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EVERY MORNING TheJournal.ie brings you the nine stories you need to know as you kick off your day.
1. ABORTION: Twenty-one years after the X Case, the Dáil has voted to pass the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 by a margin of 127 votes to 31. The landmark bill, which clarifies that abortion is allowed in Ireland in limited circumstances, received both cross-party support and cross-party opposition. Here’s a quick catch-up on everything you should know about the Dáil vote.
2. #ALL CHANGE: Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe has been appointed Minister of State for European Affairs, replacing Lucinda Creighton who resigned from her post after voting against the Government in the abortion bill overnight.
3. #UNEXPECTED: Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has upgraded Ireland’s economic outlook from stable to positive and said that the economy is showing clear signs of recovery. S&P said there is a one-in-three chance that Ireland will reduce its government debt faster than expected.
4. #CASTLEBAR: A 26-year-old man will appear in court this morning charged in connection with the murder of two brothers in Castlebar earlier this week. The bodies of Jack Blaine (70) and his brother Tom (68) were discovered at their house on Wednesday morning in what has been described as a “brutal and savage” killing.
5. #DROWNING: A 19-year-old man drowned in a lake near Strokestown in Roscommon last night. It brings to four the number of people who have drowned in Irish waters in the past two days.
6. #NORTHERN IRELAND: Tensions are high in Northern Ireland today ahead of the annual 12 July parades by the Orange Order. A total of 550 parades are expected to take place and the PSNI has drafted in more than 600 extra police officers from across Britain to help.
7. #MALALA: Pakistani shchoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by Taliban militants last year, will today mark her 16th birthday by addressing the United Nations on the importance of education as a universal right.
8. #RAPE: Forty girls under the age of 18 became pregnant after being raped in 2011, according to new figures from the Rape Crisis Network Ireland. The group also found that 105 children attended the centres in one year.
9. #BURN: Former taoiseach Charles Haughey made disparaging remarks about Bertie Ahern’s intelligence after he used the word ‘kebabs’ instead of ‘cabals’ at a Fianna Fáil meeting, one Fianna Fáil senator has said. The Examiner reports that Senator Terry Leyden took notes after a meeting with Haughey in 2003, three years before his death, during which Haughey criticised Ahern and said he was only “mildly impressed” by President Mary McAleese.
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Apart from illegal immigrants, who have been promised their own front door key and some landlords, the majority of people in the country have been ignored, used, and let down by our landlord politicians.
Hardly surprising that there is growing opposition to open door immigration and welfare for
all-comers when the government make no effort to look after our own.
It is really impossible now, after Roderick O’Gorman’s decision to translate his plans into multiple languages including the Georgian language, offering to provide asylum seekers with their “own-door” accommodation and “wrap-around supports, healthcare and education” on social media without having the infrastructure or finance to support it.
The reality is we are worse off than the last general election.
You reap what u sow after the crash construction workers and tradesmen were treated with contemt by the government lot emergrated some gave it up young lads now have no interest in construction as for bringing in foreign workers forget it no were for them or there families to live big mess
And won’t change by the following election either, regardless of who wins it!!
As someone else here mentioned, not enough builders and no indication of that changing. The last time we went on a building frenzy we imported the labour, they aren’t available anymore as every other developed country has a building shortage too.
Any politician who says they are going to solve the housing crisis is telling lies,
Regardless of what party or political persuasion.
@P.J. Nolan: Agree fully.
It’s going to get worse.
The situation will never improve with the rotating clown show that is going on. We’re the fools for putting them on the ballots at all.
Speculators including politicians buying up council land and then sitting on the property until it’s value increases by millions
“What we need is a vast scaling up of ambition”. Don’t make me laugh! There needs to be ambition there in the first place, something that is nonexistent in this current government.
A 100 years of lazy governments cannot be undone in 4 years
The ‘government’ (doesn’t matter who) has no interest in solving this.
@TG McMahon: we will never know when them bunch are repeatedly left in charge again and again and again
The uncomfortable truth that has to be accepted by everyone – but the general public particularly – is that our infatuation with home ownership is directly driving the housing shortage as much as any other factor. The development companies say it outright, there isn’t enough profit in it for them to build.
The fact we have people tripping over themselves to buy houses at 3, 4, 500k is being preyed on.. all stakeholders want their 20, 40k out of each house. It’s a rat race. Like healthcare is going, if you don’t jump to private you’ll be left behind.
We need to jump off this Hollywood train where a coffee is 12 euro and a haircut 60 because everyone is ‘entitled’ to be a business person and buying your own house is a status badge as much as anything else. ‘We’ have created and are maintaining the rod for our own backs, and the gameplayers are using it to full capacity with the backing of FFG. There is no possible happy ending on this track, we need to stop thinking just me, me, me and look at what we have collectively created. We are not Kardashian.
Housing and property is exactly why we have an open door policy on illegal immigration.
It is so companies like Cuckoo, Blackrock and other huge investment companies can maintain their asset prices ahead of any potential global financial crash. These companies are already taking a financial hit on all their commercial properties and the fear is that if there is another crash, all those family homes they have been buying out to bulk up their portfolios will also take a hit. It is no surprise that the government is now talking about converting office blocks into residential areas – this ensures that these companies boost the value of their commercial properties. I wonder how much of taxpayer’s money will be handed over in these refurbishments, most of which cost more to convert than if they were simply to build a new block of apartments? How much more of our public funds will be transferred to these private “shadow banks” as they are often referred to and more to the point, who will these apartments be for.
If there is another crash, these companies can no longer rely on quantitive easing, i.e. the central banks flooding the market with extra cash to keep their asset prices up, so how do you keep commercial and residential prices up in a failing economy? Oh, I know convert commercial to residential and simultaneously flood the country with a mass of people from all over the globe thus flooding the market with extra demand for housing. High demand plus low supply equals higher prices, che-ching!
On top of that, these companies won’t just secure high prices for their assets, but undoubtedly, in the interests of housing migrants, apartments and houses will be handed over to “asylum seekers” in the interest of “offering refuge”, whilst public money is used to subsidise or pay entirely for their rental costs, handing over further public funds to the same private interests in a double whammy of theft from the people – che-ching-che-ching!
But the government will look a whole lot different after it
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