Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know by 9am.
1. #BAILOUT REPUBLIC: The EU is thought to be pushing for a deal to be struck on a bailout within days, after Eurozone finance ministers backed moves last night to intensify “short and focused” preparations for an EU/IMF rescue package for Ireland. A debt crisis team is on it way to Ireland, while the Financial Times is reporting that the British government is considering giving billions in direct loans as part of the bailout. Brian Lenihan is continuing to insist that no decision has been made, but that “it’s essential we address these structural problems” on behalf of the entire eurozone.
2. #NEWCASTLE WEST: Investigations are continuing into the violent deaths of four people in Newcastle West in Co. Limerick yesterday. The victims have been named in this morning’s papers as 5-month-old Amy and her three-year-old brother Reece, their mother Sarah Hines, and her friend Alicia Brough. They are understood to have been stabbed to death, and gardaí believe they may have been dead for 24 hours before they were discovered. A 31-year-old former horticulturalist was arrested in a pub in the West Clare town of Kilkee at 4.30pm yesterday in connection with the deaths, after a phone call was made to a retired garda. Sarah Hines’s stepfather described her to the Star today as “a beautiful, bubbly young girl who didn’t have a bad bone in her body.” Gardaí are continuing to appeal for information on the event’s leading up to yesterday’s discovery.
3. #BALLYCOTTON: Another rural community was last night struggling to come to terms with the deaths of two young children. Six-year-old Zoe and two-year-old Ella Butler were found dead in their home at Ballycotton in Cork, where they are believed to have been strangled, just hours after their father John Butler drove his car – which appears to have been doused in petrol – into a ditch 2km from the family home. Their mother was at work in Cork city at the time, but had tried ringing her husband when she heard reports of the crash and had asked a relative to call to the family home. It’s then the bodies of the two little girls were discovered. It is reported this morning that Butler, an unemployed steel worker, was being treated for depression.
4. #FLOODS: Motorists are being warned to take care after last night storm left some areas of spot flooding around the country, in Leinster in particular. There is at least a 2km tailback and up to 30 minute delay on the N11 northbound due to flooding at Kilmacanogue, while areas in Cork have also been affected.
5. #DRUMM: Anglo’s efforts to recoup €8.5 million loaned to David Drumm were thrown into disarray last night after the official overseeing a creditor’s meeting in Boston described them as fradulent. The Irish Independent reports that bankruptcy trustee Kathleen Dwyer said she believed Drumm had a case to sue Anglo for €2.6 million for “distress, harassment, termination of his employment, and loss of bonuses”.
6. #ON YOUR BIKE: The bike messenger boy could be about to make a comeback. Delivery men in Dublin city are being asked to swap their delivery vans for specially designed ‘urban cargo’ bikes during the Metro North works.
7. #GOOD SAMARITAN: A ‘good Samaritan’ who was savagely attacked after he tried to help a security guard stop a shoplifter is entitled to €81,201 damages against Dunnes Stores, the Supreme Court has ruled.
8. #COURTS: A woman is suing the gardai after she was allegedly raped by a man they asked her to put up, after his wife was found dead in the home they had shared. The man was later convicted of his wife’s manslaughter, the Irish Daily Star reports.
9. #ROYAL WEDDING: Reports today reveal that Britain’s new first couple, William and Kate, will start life together in one of the most unlikely destinations for a high profile newlywed couple anywhere: an island off the northwest tip of Wales which boasts one of the world’s longest place names, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Try fitting that on the envelope of your RSVP.
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