LAST UPDATE | 19 Jan 2022
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. The village of Mountbolus, Offaly, fell silent as Ashling Murphy’s funeral cortege made its way to St Brigid’s Church yesterday.
In today’s lead story, Garreth MacNamee writes that the silence which enveloped the village was reflected across the nation as the public stopped to pay their respects to the young teacher.
The narrow rural roads which lead to Mountbolus were thronged with mourners – those who knew and loved Ashling and those who had never met her but wanted to show support for those who had.
2. The man arrested in connection with the death of Ashling Murphy remains in garda custody.
The man in his 30s was arrested yesterday after gardaí renewed an appeal for information, with them saying “significant progress” had been made with their investigation.
The man is being detained in Tullamore Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act – he can be detained for a maximum of 24 hours.
3. The World Health Organization has warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is far from over, as France, Germany and Brazil posted new records of infections in the past 24 hours.
The highly transmissible Omicron strain has spread unabated around the world, pushing some governments to impose fresh measures while speeding up the rollout of vaccine booster shots.
“This pandemic is nowhere near over,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters yesterday from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
4. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to face an increasingly angry chorus of his own MPs amid reports the 54 letters which would launch a no confidence vote in him could be received today.
Reports last night suggested MPs furious at Johnson’s handling of the partygate scandal engulfing Westminster had been angered further by Johnson’s insistence that nobody had told him a party at Downing Street would break rules he himself had set.
And that especially those in the 2019 intake, many of whom have slim majorities after votes were “lent” to them during the last election, were preparing to submit their letters to the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, Graham Brady.
5. The Minister of State for the national drugs strategy will today tell an Oireachtas committee that a “war on drugs is not an effective response” to usage.
The Joint Committee on Health will meet this morning to hear from Minister of State Frank Feighan for an update on the national drugs strategy.
Ireland’s national drugs strategy was released in 2017 and the government said policies are now aimed towards a more health-led approach to drug use.
6. Five people have died and several others have been injured after a fire early this morning at a retirement home in eastern Spain, emergency services said.
The fire broke out around midnight at the facility in Moncada in Valencia, with six fire engines deployed, the region’s firefighters tweeted.
They said “five people are dead”, while 11 people were taken to hospital because of smoke inhalation.
7. The winner of the biggest jackpot in the history of the Irish lotto has made contact with the National Lottery to make arrangements to collect their prize.
The winning ticket for Saturday night’s €19 million draw was sold in Castlebar, Co Mayo. The jackpot had been rolling over since last June.
8. Whether it’s the home of the LA Lakers basketball team being renamed Crypto.com Arena or adverts for meme coins like Floki Inu suddenly popping up on double-decker buses across Dublin, it’s been quite remarkable to see the push to mainstream cryptocurrency over the past 12 to 18 months.
But it’s also causing major headaches for regulators and across Europe member states seem to be getting antsy about the lack of EU-wide action, Ian Curran writes in today’s Morning Memo.
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9. And finally, the weather.
Patchy rain and drizzle over Leinster and Munster will gradually clear southeastwards this morning, Met Éireann says. Clearer weather over Ulster and Connacht will extend to all areas.
Today will be mainly dry with sunny spells and a few showers in north Ulster. Highest temperatures will range from seven to nine degrees Celsius.
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