Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Sunday

New whistleblower fears backlash when she returns to Ambulance control work

 

An ambulance whistle-blower believes there are not enough ambulances in the mid-west region to cover a major emergency like a plane crash.

Shirley McEntee above, an ambulance controller and trained paramedic in Limerick, warned that crews in the mid-west were “run ragged” and “going without food for hours” trying to respond to patients because of a lack of ambulances.

M/s McEntee, who appeared in the recent RTE ‘Prime Time’ edition featuring the ambulance service, raised concerns about the impact of a major disaster on the emergency services in the mid-west region.

“The lads are great, but there is still not enough vehicles to cover an emergency – if a plane crashed – there is definitely not enough ambulances for it,” she said.

“There’s only two crews on a Monday and Tuesday night in Limerick. There’s no such thing as peak time in all fairness.

“It could be a Sunday afternoon at 2pm or it could be 2am. It could be anytime.

“You can’t really give a peak time for an emergency service.” Currently on sick leave, M/s McEntee is due back at work next week.

And she said she fears repercussion from management for going public about her allegations that the service is completely overstretched.

M/s McEntee said she had not heard from management since her appearance on the programme but she has received backing from co-workers.

She added: “It’s time that the paramedics and advanced paramedics got someone to stick up for them, because they’re brilliant at their jobs,” she told Joe Nash, presenter of ‘Limerick Today’ on Live 95fm.

“They work very, very, very hard. They don’t get official lunch breaks; they mightn’t get anything to eat for hours. They just need a bit of praise as well.”

HSE director general Tony O’Brien said that he has “considerable confidence” in the ambulance service and its leadership.

However, he said that “nobody” in the HSE believed the service is “where it needs to be” and significant change was taking place.

HSE are asked to reveal if staff claim mileage expense for rapid response services

 

Dublin’s emergency fire and ambulance workers have called on the HSE to reveal if their staff claim mileage for using its rapid response vehicles.

And the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has confirmed it is to conduct a six-month review of the country’s ambulance service.

The review was confirmed by HIQA deputy director Mary Dunnion, who said that overseas ambulance executives will be consulted.

It is not directly related to the revelations in an RTE Prime Time programme about delays in ambulances arriving at critical call-outs and some parts of the country being effectively left without ambulance cover during busy periods.

The programme also claimed that expensive National Ambulance Service (NAS) resources are under-utilised, with some rapid response vehicles used more like company cars.

SIRENS: The NAS has hit back at the allegations, insisting it was offering “a world-class service”.

However, the investigation revealed that the number of emergency ambulances in Ireland has been reduced from 320 in 2008 to 265 last year.

The programme also showed that HSE supervisors are using the specially kitted-out SUVs and cars for personal transport.

The vehicles with sirens and lights are branded as ambulances and designed to be used to administer emergency treatment but not to carry patients.

While the HSE told RTE the vehicles can be pressed into action if needed, the Prime Time programme found many are being used like company cars.

“I want to know if staff using these vehicles are claiming mileage,” said John Kidd, chairman of the Irish Fire and Emergency Service Association.

“It’s totally wrong that these vehicles which cost millions to the taxpayer are being used in this way while the ambulance fleet is breaking down.”

REVENUE: The HSE could not answer the question on whether mileage was being claimed for the use of rapid response vehicles, but said during the period January to March 2014 the vehicles were used in 629 emergency call-outs, 252 of which were outside working hours.

Mr Kidd also said the national ambulance service should be reported to the Revenue to see if benefit-in-kind should be paid on the rapid response vehicles if HSE staff are using them as personal transport.

The HSE is trying to take over Dublin Fire Brigade’s provision of the ambulance service in the capital in its efforts to form a national ambulance service for the whole country.

But Mr Kidd said with Dublin Fire Brigade responding to 40pc of the national ambulance calls, but only receiving 8pc of the national budget, he finds it hard to understand how the HSE would save money in the move without depleting services.

Big death risk for Irish fishermen working in their industry

(44 KILLED IN 10 YEARS)

   

A total of 44 fishermen have been killed in the last 10 years, in 24 separate fatal incidents.

Irish fishermen are 40 times more likely to be killed doing their job than the average worker, a new safety campaign has warned.

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) highlighted the stark statistic as it launched an awareness raising drive aimed at reducing rates of death and serious injury in the fishing sector.

A total of 44 fishermen have been killed in the last 10 years, in 24 separate fatal incidents.

The HSA said the main cause of the incidents was a vessel taking on water or capsizing and then sinking.

The next most common cause of fatalities was entanglement in nets or other gear and being dragged overboard.

The authority said in many cases the fishermen were not wearing personal flotation devices.

The sea fishing industry in Ireland has a workforce of almost 5,000 people directly employed and a registered fleet in excess of 2,100 vessels.

The HSA said in the last five years the fatality rate in the general working population was 2.5 deaths per 100,000 workers, while in fishing it was 92 per 100,000 workers.

Martin O’Halloran, chief executive with the HSA, said the campaign would highlight the dangers involved and the importance of properly managing safety and health before leaving port and while at sea.

“There’s no doubt that fishing is a dangerous job and fishermen often work under very dangerous and extreme conditions where the smallest oversight can lead to disaster,” he said.

“Under these circumstances it’s vital that skippers manage the risks and take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and their crew. Carrying out a risk assessment and preparing a safety statement for their boat will help skippers and owners identify the risks in advance and help to avoid the types of accidents we’ve seen all too often.

“Our inspectors regularly come across the same types of issues including injuries and ill health caused by slips and trips, entanglement, poor manual handling and general unsafe systems of work.

“We will continue to consult with fishermen and engage with industry stakeholders with a view to raising awareness.

“But it’s vital that skippers and fishermen manage the very serious risks they’re facing and work to ensure that tragedy doesn’t strike their boat.”

Mr O’Halloran said in a series of inspections carried out last November it was found that only 30% of fishermen inspected had a safety statement and only one in five had completed a risk assessment.

“We are concerned at the relatively low levels of compliance with the requirement to have a risk assessment and safety statement for fishing boats,” he said.

“Completing this process has been shown to be highly effective in managing risk and reducing accidents across other industry sectors and can be equally effective in the fishing sector. This is obviously in everyone’s interest, but most of all for the fishermen themselves.”

Daylight saving time linked to heart attacks?

A STUDY FINDS

 

SUMMERTIME BEGAN WHEN CLOCKS WENT FORWARD BY AN HOUR AT 1AM TODAY LAST SATURDAY.

Switching over to daylight saving time, and losing one hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25 per cent, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new US study released today.

Switching over to daylight saving time, and losing one hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25 per cent, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new US study released today.

The study was released yesterday ahead of summertime beginning in Ireland this morning at 1am, when the clocks went forward by one hour.

The study found that heart attack risk fell 21 per cent later in the year, on the Tuesday after the clock was returned to standard time, and people got an extra hour’s sleep.

The not-so-subtle impact of moving the clock forward and backward was seen in a comparison of hospital admissions from a database of non-federal Michigan hospitals. It examined admissions before the start of daylight saving time and the Monday immediately after, for four consecutive years.

In general, heart attacks historically occur most often on Monday mornings, maybe due to the stress of starting a new work week and inherent changes in our sleep-wake cycle, said Dr Amneet Sandhu, a cardiology fellow at the University of Colorado in Denver who led the study.

“With daylight saving time, all of this is compounded by one less hour of sleep,” said Dr Sandhu, who presented his findings at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology inWashington.

A link between lack of sleep and heart attacks has been seen in previous studies. But Dr Sandhu said experts still don’t have a clear understanding of why people are so sensitive to sleep-wake cycles.

“Our study suggests that sudden, even small changes in sleep could have detrimental effects,” he said.

Dr Sandhu examined about 42,000 hospital admissions in Michigan, and found that an average of 32 patients had heart attacks on any given Monday. But on the Monday immediately after springing the clock forward, there were an average of eight additional heart attacks, he said.

The overall number of heart attacks for the full week after daylight saving time didn’t change, just the number on that first Monday. The number then dropped off the other days of the week.

People who are already vulnerable to heart disease may be at greater risk right after sudden time changes, said Dr Sandhu, who added that hospital staffing should perhaps be increased on the Monday after clocks are set forward.

“If we can identify days when there may be surges in heart attacks, we can be ready to better care for our patients,” he said.

The clock typically moves ahead in the spring, so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less, and returns to standard time in the fall.

Daylight saving time was widely adopted during World War I to save energy, but some critics have questioned whether it really does so and whether it is still needed.

Researchers cited limitations to the study, noting it was restricted to one state and heart attacks that required artery-opening procedures, such as stents. The study therefore excluded patients who died prior to hospital admission or intervention.

Wet red sand residue on cars in Dublin following recent rainfall "is it sand from Sahara Desert"?

  

Motorists all over Dublin woke up this morning to see a strange dust covering their cars. 

A simple explanation has been given for the red-brown sandy residue left on cars across the east and south of the country following last night’s rainfall.

Motorists in parts of the country woke up to a strange dust covering their cars this morning.

The spattering of mud on windscreens and bonnets is dust from the Sahara desert, Met Eireannexplained.

Strong winds over North Africa last night brought sand from the desert to parts of Europe, including the south and east coasts of Ireland.

It is not uncommon but last night’s rainfall meant the sand fell as wet mud spots instead of a light dusting.

Don’t get the car sponges out just yet though as similar winds are to stay in place for the next few days, meaning more wet mud spots are likely to fall on your car or windows again.

Former Archbishop Williams warns of a climate catastrophe

 

Dr. Rowan Williams’ (pictured above left) plea to combat global warming by reducing consumption of fossil fuels comes on the eve of the publication of the most authoritative study yet into the impact of climate change 

The former Archbishop of Canterbury argues that Western lifestyles bear the responsibility for causing climate change in world’s poorest regions

Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has attacked Western lifestyles for causing climate change that is “pushing the environment towards crisis”.

Writing in the Telegraph, Dr Williams says that the “appalling” floods and storms that devastated parts of Britain this winter were a demonstration of “what we can expect” in the future.

He also takes a sideswipe at climate change sceptics.

The floods in Britain and weather-related “catastrophes” in the poorest countries on Earth, he insists, are the clearest indications yet that predictions of “accelerated warming of the Earth” caused by “the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels … are coming true”.

His plea to combat global warming by reducing consumption of fossil fuels comes on the eve of the publication of the most authoritative study yet into the impact of climate change.

On Monday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish its latest study – running to thousands of pages – on the consequences of the predicted rise in global temperatures.

The report, according to the latest leaked draft, will claim the cost of combating the effects of a 4.5F (2.5C) rise in temperature by the end of the century will be £60 billion a year. It will warn that the impact of climate change will be felt most keenly in Africa, South America and Asia and predicts droughts, food shortages and a rise in diseases such as malaria.

Climate change sceptics argue that if the planet is warming up, it is not clear that it is because of the actions of man. They point out errors in previous IPCC reports and accuse the global warming industry of ratcheting up the risks of climate change, which have subsequently led to the cripplingly expensive introduction of green energy policies.

But Dr Williams, who quit as leader of the Anglican Church just over a year ago, writes: “We have heard for years the predictions that the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels will lead to an accelerated warming of the Earth. What is now happening indicates that these predictions are coming true; our actions have had consequences that are deeply threatening for many of the poorest communities in the world.

“Rich, industrialised countries, including our own, have unquestionably contributed most to atmospheric pollution. Both our present lifestyle and the industrial history of how we created such possibilities for ourselves have to bear the responsibility for pushing the environment in which we live towards crisis.”

Dr Williams, writing in his capacity as chairman of Christian Aid, said that the winter storms that battered Britain had brought climate change to the fore in this country and that the IPCC report publishedat a specially convened meeting in Yokohama in Japan tomorrow puts “our local problems into a deeply disturbing global context”.

The IPCC, he says, will be “pointing out that … we [the UK] have in fact got off relatively lightly in comparison with others”.

While the “chaos [of the flood] came as a shock to many”, other countries in the developing world such as Bangladesh and Kenya among others had suffered far worse catastrophes caused by climate change over many years.

Dr Williams goes on to attack global warming sceptics and climate change deniers. “There are of course some who doubt the role of human agency in creating and responding to climate change, and who argue that we should direct our efforts solely to adapting to changes that are inevitable, rather than modifying our behaviour,” says Dr Williams.

“That approach might be “all very well” in the UK where flood defences and other measures can be adopted relatively cheaply but in the most vulnerable, poorest countries worst affected by global warming that is not an option.”

Dr Williams’s intervention in the climate change debate comes as officials and researchers meeting in Japan finalise the wording of the IPCC study. The report, effectively a collection of the scientific evidence gathered on climate change, will focus on the impacts of global warming. It is expected to say that Africa will be affected by longer droughts that threaten livestock and crop yields.

The IPCC expects to see worsening health as a result with an increase in malnutrition, malaria and other diseases.

Rising temperatures will also affect food production and security in parts of Asia with a fall in rice yields caused by a shorter growing period.

The IPCC report will say that northern parts of Asia will benefit from warmer temperatures, however, leading to increased production of wheat and other cereals. In South America, the IPCC will say that ice and glaciers in the Andes are “retreating at an alarming rate”, affecting water supplies while “unique ecosystems” are threatened both climate change and increasing industrialisation.  

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

A third of people in Ireland have used pirated digital products

A SURVEY FINDS

 

Illegal trade loses for the Irish State amount up to €946m says a report urging more intellectual property protection.

A third of consumers have knowingly acquired a pirated product, according to a new survey out today.

The findings are part of a Grant Thornton report which estimates that illicit trade in the Irish retail sector loses the Exchequer up to €946m and loses retailers and rights holders up to €587m.

This ranges from products such as fuel and tobacco to digital goods and pharmaceuticals. The estimated loss is 3% higher than last year because of a “limited government response and continued weak penalties for violation of the law”, the report says.

The loss to the Exchequer from digital piracy is €57m and is €260m to the rights holders and retailers, the report says.

Films were the most commonly acquired digitally pirated product (70 per cent)followed by music (56 per cent) and television series (34 per cent), the report’s survey found.

Cheapness was the most common reason for acquiring these products (70 per cent) with convenience coming second (42 per cent). Most consumers (80 per cent) thought such products were easy to acquire. A fifth of those surveyed did not care about the impact on legitimate business while a third cared “a little”.

The online survey conducted by Amárach included a representative population sample of 1000 people and a sample of 200 shops across the State.

The estimated loss to the Exchequer from illicit trade in tobacco was even higher than digital piracy than at up to €575m , with costs to retailers estimated at up to €122m.

Almost a quarter of consumers surveyed said they knowingly purchased illicit tobacco, the survey found . The greatest reason for the consumers to purchase tobacco was cheapness (83%) while a quarter of consumers said they knew someone selling it.

Three-quarters (75%) of Irish retailers believe their revenues have decreased as a result of illicit tobacco trade and also think the government response in the area is too little. Most retailers surveyed believed that government proposals to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes would increase illicit trade.

These proposals could “potentially send a negative signal about Ireland’s commitment to intellectual property rights protection”, the report says.

Ireland has the highest contribution from intellectual property intensive industries in the EU, at 50% of GDP and almost a quarter of total employment coming from such companies, the report finds.

“Digital piracy of movies, production of counterfeit CDs, smuggling of illicit tobacco and alcohol are all examples of IP abuse that hurt the Irish economy,” report author and Grant Thornton partner Brendan Foster said.

Because of this the defence of intellectual property rights should be central to government strategy and a “strong national framework of intellectual property protection is vital “, he said.

Even though just 6% of people surveyed knowingly purchased illegal fuel, the report estimates that the total loss to the economy was up to €466m, over half of that being loss in taxes. A fifth (20%) of those surveyed believed illegal fuel was as the same quality as legal but most thought it was difficult to buy.

Most retailers said organised crime was involved in fuel laundering and the report makes a link between illicit trade in fuel and tobacco and money laundering . “Money laundering allows these illegal proceeds to penetrate the legitimate financial system,” Mr Foster said.

Money laundering in Ireland is likely to range from €3.1bn to €7.8bn, the report estimates based on figures from the IMF.

“New threats such as the unregulated nature of payments with virtual currencies such as Bitcoin also pose new challenges to controlling what is a global problem.” Mr Foster said.

Cybercrime could be costing the Irish economy as much as €630m per year, the report, ’Illicit Trade: an Irish and Global Challenge’, finds. Cybercrime costs include online banking fraud , fake escrow scams and online payment fraud as well as costs to protections costs for businesses such as antivirus software.

The report finds that big data technologies are increasing the effectiveness of cybercrime attacks with organised criminals the drivers of cybercrime. Non-reporting of such crimes is a problem both in Ireland and globally, it says.

Daffodil Day Ireland 2014 a lot better than last year as the weather stays good

 

This years Daffodil Day in Ireland was a lot better than last year’s washout, but it is too soon to say if the Irish Cancer Society reached its €3.45m collection target.

“Things are looking a lot better than last year — there are a lot more notes, the coin bags are heavier and the money isn’t wet,” said the charity’s head of finance Niamh Ni Chonghaile.

The society said it is about 20pc behind 2012′s fund levels.

Daffodil Day is the charity’s biggest fundraiser, and volunteers from around the country took to the streets selling badges yesterday.

More than 400 children in St Finian’s National School in Newcastle,Dublin, formed a giant daffodil to raise funds for the society.

The giant flower was the brainchild of St Finian’s fifth-class pupil Fiachra Mooney whose mother, Mary, had breast cancer and received the all-clear last Wednesday.

Mark Mellett, head of fundraising for the charity, was particularly inspired by Fiachra’s idea, and gave the students’ effort a special shout-out yesterday evening as the money was being counted.

A Woman (34) dies in Sligo city house blaze

 

Technical examination of scene at Aylesbury Park to be carried out by gardaí today. 

Gardaí in Co Sligo are investigating a house fire in which a woman died last night.

Gardaí in Co Sligo are investigating a house fire in which a woman died last night.

The incident occurred at White Strand View, Aylesbury Park in Sligo town.

The emergency services were called to the house at about 9.20pm. Gardaí believe that the blaze broke out in the upstairs of the property.

A woman (34) was pronounced dead at the scene. Her remains were removed to Sligo Regional Hospital where a post mortem is to be carried out.

The two other occupants of the house, a boy (3) and male (18), were not injured during the incident.

A technical examination of the scene is to be conducted today.

Irish Kidney Association pleas for more organ donors this year

   

The Irish Kidney Association is urging people to carry Organ Donor cards as the organisations awareness week gets underway today.

The group says a record number of organ transplants were carried out last year – 294 organs were transplanted in 2013 through living and deceased organ donation.

Pat O’Sullivan from Mallow, Co. Cork, is waiting for a kidney transplant since 2012.

He explains that an organ transplant would “make a massive difference” to him.

A ring around the asteroid Chariklo makes for a surprise discovery by Scientists

  

Silly asteroid, rings are for Saturn! Not anymore. Astronomers have discovered an asteroid hosting a ring system of its very own.

A faraway asteroid named Chariklo is traveling through space with two unusual companions: a couple of dense, narrow rings. The discovery came as quite a surprise. Multiple sites around South America, including the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, observed the extraordinary feature.

“This is the smallest object by far found to have rings, and only the fifth body in the Solar System — after the much larger planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — to have this feature,” the European Southern Observatory noted in a release about the find. There is no definitive answer as to how the rings got there, but scientists speculate they may have been created from a debris field caused by an impact, along with ice.

Icy Chariklo orbits the sun between Saturn and Uranus. One of its rings is just over four miles wide, while the other ring is just under two miles wide, making them quite slim. The rings were found during a routine observation as the asteroid passed in front of a star.

“We weren’t looking for a ring and didn’t think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery — and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system — came as a complete surprise!” says Felipe Braga-Ribas, the lead author of a paper on the find published in the journal Nature.

Chariklo is named for a mythological nypmh who was married to a centaur. The rings have been given their own nicknames, Oiapoque and Chuí, after two rivers located in Brazil. The presence of the rings may indicate the asteroid also has a small moon, or that the rings could eventually form into a moon. It’s likely Chariklo isn’t done surprising us yet.   

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Update

Ryanair flies over 70 journalists to London in a major charming offensive

 

Ryanair went on a major charm offensive in London yesterday, flying in over 70 members of the media from all over Europe as it unveiled further initiatives it says will transform the carrier’s service.

The airline is also poised to make a significant jobs announcement in Dublin next week, according to the airline’s boss, Michael O’Leary.

That announcement is expected to focus on generating additional employment through its digital initiatives.

Looking surprisingly unfamiliar with the current Ryanair website, Mr O’Leary and newly-appointed chief marketing office Kenny Jacobs, said the latest version of its website will launch on April 10.

Mr O’Leary said it may launch sooner. It’s been undergoing testing for the past two months.

It will enable customers to more easily browse flight offers, allowing them to instantly see where and when they can fly with the available fares.

It will make it “much easier” for people to get the cheapest fares, according to Mr O’Leary.

As he slogged his way through Ryanair’s old website, the airline chief said that “none of this as a user experience is joined up”.

Ryanair placed an order for 175 new Boeing aircraft last year, which will increase its feleet size to over 400 aircraft. The first of those aircraft will be delivered in September.

The airline is targeting business travellers and families to help boost passenger numbers to close to 110 million by 2019. Last year it flew 81.5 million.

Mr O’Leary said that means having to soften its image, something it’s been doing since last autumn. Improving its interaction with customers and service has been dubbed the ‘Always Getting Better’ plan by the airline.

He said for families, new initiatives may include offering free checked-in baggage and free allocated seating for kids. The airline will also offer an on-board milk-warming service for babies. New family fare offers will be unveiledin April.

Muslims think they can beat their wives says an Irish Judge

   

Muslims think they can actually beat their wives, a judge has told a Tallaght Court.

Judge Anthony Halpin made his claim yesterday as he was dealing with a man accused of burgling his estranged wife’s house.

Khadar Younis, aged 46, a Somali national from Belfry Hall, Citywest, had pleaded not guilty to burglary, contravening a protection order, and possession of a knife, at Fernwood Avenue, Springfield, Tallaght, on May 10.

He also pleaded not guilty to contravening a protection order at the same address on April 10 and April 17, 2013.

Sergeant Bernard Jones said the DPP had directed summary disposal in the burglary charge.

Younis’ ex-wife, Kara Ibrahim, told the court that, on May 10, she had been asleep when she heard a noise. She said she awoke to find Mr Younis threatening her with a knife. She said Mr Younis thought he could come into the house.

Mr Younis’ lawyer, John O’Leary, said his client had been divorced by a Muslim cleric under the Quran.

Judge Halpin told Mr O’Leary: “Muslims feel as if they can actually beat their wives.” Mr O’Leary also said there was no evidence of a physical assault.

M/s Ibrahim then said she wanted to drop the case.

Judge Halpin noted that a divorce had been solemnised under the Quran by a Muslim cleric. He said he would put the case back for six months to resume the hearing or to strike out the case and told Ms Ibrahim she was to call the gardaí if there were any further breaches.

Judge Halpin remanded Mr Younis on continuing bail to a date in September.

NUI Galway University replaces maths exam papers after online viewing 

 

NUI GALWAY university IS REVIEWING ITS I.T. SECURITY SYSTEM

After the maths papers were first inadvertently viewed, word of their availability “spread like wildfire”, according to NUIG student sources.

NUI Galway (NUIG) has replaced a number of summer exam papers after students gained access to maths papers during an internet search.

The incident, which NUIG says occurred some weeks ago, has led to a review of the university’s information technology (IT) security system.

Up to 20 students are believed to have viewed the maths papers for semester two exams. NUIG is confident that the incident occurred during what sources describe as refined use of a well-known search engine, rather than due to hacking.

The papers had been uploaded on to the university’s internal server, which has protected storage that prevents it from being “googled”.

Word spread after the papers were first inadvertently viewed, word of their availability “spread like wildfire”, according to NUIG student sources. The more frequently access was then sought, the higher up the link appeared in search engine results.

It is understood that the university’s IT department became aware of the issue within several days, and the college authorities immediately withdrew the papers.

“NUIG replaced a number of exam papers as a precautionary measure,” the university said.

“The decision was prompted by inappropriate access to some exam papers which could … have compromised the integrity of the exam process.”

The university students’ union has advised any students who believed they had the maths papers that all exam papers have been replaced.

The Department of Education said that while universities across the State share the same infrastructure through the Higher Education Authority’s internet system, they would not use the same software packages “as far it was aware”.

Miracle mum had two babies after a heart, double lung and kidney transplants operations

  

Deirdre and Brian Doherty above left with children Abbie, (6 months) and Ruth, (3).

Deirdre Roche Doherty from Kilkenny is the only woman in the world to carry a successful pregnancy after her massive surgeries

“Every day I think about my donors when I look at my two children. I wouldn’t be here without them.”

These are the words of miracle mum Deirdre Roche Doherty, believed to be the only woman in the world to carry a successful pregnancy after undergoing a heart, double lung and kidney transplant.

Pictured with her husband Brian, children Ruth, three, and six-month-old Abbey, the brave mum counts her blessings for the generous people who saved her life.

Deirdre told her story yesterday at the launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week 2014, which runs from Saturday until April 5.

She said how the operations enabled her to give birth to the kids she feared she’d never have.

Deirdre said: “You never know with your health and everything else.

“It was always something I wanted but was never sure would I be able to or not. After the transplants with my consultants, we carefully planned it.

“I was very lucky. I had a great team of doctors in Coombe and the Mater looking after me. They made it possible.”

Deirdre’s health woes began when she was six months old after being diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

When Deirdre was 19 in 1996, her illness deteriorated and was told she would need surgery.

She said: “I was on oxygen and I required a double lung transplant.

“At the time they didn’t do it in Ireland, so I had to travel to Great Ormond Street [in London’. where they did the heart and double lung transplant.

“My heart was fine but back then it was easier to do heart and lungs together.”

Despite the gruelling procedure, Deirdre was presented with the opportunity to give back what she had been given when she donated her own heart to a 12-year-old boy.

After spending so much time in hospital as a youngster, Deirdre had remained in care at Crumlin when she went for her transplant and was treated on the children’s ward at Great Ormond Street.

In an amazing coincidence, this led to her being in the same unit as the kid who received her heart.

Deirdre said: “I was able to donate my heart to a little boy who ended up being in the room with me, which is very, very unusual.

“He shared the same birthday as me, which was very weird as well. It was nice to be able to give a little back.”

Deirdre’s health improved and she completed a degree in business before doing a teaching diploma.

She landed a job at CBS in Kilkenny city and still works at the school.

But Deirdre’s struggles were not over. Thirteen years after the double lung and heart operation, her kidneys began to fail.

The medicine she had been taking had began to take their toll and Deirdre was placed on dialysis, which she described as the “worst experience of my life”.

She said: “I’m very lucky. When I had all the tests done and I was on the list, I was only waiting about six weeks for the kidney transplant which I had in Beaumont.

“In the meantime, Brian proposed to me so I was due to get married in 2009. I was on the list as well for the kidney, so I was wondering, ‘What am I going to do? I’m not going to postpone this wedding.

“He said right we’ll get married in six months, so we rushed everything, got everything done. Luckily, the kidney came first.

“I got the kidney in July and I was married in October.

“It was fantastic to be able to get married, not worried about the dialysis and go on my honeymoon.”

With the help of doctors, Deirdre made plans to have her first child who arrived in 2011.

But she wanted a larger family, adding: “I decided then I’d like to have one more go at it even though people probably thought I was crazy.

“Abbey came along six months ago. I suppose I am very, very lucky to be able to have had two kids with my health problems and after undergoing transplant.

“The two girls, Ruth and Abbey, wouldn’t be here either. I am always eternally grateful to the two donor families.”

•  Meanwhile a system where everyone will be presumed to be an organ donor unless they specify otherwise is to be introduced, the Health Minister revealed yesterday.

Speaking at the launch of Organ donor Awareness Week, James Reilly added that the “opt out system of consent” would come into effect later this year.

He said its introduction was vital to ensuring there are enough organ donors to meet demand, but added no family would be forced to adhere to the scheme.

Dr Reilly said: “I’ve always said it will be very soft consent.

“In other words, even someone who is presumed to have given consent and the family object, clearly no one is going to upset the family by going against their wishes.”

The minister added the proposals were “well advanced and the legislation is being prepared”.

Former GAA star Joe Brolly called for the system to be introduced in the North last February, after he donated a kidney to clubmate Shane Finnegan.

70% of indigenous Irish software firms increased their turnover last year

 

70% OF INDIGENOUS IRISH SOFTWARE FIRMS INCREASED TURNOVER IN 2013

Seven out of 10 indigenous Irish technology companies increased their turnover by an average of 30% last year and six out of 10 are now looking outside Ireland for their main market, according to a major survey of the sector by AIB.

The sectoral report, the first of several by the bank as it targets specific industry sectors, found that despite a strong multinational presence in Ireland, there is a scaling indigenous technology sector worth €2 billion in annual sales.

This sector alone employs 30,000 people accompanied by a buoyant emerging Technology start-up ecosystem that has evolved across the country.

The research, conducted in collaboration with Amárach, the Irish Internet Association and the Irish Software Association indicates surging confidence among Irish technology companies that they will continue to enjoy significant growth in 2014 and beyond.

Almost nine-in-10 (87%) believe their outlook for 2014 is better than 2013 and three quarters (74%) plan to grow their workforce this year.  There are also challenges facing the Technology sector, he biggest of which appears to be the issue of scaling their operations to deal with the anticipated growth and expansion.

There are in excess of 700 indigenous Technology companies and 27 accelerator-Incubators (which provide pre-seed funding, training programmes and other start-up supports) now operating in the Irish economy. Three-quarters (77%) of the firms are privately held while just one in eight (13%) of them are funded by venture capital.

Of the 106 SMEs that were surveyed in this Outlook Report, three-quarters (78%) have employ less than 50 employees while 8% employed in excess of 250 people. Almost six in 10 (59%) of those surveyed had been in business for more than five years and an impressive, one in eight (13%) is in business more than 20 years. Indicating the sector’s drive to compete, a consistent proportion of six in 10 SMEs invested in R&D in 2012 (61%) and in 2013 (62%).

AIB’s head of Technology, Media & Telecoms Banking John O’Dwyer said there is accelerator movement incorporating players like Wayra, NovaUCD, the NDRC and others are playing a considerable role in attracting talent from overseas which is vital for business owners trying to grow a business in the ICT sector.

“There is a definite momentum, there is good mentorship on the ground and the funding environment is very healthy.

“Plus Ireland has a great state agency in Enterprise Ireland, making us the envy of a lot of countries.

“The start-up ecosystem is also quite strong. The firms in Ireland don’t necessarily need to go abroad to grow fast and quick, they can do it from here,” O’Dwyer.

FOCUSED BANKING?

Also speaking with Siliconrepublic.com ahead of the report’s publication this morning AIB’s head of business banking said he believed indigenous SMEs in the tech sector are poised for significant expansion.

He explained that AIB has embarked on a considerable education drive to ensure that branch managers are up to speed on the latest technologies so they can greater understand the growth issues of businesses in sectors like ICT and energy.

“We are taking a different approach to banking. It’s about how do you partner with customers and help them to make a difference. It’s about getting dealflow and building pipelines.

“We give staff in our branch network a general knowledge of industries like retail, ICT, exports and energy so they can understand the business challenges and have a working knowledge of how these companies function.

“And they have the back-up of a central specialist. For example, in the case of Enterprise Ireland HPSUs we can ensure they are assigned to experienced people who understand their challenges.

“We have a new leadership team and management team and we’re busy rebuilding the bank and putting the right structures in place so we can work with specific industry types in a purposeful, meaningful and supportive manner, sensitive to the complexities of their industry types,” Burke said.

Global warming summit in New York expects hope amid the gloom

  

Scepticism has replaced concern over climate change, so world leaders must speak up even louder about the dangers lurking ahead?

Here we go again. On Monday the world’s governments and top climate scientists will publish the most devastating assessment yet of what global warming threatens to do to the planet. And that, in turn, will intensify a new bid to forge an international agreement to tackle it.

World leaders will meet in New York in September to address climate change for the first time since the ill-fated 2009 Copenhagen summit. Then they assemble again in Paris in December next year to try once more to conclude a pact to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. But they are approaching it in a very different atmosphere from five years ago.

Not that the scientific warnings are any the less severe – quite the reverse. Monday’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to be released in Yokohama, Japan, is still being completed. But its final draft predicts that, unless speedy action is taken, floods and droughts will greatly increase, “hundreds of millions” of coastal dwellers will have to flee their homes, and the yields of major crops will fall even as population grows.

It will follow another IPCC report, in September, stating with at least 95 per cent certainty that humanity is heating up the planet. A third, to be published next month, will conclude that not nearly enough is being done to head off disaster. And this week a World Meteorological Organisation report concluded that recent extreme weather – such as our floods, the icy American winter, and an unprecedentedly hot 2013 in Australia – are consistent with global warming, while the Met Office warned that heatwaves worse than the one that killed 2,000 Britons in 2003 will blight most summers by the 2040s.

Last time, such warnings were almost universally accepted, but they now fall on much more sceptical ears. That is partly because the predecessor to Monday’s report contained several inaccuracies, most notably vastly overestimating the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting.

Over the intervening years, fashionable scepticism has replaced fashionable concern over climate change. And government leaders, traumatised by their experience in Copenhagen, have tended to stay quiet.

So while expectations were sky-high for what was dubbed “Hopenhagen”, they are rock-bottom for Paris next year. Yet it is possible that the present pessimism is equally misplaced. For there have also been more positive changes.

Almost unnoticed in Britain, the two main obstacles to agreement in the Danish capital – the United States and China – are taking a lead in combating global warming, no small thing considering that they together account for two-fifths of world emissions. President Obama – who privately feels his record on climate change was the biggest failure of his first term – has made it a top priority for his second.

Unable to get climate laws through a Republican House of Representatives, he is instead resorting to executive orders to cut carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and power stations. Together with the rapid expansion of shale gas – less polluting than coal – these are likely, unexpectedly, to enable the US to meet the target of a 17 per cent reduction by 2020 unveiled, to widespread scepticism, in Copenhagen.

Even more improbably, China, which burns about half the world’s coal, is beginning to move away from it, partly to clean up the smogs that kill an estimated quarter of a million of its citizens each year. Scores of planned new coal plants are being scrapped, while in December the national energy administration announced that, for the first time, more renewable energy than fossil-fuel power generation capacity joined the grid in the first 10 months of 2013. Some expect China’s emissions to peak in the next decade.

The two governments have agreed to cooperate, and the US is prioritising an international agreement in Paris. Meanwhile 61 of the 66 countries responsible for 88 per cent of the world’s emissions have passed legislation to control them: in all, nearly 500 laws have been adopted worldwide.

There is also a shift from seeing combating climate change as sacrificing growth to realising that it can increase it.

Renewable energy is taking off; it’s worldwide capacity is already over 10 times what was predicted at the turn of the millennium. And opposition to action is beginning to fade. One survey shows that even most US Republicans under the age of 35 regard sceptics as “ignorant”, “out of touch” or “crazy”.

It could, of course, all yet go horribly wrong, as in Copenhagen. Even at best, no agreement in Paris is likely to match up to what is needed to control global warming.

But, despite the prevailing gloom, a more solid basis for making a start on tackling the threat may be coming into place than in the heady atmosphere of 2009.