A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
Young Lotto winners collect €8m cheque
The Kilkenny couple who won the second biggest Lotto Jackpot have promised to stop playing the Lotto to give someone else a chance to win, writes Mark Rodden.
The young married couple, who wish to remain anonymous, yesterday collected the cheque for €8,606,212 from Dermot Griffin, the National Lottery director in Dublin.
"We're going to look after our family and maybe invest in property for the future," the couple said.
"We'd both love to travel more and bring the family with us, so that's a long-term plan. We've also decided to stop playing Lotto, at least for now, and give someone else a chance to win a dream prize like this."
The couple yesterday described how they had bought the winning ticket in a different shop than they normally did, and delayed checking to see if they had won.
"We laughed at the thought that it could be us and, would you believe, actually decided not to check the ticket so that we could dream on a bit longer about what it would be like to win."
The couple have a young family and have been living in Kilkenny for about 20 years.
The highest Lotto jackpot collected was a €9,505,290 prize won in 1996 by two winning tickets.
Paper shredders for gardaí
Paper shredders are to be provided to dozens of Garda stations in a major security revamp, it emerged yesterday.
An Garda Síochána has invited tenders for the supply and delivery of the hi-tech machines to destroy unwanted confidential documents about suspects and investigations.
The Finance and Procurement section at Garda headquarters in Dublin's Phoenix Park will vet all applications after the proposed March 20th deadline and then award the contract to the most suitable firm. Document fraud has increased in recent years and Garda chiefs are aware that sensitive documents in local stations, including personal details of officers, must be filed securely or safely destroyed.
Former Garda Fraud Squad officer and AXA's fraud investigations manager Willie McGee said: "Most firms have a shredding policy for destroying important documents and I presume the Garda is professionalising its operations in this manner like any business."
Mr McGee said householders should also use EU-certified shredders to dispose of personal bank statements or credit card bills in case they get into the wrong hands.
"Criminals raiding wheelie bins or posing as cleaners in apartment blocks have accessed information to enable them to clone credit cards or pilfer bank accounts in the past," he added.
Siptu critical of absent TDs
Siptu Dublin regional secretary Patricia King yesterday criticised the failure of Dublin TDs from Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats to attend a meeting on decentralisation on Thursday, writes Mark Rodden.
Ms King said over 300 people attended the meeting at Liberty Hall to express concern about the proposed relocation of the headquarters of 16 specialist semi-State agencies around the country.
"I find it amazing that not one TD from Fianna Fáil or the PDs attended. I do not know if it was out of cowardice, or arrogance, or a combination of both, but it shows an astounding contempt for their own constituents," she said.
Siptu said that representatives of all the other parties attended the meeting and gave commitments to review the decision to relocate specialist State agencies if they form part of the next government.