EVERY DAY, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #PUBLIC SECTOR: The union representing rank-and-file gardaí, the Garda Representative Association, will meet today to discuss its future participation in talks on a successor to the Croke Park Agreement on public sector pay and reform. It comes as a group representing gardaí, nurses and midwives and prison officers say they are being unfairly targeted in the talks.
2. #CONSTRUCTION: House building in Ireland is at its lowest level since records began more than 40 years ago according to new figures from the Construction Industry Federation out today. Just under 8,500 houses were constructed last year, RTÉ reports.
3. #MYSTERY: Mystery continues to surround the case of Kevin Michael McGeever, the property developer who resurfaced last Tuesday having gone missing last May. The papers report this morning that gardaí hope to interview the 68-year-old as early as today with Paul Williams writing in the Irish Independent that his alleged captors demanded €10 million from him and actually got €80,000.
4. #HORSE MEAT: The chairman of Oireachtas Agriculture Committee, Andrew Doyle, says “the whole chain of events” leading to the discovery of horse DNA in some meat products will be explained by Minister Simon Coveney and officials from the Food Safety Authority in front of the committee tomorrow. It comes as food safety officials in the UK discovered traces of pork DNA in halal meat products distributed in prisons there.
5. #ABORTION: A memo on legislating for the X Case on abortion will not be brought to Cabinet tomorrow, the Irish Examiner and Irish Times report this morning. Both papers say that the issue has been dropped for the time being amid tension over how to legislate for the suicide risk. Health Minister James Reilly is reportedly proposing that up to five doctors must sign-off on an abortion when there is a risk of suicide.
6. #PENALTY POINTS: Insurance companies will get access to the penalty points database allowing them to find out what sort of penalty point offences drivers have committed under new rules being introduced today all the papers report. The move is likely to push up premiums for some drivers.
7. #CALIFORNIA: Eight people have died and dozens have been injured after a bus crash in southern California overnight. A tour bus collided with two other vehicles on a mountain road east of Los Angeles at around 6.30pm local time last night. The cause of the crash is unclear but one official told AP that the bus driver reported brake problems as he descended the road.
8. #NAVY SEAL: An Iraq war veteran, ex-Marine Eddie Routh, is facing murder charges in the US after he allegedly shot dead two men including one former NAVY Seal in central Texas at the weekend. Chris Kyle, who wrote American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History and his friend Chad Littlefield were shot dead at a firing range where they had brought the suspected gunman.
9. #BEYONCÉ: It is all about Beyoncé this morning as she wowed crowds at the Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans last night and then let us know that she will be in Dublin for two shows in May with tickets on sale next Monday. Excitement.
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