Fishing trawlers protest
Irish fishermen have said that declining fishing quotas have made it difficult to make a living and warned of the consequences of Brexit on coastal communities.
More than 50 trawlers from fishing communities made their way to Dublin Port on Wednesday as part of a protest over the cut to EU fishing quotas and the impact of Brexit.
The flotilla travelled in convoy to St John Rodgerson’s Quay and held a protest outside the Dail, which is sitting in the Convention Centre in Dublin.
Tom Kennedy, from Dingle, Co Kerry, said the fishing quotas are unfair under the Brexit deal struck last December: “It is difficult to make a living. Before Brexit our quotas were too small, but now it’s unworkable.”
National Maternity Hospital
A Government bid to buy the site of the new National Maternity Hospital by compulsory purchase order (CPO) could result in the facility never being built, the Taoiseach has said.
Opposition parties have ramped up pressure on the Government to CPO the site, amid ongoing concerns over ownership and governance.
The facility is set to be moved from its existing location at Dublin’s Holles Street, to a site at Elm Street in Dublin 4, where it will be co-located with St Vincent’s Hospital.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has called on St Vincent’s Healthcare Group to show “more respect” for the people of Ireland after it rejected calls to sell the site to the State.
'Final call' on reopening
A “final call” on whether there can be a further easing of restrictions on July 5th cannot be made until next week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has warned “we are now surrounded by the Delta variant”, which is more contagious than other types of the virus and accounts for one in five new cases detected in the last seven days.
It comes as around half of Covid-19 positive cases sampled in Northern Ireland are now indicative of the variant.
An immunologist has warned that Ireland is not “far ahead enough” in its Covid-19 vaccine rollout to absorb the impact that the variant could have on the population.
With the Cabinet expected to announce on July 2nd if it will give the green light for the reopening of indoor hospitality, publicans have said that three days is not enough notice for pubs to know if they can reopen their doors.
Courts latest
A man who suffered multiple severe injuries when a lift in a Kerry hotel plummeted three floors to the ground has been awarded over €508,000 by the High Court.
Kevin Meehan and four others were in a lift at the Killarney Plaza Hotel which suddenly dropped to the basement car park, which Mr Justice Michael Hanna said “is the stuff of nightmares.”
Meanwhile, lawyers defending four men accused of abducting and assaulting Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney are challenging CCTV evidence gathered by gardaí.
The Special Criminal Court trial heard on Wednesday from dozens of witnesses from Cavan, Monaghan, Westmeath and Dublin who said they made CCTV footage available to gardaí from their business premises.
Finally, the owner of a chain of pharmacies who fraudulently obtained payments from the HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service has been ordered to complete 240 hours of community service.
