Newsround: what Monday's papers say

The top stories in Monday's newspapers:

THE IRISH TIMES

- The paper leads with the warning from EU Commissioner Phil Hogan that Ireland's strategic interests in the Brexit negotiations could be seriously damaged by an excessive focus on the relationship with the UK.

- It also reports that more than 70 per cent of students do not get beyond their first year of college in some higher education courses as some senior academics question whether many students who are unsuited to higher education are being shoehorned into college.

- The ambitious "quango cull" of state agencies promised by Fine Gael and Labour in the run-up to the 2011 general election has amounted to a net reduction of no more than 17 bodies and practically no savings.

- On its Home News pages, the paper reports that a strong view in favour of repealing or amending the Eighth Amendment to the constitution began to emerge at the Citizens' Assembly yesterday after two days of discussion of the article which bans abortion in the state in all but very limited circumstances.

FINANCIAL TIMES

- The paper reports that a deep freeze across Europe, as blizzards and dangerously low temperatures cloaked the continent, has led to many deaths with migrants suffering from hypothermia as they slept rough across southern Europe.

- It also reports that UK taxpayers are facing a £24 billion bill for decommissioning oil and gas fields in the North Sea, threatening to wipe out remaining tax revenues from an industry that has been among the Treasury's most reliable cash cows for decades.

- 'Policing the digital cartels' is the headline on the FT's Big Read, which takes the online economy as its subject, reporting that regulators face the new challenge of preventing collusion among machines.

- In its Companies & Markets section, the paper reports on the growth of the market for cyber insurance which is forecast to grow by $20 billion by 2025 as insurers turn to startups to help them predict the likelihood of large global companies all falling victim to a widespread cyber attack at the same time.

IRISH INDEPENDENT

- The paper also turns to EU Commissioner Phil Hogan for its lead, reporting his comments that "Brexit is a mess and is only getting messier". He also signalled that the future of the peace process was central to Ireland's case in the Brexit negotiations.

- ASTI members face a loss of up to €30,000 each if they reject the latest proposals to settle their long-running row over pay and junior cycle reform, the paper says, reporting that the pay packets of secondary school teachers have already been docked a total of €5 to €6 million arising from three days of industrial action in October and November.

- First-time buyers will drive Ireland's property market in 2017 with the highest city price increases of 10 per cent predicted for Galway and Limerick while estate agents expect a six per cent rise nationally, a survey carried out for the newspaper showed.

- On its business pages, the paper reports that Japanese financial services firms have expressed "a lot of interest" in Ireland in the wake of the Brexit vote, according to the head of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan.

IRISH EXAMINER

- A new planning application for a solar farm, typically 30 acres of solar panels, is being lodged every two-and-a-half days but the government has not put in place guidance to oversee their development, prompting communities to hit back, the paper's lead story says.

- It also reports that there is a lack of a treatment framework in Ireland to help transgender youth despite a nine-fold rise in the number of Irish children seeking medical help over gender identity, adding to the children's distress.

- A fifth of workers in a new survey said their salary was not covering their rent although it also found that a large percentage of employers expect to pay bonuses to staff this year while 70 per cent of employees said they expected their salary to increase in 2017.

- The paper also report that Gerry Adams had made clear that Sinn Féin will not back down from its demand for Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster to stand aside to allow a probe into her role in a botched green energy scheme.