Here's What Happened Today: Tuesday

Terror attack at a Pakistani school, the Russian Rouble and the same sex marriage referendum had everyone talking today.

IRELAND

90365149 Leigh Gath has been named by the HSE as the Confidential Recipient for whistleblowers. Sasko Lazarov Sasko Lazarov

The same-sex marriage referendum will take place next May.
A woman has described how she was sent home from Portlaoise Regional Hospital three days before her baby died and was told she just had a kidney infection.
The State will offer up to €84,000 to people bringing cases against the State for child sexual abuse in school.
The Health Minister Leo Varadkar says he thinks our abortion laws will be different… in 20 years’ time.
Campaigner Leigh Gath has been named as the woman who will deal with whistleblowers concerned about HSE services for vulnerable users.
Plans are being drawn up for the first ever drug injecting centre in Ireland.
Organised gangs are flying into Dublin to shoplift your belongings this Christmas.
An unemployed chef is offering up his home to a family in need on Christmas Day and will even cook them a full festive dinner.

INTERNATIONAL

A Pakistani man comforts a student standing at the bedside of a boy who was injured in a Taliban attack on a school. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

#PAKISTAN: 132 students and 9 staff were slaughtered in a terror attack on an army-run school today.

#RUSSIA: The Russian Rouble has lost 20% of its value – here’s three graphs that show just how bad the Russian crisis really is.

#SYDNEY: The man who held a Sydney café hostage was well known to police and had a significant number of charges against him before yesterday’s siege.

INNOVATION

Nasa has discovered a hint of life on Mars. [TheTelegraph]
Here’s what Ireland searched for on Google in 2014. [TheJournal.ie]

PARTING SHOT

“Oh God it’s Mom”

One mother called in to a TV station from North Carolina to tell her sons (who are both political pundits) to stop bickering saying ‘I want a quiet Christmas’.

Adding, “I hope they get this out of their system today on your show”.

C-SPAN / YouTube

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Author

Cliodhna Russell

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Abdul Ahmed 10y

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Mute Abdul Ahmed

Favourite Abdul Ahmed

Dec 16th 2014, 9:20 PM

Regarding the Pakistani massacre:
I find it despicable that on a day 132 innocent children were murdered in their school there are self-righteous people that have yet to find compassion for the dead and their families.

Instead they are on their high horse commenting on geopolitics and Pakistan as a failed state instead of simply mourning the loss of a large number of children. As an Irish-Pakistani I have been one of the strongest critics of Pakistan’s many failings, but have some decorum and sense of decency. White and western lives are not anymore valuable than innocents dying anywhere else. The kids were not responsible for the state’s policies or the country’s historic mistakes. Just as it is incendiary to blame many atrocious US policies for innocent lives lost in anti-American terror attacks, gratuitous comments by people who minimize the loss of innocents is condemnable.

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Setrakian 12y

Mute Setrakian

Favourite Setrakian

Dec 16th 2014, 11:48 PM

I could not possibly agree more with you Abdul. Very well said.

Sean ORegan 12y

Mute Sean ORegan

Favourite Sean ORegan

Dec 17th 2014, 12:17 AM

I believe I just heard Vincent Browne saying that the killing of children by the US and the UK in Afghanistan is both equivalent to and justification for what the Taliban did today. Good to be reminded from time to time why I will not watch his show. And I only saw that bit by accident.

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