The Front Pages
A massive international swoop on an Irish drug dealing gang grabs the headlines on the Times, the Independent and the Examiner today. Here are some headlines from the front pages:
‘Major Irish drugs supplier held after international operation’ – The Irish Times.
‘Fianna Fail to purge town councils in new shake-up’ – The Irish Independent.
‘Economist: 25% chance Ireland will go bankrupt’ – The Irish Examiner.
The biggest Irish supplier of drugs to crime gangs in the country has been arrested in an enormous international operation. The swoop resulted in the arrests of 33 other people in five different countries and involved over 700 officers.
The Irish Times have the same story details as many other papers which report that 53-year-old convicted criminal Christy Kinahan from Dublin was at the centre of the arrests.
Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, pictured above centre, with Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Quilter, right, and Garda Superintendent John Gilligan announced the arrests at the Garda National Drugs Unit in Dublin Castle yesterday.
Kinahan is currently being questioned in Spain about the running of an international drug trafficking trade. It is thought that he and his associates may have a property portfolio in the region of €150m which includes apartments, pubs, houses and cash-based businesses.
The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) will have a field day with this one. It is expected that they will seize the gang’s finances and properties.
Fianna Fail has come up with a plan to reshape local government by eradicating town councillors and cut out the duplication of councillors across the country, according to The Irish Independent.
The plan, if implemented, would mean that one set of councillors would represent their town or area at county level. The country’s current 744 town councillors would become non-existent and there would be an increase in the 883 county councillor positions in the proposed shake-up.
A leading economist has warned that Ireland could find themselves in a similar economic crisis as Greece after bank shares crashed yesterday.
The Irish Examiner gives the break-down of the current state of the Irish markets and most significantly AIB shares crashed by 13%, down to 90c. Economist Dan O’Brien suggested that Ireland has a one-in-four chance of going bankrupt.
The overall plunge of Irish markets yesterday has been dubbed as “Black Tuesdayâ€. Bank Of Ireland shares took a 9% hit and are now down to 66c.
