100,000 people in Ireland will have their dole cut in an overpayment-clampdown
THERE WILL BE A CLAMPDOWN ON DOLE OVERPAYMENT
More than 100,000 welfare recipients had their €188 dole payments cut last year in Ireland because they had been overpaid,
The clampdown was part of a €70m recovery operation undertaken by Minister Joan Burton’s Social Protection department to combat fraud.
New documents from the department, seen by the Irish Independent, show that because of increased enforcement powers introduced last year, there has been a significant increase in the numbers who have had their payments cut.
The new measures, which came into effect in February 2013, allow Ms Burton’s officials to claw back up to €28, or 15pc, of the weekly dole payment of €188. This they say has led to a 30pc spike in “overpayment recoveries”.
Under the new act, the department can also get an attachment to earnings and monies held in bank accounts by those who have been overpaid in a bid to recoup the excess payments. According to the documents, €35m was recouped from 103,000 people by reducing their weekly payments, while another €35m was gathered from other sources such as bank accounts.
This compares to just over 55,000 cases in 2010 which amounted to €35m and 82,000 cases in 2012 which amounted to €53m, the documents show.
The tough new powers are proving to “be a useful tool” in forcing people no longer in need of State support into a repayment scheme.
The documents were sent by Niamh O’Donoghue, secretary general of the Department of Social Protection to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which had sought clarity on its fraud detection competence.
The shocking figures were revealed as it has emerged that three Social Welfare public servants “colluded” with third parties to defraud the taxpayer of €1.3m. The PAC was told last month that two of the cases are under Garda investigation.
Controversial
One staff member, working in the community welfare division, allegedly colluded with an undisclosed number of outside parties over a six-year period between 2006 and 2012 to scam the taxpayer of between €1m and €1.1m.
The documents also reveal that the controversial €10 cuts to child benefit, announced in budget 2013, affected 1,164,000 children in 609,900 families.
Monthly child benefit rates were cut by €10 to €130, while the rates for the third child was cut from €148 to €130. The rates for the fourth and subsequent children were cut from €160 to €140 a month.
The documents also reveal that of the 78,246 recipients across the country who receive lone parents allowance, 76,783 of those were female and just 1,463 were male, a ratio of 52.5 to one.
Skin cancer survival rate soars in pioneering drugs trial
Twenty four skin cancer sufferers in Ireland are on a groundbreaking trial of drugs which shows a near five-fold increase in survival rates.
Researchers pioneering methods of harnessing the body’s own immune system to fight cancer have uncovered further dramatic results in a worldwide clinical trial involving 7,000 people.
The study found cancer survival rates of 94pc and 88pc after one and two years using a combination of treatments of two drugs – up from existing rates of 40pc and 20pc respectively.
Twenty-four Irish people being treated at hospitals in two sites inDublin, and in Galway and Cork, are among those taking part in the latest phase of the trial starting late last year.
Derek Power, consultant medical oncologist at Cork University Hospital and chairman of the Irish Melanoma Forum, said the results of the early stages of the trials show that a skin cancer cure could be within reach. “This really is an amazing breakthrough, albeit it’s early data,” he said.
“Unequivocally, it absolutely marks a sea change. There is the tantalising possibility of a cure with immuno-therapy. It’s not for everyone, that’s an important thing to say, but it does bring about the potential, and that’s an amazing thing to say.”
In Ireland, almost 630 people a year are diagnosed with melanoma and it leads to 110 deaths a year.
Malignant melanoma – when the skin cancer spreads to other parts of the body – is one of the most aggressive forms of the disease, with 75pc of people dying within one year of diagnosis.
The incidence for women in Ireland is one of the highest in Europe – fourth out of 26 countries – while the rate for men is well above average. Scandinavia has the worst rate and south-east Europe the lowest.
The study’s findings were released at the 50th annual meeting of theAmerican Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) in Chicago.
Global biopharma firm Bristol-Myers Squibb Company is producing the two drugs being used in the trial, nivolumab, and ipilimumab, branded as Yervob on the market, and is funding the study with pharmaceutical firms MSD andRoche.
It is hoped that the combination drug treatment could be available to skin cancer patients in Ireland as soon as next year.
THE COST PER PATIENT COULD START AT €80,000 (£65,000).
Michael Giordano, senior vice-president, head of development, oncology and immunology at the company, said: “The science of immuno-oncology – harnessing the patient’s immune system to treat cancer – is rapidly evolving. These results are the most advanced data set to date evaluating the potential of combining immunotherapies.
“As leaders in the field, they reinforce our aspiration that combining immunotherapies may be foundational and may have the potential to change the standard of care by transforming survival expectations.”
TV advertising blamed for children’s poor diets in Ireland
Television advertising could be to blame for unhealthy eating habits as young viewers recognise twice as many unhealthy food brands as healthy ones.
A new study of children aged three to five found that children recognise more unhealthy brands, even in cases where healthy brands are advertised just as much.
Parents’ own eating habits could also influence children’s knowledge of unhealthy brands, as they choose food for both themselves and their children.
However, a ‘window of opportunity’ was identified in which parents could teach their children about healthier foods during their pre-school years in order to encourage better eating habits in the long term.
The study also suggested that food education takes place in creches and pre-schools – and should include teaching children about which foods are unhealthy.
The spokeswoman for Safefood, Dr Cliodhna Foley-Nolan, said: “This research reiterates the growing recognition of the need for further restrictions on marketing and advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar.”Boy learner driver (16) found driving tractor in Donegal on main road
A 16-YEAR-OLD LEARNER WAS STOPPED WHILE DRIVING A TRACTOR ON A PUBLIC ROAD IN ONE OF THE MORE UNUSUAL TRAFFIC INCIDENTS OVER THE WEEKEND.
He was pulled over by Gardai in Buncrana, Co Donegal, while operating the vehicle on a narrow country road.
A picture of the incident was posted on the official Garda Twitter feed, along with an appeal to farmers to “be responsible” and “work safely”.
It added: “Would you let a 16-year-old drive this (the tractor) on a public road?” A Garda spokesman said
Overall, the weekend saw an improvement on recent years in terms of traffic safety.
The June bank holiday was the worst period of the year for road deaths in 2012 and 2013.
However, there were three fatalities between midnight on Thursday and last night – a reduction on the five deaths last year and six the year before.
In Dublin, a 40-year-old woman pedestrian was killed at 10.30pm on Friday when she was hit by a car.
It happened on Davitt Road in Dublin 12 where the victim, Caroline Watkins, from Lally Road, Ballyfermot, was crossing the road at the Golden Bridge Luas stop.
The mother of one was taken to St James’s Hospital but was later pronounced dead. Witnesses said the car was dark, possibly a Ford Focus. It took off in the direction of the Naas Road.
Garda forensic investigators were called in to examine the scene. Officers arrested a man in his 30s in Drimnagh the following day.
The man, a well-known gangster, was detained under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.
A spokesman said the individual was released without charge on Sunday and a file is being prepared for the DPP.
In Cork, a man in his 50s died when the van he was driving hit a tree. The accident happened on the N72 at Dromagh at 10am on Friday. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
A driver died yesterday after a single-vehicle crash in Clondalkin. The man, in his 70s, was the only person in the car. The crash occurred near Liffey Valley Shopping Centre at 3.45pm.
Is the moon the next Wi-Fi hotspot for our Earth?
NASA and MIT successfully tested broadband connections between the Earth and the moon. The data rate achieved with lasers beats any Wi-Fi on Earth. This is the ground facility in New Mexico where four telescopes send the signal to the moon.
Looking for the fastest broadband connection around? Then look up, say U.S. scientists who are reporting their successful attempt to set up a broadband connection between the Earth and the moon using lasers.
In October of last year and again early this year, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA cooperated in tests of the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration, using potent laser beams to transmit information from the Earth to the moon at exceptionally fast speeds.
In the tests, the findings of which are being presented publicly this week at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in California, the LLCD broke a number of records, downloading data over the 238,999 miles between the moon and the Earth at 622 megabits per second. That is about 5 times the current rate from lunar distances, NASA says.
Upload speeds were a bit slower, around 19.44 Mbps, but still fast enough to send a high-definition video to our moon to allow high-definition video conferencing via Skype.
Those data rates far exceed anything NASA is seeing with any of its current radio frequency communications devices, and the download speed in particular is thought to be faster than that of any commercial broadband or Wi-Fi service available in North America, which has typical download speeds of between 15 and 25 Mbps.
The ability to use lasers in space to send and receive information will be a boost to future missions, the researchers said.
“It is generally agreed that present-day science and exploration missions to deep space are constrained by the amount of data they can get back to Earth,” explainedDon Boroson, who headed the MIT research team developing the communication system. “It has been known for years that laser communications have the potential to deliver much higher data rates and use smaller space terminals than radio-based systems.”
Wi-Fi signals, converted to laser pulses, were transmitted between four telescopes in White Sands, New Mexico, and a NASA satellite, LADEE, in orbit around the moon.
The researchers said the success of the MIT LLCD tests was a big step on the way to an even more sophisticated system to be known as the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), set to begin testing in 2017.
“The on-orbit performance [of the LLCD] was excellent and close to what we’d predicted, giving us confidence that we have a good understanding of the underlying physics,” said team member Mark Stevens of MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory.
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