Irish Government Cabinet meeting devises new measures to deal with jobs crisis
Before Christmas, ministers were asked to come up with proposals from their departments on how to improve the climate for job creation
A Government spokesman has said a number of additional measures to help job creation were agreed at this afternoon’s special Cabinet meeting on jobs.
The measures will be announced in the Action Plan for Jobs for 2013, which is to be published next month.
The spokesman said that there had been a wide-ranging discussion on job creation.
Memoranda were brought by ministers on progress within their departments and new measures were put forward that might contribute towards increasing employment.
He said a large proportion of the measures in the Action Plan for Jobs for 2012 has been achieved.
The Taoiseach described unemployment as the “deepest hurt” caused by the economic crisis when addressing the European parliament in Strasbourg yesterday.
Proposals are expected to include initiatives from local government, NAMA, the National Pension Reserve Fund, and the wider financial sector.
Enda Kenny said the levels of unemployment across the EU and in Ireland were unacceptable.
Speaking at the announcement of 78 new jobs at Tayto Park and Largo Foods, Mr Kenny said the priority is to grow the economy.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said bringing ministers together to discuss job creation might be useful, but he questioned why it had taken the Government nearly two years to do it.
He said the plan sounded like an idea dreamed up during a quiet week to get some positive media coverge.
Fianna Fáil has dismissed this afternoon’s special Cabinet meeting as “a scam” that would produce press releases, but not a single extra job.
Fianna Fáil’s Dara Calleary said his party had submitted parliamentary questions to each minister in recent weeks to find out what their department had done to comply with the Action Plan on Jobs.
Most of the answers were vague, he said, but the most telling was from Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who said it was a matter for Minister Richard Bruton.
However, Government sources insist the initiative is a real one, comparing it to the Taoiseach’s earlier move to reinvigorate the Croke Park Agreement, which has led to the negotiations that are currently under way with unions.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin insisted that job creation is the Government’s “top priority”, and claimed they have had some success.
Mr Howlin was responding to Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, who pointed to today’s survey by the Irish League of Credit Unions showing over 1.5 million people only had €50 per month after essential bills are paid.
She asked how they could pay the new Property Tax out of €12.50 per week, saying it was a “tax too far”.
Mr Howlin said the biggest asset most people had was their home, and in most jurisdictions it was taxed.
He said the Government recognised the pressure people were under, but there was no point decrying the economic situation, and the Government was offering a “solution”.
Independent TD John Halligan urged the Government to do more to help those in poverty and without jobs. He said many thousands of people spent Christmas with no heating, no TV service and no proper food.
Mr Howlin said the Government had made progress. He said: “We have a way to go, there is no doubt about that, but we have a strategy.
National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) Ireland sells €500m of Treasury Bills by auction today
National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) today completed an auction of Irish Treasury Bills, selling the target amount of €500m.
Total bids received amounted to €1.894bn which was 3.8 times the amount on offer. The Treasury Bills, which have a maturity of three months, were sold at an annualised yield of 0.20%.
Owen Callan, senior fixed income strategist at Danske Bank Markets said: “Following on from last week’s very successful bond issuance, today’s T-bill auction underscores the continued improvement in sentiment towards, and demand for, Irish Government securities from international investors.
The very low yield today should now provide the NTMA with a platform to increase the scale and tenor of the T-Bill programme over the coming months. At their planned auctions in February or March, they may look to issue 6-month T-bills and also to increase the outstanding size of the programme, from its current €1.5bn to up above €2bn.
International investors are increasingly looking towards positive-yielding periphery paper like Ireland’s. To that end, we expect outstanding Irish T-bills to rise to at least €5bn by the end of the year, supplying the Irish Government with a large source of cheap, short term financing.”
IDA Ireland tells Class of leaving students 2013 their best hopes lie in the ICT industry
IDA Ireland tells Class of 2013 students their best hopes lie in ICT industry
IDA Ireland has told Leaving Cert students about to file their CAO applications that the best job opportunities for the future will lie in ICT, digital media and language-based business courses.
IDA Ireland client companies created 12,722 jobs last year, with a significant proportion of these jobs in the ICT field.
In addition, customer and technical support roles which require IT proficiency and multilingual capability are also in demand.
IDA Ireland said Ireland’s availability of skilled labour is one of the primary reasons cited by IDA clients for establishing their operations in Ireland.
The recently publishedIMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012 ranks Ireland first in the world for the availability of skilled labour.
CLASS OF 2013: WHERE THE OPPORTUNITIES LIE
IDA Ireland chief executive Barry O’Leary said Irish third-level institutions provide a wide variety of courses that will qualify graduates to work in companies like Google, Facebook or Apple, not to mention a growing array of start-up companies that are choosing to locate in Ireland.
Skills in engineering, computers, foreign languages and science will guarantee employment for decades to come, he said.
“There is a continuous flow of FDI into Ireland with jobs announcements from Vistakon, OmniPay and China’sHuawei in the first month of 2013 alone; this is something students should keep in mind when filling out their CAO applications,” O’Leary said.
“Ireland’s availability of skilled labour is frequently cited by company CEOs as one of the primary reasons for locating in Ireland,” he added.
Hospital facing restructuring ‘disaster’ The downgrading of Castlebar centre will be worse than expected
An imminent radical shake-up of the structures of the HSE West will result in Mayo General Hospital, Castlebar, facing a more serious downgrading than anticipated, The Connaught Telegraph has learned.
Bosses of the authority have decided to designate the Castlebar facility into a hospitals group covering its centres in Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, Donegal and Mayo, with the financial hub in the city of Galway.
A group involving Mayo, Galway and Roscommon had been widely anticipated, but the inclusion of Sligo and Donegal represents a surprise and further fuels concerns over a dilution of services at Castlebar.
Local Independent Councillor Michael Kilcoyne said he was both shocked and stunned that the Fine Gael party in Mayo had not pulled the plug on the move.
He stated: “It is clear that Mayo General Hospital is going to become a feeder hospital, with the institutions in Galway and Sligo being the elite centres. It’s a disaster.
“I predicted before the 2011 general election that Mayo General Hospital would be a glorified nursing home within 10 years and now I’m convinced it is going to happen earlier than that.
“With the budget of the new hospital group being controlled in Galway, it’s only a matter of time before surgical services are withdrawn from Castlebar.”
Councillor Kilcoyne called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to make a statement on the hospital’s future and stand over commitments he gave ahead of the 2011 election.
The HSE West is expected to announce its restructuring within the coming weeks.
See Also: Fine Gael perform surprise U-Turn on cash strapped hospital stance
‘Blue Monday’ next Monday brighten & dress up your day with sparkling coloured clothes
Mental Health Research aims to raise awareness of depression and Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Workers are being challenged to dress brightly on next Monday in a bid to combat the most depressing day of the year.
Researchers claim that on the third Monday of January, the nation’s collective well-being will to sink to an all-year low.
Mental Health Research UK (MHRUK) said that “blue Monday” occurred thanks to a combination of bad weather, debt, the need for Christmas detox and poor motivation.
The charity aims to raise awareness of depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) with its new campaign, Blooming Monday.
It is calling on people to dress in colourful clothing to highlight the plight of those who suffer from the conditions and to raise money for research into treatments.
Dr Laura Davidson, mental health barrister and trustee of MHRUK, said: “We hope that businesses, colleges and organisations will take part in Blooming Monday on January 21. Down with drab, dreary colours. This Monday let’s brighten up Britain.
“This is not just about awareness of seasonal affective disorder and depression, but it’s also a well-being campaign. Whilst wearing bright colours will not prevent SAD, which is caused by a lack of sunlight, there has been plenty of research linking mood and colour.”
A survey conducted by the charity found that 28% of workers rose before sunrise and returned home from work after sunset during the winter months.
The poll of 2,000 adults found that almost one in 10 people had no natural light in their workplace. Dr Davidson continued: “We were shocked that 9% of those surveyed stated that their workplace had no natural light at all. Employers have a responsibility towards their employees, and they need to take on board just how important natural light is to good mental health.”
People who take part in the event are being encouraged to make a voluntary donation of £2 to MHRUK by texting BLOO22 to 70070.
New Study Suggests Crabs Can Feel Pain After All
Can crabs feel pain? New research on the clawed crustaceans suggests the answer is yes.
A group of UK researchers came to this conclusion by examining the reactions of common shore crabs to mild electric shocks in a study released today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The key to their finding is the distinction between the nervous system activity known as nociception and pain, which is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. For years, many researchers assumed crustaceans such as crabs experienced the former, but not the latter.
Nociception—which differs from pain in that it isn’t subjective—is produced by the peripheral and central nervous systems in reaction to potentially tissue-damaging stimuli. All animals experience this reflex, including humans—for example, the nerve endings (called nociceptors) under our skin transmit a signal along our spinal cord to the brain when we touch a too-hot plate, and we automatically jerk our hands back.
For crabs, nociception provides immediate protection following a small electric shock, but it shouldn’t trigger any changes in its later behavior. That’s a job for pain—it helps organisms learn to avoid the harmful source in the future.
In this study, the crabs appeared to do just that. Ninety crabs were placed in a tank with two areas without a light source, one crab at a time. After the crabs scuttled toward the dark area they liked best, they were removed from the tank and exposed to a mild electric shock.
Following a rest period, each of the crabs was returned to the tank. Most of the crustaceans returned to the shelter they’d picked the first time. Those who had received a shock in the first round were zapped again, and when they were introduced into the tank for the third time, the majority moved to the other, presumably shock-free safe area. Crabs who hadn’t been shocked returned once again to their first-choice area.
Dark hideaways, like under rocks along waterbeds, are important to these creatures because they offer protection from predators. After receiving the electric shocks, the decapods chose to trade in safety to avoid the unpleasant experience in the future.
“Having experienced two rounds of shocks, the crabs learned to avoid the shelter where they received the shock,” said study co-author Bob Elwood, an animal behavior professor at the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, in a statement. “They were willing to give up their hideaway in order to avoid the source of their probable pain.”
So did the crabs remember the pain? The researchers say it’s possible, and previous work by Elwood and others supports the idea.
In a 2009 study with hermit crabs, wires attached to the creatures’ shells delivered small shocks to their abdomens, which they typically protect by crawling into empty mollusk shells. The only crabs to abandon their shells in search of others had previously incurred electric shocks, which researchers say means the crabs found the experience unpleasant—and perhaps ouch-worthy.
A new shell was then offered, and those crabs that had been shocked but remained in their original homes moved quickly toward the new option, investigated it for a shorter time and were more likely to make the switch than those who hadn’t been shocked. Experiencing shocks changed the hermit crabs’ motivation, much like the way we choose not to touch that hot plate again.
Such behavioral changes were also the subject by a 2007 paper by Elwood, with a different crustacean, the prawn. Various noxious stimuli introduced to prawns’ antennae elicited a reflexive tail flick. But after that, the prawns groomed their antennae and rubbed them against the side of their tanks, prolonged activities that, researchers say, signal the experience of pain.
While it’s impossible to explicitly demonstrate that crustaceans like crabs, prawns and lobsters feel pain, researchers hope these findings spur investigation of how the marine animals are handled in aquaculture and in the kitchen, where chefs often declaw or boil crabs alive.
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