Saturday's Ireland news Blog as told by Donie

Call’s for ‘urgent legislation’ as a record €11.5m awarded for boy’s catastrophic injuries by his  'Mother's lapse of concentration'

 

Cullen Kennedy (10), who suffered injuries in a car crash in 2008 that left him permanently confined to a wheelchair, with his grandmother Monica Kennedy and mother, Margaret Kennedy. A settlement of €11.5 million in his case was approved at the High Court yesterday

The courts are “gambling” daily with the welfare and security of those who suffer catastrophic injuries because of the failure to legislate to ensure lifelong care needs will be met, a High Court judge has said when approving a record €11.5 million settlement for a young boy left quadriplegic after a road crash.

Ms Justice Mary Irvine, while stressing that the case before her involved an “excellent” settlement, called yesterday for “urgent and prompt” attention to the need for laws providing for periodic payments in catastrophic injury cases.

“The reality is the courts don’t know when people are going to die,” she said. “We are gambling every day.” It was an “absolute tragedy” and, in certain cases where lump sum payments had been made the money to meet care needs was running out.

She made the remarks addressing the general position in catastrophic injury cases when approving the €11.5 million lump sum settlement, the highest to date in a personal injuries action, in the case of Cullen Kennedy (10), Corheen, Loughrea, Co Galway.

Cullen suffered devastating injuries when, due to what the court heard was a “momentary lapse of concentration” by his mother, Margaret, when, distracted by him as she drove him to school in Co Clare in June 2008, her car veered on to the wrong side of the road and collided head on with another car. Ms Kennedy was uninsured at the time.

The other driver suffered minor injuries. Ms Kennedy suffered some injuries but Cullen, then aged six and restrained in a booster seat in the back of the car, suffered very severe injuries when his head hit the front windscreen. As a result he is quadriplegic and wheelchair-bound and will require 24-hour care for life.

Cullen’s mother and his grandmother Monica Kennedy play a large part in providing that care at his mother’s rented home and are supported on a 24-hour basis by nurses and special needs assistants, who assist Cullen in attending school. The child has no mental impairment and was described as “lively and vivacious”.

Cullen, suing through his grandmother, who gave up her job to help care for him, brought the proceedings against his mother and the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland. Under the settlement, the bureau will pay the €11.5 million judgment sum, plus costs.

While stressing the settlement in this case was “excellent” as it was expected to meet all Cullen’s lifelong care needs, Ms Justice Irvine said the continuing failure to enact laws providing for period payment orders involved injustice, as some catastrophically injured persons would run out of funds for their care. A second, lesser injustice due to the absence of legislation was that some such persons would die earlier than expected, resulting in a “windfall” for their next of kin.

Ms Justice Irvine noted that a working group on periodic payment orders (PPOs) was set up by the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, 3½ years ago, chaired by Mr Justice John Quirke and including herself. It had reported unanimously in October 2010 that legislation was required to allow cases be settled on the basis of PPOs.

It was recommended that catastrophically injured persons would be paid a sum annually for the rest of their lives, a system that would guarantee their care, she said.

She said the report was delivered in October 2010 to the last government and had been with this Government since it came to power. While she had no doubt the Government had “very significant” issues to deal with, the absence of legislation had left the courts “gambling” with the futures of the most vulnerable litigants.

Kenny and Noonan show no sympathy towards the Kelly couple evicted out of their home

     

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan have shown little sympathy for the couple who were dramatically evicted from their home on Wednesday afternoon.

Enda Kenny described the circumstances in which Brendan Kelly (71) and his wife, Asta (63), found themselves evicted from their home as being “peculiar”.

Mr Kenny told Newstalk he did not understand why the couple had not made arrangements to live elsewhere since they were served with a repossession order two years ago.

Michael Noonan said the Government would distinguish between those who wanted to stay in their homes and professional landlords.

“We have no pledge to keep people in 21 different homes and we must distinguish between people who can’t pay and people who won’t pay,” he said.

Yesterday, The Irish Times reported that the couple had bought 21 properties during the 1990s and the last decade.

Mr Kelly spent yesterday in the Dáil talking to politicians, including Dún Laoghaire People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, according to neighbours.

His wife, who remained outside the house from which they were evicted, declined to comment citing legal matters before going into a neighbour’s house.

A small blue tent remained outside the driveway of the five-bedroom red-brick home at St Matthias Wood, Killiney, Co Dublin.

Neighbours at the immaculately kept, gated cul-de-sac said the couple did not intend to spend last night in the tent.

One neighbour who declined to be named said the couple’s property empire had “made their argument very difficult”, but added that nobody deserved to be evicted in a “brutal manner”.

The house was being looked after by security guards employed by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Irish Nationwide Building Society, which is now part of the corporation, gave the couple a €2.2 million mortgage for the house in 2004. The outstanding portion of the mortgage is in the region of €2 million, with the last mortgage payment on the house having been made in 2009.

When asked why they had not sold some properties to meet debts, Mr Kelly said it was practically impossible to sell in the current climate.

Sympathy came from an unlikely source yesterday when members of the Occupy Dame Street movement visited the house to express their solidarity with the couple.

Mrs Kelly thanked the protesters, who said they would offer every assistance to her and to anybody else who found themselves in danger of eviction.

One protester, Seán Ryan, said the number of homes the couple owned was “irrelevant”.

“Do we define these people by their net worth?” he asked.

Healthier lifestyle’s can ‘switch off ‘the ageing gene process

   

A healthy lifestyle and diet can switch on and off the genes (centre pic.) that are responsible for ageing.

Scientists have identified four ‘Father Time’ genes that help determine the rate at which we age.

These genes may be programmed from an early age, but being aware of how they are altered could lead to the development of innovative anti-ageing drugs, researchers say.

Scientists already knew that ‘epigenetic’ changes – chemical alterations to DNA made by external factors in the environment – are important to ageing.

But the new research goes helps to explain how and when these effects occur.

Dr Jordana Bell, from King’s College London, one of the study authors, said: “We found that epigenetic changes associate with age-related traits that have previously been used to define biological age.

“We identified many age-related epigenetic changes, but four seemed to impact the rate of healthy ageing and potential longevity and we can use these findings as potential markers of ageing.

“These results can help understand the biological mechanisms underlying healthy ageing and age-related disease, and future work will explore how environmental effects can affect these epigenetic changes.”

The scientist studied 172 twins, who were aged 32 to 80. They looked for epigenetic changes in their DNA.

Twins are often used in such studies because identical pairs share exactly the same genes, making it possible to differentiate genetic and environmental effects.

Analysing the changes in relation to chronological age, the researchers identified 490 age-related epigenetic changes.

Matching these to specific age-related traits highlighted four genes displaying changes linked to cholesterol levels, lung function and maternal lifespan.

Further research showed that many of the epigenetic DNA alterations were also present in a group of 44 younger twins aged 22 to 61.

This suggests that while many age-related genetic changes caused by environmental factors occur throughout a person’s life, some might be triggered early on.

Professor Tim Spector, director of the Department of Twin Research at King’s College, said: “This study is the first glimpse of the potential that large twin studies have to find the key genes involved in ageing, how they can be modified by lifestyle and start to develop anti-ageing therapies.

“The future will be very exciting for age research.”

 

Overcrowding is still a big issue in Ireland’s Mountjoy prison

 

Overcrowding and confinement for up to 23 hours a day continue to blight the prison system, especially Mountjoy, according to the latest annual reports from the prison visiting committees.

The committees have provided reports on Mountjoy, Cork, Cloverhill and Wheatfield prisons to the Minister for Justice, who has published them on the department’s website.

The committee said that beds in Mountjoy were unsuitable, and in 2011 many prisoners had to sleep on mattresses on the floor. Too many people were confined in small spaces for up to 23 hours per day, and financial constraints were not an excuse for this to continue for much longer, it said. It also recommended an enhanced programme of education.