Kerry people face a 10-year wait for council housing, according to the Kerryman, which reported that there are almost 1,500 applications for council houses on file in the county but only 186 new houses are being started in Kerry this year.
Spiralling land and property prices are forcing large numbers of people onto the housing list, the newspaper stated. Figures show a 23 per cent increase in the number of applicants seeking local authority housing in the county this year.
In the west, a pioneer movement has said the Government should be encouraging more controls on the cost of food and other consumer goods instead of drink.
In an article in the Tuam Herald, Mr Richard Broderick, of the North East Galway Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, said he appreciated the Government was concerned about inflation but felt it would be more logical for it to concentrate on getting down the price of food and other essentials.
Wicklow Dail deputy Ms Mildred Fox will be married in a private ceremony in Rome on July 17th, the Wicklow People reported.
She will walk down the aisle with her boyfriend of three years, Mr Daryl Tighe, a plasterer, also from Wicklow, in a simple summer dress, she told the newspaper. The couple will then spend two weeks touring Italy and return home to live with her mother while they await the completion of their three-bedroom bungalow on her mother's farm. Her younger sister Ruth will act as her bridesmaid and Daryl's father Ray will be best man.
A number of newspapers recount the horrors of the Australian backpacker hostel fire which claimed the life of a young Limerick woman. The Longford News said Ms Ann Farrell (29), from Ballinalee, miraculously escaped the blaze. She had been staying on the ground floor of the hostel and this may have aided her escape, her mother Melissa told the newspaper.
The Fingal Independent reported that a 23-year-old Ashbourne woman also had a lucky escape. Ms Caroline Heavey was travelling with friends when they decided to stop off at the ill-fated Palace Backpackers Hostel. As there was no room in the hostel the friends decided to spend the night in the camper-van in which they were travelling and parked it close to the hostel.
The Sligo Champion reported that a north Sligo farmer has agreed to delay cutting hay in Mullaghmore to allow a corncrake to nest successfully.
Mr Bernard Oates is availing of a grant introduced to protect the birds. Bird Watch offers farmers £57 an acre to delay mowing and give the birds every chance to nest successfully.
Mr Oates, who would otherwise be mowing at the end of June, agreed to leave his grass until August 1st.
The newspaper also reported that an employee of Sligo County Council was fined £200 and ordered to pay costs and witnesses' expenses at Sligo District Court for a littering offence. He was summonsed for depositing bags of litter beside bins at Rosses Point.
Litter warden Aideen Feeney searched the bags and found a receipt addressed to the defendant from a veterinary practice. Four of the bags were full of empty cat food tins and the other two contained household rubbish. Judge Oliver McGuinness suggested this evidence "let the cat out of the bag".
The defendant claimed his job with the council involved the collection of rubbish from time to time in Rosses Point. He said he collected the bags in the area and placed them beside a litter bin. He added to them a few items of rubbish from his car. The judge did not accept his explanation.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has said if it wasn't for financial donations made personally to him he wouldn't be in office today.
In an interview with the Kildare Nationalist, which profiled him this week, he rejected the suggestion that political donations should be made through a central party fund, saying if that was the case he would never had been re-elected to the Dail.
During the 1980s, Mr McCreevy's stance against the then Fianna Fail leader Mr Charles Haughey lost him the whip and isolated him on the periphery of the party. Now, he maintains that if it was not for the benefit of donations made directly to him, he would never have made a comeback.
He added that the corruption of politicians had been confused with genuine political donations.
In the North, staff working for Foyle Trust's family and childcare services have pleaded for extra funding to stop them failing families and children in Derry who need them most, according to the Derry Journal.
Some children who have been abused have to wait up to two years for assessment for counselling, children as young as four may have already been placed in up to 40 different homes and care institutions, and referrals to social services can take up to nine months to follow up. A spokesperson for the social workers' trade union NIPSA said a crisis was waiting to happen.