LAST UPDATE | 8 Jul 2021

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

Indoor dining talks

1. In our main story today, Christina Finn reports talks are to resume this afternoon between government and representatives from the hospitality sector as part of efforts to bring about the return of indoor dining.

A number of options are said to be on the table following a similar meeting on Monday, when those attending were told that indoor dining could possibly reopen for 1.8 million fully vaccinated people under a new vaccine pass system.

Government sources state this is just one option out of six possible scenarios under consideration.

Dublin Bay South

2. Polls have officially opened in Dublin Bay South for today’s by-election, the first vote to be held in Ireland since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Candidates have been campaigning in the constituency for a number of weeks to replace the former Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy, who resigned his Dáil seat in April.

Polls are open from 7am and will remain open until 10.30pm tonight.

Fatal crash in Dublin

3. Three people have been killed in a crash on the N7 in Dublin.

The collision happened when a car travelling on the wrong side of the road collided with a truck at around 11.40pm yesterday. 

All three occupants of the car sustained fatal injuries. 

The driver of the truck has since been taken to Tallaght University Hospital to receive treatment for serious injuries. 

Global Covid death toll

4. The global death toll from Covid-19 has passed four million as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.

The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world’s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

UK reopening

5. In Britain, more than scientists and doctors have signed a letter accusing the UK Government of conducting a “dangerous and unethical experiment” and urging it to reconsider its plans to abandon all coronavirus restrictions.

Any strategy that “tolerates high levels of infection is both unethical and illogical”, according to the 122 signatories who include David King, the former chief scientific adviser and chair of Independent Sage, and Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the Council for the British Medical Association.

Cuckoo funds

6. Back in Ireland, the Dáil has passed a controversial amendment that allows funds to side-step 10% stamp duty if they lease back houses to the State for social housing.

Last month, the government moved to introduce a new 10% rate of stamp duty on bulk purchases of 10 homes or more last month. 

However, the amendment that came before the Dáil yesterday evening will exempt institutional investors from the charge under these circumstances.

Mother and Baby Homes

7. The Department of Children is failing to apply General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) correctly as Mother and Baby Home survivors attempt to access personal information, a data compliance expert has said.

In one instance, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth refused to share information with a woman because it relates to a person who is deceased.

Solicitor Simon McGarr said that such a stance is at odds with GDPR as dead people “do not have any GDPR rights”.

Tributes to boy killed in crash

8. Michael Health Rae has paid a warm tribute to a 14-year-old school boy, who is a relative, who died in a car crash in Kerry. 

Thomas Healy, 14, from the Gap of Dunloe, Beaufort, Co Kerry died when the car he was driving crashed on the Ross Road near Killarney shortly after 1am yesterday. 

He was pronounced dead at the scene while a second teenage boy was taken to Kerry University Hospital where he remains in a serious condition.

Tokyo Olympics

9. In sports news, Japan is set to place Tokyo under a state of emergency that would last through the Olympics, fearing an ongoing Covid-19 surge will multiply during the Games.

At a meeting with experts this morning, government officials proposed a plan to issue a state of emergency in Tokyo from next Monday to 22 August.

The Summer Olympics, already delayed a year by the pandemic, begin on 23 July and will finish on 8 August.