LAST UPDATE | 8 Oct 2021
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. With UCC’s food bank rising to national prominence this week Céimin Burke reports on the situation at colleges around Ireland.
USI president Clare Austick says the Government needs to boost funding to third-level education to alleviate the financial burden on students.
“Many students are really, really struggling financially and it’s gotten to the point where they have to go to a food bank to try and get food,” Austick said.
“What we’re seeing in Cork is just a fraction of what’s happening across the country, It’s across the board. The way the education system is funded in Ireland, it’s basically a broken system.”
2. Thousands of homeowners affected by the mica crisis are expected to descend on Dublin today to mount further pressure on the government as it considers its response.
The government has promised a compensation package that will be “one of the biggest ever” in the history of the State, with campaigners saying it is not enough unless every homeowner receives 100% compensation.
3. Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Government Chief Whip Jack Chambers are to attend a church service marking Northern Ireland’s centenary which will be attended by the queen.
Last month, President Michael D Higgins announced he had declined his invitation to the service because he believed it was not politically neutral and because he had concerns about the title of the event.
The prayer service has been organised by the four main churches in the North to mark the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland.
4. Taoiseach Micheál Martin will meet with Northern Ireland’s political leaders during a visit to Belfast today.
Martin will visit the city for a programme of events as well as discussing the latest political developments.
The Taoiseach will speak at an all-island business event jointly hosted by the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Chambers Ireland.
5. US President Joe Biden has championed Covid-19 vaccination requirements, determined that the roughly 67 million unvaccinated American adults must receive the shot despite his acknowledgement that mandates were not his “first instinct”.
Biden had ruled out such requirements before taking office in January, but they now are a tactic he feels forced into using by a stubborn slice of the public that has refused to be inoculated.
“There is no other way to beat the pandemic than to get the vast majority of the American people vaccinated,” Biden said in Chicago at an event promoting the mandates.
6. It may surprise many to hear that Ireland has the lowest rates of breastfeeding in Europe and one of the lowest rates in the world.
In a Voices opinion column today, Fianna Fáil councillor Deirdre Geraghty-Smith says the legislation around marketing of follow on milk should be addressed again and more support should be given to new mothers.
7. The government has published the Pension Commission report. One of the recommendations is that the State pension age should rise in quarterly increments to 67 between 2028 and 2031.
The report also recommends that it should then gradually increase to 68 by 2039.
Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys also aims to legislate to link contracts to the pension retirement age so as to ensure there is no gap between the time a person has to stop working and when their State pension kicks in.
8. A federal magistrate judge in Nevada has sided with Cristiano Ronaldo’s lawyers against a woman who sued for more than the $375,000 (€325,000) in hush money she received in 2010 after saying the footballer raped her in Las Vegas.
In a scathing recommendation to the judge hearing the case, Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts blamed Kathryn Mayorga’s attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall, for inappropriately basing the civil damages lawsuit on leaked and stolen documents shown to be privileged communications between Ronaldo and his lawyers.
9. Images taken by Nasa’s Perseverance rover confirm Mars’ Jezero crater was once a quiet lake, fed steadily by a small river some 3.7 billion years ago.
The study shows how much water flowed into the crater – which today is a dry, wind-eroded depression – and indicates where the rover could search for signs of life.
The first scientific analysis of the images also reveals evidence that the crater endured flash floods.
This flooding was energetic enough to sweep up large boulders from tens of miles upstream and deposit them into the lake-bed, where the massive rocks still lie today.
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