Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really, really need to know with your morning coffee.
1. #ABORTION: The government has conceded it will have to legalise abortion in limited circumstances following yesterday’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights; however; Cardinal Sean Brady is insisting it will not.
2. #BRRR: The north of the country, the border counties and the west coast have been hit particularly badly in overnight weather. Met Eireann is warning that we may be in for a white Christmas. “Early indications suggest that it will remain bitterly cold and frosty up to an including Christmas Day, with icy conditions and with a risk of freezing fog. Some snow showers still possible,” it says. You have been warned.
3. #DRUGS OPERATION: 45 people have been arrested in a major drugs crackdown in Dublin. Almost half of those arrested are to be brought before Dublin District Court today.
4. #BABY INQUEST: An inquest has been hearing how a 42-year-old Westport mother of five gave birth in the bathroom of her family home, and hid the body of her dead baby in a bin liner in the hot press, where her husband later found it. The state pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, said the death of baby Edward Duffy Flynn was due to “general lack of care prior to, at the time of, and after birth”. The coroner described it as “an awful tragedy”.
5. #AIB BONUS: A second group of AIB workers was yesterday planning to file claims for bonus payments ranging from €3,000 to €38,000 with the courts, the Irish Times reports.
6. #FLYNNASTY: The Flynn dynasty in politics is to come to an end after Beverley Cooper Flynn last night became the latest former Fianna Failer to announce she is quitting politics. Noel Dempsey is also expected to make a decision on his future shortly.
7. #CEMENTGATE: Cementgate driver Joe McNamara has been bailed after being charged on five separate counts including having no road tax, failing to display tax and not having a certificate of roadworthiness, the Independent reports. A date for his trial has been set for March next year.
8. #BRITAIN: An 18 year old British public schoolgirl, Ruby Thomas, has been jailed for carrying out a drink and homophobia fuelled assault on a gay civil servant. Witnesses likened the attack to a scene from A Clockwork Orange.
9. #MEL GIBSON: The actor everyone loves to hate may have gone too far this time. Winona Ryder, who was born Winona Horowitz and is half Jewish, has claimed in an interview with GQ magazine that Mel Gibson called her an “oven-dodger” at a 1995 party in Hollywood, in reference to the gas chambers that Nazis used to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
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