Boris Johnson visit
British prime minister Boris Johnson was booed and jeered by around 200 people as he arrived at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland this afternoon.
Protesters, including campaigners for the Irish language, victims campaigners and anti Brexit activists, were among the crowds who held aloft banners outside the gates of the official government residence in Co Down as his cavalcade drove in.
Mr Johnson is meeting the main Stormont parties at the residence in the village this afternoon amid the latest impasse in establishing a power-sharing government in the North.
Sinn Féin meeting
Sinn Féin was the first party to meet the UK prime minister at Hillsborough Castle on Monday afternoon.
Party president Mary Lou McDonald criticised the “very cynical antics of the Tory government” as she arrived for the meeting and accused Mr Johnson of “choreography” with the DUP over the latest Stormont crisis.
“People have voted for real change and that’s what people are going to get,” Ms McDonald said as she arrived with her party’s Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill and caretaker finance minister Conor Murphy.
House price growth reaches new high
Residential property prices have hit a seven-year high, with new figures from the Central Statistics Office showing that prices grew by 15.2 per cent in March this year when compared to 2021.
According to the CSO, prices in Dublin jumped by 12.7 per cent, while prices outside Dublin grew by 17.3 per cent.
The median price of a home purchased in the 12 months to March 2022 was €285,000.
Santina Cawley murder
A woman has been found guilty of the murder of a two-year-old girl in Cork who sustained 53 catastrophic injuries including fractures to her skull, two fractured ribs, fractures to her right arm and left leg, and bruising to her entire body.
Karen Harrington, of Lakeland’s Crescent in Cork, was on trial for a fortnight at a Central Criminal Court sitting in the city charged with the murder of Santina Cawley in July 2019.
The jury took four hours and 46 minutes to return a unanimous guilty verdict. The seven men and four women on the jury were excused from further service for life.
