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Sunday, August 4, 2013

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Over a third of Ulster Bank customers have arrears and are not paying up

     
Roughly 35% of Ulster Bank’s customers in mortgage arrears are not making any payments, according to the bank’s chief executive, Jim Brown.
“They are not all strategic defaulters, but a reasonable percentage of them would be.” said Mr Brown.
On Thursday, the chief executive of AIB, David Duffy, said that roughly one in five of his customers in arrears were in strategic default.
But whereas AIB saw an increase in mortgage arrears over the second quarter of this year, Ulster Bank reported a decrease in mortgage arrears every month over the past year.
Ulster Bank will try to re-engage with customers who are not paying their mortgages, but if they refuse then the bank would start legal proceedings with aview to repossessing the house, added Mr Brown.
The wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland reported €450m in total income for the first six months of the year and an operating profit of €174m before impairment charges.
However, an impairment charge of €503m — which was down from €717m for the first six months of 2012 — pushed the bank into an operating loss of €329m.
The net interest margin was 1.85%. Mr Brown said the target net interest margin was 2.5%-3%.
There was a total loanbook of €32.9bn at the end of June and loan impairment provisions of €4.4bn at the same date. The loan to deposit ratio was 123%.
Mr Brown welcomed recent legislative changes, such as the new code of conduct on mortgage arrears and the repeal of the Dunne judgment, which made it easier for banks to repossess homes. He would like a credit bureau set up over the medium term.
RBS has had to pump roughly £14.5bn into Ulster Bank since the property sector collapsed in 2008.
There has been speculation about the future of the bank since last June when the British chancellor raised the possibility of splitting RBS into a good bank and bad bank, with Ulster Bank going into the bad bank.

David Monagan writer resigns after wrongly calling the Irish President MD Higgins a homosexual

    

David Monagan quit Forbes after wrongly reporting that Ireland’s president Michael D. Higgins is an “acknowledged homosexual.”

As iMedia-Ethics previously reported, Monagan, an American writer living in Ireland, made the error in a July 23 article about Samantha Power.  Forbes unpublished the article and replaced it with an Editor’s Note and Correction apologizing to Higgins.
Monagan responded to iMedia-Ethics’ inquiry about the error and pointed us to his article on the mistake for theIrish Independent.  In that opinion article for the Irish Independent, Monagan announced his resignation and offered some background on how his mistake happened.
Monagan explained that he confused Higgins — who Monagan said he voted for — with one of Higgins’ opponents in the race for president, David Norris — who is openly gay.  Monagan attributed his error to working too quickly:
“In a rush to get a complex and heavily researched story out about something altogether different – in this case, Samantha Power, the Dublin-born American ambassador nominee to the UN – I, in a last-minute addition, pasted in two erroneous words – ‘acknowledged homosexual’ – about the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, that pertained in fact not to him but his electoral rival for the job two years ago, David Norris.”
Monagan apparently didn’t do a final fact check of his article. “I hit the ‘post’ button without that last, last review critical to my lifelong trade,” according to Monagan. “And apparently, not one person at Forbes bothered a look as the post went global.”
While Monagan accepted responsibility for the “whopper,” he noted that under his agreement with Forbes, any errors had to be his own. “My contract warned that mistakes were my problem alone legally, and when the journalistic equivalent of a firestorm hit, Forbes could not even find my phone number,” he commented.
Monagan elaborated on his concerns with the state of onlinejournalism and the lack of editing, specifically in his work for Forbes.  “Generally, there are no senior editors to ask any questions about what we report, no junior sub editors to screen the article before it goes live, and certainly no fact checkers – at least not until the damage is already done,” Monagan said of writing for Forbes.
Detailing his writing agreement with Forbes, Monagan said he had to write “four original articles about Ireland each month for a base fee of $200″ and occasional small increases for articles with lots of hits or any “repeat viewer.”
But, when it all evened out, Monagan said he didn’t make very much money at all based on the average of ten hours spent per article.
In his email to iMediaEthics, Monagan also included a link to a Guardian interview with Forbes’ Lewis DVorkin about how Forbes works with its contributor content. In that April 2013 article, the Guardian reported thatForbes has “1,000 contributors” who “self-publish” and “are paid according to the size of the audience they attract.”
Chinese hoteliers pay €20m for Cork’s Fota Island Resort

 

Resort developed by Fleming Group for €90m sold on behalf of Nama

The Fota Island Resort in Cork Harbour, built by Irish developer John Fleming at cost of over €90 million has been sold on behalf of Nama to a Chinese hotelier family for an estimated €20 million.
The Fota Island Resort in Cork Harbour, built by Irish developer John Fleming at cost of over €90 million, has been sold on behalf of Nama to a Chinese hotelier family for an estimated €20 million.
Selling agents, Colliers International in conjunction with Cork auctioneer, Coholan Downing have confirmed that the resort comprising a hotel, golf courses and holiday lodges set on 500 acres, has been purchased by the Kang family.
Colliers International declined to say what price the Kang family had paid for the resort which was put on the market by receiver PriceWaterhouseCooper on behalf of Nama but informed sources confirmed that the resort achieved its guide price of €20million.
The successful bid was made on behalf of the Kang family by chartered accountants, O’Connor Pyne & Co Ltd of Ballincollig who confirmed the purchase of Fota Island Resort in a statement issued yesterday afternoon.
“The family confirm that the business will trade as normal with all commitments, such as weddings and corporate bookings being honoured. They look forward to the continuation of the successful relationship between the hotel and the golf club,” said O’Connor Pyne.
Conor Pyne of O’Connor Pyne told The Irish Times that the Kang family were familiar with Fota Island Resort from a number of visits over the past few years and were very pleased with the purchase which represents their first investment in Europe.
“As a family, they are very experienced in the hotel business with two five star hotels in Shanghai and Beijing and they have many years of experience in the sector – they weren’t involved in any previous bids for Fota so they’re obviously very pleased with the outcome.”
Marcus Magnier of Colliers International said the purchase of Fota Island Resort by the Kang family was a major vote of confidence in the Cork economy and was good news for the resort which employs over 200 people between fulltime and part time staff.
“It’s a real vote of confidence in the Cork economy – they will be undertaking work at the hotel including a certain amount of refurbishment and upgrading it if that is possible while they also plan to finish out the lodges so it’s good news for Cork,” he said.
Fota Island Resort was developed by the Fleming Group in 2006 after John Fleming purchased the bought the original Fota golf course in 2004 from the Killeen Group, owned by the O’Mahony family, the Toyota car distributors.
The Fleming Group proceeded to add two more golf courses to the original course which hosted the Irish Open in both 2001 and 2002 while the group also built the 131 bedroomed hotel complete with a state-of-the-art leisure centre and spa with a 18-metre pool.
In 2006, Mr Fleming invited the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern to official opent the hotel which he signed up-market international chain Sheraton as the operator but when Nama took over Fleming Group loans in 2010, PriceWaterhouse Cooper was appointed as receiver.

The Irish Banking System and what do we need to know and where should it go from here?

 

Richard Curran (above) recently gave a talk on the banking crisis to students at the MacGill Summer School in Donegal. This is a full transcript of the presentation.

Good to be in Donegal as we discuss such an eagerly awaited event. A moment in history that is approaching that will give us all poise to reflect and catch our breath… Not the 1916 centenary anniversary but the Donegal match against Mayo on Saturday!
It is a sign of how far we have fallen that at a conference about ‘how stands the republic’ – we end up talking about banks.  But they are an important part of our recent past, our present and sadly our future…. for a while anyway. It will be a sign of achievement when we can have an important discussion about our country that doesn’t involve the topic of banks.  That will be a good day – and a good for the banks also.
It is also interesting to talk about where stands the republic ahead of our exit from the bailout programme when we are hoping to get the keys of the republic back or at least the cheque book.
In a nutshell what do we need to know about the banking system:
A combination of banks, politicians, regulators and borrowers  contributed to a mess that left a €64 billion citizen bailout of the banking system. At around 40pc of GDP it was probably, for our size, the most expensive state bank bailout of a developed economy ever.
Banks have been taken over by the state. They have shrunk, reduced lending, shipped big losses and tried to stay alive.
There are some signs that they are making progress. Wilbur Ross described his investment in Bank of Ireland his best in the crisis. Bank of Ireland shares are up 80 pc since he made his €300 million investment in 2011.
The other banks are trundling on, trying to rebuild profitability from the wreckage. And progress is being made. But it is slow and still tentative.
However, in trying to get back to making a profit they have seriously wounded their customers by having to hike up standard variable rates on mortgages and now preparing to move on the difficult and sensitive issue of mortgage arrears.
So, just as we may be putting the worst of the crisis behind us, we are entering a final phase which is likely to be very difficult.
Then along comes a man most of us had never heard of before: John Bowe – the head of Treasury at Anglo Irish Bank. The release of the Anglo tapes did a number of things:
- It brought new insight into what was going on inside a bank that cost us €30 bn.
- The tone of the conversations made us cringe and was generally quite sickening.
- It highlighted to us how little we knew about the detail and mechanics of this financial crash that has cost us all so much.
- It reminded us that despite a lot of posturing, the government hadn’t really done anything about holding a major inquiry into the banking crisis.
We have to deal with the past properly in order to expect citizens to move on to the future. This is about fairness and justice, but also about knowledge to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
When the Anglo crisis happened, the citizens of this country needed two things; they needed an open, transparent and independent account of what went wrong – explanations. And they needed to believe that in the event that the law was broken, there would be some kind of accountability or sanction.
In the run up to March 2009 when the Gardai went in the front door of Anglo Irish Bank, various politicians were talking about a High Court inspector being appointed to the bank.  I think that would have been a very useful development.
But once the Gardai went in, they stopped calling for an inspector. Once the Gardai went in, everything went into lock down mode. The Gardai found themselves investigating an enormous, complex set of transactions, with limited resources, outdated legislative back-up and a very heavy burden of proof.
The attempt to satisfy the second of those needs – sanction – restricted the state from being able to satisfy the first need – explanation.
We have had a number of inquiries that have added to our knowledge and understanding of the mistakes that were made – Honohan Report, Regling & Watson Report, Nyberg Report. But they have not added to our understanding of who is to blame and they have not brought us any closer to the issue of sanction. If everybody is to blame, then nobody is to blame.
Of course the boom years generated a culture of greed and misguided invincibility. Take the guy who believed he could leverage up the equity on his home house to develop a portfolio of rental properties built on interest only mortgages, give up his job and never have to work again. I think he needs to ask himself some questions.
But what about the couple who borrowed vast sums for a modest apartment just to get on the property ladder, blinded by and let down by the hype of institutions that should have known better. Who could fault them?
We need a proper banking inquiry. But there are problems. The only show in town is likely to be an Oireachtas Inquiry.
- This will not be able to make findings of fact against individuals.
- It may end up sitting in court as often as sitting hearing evidence.
- It may become too party political.
- It may focus too much on the run-up to the guarantee.
- TDs on committees tend to grand stand and seek headlines for their questions rather than the answers.
As a citizen I do not feel the need to see former bank chief executives on national television being harried for the sake of headlines. But, I do want to be able to read their explanations and their account of what happened, delivered by them in the face of informed and tough questioning. I want to know the version of events of the main players and the not so main players.
I would like to hear Michael Fingleton’s explanation of what went on in Irish Nationwide for example. But I would also like to hear or read Patrick Neary’s explanation about what went on inside Irish Nationwide and why the regulator was so ineffectual.
But there are others who have a contribution to make. I would love to hear what non-executive directors of Irish banks have to say about what it was really like on the board of one of those lenders at that time.
I have spoken to some former non-executive directors privately who tell me their bank lost billions without breaching a single law, or code or rule. Perhaps they have good explanations for how all of this happened.
I read an article a few years ago by economist Jim O’Leary in The Irish Times based on a paper he presented to the MacGill Summer School, about what it was like on the board of AIB. I interviewed Con Power, a former non-executive director of Irish Nationwide about his experiences. Dermot Gleeson, former chairman of AIB also delivered a paper at MacGill some years back. These are the only public accounts I can find where non-executive directors described how things really worked. I found them informative, interesting and challenging.
Were the board of Anglo puppets for Sean FitzPatrick and David Drumm? We don’t know. The Anglo tapes suggest they weren’t. Interestingly they make a few references where Drumm is anxious about the difficult questions the non-executive directors would ask about certain things.
We need some kind of banking inquiry. If an Oireachtas one is the last throw of the dice then it should allow for experts who are not Oireachtas members either to chair it, or participate in it, or both. Ideally, I would prefer if it was not an Oireachtas inquiry at all.
We need a broader expertise and a broader perspective.

Now pour a bottle of wine without removing the cork?

       

Coravin a company founded by medical device inventor Greg Lambrecht, has introduced a game changing gadget for preserving wine that allows you to pour a glass of wine without ever removing the cork — and without oxygen ever touching the wine.

A thin, hollow needle is inserted through the cork to extract the wine. As it’s poured out, it’s replaced with inert argon gas from a small, neat canister so that oxygen never touches the wine. Remove the needle and the cork reseals itself. Nifty, yes? But it is $299.
For a room temperature bottle, that sealing happens right away. A cork from a chilled bottle may take a minute or two longer. Meanwhile, the presence of the argon gas means the wine left in the bottle will continue to evolve as it would have naturally. It also means you can return to that same bottle six months or five years later to enjoy another glass.
Obviously, at that price, the system isn’t for the casual wine drinker but for wine aficionados who have serious cellars and not many friends with whom to share important bottles. Personally, I can’t imagine any bottle lasting around my household for more than an hour or two after it’s uncorked.
There are those, however, who love wine, but have a spouseor partner who doesn’t drink. Now, instead of hesitating to open a good bottle of wine, knowing they won’t finish it, it’s possible to enjoy a glass of Sine Qua Non or Guigal Côte Rôtie and save the rest of the bottle for another week — or another year.
Think of the other possibilities. For a fancy dinner for two at home, you can open a different bottle of great wine with each course and know whatever’s left in the bottle won’t be wasted. Restaurants will be able to open important bottles without worrying whether they’ll sell the whole bottle that night.
Coravin’s inventor Lambrecht came up with the idea when his wife became pregnant with their second child and wasn’t drinking. “Like a lot of people, I wanted a glass of great wine, but didn’t want to open a bottle.” He tried all the wine preservation devices but ultimately, he says, “they all required removing the cork, and once that’s removed the wine is exposed to oxidation. I realized that if I could leave the cork in place and get out only the wine needed for that moment, the cork could continue to do the preservation work it’s been doing since the 17th century.”
And so for the past 14 years he’s built prototype after prototype, experimenting with different needles, different inert gases, different wines and every other variable. He’s conducted countless blind tastings to find out whether the wine had changed at all after he accessed it. He’d go back to the same bottles after a month, three months, six months, a year, even seven years. At first he tasted with fellow wine geeks, but the past few years it’s been with master sommeliers, winemakers, restaurateurs — and wine critic Robert Parker, who is a fan.
Joe Bastianich, partner in the Mozza restaurant group and other Mario Batali projects, was one of the first restaurateurs to try Coravin. Now he’s an investor and spokesman for the project: “It’s really a game changer for the entire wine industry. All of a sudden you can taste any bottle in your cellar without pulling the cork. It will change the way people treat their cellars and the way restaurants serve wine.”
Bastianich has been using the system every night at Del Posto and Otto in New York for a year now. At Del Posto, wines by the glass start at $35 and go up to $400 — the latter, a 1999 Jacobo Conterno “Monfortino” Barolo which goes for $1,800 a bottle.
With this device, wine by the glass service looks very similar to bottle service. The server brings the bottle to the table and without pulling the cork, pours out a glass of wine. Expect to see more restaurants, including Osteria Mozza, using Coravin in future.
Coravin 100 with stand and two pressurized Coravin capsules costs $299 ($279 without the capsules). Capsules, which allow access up to 15 glasses of wines, are $10.95 each. Buy six for $56.95, bringing the price for each to just over $8. However, federal regulations prohibit air travel with them. Get this, though, “If you plan to travel, we will safely ship your Coravin Capsules directly to your destination.”

Irish athlete pays tribute to donor after winning GOLD at transplant games

  
Ireland’s first liver transplant recipient has now won a total of four medals at the World Transplant Games in South Africa.
The Carlow man Tony Gartland, 50, secured GOLD in the 5,000m Race-walk event, and Bronze in the 800m race today.
This brings his total medal tally to four – including one gold, one silver and two bronze.
Gartland underwent a liver transplant 20 years ago at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin.
This afternoon, he paid tribute to the hospital – and his donor.
“Yes, I was the first, at St Vincent’s Hospital, in Ireland, 20 years ago,” he said.
“I can’t believe I’m still alive and kicking after all those years, and without their skill and dedication, I wouldn’t be alive today.
“I’d also like to acknowledge my donor and his family. I don’t know who they are, but they’re out there somewhere, and without them I wouldn’t be alive, never mind taking part in the Transplant Games in South Africa.”

World’s first talking robot ‘Kirobo’ astronaut to go into space

 

Scientists in Japan will on Sunday launch the world’s first talking “robot astronaut” into space.

Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor engineer Fuminori Kataoka chats with humanoid robot Kirobo in Tokyo, Kirobo’s name derives from the Japanese words for “hope” and “robot”.
The humanoid robot, named Kirobo, is scheduled to blast into space around sunrise from an island off southern Japan on board a supply ship bound for the International Space Station.
The robot was created as the world’s first talking companion for astronauts, in particular for Koichi Wakata, who will become the firstJapanese commander of ISS when he heads to space later this year.
Kirobo, whose name is derived from the Japanese words for “hope” and “robot”, is the creation of a conglomeration of companies and scientists with the support of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The pint-sized dimensions of the robot – who stands just 13.4 inches tall and weighs 2.2 pounds – belie the sophistication of the cutting edge technology it contains.
Scientists from the University of Tokyo created the robot hardware and movement, Toyota Motor Corp was behind the voice recognition technology while conversation content was created by Dentsu the advertising agency.
The end result is a small monochrome robot with large round eyes and red boots possessing an ability to converse in Japanese, shake hands, stand up on its own and adapt to a zero-gravity environment.
On board the ISS, Kirobo will engage in the first human-robot conversation in space as part of an experiment in order to determine whether robots can potentially be of assistance to humans on missions by communicating directly with them.
Unveiled by its creators late last month, the robot appeared before gathered media and declared: “This may look a small step, but it will be a big stride as a robot.”
Kirobo, whose missions will also include relaying messages from control rooms to astronauts, has a twin robot called Mirata who will remain grounded in Japan, monitoring any problems encountered in space.

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