Angela Kirk has just finished her live interview on Morning Ireland and was interviewed on Newstalk Breakfast earlier this morning. We'll add those links when they become available and compile all the available coverage on today's strike action.
The day's news is populated with stories of trouble in Northern Ireland on the eve of the 12th, an expansion of the GP card scheme, a Bill which would ban goods from occupied Palestinian territories passed its first vote in the Seanad last night, and thousands of new student beds which are coming onto the market are too expensive for Irish students and resemble deluxe boutique hotels.
Your moment of Zen this morning begins with the widely reported nine-year ban served on a Spanish public service worker after it emerged he had been absent from his €50,000-a-year job for more than a decade.
Carles Recio, an archives director in Valencia's provincial government repeatedly claimed that he was not to blame for his absence. "I do documentation work out of the office, the work of a slave, working like a slave means that I work so that others get the fruit of my labour."
Señor Recio (whose specialist skills section on his CV must now include "chutzpah") beats the record previously held by Joaquín García. In 2016 we learned that García, a 69-year-old engineer, hadn't shown up to work for at least six years. His extended absence only came to light when he was due to collect an award for two decades of loyal and dedicated service. In his defence he said he was the victim of workplace bullying because of his family’s socialist politics.
Fórsa magazine's music columnist Raymond Connolly has been in touch with Recio and García to invite them to watch the World Cup final on Saturday in his local pub (an undisclosed location in Dublin 11). "I'll buy the lads a bottle of milk stout, we'll play some dominoes, watch the footie and I'll explain to them how they're the victims of all the general bullying that's going on."
Readers should note that Connolly doesn't speak a word of Spanish, but you can read his latest musical musings in the new edition of the magazine, which is circulating in workplaces now and published on the Fórsa website.
