Saturday 24th December 2011
Government allocates €5.4m
to regional airports
Ireland west airport, Sligo Strandhill airport Galway airport
Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has announced that €5,392,334 will be allocated to the six regional airports to cover a portion of their operating costs incurred in 2011.
The 2011 funding will be allocated under the Regional Airports Operational Expenditure (OPEX) Subvention Scheme to the airports at Donegal, Sligo, Ireland West Airport Knock, Galway, Kerry and Waterford.
However, Minister Varadkar said that all regional airports were expected to work towards achieving “operational viability” over the coming years.
Galway and Sligo airports will only receive operational and capital funding for 2011. Ireland West Airport Knock, Kerry Airport, Waterford South East Regional Airport and Donegal Airport will be eligible for funding up to the end of 2014.
“Ongoing support during this period will depend on the availability of funds,” said a statement from the Minister.
This 2011 operational funding scheme covers regional airports for costs arising from core airport services, but only when these costs cannot be fully recovered from their own income.
Minister Varadkar also extended capital funding to four of the six regional airports until December 2014. The Minister recently received approval from the European Commission to extend the 2006-2010 Capital Expenditure Grant Scheme, and provide €17m in capital grants over the next three years.
The capital funding focuses on safety and security projects. Grant aid at 90% is provided for projects designed to meet the requirements of the Irish Aviation Authority, and of the Aviation Security Division in the Department of Transport, Tourism & Sport.
This funding covers a range of projects such as instrument landing systems and other navigational aids, fire-fighting equipment, and runway-end safety areas, which are designed to cope with aircraft that overrun or undershoot the runway. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Recyling: Christmas won’t help the national problem
With Christmas almost upon us we will soon find ourselves having to dispose of huge amounts of packaging. According to Repak, the Christmas season packaging is sufficient to fill 2.7 million green bins with every Irish home producing an average of 51kg of packaging over the festive season.
Recycling all of this packaging is a major operation. Repak estimates that it will recycle 34,000 tonnes of waste this year. That’s an awful lot of Christmas presents in any man’s language.
While Repak is to be congratulated on the major contribution it has made to recycling Ireland’s waste, its threat to prosecute people who, when they arrive at the bottle bank only to find it full and leave their empties on the ground, strikes us as being particularly ill-judged.
Irish people have embraced recycling. Most of us religiously separate our waste, clean our empty bottles and put our used packaging into the green bin.
Having made the effort, the least we are entitled to expect is that Repak sees to it that bottles and other waste are regularly collected from bottle banks. Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen.
Blaming the inevitable littering that occurs when this happens on those who have made the effort to bring their empties to the bottle bank just isn’t good enough. If householders make the effort to recycle, then Repak must ensure that it is possible for them to do so. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Sale of Quinn Healthcare secures over 330 Irish jobs
QUINN HEALTHCARE, the State’s second largest private health insurer, has changed hands for the second time in four years after senior management successfully completed a buyout backed by international reinsurance giant Swiss Re.
For more than a year, the company has been under the control of the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, following the collapse of the business empire of Northern Ireland businessman Seán Quinn.
Yesterday’s announcement brings to an end speculation that the State would move to take ownership of the company.
Mr Quinn had acquired the company from British insurer Bupa in 2007 for more than €100 million.
No financial details were provided in the announcement but with a significant recapitalisation of the company now required, it is not thought that anything close to that amount will have been paid for the company.
Confirming the takeover, the new management team assured existing customers that they would be unaffected by the changes.
The statement said “a natural transition” to a new brand would take place over the coming months.
The company said the transition would be “seamless” and it stressed that there would be no changes to the terms and conditions of policyholders’ cover.
Managing director Dónal Clancy said the deal would ensure that competition remained in the market and secure more than 330 jobs in Fermoy, Co Cork.
He said the experience of the management team and the financial clout of underwriter Elips Life, part of the highly capitalised global reinsurer Swiss Re, meant the company would be “well positioned to drive even further competition in the market and bring increased innovation and value”.
Bruce Hodkinson, a spokesman for Swiss Re, described Quinn Healthcare “as an excellent fit with our business”.
He said that with its backing, the company would be able to “provide long-term security to the policyholders and employees of the company”.
The news brings the curtain down on proposals that the State purchase the company as part of an ambitious plan to merge it with the VHI and reform the health insurance market.
Minister for Health James Reilly had suggested the State purchase Quinn Healthcare in a memo sent to Cabinet colleagues earlier this month, although it is not thought his proposals had gained much traction around the Cabinet table.
Dr Reilly said yesterday that he welcomed the sale and claimed it would bring a degree of certainty to the health insurance market and to the insurer’s customers.
He insisted, however that it remained his intention to reform the private health insurance market.
Dermott Jewell of the Consumers Association of Ireland welcomed the announcement and expressed the hope that the sale would lead to a more competitive pricing structure.
“It remains to be seen what will happen but anything that enhances competition is good news. And I think for the new entity to be successful, they will have to start offering consumers better value for money.”
Late last month, Quinn Healthcare announced it intended to increase the cost of its premiums by an average of 12 per cent from next year. While the average was put at 12 per cent, some popular policies will increase by more than 20 per cent.
The price increases, which could add more than €300 annually to the cost of an average premium for a family of four, was the second price increase announced by Quinn this year. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The Western Seaboard has Great potential
for offshore energy
“Everybody along the western seaboard
needs to get together and promote the area”
Waves on the western Atlantic ocean coast and wind harvesting are a gigantic natural resource to have.
OFF-SHORE ENERGY generation has the power to transform the western seaboard, a promoter of the industry told a recent meeting of Sligo County Council.
But Ben Wrafter, of the Atlantic Ocean Energy Alliance, warned that this was not about one county getting part of the pie.
“Everybody along the western seaboard needs to get together and promote the area because this has the potential to be the biggest industry in the world,” he told councillors during a presentation.
He pointed out that the energy from offshore generation was “an export industry based on natural resources we possess.”
“We have the best wind and wave resources in the world. It’s the biggest opportunity this country has seen in my lifetime. I am promoting a vision of an industry that can transform the west of Ireland,” he said.
According to Mr. Wrafter, the renewable energy industry off the western seaboard has an export value of up to €3.5 billion and the potential to create up to 40,000 jobs. It was a sector, said Mr. Wrafter, that had the potential to exceed the contribution of the agricultural sector to the Irish economy.
Hospital restrictions in place to curb spread of Winter Vomiting bug
A FRESH outbreak of the winter vomiting bug has resulted in the closure of 28 beds at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
There have been 10 new cases of patients with symptoms of the virus over the past 24 hours; 26 patients were currently symptomatic, hospital authorities said in a statement yesterday.
As part of its effort to contain the outbreak, Beaumont has restricted visiting hours and no more than one visitor is allowed to each patient. Children are banned from visiting the hospital until further notice.
The hospital advised visitors to keep strictly within the permitted visiting times of 2-4pm and 6-8pm.
Beaumont said the restrictions were in the interests of patients, staff and visitors and their families. It has advised people with symptoms of the virus, which include abdominal cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea, not to visit its emergency department.
The bug, which can last up to 48 hours, does not usually require medical treatment.
However, the hospital advised people with symptoms to take plenty of fluids and, if necessary, to contact their GP.
The bug is caused by a group of viruses called noroviruses and accounts for approximately 90 per cent of gastroenteritis epidemic outbreaks around the world. It is the most common cause of stomach infection in Ireland, accounting for a high proportion of annual absenteeism.
According to the Irish Health Protection Surveillance Centre, the best method of prevention is to observe good hygiene, including regular hand-washing after toilet visits, as well as before and after meal times.
The Regency Hotel in Santry, Dublin, was forced to cancel a number of Christmas events and suspend its food and beverage service after a suspected outbreak of the bug in its catering services this month.
Sick attitude to sickness in our Irish city and county councils
One working day in every 20 is lost to absenteeism in the country’s 34 county and city councils
As opposition to the Government’s new household charge intensifies, the fact that almost one working day in every 20 is lost to absenteeism in the country’s 34 county and city councils shows why we need a local property tax and the accountability it will bring with it.
Yesterday Taoiseach Enda Kenny expressed the hope that the new property tax, which will replace the household charge in 2013, would ultimately be the responsibility of the country’s local authorities.
While the introduction of a property tax on households that would be used to fund local services would merely bring Ireland into line with most other developed countries, hard-pressed householders are entitled to expect that their money isn’t wasted on inefficiency and feather-bedding.
Unfortunately, as we reveal in today’s newspaper, that is exactly what will happen unless there is a major improvement in standards at most of our local authorities.
In 2010 every local authority worker took an average of 11.5 sick days.
That adds up to 350,000 “lost” days and is the equivalent of 4.5pc, almost one in 20, of all working days.
This compares to an average of just six sick days taken by private sector workers. Are local authority workers twice as sick as their private sector colleagues?
The situation is even worse in some local authorities with workers in Kildare, Wexford and Sligo county councils taking an average of 14.5 days, almost three “working” weeks’ sick leave. By comparison workers in Wicklow and Clare councils took an average of just eight days’ sick leave, only marginally higher than the average for the private sector.
Wicklow borders both Kildare and Wexford. So why are local authority workers in Kildare and Wexford taking almost twice as many days’ sick leave as those in a neighbouring county? Is it something in the air or the water?
What the examples of Wicklow and Clare county councils almost certainly demonstrate is that, where the will exists on the part of management, it is perfectly possible to keep absenteeism among local authority workers at or close to the private sector average. If these local authorities can do it, then why not other local authorities also?
Since the abolition of domestic rates in 1978 local authorities have been largely immune from democratic accountability. A new property tax could change that. If local householders see the hard-earned money they have paid in property taxes being squandered they will quickly make their views known through the ballot box. It is only by re-establishing a direct link between the taxes we pay and the efficiency of our local authorities, that we can hope to eliminate absenteeism and other forms of waste.
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