Irish Government
Proposing to increase penalty points for motoring offences
An increase in penalty points for speeding and using a mobile phone while driving are proposed in a report by the Department of Transport published yesterday.
Penalty points for using a mobile phone while driving are proposed to go from two to four, while points for speeding are suggested to go from two to three.
The penalties for failing to obey traffic lights and dangerous overtaking are proposed to rise from two to three.
Higher penalty points are also suggested for failure to comply with front seatbelt requirements, which are proposed to rise from two to six.
The report, published by Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, also recommends the introduction of additional offences including two penalty points for using a motorbike without a helmet.
It proposes new powers too for Gardaí to impound and sell uninsured cars, in addition to reducing the severity of some offences. It also suggests vehicles without an NCT certificate will be subjected to three penalty points instead of five and a compulsory court appearance.
Any changes will be incorporated into the Road Traffic Bill 2012, which is due for publication later this year.
The report compares Ireland with 10 other jurisdictions including Austria, England and Australia.
It also refers to introducing mutual recognition of penalty points between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Under proposals in the report, driving or attempting to drive while unfit through drugs could incur a penalty of 10 points.
According to a survey by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) 22 per cent of 17- to 24-year-olds have been passengers in cars driven by someone under the influence of drugs. RSA chief executive Noel Brett welcomed the proposals, saying that speed, drug driving and not wearing seatbelts remain major concerns.
Mr Brett also said the increasing number of fatal road collisions was “very, very concerning,” and it appeared drivers were “letting their guard down”.
Speaking at the publication of four new Learning to Drive manuals, he said while the number of fatalities on the roads this year (75) was almost identical to this time last year (76), the number of actual collisions was up.
There had been 75 deaths in 73 collisions so far this year, compared with 76 deaths and 68 collisions in the same period last year.
Hedge funds will provide opportunities for Ireland with future funding needs
Conor O’Mara, managing director and head of Asian TMT sales at the investment bank Jefferies Inc in Hong Kong
China’s availability and emergence as both a source and a destination for global hedge fund money provides an opportunity for Ireland, one of the most important offshore centres for the worldwide funds industry. However, Ireland will have to fight rivals such as Luxembourg to win the business.
This was the message from Conor O’Mara, managing director and head of Asian TMT sales at the investment bank Jefferies Inc in Hong Kong.
O’Mara is also chairman of the Irish Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong and local representative for the Irish Funds Industry Association there.
“We need local representatives here,” said O’Mara, who is a regular visitor to the Chinese capital. “The Chinese fund managers will be the next big managers. The next Harvest and Founder, the next Fidelity, will be Chinese funds. Our competition is from places like Luxembourg. They have a paid presence in Hong Kong and are working away.
“The key is for us to be card-carrying here, which is why I represent the IFIA in Hong Kong. And we’re going to do the same thing in Beijing.”
The Irish funds industry has grown every year over the past 23, with the exception of a slight fall in 2008.
As well as a leading hedge fund centre, it is now the fastest-growing undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (Ucits), or retail, funds centre in the world – up 500 per cent in the past 11 years.
Ireland attracted twice as much in new Ucits money as all other European domiciles put together in 2011 – and five times more in the last quarter, and most faced significant outflows.
O’Mara sees a great role for Irish public-private partnerships when it comes to dealing with industries in Asia in which Irish people are working, whether it is the funds or heavy industry.
Another reason O’Mara was in town was to discuss ways of bringing the Chamber of Commerce network within the greater China area closer together.
The chamber in Hong Kong is a busy one, and Macau recently established a chamber, but the question of running them is a difficult issue on the mainland as there are considerable regulatory hurdles.
The government frowns upon representative groups other than those sanctioned by the Communist Party.
The US and the European Union have their own chambers, but smaller countries encounter a lot of challenges when trying to start organisations.
However, there are efforts afoot to regularise the various Irish networks in China, which will provide an opportunity for the organisations to co-operate more.
Expert Dr. Jack Lambert calls for routine HIV tests in Ireland to avoid late diagnosis
One of the State’s leading experts on HIV/Aids has said testing for the condition should be a matter of routine.
Figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre showed two-thirds of the 320 people who were diagnosed with HIV last year presented late with the illness.
Mater hospital infectious disease consultant Dr Jack Lambert said 90 per cent of these people had no way of knowing they had the disease as symptoms had not manifested themselves to a sufficient extent.
Symptoms which do manifest themselves are large-scale infections and weight loss.
Dr Lambert said a HIV test should be as routine as a cholesterol test, but that many people were reluctant to have it done because of the stigma involved and because of their fear of the disease.
He said public clinics carry out such tests free and GPs will perform them for the cost of a visit, and the results are returned in a week.
Dr Lambert stressed HIV/Aids was no longer the death sentence it once was. There are 35 anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease.
He said those persons diagnosed early have the same average life expectancy as the rest of the population.
However, those who present late can often have seriously compromised their immune system, and their condition becomes a chronic illness.
Figures show the “CD4 count” which is used to measure the number of white blood cells in those affected showed 214 of the 320 diagnosed presented with late-stage infection, while 32.7 per cent of the 214 were severely immune-compromised.
The proportion of those diagnosed late was highest among intravenous drug users and heterosexual males.
To mark Irish Aids Day 2012 on Friday, Open Heart House (Dublin), the Sexual Health Centre (Cork), Aids West (Galway) and Dublin Aids Alliance (Dublin) and the Red Ribbon Project (Limerick) will launch the Don’t Guess, Get Tested! campaign which aims to raise awareness of the alarming number of late presenters with HIV in Ireland and to encourage early HIV testing, with the aim of reducing the number of late presenters of HIV in 2012.
1,000m tornado in Co Donegal over Sliabh Sneacht mountain
The twister as it travels over Sliabh Sneacht heading south towards the Illies.
A tornado measuring more than 1,000m in height was recorded yesterday in Co Donegal.
Lecturer John O’Raw and his daughter Niamh were in their garden at Umricam near Buncrana when they spotted the tornado travelling over Sliabh Sneacht mountain at 11.30am.
“The twister was about two kilometres away from us and it was heading south,” Mr O’Raw said. “Sliabh Sneacht is over 600m in height, so the tornado must have been going up to over 1,000m.”
Mr O’Raw, who teaches computer science at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, was among a party who videoed orca whales off the coast of Co Donegal last week.
He is also a volunteer with the Seismology in Schools project that records earthquakes, including a sizeable one off Co Mayo last week.
“We’ve had a pretty exciting time of late. We had a transit of Venus on the same day as we got the footage of the killer whales.
“We then had an earthquake off Mayo; there was another tornado recorded near Inch island last week, and now this tornado. It is a very interesting time for local scientists.”
Watch a video at: youtu.be/hNWm0Ni_9HY
Sales growth of 0.4% at Tesco Ireland for first time since 2010
Tesco Ireland has achieved its first quarter of like-for-like sales growth since 2010, the retailer’s UK parent company has said.
Like-for-like sales, which exclude the contribution of stores open for less than a year, grew 0.4 per cent in the 13 weeks to May 26th, the first quarter in Tesco’s fiscal year. This compares to a decline of 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter.
Tesco said its performance in the Republic was “improved”, but “uncertainty over the future of the euro zone and the potential impact of any further disruption had resulted in very low consumer confidence” in Europe.
“Our general merchandise, clothing and electrical performance reflects this.”
Because of its greater emphasis on non-food items, Tesco is more exposed than most supermarket chains to dips in consumers’ discretionary spend.
Tesco, the world’s third-biggest retailer, reported a drop in underlying first-quarter British sales yesterday, as a recovery plan following its shock profit warning in January struggled to gain traction.
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