Environment Minister Phil Hogan has confirmed people will not be forced to make up-front payments for the installation of water meters
A new utility company being set up to oversee household water supplies and charges will not be sold off to the private sector, Environment Minister Phil Hogan has insisted.
Irish Water, which will operate under semi-state body Bord Gais, will be tasked with installing and running a metered network by the end of 2014.
And the minister insisted that the firm will remain in public hands even if the parent company is sold off in a disposal of state assets.
“Legislation will be put in place to ensure Irish Water remains in state ownership in relation to the sale of state assets,” Mr Hogan said.
Announcing the new company, Mr Hogan gave assurances that the public will not be forced to make upfront payments for meters – a must-have before charges come into effect by the end of 2014.
It is estimated that they must be installed in about one million homes and critics have warned there is not enough time between now and the end of next year. But Mr Hogan said he is confident between 90 and 95% of houses will be metered by the deadline.
It was also stressed that under the control of Bord Gais Irish Water would have the capacity to raise funds for capital investments on the financial markets in a similar fashion to the ESB.
In a statement Bord Gais said the new utility is an opportunity to establish a commercially successful infrastructure company and a valuable asset for the State.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams rejected the idea that making small annual payments to cover the cost of installing water meters would be less burdensome on householders than forcing them to fork out a lump sum.
The Co Louth TD said: “Straws break camels’ backs. We know that people can’t afford the septic tank charge, can’t afford the household charge, can’t afford VAT increases, and they can’t afford the hike in public transport.”
The Troika arrives & begins Ireland’s 10 day assessment and progress review
Ajay Chopra (third from left) , head of IMF-ECB troika arriving at the Department of Finance today.
Officials from the International Monetary Fund, the EU Commission and the European Central Bank have begun their sixth quarterly assessment of Ireland’s bailout programme.
As the delegation of troika officials arrived at the Department of Finance this morning to begin its 10-day review of how Ireland is performing under the bailout programmes, senior Government sources expressed confidence that all conditions of the bailout have been met so far.
The sources also confirmed that the issue of promissory notes would be a central focus for discussions between Government officials and the troika.
While the Government did succeed in converting a €3.06 billion annual payment due at the end of last month into a long-term bond, the discussions on the wider issue of the €30 billion promissory note issued primarily to Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide has not been resolved as yet.
Officials from the three institutions are working on a technical paper, but it is unlikely to be completed until later in the year.
“There is no anticipation [within Government] that the promissory note issue will be finalised during this review,” said the source.
“It is certain it will be discussed but a report will not be produced over the next 10 days.”
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin will meet today with the heads of mission from the three institutions. They are Ajai Chopra, the European deputy director of the IMF, the ECB’s chief economist Klaus Masuch and Istvan Szekely of the European Commission.
Mr Noonan, speaking in Limerick yesterday, said it would be a normal review. “They go through what we were supposed to have done for the previous quarter. And effectively we have done everything we’re supposed to have done, so that part of it is going to be pretty easy.
“And then we’ll be looking forward to the next quarter and to the remainder of the year, and we’ll have discussions on all of that.” Mr Noonan said today’s meeting would be a kind of “getting to know you meeting”.
He said the only big change was that Mr Masuch, the representative of the ECB, was now transferred on a full-time basis to Greece. “There’s a new representative of the new central bank coming in on the first of May, so this is Klaus’s last meeting with us.”
Among the other big issues that will be discussed will be the future of Permanent TSB, which will have to be decided by the end of April, according to the memorandum.
Officials from the commission and the IMF will also look very closely at the latest set of economic figures. While ahead of target, some analysts suggest the growth figures on which the Government is working are too optimistic.
The Government also published a spate of legislation and draft legislation towards the end of March. There were also requirements in relation to bringing forward proposals on water charges, labour-market reform and identifying State assets most suitable for disposal.
The new implant that tells you your heart is about to go into a cardiac arrest
A new hi-tech medical device implanted in the heart could save lives by sounding an emergency when the patient is facing an impending attack.
Statistics in the U.S. show that more than 30 per cent of the one million heart attack victims each year die before seeking medical attention.
Although widespread education campaigns have made the general public aware of the warning signs of a heart attack, the average time from the onset of symptoms to arrival at the hospital has remained around three hours.
Internal alarm: The AngelMed Guardian alarm has three separate ways of alerting a user to an impending heart attack – a vibration, a tone and a flashing light on an external device
In position: An X-Ray of a patient fitted with the AngelMed device. It sits near the heart on the upper left of the chest
In an upcoming article in Ergonomics In Design, an implantable device called the AngelMed Guardian alerts users of an impending heart attack through a combination of vibrations, audible tones, and visual warnings.
The device is currently undergoing clinical trials and costs £8,232. It has the potential of saving countless thousands of lives every year.
What makes the AngelMed distinctive is this combination of alert modes.
Although vibrating alarms are sometimes used to warn medical personnel in operating rooms of an emergency, very little research has focused on their potential as a self-monitoring device for patients.
Double alert: An external device, right, has a flashing light that is a back-up alert to the internal device’s vibrating alert and tone
Auditory alarms are provided with selected implantable heart defibrillators, but research indicates that some patients – particularly the elderly – are unable to hear the alarms.
Mary Carol Day, co-author of the Ergonomics In Design article, said: ‘A [vibrating] alarm from the implanted device is more likely to be felt than an auditory alarm is to be heard because, for example, the patient may be wearing heavy clothing, has hearing loss, or is in a noisy environment.’
The device offers two levels of alarm urgency: A high-priority alarm indicates that the patient may be having a heart attack and should call emergency services, while a low-priority alarm indicates that a condition has been detected that requires a doctor visit within 48 hours.
Clinical trials: AngelMed Guardian devices are still in the testing stage, but have proved successful in simulations and limited implant operations
The alarms are provided by an implanted medical device, similar in size to a pacemaker, that is placed in the upper left chest, plus an external device, similar to a pager, that emits an auditory alarm and flashes a red or yellow warning light.
In a series of studies with older adults, designed to test the device’s ‘user-friendliness’, participants were able to tell the difference between the low-priority and high-priority vibration patterns and respond appropriately.
They also reported that they liked the vibrating alarms and the redundancy of the auditory and visual warnings.
British Government hand over 3rd. installment of £403m to Ireland
The latest multimillion-pound handout from British taxpayers to Ireland has been given to Dublin, the British Treasury has said.
Financial Secretary Mark Hoban confirmed more than £403 million had been sent across the Irish Sea as part of a £3.3 billion bailout loan deal agreed in 2010.
He said: “The Government believes it is in our national interest that the Irish economy is successful and its banking system is stable.”
Mr Hoban added that London “continues to support Ireland’s efforts to improve its economic situation”.
The release of the new money, which has a maturity date of September 30, 2019, follows Ireland’s successful completion last month of the fifth quarterly review of its programme of financial assistance from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The Treasury gave the cash – the third installment – on March 28, but ministers updated Parliament through a written statement.
A new treatment for prostate cancer gives ‘perfect results’
For nine in ten men: research finds
A new treatment for prostate cancer can rid the disease from nine in ten men without debilitating side effects, a study has found, leading to new hope for tens of thousands of men.
It is hoped the new treatment, which involves heating only the tumours with a highly focused ultrasound, will mean men can be treated without an overnight stay in hospital and avoiding the distressing side effects associated with current therapies.
A study has found that focal HIFU, high-intensity focused ultrasound, provides the ‘perfect’ outcome of no major side effects and free of cancer 12 months after treatment, in nine out of ten cases.
Traditional surgery or radiotherapy can only provide the perfect outcome in half of cases currently.
Experts have said the results are ‘very encouraging’ and were a ‘paradigm’ shift in treatment of the disease.
It is hoped that large scale trials can now begin so the treatment could be offered routinely on the NHS within five years.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will say in new guidance next week that the treatment is safe and effective and larger scale trials should go ahead.
A larger trial is already recruiting patients and men interested in the treatment should speak to their cancer doctor or GP about being referrred, experts said.
Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men with more than 37,000 diagnoses each year approximately 10,000 deaths.
Current treatments include surgery to remove the whole prostate or radiotherapy. Both of which can effectively treat the cancer but often cause side effects such as incontinence and impotence.
However in many men prostate cancer will not progress to a life threatening disease meaning that radical treatment risks side effects unnecessarily. For this reason, research is now focused on reducing side effects.
Focal HIFU involves careful selection of tumours, as small as a grain of rice, within the prostate gland and targeting them with highly focused ultrasound to heat them and destroy them.
The advantage over previous HIFU and other treatments is that damage to surrounding tissue is minimised, meaning there are far fewer side effects.
In the study published in the journal Lancet Oncology, 41 men were treated with focal HIFU. After 12 months, none were incontinent and one in ten suffered impotence.
The majority, 95 per cent, were free of cancer after 12 months.
Dr Hashim Ahmed, who led the study at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust andUniversity College London, said: “This changes the paradigm. By focusing just on the areas of cancer we reduce the collateral damage to surrounding tissue.
“Our results are very encouraging. We’re optimistic that men diagnosed with prostate cancer may soon be able to undergo a day case surgical procedure, which can be safely repeated once or twice, to treat their condition with very few side-effects. That could mean a significant improvement in their quality of life.
“This study provides the proof-of-concept we need to develop a much larger trial to look at whether focal therapy is as effective as the current standard treatment in protecting the health of the men treated for prostate cancer in the medium and long term.”
He said after Nice guidance is issued next week, he expected other doctors to consider using the treatment.
He said: “These results will encourage more physicians to look at it more carefully.
“If men are interested in this concept they should speak to their cancer doctror or their GP.
“The next step is a large scale randomised controlled trial. This needs to be evaluated in a timly way so men can benefit.”
The research programme is led by Professor Mark Emberton, of UCL and UCLH. He said: “Focal therapy offers harm reduction – it is a strategy that attempts to redress the balance of harms and benefits by offering men who place high utility on genito-urinary function an alternative to standard care.
“In fact, the concept is not new – tissue preserving strategies have been used successfully in all other solid organ cancers such as breast cancer by offering women a lumpectomy rather than mastectomy.”
Professor Gillies McKenna, director of the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said: “Clinical trials, like this one supported by the MRC, are a fantastic tool for telling us whether experimental new treatments are likely to be effective in the clinic.
“If these promising results can be confirmed in a randomised controlled trial, focal therapy could soon become a reasonable treatment choice for prostate cancer alongside other proven effective therapies.”
The research was funded by the MRC, the Pelican Cancer Foundation and St Peter’s Trust.
Jacqui Graves, Interim Head of Healthcare at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “We welcome any research that shows early signs of improving the outcomes of treatment for prostate cancer patients.
“Significant reduction in the likelihood of common side effects, such as incontinence, will enable men to recover better and go on to lead good quality lives. We hope that a larger trial will be supported to ensure that the UK achieves the best outcomes for men affected by prostate cancer.”
Owen Sharp, Chief Executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity said: “We welcome the development of any prostate cancer treatment which limits the possibility of damaging side effects such as incontinence and impotence. These early results certainly indicate that focal HIFU has the potential to achieve this in the future.
“However, we need to remember that this treatment was given to fewer than 50 men, without follow up over a sustained period of time. We look forward to the results of further trials, which we hope will provide a clearer idea of whether this treatment can control cancer in the long term whilst ridding men of the fear that treating their cancer might mean losing their quality of life.”
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