Your top stories on Friday: Kyran Durnin (8) taken out of school two years ago; borrowing costs set to fall as interest rates cut

Missing Drogheda boy Kyran Durnin taken out of school two years ago

Kyran Durnin – the eight-year-old child now believed to have been killed up to two years ago – was taken out of school in 2022, with officials assuming he had moved to a school in Northern Ireland.

Investigators believe this is how authorities failed to notice the child was missing for so long. “It seems he may have fallen through the cracks,” said a source. Kyran was officially reported missing from his home in Drogheda, Co Louth, in late August, alongside his mother, Dayla Durnin (24).

News in Ireland

Rory Gallagher’s Stratocaster to be donated to National Museum after selling for more than €1m at auction: Irish rock and blues musician Rory Gallagher’s signature Fender Stratocaster guitar will be donated to the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) after it was sold for £700,000 (approximately €841,000) at a London auction on Thursday. A “premium” placed on the item brought the total to £889,400 (approximately €1,069,000).
New public bin attachments aim to save returnable bottles and cans: A new public bin receptacle, designed to deter people from rummaging in bins to retrieve bottles and cans for the Deposit Return Scheme, is being trialled across Dublin city centre.
A Dún Laoghaire law firm, its loan scheme, and the client whose pension money went ‘missing’: Law firm Thomas Montgomery & Sons operated out of a nondescript office on Upper George’s Street in Dún Laoghaire, where one of the services it provided was the loaning out of money from a client’s pension scheme to borrowers, who paid interest on the loans to the benefit of the client’s pension.
‘Last giveaway budget stinks of Fianna Fáil’: Farmers share political views as election nears: Farmers tend to be astute amateur meteorologists, but also keen readers of political headwinds. On a grey morning in Bandon Mart, Co Cork most were next-to-certain that the general election will be called in the coming weeks; there was less agreement as to whether that is a wise move.
ECB interest rates: Borrowers set to save more than €2,000 as series of new cuts expected: The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to reduce interest rates to 2 per cent or less before the summer, with the cumulative impact of multiple cuts seeing the annual cost of home loans for almost 200,000 borrowers fall by over €2,000, according to financial analysts.
Weather forecast: Patchy rain and drizzle will extend across the country this morning. Heavier rain will move into western areas by late morning before pushing eastwards over the country this afternoon. The rain will clear from Atlantic coastal counties by evening. Highest temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees. There is the continuing possibility of coastal flooding due to very high tides. Tonight will see any lingering rain in the east quickly clear early on Friday night. It will then be a generally dry night with clear spells and just a few showers. Lowest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees in moderate southwest breezes, according to Met Éireann.
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Restaurants

Restaurants battle for survival: ‘The business has changed, Fridays and Mondays are gone’: The closure of two high-profile restaurants in Dublin this week signals a deepening crisis in Ireland’s hospitality industry. Shanahan’s on The Green, a long-standing institution on St Stephen’s Green, and Dillinger’s in Ranelagh are the latest casualties of a sector in free fall.

Opinion

Music

Liam Payne’s death is a tragic end to the story of five cheeky boys who charmed millions: Of all the former members of One Direction, Liam Payne best embodied the boy-next-door quality so crucial to their success. Payne – who died aged 31 following a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires – personified the group’s roguish, slightly chaotic charm.

Business

Hybrid working is popular with emoployees but could be costly in the long run: Two big outcomes for the world of work have resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic – the shift towards working from home and, in Ireland at least, a rise in labour force participation.
The Irish borrowers trapped in never-never land of arrears: There are very few markets in the world which have to keep statistics for loans that are more than 10 years in arrears but Ireland does and they number close to 5,000 out of a total close to 46,000 in the total number in arrears on residential properties.