Donie's Ireland daily BLOG Friday

I was carrying a dead baby with the other twin baby having Edwards Syndrome and going to die

       

THE DEATH OF SAVITA HALLAPPANAVAR LEFT THE WOMAN AT THE CENTRE OF THE D CASE CONTROVERSY FEELING “SICK”, GUILTY AND IT SENT A SHIVER DOWN HER SPINE,  BECAUSE SHE REGRETS NOT COMING OUT PUBLICLY WITH HER OWN STORY.

Deirdre Conroy (50) is the mother of two sons, now aged 21 and 22, and is an architectural historian and planning consultant living in Dublin.

She now plans to make a submission to the Government on the heads of the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Bill, saying the proposed legislation does not go far enough and will not protect women carrying unviable foetuses, as both she and Savita were forced to do.

Ms Conroy said the death of the Indian dentist sent a “shiver down her spine” and that her initial thought was that it had happened in a town called Galway in India.

She said: “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could anyone have missed what was going on?”

Ms Conroy expressed her exasperation at what she said was the “emotive” way in which abortion is discussed, saying that in the case of many women such as herself and Savita the real issue is “proper medical treatment.”

She spoke publicly for the first time yesterday on RTE Radio’s ‘Today With Pat Kenny’. In an interview afterwards with the Irish Independent, Ms Conroy old how she felt a “weight had been lifted from her shoulders” after she revealed her true identity.

She had hidden behind the name ‘Deirdre de Barra’ for many years.

“It was always a dark secret and it was always there,” she explained.

She did not come out before because she was worried about the impact on her sons.

Already the mother of two young children when she found out she was pregnant with twins at the end of 2001, she was delighted at the prospect of becoming a “complete family”.

However, a scan at 14 weeks revealed that one of the foetuses had died, while the other had Edwards Syndrome and would not survive.

“I went from being a mother living with my family, with two more on the way, to the next day being a mother carrying one dead baby and another one who was going to die,” she said.

Devastated, she could not imagine how she could have been expected to live a normal life for the next four-and-a-half months of the pregnancy.

“I couldn’t look after my children. I was very depressed. It was a nightmare,” she said.

She feels “very angry” at claims by pro-life campaigners that abortion causes depression. “What really causes depression is not being treated properly or listened to in your own country,” she insisted.

Ms Conroy revealed that she only told her sons last week that she had been the woman at the centre of the D Case. Neither son had heard of the case and they were “surprised but very supportive”.

Both sons remember as children looking forward to the birth of the twins but Ms Conroy had subsequently told them the babies had died naturally.

Meanwhile, she has written her first work of fiction – to be published next month – in which the main protagonist has an abortion under similar circumstances to her own, although in New York.

“They say write what you know – so I did,” she explained.

Ms Conroy “cried my eyes out all over her laptop” when she wrote the scene, saying it was “very cathartic”.

Just 25% of Irish people know their next door neighbour

      

THE FRIENDLY IRISH NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR IS A DYING BREED.

Irish people now no longer feel comfortable popping next door for a cup of sugar or a brew, with many not even knowing the names of their neighbours.

According to a new survey, one in four no longer knows anything about the people living on the same street.

And nearly half of those surveyed, around 47pc, claimed that they knew their neighbours only to say hello to, but that was it.

contact

The problem is worst in urban communities, where 25pc said they ‘didn’t know their neighbours at all’.

The study was carried out by Centra as part of their third annual Street Feast.

It found that 30pc of people “hadn’t spoken to their neighbours in the past six months”, while 8pc claimed they had “never spoken to their neighbours at all”.

The answer as to why we have so little contact with those around us may lie in the lack of effort made by existing tenants when new families move in.

Some 64pc people said that they “wouldn’t bother to go and welcome a new neighbour to the area”.

However, at the same time, most movers want somebody to greet them after moving into a new home.

Of those who responded to the survey, 62pc admitted that they would like to be welcomed into a new area if they moved.

COMMUNITY

When questioned as to their community involvement and responsibilities, 72% of people replied that they have no involvement in their local residents association or group.

On a less serious note, the survey also posed the question of which celebrities we would prefer to have as our neighbours.

To this, 34pc said rugby star Brian O’Driscoll, his actress wife Amy Huberman and their newborn Sadie. Bono received 7pc of the vote.

Street Feast was founded in 2010 by a group of volunteers aiming to unite neighbours through food, with the hope of bringing lasting improvements to communities.

Roughly 200 Street Feasts have been registered across the country, with most of the events due to take place on June 23.

Postal deadline for property tax payment to be in by next Tuesday the 7th

     

Paper LPTax forms with payment method must be received by Revenue next Tuesday

Homeowners who want to pay their local property tax by post should send their form by end of today, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners has said.

The deadline for receipt of paper return forms is May 7th, but people intending to use this method have been advised to post the form today because of the bank holiday on Monday.

Homeowners intending to file online have until May 28th to file their return. Those who own more than one property must use the online system to pay.

There is no option on the tax return form to indicate you wish to pay by cheque or postal order, but people sending their return by post can use either of these methods. To do so they should choose the “Cash Payments” option on the form and write a note beside this stating that a cheque/postal order is attached to the form. The cheque must be in date and it is recommended that the Property ID and PPSN are written on the back.

The property tax is based on self assessment and while the Revenue provides an estimate, this is just an average valuation for properties in the area and it is up to the property owner to determine the value of their home.

However, for those who do not file before the May 28th deadline, the Revenue figure will stand. The valuation of the property made by the property owner, or the Revenue default valuation, will be used as the basis for the property tax liability for the next three years.

Homeowners who have not received a return form, are still liable for the tax and must file a return, but would not be able at this stage to use the postal method. They must instead file online at revenue.ie by clicking on the “I have not received a Property PIN” tab or can file online over the phone by ringing 1890 200 255.

Figures this week from Revenue show that 332,500 property tax payments have been made at a value of more than €21 million . Of these 204,891 were electronic returns, and 127,609 were returns received by post. The payments to date suggest the non-payment rate will not be as high as for the household charge, which the property tax replaces.

Revenue has extended its helpline (1890 200 255) hours up to next Tuesday’s deadline. The line will stay open until 8pm tonight, 9am to 5pm tomorrow and 8am to 8pm on Tuesday.

Computer games can ‘make our brains younger’ A study finds

 

FOR YEARS MANY HAVE BELIEVED THAT SITTING GLUED TO A SCREEN PLAYING COMPUTER GAMES ROTS YOUR BRAIN.

But a new study has found that video games can delay the ageing process and playing one for just ten hours can make your mind up to seven years younger.

Older people who play video games which challenged their mental processing speed slowed their cognitive decline. Instead, a year later, their minds were actually sharper, the researchers found.

But the team warn that the benefits only come with their specifically designed game “Road Tour”.

Scientists at the University of Iowa in the United States discovered that elderly people who played just 10 hours of a game delayed declines by as many as seven years in a range of cognitive skills.

Those that played the game at least 10 hours, either at home or in a laboratory, gained on average three years of cognitive improvement when tested after one year, according to a formula developed by the researchers.

A group that got four additional hours of training improved their cognitive abilities by an average of four years. In speed and attention tests their brains were up to seven years younger, it was found.

Lead author Fredric Wolinsky, professor in the University’s College of Public Health, said: “We not only prevented the decline; we actually sped them up.”

He attributed the benefits to the range of skills required in the game, adding: “We know that we can stop this decline and actually restore cognitive processing speed to people.

“So, if we know that, shouldn’t we be helping people? It’s fairly easy, and older folks can go get the training game and play it.”

The study comes amidst a burst of research examining why, as we age, our minds gradually lose “executive function,” generally considered mission control for critical mental activities, such as memory, attention, perception and problem solving.

Studies show loss of executive function occurs as people reach middle age; other studies say our cognitive decline begins as soon as the age of 28.

Either way, our mental capacities do diminish and medical and public health experts are keen to understand why in an effort to stem the inexorable tide as much as possible.

Professor Wolinsky and his colleagues separated 681 generally healthy medical patients into four groups, then further separated them into those 50 to 64 years of age and those over age 65.

One group was given computerised crossword puzzles, while three other groups were exposed to the game Road Tour.

The game involves identifying a type of vehicle and then re-identifying the vehicle type and matching it with a road sign displayed from a circular array of possibilities, all but one of them false icons.

The player must succeed at least three out of every four tries to advance to the next level, which speeds up the vehicle identification and adds more distractions, up to 47 in all.

The goal is to increase the user’s mental speed and agility at identifying the vehicle symbol and picking out the road sign from distractors.

Professor Wolinsky said: “The game starts off with an assessment to determine your current speed of processing. Whatever it is, the training can help you get about 70 per cent faster.”

The researchers found those who played Road Tour also scored far better than the crossword puzzle group on tests involving executive function.

The game has previously been credited with improving quality of life, easing depression and cutting medical bills.

The findings were published in the journal PLOS One.

However, some were sceptical about the research. Dr Doug Brown, director of research at the Alzheimer’s society, told the Daily Mail: “Many of us enjoy puzzling over a game.

“However, there is currently little evidence that brain training has any cognitive benefits.”

21 of Ireland’s favourite bathing spots stripped of top ranking

 

EPA says exceptionally heavy rain led to increased run-off from farmland

Twenty-one Irish bathing spots have been stripped of top marks for water quality because of last year’s record wet summer, environment watchdogs have revealed.

Four of the country’s 136 popular swimming areas were given a poor grade after failing to meet basic standards – Fountainstown in Cork, Rush in north Dublin, Ballyheigue in Kerry and Clifden in Galway.

  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said run-off from farmland sprayed with slurry and manure or saturated ground where cows, sheep and horses graze was mostly to blame. Peter Webster, EPA senior scientific officer, said.

Ireland’s results were similar to the UK where rains wreaked havoc with quality at 10 per cent of beaches.

“The fall is disappointing but I’m surprised it was not more. At times the rain was the equivalent of biblical proportions,” he said.

The number of beaches and bathing places meeting stricter good standards dropped to 66.9 per cent – 91 of 136 – compared to 83 per cent , or 112, in 2011. Out of 107 days in the May to September bathing season it rained for 80, the EPA said, with beaches in Cork and Kerry suffering the worst from Atlantic weather systems.

Mr Webster said it is less of a problem on Mediterranean beaches because the sun kills off pollution caused by faeces. “Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we barely saw it last year,” he said.

Only Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Sligo, and Leitrim County Councils had good quality at all their bathing spots — eight out of the total. Under the EPA rules there is a 5 per cent risk of picking up an illness or infection if you swim in water failing to meet the mandatory standards.

“But you are probably at greater risk of catching a cold on a bus on the way,” Mr Webster said.

The EPA scientist said he does not expect 2013 to be as bad as last year, Mr Webster also defended councils for closing beaches at risk of causing infections, including in Clare where bosses were heavily criticised for damaging tourism at Lahinch and Spanish Point last June.

“If you get pollutants coming into those horseshoe bays and you’ve a westerly breeze, there’s nowhere for it to go. And you don’t need an awful lot of poo in the water to breach the limits,” he said.

“Imagine your average dog poo was the equivalent three years worth of bacteria, the actual number of bacteria we are looking for to meet the minimum values is one and a half minutes. Mandatory standards is 15 minutes.

“One dog poo faeces is sufficient to contaminate an Olympic sized swimming pool.”

Clifden in Galway which was closed to swimmers because of long-running problems with discharges from the nearby sewage works is not likely to be up to standard until 2015.

Fountainstown, at the mouth of Cork harbour, suffered from episodic but persistent pollution while Ballyheigue failed after one very uncharacteristic sample exceeding E.coli limits. In Rush, one bad sample for E.coli was blamed on a wastewater pumping station.

NASA’s newest rover won’t be exploring another planet

IT WILL EXPLORE ONE OF OUR OWN ‘GREENLAND’

 

Named Grover (short for Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research), the rover will explore Greenland’s ice sheets to better understand how they form, and how quickly they may be melting.

The device is solar-powered and semi-autonomous, and will embark on its first mission beginning Friday, May 3, and continuing until June 8. It was developed from 2010-2011 by teams of students in summer engineering boot camps at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, according to a release from NASA.

The 6-foot-tall, 800-pound rover is equipped with ground-penetrating radar that will send “radio wave pulses into the ice sheet, and the waves bounce off buried features, informing researchers about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers,” according to the NASA statement. [Video: Grover the Rover to Explore Greenland Ice Sheet]

At first Grover will operate near the National Science Foundation’s Summit Camp, located at the apex of Greenland’s ice sheet. Once it appears the rover is functioning properly, it will roam more widely and be controlled via satellite. Since the Arctic sun shines 24 hours a day during the summer, the solar-powered rover will be able to operate continuously, NASA said.

“We think it’s really powerful,” Gabriel Trisca, a Boise State master’s degree student who developed Grover’s software, said in the NASA statement. “The fact is the robot could be anywhere in the world and we’ll be able to control it from anywhere.”

Grover should shed light on Greenland’s snow accumulation. Researchers can compare annual accumulation to the amount of ice lost to the sea each year to find out how much mass is being lost to melting, and how much Greenland’s ice is contributing to sea level rise.

Greenland’s ice sheets contain a vast store of freshwater that could affect global sea levels, and more and more ice is melting. In fact, Greenland’s ice loss is accelerating by about 22 gigatons of ice each year, according to a 2012 study.

Last summer, satellite images showed that about 40 percent of the ice sheet had thawed near the surface on July 8; only four days later, images showed a dramatic increase in melting with thawing across 97 percent of the ice sheet surface.