EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #TRAVEL: Flight disruptions between Ireland and parts of Britain and Europe are expected today due to the cold weather which has brought snow to some parts. Aer Lingus has cancelled 12 flights between Irish airports and London Heathrow and Paris already this morning. As yet, there are no cancellations on Ryanair flights.
2. #ALGERIA: With the hostage crisis in an Algerian oilfield coming to a violent end yesterday, US President Barack Obama has blamed Islamist ‘terrorists’ for the four-day siege in which at least 23 hostages died with BBC News reporting that at least five Britons, five Norwegians and 10 Japanese are dead or missing. All 32 hostage-takers are also reportedly dead.
3. #VIGIL FOR LIFE: Yesterday’s pro-life vigil in Dublin was attended by an estimated 25,000 people with speakers, including Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte, airing their opposition to the government’s decision to legislate for the X Case.
4. #HMV: The sit-in protests at four HMV stores across the country have come to an end following an agreement between the receiver at the troubled music retailer and staff for wages to be paid next week. Sit-in protests had been taking place in HMV outlets in Limerick, Cork and Tallaght.
5. #COWEN: Former taoiseach Brian Cowen is to make a complaint to the Press Ombudsman over newspaper coverage of his time studying at Stanford University in California last year. The Sunday Independent reports that Cowen will claim a breach of his constitutional right to privacy.
6. #REILLY: Health Minister James Reilly has told the Sunday Business Post that the HSE graduate recruitment programme for nurses will be rolled out to other areas within the health service despite the low take-up following nursing unions’ call for a boycott of the scheme. The Sunday Times reports that just 30 graduate nurses have applied for the 1,000 positions which offer 80 per cent of the starting salary of a nurse.
7. #QUINN: As members of the Quinn family prepare to give evidence in their long-running court battle with the former Anglo Irish Bank in the High Court this week, the Mail on Sunday has new details from a video of Seán Quinn jr and Peter Darragh Quinn in which the latter reportedly demands $5 million from Ukranian business partners in return for signing over control of a shopping mall in Kiev.
8. #GRANTS: The backlog in the student grant scheme which forced some struggling students to accept food parcels is now almost cleared with just 619 applications left to be processed from a high of 55,000 but it’s emerged that 21,000 applications were incompletely meaning some students may have to resubmit forms.
9. #SEANAD: With the government committed to abolishing the Seanad later this year, we’ve been crunching the numbers and figuring out just how much it would save if the upper house no longer existed. Everything from the 60 members’ salaries to the cost of envelopes brings the total amount that would be saved to…
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say