GOOD MORNING. 

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day. 

Red Sea conflict to affect Ireland

1. In our lead story today, Lauren Boland reports that industry experts say Irish businesses are likely to face knock-on problems due to the disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea.

Delays on important shipping routes, increased prices, and a shortage of shipping containers are expected to create problems for industries in many parts of the world, including Ireland, as the Red Sea becomes a conflict zone.

Gaza

Fighting raged across Gaza and Israeli units raided the West Bank today after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced growing domestic criticism, rejected calls for post-war “Palestinian sovereignty”.

Alongside fierce fighting in southern Gaza and across the besieged territory, strikes in Syria and Iraq raised fears of a wider conflagration.

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours – more than double Friday’s toll.

Wexford collision

Gardaí in Wexford are seeking information about a serious single-vehicle road traffic collision that occurred in Castlebridge Village yesterday.

A man in his 30s was seriously injured in a crash after his car hit a wall on the R741 at around 7pm on 20 January.

‘Creative drug smugglers’

Drug smugglers in the EU have become so “very creative” that the bloc’s seaports should join forces to combat their ever-changing tactics, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden has told AFP.

That idea is to be promoted next week when Verlinden, along with the European Commission, meets top representatives from around 20 EU ports, Europol officials, other interior ministers and sea transport executives to launch the European Ports Alliance.

School fire in China

Authorities in central China’s Henan Province were on Sunday looking into the cause of a night-time fire that killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory, AFO reports.

Status Red warning

A Status Red weather warning has been issued for Donegal, Galway and Mayo as Storm Isha hits Ireland.

Struggling buyers

The age of the average first time buyer is now higher than ever at 35 years old and with house prices on a steady incline, many people feel locked out of homeownership.

At the same time, a chronic shortage of housing has pushed rents upwards leaving many renters in a position where they struggle to save enough for a deposit.

Government initiatives aimed at tackling the housing crisis range from schemes targeted at first-time buyers, like Help to Buy (HTB) and the First Home shared equity scheme (FHS), to schemes targeted at renters like Cost Rental and Housing Assistance Payments (HAP).

We asked readers what their experience of these schemes were and received a variety of responses. 

‘Mentally capable’

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has questioned whether Donald Trump is mentally capable of serving a second term after he repeatedly seemed to confuse her with former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Press Association reports.

As she campaigned in Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, Haley referenced Trump’s speech the night before, in which he mistakenly asserted she was in charge of Capitol security on January 6 2021, when a mob of the former president’s supporters stormed the building seeking to stop the certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Women and care

The starting gun has been fired this week on the two referendums, with a Dáil debate including discussions on what a ’durable’ relationship’ is, ‘throuples’, care and women’s place in the home.

There has been mounting anxiety in government circles about the outcome of the proposed constitutional referendums on deleting the reference to a woman’s role in the home and extending the definition of the family.

Christina Finn gives her analysis of the beginnings of the referendums.