LAST UPDATE | 14 Jul 2025

GOOD MORNING.

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

Drug deliveries

1. The Journal has learned that cargo ships delivering large amounts of drugs to Ireland are suspected of making deliveries off the coast of Spain and Africa before coming to shores here.

It is believed that a shipment of drugs last week may have performed a similar delivery off the coast of Spain, having travelled from South America before coming up towards Ireland.

Efforts to save peacekeeping missions

2. Cabinet will hear details this morning of its complex and challenging negotiations seeking to convince US officials not to veto the renewal of the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

There are concerns among participating countries that American representatives at the UN will block the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon mission in August.

Children killed in Gaza after Israeli drone strike

3. A drone strike at a refugee camp in Gaza killed ten people, including eight children, who were collecting water earlier yesterday.

Israel’s military admitted to the incident at the Nuseirat camp, claiming a technical error caused munitions to fall “dozes of metres from the target”. 

Excavation at Tuam

4. A full-scale excavation of a site at a former mother and baby in Co Galway will get underway today, aimed at identifying the remains of infants who died at the home between 1925 and 1961.

Research led by local historian Catherine Corless in 2014 indicated that 796 babies and young children were buried in the sewage system at the St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam across that period.

US to send weapons to Ukraine

5. The US will send air defence ‘patriot missiles’ to Ukraine, but President Donald Trump asserted that Europe would be paying the bill.

Trump slammed the President Vladimir Putin for talking “nice, and then he bombs everybody in the evening”.

Housing delays

6. The Irish Independent reports this morning that 106 social homes planned for Wicklow will not be delivered, as more Public-Private Partnership projects fall through.

The Journal revealed that Housing Minister James Browne pulled the plug on almost 500 social homes in Dublin last month. Browne has now done the same in Wicklow.

Get covered

7. Free sunscreen will be made available across Cork City today in a pilot programme which seeks to improve the public’s use of SPF.

The Irish Cancer Society, which has led the project, said it hopes it can serve as an example and blueprint for other local authorities.

Border poll

8. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald appeared on Good Morning Britain to call for a border poll in Northern Ireland this morning.

McDonald made her case for the reunification of the island of Ireland and fielded questions regarding Northern Ireland’s economic state on the programme.

US tariffs

9. EU trade boss Maroš Šefčovič has said the EU is ready to respond should an agreement with the US on tariffs not be reached.

US President Donald Trump threatened a 30% blanket tariff on Europe at the weekend, leading Šefčovič to say that the EU would not hesitate to countertariff the US to ‘restore balance’ in their trade relationship.