EVERY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of the day’s main stories as well as the bits and pieces you may have missed.

• Roscommon’s fire service has called for assistance from the Defence Forces as a precautionary measure to ensure full coverage of its services after 14 firefighters were suspended in a dispute over a training course.
• Sinn Féin protesters dressed as clowns clashed with gardaí in Dublin city centre today – here’s what happened, in photos.
• The government insists that no concrete decisions have been made on what will make it into Budget 2012, but concern is building over the prospect child benefit cuts. Education Minister Ruairí Quinn refuses to rule out a blanket cut to postgraduate student grants.
• An Post has apologised after one of its delivery workers was filmed failing to deliver a package in accordance with the organisation’s guidelines.
• The Hungarian government has requested EU-IMF funding.
• Two US police officers have been suspended after footage showing peaceful protesters being pepper-sprayed by officers went viral. Meanwhile, this AFP video journalist managed to video herself being arrested while covering the Occupy protests in New York last week.
• A new survey by the Irish League of Credit Unions has found that one in three people will go into debt because of their Christmas season spending. When we asked in today’s poll if you would need to take out a loan to pay for Christmas, almost half of you said you would not be borrowing but would instead cut back on your spending. Another 31 per cent said you would have enough savings to cover costs, while 17 per cent said you would need a loan.
• And speaking of loans, here’s a novel way for Ireland to write off 85 per cent of its debt – reach a pan-European agreement between indebted member states to drop each other’s debt.
• At least 24 people are known to have died in continuing clashes between protesters and police in Egypt. Protesters are calling for the ruling military leaders to step aside for democratically-elected officials and to introduce reforms more quickly.
• The Leveson phone hacking inquiry has been hearing evidence from its first witnesses today. The parents of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler said they were given false hope she was still alive during the weeks of her disappearance after being able to record a new phone message on her previously-full account. Hugh Grant said for the first time that he believed a newspaper not owned by Murdoch had hacked his phone, and Twitter was distracted from the proceedings for a while by a #womanontheleft.
• Enda Kenny has pledged to accompany Giovanni Trapattoni on a pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick, saying it would be a great boost for Trap to “stand on top of the mountain and say ‘Here we are. I’m an Italian, I’ve come here, this is a great place’.”
• Today marks the one year anniversary since then-Taoiseach Brian Cowen announced Ireland was seeking a bailout loan from the EU and IMF. Here’s a recap on the bailout in quotes from denial to deal, and a review of the bailout as it happened in photos.

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