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Voters head to the polls in Irish general election The polls have opened for the Irish general election. Voters are able to cast their ballot up until 22:00 local time to choose representatives to serve as Teachtaí Dála (TDs) in
Voters head to the polls in Irish general election
The polls have opened for the Irish general election.
Voters are able to cast their ballot up until 22:00 local time to choose representatives to serve as Teachtaí Dála (TDs) in the Dáil, the lower house of the Oireachtas (Ireland’s parliament).
The next Dáil, which will be the 34th, will have 174 TDs, up from 160 in 2020.
Friday’s vote comes after a three-week election campaign.
Voters will elect 173 TDs, as one seat in the Dáil goes to the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker).
Eighty-eight TDs is the number required for an overall majority.
The new TDs will represent 43 constituencies throughout the Republic of Ireland.
More than 3.4 million people are registered to vote in the Republic of Ireland.
To vote in the election, voters must be over 18 years of age, be an Irish or British citizen, be resident in Ireland, and be listed on the Irish Electoral Register.
Election candidates include representatives from the three main parties – outgoing coalition partners Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the leading opposition party in the outgoing Dáíl, Sinn Féin.
These parties are joined by many smaller parties and a significant number of independent candidates.
The counting of votes begins on Saturday morning and is expected to continue over the weekend and possibly into the following week.
The first sitting of the 34th Dáil is scheduled for Wednesday 18 December at 10:30.
A government will be officially formed when the Dáil passes a vote to install a new taoiseach (Irish prime minister).
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
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November 30, 2024
8:24 am
Kosovo PM blames Serbia for explosion at canal supplying power plants as huge blast cuts off crucial water supplies to two plants, with fears much of the country could be left without power.
Kosovo PM blames Serbia for explosion at canal supplying power plants
A canal in Kosovo feeding two power plants that generate most of the nation’s electricity has been damaged in an explosion, with the prime minister calling it a “terrorist attack” by neighbouring Serbia.
The incident occurred on Friday near the town of Zubin Potok in the north of the country, about 16km (10 miles) from the border with Serbia, cutting the flow of water needed for the plants’ cooling systems and prompting fears that much of the country could be left without electricity by the weekend.
An act of terrorism
Prime Minister Albin Kurti immediately blamed Serbia, describing the alleged assault as “a terrorist act” carried out by “professionals” working in “gangs” directed by its northern neighbour who were targeting “critical infrastructure”.
Pictures from the scene published by local media showed water leaking heavily from one side of the reinforced canal, which runs from the Serb-majority north of Kosovo to the capital, Pristina, and also supplies drinking water.
Faruk Mujka, the head of water company Iber Lepenci, told local news portal Kallxo that an explosive device was thrown into the canal and damaged the wall of a bridge. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
He said the water supply must be halted to fix the problem as soon as possible, given the disruption in supplies to the Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEK), the country’s main power provider.
‘Criminal attack’
Earlier on Friday, Kosovo police had increased security measures after two recent attacks in which hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbs live. It was not clear if the incidents were linked.
The United States embassy in Pristina condemned the “criminal attack”.
“We are monitoring the situation closely … and have offered our full support to the government of Kosovo to ensure that those responsible … are identified and held accountable,” it said in a statement on Facebook.
Aivo Orav, the European Union’s ambassador to Kosovo, said the alleged attack was already “depriving considerable parts of Kosovo from water supply”.
Independence for ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo came in 2008, almost a decade after a rebel uprising against Serbian rule.
But troubles persist, mainly in the north where the Serb minority refuses to recognise Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital.
Tensions have spiked in recent months, with Kurti’s government seeking to dismantle a parallel system of social services and political offices backed by Belgrade to serve Kosovo’s Serbs.
November 30, 2024
8:24 am
November 30, 2024
8:03 am
The woman responsible for the ASL bribes in Bari remains in prison.
“It’s not easy to pocket money… you can’t joke with money, you’ll go to jail…”: Connie Sciannimanico said this last June, speaking on the phone with a friend of hers. He was talking to friend about a colleague from the local health authority who had been transferred because he was suspected of having favoured entrepreneurs in exchange for money.
Caught by a paper trail of money
At the time, the health authority official did not know she was being watched nor did she imagine that she would be arrested and that she would have to spend a considerable period of time in prison.
The review court rejected the appeal against the precautionary order notified on 12 November – presented by the lawyer Gaetano Sassanelli – and ordered that Sciannimanico remain in the Taranto prison.
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The lady of bribes and the expertise
The bribes specialist did not admit any of the alleged crimes.She is accused of two counts of corruption with entrepreneurs Giovanni Crisanti, Ignazio Gadaleta and Nicola Murgolo. In exchange for help in making their irregular practices go ahead, it is assumed, the official would have received money and gifts. But so far the woman has not wanted to talk to the Italian magistrates about this.
Bribes paid in installments based on work progress
And she didn’t even try to explain how with her salary as an official she had managed to buy 17 bags (including Vuitton, Prada and Gucci) with an average value of 3 thousand euros and had about 22 thousand euros in cash.
The area manager Nicola Sansolini (placed under house arrest) and the entrepreneur Giovanni Crisanti have already confessed, while the third arrested public official, Nicola Iacobellis, is about to be interrogated. During the interrogation of Crisanti he reported that he had paid bribes because that was the way “system” worked in the health company.
“There are three foxes there,” she said to a friend, speaking of the ASL’s technical offices, “but this one made it dirty.” He was referring to a colleague who had recently made a suspicious investment: A technical assistant like me, single income because his wife doesn’t work… a person with a normal salary, bought the house in Poggiofranco, he must have paid 5 -6 thousand euros per square meter.
He then went on to add “It would seem that they move him, but he made it really dirty.” The episode therefore gave Connie the opportunity to focus on the problem of bribes: «It’s not easy with money… Even for the movement you have to make, you can be intercepted, filmed and framed. And the friend replied: But go to Pane e pomodoro, go to San Giorgio. “With money you go to jail,” added Sciannimanico. Without knowing that the Financial Police was listening to her and that, on more than one occasion, they filmed her while she took what the entrepreneurs left in her bag or jacket.
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