A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
More than 100 road arrests over Christmas
More than 100 people were arrested for drink-driving over Christmas, gardaí said yesterday. On Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day, 51 drivers failed breath tests and the same number of drink-driving offences were recorded yesterday.
A Garda spokesman said checkpoints would continue to be set up over the New Year weekend.
Man arrested in airport remanded
A man arrested in Dublin airport on Wednesday has been remanded in custody. Alicidio Ramos (28) from Portugal, with an address at Blackpool, Cork, was discovered wandering around the airport.
At Dublin District Court yesterday, Sgt MJ Higgins said two warrants were issued during the year in Dublin and another in Cork, relating to minor thefts and public order offences.
Defence solicitor Cahir O'Higgins asked that Mr Ramos be granted bail as he had made attempts to turn up in the courts where the warrants had been issued.
He had taken to travelling to the capital the night before. He had come up on Wednesday and the bus dropped him off at the airport. He had no other reason for being in the terminal other than that was where the bus stopped, Mr O'Higgins said.
Judge Fitzpatrick remanded Mr Ramos in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on January 2nd.
Call for ban on TV junk food adverts
A ban on junk food advertising, similar to that planned in Britain, has been advocated by Sligo TD and GP, Dr Jimmy Devins, who is the vice-chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children.
Dr Devins said yesterday: "Advertising plays a huge role in they way children choose to eat. Catchy advertisements can create a hype in the playground about certain products that can result in peer pressure on children to eat a certain product," he said.
Dr Devins said healthy school lunch policies had helped to curb this problem in a lot of schools in Ireland, but the rising rate of child obesity pointed to a larger problem in diet.
"A survey conducted by school public health nurses in the west of Ireland this year found that more than a quarter of senior infant children are overweight. This is a very worrying statistic."
Letterkenny public order offences
A young man had part of his ear bitten off on St Stephen's night in Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
The town was packed and gardaí say they spent a considerable amount of time preventing trouble from breaking out. A number of people were arrested for public order offences.
Meanwhile, staff working in Letterkenny's accident and emergency department estimate that up to 90 per cent of admissions since Christmas Day have been alcohol related.
Warning on immigrant ghettos
Cities and towns are in danger of developing major ghetto areas because of a lack of integration services for new immigrants, according to the president of the Irish-Polish Cultural and Business Association.
Limerick businessman Pat O'Sullivan is calling for centres of international integration to be established across Ireland. "We need a centre for international integration in our cities before we have a ghetto situation," he said.