EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. #HORSEMEAT: Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has said the horsemeat scandal was caused mainly by bad management rather than illegal activity. In an interview with TheJournal.ie, the Minister said that one company is currently being prosecuted for its part in the scandal but that any individual or firm who broke the law will be pursued.
2. #JILL MEAGHER: The man who raped and killed Irish woman Jill Meagher is to appeal against the length of his sentence. Adrian Bailey was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 35 years to be served after he was convicted of killing the 29-year-old in Melbourne last year.
3. #MAGDALENES: The four religious orders which have refused to give financial compensation to survivors of the Magdalene laundries were found to have gross assets worth €1.5 billion in a financial assessment in 2009, according to a report by Harry McGee in the Irish Times.
4. #ON YER BIKE: Cyclists who break red lights or cycle on footpaths will be given on-the-spot fines of €50 for breaking road safety laws under new regulations to be brought in by the Government, the Irish Independent reports.
5. #MADIBA: Celebrations are taking place in South Africa to make the 95th birthday of Nelson Mandela, who will spend the day in the Pretoria hospital where he has been treated for the past six weeks. President Jacob Zuma said Mandela’s health is steadily improving and thanked the public for its support.
6. #SUICIDE: A coroner in the west of Ireland has questioned the use of recording deaths as suicide, saying that it serves no purpose. Speaking on RTE Radio One’s Morning Ireland, Dr Brendan Nix said that suicide rates in parts of Limerick are at a critically high level.
7. #CRITICISM: Samantha Power, the Irish-born diplomat who is Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, has said the UN’s lack of action to the crisis in Syria is a “disgrace that history will judge harshly”. Power also pledged to eliminated what she called the anti-Israel bias in the UN.
8. SMOKES: People who sell tobacco illegally on the streets of Dublin may be given ASBOs in a bid to crack down on the sale of illegal cigarettes in the capital. Dublin City Council has set up a taskforce to come up with ideas to stop illegal tobacco which, it says, robs the State of money and makes the city centre a less desirable place to visit and shop.
9. #TOUGH JOB: A UCC study of first-time TDs found that many are “overwhelmed” and “inundated” by the pressures of their new job, the Irish Examiner reports today. Many independent and Sinn Féin TDs also saw the Dáil as being archaic and outdated with its emphasis on formality and ceremony.
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