EVERY WEEKDAY evening, TheJournal.ie brings you the five things you should know by 5pm.
1. #UNIVERSITY: The government has clarified its stance on establishing a university in the south-east of Ireland – after earlier reports suggested it had already agreed to grant university status to Waterford IT. The government says it has merely asked the HEA to speed up its study on whether a new ‘technological university’ status can be created – and only then will it consider applications from institutions looking for an upgraded title.
2. #BANAMA REPUBLIC: The Chairman of the National Asset Management Agency has defended his institution’s practice of paying six-figure salaries to some of the country’s most indebted developers. Frank Daly told an Oireachtas committee: “With several billion of taxpayers’ money at stake, you’re trying to get the best return by getting the person who we believe is best placed to get that return”.
He said the average salary paid by NAMA to developers was between €75,000 and €100,000.
3. #BAILOUT: The European Commission has published its report on the latest review of Ireland’s bailout programme – heralding what it described as “important progress” in reforming the banking sector and government spending. The report said Ireland would easily beat the EU’s target for keeping its budget deficit within 10.6 per cent of GDP in 2011.
4. #GAZA: The growing tension between Turkey and Israel show no signs of abating, following the announcement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that warships would be sent to accompany future aid shipments to the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador over the deadly May 2010 Gaza flotilla raid. The country’s government has reacted furiously to Israel’s refusal to apologise for the deaths of nine Turkish nationals during the raid.
5. #TWITTER: Micro-blogging site Twitter says it now has 100 million active users – five years after the first tweet was sent by founder Jack Dorsey. In the coming weeks, Twitter plans to launch Hindi, Filipino, Malay and Chinese versions, which will mean the site will support 17 different languages.
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