Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know as you start your day.

1. #ROADS: Gardaí are investigating a fatal road crash in which a pedestrian aged in his 30s was killed in Co Galway. The incident occurred at around 1am today in Spiddal.

2. #GREECE: The Greek government has rejected a report published in Germany’s Der Spiegel yesterday suggesting it wanted to leave the eurozone and reintroduce the drachma. Greece’s finance ministry dismissed the report as “irresponsible”.

3. #ECONOMY: Ireland is facing economic ruin, according to economist Morgan Kelly, by sticking with the bank guarantee and bailout, despite significant bank losses. “The finances of the Irish Government are like a bucket with a large hole in the form of the banking system,” Kelly writes in the Irish Times.

4. #PRISONS: The director general of the Irish Prison Service has said that there are over 900 prisoners under protection while serving their sentences. Over a third of those are locked up for 23 hours a day for their own protection, the Independent reports.

5. #LEGEND: Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros has died aged 54. He had undergone four operations and chemotherapy to remove a brain tumour which was detected in 2008 after he had collapsed at an airport.

6.#MADELEINE: The mother of missing child Madeleine McCann says she believes her daughter is still alive, but the thought she was taken from their Portugeuse holiday apartment four years ago by a paedophile is her worst fear, the Sun reports.

7. #CHILDREN: Kids aged between three and seven are over three times more likely to be involved in accidents that result in personal injury claims than infants, according to injuriesboard.ie. The organisation also says that childhood accidents are more likely to be motor-related.

8. #SYRIA: Troops and tanks have reportedly been moving into the Syrian city Baniyas as the government crackdown on dissent continues. The BBC says this morning that its correspondent has been unable to verify the reports because it seems communication to the city has been cut off.

9. #BIN LADEN: As expected, US President Barack Obama has been meeting with and thanking the US forces who carried out the raid which killed Osama bin Laden last weekend. Obama and his vice president Joe Biden met the team in private yesterday at an army base in Kentucky, Bloomberg reports.

- Additional reporting by the AP