The 9 at 9: Thursday

The 9 at 9 Nine things you need to know by 9am: Conditions in Irish psychiatric hospitals and prisons are “degrading”; an FF TD struggles to make ends meet on €100,000 a year, and a 35-year-old cold case is reopened in the north following deathbed confession.

Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really, really need to know with your bowl of cornflakes.

1. #GE11: Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will both be putting forward their proposals today on how to deal with the economic crisis and their initiatives on education. Sinn Fein is also publishing its electoral manifesto.

2. #DEGRADING: Conditions in Irish prisons and psychiatric institutions are “degrading and dangerous“, the Council of Europe’s committee for the prevent of torture has warned. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is calling for the incoming government to act swiftly to implement the recommendations of the report.

3. #TESCO SHOOTING: A man has been released without charge after being questioned about the double shooting at the Clearwater shopping centre in Finglas in November. Gardaí have said the investigation is ongoing.

4. #ARREARS: A number of indebted mortgage holders have managed to get some of their debt written off, Bank of Scotland has admitted. The Irish Independent reports that deals are being done with most buy-to-let property investors, but a small number of mortgage holders have also got some of their debts written off.

5. #PLACE IN THE SUN: Almost one in every two Irish people who bought properties abroad in the last few years are now trying to sell them, according to estimates by estate agents published in today’s Irish Times.

6. #POOR MOUTH: A Fianna Fáil TD has come under fire after apparently claiming that he couldn’t get by on €100,000 a year. Meath West TD Johnny Brady said he’s no better off now than he was in 1974, when he earned £6.18.

7. #PAKISTAN: A teenage suicide bomber wearing a school uniform has killed at least 27 soldiers and wounded 40 others at an army facility in the north-west of the country.

8. #COLD CASE: A 35-year-old murder case in the UK has been reopened after a Derry man left a note on his death bed in 2008, confessing to the killing of Joan Harrison, which had been linked to the Yorkshire Ripper, the Irish News reports. Police have now confirmed the link through DNA evidence. Detectives are to investigate whether Christopher Smith was linked to other unsolved crimes in Britain and the north.

9. #RUSSIA: A drunk driver has been jailed for ten days for causing five separate accidents in the space of half an hour, injuring three people.