Got my first AI slop ‘publishing deal’ offer today. I’ve made it, mom

A good day for Ryanair’s rep as the on-time airline: the Brussels flight carrying @eucopresident.consilium.europa.eu and about 60 members of the travelling press was delayed arriving in Dublin, triggering a frantic scramble to get the VIP visitors into Government Buildings and onto Dublin Castle

🚨 Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected in Dublin today to be a central figure at events marking the start of Ireland’s EU Presidency. The Ukrainian President will have bilateral meetings with both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste. Advancing Ukraine’s EU membership a major item on Ireland’s presidency agenda.

This lot are Brazil 1970 good. Devastatingly cohesive.

Lookit. If anything happens in Germany v Paraguay I’ll tell you on air. It’s only the round of 32. Pace yourselves. There’s enough Mannschaft for everyone.

Discussing this on #MondayGR in an hour - deft handling by government, or creating another political booby trap? - while we also have the health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill in studio for an extended interview. Questions, thoughts, non-World-Cup grievances welcome: wa.me/353896074218

🚨 The current cuts to excise on diesel and petrol will be extended for the full month of August, but costs for motorists will rise incrementally each month thereafter. Coalition leaders have decided to reintroduce higher rates on 1st of Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec. Sept 1 increase will be roughly 9c/l

POLL: Business Post/Red C (June 19-24, MoE 3%) Sinn Féin 21 Fine Gael 18 (+1 in five weeks) Fianna Fáil 14 (-1) Social Democrats 12 (+2) Aontú 6 (-1) Ind Ireland 5 (-2) Labour 4 PBP-Solidarity 4 Greens 3 Other parties 1 Independents 12 (+1)

Bookies’ projected likelihood of the results Scotland need: * England win: 82.6% * ⁠Ghana win, 2-0 or 3+: 1.8% * ⁠DR Congo not to win: 41.4% * ⁠Algeria lose by 2+: 6% Overall implied probability: 0.0377%, the equivalent of 2,650/1

Before I moved to VMTV/TV3 full time and I’d regularly be driving in to do the newspaper review at Ireland AM, I’d always listen to Tweet Of The Day at 5:58am and the Radio 4 headlines on the drive in. Enjoyable enough to justify being awake so early. Sorry to read of the end of LW 198 kHz

The SocDems, who are part of the group doing the imploring, were happy rotating the mayoralty with FF and the Greens in the last term.

⬇️ The number of people in emergency accommodation has fallen month-on-month, for the first time (outside of Christmas periods) in years. 17,447 people were in such accommodation at the end of May, down by 101 since the end of April. That includes 5,583, down by 21. @virginmedianews.bsky.social

That Beccacece climb-in-the-crowd scene is an all-time WC moment. Just fabulous stuff.

The Dáil's foreign affairs committee is about to vote on a cross-party opposition amendment to include services, as well as goods, in the new edition of the Occupied Territories Bill. Helen McEntee says her advice is that a ban on services is unworkable and best pursued at a common European level.

Simon Harris appears to speak out against the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use, saying while he "absolutely" supports health for those with addictions, he has trouble with anything that endorses or encourages recreational use of drugs that fuels gangland crime

Housing minister James Browne says the Famine was “a genocide in this country” and shouldn’t be made a political football of. He was speaking to Rory Hearne of the SocDems who has repeatedly said the recent spate of evictions in Ireland were the hikes since the Famine era

The Cabinet is set to sign off next week on (at least a partial) extension of cuts to excise on petrol and diesel. Simon Harris told the Dáil a decision on the cuts, which will currently lapse on July 31, “in the coming days” with no “cliff edge” in the current supports. @virginmedianews.bsky.social

A timely reminder, with votes expected this afternoon (at the Dáil’s foreign affairs committee) on opposition amendments looking to include a ban on services as well as goods

🗳️ The Electoral Commission has recommended against a ban on election posters - finding they “play an important part in public engagement with the electoral process” - but recommended phasing in limited sizes of poster, better enforcement of existing rules, and a greater emphasis on recyclability.

Looking forward to chairing Let's Talk Politics again at Feile Belfast Cracking panel this year @saraita101.bsky.social @chrisadonnelly and @gavreilly.com 3rd August, 3pm

Here comes England's descent into copemaxxing

Speaking on #MondayGR last night… You can watch the full interview on YouTube (youtu.be/neg_A-hBdrc?...) or listen to the full programme on Spotify (open.spotify.com/episode/20oT...) or Apple (podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/m...).

The Irish Freedom Party is to be struck off the register of electors in a seeming row over control of the party. The registrar of political parties says he has received two separate, conflicting and incomplete filings on the party’s situation in recent months.

The minister is live in studio at 10 - plus, what does Keir Starmer’s departure mean for Ireland and Europe? Get in touch with your comments and questions: wa.me/353896074218

Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of rape and 17 other sexual offences. The charges span a period between 1985 and 2008 and involve two girls. The verdict was delivered following his trial at Newry Crown Court. 📺 More on Virgin Media News at 5:30pm

Elizabeth had 15 PMs in her 70 years. Charles is about to have his fourth in four years

Barely 100 minutes between the vacancy arising and the contest being sewn up

Three knife-edge ties and a rekindling of a classic rivalry. A cracking Championship.

Where’s Andy Burnham going?

Congratulations to Andy Burnham for winning The Masked Singer.

🚨✅ Dáil approves a Sinn Féin bill removing the mandatory three-day waiting period for GPs’ abortion services within 12 weeks. TDs voted 86 to 70, with government backbenchers not having a whip. Bill is now referred to Oireachtas Health Committee for scrutiny of possible amendments.

Ah lads. Football.

Sinn Féin - in a move which was planned before FG made its own announcements on the area last weekend - is introducing a Bill to the Dáil today looking to make the Taoiseach prepare and publish a Green Paper on Irish unity, and to provide for a Citizens’ Assembly on the practicalities of unity

As the magazine wraps up after 43 years… the first pages of the first edition of The Phoenix, from January 1983.

Grateful to everyone for their help - we got sorted! Thanks all 🙏

For the day that’s in it, a day-and-a-quarter of listening www.rte.ie/culture/2026...

Cabinet is to discuss legislation clamping down on unlicensed short term lettings today - a mere five years after acknowledging the previous planning permission rules were not being enforced

Now the UK’s doing it… should we follow suit with a blanket ban for under-16s on social media? Or are there better ways to manage how kids interact online? Let us know for #MondayGR tonight by sending your comments via WhatsApp: wa.me/353896074218 We’re live on Virgin Media One in 10 minutes!

🇪🇸 (2.28 xG) 0 - 0 (0.30 xG) 🇨🇻

It’s a good thing there isn’t a big sporting tournament on right now, free to air in the UK and popular with many young people, that has regular pitchside advertisements for VPN surfaces

Social services mandated to go to the door of every teenager using Bluesky to check if they’re ok.

On Trump’s 80th birthday:

We go live now to Netherlands v Japan

Sinn Féin is using its Dáil time next week to introduce legislation abolishing the 3-day waiting period for an abortion before 12 weeks of pregnancy. (Yes, this was a provision of a bill that SF didn’t support only last month. There is a procedural explanation to this… 🧵)

hearing the competition voiceover reference the date of the World Cup final

They should have put this shadow in the middle of the Azteca. Football heritage. #worldcup

There are 174 members of Dáil Éireann. 29 of them - one-in-six - disclose second jobs or running other businesses on the side. If they think they can juggle both, fine, good luck to them – but why, then, do almost every single one of them think public consultants can’t do private nixers too?

Gianni Infantino hadn't held a proper press conference in three years He still hasn't This was a Trumpian ramble where he tried to reframe reality and avoid difficult truths www.independent.co.uk/sport/footba...

As expected, the Dáil has voted down a motion from Sinn Féin calling for the boycott of the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League games against Israel. TDs instead backed a countermotion saying it’s “the role of the FAI to decide to fulfil” the fixtures and the govt acknowledges its independence