EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #CHILDREN: The International Monetary Fund has suggested that child benefit could be means-tested to ensure it is targeted at families on lower incomes in its latest review of Ireland’s bailout programme. Child advocacy groups like Barnardos maintain that there should still be some form of universal child benefit. While on the issue of children, the independent TD Stephen Donnelly has said the government is either unwilling or unable to fix the soaring cost of childcare in Ireland.
2. #MICHAELA: The editor of the Mauritian newspaper which printed graphic images of the body of Michaela McAreavey is due to appear in court in Mauritius today where he is expected to be charged with outraging public and religious morality. BBC News reports that Imran Hosany, editor of the Sunday Times, appeared in court yesterday charged in connection with assaulting an Irish Daily Mail photographer.
3. #COALITION: It has emerged that the junior health minister Roisin Shortall only found out about the departure of the HSE chief executive Cathal Magee through the media. Shortall, fellow junior minister Kathleen Lynch and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore were not informed of Magee’s intention to resign by health minister James Reilly, the Irish Daily Mail reports.
4. #AMBULANCE: The Ambulance Service has apologised to the family of a teenage girl who died after she was taken an indirect route to the emergency department at Galway Hospital. The Irish Independent reports that Elaine Curley, 19, died after a two hour journey from the scene of a crash to the hospital. She had been just 15 minutes away from Roscommon Hospital but could not go there because of the closure of its emergency department, Caroline Crawford writes.
5. # SYRIA: The head of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and the international envoy Kofi Annan have called on the UN Security Council to take strong action against Syria as it prepares to vote on a resolution for sanctions, AFP reports. It comes as the US has indicated that the regime of Bashar Assad has been significantly weakened by the killing of three members of his inner circle including his brother-in-law in a suicide bombing in the capital of Damascus yesterday.
6. #ISRAEL: Israel has blamed Iran for a suicide bombing on an Israeli tourist bus in eastern Bulgaria yesterday. At least eight people died and 34 were injured when a male suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus at Burgas airport near the Black Sea. BBC News reports that Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak has blamed the Lebanese group Hezbollah which he says was acting with the support of Iran.
7. #ABORTION: A number of Fine Gael parliamentary party members have voiced their opposition to any liberalisation of Ireland’s abortion laws, the Irish Times reports. At a meeting of TDs and Senators last night, members including Simon Harris and James Bannon said they would vote against the government on the issue while Lucinda Creighton and Patrick O’Donovan also voiced some concerns, Harry McGee writes.
8. #MICK WALLACE: The independent TD Mick Wallace has hit out at some of his former colleagues in the Dáil Technical Group who criticised him over his controversial tax affairs. During the debate on the Personal Insolvency Bill last night, Wallace said he found it “a bit nauseating” to “take lectures” from members of the Socialist Party and People Before Profit Alliance over his tax affairs when they had “never employed anyone in their lives” adding “many of them never did a day’s manual work.”
9. #TABLETS: Apple has been ordered to publish a notice on its UK website acknowledging that Samsung did not copy its designs for the iPad, Bloomberg reports. The order effectively means that the tech giant will have to publish an advert for Samsung on its website for six months and in several newspapers and magazines. Sticking with tablets the Irish Times reports that the Oireachtas is to purchase such devices for TDs and Senators to use as part of their parliamentary work. Will the authorities opt for an iPad or a Samsung device? Or something else?
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