Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Thursday

Too early to say if Ireland’s positive tax receipts signals a change of direction

 

There are positive signs but many variables mean that caution is required?

When the troika was in town, the Government’s strategy was to under-promise and over-deliver. It allowed the Department of Finance hit its headline budgetary targets with something to spare, even if key metrics, such as income tax and VAT, remained in the doldrums.

In the post-bailout world, however, the focus may be shifting back to what’s happening in the real economy.

The exchequer returns for March provide the first clear insight into the health of the State’s finances since the end of last year.

This is because figures for the first two months of the year were distorted by the introduction of the euro-wide Sepa payments system.

At face value, yesterday’s numbers were positive.

Tax revenues in for the first quarter were €9.2 billion, representing an increase of €415 million or 4.7 per cent on the same period last year.

Significantly, tax as a whole was €257 million or 2.9% ahead of profile.

The big question, however, is whether this reflects the marked upsurge in employment last year, and the first inklings of a concerted rise in consumer spending and consumer confidence.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said all along that the clearest signal of what is happening in the economy is the growth in employment.

Up until now, however, this growth has not been showing up – in any meaningful way – in income tax or in domestic demand. The view taken by some is that the new jobs are not in high-paying sectors of the economy.

There is also the fact that disposable income on average remains on a downward slide, not helped by the introduction of a property tax.

Nonetheless, yesterday’s figures indicated income tax receipts were up €129 million, or 3.5 per cent, and were €4 million ahead of the Department of Finance’s expectations.

The main consumption-related taxes, VAT and excise duty, were up 6.4 per cent and 11. 5 per cent respectively.

An eye-catching drop in corporation tax receipts, which came in at €256 million – 35 per cent down on last year – was explained by a once-off tax payment by an unnamed pharmaceutical company made late last year, which had not been factored into the department’s initial projections.

All of this reads positive, perhaps too positive, with so much of the year still to run.

Reading a pattern into the convalescing Irish economy is fraught with difficulty, not least because several factors that will determine the economy’s future trajectory – and indeed the Government’s potential tax receipts – are outside of its control.

Take the situation in the Ukraine. If things worsen, consumers could be facing higher oil and gas prices, which could have an extremely negative effect on consumer spending.

Data for industrial output, exports and hence GDP are being driven by an exceptional fall-off in the profitability of the pharmaceutical sector associated with the so-called patent cliff. This will, in time, be worked through but the overall impact on the economy is difficult to gauge.

The Government’s prediction for GDP growth at the end of last year, which had factored in the patent cliff, was way off.

Then there is the pick-up in euro zone growth, a key requirement for economic recovery here. This is going is the right direction but only just.

All of this means it’s simply too early to state, with any certainty, where the domestic economy is headed.

New debt forgiveness scheme could save Irish SMEs now battered by the downturn

 

A debt-forgiveness scheme for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) battered by the crash is among proposals to be examined by a high- level working group being set up by the Government, the Irish Independent has learned.

 Irish Banks will be asked to cancel some company debts in exchange for shares in even small firms if the debt-for- equity proposal is taken up, according to sources close to the process.

The radical plan is seen as one possible way to salvage the balance sheets of small businesses battered by the debt bubble and subsequent seven-year crash.

The idea is one of a number on the agenda for the new working group in the process of being established under the umbrella of the State-led Consultative Committee on SME Funding.

Examining ways to encourage investment such as potentially revitalising the old tax break-based Business Expansion Scheme (BES) and the possibility of utilising funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF) will also be on the table.

The lack of equity investment for SMEs is emerging as a significant blockage in the economy, particularly as things start to pick up and the demand for capital increases.

Up to now, the big emphasis has been on the supply of credit.

As the volume of lending available has increased both from the banks and from new purpose-built lending funds, the focus is shifting to the issues that are hampering companies’ capacity to borrow.

A good example is the house building trade. Banks and NAMA say they have credit available and there is evidence in Dublin in particular of demand for new homes.

But one reason more houses are not being built is because builders are unable to come up with the share of finance they need to produce to allow banks to lend prudently.

HURTING: Similar issues are hurting other parts of the economy because historic losses have diminished balance sheets even for companies that are now trading well.

It’s a real concern, not least because experience elsewhere is that more companies can end up going to the wall during an economic upturn – when cash is needed for new products – as in a downturn.

The problem is understood to be most acute at the smaller end of the economy – the more than 90% of companies with 10 or fewer employees.

The Consultative Committee on SME Funding brings together representatives of agencies including the Department of Finance, Department of Jobs and Enterprise, Enterprise Ireland and the county enterprise boards as well as industry groups such as ISME and the Small Firms’ Associations and the banks.

At a meeting on March 24, it is understood a decision was taken to set up a new sub-group to try to examine the problems in relation to equity funding.

The make-up of the sub-group has yet to be determined but the plan is to put together a group of six committee members representing a cross-section of industry, banks and government agencies.

Mobile phones now linked to erectile dysfunction?

ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

 

Researchers found a positive correlation between increased mobile phone usage and erectile dysfunction – but said the results are inconclusive

In what will prove very unwelcome news to the male population, a new study has linked mobile phones to erectile dysfunction (ED).

But before you throw your phone out of the window in a panic, larger-scale research is needed to prove the findings.

Medical teams in Austria and Egypt identified a positive correlation between carrying a switched-on mobile phone and ED, according to a report published in the Central European Journal of Urology.

The pilot study was based a group of 20 men who had complained of ED for at least six months, as well as another group of 10 healthy men with no history of ED. There was no significant difference between either group regarding age, weight, height, smoking, total testosterone or exposure to other known sources of radiation.

All men completed the German version of the Sexual Health Inventory for Men (SHIM) for evaluation of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), as well as another questionnaire designed to assess their mobile phone usage.

According to the researchers, the men suffering from ED carried their switched-on mobiles for an average of 4.4 hours a day, compared with just 1.8 hours for those without any problems.

But researchers conceded that more data is required to prove the findings.

Mobile phones have previously been linked to an increased risk of cancer, particularly brain tumours. In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified mobile phones for the first time in their “gold-standard” rating system. They rated the devices as “group 2B” – meaning that they could “possibly” cause cancer in humans.

However, no conclusive link was found.

Maaaa you won’t believe this.. Irish farmer shows off half-goat - half-sheep ‘A gooeep’

  

A Kildare pub owner and sheep farmer Paddy Murphy (above) is now in fact the proud owner of a ‘gooeep’, a half-goat half-sheep hybrid.

Paddy Murphy thought it was a sign of good luck – to have a black lamb among white.

But it turns out the Kildare pub owner and sheep farmer is now in fact the proud owner of a ‘gooeep’, a half-goat, half-sheep.

“They were all normal lambs except this fella,” he told independent.ie

“He was born about midnight and I noticed it was black for a start, but it was very fast to move. It was too fast for a lamb.

“It also has much longer legs than a lamb, it was then I realised it must be a gooeep.”

Paddy, who owns Murphy’s pub in Ballymore Eustace, said the unusual looking lamb, which also has horns, has caused a bit of a stir in the local area.

“It’s a great attraction at the moment,” he said, “and there’s a great buzz about the place.

“At the moment it’s so fast it’s like a hare among the lambs. It just takes off.”

The gooeep is an extremely rare occurrence in Ireland.

“This is very unusual,” Paddy said, “One farmer had actually told me it’s not possible at all but here he is.”

New study reveals how sharks hunt their prey

  

From the first sniff of potential prey to their final chomp, sharks have evolved into one of nature’s greatest predators.

The threat sharks pose to humans is vastly overblown. National Geographic, for example, reports that only five people die from shark attacks annually, which means that deer, ants, jellyfish and vending machines all kill more. Still there is something about the ancient predators that strikes fear in the hearts of many. From shark week to Sharknado people seem to have a morbid fascination with the creatures.

While sharks are really not very dangerous to people, they are one of nature’s most highly evolved predators. Sharks have been around for, at least, 400 million years and over that time have evolved to do one thing, really well.

Now, a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE has taken an in-depth look at the hunting process of sharks, from beginning to end. The study, led by scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory, the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa and Boston University is the first to look at how sharks use their sense of touch, smell and vision to guide their behaviors.

According to past studies, sharks sense prey by smell first, swim upstream towards it, use water movement to locate their target and attack using vision or electroreception. Electroreception is a specially evolved sense which detects electric fields from living prey. However, this is the first study to examine how all of these senses work together and how they may vary between shark species.

“Our findings may surprise a lot of people. The general public often hears that sharks are all about the smell of prey, that they’re like big swimming noses. In the scientific community it has been suggested that some sharks, like blacktips, are strongly visual feeders. But in this study, what impressed us most was not one particular sense, but the sharks’ ability to switch between multiple senses and the flexibility of their behavior,” said Dr. Jayne Gardiner, lead author of the study, in a statement.

For their study the researchers used blacktip, bonnethead and nurse sharks, three very different types of sharks in terms of their habitat, body structure and hunting strategies. They placed the sharks in a specially designed tank and observed their normal hunting process.

The team then blocked the sharks senses one at a time using nose plugs, eye coverings and antibiotics to interfere with their sense of touch and electrically insulating materials to interfere with their electrosensory abilities. As individual senses were compromised, the group studied how the animals hunting behavior changed.

All of this was videotaped so the team could examine and re-examine the behavior of the animals. “We had hundreds of video clips to sort through, and we had to get just the right angle to see when the shark was capturing the prey,” Gardiner said.

The results showed that different sharks reacted differently to the loss of certain senses. With their noses blocked, for example, blacktops and bonnetheads could still find prey but nurse sharks could not. Blocking vision and their lateral line sense of touch simultaneously prevented sharks from striking at the right time, but when only vision was blocked, the sharks could still strike at the right time by detecting water movements. With their electroreception blocked the sharks failed to capture prey, except by luck.

“We sought to discover how sharks use their highly evolved senses to hunt and locate prey, knowing it involved more than just a good sense of smell. What we found was amazing, not only in how the various senses mesh together but also how one shark species can vary from another. Not all sharks behave alike,” said Dr. Bob Hueter, Director of Mote’s Center for Shark Research and co-author of the current study.

Researchers believe that the work with sharks may also help them to understand the behavior and habits of other ocean predators. “Sharks (…) are not unique in their sensory guidance of hunting: They exploit information fields available to all marine species. Thus, the results may be seen as a general blueprint for underwater hunting, modifiable by habitat and by the behavioral specializations of many different aquatic animals from lobsters to whales,” according to the paper.

Currently, many shark species are threatened and endangered. This is largely due to overfishing, but environmental pollution also plays a role. Pollution can interfere with the animals’ senses and their ability to hunt.

The research team hopes that by better understanding their behavior, the animals can be better protected.  “I think the sharks’ abilities to switch between different senses may make them more resilient in the wild. They may be more flexible and better adapted to deal with environmental changes – but not all human impacts. Overfishing is still overfishing,” said Gardener.