GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
1. In our lead story today, Aoife Barry looks at the government’s mission to sell Ireland as an attractive film location to Hollywood.
On a trade mission to LA as part of the Government’s St Patrick’s Day programme, Arts and Culture Minister Catherine Martin met with key figures in the film industry, updating them on the growth and evolution of the film sector in Ireland.
She also discussed new opportunities for collaboration and for production.
2. Ireland is the hardest soft power in the world – that’s how one US reporter in the White House described the quiet, under-the-radar influence that this small country displays on St Patrick’s Day.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar joked that Ireland’s strong ties to America has allowed St Patrick’s Day to become a week-long event for Irish politicians who go around the world each year, but nowhere is it more important that in the US.
Christina Finn reports from Washington DC.
3. A woman who came upon a man killed outside her house has told a public meeting on policing in Waterford that she now “suffers PTSD” from witnessing the scene.
She alleged she had been “let down” by her local council and “by members of An Garda Síochána” on a night in the county in July 2018.
4. Two men are due in court this morning in connection with gunshots fired at a house in Galway this week.
The two men were arrested on Thursday and have since been charged.
5. Russian president Vladimir Putin has made a surprise visit to Mariupol, according to state media, his first to the city since it was captured after a lengthy siege at the start of the war in Ukraine.
The trip comes after an arrest warrant was issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court, over Russia’s alleged deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children during the conflict.
Fighting in Ukraine is now concentrated in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, particularly the city of Bakhmut.
6. Ireland have claimed a Grand Slam after a nail-biting victory over England.
Head coach Andy Farrell said now is the time for celebration – but he underlined more than once that this is just another point along the way, rather than the end of the journey.
The destination is the World Cup final in Paris on 28 October.
7. North Korea has fired a short-range ballistic missile, Seoul’s military said, the fourth show of force in a week as South Korea and the United States stage major military drills.
Seoul and Washington have ramped up defence cooperation in the face of growing military and nuclear threats from the North, which has conducted a series of increasingly provocative banned weapons tests in recent months.
8. The governor of the US state of Wyoming has signed into law the the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
The pills are already banned in 13 states that have blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills. Until now, however, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills.
9. Criminologists Dr Ian Marder and Dr Joe Garrihy believe an effective system of prison inspection and monitoring is essential to ensure basic standards are met in places of detention.
They write in a column that a modernised legal framework for the inspection and monitoring of places of detention is critical to protect the fundamental rights of people in custody.
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