EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. #BUDGET 2013: So – it’s the morning after the day before. Yesterday we were informed on how the government plans to save €3.5 billion next year – including a property tax, increases in employees’ PRSI bills, changes to social welfare payments (including child benefit), cuts to respite care grants, increased prescription charges and motor tax, cuts to mortgage interest relief, increases in college fees, and an extra €1 on a bottle of wine. The measures met with anti-austerity protests outside Leinster House last night.
Here’s our take on the winners and losers of Budget 2013 – and on how the Budget affects you – as well as a gallery of how the front pages see it, an open thread on how fellow readers plan to save some cash, and how Twitter reacted.
So, after all that: how do you feel? If you’re not sure, a quick bash of our Budget 2013 Calculator might help to inform your thinking. Oh, and by the way, there was other non-Budget news yesterday too: here’s our catch-up guide to other things that happened yesterday.
2. #PHONE LICENCE: Denis O’Brien and Michael Lowry could be made jointly liable for any costs the State incurs in a court case over the awarding of the second mobile phone licence. The Irish Times reports that the Department of Communications lodged legal papers in court last week, looking to add O’Brien and Lowry as third parties in a case taken by Persona, one of the unsuccessful bidders.
3. #OSCE: Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore will get a welcome distraction from post-Budget analysis today when he hosts a major meeting of international foreign ministers at the RDS. He’s chairing a conference of the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe – of which Ireland is currently chair – and Hillary Clinton, William Hague and Sergey Lavrov are in town to take part.
4. #MURDER: A post-mortem is due this morning on the body of a Dutch man who was found in his apartment yesterday having suffered fatal stab wounds. It is thought the man had lay dead in his Ballymun flat for several days.
5. #NORTHERN IRELAND: An office belonging to a Northern Irish political party was torched last night by loyalist protesters, as part of a bitter dispute over the flying of the Union flag over Belfast’s city hall. The offices belonged to the Alliance Party, which is neutral on the unionist-republican question, and which was behind the Belfast City Council motion to limit the flying of the British flag over the city hall.
6. #CORPORATE TAX: Ireland’s corporate tax rate wasn’t changed yesterday, but the tax take could still be under attack. Yesterday Britain had a semi-annual budget update – in which chancellor George Osborne said he’d work with the OECD to ensure that large companies in the UK paid their fair share of corporate tax in Britain. He was hinting at Ireland, where companies channel profits to take advantage of the lower tax rate. Corporate tax is worth €4.2 billion of our annual income.
7. #JOBSWATCH: There could be some employment challenges ahead in the financial sector. Ulster Bank yesterday indicated plans to cut about 90 jobs from its mortgage loans division – while Citigroup is cutting 11,000 jobs worldwide, which may include some of its 2,000 roles in Ireland.
8. #MCAFEE: Anti-virus millionaire John McAfee has been arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally – a day after he said he was going to seek political refuge in the country. McAfee is wanted in Belize, where he is a chief suspect in the murder of a neighbour.
9. #HOLLYWOOD: Who do you think is Hollywood’s most overpaid actor? Money magazine Forbes has crunched some numbers and the answer is… Eddie Murphy. The actor’s films only make $2.30 at the box office for every $1 that Murphy is paid, making him the least value-for-money big-name actor out there.
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