GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. Christina Finn reports this morning that negotiations on how to give a tax break or cash boost to people working from home are set to continue in the coming days as Budget 22 is finalised.
The options now being considered were among a suite of potential measures published in a Department of Finance document last month.
It’s understood the final negotiations are now focused on two options, either:
2. RTÉ has spent more than €1 million advertising the TV licence fee on its own television, radio and online channels in the past three years, new figures show.
Figures released to The Journal under the Freedom of Information Act show that the national broadcaster spent €396,000 in each year from 2018 to 2020 on advertising the fee, Stephen McDermott reports.
Television owners in Ireland must pay a €160 fee every year, which goes towards funding RTÉ’s programming on television and radio, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Sound and Vision scheme, TG4, and An Post (which gets a commission for collecting the fee).
3. China’s President Xi Jinping has said “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan “will be and can be realised”, days after Chinese warplanes made record incursions into the air defence zone of the democratically ruled island.
Self-governed Taiwan, which has never formally declared independence, lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views the island as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary.
4. A federal appeals court has allowed Texas to resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics began racing to serve patients again for the first time since early September.
A one-page order by the 5th US Court of Appeals reinstated the nation’s strictest abortion law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks.
The law makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
Nancy Northup, president of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, which represents several Texas clinics that had briefly resumed normal abortion services, said: “Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear.”
She called on the US Supreme Court to “step in and stop this madness”.
5. Health officials have confirmed 2,002 new cases of Covid-19 in Ireland.
As of 8am Friday, 354 patients with Covid-19 were in hospital, including 73 in ICU.
On Thursday, there were 1,207 new cases of Covid-19, 355 people with the virus in hospital and 69 in ICU.
“[The] case number reflects an increased number of positive tests on specimens collected over the last three days,” Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said.
“However, the total number of Covid-19 cases reported in the last seven days (8,845 cases) is fewer than the previous 7 days (9,115 cases), with the 7 day moving average of daily cases at 1,264 today, compared to 1,302 a week ago,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor this situation closely to see if the trend in new infections over recent days is sustained.”
6. Reporting for the Good Information Project this morning, Gráinne Ní Aodha looks back at the controversial 2019 European Parliament vote on whether to resume search and rescue efforts in the Mediterranean.
“It was a non-binding motion, with no costs or legislation attached to it, but its proponents hoped it would put pressure on the European Commission and the European Council to do more to help migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean.
The day before the vote, and on the same day the European Parliament debated the resolution, 39 Vietnamese people were found dead in the back of a lorry in Essex, southeast England – something that MEPs later suggested emotionally charged the debate on Europe’s search and rescue missions.
After the resolution was defeated, the European Parliament was lambasted for voting down the resolution – to this day, MEPs who voted against it are still criticised for ‘voting to let migrant children drown in the Mediterranean’.”
7. The United States and the Taliban will hold their first in-person talks since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan starting Saturday, the State Department said.
The US delegation will meet this weekend in the Qatari capital Doha with senior Taliban representatives, a State Department spokesperson said.
The United States has remained in contact with the Taliban since the longtime foes seized Kabul in August as US troops pulled out but the meeting will be the first that is face to face.
8. The closure of more than one-third of Bank of Ireland branches has raised concerns about the impact it will have on older people, particularly those in rural Ireland.
Age Action said older people who don’t bank online are now in a vulnerable position if their nearest branch was among those who shut their doors today due to a downsizing of Bank of Ireland’s network announced in March.
“Many older people want to be online, but it’s not possible for everybody. Some people can’t afford digital devices, and of course, many people around rural Ireland where the banks are closing don’t have broadband,” Dr Nat O Connor, Senior Public Affairs and Policy Specialist at Age Action, told TheJournal.
9. Facebook said it is aware that some people are “having trouble” accessing some of its apps yesterday evening.
Many social media users complained that Instagram is offline.
“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook said in a tweet.
“We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience,” it said.
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