The Irish Times reports that Fórsa yesterday won the right to represent Ryanair cabin crew hired by agencies. This means the union now has the right to negotiate for all Ryanair cabin crew, irrespective of whether or not the airline directly employs them. In other Ryanair news, its hand luggage rules change today as charges for passengers flying with a small suitcase are introduced.

Ingrid Miley asks the question, is there a real threat of strikes in schools as primary teachers reject pay equality proposals? This potential industrial action comes with the news that 17 (more than a third) of the schools assessed for structural deficits will now require intervention following on-site inspections.

Women will officially stop earning this year on November 13th as a result of the gender pay gap, says Sonya Lennon.

Although tens of thousands of houses are believed to be lying abandoned around the country, new figures show more than half of county councils have not made any attempt to build up their housing stock through the use of Compulsory Purchase Orders. Meanwhile, hundreds of homeowners face renewed threat of repossession following a landmark judgment by the Court of Appeal.

The Government is under increasing pressure to agree to European Commission proposals for an EU-wide 3% digital sales tax ahead of a meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels next week. However, government sources says it will resist the proposal in its current form.

Following his reelection, President Michael D Higgins has begun consulting with advisers and staff on setting up an audit committee to scrutinise how an “additional” allowance of €317,000 is spent.

And finally, today's Zen is an impressive and satisfying feat of engineering whereby a man named Martin Molin plays a self-composed piece of music using a custom-made instrument with 2000 marbles.