Rips up a copy of the household charge
A Donegal parish priest rallied protesters when Fr Brian O’Fearragh was one of a number of protesters who tore up the household charge document during a rally in Donegal at the weekend.
Almost 2,000 people cheered as the Gweedore priest and others, including Donegal South West Independent TD Thomas Pringle declared they were not paying the €100 charge.
Fr O’Fearragh told protesters in Letterkenny he will never pay the charge. And he warned Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan that it was time for him to “perform or perish”.
“I feel that our unity here today is sending a clear message to Minister Hogan, and that message is: Minister Hogan, now is the time to perform or perish, the choice is yours.
“By perform, I mean: please listen and pay heed to the will and the actions of the vast majority of people of this country, who have not and, by the looks of it, will not sign up and register or subscribe and to these highly unpopular and regressive stealth charges.
“Pay heed and rescind these unjust charges, which are nothing short of a heavy imposition upon the people whom you serve.
“By perish, I mean, now is the time to repeal these unjust charges, or failing such, come next election, face the wrath of the Irish people,” he said.
The march, attended by many from surrounding counties Leitrim, Cavan and Sligo, was organised by the local Can’t Pay Won’t Pay group.
Householders and individuals are being penalised by these “harsh austerity measures”, said Fr O’Fearragh.
“While greedy and reckless and faceless bondholders are being rewarded … homeowners and individuals citizens of this state are being brought to their knees and deprived, and that is wrong.”
Government Ministers (Hogan and Burton) at odds over payment of household levy charge
AN OPEN breach between two senior Cabinet Ministers over the household charge has emerged following further confusion about how the €100 payment should be made.
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan last night flatly contradicted a statement made earlier in the day by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton.
She suggested at lunchtime yesterday that arrangements were being made to allow people to pay the household charge through their local post office.
Ms Burton also described next Saturday’s deadline for the payment of the charge as “ambitious” although she urged people to pay by the deadline.
Mr Hogan told The Irish Times later that there had been no change in the arrangements for payment of the charge and no change in the deadline.
“People can access the forms for the payment in the post office but they cannot pay through the post office.
“They will have to send the payment through the post or pay online,” said Mr Hogan.
“The position has not changed. The deadline remains and the arrangements for payment remain the same.”
Ms Burton had said earlier on RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme that as far as she understood arrangements were being made to allow people to pay the charge at their local post office.
Registration forms for the payment are available at post offices throughout the country and people can fill out the forms and post them, along with a cheque or a postal order, in the post office to a PO box number in Dublin.
Payments can also be made over the counter at local authority offices around the country and can still be made over the internet.
The household charge is now a major issue of credibility for the Coalition with differences on the issue between Mr Hogan, the Fine Gael Minister responsible for the implementation of the charge, and Joan Burton, the Labour Minister who has been publicly at odds with Cabinet colleagues over a number of issues in recent weeks.
The Department of the Environment also announced yesterday that a mechanism to allow for the transfer of information from agencies including the Department of Social Protection, the ESB and the Revenue Commissioners to enable payment of the household charge will be in place by the end of the month.
A spokesman for the department said negotiations with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner would be completed shortly and protocols to allow the transfer of data would be in place by the March 31st payment deadline.
So far, only 20 per cent or just over 328,000 households have paid, or registered to pay, the €100 household charge. Some €32.8 million has been collected, but the Government has forecast total revenue of €160 million.
About 3,000 protesters took part in a demonstration in the National Stadium in Dublin against the charge at the weekend organised by the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes. TDs including Joe Higgins and Clare Daly of the Socialist Party addressed the event. People Before Profit TDs Richard Boyd Barrett and Joan Collins were among those present.
A Department of the Environment spokesman said the department recognised people’s right to protest, but was still hopeful the majority of householders “who wish to be legally compliant and to avoid incurring unnecessary late payment fees and penalties” would register and pay before the closing date.
The spokesman also said there was a plan in place for what would happen after March 31st and local authorities would be “active on the ground”.
Council staff ‘are to call to houses to collect household taxes not paid’
Staff from Ireland’s city and town councils are to call to households that are refusing to pay the €100.
The Irish Independent reports that Environment Minister Phil Hogan has told the councils to knock on doors to collect the money from Monday, April 2.
With just a week to go to the Government’s registration deadline, around 80% of homeowners have yet to pay the €100 charge.
To date on Saturday 24th only 328,000 of the 1.6 million households required to pay the charge by next Saturday have registered, the Department of the Environment said.
Meanwhile, campaigners from all over the country will gather in the National Stadium on Dublin’s South Circular Road from 1pm today for an anti-household tax rally.
Spokesperson for the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes, Ruth Coppinger said their cause is gaining momentum.
“We’ve had the revelations of corruption and bribery at the top of society between politics and business, which is deterring people from paying this tax,” she said.
Antibiotic could help stem the spread of hospital bug by blocking recurrences
An antibiotic could help stem the spread of a notorious hospital bug by preventing recurrent infections, research suggests.
The Clostridium difficile (C. diff) bug above right, spread by poor personal hygiene, mostly afflicts people with weakened immune systems and is a significant problem in hospitals and nursing homes. Up to a quarter of patients affected by C. diff infection become reinfected within a month of being treated.
The antibiotic, fidaxomicin above left, works as well against C. diff as the “gold standard” treatment vancomycin,
the study showed, but compared with vancomycin, it more than halved the rate of recurrent infection from 26.9 per cent to 12.7 per cent. The phase three trial led by Prof Oliver Cornely, from University Hospital Cologne in Germany, compared 509 patients who were either given vancomycin or fidaxomicin.
Commenting on the findings published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, consultant microbiologist Prof Robert Masterton said: “Sadly, CDI remains a common problem in modern clinical practice . . . CDI naturally has a high relapse rate and this in turn is associated with prolonged hospital stays, an increased risk of death and a considerable burden on NHS budgets.
“This new treatment, fidaxomicin, offers a major step forward in combating the prevalence and impact of this disease.”
The trial did not look at preventing infection with a new strain of C. diff.
Irish firm announces a €19m partner-ship deal with Chinese company
Irish chip designer Movidius announce partnership with China based electronics supplier Keenhigh
An Irish exporting company has announced a €19m partnership during the first stage of Ireland’s trade mission to China.
Richard Bruton is attending the signing of the agreement.
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton is attending the signing of the agreement in China this morning.
90 Irish companies are involved in the trade mission which Taoiseach Enda Kenny will lead from tomorrow.
Shenzhen in southern china is the country’s manufacturing heartland, and home to thousands of plants making electronics products for world markets.
Dublin-based chip designer Movidius today announced a partnership with China based electronics supplier Keenhigh which see its chips embedded in several different high tech consumer products such as 3D converters.
Keenhigh, which produces for several international brands, expected to sell products valued at €19m based on the multimedia processor designed by Movidious – the Irish companies share of the deal was not disclosed.
Mr Bruton said the announcement shows what is possible for Irish companies in China and that a powerful base of indigenous exporting businesses would be key to building a sustainable recovery.
Minister Bruton has also met several Chinese companies in the telecoms, financial and elecronics sectors which are being targeted by the IDA for investment in Ireland.
Mr Kenny will join the trade mission in Shanghai tomorrow and will meet senior Chinese leaders in Beijing next week.
Grandad Bus driver
‘sacked for eating a grape’ caught on CCTV
P45 
Michael Shephard was given the boot by bosses morning after he was spotted popping a grape into his mouth on CCTV. The grandad from Coventry was in his cab at the time but he says he was not driving.
The 66-year-old said: “I am so angry. I thought I would be given a disciplinary for eating a grape, but not sacked.”
Mr Shephard, of Ravensdale Road, Wyken, who has been driving buses for National Express for more than five years, was suspended after the incident was captured by CCTV on the bus two weeks ago.
He said: “I don’t eat or drink while I am driving but I was just sat stationary at the bus terminus in Bedworth for a few minutes and took a grape to wet my mouth a bit.
“I had a heart by-pass 12 months ago and the medication dries your mouth so I just take a sip of water or a grape sometimes when I’m sat at the station or terminus.
“I had already eaten my lunch so there was only a few grapes left in my lunchbox. And rather than getting off the bus to eat the grape I just stayed sitting in the cabin.
“I explained why I needed to have a sip of water or a grape every hour or so but they said it is still against the rules.
“They are just taking the rules to the next level.”
Mr Shephard claims he was still eating the grape as he drove off from the terminus and may have scratched his nose or put his hand to his mouth to suggest he had put another grape in his mouth.
He added: “I don’t remember my every movement on that day but I might have scratched my face or something while my mouth was still moving.
“There were no passengers on my bus and nobody saw me so I don’t understand the problem.
“There had been an incident a few weeks earlier where a passenger had complained but National Express said they had looked into that and although it was a preventable incident, they said my sacking wasn’t a part of it – it was just for eating the grape.”
Mr Shephard has lodged an appeal against the sacking with the bus company which he hopes will be heard in the coming weeks.
A spokesman for National Express said: “The driver in question hasn’t exhausted the disciplinary process that we have as a company and as a result we cannot make any public comment.
“However we do hold ourselves to high levels of safety and customer care standards.”
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