1. Government facing near all-out Garda strike in November
The Government is facing a near all-out Garda strike after sergeants and inspectors decided to join their rank-and- file colleagues on four days of industrial action next month.
It means 10,500 rank-and- file gardaí and an estimated 2,000 sergeants and inspectors will refuse to work for 24 hours from 7am on the four Fridays of November.
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2. Melania Trump: Donald Trump was ‘egged on’ into ‘boy talk’
Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump compared her husband’s behaviour to a teenage boy’s and said he was “egged on” by a TV host to make lewd remarks about women in 2005, dismissing his comments as “boy talk”.
Mrs Trump spoke to CNN in her first television interview to defend her husband since a video tape surfaced on which the Republican presidential nominee was heard bragging about sexually assaulting women and after several women accused the New York businessman of sexual improprieties.
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3. Housing and pay key to attracting staff - children’s hospital chief
Affordable housing and extra salary increments should be provided to help the new national children’s hospital recruit key nursing staff, according to the head of the project.
Dublin City Council and the HSE should use their landbanks for the provision of “key worker accommodation” for critically needed staff near the hospital in Dublin’s south-east inner city, the chief executive of the Children’s Hospital Board, Eilish Hardiman, has said.
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4. Irish rents could rise 25% over next two years
The cost of renting a home in the Republic could increase by as much as 25 per cent over the next two years because of a shortage of supply and the difficulties people have buying property, it has been warned.
The rate at which house prices have been climbing over the last two years coupled with more stringent lending rules from the Central Bank and sluggish wage growth have led to more people renting for longer, according to new figures published by Savills Ireland.
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5. Teachers to be offered deal to halt industrial action
The Government is expected to offer to restore payments to secondary teachers for carrying out supervision and substitution duties if they rescind plans to cease working 33 unpaid teaching hours originally agreed as part of a productivity agreement.
Talks will take place on Wednesday between the Department of Education and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) aimed at averting industrial action, which would likely to lead to widespread school closures in the weeks ahead.
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And finally: Gerry Thornley on the aftermath of Munster coach Anthony Foley’s sudden, tragic death
Twenty four hours on and the sense of shock remains profound. Reading all the heartfelt tributes on this site and elsewhere, looking at all the pictures of Anthony Foley in various guises, be it in Irish, Munster, Shannon or St Munchin’s jerseys, as coach and then player, as family man and friend, the sense of loss is no less.