Enda Kenny promises a ‘fair’ system to deal with Irish mortgage distress
Enda Kenny said personal insolvency guidelines would not apply in all circumstances
Mr Kenny said it was the “gross incompetence” of the previous administration and their “deliberate efforts” to inflate the property market for their “developer friends” that led to a situation where 100,000 people were in trouble with their mortgages.
Church must be ‘restructured’, says Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin
Christians must be ‘pro-life’ in fullest sense, Diarmuid Martin tells Easter vigil gathering
“Newness and life will not come out of a church which still wants to look on itself as an institution of power,” Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said in his Easter vigil homily in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Dublin.
The church “has to be restructured and destructured to allow it to witness to the sense of meaning and purpose that Jesus brings to the lives of believers,” the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.
“Newness and life will not come out of a church which still wants to look on itself as an institution of power, even a renewed institution, or from a church which is simply a focal point of organised doing good or social reform,” he said. It had to “witness more concretely to the message of Jesus,” he said.
“We have to live in such a way that the energy of life and vitality which spring from Jesus’s resurrection can really touch our hearts and change our church,” he said.
In his Easter vigil homily at Dublin’s Pro Cathedral, he said, “For us believers, the resurrection is not something that we explore with the eye of the historian or the archaeologist or the investigative journalist who gathers evidence or documents to discover possibly what an event of the past might have looked like. We look at the resurrection from the point of view of faith, a point of view which is no less real,” he said.
‘Passion for life’
It represented “the highest and most mysterious event in the whole of human history”. It bestowed “a passion for life, for truth and for the good,” he said.
It represented “the highest and most mysterious event in the whole of human history”. It bestowed “a passion for life, for truth and for the good,” he said.
“If Christians have a passion for life then they should be in the forefront in the fight for life, at every moment of its existence . . . The church and the Christian community must be ‘pro-life’ in the fullest sense of that term. We have to defend the right to life and we must at the same time always accompany that defence with a commitment to ensure that all can live their lives with a level of dignity worthy of the Lord of life in whose image they have been created,” he said.
‘Reasons for hope’
“Christians should be driving forces for a society in which young people receive . . . reasons for hope,” he said. “We have great young people but our years of prosperity have not left them a legacy of hope,” he said.
“Christians should be driving forces for a society in which young people receive . . . reasons for hope,” he said. “We have great young people but our years of prosperity have not left them a legacy of hope,” he said.
The church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson said the Easter message was “of real significance to us as we find ourselves facing more and more unavoidably into an understanding of Christianity which has become far too settled in on itself”.
It has become “over-anxious about its orthodoxy (correct teaching) as opposed to its orthopraxy (correct doing) in the face of those who genuinely seek to be their best for God and to do their best for their neighbour within their strengths and their limitations. Christianity has become rather too good at ‘getting at’ people,” he said.
“An unfussy rubbing along with others and the genuine capacity to compromise – these are the characteristics which Augustine singles out as essential not only to survival but to flourishing on the Ark of Noah in a truly Catholic spirit,” he said.
Former US Vice President Al Gore to attend Dublin summit on
“Hunger-Nutrition-Climate Justice”
“Hunger- Nutrition- Climate Justice” at Dublin Presidents Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson and Joyce Banda will also attend April’s “Hunger-Nutrition-Climate Justice” conference
Former vice president Al Gore, along with Presidents Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson and Joyce Banda and others, to international conference titled “Hunger- Nutrition- Climate Justice” at Dublin Cast
Former vice president Al Gore will visit Dublin next month to attend a summit in Dublin on the links between climate change, hunger and poor nutrition.
Presidents Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson and Joyce Banda will also attend the international conference titled “Hunger- Nutrition- Climate Justice” at Dublin Castle on April 15 and 16. The conference is part of Ireland’s presidency of the European Union.
The conference overview on the Irish Aid’s website states, “The objective will be to facilitate a respectful dialogue and learn from practical experience and robust evidence to inform a new approach to addressing hunger, nutrition and climate justice, in the context of the new Post-2015 international development agenda.”
Conference organisers have said that more than 100 people representing farmers’ organizations and vulnerable communities from Africa, Asia and the Arctic will discuss the impact unpredictable weather patterns are having on their lives and what solutions they are working on. People facing rising food prices, failed crops and under-nutrition will speak at the conference.
Representatives from business and advocacy groups, research institutions and academia will also contribute to the conference.
According to the conference overview, the goal of the conference “will not simply be to adopt an outcome document. We hope to inspire new ways of thinking about global development challenges and to invigorate and broaden the debate, at all levels, listening to and learning from the experiences of local people and rooting future thematic policy approaches in their lives and theirs efforts to cope.”
Under-nutrition in mothers and children is the underlying cause of 2.5 million deaths each year. Almost one third of children under the age of five in developing countries suffer from stunted growth and never reach their full potential.
An estimated 870 million people worldwide face hunger. Climate change could increase the number of hunger by 10 to 20% by 2050 and an additional 24 million malnourished children. Predictions suggest that half of those children will be in sub-Saharan Africa.
The conference is hosted by the Irish Government and the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice. It is organized in partnership with the World Food Programme and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
Participation in the conference is by invitation only, but the event will be live streamed. In addition, several background papers will be available online and the conference will use social media before
IMO accuse pharmacists of compromising Irish peoples health by substituting drugs for profits
THE UNION SAYS PATIENT HEALTH IS BEING COMPROMISED
The Irish Medical Organisation has accused pharmacists of substituting drugs to increase profits.
The union, which represents doctors in Ireland, says patient health is being compromised as a result.
The IMO claims patients are regularly reporting incidents where their prescriptions were being changed without their knowledge or consent.
It has accused pharmacists of swapping medicines prescribed by doctors for cheaper ones.
And it says this is not only a breach of legislation but is also causing great distress and putting patient health at risk.
The union says it has expressed its concerns with the Department for Health but has yet to receive a reply.
Generic medicines are perfectly good alternatives in most cases but the IMO says they’re not always identical.
And it argues that this could create problems with other medication that the patient is taking.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland says it has received a very small number of complaints in relation to this issue
Greenland reaps the benefits of global warming
Climate change is allowing agriculture to boom
Inside the Arctic Circle, a chef is growing the kind of vegetables and herbs – potatoes, thyme, tomatoes, green peppers – more fitted for a suburban garden in a temperate zone than a land of northern lights, glaciers and musk oxen. Some Inuit hunters are finding reindeer fatter than ever thanks to more grazing on this frozen tundra, and, for some, there is no longer a need to trek hours to find wild herbs.
This is climate change in Greenland, where locals say longer and warmer summers mean the country can grow the kind of crops unheard of years ago. “Things are just growing quicker,” said Kim Ernst, the Danish chef of Roklubben restaurant, nestled by a frozen lake near a former Cold War-era US military base. “Every year we try new things,” added Mr Ernst, who even managed to grow a handful of strawberries that he served to some surprised Scandinavian royals. “I came here in 1999 and no one would have dreamed of doing this. But now the summer days seem warmer, and longer.”
It was -20C in March but the sun was out and the air was still, with an almost spring-like feel. Mr Ernst showed me his greenhouse and an outdoor winter garden which in a few months may sprout again. Hundreds of miles south, some farmers now produce hay, and sheep farms have grown in size. Some supermarkets in the capital, Nuuk, sell locally grown vegetables in the summer.
Major commercial crop production is still in its infancy. But it is a sign of the changes here that Greenland’s government set up a commission this year to study how a changing climate may help farmers increase agricultural production and replace expensive imported foods. Change is already under way. Potatoes grown commercially in southern Greenland reached over 100 tons in 2012, double the yield of 2008. Vegetable production in the region may double this year compared with 2012, according to government data.
Some politicians hope global warming will allow this country, fully a quarter the size of the United States, to reduce its dependence on its former colonial master, Denmark, for much of its food as political parties push for full independence.
Greenland, which is self-governing aside from defence and security, depends on an annual grant from Denmark of around $600m (£395m), or half the island’s annual budget. But the thawing of its ice sheets has seen a boost in mining and oil exploration as well as an interest in agriculture. “I expect a lot of development in sheep farming and agriculture due to global warming,” said the outgoing Prime Minister, Kuupik Kleist, whose government set up the commission. “It may become an important supplement to our economy.”
Locals love recounting how Erik the Red first arrived in the southern fjords here in the 10th century and labelled this ice-covered island “Greenland” to entice others to settle, an early instance of hype to lure unwary customers. There is evidence that the climate was warmer then, allowing Viking settlements to grow crops for five centuries before mysteriously dying out.
The scale of this new agriculture is tiny. There are just a few dozen sheep farms in southern Greenland, where most of the impact of climate change can be seen. Cows may number fewer than a hundred. But with 57,000 mostly Inuit human inhabitants, the numbers to feed are also small. “You need to put this into perspective. We used to be high-Arctic and now we are more sub-Arctic,” said Kenneth Hoegh, an agronomist and former senior government adviser. “But we are still Arctic.”
The symbolism is enormous, however, highlighting a changing global climate that has seen temperatures in the Arctic increase by about twice the global average –about 0.8C – since pre-industrial times. “There are now huge areas in southern Greenland where you can grow things,” said Josephine Nymand, a scientist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources in Nuuk. “Potatoes have most benefited. Also cabbage has been very successful.”
Sten Erik Langstrup Pedersen, who runs an organic farm on a fjord near Nuuk, first grew potatoes in 1976. Now he can plant crops two weeks earlier in May and harvest three weeks later in October compared with more than a decade ago. He grows 23 kinds of vegetables, compared with 15 a decade ago, including beans, peas, herbs and strawberries. He says he has sold some strawberries to top restaurants in Copenhagen. But Mr Pedersen is sceptical about how much it will catch on. “Greenlanders are impatient,” he said. “They see a seal and they immediately just want to hunt it. They can never wait for vegetables to grow.”
There is still potential. Mr Hoegh estimates Greenland could provide half of its food needs from home-grown produce, which would be cheaper than Danish imports. But global change is not all about benefits. While summers are warmer, there is less rain. Some experts say that Greenland could soon need irrigation works – ironic for a country of ice and lakes.
“We have had dry summers for the last few years.” said Aqqalooraq Frederiksen, a senior agricultural consultant in south Greenland, who said a late spring last year hurt potato crops.
On the Arctic Circle, a flash flood last summer from suspected glacier melt water – which some locals here blamed on warm weather – swept away the only bridge connecting Mr Ernst’s restaurant to the airport. It came right in the middle of the tourist season, and the restaurant lost thousands of dollars.
It was an ominous reminder that global warming will bring its problems. Still, for Mr Pedersen and his fjord in Nuuk, the future looks good. “The hotter, the better,” Mr Pedersen said. “For me.”
Island life
Greenland, • World’s largest island (not counting Australia), part of North America, but politically and culturally linked with Europe.
• In the early 18th century, Denmark claimed sovereignty over Greenland, and still has control over foreign affairs and defence matters.
DEMOGRAPHICS: • POPULATION: 56,370; THE LEAST DENSELY POPULATED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
• Language: Greenlandic.
• Official religion: Evangelical Lutheran.
• Unemployment: 4.9 per cent in 2011.
Economy: • The economy relies on fishing and fish exports. Tourism plays a big role in generating capital too, and Greenland receives an annual grant from Denmark of $600m.
• It could be the world’s next mining frontier, as global warming makes it easier to recover precious metals from glacial surroundings.
• The largest employers in Greenland are public bodies, including the central government in Denmark. Most positions are in the capital, Nuuk.
Politics: • Greenlanders elect two representatives to the Folketing – Denmark’s parliament.
• Greenland has its own parliament, with 31 members. The new PM, after winning 42.8 per cent of the popular vote in this month’s election, is Aleqa Hammond of the Siumut (Forward) Party. It wants Greenlandic independence.
• Queen Margrethe of Denmark, is head of state. A high commissioner is appointed to represent the island.
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