BRIAN LENIHAN introduced one of the most brutal budgets in the history of the 26 Counties on Wednesday, which included savage cuts in social welfare and public service pay. Lenihan's Budget seeks to save €4 billion with the bulk of it coming from spending cuts rather than extra taxation. The budget targeted young people, reducing jobs seekers benefit to €100 for those aged 20 and 21 and to €150 for those aged between 22 and 24. It involves cuts in social welfare rates which range from about 4.1 per cent for those claiming jobseekers' allowance to 10 per cent in child benefit. Free article

A SERIES of events commemorating four IRA Volunteers whose 25th anniversaries fell last week were held in Derry City last Sunday , 6 December. Volunteers Danny Doherty and Willie Fleming were shot dead by the SAS in Derry City on 6 December 1984. Volunteers Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde from Magherafelt in County Derry and Ciarán Fleming, a cousin of Willie Fleming died on active service on the Fermanagh border on 2 December that year. Free article

A FINAL appeal to the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government this week to restore the Christmas social welfare payment was made by Sinn Féin Social and Family Affairs spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh. On Tuesday, the Dublin South Central TD accompanied 12-year-old Curtis Tysom to Government Buildings as the youngster presented a giant Christmas card appeal to the Government to restore the 'bonus' payment. The card was designed by Curtis and carries the names of those councils throughout the state that have passed motions calling for the restoration of the payment. Free article

IRA VOLUNTEER Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed on active service by the SAS in the early hours of 2 December 1984 (see 'Remembering the Past' page 17). On Sunday, Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney delivered the 25th anniversary memorial address in honour of this brave IRA Volunteer. Free article

THE Irish Government should again look at suspending diplomatic relations with Israel after this week's revelation that the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs was refused permission to visit Gaza in occupied Palestine. Sinn Féin's Aengus Ó Snodaigh said it is high time that a hard line is taken on the issue. He declared Israel a "rogue, racist and belligerent state". Free article

THE PSNI are stalling on disclosing the Stalker/Sampson reports into RUC 'shoot to kill' incidents until next year. In 1982 six men were shot dead by crown forces in controversial circumstances in Armagh. They were IRA Volunteers Gervais McKerr, Eugene Toman and Seán Burns all from Lurgan, civilian Michael Tighe shot dead in a hayshed on the Ballinary Road outside Lurgan with his friend Martin McCauley who survived and INLA Volunteers, Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll from Armagh City. The latter were killed on 12 December at the entrance to the Mullacreevie Park estate where Grew lived. Free article

NEW LAWS being debated in the Dáil about the granting of foreshore licences for coastal developments have provoked Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris to raise how the Corrib Gas Project licence was first granted by a Fianna Fáil minister. The Sinn Féin spokesperson on Natural Resources highlighted the failure to consult the local community and he stressed the need to consider the economic and environmental aspects of major projects based in coastal areas. Free article

THE enormous rift between rich and poor countries on solutions to climate change has, unsurprisingly, immediately come to the fore at the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen which began on 7 December and is to conclude on 18 December. A secret draft agreement believed to have been worked on by the US and Denmark among other states, which was leaked to the British 'Guardian' newspaper on Tuesday 8 December, outlined rich countries' plans to sideline the UN in all future climate change negotiations. Free article