In Short

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

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

Jury back tomorrow in O'Reilly case

Legal argument in the absence of the jury continued during the trial of Joe O'Reilly for the murder of his wife Rachel at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.

It was the eighth day of the trial of Mr O'Reilly (35), Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, Co Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering Rachel O'Reilly, his 30-year-old wife and mother of their two

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children at the family home on October 4th, 2004.

The jury of nine men and two women have been told to return tomorrow.

FF cumann calls for return of Flynn

The Westport Fianna Fáil cumann has passed a unanimous motion calling for party headquarters to readmit Beverley Flynn TD as soon as possible.

The motion was discussed at a meeting on Tuesday night called by the cumann to assess the party's showing in the general election.

Westport is the first Fianna Fáil branch in Co Mayo to pass such a motion and it is expected that other party branches will follow suit.

Westport-based Fianna Fáil town and county councillor Margaret Adams said that once the motion was proposed and seconded it received unanimous support.

"We did this in the interest of having a united party ahead of the local elections," she said.

"An Taoiseach supports her move back into the party and came out very firmly in her favour."

Arsonist sent to jail for 11 months

A convicted arsonist from Latvia who is being investigating in several European countries received an 11-month prison sentence at yesterday's sitting of Tullamore District Court for burning out a room he rented in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

Andris Borovskis (20) was charged with arson and damaging property by fire at Chancery Park Crescent in Tullamore on May 22nd last. The court heard the damage came to €23,900.

Previous court sittings heard that police in several European countries were investigating the defendant.

He was remanded in custody to appear at yesterday's court sitting to allow gardaí to get information from Interpol.

Coroner to alert doctors to Lipitor

The Dublin City Coroner is to write to the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) following the death of a woman arising from her use of a drug which is widely prescribed for lowering cholesterol, an inquest has heard.

Dr Brian Farrell told an inquest into the death of Mrs Audrey Duffy (77), Balally Drive, Dundrum, Dublin, yesterday, that he was obliged to alert the IMB, the medical profession and the public to the possible adverse effects of using Lipitor, a type of statin, commonly prescribed to treat cholesterol problems and heart disease and to prevent strokes.

Mrs Duffy died at St Vincent's Hospital on January 18th, 2006, just over a month after having been prescribed Lipitor.

Woman to head St Vincent de Paul

The St Vincent de Paul Society in Ireland has elected its first woman national president. Mairéad Bushnell was recently the agency's Cork regional president, writes Patsy McGarry.

Originally from Co Wicklow and the mother of four children, she is a home economics teacher and has taught in schools in Dublin and Cork.

A long-time community activist she now leads Ireland's largest voluntary organisation of social concern and action with over 9,200 volunteers in 1,000 conferences (branches) on the island of Ireland.

Last year the society spent more than €41 million fighting poverty and disadvantage.