New incoming hospital consultants will earn 30pc less than existing colleagues after the HSE forced a pay cut on the top doctors today.
The reduced salary, which will range from €116,000 to €121,000, is part of a package of measures which the HSE claims will save around €200m.
The announcement followed marathon talks between the HSE and hospital consultants’ organisation at the Labour Relations Commission which ended at 8am today.
The lower entry pay was not agreed to by the Irish Medical Organisation or the Irish Hospital Consultants Association but the government can introduce it because it is outside the Croke Park agreement
The talks between the HSE and hospital consultants’ organisation at the Labour Relations Commission succeeded in progress being made on other key areas of work practice changes in hospitals.
The consultants will now work flexible rosters which will see them do on-site hospital shifts in the evening and weekends rather than being on- call duty at home.
This will result in savings on the bill for on-call allowances as well as overtime, while making senior specialists more available.
Agreement was also reached on new terms which will see hospital consultants more accountable to hospital clinical directors who are themselves working doctors but have a team leader and managerial role.
The negotiations did not find agreement on moves by the HSE to halve the entitlement of a year’s leave with pay before retirement to around 450 consultants.
This will now go to the Labour Court along with other outstanding issues including demands to end a special top-up payment for psychiatrists who give a second opinion.
Michael Martin tell media its wrong to target Ireland’s pensioners
Party leader Micheal Martin addresses the media at the Fianna Fail parliamentary party meeting at the Marine Hotel, Sutton, Dublin.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said people of all ages on higher incomes must take more budgetary pain, but insisted it would be wrong to “target” pensioners.
Mr Martin, speaking at the start of his party’s think-in in Sutton, Dublin, accused Minister of State for Finance Brian Hayes of using language that was “careless” in an interview with The Irish Times on Saturday.
“Fairness will demand those on higher incomes irrespective of what category of society they belong to or what age demographic they belong to will pay proportionately a bit more than those who are on the breadline,” Mr Martin said.
“But we do not believe we should target a group of people such as the elderly or pensioners and say that they’re rolling in it and we should ‘have a go’, which in essence is what Brian Hayes was saying in The Irish Times.”
Mr Hayes said pensioners were the one group of people in the country who had come through the economic crash and still had their incomes intact. While he stressed that he was not talking about people who depended solely on the State pension, Mr Hayes said the Irish political system needed to overcome its inability to countenance budgetary cutbacks affecting older people because many of them told him they were “well off”.
Mr Martin said he had been “taken aback” by Mr Hayes’s comments and noted Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton “came in quickly to rebuke” the junior minister. He said there was a sense of Government “casting around almost desperately” to find groups to target in the upcoming budget.
He said Fianna Fáil would fight any moves to restrict free travel for the elderly. “It’s something dear to our hearts. A Fianna Fáil government brought it in. It has spoken volumes about the respect and esteem that we hold older people in in this country,” he said.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore today warned Ministers about needlessly worrying older people as the Government starts to weigh up budget options. “We will have our budget in December and we won’t be making budget decisions until close to then,” the Tánaiste said in Belfast. “I think that speculation about what may or may not be in the budget between now and then is unhelpful. I think that we need to be careful that we are giving undue cause for worry to people who are worried about speculation that they are seeing.”
Separately, Mr Martin also said the time is not right to introduce a property tax along the lines proposed by the Government.
He expressed concern about the introduction of a “value-based” property tax which he said would “discriminate” against urban-dwellers in Dublin, Cork and other cities.
“It’s very clear that the squeezed middle are finding it extremely difficult to cope now and that the ability to pay a tax of this scale envisaged by the Government has to be questioned at this particular time.”
Mortgage arrears and stamp duty payments should be taken into account, he said. He said he could see the importance of introducing a property tax under normal economic circumstances, but he did not think it would be possible to raise €500 million in the present circumstances.
The Fianna Fáil leader said people had already faced a lot of extra charges and it was legitimate to raise the issue of people’s capacity to pay. “Our sense is that the timing is not right now to introduce a tax on that particular scale.”
He said it was difficult to discern what the Government was proposing and called on the coalition to publish the Thornhill report on property tax. An interdepartmental group chaired by chairman of the National Competitiveness Council and former senior civil servant Don Thornhill has presented its report to the Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.
Mr Martin also expressed concern about the proposed Personal Insolvency Bill. He said the planned law did “not go far enough” and that Fianna Fáil would continue to table amendments. The Bill proposes to let debtors to emerge from bankruptcy after three years instead of 12.
On the health front, Mr Martin said Government Ministers do not have confidence in Minister for Health James Reilly.
The party has tabled a motion of no confidence in Dr Reilly to be discussed in the Dáil tomorrow.
“It was clear to us at the end of August that his own colleagues in Government certainly have not confidence in him. Those in the Fine Gael chose to leak anonymously…but the Labour Party Ministers have been quite clear. They have actually refused point blank to articulate confidence in the Minister for Health.”
Mr Martin said Minister of State at the Department of Health Róisín Shortall had been asked on a number of occasions and she had avoided expressing confidence.
“With the lack of confidence that Minister Reilly’s own colleagues have in him, how does one expect the Opposition to have confidence in his performance to date.”
He said Fianna Fáil would continue putting pressure on Dr Reilly and the rest of the Government “for avoidable decisions which are undermining health services”.
Mr Martin said the health services were being subject to a round of “mean-spirited emergency cuts” which he claimed Dr Reilly was denying while implementing.
“Soon after the government was formed Minister Reilly announced that he was abolishing the current management structures of the health services and taking personal charge,” Mr Martin said.
“He announced that waiting lists would come down, prescriptions would be cheaper and free-GP care for all was on the way. Eighteen months later waiting lists are up, prescriptions are just as expensive and free-GP care is nowhere to be seen.”
French court to rule on Kate Middleton topless pictures
The row over topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge has escalated as the editor of the Irish Daily Star was suspended for using them and a French court announced it will decide on Tuesday whether to halt further publication.
Michael O’Kane now faces an investigation after the newspaper re-ran the images – originally published by France’s Closer magazine – its Ireland-based co-owners Independent News and Media (INM) said.
Earlier, the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris said it expected to rule at noon on Tuesday on an injunction to prevent further use of the photographs showing the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless on holiday in France.
The civil case is seeking 5,000 euro (£4,034) in damages and a ban on French Closer re-publishing the images. Representing the royal couple, lawyer Aurelien Hamelle also asked the court to fine Closer 10,000 euro (£8,070) a day for each day the injunction is not respected, and 100,000 (£80,720) if the photos are sold.
Delphine Pando, representing Italian publishing group Mondadori, which owns France’s Closer, told the court that the photos are not theirs to sell. “The photos are out there. If a TV show wants to show an image of this (magazine) edition, it’s got nothing to do with us,” she said.
Lawyers for William and Kate have also asked France’s criminal prosecutors to consider charging the photographer who took the pictures.
INM’s move to suspend Mr O’Kane this evening comes just hours after Alan Shatter, the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence said the Republic will introduce privacy laws on the back of the scandal. “It is clear that some sections of the print media are either unable or unwilling in their reportage to distinguish between prurient interest and the public interest,” he said.
Jointly owned by Richard Desmond’s Northern and Shell and INM, the Irish Daily Star’s decision to use the pictures on Saturday infuriated the media mogul.
Mr Desmond has said he wants it shut down with insiders at his corporation warning “he says what he means, and means what he says”.
In a statement, the company behind the Dublin operation, Independent Star, said of the decision to suspend Mr O’Kane: “Independent Star Limited has suspended editor Michael O’Kane with immediate effect, pending an investigation into the circumstances that led to the Irish Daily Star re-publishing pages from the French magazine ‘Closer’, which contained images of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Independent Star Limited has no further comment pending conclusion of the joint investigation by the newspaper’s shareholders.”
Ireland needs to follow Iceland’s example and punish our bankers
Iceland’s former prime minister Geir Haarde above left is facing charges over the global financial crisis.
In solidarity Iceland removed the political parties associated with the boom times.
Ireland and Iceland have experienced boom times caused by inflows of cheap credit, and both had experienced societal upheaval as a result of the inevitable crash. Iceland differed sharply from Ireland in its approach to resolving the crisis. Where we are currently floundering, praying for a deal on our banking debt from Brussels, Iceland is moving on, with a set of relatively clean bank balance sheets, a falling unemployment rate, an increase in economic output, and a national sense that the economy and the society is healing.
What can we learn from the Icelandic experience? Should we even compare ourselves to them? I think there are many lessons to learn, but you have to look beyond the numbers.
Iceland is a tiny Island nation, with about 320,000 people in the country. Iceland has plentiful geothermal energy, an export base of aluminum and fish–especially mackerel–and a thriving tourism industry. More than 700,000 people visit Iceland each year. It is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited. Crucially for the story I’m about to tell you, Iceland has its own currency.
Like Ireland, Iceland was caught in a wave of speculation brought on by low interest rates following 9/11. A wave of privatisations and opening up of previously protected markets exposed Iceland to the vagaries of the international market. Iceland took full advantage.
Unlike Ireland, there actually wasn’t much of a speculative boom in housing. Icelanders speculated on their stock market and other financial assets.
Dodgy practices, helped along by weak regulation, contributed to the boom. For example, the banks’ directors were using their banks in exactly the same way as Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide were used: for personal gain and political patronage.
Things were out of control.
The nearly 2,000-page post-mortem report on the crisis noted sharply that: “When it so happens that the biggest owners of a bank, who appoint members to the board of that same bank and exert for that reason strong influence within the bank, are, at the same time, among the bank’s biggest borrowers, questions arise as to whether the lending is done on a commercial basis or whether the borrower possibly benefits from being an owner and has easier access to more advantageous loan facilities than others.”
The Icelanders were warned. In 2001, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote a report for the Icelandic government describing exactly what would happen if the increases in private sector lending facilitated by the banks was allowed to continue. Mr Stiglitz wrote: “The pace of expansion of credit for a credit institution is related to the likelihood that it will face problems in the future. Given these beliefs, very large changes in interest rates may be required to dampen the demand for credit; and these changes in interest rates themselves impose enormous stresses on the economy.”
Then he told them exactly how small open economies should respond to surges of capital in or out of their country by regulating banks heavily, restricting capital inflows and outflows and managing interest rates accordingly.
No one wants to hear from naysaying economists during the good times. The boom continued with cheap credit fuelling a consumption bust that has left roads built to nowhere, ‘summer houses’ dotting the landscape, and large vanity project buildings upsetting the skyline of the tiny capital, Reykjavik.
The boom ended for Iceland because of the withdrawal of credit worldwide after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Like Ireland, the weaknesses of the banking system were exposed almost immediately.
There the similarity ends. The Icelandic government could not guarantee the assets and liabilities of the banking system as we had — the banking system was just too large relative to the economy. The ratio of bank assets to national income was over 7. The banks and their assets had to be let go. This did not go down well. The economy imploded.
Well over 70pc of the private businesses in Iceland became insolvent immediately, a wave of bankruptcies followed, the unemployment rate rose, the IMF was called in in November 2008 for a loan, capital controls were instituted, stopping many foreign creditors from getting their money back.
Icelanders voted twice not to repay its foreign creditors in the Icesave controversy.
I think this is the key lesson Ireland can take from Iceland: in solidarity they removed the political parties associated with the boom and the bust, and in solidarity they prosecuted those responsible. This, combined with an increase in regulation of large banks, is what allows many Icelanders to hope that things will get better. The worst is behind them.
Ireland has no such luck. We guaranteed the assets and liabilities of some of the worst banks in the history of modern banking in the name of EU banking stability, and received the largesse of the Troika as a result.
We must see those responsible for Ireland’s collapse pay for the damage they caused. We must see bankers and politicians held to account and punished. We didn’t all party.
We must balance our Government’s spending and its taxation revenue. The Government cannot square this popular sense of injustice with the behaviour of Ireland’s elite. There is no closure, as it were, to the crisis. Ours rumbles on while Iceland can move forward. We can learn at least this much from Iceland.
Famous old Dublin Clerys store put into receivership
One of Ireland’s most famous department stores has been put into receivership.
Clerys on O’Connell Street, Dublin – one of the first businesses of its kind in the world – will operate business as usual with the 147 staff unaffected by the move.
Clerys on O’Connell Street, Dublin – one of the first businesses of its kind in the world – will operate business as usual with the 147 staff unaffected by the move.
Receivers Paul McCann and Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton said they were in advanced talks to secure the store’s future with a potential buyer with strong retail credentials.
It was reported at the weekend that Clerys would be taken over in days, with Gordon Brothers, an American restructuring specialist, poised to take control.
In a statement Grant Thornton said: “The joint receivers hope to be in a position to make an announcement regarding new ownership shortly.”
The owners and operators of the landmark department store were Clery & Co (1941) plc, Denis Guiney Limited and Yterrbium Limited.
“The store will open on a business-as-usual basis in the morning,” Grant Thornton said.
Two stores in the group, Guiney of Talbot Street and Denis Guiney Furnishings, which operates two Clerys Home Furnishing stores in Leopardstown and Naas, are to be liquidated.
“The directors have determined that these stores are no longer economically viable and they have been closed,” Grant Thornton said.
The Talbot Street store employed 10 people while there were 19 staff in the furnishing outlets.
Speculation that the O’Connell Street store would be sold has been circulating in business circles for months.
Clerys opened in 1853 as one of the world’s first purpose-built department stores.
It was taken over by the Guiney family in 1941 but has been struggling in recent years with severely depressed consumer spending in Ireland and the need to restructure debts.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Captures Martian sky Eclipse
NASA’s Curiosity rover snapped an elegant sequence of images showing Mars’ moon, Phobos, left & centre photos passing in front of the sun on Sept. 13. Because the tiny moon moves so fast through the Martian sky, the alien eclipse lasted only a few seconds. Right photo Mars rocky planet surface through the eyes of curiosity.
The images were taken with Curiosity’s MastCams, which were positioned to watch Phobos zoom in front of the sun.
In contrast to its blazing glory in Earth’s daytime skies, the sun is a tiny dime-sized circle as seen from Mars. Phobos is even smaller and can never completely engulf the sun, merely taking a nibble in this animation. Our moon, on the other hand, happens to be just the right size and distance away from Earth that when it passes in front of the sun, it completely blocks out its light.
Phobos is really more of an asteroid than a moon — the small potato-shaped object is only 16 miles across at its widest. Because it travels around Mars in a speedy 7.6 hours, it has a high probability of aligning with the sun, and eclipses like this happen somewhere on Mars almost any day of the year. Most landers on Mars have captured at least one Phobos transit. From space, satellites have captured images of Phobos’ shadow racing across the Martian surface.
Mars’ other moon, Deimos, is farther from the planet and obscures even less of the sun when it eclipses.
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