Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Sunday

President and Taoiseach congratulate Team Ireland on their three Paralympic gold medal’s 

Michael McKillop left claimed the third gold medal of the day for Ireland by setting another world record. Jason Smyth centre left celebrates after winning the 100m T13 final and right Ireland's Michael McKillop and Jason Smyth show their Gold medals.

Toiseach Enda Kenny and President Michael D Higgins have congratulated the three athletes who won gold medals for Ireland in the Paralympic Games yesterday.

London was a golden place for Ireland's Paralympians yesterday as Darragh McDonald, Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop all took their place at the top of the podium -- Smyth and McKillop setting new world records on the way.

Derryman Smyth took just 10.46 seconds tosecure gold in the T13 100m, while McKillop literally ran away with the T37 800m final, lowering his own world record to a mark of 1:57.22.

It brought Ireland's gold medal haul to four, after swimmer Bethany Firth won gold on Friday night.

Earlier in the pool, McDonald followed up on Bethany Firth's gold medal-winning performance on Friday by winning the 400m freestyle S6 final in 4:55.56, shaving an astonishing seven seconds off his personal best.

Smyth got off to a perfect start and was leading from the outset; the technique he's worked so hard on in Florida with his coaches Lance Brauman and Stephen Maguire setting him apart.

Smyth raised his hands in delight when he crossed the line and was met with rapturous applause from the Irish contingent occupying the stadium when he did his lap of honour.

"I was delighted, you are under pressure to succeed, people already have the medal around your neck before you start, you can't really go up and beyond what is expected. I felt relief and was thankful that the hard work had paid off," said Smyth.

This was Symth's third gold medal having won two in Beijingfour years ago. He narrowly missed out on joining South Africa's Oscar Pistorius at the Olympics, his personal best of 10.22 in 2011 just 0.04 of a second outside the A standard required.

McKillop never looked under any pressure in his race. Starting from lane four, he cruised into second place behind Ukrainian Oleksandr Driha before hitting the front just before the bell and pulling away to win in style.

"If you don't enjoy that you'll never enjoy anything in your life," said McKillop after the race.

"I knew exactly what I needed to do, I was 420m out and I went at it and nailed it. I put the hammer down, I got to 200 to go and I looked to the big screen, I knew I had a gap but I hit it again coming down the home straight to make sure."

McKillop, who rooms with Smyth, revealed that they will be resting and recovering after both winning gold but they are hoping for more success. Before his race he watched Smyth and chatted to him on the track after he won gold.

"I told him, I want a bit of that, because I wasn't walking into the room without a gold medal around my neck."

Wexford swimmer Darragh McDonald had a spectacular win in the 400m freestyle.

McDonald established an early lead in front of a big Irish crowd at the Aquatic Centre and, although he was chased hard by Swedish swimmer Anders Olsson who took second place, McDonald never faltered. He won comfortably in 4.55.56, shaving seven seconds off his personal best.

"I didn't think I'd feel anywhere near that good or be that far ahead," said McDonald.

"From this morning I knew I had more left in the tank but I didn't think we'd be looking at that much. To see Anders fall back so far was an amazing feeling. I said to myself before I started that I wasn't going to think about time I was just going to swim on my instinct and swim what felt right and that's what I did."

Smyth and McKillop will hope to add to their medal haul when they take to the track again in search of more gold.

Smyth has his sights set on the 200m on Friday, while McKillop goes in the 1500m on Sunday with both aiming to complete a double-double.

Three letters from Jean-Claude Trichet

 SHOW THE AMOUNT OF PRESSURE PUT ON THE LATE BRIAN LENIHAN FOR A BAILOUT

 

The amount of pressure put on Ireland by the European Central Bank to apply for a bailout in November 2010 has been revealed in letters seen by The Irish Times.

The three letters from the then president of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet to the late Brian Lenihan culminated in an insistence that Ireland should apply for a bailout or risk the country’s banks being cut off from access to support.

The decisive exchange of views took place in a phone call between the two men on Friday, November 12th, more than a week before the formal application for a bailout was made. At that stage, the ECB was underwriting funding to the Irish banking system of more than €150 billion.

Mr Trichet told Mr Lenihan the governing council of the ECB was becoming fearful that the whole European banking system was being put at risk by the drain on its resources coming from the Irish banks.

 The late Minister for finance Brian Lenihan.

Three critical letters were dispatched by Mr Trichet to Mr Lenihan in the run-up to the bailout.

They were sent on October 15th, November 4th and November 19th, 2010. It also appears likely that an email or fax reinforcing the message was sent to Mr Lenihan on November 12th, prompting his conversation with Mr Trichet.

The Department of Finance made reference to the letters in response to a freedom of information request by The Irish Times.

The October 15th letter spelled out the ECB’s worries about the rapid increase over the previous few weeks in the funding it was providing to the Irish banking system. Mr Trichet pointed to the extraordinarily large provision of liquidity by the euro system to the Irish banks.

The letter pointed out that this liquidity was subject to rules about the provision of adequate collateral. It said that Ireland’s access to such funds could be limited or even terminated completely.

Mr Trichet also pointed out that there were worries among the members of the governing council of the ECB about the appropriateness of its exposure to the Irish banks.

In particular, the letter referred to the provision of emergency liquidity assistance by the Irish Central Bank and said the governing council would assess whether there was a need to impose specific conditions to protect the integrity of monetary policy.

Mr Trichet emphasised that the large provision by the ECB and the Irish Central Bank to Anglo Irish Bank could not be taken for granted as a long-term solution.

On November 4th, Mr Trichet wrote another letter to Mr Lenihan. He repeated many of the points made in the earlier letter about the massive exposure of the ECB to Irish bank debt.

He focused again on the concerns of the governing council of the ECB about its exposure to the Irish banking system for such enormous sums, and he repeated many of the points made in the earlier letter.

This time, however, he pointedly said that the ECB was monitoring the Irish government’s commitment to its four-year plan, still in preparation, and said that continuing ECB support was contingent on the plan being implemented.

On the same day, Mr Lenihan announced a targeted adjustment of €15 billion over four years, with €6 billion of that coming in 2011. The full detail of the four-year plan was to follow at the end of the month.

The decisive conversation with Mr Trichet followed on November 12th, and it is possible that this arose following a fax or email reinforcing the points made on November 4th.

In an interview with Irish Times economics editor Dan O’Brien, conducted after Fianna Fáil had lost power, Mr Lenihan was adamant that a communication from Mr Trichet had arrived on November 12th.

The final letter from Mr Trichet urging Mr Lenihan to accept the bailout was sent on November 19th. However, by that stage, the governor of the Irish Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, had publicly said a bailout was necessary.

The Trichet letter of November 19th urged Mr Lenihan and his government colleagues to accept the necessity for a bailout and agree to a programme with the troika.

By that stage, there was no longer any doubt that a bailout was necessary and all that was outstanding was the precise terms of the deal.

The following Sunday, November 20th, Mr Lenihan and his colleagues bowed to the inevitable and formally applied for an EU-International Monetary Fund programme.

James Reilly’s colleagues in Government no longer trust him

Rumblings from the inside suggest

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There are further reports of trouble within the government coalition today as TDs prepare to begin the new Dáil term. 

The Sunday Business Post reports that the Labour Party are angry that Health Minister James Reilly did not consult Cabinet before the HSE announced €130m in health cuts this week.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Independent reports that Fine Gael are annoyed by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin’s decision to abandon a plan to cut €75m in allowances and payments to public sector staff.

Leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan, with the benefit of first-hand experience, said spats such as these can topple governments.

“You don’t want to be on the front page of newspapers every day,” he said. “That’s where things start to go wrong, because your colleages are getting heat from that; your constituency phone is ringing; you’ve got people ringing you and you don’t have an answer (for them).

“It’s much more difficult for a Minister to get things done if your colleages don’t trust you. I would imagine now that (James Reilly’s) Fine Gael colleagues, and certainly Labour, do not trust him.”

Solar panels represent ‘best chance’of meeting the world’s energy needs

  

Solar panels that will convert sunlight into electricity may represent the world’s best chance of supplying energy needs into the future. No other technology holds the same potential, a conference in Dublin has heard.

Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte opened the conference, The Future of Energy: Dreams and Responsibilities, at the Science Gallery early yesterday but protesters sprang up with banners, temporarily halting his presentation.

The half-day event included presentations from a number of senior scientists based at the University of Notre Dame. Their participation was linked to this weekend’s American football game between Notre Dame and the US Navy team, which will be played at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow.

Yesterday’s proceedings were introduced by Prof Peter Kilpatrick, the McCloskey dean of engineering at the Indiana-based university. He introduced Mr Rabbitte who began to speak only to be interrupted by the protesters.

The first banner opened said: “Shell’s Pet Rabbitte”. Organisers took down the banner and attempted to shepherd the protesters out but they immediately tried to open a second banner that was quickly taken down.

One protester trained a small video camera on the Minister, citing his “responsibility to the Rossport community” and demanding to know why Mr Rabbitte had given away oil licences to the multinationals.

Disruption continued for a few minutes before the group of three or four was cleared from the room and Mr Rabbitte resumed.

Ireland had a “total dependence” on fossil fuels but the rapid introduction of renewables, particularly wind turbines, could help reduce this, he said.

Geopolitical uncertainty meant the country remained exposed to energy “shocks” and needed to escape this. “We have seen good progress in the past 10 years,” he said, with a tripling of wind capacity.

Several speakers talked about the potential of solar power, including Dr Mazhar Bari, co-founder of Irish company SolarPrint. “In Ireland, people believe there is no sunlight here, but Ireland gets the same amount as Germany,” he said.

New flexible panels were being developed that could be rolled out or even painted onto surfaces to produce solar electricity.

Total world energy demand was 15 or 16 trillion watts but the sun each day delivered 120 trillion watts to the Earth, said Prof Prashant Kamat of Notre Dame.

Even if the countries of the world built a new 1 billion-watt nuclear power plant each day, this could not keep pace with the estimated doubling of demand over the next 35 years, he said.

“Clean energy is the way to go for the future,” said Prof Don MacElroy, principal investigator at UCD working on solar energy conversion. Solar power could be collected during the day and used to split water into hydrogen fuel, create chemicals or charge batteries – storage methods that could be used to supply electricity at night.

FOOTBALL SPIN-OFF: TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM 

A SECOND research-based academic symposium takes place this morning in association with the Navy-Notre Dame American US football game being played in Dublin this weekend.

Dublin City University’s Marine and Environmental Sensing Technology Hub and the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU have organised the event, in which scientists doing environmental and sensor research at the University of Notre Dame will participate.

The “Technology Touchdown Collaboration Event” is being held to help foster deeper research links between DCU and Notre Dame, said Prof Fiona Regan, professor in environmental sensing in the hub.

The symposium will focus on issues including detection of rare marine species; monitoring of the marine environment; aquatic ecosystems; development of nano- antimicrobial materials for prevention of biofouling, and an assessment of collaboration opportunities between the two institutions.

The symposium includes 12 presentations by leading researchers from the hub and from Notre Dame, with sessions looking at the environmental challenges, the development of sensor platforms and the design and characterisation of nanomaterials that are being used in new generation sensor technologies.

A social event yesterday evening also saw welcoming addresses to the Notre Dame guests by John Hennessy-Niland, deputy chief of mission at the American embassy, Dublin, by Cmdr Mark Mellett of the Irish Naval Service and by DCU president Brian MacCraith.

Ireland’s credit card spending is up for the first time in four years

   

Spending on credit cards has increased for the first time since 2008 while Irish banks’ dependence on the European Central Bank (ECB) is at a two-year low.

Both trends add to the tentative evidence that the economy is finally beginning to stabilise following the financial crisis.

Personal credit card spending rose by 5pc in July to €790m, according to figures published by the Central Bank yesterday. It is the first time in four years that consumers did not reduce credit card debt, a sign of growing consumer confidence.

“This first annual increase in four years adds to other evidence pointing to a possible pick-up in overall household spending,” said Bank of Ireland chief economist Dan McLaughlin.

The same data shows that the reliance of the Irish banks on the ECB for emergency funds dropped to €71.9bn at the end of July from €75.8bn in June, the lowest level since September 2010. Weaning failed Irish banks off emergency support is a key government priority.

The latest improvement is mainly a result of banks shrinking their balance sheets, according to Dermot O’Leary of Goodbody Stockbrokers. Banks like AIB and Bank of Ireland have been selling off billions of euro of ‘non-core’ assets under instructions from the Central Bank, and reducing their need for cash.

Deposit: Overall lending to households fell in July, however, with far more debt being repaid than borrowed. Consumer lending was down 3.6pc in July compared to a year earlier. Credit to business also decreased, down 3.4pc in the period.

The latest data shows that the amount of cash on deposit with Irish banks is now back to the same level as a year ago, the best performance since January 2010, according to Dermot O’Leary.

“Deposit stability in the Irish banks has been one of the most positive features of Irish macroeconomic trends in the year to date. This data shows the trend continued into the second half of the year,” he said.

Gerry ‘Ginger’ McLoughlin reveals his battle with depression

GERRY CONTEMPLATED TAKING HIS OWN LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE COLLAPSE 

    

ANGUISH: Gerry McLoughlin says he lost the will to live after his marriage of 30 years ended.

The former Irish rugby star brought the room to complete silence when he recalled how he was on the brink of suicide after his marriage broke down.

Gerry ‘Ginger’ McLoughlin — the current mayor of Limerick — is best known for scoring a try inTwickenham while dragging half the English pack over the line during Ireland’s successful Triple Crown campaign in 1982. He also starred inMunster’s famous victory over the visiting All-Blacks team in 1978.

However, the Labour councillor admitted that one of the hardest battles he ever had to overcome was emerging from the depths of depression when his marriage of 30 years ended more than a decade ago.

At the time he was running a pub business in Wales and said he had lost the will to live.

“I had been successful in most things I had done. I had raised a family, I had travelled all over the world, I had played rugby at the highest level and built a little empire in Wales. I never thought that a normal person could end up in the throes of depression,” he said.

“I had emigrated to Wales and I found myself divorced after a very happy 30 years of marriage and then I came back and you feel a failure. Ten years ago you would be looked upon as a failure. I didn’t know how to cope with it and being a man, I was probably too proud to mention it to anybody. I didn’t actually realise I was going through depression.”

Mr McLoughlin was speaking in his office in City Hall in Limerick on Friday where he hosted a coffee morning for Console — a charity that supports people bereaved through suicide. During a highly emotional speech, the well-known Limerick man recalled how he attempted to deal with his own difficulties.

He recalled travelling to Wales in horrific weather conditions when he wasn’t mentally fit for the journeys. “I drove a car in terrible conditions and thought what if I died tonight? It doesn’t make a difference to me. You can’t think straight, so every second of the day you are just taken up with doing things for the sake of doing them.”

“I was suicidal I’ve no doubt. Life really didn’t mean much to me. I thought that’s it. I’ve achieved what I’ve achieved and that’s it. What’s the point? I lost the will to live for a couple of months but at the same time I never went out to commit suicide. It lasted three of four months. I couldn’t get off the couch, I couldn’t go for a cycle, I couldn’t go for a shower. It was a very depressing time and you didn’t want to be burdening yourself with your problems.”

Console chief executive Paul Kelly said he was completely surprised by Mr McLoughlin’s speech and said he was “a very brave and courageous man” for speaking so openly.

“We were all taken aback here today. I didn’t expect him to come out like this.

“He brought it right out into the open. Most of us try to keep it a big secret and keep it in the dark but at the same time there are very few families that are not affected by it and that needs to change,” Mr Kelly said.

Physical therapist to the world’s top athletes, Ger Hartmann (52) from Limerick, also spoke of his anguish after nine friends took their own lives.

“When I was 23 years old, one of my schoolmates attempted suicide from the fifth floor of his family building and dropped to his death. I knew him since the age of six and was the first person over to him. A few seconds after the fall or death, his mam opened the window three floors below and looked down at her son. I vividly recall that memory of a mother looking down on her son and looking up again at the window he came out of and seeing the nylon drape blowing out with the wind.

“We read about suicide the whole time, but when you have touched it, felt it and smelt it even, it is powerful and has a lifetime effect. Suicide put a dagger through me.”

Last year, 525 people in Ireland took their own lives. Console can be contacted on 1800 201 890 or www.console.ie.