Irish Minister Phil Hogan unveils new building regulations
Minister for the Environment says professionals can be held liable for poor standards
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said the new regulations set out to prevent the future recurrence of poorly constructed dwellings.
New statutory certificates signing off on building developments will ensure builders and other professionals can be held legally liable for poor-quality buildings, Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said.
Mr Hogan has published the Building Control Amendment Regulations 2013, which he said set out to prevent the future recurrence of poorly constructed dwellings, pyrite damage and structures breaching fire regulations “left as a legacy of a poorly regulated housing boom”.
Under the new regulations, assigned certifiers, who can be registered architects, engineers or building surveyors, will inspect building works at key stages during construction.
The assigned certifier and the builders will both certify that a finished building complies with the requirements of the building regulations.
Compliance drawings and documentation will be submitted to local building control authorities under the new arrangements.
An inspection plan will also be set out and executed by the assigned certifier.
In addition, mandatory certificates of compliance must be signed off by the designer prior to construction, and by the assigned certifier and the builder when a building is complete.
“The mandatory certificates will be clear, unambiguous statements on statutory forms stating that each of the key parties to a project certifies that the works comply with the building regulations and that they accept legal responsibility for their work,” Mr Hogan said.
He said if anyone signed a statutory certificate for a building which subsequently pfoved to be non-compliant, they could be held legally liable for the consequences.
Greater onus was also placed on professionals to provide consumers with a more comprehensive service, and failure to do so incurred the risk of being censured, suspended or ultimately removed from their professional body.
Each local authority will retain all drawings and particulars for the building works and will include the final certificate of completion on a statutory register.
Mr Hogan said those buying a house – one of the major lifetime investments – should be protected sufficiently, which they were not at present.
He cited Priory Hall in Dublin as the most “high-profile” development where quality control had gone “badly wrong” and where “a coach and four was driven through the Building Control Act”.
The Construction Industry Federation (CIF) welcomed the publication of the new regulations and said they would help ensure the work of builders who maintained higher standards was recognised and rewarded.
Director general Tom Parlon said the federation was committed to maintaining and promoting high building standards for the entire industry.
“Irish builders had a reputation for excellence before certain developments tarnished the name of the entire industry. These regulations will help stamp out those projects that have blighted Irish construction, stopping any builders who try to cut corners,” he said.
Mr Parlon said there would be a cost involved for members as they engaged professionals to undertake specific inspection programmes.
The CIF would shortly be bring forward a range of training programmes for members so they were fully apprised of the new obligations.
The federation is currently working on proposals for a registration system for builders in conjunction with the Department of the Environment.
Separately, Mr Hogan said the 850 homes which had been clearly identified as having suffered so-called “pyritic-heave” – damage from pyrites – would be prioritised for repair work during the summer months. The Pyrite Resolution Board was working to resolve the issue with householders, he said.
Broadcaster Vincent Browne fined €300 for holding phone while driving.
Fine to be paid within three months or journalist faces five days in jail, says judge
Broadcaster Vincent Browne was fined at Dublin District Court for holding a mobile phone while driving a car on the M50 at Ballymount in Dublin on May 14th last year.
Journalist and broadcaster Vincent Browne was fined €300 in his absence yesterday when he forgot to turn up to court to face prosecution for driving a car while holding a mobile phone.
Judge Alan Mitchell ordered that the fine must be paid within three months otherwise the host of TV3 current affairs programme Tonight with Vincent Browne will be jailed for five days in default.
A summons had been issued for Browne to appear at Dublin District Court to face a charge for holding a mobile phone while driving a car on the M50 at Ballymount in Dublin on May 14th last year, contrary to section 3.1 of the 2006 Road Traffic Act.
His name, date of birth and an address at Coliemore Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin were called out by the court registrar during the brief proceedings but Browne was not there and had no representation. Judge Mitchell then proceeded to deal with the case without him and imposed the fine.
Browne, a 68-year-old qualified barrister and a columnist withThe Irish Times , had been holding a mobile phone while driving a 05-registered Mitsubishi Colt near the TV3 studios.
“I had it in my diary but I completely forgot. I rang my daughter who is a barrister, she was unable to go over to court,” Browne said.
Men’s baldness linked to heart disease ‘Six studies reveal’
Researchers examined six studies, including three studies that tracked the health of balding men for at least 11 years
Bald or extensively balding men aged between 55 and 60 were 44 per cent more likely to develop coronary artery disease, according to the study published in the online journal BMJ Open.
Bald men have a higher risk of developing heart disease than men with a full head of hair — but only those who are thinning on top rather than men with a receding hairline, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Japan found that men who had lost most of their hair were a third more likely (32 per cent) to develop coronary heart disease (CHD) than those who retained a full head of hair.
Bald or extensively balding men aged between 55 and 60 were 44 per cent more likely to develop coronary artery disease, according to the study published in the online journal BMJ Open.
The researchers from Japan examined six studies, including three studies that tracked the health of balding men for at least 11 years, involving 37,000 men.
They found that the link between CHD and baldness depends on the severity of the baldness.
Severe baldness on the top or crown of the head, also known as the vertex, was associated with a 48 per cent increased risk while moderate vertex baldness and mild vertex baldness were linked to a 36 per cent and 18 per cent risk respectively. The authors also looked at differing grades of baldness — frontal, crown-top and combined.
Men with both frontal and crown-top baldness were 69 per cent more likely to have CHD than those with a full head of hair, while those with just crown-top baldness were 52 per cent more likely to do so. Those with a receding hairline were 22 per cent more likely to develop the disease.
The authors note that the explanation of the link is “unclear” but say that it has been previously suggested that classical coronary risk factors such as age, hypertension and smoking might influence both conditions. They also say that baldness has previously been linked to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and hypertension. And it has been suggested that male pattern baldness has been linked to coronary heart disease through chronic inflammation or increased sensitivity to testosterone.
“The present meta-analysis of six studies from the USA and Europe demonstrated that vertex baldness was significantly associated with an increased risk of CHD among participants of all ages and also among younger men,” they said.
“Interestingly, frontal baldness was non-significantly associated with CHD.” CHD is the UK’s biggest killer, causing around 82,000 deaths every year. About one in five men and one in eight women die from the disease.
Doireann Maddock, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Although these findings are interesting, men who’ve lost their hair should not be alarmed by this analysis.
“Much more research is needed to confirm any link between male pattern baldness and an increased risk of coronary heart disease.
“In the meantime, it’s more important to pay attention to your waistline than your hairline.
“Hereditary hair loss may be out of your control, but many of the risk factors for coronary heart disease are not.
“Stopping smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and being as active as possible are all things that you can do to help protect your heart.”
Men with low testosterone levels linked to arthritis
Men with low levels of the hormone, testosterone, may be more likely to go on to develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a new study indicates.
RA is a chronic and often painful disease affecting the joints, causing them to become inflamed. An inflamed joint looks swollen and red and appears warm to touch. This inflammation can lead to permanent damage in the joints if the disease is not treated. Around 40,000 people in Ireland are affected.
According to Swedish scientists, sex hormones are thought to have a role in the development of RA. However, while both men and women with the condition tend to have lower levels of testosterone compared to people without it, until now, it has been unclear whether the hormone played a role in the development of RA or was a consequence of it.
The scientists decided to investigate this further. They looked at over 33,000 people who had been taking part in a long-term study aimed at tracking their health. This included the participants completing detailed questionnaires and providing blood samples.
The study found that men with lower levels of testosterone in their blood samples were more likely to go on to develop RA. The results stood even when two other factors that can affect the risk of RA were taken into account – body mass index (BMI) and smoking.
The men were also found to have higher levels of follicle stimulating hormone, which is important for sexual maturation and reproduction, before they were diagnosed with RA. However, the scientists believe that this ‘is likely to be secondary to reduced testosterone production’.
They believe that the study shows that hormonal changes precede the onset of RA and may even influence the severity of the disease.
There could be 100 billion Earth-like planets say astronomers
THERE COULD BE MORE THAN 100 BILLION EARTH-LIKE PLANETS IN OUR GALAXY THAT COULD BE HOME TO LIFE, ACCORDING TO NEW ESTIMATES BY ASTRONOMERS.
Researchers have developed a new method for finding planets that orbit their stars in the so-called “habitable zone” – the right distance to be able to support life.
Currently these planets are difficult to spot as they tend to be comparatively tiny when compared to the star they orbit and until now most Earth-sized alien worlds to be found in other solar systems have been so close to their stars that no life could ever survive.
Scientists at the University of Auckland, however, claim that by combining data from a Nasa space telescope that is currently searching the heavens for other planets with a ground based technique called gravitational microlensing, it will be possible to identify smaller Earth-like planets in the right orbit.
They estimate there could be as many as 100 billion of these planets in the Milky Way, our own galaxy. With roughly 300 billion stars in our galaxy, this figure may not be as unlikely as it first seems, they say.
Dr Phil Yock, from the department of physics at the University of Auckland, said they would combine measurements taken by Nasa’s Kepler Space Telescope and the microlensing technique, which uses robotic telescopes to detect tiny deflections in the light coming from stars as a small planet orbits them.
He said: “Kepler finds Earth-sized planets that are quite close to parent stars, and it estimates that there are 17 billion such planets in the Milky Way. These planets are generally hotter than Earth.
“Our proposal is to measure the number of Earth-mass planets orbiting stars at distances typically twice the Sun-Earth distance. Our planets will therefore be cooler than the Earth.
“By interpolating between the Kepler and microlensing observation results, we should get a good estimate of the number of Earthlike, habitable planets in the Galaxy.
“We anticipate a number in the order of 100 billion. Of course, it will be a long way from measuring this number to actually finding inhabited planets, but it will be a step along the way.”
Scientists have so far discovered around 860 planets outside our solar system, also called exoplanets, but that number is rapidly increasing.
Last month astronomers found an Earth-like planet orbiting a red dwarf star just 13 light years away – making it our closest potentially habitable neighbour outside our own solar system.
Nasa’s Kepler telescope has found around roughly 110 new planets, many of them many times larger than the Earth.
Detecting smaller planets with the telescope is much harder as they are often lost in the glare of the star.
Instead Dr Yock has outlined a new technique for spotting Earth-like planets in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
He is working with Japanese scientists to spot tiny deflections in the light coming from a distant star caused by the gravity of an Earth sized planet.
They hope to use a network of telescopes that are now being deployed by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, with three being stationed in Chile, three in South Africa, three in Australia, one in Hawaii and one in Texas.
Data from these telescopes will be combined with others around the world before then being put alongside the Kepler measurements to identify those stars that may have small planets orbiting at the right distance to support life.
How to publish your family tree: print a book, wall chart, make a website and much more
An explanation on how to share your family tree with others
So you’ve researched your family history and want to share the fruits of your labour with family and friends, or perhaps even the world. Here we suggest how you could go about doing so.
Some methods are generic in the sense that you could use them for disseminating any information but it would be remiss of us not to mention them, nevertheless. Others, though, are aimed squarely are family history enthusiasts.
The simplest method is just to save your family history as a GEDCOM file (the standard for genealogical information). You can then upload it to specialist sites for sharing genealogical data or email it to your family and friends. See also: Using Media to Illustrate your Family History
However, unless you choose a site that will also draw your data as a family tree (see below) this will only appeal to other family history enthusiasts who will have the necessary software to interpret the data and draw a family tree.
Unless you’re a hardcore genealogy enthusiast, though, you’ll probably want to make your family history more accessible to people (typically your immediate family) who just want to see the information without any hassle.
Some of the online family history service providers offer a means of sharing your family tree on their site and this is often a free service.
If you want more control about how you present the information and would like to provide much more than just a family tree, you could consider using Facebook for disseminating your family history and this is also a good way of searching out more information about your family.
Better still, use a dedicated website or at least a few pages on your personal website. Some of the genealogy software packages can generate web pages on your family history but for most flexibility you’d need to design your own web pages.
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