EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things we really think you ought to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #ESRI The ESRI has recommended increasing spending cuts in the forthcoming budget to €4 billion, up from the proposed figure of €3.6 million. The economic think tank has lowered its growth forecast and said that problems in the US and British economies are having a negative impact on Ireland’s recovery.
2. #DAVID DRUMM Anglo Irish Bank has asked a judge in the US to deny former bank boss David Drumm a bankruptcy trial. Drumm filed for bankruptcy last year but Anglo says he lied under oath. The Irish Times reports this morning that Drumm concealed funds and property by moving them into his wife’s name while it’s reported in the Irish Independent that he set up a ‘sham’ business in the US. Drumm owes €10 million to Anglo Irish Bank.
3. #RENDITION A dispute between two aviation companies has revealed that Shannon airport was among the locations used for so-called ‘rendition flights’, transporting terror suspects around the world. According to invoices filed between 2002 and 2005 Shannon was among the airports used to bring the suspects and US officials to CIA ‘black site’ prisons. Last year Wikileaks cables revealed that the then Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern was ‘quite convinced’ that the flights were landing at Shannon.
4. #CANCER Cancer cases in Ireland have risen by almost 50 per cent since the mid-nineties, according to the National Cancer Registry. RTÉ reports that survival rates are also improving, and that much of the increase is down to the ageing population.
5. #BERTIE Bertie Ahern has launched an attack on grassroots members of Fianna Fáil, calling them ‘useless’. The Irish Daily Mail and the Irish Independent report this morning that the former Taoiseach has made the comments in a TV3 documentary due to be broadcast next week. The documentary also features an interview with Ahern’s former partner Celia Larkin who urged him to quit after a term and a half.
6. #INSOLVENCIES An average of ten companies went out of business every business day in August. New figures show that 205 companies were declared insolvent last month, a 68 per cent increase when compared to August 2010.
7. #LIBYA World leaders are meeting in Paris today to discuss the future of Libya. David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy will host the conference which will be attended by 60 countries and representatives of Libya’s National Transitional Council. Meanwhile Colonel Gaddafi’s sons are at odds on the future of the regime. One says resistance to the rebels is strong, while another says his father has authorised negotiations with the NTC.
8. #NED KELLY The remains of Irish Australian outlaw Ned Kelly have been identified, 131 years after his death, but they’re missing his skull. He was hanged for murder in 1880 and his body was buried in a mass grave at a Melbourne jailhouse. A DNA sample from one of his relatives helped identify him.
9. #SHINING ARMOUR Comedian Brendan O’Carroll has pledged to give €7,000 to man who’s been threatened by loan sharks after the man told his story on RTÉ’s Liveline programme. The Irish Daily Mirror and the Irish Daily Star report that O’Carroll was listening in Florida and offered to pay off the loan. saying “I’ve been there myself”.
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