Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Tuesday

Weak international demand sees Irish exports fall by 10%

  

NEW CSO FIGURES SHOW VALUE OF EXPORTS FELL BY €753 MILLION IN FEBRUARY

Weak international demand saw the value of Irish exports fall by 10 per cent in February.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) indicate exports decreased by €753 million to €6.65 billion in February compared with the same period last year.

The decline was driven by a 15 per cent (€309 million) fall in exports of medical and pharmaceutical products and an 18 per cent (€286 million) drop in organic chemical exports.

The value of imports also fell in February compared with the same month last year, dropping by 2 per cent (€61 million) to €3.89 billion on the back of a 21 per cent fall-off in the import of petroleum products.

On a monthly basis, the figures for February show a seasonally adjusted increase in exports of 2.2 per cent (154 million) to €7 billion from January, while imports fell by 2 per cent (69 million) to €3.88 billion.

The combined effect resulted in an 8 per cent rise in the economy’s seasonally adjusted trade surplus to €3.13 billion.

The figures showed the EU accounted for 58 per cent (€3.85 billion) of total exports in February, while the main non-EU destination was the US which accounted for 22 per cent (€1.49 billion).

Two-thirds of the value of Irish imports in February came from the EU, with one-third coming from Britain, 9 per cent from the US and 6 per cent from China.

“In all, this is a weak start to the year, albeit one that is not unexpected given the trends evident,” NCB economist Philip O’Sullivan said.

He noted that of the nine principal export categories, only three – food, beverage and animal/ vegetable oils – recorded an annual improvement.

Officially, Ireland says children are a treasure but acts otherwise

  

In 1868 Frances Power Cobbe, an Irish writer and social reformer, wrote a paper calledCriminals, idiots, women and minors, is the classification sound? At that time, dividing the population into two groups – men and everyone else – seemed normal.

Most large public and private buildings, such as airports and hotels, still have toilet facilities for two groups. Men get their own exclusive toilets while women’s include baby changing and feeding areas and, often, facilities for wheelchair users.

Politically correct public toilets are unisex for people of all ages and mobility. Look for them next time you are out and about and you might find a few.

Women and children are still seen as a unit by most sectors of Irish society. When Leo Varadkar said childcare will be taken into account in insolvency arrangements if the cost prevents parents from making their mortgage repayments, people assumed he was referring to women. This was a fair assumption.

In Ireland, women with children work fewer hours than men with children and earn less money. Nearly 80 per cent of men with children work a 40-hour week or more, whereas only 15 per cent of women with children do. Childcare costs are not seen as essential family expenditure, they are an optional luxury.

An essential public good
Childcare services are no luxury. They are an essential public good without which no country can claim that women and men are treated as equals.

Without affordable childcare, women do not work the same number of hours per week as men. Costs are much higher here than in all other EU countries.

An OECD study found that net childcare costs for a dual-earner family in Ireland are 45 per cent of the average wage. In Sweden and Denmark, net costs are only 8 per cent of average wages.

The overall EU cost is 15 per cent of average wages. Costs of childcare for single parents in Ireland are 52 per cent of family net income in comparison with 4 per cent in Finland.

EU countries have two main models of childcare: one heavily subsidised by the State and the other paid for by parents. The models are based on whether children are seen as a resource, an expensive lifestyle choice, or a burden if the mother is single.

When children are seen as a valuable resource, taxpayers pay for childcare. When children are seen as a burden, or a choice a couple should not make unless they can afford it, parents are expected to pay for childcare with very little help from the State.

In theory, Ireland espouses the notion of child as treasure; in practice the cost of childcare and lack of State-funded affordable services says otherwise.
Large mortgages
Prime Time featured childcare last week. The programme consisted of a trivial chat about costs with parents in the audience paying the equivalent of large mortgages every month (€1,100) to have two children minded on a part-time basis. Political ideologies behind different models were not debated.

The programme did not even define what childcare is and panellists and audience confused babysitting and the Free Pre-School Year (FPSY) for three to four year olds with childcare.

Childcare is a professional service for children from 0 to five years with after-
school facilities, so that all parents can work full-time if they want to. The FPSY scheme is not childcare. It is designed to prepare children for learning and consists of three hours, five days a week.

Although great for the child, FPSY can add to the childcare challenges of working parents as they have to drop children off in the morning and pick them up at lunchtime, thus disrupting the normal working day. Few workplaces, whether public or private, are this flexible.

The role of women
Low supplies of affordable childcare services reinforce the role of women as carers. The OECD 2012 report, Closing the Gender Gap: Act Now , notes that “if childcare eats up one wage and there is little or no financial gain in going out to work, parents (most often mothers) are less likely to seek a job”.

Ireland’s childcare model is unsustainable. Unless the Government decides to provide or heavily subsidise affordable high quality childcare, it is only a matter of time before women refuse to have any children or have only one child.

This will create huge social problems not least of which will be who will mind the mostly male (85 per cent) TDs in their old age.

Five obese Irish children referred to hospital every day

1-IN-4 PRIMARY PUPILS IS OVERWEIGHT IN IRELAND

   

Five children are now referred to Temple Street Hospital every day because they are obese.

As the only children’s hospital with an intervention programme for overweight young people, Temple Street has a nine-month waiting list.

The launch of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute’s (INDI) inaugural Nourish Children Week at the Mansion House in Dublin was told that parents have little or no services to turn to in their community if their children are overweight or obese.

Richelle Flanagan, dietician and president of the INDI, said: “Seventy-three per cent of the country does not have access to a childhood obesity prevention programme for children at risk of becoming obese and 88pc of the country does not have access to a group intervention programme.”

weaning

She said that around one in four – 30,000 – primary school children in Ireland today are overweight or obese.

“Six per cent of three years olds are already obese,” she said.

Ms Flanagan said that a number of factors are contributing to these rates. She pointed out that weaning of babies is happening earlier, at four months, when it shouldn’t be happening until six months. Also, a lot of high-fat foods are introduced quite early in the diet, she said.

“You can see that obesity has increased 1pc a year since the 1990s,” she said.

“Children who start out obese in life are likely to be obese adults as well.

“It’s a vicious cycle that we want stopped earlier. The earlier the better in terms of prevention,” she said.

Fiona Ward, lead dietician on Temple Street’s W82G0 successful childhood obesity treatment programme, said that children referred to the programme generally eat a diet high in fat and high in sugar. “In comparison to their peers, they are gaining weight at an alarming rate from a very young age.

“Most children will gain weight at the rate of about 2kg to 4kg per annum. These kids are gaining weight of about 1kg per month, which lends to a weight gain of 10kg to 12kg per annum,” she said.

A total of 312 children aged from 18 months up to 16 years were referred to the Temple Street programme over the past five years. A total of 370 have been assessed.

However, 25pc of families refuse to participate in treatment. Some of the reasons are that it might be too far for them to attend every week.

Some families struggle with the diagnosis of obesity and choose to ignore it. Others elect to try to treat the child at home, Ms Ward said.

Of the children they see: “About 40pc of them have high cholesterol. About 30pc are already reporting problems with knee pain, back pain, and these kids are all under the age of 16,” she said.

Dr Sinead Murphy, consultant paediatrician at Temple Street Children’s Hospital, urged that there should be weight and height surveillance checks at various stages of childhood. She also urged that the Department of Education should reinstate physical education as a core curriculum subject.

The INDI said that there are no dedicated clinics for obese children at Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin, but just limited access through endocrinology and other specialties.

Meanwhile, obese children are seen by a dietician at the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght but the waiting list is over a year.

A glass a day of beetroot juice helps to lower blood pressure by as much as 7%

  

• Say’s researchers 
  The effect is produced by beetroot’s naturally high levels of nitrate
• High concentrations of nitrate are also found in celery and cabbage 

Drinking beetroot juice every day could help to lower blood pressure, say researchers.

They found a dose of eight ounces – around one cup – may help people with high blood pressure, cutting their readings by about 7 per cent.

Tests suggest the effect is produced by beetroot’s naturally high levels of nitrate.

High concentrations of nitrate are also found in celery, cabbage and other leafy green vegetables such as spinach and some lettuce.

Eating high-nitrate foods triggers a series of chemical reactions in the blood, which can increase oxygen in areas of the body which are specifically lacking supply.

The beetroot juice used in the study contained about 0.2g of dietary nitrate, levels found in a large bowl of lettuce or two beetroots.

Amrita Ahluwalia, lead author of the study and a professor of vascular pharmacology at The Barts and The London Medical School, said: ‘We were surprised by how little nitrate was needed to see such a large effect.

‘Our hope is that increasing one’s intake of vegetables with a high dietary nitrate content, such as green leafy vegetables or beetroot, might be a lifestyle approach that one could easily employ to improve cardiovascular health.’

Beetroot juice is found in most health food shops and usually costs around £2 a bottle.

An estimated 16million people in the UK have high blood pressure, including a third who do not know they have it, and it is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure.

Changes in lifestyle, such as cutting down salt and alcohol and taking more exercise, may control blood pressure and there are a number of drug treatments available.

A high blood pressure reading is one that exceeds 140/90 mm Hg. The first figure, the systolic pressure, corresponds to the ‘surge’ that occurs with each heart beat.

The latest study recruited eight women and seven men with systolic pressure between 140 and 159 mm Hg who were not taking blood pressure drugs.

The participants drank 250ml of beetroot juice or water containing a low amount of nitrate, and had their blood pressure monitored for 24 hours, says a report in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

Compared with those drinking water, people having beetroot juice cut their systolic pressure by about 10 mm Hg.

The effect was most pronounced three to six hours after drinking the juice but still present even 24 hours later.

Previous research has shown beetroot increases stamina, and can boost blood supply to vital areas of the brain.

Donegal schools struggling with a funding crisis & debt

  

Schools are struggling with debt and there is now a funding crisis here, claims Donegal TD.

More and more primary schools across Donegal are falling into unmanageable debt, it has been claimed.

Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Education, Charlie McConalogue says teachers and parents from different schools county wide have contacted him to express their concerns about the deepening financial problems at their schools.

He says the problem is a result of a series of cuts introduced by the Education Minister Ruairí Quinn over the past two years.

McConalogue called on the Government to immediately address what has become a funding crisis at primary school level in the North West region. According to Deputy McConalogue, the scrapping of the Minor Works Grant last year has hit local schools particularly hard.

“Teachers and parents attached to a number of different schools have contacted me to express their concerns about the deepening financial problems at their school. The loss of the minor works grant has pushed many schools over the edge.

“This grant was worth between €5,000 and €12,000 to primary schools and its loss has had a significant impact on the financial health of primary schools right across Donegal. Many schools depended on this cash injection to carry out small but necessary works to the facilities that the pupils use every day. The grant was particularly valuable in light of other significant cuts to resources, including cuts to the capitation grant and the scrapping of the summer works scheme. Abolishing the minor works grant on top of everything else has pushed many schools over the edge.

“I am calling on the Government to reinstate the minor works grant before the next academic year. The Fine Gael TDs in this constituency have a duty to explain to the Minister the problems that this cut has caused to our local schools. I am asking them ensure that these problems are addressed as a matter of priority in order to maintain the high standard of education that our local schools provide.

“The Government cannot continue to stand over a situation where public primary schools are unable to cope with an ever growing black hole in their finances. We can already see that this is putting enormous pressure on staff, boards of management and on parents who are often expected to help raise the additional extra funds to keep the school’s doors open. If this is not addressed urgently, there is no doubt that pupils will suffer as a result,” Deputy McConalogue said.