Five things you need to know today

Morning briefing: school waiting lists, May gets a grilling

Parents who have put down their children’s names years in advance for fee-paying secondary schools will lose their advantage under new legislation which will phase out such waiting lists within about three to five years.

It is understood Department of Education officials are planning to introduce a relatively short lead-in time for the phasing out of waiting lists under amendments to school admissions legislation.

While Irish tech firms and skilled IT workers are nervous about plans by US president Donald Trump to overhaul work-visa programmes, they could ultimately benefit from any possible immigration reform, Ireland's outgoing consul general for San Francisco has said.

The Mercantile hospitality group behind top Dublin nightspots such as Cafe en Seine and the George is lining up a €20 million investment programme, after its warring shareholder blocs formally ended a bitter legal wrangle on Monday.

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Three sets of proceedings, involving former chief executive Frank Gleeson and a US-Irish consortium that owned the majority of Mercantile, were struck out by the High Court.

Ethical guidelines based on Catholic canon law will cease to apply within the St Vincent's Healthcare Group, one of the most important hospital providers in Dublin, following the decision by the Sisters of Charity to withdraw from ownership of its hospitals after 183 years. The move to guidelines based on current laws and best clinical practice is likely to result in the hospital providing procedures, such as elective sterilisation, that were hitherto considered incompatible with its Catholic ethos.

British prime minister Theresa May faced laughter, jeers and heckling from a studio audience on Monday night as she struggled to answer questions about her record during a TV interview with Jeremy Paxman. When Mr Paxman suggested that negotiators in Brussels would view her as "a blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire", the audience applauded.

And finally...

An English family has upped sticks and moved from their home outside London to an island off Donegal after purchasing their new house on eBay. Sam McGowan and her partner Jamie Walker were living in London's commuter belt in Rainham, Kent with their two children, Logan, age 5, and Mia, age 8, and looking to broaden their horizons.