EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you up to speed with the five things you should know as you head out the door.

1. #BERLUSCONI: Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s has been sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of having sex with a minor. He has also been banned from holding public office. Berlusconi’s underage prostitution and abuse of power trial lasted over two years. He always denied any wrongdoing. The sentence was handed down by a panel of three female judges and was longer than the six-year jail term that prosecutors had sought.

2.#ABORTION: Pro-life TDs and Senators are putting party politics aside and organising a cross-party meeting ahead of the abortion vote. An email circulated in Leinster House this afternoon describes the meeting as “one of the last occasions to discuss one of the most important decisions of your political life with like-minded colleagues”. Some of the Pro-life TDs and Senators who have already indicated they will vote against the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill have urged colleagues to attend the meeting.

3. #ANGLO TAPES: Members of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Fein have called for Gardaí, the DPP and the Director of Corporate Enforcement to investigate the content of the Anglo tapes. The Irish Independent obtained phone call recordings between two senior executives discussing the problems at the bank in 2008, which revealed the bank’s top managers knew the full extent of the bank’s losses but knowingly misled the government with smaller figures.

4.#FUNDING: Minister for Health James Reilly has allocated all the money so far provided from a funding boost for autism services to services in his own area, reports Paul Cullen of The Irish Times. Minister Reilly approved funding of €300,000 for Beechpark Services in north Dublin, he said because of waiting list problems. Just €300,000 of the €3 million promised over three years by Minister Reilly has so far been allocated, all of it to north Dublin, according to the documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

5. #DONABATE: Gardai are stepping up patrols of Donabate beach in north county Dublin following allegations by The Sunday World newspaper that men were engaging in “lewd acts”. Yesterday’s newspaper report stated that two men could be seen having sex in broad daylight in front of families and “youngsters with buckets and spades”.