GOOD MORNING. HERE are the stop stories as the weekend gets underway.
1. RTÉ controversy
The Oireachtas Media Committee will invite former RTÉ executives including former director general Noel Curran to answer questions next week, following the ongoing controversy over secret payments made to its highest paid presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he cannot rule out the possibility that some of the payments made through the RTÉ barter account may have been “on the wrong side of the law”.
2. France
French police arrested 994 people nationwide during a fourth consecutive night of rioting over the killing of a teenager by police, the interior ministry said.
Sporadic violence and looting hit several cities across France in a fourth night of protests after the fatal police shooting, but it was much less intense than previously, authorities said.
3. Tolls
Toll charges on the M50 and eight other motorways and national roads are set to increase today as the Government’s six-month delay of the planned rise comes to an end.
4. Paul Hyde
Former deputy chair of An Bord Pleanála Paul Hyde has been sentenced to two months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to breaches of planning laws.
Paul Hyde, of Castlefields, Baltimore, Co Cork, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two instances of making false or misleading declarations of interest to the planning authority under section 147 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.
5. BOI
Bank of Ireland is to open close to a hundred of its branches today after its online banking services crashed yesterday.
The bank said that it would open several of its branches in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland tomorrow.
Some 91 branches in the Republic will be open between 10am and 2pm today.
6. Bolsonaro
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is likely to be banned from politics in the country for eight years after a decision by its highest court.
Prosecutors blamed Bolsonaro’s statements for a violent invasion of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in January by supporters angry about his electoral loss to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
7. Hottest on record
Last month was the hottest June on record, forecaster Met Éireann has said, surpassing the previous record that was held for 83 years.
June 2023 was more than half a degree higher than the previous record set in June 1940. Provisional data shows that Ireland has experienced its first June with an average temperature above 16C.
8. All-Ireland quarter finals
It’s a big weekend for the GAA, with the All-Ireland quarter finals taking place in Croke Park. Today, Kerry face Tyrone at 3.45pm and Armagh and Monaghan go head to head later in the evening.
Here’s a TV guide to all that’s happening in sport this weekend.
9. Titan
The team behind the deep-sea robot which helped locate wreckage from the Titan submersible had been hoping they were on a rescue mission, a company executive has said.
British billionaire Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were killed on board the deep-sea vessel, alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ chief executive Stockton Rush and French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
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