The falling oil prices not being passed on at Ireland’s fuel pumps
The deep fall in crude oil prices since last March, Irish motorists have yet not seen any sign of the benefit at the pumps.
A barrel of crude oil — a purely notional measurement as oil hasn’t been stored in barrels for decades — consists of 42 US gallons or 159 litres.
With crude oil prices having fallen by €18 since late March that should translate into a reduction of 11.3 cent for every litre of petrol or diesel.
When 23pc VAT is added the price reduction should be even higher at just under 14 cent. So have the recent crude oil price reductions been passed on to Irish motorists? Have they what?
According to the AA, which monitors fuel prices nationwide, the average price of a litre petrol was 162.1 cent in March while the average price of a litre of diesel was 157.7 cent.
Average petrol and diesel prices actually rose in April reflecting the time lag between crude oil prices and retail pump prices for refined fuel.
In April the average price of a litre of petrol was 164.9 cent rising to 165.9 cent in May. It was only in June that average petrol prices fell, to 162.9 cent, still almost a cent higher than when oil prices peaked in March.
Even using April prices it is clear that average petrol prices should now be only marginally over 150 cent a litre if Irish motorists were receiving the full benefit of the fall in crude oil prices.
In other words, Irish motorists are being overcharged by about 12 cent a litre for petrol.
It’s a similar story with diesel prices. The average price of a litre of diesel at the pumps peaked at 159.9 cent in April and by June had fallen by 6.3 cent to 153.6 cent.
If the full crude oil price reduction had been passed on, Irish motorists should be paying no more than 146 cent a litre meaning that Irish motorists are paying almost eight cent a litre over the odds for their diesel.
As many as 350,000 Irish patients may be on a waiting list to see a consultant
The Department of Health suggests that up to 350,000 patients could be on a waiting list to see a consultant at an out-patient department.
Recent figures up to March indicate that nearly 160,000 could be on a waiting list. Recent figures up to March indicate that nearly 160,000 could be on a waiting list.
The department said that not all of the country’s hospitals returned figures for that out-patient waiting list report.
The Special Delivery Unit said today that it estimates the total national outpatient waiting list once validated is likely to be between 325,000 and 350,000 patients.
It says this needs to be seen in the context of a national service that provides around 200,000 new and follow-up outpatient consultations a month.
The main problem suggested was that some patients have to wait an inordinate amount of time for an outpatient consultation.
Recently the HSE confirmed that over 800 patients were waiting four years or more to be seen at an outpatient clinic.
The total waiting list for assessment or treatment at a public hospital in March was put at around 218,000 patients, with not all hospitals having reported data.
In the footsteps of a Neolithic man,
The Céide Fields of north Mayo
Under bare Ben Bulben’s head in Drumcliff a churchyard, WB Yeats is laid and resting there. . . but the rocks of the mountain he loved so much continue all the way across Sligo and into north Mayo, forming majestic cliffs at Downpatrick Head and at the foot of the Céide Fields.
“Look,” the woman says, “look just below and left of that white line. On the green bit . . . There. See? That’s where she laid them.”
We are standing on a viewing platform in front of the Céide Fields interpretative centre in Ballycastle Co Mayo and looking at the 370ft high cliffs of carboniferous limestone, sandstone and shale that form the coast. They are 350 million years old, but the woman is interested – bubbling with excitement, in fact – in something much younger.
Across from where we are standing, high up on the face of the cliff, a pair of peregrine falcons made their nest on a ledge, and two chicks have hatched. The ocean is calm again today, the sun high at midday.
“There! Can you see? I think I saw them move!” says the woman. She hands me her binoculars but I can’t see a thing. The main man called Jim joins us and he sees them immediately.
“Oh my God,” exclaims the woman, now in something of a flap. “You’re not?”
I am. “Oh my God! We were told to watch out for you and here am I . . . ” The woman is Pamela the guide at the Céide Fields centre, a delight to be with and a fountain of knowledge – on all things local, on the history of the fields, and on the plant and animal wildlife of the bog and of the locality.
The Wild Atlantic Way goes east/west across the top of Mayo and Sligo along the R314 (at Belmullet, take a spur south and go to the bottom of the Mullet via the R313). Take the N59 from Bangor to Ballina and you’ll miss all this.
David Tyrrell, who manages the Broadhaven Bay Hotel, thinks anything that lures people further north into Erris is a good thing. There’s so much landscape to see and history to acquaint oneself with, he says. And he’s correct.
The Wild Atlantic Way goes past the front door of the Céide Fields centre. The fields are the most extensive Stone Age monument and enclosed field system anywhere in the world. They are about 5,700 years old – older than the pyramids.
When Stone Age man evolved from a hunter-gatherer (in Ireland about 6,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age ended), he became a farmer. At that time, the land that slopes down to the sea cliffs from Maumakeogh Mountain was rich and fertile; the climate warm – about the same as Lisbon in Portugal is today.
Here, Neolithic man created long narrow strip fields by dividing the land, parallel with the contour of the hill, using stones, piled one on top of the other to a height of about 1.5m. The strips were then subdivided into fields of between five and 15 acres; and each strip had one dwelling enclosure for a family. Archaeologists have so far surveyed some 84km of walls across diverse sites in north Mayo.
In the fields, the farmers grew crops but mostly kept animals – cattle, sheep and goats. They cremated their dead, burying the ashes in court and portal tombs, where pieces of pottery have also been found.
These people had no fighting weapons and there is no evidence they fortified themselves against attack. But gradually the bog encroached on the fields, probably encouraged by climate change; the people moved and the bog eventually swallowed the fields.
Until, that is, the 1930s when they were found by Patrick Caulfield, a Belderrig school teacher. But they were not revealed fully until his archaeologist son, Séamus of UCD, began serious excavations in the early 1970s. It was he who christened the place Céide, the hill with the flat top.
“In one sense,” says centre director Gretta Byrne, “it’s a very simple story. It’s a story of the everyday lives of the people who lived here and how they organised their farming.”
The seven (7) different ways Dogs can help your health
Dogs may be good at more than fetching sticks and greeting you after a long day at work. As it turns out, simply having them around may lessen your kids’ chances of getting the common cold.
Owning a dog may improve the health of children in that household, according to new research from the University of California, San Francisco. In a study of mice, researchers found that the house dust from homes with dogs worked to protect against a common cold strain, the respiratory syncytial virus.
“Mice aren’t identical to humans. There are obvious differences,” explains Dr. Susan Lynch, co-investigator of the study and a professor at UCSF. “But we can do things in the animals that we could not possibly do in humans, and we can get samples to examine disease that would be very difficult to assess in humans.”
Animals fed house dust from dog-owning homes did not exhibit the usual symptoms of RSV, including mucus production and lung inflammation. In fact, their symptoms were comparable to animals that weren’t exposed to the virus in the first place.
So what’s the big deal about RSV? It’s a virus to which almost everybody has been exposed within the first few years of life. However, it can be severe — and sometimes fatal — in premature and chronically ill infants. It is the leading cause of bronchiolitis, which is an inflammation of the small airways in the lung, as well as pneumonia in children under 1 year of age in the United States, and it is associated with increased risk of developing asthma.
What excited researchers is that this work may help explain why pet ownership has been associated with protection against childhood asthma in the past. Their thought process is as follows: exposure to animals early in life helps “train” the immune system, which plays an integral part in asthma development. In short, there is reason to believe that germs, such as those associated with dogs, may be good for children’s health under certain circumstances.
“Everybody appreciates the fact that we’re all missing something big in asthma,” says Dr. Robert Mellins, a pediatric pulmonologist at Columbia University in New York. “People have appreciated that viral infections clearly have an association, and this kind of experiment is interesting because it suggests a mechanism of how that could come about.”
The study is far from the first to suggest the health benefits of having a canine in the family. The following are six other ways that owning a dog may improve your health and well-being.
Could owning a dog keep your heart healthy? Research has supported a connection between owning a dog and reduced risk of cardiovascular problems, including high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels. In addition, a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology found that male dog owners were less likely to die within one year after a heart attack than those who did not own a dog.
Dogs and Anxiety
For people with all forms of anxiety, having a dog may be an important coping mechanism. This is especially true in times of crisis. A study out of the Medical College of Virginia found that for hospitalized patients with mental health issues, therapy with animals significantly reduced anxiety levels more than conventional recreational therapy sessions.
Dogs function as important companions and family members, but certain groups may benefit more than others. The elderly, particularly those in residential care facilities, often become socially isolated once separated from immediate family. Researchers in Australia have found that dogs improved the well-being of residents by promoting their capacity to build relationships.
Dogs and Rehabilitation
In the setting of a severe illness or prolonged hospitalization, therapy dogs can be integral in the process of rehabilitation. A review of the literature looking at the function of service dogs proved that dogs can assist people with various disabilities in performing everyday activities, thereby significantly reducing their dependence on others.
Before a dog is introduced into the home, the most commonly asked question is, “Who is going to walk the dog?” Turns out this responsibility may be important for the health of the family as well as the dog. Studies from the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine have shown that children with dogs spend more time doing moderate to vigorous activity than those without dogs, and adults with dogs walk on average almost twice as much as adults without dogs.
Dogs and Doctors
With all of these specific health benefits, could dogs keep you away from the doctor altogether? A national survey out of Australia found that dog and cat owners made fewer annual doctor visits and generally had significantly lower use of general practitioner services.
‘Giant wombat’ grave found in Queensland, Australia
DIPROTODON INHABITED FORESTS AND OPEN WOODLAND
Scientists have unearthed the biggest find yet of prehistoric “giant wombat” skeletons, revealing clues to the reasons for the species’ extinction.
Paleontologists working in Queensland, Australia, have uncovered the biggest find yet of diprotodons, a pre-historic marsupial that’s also known as the “mega-wombat”. Scientists hope that the discovery of these 50 distinct skeletons may shed some light behind the reason for this species’ extinction.
It was scientists from the Queensland Museum in Brisbane who uncovered the fossils, which are believed to be between 100,000 and 200,000 years old – and they’re calling it a “paleontologist’s goldmine”. The diprotodon was a marsupial herbivore about the size of a rhinoceros and boasting a backward-facing pouch so large it could fit an adult human.
The fossils of the mega-wombat were discovered in a large concentration, allowing paleontologists to better speculate about what these megafauna were doing, how they behaved, and what their ecology was like. A preliminary theory is that the diprotodons were trapped in boggy conditions while taking refuge from dry conditions.
It also appears that they were getting picked off by crocodiles.
What’s particularly interesting about these animals is that they may have rubbed elbows with indigenous peoples living in Australia about 50,000 years ago. It’s thought that human hunting may have contributed to their demise. Other theories postulate climate change.
One specimen was particularly massive for a diprotodon, boasting a jawbone 28 inches long (70 cm). The gravesite also revealed other animals, including lizards and crocodiles. In fact, the scientists are fairly confident that many of the diprotodons were ripped apart by these crocs, as they found shed teeth within their skeletons.
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