LAST UPDATE | 24 May 2022
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. In our lead story this morning, Maria Delaney reports on overcrowding in Irish hospitals and the impact that it has on the health system.
Overcrowding and our creaking hospital system are constantly in the news. But why do hundreds of people continue to die? As campaigner Marie McMahon from Clare put it to us: “Why is there no anger?”
Over the past number of weeks, as part of The Good Information Project, investigative platform Noteworthy teamed up with The Journal to attempt to answer this question. They found that inpatient bed numbers are nowhere near demand predicted by capacity reviews, with increases in recent years only now bringing beds back to their 2009 level.
They also found that frontline workers are demoralised and exhausted, with no hospital group meeting its 2021 target for absenteeism.
2. Russian forces have stepped up their offensive on the last pocket of resistance around Luhansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, as the conflict entered its fourth month.
Since Moscow’s invasion in late February, Western support has helped Ukraine hold off its neighbour’s advances in many areas – including the capital Kyiv – but Russia is now focused on securing and expanding its gains in Donbas and the southern coast.
“The coming weeks of the war will be difficult, and we must be aware of that,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly address after regional leaders and residents reported heavy bombardments.
3. Boris Johnson is facing fresh accusations he lied to Parliament after photographs emerged of him raising a glass at a Downing Street leaving party during lockdown.
The images – obtained by ITV News – were taken at a do for departing communications chief Lee Cain on 13 November 2020, just days after Johnson had ordered a second national lockdown in England.
Asked last December in the Commons whether there had been a party in No 10 on that date, the British Prime Minister said “no” and added he was sure the rules were followed at all times.
4. Thousands of medical appointments and procedures have been cancelled today as medical scientists strike, with another day of industrial action planned for tomorrow.
The action will involve the withdrawal of routine laboratory services from 8am to 8pm on both days, affecting routine hospital and GP services across the country.
5. Taoiseach Micheál Martin is set to travel to the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland today, with both the ongoing war in Ukraine and the rising cost-of-living set to be discussed.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, the Taoiseach said that the meeting was an “important opportunity” to raise Ireland’s perspectives on global and European challenges, including on Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
6. New mortgage customers need “significantly higher incomes” to purchase homes now compared to a decade ago, according to a new report published today by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI).
The report found median total household income of first-time buyer (FTB) borrowers increased from €71,000 to €77,000 between 2019 and 2021.
7. Rising costs of building materials are putting homes “further and further out of reach” of people who need them, the Irish Home Builders Association (IHBA) will tell TDs later today.
In their opening statement to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Heritage and Local Government, Director of the IHBA James Benson will tell TDs and Senators that recent increases in material costs are not helping with the affordability of housing.
8. The District of Columbia in the US has sued Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, seeking to hold him personally liable for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a privacy breach of millions of Facebook users’ personal data that became a major corporate and political scandal.
Washington DC attorney general Karl Racine filed the civil lawsuit against Zuckerberg in DC Superior Court.
9. The Taoiseach has said there is “a deep well of support from our partners across the world” for the EU and UK to come to a “joint, pragmatic solution” over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“Unilateral action will not bring us closer to that goal,” Micheál Martin said.
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