20% of Ireland’s home owners ignore deadline for septic tank charge
As much as 100,000, 20% of Irish home-owners have snubbed new laws aimed at protecting drinking water sources.
Despite a flurry of last-minute applications, the Department of the Environment expects just 400,000 people to have registered their septic tanks – despite the threat of fines of up to €5,000.
Almost 500,000 households had a deadline of February 1 to register, but one in five failed to do so.
The latest figures yesterday showed just 360,000 have registered online, with another 10,000 sent by post which have yet to be processed.
“We are confident of reaching 400,000, or 80pc of the total, by the weekend,” a spokesman for the Department of the Environment said. “Registrations are continuing to flow in.”
Only householders who have registered their system by yesterday’s deadline will be eligible for financial support if their tank fails an inspection.
Up to 80pc of the cost of repair works, up to a maximum of €4,000 for those earning up to €50,000, will be funded by the department.
A 50pc grant for those earning up to €75,000 is also available, to a maximum of €2,500.
The inspection regime comes after the European Court of Justice ruled that Ireland had failed to protect drinking water sources. In December, it fined the State €2m for failing to introduce an inspection regime, along with daily fines of €12,000.
The Government hopes that the rollout of an inspection regime, which will begin shortly, will persuade the European Commission to drop the case against the State.
Experts believe up to 125,000 tanks may pose a threat to groundwater sources because they are poorly designed, located or not properly maintained.
Householders will be given 10 days’ notice that an inspection will take place, and will have 21 days to rectify any problems.
Failure to comply with an order to make improvements can result in fines of up to €5,000.
The registration is opposed by the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes, which has urged people not to pay. It claims the grants being provided will not cover the costs of the necessary improvements.
Fianna Fail environment spokesman Barry Cowen urged Environment Minister Phil Hogan to extend the deadline for registration, claiming people did not know what they were signing up to.
“The hamfisted way the minister has handled the whole registration process has left a huge amount of confusion,” he said. “Septic tank owners simply don’t know what the legislation means for them.”
He said the deadline should be extended to the end of April, and called for details of the inspection regime to be published.
It is an offence not to register a tank. It costs €50 and can be done online athttp://www.protectourwater.ie, by post or through local authority offices.
Health Minister James Reilly approves costly Cystic Fibrosis drug
C.F.
Minister for Health James Reilly has given his approval for a new cystic fibrosis drug despite concerns about the value, effect and strain on other services.
Minister for Health James Reilly has given his approval for a new cystic fibrosis drug despite concerns expressed by his officials about the claimed benefits of the treatment, the asking price and the effects on funding for other services.
The budget for Kalydeco, which will be used to treat 120 cystic fibrosis patients, is €220 million over 10 years, HSE director designate Tony O’Brien has told the Minister in a letter seen by The Irish Times.
Officials had also warned that approval for the drug might encourage the pharmaceutical industry to demand higher prices for new treatments. With a number of other new high-tech drugs in the approval pipeline, some costing more than €1 million for each patient, HSE sources say they fear this deal could set a precedent.
Mr O’Brien wrote to the Minister on Thursday seeking direction in view of the “profound ethical and financial issues” involved. He had warned that the HSE Drugs Group was concerned this decision “may have implications for the long-term affordability of new technologies and also for other services seeking funding”.
Drugs Group assessment
In its assessment, the group expressed considerable scepticism about the benefits claimed for the drug, which manufacturers Vertex Pharmaceuticals say will extend the life of CF patients by over 29 years. This has not been formally demonstrated and any estimate of the survival benefit was “prone to great uncertainty”, it said.
The group said it had “serious concerns” about the original and the revised pricing proposed by Vertex, which is subject to a confidentiality clause.
The company originally said Kalydeco would be supplied at a cost of €235,000 a patient a year, or €28 million. The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics recommended against approval at that price and suggested a reduction in price or a cost-sharing arrangement.
Dr Reilly, announcing his decision in Cork yesterday, would only say he had provided funding of “€20 million-plus” for the drug. The annual budget for new drugs is €70 million. “I think this is a very positive story and it’s certainly going to improve the quality of life for 120 Irish citizens with a particular strain of cystic fibrosis,” he said.
Universally welcomed
The Minister’s decision, taken following discussions with the Taoiseach, was welcomed by patients and the political parties yesterday. CF campaigner Orla Tinsley said it offered great hope.
In his letter, Mr O’Brien had pointed out that his officials advised that the decision meant less funding would be available for other services.
Before the deal was done, the HSE Drugs Group had pointed out that the proposed price for Kalydeco is 10-20 times the threshold for cost-effectiveness under normal Irish assessment procedures. It expressed concern that the pharma industry might believe the HSE considers this level of pricing to be “acceptable or reasonable”.However, “on balance, the group felt that society would wish that the medicine be funded, given the possibility of significant survival benefits”.
Kalydeco can be used to treat cystic fibrosis patients with the G551D mutation, present in about 10 per cent of CF patients in Ireland.
Student Nurse earns more working in Penney’s than HSE
Student nurses like Aimee Darby earns more with her part-time job at Penneys than she would as a qualified nurse caring for seriously ill patients under the HSE’s new graduate recruitment scheme.
The third-year psychiatric nursing student at Trinity College Dublin is paid almost €12-an-hour by the fashion retailer.
However, this would fall to just over €10-an-hour working on hospital wards.
“I love psychiatric nursing and I’d never give it up – but this is not worth it,” said Aimee, from Raheny in Dublin.
“Working in Penneys on a Sunday I’m getting double-time and I work evenings as well. I’m getting nearly €12 an hour; but with a lot more responsibility, I’d be getting paid less as a qualified nurse.
“There are about 40 of us in my class and everyone is just completely annoyed about this. If this happens, 100pc I’ll be going overseas, probably to Australia or New Zealand or England.”
And as a nurse, the lure of starting your career abroad is easy to see.
In Ireland, they would earn just €22,000 a year.
But nursing unions point out that in England graduates can expect to earn €25,500 – €33,000 if working in London – rising to €38,000 in Australia and in Canada an impressive €43,000.
While many newly qualified nurses will be heading to Dublin Airport come September, Aimee said that for some mature students with children and mortgages to think about, that will not be an option.
For the moment, she expects to be one of the hundreds of nurses packing their bags to emigrate.
Mental health plan for Irish schools
The “whole school” approach to guidance has been in place in schools for a number of years. The majority of our schools have guidance plans and guidance teams, that under the co-ordination of the guidance counsellor, endeavour to work with the whole school community to provide whatever support is needed to the students.
Unfortunately this service has been severely curtailed by the removal of the guidance allocation and schools are struggling to cope. The new guidelines are merely a re-branding of what is already taking places in schools and are a cynical attempt to deflect from the fact that this Government has taken away the guidance allocation from schools and has no intention of giving it back.
The “new” guidelines will not address the difficulties that our underfunded schools are encountering daily. If the Minister for Education is genuinely concerned about supporting young people he should give back the guidance allocation to schools. The fact that he was the one who took it away in the first place would suggest that there will be no reversal.
I feel the Minister’s concern is more about saving money than helping young people. Yet again those most in need of help are the ones who will receive the least.
How owls swivel their heads
It’s the owl’s greatest trick – turning its head almost a full circle.
The puzzle has been how the bird doesn’t throttle itself in the process. If we did it, we’d cut the blood supply to our brains and pass out.
But according to two US-based scientists, the owl has some very smart bone and vascular structures running along its neck to the skull.
These features protect blood vessels from damage and maintain the flow even when the head is swivelled 270 degrees.
“They haven’t developed just one answer to the problem; they have several answers,” said Dr Philippe Gailloud from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“And it’s because of this set of solutions that we don’t see lots of owls lying on the forest floor having suffered strokes,” the interventional neuroradiologist told BBC News.
Most birds have extremely flexible necks, but the owls are the avian species that have perhaps garnered the greatest attention for their neck-twisting exploits.
They must turn their heads in this extraordinary way because of their eyes’ narrow field of view and relative immobility.
It’s true they have double the number of bones in their neck compared with us – 14 versus seven cervical vertebrae. But it’s really the way the animal manages the flow of oxygenated blood to its brain that underpins the impressive feat.
Dr Gailloud and science illustrator Fabian de Kok-Mercado used various imaging and dissection techniques to detail the anatomy of a dozen dead owls.
They showed that the big carotid arteries, instead of being on the side of the neck as in humans, are carried close to the centre of rotation just in front of the spine. As a consequence, these arteries experience much less twisting and stretching. The potential for damage is therefore greatly reduced.
This arrangement is not specific to owls, of course; it is seen in other birds as well. What does appear unique to owls, however, is the way the vertebral arteries – the vessels that travel through channels within the neck bones – are given extra space.
In humans, the bony cavities are just big enough to carry the vertebral arteries. “By contrast, in owls, the canal is about 10 times bigger and it’s filled with an air sac,” Dr Gailloud said.
“You know birds have air sacs to make them lighter, and somehow they manage to put some of this inside that bony canal and cushion the vessel.”
In addition, between the carotid and vertebral arteries, owls have a lot of smaller connecting vessels that permit the blood to find alternative pathways should one of the main flow routes close down during rotation.
New imaging technologies permit advances in areas already thought to be well understood
But perhaps most significant of all is the discovery that owls have wide segments in their carotids just under the skull base. The researchers found these could dilate and fill with a reservoir of blood.
“We believe this is kind of a new structure not really known before,” said Dr Gailloud.
“It’s probably a way to pool blood and get some continuity of flow even if there is disruption below at the next level.”
Mr de Kok-Mercado completed the study as part of his masters research at JHU. He now works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
He commented: “There’s no real clinical relevance here, other than ‘don’t try this at home’. But I think from a broader perspective, it just illustrates the amazing amount of biodiversity on our planet, and how there are so many things we still haven’t discovered.
“You would have thought we knew everything there was to know about the owl. A lot of this is down to technology which allows us to break new ground,” he told BBC News.
The study won top prize in the posters and graphics category of the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. This competition is co-sponsored by the journal Science and the US National Science Foundation.
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