EACH WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you five things you need to know before you head out the door.

1. #EXCHEQUER RETURNS: Exchequer returns released this evening show that the total tax take for April was €2.1 billion, up €145 million on last year. Of the so-called big four taxes, income tax was in line with expectations, corporation tax came in above target, excise duty was behind target, and VAT showed a shortfall. There was also €21 million of property tax revenue received in the month.

2. #MORTGAGES: Thousands of tracker mortgage holders will have been boosted today by news that the European Central Bank has cut its main interest rate by 25 basis points to 0.5 per cent. The decision will provide a boost for tracker mortgage holders but it could impact on those who do not have trackers. Here’s why.

3. #SHOOTING: A former Fianna Fáil councillor was shot at while driving with his family outside his home in Co Offaly this morning. Gardaí are investigating the shooting at developer and former Fianna Fáil election candidate Ger Killaly and his two young sons just before 11am.

4. #KEN BARLOW: Coronation Street star Bill Roache has denied allegations of raping a 15-year-old girl in the 1960s and says he will fight the claims. The actor, who plays long-running character Ken Barlow, says he is “astounded and deeply horrified” by the events of the past 24 hours.

5. #FITZPATRICK: The former boss of Anglo Irish Bank, Seán FitzPatrick, could be brought before an Oireachtas committee sooner than we might have expected following the Public Accounts Committee hearings on the Dublin Docklands Development Authority today, the board of which the former banker, who is facing a number of criminal charges, sat on until 2007.