LAST UPDATE | 8 Jul 2025

GOOD MORNING.

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

State investments

1. This morning, The Journal Investigates reports that the Irish Strategic Investment Fund has possible holdings in eight companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements.

Stephen McDermott dives into the question: Who are these companies and why are they linked to settler activity in occupied Palestine territory?

White House

2. US President Donald Trump hosted Benjamin Netanyahu for dinner at the White House yesterday as he pressed the Israeli prime minister to end the devastating Gaza war.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, said he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, presenting him with a letter he sent to the prize committee.

Right to be forgotten

3. The government is planning to legislate to prevent insurance companies from using cancer survivors’ medical history against them.

A ‘right to be forgotten’ in insurance policies has been called for by cancer survivors, their families and campaigners for years, who have long argued that it is unfair for insurance companies to take cancer diagnoses into account years after a person has entered remission.

Texas floods

4. As deaths from catastrophic Texas flooding surpassed 100 yesterday, local officials in one of the hardest-hit counties have still revealed little about what, if any, actions they took to safeguard residents, tourists and visitors in an area known as “flash flood alley”.

Cost of living

5. Four in ten parents said that they skipped meals or reduced their portion size so that their children had enough to eat over the past six months. 

Barnardos children’s charity’s new report, Cost of Living – Impact on Children 2025, surveyed 1,000 parents and guardians with children aged under 18 in their care in May this year to ascertain the impact of the cost of living crisis on the nation’s children.

Criminal Assets Bureau

6. Draft updates to the power of the Garda Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) will come before cabinet this morning.

In the case of CAB seizures, a state receiver is appointed for control of the goods and, after seven years, seizures are then sold at auction to generate profit for the state.

A new proposal, tabled today by justice minister Jim O’Callaghan, is seeking to reduce the time between seizure and sale from seven to two years.

Housing crisis

7. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has defended the use of league tables for local authority housing delivery stating “some of them took their eye off the ball and went off into other stuff, the need to go back to housing”. 

In an interview with The Journal, the Taoiseach said the move by Housing Minister James Browne to publish a list of the best and worst performing councils across the country in terms of housing was correct.

Drone delivery services

8. Officials in the Department of Transport have been pitching Ireland as a potential “global leader” for commercial drones, touting our “uncluttered airspace” as an area where we have “the edge” for the development of a drone-based services sector. 

Emergency motion

9. Dublin City Council has passed an emergency motion opposing reported proposals by Housing Minister’s James Browne that would do away with local authorities’ power in planning to require community facilities and spaces.

It is understood that Browne is bringing the proposals to Cabinet today to make apartments more attractive for developers by altering certain requirements around minimum sizes and communal facilities.