NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

President Catherine Connolly viewing original notes, hand written by Christy Moore for his songs, as she officially launched a major new public exhibition in the Irish Traditional Music Archive Photocall Ireland Photocall Ireland

IRELAND

• The inheritance tax changes in this year’s budget are “a step” in the right direction with Tánaiste and finance minister Simon Harris telling The Journal that the government plans to build on it in future budgets. 
• Mary Lou McDonald has told Taoiseach Micheál Martin that he has a responsibility to “apply all necessary pressure” on the British government in relation to resolving the Drumcree parade dispute. 
• The greyhound racing industry has received over €20 million in funding for the first time since the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund was established in 2001. 
• Irish medical experts have warned that misinformation spread by Barbara O’Neill, an alternative health promoter who is banned in Australia from dispensing health advice, poses a danger to Irish patients. 
• A planning enforcement order has been issued against the operators of a former hotel in Tipperary currently used to house asylum seekers. 
• The Department of Transport’s budget has come in for heavy criticism from opposition politicians and commuter groups, who say it will encourage people to drive rather than use public transport.
• The roll-out of the shingles vaccine will not start until June next year.
• Meta’s chief executive and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, paid out more than €51 million for Strancally Castle in Co Waterford in August, new figures show.

INTERNATIONAL

Germany's Brandenburg Gate is illuminated with the Israeli national flag, marking the third anniversary of the 7 October attack by Hamas Alamy Alamy

#PLAGUE DEATH: The World Health Organisation has said it could not produce a full risk assessment as it did not yet have the whole picture from Russia on the suspected plague death of a laboratory technician.

#ALLEGED TERROR PLOT: The man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe allegedly carried out research into a number of prominent people and individuals before a terror plot at Nigel Farage’s home.

#FAILED EXECUTION: Christa Pike is “angry and confused” after regaining consciousness almost six days after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her, one of her lawyers has said.

PARTING SHOT

“Bad news for many people in County Wicklow today.” 

That was the caption chosen by Councillor Joe Behan on Tuesday for a TikTok video, following a vote by Wicklow County Council to approve a new Rents Scheme that will see rents go up for people in local authority housing as well as those on the private rental market. 

Unfortunately for Behan, a technical mishap with TikTok meant that the first minute of the three-minute video is largely inaudible underneath a swelling, swarming and profoundly horrifying musical accompaniment, beginning with a screech before giving way to a noise that sounds like an eldritch abomination emerging from the bottom of the sea after a thousand millennia of dreamless sleep, finally ready to drag humanity into the abyss.