In short

A round-up of today's other home news in brief...

A round-up of today's other home news in brief ...

Puppies being dumped due to recession

Puppies have been dumped in bags and even in an old fridge containing sour milk across Co Wexford in recent days.

The Wexford Society for the Prevention of Cruelty tor Animals says it continues to respond to an increasing number of calls as the recession deepens.

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Brigid Cullen of the society said that in the past few days, more than 10 puppies have been dumped around the county. The society is now looking for new homes for the majority of the puppies.

Gas may have caused explosion

Initial investigations into the cause of an explosion at a house near Blackrock, Co Dublin, have been completed, the local authority said in a statement.

The damaged house was empty at the time and it is suspected the explosion may have been caused by a gas leak. Two adjacent houses were damaged and up to 30 nearby houses had to be evacuated for a time.

A spokesman said Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council was continuing its assessment of the structure at Temple Hill, Blackrock, while Bord Gáis and the Garda had completed their preliminary examinations of the scene.

A spokesman said it was a slow process. Due to the instability of the buildings, much of the stabilising works had to be done by hand.

The injured people included an elderly woman who lived in one of the adjoining properties, a motorist and three passersby.

They were taken to St Vincent’s hospital for treatment.

Pub quiz man raised 103,000

A pub in north Co Dublin hosted a celebration this week to mark the achievement of a man who raised over €100,000 for charity in a weekly pub quiz over an eight year period, writes Éanna Ó Caollaí.

Tom Carroll who organises “The Fun Quiz” in The Estuary pub in Swords has raised almost €103,000 to date for the St Francis Hospice in Raheny. The achievement was marked this week with a celebration at the pub on Monday night.

Man’s body recovered

Gardaí are investigating the discovery of the body of a young man in a river on the Mayo/Galway border yesterday .

The body was taken from the Black river in the village of Shrule at about noon and transferred to University College Hospital in Galway. A postmortem was held later.

It is understood that the dead man, who was in his early 30s, was from the Caherlistrane area of north Galway.

Man arrested over shooting

A fifth person has been arrested by gardaí investigating the fatal shooting of man in west Dublin on Friday night.

Shay O’Byrne (27) died following the shooting in the Tymon estate in Tallaght, which has been linked to a a feud between rival drug gangs in Crumlin and Drimnagh.

His girlfriend was treated in hospital for a gunshot wound to the leg received during the attack.

A 31-year-old man was arrested over the shooting yesterday afternoon.

He was last night detained under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act at Tallaght Garda station.