Donie's News Ireland update Friday

Ireland’s Obesity time-bomb with 20% of young people badly overweight?

   

Walk along any main street or visit any shopping centre and one of the first things that will become apparent is the large number of seriously obese young people.

In recent years more and more of us have fallen into the trap of eating more and exercising less.

The result has been an explosion in obesity with a fifth of all children now overweight while over a fifth of all adult females and more than a quarter of adult males now estimated to be obese.

This massive increase in the incidence of obesity is a public health timebomb. Research published yesterday by the Institute of Public Health in Ireland predicted that the number of adults aged over 45 with diabetes would jump by 30pc to 175,000 by 2020.

That’s an increase of 40,000 in the space of just eight years.

  Diabetes is not just expensive to treat, it also brings with it all sorts of unpleasant side-effects ranging from blindness to nerve damage to kidney disease and much else besides. And the tragedy is that adult-onset Type-2 diabetes is usually preventable. Unlike Type-1 childhood diabetes, Type-2 diabetes is almost always the product of the patient’s lifestyle.

Being seriously obese increases your chances of developing Type-2 diabetes almost sixty-fold.

So for everyone who wants to reduce their chances of developing this debilitating illness the advice is simple: cut back on the calories and take more exercise.

On-line Shopping is hitting Ireland’s economy big time

   

On-line shopping could harm Ireland’s economy as consumers choose to buy products from companies overseas, experts have warned.

Irish shoppers are expected to spend more than €20bn a year online by 2017, but there are no plans to ensure that money stays in Ireland.

Government-backed Digital Hub Development Agency said a strategy is needed to ensure indigenous companies strengthen their share of the online market place to prevent an “immense” loss to the economy.

Chairman Leonard Donnelly said 75pc of the four billion euro currently spent online goes overseas, mainly to the UK.

“The Digital Hub has projected that, by 2017, the online consumptive economy will be valued at 21 billion euro in Ireland,” said Mr Donnelly.

“If the trend for favouring overseas outlets for online purchases continues, however, the revenue loss to the domestic productive sectors will be immense.”

The agency said it had been working with Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte to develop a national digital strategy.

Opposition party Sinn Fein said part of that plan should be an increase in broadband coverage across the country.

Jobs, enterprise and innovation spokesman Peadar Toibin criticised the minister for failing to roll out any fibre optic cable in his first year in office.

“We have the skills, expertise and entrepreneurial drive within the Irish technology sector to begin to realise the potential of this sector for economic growth and job creation,” said Mr Toibin.

“However this potential is being squandered by government inaction.”

Meanwhile, Mr Donnelly said measures should include a focus on the new “video-net era.”

Critical: “The choice for how far Ireland reaches with a next-generation network is actually critical to our future success,” he said.

“If you were offered the choice of a tricycle or a supersonic jet, which would you choose?”

Mr Donnelly added that Ireland must mirror and surpass its biggest competitors in the sector — India and the UK. He said the Government could achieve this by ensuring “digital is at the heart of the economic agenda”.

Spending in Ireland 10% down but exports growth at 8% doing well

  

The recovery in the Irish economy has shown great improvement and shown to be stronger than initially reported.

The news comes following the latest round of data revisions.

Real GDP is over 2pc above the low recorded in the final quarter of 2009 and last year’s growth is now put at 1.4pc, double the first estimate, according to Bank of Ireland’s Quarterly Economic Outlook.

But the improvements remain slow and uneven and are still driven solely by the external sector.

The continuing poor state of the domestic economy explains why few people consider that the recession has actually ended.

Consumer spending is now a massive 10% below its pre-recession level, with capital spending down an extraordinary 50pc.

Meanwhile, exports have risen by 8pc, the review found.

Dr Dan McLaughlin (pictured), group chief economist with the bank, stated the trend of falling domestic demand and rising net exports reversed in the first quarter of 2012, largely due to a surge in imports.

This in turn reflected a second consecutive quarterly increase in business spending on machinery and equipment, he added.