Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning coffee.
1. #COALITION: Labour will get only five spots in the next cabinet, it is reported this morning – but will be given the sweetener of a ‘super-junior’ ministry with a seat at the cabinet table. Labour will also get the right to appoint the Attorney General when the cabinet is announced tomorrow, the Irish Times reports.
Other reports suggest Labour may also be given the right to appoint the Ceann Comhairle – with Brendan Howlin, the current deputy Ceann Comhairle, and former finance minister Ruairi Quinn seen as the main contenders.
2. #DEBT: 5.4 per cent of Irish households were over-indebted in 2008, according to a new study by the ESRI – which has also found that 300,000 families don’t have a bank account.
3. #CORONER’S COURT: Dublin Coroner’s Court has heard how a golf ball was put in the throat of a dead gardener, apparently as a prank, at some time between his autopsy being carried out and the embalming been performed. The Belfast Telegraph reports that coroner Dr Brian Farrell has demanded an investigation into how the golf ball was left in the man’s throat.
4. #SEANAD: Outgoing tourism minister Mary Hanafin has refused to rule out seeking a seat in the Seanad – and could potentially end up in the chamber alongside her brother. The defeated Dún Laoghaire candidate yesterday said she would like to sit in the Seanad, where her brother John is a current Fianna Fáil member.
5. #MINIMUM WAGE: The management of Dublin’s Davenport Hotel have been ordered by a court to reverse cuts made to the wages of its workers. Staff working on the minimum wage of €8.65 had had their wages cut when the legal minimum wage was reduced by €1 an hour – but yesterday the Labour Court said the hotel had not provided enough evidence to suggest the wage cut was necessary to safeguard their jobs.
6. #LIBYA: United States president Barack Obama has said his country is considering a military response to the violence in Libya. The US and NATO were trying to establish the nature of the options available, which would likely include supplying weapons to rebels, signal-jamming, and a strike on Libya’s air defences to introduce a no-fly zone.
7. #CRICKETING CRIME: The cricket bats used by Ireland’s team in their famous win over England last year may have been stolen, the team fears. Wicketkeeper Niall O’Brien – whose brother Kevin struck 113 in the game – told the Irish Sun that the bag containing the bats used by the side in last week’s win went missing somewhere between the side’s departure from the stadium in Bangalore and their arrival at the team hotel.
8. #BIEBER FEVER: 17-year-old uberstar Justin Bieber is in Dublin ahead of two sold-out gigs at the O2 Arena tonight and tomorrow night – but any traffic congestion around Dublin’s docklands tonight will pale in comparison to the human traffic on Grafton Street last night.
The Canadian singer was thought to be shopping in the Brown Thomas and Tommy Hilfiger stores on Grafton Street last night – causing thousands of screeching teens to show up on site.
9. #SKYPE WEDDING: A Californian couple whose wedding plans seemed ruined after the groom contracted a lung infection and ended up in an isolation ward have still managed to tie the knot – by exchanging vows over Skype.
Samuel Kim and Helen Oh, who are Korean, had flown family members over to the US for the wedding – so when Samuel became ill, he had a number of jumbo screens erected in the local church, around 500m away, and the wedding proceeded as planned.
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