Saturday/Sunday
A DUBLIN man was held in custody after being charged with conspiracy to murder the journalist Veronica Guerin, who was shot dead in Dublin last June.
Mr Paul Ward of Crumlin, south Dublin, had also been charged with harbouring persons knowing they had been involved with the murder and with possession of drugs with intent to supply.
Meanwhile, a former garda who had previously been decorated with the Scott medal for bravery was remanded on bail after being charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by destroying an arrest warrant, corruptly accepting a gift or bribe of £200 and unlawfully possessing of a sawn off shotgun.
A senior garda in Cork denied there was any investigation into allegations of corruption against gardai in the city, despite a statement to the contrary by Garda Headquarters.
The exclusion of religious schools from certain provisions of the new Employment Equality Bill was criticised as an unfair intrusion on teachers' private lives at a special conference of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation in Galway.
Monday
A Tipperary farmer received one of the heaviest ever sentences for animal drugs offences at a special sitting in Athlone District Court. Ronald Armitage was given a six month sentence and fined £12,000 for possession of illegal hormones and angel dust over a two year period.
The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, defended the force against the suggestion that there was widespread corruption" among gardai. He said the only investigations of alleged corruption were in Dublin and Cork and denied that there was any investigation across the force.
Russia said it would lift import bans on beef from Cos Tipperary, Cork and Monaghan when BSE levels in those counties fell. It also criticised the protests of Irish farming organisations as counter productive and warned that meat from other counties could be banned if levels of the disease rose in those areas.
Tuesday
It emerged that the Department of Justice had sent 155 letters refusing asylum to Cuban refugees, among them some children. The Cubans were informed that they did not qualify as refugees under the Geneva Convention and were given 21 days to appeal the decision.
The procedure was understood to be an effort by the Department of Justice to clear the backlog of more than 1,000 asylum applications which have built up since the start of the decade.
The cost of telephone calls will fall by 6 per cent per year for the next five years under the new Telecommunications (Miscellaneous) Bill, the Dail was told. The cap on charges should come into effect next January.
The world did not end at tea time this evening, despite the predictions of Archbishop James Ussher who died in 1656 but was absolutely certain the world would end today.
Wednesday
Talks on a successor to the Programme for Competitiveness and Work began in Dublin Castle. The Government argued that the PCW had been a major factor in fostering job creation but trade union representatives believe that any new agreement must be accompanied by significant tax cuts.
The Coalition leaders appeared to favour a general election next October, with a 1997 Budget in late autumn instead of January.
The Sunday Times newspaper opened its case in the Albert Reynolds libel case in the High Court, London. Mr Reynolds is suing the newspaper over an article which alleged he lied to the Dail and misled his cabinet colleagues.
When asked why he had not complained about similar articles in Irish newspapers, Mr Reynolds replied that he had not read newspapers during the Father Brendan Smyth affair which brought down the government, nor had he read those newspapers since.
Scientists in Britain discovered a new form of CJD, probably caused by eating BSE infected meat, but concluded that most CJD cases were not linked to BSE.
Thursday
The week ended as it began, with an investigation into allegations of misconduct against a garda. A garda in Garda Headquarters, Dublin, was under investigation for an alleged indecent assault against a young man in west Dublin earlier this month.
It was the second case of its kind in recent weeks, following allegations in Cork by a 17 year old man that he was sexually assaulted by a garda who had arrested him on a minor drugs charge.
The Department of Agriculture completed a second investigation into the possibly deliberate introdurtiou of a BSE infected animal into a herd in order to claim compensation, and the Garda will now be asked to look into the case. It followed a similar investigation in Munster which the Garda is also investigating.
The wife of an Army corporal was jailed for life for the murder of her husband. Norma Cotter had denied any intention of killing or seriously injuring her husband, Gary, who died from a shotgun wound to the chest. "I wanted Gary to leave me alone," she said.