What the papers say: Saturday's front pages

Eva Osborne

Here are the stories making headlines this Saturday.

The Irish Times leads with the Department of Communications warning the Government that a worst-case scenario involving attacks on subsea cables across a number of locations could result in “the entire island of Ireland disconnected from the global internet".

Separately, the ESB said critical undersea cables and pipelines were “susceptible to both accidental damage and deliberate sabotage that could render Ireland stranded from an energy or communications perspective”.

The transport minister said he is “acutely aware” of concerns around public transport in Cork City, the Irish Examiner reports, after figures showed that there were more than 2,700 complaints in just 12 months.

Well before he went viral for ask­ing bemused RTÉ execs “Who are ye loyal to?”, Tip­per­ary TD Mat­tie McGrath became a global inter­net won­der for his Dáil tan­gent on dirty laun­dry, according to the Irish Independent.

“If the clothes were hanging out on the line on a good sum­mer’s day like today, they’d be fairly well stained,” he said in a mangled ana­logy dur­ing a debate on pro­posed plan­ning laws.

The Irish Daily Mirror leads with a man wanted by police in the North for the murder of gang­ster Rob­bie Lawlor appearing in court yester­day.

Jonathan Gill, 44, of Malahide Road in Clontarf, is facing an extra­di­tion hear­ing after being arres­ted on foot of a war­rant.

‘Significant crime fig­ure’ Jonathan Gill planned the murder of Rob­bie Lawlor over encryp­ted text mes­sages, police allege.

Police in the North allege texts sent by Gill include one on how his “mate” will “pop out a the boot an pop [sic]” Lawlor, the Irish Daily Star reports.

A €225 million world­class sports and con­cert arena based on the fam­ous Madison Square Garden in New York is on the cards for Dub­lin – if the Gov­ern­ment stumps up €66 mil­lion towards it, according to the Irish Daily Mail.

The Herald also leads with the arrest of Jonathan Gill.

Justice Barry O’Don­nell remanded him in cus­tody for an extra­di­tion hear­ing later this month. The arrest war­rant for Gill alleges he was “instru­mental in all aspects” of the murder of Robbie Lawlor.