EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. #JAMES REILLY: Fianna Fáil is to put forward a motion of no confidence in Minister for Health James Reilly, just two months after the last such motion against the Fine Gael TD. Micheál Martin has called on the Minister to resign following new information which showed changes had been made to a list of primary care centre sites hours before the list was made public.
2. #OPINION POLL: A new opinion poll has found that voters are in favour of scrapping the Seanad, giving Irish people living abroad a vote, and reducing presidential terms by two years. The Ipsos MRBI poll in today’s Irish Times asked voters their views on some of the issues which are to be put before the Constitutional Convention before it meets for the first time this weekend.
3. #WHAT THE FLIUCH: Gardaí have warned road users to take extra care this morning after heavy rain overnight caused flooding in parts of the east and south of the country. A number of roads remain impassable in Waterford while AA Roadwatch reports dangerous conditions in parts of Dublin.
4. #GREECE: Finance ministers from across the Eurozone will meet in Brussels later today to discuss how to unfreeze the next instalment of bailout money for Greece. This is the third such meeting in two weeks as vast differences have emerged between Eurozone countries on how to deal with Greece’s huge debt.
5. #POISONED?: The remains of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are to be exhumed tomorrow in a bid to determine whether or not he died from poisoning. Doctors were unable to say what killed Arafat when he died unexpectedly in November 2004 at the age of 75 and an autopsy was never performed.
6. #SHOPPING: New figures suggest the average Irish consumer will spend about €227 shopping for Christmas gifts online over the next month. Figures published this morning say Irish consumers will spend a total of €420 million online in the run up to Christmas Day.
7. #SMOKING: New research has found that smoking can affect the mind as well as the body. Researchers at King’s College London looked at almost 9,000 smokers and found that smoking can affect memory, learning and reasoning by “rotting” the brain.
8. #SPAIN: Political parties in Catalonia pushing for a referendum on breaking away from Spain have won strong backing in an election at the weekend, which could set the region up for a clash with Spain’s central government.
9. #BYE: Singer Chris Brown, who is due to perform in Dublin next week, appears to have deleted his Twitter account after hurling abuse at a female comedy writer who repeatedly criticised him for his physical assault on singer Rihanna. Here’s our guide to why the spat will both confuse you and make you angry.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say