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EVERY MORNING TheJournal.ie brings you the headlines you need to know as you start your day.
1. #DAFT: The average cost of renting a home in Ireland is now at an all time high of €1,366, while the number of homes available to rent is at an all time low.
2. #SEIZURE: Gardaí have seized cocaine and cannabis worth a combined total of €42,000 in an operation in Drogheda.
3. #RECORDS: New documents released to TheJournal.ie show how government and opposition TDs lobbied the National Transport Authority (NTA) to have the original Metrolink plans changed before the authority altered the route this year.
4. #BREXIT: A poll released yesterday shows that Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the UK has doubled its lead over other British parties in an opinion poll out today on the European Parliament elections. Support for the party is now on 34%.
5. #BURKINA FASO: Gunmen killed a priest and five parishioners during Mass in an attack on a Catholic church in Dablo, northern Burkina Faso, security sources said yesterday.
6. #BAFTAS: Irish actress Fiona Shaw won a Best Supporting Actress award for her role in the BBC drama Killing Eve, while there were no wins for Channel 4s Derry Girls.
7. #BANNED: A controversial US hate preacher has been banned from coming to Ireland by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan.
8. #TRIBUTES: Tributes have been paid to Ralph Skóra, who died over the weekend following an apparent paragliding accident in the Wicklow Mountains.
9. #WEATHER: Warm weather and sunny skies are forecast for the country for most of the week, but showers are due to return next weekend.
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Amazing we have money to put “homeless” up in hotels like the gresham, but a public service that should be top priority like health hmm we’ll have to work within the budget. Cap social welfare and divert the savings yo health, education and roads.
@Jonathan Whelan: The problem is public services have no place in FG dogma. If you think capping your bugbear social welfare would solve the problem you’re not seeing the big picture. Privatisation is the name of the game.
As for hotels, the government are happy to see hoteliers benefiting from Corporate Welfare.
@Dave Doyle: 20 billion on social welfare . Google judge Durcan and social welfare. A woman up in front of him admitted she would have to earn 120,000 to get the same as she gets in social welfare payments!! But hey don’t let facts get in the way of your moaning! If just this woman was capped at 25,000 payment it would pay for a nurse or even a junior doctor…..
@Jonathan Whelan: You have this tunnel vision solution to public service problems. You do the moaning. Moan continually about SW and the people that get it. But corporate welfare doesn’t seem to bother you at all.
Public services are being deliberately destroyed by underfunding and mismanagement. All with the agenda of forcing people into having to go private if they want to look after their health.
It doesn’t matter if they get rid of or reduce SW payments. Or manage to privatise every public service.It won’t put one extra cent in your pocket, you’ll still pay through the nose as if the services still existed as public services.
@Dave Doyle: I know i pay through the nose like all other tax payers who prop up the unemployable they are the biggest leech of resources as a % of the budget Billions. Corporate welfare?? Grow up even with out the banking death our national death was growing because…. the tax base is too narrow!! I love the way you neglected to comment on that woman I mentioned getting the eq of 120,000 euro salary off social welfare???? But if a public servent or garda got that you’d be out in the streets burning your knickers!
@Jonathan Whelan: It’s not me that needs to do the growing up,son.
@Dave Doyle: still did not answer my question!!! About that woman getting so much on social welfare?? Is it acceptable? Or does it hit too near to home..
@Jonathan Whelan: All above board and legit. Rearing six kids isn’t cheap. If that’s what she’s entitled to, then she’s doing nothing wrong, is she?
You seem to have a problem, begrudgery i think it’s called.
@Dave Doyle: No my dear man its not begrudgery . And i know its not cheap rearing 6 kids thats why most working people can’t have 6 kids. But you still didn’t state if it is fair and just that she gets eq of 120,000 of tax payers money a year. So in in lay mans terms 6 people earning 70k a years total tax goes to keep her??. Do you not think it would be fairer to increase individual welfare payments and improve universal services by capping social welfare total to an individual at 400 a week? If you want 6 kids you should provide for 6 kids..
@Dave Doyle: i’ve enjoyed this wee debate but must head away so I’ll part with a quote from the iron lady ” The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money” food for thought.
@Jonathan Whelan: The HSE have a budget of €15,000,000,000 per annum. Lack of money isn’t their problem, it’s resource allocation.
They have asked me on two occasions if I still want to be on the waiting list.
@Christy Nolan: Our son had to have his heart checked, and he was put on a waiting list to be added to the main waiting list in Crumlin CH.
@The Risen: any comment on the SF punishment beatings? truly harrowing
@Christy Nolan: I’m almost blind in one eye and have a cataract in my “good” eye, so I’m on an emergency list which I’m told is four months, at least!
@Christy Nolan: only twice. I’ve been asked 4 or 5 times
I’m sure by the your appointment comes you will either be totally blind . Or dead.. what a joke ..what a system… and no improvement in sight ..
@OCallaghan TP: pun intended or Not?
@OCallaghan TP: but plenty of money for free abortions for any reason up to 12 weeks!!
I had a eye clinic appointment last November as I have diabetic retinopathy my eyesight has worsened so the consultant said I need at least 6 more eye injections and she marked my case urgent urgent urgent I’m still waiting to be called so I phoned the hospital to be told it’ll be at least April before I’ll get a appointment.
@Tom Harpur: are you not part of the Diabetic Retina Screen program? You shouldnt be waiting 5 months for an injection. That’s one of the key performance targets of that well funded program. Get your GP to enquire.
Go to Africa and have it done straight away.
@Mr Phil Officer: And €4 can save the sight of hundreds! It’s obviously a fast, cheap procedure, so why are our elderly being made to suffer needlessly?
@Anne Marie Devlin: Simply because it’s a public service that is treating them.
What a country we live in.
@The Bull McCabe: modern,sophisticated European country…. The word Banana comes to mind!
I have to see an ENT Consultant and I’m on two waiting lists. One I will be on for 2 years waiting and the other list I’m told I will be on for 4 years. The health service is in ruins and the government don’t do a thing about it, they just give themselves nice big bonuses, they have no shame whatsoever
Theres a great TD in West Cork that is using the North to get eyes done, he is getting bus loads to get home done
I noted that all the little FG monkeys are absent from here .. running around like dogs in heat commenting on anything SF, but found wanting when stories like this break.
Prime example of why we shouldn’t introduce more lenient abortion laws, because with all the bile and venom they spout, even their own mothers couldn’t love them.
.
@Ian Kavanagh: what party in your estimation would make a difference or could have prevented this.
@Tom Harpur: continuing with the failed sham of perpetual FFG and Labour government certainly is not making any difference.
To make such a claim will have me labelled a shinnerbot no doubt.
There’s a sf story on another article ..that’s where you’ll find the fg frape room boyos…..nothing to see here..
My son was due to be seen for his annual eye appointment with eye clinic in January 2017. Still no appointment available 13 months later and 25 months since his last appointment
40,000 people were on outpatient waiting lists for eye healthcare.
13,812 of those waiting for over a year!!!!!!!!!!!
Ireland a failed society. 2-Tier Healthcare system. No waiting if you can pay …. else wait a long delay ot take the Belfast Bus.
People need to bring their brains to the Polling booths … they owe it to themselves, their families and broader community.
It’s will be the same time frame for an abortion
Well eye didn’t see that coming
My dad goes to eye/ear hospital ..every 6 weeks for injections….doing this 2 years now…he’s diabetic…the clinic is always packed….the nurses and doctors are brilliant….its the system….
have your say