EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #GARDA CUTS: Gardaí in Cork city had voted unanimously in favour of a motion calling for industrial action over proposed pay cuts with so-called ‘blue flu’ – where officers call in sick en masse – being the preferred option of protest. TheJournal.ie has learned that all 350 officers present at a meeting of the garda division in the city voted for the action.
2 #MAGDALENES: The report on the State’s involvement in the Magadalene Laundries is likely to be raised in the Dáil this morning as the Taoiseach comes under pressure to issue a full apology to the survivors of the workhouses. Today we examine the government department which used the laundries to do their washing and how a former Minister for Education sought advice on how to deal with ‘immoral’ girls.
3. #HORSE MEAT: The horse meat scandal has become a bit clearer in the last 24 hours with the Monaghan beef processing plant McAdam Food Service identified as having taken a consignment of beef product that has 80 per cent horse meat, RTÉ reports. Owner Martin McAdam is now working with the Department of Agriculture and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland on the product which he says was documented as being beef from a Polish supplier.
4. #PUBLIC SECTOR: The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has reiterated its “total opposition” to any further pay cuts for its members as talks on a new public sector pay deal continue. The current approach of the government, which is seeking an additional €1 billion in savings in the public service, is described as “provocative and unrealistic” by the INMO.
5. #BORDER POLL: Most people in Northern Ireland would reject a united Ireland in a border poll – an idea recently proposed by Sinn Féin – according to a BBC Spotlight poll. The poll finds that 65 per cent of citizens favour remaining in the UK with 17 per cent in favour of joining the Republic of Ireland.
6. #GE2016? The next general election will be held on 8 April 2016 if the Irish Independent is to be believed. The paper’s political editor Fionnan Sheahan writes this morning that Fine Gael is planning the date to ensure it is still in office for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising and Barack Obama’s last St Patrick’s Day as US president.
7. #SOLOMON ISLANDS: A tsunami which was triggered by an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 has hit the Solomon Islands killing four people and destroying dozens of homes. The tsunami, measuring three feet, hit Lata in the far eastern Solomons with a warning briefly issued for several Pacific nations in the early hours of this morning.
8. #CIAO MICHAEL D! President Michael D Higgins is making an official visit to Italy today where he will spend the next few days meeting with politicians including his Italian counterpart, Giorgio Napolitano, and addressing a James Joyce conference in Rome. The visit is one of two as part of Ireland’s EU presidency with Higgins also visiting France later this month.
9. #HIT ‘EM WHERE IT HURTS: Ulster Bank’s parent bank Royal Bank of Scotland, which is facing up to €576 million in fines over the Libor rate-rigging scandal, will recover the money to pay the US portion – around €346 million – from staff bonuses, the Financial Times says. The bank will cut the present round of bonuses and recover deferred payouts from previous bonus rounds on the insistence of British Chancellor George Osborne, the paper says.
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