EVERY WEEKDAY EVENING, TheJournal.ie brings you the five stories you need to know as you head out the door.

1. #MAGDALENES: A report compiled following an 18-month investigation into the Magdalene Laundries has found the Irish State was directly and fundamentally involved in the system, which saw up to 30,000 girls and women incarcerated between 1922 and 1996. Advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes welcomed the report, saying it ensured that the State could no longer claim the institutions were private or that the majority of Magdalenes entered voluntarily.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny today apologised for the length of time it had taken for a government to carry out a report – but stopped short of apologising for the State’s involvement in the Magdalene Laundries.

2. #RENDITION: The Department Justice has responded to a report showing Ireland was among 54 countries that helped facilitate the CIA’s rendition programme – asserting that no evidence of rendition has been found in any garda investigations. The report, published today by the Open Society Justice Initiative, said countries involved participated in rendition in various ways including permitting the use of domestic airspace and airports for secret flights transporting detainees.

3. #SEX WORKERS: It has been confirmed that former sex workers will speak in private to a Justice committee on the subject of legislation relating to prostitution in Ireland. The news comes days after sex workers expressed their concerns about the fact that no sex workers or former sex workers had spoken to the committee to date.

4. #GARDA CUTS: Labour Senator John Whelan today stood over a claim he made last week that the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter made a joke in relation to garda stations closures late last year. Shatter has strongly denied he made the comments saying they are “baseless and untrue ” and “grossly misleading”. Whelan told TheJournal.ie this morning: “I am standing over what I am saying and my position.”

5. #HORSEMEAT: The chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today said he does not believe that the horse meat burger problems are elsewhere in the Irish food industry – after it emerged yesterday that horse DNA was found in imported beef at a Monaghan plant and in beef trimmings at a Newry plant. Alan Reilly said the authorities were looking at a “small sector” with regard to the horse DNA, and not the entire industry.