GOOD MORNING.

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

Defence Forces

1. In our lead story this morning, Niall O’Connor reports that experienced sergeants in the Irish Defence Forces will be forced to retire early after December but Government departments who could solve the problem cannot reach agreement.

The Forces were already in the grip of a staffing retention crisis, and it has now emerged that a measure to increase the fitness of serving members in the 1990s could make that worse.

The rule means that Sergeants who have joined on post-1994 contracts must resign when they reach the age of 50.

Concrete levy

2. The concrete levy will “undoubtedly challenge the viability of construction projects” and add €1,200 to the cost of the most common house types in Ireland, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland.

The Society will tell a Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform that “urgent action” is required to address construction cost inflation, currently running at 14% over the past year, and that a concrete levy is “contrary to the need to drive down construction costs”.

The levy was announced in the Budget as part of a plan to offset the cost of the mica redress scheme.

Rishi Sunak

3. Rishi Sunak will face his first House of Commons appearance as Prime Minister today, as he begins the gruelling task of uniting his party and restoring the UK’s economic credibility.

The new Prime Minister will square off against Labour leader Keir Starmer later for Prime Minister’s Questions, fresh from appointing a new Cabinet that he hopes will bring a measure of political stability to the country.

It comes after another momentous day in British politics that saw Sunak cull nearly a dozen of Liz Truss’s top-tier ministers

Harvey Weinstein

4. A woman who says Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2013 has testified that she had feelings of guilt and disgust that began soon after she let him into her hotel room and lasted for years.

She is the first of eight accusers set to testify against the disgraced movie producer.

The woman, whose first language is Russian, said that her English was very poor at the time, and she thought she might have miscommunicated.

Gerard Hutch trial

5. The Special Criminal Court has viewed CCTV footage of what the State says is Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch making two separate journeys to Northern Ireland with Jonathan Dowdall just weeks after David Byrne was murdered at the Regency Hotel.

The three-judge court also saw footage today of what the prosecution say is Gerard Hutch’s brother, Patrick Hutch Senior, in the same area of north Dublin as convicted IRA member Shane Rowan a month after the attack.

Hutch denies the murder of Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on 5 February, 2016.

Gardaí

6. A man’s body has been discovered in “unexplained circumstances” in Co Westmeath.

Gardaí in Mullingar have commenced an investigation after they found the body of a man in his 60s shortly after 6pm this evening in a house at Rattin, near Milltownpass.

He was pronounced dead at the scene short time later.

North Korea

7. The United States, Japan and South Korea have warned that a North Korean nuclear test would warrant an “unprecedentedly strong response”, vowing unity after a blitz of missile launches from the isolated state.

Following talks in Tokyo, the three nations’ deputy foreign ministers said they would ramp up their deterrence in the region.

Climate crisis

8. Governments and companies are continuing to prioritise the use of fossil fuels despite the severe damage to people’s health caused by climate change, a report has warned.

The Lancet Countdown, an annual report on climate change and health, warns that the majority of governments it looked at were effectively subsidising fossil fuels – to the tune of a total $400 billion in 2019.
Flu vaccine

9. The HSE’s launch of the seasonal flu vaccine programme at the beginning of this month has already led to over 600,000 vaccinations according to the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.

Donnelly, as well as Chief Nursing Officer, Rachel Kenna and the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Breda Smyth have encouraged the public to get vaccinated as they received their flu vaccines today.