LAST UPDATE | 29 Apr 2023

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.

Stardust

1. In our main story this morning, Tadgh McNally reports on the first week of the State’s largest ever inquest, examining what happened to cause the deaths of 48 young people during the Stardust tragedy.

The inquest heard from families on the loved ones they lost during the fire at the Artane nightclub on Valentines Day 1981.

It came after42 years of campaigning by families who this week gathered at the Garden of Remembrance as the first hearing of the Stardust inquests got under way. 

Sudan

2. Fighting in Sudan has continued to rage, despite rival forces agreeing to extend a truce aimed to stem nearly two weeks of warfare that has killed hundreds and caused widespread destruction.

In the capital Khartoum, where foreign nations are scrambling to organise mass evacuations of their citizens, Turkey’s defence ministry said a military transport aircraft came under fire. 

Crimea fuel depot fire

3. A huge fire is reported have broken out on at a fuel depot in Sevastopol, the main port in Moscow-annexed Crimea, with authorities saying it was the result of a drone attack.

Sevastopol is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone attacks since the Kremlin’s Ukraine offensive launched last year. 

Drowning death

4. A man in his early 20s has died after several people got into difficulty while swimming off the Waterford coast.

The incident happened at Whiting Bay in Ardmore yesterday afternoon. Gardaí received a report that a number of people had got into difficulty while swimming in the bay, and while the Coast Guard brought three people from the water, one of these later died.

Niall Collins

5. The controversy over how council land was sold to the wife of Limerick TD Niall Collins dominated the political landscape this week, but a bigger issue in Leinster House may lie in how it saw the departure from the precedent of having ministers in difficulty coming before the Dáil to answer questions. 

As political correspondent Christina Finn writes, generally, when controversies or scandals surround politicians, they are handled as follows: something big hits the headlines, statements are made, the opposition calls for clarity and eventually, the minister in question is prepped within an inch of their life and walks into the Dáil chamber to face the music. 

But Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin both signalled a shift in strategy this week, by preventing Collins from being questioned on the land sale.

Sweltering weather in Spain

6. Spain has been hit by summertime temperatures with highs of 38.8 degrees, with health officials considering bringing in a heat prevention plan two weeks early to help regions respond to the unseasonably warm weather conditions.

The drought has already driven up prices of Spanish olive oil to record levels and the country’s Meteorological Agency has noted that temperatures are “exceptionally high” for April because of a mass of very warm and dry air coming from North Africa. 

Man jailed after ramming patrol car

7. A man who injured a garda when he rammed a patrol car twice to escape gardaí has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Trevor Brown (40) reversed the stolen pick-up truck at speed at the parked patrol car, pinning the leg of Garda David Lewis between the vehicles, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.

In a letter of apology written to the court, the man claimed that he was “reversing slowly”. Judge Patricia Ryan said this was “at variance with the evidence”.

Pandemic reflections

8. Former Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan has said that the media and others tried to “oversimplify” Covid-19, but that “no pandemic plan” that could have prepared the country for the crisis.

Speaking yesterday at a Royal College of Surgeons conference, Holohan said that the “seductively simple solutions” proposed throughout the pandemic served to “rush simple answers to complicated and complex questions”. 

Meditation

9. Cormac Fitzgerald has just completed a silent 10-day meditation course – meaning no phones and no talking, and essentially no outside contact whatsoever. Have a read of what he learned.