"Unbelievable" is how the level of drinking among 14and 15-year-old players in the GAA has been described by Tommy Mullaney, GAA board secretary in Co Roscommon. "You'd need to wear a gas mask at some under-age matches to avoid the smell of drink," Mr Mullaney told the Roscommon Champion.

"A lot of people are to blame. The parents, the people who serve drink to under-age players and the people who monitor the laws. It's part of the drink culture in this country. People's priorities aren't on Gaelic games if it interferes with a social life which revolves around drink," Mr Mullaney said.

In a familiar response, Mr James Tully, county chairman of the Vintners Federation of Ireland and national vice-president of the VFI, said it was the policy of the federation not to serve drink to people who were under the legal age limit of 18. "I'm not saying it doesn't happen but we don't condone it," he explained.

The answer may be a good meal - and bright lights. The Mayo News said: "Garda chiefs in the West have decided that disco music must be turned off and full lights turned on so that meals can be served at late-night functions throughout western counties."

The "tougher approach" is already being enforced in Galway and is presenting a "disco dilemma" since admission charges may have to be raised to cover the cost of the food, said the newspaper.

The "stricter enforcement of the conditions attaching to bar licence extensions are likely to have severe repercussions for the Mayo disco scene," said the Mayo News. Gardai are planning to apply to courts in Mayo and throughout the west to have the new conditions strictly attached to all bar extensions.

The Donegal Democrat said loyalist "death squads" were engaged in daily intelligence-gathering operations in the State. The Sinn Fein vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, has called for vigilance across the county and claimed that "loyalists are using the cover of vans travelling around the county distributing products from their Northern base". Every civilian in the county was in danger, he said.

The Longford Leader said a child who was abused for five years by her father has spent 15 months on a health board waiting list for vital therapy. This emerged at a recent sitting of the Circuit Court in Longford town, when a Midland Health Board social worker described the delay as "shocking".

The victim has bad dreams, as well as stomach pains and headaches for which no physical cause can be found, suffers mood swings and cannot settle in the house where "she had been interfered with" so that the family has had to move.

"To have been waiting 15 months for psychological therapy is deplorable, and considering the young girl's condition I have written to the unit three times in relation to the case," said the social worker.

The Wexford People declared: "Leading FF man in sex probe: Two decades of assaults alleged". Maria Pepper wrote that "a former senior office-holder and prominent member of Fianna Fail in Co Wexford is at the centre of a major Garda sex abuse probe following allegations he sexually and physically assaulted a number of young people over a period covering two decades."

A file has been sent to the DPP concerning the alleged abuse, which is "understood to have taken place within a family situation over a period dating back to the 1970s". It is also understood the individual at the centre of the case is "vehemently denying" the allegations.

The Echo of Wexford said the public water supply feeding several houses in Bunclody had been polluted with harmful toxic herbicide. A routine inspection of a pump station revealed the station door had been forced open and there was an empty half-litre container of Roundup on the floor. "Gardai feared for the worst after it was discovered that the culprit had free access to water in the pump station."

The Roscommon Herald said there was "Sewage in drinking water". The Environmental Protection Agency has judged the quality of drinking water as "seriously impaired" and containing human or animal excrement. The worst two supplies were public, rather than group water schemes.

"Is the net closing in on Banjo?" asked the Munster Express.

John O'Connor wrote that the Amazon great parrot missing from Ballycogly Castle, Co Wexford, for over two weeks had been seen in a schoolyard and a nearby garden.

The green parrot's distressed owner, Ms Mary Boland, offered a £2,000 reward to the person who returned Banjo, who was said to be "a very extrovert character with a wide-ranging vocabulary", extending to "a passable version of Raglan Road".