Jockey Danny Gilligan free to race over festive period after ‘non-trier’ ban lifted
Jockey Danny Gilligan covered in mud after finishing the Remix Dry Mortar Novices' Handicap Hurdle on Creadan Grace at Ascot in November. Photograph: Steven Paston/PA WireRising star Danny Gilligan has received a massive Christmas bonus with the lifting of a 14-day ban. Martinez’s evidence showed that tests taken from Gunnery Sergeant the morning after the race confirmed the horse had a severe bacterial infection. The 60-day suspension from racing for Gunnery Sergeant remains in place. Gilligan is on top-weight Buddy One for his father Paul in the €100,000 Bective Handicap Hurdle, a race in which Elliott saddles four.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 06:11 UTC
Exchequer receives almost €440m in dividends from State companies in last two years
The ESB paid €213.5 million to the exchequer in 2024The exchequer has received almost €440 million in dividends from State companies over the last two years, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris has said. The Social Democrats on Friday maintained that the proceeds from such dividends from State companies could provide the basis of a fund to upgrade the national grid and boost energy security. The Tánaiste also said that in 2024 the exchequer also received dividends of €600,000 from the Port of Cork. The Minister said that up to October in 2025 Gas Networks Ireland paid dividends to the exchequer of just over €62 million. Mr Farrelly, a Social Democrats TD for Kildare, said on Friday that funding-generated dividends from State companies to the exchequer should go towards improving energy security.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 06:05 UTC
Time for social media stars to grow up
Social media stars earning tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of euro, must know they will have a tax liability. Brendan Brady represents OnlyFans content creators and other social media influencers who, he says, can earn up to €200,00 a year from the work. And remember, OnlyFans and other platforms are obliged to let Revenue know they’ve paid you in the first place. At either of those levels, any admission from the taxpayer keeps you off the defaulters’ list. If after all this you find yourself on a defaulters’ list, you have only yourself to blame.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 05:55 UTC
The new face of volunteering: What charities need in changing times
Volunteering is shifting as people seek roles that fit around modern work patterns, family pressures and the desire for more meaningful contributions. Charities say the challenge now is matching these changing expectations with roles that offer flexibility while still delivering the consistency and reliability their services depend on. “At the ISPCC, remote volunteering for our Childline service is not an option as the work requires a space that maintains confidentiality. Currently, there is demand for volunteering roles, particularly in ChildLine listening and in its digital support services, says Donlon Fox. Can you trust the organisation to ensure your time and energy will support those most in need?”
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 05:15 UTC
Trump, Infantino and the YMCA: World Cup draw at once unwatchable and mesmerising
US president Donald Trump delivers his speech after receiving the FIFA Peace Prize from Italian Fifa president Gianni Infantino. Infantino had, scattered around the darkened auditorium, some of the most glittering names in World Cup lore as his audience. US president Donald Trump, Mexico president Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney pose for a selfie with Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA. Even Trump was becoming tired of his host after watching Carney draw Canada and Sheinbaum draw Mexico with the first two countries pulled. I was pretty young at that point.”That was in 1975, a year after the World Cup hosted by West Germany.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 04:13 UTC
‘It’s lots of lies, just so people don’t run away’: One Ukrainian conscript’s journey towards war
Three kilometres an hour was all it took to tip Yan from one Ukrainian life into another. So it’s been disappointment after disappointment; lots of lies, just so people don’t run away from each stage of the process. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/Getty ImagesLike many Ukrainians, Yan held an officer’s rank from doing basic military training at university, but he had no army experience and worked in event management and video editing before the war. “I was trying to get onto a drone course or straight into the brigade to which we’d been supplying drones. Yan took the last option after failing to secure deployment to his requested brigade after completing training last month.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 03:58 UTC
Garda national security team investigating rogue drones during Zelenskiy visit
The Garda Special Detective Unit (SDU), which is responsible for investigating threats to national security, is investigating the sighting of a group of drones near the flight path of Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s aircraft as he arrived for a State visit to Ireland on Monday night. The SDU is primarily tasked with investigating terrorism and threats to the State and has in the past been involved in investigations into suspected Russian espionage and other forms of hybrid warfare. The move comes as the French military confirmed its soldiers opened fire on five suspected drones spotted over a nuclear submarine base on Thursday night. The drones appeared near the coast by Howth around the time Mr Zelenskiy’s aircraft was due to pass. The Garda investigation will focus on the drones’ suspected flight path in an effort to discover their origin.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 03:05 UTC
German parliament passes contested pensions vote as Merz sees off rebellion
The Merz coalition scraped together a majority of 318 Bundestag MPs in favour of the contested pensions Bill. Photograph: John MacDougall/ AFP via Getty ImagesGerman chancellor Friedrich Merz saw off a parliamentary rebellion on Friday and narrowly held his coalition together in a controversial pensions vote, after two months of bad-tempered debate. [ German vote exposes Merz weakness and some CDU members’ far-right ambitionsOpens in new window ]It instructed its MPs to abstain to lower the majority required to pass the pensions Bill. Not all younger CDU MPs heeded that warning. In addition to its multi-billion Bill, younger CDU politicians said the pension Bill pre-empted pension reform recommendations from a state commission, due next year.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 02:24 UTC
Buoyed by All Black arrival, Leinster must view Harlequins clash as chance to hit stride
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen calls on nine of the starting team from last season's 62-0 victory against Harlequins. When it comes to frontliners, Harlequins travel to Dublin for this Champions Cup Group A clash in an emaciated state. But that’s week on week, there’s no point looking too far ahead or looking at the past now. Leinster: J O’Brien; T O’Brien, G Ringrose, C Frawley, J Larmour; S Prendergast, J Gibson-Park; P McCarthy, D Sheehan, T Clarkson; RG Snyman, J McCarthy; J Conan, J van der Flier, C Doris (capt). Replacements: G Turner, W Hobson, P Delgado, J Launchbury, L Schmid, L Friday, J Benson, B Bradley.
Source:The Irish Times
December 06, 2025 02:06 UTC
Frank Gehry, legendary Canadian-American architect, dies aged 96
Architect Frank Gehry was one of the first architects to embrace the potential of computer design. He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s, where he attended the University of Southern California, studying ceramics, after a brief stint in the US army. Frank Gehry poses with miniatures of his designs in Los Angeles in 1989. Photograph: Bonnie Schiffman/ Getty Images“I love working,” he told the Guardian shortly after his 90th birthday. “I love working things out.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 23:52 UTC
Irish UN peacekeepers come under ‘small arms fire’ in south Lebanon
Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieut Gen Rossa Mulcahy pictured earlier this year visiting Irish troops at mission position 6-52 in southern Lebanon. Photograph: Conor Gallagher/ The Irish TimesIrish peacekeepers in Lebanon escaped injury when they came under small arms fire from militants on Thursday. A group of Defence Forces soldiers were on patrol in armoured utility vehicles (AUVs) when they were approached by six men on three mopeds. [ New Defence Forces chief: ‘Ireland has to be able to provide a defence to repel any initial invasion’Opens in new window ]“Attacks on peacekeepers are unacceptable and serious violations of Resolution 1701,” it said. She commended the Irish troops involved “for their professionalism in extremely challenging circumstances”.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 21:51 UTC
Eurovision Israel boycott hits right note, but renaming Herzog Park feels tone deaf
Eden Golan from Israel performs on stage during The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 Grand Final in Malmo, Sweden. Photograph: Martin Sylvest Andersen/Getty ImagesJack Horgan-Jones and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:Ireland, along with Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands, will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in protest of Israel’s participation. Far more contentious was the proposal to rename Rathgar’s Herzog Park in south Dublin. Named in honour of Belfast-born Chaim Herzog, Israel’s president from 1983 to 1993, who spent his early childhood in Dublin. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in Ireland this week, but it was drones more than diplomatic ties that made the headlines.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 21:34 UTC
The Irish Times view on Ireland’s Eurovision withdrawal: the contest has always been political
Austrian singer Johannes Pietsch, known as JJ representing Austria with the song "Wasted Love" celebrates with the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest trophy after winning the grand final at the St. Jakobshalle arena in Basel on May 18, 2025. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)For all its silliness and ephemerality, the Eurovision Song Contest remains one of the few truly pan-European mass-cultural events. So it is not an inconsequential matter when countries are either barred from the contest or withdraw from it for political reasons. While viewers may think of it as a competition between nations, the contest is actually between the respective national broadcasters. The history of Eurovision is littered with national rivalries or tensions affecting the show and, at times, the outcome.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 21:30 UTC
Judge suspends sentence of ‘money mule’ whose bank account was used to move funds from frauds
Ryan Odusanya (20) of Bremore Pastures Drive, Balbriggan, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to holding €20,000 in criminal proceeds in his bank account. Photograph: Matt KavanaghA Dublin man who allowed his bank account to be used to hold more than €20,000 in funds stolen in an online banking scam has been given a 20-month suspended sentence. Judge Martin Nolan imposed the suspended prison sentence on Ryan Odusanya (20) of Bremore Pastures Drive, Balbriggan, Dublin, who pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to holding €20,000 in criminal proceeds in his bank account on September 5th, 2023. The man spoke to his wife the following day and they agreed to forward money from their AIB bank account to the account details provided in the text. At the hearing on Tuesday, Judge Nolan said that these type of money laundering cases were coming before the court “in droves”.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 21:20 UTC
The Irish Times view on Ireland’s infrastructure: an omnishambles blighting lives
(Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times)Ireland’s infrastructure deficit is not just an issue related to business and competitiveness. In Ireland’s infrastructural omnishambles, a lack of housing near city centres forces many people to live a long way from where they work. Poor water and energy infrastructure stymie attempts to build houses to help to address all this. But the slashing of State investment thereafter is a key reason why Ireland now faces so many pressing infrastructure problems, including a housing crisis. The plan to accelerate the provision of infrastructure published this week is a welcome realisation of the extent of these interconnected issues.
Source:The Irish Times
December 05, 2025 20:52 UTC