Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Irish pensioners could face cuts to their payments?

IN A BID TO RESOLVE €780 MILLION RETIREMENT SCHEME ROW

 

Move likely to avert threatened airport strike over fund operated by the Dublin Airport Authority and Aer Lingus

Pensioners earning an average of €16,000 a year face a cut in their payments under new proposals designed to resolve a long-running row over the insolvent retirement fund operated by Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) and Aer Lingus.

In the first initiative of its kind, the trustees of the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme propose using new legislation to claw back benefits paid from the fund to pensioners in an effort to plug its €780 million shortfall and end a dispute that threatens to close the Republic’s main airports.

If the proposal is implemented, retired workers already drawing pensions from the fund will have those payments cut. Anyone receiving more than €12,000 a year faces a 10 per cent cut on any sum above that amount; those on €60,000 a year and over face a 20 per cent reduction.

Final salary: The scheme supports about 4,000 pensioners, who receive an average of €16,000 each. Only seven receive pensions of more than €60,000. The IASS scheme pays pensioners two thirds of their final salary.

The Social Welfare and Pensions (No 2) Act, 2013, which allows retirement fund trustees to cut benefits to pensioners where the scheme is in trouble, came into force last year.

This is the first time anyone has attempted to implement it. A letter from the IASS trustees circulated to the DAA, Aer Lingus and trade unions proposes cutting pensions by the maximum allowed under the law.

It also proposes a 20 per cent cut on benefits built up by staff currently contributing to the scheme – active members – and by those who have left the two companies but have yet to retire – deferred members.

However, the trustees, chaired by Brian Duncan, say they do not propose increasing the pension age under the scheme, or forcing beneficiaries to take a large lump sum up front, which would reduce their pension payments.

While the proposal has to win the approval of the Pensions Board, companies and workers, and even then may not be implemented until the end of the year, it is thought it could help avert a strike that threatens to ground Aer Lingus and shut Cork, Dublin and Shannon airports early next month.

Siptu members at the airline and the three airports this week voted for industrial action, including strike, over the pensions issue. Sources suggested yesterday that the trustees’ move would at least bring the relevant parties back to the negotiating table, postponing the strike.

The trustees’ letter acknowledges the strike vote and points out that other unions are considering their position. “There is considerable pressure to move forward as quickly as possible”, it says.

The overall solution involves moving active members to a defined contribution pension plan not tied to salary.

The DAA yesterday said it was disappointed the process would result in a reduction of accrued pension benefits of 20 per cent for employees who were IASS members.

However, it acknowledged that confirmation of the trustees’ proposal could facilitate a fair and balanced resolution.

Buying generic drugs in ROI will not really save you any money

  

About eight months ago a new law kicked in which allows pharmacies to offer cheaper versions of drugs to patients. And though most people expected the price of drugs to come down, the reality on the ground is very different.

Before the law was introduced, if you were prescribed a branded drug by a doctor, you could not get a cheaper alternative because pharmacists were legally obliged to sell the exact medicine prescribed by your doctor. Pharmacies can now offer you the choice of buying a cheaper generic drug – or the more expensive brand.

However, a survey by the Sunday Independent found that many pharmacies are either charging the same price for generic drugs as they are for the branded versions – or they are charging only a few Euros’ less.

If you’re taking the well-known cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, you’ll pay about €11 for a 28-pack of 10mg tablets in Dublin pharmacies. Irish pharmacies charge the same for a generic equivalent of Lipitor – Torvacol costs €10.78 in some outlets, while other we visited charge €10.67 for Atorvastatin.

However, you can get a generic version of Lipitor much cheaper in McKeevers Chemist in Newry, Co Down – the price there is £5 (€6).

“There are a lot of manufacturers supplying generic drugs in Britain and that brings down the price of the drugs there – because there is competition,” said Aidan McKeever, general manager of McKeevers Chemist.

“In Ireland, there may be only one or two manufacturers of a generic drug, and that doesn’t foster competition.”

In Spain, you can buy a 28-pack of the 10mg generic version of Lipitor for €4.61 – less than half of what you’ll pay in some Irish pharmacies, according to Shane O’Sullivan, managing director of the Dublin pharmacy Healthwave.

Healthwave, which opened in Dundrum recently, says it sells generic prescription drugs at Northern Ireland prices – as long as you pay an annual subscription of €25.

Healthwave charges €4.95 for a 28-pack of 10mg Atorvastatin tablets (a generic version of Lipitor). It also charges €4.95 for a 28-pack generic version of 20Mg Nexium tablets – a drug used for stomach problems. You could pay between €13 and €14 for the generic version of Nexium in some Irish pharmacies – almost three times what you’ll pay in Healthwave and the North. If you stick with the branded Nexium, you could pay about €22 for a pack in an Irish pharmacy.

“There seems to be only a couple of euro between the price of the branded drug and the price of the generic drug in a number of pharmacies,” said O’Sullivan. “We feel generics should be a lot cheaper here.”

Not all drugs have a generic version available in Ireland yet. And it is not always cheaper to buy drugs outside Ireland. In Germany for example, you could pay €54.19 for a 50-pack of 10mg Lipitor – that works out more expensive per tablet than what you’ll pay in Ireland.

It is still worrying, however, that certain generic drugs are twice or three times as expensive in Ireland as they are in Northern Ireland and other European countries. For a patient paying hundreds of euro more a year for a drug than someone else in another country is, it is infuriating.

The Sunday Independent asked some of the main pharmacies and top pharmaceutical associations why the price of certain drugs in Ireland is a multiple of that charged elsewhere.

“In Ireland, the list price of prescription medicine is set by agreement between the pharmaceutical industry and the Department of Health,” said a spokeswoman for Boots Ireland. “This is the case in all countries in the EU and means that the price of prescription medicines varies from country to country.”

The pharmacy regulator, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), said it could not comment because “it does not regulate the price of medicines”.

A spokeswoman for the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, which represents community pharmacists, said the cost of medicines “is set by agreement between the Government and the manufacturers of medicines, including the generic manufacturers”.

“This, in essence, means that pharmacists in Ireland have to purchase medicines at a higher cost than their counterparts in some other European countries,” added the spokeswoman.

“It should be noted that the price of medicines has reduced and will continue to reduce.”

A fresh take on buying drugs online? 

It can be much cheaper to buy drugs online – so long as you shop around and deal with reputable companies.

You can buy over-the-counter drugs online in Ireland – but you cannot buy prescription medicine. Irish law prohibits companies from supplying prescriptions to Irish residents over the phone or internet.

Most EU countries have a similar ban for residents in their countries – but there are several exceptions.

You can buy prescription drugs online in Britain, Germany, Iceland, Malta, Holland, Slovenia and Sweden.

The European Association of Mail Service Pharmacies (EAMOP) insists mail-order pharmacies are safe and “against illegal pharmaceutical pirates who put counterfeit drugs into circulation”.

“For people who are elderly or immobile, or who live in rural areas, mail-order pharmacies are an important supply alternative,” said the EAMOP.

It is this concern about cowboys supplying fake drugs which appears to be at the heart of the Irish ban on the online sale of prescription medicine.

“The ban on mail-order sales of pharmaceuticals was put in place because of concerns about the difficulty of guaranteeing the safety, efficacy and quality of mail-order supplies,” said Deirdre McHugh, an economist with the Competition Authority.

There are cowboys selling drugs online and these should be avoided at all costs, particularly when health is concerned. But there are plenty of reputable pharmacists who sell prescriptions online safely.

For example, in Germany there are laws which assure the quality and efficacy of prescriptions sold online, according to Christian Splett, spokesman for the Federal Union of German Associations of Pharmacists, which represents about 60,000 pharmacists.

For example, a prescription must be packed and transported in a way that preserves the drug’s quality. A prescription must also usually be posted within two days of an order being placed.

About two years ago, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) questioned whether an outright ban of prescription drugs is necessary.

“While internet and mail-order pharmacies pose well-known problems, a complete prohibition may not be the answer. If internet pharmacies can offer lower cost distribution in a safe manner . . . then the Health Service Executive should consider the viability of their use on a trial basis.”

That argument still stands today.

Toxins in everyday foods linked with ADHD and other brain development disorders

     

Experts say they are worried that children are being exposed to chemicals that are “silently eroding intelligence, disrupting behaviours, truncating future achievements, and damaging societies”.

Researchers in Boston and New York have called on countries to work harder to protect children from harmful everyday toxins which are linked to brain development disorders.

A new review, written by two of the world’s leading experts on the link between environment and children’s health and published in the Lancet Neurology today, sounds an alarm on the dangers of industrial chemicals that are found in ordinary items such as clothes, furniture and toys.

The doctors have urged governments to transform their chemical risk-assessment procedures in order to protect children from everyday toxins that may be causing a global “silent epidemic” of brain development disorders.

“The vast majority of the more than 80 000 industrial chemicals in widespread use in the USA have never been tested for their toxic effects on the developing foetus or child,” explains Dr Philippe Grandjean from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Exposure to these chemicals during early development can cause brain injury at levels much lower than those affecting adults, and the real impact on children’s health is just beginning to be uncovered.

A review undertaken over seven years has thrown up some worrying results. Between 2006 and 2013*, the number of recognised chemical causes of neurodevelopmental disorders has doubled from six to 12.

The list of chemicals known to damage the human brain – but are not regulated to protect children’s health – has also grown from 202 to 214.

“Current chemical regulations are woefully inadequate to safeguard children whose developing brains are uniquely vulnerable to toxic chemicals in the environment,” adds Dr Grandjean.

“Until a legal requirement is introduced for manufacturers to prove that all existing industrial chemicals and all new chemicals are non-toxic before they enter the marketplace, along the lines of the European Union’s reformed chemicals law REACH, we are facing a pandemic of neurodevelopmental toxicity.”

The authors suggest that more stringent controls could generate billions of dollars in savings. How? Well, the yearly estimated cost of childhood lead poisoning in the US (as an example) is $50 billion. The annual spend on treatments for methylmercury toxicity is roughly $5 billion.

What’s slowing down the restriction of use?

The two main obstacles impeding efforts to restrict chemicals that threaten children’s health are the large gaps in testing chemicals for neurodevelopmental toxicity and the huge amount of proof required before regulation is enacted.

“The only way to reduce toxic contamination is to ensure mandatory developmental neurotoxicity testing of existing and new chemicals before they come into the marketplace,” says Landrigan.

“Such a precautionary approach would mean that early indications of a potentially serious toxic effect would lead to strong regulations, which could be relaxed should subsequent evidence show less harm.”

The authors propose a new international prevention strategy that would put the onus on chemical producers instead of governments to demonstrate that their products are low risk. This could be done using a similar testing process to pharmaceuticals, and a new international regulatory agency to coordinate and accelerate these measures.

“The total number of neurotoxic substances now recognised almost certainly represents an underestimate of the true number of developmental neurotoxicants that have been released into the global environment,” concludes Landrigan and Grandgean.

“Our very great concern is that children worldwide are being exposed to unrecognised toxic chemicals that are silently eroding intelligence, disrupting behaviours, truncating future achievements, and damaging societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries.”

Global warming did not cause the bad storms?

Says one of the Met Office’s most senior experts

  

One of the Met Office’s most senior experts on February 14 made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming.

Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual.

Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’

His statement carries particular significance because he is an internationally acknowledged expert on climate computer models and forecasts, and his university post is jointly funded by the Met Office.

Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘coordinating lead author’ – for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo.

Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.

Prof Collins made clear that he believes it is likely global warming could lead to higher rainfall totals, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water. But he said this has nothing to do with the storm conveyor belt.

He said that when the IPCC was compiling its Fifth Assessment Report on climate change last year, it discussed whether warming might affect the jet stream. But, he went on, ‘there was very low confidence that climate change has any effect on the jet stream getting stuck’. In the end, the possibility was not even mentioned in the report.

Prof Collins declined to comment on his difference of opinion with Dame Julia.

Five months ago, in a briefing on the IPCC report to Ministers, Dame Julia conceded the consequence of warming for rainfall ‘is not simulated well’ by climate models – though they are the basis for most of what she and other scientists say about the effects of climate change.

Last April, after the temperature fell to -11C in Aberdeenshire, the coldest April temperature for more than 100 years, Dame Julia said the cold winter and spring might also be due to global warming, because of ice melting in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the Met Office has continued to issue questionable long-term forecasts. In mid-November, two weeks before the first of the storms, it predicted persistent high pressure for the winter, which was ‘likely to lead to drier-than-normal conditions across the country’.

It added that its models showed the probability of the winter being in the driest of five official categories was 25 percent. The chances of it being in the wettest category was 15 percent.

Infamously, in April 2009, the Met Office promised a ‘barbecue summer’ – which then turned out to be a washout. It forecast the winter of 2010 to 2011 would be mild: it was the coldest for 120 years.

In 2007, the Met Office said that globally, the decade 2004-2014 would see warming of 0.3C. In fact, the world has not got any warmer at all in this period.

At the beginning of 13 of the past 14 years, the Met Office has predicted the following 12 months would be significantly warmer than they have been. This, says the skeptic think tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation, indicates ‘systemic’ bias.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore says for six long years: 

OUR COUNTRY AND OUR PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TO HELL AND BACK

 

The Tánaiste and Labour leader has given a keynote address to delegates at the one-day conference in Meath today.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said that this year will be the most important since the crisis began and that his party needs to “maintain a threshold of decency” as he claimed it has done for the past three years.

In a keynote speech to delegates at the Labour conference in Meath tonight, Gilmore has said that his party must adhere to a set of basic principles, including maintaing a “threshold of decency” that he said the junior coalition partner has done for the past three years in government.

“For six long years, our country and our people have been to hell and back,” Gilmore told delegates as he also paid tribute to the families throughout the country who have been affected by the recent adverse weather.

He warned that the country faces a difficult path in the year ahead, saying “our job is not yet done” and “our mission not yet complete”.

The Tánaiste sounded a warning to the party faithful of the alternative choice the country faces of “going back to the bad old days” when, he said, “Ireland was run by a different Troika – a Troika of bankers, developers and Fianna Fáil”.

He repeated a call to “take the pressure off the people who have made the sacrifices to achieve recovery” – an indication that the government may introduce tax cuts in the next Budget.

Gilmore also reiterated a commitment, made in his conference speech three months ago, to legislate for collective bargaining rights and said the party would fight, and win, a referendum on same-sex marriage net year.

THIS IS EAMON’S SPEECH IN FULL:

My first thoughts tonight are with all those families, throughout the country, who have been so badly affected by the storms, floods and bad weather of the past few weeks. I want to thank all the volunteers, the utility workers, and the public servants who have helped people in distress, and I want to acknowledge the work of Joan Burton, Brendan Howlin, and our colleagues in Government for coming to the aid of distressed households and businesses.

It has been said, that we are our choices. That is true in life, and it is true in politics.

Like the choices that Labour made to bring our country back from the brink and put it on the road to recovery.

The choices that we must make now, to protect the recovery, and make sure it is felt in the lives of our people.

And the political choices, that the Irish people have to make at the elections in May.

For six long years, our country and our people have been to hell and back.

Since 2008, we have been through the worst economic crisis in our history.

Thousands of jobs lost, businesses lost, savings slashed, and a generation of young people whose future has been put on hold.

This time three years ago, we were in the middle of a general election campaign. The country was broke, unemployment was heading for half a million, people were taking their savings across the border. Everyone was apprehensive about the future. I remember meeting a pensioner who was genuinely worried, and I think with some justification, that the state would not be able to continue to pay his pension.

Labour made a choice back then.

Labour took the decision to go into Government to fix the crisis. To roll up our sleeves, with Enda Kenny and his Fine Gael colleagues, and take on the worst economic storm this country has ever faced.

And now tonight, thanks to the patience and sacrifice of the Irish people, we can report that it is working.

Jobs are being created again

Confidence is growing again

We are out of the bailout and able to shape our own future again.

Of course, there is still a long way to travel. But, if we stick to the task, if we are clear about our destination, then there is hope again.

But, our job is not yet done. Our mission not yet complete

And this year, 2014, may be the most important year since the crisis began.

Because the choices we make now, as we leave the bailout behind and as we embark on recovery: these are the choices that will shape our future, this year, next year, and for years to come.

The troika is gone, so the choices that we now make are our choices – about the future that we want to build, working together.

We can stick to the task, of building recovery and creating jobs and work, or we can put that all at risk. By indulging in fairytale economics.

We can build a recovery that is genuinely felt in the lives of all our people, or we can stand back and watch the gains being reaped by a select few.

We have the choice, of going back to the bad old days, when Ireland was run by a different Troika – a Troika of bankers, developers and Fianna Fail – or we can work together to build a better, fairer, more prosperous and tolerant Ireland.

For the past three years, Labour has made choices that have mattered.

We made the decision after the last election to enter Government and face into the crisis, not to run away from it.

We made the choice that, even if hard decisions were needed, we would insist on a threshold of decency in how the crisis was managed.

We made the choice to protect core welfare rates. To restore the minimum wage. To put back in place the structures that protect the low paid. To take 330,000 people out of the USC net. Not to increase income taxes. To protect the weekly pension, and to keep the pupil-teacher ratio intact.

In difficult times we built 2,700 classrooms, creating jobs and giving our children better places to learn. We found the money for a national children’s hospital. And we chose to put up taxes on wealth so that we could avoid higher taxes on ordinary incomes.

The story of the past three years, is a story of hard decisions taken, but it is also a story of roads not travelled. Of the cuts that could have been made, but were avoided. Of the jobs that could have been lost, but were saved. Of the homes that might have been lost, but were protected.

As a party we have taken political risks with the choices we have made, but we will never regret putting the needs of the next generation ahead of the demands of the next opinion poll. You can’t clean up a mess without getting your hands dirty. And having taken the risks, we will not now put the recovery at risk.

Now we move on with the next phase.

About how we make recovery real in the lives of hard-pressed families.

About how we go from improving bond yields, to improving living standards.

About how we move from better national budgets, to better family budgets.

About how we take the pressure off the people who have made the sacrifices to achieve recovery, and who feel that they pay for everything and get nothing in return.

Too many of our people are still just getting by from day to day, and from week to week. Existing, rather than living. Too many people are worried about what next week and next month will bring, and about the future of their children.

These are the people for whom we have to make recovery real.

Leaving the bailout means that we again have a choice about our future. We could go back to the bad old ways. Of insider politics. Of tax breaks for those in the know. Of a casino economy where people build and sell property to each other and where families who need homes are priced out. Of a country and an economy run, not by the people for the people, but for a special few, who think they’re worth it.

That’s not the future we choose.

I want Ireland to be a genuine Republic. Where opportunity is open to all our people. Where if you work for a living, you can afford to live. Where a job pays enough to pay the bills, to buy a home and raise a family. Where you can hope for something better for your children, and where you can grow old in safety and dignity. Where life is about more than just scraping by, and where the people who work hard and play by the rules can get on, without fear or favour.

That is an aspiration that this country has yet to realise. Instead, down the decades, we have gone from bust to boom and back again. And generation after generation has paid the price, as they left these shores to find a future in a different land. This time we need to learn from the mistakes of the past. Determine not to repeat them. And determine too, not to return control of our affairs to those who caused the crisis.

What the last three years show us is that we can have a better future, if we make the right choices for our children. If we build on the recovery that is emerging; if we are clear about our destination; and if we work every day to get there, then there is nothing that, working together, we cannot do.
What we do now after the bailout has to be guided by four principles.

Firstly, we need a sustainable prosperity. Too many of our people still don’t have work, or don’t have enough work. We have to create more and better jobs.

Secondly, we need a shared prosperity, which means that we have to invest in our people, and make sure that recovery is spread across society, and across the regions

Thirdly, we need to maintain a threshold of decency, as we have done for the past three years, and to make sure that nobody gets left behind.

And fourthly, we have to commit ourselves to tolerance and freedom at home, and to promoting Irish values abroad.

Labour is the party of work, and that is why we put jobs at the heart of Government policy for the last three years. Why we cut VAT on job-rich areas like hospitality, why we brought in stimulus measures, like building and repairing roads and schools, why we worked every day to repair Ireland’s reputation and attract in new jobs and investment.

Three years on, it is working. Three years ago this country was losing 7,000 jobs a month; today we are creating 5,000 per month. Since the start of the year, 10,000 job vacancies have been advertised. We have got the live register below 400,000, and we are working every day to create more jobs and to help people to get back into work.

And we will do more. We will continue the work of rebuilding our reputation and attracting investment. We will work to achieve recovery in the domestic economy, especially in the construction sector. There are parts of Ireland where we need more new homes, and at affordable prices, and we have the building workers who can build them.

We are working for a sustainable, and fairer recovery.

We have made a start by introducing free GP care for children under six. And by cutting the cost of sending children to school.

We will, in the lifetime of this Government, deliver comprehensive climate change legislation, because Labour doesn’t just talk about the environment, we act to protect it.

We will, in the coming months, legislate for collective bargaining rights so as to make for a fairer workplace.

And, we will, by the end of this year, have a dozen projects up and running in some of the most disadvantaged areas of our country designed to break the cycle of poverty for children.

Recovery does not just happen by itself. It needs to be managed so that it spreads out fairly. So that the industrial peace that we have enjoyed is maintained. So that we see living standards rising, as the economy grows, and so that people see the benefits in their pockets and in their family budgets. So that when we have the resources to do so, we reduce taxes on income and family homes, rather than cutting capital taxes and developing new tax breaks for the wealthy. That is the choice we want to make on tax.

Our country is changing. Our economy is growing again. And our society is changing too. Yes, our core task is to focus on jobs and the economy and hard pressed families.

But families don’t all look the same. In politics, as in life, you have to be able to do more than one thing at a time.

That is why Labour is leading reform.

We are the party of freedom and tolerance. Labour is proud of the role we have played to build an open and modern Ireland. This Party is taking on the difficult social issues, and we are leading on them, because that is who we are, and that is what we have always done.

That is why, after 20 years, we have changed the law to make pregnancy safer for Irish women. That is why we are doing the patient and painstaking work of addressing patronage in our schools. And that is why we are going to fight and win a referendum campaign for the equal right to marry for all our citizens.

Change is difficult. Change takes courage, just like bringing our economy back from disaster, took courage. But this party has never lacked for courage.
We will put our case in a calm and rationale manner, we will respect all points of view, and we will win by appealing to the decency and fairness of the Irish people.

Openness, tolerance, fairness and freedom. Those are Labour values. Those are our values at home. And those are our values abroad. We will continue, as we have always done, to promote Irish values on the world stage. We will keep faith with the world’s poor through our aid programme. We will maintain our commitment to peace and neutrality and human rights. Believe me, Ireland’s restored reputation is due not just to keeping the Troika targets. It’s due to the contribution we make at the United Nations and elsewhere, when we stand up for the values we hold dear.

As I’ve said earlier, 2014 is the year which will decide where our country goes after the bailout, and who is to benefit from the recovery. The choices which will decide those questions, are not just for political leaders and political parties. In a democracy, the individual political choices we make, as voters, are the most important of all.

On May 23rd, we will all be asked to choose the councillors who will govern our city and county councils for the next five years, and we will choose the 11 MEPs who will represent the Irish people in the European Parliament, almost to the end of this decade. These are important choices.
We all live in local communities, and local services matter to all of us, and to our families, every single day. The parks, the roads, the playgrounds, the footpaths. The public space that we all share.

It matters to our daily quality of life, to whom we entrust our local government.

Across Ireland, Labour councillors are working every day, to build a better life for the people and communities that they represent. They are hard working people who care passionately about their communities. Who believe in protecting the environment, providing young people with opportunities to play and learn, providing better facilities for families.

Over the next five years, in council chambers around Ireland, the councillors we elect on May 23rd, will make decisions which will affect every local community. They will decide what will be built, and where it will be built.

And when we think back on our economic crash, and we think about the property bubble that led to it, that bubble had its origins in the bad planning decisions made in council chambers in the 1980s and 1990s. The frenzy of land rezoning. The permissions to building housing estates on flood plains. The planning corruption scandal that led to an expensive 14 year Tribunal of Inquiry. They can all be traced back to decisions made in the council chamber.

For more than a century, Labour has an honourable and honest record in local government. Labour has an unrivalled record for good, sensible, sustainable planning, and the Labour Party can be proud that no Labour councillor has ever been found to have taken a corrupt payment.

There has never been a “for sale” sign on this Party, and there never will be.

The elections for the European Parliament on May 23rd, matter to Ireland and matter to Europe.

Europe matters for Ireland. 54 per cent of all the exports which go out through our ports and airports go to member states of the European Union. Jobs in Ireland, the success of Irish businesses and Irish living standards all depend on the health of the European economy. As we have seen, especially over the past few years, the direction of European policy impacts on almost everything we do. And the European Parliament is now more powerful than ever – in deciding European Laws, in approving European budgets and in determining the leadership of Europe for the next five years.

There are choices to be made in Europe. Does it keep cutting budgets and contracting, or does it grow and create jobs?
Is it going to be a Europe for all its citizens, or will it just be for markets and capital?

Who will lead the next European Commission? Another Conservative? Or Martin Schultz, who has been nominated by the Labour and Social Democratic Parties of Europe, and who has always been a good friend of Ireland.

On May 23rd the future direction of Europe will be decided, not by the Leader of any big member state, but by the people of all its member states, voting for the MEPs they want to represent them in the European Parliament. Coming out of both the Irish and European recession, this is probably the most important vote we have yet cast in elections for the European Parliament.

And we are doing so too, at a time when a new and nasty form of extreme right-wing politics is on the rise across Europe. The conservative consensus failed Europe. And now, the extreme right is growing in France, Holland, Austria, Finland – and even in the UK where an inward looking anti-European political force is now driving debate to take Britain out of the EU.

History cautions us to be wary of what can happen in an economic crisis, and we have just had the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The rise of the extreme right in Europe must be challenged and halted, and it is the Labour and Social Democratic Parties that stand the best chance of doing so. Because we believe that Europe must do more to promote jobs and growth, and stem the politics of fear and hatred. Europe must be grounded in the solidarity that is the fundamental value of our movement.

Three years ago, the people of Ireland chose the Labour Party and our partners in coalition, Fine Gael, to fix our broken country.
In those three years, we have led our country out of the bailout. We have turned the economy around from recession to recovery. Turned rising unemployment into increasing jobs. We have restored Ireland’s reputation so that trade, investment and tourism are on the rise again.

But we are not yet done. And we won’t be until we have jobs for everyone who is seeking work, whether they are on the live register at home, or on Skype from abroad. And we are not done until, home by home, we help families struggling under mortgage debt. Or family by family, those who are in need of housing.

Because for Labour, recovery is not an end in itself, and not measured just by cold economic indicators. Recovery is about improving the life chances, and the living standards, and the quality of life of the hard-pressed families whose sacrifices made recovery possible. That is why we are bringing in free GP care for children, and bringing down the cost of sending children to school.

That’s Labour’s choice. And when Labour makes its choice it stays with it to the end. We made some difficult choices to make recovery possible. And now we are just as determined to make the choices that will make recovery real.

We have been through tough times. And we have had the strength to pull through. We have rescued our country from ruin. So, let us not let up now. We can now build that better, fairer Ireland. No, not overnight, because that is only the stuff of fairy tales. But bit by bit, day by day. Confident. Determined. And united!