Mt Gabriel News Today

It's nearly December, and the Christmas music has well and truly begun trickling over the speakers at the mall. People are counting down the days til the end of the year. And its the season for people to pop up a Christmas tree and start putting presents underneath it. While many use artifical christmas trees, the market for real trees is still thriving. Our reporter Leonard Powell visited a couple of Auckland Christmas Tree Farms to learn more about the business.

Ireland will have to make significant investment in specialised systems to warn of extreme weather events such as flash floods, mudslides and even wildfires as a consequence of climate change, it has been warned.

STATE agri-agency Teagasc is being urged to offer special open-field clearance courses amid alarm at a surge in gorse fires which earlier this year jeopardised a major air traffic control complex and threatened to overwhelm fire brigade services in two counties.