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GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. Sorting of votes has commenced after ballot boxes around the country opened at 9am to determine who will – and won’t – be making it into the next Dáil.
First results are expected to come in around lunchtime today, but it will be some time before we know the full results of the general election.
Follow our Liveblog to stay across everything as it happens today.
2. The exit poll commissioned by RTÉ, The Irish Times, TG4 and Trinity College Dublin indicates that Sinn Féin, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have garnered similar levels of support in the election.
Sinn Féin is on 21.1%, Fine Gael is on 21% and Fianna Fáil is on 19.1%.
3. There’s an early election story emerging in the constituency of Limerick City, where there is speculation that votes could be determined void before they are counted.
It has emerged that when voting took place there yesterday, candidates’ names did not appear in alphabetical order on some ballot papers, as required by legislation.
4. International observers of the Syrian civil war have reported that jihadist rebels now control a majority of the city of Aleppo.
The rebels have pressed a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Syrian government since Wednesday.
5. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti has blamed Serbia for a “terrorist attack” that damaged a canal supplying water to his country’s two main coal-fired power plants.
The incident saw an explosion near the town of Zubin Potok at a canal supplying water to cooling systems at the power plants, which generate most of Kosovo’s electricity.
6. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a second night in Georgia to protest against the government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union.
Riot police used water cannons after protesters again swarmed the parliament, with some trying to break the metal gates to the building.
7. More accusations have been made against MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace, who stepped away from hosting the BBC show earlier this week.
New reports emerged last night in news outlets such as The Sun newspaper about other alleged behaviour by the presenter.
8. For anyone looking for a distraction from election counting later, Ireland are set to take on Australia in the last of this year’s November internationals at Lansdowne Road this afternoon.
The match, which kicks off at 3.10pm, will see former Ireland boss Joe Schmidt return to the stadium as a visiting manager for the first time since he left in 2019.
9. It’ll be another relatively mild day today, with mostly cloudy weather, limited sunny spells and highest temperatures of between 12 and 15 degrees Celsius.
There’ll be persistent rain in the west and southwest of the country later this afternoon, which will move north-east as the evening progresses.
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Bout time really. You can a have a drink when you arrive.
@DaisyMay:
It’s a shame that this ban had to happen at all. One of the pleasures of going to the continent is being able to grab a cold bottle of beer from the subway in, say, Berlin, and sipping it on the choo choo at the start of your night out.
Boozing in public CAN be a relatively innocent, joyous, totally acceptable thing. It’s a shame it doesn’t seem to work with our mentality. Often sipped a can on the way into town for a night out and saw nothing wrong with it.
@DaisyMay: If they introduce a ban before a certain time at Dublin airport that will be just not on. Allow people get a pint, if you are close to or intoxicated at boarding,you should be refused travel. But dont be a dullard asking for bans to deal with a minority of winos.
And who’s going to enforce it? There’s barely any staff other than the driver on most trains.
@Shane Fleming: Intercity trains more often than not have a ticket inspector on board.
@Shane Corry: very seldom
@Shane Corry: who’s going train and to bring his karate up to black belt level enabling him to deal with drunken gurriers?
@Shane Fleming: I know, enforce a drinking ban? They won’t even enforce a seat booking.
@Andy Butler: Unlikely but they can call for security / Gardai to be waiting for them when they get off / another station. That’s what the drivers do when they get a call through the intercom about mis-behaved passengers.
@Shane Fleming: They will be bound to enforce it. Complaints from public followed by, eventually, irish rail making this decision.
They can’t back off from having extra staff/security on the specified trains.
Drinks brought on board will be confiscated. Best of luck.
Should be banned on all trains!
Oh Irish Rail, this shows another way that you are so far behind any real decent service in Europe.
Whilst I dont like poor behaviour from passengers when I’m on one of your trains, and feel that is a problem if not dealt with properly, I also must point out that the majority of passengers are behaved and act responsibly.
Why are the rest of us decent passengers punished for a minority.
Why not just deal with the unruly passengers, call the Gardai and have them met the train at the next station, the Gardai can remove these passengers and that takes care of that.
If this happens, people will know to behave. We all have to respect Irish Rail, its passengers and show a level of mature/decent behaviour. If this was to take place, no more drunken/unruly passengers.
I appreciate the Gardai are lacking in numbers, but this adds to the wider problem of not having a decent Police force to act on such matters.
How would Germany, France, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia deal with this issue? They would get their respective Police force to take care of it, thus leaving the rest of the passengers free to carry on their journey and if they so wished to have a drink.
Common sense is not so common in Ireland, we are way behind lots of countries in Europe, instead of dealing with the problems we face, we take the easiest and less fuss way.
Irish Rail show some balls and deal with this properly and stop hiding behind your failure to deliver a service and treat the majority with more respect and not punish everyone.
@Si Mon: Couldn’t agree with you more. The majority being punished because of the actions of our neanderthal population. Easier to make sweeping laws that affect everyone rather than deal with the issue at hand.
@Si Mon: there will more often than not people out of order with drink on them on trains and waiting at stations for garda to arrive causes massive delays….then you’d be giving out about trains running late
Ban the carrying of alcohol onto all trains and only allow drink purchases on board the train, would solve the problems. Why do Irish people have to drink at every occasion and trip ?
@finbarr walsh: nearly spilt my pint reading that comment!
@Roger Wynne: what train are you on then haha…
@finbarr walsh: The don’t have to, but it would be nice before travelling for a weekend away to have a glass of wine or a bottle of beer on the, up to 3 hour long, trip. Rather than addressing the problem (yobbish behaviour being repremanded, and possible arrests if anti-social), we try to ban it altogether and ruin it for everyone.
@finbarr walsh: They charge about €6 for a bottle of beer that is €1 in the off licence.
Saw the headline and thought to myself that’ll be Galway and Westport trains. Stag and hen parties gonna party one way or the other. Good luck enforcing
Well, I suppose that you might need alcohol to make a trip to Waterford
@George Salter: Why? From what I’ve seen the town is pretty nice. The county is lovely. Lots of great restaurants too.
@George Salter: I’ve heard Whispers about the locals there, there’s always some crazy story
Love it when people feel they must introduce bans because of the behaviour of a few dopes.
It should be banned on all trains. One Friday on the 18.35 to Waterford I had the pleasure of sitting beside someone reeking of drink. He was swinging from cans and doing dodgy things with the lower right leg of his tracksuit bottom. I am not saying he was shooting up but nothing surprises me on packed trains. Also I have seen crumpled up foil with burn marks in toilets of trains.
@Em Gee: Just remember with this ban doesn’t apply to this train, only the earlier one with no commuters and grannys on it.
btw: they can still shoot up without repremand after this as well, but at least the old ones returning to westport on a friday afternoon won’t have to deal with it.
@Em Gee: SO ban it for everyone because you had one bad experience.. brilliant idea.
Going to be lots more people drinking bottles of ‘coke’
@RogerRamjet: was just going to say that. If you have to resort to finding ways to hide your alcohol, it’s time to seriously look at your relationship with it.
@FrustratedASDMum: thanks Dr Phil
can we get a ban of alcohol on the Connolly to Rosslare trains too?
They should be more concerned about the lack of seats on them journeys then the sale of alcohol.
I like that I got a Smithwicks ad in the middle of this article.
Good luck with that “Boss”. We will continue to drink and smoke as we have always done. It’s a cultural thing.
So the usual Nanny state BS then. A few people display anti social behaviour where alcohol is involved so the majority of responsible adults are punished.
Meanwhile, those that are likely to be anti-social will pay no heed to the ban anyway.
When will people learn that you can’t legislate for stupidity.
I actually heard about calls for banning selfies in tourist hotspots because a few of Darwin’s finest injure or kill themselves while taking them.
They should add a PARTY carraige where you can drink but have to agree to the whole carraige being filmed and mic’d up… would pay for itself in no time
Another example of the rules of society being dictated by plebs. A small minority always ruin it for everyone.
And not before time, nobody wants to be in a confined space near noisy or aggressive people sipping cans of cheap lager.
Easy solution maybe: Arrange for an unscheduled stop at some backwater station on the rail line to which Gardaí can be called to, have them remove the irresponsible yahoos off the train, charge them for drink/drug/public disorder. Release them, leaving them to find their way home from the middle of nowhere at their own expense. Later on, call them back to court attendance in the backwater location. Fine them heavily. Lesson learned and pricey-paid for, no problemo.
@Canny Jem: I agree a hundred percent.. I sometimes enjoy a couple of cans of Guinness when on a 3 hour journey.. usually on my own with earphones in reading a book or magazine.. Again .. it typical Ireland not dealing with the problem at hand … the problem is anti social behaviour.. banning alcohol is not the answer . It’s dealing with people who don’t behave themselves in public.. not just trains ..
Pretty sure they can’t confiscate it if you’re just holding a bag of unopened cans or a bottle of wine for dinner, any experts confirm or deny this?
Alcohol was allowed??!
@Rachel Ray: they sell cans and wine on board
Most alcos on the trains bring their own drink and yes it is a problem but seriously what about the toilets . They are always filthy dirty .
Typical Jackeens
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