GOOD MORNING.

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

Motorcyclist killed

1. Gardaí area appealing for witnesses following a fatal road traffic collision involving a motorcycle and a car that occurred at approximately 8:30pm yesterday on the N16 at Glencar, County Sligo.

The motorcyclist, a man in his 30s, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver of the car did not require hospital treatment.

 The deceased has since been removed to the mortuary at Sligo University Hospital where a post-mortem examination will be arranged. 

Sea search called off

2. The UK Coast Guard has stood down its search for a missing sailor who set course for Cork on a solo trip as part of the ‘Jester Challenge’ over a week ago. 

Duncan Lougee, an experienced boat builder and sailor, set sail from Plymouth, Cornwall for Baltimore on the Cork coast on 18 June in his yacht the ‘Minke’ and was expected to have arrived by the 22nd.

The Dublin Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre was advised of a possible sighting of the Minke 120 kilometres south east of Ballycotton, Co Cork yesterday and Coast Guard helicopter R117 was dispatched, the Irish Coast Guard said.

Hottest June on record

3. This month will be the hottest June on record, forecaster Met Éireann has said, surpassing the previous record that was held for 83 years.

June 2023 will be more than half a degree higher than the previous record set in June 1940.

Provisional data shows that Ireland has experienced its first June with an average temperature above 16C.

Pressure mounts on RTÉ

4. RTÉ executives have been furnished with a list of documents to be provided to the Public Accounts Committee for scrutiny just over a week after it was first revealed that the broadcaster failed to disclose payments worth €345,000 to Ryan Tubridy since 2017.

Senior RTÉ officials appeared before the committee yesterday afternoon, where TDs pushed them on the circumstances surrounding how the payments were made and who had access to information.

The committee has requested copies of all of RTÉ’s bank accounts and of barter accounts going back 20 years, as well as Tubridy’s previous five-year contract and the arrangement with the barter company. 

New approach to peacekeeping

5. Ireland and other nations’ peacekeepers have now become targets in war and a new approach is needed to protect them from attack, a senior UN diplomat has said.

Major General Michael Beary is a well-known former member of the Irish Defence Forces now working as a Head of Mission in a UN-backed initiative to bring peace to Yemen. 

Beary is currently in the country working on the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA). It is a dangerous task and Beary has been personally caught up in the violence in Yemen - surviving a bomb blast that struck his convoy last December.  

Protests in France

6. French protesters erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police in the streets of some French cities early this morning as tensions mounted over the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old that has shocked the nation.

French security forces arrested 667 people overnight, the interior minister announced.

Armoured police vehicles rammed through the charred remains of cars that had been flipped and set ablaze in the northwestern Paris suburb of Nanterre, where a police officer shot the teenage delivery driver, who is only being identified by his first name, Nahel. 

U2 merch for Ukraine

7. U2 is selling limited-edition merchandise to raise funds for the purchase of ambulances in Ukraine.

The merch features an illustration of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as drawn by U2 frontman Bono.

The collection includes t-shirts, hoodies and a lithograph. 

Uisce Éireann profits

8. The number of staff earning over €100,000 at Uisce Éireann last year surged by 95 or 54% from 176 to 271.

That is according to the utility’s 2022 annual report which shows that operating profits at Uisce Éireann, formerly known as Irish Water, last year increased by 11pc to €252.67 million.

The utility’s 2022 annual report shows that Uisce Éireann recorded the jump in operating profits as the utility’s revenues increased by 10pc from €1.19 billion to €1.3 billion.

Soup throwing for the planet

9. A 27-year-old climate change protester who threw soup at an artwork in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork last year is set to pay for the cleanup costs associated with his actions.

Earlier this week Thomas Shinnick of Main Street in Charleville, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage to a painting — George Atkinson’s Anatomical Study — on 10 November, 2022. He also pleaded guilty to being in possession of a screwdriver on the same occasion.

The painting, which is covered by glazing, was not damaged in the incident. However, the second floor of the gallery had to be closed for a period to allow a clean up operation to take place.