One third of Irish voters find Lucinda’s new party appealing
A poll shows 35% of people think Ireland definitely needs a new party.
There is some good news for Lucinda Creighton and her Renua Ireland colleagues this morning as a new poll shows more than one third of people find the new party appealing.
A poll asked participants if they thought Ireland needed a new political party. Some 35% of them said the country “definitely does” need one with 23% saying it “probably does”. Just 17% said we definitely don’t need a new party.
When split by party affiliation, the poll results show Sinn Féin and Independent voters are more likely to believe Ireland needs a new party. However 42% of Fine Gael voters believe a new party might be a good idea.
Asked how appealing Lucinda Creighton’s Renua Ireland was to them, 28% said it was “fairly appealing” and 7% said it was “very appealing”. One fifth of the 1,200 respondents are still on the fence about the party.
The majority of them are aware of the party, it seems, with men more likely to have heard about it than women.
What do we know about Renua Ireland and its policies
LUCINDA CREIGHTON’S NEW POLITICAL PARTY HAS FINALLY BEEN LAUNCHED. NOW HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THEM?
Lucinda Creighton’s long awaited announcement and political party, Renua Ireland, was launched in Dublin recently and there’s lots to talk about off the back of it.
“Open” was the buzzword used repeatedly by Creighton, the leader, and financial advisor Eddie Hobbs, who is the party president.
The pair opened proceedings and unveiled the name of the party before taking part in a Q&A alongside some of its new members. But most journalists just wanted to speak to Creighton.
It was hard to get away from the feeling that this was The Lucinda Show. But what do we really know about Ireland’s newest political party and its policies?
Here’s what we learned at the Science Gallery…
It is not quite a party yet?
Renua Ireland formally lodged registration papers and its constitution with the clerk of the Dáil this morning and is likely to be officially confirmed as a political party in the coming weeks. It can then set up a central bank account and start fundraising.
Creighton stated bluntly that they have no money at the moment but it was a pretty glitzy launch they put on today.
- It already has a presence in Leinster House.
Renua has three TDs including Creighton, fellow ex-Fine Gaelers Terence Flanaganand Billy Timmins, who is deputy leader, as well as senators Paul Bradford andMary-Ann O’Brien, an independent who was appointed to the Seanad by the Taoiseach in 2011.
O’Brien’s husband and Jack and Jill founder Jonathan Irwin is a member of the party (you may remember we floated that idea a few weeks ago) and will run in the general election.
Mortgage adviser Karl Deeter is the party’s ethics officer, in charge of a code of conduct for all party members, although he is not a member.
- Eddie Hobbs not sure of what he’s doing?
Hobbs is party president and is still coy about running in the election, but it’s worth noting that Irwin and Hobbs are both based in the Kildare South constituency. Hobbs said family commitments would prevent him from running if the election was called tomorrow. But he added:
In due course if it is possible for me to run, I will run.
- Renua is running a candidate in every constituency
The party has 3,500 people who’ve signed up to its website and has 180 declared candidates who want to run in the election. But only around 50 to 60 of them will be selected by the party for the general election next year.
The selection process will involve a 5-member panel (membership of which hasn’t been disclosed, but it could include people outside the party) who will essentially vet candidates before they’re voted on by the national party via an online poll.
- The party wants an open government
“We want to ensure we govern in the sunshine. Cabinet confidentiality is unnecessary,” said Creighton today.
One of the most radical proposals is that the minutes of cabinet meetings will be made public 48 hours after they take place unless issues relate to national security. Renua argues there will be no need for FOI or parliamentary questions anymore “because information will, by default, be available”.
- and what about new politics?
We hear a lot about new politics from people starting new parties. We got some indication of what that means today. Renua wants to change the electoral system. Here’s how:
It also wants to introduce a number of changes within 30 days of entering power including a secret ballot to elect the Ceann Comhairle and provide powers to the Oireachtas to delay legislation.
It also wants term limits for ministers and the Taoiseach although this would not disqualify someone who has been a minister in the past from being a minister again, Creighton explained. The idea would be to end situations where TDs can spend 10 consecutive years in cabinet.
Renua wants to develop an oath of allegiance to the state and a new code of ethics for all TDs and Senators. It also wants to amend the constitution to require politician to represent the whole country.
Councillors will have their roles more tightly defined and it will become a full-time, paid position. The overall aim is to separate local and national politics.
- But what about abortion?
The formation of this party had its genesis in Creighton’s expulsion from Fine Gael for voting against abortion legislation in 2013 and she was joined by fellow rebels Flanagan and Timmins today as well as her husband Paul Bradford. The party will allow a free vote on such issues of conscience.
Elsewhere, Creighton confirmed she would be voting yes in the same-sex marriage referendum ”but others are free to make their own choice when voting”. She repeatedly emphasised the party’s “open position” on matters of conscience.
- It’s not ruling out sacking public sector workers
Eddie Hobbs said there would be no restoration of the public sector pay cuts that have been introduced in recent years and said the cost of running the public sector is still too high.
In its glossy policy document, Renua also says that sackings in the public sector have to be a reality if performance does not improve after employees are trained or transferred to new roles.
- It’s very pro-business and entrepreneurship
The party is proposing an Irish Credit Network, a peer-to-peer lending programme, which would be run and owned by business.
It also proposes to remove the higher rates of USC for the self-employed and proposes to mandate the self-employed to enrol in a pension scheme. The rate of capital gains tax will be changed for investment in business and employee share schemes will be encouraged.
- It wants to reform the budget process
The party wants “modern accountancy techniques” applied to the management of the public finances and to give the Dáil and Seanad powers to influence departmental budget allocation and develop the budget through Oireachtas committees.
- It has big ideas for childcare
Renua wants to change maternity leave to parental leave so that parents can decide how to use six months paid leave. A tax credit will be introduced to assist families in the cost of childcare. It also wants the state to develop community creche facilities.
- It wants to reform local property tax and abolish Irish Water
The party wants a Zoned Land charge which would place a levy on all land zoned for development as well as introduce a Site Value charge. All this money would be used to fund local services and develop social infrastructure.
Creighton said the party wants to “dismantle” Irish Water but added that it does believe in the principle of paying for water. There’s no detailed policy on this yet.
- It wants a truth and reconciliation process
Renua proposes to establish a truth and reconciliation process to run over a period of four years. It would deal with, among other things, the stigmatisation of single mothers, the survivors of abuse in schools, survivors of the care system, people subjected to coerced and forced adoptions and and families and victims unethically committed to the care system. The idea is that the commission would produce reports on an ongoing basis.
- It doesn’t have much to say about our health system
But it does want to rebuild the health system “free from the orthodoxy of vested interests” and build services out of the HSE and into the community. The document doesn’t say much else on that issue.
- And what about these other areas
It pledges fundamental reform of the education system as being a priority by prioritising citizens over trade unions, but doesn’t go into detail.
On welfare, it says rather oddly:
Those who are not self-reliant will be imprisoned rather than released by a life on welfare.
On justice it says that “a regeneration of a policy of zero tolerance in the streets and the courts is necessary”. Renua believes that a justice policy that fails to rehabilitate citizens has failed but adds that prisoners also owe a duty of care to society to rehabilitate themselves. What sort of solid policy comes out of that, we’re not sure.
- It’s not ruling out Fine Gael, but there’ll be no deal with Sinn Féin
Finally, Creighton said that when it comes to coalition deals it will be about “policy not personality”.
So she wasn’t ruling out a post-election deal with her former party although noted it would be “very difficult” to prop up the current coalition if they don’t quite make the numbers. She was more definitive about Sinn Féin:
- Enda’s not too keen on teaming up
The Taoiseach wasn’t saying much, when asked about the prospect of a possible future collaboration with Team Lucinda. Speaking to reporters in the US, he said it was a “free country” when asked about the former Fine Gael minister’s new party.
He added that the Government was always willing to listen to good ideas… from independents.
“I did say in the past that constructive suggestions that have come from independents can be worthy of being considered. Why wouldn’t they be, if they’re about job creation and ways of improving the lot of people?
“It’s the duty of Government to listen, and that’s what we do all the time.”
Irish Green party on the recovery trail
Encouraged by local election campaign, party looks forward to general election.
Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan addresses the Green Party conference in Kilkenny.
In 2011, the two parties that had been in coalition for the previous three and a half years took a huge hiding. It was a disaster for Fianna Fáil. But disaster is only the beginning of describing the fate that befell the Green Party.
All of the party’s six TDs lost their seats. The earlier local election of 2009 seen the party’s number of county and city councillors sheared from 16 to three. To compound its difficulties, the Greens failed to achieve 2 per cent of the national vote, the minimum threshold for State funding.
In the previous Dáil, another party which had an electoral meltdown – the PDs – had failed to survive after its representation had fallen to two.
It may take some time before the Greens achieves the electoral results it did in the middle 2000s. But there is no doubt that the party is on a recovery path. That is evident from its national conference in Kilkenny this weekend. The party was last here in Kilkenny two years ago. Then the attendance was low as was the atmosphere and morale. This weekend is markedly different.
Encouraged by a relatively good local election campaign last year, where the party won 12 council seats around the country, the prose is more bold, more confident, and more heightened. There was a much bigger crowd too, but that is still only a few hundred. Some are veteran from when the party was the Ecological Party 40 years ago – but most are young and the party seems to have a higher proportion of female activists and representatives than most others.
“Ironically not having State funding and having challenges has brought out the resilient and sustainable best in us,” deputy leader Catherine Martin told delegates.
The conference has been full of new ideas and policies that reflect this era in which the country is recovering from recession – some of them are practical and eye-catching; some are utopian and just ain’t going to happen.
What impact will the party make nationally?
Some kind of impact but possibly nowhere as much as the collection of independents under the cloak of Shane Ross that have been meeting in Tullamore this weekend.
The party has a relatively good chance of winning a handful of seats in the general election next year (all in Dublin constituencies). It is likely if they do it will be sneaking in for the last seat with party leader Eamon Ryan.
Without live TV coverage, Ryan’s address was low key and did not have the ornamented prose we expect form such set pieces.
He set out the party’s position on the two topics du jour – the same sex marriage referendum and the legacy of the 1916 rising. Unsurprisingly, it was Yes on the first; on the latter, he said the proclamation was a “turning point, our Bastille moment, our Boston Tea Party”.
He set out what those proclamation values should be in the modern political context: no false promises; an education system that was more that what Patrick Pearse descried as a “murder machine”; a new green industrial revolution; a revival of social and economic life in rural Ireland, and reform of the banking system.
Surprisingly, there were no explicit references to climate change, either the legislation currently going through the Dáil, or the wider global issue.
Most of the ideas expressed in the speech were not the big abstract ones; rather ones that were practical and local, some of which you suspected hankered after an Ireland that no longer exists.
Rejecting the left and right distinctions in Irish politics he said that guiding principle of his part was that all decision should be taken at the lowest effective level.
The examples of that included restoring power to local bank managers, who know their customers, rather than centrally. It included also reviving post offices into digital communications hubs where families could store all their data and photo, over many generations. It sounds alluring but you wonder could it ever fly?
The most interesting concept was a public banking model, larger than the credit unions but smaller than the existing banks. There would be ten regional banks, each owned by local authorities, with a capital base of €100. All the deposits raised in the region would remain in the region. He said such not-for-profit banks could transform life in the regions – lending money to small sustainable tourism companies; providing finance to sustainable food companies, which could deliver another of his big projects, the provision of fresh and healthy dinners to each primary school child in the country each day.
“That’s not a pipe dream. It’s worked elsewhere,” he said. It was not surprising the idea was enthusiastically received by the delegates.
They would also be able to provide loans to small builders to provide house retrofitting systems.
The ideas for the use of the loans all fed into the Green Party agenda. But what was interesting was the disclosure that Ryan and Louth councillor Mark Dearey have already approached the Minister for Finance Michael Noonanabout the idea. They say he has been impressed with the idea and has commissioned a feasibility study.
The party has not gone above very low single figures (often as low as 1 or 2 per cent) in national polls, although its support in Dublin is a little higher. Other non-traditional parties have a stronger profile and more support at present. But unlike the PDs, the Greens have managed to survive and are on a bit of a comeback trail.
Fatty-food consumption increases the risk of depression
A new study has revealed that high-fat diet alters behavior and produces signs of brain inflammation.
High-fat diets have long been known to increase the risk for medical problems, including heart disease and stroke, but there is growing concern that diets high in fat might also increase the risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders.
The study at Louisiana State University raises the possibility that a high-fat diet produces changes in health and behavior, in part, by changing the mix of bacteria in the gut, also known as the gut microbiome.
The human microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms, many of which reside in the intestinal tract. These microbiotas are essential for normal physiological functioning. However, research has suggested that alterations in the microbiome may underlie the host’s susceptibility to illness, including neuropsychiatric impairment.
Non-obese adult mice were conventionally housed and maintained on a normal diet, but received a transplant of gut microbiota from donor mice that had been fed either a high-fat diet or control diet. The recipient mice were then evaluated for changes in behavior and cognition.
The animals who received the microbiota shaped by a high-fat diet showed multiple disruptions in behavior, including increased anxiety, impaired memory, and repetitive behaviors. Further, they showed many detrimental effects in the body, including increased intestinal permeability and markers of inflammation. Signs of inflammation in the brain were also evident and may have contributed to the behavioral changes.
John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said that this paper suggests that high-fat diets impair brain health, in part, by disrupting the symbiotic relationship between humans and the microorganisms that occupy the gastrointestinal tracks.
Indeed, these findings provide evidence that diet-induced changes to the gut microbiome are sufficient to alter brain function even in the absence of obesity.
Further research is necessary, but these findings suggest that the gut microbiome has the eventual potential to serve as a therapeutic target for neuropsychiatric disorders.
South African baby boy born with the perfect number 12 birthmark
Littler Hanru van Niekerk has the number 12 in his forehead, despite having been born on Nov. 12, 2014.
IS-INT HE THE CUTEST little NO 12!
A South African baby boy was bizarrely born with the number 12 etched on his head.
Hanru van Niekerk was welcomed into the world on Nov. 11, 2014, reports The Citizen.
Some have suggested he was born early — and was actually meant to have arrived the following day on Nov. 12 to correspond with the unusual birthmark.
At first, members of his Johannesburg family didn’t notice the blemish.
“My youngest daughter was the first one to see it and she said there is a 1 and a 2 on his forehead,” his great-grandmother Catherine Jooste, 70, told the Northcliff Melville Times.
But she revealed that they weren’t worried about the mark, since doctors have said it will fade as the tot grows.
Dermatologist Patrice Hyde said infants may develop birthmarks before or shortly after birth.
“No one knows what causes blood vessels to group together, but it’s good to know most birthmarks aren’t a sign of any kind of illness and usually don’t hurt at all,” Hyde added.
Earliest humans ranged from short to tall body size
Scientists have found evidence that contradicts the dominant theory of our evolution – that our genus, Homo, evolved from small bodied early humans to become the taller, heavier and longer legged Homo erectus that was able to migrate beyond Africa and colonise Eurasia.
The new study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, says the main increase in body size occurred tens of thousands of years after Homo erectus left Africa.
Basically every textbook on human evolution gives the perspective that one lineage of humans evolved larger bodies before spreading beyond Africa.
“But the evidence for this story about our origins and the dispersal out of Africa just no longer really fits,” said study co-author Jay Stock from the University of Cambridge.
Comparing measurements of fossils from sites in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Georgia, the researchers found that there was a significant regional variation in the size of early humans during the Pleistocene era.
Some groups, such as those who lived in South African caves, averaged 4.8 feet in height.
Some of those found in Kenya’s Koobi Fora region would have stood at almost six feet, comparable to the average of today’s male population in Britain.
So now scientists may have to start re-writing the history books, as it seem that humans did not evolve in body size 1.77 million years ago, but in fact after 1.7 million years ago, in the Koobi Fora region of Kenya.
“Basically every textbook on human evolution gives the perspective that one lineage of humans evolved larger bodies before spreading beyond Africa. But the evidence for this story about our origins and the dispersal out of Africa just no longer really fits,” Stock concluded.
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