LAST UPDATE | 25 Jun 2021
GOOD MORNING, HAPPY Friday. Here’s all the news that you need to know about as you start your day.
1. In our main story today, Noteworthy reveals the National Parks and Wildlife Service granted 11 licences to salmon farms between 2015 and 2020 to cull normally protected seals by rifle shot.
At least two grey seals and three common seals were killed, with data unavailable on the number of seals killed in most cases, according to records obtained by Noteworthy following a request for details of seals culls by salmon farms or hatcheries.
In 1914, grey seals became the world’s first officially protected species after they were almost hunted to population collapse. Both species are now protected under the EU Habitats Directive.
2. Last night, the Taoiseach said the government doesn’t want to backtrack on any reopening measures, and that this principle will “inform any decisions” when advice is received from NPHET next week.
NPHET will next week issue advice to government on the planned 5 July reopening measures, which includes indoor dining.
In an interview aired tonight with Claire Brock on Virgin Media Television, Micheál Martin said the Chief Medical Officer this week outlined his concerns about the Delta variant.
3. Justice Minister Heather Humphreys has said incidences in which domestic abuse victims had their 999 calls erroneously cancelled “should not have happened”.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris yesterday issued an apology to the hundreds of victims who had their 999 calls cancelled.
The exact extent of the issue is still unknown as an internal garda inquiry is “a work in progress”, but initial findings estimate some 312 victims had their calls cancelled before there was an appropriate policing response.
4. Over in Australia, people in Sydney have been ordered to stay home for a week, as authorities locked down several central areas to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19.
65 Covid-19 cases have been reported so far in the flare-up linked to a limousine driver infected about two weeks ago when he transported an international flight crew from Sydney airport to a quarantine hotel.
But authorities have since identified scores of potential infection sites visited by thousands of people across central Sydney, including the city’s main business district.
5. In Europe, the Dutch prime minister has said for him, “Hungary has no place in the EU anymore”, as EU leaders hit out at the country’s new legislation in his country that will ban showing content about LGBTQ issues to children.
A majority of the leaders insisted that discrimination must not be tolerated in the 27-nation bloc and told Viktor Orban that the new Hungarian law goes against the EU’s fundamental values.
The law prohibits sharing content on homosexuality or sex reassignment to people under 18 in school sex education programs, films or advertisements.
6. In the US, ex-police officer Derek Chauvin is to be sentenced today over the murder of George Floyd.
Minnesota law provides for a minimum sentence of 12.5 years for the white, 45-year-old killer, who has been jailed since being convicted on three counts of murder and manslaughter two months ago.
But Judge Peter Cahill, who will hand down the sentence at 1.30pm (6.30pm Irish time) in a Minneapolis court, identified aggravating circumstances that could signal a much heavier punishment.
7. In Florida, rescue teams have been combing through the rubble of an oceanfront apartment block near Miami Beach that partially collapsed, killing at least one person and leaving another 99 unaccounted for amid fears of a much higher death toll.
So far 102 others have been accounted for, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.
8. Back in Ireland, The Journal reports the Department of Transport is pulling annual emergency payments to Waterford Airport, placing the future of the company in doubt.
The emergency payments, totalling €1.5m over three years, were provided between 2018 to 2020, however, no money has been paid out for the current year.
9. And finally, the UK’s top cybersecurity official will today praise the Irish government’s refusal to pay the ransom to the criminals behind the HSE hack.
Lindy Cameron, who is CEO UK’s the National Cyber Security Centre, will deliver a speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in which she will say that ransomware attacks are more likely to be undertaken if ransoms are paid.
“It’s important that we do all we can to ensure this is not a criminal model that yields returns. The government’s strong action of refusing to pay will likely deter ransomware operators from further attacks on health sector organisations, in Ireland or elsewhere,” Cameron will say in her speech.
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