Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Wednesday

BoI raises €580m to pay off part of bailout costs to Irish Government

 

Share issuance is part deal to repay €1.8 billion of Government preference shares

Bank of Ireland successfully raised €580 million of equity today as part of a deal to repay €1.8 billion of its State bailout.

Under its original €4.8 billion bailout back in 2009, Bank of Ireland had been entitled to purchase the 1.8 million preference shares back from the Government at €1 each before March 31st, 2014.

After that date, the price would have risen to €1.25 a share, which would increase the total cost to the bank to €2.25 billion.

Today’s issuance will redeem €537 million of the Government’s shares.

The remainder of the Government’s €1.8 billion holding will be redeemed through the issuance of debt to private investors secured on the preference shares.

In a statement, the bank said a total of 2.2 million of ordinary shares were place on the market at a price of €0.26, generating €580 million.

The placing represented approximately 7.4 per cent of the bank’s ordinary stock prior to the placing.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said earlier that the deal would generate a profit for the taxpayer on the shares, with the exact return depending on the outcome of the book-building exercises for both transactions.

The fundraising will bring to €4.1 billion the amount generated by the State from the financial sector over the past two years, including the €1.3 billion sale of Irish Lifeand the €1 billion redemption by Bank of Ireland of contingent convertible capital notes.

The preference shares have proved to be a good earner for the Government. Bank of Ireland paid a cash dividend on the shares of €188.3 million in each of the past two years and €214.5 million in 2011.

Bank of Ireland mandated Credit Suisse, Davy, Deutsche Bank and UBS as placing agents, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch joining the four as joint lead managers and underwriters for the debt sale to private investors.

New phone application will help Gardai track down abducted children

  

A new smartphone app to help in the search for abducted children was launched today as part of the inaugural national Missing Persons Day.

The app, which will be available to download on most smartphone platforms, is part of the Child Rescue Ireland (CRI) alert system that issues requests for the public’s help in tracking down missing children.

BROADCAST: The system allows information to be broadcast across all news outlets, social media, internet and electronic road signs when there is reasonable belief that a child has been abducted.

It will automatically release a notification when a CRI alert is issued.

The app also offers a space to securely maintain up-to-date information, including photos, of the smartphone user’s own children for easy access, should the need arise.

It was created with the help of the Vodafone Foundation Ireland, and is available free on Apple, Android and Windows media platforms.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said the app would enable more people to become aware when a CRI alert has been issued.

“Over 50pc of the public in Ireland own a smartphone, and as a result the potential for quickly reaching vast numbers of the population with critical information is enormous,” he said

The CRI alert system was launched in May last year and has been used twice since its inception.

MURDER: It was used for the first time last July when Eoghan Chada (10) and his five-year-old brother, Ruairi, disappeared with their father, Sanjeev.

The two boys were later discovered dead.

Chada, from Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, has been sent forward for trial charged with the murder of his two sons.

Last week, an alert was issued after a mother and her three young children went missing from their Roscommon home. In that case, the family were found safe and well by a police officer in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.

Strict criteria must be met before a CRI alert is issued.

These include that the child is under 18, there is a reasonable belief that the child has been abducted or there is a perceived immediate and serious risk to the child’s health or welfare.

Today’s launch at Farmleigh House was attended by Justice Minister Alan Shatter and members of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence.

Ireland top of new Forbes’ list of the best countries to do Business in

 

Three years ago, European governments and the International Monetary Fund sent Ireland a $113 billion (85 billion euro) bailout package to support the country’s budgetary needs and prop up the Irish banking system.

The loan came after the Irish economy was devastated by the Great Recession. The bursting of the housing bubble was at the center of Ireland’s problems, and even with recent gains, home prices are still roughly 50% off their 2007 highs. Moody’s Analytics doesn’t expect home prices to reach 2007 levels for another two decades.

Yet despite these economic troubles, Ireland still maintains an extremely pro-business environment that has attracted investments by some of the world’s biggest companies over the past decade. In Forbes’ eighth annual ranking of the Best Countries for Business, Ireland grabs the top spot for the first time.

Ireland scores well across the board when measuring its business friendliness. It is the only nation that ranks among the top 15% of countries in every one of the 11 metrics we examined to gauge the best countries. Ireland ranks near the very top for low tax burden, investor protection and personal freedom.

Ireland moved up from its No. 6 ranking last year on the strength of improved scores on the Heritage Foundation’s measure of monetary freedom, which gauges price stability and assesses price controls. Ireland’s rank also benefitted from a stock market that has been on fire. The 44% return for the Irish Stock Exchange Overall Index in the 12 months through Nov. 20 ranks first among the top 30 countries.

“Ireland has continued to attract direct foreign investment despite its problems,” says Melanie Bowler, a Moody’s Analytics’ economist focused on Ireland. Bowler highlights the educated workforce and 12.5% corporate tax rate—one of the lowest inEurope—as big draws for companies, as well as the language factor. “You want to have a common language if you are setting up operations in Europe,” she says.

The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland released a report in October that shows U.S. firms invested $129.5 billion in Ireland between 2008 and 2012. It represented a greater total than had been invested in the previous 58 years combined. Ireland was the fourth biggest recipient of U.S. foreign direct investment last year and attracted almost as much U.S. investment as all of developing Asia.

Dublin serves as the European headquarters for a number of U.S. tech firms including Google GOOG +0.51%, LinkedIn LNKD +1.2%, Twitter and Facebook. Twitter opened new Dublin offices in September where it employs 100 people with plans to double in size over the next 12 months. Facebook established its presence in Dublin in 2009 and is opening new office space in Dublin that will make it the social media company’s largest operation outside of its Menlo Park, Calif. global headquarters.

Ireland’s recent troubles have made it more attractive for companies moving in. Nominal wages fell 17% between 2008 and 2011, which helped keep labor costs in check. Unemployment remains stubbornly high—a recent 12.8%—providing companies a large labor pool to pick from. There are now more than 1,000 overseas companies with a presence in Ireland and they employ 150,000 of the nation’s 1.9 million workers. “Dublin has already established itself as a location for multinationals, so it has the necessary infrastructure for other companies to easily move into the country and set up shop,” says Bowler.

While Ireland moves up the ranks, the U.S. continues a four-year slide to No. 14 after ranking second in 2009 (the U.S. ranked No. 12 in 2012). The U.S. gets dinged for the Federal Reserve’s easy-money program which has distorted prices and risked long-term inflation. It ranks No. 80 out of 145 countries for monetary freedom. Only the U.K. fares worse among the top 50 countries. The U.S. has also ramped up its rules on businesses. The Heritage Foundation cites more than 100 major new federal regulations on businesses since 2009 with an annual cost of $46 billion.

The U.S. fares poorly for its excessive tax burden, which ranks No. 51 (only Belgium is worse in the top 20). U.S. statutory corporate tax rates are the highest in the world among developed countries, although tax breaks reduce the overall burden. But an equally large problem is the complexity of the tax code. The World Bank says the typical medium-size business requires 175 hours to comply with U.S. tax laws.

We determined the Best Countries for Business by grading 145 nations on 11 different factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape, investor protection and stock market performance. Each category was equally weighted. The data came from published reports from the following organizations: Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, Property Rights Alliance, Transparency International, World Bank and World Economic Forum.

New Zealand ranks No. 2 overall, down one spot from last year. The $170 billion economy is the smallest of the top 10, but one of the fastest growing with GDP up 2.5% last year. New Zealand posted the best scores among all countries on four metrics including personal freedom and investor protection, as well as lack of red tape and corruption.

Hong Kong ranks third for the second straight year, although economic growth has slowed for the international trade and finance center. GDP grew 1.4% last year to $263 billion versus 5% in 2011. Hong Kong ranks among the top five for investor protection, trade freedom, tax burden and red tape.

Rounding out the top five countries are the Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark (No. 4) and Sweden (No. 5). Both countries feature highly educated workforces with GDPs per capita among the highest in the world. Denmark scores better for its lower tax burden and corruption, while Sweden ranks first overall when it comes to technology and third for innovation.

Microsoft design a smart bra to measure moods & stress

  

Microsoft researchers have designed a smart new bra that can detect stress and other mood levels.

The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood levels.

The aim was to find out if wearable technology could help prevent stress-related over-eating.

Mood data was provided to the wearer via a smartphone app in order to highlight when “emotional eating” was likely to occur.

A team from Microsoft’s visualisation and interaction research group embedded an electrocardiogram and electro-dermal activities sensors as well as a gyroscope and accelerometer in the bra.

In their paper, the researchers say using a bra “was ideal because it allowed us to collect EKG [electrocardiogram] near the heart”.

Efforts to create a similar piece of underwear for men worked less well, largely because the sensors were located too far away from the heart.

The women testing the technology reported their emotions for about six hours a day over a period of four days.

“It was very tedious for participants to wear our prototyped sensing system, as the boards had to be recharged every three to four hours,” Microsoft senior research designer Asta Roseway said.

Electric shock: Wearable technology is increasingly being used to monitor a range of health conditions.

Last month saw the release of a Twitter-connected bra, that tweeted every time it was unhooked to encourage women to self-examine their breasts.

And last year a patent was awarded to a US firm that was working on a wearable device that analysed breast heat in order to detect cancer.

Meanwhile in response to a series of rapes in India, three engineering students developed a bra loaded with sensors and an electronic circuit that is activated when someone attempts to grope a woman wearing it.

Irish Government approves appointment of 390 new posts for special needs assistants

 

The decision has been welcomed by the trade union representing the majority of SNAs.

The education Minister Ruari Quinn has confirmed that 170 new special needs assistants (SNAs) will be appointed immediately with further 220 to be employed next year.

It follows Cabinet approval of a proposal by Quinn to increase the cap on the number of SNAs working in the State. Approval today means that the total number of SNAs in the country will be 10,965 when the recruitment process concludes.

The Department of Education said these extra posts will ensure that government policy of ensuring that every child who is assessed as needing SNA support will receive such support.

The previous government imposed a cap on the number of SNAs at 10,575 in 2010, however the number of pupils in need of SNA has increased since them.

“Despite our economic difficulties, we need to support our children with special needs to achieve their full potential in school,” Ruairí Quinn said today.

The decision today was welcomed by the trade union IMPACT, which represents the majority of SNAs, whose official Dessie Robinson said: “The recent practice of allocating portions of SNA posts to schools, rather than full-time SNAs, has placed further financial and organisational pressure on schools working to educate children with special needs.

“These full-time posts are very welcome and will go some way to meeting the increased demand in our schools. We hope it is also a sign that the casualisation of the SNA role is being addressed.”

The National Council for Special Education will allocate the new SNA posts on the basis of need following assessment, the Department of Education said.

NASA Finds Water on Alien Planets

 

NASA’s Hubble telescope’s most recent find is the existence of water on 5 alien orbs. The exoplanets were discovered to contain water using infrared light waves. The scientists observed the signature of water in a range of specified wavelengths. This signature would not be present if the alien worlds did not contain the life-giving substance. The new finding was made using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. This camera is a high-performance camera has capabilities of being one of the few cameras to be able to look into the exoplanet atmospheres which are located trillions of miles from Earth.

NASA’s observers also compared the absorption profiles and intensities of the infrared light wavelengths as well as their shapes. What gave the scientists the confidence in their findings was the consistency of the water signatures on these alien planets. NASA has previous findings of the presence of atmospheric water on exoplanets or planets beyond the solar system, but they’ve never collectively compared them to each other nor have they measured the water profile intensities.

The author of the previously reported studies was the University of Maryland’s, Drake Fleming. Fleming stated that the detection of an exoplanet atmosphere is an extremely difficult task, but the signals recorded were very clearly pronounced to actually be water.

A co-author of Deming’s paper, Heather Knutson, is from Pasadena’s California Institute of Technology. Knutson gave a recent statement saying that the evidence suggested a hazy or cloudy atmosphere may be a very common phenomenon that is shared by the “hot Jupiter” type of exoplanets. Knutson also stated that the recent studies can be combined with other prior Hubble observations to suggest there are a surprising number of systems in which the water signals are either completely absent or extremely narrow.

A NASA planetary scientist, Avi Mandell, from the Goddard Space Flight Center is the lead author of a paper entitled, The Astrophysical Journal. Mandell also confirmed the findings of water in the exoplanet’s atmosphere. The scientist thinks that the latest finding opens the door to scientists to compare hotter and cooler exoplanets and to compare exactly how much water is present in each type.

Two research teams were confident enough to be surprised the signatures they observed were all equally less pronounced than they initially expected. NASA feels the reason for the signature’s haziness was that the planets actually contained a coating of dust in or around their atmospheres. The dust reduces the color or intensity in the planet’s water signatures exactly the same as if viewing objects through a bank of fog on Earth. NASA confirmed that other important molecules, as well as the haze, will alter the signal observations in a distinctive way.

The five alien planets discovered to contain water in their atmospheres are being compared to five “hot Jupiters.” The planets are known as; WASP-12b, WASP-17b, WASP-19b, XO-1b, and HD209458b. When all five were compared to each other it was HD209458b and WASP-17b that stood-out to contain the largest and strongest water signals.

NASA’s recent find doesn’t suggest that alien life exists on these specific planets. Even though atmospheric water was found, it is unlikely to survive on these very hot Jupiter-like worlds. This still remains as a positive advancement for the human race and the quest to find the existence of alien life forms.