One million Irish buildings will need energy upgrades by 2020 to meet EU targets
SERVE AGENCY CLAIMS
One million Irish buildings will need energy upgrades by 2020 to meet EU targets – the SERVE agency claims.
The Tipperary-based Sustainable Energy for the Rural Village Environment (SERVE) project is claiming that 1m Irish buildings will have to undergo energy upgrades by 2020 in order for Ireland to meet its legal obligations under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive that was approved by the European Parliament on 11 September.
The directive itself introduces mandatory measures for member states for the EU to meet its 20% energy-efficiency target. Measures in the directive include energy-efficiency schemes for utilities, renovating public buildings and energy audits for large firms.
The EU-funded SERVE project itself started in 2007 and is managed by LIT Tipperary. Partners in the project include North Tipperary County Council and the Tipperary Energy Agency.
According to SERVE, 1m Irish buildings will have to undergo energy upgrades by 2020 in order to comply with the directive and the National Energy Retrofit programme.
SERVE claims that Ireland is unlikely to meet this target because its research posits that less than 50,000 buildings will undergo energy upgrades in 2012. This, it said, was due to a reduction in Government grant levels and a lack of public investment in energy-efficient projects because of the economic downturn.
“Unless there is Government intervention, Ireland faces possible EU fines and a situation whereby Irish householders and businesses will continue to waste millions of euro each year on heating poorly insulated and energy-inefficient buildings,” said SERVE’s manager Seamus Hoyne today.
He called for the full implementation of the National Energy Retrofit programme, along with the creation of alternative financing measures and increased public investment in energy-efficient projects, to help Ireland meet its legal obligations under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive that’s due to come into force in the coming months.
SERVE carried out its research in the context of a five-year project in North Tipperary that is soon finishing up. According to those behind SERVE, it has resulted in 400 buildings receiving energy upgrades, and the development of the eco-village in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary.
NCA Ireland consumer body criticises the BOI for the removal of free banking
The Bank of Ireland has been sharply criticised for changing its current account fee structures and making it almost impossible for thousands of its customers to avoid paying bank charges.
The National Consumer Agency described the changes as “a backwards step” that would put the bank’s customers in a “lose-lose situation”.
The agency also encouraged Bank of Ireland customers to consider switching their current accounts to financial institutions that offered better value for money.
Under changes to the Bank of Ireland fee structure, from the middle of November free banking will only be available to customers who leave €3,000 permanently in their current account.
This money will not earn any interest.
Previously customers who had €3,000 going through their accounts over a three-month period and made nine online transactions also avoided charges.
The agency expressed its disappointment at the bank’s decision to change the fee structures for current account holders.
The agency’s director of public awareness and financial education, Karen O’Leary, said the charges created “a lose-lose situation, which will act as a deterrent to smart banking by encouraging people to use more cash and less electronic payment methods like debit cards”.
Ms O’Leary described the move as “a backwards step at a time when we are being encouraged to be less reliant on cash” and said that banks should charge their customers “based on how they use their account rather than their ability to maintain €3,000 in their current account. There are very few consumers who can afford to put €3,000 out of reach nowadays.”
Ms O’Leary said the bank had to be aware that many consumers would be unable to meet these new conditions and she called on it to clearly state what proportion of their customers will lose out on free banking services as a result.
The agency also urged Bank of Ireland’s customers to review their statements, assess the charges they will be subject to, think about how they use their account and consider switching accounts if they can make savings.
There was bad news also for tens of thousands of Bank of Ireland standard variable rate (SVR) mortgage holders, who are going to be hit with a 0.5 per cent rate increase in a move that will add nearly €1,000 to the annual mortgage bill of a customer with a loan of €300,000.
Customers of Bank of Ireland-owned ICS Building Society will also be hit by the rate hike.
The rate increase for new business was announced last month, and last week the bank started writing to existing customers informing them of the rate change.
The bank stood over the changes by saying current accounts were “an expensive account to supply”.
A spokeswoman for Bank of Ireland defended its decision not to issue news releases to the media about the bank charge changes or the mortgage interest rate increase and claimed that improvements to its online operation and the creation of banking apps for smartphones were costly and would have to be paid for by end users.
Irish water say meter installation is now delayed until late 2015
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said last April that meter installation would be completed by 2014. False statement?
Irish Water now say it will take up to three years to fully install water meters in Ireland’s homes.
This increases the expected water installation date late into 2015, an increase on the 2014 completion date indicated by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan last April.
John Mullins – chief executive of Bord Gais Group, which is in charge of Irish Water – said: “It looks as if it’s going to take the best part of two-and-a-half to three years to fully install meters”.
The procurement notice for the water meters would go out to European tender next month, he told RTÉ Radio this morning.
“It is not just about physically about putting in the meters – we have to commission, we have to test, we have to integrate that with a billing system, it’s not as simple as just about putting in the physical meter,” he said.
Mr Mullins said the process would begin “in a number of weeks”.
On the introduction of a flat rate charge in 2014, before the metering is completed, he said the tariff would “depend on the Commission for Energy Regulation”
However, “if you look at the charges that are in place internationally, you could be looking at anything between €100 and €400, based on OECD numbers,” he said.
Ireland’s economic growth falls flat as CSO report figures paint a difficult picture
Michael Noonan minister for finance and Michael Saunders, chief economist for Citi.
Some economists are concerned the Irish are battling into headwinds that will ultimately beat them into submission
The report from the Central Statistics Office makes for difficult reading if you are finance minister Michael Noonan.
Irish politicians are masters of spin. From the aftermath of the credit crunch to the present day, every party except Sinn Féin has told the Irish people ‘don’t worry things will turn out all right’.
The message from Dublin is relentless in its consistency and sophistication as it seeks to keep everyone from Cork to Sligo and Galway to Wicklow from losing hope in the so called Irish Tiger.
It doesn’t matter, the Treasury says, how much money has been borrowed from Brussels and the International Monetary Fund. Never mind that every bank is bust, just ignore house price falls of 50% or more. We will recover our swagger. We are not Greece, Portugal or even Spain.
From one angle the latest GDP figures for the second quarter could be used to bolster this argument. The outcome was the same as the first quarter. This flat lining contrasts with falls in other parts of the Eurozone. Exports are strong and the economy has borrowed money on the open private markets for the first time in three years.
But the report from the Central Statistics Office makes for difficult reading if you are finance minister Michael Noonan.
GDP was expected to be in positive territory but failed to meet the target after a 0.4% fall in consumer spending on the previous quarter. Spending is now 10.3% below the pre-recession peak and at a new post-crisis low, as Michael Saunders, chief UK economist at Citi, points out.
In addition, investment fell 29.4% over the same period after a 26.5% rise in the first quarter.
Noonan was jubilant when the Q1 investment figure was released. It will be interesting to see how he explains the subsequent fall.
The trouble is the figures are always volatile because, as an offshore tax haven and manufacturing base for international companies, investments can be distorted by purchases beyond what an island with a population of 5 million would normally buy. In this case, the Q1 figure was inflated by purchases of large aircraft by leasing companies sheltered in Dublin.
Stripping out the volatile quarterly figures leaves investment 66% below the pre-recession peak and at the lowest since the current set of GDP data began in 1997.
Kasia Zatorska at Lombard Street Research says low growth will push up an already high 110% debt to GDP ratio (UK = 62%)
Saunders, chief UK economist at Citi, is concerned the Irish are battling into headwinds that will ultimately defeat them. The extent of the debts they must repay and the damage to the economy are too great for any country, even a hopeful and vigorous nation like Ireland. With a debt write-off from Brussels, they’ll never make it. Things will just get worse.
For Noonan, it’s time to admit that Ireland and Greece, while very different, are economically closer than he would like to admit. That is probably why the prime minister, Enda Kenny, spent Friday with Spain’s PM Mariano Rajoy and Mario Monti of Italy.
Saunders says that while this year’s government deficit will be close to Noonan’s 8.1% of GDP target, “over the longer term, Ireland’s ability to return to a sustainable fiscal path requires both fiscal austerity and economic growth. The underperformance of the economy in Q1 and Q2 reinforces our worries that, even with strict adherence to its fiscal plans, Ireland’s deficit and debt path will exceed official forecasts in coming years.”
Donkey dies during boyfriends memorial trip around Ireland
Agnieszka Jablonska above with Mucci the donkey travelling through Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal.
“Mucci was the best-loved donkey in Ireland and it was clear that he was very close to her.”
AGNIESZKA JABLONSKA, who was walking around Ireland with a pet donkey in memory of her Irish boyfriend, mauled by two vicious farm dogs, is heartbroken following the death of the animal.
Mucci had to be put down after an accident at a donkey sanctuary on Saturday after a tragic accident
He had been walking with Agnieszka Jablonska, 30, girlfriend of Waterford-born Maurice Sullivan, 51, who was killed by the Malaysian dogs last year.
Polish-born Ms Jablonska (30) was three months into the walk in memory of her Waterford-born boyfriend Maurice Sullivan (51), when her donkey became sick outside Ballintra in Co Donegal.
She contacted Sathya Sai donkey sanctuary in Castlebaldwin, Co Sligo, which arranged transport for both Ms Jablonska and Mucci to stay there until the donkey was better.
Last Friday Mucci was better and tried to jump a gate into an adjoining field with other donkeys. He was caught in the leap and damaged his underside so badly that he had to be put down.
Sanctuary owner Sue Paling said: “Agnieszka is distraught. Mucci was the best-loved donkey in Ireland and it was clear, too, that he was very close to her. She is inconsolable.”
The 15-year-old donkey was a gift from Maurice’s family to Ms Jablonska. Exactly 18 months after his death she set out from Galway on the round-Ireland pilgrimage with the animal to raise awareness of dangerous dogs.
Agnieszka and Mr Sullivan were working on an organic farm in Penang Island in Malaysia when he was set upon by two cross-bred pit bulls on January 9th, 2011,
The mongrels mauled him to death as she watched in horror.
She expected her 3,000-km walk around Ireland with Mucci would take a couple of years at 10km a day, with long breaks during winter months.
The dogs which killed Mr Sullivan were trained to protect the Penang farm from wild boars and pythons.
They were put down seven months after the attack following an appeal to the Malaysian High Court from Sullivan’s family.
Support blue September for men’s cancer awareness campaign
RUBBERBANDITS GET THEIR PANTS OUT FOR BLUE SEPTEMBER
If you’re noticing a lot of people with blue faces these days, be tolerant — they’re doing it for a good cause — to raise awareness of cancers affecting men.
Each year approximately 3,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer here in Ireland, with 543 cases proving terminal. The Blue September nationwide campaign seeks to bring prostate, testicular, lung and bowel cancer to the forefront of the minds of Irish men. It also plans to raise funds for Irish charities such as Cancer Care West, The Mater Foundation and The Mercy Hospital Foundation.
Celebrities like Miriam O’Callaghan, Ronan Keating and The Rubberbandits have all lent their support and the people of Ireland are being encouraged to take part too and host a blue event.
You can paint your face blue for one day in September, run a blue-themed day in your office or come up with a brand new event yourself. One event you can participate in is the Blueface Blue September Big C Bike Ride which takes place this Saturday, September 29, departing from Sandymount in Dublin and incorporating a 90km cycle of the Dublin coastline.
Whether you want to host an event, take part in one or simply talk to the males in your life about the big C then log on to www.blueseptember.ie for further details.
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