you're the one having the baby or the one sitting in an office deciding how women are supposed to be having their babies.

The Champion's story was that the North Western Health Board had decided to discontinue its epidural service at Sligo General Hospital. For those who don't know (or have never had a baby), this technique involves injecting anaesthesia directly into the spine, thus deadening pain during childbirth.

Against a background of "legal implications" and an "increasing demand" for the epidaral service, health board officials have said that the service "is being reappraised at hospital level with a view to putting in place an extended service `as soon as services permit'." It later emerged in the story that the legal implications involved had occurred in England.

The board added that "Sligo General Hospital wishes to emphasise that all the other medical options for pain control are available".

Deputy Declan Bree wasn't buying it. "Expectant mothers have every right to his service, which is provided in every hospital throughout the country."

Photos sent for processing to a Galway photographic laboratory led to a 13 year old girl being taken into care by court order, the Connacht Tribune reported. Gardai who are investigating the explicit "paedophile type" photos told the newspaper that they hope to complete their investigations shortly before forwarding a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The newspaper suggested that while it was photo lab workers who became concerned, others had already started asking questions. "At least one man living in the rural area at the centre of the investigation said that prior to this week's developments some local people had privately expressed concerns about the welfare of the young girl," it said.

"Naas toilets being used by group of paedophiles," said the Kildare Nationalist. The claim was being made by a Dublin private investigator, Mr Liam Brady, who told the newspaper that he had conversations on tape where Naas public toilet had been arranged and used as a rendezvous point by known paedophiles.

He also claimed that he had "some of the best known paedophiles in the country on videotape going into Naas toilets and staying in there for up to one hour and 40 minutes at a time".

The Nationalist's blunt editorial comment on the Belgian paedophile case in which young girls were kidnapped, abused and killed was: "It could happen here". It believed that "on a daily basis there are people being released back into the community who will almost certainly continue to abuse children. A new form of sentencing is probably required to tackle this problem effectively."

THE Laois Nationalist reported that suspects interviewed at Portlaoise Garda Station were proving "camera shy". For the last 12 months, under a pilot scheme, suspects have had the option of having their interview videotaped. The idea behind it is to safeguard the rights of suspects under interrogation as well as to protect gardai against allegations of mistreatment. Fine in theory, but there has been only a two per cent uptake so far.

The Clare Champion reported that "East Clare concern has been expressed over plans by a world wide charity of Indian origin to construct a major holiday and conference complex in Whitegate. The charity, Ananda Bharati, already has a network of schools and centres throughout Europe and America".

The centre will cater for 200 people in search of "ecological harmony" - a notion that's raising the alarm for some locals. One councillor, Paddy Bugler, said that "the conference centre is shrouded in controversy because of a genuine fear that it's connected with the New Age lifestyle".

The newspaper said that "the application to the council is on behalf of the Ananda Bharati School in London and is geared to provide a centre which will provide a drug and alcohol free environment for young people to experience `a joyful sense of ecological harmony'."

The complex would use wind energy, water recycling and would also incorporate "parma culture design for self supporting agricultural activity".

It would be interesting to hear the fish's point of view. There was a "hands off pike warning" on the front page of the Roscommon Herald, alerting would be pike stealers that the fish is headed for extinction. There was a young beached whale in Kerry's Eye and a sadly intriguing item at the bottom of the Connaught Telegraph's front page. "Two tuna fish were seen near Clare Island in Clew Bay on Sunday, the first sightings for many years." Perhaps a little more sense of ecological harmony wouldn't do us any harm.