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Updated 3.48 pm
A MAN WAS murdered in Co Antrim last night after he was dragged from a house by a masked gang and beaten before being shot.
The man, who is named as 42-year-old Brian McIlhagga, was visiting a female friend at her house at Riverview Park in the town of Ballymoney when the fatal attack took place.
The 32-year-old woman was at home with her four children when at least three armed and masked men burst into the house. The woman was assaulted in the kitchen and forced to lie on the floor.
The PSNI say McIlhagga was then dragged from the kitchen, down the hallway and out through the front door of the house.
“He was beaten and then shot once in the leg outside the house. Tragically, he died at the scene as a result of the injuries inflicted during the attack,” Detective Chief Inspector Michael Harvey said this afternoon.
Although McIlhagga has not been formally identified, police say that that the father of five was from Ballymena and worked as a plasterer. A post-mortem is due to take place later today.
Detective Harvey said that the attack is “unusual for a town like Ballymoney” adding that the community is shocked by what happened.
The alarm was raised last night when the woman rang 999 at about 10.30 pm.
Police are appealing to anyone who saw or heard anything in the Riverview Park area around this time to contact them on the non-emergency 101 number or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
- Additional reporting by Daragh Brophy
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I dont get it. Why target coffee? If its a tax on single use items it should be applied to every bottle of drinks sold aswell.
@Paul Gregg: I was thinking the same thing, McDonald’s Burger King In fact any fast food retailers sell drinks from the same type of cups or are they the same?? Genuine question.
@Paul Gregg: They have to be seen to do something, we all know it will make no difference but as with everything in Varadkar’s world its about optics.
@Devilsavocado: I’d assume the same rule will apply across all drinks containers, but it’s just “latte levy” has a ring to it.
@Paul Gregg: Easier to upset the people you serve than their bosses.
@Paul Gregg: the standard cups are not recyclable.
Do you remember a year or two back we were bombarded with stories and TV shows on obesity and how sugar was so bad for us? Literally every time you turned on the TV or opened the journal it was something on how sugar was the root of all our problems and how taxing it would make us all thin and healthy.. Now that the sugar tax has been brought in not a story or tv show on obesity or sugar in months.. The new sexy story for the media and governments of the world is Climate Change, a new way to get money off us..
@David Garland: What people dont realise is FG have a massive PR and media wing. They have hired lackies in state and special interest media organisations (salary cap you say, ha pull the other one) that set the agenda for the daily news and pump out spin for the masses. The fact we are even talking about this and not the hundreds waiting on trollies right now for a hospital bed is testament to same. The worrying thing is we have a self image obsessed leader in power who has never faced the electorate to confirm his position and it seems a shocking lack of political talent coming up behind him that are as self obsessed as he is.
@David Garland: I manage a cinema and the sugar tax hasn’t stopped anyone drinking coke. If the government were really worried about obesity they would have put a lot more than 20cent on soft drinks.
“Environmental fund” my ar3€
@Michael Mclaughlin: administered by bureaucrats, selected through nepotisn, on fat salaries.
@Michael Mclaughlin: In the absence of an effective recycling system in Ireland most plastic from your blue re-cycling bin goes to landfill. Hard (thermoset) plastics are not segregated in Ireland from soft “thermoplastics”. If the Govt is serious they should implement a nationwide recyvling system for plastic, paper and cardboard. As long as manufacturers use materials that cannot be recycled eg. plastic barcode stickers on a cardboard box, we are going nowhere. This coffee cup thing is a gimmick just the tip of the iceberg.
@Damian Moylan: honestly what thermostat plastics do you be putting in your recycling bin or think others are.
@Darren Byrne: thermosetplastics ie. hard plastics
@Damian Moylan: you only put hard plastic packaging soft plastics get tangled in the sorting machines. Thermoset pladtis are not recyclable but theyre things like silcone kitchen utensils, e poxy resin in electrical motors. In short they dont melt.
I somehow don’t think the government will listen to this, they have pensions to top up
@Martin Harte: Old men with old decisions. This should be petitioned against. Petition in every coffee shop in ireland. We cant be using old money grab reasoning for an urgent conscientious issue.
@Martin Harte: In holland there is a vat rate called btw forhat they call the Horeca (Hotels Restaurants Coffee Shops). It was increased from 6% to 9% per Jan 2019. Makes Ireland seem a high tax country at 13.5% which reduces the “Horeca” spend by people in Ireland and overall tax revenue.
The fact that he’s going to tax compostable as well as non-compostable cups, shows that this is all about revenue raising, and not about the environment!
@Josh Hanners: incorrect I’m afraid Josh. I’m afraid I’m going to have to hand this one over to the other team. Nate, what have you got for me?
Nate: “It is estimated that only one in 400 compostable cups or lids gets composted correctly and the rest end up in landfill. It is a specialised process. They won’t even compost in your home compost. “
Correct Nate and you are going to get bonus points for not shouting out the wrong answer.
@Sean: it doesn’t matter if they end up in landfill. What happens when they end up in landfill? They compost! I.e. they breakdown quicker than the equivalent non-compostable cup.
It doesn’t matter what bin it goes in. It only really matters for households as we are charged for black bin waste.
@joe: That is incorrect. Compostable cups need exposure to moisture, oxygen and bacteria to break down – not the conditions of a landfill. In a commercial composting facility it takes more than 12 months to break down a Compostable cup.
Will greatly reduce single use cups … put coffee shops out of business, the staff cannot get other jobs, cannot pay rent and mortgage, end up homeless, and then use their last disposable cups to beg for a bit of cash on the streets.
…. or they could get into a re-useable cups business, sell fair trade coffee, and write books about it …
@WoodlandBard: 100% should be adressed at source eg plastic coffee cups are banned or whatever. unfair to small businesses. i still see packages of 6 plastic water bottles wrapped in plastic in supermarkets for sale. 99% of our plastic comes from supermarkets not small coffee shops. An ineffective and unfair govt measure imho.
Simple solution with the biggest impact to the plastic problem is to put the pressure back on the big business that produce goods . Tax the day lights out of producers that produce/use a lot of plastic wrapping etc and incentivise thoese that are making great efforts to reduce
Don’t use joe public as the scapegoat although joe public does have its part to play.
@Declan Byrne: supply/demand? With a coffee costing more consumers will change their habits and cut demand….then the supply will stop. If making coffee cups was super profitable everyone would be at it. There is no way a supplier or producer make 25c on every cup so they cannot absorb it without going bust
Open up coffee shops like they have in Amsterdam and we’ll all be happy :D
Coffee shops should double the levy for all politicians…
Sure we love an auld tax!
Ah now this extra revenue will be put to good use, I mean this will no doubt help pay for the politicians pay increases and will be a handy slush fund to help try set up another unwanted quango like Irish water like they used the car tax for…… oh wait you deluded cabbages of supporters of FFG and the rest who actually believe all these levies are going to be used to save the planet, still believe this total muck show…….wow just wow
Compostable cups are a joke designed to salve the conscience of consumers while continuing just as before. Similar to “clean” diesel – all the diesel none of the guilt! It’s estimated that only 1 in 400 cups and lids are actually recycled or composted correctly. By throwing compostable cups in recycling bins or in general waste, the vast majority of them end up in landfills or incinerators. I buy takeaway coffee two or three times a week and talk of the 25 cent levy has made me dust off my keep cup and start using it. Yes I should have done it sooner for environmental reason but this was the gentle shove in the right direction that I needed. The sky won’t fall in for coffee shops.
If they really cared we would recycle everything here in Ireland rather than export the problem. Picking off easy targets to screw me for a €3 cup of coffee
@Mickey Finn: 100%. The specialist companies who collect chemical waste, paint cans etc from industry like Enva still have to send trucks driving all the way to Germany for incineration. The town where that incineration plant is has free electricity from the plant! If Germany can build such a plant we can too and it’s time we took care of our own waste and reduce our carbon footprint by not driving trucks thousands of km to take are of a bunch if barrells containing this chemical waste!!
Time to change the plastic habbit. If it wasn’t for government pressure, the industry wouldn’t change.
@Mark V: how is this changing the plastic habit???? It’s targeting single use cups and not encouraging compostable. Absolutely no thinking outside the box. FG answer to everything is to tax it.
@Michael Mclaughlin: it is targeting single use plastic, how on earth can that be a bad thing?
Do you want the government to subsidise you a reusable one?
Can you remember the drama about plastic bags? That certainly worked very well. So wil this.
This government will be gone shortly..will never happen..
Is That the same minster that signed off on all them dodgy school builds and then slide out befor the news broke… minster for the environment now
.pays to fucc up in ireland
I am delighted these cups are hit with a tax it should have been a lot more. The amount of both men and women coming out of supermarkets with plastic cups of something sitting into and driving off with a plastic cup in hand . In all my time at work I got up early did a breakfast for all the family going to school was in work with time to spare. What is so wrong with todays workers ? they have to be seen with either plastic water bottle or cup coffee /tea Take a look at the sea life and how many fish are in agony with the remains of what people throw away lodged in their stomach I am not a fan of most things this Government do I will support them on this tax I hope the plastic containers will go up at least another 2 euro next year .
If people still buy hot any drink with disposable cup will increase levy again 1-2 year
If they really cared we would recycle everything here in Ireland rather than export the problem. Picking off easy targets to shaft me for a €3 cup of coffee
I’m at n favour of a levy to be paid by the user. I think 25c is too much esp for a compostable cup. I have changed my behaviour insofar as I use a keep cup for which I get a 10c discount which is essentially the same as a 10c levy for a disposable cup.
@Anne Marie Devlin:
Compostible cups are a joke.
They are only compostible in you put in a compostible bin to dispose of them.
Ask any retailer where to put your cup and you get told use normal litter bin!
Cups of coffee are well overpriced. Coffee shops can well afford to suck up the 25c .
@Eug J Cummins: Do you run a coffee shop Eug? Or intimately know of the business and profit margins? Genuine question.
@HectorPickaxe: You need to look that up yourself it’s a huge profitable business so yeah they can absorb it
I carry a reusable cup and have done so for years. In one sense I agree that this will probably benefit the global chains and could damage the independents. On the other hand this could be an opportunity for entrepreneurship and action achieves much more than whining.
Instead of complaining why don’t the coffee shops come together, agree on a reusable coffee cup, buy it in bulk, sell it at a good price and provide a cooperative discount with a sticker in their window. This then provides a variety of shops where consumers would go to with their cup for a good discount.
All you guys commenting negatively below, we are throwing millions of these cups “every day” in general waste bins, most aren’t recyclable either.
I use a reusable cup most of the time but not always. Most people are too fkin lazy to do so…..
We have to move away from single use everything imo and this is just the start… change your habits and you won’t be taxed it’s as simple as that.
@Diarmaid O’Riordáin: or, as we are in a climate emergency, offer an investment grants and no taxation on any company based in Ireland that provides green solutions.
Instead the government just see a potential revenue stream.
@Diarmaid O’Riordáin: and if you really believe these melons in power care one bit about the planet and not just seeing another handy money maker like the sugar tax was……then you need to really get out more, people wanna help and change and do their bit, but all the government wanna do is tax, tax and more tax and that money will just disappear into a black hole on anything other than projects to help the environment……that’s why people are angry and complaining
@Michael Patrick Newell: A good idea get out of bed a little earlier have a good breakfast do whatever you have to do come home have a dinner or if thats not possible make one . all the time eating much healthier.
@Diarmaid O’Riordáin: I agree 100%
This tax has to be ringed fenced now is not wasted on as you say Ministers pensions I think a lot of you giving out don’t have a clue how short a time there is to fix the Environment before major sea rises and other extreme weather that will change a lot of things in this world. Remember one thing here we are all to blame for the emergency we find ourselves now.
@Alan Scott: its nice you think this will be ringfenced , just cos a government who can change the goalposts any time says so……oh i get up early and go to work and find it a comedy act that people still believe anything the likes of leo and co say…….lets see hse cant say where or what the sugar tax is being used for, roads are in a mess but hey setting up a supposed handy money maker like irish water seemed like a winner…..then the whopper of leo vanity socks basically accusing a large amount of people on welfare of committing fraud and using false figures to back it up……..but u somehow think they will legitimately use every euro they get from this tax grab to help the planet…….i hope i am wrong and you are right, but given the average track record of FFG, i doubt i will he proven wrong
Why all the coffee? You see everyone with a coffee cup in hand looking busy and trying to make a statement. Then they throw them out the window of their car and litter the roads everywhere along with other paper cartons used to wrap sandwiches and breakfast rolls.
How did we manage in the past. Yes we went to work with a good breakfast in our belly and had the patience to wait for our tea/coffee break.
Compostible cups are a joke.
They are only compostible in you put in a compostible bin to dispose of them.
Ask any retailer where to put your cup and you get told use normal litter bin!
Although plans for a nationwide scheme were scrapped, a 25p surcharge on takeaway cups in the Houses of Parliament introduced in October 2018 led to the number of cups used plummeting from 58,000 a month to 15,000 per month, an astonishing 74% drop. The reason this successful scheme wasn’t rolled out nationwide was because of intensive behind the screens lobbying by Costa Coffee and other big players in the coffee industry.
But are these cups not generally recyclable and biodegradable? Even if they do end up in a landfill the cardboard will degrade. Really it’s just the plastic lids
And with regards to the cardboard, deforestation problem is related to livestock…. as far as I’m aware forestry’s who cut down trees for wood would generally be in the business of replanting. Or they’d soon be out of business
@Vin: they are made of plasticised cardboard which doesn’t break down in landfill.
It is right that the Government is about to levy single use coffee cups. It will result in a bit of a tax windfall for the Government, but, more important, it will make the makers of these cups, together with the coffee machine owners and the business owners change their ways also. Remember the plastic bag levy, it changed everyone’s attitude to shopping.
There can be up to 20 spoons of sugar in some cups of coffee types so it will be good for people’s health if they drink less of the stuff.
levy this levy that…..were will it stop
have your say