GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
Meat plant
1. In our lead story this morning, Eoghan Dalton reports that a meat rendering plant has been told by the EPA to carry out investigations of its facilities following complaints from the public.
The agency said it has “verified non-compliant odours” during two inspections this year at the facility in Waterford from a total of six random inspections.
GoFundMe probe
2. GoFundMe has shut down at least eight fundraisers linked to far-right groups in Ireland in the last two years and is currently investigating the legitimacy of one campaign which has raised nearly €150k.
The crowdfunding website has been used on occasions to try to fund white-nationalist groups who are often trying to drum up cash to print and distribute election materials.
Ukrainians in Ireland
3. With large swathes of their country still under assault from Russian forces, Ireland’s rapidly growing Ukrainian community is holding a culture festival in Dublin city centre today to mark Ukrainian independence day.
The event – which is taking place in Mountjoy Square Park, Dublin 1, from 12 to 5pm – is organised by the Ukrainian Crisis Centre with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine.
Climate
4. A wildlife trust in the UK has sounded an alarm bell over trees shedding their leaves prematurely in the wake of an intense heatwave during the summer.
It’s a problem that does not appear to have reached Ireland this year, experts say, but which adds to concerns about the impact of the changing climate on the country’s wildlife.
The Fall of Troy
5. Over the last week the pressure on embattled Fianna Fáil TD Robert Troy over his ‘omitted’ property declarations intensified.
A lot happened – and was revealed – over the two weeks since it first emerged he had failed to declare the sale of a property to a local authority.
United Nations
6. Russia has prevented the adoption of a joint declaration following a four-week UN conference on a nuclear disarmament treaty, with Moscow denouncing what it said were “political” aspects of the text.
The latest draft text of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty had expressed “grave concern” over military activities around Ukrainian power plants, including Zaporizhzhia, as well as over Ukraine’s loss of control of such sites and the negative impact on safety.
Electricity supply
7. Eirgrid has launched a stinging attack on the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) declaring its system a “failure” and “not fit for purpose”.
In a statement last night, Eirgrid said that, since 2018, 650 megawatts of new power has been withdrawn from the system and has not delivered “capacity to the electricity grid”.
Housing crisis
8. The number of homeless people in Ireland hit record figures last month, with over 10,500 people accessing emergency accommodation.
The latest figures from the Department of Housing show that there were 10,568 people accessing emergency accommodation in the last week of July, surpassing the previous record of October 2019.
Mar-a-Lago
9. Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former US president Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this year contained documents with classification markings, according to an FBI affidavit released yesterday explaining the justification for the search of the property this month.
The 32-page affidavit, even in its redacted form, contains additional details about an ongoing criminal investigation that has brought fresh legal peril for Trump just as he lays the groundwork for another presidential run.
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