LAST UPDATE | 2 Jun 2023
GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. In our main story this morning, Eimer McAuley reports that new policies are being developed to preserve government department records in Ireland, including ministers’ emails and texts, after controversy around their deletion here and in other European countries in recent years.
Though ministers are supposed to preserve texts and emails on both private and departmental devices and accounts when they relate to government business, they have failed to do so on several occasions.
One of Ireland’s most controversial instances of this was ‘ZapponeGate’ in 2021 when then-Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney came under fire for deleting text messages related to the appointment of Katherine Zappone as a UN special envoy for freedom of expression.
2. A 48-year-old man has been arrested by police in Northern Ireland after a video emerged on social media appearing to show him threatening a passenger with a gun.
It follows a taxi firm firing a driver after a video began circulating widely yesterday.
The incident, which reportedly happened in Holywood, Co Down, was placed under investigation by the PSNI after police became aware of the video showing “a man with a suspected firearm”.
3. Ireland is set to fail on its climate commitments, as almost all sectors are on track to exceed their emissions ceilings for 2025 and 2030, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated.
4. The Department of Health has announced plans to increase the number of trainee GPs in Ireland by one third by next year.
The number of GP training places will increase from 258 this year to 350 in 2024.
The Department is planning to increase the total number of trainee GPs to 1,300 by 2024, in place of the current number of 932 trainee GPs.
5. Gardaí have seized stolen motorbikes, drugs, ammunition and €200,000 in cash in an operation targeting organised crime in west Dublin.
Homes and businesses across Ronanstown, Finglas, Lucan and Castleknock were searched with one arrest made.
6. Hugh O’Callaghan, one of the ‘Birmingham Six’, who were wrongly imprisoned for IRA bombings, has died aged 93.
Callaghan and his co-accused left Birmingham shortly before IRA-planted bombs exploded in two city-centre pubs in on 21 November 1974.
Each of the six men were given life sentences for the bombings, which killed 21 people and injured 182 more, with the six claiming that police forced them to sign confessions after physical and psychological torture.
7. US president Joe Biden took a face-first tumble after tripping over an obstacle on stage at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, but the White House has said he is “fine”.
Biden, 80, who had delivered the commencement address to graduates of the military academy, had just shaken hands with a cadet and begun walking back to his seat when he fell.
8. Rewetting of bogs is fast becoming a major issue in Irish politics, with the Green Party reportedly pushing for farmers to be paid to bring back nature.
Wildlife campaigner Eoghan Daltun supports the proposal, saying that if we are at all serious about reversing the death of Irish nature, we need to be rewilding on as big a scale as possible.
9. Water safety agencies are urging the public to be cautious if spending time along the coast or around bodies of water over the June bank holiday weekend.
In a joint water safety appeal, the Irish Coast Guard, RNLI and Water Safety Ireland warned that even in good weather, water temperatures remain cold.
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