School secretaries are set to strike in January over pay issues, after recently rejecting a 1.5% raise offered by the Department of Education & Skills, deeming it “insulting and derisory.”

Workers in Ireland to have legal right to tips and gratuities paid electronically by customers using debit and credit cards, the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty has said. ICTU worker representatives had been actively campaigning to amend the Payment of Wages Act.

Sinn Féin is putting forward a bill today which aims to freeze rents for three years. The party's TD Eoin Ó Broin also wants to introduce a refundable tax credit of up to €1,500 for renters. The bill is to be debated in the Dáil later this evening.

Roughly half of Ireland’s coastal waters, rivers and lakes have unacceptable levels of pollution, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency, which shows only 53% of them are of satisfactory quality.

Overseas, Sydney was covered in thick smoke again today, worsening the impact of the country’s wildfires that began several weeks ago. The air quality index (AQI) reached 12 times the level deemed hazardous.

Finally, The Irish Times covered 30 of the best Irish-based sites to shop from this Christmas, if you are looking to support local businesses. The full list can be found here.

ZMOTY 2019

Today's nomination for Zen Moment Of The Year 2019 comes from Niall Shanahan.

I’ve featured Kate Tempest as my Zen moment twice this year (in July and November). Her latest album The Book of Traps and Lessons and its closing track, People’s Faces, is the first real attempt I’ve heard any artist make to conjure up some badly needed post-Brexit healing. Her November show in Dublin's Vicar Street was, for me, the standout live music experience of 2019, a year in which I’m happy to confess I was spoilt for choice.