LAST UPDATE | 15 Sep 2022

GOOD MORNING.

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

Taxi shortages

1. In our lead story this morning, Taxi industry representatives explain that drivers are avoiding peak periods of demand or leaving the job altogether because they are concerned for their safety in “violent” cities at night. 

Over the summer, revellers in Dublin reported a significant shortage in the number of taxis available at the end of their nights out in the city centre. A survey by the National Transport Authority earlier this year found that 93% of licensed drivers were working but only 29% were working Friday and Saturday nights. 

Kinahan cartel

2. A senior member of the Kinahan crime gang sanctioned by law enforcement agencies earlier this year has been arrested in Spain. 

John Francis Morrissey has been accused of acting as an enforcer for the Kinahans facilitating the shipment of drugs from south America.

The 62-year-old was arrested this week in the south of Spain, where the Kinahan gang was primarily based for many years before moving operations to Dubai.

Mother and baby home scheme 

3. A protest calling for the Government’s mother and baby home scheme to be extended to include all survivors will be held outside Leinster House today.

In recent months there has been much criticism of the fact the Government’s planned redress scheme excludes people who were boarded out, a precursor to fostering, and those who spent less than six months in an institution as a child.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Oireachtas Children’s Committee are among the high-profile groups calling for the scheme to be extended.

Guinness quarter

4. TDs and councillors have raised concerns about the number of proposed hotel rooms in the redevelopment of St James Gate in Dublin 8.

Plans from developer Ballymore for the so-called ‘Guinness Quarter’ were officially lodged with Dublin City Council in July, after the redevelopment was announced by Diageo in 2020.

The site is planned to be a mixed use development, with both residential and commercial buildings within the proposed complex.

Funeral

5. The funeral of two children who died in a car fire in Co Westmeath last Friday will take place this morning.

A criminal investigation is currently underway into the circumstances of the deaths of two-year-old Mikey Dennany and five-year-old Thelma Dennany.

Gardaí say they are investigating “all of the circumstances” surrounding the deaths.

Ukraine

6. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not seriously injured when his car collided with another vehicle following a battlefield visit, his spokesman said.

Zelenskyy was returning to Kyiv from the Kharkiv region, where he visited troops in the recaptured city of Izium.

A passenger vehicle collided with the president’s motorcade in the Ukrainian capital, his spokesman, Sergii Nikiforov, said in a Facebook post.

Inequality

7. While mortality rates have fallen substantially over time in Ireland, inequalities between different groups in the population remain a concern, new research shows. 

The research – published today by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and funded by the Institute of Public Health (IPH) – examined inequalities in mortality in Ireland over the period since 2000, focusing on socio-economic status (SES) and ethnicity/country of birth or nationality. 

It found that in 2000, 41% of adult deaths were due to circulatory disease, with cancers (25%), respiratory disease (16%) and other causes (18%) accounting for the remainder of deaths.

Graffiti attacks

8. Gardaí say they have identified two men they believe have been carrying out a campaign of graffiti attacks on the Dart line which has cost Irish Rail upwards of €250k.

As part of ‘Operation Saul’ – the garda response to crime on the nation’s public transport networks, officers in the DMR North Division have been coordinating investigations across three divisions in relation to two suspects for what they have described as “large scale graffiti on Irish Rail trains and property”.

R Kelly

9. A federal jury in the US has convicted R Kelly of several child pornography and sex abuse charges in his hometown of Chicago.

Kelly, 55, was found guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of child enticement.

But the jury acquitted him on a fourth pornography count as well as a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge accusing him of fixing his state child pornography trial in 2008.