Ireland now likely to exit troika bailout without any back-stop assistance
(right pic.) Michael Noonan attends this morning’s meeting of EU finance ministers alongside his Dutch counterpart, and Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
MICHAEL NOONAN MINISTER SAYS DECISION ON EXIT STRATEGY REMAINS ‘FINELY BALANCED’
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan held his final meeting with senior figures from the EU and IMF yesterday in the Netherlands
Hour-long meetingBoth finance ministers described the hour-long meeting at the Dutch finance ministry as “constructive.” While Mr Noonan said yesterday evening the decision on an exit strategy remained “finely balanced”.
Unlike three years ago, at the time of the Irish bailout when contagion across peripheral countries was a primary concern, the decoupling of Irish government bond yields from the yields of other programme countries such asGreece and Portugal over the last year is assuaging concerns about contagion should Ireland’s return to full private funding spark market unrest.
The fact that a request to draw down a precautionary credit line from the euro zone rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), would need parliamentary approval from a number of countries, including Germany, is also weighing on the decision.
EU commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday that while the decision on an exit strategy was “by and large for the Irish Government”, Ireland was well-funded.
“The Irish sovereign is now well-funded with quite significant cash reserves that serve as a buffer,” the commissioner for economic and monetary affairs said, adding that Ireland was seen as “an economic turnaround,” with growth returning and improvements in the unemployment rate.
Mr Rehn said last month that Ireland had a “very good chance” of exiting the bailout without a precautionary credit line. Mr Noonan took some analysts by surprise last month when he told the Fine Gael annual conference that Ireland may exit the bailout without a backstop mechanism.
Sentiment in WashingtonHe repeated the sentiment in Washington last week following a meeting at IMF headquarters. Since then Irish bond spreads have narrowed, suggesting the prospect of Ireland exiting unsupported may not trouble investors. While Ireland is the first country to exit a joint euro zone-IMF rescue package – a landmark for the euro zone – a number of countries have exited IMF programmes without the use of a precautionary credit line.
Sentiment in WashingtonHe repeated the sentiment in Washington last week following a meeting at IMF headquarters. Since then Irish bond spreads have narrowed, suggesting the prospect of Ireland exiting unsupported may not trouble investors. While Ireland is the first country to exit a joint euro zone-IMF rescue package – a landmark for the euro zone – a number of countries have exited IMF programmes without the use of a precautionary credit line.
With the final troika visit to Dublin due to finish tomorrow, Mr Noonan may make a decision before next Thursday’s meeting of all 17 euro zone finance ministers, in Brussels. Any decision on a precautionary credit line will be first brought to Cabinet in Dublin before being discussed by the euro group of finance ministers.
Australian mystery woman has family connections in Tipperary
AND IS NOT A VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
The mystery girl found in O’Connell St. Dublin and identified by Gardai as an Australian adult has a previous conviction for deception in her native country.
The woman, Samantha Azzopardi, illegally tried to draw social welfare benefits payments and received a six month prison sentence, independent.ie has learned.
However, the sentence, handed down late last year, was suspended for 12 months.
The revelation comes as gardai continue to liaise with their Australian counterparts about the woman, who was taken into HSE care after being discovered in a distressed state outside the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street on October 10.
Initially officers believed she was aged 14 to 16. But they have now confirmed she is actually 25 years old.
The woman is believed to have up to 40 different aliases.
Samantha Azzopardi is to be assessed this afternoon by a psychiatrist.
Lawyers were at the High Court today where Mr Justice George Birmingham discharged the order that he had made allowing her to be detained under the Childcare Act.
But he put a stay on the discharge until tomorrow morning to allow other arrangements to be put in place.
But he put a stay on the discharge until tomorrow morning to allow other arrangements to be put in place.
The case is be mentioned in court tomorrow morning. It is hoped the assessment by a psychiatrist this afternoon will allow authorities to decide what steps to take next.
The court heard she is “vulnerable” and she is to remain in HSE care for at least another 24 hours as her “life could be at risk” if she is released.
Gardai revealed in court today that she been in Ireland for three weeks before she was found wandering around in a distressed state outside the GPO.
Ms Azzopardi was initially believed to have been a teenager victim and could not communicate with gardai.
However, it has now emerged she has family connections in Tipperary and officers are satisfied that she is not a victim of human trafficking.
The Herald understands a man, who is not a relative, made contact with detectives yesterday afternoon.
“He was able to tell them who she was and supply details about her family,” explained a source.
It is believed that Samantha (25) was living with relatives in Clonmel, Tipperary.
The massive breakthrough came just hours after gardai released a photograph of the young woman.
Sources said that the Australian citizen is thought to have travelled here via the United Kingdom.
“She does understand English and can articulate in writing English, but she won’t speak,” said a source close to the investigation.
“She is not talking. There is some written communication coming from her, but only bits and pieces.”
The woman had refused to allow herself to be photographed and the images of her issued yesterday are understood to have been taken without her knowledge.
A source close to the case said: “She is very disturbed. It would appear there is something very serious going on here.”
A garda spokesperson confirmed: “With the assistance of the public, the Gardai are now following a definite line of enquiry and will be liaising closely with the Australian Police and the HSE to finalise the matter.”
The Australian Federal Police are working with Gardai, and would not confirm any reports on her identity, DNA tests or aliases.
A spokesman for Australian Police said there are potential mental health issues so there are important privacy issues in place.
The identification of the 25-year-old woman followed an unprecedented move by gardai to publish a photograph of a person in State care.
More than 2,000 hours of garda time has been devoted to trying to identify the woman and there have been more than 100 separate lines of inquiry by officers.
INVESTIGATORS
In all, 15 possible names were given to investigators but none of the names were correct when they were checked out.
There are reports in Australia this morning that a member of the girl’s family has now made contact with the gardai.
When she was found in a distressed state near the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street on October 10, the woman was wearing clothes from Irish department stores and had braces fitted.
While in State care, she rarely spoke but did sketch pictures of being taken on an aircraft. She gave officers no indication of her origins.
Babies feel their parents stress & anxiety
Stress, depression and money problems endured by thousands of Irish families can affect babies as young as nine months old and harm their development.
A major study to be published today on how 11,000 five-year-old children are developing has found that parental stress can result in less sensitivity towards children, meaning parents are less likely to respond to their needs and help them in times of distress.
The Growing Up in Ireland ‘Parenting and Infant Development’ study from the ESRI and TCD says stressed parents could be hampering their children’s development, resulting in problems developing motor and social skills.
And while household income has no bearing on how the average nine-month-old develops, financial pressures coupled with a lack of supports can have a negative outcome.
Co-author of the report, Dr Elizabeth Nixon, said being tuned into the needs of the child and being able to read signals was an “important skill”, but that stress levels impacted on the ability to read these signals. “What this analysis does is highlight some of the processes which feed into how infants are doing,” she said.
“We’re identifying things like parental stress and depression and their effect on parenting.
“These findings show that, even from a very young age, the sensitivity that parents show when interacting with their babies is important for their development.
“Parenting is a challenging task. The reality is it may have nothing to do with what the parent is doing, the child may be, by their nature, more difficult. It’s about the parents learning about how their baby is and appreciating them as individuals. What works for one baby, may not work for another.”
The study was based on interviews with the parents of over 11,000 nine-month-old children. The children and their families have been interviewed twice since.
Researchers looked at a range of development milestones including motor skills, such as crawling and grasping items, social skills such as co-operating with parents when getting dressed and communication skills including vocalising sounds and making associations between words and objects.
The study found that premature babies took longer to develop than those born at full-term, but notes that most children would catch up. The age of the child at birth – if they were premature – had three times more influence on outcomes than parenting.
IT ALSO FOUND:
* Mothers in one-parent households have higher levels of stress.
* There was no difference between one and two-parent households, as measured by infants’ personal, social, motor or problem-solving skills.
* Stress among mothers was commonly associated with fussy and irritable children, resulting in the parent being less likely to be sensitive to their needs, which in turn caused more irritability.
* Mothers tended to become stressed about money, but not fathers. Women also became stressed about a lack of support from family and friends.
* Fathers stressed about the relationship with their partners, which impacted on parenting.
“The most important predictor for fathers’ stress was the quality of the relationship,” Dr Nixon said.
“It points to the important role that mothers have to play in supporting fathers’ parenting. Mothers can play a role in supporting or undermining fathers’ parenting.”
While differences have emerged in how children from different economic backgrounds develop – for example those from lower-income families tended to have better communication skills, while those from more prosperous families had better social skills – the differences were “very small”.
“What matters is relationship and interactions between the family. Obviously, if families are in economic difficulty, it does have an impact but children can be protected.
“You don’t need money to have a good relationship and lots of positive, stimulating reactions,” she added.
Crumlin confirms support for new children’s hospital at St James’s campus site
Chief executive says support for St James’s campus location ‘remains unchanged’
The development of the national children’s hospital is earmarked for a site at the west end of St James’s Hospital in Dublin.
Mr Birthistle said in a statement issued this morning: “We look forward to working with the Children’s Hospital Group Board and the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board in developing this very important project on the St James’s campus.”
UTV to launch a new Dublin-based TV channel
Station will have Irish rights to Corrie and Emmerdale in possible blow to TV3
More than 50 years after it became the first commercial television station in Ireland, UTV is launching a new Dublin-based television channel directly targeting viewers in the Republic.
A nightly hour-long news and current affairs programme placed “at the heart of the schedule” will report “from all corners of the country” when the channel goes on air from early 2015, UTV Media said today.
The company’s executives declined to give any further details of its in-house production plans earlier today, but the popularity of the channel with audiences will be underpinned by its signing of a content deal with ITV Studios that will give it the exclusive rights to show programmes such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale in the Irish market.
The advent of the channel, which is expected to create at least 100 jobs, is subject to the regulatory go-ahead. UTV Media said it had “dropped off” a Content Provision Contract, as required by Section 71 of the Broadcasting Act, to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland this morning.
“We believe that shortly after Christmas we will find out whether or not we have been successful,” said Michael Wilson, managing director of UTV Television. The media group is committed to the Irish television market, he said. “We have been here since 1959. We intend to be here in 2059, and beyond.”
Its submission to the BAI says that “for clarity, the proposed new UTV Ireland Ltd service will be a separate channel to UTV Ltd”. However, group chief executive John McCann said the channel would “be known simply as UTV” on air.
“It’s a very straightforward, simple concept and that is to provide the ITV schedule customised to meet the needs and preferences of Irish viewers,” he said.
To make the new channel work, UTV Media believes it must be available on all platforms. The station is not currently available on the Saorview digital terrestrial television service operated by RTÉ NL and in the Republic it must be tuned in via the “other channels” section of Sky’s electronic programme guide. “We have not had any conversations with platform providers yet,” Mr Wilson said.
The UTV deal with ITV Studios means TV3 will be obliged to stop broadcasting schedule staples Coronation Street, Emmerdale and The Jeremy Kyle Show from early 2015. I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! will also be among the casualties, but it had already moved this to its second station, 3e.
TV3 chief executive David McRedmond played down the loss of the shows today, saying it was “almost inevitable” that its arrangement to broadcast the two soaps, which account for around 15 per cent of total viewing to TV3, would come to an end.
The rising price tags for the rights, despite a 20 per cent drop in their viewing figures over the past five years, had made the deal a loss-maker for TV3, he said. “Each year there was a ratcheting up in the price and it just became unaffordable.”
Two emus walk into a house in Galway without any permission
HELLO WHO ARE YOU? DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS GIANT BIRD/BIRD’S are?
SOME PEOPLE WOULD be happy if a leggy bird showed up unexpectedly at their home and refused to leave.
You’re kidding. But that is just weird.
But that was the problem facing a Galway householder who got something of a surprise when two giant birds which appear to be emus – both almost 2 metres high – turned up in her garden on Monday and were in no rush to go anywhere.
“Nobody knows a thing about where they came from. They just walked onto her land,” Imelda O’Brien of the Galway & Claddagh Swan Rescue told TheJournal.ie.
The woman living in the house in Knockdoe fed the two giant birds (pictured) when it became clear that they were looking for food and didn’t want to leave. She contacted the rescue centre in a bid to trace the owners.
“She was quite afraid of them,” said Imelda O’Brien. “Even though they’re extremely tame, they’re huge – I think you could almost even get up on their back, they’re so big”.
She speculated that the birds could have come from a pet farm or a wildlife park, but may have travelled a long distance.
Emus are the second-largest living bird in the world after ostriches and can run at speeds of up to 48 kilometres per hour for large distances.
The Galway & Claddagh Swan Rescue has placed an appeal on its Facebook page for the owners to come forward. In the meantime, the birds have been taken into the care of Galway County Council which is keeping the animals in an open space until their owners can be found.
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