A second man has appeared in court charged in connection with harassing a member of An Garda Síochána in Cork.

46-year-old Ross Lahive, a former European Elections candidate for the Irish People’s Party, of Church Street, Shandon, attended the Bridewell Garda Station by appointment earlier today, before being brought before a sitting of Cork District Court on a charge of harassing a garda on dates between 9 October 2022 and 6 February 2025.

Det. Sgt. Christopher Cahill said when arrested, charged and cautioned, Mr Lahive made no reply.

Judge Mary Dorgan was told that the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed the summary disposal of the case at district court level on a signed plea of guilty.

She accepted jurisdiction on this basis.

The court was told the State had no objection to bail, subject to a number of conditions.

Det. Sgt. Cahill told Judge Dorgan that the charge arose allegedly from “a campaign of harassment” against the garda between October 2022 and February 2025.

Defence solicitor Diarmuid Kelleher sought an adjournment to facilitate the release of evidential material and to take instructions from his client. Judge Dorgan granted the application.

She remanded Mr Lahive on bail subject to a number of conditions to appear again before the district court on 20 November next.

The conditions include that Mr Lahive sign a bond of €1,000, that he sign on twice weekly at the Bridewell Garda Station, and that he had no direct or indirect contact with the victim or any witness in the case.

The conditions also include that he does not post any video or communications relating to the matter online, and that he possesses a charged mobile phone so that he can be contacted by gardaí.

An application for free legal aid was also granted.

A commercial partnership between the Late Late Toy Show and the fast fashion retailer Penneys will not go ahead this year, RTÉ has confirmed in a statement provided to RTÉ Investigates.

Penneys said the partnership was “paused” because the “Penneys ordering deadline for the Late Late Toy Show pyjamas coincided with the initial conversations with RTÉ Investigates.”

The RTÉ statement said that, while the Late Late Toy Show had previously partnered with Penneys, the commercial partnership would “not go ahead this year for a number of reasons.”

In previous years, the partnership included the production of Late Late Toy Show-branded pyjamas and socks.

The partnership ran for a decade and included donations by Penneys to the RTÉ Toy Show Appeal. In 2024, the company donated €100,000.

The statement was provided to RTÉ Investigates after its investigation, broadcast on Wednesday night, detailed how Bangladeshi factories that supplied major Irish retailers, including Penneys, were also sourcing cotton from two Chinese suppliers that had taken in Uyghur workers under a state-backed forced labour programme.

WATCH: RTÉ Investigates: Forced Fashion on the RTÉ Player

“There is no suggestion of any link between the [Toy Show] range and the questions raised in the programme,” Penneys told RTÉ Investigates.

Penneys said it was “very proud” of the ten years of the partnership, and that it “looked forward to revisiting the partnership next year.”

RTÉ Investigates also asked if RTÉ had commercial partnerships with any of the other retailers named in the programme, which included Marks and Spencer, Dunnes Stores, Tesco, and Shein.

It said: “RTÉ has had and continues to have relationships with a wide range of retailers, including those named in the programme.”

It also said that RTÉ “conducts due diligence on all commercial partners and keeps all commercial partners under review,” and that RTÉ did not have a commercial partnership with Shein.

“Any new information relating to possible work practices or ethical or environmental issues relating to commercial partners will be reviewed by RTÉ,” said the statement.

“Where necessary, assurances will be sought by RTÉ, and further action may be considered.”

Up to a third of the world’s cotton comes from the province of Xinjiang in China, where China has built a system of state repression targeting Muslim minorities, the largest being the Uyghurs.

The United Nations said in 2022 that the abuses committed by China – which include mass arbitrary detention, forced sterilisation, and forced labour – could amount to crimes against humanity.

READ: How forced Uyghur labour could be woven into your wardrobe

The revelations about these abuses led many clothing retailers to vow never to source from the region, but RTÉ Investigates found that systems cited by the retailers as protecting them from Xinjiang cotton were ineffective.

The Labour Party, citing the investigation, called for the passage of its Exploitation and Trafficking Bill, which would “establish a mandatory register for all businesses, compelling them to demonstrate their commitment to eradicating forced labour and exploitation in their supply chains.⁠”

The Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews urged the European Union to agree on a €5 levy on the import of low-cost packages from outside the EU.

Nicolas Sarkozy entered the Elysee Palace in 2007, boasting hyperactive energy and a vision to transform France, but lost office after just one term and the ex-president is now set to go to prison in a spectacular downfall.

Embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 election, Sarkozy, 70, had already been convicted in two separate cases but managed to avoid going to jail.

But after a judge sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to find funding from Libya’s then-leader Muammar Gadaffi for his 2007 campaign, Sarkozy appeared to acknowledge that this time, he will go behind bars.

Prosecutors have one month to inform Sarkozy when he must report to jail, a measure that will remain in force, despite his promised appeal.

“I will assume my responsibilities, I will comply with court summonses, and if they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison but with my head held high,” he told reporters after the verdict.

“I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal. I will not accuse myself of something I did not do,” he added, declaring that hatred towards him “definitely has no limits”.

The drama and defiance were typical of Sarkozy, who is still seen by some supporters on the right as a dynamic saviour of his country but by detractors as a vulgar populist mired in corruption.

‘Won’t hear about me anymore’

Born on 28 January 1955, the football fanatic and cycling enthusiast is an atypical French politician.

The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy has a law degree but unlike most of his peers did not attend the exclusive Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the well-worn production line for future French leaders.

After winning the presidency at the age of 52, he was initially seen as injecting a much-needed dose of dynamism, making a splash on the international scene and wooing the corporate world. He took a hard line on immigration, security and national identity.

But Sarkozy’s presidency was overshadowed by the 2008 financial crisis, and he left the Elysee with the lowest popularity ratings of any postwar French leader up to then.

Few in France have forgotten his visit to the 2008 agriculture show in Paris, when he said “Get lost, dumbass” to a man who refused to shake his hand.

Sarkozy failed to win a second mandate in 2012 in a run-off against Socialist Francois Hollande, a bruising defeat over which he remains embittered more than a decade on.

The 2012 defeat made Sarkozy the first president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing (1974-1981) to be denied a second term, prompting him to famously promise: “You won’t hear about me anymore.”

That prediction turned out to be anything but true, given his marriage to superstar musician and model Carla Bruni and a return to frontline politics.

But the latter ended when he failed to win his party’s nomination for another crack at the presidency in 2017.

The series of legal woes left Sarkozy a behind-the-scenes political player, far from the limelight in which he once basked, although he has retained influence on the right and is known to meet President Emmanuel Macron.

But Sarkozy is tainted by a number of unwanted firsts: while his predecessor and mentor Jacques Chirac was also convicted of graft, Sarkozy was the first postwar French former head of state to be convicted twice and the first to be formally given jail terms.

Already stripped of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest distinction, he will now be the first French head of state to go to jail since Philippe Petain, France’s nominal leader during the Nazi occupation.

Read More: Sarkozy given five-year sentence over Libyan dealings