Immigration has an impact on the housing and rental markets
Tuesday's jobs figures were the most important indicator of what has been happening in the Irish economy since our neighbour's Brexit referendum. Even before the vote in late June, there had been signs that the pace of recovery in the Irish economy was slowing. In the months following the decision, there were further signs of an economy losing steam.
Consumer spending, factory production and - most importantly from a political perspective - tax revenues have been either stagnant or down on recent high points. These trends raised concerns that jobs growth would also slow in the July-September period.
That is exactly what happened, even if Tuesday's figures showed that the slowdown was not of a magnitude that would have caused yet another red light to start flashing in the Finance Department.
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A Garda charged with assaulting two young women following a night out in Tipperary has not been suspended from duty.
Garda Brian Hanrahan (34) has been assigned to desk duties in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, pending the resolution of his case before Nenagh District Court.
It is understood that this will involve him dealing with paperwork, phone queries and other station-related work.
He will not be assigned to routine patrols or out-of-station duties for the time being.
However, it is understood he will remain on full pay pending the conclusion of the court proceedings.
A Garda spokesman declined to comment on the matter, stressing that no comment is made on individual cases or matters before the courts.
The scene of the 2015 shooting near the intersection of New Orleans Street and North Tonti Street. Inset: Garda Brian Hanrahan
Garda Hanrahan and his legal team have already indicated that they want the court proceedings dealt with as quickly as possible
The young officer made no reply when he was charged with assaulting two young women following a night out in Tipperary.
Garda Hanrahan of Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, was charged before Judge Elizabeth MacGrath at Nenagh District Court on Thursday.
The Garda - who made headlines last year when he was shot and seriously injured while on holiday in the United States - did not speak during the brief hearing.
He was charged with two alleged assaults contrary to Section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act. He was remanded on bail.
Mr Hanna has written to the PAC 'respectfully' declining their invitation to appear to give evidence. Photo: Tom Burke
A key figure in the controversial Project Eagle sale - former Nama official Ronnie Hanna - has declined an invitation to be quizzed by TDs at the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The agency's former head of asset recovery, Mr Hanna, was arrested last summer by officers from the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), which has been investigating the sale of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book. Mr Hanna has written to the PAC "respectfully" declining their invitation to appear to give evidence.
The PAC is examining Project Eagle after the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) found that a probable loss of £190m (€223m) was incurred in the 2014 deal. Nama has rejected this finding.
Read more: NAMA made an 'eejit' out of deal-brokers in Northern Ireland property loans sale
In his letter, Mr Hanna said he was still bound by a confidentiality agreement he signed with Nama. He also cited the ongoing NCA investigation in the North as a reason why he could not appear.
Nama chairman Frank Daly previously told the PAC that no evidence has been produced to substantiate allegations made against Mr Hanna.
Meanwhile, former Northern Ireland first Minister Peter Robinson has also declined to appear at the PAC but has sent TDs a letter on Project Eagle.
A premature baby was left to die in a sluice room at a failing NHS Trust hospital in Manchester.
The baby, which was born too early to resuscitate, was not nursed for the two hours of her short life but died alone in the room used for the disposal of medical waste.
The distressing incident was detailed in a secret internal report into chronic shortages, bad staff attitudes and clinical errors in the maternity departments of North Manchester General and Royal Oldham hospitals.
A review of maternity services at Pennine Acute Hospital NHS Trust, which operates the two hospitals, was obtained through Freedom of Information requests by the Manchester Evening News.
It outlined a string of avoidable deaths and long-term injuries caused by failures over many years.
The report detailed how one woman died of a catastrophic haemorrhage after her symptoms were put down to mental illness and another was left with a colostomy because her condition was missed three times.
It also said the Trust was placing women at "unacceptable risk" by taking on too many high-risk pregnancies at North Manchester General due to a lack of beds at Oldham.
The baby was born just before the legal age of viability, which is around 23 weeks. As per guidelines, staff did not try to keep her alive, but the report said "essential" basic compassion was missing.
“When the baby was born alive and went on to live for almost another two hours, the staff members involved in the care did not find a quiet place to sit with her to nurse her as she died," it said.
"[They] instead placed her in a moses basket and left her in the sluice room to die alone.”
Long-term failures in the departments led to “high levels of harm for babies in particular” and repeated warnings over years had not led to improvements.
The paper said the trust tried to suppress the report and even claimed it did not exist.
The report identified “clear evidence of poor decision-making which has resulted in significant harm to women” and “real issues” on maternity wards.
This resulted in “high levels of harm for babies in particular, which has significant life-long impact,” it said.
The Trust had a heavy reliance of locum staff – more than one third of the consultant workforce – and as such was "very general in its makeup" and lacked specific skills and competencies, which had led to "untoward outcomes for woman".
In one instance, a baby died because its mother had a rare blood type which staff failed to identify.
It cited “worrying repetitive themes” across the department, including failures to monitor basic vital signs, poor documentation, key lab results left unchecked, and critical missing information left off patient records.
On Wednesday night the trust said more staff had been taken on and progress was being made to improve care.
The report described a “rigid mindset” among staff who tended to view patients' conditions as “uncomplicated”, repeated breach of safety procedures and little performance monitoring of the high numbers of agency staff on the trust's books.
The Trust received more legal claims and paid out more in damages than any other between 2010 and 2015, nearly half of them relating to mothers and babies – payouts which totalled more than £25 million.
Professor Matthew Makin, medical director at Pennine, said: “The priority is for all of the trust's services to meet the high standards that patients expect and deserve.
“We are steadily making the necessary improvements so that patients can receive reliable, high quality care across all of our services.
“In addition to the appointment of a new Head of Midwifery, 31 new midwives started in post across our two maternity units at North Manchester and Oldham last month.
“One incident identifies that a baby died following birth because the mother was not identified during her antenatal care as being rhesus negative and given the appropriate treatment to prevent any adverse effects on her baby,” he said.
An unarmed garda stands alongside a member of the ERU carrying a machine gun (main); Gerry Hutch (inset), Daniel Kinahan (inset)
The Kinahan cartel have been offering up to €3,000 a go for young criminals in the north inner city to act as “spotters” in their own communities to trace the movements of rival Hutch family members.
Sources say that the help of the young spotters, including teenagers, has been “invaluable” in the cartel’s murderous campaign, in which four of the 10 feud cartel victims have been shot dead in a small area of the capital’s northside.
“Information has come into gardai that individuals who know the Hutch family were prepared to betray them, with a figure of €3,000 being offered for credible information about their movements,” a source said.
“There can be little doubt that the cartel’s network of local spies has really helped them and this applies to murders as well as attempted murders and even foiled hits,” the source added.
The development comes after the Herald revealed gardai are investigating whether the cartel has been using tracking devices to monitor the movements of innocent members of the Hutch family.
Read more: Gardai fear Kinahan cartel are planting tracking devices to monitor innocent members of Hutch family
Read more: 'Complete loose cannon' - Kinahan's new enforcer 'causing terror' in capital
A number of cars belonging to Hutch family members have been examined by gardai.
In the latest incident, an innocent 65-year-old woman, who is connected to feud murder victim Gareth Hutch, is suspected of having a tracker device placed under her car. CCTV images from the woman’s north inner city home showed a young man underneath her car with a flashlight.
Gardai from the Bridewell station were nearby but it is not known if they witnessed the incident.
However, when officers were made aware of what happened they then forensically examined the vehicle before returning it to the woman five days later.
Among the murders that spotters are suspected of helping the cartel take part in include that of Eddie Hutch Sr (59), who was shot dead at his home in Poplar Row on the night of February 8.
Eddie, a brother of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, was targeted by a four-man hit team just days after the Regency Hotel attack.
Another murder in which spotters were suspected of playing an active role was that of Martin O’Rourke (24), who was shot dead in broad daylight on the afternoon of April 14.
O’Rourke was a victim of mistaken identity, with the target of the brutal slaying being Hutch gang member Keith Murtagh (32), who escaped uninjured.
Gardai continue to mount a number of operations on both sides of the capital to prevent further bloodshed, which has led to a number of major firearms seizures recently.
Read more: AK-47 and ammo found in raid linked to cartel
Earlier this month, gardai foiled a gangland bloodbath after seizing a “significant” arsenal of weapons from the Kinahan cartel.
Officers from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB) found the weapons in a vehicle in the Cabra area of Dublin.
The arsenal included two MP-9 machine guns, two silencers and three loaded Smith & Wesson handguns.
One line in the investigation is that the weapons were to be used in a north inner city “pub massacre” against members of the Hutch mob, including a close business partner of on-the-run target Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch.
The ongoing feud has claimed a number of innocent lives, including dad-of-three Trevor O’Neill, who was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity while holidaying in Spain.
The city council worker was killed by a hitman who was believed to be targeting Jonathan Hutch, Gareth’s brother, who was staying in the same area.
Hutch told police that he was the target of the shooting and returned to Dublin soon after the incident.
His family home has been targeted by gunmen since his return.
The marriage of convenience between Taoiseach Enda Kenny and de-facto leader of the Independent Alliance Shane Ross has once again come under significant strain. Photo: Sportsfile
The marriage of convenience between Taoiseach Enda Kenny and de-facto leader of the Independent Alliance Shane Ross has once again come under significant strain.
It's worth remembering that tensions between the two political heavyweights existed weeks before this limp government had succeeded in completing its first day in office.
The prospect of Mr Kenny and Mr Ross becoming even somewhat close quickly disappeared once the latter used his 'Sunday Independent' column to describe the Fine Gael leader as a "political corpse".
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A garda investigation has been launched following the death of a man in his forties in a mobile home on Wednesday afternoon. Picture: Arthur Carron A garda investigation has been launched following the death of a man in his forties in a mobile home on Wednesday afternoon. Firefighters and gardaí were called to the scene at Chianti Park, Brittas. Picture: Arthur Carron A garda investigation has been launched following the death of a man in his forties in a mobile home on Wednesday afternoon. Firefighters and gardaí were called to the scene at Chianti Park, Brittas. Picture: Arthur Carron
A garda investigation has been launched following the death of a man in a mobile home on Wednesday afternoon.
Firefighters and gardaí were called to the scene at Chianti Park, Brittas at 2.30pm today.
A garda investigation has been launched following the death of a man in his forties in a mobile home on Wednesday afternoon. Firefighters and gardaí were called to the scene at Chianti Park, Brittas. Picture: Arthur Carron
The unidentified body of a male was found inside the caravan. He was later moved to Tallaght Hospital where a post-mortem is expected to take place to determine the cause of death.
The results of this will determine the direction of the investigation.
However a source said that it is not believed to be suspicious.
The scene is being preserved overnight and a technical examination will take place.
Our thoughts are with the family, friends and neighbours of the man who passed away following a fire today in Brittas. 3 units attended. pic.twitter.com/D8bez5EBOc
— Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) November 23, 2016
Dublin Fire Brigade confirmed that they attended the scene.
They tweeted: "Our thoughts are with the family, friends and neighbours of the man who passed away following a fire today in Brittas. 3 units attended."
