1.8m Irish Household’s have less than €100 left each month after bills are paid?

‘A reality of Ireland's austerity’

  

Four out of 10 adults have borrowed to pay a household bill in the last year, with the most desperate 10% using a moneylender.

More than 1.8 million people are struggling to survive on €100 or less a month after bills are paid, a study showed.

Four out of 10 adults have borrowed to pay a household bill in the last year, with the most desperate 10pc using a moneylender, it revealed.

The survey, by the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU), also found half of all bank account holders do not know what bank charges they pay on accounts.

Kieron Brennan, ILCU chief executive, warned it has never been more important for people to get in the practice of managing their money tightly.

“The issue of personal debt is something we are hearing more and more about and the issue is a growing concern, particularly for those who are relying on their credit card to make ends meet every month,” he said.

“Even more concerning is that of those who are borrowing each month to meet payments on their household bills, 10pc are turning to moneylenders.

“The ILCU recently called on the Government to put a legal cap on the interest rates charged by moneylenders in Ireland. No such cap currently exists but in practice, the ceiling is just below 190pc APR.

“With the level of personal indebtedness and financial exclusion in Ireland, there is a real danger of compounding the problem by allowing legal moneylenders to charge excessive rates.”

The “What’s Left” Tracker survey quizzed 1,000 adults in June.

It calculated 1.82 million adults across Ireland have less than €25 left each week to spend after bills – a jump of 200,000 people in the last year.

The ILCU said Irish disposable income has dropped in the past three months, with 69pc having less than 12 months ago.

It also found Irish consumers owe an average €1,100 euro on their credit card, with a quarter using a credit card to make ends meet each month.

To help customers in debt, the Credit Union has launched www.fixyourfinances.ie, the smart phone budgeting tool MYBUDGETBUDDY, and has tips and a budget planner to download on www.creditunion.ie/whatweoffer.

Its tracker study revealed consumer sentiment has weakened among those with less than 5pc of their income left at the end of the month.

Almost nine out of 10 vulnerable people worry about how they will cope if unforeseen expenses arise and over their ability to cope financially if further changes are made to social welfare or income tax in the next budget.

Elsewhere mortgage and rent continue to be the most expensive bills for the majority of Irish adults (72pc), followed by groceries (57pc), utility bills (54pc), and transport and car-related costs (27pc). Almost half of all consumers struggle to pay all of their bills on time.

And child care comes in as the greatest work-related expense at €520 euro per month, this is followed by car fuel (€145), daily lunches (€110) and public transport (€77).

Mr Brennan said many people may not be in a position to pay off their credit card bills in full each month and will be subject to high interest rates.

“Worryingly in this tracker only 54pc know what interest rate is charged on their credit card,” he added.

“We would urge people to take some time to understand their bank charges and credit card interest rates and certainly look at their personal and household budgets to ensure that these costs are covered.”

Female entrepreneurs in Ireland to have €250,000 fund available for business start-ups

Richard Bruton said the fund was promised under the Action Plan for Jobs 2012.

 

Sarah Doyle, CEO, Kinesense, Lulu O’Sullivan, CEO, GiftsDirect.com, Julie Sinnamon, executive director, Enterprise Ireland and Noreen Hynes, managing director, Polymer Recovery

The Government has announced a fund of €250,000 to aid start-ups by female entrepreneurs. Innovation Minister Richard Bruton, made the announcement which aims to stimulate high potential

Enterprise Ireland say the scheme is intended to boost the number of innovative, export-oriented business being led and set up by female entrepreneurs.

The fund will be open for applications from Tuesday July  17 until September 4 2012.

The Government says that this is one of the measures under the Action Plan for Jobs 2012.

“In Ireland we currently have a relatively low level of female entrepreneurs” the Minister said, “so by targeting a substantial increase in that number we can make a real difference to the overall level of entrepreneurial activity in Ireland.”

Irish scientists to benefit from €8bn EU Fund now available for scientific research

     

€8.1 billion has been made available to researchers with good ideas. It represents the largest single block of EU funding yet released for scientific research.

Details of the investment were announced yesterday by the Irish commissioner for research Máire Geoghegan-Quinn above right picture. It will be used in support of a number of research areas, including sustainable “smart” cities, the marine, digital communications and the management of fresh water.

Her announcement comes on the eve of the Euro Science Open Forum 2012 (Esof), Europe’s largest research meeting, which takes place this week in Dublin.

The commissioner will deliver a keynote address on Friday and participate in events which run through Sunday.

Researchers across a range of disciplines are invited to apply for support from the €8.1 billion fund, which comes via the commission’s €55 billion research budget Framework Programme 7. This is the final call for research proposals to be issued under FP7. It finishes at the end of 2013, to be replaced by an even larger programme, Horizon 2020, worth €80 billion.

Irish scientists have done very well from the FP7 fund, winning €384 million in support of research. Irish small to medium-sized enterprises have also done well, currently ranked first in the EU for per capita participation.

Minister of State for research Seán Sherlock yesterday welcomed the fresh funding and also Ireland’s success in accessing FP7 support. Irish business lobby Ibec also welcomed the announcement. There were “significant opportunities” for Irish companies seeking to access this latest fund, said Aidan Sweeney, Ibec innovation executive.

The director general of Science Foundation Ireland, Dr Mark Ferguson, said: “I expect the research community in Ireland to compete strongly for and avail of this new source of funding leveraging from the investment received through Science Foundation Ireland.”

See a full Esof programme at esof2012.organd learn about the many public events taking place at dublinscience.ie

Taking iron tablets ‘can reduce tiredness by 50 per cent’

Women are three times more likely to report fatigue than men

      

Iron tablets can reduce tiredness by as much as 50 per cent, according to researchers  – even if you’re not anaemic.

Taking supplements for 12 weeks reduced fatigue by almost a half in women who had low levels but were not deficient.

Fatigue is commonly reported by patients visiting their GP with nearly a third complaining of the symptom at appointments.

Scientists say women are three times more likely than men to report feelings of fatigue. 

A randomised controlled trial involving 198 menstruating women between the ages of 18 and 50 years was conducted, with the women all iron deficient, non anaemic, with unexplained fatigue and ferritin levels below 50g/L. Ferritin is a protein that stores iron and controls its release into the body.

The trial was double-blinded, so neither the participants or the health care providers knew which group was receiving the supplement or placebo.

Results showed iron supplementation for 12 weeks decreased fatigue by almost 50 per cent, with a significant difference of 19 per cent compared with the placebo.

Positive effects on haemoglobin, ferritin and other blood levels were clear just six weeks after iron supplementation, the Canadian Medical Association Journal study also showed.

The researchers point out iron did not affect anxiety or depression scores or quality of life indicators, such as physical and psychological performance. 

Dr Bernard Favrat, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, said: ‘We found that iron supplementation for 12 weeks decreased fatigue by almost 50 per cent from baseline, a significant difference of 19 per cent compared with placebo, in menstruating iron-deficient nonanaemic women with unexplained fatigue and ferritin levels below 50g/L.

‘Iron deficiency may be an under-recognised cause of fatigue in women of child-bearing age. 

‘If fatigue is not due to secondary causes, the identification of iron deficiency as a potential cause may prevent inappropriate attribution of symptoms to emotional causes or life stressors, thereby reducing the unnecessary use of health care resources, including inappropriate pharmacologic treatments.

RBS and NatWest compensation package set out for customers

‘Ulster Bank compo on the way’

  

Chief executive Stephen Hester says customers from other banks can claim ‘knock-on’ costs. The crisis at RBS subsidiary Ulster Bank is entering its fourth week.

RBS and NatWest has set out a compensation deal for customers who suffered from the service meltdown last month as chief executive Stephen Hester admitted that the crisis at subsidiary Ulster Bank is entering its fourth week.

Hester also pledged that customers from other banks will be repaid for ‘knock-on’ costs after they were left out of pocket by an IT failure that sent 20m transactions awry.

The bank will pay for affected individuals to receive a free credit report from agency Experian to check if they have suffered any default notices. No one will be expected to pay bank charges caused by the processing failure on 19 June, and customers will be reimbursed for fees they may have incurred, if, for example, their mortgage payments bounced. “As well as automatically refunding unfair fees or charges, we will credit any interest they were wrongly charged or should have earned,” he said.

In an apology posted on website moneysavingexpert.com, Hester said: “The next step is to put things right for people who faced knock-on costs during the systems delay. Those who incurred extra costs will be reimbursed, whether they are our customers or not.”

But Hester admitted that Ulster Bank, in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, is now entering its fourth week of disarray. It is understood that around 600,000 customers were not able to access their accounts properly, with many still waiting for credits to appear. “This week should be the final week of residual systems clean-up for these customers. We will then begin the work of putting things right for these customers too,” promised Hester.

But despite Hester’s compensation pledge, the Financial Ombudsman Service is anticipating a wave of disputed claims. FOS spokesman David Cresswell: “For the past few weeks we’ve been hearing from people directly affected in many ways by not being able to access their bank account.

“The wide range of difficulties that people tell us they’re experiencing means it’s more important than ever to keep track of everything that has happened – and to keep a record of everything with as much evidence as you can. This will make it much easier when you come to ask the bank to sort things out.”