Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know at 9am.
1. #JAPAN: It’s hardly any surprise that today’s 9 at 9 begins in Japan, where there are new fears of nuclear meltdown at the stricken Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan, in the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. The cooling system at the number 3 reactor is reported to have failed, and it is reported that the core nuclear rods were exposed for a brief period before seawater could be pumped back into the reactor.
The number 1 reactor was not damaged by the hydrogen explosion in its containment building yesterday, but radioactive leakage has been observed and 19 people have been hospitalised for radiation exposure.
2. #IRISH BANKS: Ireland’s stalled banking system could need yet another cash injection of up to €25bn, according to today’s Sunday Independent, which says the impending findings of new stress tests show the balance sheets of the country’s institutions to be in a “considerably worse” state than previously thought.
3. #FINGLETON: Sticking with banks, the Financial Regulator has received reports from Irish Nationwide Building Society revealing how its former chief executive Michael Fingleton reserved the power to personally set, vary or alter interest rates on loans for individual clients. The Sunday Business Post says the reports also expose a series of corporate governance failures at the bank.
4. #MISSING: Gardaí continuing the search for the four missing Eaton children, who have not been seen since they left their rented home in Ardee on Thursday, have issued a photograph of the man they believe the children are with. Steven Appleton, 30, is thought to have brought the children to Northern Ireland, and possibly onto Britain from there.
5. #LIBEL: The widow the late TD Liam Lawlor is to sue the Sunday Independent over its coverage of the car crash that took the former TD’s life in Moscow in 2005. The Sunday Times says Hazel Lawlor claims the report, which suggested Lawlor was in the company of a woman “likely to be a prostitute” when the car he was travelling in crashed, caused her “massive trauma”.
6. #PRESIDENCY: Just as one election ends, another begins… the Labour Party could begin the steps of nominating its presidential candidate as early as this week, as the party tries to keep up with independent candidate David Norris who will formally launch his campaign in the coming days. The Sunday Business Post reports that Labour may seek to nominate a unity candidate with Fine Gael, given that both are financially depleted following the general election. Fergus Finlay and Michael D Higgins are among the favourites for the Labour nod.
7. #ROADS: An 80-year-old man has been killed following a car crash in Co Cork. The man, a pedestrian, was hit by a car while crossing a road in Drunahane at around 9:30pm last night. He was removed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital but died in the early hours of the morning. An investigation is underway.
8. #DRUGS: Two men appeared in court yesterday charged in connection with the seizure of almost €1m in cannabis resin from a business premises in Slane, Co Meath, last week.
9. #DAIL BAR: Fine Gael really did have a good day on Wednesday after their party formally took power: the Dáil bar was so packed with revellers that the Sunday Independent reports the doors literally came off their hinges. Nobody was injured, though, but new TDs were apparently unable to bring their families and friends into the bar to celebrate their elections because of the crowd.
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