LAST UPDATE | 5 Oct 2022

GOOD MORNING.

Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day. 

Irishman killed in Ukraine

1. An Irishman has been killed while fighting in Ukraine, his family has confirmed this morning.

Rory Mason, 23, died as a Ukrainian armed forces serviceman while fighting in the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine near the Russian border.

The Mason family learnt of Rory’s death from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which is providing consular assistance.

Inflation forecasts

2. The Central Bank has revised its consumer price inflation forecasts up to 8% for this year, reports Hayley Halpin this morning.

In its latest quarterly bulletin, published today, the regulator said energy-driven inflation is the key issue being faced currently and as a result, the outlook for domestic growth over the coming quarters is “more challenging than was previously expected”.

Refugee council report 

3. A report has warned of the “grievous” risk to women and children seeking refuge and of “deteriorating” accommodation standards in the past six months.

The Irish Refugee Council (IRC) has made recommendations to tackle reported risks to women, minors and children and to address increasingly poor standards of accommodation.

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre

4. More than 7,000 people contacted the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s national 24-hour helpline for the first time in 2021.

The Centre’s annual report for 2021 shows that, in total, there were 14,012 contacts made to the National Helpline last year compared with 13,438 in 2020.

Data Protection concerns

5. The Data Protection Commission has raised concerns of the risk of getting taken to court and how a “negative outcome” for them could damage their reputation and drain their resources.

The commission also raised concerns over a potential failure to secure and retain funding for its work and the challenges posed by a rapid expansion in its staff numbers.

Defence Forces pay

6. A group representing soldiers has called for the Government to fully implement the findings from the Commission on the Future of the Defence Forces around pay and conditions.

The General Secretary of PDFORRA said that their members have “endured years of hardship” with multiple reports on the “perilous” state of the Defence Forces.

Mar-a-Lago raid

7. Former US President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in the legal tussle over classified documents seized in the FBI raid of his Florida home. 

Trump urged the conservative-dominated court to stay a ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that restored access to the classified documents to the Justice Department.

Missile malfunction

8. A malfunctioning South Korean missile blew up during a live-fire drill with the US, which was a reprisal for North Korea’s successful launch a day earlier of a weapon that flew over Japan.

The explosion and subsequent fire from the South Korean missile on this morning panicked and confused residents of the coastal city of Gangneung, who were already uneasy over the increasingly provocative weapons tests by rival North Korea.

Musk – Twitter deal

9. Elon Musk is abandoning his legal battle to back out of buying Twitter by offering to go through with his original $44 billion bid for the social media platform.

Musk made the offer in a letter to Twitter, which comes just two weeks before the social media company’s lawsuit to attempt to force the Tesla CEO to carry out the deal.