LAST UPDATE | 1 Jul 2021

GOOD MORNING. Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

International crime gang

1. In our main story today, our reporter Niall O’Connor reports gardaí are monitoring financial institutions to prevent infiltrations by international fraud gangs.

Detective Chief Superintendent Pat Lordan and Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan, said they are monitoring the situation and have already arrested and successfully prosecuted one criminal who was offending while working in a bank.

Fears are mounting worldwide and in Ireland that international crime groups are targeting this country in a major increase in global fraud. 

Taoiseach facing backlash

2. Taoiseach Micheál Martin last night faced strong criticism at Fianna Fáil’s parliamentary party meeting as members lined up to object to proposals for vaccine certs as part of the reopening of hospitality.  

Limerick TD Willie O’Dea is understood to have questioned whether there was adequate support in the Dáil to pass legislation for the proposals after earlier tweeting that the plans amounted to “medical apartheid”.  

Several objections referenced the apparent unfairness on young people especially, who may be forced to work in hospitality while unvaccinated but cannot avail of the same services.  

Northern Ireland Covid restrictions

3. In the North, Stormont ministers will decide later whether to press ahead with further Covid-19 rule relaxations amid a warning the Delta variant now accounts for around 75% of region’s cases.

A delayed round of measures originally scheduled for 21 June is currently earmarked for 5 July, but only if the Executive green lights the steps at today’s meeting.

The relaxations include the return of live music across the hospitality sector; the reopening of theatres and indoor seated venues; the resumption of conferences and exhibitions; and increases in the numbers permitted to gather in indoor and outdoor domestic settings.

Irish economic outlook

4. Back in the Republic, the Central Bank has said Ireland’s beleaguered domestic economy is set to rebound more quickly in 2021 than anticipated.

Despite the Government’s decision this week to delay the resumption of indoor dining, domestic activity is now on schedule to return to pre-pandemic levels and above as early as 2022.

Modified domestic demand — a measure of indigenous economic activity that attempts to strip out the activities of multinational companies — is forecast to grow by 3.4% in 2021 and 5.6% in 2022 after collapsing by 5% in 2020.

Rent Pressure Zones

5. Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has has announced the Rent Pressure Zone scheme is to be totally reformed and any rent increase will now be made in line with the nation’s inflation rate.

Previously, landlords were only allowed increase rents for properties in Rent Pressure Zones by 4% annually. 

However, under the new scheme, rent can only be increased in line with the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP).

Drug use

6. More people in Ireland are using illegal stimulants such as cocaine, but slightly fewer people are using cannabis, according to the National Drug and Alcohol Survey 2019–2020.

According to the survey, one in 14 (7%) have used an illegal drug in the last year – an unchanged figure since the most recent survey in 2014–15.

Almost one in four (23%) respondents have used an illegal drug at some point in their lifetime, equating to almost 900,000 adults aged 15 years and older in the general population.

Involuntary detention of patients

7. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the urgent need for investment and reform of mental health services in Ireland, the Mental Health Commission has said.

The organisation’s 2020 Annual Report, which will be published later today, also expresses concerns about “a significant jump” in applications made by An Garda Síochána to involuntarily detain patients.

The figures show that, for the first time, the highest number of applications to involuntarily detain people came from An Garda Síochána. In all, there were 1,919 admission orders for involuntary detention from the community last year, with 32% of these initiated by gardaí.

Pride

8. In our Voices section this morning, activist Aoife Martin writes that “Pride isn’t just about parades and rainbows and flags, it’s about what those things symbolise”. 

“It’s about being seen. It’s about that scared kid who is still in the closet seeing people like themselves for the first time and knowing that they are not alone, that the feelings they have are not unique to them and that there is a community out there who will love and accept them for who they are,” Martin writes. 

Unmarked graves

9. Internationally, another 182 unmarked graves have been discovered at a third former indigenous residential school in Canada yesterday as two Catholic Churches went up in flames, with anger mounting over the mushrooming abuse scandal.

The Lower Kootenay Band said experts using ground-penetrating radar mapping located what are believed to be the remains of pupils aged seven to 15 at the former St Eugene’s Mission School near Cranbrook, British Columbia.

Some of the graves are as shallow as three to four feet (.9 to 1.2 meters), it said. They are believed to be the remains of members of bands of the Ktunaxa nation, which includes the Lower Kootenay, and neighboring indigenous communities.