GOOD MORNING. Here’s all the news that you need to know about as you start your day.
1. A woman who received personal documents from the Department of Children says her signature was forged on a letter sent to nuns from a Mother and Baby Home in 1980 thanking them for their help, Órla Ryan writes in this morning’s lead story.
The woman maintains she never wrote the letter and was not aware it existed until last month. She believes her late mother wrote the letter, pretending to be her. A number of religious orders have previously used such letters to show that some women who spent time in mother and baby homes and similar institutions were grateful for the help they received, as noted by the Commission of Investigation’s final report in January.
2. Walk-in vaccination centres are opening across the country for the first time this weekend as part of the Government’s objective to get young people vaccinated as soon as possible.
Anyone over 16 can attend a walk-in vaccination centre, where they will be offered a Pfizer vaccine. Here’s where the 38 venues will be this Bank Holiday weekend.
3. Gardaí in Roscommon are investigating a single vehicle fatal road crash in which a man in his 20s was killed.
The crash occurred on the N61 at Four Mile House, Co Roscommon today at approximately 8.45pm. Gardaí are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed this collision to come forward.
4. A new self-service online portal for the Digital Covid Certificate was launched yesterday evening. It will allow people to check the status of their cert and request changes.
The launch comes after criticism about delays with the issuing of the certificates, which are required for travel in the European Union and to access indoor hospitality services in Ireland.
5. The National Youth Council of Ireland has called on employers to give young workers the time off to get vaccinated on company time.
It comes after a number of employees have claimed that they have been docked pay or asked to ‘pay back’ the time taken to get their Covid-19 vaccine during a work shift. This is despite repeated messages from the Government and from NPHET asking employers to facilitate workers attending their Covid-19 vaccine appointment.
6. Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry are both eyeing up a Sunday medal charge after their third rounds in the Olympic golf tournament.
McIlroy shot a four-under par 67 to move to 11-under par, while Lowry drained a big par putt at the last to sign for a three-under par 68 which leaves him on 10-under.
You can catch up on all the overnight action from the Games here.
7. Hunger is expected to rise in 23 global hotspots in the next three months with the highest alerts for “catastrophic” situations in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, southern Madagascar, Yemen, South Sudan and northern Nigeria, two UN agencies have warned.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme said in a new report on Hunger Hotspots between August and November that “acute food insecurity is likely to further deteriorate”.
8. Australia’s third-largest city of Brisbane and other parts of Queensland state will enter a snap Covid-19 lockdown from today as authorities race to contain an emerging outbreak of the Delta strain.
Millions of residents in the city and several other areas will be placed under stay-at-home orders from this afternoon for three days.
Worldwide, coronavirus infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80% average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency’s six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant.
9. An Irish man has died following a drowning incident in San Sebastian, northern Spain.
Local media reports that the body of the man in his 30s was recovered from the sea at Zurriola on Friday morning.
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