Economist Joseph Stiglitz warns of Ireland’s ‘lost decade’
Decision to bail out the bondholders is a deep mistake’
Joseph Stiglitz said Ireland was facing a lost decade as a result of the bailout.
“A good share of the blame has to go to the ECB and commission for not restructuring the debts,” Mr Stiglitz said.
He said it was the ECB and others who wanted to save the banks, “so it was a trade off between banks all over Europe and the Irish citizens”.
Mr Stiglitz predicted a “lost decade” for the Irish economy before it got back on its feet, and the country would be unlikely to get back on the growth path it was previously on.
“Will you get back to where you were with maybe a lost decade? Yes, I think you will. But it will be a lost decade, at least.”
Austerity “essentially never worked”Mr Stiglitz said. However, he said the decision to stay in the euro was probably the right one.
His comments came as the Troika’s final review said irelnad’s programme remains “on track in the context of the nascent economic recovery”. The final report noted the high unemployment rate, but welcomed steps to improve employment incentives and plans for private sector provision of employment services.
“Additional redeployment of resources is needed to ensure meaningful engagement with job seekers, especially the long-term unemployed, and to provide training relevant to the job market,” a statement from the Troika said.
New head of (NOSP) has focus on suicide prevention
Mr Gerry Raleigh was appointed Head of the National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) on November 23 2012. One year on, in his first interview with the medical press, he told IMN about his first 12 months in office and sets out his priorities for 2014.
Mr Raleigh’s previous roles included Director of St John of Gods Services in Dublin West and Director of City Gate-a housing service for people who have accessed mental health services. He has also managed disability services in the midlands and community services in Laois/Offaly.
A former psychiatric nurse, Mr Raleigh worked in St Loman’s psychiatric hospital in his home town of Mullingar. He described this part of his early career in mental health as being “formative years”.
Having spent two decades in service provision and delivery, Mr Raleigh said that the move to a post with a national profile as head of the NOSP was a challenge. However, he said it was one he had both anticipated and looked forward to.
The NOSP Director said he spent the first five months of his tenure listening to organisations and individuals involved in suicide prevention to get a handle on the issues on the ground and the areas that needed to be prioritised.
According to Mr Raleigh, he gained some of the most important learning experiences since his appointment by simply talking about suicide with those that have been affected. He has spent time discussing suicide both with people who have survived an attempt and loved ones who have been bereaved.
“What that does in my mind is it redoubles… certainly my commitment to try to change things. I am under no illusions about the extent of the task but I think we have made a good start from my point of view.”
Mr Raleigh said he believed what was needed was a four strand approach to suicide prevention. This included: Help seeking i.e. encouraging people to ask for help; increasing mental health literacy and awareness and building resilience; ensuring that when people seek help they know where to find it; and that when they do access that help, it is provided in a sensitive manner, appropriate to their individual needs. The final strand was one of community involvement and the importance of local engagement, he added.
The issue of community involvement in suicide prevention is one which Mr Raleigh believes is also of huge importance.
“We won’t resolve the issue of suicide unless there is strong engagement from local communities and that as communities in towns, villages, streets, in factories in the workplace, that we develop a sense of community. That we look after one another and particularly people who are vulnerable. I have been amazed over my time in general management after a tragedy just how powerful the community response can be.”
One of the concerns that has been expressed recently is that there are too many small disparate community groups working in suicide prevention across the country. However, Mr Raleigh said that this did not concern him as long as groups worked in an evidence-based and safe manner.
“It is important they are there. I would be far more concerned if there was nothing happening in local communities. What is important, however, is that, when those communities engage, that they actually link in with the health services and whatever they do is both safe and evidence-based, and that is welcome,” he said.
According to Mr Raleigh, the NOSP has recently developed a number of initiatives including the piloting of the Suicide Crisis Assessment Nurse (SCAN) service in Dublin and Waterford, the development of an e-learning tool for GPs in conjunction with the ICGP, and the recruitment of clinical nurse specialists who deal with self harm presentations in emergency departments.
The SCAN project involves the provision of a skilled mental health nurse who is available to GPs when he or she feels their patient is in suicidal crisis. The nurse carries out an assessment of the patient in the GP surgery and can make the appropriate referral, thereby, ensuring that patients get the immediate care and attention they need.
Although currently only available in Wexford, Mr Raleigh said the NOSP hoped to roll out the SCAN service in eight more locations by early next year and to expand it nationally later in 2014.
One of the big pieces of work that Mr Raleigh is currently working on is the development of a new suicide prevention framework to succeed Reach Out: The Irish National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 2005-2014 which runs out next year.
Now almost 10 years old, Reach Out contains a total of 26 actions and 96 recommendations across a range of areas; however, Mr Raleigh said that some of these are not specific enough.
“What the weakness in my view in terms of Reach Out is that it is not specific enough in terms of objectives, outcomes and targets and responsibilities… so I think we need to move in terms of the next version of Reach Out or its successor and what it might look like into something that is far more focused on implementation.”
According to Mr Raleigh, he would like to see the creation of local suicide prevention implementation plans for each individual county or town across the country.
“I don’t think we are looking at a new suicide strategy. I think many of the elements, the components, the vision and the principles that underpin Reach Out hold as good today as it did when written 10 years ago. I think we need a much sharper implementation focus on key elements of those, particularly as they apply to help seeking, help giving and help taking and the engagement of the community,” he said.
Mr Raleigh said that his office was currently in discussions with the Department of Health as to how the new framework may look like.
Mr Raleigh suggested that the next framework document for suicide prevention in Ireland would be much more focused on implementation with key targets and objectives and one that would possibly be shorter in terms of duration than Reach Out, perhaps covering five years. He also said the NOSP was working towards publishing the new framework next year.
At the time of writing, the HSE Service Plan for 2014 is yet to be published and, therefore, Mr Raleigh was still awaiting details regarding the budget his office will have for next year. However, he said that the NOSP budget for 2013 was €7.9 million and this reflected a doubling of the 2010 figure of just under €4 million.
Mr Raleigh said that he was confident that the 2013 NOSP budget would be fully allocated this year. However, he said that when he took up the position at the end of 2012 the office had an underspend of approximately €2 million which he said “was an issue for the Office when suicide was such a high risk issue”.
“There are a couple of honest reasons. One, a number of the initiatives that were established were time related they hadn’t fully kicked off so the spend that was anticipated hadn’t been realised. But perhaps the most significant reason was there were three different directors in the Office in 2012 so there was leadership changes and with that slippage in terms of plans and implementation.”
Looking to the future, Mr Raleigh said one of his focuses for next year included increasing the number of suicide prevention resource officers who do “remarkable work” around the country and developing a new communications strategy for the NOSP, work on which has already started.
Finally, the NOSP Director said it was important to acknowledge the enormous amount of good work that is going on all over the country in suicide prevention.
“We need to reflect that there is a lot of good work happening and there is support out there for people and when people feel distressed look for help… please look for help when you are feeling down and troubled, it is there.”
Irish software firm Fleetmatics business up 50%
An Irish software company that supplies fleet management solutions for fleets of commercial vehicles, Fleetmatics, has reported a jump in profits of nearly 50%.
In its third-quarter results, the Dublin-based company reported that Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) for the third quarter was (€11.24m), an increase of 49.5% compared to $10.1m for the third quarter of 2012.
Chairman and chief executive of Fleetmatics, Jim Travers said they had out-performed all of their expectations and goals in the third quarter.
The company’ third-quarter results are the highest they have ever reported. The company’s revenues increased by nearly 40%.
Mr Travers said that the strong performance of the company had led to it increasing its full-year guidance for the year.
The company now expects total revenue for the final quarter of year to be between $48.6m and $49.2m.
As a result of this they are guiding full-year growth of EBITDA of more than 60% compared with last year, putting them in the $54.3m to $54.7m range.
Two men die in unrelated incidents in Co Donegal
Farmer dies after tractor topples over in freak incident and man’s body found in ditch
A farmer died when his tractor toppled over after colliding with a car in a freak incident in Co Donegal today.
The man died instantly following the collision on the N13 at Ballintra outside Donegal Town around 10am.
The man killed has been named locally as Christy Lipsett from Cashel in Rossnowlagh.
Gardaí sealed off the area and crash collision investigators carried out a full examination of the scene. The driver of the other vehicle was unhurt in the crash.
A spokesman confirmed the farmer died at the scene but that the driver of the car was uninjured.
The spokesman said: “Gardaí are investigating a fatal road traffic collision involving a tractor and car on the N15 at Ballintra, Co. Donegal this morning, 8th November 2013.
“The driver of tractor, a man in his early 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of car was not injured.
“Garda forensic collision investigators are carrying out an examination at the scene and diversions are in place in the area. Gardaí are appealing for witnesses to contact Ballyshannon Garda Station on 071 9858530.”
There was some confusion following the crash after reports of another body being found close to the scene at the same time.
It later emerged that the body of a second man had been found some miles away at Ballinacarragh, Ballintra.
This evening the man was named as Pat McCafferty, in his 50s, and originally from Scotland but who had been living locally for a number of years.
His body was found in a ditch but gardaí say the death is accidental and the incidents are not related.
Local councillor Brendan Travers said it was a dark day for Ballintra. “My sympathies go to the families of both men. A lot of people are in shock around here.
“One death is bad enough but two on the one day in such a small community has left people in a state of disbelief,” he said.
JET-PROPELLED SPACE OBJECT seen LURKING NEAR MARS
Hubble snaps ‘freakish’ astro-thing squirting mysterious streams of stuff
A bizarre spinning object, described by NASA as “weird and freakish” and shooting jets of matter that causes it to move, has been spotted in our Solar System.
The mysterious rock, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was seen spewing matter from its surface by the Hubble space telescope on September 10. Then in a second image taken on September 23 the asteroid, dubbed P/2013 P5, appeared to have swung around significantly.
Professor David Jewitt – of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles – told The Register that the appearance of the asteroid is unique, and the team has some ideas of how it came to exhibit such unusual characteristics.
“One idea was that we were seeing ice on the asteroid outgassing, but the object is too hot, around 170 Kelvin, for ice,” he explained. “An impact with the asteroid was discussed but that would leave one large plume, not six.”
The current idea is that the asteroid is being spun around so quickly that it is breaking apart under the strain of its own rotation. The spin is probably the result of hundreds of thousands of years of slight pressure from solar emissions.
Stars like our Sun emit protons and radiation that can push against objects in its heliosphere, and for asteroids of a certain shape these emissions cause rotation. Since the pressure from the Sun is constant, and space is virtually frictionless, then asteroids can spin faster and faster until they disintegrate.
This YORP effect (named after the four scientists who contributed to the theory: Yarkovsky, O’Keefe, Radzievskii, and Paddack) has been suggested as a reason for the relative paucity of small, asymmetrical objects within our Solar System in comparison to rounder rocks, and the search is now on for more observations of the theory in action.
No comments:
Post a Comment