Ireland

Five things you need to know today

Contract killers, State papers, Syrian ceasefire holds, insurance refusals rise

The wooden bridge to Bull Island, Dollymount, Co Dublin on Wednesday. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times

Fri Dec 30 2016 - 08:58

[ 1. Dublin gangs may use foreign contract killers ]

Feuding gangs in Dublin may be planning to pay foreign contract killers to come to Ireland to murder several of their rivals at once, senior Garda sources believe.

The killing of Noel Kirwan just before Christmas was the latest in a series of so-called "soft target" murders, in which people are killed simply because they are close to key players in the Kinahan-Hutch feud.

Gardaí are now fearful that while those soft target attacks are set to continue, efforts are also being made to carry out much more high-impact killings.

[ http://iti.ms/2ikaf0U ]

[ 2. State papers: Thatcher told FitzGerald to take all Northern nationalists south ]

Margaret Thatcher told Dr Garret FitzGerald he was welcome to take all Northern nationalists south of the Border during a frank exchange between the two leaders 30 years ago.

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Three conversations between the taoiseach and British prime minister in 1986 have been released under the 30-year rule.

One of them was a phone conversation and the other two were face-to-face meetings. The main focus in all of them was the progress, or lack of it, being made under the Anglo-Irish Agreement signed in November 1985.

[ http://iti.ms/2ietTgX ]

[ 3. Syrian ceasefire appears to hold as general ‘calm continues’ ]

A ceasefire deal between Syrian government forces and rebels that took effect at midnight held early on Friday, after initial isolated clashes and gunfire, a monitoring group and a rebel official said.

The truce was violated almost immediately after it came into effect as the warring sides clashed in the northwest of the country.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hours later that the general “calm continues”.

[ http://iti.ms/2ikdjtK ]

[ 4. Record number refused car insurance quotes in 2015 ]

Nearly 1,200 people were refused a quote for car insurance by three or more insurers last year, by far the highest number of multiple refusals on record.

Data released to The Irish Times by Insurance Ireland shows 1,164 people seeking cover for their vehicles were dealt with under the Declined Cases Agreement in 2015.

The agreement states that anyone denied a quote by three separate firms must be offered cover on the fourth attempt, and applications are dealt with by a committee comprising representatives of insurance companies.

[ http://iti.ms/2ieCe41 ]

[ 5. Business stories of the year: Braced for Brexit – and the death of Queen Elizabeth ]

It was the year of Brexit, the Panama papers and Ivan Yates leaving Newstalk.

But our number one most-read is not one of these. Nor is it the perennial budget story.

No, it is – ironically in the centenary year of 1916 – a story about how the BBC is preparing for the death of Queen Elizabeth.

See the full list here:

[ http://iti.ms/2ikcb9C ]

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