Dublin  - Ireland has asked its ambassador to Belarus to discuss a travel ban on children affected by the Chernobyl disaster with the Belarusian authorities, Irish national broadcaster RTE reported Monday.

Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said he had asked the ambassador to discuss formal arrangements for the children, 1,000 of whom visit Ireland each year for holidays and medical treatment, following a travel ban imposed on all children last week after a Belarusian teen refused to return home after a summer holiday in the United States.

Thousands of Belarusian children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster enjoy foreign holidays funded by the charity the Chernobyl Children's Project.

Dublin - The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Ireland jumped to a 10-year high of 6.1 per cent in August from 4.5 per cent in the same month last year, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported Wednesday.

There were 235,100 people claiming unemployment benefits in August, up 73,200 over the 12-month period to the end of the month, the highest jump ever recorded, the CSO told national broadcaster RTE.

Unemployment in Ireland has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year when the economy started to take a downturn.

Dublin - Satellite navigation systems have been causing chaos in Ireland's idyllic Ring of Kerry, a 180-kilometre stretch of road around the rugged landscape of the island's south-west, national br

Dublin - Ireland's Europe Minister Dick Roche has been criticised by both yes and no campaigners for saying he believes a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty will be necessary, the Irish Independent reported Tuesday.

Roche told the newspaper on Monday that it is his "personal view at this stage" that Ireland will have to vote again on the EU reform treaty the country rejected in a referendum in June.

Prior to Roche's comments government ministers had said it was too early to say how Ireland would get around the ratification dilemma. Ireland was the only EU member to hold a public referendum on the treaty which has to be ratified by all 27 member states before it can come into effect.

Dublin, August 21 : A find, which is being touted as the ‘cradle of Berlin’ - one of the oldest graveyards of the city that contains 2,300 skeletons, has uncovered evidence that the German capital is 45 years older than previously thought.

Since March, archaeologists have been at work at Petriplatz, Peter’s Square, which served in the Middle Ages as the central square of Colln, Berlin’s now vanished sister city.

The area was badly damaged during the Second World War and bulldozed out of existence by East German city planners.

Today, motorists race along the busy Leipzigerstrasse, a six-lane east-west thoroughfare, oblivious of the archaeologists only metres away behind their hoarding.

Dublin - Ireland's low-fare airline Ryanair warned Monday that it is bracing for red-ink of up to 60 million euros (95 million dollars) in the fiscal 2008/2009 year amid surging fuel costs.

At best, the airline said in presenting first-quarter figures, the company could show break-even results.

Ryanair said that in the first quarter starting April 1, it managed a profit of 21 million euros, plunging 85 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier.

Aviation fuel in the quarter cost the airline 367 million euros, surging 93 per cent from the same quarter last year. Ryanair said fuel now accounts for half of the airline's expenses, compared with 36 per cent a year ago.