EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really ought to know with your morning coffee.
1. #ABUSE: It’s feared that the Donegal school caretaker, who this week was convicted of sexually abusing four boys at a school, may have been part of a larger paedophile ring in the county, with many more victims yet to come forward. The school’s principal has meanwhile said caretaker Michael Ferry was not ‘employed’ at Ard Scoil Mhuire in Derrybeg.
2. #RACE FOR THE ÁRAS: The Irish Times’ first major opinion poll on voting intentions for the presidential election has given David Norris a four-point lead over Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell – despite the senator’s difficulty in securing enough nominations to appear on the ballot paper. Today Norris writes for TheJournal.ie on how an independent can win the election – in response to Niall O’Dowd’s assertion otherwise.
3. #CLOYNE: The Vatican’s official spokesman has denied suggestions that the Holy See told bishops not to respond to the findings of the Cloyne Report – prompting rebukes from victims’ support groups. The Dáil will today debate the report’s findings and pass an all-party motion ‘deploring the Vatican’s intervention’.
4. #T-SHIRT: Sinn Féin’s online bookshop has removed a t-shirt anticipating the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The Irish News reports that the removal of the t-shirt came after the UUP described the shirt – which shows silhouetted people partying at the 85-year-old’s grave – as “grossly offensive”.
5. #PIEGATE: Anarchist comedian Jonathan May-Bowles – ‘Jonnie Marbles’ – has been charged with ‘behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place’ after yesterday’s incident at a House of Commons committee in which News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch was attacked with a shaving foam pie. The Labour Party, of which May-Bowles is a member, has suspended him.
6. #FACEBOOK: In a legal first for Ireland, a man has been charged with incitement to hatred for comments posted on Facebook. Patrick Kissane from Killarney posted the comments on an anti-Traveller page which has since been deleted. He’s been remanded on bail.
7. #EUROZONE: The IMF has upped the ante ahead of tomorrow’s crisis summit of EU leaders by urging greater action on dealing with the debt crisis – including, it proposes, putting even more money into the new permanent bailout pot. The debt crisis has eased slightly this morning with Spanish and Italian debt yields falling slightly.
8. #AFRICA: The United Nations has formally declared a famine in parts of Somalia, calling for a major humanitarian drive to help save the lives of those affected. The famine is set to be the worst in Africa since a quarter of a million died in the same country in 2002.
9. #SANDWRITING: Wouldn’t it be nice to be a rich world ruler? A member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family has completed an unusual vanity project – carving his first name in giant letters that stretch over a mile wide. The Sun reports that the letters HAMAD are so big that some are even being used as waterways. Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, 83, is worth around €16bn. Well for some…
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