LAST UPDATE | 31 Oct 2024

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start the day. 

Political pensions

1. In our main story this morning, Stephen McDermott reports that retiring TDs could cost the taxpayer at least €3.9 million in exit payments and pension costs in the 12 months after the Dáil is dissolved.

The Journal Investigates has calculated the potential value of termination payments and pension entitlements that could be due to each of the 29 current TDs who have stated that they will not be running in the upcoming election.

A list of how much each of the TDs can receive in exit payments and pensions can be found here.

US election

2. Donald Trump pulled an election stunt by boarding a garbage truck to highlight muddled remarks made by US President Joe Biden about his supporters.

Biden caused controversy with the remarks in a campaign call on Tuesday, as he addressed a row that erupted after one of Trump’s warm-up speakers at a New York rally referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Spain

3. Rescuers in Spain are continuing to search for victims following yesterday’s deadly floods, as questions were raised about how one of the world’s most developed nations failed to respond adequately to an extreme storms.

Torrential rains that began at the start of the week sparked flooding that has left at least 95 people dead, the deadliest such disaster in the western European country since 1973.

Listowel Court

4. A man and a woman are due before court in Listowel today in connection with the death of a man in the village of Knockanure in May of this year.

The man, who was later named as 44-year-old Gerard Kennelly, was found dead by gardaí and emergency services in the early hours of the morning on 27 May.

Money message

5. Tánaiste Micheál Martin has formally requested that the ‘money message’ be prepared so that the Occupied Territories Bill 2018 can be progressed, The Journal understands.

Issuing a money message, in short, removes a block on the proposed legislation and will allow for the bill – which would ban trade between Ireland and entities based on land that has been illegally occupied - to progress through the Oireachtas.

UNIFIL

6. The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon recorded more than 30 incidents this month resulting in property damage or injury to peacekeepers, with at least around 20 of them from Israeli fire or action.

UNIFIL, which has been deployed in Lebanon since Israel’s 1978 invasion of the country, has been thrust into the front lines of the new war between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israel repeatedly calling on peacekeepers to abandon their positions.

Covid

7. Cabinet has agreed to proceed with the long-awaited Covid-19 inquiry, but Government insist it is an “evaluation”, rather than an “inquiry”.

The evaluation is expected to be up and running “in a matter of weeks” and will be chaired by retired NUIG professor Anne Scott.

Courts

8. President of the Irish Athletic Boxing Association (IABA) Gerry O’Mahony has been found guilty of sexual assault.

O’ Mahony, aged 67 with an address at Murphy Place, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, had pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual assault on a date between 1 January and 31 December 2010.

GAA All-Stars

9. Champions Armagh lead the way with six players represented on the 2024 PwC GAA-GPA All-Star football team.