Donie's Saturday News Blog update

Good News: Deaths on Irish roads for 2011 sets a new record of fewest deaths

  

2011 has been a record year for Ireland in terms of road safety. A total of 185 people were killed in traffic collisions, the lowest number people since records began. 

The Government has promised to continue to pursue road safety as a priority for 2012, with Transport Minister Leo Varadkar announcing 16 new penalty point offences next year. 

Among those being considered are penalty points for drivers who put their babies in rear-facing car seats next to airbags, and for motorcyclists who do not wear a crash helmet. 

Minister Varadkar says he hopes these measures will make our roads even safer.

"2011 has been the safest year on our roads since records begin. We want 2012 to be safer still," he said.

50 years of Television in Ireland as seen by RTE: 

   

Even if you don’t own a television, you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot about the 50^th anniversary of television in Ireland over the next few days. It will go something like this: Seán Lemass… well Holy God… one for everyone in the audience… okey-doke… #JeanByrne. But enough of all this rampant nostalgia: what about the next 50 years? Here’s a run-down of events as they are likely to happen.

2012: Analogue television is switched off, leaving snowy screens in households where the grand-kids forgot to bring round a Saorview set-top box. Audience ratings for Nationwide plummet.

2013: Eamon Ryan wins the first ever series of Celebrity Mastermind and uses the glory of victory to relaunch the Green Party. The format is not renewed.

2014: The Late Late Show viewer ratings are decimated as TV3 schedule a Friday night Irish version of Total Wipeout, hosted by Georgia Salpa.

2016: RTÉ drops the Angelus and attempts to placate furious fans of middle-distance stares by making it available as an app for owners of Smart TVs.

2017: There’s relief for Dave Fanning as he finally gets to the end of a question he started asking Michael Stipe on2TV in 1995.

2020: A TV3 documentary on breastfeeding falls foul of Apple TV’s terms and conditions on pornography and is removed from the TV3 channel app, sparking a public outcry. TV3 successfully appeals the decision. A publicity stunt is suspected.

2021: After a landslide “yes” vote in that year’s referendum, it becomes a criminal offence to quote from a Financial Regulator TV ad that ran during the Noughties.

2023: The labour market is inundated with unfeasibly chirpy continuity announcers who are laid off en masse after Irish media companies declare that no one watches “linear” television anymore.

2027: Rigorous consumer research reveals that the phrase “roll it there, Róisín” has faded from the collective folk memory, although nursing homes are full of people still banging on about someone called Sally O’Brien.

2029: As property prices make a return to “2007 levels”, RTÉ sells Montrose. The demolition goes smoothly, aside from a last minute protest by Charlie Bird. Within months, there is no evidence that RTÉ was ever located there, although the new owners confess to being spooked by the occasional sight of a flying vehicle later identified as the Wanderly Wagon.

2032: After one cutback in the newsroom budget too many, Bryan Dobson has a “Network” moment. He is replaced by Craig Doyle.

2036: TV3 admits it’s not the “real” Vincent Browne who hosts its late-night current affairs show, but a digitally generated avatar programmed to raise its voice in response to a fixed list of trigger words. The channel’s press office declines to specify when exactly the switch was made.

2043: The analogue-era game-show Where in the World is relaunched as Where in the Solar System as the format is updated for the age of cheap commercial space travel. The losers are sent on a one-way trip to ex-planet Pluto.

2045: Shortly after Christmas, RTÉ shows the vintage film 2046 as its Midweek Movie, even though the title refers to a hotel room number and not a calendar year.

2061: As a series of virtual-reality riots tear a rip in the space-time continuum on the eve of Irish television’s centenary, the RTÉ News Channel is criticised for failing to provide live coverage of Ireland’s descent into a black hole. It opts instead to stick with a repeat of Reeling in the Years.

James Reilly (Health Minister) and Roisin Shortall are ‘barely talking’

     
Health Minister James Reilly and Labour’s Roisin Shortall. 

TWO Government ministers are barely on talking terms, it has emerged. A “significant rift” has developed in the Department of Health between Fine Gael’s James Reilly and Labour’s Roisin Shortall.

The Herald previously revealed how Ms Shortall was deeply unhappy with her counterpart’s handling of the Budget cuts.

And now it has emerged that Dr Reilly has on occasion ignored phone calls from his junior minister.

The pair have been reduced to communicating via email in recent weeks, according to sources.

Ms Shortall has written to Dr Reilly complaining about his failure to return her calls several times on an issue that related to her area of responsibility for primary care.

The spat first emerged last month when Ms Shortall broke ranks to publicly criticise Dr Reilly for “kite-flying” ahead of the Budget.

Dr Reilly had warned that a €50 medical card tax, a hike in prescription charges and the widespread closure of hospitals could be part of the Budget.

Ms Shortall responded by saying:”I think it has caused a lot of alarm and concern among older people in particular, people who very much depend on medical cards and I think it is unfortunate that has happened.”

The Department of Health did face the biggest raft of cutbacks in the Budget — but none of the above measures were included.

Prior to the Budget controversy, the pair also clashed over fees for GPs administering the winter flu vaccine.

Dr Reilly slashed the fee for family doctors involved in the vaccination campaign by a third from €42 to €28.

But Ms Shortall was left out of the loop, even though GP care is part of her job.

She went as far as writing to Dr Reilly to “express my entire dissatisfaction” with the way the issue was handled and how it was “completely unacceptable” for her to be excluded.

Ten of Ireland’s farmers forced to cull thousands of battery hens to comply with EU law

           

TEN farmers across the country will be forced to cull hundreds of thousands of hens next week to comply with an EU directive which the IFA claims could cost them their livelihoods.

Ireland is among 14 EU member states which have not fully complied with a directive issued back in 1999 to phase out so-called battery cages to house hens and replace them with a more humane version known as “enriched” cages.

As of January 1, the use of the small-wire battery cages will be illegal.

Instead, egg producers must use the larger, modified cages equipped with perches and litter that allows hens enough room to roost, nest and scratch.

But 10 hold-out farmers here, who did not switch over to the new cages by the January 1 deadline, will now have no choice but to cull their flocks next week or risk prosecution by the European Court.

However, the directive — aimed at providing laying hens with a more natural and humane environment — could well cost them their farms and their livelihoods, said Alo Mohan, chairman of the IFA poultry committee.

While all farmers welcomed higher welfare standards for their animals, he said, the farmers that had not switched over to the new cages tended to be small independent farmers who simply couldn’t afford the switch.

It will cost some farmers more than €1m to buy and install the new larger cages.

The cages are required to be at least 750 sq cm per hen compared with the banned cages that had to be no less than 550 sq cm per hen.

The Department of Agriculture did provide grant aid of about €30 per bird — but Mr Mohan said that for some farmers it still wasn’t enough.

“Farmers have borrowed to the shirt of their back and taken out mortgages on their farms to get these new cages,” he said.

But an EU spokeswoman said the farmers had no choice but to comply because Ireland had agreed to the directive.

Irish Property prices fall for the first time in four months

   

With the dismal growth outlook making would-be buyers hesitant, 2012 looks set to be another poor year for the housing market after property prices fell in December.

Nationwide on Friday reported a fall in house prices for the first time in four months. The building society’s figures, based its on lending data, show that house prices have risen nominally over the past year, but at 1 per cent this rise has been eclipsed in real terms by annual inflation, which stood at 4.8 per cent for November.

Land Registry data, which cover only England and Wales, paint an even bleaker picture. For the year to November, prices are down by almost 2 per cent.

The Nationwide figures show London and its environs have performed better than the rest of the country.

Falls have been sharpest in Northern Ireland, where prices have slumped by more than 8 per cent year-on-year. Prices have also fallen, though by far smaller margins in the North West, the North and Scotland.

As in 2011, price movements in the coming year are expected to vary significantly between regions. But, overall, the outlook remains bleak.

Next year “isn’t shaping up to be much better than 2011, for the UK economy or the housing market,” Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, said, adding that prices would move sideways or modestly lower as a result of the UK economy struggling to gain momentum.

Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight expected prices to drop by about 5 per cent, with a significant chance of even sharper falls.

Though ultra-low rates interest rates would continue to limit the number of homes up for sale by providing little imperative for owners to sell, weak demand was likely to offset the benefit provided by this.

“Low wage growth, a markedly weakening labour market and major concerns over the outlook will limit potential buyers and weigh down on house prices,” Mr Archer said. “A significant number of people are still finding it hard to get a mortgage, and there is a real danger that banks’ ability to lend could be hit by difficult wholesale funding conditions.”

Estate agency groups have also forecast declines across the mainstream property market next year. Knight Frank predicts a 5 per cent fall, while Savills and Hamptons International both expect a 2 per cent decline.

Separately, Bank of England data on housing equity withdrawal, out Friday, indicated that the level of housing activity remained weak in the third quarter. The amount of equity withdrawn by homeowners has been negative since 2008, signalling a fall in the number of house purchases and a reduction in remortgaging.

The curious case of Dick Roche former Minister and the flaming Mercedes

(A la Dana)

   

The Dana thing was weird but now former Minister Dick Roche is the latest public figure to have their car nearly kill them.

During the presidential campaign an exploding tyre almost derailed Dana,even though she suspected some foul play had been involved.

Now, former Minster for the Environment Dick Roche had to run for his life after his Mercedes burst into flames on St Stephen’s Day.

The former politician was driving his one-year-old Merc in Wexford when he and his wife had to evacuate the car before it blew up.

“A couple of motorists were vigorously flashing their lights at us but I just thought they were being impatient because I was driving very slowly at the time,” said Roche.

“They had noticed something red and glowing underneath the car but of course I couldn’t see the flames.

“When I pulled over into the car park of the Ferrycarrig Hotel we spotted the fire coming from underneath the car.

“Luckily the tank in the car didn’t blow up and it was the only part of the car that wasn’t completely destroyed. The diesel cap had bubbled but the tank didn’t explode and the two front wheels just melted.”

The Wicklow man was very lucky and the former Fianna Fail TD is now handing over the matter to the insurance company and the manufacturer.

“It was a serious fire and very shocking at the time but thankfully nobody was killed. The car is a complete write-off. The insurance company have sent an assessor to have a look at it and Mercedes are investigating what happened.”

So what is going on? Are our automobiles turning on would-be and former politicians? Why are they not going for the ones who are in power? Is Angela Merkel somehow triggering this from Berlin? We must be told?

Three more whales and a Dolphin have been found beached in recent days off the west coast of Ireland

   

In the latest discovery, a male sperm whale, pictured, was found stranded on Omey Island near Cleggan, Co Galway.

The deep-water adult mammal was already dead when it was washed up, with the skin shed and its lower jaw broken.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) last night said it was relatively common to have strandings, with between 140 and 150 reports each year.

IWDG co-ordinator Simon Berrow said: “Chances are it died offshore and got washed in with the wind.”

Mr Berrow said the IWDG had also recently received reports of a bottlenose whale found on White Strand in north Clare, a pilot whale on Fintra Beach in Donegal, and a dolphin in Silverstrand, Galway. All were dead when discovered.