Irish consumer sentiment at eight year high
Consumers’ expectations of an easier Budget next week feed into sentiment indicators
The KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 92.8 from 87.1 in August, as all the main components of the index recorded monthly gains.
Irish consumer sentiment rose to its highest level since January 2007 in September, as greater optimism in relation to Irish economic prospects and a related pick-up in the outlook for household finances in the coming year, pushed the index up.
The KBC Bank Ireland/ESRI Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 92.8 from 87.1 in August, as all the main components of the index recorded monthly gains.
According to the ESRI, the broadly based rise in sentiment in September may point towards a further step-up in confidence of late in response to signs of a strengthening recovery and the anticipation of an altogether less threatening Budget next week.
The most notable monthly gain was in relation to thegeneral outlook for the Irish economy, with consumers’ views on the economic outlook at their most positive since February 2006. However, there was a slight drop in the share of responses envisaging a further drop in unemployment in the year ahead (from 47% to 44%) but this may in part be a correction following a sharp rise in this share in the previous two months.
Austin Hughes, chief economist with KBC Bank Ireland, noted: “The jump in Irish consumer sentiment in September is at odds with weaker confidence readings across Europe last month”.
Indeed Euro area consumer confidence posted a fourth consecutive monthly decline in September, pushing that measure to its weakest level since February, while in the UK, consumer confidence also weakened in September, the second drop in three months that has to be seen in the context of a strongly rising trend since the beginning of 2013.
As such, the improvement in the mood of Irish consumers in September most likely reflects domestic factors.
“It seems to reflect a range of good news on the Irish economy and, critically, growing expectations of a notably easier Budget,” says Hughes.
Three Derry men charged with post office robbery tell Gardai
‘IT WAS ALL A BIT OF MADNESS’
THREE APPEAR IN COURT CHARGED IN CONNECTION TO POST OFFICE RAID
Three men from Derry have been remanded in custody today charged in connection with a Co Donegal Post Office raid.
The court heard that Noel Lavy (36) had apologised when he was charged with Saturday’s raid at Manorcunningham Post Office.
When charged Lavey, of 57 Ballymagowen Avenue, Derry, said; “Sorry, it was all a bit of madness. We were just trying to get more drugs. Tell the woman I said I was sorry.”
TWO OTHER MEN WERE ALSO CHARGED IN CONNECTION WITH THE RAID.
They were David Knight of 24 Melmore Gardens in Creggan, Derry and Joseph McMullan, of 5 Kavanagh Court, Derry.
All three were charged with stealing €2,920 in cash from Manorcunningham Post Office, handling stolen cash to the value of €1,510, allowing themselves to be carried in a stolen Royal Mail van and causing criminal damage to Manorcunningham Post Office.
The court also heard that when charged Lavy had also said: “I didn’t mean for it to work out this way.”
His co-accused had made no reply when charged. The court was told that some of the men were on prescription drugs.
All three men were remanded in custody to Harristown Court this Friday.
Private investigators admit ‘deception’ to obtain credit union data
Wendy Martin and Margaret Stuart got personal details from HSE, Department of Social Protection
ASSISTANT DATA PROTECTION COMMISSIONER TONY DELANEY: ‘VERY HAPPY WITH THE OUTCOME’.
Two owners of a private investigations company have been convicted of deceptively obtaining personal information from the Department of Social Protection and the HSE and passing it on to credit unions.
Wendy Martin (45) and Margaret Stuart (56), directors of Greystones-based private investigations company MCK Rentals Ltd, today pleaded guilty at Bray District Court to breaches of the data protection laws.
The two women and the company were charged with 23 counts each of breaches of the data protection legislation.
Ms Martin and Ms Stuart pleaded guilty to one sample charge each of unlawfully obtaining information and passing it to their credit union client. MCK Rentals Ltd pleaded guilty to five related charges.
The defendants were fined a total of €10,500 – €1,500 for each charge – for the breach, which Judge David Kennedy called “a very serious breach of the data protection laws on an ongoing basis and with a certain amount of subterfuge”.
This is the first conviction ever under section 22 of the Data Protection Acts 1998 and 2003, which prohibit individuals from both obtaining access to personal data without the prior authority of the data controller and disclosing that data to another person. The company was prosecuted under section 29 of the Acts.
The court heard credit unions engaged the defendants to locate debtors in arrears. Seven credit unions across the country disclosed clients’ personal information, including PPS number and dates of birth, to the private investigators as a means of accessing further details.
The defendants misrepresented themselves and used a practice known as “blagging” to trick employees of the Department of Social Protection and the HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service into revealing the credit union debtors’ current addresses. The defendants then illegally conveyed this information to the credit unions. The credit unions involved include Tullamore, Portlaoise, Portarlington, Athy, Caherdavin in Limerick and St Mary’s Parish in Limerick.
Assistant Data Protection Commissioner Tony Delaney told the court he discovered the breach while investigating credit unions suspected of obtaining personal data.
Mr Delaney called the scheme a “clever manipulation that relieved the HSE of a vast amount of personal data in all cases”.
Speaking after the trial, Mr Delaney said: “[The Data Protection Commission] is very happy with the outcome that convictions were imposed by the judge both in terms of the company and the directors. It’s the first instance the Data Protection Commissioner has prosecuted directors for their part in the commission of offences by a company, so this is a very significant outcome.
“It’s the first occasion we’ve prosecuted private investigators under the Data Protection Act. And it’s the first occasion “blagging” has been the subject of Data Protection Prosecution.”
The court heard MCK Rentals Ltd still exists but is effectively dormant.
A related case will be tried before Dublin District Court next month. The Data Protection Commissioner will prosecute private investigator Michael J Gaynor, trading as MJG investigations, for illegally accessing personal information from An Garda Síochána and the ESB and disclosing it without authority, again under section 22 of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. He faces 72 charges.
16% of 3 year old children in Ireland have a serious longstanding health condition
Boys are 50% more likely than girls to have such conditions.
One in six (16%) three year olds in Ireland have a serious longstanding health condition according to a report from The Institute of Public Health in Ireland.
IPH Director of Research, Professor Kevin Balanda, said five common serious conditions were reported by carers, including:
“A longstanding illness, condition or disability, diagnosed asthma or asthma symptoms, diagnosed eczema / skin allergy, sight problems that required correction and hearing problems that required correction.
Children with these conditions can have poorer quality of life, poorer social and emotional development, and poorer educational achievement.
The study found that 15.8% of three-year-olds in Ireland – about 11,000 children – have at least one of these conditions.
It established that boys are 50% more likely than girls to have such conditions and children in the lowest socio-economic households are 50% more likely than those in other households to have such a condition.
It also found that children whose primary carer is ill are over 100% more likely than those with well primary carers to have a longstanding condition.
The study says that children born with low birth weight are 70% more likely than other children to have sight problems, while children whose mother smoked during pregnancy are 50% more likely than other children.
THE BREAKDOWN
IPH Research Analyst Mr Steve Barron set out some of the more detailed findings:
- 9.5% (about 6,600) have diagnosed asthma or asthma symptoms
- 4.0% (about 2,800) have diagnosed eczema/skin allergy
- 5.9% (about 4,100) have ever had a sight problem that required correction
- 3.9% (about 2,700) have ever had a hearing problem that required correction
THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH, DR LEO VARADKAR TD, SAID:
“Helping parents and health professionals to be more familiar with the characteristics that place children at higher risk of longstanding conditions will improve the chances of prevention or early detection and intervention.
“Many of these characteristics can be changed and they offer a focus for policy and service interventions to reduce risk factors and improve the lives of children and their families.”
This web-spider photograph is not what it seems
At first glance this elaborate six-foot spider’s web looks as though it spans the entire width of a garage. But in fact it is a clever optical illusion
A clever optical illusion makes this spider web appear six foot across, Russell Harding, 73 demonstrates the size of the web – and shows how the illusion was achieved.
To the naked eye, this incredible six-foot spider’s web looks as though it spans the entire width of a garage.
But if you look a little closer, you can see that this is an optical illusion and the spider’s web is actually woven between his car’s wing mirror and the potting shed.
The elaborate web, which had appeared overnight, was spotted by Russell Harding, a 74-year-old retired engineer.
Mr. Harding, of Colerne, Wilts., said he was “mystified” at how the one-and-a-half-inch spider managed to spin a web which spanned such a huge distance.
“I don’t understand how the spider did it, it was incredible,” the grandfather-of-two said. “I’m just mystified.
“The web was beautifully, symmetrically made. It was covered in dew which amplified the engineering of the web. I just thought it was magnificent, almost a work of art.
“It was right across the path way, I had to move it to walk through, I managed to detach it from my wing mirror and move it 90 degrees to a bin so it was still intact but we could leave our house.
“My wife would have actually passed out if she had walked into the web. There would have been a lot of screaming.
“Fortunately it had been a very dewy morning which highlighted the web so I saw it before I walked into it.”
The Grandfather of two, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, said that he had to tell his hands “not to shake” as he took the photo.
“I am an amateur photographer,” he said. “I look out for things that express more than just the subject matter. This was an optical illusion – trickery of the eye.”
The web, which appeared overnight last Thursday, disappeared after three days.
Angry dolphin strikes for second time off the coast of Galway
CLET WAS ‘NERVOUS’ BEFORE ATTACK.
An experienced dolphin swimmer has described the dramatic moment when an aggressive solitary mammal attacked swimmers off the coast of Co Galway last week.
Last Wednesday, five people were taken to shore by Galway RNLI after the Valentia Coastguard received reports of a dolphin causing difficulty for swimmers in waters off Salthill in Galway.
There was a similar incident last Sunday off the coast of Inis Óirr (Inisheer) – the smallest of the Aran Islands.
Trevor Stoddart, a former member of the Royal Navy, who is now based near Gort, previously had several uneventful swims with Dusty, who has lived in waters off the west coast for the past 14 years, and a second bottlenose dolphin who has been identified as Clet – a young male who was previously sighted in west Cork, and in British and French waters.
But last Sunday things changed dramatically when Clet and Dusty swam close to shore. A young woman tourist waded into the shallow waters still wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Soon after she was struck hard by Clet.
Within seconds, the agitated animal made for Trevor and attempted to strike him violently on the head and shoulder several times before zooming off. Bottlenose dolphins weigh between 200kg and 300kg, and the pair were lucky to escape with nothing more than shock and severe bruising. Trevor said he had sensed Clet was “nervous” before the attack.
“He was swimming fast and his head was twitching as he came towards me,” he said. “I was lucky it happened near the surface as I could fend him off with my hands. He’s so big – the thought of him doing that again is pretty terrifying. Judging from the damage to his dorsal fin and seeing the many scars all over his body, it’s clear he’s been in a lot of fights. I wouldn’t advise anyone to swim with Clet.”
Since Clet’s arrival, many of Dusty’s followers have enjoyed watching the pair jump out of the water and riding the bow waves of the many ferryboats. Some of them have swum with the pair in the past fortnight and the consensus has been that while Dusty has been calm and curious, Clet is described as edgy and unpredictable.
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