Every morning, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really, really need to know by 9am.

1. #BANAMA REPUBLIC: Finance Minister Brian Lenihan says Ireland will avoid an EU or IMF bailout; but warns welfare and pension bills will be targeted in the December budget.

2. #BLOODBATH BUDGET: Labour says it is opposed to cuts in child benefit and social welfare; wouldn’t introduce a property tax; would not hit middle-income Ireland, and is opposed to raising taxes for middle income earners. A government spokesman responded by saying it would be impossible to reduce the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2014 under Labour’s plans.

3. #TAX: The ESRI is to outline plans for a universal social charge which would combine PRSI, the health levy and the income levy at a conference on Budget perspectives later this morning. Such a move would mean top rate tax payers pay less, as the top rate would fall from 52 per cent, to 48.5 per cent. But all other income groups would pay more.

4. #CONSENUS: The only consensus from the Opposition appears to be a consensus that John Gormley’s initiative to get all the parties singing off the same hymn sheet in advance of the Budget is not going to work.

5. #STRESSED: The Irish Independent reports that at least 29 property developers have committed suicide as they struggled to cope with their debts, while another NAMA-bound developer has been admitted to a psychiatric facility. Meanwhile, the Irish Examiner interviews a couple who lost their home in the High Court yesterday after failing to meet repayment. After John Burnett lost his job as a truck driver two years ago, the couple accrued arrears of €32,000. “We kept refinancing and refinancing and didn’t think the whole thing was going to crash,” his wife Patricia says.

6. #STRIKE: People intending to travel to France today are being asked to check with their airline because a day of strikes over raising of retirement age is expected to cause widespread travel disruption.

7. #EQUALITY: Ireland has climbed two places in the World Economic Forum’s gender equality league table, to sixth place. The report measures equality in the areas of politics, education, employment and health. Ireland ranks behind the Nordic countries and New Zealand, but ahead of Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the UK.

8. #HUH?: Ulster Bank has apologised to the Orange Order after its staff wore Down jerseys the last day before the All-Ireland football final.

9. #CHILE: The first of the trapped miners will be freed tonight after rescue workers finished reinforcing the tunnel from the surface to the collapsed shaft,  the AP reports, and an escape capsule was successfully navigated almost the entire length in a test. The BBC reports that the wives and girlfriends of the trapped miners have been stocking up on saucy lingerie and getting their hair done in anticipation.