Ireland’s Homeowners will have to pay for their own water meters
The cost of water meters and their installation will be passed on to Irish households, it has been revealed this morning.
The Department of the Environment has said that its plans are in line with how other utilities are funded across the world.
A spokesperson for the department told TheJournal.iethat the figure of €300 quoted in today’s Sunday Times is “pure speculation”.
The Department has prepared detailed cost estimates on meters following extensive market soundings. It would be inappropriate for us to release these estimates in advance of a competitive procurement process.
She added that the cost of installing an individual meter will vary, depending on location of the property.
Speaking on This Week on RTE1, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said that no decision has been made on the arrangements for water meters, adding that the amount of money charged for installation has not been confirmed.
Fianna Fáil spokesperson for the environment Niall Collins told TheJournal.ie that the water meter installation charge will be just another instalment of “broken promises and deceit” from the current government.
He said the charge imposed will be part of its “new schedule of stealth and back door taxes on the country”.
The regulator, which will be established in the coming months will determine the cost of the service, the free allowance and the framework for levying the charges.
The Government will consult with the regulator, a new State body known as Irish Water, before the introduction of charges in 2013.
Earlier this year, Environment Minister Phil Hogan said that nine out of ten households in Ireland will be liable for the new fees by 2014. Irish Water will take over responsibility of the delivery of water services from 34 local authorities. It will also be in charge of installing the meters in over one million homes.
About 2,000 jobs for plumbers and others in the construction industry are expected to be created.
The OECD has previously criticised Ireland for its failure to charge on the basis of usage, stating that there was zero incentive to save water and minimise waste.
However, a campaign against the water charges has been set up as some opponents believe the move is not about what is good for the environment but is more about raising revenue.
Primary Schools in Ireland
are planning to weigh new pupils in an action plan to stem obesity
CHILDREN IN IRELAND ARE TO BE WEIGHED WHEN THEY START PRIMARY SCHOOL IN A NEW BID TO TACKLE THE COUNTRY’S GROWING OBESITY PROBLEM.
The plan is being worked out between specialists, the HSE and GPs, obesity expert Dr Edna Roche, of Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, has revealed.
It comes against “staggering statistics” showing that one in five Irish children aged between five and 12 is now either overweight or obese.
Dr Roche,a consultant endocrinologist (specialist in diabetes and other disorders), told the annual meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) that under the plan a public health nurse would weigh each child upon starting school.
If the child’s weight was found to be of concern, they would then be referred on to the family GP or for specialist care if other linked health issues were suspected.
However, she said no start-up date for the screening was yet in place and it was unclear if public health nurses would be able to take on the extra workload.
Dr Roche, who is also head of paediatrics in Trinity College Dublin, revealed that the weight-management clinic in her hospital had to stop taking new referrals over a year ago because it did not have a dietitian to provide the necessary range of care. The clinic was receiving two to three referrals a week.
She continued: “However, the fact that they are not coming to me does not mean that they are not getting services and the family GP is best placed look after them.”
Dr Roche said one of the questions most frequently asked by parents was: “Does the odd treat matter?”
She pointed out that a can of fizzy drink and a packet of crisps had 350 calories and this could take two hours of physical activity to burn off.
“Those 350 calories leave a four-year-old child with only 1,000 calories remaining from which to get their nutritional requirements,” she pointed out.
These treats, said Dr Roche, were often being given to children on a daily basis and the result was that the child was left “over caloried and undernourished”.
High-calorie
She told the gathering that the vast majority of children attending her clinic had televisions in their bedrooms, so they were exposed to late-night adverts for high-calorie foods.
Children should not be allowed to watch television or play video games for more than two hours a day, she advised, adding that they were becoming obese for various reasons.
These included sedentary behaviour and safety issues, which reduced the chances of walking to school or going outside to play.
Dr Bobby Smyth, a consultant psychiatrist at the Drug Treatment Centre Board in Dublin, also told the meeting that Irish adolescents were now beginning their drinking careers two to three years earlier than the last generation had done.
Hospital resources to be transferred to GPs clinics
‘allowing them a greater role in patient care’
Health Minister James Reilly has announced an initiative which he says will transfer resources from hospitals to allow GPs a greater role in treating patients with serious illnesses.
Dr Reilly announced at the IMO AGM in Killarney that this would be a significant initiative for the management of patients with chronic diseases.
“For far too long hospitals and other large institutions in the health system have attracted the lion’s share of resources. Yet we know that certain groups of patients, particularly those with chronic disease, can be treated both more cost effectively and with better outcomes in the community,” the Minister said.
Dr Reilly said over the next few months, between 15 and 20 primary care centres will be chosen to act as ‘demonstrator models’ for a new approach to the treatment of chronically ill patients in the community.
GPs and other allied healthcare professionals who are involved in these demonstrator models will be given a much bigger role in the management of their chronically ill patients.
The Minister said this initiative, which will require the transfer of resources from hospitals to primary care, will be rolled out in the second half of this year and will be fully up and running in 2013.
“It is our intention to widen this initiative to more centres and involving more conditions in subsequent years.”
This new initiative is part of a wider programme of reform in the area of chronic disease, which covers conditions such as diabetes and asthma.
The Minister said a new nationwide programme for diabetes care will be rolled out in 2012 and further programmes for cardiac, respiratory and neurological conditions in 2013-14.
Gilmore says Government has a road map for recovery at his party’s conference in Galway
The Tanaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore TD during his address to delegates at the party’s annual conference held at NUI Galway.
The Government had a clear strategy and a road map for recovery and there was “no more muddling through or hoping that something will turn up” as with the previous administration.
This was the message from Tánaiste and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore in his leader’s address to the Labour Party conference in NUI Galway.
Economic recovery was the Government’s primary purpose, but it was not an end in itself. “It is the means to an end, to making Ireland a fair and just society,” he told an estimated 800 delegates.
The Government was working to a plan, he said. “Firstly, we are restoring our international reputation”.
“Ireland depends on the outside world, probably more than most other countries. We export 80 per cent of everything we produce. We rely heavily on foreign investment to create jobs.”
He added: “Second, we have set out to increase our exports and grow new markets. That is happening.
“Exports are up €3.7 billion last year, and we are making progress developing new markets.”
The third plank in the recovery strategy was to stimulate the domestic economy.
“Fourthly, we have to tackle the problem of distressed mortgages. The biggest fear any of us has is not losing our job, it is losing our home.”
But he said he was “deeply frustrated by how slow progress has been in this area”
Fifthly, the State’s debt problem had to managed and Mr Gilmore said that “Don’t Pay” might sound good as a slogan but it was “neither smart, nor sensible, nor a solution”.
“Finally,” he said to loud applause, “and not a moment too soon, we will reclaim our economic independence and say goodbye to the troika.”
On the issue of political ethics, he said: “The recent report of the Mahon tribunal is yet another sickening chronicle of corruption, bribery and lies at the highest levels of previous Fianna Fáil governments.
“A sordid saga of influence bought and sold; a poisonous creep of political corruption which infected our institutions and our psyche, bred cynicism, strangled idealism and corroded our democracy.
“I am proud that after 20 years of tribunals, no wrongdoing has ever attached to the Labour Party,” the Tánaiste said.
He was speaking at the end of a day which saw militant protests against the Household Charge and clashes between demonstrators and gardaí outside the conference hall, which had to be closed for a number of hours.
The winner of the three-way contest to chair the party was Galway East TD Colm Keaveney who defeated Galway West Deputy Derek Nolan and outgoing chair Brian O’Shea.
Unconfirmed figures gave the count as 320 votes for Mr Keaveney to 210 for Mr Nolan and 180 for Mr O’Shea.
This was seen as a rebuff for the party leadership, as was a vote to back a motion rejecting the sale of semi-State assets which was carried by 158 to 152.
Conjoined Benhaffaf twins reunited after their first time apart
The mother of conjoined twins (above left last December 2 years old) has told how her sons were reunited yesterday after being apart for the first time in their lives while little Hassan Benhaffaf underwent spine surgery.
Cork mother Angie Benhaffaf told how her 26-month-old sons pined for each other for the past week as Hassan had metal rods inserted in his spine in the operating theatre at Crumlin Children’s Hospital to treat his congenital scoliosis.
Since their marathon 14-hour separation operation just over two years ago the twins have stunned the medical world with their progress and were even fitted for a prosthetic limb each late last year.
Angie said yesterday on 2FM that she was delighted to be bringing twin Hassan home to his brother Hussein yesterday as she prepared to leave the Dublin hospital.
“Hassan has gone through a really tough week. This time last week I was handing him over for surgery on his spine,” Angie said.
“It’s the first time Hassan has been away from his twin brother Hussein. It’s the first time we’ve ever have been apart from the family.
“Even when we went to London it was the six of us against the world. It actually broke my heart to be apart from them.”
Angie said Hassan’s twin Hussein was wandering around their Cork home looking for the brother who has been by his side throughout his life.
“For the first few days Hussein was very upset and looking for Hassan from room to room calling for his ‘Dodo’. That’s their pet name for each other.
“Hassan didn’t look for Hussein as much as Hussein looked for him. He’s the more outgoing of the two,” Angie said.
Last Friday — just a day before the second anniversary of the gruelling operation to separate the conjoined twins — Hassan was wheeled into theatre on his own for back surgery.
She said the pair, who have their own special way of communicating with each other, were in contact by phone during Hassan’s hospital stay.
“They have a complete language that I don’t think the English dictionary has. It’s like twin babble, as I call it. They have their own complete set of words.”
While both boys have made an extraordinary recovery from their separation, their mum told Dave Fanning yesterday that Hassan’s scoliosis needed urgent surgery.
She said: “Basically it’s curvature of the spine. With Hassan’s scoliosis, most of the damage was done while he was in the womb.
“Hussein has postural scoliosis while Hassan has congenital. With postural through him wearing special orthotic suit 24/7 it is helping to straighten his spine.
“But Hassan’s got so much worse. He just needed urgent surgery.”
In an extraordinary co-incidence, she said the nephew of the Irish surgeon, Edward Kiely — who carried out the separation surgery in Great Ormond St Hospital two years ago — performed the operation on Hassan’s spine last weekend.
Facebook needs to build a browser
To tackle the growth of Google Chrome
Facebook can no longer rely on Microsoft to keep Google Chrome at bay. It needs to fight back with its own browser.
Microsoft is getting its ass kicked by Google.
Sometime in the next 12 months, Google Chrome will become the world’s most popular browser, knocking Microsoft’s Internet Explorer off the mountain it has ruled for more than a decade.
This fact should scare the pants off of Facebook.
In July 2008, IE controlled 68.5 percent of the market, according to Statcounter, while Chrome wasn’t even on the market. Now Microsoft’s browser is down to 34.8 percent market share while Chrome controls 30.9 percent of total browser usage. Chrome has grown by a percentage point the last few months, while IE has dropped by around the same amount.
It’s only a matter of time until Google dominates the browser market.
Now you may be asking yourselves: why should Facebook care about the fate of the browser market? Facebook’s a social network, not a desktop software company — why do the browser wars matter?
The answer lies in Google’s ambitious plans for Google+, the company’s “social spine.” It’s no secret that Facebook and Google are at war, and that Google would love to take the wind out of Facebook’s sails. Nothing less than control of the Web (and billions in ad dollars) is at stake.
Google+ as a standalone product hasn’t made a dent in Facebook’s growth, though. Google+ may have 170+ million users, but Facebook is still on track for the IPO of the decade.
Google+ wasn’t designed as a standalone product, however. It was made to augment and unifyall of Google’s products. Google wants to become Voltron — each separate piece (Gmail, Chrome, Android, Google Search, and so on) is strong on its own, but combined it’s unstoppable. That’s why Google launched Search + Your World, and that’s why Google+ integration in Chrome is inevitable.
Think about that for a moment. In a single update, Google could turn Chrome into its own version of Rockmelt – it would be a social browser that puts Google+ in front of users before they even have a chance to type Facebook.com in the address bar.
Don’t think Google will do it? It’s already started releasing extensions that integrate Google+ into Chrome. I suspect that these extensions are just precursors to their eventual integration into Chrome.
Facebook may be king of the Web right now, but the browser is still the gateway users must pass through to access the Web. Facebook can’t allow Google to control how 30.9 percent of its users access its Web site, especially as its ally (and investor) Microsoft continues to falter in the browser wars.
Facebook could try to counter Chrome with Facebook integration in IE, but it wouldn’t be the game-changing move Facebook needs to put Google on the defensive. The only way Facebook can knock Google off its feet is to build its own browser and use its massive reach to promote it.
The next battle in the war for dominance over the Web is going to be waged at the browser level. The only question is whether Facebook will take up the fight before it’s too late.
Increased turnover but, pre-tax figures at Donegal Creameries show losses
IN A year when it sold its low-margin milk and agristores business, Donegal Creameries reported rising revenue but a pre-tax loss.
Following the disposal to Connacht Gold Co-Op, the company said it was now concentrating on growing several distinct and niche sectors.
“The disposal of our milk and stores businesses in 2011 was balanced by two important acquisitions – a controlling interest in Biogreen Limited, a niche yogurt business based in London, and the AJ Allan seed potato business, the Scottish-based grower and marketer of seed potatoes, which has significantly improved the group’s overall seed potato business,” said chairman Geoffrey Vance.
He added the company did not anticipate any major acquisitions or disposals in the current year.
Turnover from continuing operations increased by 13.6 per cent last year to €69.6 million, driven mainly by growth of 21.9 per cent in the produce division.
A smaller contribution from associate companies and finance costs dragged the company to a pre-tax loss of €3.18 million on continuing operations before exceptionals, compared with a like-for-like profit of €3.15 million in 2010.
The company said it had made further downward revaluations in its property holdings. These amounted to €6.7 million on group property holdings and €900,000 for its share in associates.
“The board has now valued the majority of development land within the group’s portfolio, as well as its share of associates’ development land, at agricultural values and therefore would not expect any further significant reductions in value going forward,” the company said in a statement.
Net debt increased from €23.2 million in 2010 to €32.9 million on the back of €4.5 million spent on acquisitions, and capital expenditure of €2.4 million.
However, following the completion of the disposals of the milk and agristores businesses, the company said borrowings had been reduced significantly and now stood just below €20 million.
It maintained its dividend payment per share at 16 cent.
“We’re still here, we’re very much a Donegal company, we are profitable, we employ 120 people in Donegal and we are growing,” managing director Ian Ireland added.
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