LAST UPDATE | 14 Jul 2021

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

Bull Island

1. In our main story this morning, Garreth MacNamee reports local representatives on Dublin’s northside have slammed Dublin City Council for its decision to demolish a historical structure on Clontarf’s Bull Island.

The lifeguard shelter, nestled in the dunes of the island, was levelled in recent days. The council has cited anti-social behaviour as the reason.

The Bull Island bathing shelters are notable because they were designed by architect Herbert Simms. He designed a series of structures along the Clontarf area, including the lifeguard shelters.

Unsatisfactory water quality

2. The quality of just under half of Ireland’s lakes and rivers is deemed to be unsatisfactory, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA It has published its report ‘Water Quality in 2020′, which provides an assessment of the quality of Ireland’s rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwaters.

It found that 43% of rivers are still of unsatisfactory quality, with a decline in water quality in 230 rivers nationally, while 44% of Ireland’s lakes are of “unsatisfactory biological quality” – which is in line with previous years.

The Troubles

3. The UK Government is expected to introduce a statute of limitations to end all prosecutions related to the Troubles before 1998 to stop Northern Ireland being “hamstrung by its past”.

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis will outline the approach in the House of Commons this afternoon, as Government sources rejected claims it would amount to an amnesty for Army veterans and paramilitaries.

More than 3,500 people died during the conflict, which stretched from the early 1970s to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998, while tens of thousands more were left injured.

Wrongful termination case

4. Orla Dwyer this morning reports that a couple who recently settled High Court actions in a wrongful termination case will meet with the Health Minister later this month.

Last month, Rebecca Price and Patrick Kiely settled their High Court actions. They decided to terminate a healthy pregnancy in 2019 after being wrongly advised of a fatal foetal abnormality. 

The couple’s solicitor Caoimhe Haughey said it’s hoped the meeting on 26 July will pave the way for next steps to “put in place the very important learnings from this tragedy”. 

Traveller housing

5. A report from the Irish Human Rights & Equality Commission has found councils in Ireland are “deficient” at gathering data on Travellers and identifying specific housing needs.

The Commission initiated a series of reviews in 2019 and asked each local authority in Ireland to self-audit its provision of Traveller-specific accommodation.

Issues with cultural identification, overcrowding and a lack of transparency at council level were identified by the Commission as part of these reviews.

Renting

6. Tenants are, on average, spending 36% of their monthly income on rent, according to a new survey from the Residential Tenancies Board. 

The survey, launching later today, looks at the country’s private residential sector from the views of tenants, landlords and letting agents.  

The biggest issue raised amongst tenants was affordability, with 50% of those surveyed saying they spend 30% or less of their monthly net income on rent.

Sydney lockdown

7. Internationally, Sydney’s five million residents will be in virus lockdown for at least another two weeks, state premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced.

Australia’s largest city is already in its third week of a partial lockdown and struggling to bring a fast-spreading outbreak of the coronavirus Delta variant under control.

In the past 24 hours, 97 new cases were recorded, more than the 89 reported the previous day.

South Africa riots

8. Police in South Africa say at least 72 people have now been killed and 1,234 arrested in unrest set off by the imprisonment last week of former president Jacob Zuma.

In a statement issued last night, Maj Gen Mathapelo Peters said many of the deaths were caused by stampedes of people when shops were being looted.

He said 27 deaths are being investigated in KwaZulu-Natal province and 45 in Gauteng province.

Backpacker murder

9. Finally, police have appealed for information to locate the body of a British backpacker murdered in Australia on the 20th anniversary of his disappearance.

Bradley Murdoch was convicted in 2005 of murdering Peter Falconio, 28, and assaulting his girlfriend Joanne Lees at gunpoint on a remote stretch of highway near Barrow Creek, about 200 miles north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, on 14 July 2001. 

Murdoch is believed to have hidden Falconio’s body, which has never been found despite extensive searches.

Northern Territory Police said in a statement that the missing person’s case remains open.