EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you should know with your morning coffee…
1. #SYRIA: Ireland is to make €500,000 available to humanitarian agencies working in Syria, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore has pledged.
The money will be spent on providing immediate relief to those affected by the fighting across the country, and will also be used to pre-position emergency supplies in case the situation deteriorates further. The UN estimates that about 7,500 people have died since the uprising started a year ago.
2. #JOBS: Some 110 technology jobs have been created in Galway and Dublin: cloud computing company SourceDogg.com is to create 80 jobs in Galway, in engineering, IT support and professional services roles, while data processing company Datalogic ADC will create 30 new jobs in Dublin.
3. #CRUMLIN: Staff at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin, have issued an urgent call for funds for renovation – saying the facilities used to treat sick children are obsolete and “not fit for purpose”. The cancer ward at the hospital currently has no private rooms for terminally ill children and no private bathroom for patients or their families to use, the hospital said in a statement. Parents of critically ill heart patients have also reportedly been forced to sleep on corridors and wards.
4. #REFERENDUM:The Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has said that a “No” vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Fiscal Compact would damage Ireland’s access to the permanent EU bailout fund. Varadkar also insisted that it was not in the government’s interest to “overtly and publicly” link the ratification of the treaty to Ireland being given a deal to restructure the Anglo Irish Bank promissory notes.
5. #BELFAST: A man and a woman, aged 24 and 27, have been arrested in connection with the murder of 31-year-old Christopher Macken in Belfast last week. PSNI investigators do not believe there was a sectarian motivation for the attack.
6. #BODY: The body of a man found off the Dublin coast yesterday is to undergo an post-mortem examination today. Gardaí are investigating whether the remains, discovered near Skerries yesterday, are those of a fisherman missing since January.
7. #ICELAND: The former Prime Minister of Iceland Geir Haarde will face trial today, accused of negligence in his handling of the country’s financial crisis and failing to prevent an economic meltdown. Haarde has dismissed the charges as “political persecution,” the BBC reports.
8. #NUCLEAR: US President Barack Obama will meet with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington today to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme, the Telegraph reports. Following an address by the US President to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby group yesterday, Netanyahu said he appreciated that Obama had “reiterated his position” that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, adding that “all options are on the table”.
9. #MONEYGALL: The most famous publican in the village of Moneygall, Ollie Hayes, has received an official invite from the White House to celebrate St Patrick’s Day with the first family of the United States of America. His nephew – and Barack Obama’s distant cousin – Henry Healy was also honoured with an invitation.
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