A former Fine Gael town councillor has been found guilty of corruptly accepting payments totalling 80-thousand euro from a property developer in Waterford six years ago.

Fred Forsey Junior of Coolagh Road, Dungarvan, had denied six counts of accepting corrupt payments on three separate dates in August, October and December 2006.

He has been remanded on bail and will be sentenced next Thursday.

Two people have been killed in a crash in Co. Mayo.

It happened when a motorbike collided with a car on the Killala to Ballycastle Road near Lacken, shortly after midday.

A man and woman who were travelling on the motorbike were pronounced dead at the scene, while the sole occupant of the car has been taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The area has been sealed off for examination and traffic diversions are in place.

The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has rung the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange – marking a record-setting I-P-O launch.

Shares of the social network site are being priced at 38 dollars each – valuing the company at over 104 billion dollars.

That makes Facebook’s I-P-O the largest ever launch of a technology firm on the US stock market.

Zuckerberg is expected to retain 59 per cent of the company’s voting power.

People. please! Stop sending me messages by mistake! (Actually, don’t, i love it and so do the listeners)

Here’s todays ‘text not meant for i’!

Shit man, where did we end up last night? I cant remember from about midnight. All i know is I woke up in bed this mornin next to my step mom. FML.

Two years ago the bank announced 750 redundancies were being sought.

So far around 350 people have already left the bank.

The bank says any further figures are speculative.

But workers are being briefed today on the package that is on offer.

It consists of 3 weeks per year of service plus statutory entitlements subject to a cap of 2 years.

The terms were driven down after the Department of Finance intervened.

General-Secretary of IBOA finance union is Larry Broderick.

“About 350 had been concluded last year & we estimate another 1,000 may be required in Bank of Ireland over the coming two years” he said.

“In addition this has to be looked at against the backdrop of 950 redundancies having been agreed with us in Ulster Bank this week – and the potential of 2,500 jobs to go in AIB certainly over the next 2 years”.

“So this is a very dark day and a vary dark time for staff in the banking industry” he added.

European stock markets have suffered falls in early trading on the back of the latest developments in the Eurozone crisis.

Moody’s ratings agency last night downgraded 16 Spanish banks by between 1 and 3 notches.

While another agency – Fitch – delivered another blow to Greece.

It downgraded their credit rating one more notch to CCC as question marks hang over their membership of the Eurozone.

Some experts have played down concerns about the effect a Greek exit would have on the single currency saying it would not be as bad as when Lehman Brothers collapsed in the US.

But Brenda Kelly from CMC markets is cautioning against any complacency on the fallout.

“But remember Lehman was just a bank, Greece is a country” she said.

“Investors in other countries don’t necessarily differentiate between the smaller countries; they see Germany as the core, and then they look at the rest of Europe as the rest of Europe”.

“It’s not like they differentiate between the sort of different economies – they see it as one particular area, and if one goes down then the others go down” she added.

BM is to hire hundreds more workers in Dublin.

It’s going to recruit more than 200 for its new Global Services Integration Hub in Mulhuddart.

The IT company already employs more than 3 thousand people in Ireland across facilities in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

The Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has ruled out a second EU Treaty referendum – if Ireland votes No on May 31st.

Minister Coveney – who is Fine Gael’s Director of Elections for the campaign – has defended his cabinet colleague Richard Bruton, after the Jobs Minister suggested a second referendum may be needed during a radio debate yesterday.

Minister Bruton later retracted the comments.

Minister Coveney said Richard Bruton made a mistake  – and if people vote No to the EU Treaty – then that is the final decision.

Bank of Ireland workers will be briefed on the details of a voluntary redundancy scheme later today.

It’s speculated that the bank may be seeking more than the 750 redundancies announced two years ago – with some reports saying the final figure could be in the region of 1,000.

However, the Irish Bank Officials Association says it will make an announcement later this morning, after its members are briefed at a conference in Galway.

Our Business Editor Ian Guider says workers who leave the bank may get less than previous deals would have offered.