Two Israeli embassy staff killed dead outside Jewish museum in Washington DC
Dublin City Council has started to clear a large illegal landfill site in Darndale on the north of the city. Video: Bryan O'Brien
The Israeli military said that it fired near a diplomatic delegation which had "deviated" from an approved route in the occupied West Bank. Video: Reuters
Israeli attacks on Jabalia overnight have resulted in multiple fatalities and numerous injuries, mainly to children, according to reports.
Caoimhe Ní Ghormáin, an expert in medieval Irish manuscripts, and John Gillis, who led the conservation, talk about the Book of Leinster. Video: Ronan McGreevy
Gordon Manning speaks to members of the Dublin Senior Camogie squad ahead of this week's Camogie Association vote on the wearing of shorts. Video: Bryan O'Brien
Conor Gallagher reports on Pravfond, set up by Putin, that intelligence agencies say does more than its stated goal of protecting the rights of Russians abroad
14-year-old Cara Darmody started a 50-hour disability rights protest outside Leinster House to highlight delays in children getting an assessment of needs.
CCTV footage of a tractor being driven by 16 year old completely crushing a car in Graiguenamanagh.
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Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
State's population grew by almost 90,000 last year, EU figures show
The State's population grew by almost 90,000 last year, according to figures produced by the European Union . The population of the Republic stood at 5,439,898 at the end of last year compared with 5,351,681 at the end of 2023. In the 27 EU countries, Ireland's annual population growth, at 1.64 per cent, is surpassed only by Malta and is about seven times higher than the EU average of 0.23 per cent. Eurostat figures show Ireland reached a population of five million in 2020. With current projections, it is likely to reach 5.5 million by the end of this year. READ MORE These figures are different from the estimates produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The Irish office's estimates run from April to April, and the figures for April 2024 to April 2025 have yet to be produced. All indicators suggest the population is growing rapidly since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, buoyed by a strong labour market with a record 2.8 million people at work. [ 'We can't have nice things in Ireland because no one follows the rules': Emigrants on returning home Opens in new window ] The population increase is largely driven by inward migration. The last figures from the CSO show net migration (immigration minus emigration) to Ireland between April 2023 and April 2024 was 79,300. The natural increase in the population (births minus deaths) was 19,400, making for a total increase in the population of 98,700. Recently, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe was asked about a column in The Irish Times by David McWilliams suggesting inward migration would have to decrease to allow the housing supply to catch up with population growth. [ David McWilliams: This is what we need to do in Ireland if we want stable, affordable house prices Opens in new window ] [ David McWilliams: Ireland needs immigrants. But our economy can't accommodate an infinite number Opens in new window ] Mr Donohoe responded by saying the expanded labour force is generating tax revenues that can be invested into infrastructure. He said investment in infrastructure will help the State cope with inward migration. 'A growing population with growing investment is how we will support our economy in the years ahead,' he said. A Department of Finance report entitled Economic Insights published this month says labour shortages in the Irish economy cannot be tackled without inward migration. It states that unemployment is at a historic low. While 780,000 people between the ages of 15 and 64 (working age) are not in employment, the potential for many of them to take up work is 'limited', the Department of Finance has concluded. Many have not worked for years because of health issues, while others do not have the necessary skills to fulfil labour shortages in the economy. Unemployment in the construction sector declined to a record low last year, the report added, 'which underscores the importance of either attracting skilled labour from abroad or increasing the pipeline of apprentices or graduates in the sector'. The report predicted labour force growth is unlikely to be sustained because of an increasingly ageing population and an expected slowdown in net migration. 'As a result, it will become increasingly important to maximise the labour force contributions of our existing working age population as well as productivity improvements.' It concluded: 'It underscores the role that both inward migration and productivity improvements will need to play to support employment and economic growth going forward.'
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Presidential election: Heather Humphreys giving ‘very serious' thought to running for Fine Gael
Fine Gael's executive council is to meet on Monday evening to consider the presidential election campaign as support grows inside and outside of the party for Heather Humphreys to run. The former minister has yet to decide if she will seek the party's nomination to contest the election, but has said she is giving the matter 'very serious consideration'. She had ruled out the possibility in May. Ms Humphreys, who did not contest last year's general election, has emerged as the favourite to replace former MEP Mairead McGuinness , who on Thursday announced she was stepping down as the Fine Gael candidate on health grounds. The party's executive council had been expected to meet on Sunday to consider its options, but a spokeswoman confirmed the meeting would instead take place on Monday evening. READ MORE 'To tell you the truth, I'm giving a run very serious consideration. I'm using my time to speak to the people I trust and the people who know me best, both inside and outside politics, before I make a final decision,' she said in a statement to the Sunday Independent. A number of Independent politicians have come out in support of Ms Humphreys running to succeed Michael D Higgins . Ministers of State Michael Healy-Rae , Noel Grealish and Seán Canney have said they would support her candidacy, noting her 'broad' appeal and ability to 'bring a lot of people together'. Ms Humphreys is also understood to be the preferred candidate for a number of senior Fine Gael ministers. In order to be nominated, Ms Humphreys would need the support of at least 20 members of the parliamentary party, 25 councillors and five members of the executive council. It is understood she would easily secure the necessary backing. Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly , a former GAA president, on Saturday said he was weighing up his options about seeking the party's nomination after this week's news about Ms McGuinness. He said last month that he would not run, describing it as the 'most difficult decision' of his political life, but on Saturday told Newstalk 'the goalposts have changed'. Mr Kelly said the discussion within Fine Gael on who it would now run as its candidate 'hasn't started really' out of respect for Ms McGuinness. 'I think next week will be time enough to reflect properly on that and take action, there's no rush,' he added. Frances Fitzgerald , a former MEP and minister for justice, on Friday said she did not intend to contest the election. Independent Galway West TD Catherine Connolly is currently the only candidate who has the required support to appear on the ballot paper.
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
BBC reporter Peter Taylor: ‘People forget how we got to Good Friday – how precious it is'
In a lifetime as a journalist, Peter Taylor has spent his career searching for the answer to a single question. His introduction to Ireland was Derry on the evening of January 30th, 1972; only hours earlier, 13 people had been killed when members of the British army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on anti-internment marchers in the city's Bogside, with a 14th dying later. 'I felt guilty that my soldiers – me being a Brit – appeared to have been responsible for what appeared to be a massacre, and I felt guilty that I, as a young, 30-year-old journalist, was so ignorant. 'I thought, I'd better find out, and I spent the next 50 years. It was a seminal moment for me.' READ MORE Taylor had found his calling; in the years that followed, his quest to understand what had happened, and why, made the BBC journalist, to quote this newspaper, 'by far the most knowledgeable British – or Irish – television reporter on Northern Irish affairs'. He has won many awards for his work, including Journalist of the Year and Lifetime Achievements Awards from both BAFTA and the Royal Television Society. He revealed Derry businessman Brendan Duddy as the intermediary between the IRA and the British government in 2008's The Secret Peacemaker, while his most recent documentary – and accompanying book – tells the previously untold story of Operation Chiffon, a top-secret British intelligence operation aimed at bringing the IRA's armed campaign to an end. [ 'Secret peacemaker' Brendan Duddy 'risked life for peace' Opens in new window ] [ Brendan Duddy: From chip-shop owner to secret peacemaker Opens in new window ] Yet it might have begun so differently. In 1972 Taylor was working for Thames Television's This Week programme when instinct told him 'there was likely to be trouble on the march, given what had happened at Magilligan [the week before], when the Paras had laid into the civil right marchers.' He suggested they cover it; a plan for three camera crews – one with the British army, one with the marchers and another roaming free – was 'all set to go' until the union 'vetoed its members going because Thames Television wouldn't agree to pay danger money'. They might have had footage 'of everything', concedes Taylor with a groan of regret. 'That was one of the great what-ifs, and I was so pissed off, angry, and that was just one of those things.' At home in London that Sunday afternoon, he heard what had happened on the news and immediately joined 'the long queue of journalists on a flight to Belfast'. 'I actually arrived in Derry on the night of the killings … I think I stayed in a B&B, and I remember going to bed that night nervous in case a sniper would hit me through the window. It just shows how alien my mindset was.' The next morning, he went to the Bogside. 'That's where I saw the wreaths and the blood relatively fresh on the ground, and knocked on doors. 'I was welcomed, rather than excoriated, as a visiting Brit. I always remember that.' This week he was welcomed back to Derry yet again, as a guest of the city's féile. He has visited old friends, including the Duddy family, and enjoyed chance meetings with everyone from Eamonn McCann to the Undertones' Mickey Bradley. 'It's nostalgic, it's invigorating, it's sad, it brings back memories, it's great to see how things have changed.' [ Eamonn McCann: 'How did I get to be 80? This doesn't feel like 80 is supposed to feel' Opens in new window ] Eamonn McCann and Peter Taylor at a concert at Derry's Féile last weekend Taylor points out that the hotel terrace where he is speaking to The Irish Times 'used to be the Brits' barracks, Ebrington Barracks … and here we are on a beautiful sunny morning, people out, relaxing, running, lots of tourists. Normality. It's beautiful.' 'Yet just over there, in the Bogside and in the Fountain, are huge bonfires,' he says. Sectarianism 'is still there … it has never gone away'. But compared with the Derry he first knew in 1972, the 'transformation is phenomenal, and it's the peace dividend, the result of [the] Good Friday [Belfast Agreement], and we must never forget what we all went through … and we have to protect it. It's not over. 'People forget how we got to Good Friday, and how precious it is, and we forget that at our peril, and in the end, those historical knots have to be untied, and something has to emerge which transforms the nature of the Irish State, Irish society. 'And unionists, loyalists, have to be party to it, that's the key thing.' With the caveat that 'there's no such thing as historical inevitability', he believes 'if you look at the history of Ireland, the division of Ireland, there is a certain inevitability that in the end, at some stage, further down the road and all those qualifications, in the next 20, 30 years there is likely to be some form of unity.' In the meantime, 'an awful lot of work has to be done … I don't think the work has been done on our side, the British side, that is being done on the Irish side, and both sides need to work together to try and work out a formula that would work and be acceptable. BBC journalist Peter Taylor in Derry. Photograph: Trevor McBride 'It has to be engagement, dialogue, intimate discussions between the two governments' and reassurance 'that all that is dear to unionists and loyalists is still there, and the traditions on both sides have to be respected'. 'The big obstacle to that is sectarianism … but despite that, the effort has to be made, because I think there is no other solution.' More than 50 years on, many questions remain, not least for Taylor himself. After all his searching, has he found his answer? 'Not to my satisfaction yet, because there are still too many unknowns and too much has to happen.' The next programme he wants to make 'would be a realistic analysis of what the possibility of a united Ireland is, in whatever form it may be – and that will be the thing to consider'. Yet he is all too aware of how journalism is 'under threat' from multiple challenges from disinformation and claims of 'fake news' to a 'desperate' shortage of resources. He compares how he was able to report first-hand from Bogside in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday to the situation now in Gaza, 'where [BBC correspondent] Jeremy Bowen and his colleagues are not allowed, The Irish Times is not allowed to have access.' A journalist's job 'is to report accurately, as independently as one can and, in particular, to get up the closest to the truth of what the situation is like'. 'I want to hear from Jeremy Bowen or John Simpson or whoever in one of the food distribution centres saying, I believe that what has happened here is true, and it's difficult to find a word other than genocide to describe it.' [ John Simpson: 'It's been great to watch how Ireland went from a pretty backward country to a real powerhouse in Europe' Opens in new window ] In Derry, Taylor did get up close; he is respected as one who listened, who gave people a voice, and who told their story. 'At my talk, I got two or three cards and notes from people, just saying, 'thank you'. I got the 'thank you' many times from people, who just said, 'thank you, for all you've done'. 'That means a huge – it means so much. It means more than anything.'
