BREAKING: Emergency court hearing in case of Australian government’s cancellation of Novak Djokovic’s visa has begun
Live updates: https://t.co/ufZK91aN5y
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) January 14, 2022
This morning.
Melbourne, Australia.
More as we get it.
The Grand Canal towpath at Cappincur, Tullamore, county Offaly yesterday
Last night/this morning.
Via RTÉ News:
A 40-year-old man was released from garda custody and declared no longer to be a suspect in the case.
The man had been arrested by gardaí within an hour of the discovery of the body of Ashling Murphy.
He had been questioned for seven hours on Wednesday evening before he rested overnight and more than 20 hours yesterday.
RTÉ News understands the man consistently denied any involvement in the murder during garda interviews.
Detectives continued to interview witnesses and gather forensic evidence, including DNA, and as a result of their inquiries, they discovered yesterday evening that the man could not have been involved in the murder.
Renewed appeal in Tullamore murder investigation (RTE)
Meanwhile…
…goldenbrown writes:
So the Gardai managed to wrongfully arrest and release an innocent man but not before it’s plastered all over the media by the Irish Times…and half the websites around the planet (and STILL is) that he was from a certain country, well known and established in the area, of a certain age and had allegedly a history of violence. Oh bravo.
This afternoon.
Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
Flowers left outside Newlands Cross Crematorium, where a Hindu funeral is taking place for Shane O’Connor, the son of musicians Sinead O’Connor and Donal Lunny, who died over the weekend aged 17.
Meanwhile…
Anyone able to check on @OhSineady or know where she’s currently living? She’s deleted her account and these tweets and I think I’ve been one of the few to see them pic.twitter.com/SEDfikrMui
— Richie Duprey (@Richiedupz) January 13, 2022
Anyone?
Update:
UPDATE: The Gardaí are going out to her property to make a welfare check.
Really hope they get there and she’s found safe and well.
— Richie Duprey (@Richiedupz) January 13, 2022
Update:
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I am with cops now on way to hospital. I’m sorry I upset everyone. I am lost without my kid and I hate myself. Hospital will help a while. But I’m going to find Shane. This is just a delay
— Sinead The 1 And Only (@OhSineady) January 13, 2022
The Philippine government has banned unvaccinated people using public transport in the capital Manila
This afternoon.
Via Channel News Asia:
The rule, announced by the Department of Transportation this week and expected to take effect on Monday, comes after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to arrest people not vaccinated against COVID-19 who refused to stay at home.
Passengers will have to show proof of vaccination before boarding public buses, jeepneys, trains, boats or planes in Metro Manila where infections are soaring, causing widespread disruption for businesses and straining hospitals.
Exceptions will be made for unvaccinated people who have official permission to travel to buy food, seek medical treatment or get jabbed.
Philippines defends ‘no vax, no ride’ policy on public transport (CNA)
Getty
Earlier: Hit Them Where It Hurts
This afternoon.
Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin 2.
HSE CEO Paul Reid at the HSE’s weekly Covid update.
Where’s your upgraded mask?
Meanwhile…
Mr Reid has said that there is a much lower level of hospitalisations in proportion to the daily case numbers as was seen in previous waves and variants.
He said that there is plenty of evidence that Omicron “isn’t as impactful or severe at an individual level as previous variants have been“.
However…
Paul Reid has said that it is “really like tackling this wave with one hand tied behind our back” because up to 15,000 of the workforce are out due to Covid.
But he added that the volume of the cases and pace of the rise in cases “continues to put a constraint on our healthcare services“.
Um.
Anyone?
Rise in hospital cases of people with Covid-19 ‘seems to have slowed’ (RTE)
Oh.
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Sanjay Gupta express alarm at news that the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) admits 40% of people in the hospital WITH Covid are not in the hospital BECAUSE of Covid.
Forget it, Jake.
It’s Chinatown.
UCC philosophy boffin Vittorio Bufacchi (above) says ‘herd immunity must be fairly shared among the individual members of the morally responsible collective’
This morning/afternoon.
Via Dr Vittorio Bufacchi, a senior lecturer in Philosophy at University College Cork, in the Irish Times:
‘…Contrary to what the anti-vax movement is declaring, mandatory vaccinations are not an infringement of our basic rights. One’s right to choose not to be vaccinated is being respected, although this right does not give anyone the licence to put others at risk.
‘Under mandatory vaccination a person maintains the right not to be vaccinated, but does not enjoy the right that puts others under a duty to allow unvaccinated people into their restaurants, pubs, or work environments. In certain circumstances this may extend to losing one’s job.
‘…there is a strong case for vaccination to be mandatory, at least in theory. That is because the principle of fairness requires that the burden to reach herd immunity be fairly shared among the individual members of the morally responsible collective.’
He adds:
‘Mandatory vaccinations could be as minimal as stipulating a longer isolation period for the non-vaxxed, or at the other end of the spectrum legislation could be introduced so that those whose elective surgery has been postponed can take a civil case against those who refused vaccination but ended up in hospital due to Covid-19.
Somewhere in the middle there is the option of making pubs and stadiums out of bounds to anti-vaxxers – that’s probably what would hurt them the most.
Yikes.
Mandatory vaccination not the same as compulsory (Vittorio Bufacch, Irish Times)
RTE/RollingNews
Meanwhile…
Australia has fallen.. unvaccinated citizens are completely banned from life..! pic.twitter.com/P1U8IOv9ye
— Pelham (@Resist_05) January 13, 2022
This afternoon.
Ireland’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has published a ‘snapshot’ of the housing market in 2021.
Viewer discretion advised.
Via RTÉ News:
From 2012-2020, it finds that average wages grew by 23% while house prices grew by 77%. For some, this is making house ownership “unachievable”, the report states.
It says high prices relative to incomes are “pushing potential buyers out of the market and into rental accommodation, social housing or emigration.”.
It notes that prices rose during the Celtic Tiger era at an average rate of 12.6% a year.
Prices rose by an average 7% a year from 2015-20.
The PBO cites the figure published by Banking Payments Federation Ireland last year that home ownership among those under 30 has collapsed from 60% in 2004 to 27% in 2020.
Using the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey (DIHAS), which measures house prices against median incomes, it concludes that Irish house prices are “severely unaffordable” and have been for several years.
It says that housing affordability has worsened for renters, noting that rents are now 40% higher than their pre-crisis levels in Dublin, where rents have doubled in the past decade, and 20% higher in the rest of the country.
‘Collapse’ in home ownership among young adults – report (RTE)
This morning.
Department of Justice, Dublin 2.
Antoinette Keegan (above) and supporters urge urgency in the staging of a new inquest into the 1981 fire that killed 48 people.
The lease on a ‘bespoke courtroom’ in the RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, to hold the inquests, expires in February, with Ms Keegan statingL
“Money is being wasted on an empty venue and not one inquest has been heard”
Pictured in the frames are Martina Keegan (16) and Mary Keegan (19 who died in the Stardust Fire.
Stardust families blast department over delayed inquests (Irish Examiner)
