Irish Government Exchequer returns almost €1bn ahead of same period last year
The Irish Government collected close to a €1bn more in taxes in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year. The main reasons were higher income tax and VAT receipts.
In total, around €6.7bn in tax revenue was collected in the first two months of the year which was 5.4% ahead of Budget forecasts.
In the first two months of the year, the Exchequer collected almost €2.9bn in income tax or 6.8% more than last year.
“February is a quiet month for VAT so the figure of most interest is income tax receipts,” said Peter Vale, a tax partner at Grant Thornton. “These continue to remain buoyant, evidence of both more people at work and higher earnings. With most people also paying less income tax from the start of the year, there is a higher percentage of disposable income, which is evidenced by increased retail spending (and strong VAT receipts).”
VAT receipts stood at €2.37bn by the end of last month which was 16.2% increase on the same period last year..
Excise duties soared 20% to €778m and stamp duty receipts soared 42% to €152m.
Republic of Ireland the first European country to ban branded tobacco packs
James Reilly, Ireland's child care Minister and a former health minister, spearheaded the tobacco ban.
The Republic of Ireland has become the first country in Europe to pass laws banning branded cigarette packets.
Following the example set by Australia, all tobacco products sold in Ireland will be in a standard dark-coloured wrapper emblazoned with large health warnings and images of disease.
Slim boxes of cigarettes, in lipstick-style shapes, will also be illegal under the reform.
Brand names will be small and use similar fonts on all packets in the marketing clampdown which is likely to be challenged in the courts, either in Ireland or under European rules.
James Reilly, Children’s Minister and a former health minister who spearheaded the ban, said it was about protecting people and should be seen as a good day for the health of children.
“The interests of public health will be served when children decide never to take up smoking in the first place and if smokers are persuaded to quit,” he said.
“We have a duty to prevent our children from being lured into a killer addiction.
“Standardised packaging will strip away the illusions created by shiny, colourful cigarette packets and replace them with shocking images showing the real consequences of smoking.”
The UK is set to follow the Irish example with laws to be passed before the end of the month.
Anti-smoking campaigners and Government say the ban will remove one of the last remaining and most powerful marketing tools of big tobacco firms, but it is facing a legal challenge over claims it infringes trademarks and the free movement of goods across the EU.
Up to 10 European countries are understood to have complained over Ireland’s branding ban.
Analysis done for investors by Exane BNP Paribas has warned that the tobacco industry could be in line for payouts in the billions if the same law is passed in the UK.
In Ireland, with about 800,000 people estimated to smoke – a prevalence rate of about 22% – a successful compensation claim is likely to run to hundreds of millions, the investor advisers said.
New Zealand is also progressing similar laws while France, Finland and Norway have indicated they will go down the same path.
Anti-smoking group Ash Ireland said the ban was vital health legislation.
Spokesman Ross Morgan said the Government and opposition politicians should be complimented for pushing ahead with the ban despite threats of lawsuits.
“We would also expect that should the industry mount a legal challenge on any aspect of this health legislation it will be vigorously contested,” he said.
“Ash Ireland is firmly of the view that the successful implementation of this legislation here in Ireland will set the scene for others to follow in Europe as was the case with the workplace smoking legislation some 11 years ago.”
More than 5,200 people die in Ireland each year from the effects of smoking and more than 1 billion euro is spent by health services every year treating tobacco-related disease.
The country’s Revenue department said it took in 984 milion euro in excise duty and an estimated 309 million euro from VAT from tobacco sold over the counter in Ireland last year – a total of 1.3 billion euro.
Dr Morgan claimed the early indications from Australia are that smoking rates have fallen and young people find the standardised packets less attractive.
“In recent weeks it emerged that some legal companies were advising the tobacco industry and various elements of our health services,” the doctor said.
“This is an apparent conflict of interest which must be examined further and it seems clear that the status quo in this area is entirely unsatisfactory.”
The Department of Health in Dublin said: “The threat of legal challenges should not act as deterrents for the introduction of appropriate public health measures.”
It added: “The state would argue that the Irish Government has approved the development and introduction of this legislation on the basis that it is a proportionate and justified public health measure.”
Ireland introduced a workplace smoking ban 11 years ago this month making it illegal to smoke in bars and restaurants.
It was the first country in the world to impose such an outright ban and followed that with restrictions on displays of cigarettes and tobacco products in shops, restrictions on vending machines and an end to the sale of packets of 10 cigarettes.
Efforts are also being pursued by campaigners to make it illegal to smoke in a car with children.
President Michael D Higgins will formally sign the legislation into law at a date to be confirmed.
Ireland’s GPs to be offered €100 per child under free care scheme
GPs are expected to be offered a yearly fee of €100 a year for each child under the Government’s long-delayed scheme of free care for all 240,000 children under the age of six.
The fee would include a basic payment of €75 , plus another €25 if they agree to extras such as a weight checks three times a year.
A contract has yet to be finalised and offered to around 2,500 GPs who will have to decide individually if they accept or reject the scheme.
The Department of Health is expected to have to back to the Department of Finance to top up the €25m allocated to the scheme this year which will not be enough.
Talks have been underway between the Department of Health and the Irish Medical Organisation, the doctor’s union, since last autumn.
However, another union, the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP), which has 1,200 members, has already called for a boycott of the scheme.
It recently criticised its exclusion from talks as well as more negotiatiosn which are due to begin in the coming months on the bid to modernise their contract coveringr medical card holders and reverse some of the cuts in fees imposed on them in recent years.
These talks are being held out as a “carrot” to encourage GPs to agree to treating children under-six and the over-70s for free, in return for State fees, from around June onwards.
Health Minister Leo Varadkar said there appears to be little basis for partnership with the NAGP at this time given their threat to boycott the introduction of free visits for the under-sixes.
In response NAGP chief executive Chris Goodey said the Minister has come up with one “sham reason” after another to justify this discrimination against our members.”
Mr Goodey said:”He has now revealed that the real reason we are being excluded is that we have refused to be bullied into accepting a policy that is driven by political need rather than the common good.”
A memo of understanding between the Department of Health and the Irish Medical Organisation states that the talks on the under-sixes should conclude by the end of March.In return the talks on the wider medical card contract could then get underway.
The NAGP has built up its membership in the last year among GPs who are deeply unhappy at cuts in fees which they say have left many of them in financial difficulties.
The NAGP has applied for a negotiating licence but this will take some time to come through. In the meantime, it
has secured a negotiating licence by entering into a cooperative arrangement with the Independent Workers Union of Ireland (IWU).
It believes this agreement allows it freedom to negotiate, a licence exclusively held by the Irish Medical Organisation up to now.
The NAGP said the agreement with the IWU would see both organisations continue to operate as independent entities while sharing resources and the IWU negotiating licence.
Forbes’ rich list names contains five Irish billionaires
Three of Ireland’s rich listed billionaires left to right above Denis O’Brien, Dermot Desmond and Martin Naughton.
MICROSOFT FOUNDER BILL GATES IS THE WORLD’S RICHEST PERSON WITH A FORTUNE OF $79BN, AND INDIAN TYCOON PALLONJI MISTRY IS IRELAND’S RICHEST CITIZEN.
Despite the financial crisis and fears for global growth, the number of billionaires surged to a record 1,826 last year, including five from Ireland, according to the 2015 Forbes Rich List.
The number of billionaires is up almost 200 since last year.
The wealthiest Irish citizen to have been born here is businessman Denis O’Brien, according to Forbes, which puts the Digicel founder’s fortune at $6.8bn.
Glen Dimplex founder Martin Naughton has a $2.8bn fortune, Forbes said.
Campbells Soup heir John Dorrance III, an American-born Irish citizen, is worth $2.6bn.
Businessman Dermot Desmond, who created a private equity investments empire after founding and selling NCB Stockbrokers, has a $1.8bn fortune, according to Forbes.
Pallonji Mistry is little known here, but as head of the family-controlled Shapoorji Pallonji conglomerate he presides over business interests ranging from construction and oil to Tetley Tea and Jaguar Land Rover.
He qualifies as Irish as the husband of Dublin-born Patsy Perin Dubash. His fortune of $16.3bn, according to Forbes, makes him the 55th wealthiest person on earth.
Bill Gates’s $79bn tally puts him “just” $2bn ahead of the $77bn fortune of Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim, according to the annual rich list. Bill Gates has been ranked at the top of the listing for 16 of the last 20 years, even though the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives away billions to charity each year.
Men dominate the rich list, which includes fewer than 200 women. The highest placed is Wal-Mart stores heiress Christy Walton, who comes in at eighth with a $41.7bn fortune.
The co-founders of mobile messaging service Snapchat, Evan Spiegel (24) and Bobby Murphy (25,) are the youngest billionaires, worth $1.5bn each, according to Forbes.
The US has the most (536) billionaires, followed by China with 213.
The riches and perils of the fossil fuel age
If nations could agree a carbon tax, it would help create a more efficient, less polluting future.
Our ancestors lived in eras we call the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Ours is the “fossil-fuel age”. The energy we have extracted from the earth’s reserves of fossilised sunlight has spread (unequally shared) abundance across humanity. Will this continue? Can we manage its impact on our environment? The answers will shape the future of our complex global civilisation.
As always, BP’s Energy Outlook provides a glimpse into a possible future. No doubt, its forecasts will be wrong. But it tells us what well-informed people at the heart of the oil and gas industry consider “the likely path of global energy markets to 2035”. It puts forward five important propositions about a plausible energy future.
First, global economic output is forecast to rise by 115 per cent by 2035. Asian emerging economies — principally China and India — are expected to generate more than 60 per cent of that increase.
The primary driver of the rise in global output is expected to be a 75 per cent jump in global average real output per head, as the prosperity of emerging economies catches up with that of high-income countries. Population growth plays a distinctly subsidiary role. It is not the number of people, but rather their prosperity, that drives demand for commercial energy.
Second, as a result of rapidly rising energy efficiency, energy consumption is forecast to grow by only 37 per cent. This is far less than the rise in output of real goods and services.
Third, emissions of carbon dioxide are forecast to grow by 25 per cent, a growth rate of about 1 per cent a year. In terms of the link between output and emissions, this is a huge achievement. But — given the need to cut emissions outright, in order to have a good chance of limiting the global average temperature rise to below 2C — it is wholly inadequate. Thus, in 2035, emissions of CO2 are forecast to be 18bn tonnes above levels suggested by the International Energy Agency’s “450 Scenario”. This seeks to limit atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration to the equivalent of about 450 parts per million of CO2. If such targets are to be met, something far more radical needs to occur. (See charts.)
Fourth, improvements in energy efficiency are a far more important driver of the relatively low growth in emissions than shifts in the fuel mix. This is despite a substantial rise in use of renewables. So, between 2013 and 2035, output of renewable energy is forecast to grow by 320%. Even so, its share in primary energy production is forecast to grow only from 2.6% to 6.7%. The combined share of renewables, hydroelectricity and nuclear power grows only from 9% to 19%. This, then, is expected to remain a fossil-fuel age.
Fifth, the revolution in the production of shale gas and tight oil is expected to continue, with their share in primary energy production rising to about 10 per cent. An important result is large shifts in patterns of trade. So the US is forecast to shift from being a net importer of 12m barrels a day of oil in 2005 to being a net exporter by 2035. Meanwhile, China is forecast to shift to being a net importer of more than 13m b/d by 2035 (from self-sufficiency in the early 2000s); and India to being a net importer of about 7m b/d. Such shifts have huge geopolitical implications.
It would be wrong to describe these forecasts as simply “business as usual”. They actually imply a faster rise in energy efficiency than between 2000 and 2013. But they are not radical. The world would continue to rely overwhelmingly on fossil fuels and it would emit ever greater quantities of greenhouse gases. Could we do better?
I start from the presumption that humanity will aspire to and often manage to achieve the prosperity now taken for granted in rich countries. So we need an accelerated technological revolution. At the Oslo Energy Forum last month, I heard Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute describe just such a revolution. He argued, for example, that US gross domestic product in 2050 could be 2.5 times what it is today, even if the country stopped using oil, coal and nuclear energy altogether and cut its use of natural gas by one-third.
This would mean carbon emissions of just one-fifth of their present level. Moreover, he argued, the revolution could well be driven by market forces alone, given the growing economic superiority of the new technologies. There might, he suggests, be no need to to take direct policy action against rising emissions of carbon dioxide.
The sense of the BP report (not surprisingly, perhaps, given that BP is a fossil-fuel producer) is that such a radical and rapid market-driven revolution is unlikely. The purported obstacles are many: costs, technological limits, slow turnover of the capital stock, inability to implement policy globally and natural inertia. In brief, I fear BP is right about the obstacles. But Mr Lovins might be right about the opportunities, though only if policy makers give them a big push.
If governments could agree to implement a tax on carbon, they would give a big impulse towards an energy future that is more efficient and less polluting. Governments should invest strongly in fundamental science and new technologies. Finally, governments can help the spread of new technologies abroad and help finance their uptake at home. With this push, normal market forces should pull the world economy towards a more sustainable future.
Mass poverty is not an option. But neither is taking ever-bigger gambles with the climate. The right course has to lie in between. To put ourselves on that course, we need to wean ourselves off the excesses of the fossil-fuel age. It is a daunting challenge. But it has to be met, for our children’s sake.
A species of crab named after David Hasselhoff is teaching us quite a lot
And they are not named after him because of their amazing performance during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There’s a species of crab in our wonderful world nicknamed in honour of David Hasselhoff… because they have very hairy chests. We’re sure that this now makes them your favourite species of crab (narrowly beating the Greenmark Hermit crab.
This is important because, thanks to new research, we now know more about the Hoff (crab) than ever before.
In a study looking at the private life of the deep-sea crabs it was found that the males and females spend separate lives at volcanic vents 1.5 miles deep near Antarctica, because of the conflicting demands of feeding and raising young among the sexes.
In 2010, a British expedition revealed a “lost world” of deep-sea animals including the crab named after the Baywatch star thriving on the ocean floor near Antarctica.
Using a deep-diving remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to examine the distribution, size and sex of these crabs at the vents, Dr Leigh Marsh and colleagues from the University of Southampton have now pieced together their private lives.
Dr Marsh said: “The life cycles of deep-sea animals have been largely hidden from us until now but thanks to more frequent expeditions and advances in technology, we are getting a clearer picture of the natural history of the ocean depths that cover most of our world.”
The researchers found that large male Hoff crabs live highest on the mineral spires of the deep-sea vents, closest to the hot fluids that jet from them.
A university spokesman said: “At the base of the mineral spires, smaller males mingle with females in spectacular piles, many crabs deep, where they get together to mate.
“The females then crawl away from the bustling piles of crabs and the warm mineral-rich fluids seeping from the seafloor, which can be toxic to their young.
“Away from the mineral spires, the few crabs found by the researchers were all females, carrying developing offspring under their curled-up tails.
“Moving away from the warmer waters of the spires takes the females across a gauntlet of predators, such as large sea anemones and seven-arm sea stars.”
They continued: “Away from the vents, the cold water of the deep Antarctic also slows down the metabolism of the adult female crabs, making them less active than in the warmer waters of the jostling piles.
“However, the conditions away from the vents may be more stable and less harmful to their offspring for their early development, making the journey of the females worthwhile.
“Males, meanwhile, don’t share in “child-care” arrangements with the females, and instead can climb up the mineral spires of the vents to take advantage of the warmth and conditions best suited for growing bacteria on their hairy chests.
“By scraping off and eating these bacteria using comb-like mouthparts, the males can grow much larger than the females.”
Study co-author Dr Jon Copley said: “Deep-sea vents are island-like habitats on the sea floor, and discoveries like these show that our exploration of the life that thrives around them has only just begun.”
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