Quarter of Ireland’s pupils have experienced some web abuse
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn with Anthony Burrowes and Stacy Lee Tormey, members of BeLonG To, the national body for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people, marking the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (Idaho) yesterday.
UP TO 25 per cent of school pupils have had experience of cyberbullying – either as a victim or as a bully.
Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald revealed the figures at a new anti-bullying forum yesterday. One in four girls and one in six boys had been involved in bullying online.
We were now seeing how social media sites had regrettably become a forum for hatred and an avenue for the viral spread of personal abuse, she said, and how lives had been destroyed by cyber-bullying.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn told the forum teachers were being targeted in cyberbullying, forcing many to hide their sexual orientation in schools.
The forum is to explore ways to tackle bullying in schools. Current Department of Education guidelines on bullying have been in place since 1994 – before the era of the internet.
A working group established by the forum will examine how these guidelines should be revised and updated.
The forum – which will examine homophobic and other forms of bullying – will provide a “road map’’ for the future, according to Mr Quinn.
At present, students are alerted to the dangers of cyberbullying as a routine part of the social, personal and health education programme for students up to the Junior Certificate. However, teachers complain that the time needed to address these issues is often not available because of the crowded curriculum. The issue receives even less attention during the two-year Leaving Certificate cycle, according to teachers.
More than 100 stakeholders, including representatives of student, parent and school management groups, teacher unions, support groups for victims, rights activists and bullying experts attended the forum opening.
Mr Quinn said: “Bullying is a problem which I take very seriously. Bullying in school can ruin a young person’s enjoyment of some of the most important years of their life. In extreme situations it can also, tragically, lead to a young person taking their own life . . .
“I am very anxious that the forum focuses on identifying the practical steps and recommendations that could be taken in the short term to improve how schools approach and tackle bullying.”
Mr Quinn has also set up a working group on tackling bullying, made up of representatives of the departments of Education and of Children and Youth Affairs. It will also draw upon the expertise of a range of organisations for its work.
A distracted or diverted mind ‘may block pain signals’
Diversions have long been known to make pain easier to handle, and new research suggests that’s more than just a psychological phenomenon.
A study in Current Biology claims a distracted mind may actually stop pain from reaching the central nervous system by setting off the release of opioid-based chemicals in the body.
In the study, subjects were asked to complete either a hard or easy memory task while undergoing an fMRI. During the test, a painful level of heat was applied to their arms.
Study participants perceived less pain when they were concentrating on the harder of the two memory tasks – and what they felt was reflected in the fMRI results.
The researchers at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf observed that the pain signals were blocked from reaching the spinal cord in the scans of the study subjects performing the more difficult task.
In a follow-up study, the researchers performed the same experiment but gave half of the participants an opioid-blocking drug called naloxone. They found that the pain-relieving effects of distraction dropped by 40 per cent among participants who were given the drug.
The finding suggests distraction helps trigger a release of endogenous opioids – or compounds like endorphins that are naturally produced in the body – to kill the pain.
“The results demonstrate that this phenomenon is not just a psychological phenomenon, but an active neuronal mechanism reducing the amount of pain signals ascending from the spinal cord to higher-order brain regions,” said lead author Christian Sprenger.
Aer Lingus starts Knock-Ireland west Airport Birmingham route
Aer Lingus Regional is to open a new daily route from Ireland West Airport Knock to Birmingham, starting June 11th.
The fares will cost from €29.99 one way including taxes.
The news comes after Bmibaby confirmed it would stop operating the route from June 10th following decision by IAG to wind down the airline in September 2012.
Consumer spending still declining in Ireland as retail sales slip
The consumer economy remains in decline, with retail sales still languishing and households continuing to focus on paying down debt, according to UCD’s Consumer Market Monitor.
Prof Mary Lambkin from the UCD Smurfit School said the rise in the Government’s VAT receipts could be attributed to spending on “essential items” such as fuel and transport costs, rather than discretionary spending.
The 6 per cent increase in VAT receipts in the first quarter “does not necessarily indicate a revival in retail activity”, she said.
“The Government’s austerity measures may be working in terms of correcting the overall fiscal situation, but there is no evidence of any spontaneous growth in the consumer economy,” she said
“If growth is the objective, then some stimulus will have to be provided.”
Tom Trainor, chief executive of the Marketing Institute of Ireland, which co-produced the report with the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, said the year would remain very challenging for the retail sector.
“However, there appears to be a consensus among retailers that we are now approaching the bottom of the recessionary cycle so hopefully things may pick up in 2013,” he said, citing the entry into the Irish market of clothing chains Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch as a sign of confidence in the future of the retail sector.
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