Troika now expected to seek a swift enactment of the overhaul of Irish legal profession
Inspectors here to carry out final review of bailout expected to press Government
The Government is set to come under further pressure from the troika to advance a long-awaited overhaul of the legal profession as its inspectors carry out their final review of the bailout.
Officials from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund arrived in Dublin yesterday for a 10-day mission, their 12th visit under the rescue programme agreed almost three years ago.
Debate over the terms of any emergency credit line and the associated fiscal policy conditions is set to dominate the final weeks of the bailout, which concludes in mid-December.
Further troika attention centres on a mini-stress test on Ireland’s banks, which is ongoing. This examination is known formally as an asset quality review and it is a prelude to wider stress tests next year on all large euro zone banks.
Unforeseen weakness
However, the early scrutiny of the Irish lenders reflects a troika demand for clarity about the current situation within the banks – and anxiety about any risk of unforeseen weakness – in the run-up to the formal exit from the bailout.
However, the early scrutiny of the Irish lenders reflects a troika demand for clarity about the current situation within the banks – and anxiety about any risk of unforeseen weakness – in the run-up to the formal exit from the bailout.
While the inspectors will examine the health and social welfare provisions set out in Budget 2014, they are also expected to focus their attention on unfinished elements of the reform programme set out in the bailout agreement. An informed source said that the long delay in the enactment of the Legal Services Regulation Bill ranks high among the inspectors’ concerns.
The draft law, which is designed to reduce legal costs, has been viewed with apprehension by many in the legal world.
The reform package, which includes the creation of barrister-solicitor and multidisciplinary partnerships, has been criticised by the professional bodies for both barristers and solicitors.
Legislation unveiled
The Government unveiled the legislation in 2011 and the committee stage Dáil debate started in March 2012, but it was then delayed by more than a year until July. While Government amendments to the first four parts of the Bill were introduced at that time, the committee stage debate is not due to resume until next month and a further swathe of amendments to the most contentious elements of the draft law are still awaited.
The Government unveiled the legislation in 2011 and the committee stage Dáil debate started in March 2012, but it was then delayed by more than a year until July. While Government amendments to the first four parts of the Bill were introduced at that time, the committee stage debate is not due to resume until next month and a further swathe of amendments to the most contentious elements of the draft law are still awaited.
Legal reforms
Having queried the slow pace of the parliamentary debate in previous missions, the troika is now expected to demand a further update from the Coalition and to seek a swift enactment of the legal reforms.
Having queried the slow pace of the parliamentary debate in previous missions, the troika is now expected to demand a further update from the Coalition and to seek a swift enactment of the legal reforms.
The commission gave its blessing to the fiscal strategy in the budget before it was published, but the inspectors are expected to look in detail at the plan. Scrutiny on contentious health provisions in the budget is likely on this front.
Still at issue, two weeks after the fiscal plan was published, are questions over the validity of the forecast savings to be derived from the Haddington Road pay deal and the audit of the medical card scheme.
The assumptions set out in the budget are viewed with deep suspicion by health service managers.
A further question of ongoing concern to the troika is its push for more “labour market activation” measures to encourage unemployed people to pursue job opportunities
Dr James Reilly gives HSE health officials more time on cuts plan
HSE officials given extra 10 days to finalise details of massive health cuts for next year
Minister for Health James Reilly who today decided to give HSE officials an extra 10 days to draw up a service plan detailing where cuts will be made to meet a spending reduction of €666 million next year.
The Minister had a formal meeting with HSE bosses last week, at which they sought extra time to draw up the plan.
The HSE is legally required to prepare a plan for the Minister within 21 days of the Budget, which meant it was due to be ready next Tuesday.
The Minister has the power to reject any plan prepared by the HSE, which he did in 2011.
This would trigger a further 21-day period during which the plan is revised.
Dr Reilly said there was “absolutely no question” of capital expenditure in health being cut in order to meet the savings target for next year.
He said he was proud to be presiding over some of the biggest capital projects the Government was undertaking, including the new national children’s hospital, the relocation of the National Maternity Hospital from Holles Street to St Vincent’s Hospital campus and the planned move of the Central Mental Hospital from Dundrum to Portrane.
Asked whether the planned upgrading of radiotherapy facilities in Galway and Cork would be affected by budget cuts, Dr Reilly said the service plan would set out precisely which items of expenditure were going ahead and which “might be slower for other technical reasons”.
Dr Reilly welcomed the communications campaign launched by the HSE earlier today to provide more information on the issue of medical card eligibility.
He said the campaign had been devised at his request in response to public concern on the issue.
Dr Reilly insisted there has been no slowing down in the issuing of medical cards, though he accepted there had been “teething problems” associated with the centralisation of the processing of applications.
Asked why far fewer cards have been issued this year compared to last year, he said this was because a “huge number” of cards were given out last year when a backlog of over 50,000 applications was cleared.
“People need full information around medical cards. They are naturally worried and become anxious when they can’t get full access to all the facts they need. I welcome this major campaign being rolled out by the HSE over the coming weeks which I hope will help explain clearly people’s entitlements and may ease the fears of those who have been worried unnecessarily.
“No one who is entitled to a medical card need worry. Despite the significant savings to be made by the HSE in the year ahead, nobody who is entitled to a medical card will lose it or be refused one.”
The HSE’s plan includes extra resources for the national call centre dealing with medical card enquiries, media advertisements, a new information leaflet, improved support on the HSE website and more training for frontline staff.
Irish bond rally puts yields too low for some as bailout exit nears
Goldman Sachs and BlueBay Asset Management are among firms saying yields are now too low
The longest bond rally since 2005 is making Irish securities too expensive for some investors just as the State begins to rely on their money again.
The extra yield, or spread, over German bunds slid to a three-year low this month as Ireland moved closer to exiting the €67.5 billion emergency aid programme it took in November 2010.
Goldman Sachs and BlueBay Asset Management are among the financial companies judging that the yields are now too low for a country that is barely growing and still with a debt load bigger than its economy.
“With the spreads where they are now, we think there are better stories, better places to invest,” said Russel Matthews, a fund manager at BlueBay in London, which oversees $56 billion and has been putting money into Portuguese and Slovenian bonds.
“We are positive on the story, but from a valuation perspective we don’t think it’s that exciting.”
Ireland’s 10-year borrowing costs tumbled to 3.53 per cent yesterday from a euro-era high of more than 14 per cent in July 2011. That compares with 6.71 per cent for Slovenian bonds and 6.17 per cent for Portugal, whose government is aiming to follow Ireland and leave its own bailout programme next year.
Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management, which oversees $1.24 trillion, reduced its Irish holdings after the rally, even as it remained positive on the outlook for the country ,Oliver Eichmann, head of euro fixed income at the company in Frankfurt, said in an email yesterday.
The spread on Irish securities over bunds narrowed to 1.69 percentage points on October 17th, the lowest since April 2010, according to data .
The rally has also pushed Irish yields below those of Italyand Spain. “We currently view Irish bonds as expensive,” Goldman Sachs analysts Francesco Garzarelli and Silvia Ardagna wrote in a note to clients last week. “The market has taken a constructive view on upcoming developments” regarding the State’s return to bond markets, they wrote.
Technical analysis based on how Irish bonds have performed compared with peers supports that view. The 14-day relative strength index for 10-year Irish securities reached 83.9 last week, the most since April. It has been above 70, a level that signals it has climbed too much, for 20 consecutive days. The gauge was above 70 for 10 consecutive days ending May 10th – before the yields climbed more than 50 basis points in the following two months.
Irish Women urged to act FAST on stroke warning signs
The Irish Heart Foundation has urged women to be vigilant about the warning signs of stroke, after recent statistics revealed that 53% more women than men died from stroke here in 2012.
The annual number of stroke deaths in Ireland has fallen below the 2,000 mark for the first time in years following a 9% fall in mortality in the past four years.
Central Statistics Office figures showed the number of deaths nationally fell by 188 to 1,928 to the end of 2012 despite our ageing population and a dramatic increase globally in the incidence of the disease, the Foundation points out.
The figures also confirmed, however, that almost twice as many WOMEN as men died from stroke.
“The higher death rate from stroke among women is not widely known. The fact is that stroke kills almost twice as many women as breast cancer in Ireland, which is why we are particularly asking women to make a special effort to be aware of the ‘FAST’ warning signs”, Chris Macey from the Irish Heart Foundation said.
F.A.S.T. STANDS FOR:
Face – has their face fallen on one side?
Arms – can they raise both arms and keep them there?
Speech – is their speech slurred?
Time – time to call 999 if you see any one of these signs.
The Foundation says by knowing the warning signs, and acting on them as soon as possible, people can have a huge influence on their outcome after stroke.
Computer simulation reconstructs how biggest animal to walk the planet moved
DINOSAUR WALKS THE WALK 94 MILLION YEARS ON
The 40m skeleton of an Argentinosaurus huinculensis, on display at the Museo Municipal Carmen Funes in Argentina, was digitally reconstructed to examine how the dinosaur walked and ran.
A massive dinosaur has proven it can walk the walk after scientists digitally reconstructed the 40-metre long fossil, allowing it to stroll about for the first time in 94 million years.
Scientists from the University of Manchester joined colleagues from Argentina to laser scan the skeleton ofArgentinosaurus in order to build a computer model of how it must have walked.
They managed not only to recreate its walking movements but also how it moved when it broke into a run.
“We used the equivalent of 30,000 desktop computers to allow Argentinosaurus to take its first steps in over 94 million years,” said Dr Lee Margetts who was part of the team. Details of the research were published online yesterday on plosone.org.
Proof positive
The project, led by Dr Bill Sellers of Manchester’s faculty of life sciences, proved this was not the case.
The project, led by Dr Bill Sellers of Manchester’s faculty of life sciences, proved this was not the case.
“If you want to work out how dinosaurs walked, the best approach is computer simulation,” said Dr Sellers. “This is the only way of bringing together all the different strands of information we have on this dinosaur, so we can reconstruct how it once moved.”
He developed his own computer software to accomplish this and has used it to model the gait of living and extinct animals.
Intelligent software
The software doesn’t just take the locomotion of a modern animal and alter it to suit an 80-tonne monster such asArgentinosaurus, the largest dinosaur yet discovered. It has a learning component and works only from the specific details of the fossil remains such as limb length and limb orientation. It uses the hard data to predict the “best possible movement patterns”, Dr Sellers said.
The software doesn’t just take the locomotion of a modern animal and alter it to suit an 80-tonne monster such asArgentinosaurus, the largest dinosaur yet discovered. It has a learning component and works only from the specific details of the fossil remains such as limb length and limb orientation. It uses the hard data to predict the “best possible movement patterns”, Dr Sellers said.
Once run, the software delivered a video version of howArgentinosaurus walked. Its predicted gait was a leisurely two metres a second or 7.2km per hour, about the speed of a fast walk for a human.
The research team – which included Dr Rodolfo Coria from Carmen Funes museum, Plaza Huincal, Neuquén Province, Argentina – believes studying locomotion in other animals can help us understand the complexity of human motion and inform the development of walking robots.
The scientists hope to study the gait of dinosaurs such asTriceratops, Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.
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