EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know before 9am…
1. #SEARCH AND RESCUE: Two seamen have been rescued but six remain missing after their cargo vessel sank in the Irish Sea last night. Dublin and Holyhead Coast Guard teams and helicopters are at the scene off the Welsh coast.
2. #COILLTE: The chief executive of forestry body Coillte is under pressure from the top to take a voluntary 15 per cent pay cut. The Taoiseach has expressed his disappointment at David Gunning’s failure to reduce his €297,000 yearly salary. He is the only CEO at a semi-state body who has not yet acceded to the Government’s request for a voluntary waiver.
3. #BUDGET 2012: Speaking at the Fine Gael Presidential dinner last night, Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned that next month’s budget will be “tough on everyone”. However he also said the Government was working to radically reform the public sector to tackle waste. At least 48 quangos will be merged or abolished, he added.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times is reporting that car owners could be hit with tax hikes of about 5 per cent and a 4c rise in the price of a litre of petrol.
4. #KEVIN CARDIFF: The Irish Government will likely be given a chance to reconsider its nomination of Kevin Cardiff to the European Court of Auditors, TheJournal.ie reveals this morning. If the nomination process is reopened Ireland will retain the privilege to name a replacement candidate.
5. #RACE FOR THE ÁRAS: Presidential candidate Sean Gallagher is seeking a formal apology from RTÉ for its use of a “fake tweet” during a televised debate ahead of last month’s election. According to the Sunday Independent, Gallagher says he was ambushed during the Frontline programme and he wants a full public hearing into his complaint.
6. #CLONTARF: Local personalities, including rugby star Cian Healy and comedian PJ Gallagher, will join the residents of Clontarf for today’s protest against Dublin City Council’s flood defence scheme for the area. Dubbed Submission Sunday, the residents and business associations are calling on people to make submissions to the council after this afternoon’s march from the promenade to the rugby club.
7. #CONGO: Violence has broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo two days before presidential and parliamentary elections, reports Al Jazeera. Three people have been killed during campaign events in the capital and authorities have stopped the incumbent’s main rival Etienne Tshisekedi from staging a rally today.
8. #TRAP’S ARMY: Giovanni Trapattoni will sign an extension to his contract to manage the Irish football team in Dublin this week, reports the Sunday Business Post. The “cat is not yet in the sack” but the Italian said everything has been agreed in principle. Business magnate Denis O’Brien confirmed last week that he would continue to foot some of the manager’s €1.5 million salary.
9. #BAD SEX: It’s not unusual for an Irish author to be up for a literary honour but novelist Sebastian Barry may have been surprised to find himself shortlisted for the Bad Sex in Fiction award for his book On Canaan’s Side.
Here’s the passage that sealed the Literary Review nomination:
We were lying side by side one Sunday morning and with one accord, without real thought, with the simple instinct of ordinary human creatures, we turned to each other and gently kissed, then fiercely, like wakening beasts, and before we knew where we were, like a sudden walking storm down the lake that we had witnessed in the deeper weather, we seemed to go out into a stormy gear, we clutched at each other, we got rid of our damned clothes, and clung, and he was in me then, and we were happy, happy, young, in that room by the water, and the poetry that is available to anyone was available to us at last, and we breathed each other in, and in those moments both knew we would marry each other after all, and not a word needed to be spoken about it.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say