GOOD MORNING. 

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

Noisy neighbour

1. In our main story this morning, Niall O’Connor reports that residents of a small Cork Harbour town have appealed for help from the State to deal with the loud round the clock noise from an unwelcome alleged drug trafficking ship.

Passage West residents have contacted Cork County Council and Port of Cork in regard to a number of noise complaints because of a loud generator on the MV Matthew that they have said is keeping them awake at night.

UNRWA

2. The Irish Government is among those who have condemned Israel’s parliament for approving a bill to prevent the UN Palestinian refugee agency from operating in the occupied Palestinian Territory.

Lawmakers passed the bill with 92 votes in favour and 10 against, after years of harsh Israeli criticism of UNRWA, which has only increased since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s deadly 7 October attacks last year.

Wexford

3. A man and a woman are to appear in court this morning after being charged in relation to the death of a 27-year-old man in Co Wexford.

The body of Stephen Ring was discovered at Carrigfoyle Lake in Shelmalier Commons, Co Wexford on Sunday.

Screening programmes

4. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said that the National Screening Advisory Committee has achieved ‘significant progress’, as the committee releases its annual report for 2023.

The independent committee makes recommendations to the Minister on the introduction of new population-based screening programmes or changes to existing programmes.

Lebanon

5. Lebanon’s health ministry has said at least 60 people were killed in Israeli raids on several areas in the eastern Bekaa Valley, most of them in the Baalbek region.

The health ministry said the tolls covered 12 areas in the Bekaa Valley, which is a Hezbollah stronghold. At least two children were among the dead, it said.

Tbilisi

6. Georgia’s central election commission has said it will recount ballots at some 14% of polling stations after opposition parties denounced the weekend parliamentary election as rigged.

Pro-Western opposition parties have refused to recognise the results of Saturday’s vote, which they claim was falsified in favour of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Criminal justice 

7. A record €72 million is to be invested in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in the coming year.

Taoiseach Simon Harris announced that record investment was secured in Budget 2025 for the Office of the DPP, marking an increase of €11 million.

Overcharged

8. Local authorities in Dublin and an Irish electric vehicle company have not set a fixed price for customers for the 200 new charging sites they intend to roll out around the capital at the beginning of next year.

Details of the project, the first of its kind in Ireland, have not been fully hammered out between local councils and the electric vehicle  company ePower, despite a public contract being awarded and a photoshoot to promote the project taking place.

US election

9. Donald Trump told supporters yesterday he is “not a Nazi”, using a rally in the final week of a bitter White House race to refute accusations of authoritarianism, including from a former top aide who branded him a fascist.