Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really need to know with your morning coffee.
1. #WASTE: Hundreds of thousands of euro have been paid in wages for staff working at the new children’s hospital – even though it has yet to be built. Planning permission has yet to be granted for the hospital, but the salaries of a chief executive, a part-time medical director, a finance director and a business support consultant are already being paid, the Irish Daily Mail reports today. Meanwhile, the Irish Independent reports that the HSE spent €3 million on three advisers to former health service boss Brendan Drumm.
2. #INVESTIGATION Gardaí are likely to launch a murder inquiry after a pensioner who was viciously assaulted in an attempted castration has died in hospital.
3. #COURTS: A farmer was brutally beaten after his heifer strayed on to a neighbour’s land, a murder trial has heard. The Irish Daily Mail reports that 49-year-old Edward Dempsey died ten months after the assault, which was allegedly sparked off by years of rows with his neighbours DJ Byrne and Jason Byrne – who are pleading not guilty to his murder – over straying cattle.
4. #AER LINGUS: Aer Lingus staff could be forced to return tax relief they got on a redundancy package under the leave-and-return scheme two years ago. The scheme saw them return to work a couple of weeks later on lower wages, according to RTE.
5. #HEALTH CRISIS: At least 100 children have been placed in adult psychiatric units this year.
6. #ABUSE: Clerical abuse victims have been invited to meet the visiting Papal team. However, campaigner Andrew Madden has said he has no intention of meeting any Vatican delgation any time soon. Last night, he tweeted: “I have no intention of meeting any bishops in this ‘Apostolic Visitation’ – it is self-serving window dressing nonsense.”
7. #STAND OFF: Bank of Ireland insists it only took action against a farmer who had defaulted on his mortgage payments when all other avenues to recover the debt had been exhausted. John Devaney and his son Jonathan, from Easkey in west Co Sligo, are resisting attempts by bailiffs to take possession of 33 acres of a 96-acre holding, which has been sold by the bank to recover the arrears.
8. #USA The US Supreme Court is weighing up the right to freedom of speech of a Baptist Pastor, who believes the the deaths of American soldiers are God’s punishment for America’s toleration of homosexuality. The group often expresses these views at soldiers’ funerals, including the one for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq in 2006.
9. #WASTE: Fancy a €50 million fleece? How about the world’s most expensive traffic cone? The Irish Independent reports that the state’s 7,000 unused voting machines may now be shredded and recycled – and could end up as traffic cones or fleeces.
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