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by Mehak Dugal

Fine Gael TD Damien English has resigned as junior minister after it was revealed he gave incorrect information to a local authority when making a planning application to build a house in a rural area.

 

The Taoiseach and Tánaiste will today travel to Northern Ireland to meet with political leaders as part of efforts to restore power sharing at Stormont.

SIPTU members in the retained fire service across the country have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, up to and including strike action. The union says the dispute has resulted from a failure by local authorities to ad-dress a worsening recruitment and retention crisis.

Meanwhile, a fire in Cork University Hospital’s (CUH) overcrowded emergency department has been described as “a serious warning signal” to the Government about the need to solve the overcrowding crisis. Several patients had to be evacuated to a secure area, as the department filled with smoke just after lunchtime yesterday.

Front-line services have called for greater action on the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ strategy on the first anniversary of Ashling Murphy’s murder.

And the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has said that there is "no logical case" for the retention of the 9% ‘temporary’ reduction in VAT for the hospitality industry as suggested in a report by the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation.

 

Finally, the BT Young Scientist exhibition is back in the RDS this week for the first time since before the pandemic struck. Just in a couple of hours, the hall is set to be packed with students, teachers, parents, judges, politicians, business leaders and science enthusiasts, as the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition begins in earnest.

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