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Dublin: 8 °C Sunday 19 May, 2013

The 9 at 9: Monday

Good morning! Here are nine things you should know as you start your day…

Image: Betsy Weber via flickr/Creative Commons

EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you begin your day.

1. #CENTRAL BANK The Central Bank has named AIB, Permanent TSB, EBS, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank and sub-prime lender GE Money as being investigated for having wrongly sold payment protection insurance (PPI)to customers. It is believed that tens of thousands of customers could be entitled to refunds after they were sold policies that they would have been ineligible to claim from.

2. #PRIORY HALL Priory Hall residents have announced that they have planned a March for Justice, which will take place on Saturday. Speaking to TheJournal.ie today, residents’ spokesperson Graham Usher said that he believes that ‘the state and the local authorities are trying their best to avoid our situation’.

3. #APRIL JONES Mark Bridger, the suspect accused of the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones, is due to appear before court today. Sky News reports that Bridger is also accused of perverting the course of justice, and will face all charges before magistrates in Aberystwyth. Searching continues for April, who went missing a week ago in Wales.

4. #SCHOOLS The State subsidies – which total almost €100 million a year – to private schools should be addressed, Labour party junior minister Alan Kelly has said. He said the subsidy is “a luxury rather than a necessity”. On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Christopher Woods, the principal of Wesley College described Kelly’s comments as “utterly flawed”.

5. #CREDIT REVIEW The Credit Review Office, which reviews lending by AIB and Bank of Ireland to small and medium businesses, has released its ninth quarterly review. It says it has overturned 96 cases where the banks refused SMEs credit, reports RTÉ. In a statement, AIB said that it is “demonstrably supporting SMEs and is providing new credit to viable businesses to underpin their growth and sustain jobs”.

6. #PUBLIC TOILETS Businesses in Dublin may have to allow people – even non-customers – to use their toilet facilities due to the lack of public conveniences in Dublin city, the Irish Times reports. As Dublin City Council has no money to install public toilets, it may ask businesses to help fill the gap, says the paper.

7. #TOSCAN DU PLANTIER The family of murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier are hopeful that a trial will take place in France, the Irish Independent reports today. It says the family hope such a trial will take place in 2014. A team of French detectives are to visit Ireland next month as part of their probe into the French woman’s death.

8. #MENTAL HEALTH Mental Health Week begins today, with World Mental Health Day being marked on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the My World national study has found that one-fifth of young adults have self-harmed. As part of the week, Limerick City Lord Mayor, former All-Black nemesis Gerry “Ginger” McLoughlin and former Munster flanker Alan Quinlan will open a new €300,000 facility for GROW, the mental health care recovery organisation, in Limerick today.

9. #CHAVEZ President Hugo Chavez has won re-election in Venezuela, surviving his closest race yet. Yesterday’s election proved a stern test, but he received just over 54 per cent after all the votes had been counted. “The battle was perfect and the victory was perfect,” declared Chavez, while greeting his supporters from the presidential balcony in Caracas.

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Comments (10 Comments)

  • You’re doing my head in with telling me Gerry is a former All Black.
    That’s not my memory playing up, is it?

    Reply
  • Wha?

    Reply
  • How much, one wonders, would it cost to supply enough places at ‘free’ state schools for those pupils whose families could no longer afford to send them to subsidised schools? Because I know for a fact that there aren’t currently enough places. That’s before you even get to the question of excellence of results, availability of resources and level of pastoral care. Class warfare makes good headlines, but seldom has the desired result. Try something new, Mr Kelly….
    Oh, and before the insults start, I am a life-long Labour voter. That doesn’t mean I’m not a realist.

    Reply
    • It’s just difficult to accept that some of us pay taxes for schools we could never send our children too. There must be a better way to provide a better education for everyone

      Reply
    • ‘private’ schools should be self funding, not getting money from the public purse. if these schools want public money then they should have to open their doors to everyone regardless of wealth or ability to pay. the same goes for private health care using public hospitals.

      Reply
  • #Mental Health: I went to see Professor Ivor Browne speak on Saturday at a Literary Festival. He is now 83. One of the messages I got from what he said is that we are basically self-organising human beings and should not hand over our POWER to someone else. Ivor is one of the few Psychiatrists that I listen to on the subject of Mental health. He is trained in Psychotherapy, whereas less than 10% of Consultant Psychiatrists are. They mainly prescribe drugs, some of which are damaging and have lawsuits against the makers. Once you become a prescription drug addict you can also become dependent. Until you finally realise the only one you can really depend upon is yourself.

    In my eyes mainstream/modern Psychiatry is quite damaging. And these guys have far too much POWER and CONTROL. If you murder someone you have a certain amount of rights. Whereas Psychiatrists can just come along and take away a person’s liberty, at a time when the person may be going through emotional distress. Where the last thing they need is to be locked away from society but at the same time told that they are “voluntary”. Psychiatrists have taken the word VOLUNTARY and reinvented it for their own purpose. With a few exceptions, I do not believe Psychiatrists are experts in mental health. They just label and judge people, based on their narrow training and then drug them. They are pseudo Scientists and I have very little time for what they do. They are too closely linked to the pharmaceutical industry to be able to truly help people.

    Reply

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