EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you the five stories you need to know before you head out the door.

1. #MADIBA: Nelson Mandela is to be given a state funeral on 15 December, South African president Jacob Zuma has confirmed. Mandela will lie in state before being laid to rest in his home village of Qunu.

2. #GOING DARK: An all-out strike by ESB workers will begin at 8am on Monday 16 December, with union mmbers warning that all ESB-generated power will be switched off at that time. Employees have blamed the company for the strike for making changes to the staff’s defined benefit pension scheme.

3. #PRIVATISATION: Around 10 per cent of routes operated by Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann will be made available for private operators to take over from 2016, the National Transport Authority has announced.

4. #GILLIGAN: Gardaí are investigating after an armed man walked into a Dublin pub looking for convicted criminal John Gilligan. The man left on a motorcycle after discovering Gilligan was not in the pub and was seen discarding a gun near the scene. A 9mm pistol has been recovered.

5. #BANKRUPT: Property developer Sean Dunne has lost his High Court bid to overturn his Irish bankruptcy. Dunne had argued that he hasn’t lived in Ireland since 2007 and has been the victim of “lots of inaccurate publicity”, but the arguments were rejected by Judge Brian McGovern.