Saturday's news Ireland Blog by Donie

Irish Workers are facing the dole at 65 instead of a pension  ‘Retirement age to go up to 68′

   

Workers are facing claiming dole payments instead of their pensions at the age of 65 because the retirement age is being raised to 68.

The Government plans to increase the pension age in stages, taking it to 68 by 2028. Anyone retiring in two years’ time will have to wait until they are 66 to get a state pension, which amounts to around €12,000 a year.

Those who retire earlier will be entitled to get jobseekers’ benefit in lieu of the state pension for a year, Social Protection Minister Joan Burton said at an Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) pensions conference yesterday.

But that would mean people who have worked for decades face claiming benefits instead of a pension.

The move is to raise the state pensions age up to 66 by 2014 will affect approximately 14,000 workers.

At the moment a state transitory pension is paid to those who retire at 65, and the state contributory pension then kicks in from age 66. This transitory pension is being stopped, meaning that the retiree would have to take jobseekers’ allowance until they hit 66.

General secretary of ICTU David Begg said the plans to change the state pension age should be postponed.

He said the changes had not been thought through properly, and said he had concerns about how it would work in practice.

“What do you answer to somebody who’s left out of their job at age 65, and has a year or more to wait until they receive their pension? What do they do? What do they actually live on? So you have to sort that problem out,” he said yesterday.

Mr Begg said a recent survey of employers showed the majority had no intention of changing the age of retirement.

He said there was also no answer for people working in trades such as scaffolders or Nurses, where there was a physical issue of working until a later age.

Brendan McGinty, of business lobby group IBEC, called on the Government to show flexibility on the pension age changes. He said many employers would not be able to afford to fund people to make up for the loss of the state payment.

This would impact so-called integrated defined benefit pensions where the retirement income paid out is made up of the state pension and funds from the scheme.

“The simple reality is that employers and employees are not prepared for the situation facing them from 2014.

“Some employees still believe they are entitled to a state pension at 65, others may expect their employers to keep them in employment beyond 65,” Mr McGinty said.

He said a Mercer survey indicated that up to 60pc of employers had not yet considered their response to the planned increase in the pension age.

Some 29pc of respondents indicated that they intended to retain the current contractual retirement age at which employment terminates. These figures were broadly consistent with feedback from IBEC members, Mr McGinty added.

Green vegetables is a must for breast cancer patients ‘A new study states’

          

Green is the seat of health, immunity, inner strength and outer courage. Green vegetables are a rich source of vitamins A, B complex and C.

Women diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely to survive if they eat up their greens, a study suggests. A Chinese study has found a link between higher consumption of cruciferous vegetables such as greens, cabbage and broccoli, and reduced breast cancer death

Researchers followed the progress of almost 5,000 women for around five years after they were diagnosed with breast cancer, Daily Mail reported.

They found that the more cruciferous vegetables women ate during the first three years after diagnosis, the less likely they were to die.

As consumption increased, the chances of dying from breast cancer fell by between 22 percent and 62 percent and from all causes by between 27 percent and 62 percent.

During the study period, 587 women died, 496 from breast cancer, the Mail said.

The researchers pointed out that cruciferous vegetable consumption habits differed between China and the West.

“Commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in China include turnips, Chinese cabbage/bok choy and greens, while broccoli and brussels sprouts are the more commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in the US and other Western countries,” said study leader Sara Nechuta, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, US.

A GIRL AGED just 10 has given birth to a healthy 5lb baby girl in Colombia.  Ten-year-old girl gives birth in Colombia

      
The girl, who has not been named, had her daughter delivered by Caesarean section after arriving at hospital suffering contractions and bleeding, and reportedly in tears.

The baby weighed 5lb and both mother and child were said to be doing well after the procedure,
The mother, a member of the Wayuu tribe in the north of the South American country, was 39 weeks pregnant when she arrived at hospital.

Pacheco Casadiego, a doctor at the hospital where the birth took place, said it was not the first case staff had seen.

It’s striking that there have already been several cases of of ethnic Wayuu girls having babies. In reality, they should be playing with dolls.

The girl will be one of the globe’s youngest mothers. The youngest human ever recorded as giving birth was Peruvian girl Lina Medina, who had a baby boy when aged just five in 1938.

Commemoration marks a local loss in ‘Titanic’ tragedy of 1912

          

Zak O’Regan, Carrigaline, Co Cork, with a painting of the Titanic by Kevin Sanquest, being sold by Brown Thomas to benefit the RNLI

When 14 people in period costume set off by horse and sidecar this weekend, they will be marking Mayo’s commemoration of the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic.

The parishes of Lahardane and Addergoole lost 11 of their 14 residents, who joined the ship in Cobh – then Queenstown – Co Cork, 100 years ago. Every year the event is remembered in the community with the tolling of a church bell.

This year, the parishes are hosting a week-long programme of events, the Mayo Titanic Cultural Week. It will be opened on Easter Sunday by former president Mary Robinson.

The Addergoole 14 will mount their transport and travel to Castlebar, where they will stop to re-enact their ticket purchase in Linenhall Street and Main Street. They will then walk to Castlebar railway station where a plaque will be unveiled.

The three survivors lived out their days in the United States; Addergoole is remembered as the parish that suffered the “largest proportionate loss of life when the Titanic sank”.

Next Wednesday, five Caltra residents, also dressed in period costume, will travel by train from Athlone, Co Westmeath, to Cobh island in Cork harbour, where they will visit the Maritime Heritage Centre and the Titanic Experience museum and will lay a wreath out in Cork harbour.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny will open a memorial park in Lahardane on April 15th, incorporating a 12ft bronze sculpture of the ship.

Good Friday pubs closure are very much ‘outdated’

Vintners chief says keeping bars shut has ‘no place in today’s world’

         

A call has been made to separate religion from the law when it comes to the licensing laws governing Good Friday at a time when it appears more pubs will be open for business today due to their restaurant trade.

Yesterday, Terry Tyson, the chairman of the Vintners Federation of Ireland in Galway City, said it was “about time religion (the Catholic Church) stopped influencing business”.

Mr Tyson, proprietor of the Rockbarton House Hotel in Salthill, said it was high time for everyone to get a bit of sense and change an archaic law that had no place in what he described as “a multicultural society”.

“Publicans have a livelihood selling alcohol and on Good Friday they can’t do that, but this country is in a hole right now and why should religion have anything to do with business?

“Galway is a multi-cultural society now, so this law has no place in today’s world. The economy is a mess and business has to be done.

Many pubs with restaurant licences are open today – much more than on previous Good Fridays – but the one place in the city where there’s a full bar is at the Galway Greyhound Track as it has a special events licence.

In 2009, Judge Mary Fahy said prosecuting restaurants which offered wine with meals on Good Friday was “ludicrous” in today’s world. During a hearing in Galway District Court, she decided not to record convictions against nine restaurants that had done this.

Galway City centre to have free WiFiavailable for the Volvo ocean race finale

   

Galway does what other cities and towns in Ireland should be doing i.e. making free WiFi available in city centres like Eyre Square and Shop Street who will have free WiFi access in time for this summer’s Volvo Ocean Race Grand Finale.

WiFi hotspot provider Bit-buzz in seeking to partner with city businesses to provide wireless Internet connections to help cater for the huge influx of tourists expected in Galway this summer.

While Eircom’s WiFi Hub service does provide a number of WiFi hotspots throughout the city, including two on Eyre Square, Shop St is currently not catered for.

Shane Deasy, Managing Director of Bitbuzz, explains that the company is looking to expand its offering in Galway.

“We currently have 17 WiFi hotspots in Galway, in coffee shops and hotels, and what we want to do is increase the number of hotspots, but in tandem with that we want to extend that service out into some of the public areas, mainly Eyre Square and Shop St,” said Mr Deasy.

Bitbuzz is currently awaiting the results of an application for a tender from Dublin City Council to provide WiFi in some parts of the city. No such tender is in place in Galway, so the company will look to operate a similar schemes to those also planned for Dublin and Cork, where the company partners with local businesses to provide public WiFi connections.

“The idea is that we partner with these companies, and they give us permission to install our equipment on their buildings, and in exchange for that we would promote their services to the users of the service,” explains Mr Deasy.

“We want to try and do it before the summer. There are so many tourists on Shop St who have smartphones. They don’t want to use 3G roaming, because of the costs involved, so WiFi would be ideal,” he added.

The service will be completely free to customers of O2 and 3 Mobile, while customers from other mobile networks will be able to avail of limited free time online. This is similar to Eircom’s service, which is free to Eircom, Meteor, and eMobile customers, while 10 free minutes is available to customers of other networks.

Eyre Square and Shop St are main focus areas, but Mr Deasy explains that Bitbuzz is currently surveying what areas would benefit most from free WiFi.

“What we’re trying to do for Galway is look for where we believe people would want to use the service. This kind of service is going to bring more customers and tourists into the area and so on,” he said.