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

Edwin Edogbo during a team run at Aviva Stadium ahead of Ireland Six Nations clash with Italy tomorrow Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

IRELAND

• Vulnerable children in Tusla care are spending years in unregulated emergency accommodation, even though these placements are supposed to be temporary, The Journal Investigates reported. 
• A Bill to reform defamation law in Ireland finally passed through the Oireachtas.
• Calls were made for the FAI to boycott football matches against Israel.
• Heavy rains impacted areas around Ireland, and flooded an apartment complex in north Dublin.
• Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon apologised and agreed to pay damages to former justice minister Alan Shatter for falsely linking him to a meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. 
• Government minsters reacted with disappointment to the refusal of planning permission for a critical care unit for women and infants in Dublin. 
• The Office of the Inspector of Prisons expressed “deep reservations” over the manner in which a mentally ill inmate was restrained by prison officers before his death in 2020.

INTERNATIONAL

Hirano Ayumu of Japan performs during the men's snowboarding halfpipe final at the Winter Olympic Games in Italy Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#GERMANY: European leaders gathered in Munich for an annual security conference. 

#UK: Palestine Action won a case against being proscribed as a terror organisation – but the ban against them remains, the UK High Court said.

PARTING SHOT

WATCHING RTÉ INVESTIGATES: The Psychiatric Care Scandal over two evenings earlier this week, made for disturbing but necessary viewing.

This harrowing documentary laid bare the reality of what we in the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) routinely hear: the anguish of family members who fear for the well-being – and in many instances the lives – of their loved ones in prison experiencing a severe mental health crisis.

We also hear directly from people with experience of the criminal justice system who are crying out for help that never comes. Very often, families watch their loved ones’ health deteriorate to the point where they hear the news that they dread most. This week, through Conor Ryan’s sensitive retelling of their stories, families’ grief and pain flowed through the screen into homes around the country. Yet, they are merely a fraction of the people impacted by this scandal.

You can read Saoirse Brady’s full Voices article here.