EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. #DEAL: Europe’s finance ministers have overcome a major stumbling block in setting up a new pan-EU banking supervisor. They’ve agreed that the European Central Bank will take responsibility for supervising the continent’s largest banks. The new powers won’t kick in until at least 2014, however – meaning Ireland’s hopes of sharing its banking costs with the ESM bailout fund could be pushed further down the road.
2. #EUROPEAN COUNCIL: The decisions of the finance ministers will likely feed into a major EU summit taking place in Brussels today and tomorrow. Enda Kenny leaves this morning for the summit, which will debate the ‘completion’ of the monetary and financial union. Leaders could also decide to speed up the process of establishing a banking supervisor, which would be good news for Ireland.
3. #NORTHERN IRELAND: A man is due in court this morning charged with making death threats against Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson. The 34-year-old will appear in court in Newtownards charged with making threats to take life, and the ‘improper use of a public electronic communications network’.
4. #INSURANCE: Eight out of ten female motorists are planning to switch car insurer in order to dodge possible increases in their premiums, AA Ireland has said. Reserach from the AA comes as the Dáil prepares to approve legislation giving effect to new EU rules which ban insurers from taking a driver’s gender into account when setting insurance rates. The moves will mean slightly cheaper premiums for men, but more expensive insurance bills for women.
5. #SURGERIES: The HSE has floated the idea of restricting access to 20 of the most common surgeries in order to cut down on its spending bills. The Irish Examiner reports that the proposal was put to HIQA for its feedback in October. The idea is that cutting back on common surgeries could free up resources for more critical, life-saving procedures.
6. #TXTS: OMG! U’ll nvr guess how many txts wr snt in Ireland n Q3! …Sorry. New figures from ComReg show that just over 3 billion texts were sent between July and September, which is up from the previous year but slightly down on Q2. Text usage usually peaks in Q4 due to the combined Christmas and New Year period.
7. #AUSTRALIA: Australia’s media regulators have begun an inquiry into the actions of 2Day FM, the station which broadcast the now-infamous hoax call where DJs posed as the Queen and Prince Charles in order to get updates on Kate Middleton’s medical status. The ACMA says it’s not investigating the actions of DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian themselves, however.
8. #FAIRYTALE OF… COPENHAGEN: The first fairytale written by Danish master Hans Christian Andersen has been found… in a bottom of a box. ‘The Tallow Candle’, written when the Dane was a schoolboy, was discovered in a box in Denmark’s national archives.
9. #LOSS: Would you feel worse about losing your wallet or your smartphone? A new survey has found that the answer is… the smartphone. The survey says 7 out of 10 smartphone users would rather be parted with their wallet and various cards than to be without their phone.
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