This afternoon.

From top: Liz O’Donnell, Chairperson of the RSA, Hildegarde Naughton TD, Minister of State for International and Road Transport and Logistics and Professor Denis Cusack, Director of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety at a media briefing for the Christmas and New Year Enforcement Operation in relation to road safety.

Meanwhile…

Helluva drug.

Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews

Tara Lee – Christmas Time In Dublin City

A sort of homecoming.

Dublin-born actress and singer/songwriter Tara Lee (top) wows with her emotional ode to returning emigrants who make the journey home at Yuletide.

A star of telly’s Eastenders and The Fall, Tara comes from a musical family and wrote this seasonal power ballad on a midnight flight from London.

Tara says:

“It’s a dream of home, and of all of the faces that I haven’t been able to see this year. It’s a love letter to Dublin, to Ireland, and it’s for everyone who’s a little homesick at the moment, wherever home is to them.”

Nick says: Tara Loora.

Tara Lee

This morning.

Via RTÉ

1.6 million people who are receiving long-term weekly welfare payments will receive their Christmas bonus this week.

The Department of Social Protection said it will pay €390 million in total, mainly to pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and lone parents.

One of the first groups to receive the Christmas bonus are recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

The Department said over 283,000 people who have been in receipt of a PUP payment – continuously or otherwise – for at least four months since March were paid the Christmas bonus this morning.

Anyone?

Hic.

1.6m people to receive Christmas bonus this week (RTÉ)

Above from left: UK Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove and European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič this afternoon

 

This afternoon.

Via RTÉ:

As a result of the agreement the UK will withdraw the clauses in the Internal Market Bill which would have breached the Northern Ireland Protocol, and “will not introduce any similar provisions in the Taxation Bill,” the statement said.

Following intensive discussions through the EU UK Joint Committee, which implements the Withdrawal Agreement, solutions in principle have been found on the question of food imports from Great Britain to Northern Ireland supermarkets, the issue of EU state aid rules, the supply of medicines to Northern Ireland and the question of the EU’s presence in the North.

The Joint Committee, co-chaired by Mr Gove and Mr Šefčovič, have also reached agreement principle on the question of which goods of GB origin would be at risk of crossing the border to the south and thereby potentially attract a tariff.

Agreement has also been reached on the exemption of agricultural and fish subsidies from state aid rules, as well as a list of members on an arbitration panel which will mediate on disputes relating to the Withdrawal Agreement…

UK and EU reach agreement over Northern Ireland trade (RTÉ)

Twitter user Sophia Cadogan has challenged Irish actor Paul Mescal’s title of having the most liked tweet on Irish Twitter in 2020

This afternoon.

Anyone?

Revealed: Ireland’s most liked tweet of the year is Paul Mescal’s famous ‘I’m Irish’ claim (Independent.ie)

RollingNews

This afternoon.

Earlier…

Stop your tiers, numpty.

Earlier…

This morning.

Via Britain’s NHS:

The biggest vaccine campaign in NHS history kicked off this morning, as 90-year-old grandmother Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 jab following its clinical approval.

At 6.31am early riser Margaret, known to friends and family as Maggie, was given the life-saving jab by nurse May Parsons at her local hospital in Coventry.

Maggie, who turns 91 next week, is a former jewellery shop assistant who only retired four years ago. She has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren and is looking forward to being able to go out again once she receives the top up dose.

Margaret said:

“I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against COVID-19, it’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year.”

Landmark moment as first NHS patient receives COVID-19 vaccination (NHS)

Meanwhile….

FIGHT!

Blending live action and animation, here’s a 2008 short to break your mother’s back by London-based directing duo Bif. To wit:

Marc needs the paving stones on which he walks to move, for fear of stepping on the lines. He starts a treatment to overcome his phobia…

animatic

This morning.

On RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live.

Chair of the Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht and Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth (above right) spoke with Ms Byrne briefly about the report RTÉ published yesterday concerning the five Covid-19 guidelines which were breached at a recent retirement gathering (above left) in Montrose.

Ms Byrne started by asking Ms Smyth if the report drew a line under the matter for her or did she believe there were more questions to be answered?

She said she has read the report and that “most of the questions have been answered…maybe not all of them…”.

Asked what questions hadn’t been answered, she said:

“Well, the question of how this came to be organised in the first place. Now we do accept RTÉ are saying there is a Garda investigation ongoing and that restricts some of the findings that they can communicate in the report so, you know, I suppose as a committee, we’ll have to decide does that draw a line under it or are there further questions to answer.”

Ms Smyth said the committee will be meeting tomorrow where they will deliberate the report.

Asked if RTE representatives will be appearing before the committee, Ms Smyth replied:

“Not as yet.”

Yesterday: Five Breaches

Meanwhile…

This morning.

The latest issue of Totally Dublin, with a cover by Niall Staines and Maxi McDonnell, lands in Dublin city today.

In his end of year editorial, TD editor Michael McDermott writes:

We are dragging ourselves over the line of what has been a truly remarkable year, mostly for all the wrong reasons. 2020 has been an absolute head melter. It feels apt then to have Niall Staines capture this sense of going through the wringer with our cover commission. His glitch style drags normality beyond recognition but still anchors it. Time has blurred and rumpled, we’ve all felt glitched but there’s still hope and the ones we love.

When asked about the prospect of a return to normality which we very much hope 2021 will bequeath us, the veteran writer Don DeLillo observed, “We may feel enormous relief, but for many people, it’s going to be difficult to return to what we might term as ordinary. I don’t know how that’s going to feel. I hope that it’s mainly a sense of rediscovered freedoms. You want to go to a movie. You want to go to a museum and eat in a restaurant. Those ordinary things are going to seem extraordinary.”

We toast the sense of extraordinary this Christmas for we have lived, loved and lost in this landmark year. A heartfelt thanks to our contributors, stockists, advertisers and readers for sticking with us as we try and navigate towards better days.

In fairness.

Totally Dublin

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