LAST UPDATE | 20 Apr
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day.
1. The man who set himself on fire outside the court where Donald Trump is standing trial has died, according to US media reports.
The incident occurred moments after the full panel of 12 jurors and six alternates was selected for the trial of the former US president in a hush money cover-up case.
2. The National Gender Service has been contacted by GPs seeking advice on prescribing hormones, after transgender patients were started on this treatment by private providers, a consultant has said.
Writing in The Journal, Paul Moran, a consultant psychiatrist at the National Gender Service (NGS) said “many Irish GPs” had contacted the service seeking advice because they felt under pressure to prescribe hormones after this course of treatment was initiated for patients by private providers.
3. The longest-serving Irish MEP Seán Kelly has said Fine Gael is able to pull its European parliamentary group, the European People’s Party (EPP), “back into the centre” as he believes the group can be “inclined to go towards the far-right”.
Kelly said that delegates from other countries in the European Parliament have supported the Irish MEPs in their efforts to dissuade others in the EPP from taking hard-line conservative positions on EU issues within the last five years.
The Journal asked some Irish MEPs if their party would be considering a move to a different group, in the event that their groupings could take more extreme positions and be forced into working alongside more right- or left-leaning delegates in the future.
4. This week a verdict of unlawful killing was returned by the jury for all 48 people who died in the disaster.
Ahead of an expected meeting between families of victims and the Taoiseach this weekend, here is a timeline of the tribunals, reports and inquests that led to this week’s verdict.
5. The Green Party will gather at the RDS in Dublin today for the party’s Annual Convention.
Throughout the day attendees will hear from the party’s leadership and newer candidates, with panel discussions ranging from sustainable fashion to improving healthcare.
Attendees will even have the option to attend a comedy sketch in the afternoon, with comedian and author of the book Climate Worrier, Colm O’Regan.
6. The Labour Party’s former small business spokesperson has resigned from the party ahead of the upcoming local eletions, after the Workplace Relations Commission ruled she underpaid her employee and ordered her to pay her more than €11,000.
The WRC found that O’Connell, a Labour councillor in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown in Dublin, underpaid Patricia Oropeza-Vedia and had her regularly carry out tasks that were not in her job description.
7. NATO countries are to give Ukraine more air defences after fresh pleas from the embattled state.
8. Gardaí seized over €125,000 in suspected drugs and arrested two men following searches in Donegal.
An estimated €116,000 worth of cannabis and €10,000 of suspected ‘magic’ mushrooms was seized by Gardaí attached to the Donegal Divisional Drugs Unit following searches at two properties in the Milford District.
9. People pleasing is exhausting, but learning to say ‘no’ is liberating – that’s according to our columnist Niamh O’Reilly, who says she’s learning only now to embrace the word ‘no’.
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