LAST UPDATE | 2 Sep 2021
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. Single people who have difficulty buying their first home are to be targeted under reforms earmarked for the government’s mortgage scheme, currently known as the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan (RIHL), Christina Finn and Cónal Thomas write in today’s lead story.
The measure will be part of the the government’s new Housing for All plan, which will be approved by a special Cabinet meeting being held later this morning.
The much-talked-about new housing plan was due to be published in July this year but was pushed back to the autumn amid coalition wrangling over costs. It will commit to a €4 billion annual investment in housing and sets annual targets across social, affordable and cost rental housing.
2. Staying with housing, building activity recovered strongly from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic after sites were reopened in May, according to the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI).
The banking lobby group’s latest Housing Market Monitor also highlights the increasing level of construction activity in areas outside Dublin relative to the capital.
According to the BPFI report, 5,021 housing units were completed in the second quarter of 2021, a sharp improvement upon last year.
3. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has apologised for a failure to release texts between him and former minister Katherine Zappone, discussing the controversial Merrion Hotel gathering in July and her (since scrapped) appointment as a special envoy, in response to Freedom of Information requests from journalists.
In a statement released today, Varadkar said: “The relevant FOI officer who received the request checked all emails and letters and found no records. I was on annual leave at the time the decision was released and I wasn’t contacted to check my phone for records.
“We’ll put in place procedures to ensure this does not recur. The relevant records are being sent to the journalists. We are, of course, sorry this happened.”
4. Teachers are not at greater risk of admission to hospital from coronavirus compared to the general population, a Scottish study has found.
Looking at data from between March 2020 and July 2021, researchers found there was no higher risk of this among teachers than other working-age adults.
When schools were mostly closed, teachers were 50% less likely than the general working population to be admitted to hospital. When schools were open, the risk in both groups was similar.
5. The US Supreme Court handed a major victory to abortion opponents late last night, denying an emergency request to block a new law effectively banning most abortions in the southern state of Texas.
The court, which had received the emergency request from abortion rights advocates on Monday, did not rule on the constitutionality of the law, which went into effect 24 hours earlier, but cited “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” for leaving it in place while the court battle continues.
The decision was reached with a narrow majority of five justices in favor, three of whom were appointed by former president Donald Trump, who cemented a conservative-leaning six-three majority on the nine-member panel during his time in office.
6. Also in the US, a military chief has said that it is “possible” the US will have to coordinate with the Taliban on any counter-terrorism strikes in Afghanistan against so-called Islamic State.
Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Taliban is a “ruthless” group and “whether or not they change remains to be seen”.
He added: “In war you do what you must in order to reduce risk to mission and force, not what you necessarily want to do.”
7. The Department of Justice is asking anyone who has experienced intimate images being shared online without their consent to report the content to a hotline.
The national centre for combatting illegal content online, Hotline, can work with the gardaí on image abuse cases and help with having content removed. Hotline, which was set up in 1999, is now “broadening its scope to provide a service for reporting intimate images shared without consent”.
8. Ronaldo scored two goals in the final six minutes to deny Ireland a famous win in Faro last night.
For 89 minutes Ireland were magnificent, melding their doughty heart with the methodical counter-attacking gameplan Stephen Kenny has been promising, but with an era-defining victory so deliciously – agonisingly – in sight, they learned you can only escape Ronaldo for so long, Gavin Cooney reports from the Estadio Algarve.
9. In better sporting news, Pat O’Leary qualified for the semi-finals in both of his canoeing competitions, the KL3 200m and the VL3 200m, despite competing in biblical rain in Tokyo.
The Leeside paddler — sixth in the kayak final in Rio five years ago — eased into tonight’s KL3 semi-finals in his first race.
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