Miriam O’Callaghan has no problem with European candidate Ronan Mullen’s using photo’s
The election poster with Miriam O’Callaghan and Ronan Mullen (on the left).
The popular RTE star Miriam denies backing Ronan’s campaign as her picture is used in his voting drive for Europe.
European candidate Senator Ronan Mullen is using a picture of RTE star Miriam O’Callaghan in his election leaflet.
Leaflets sent to voters in the Midlands/North West constituency feature a snap of the Senator and the top presenter at an Irish Hospice Foundation event.
The picture could pose a problem for Miriam, 54, as broadcasters are strictly banned from endorsing candidates.
But a spokeswoman for M/s O’Callaghan said she had no issue with the pictures appearing in the leaflet. She said: “Miriam first became aware of it last Tuesday.
Miriam carries out three charity events a week and it is perfectly clear in the leaflet the picture was taken at a charity event.
“It is clear that she is not endorsing his campaign and does not intend to make any complaint.”
The European elections kicked off on Tuesday night with posters being erected across the country.
Candidates are also sending letters to hundreds of thousands of homes.
Senator Mullen’s leaflet includes four pictures under the headline: “A record of representation.”
Snaps of Ronan speaking in the Seanad and at the Council of Europe sit alongside the image of him with Miriam at the charity event.
The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland rules state: “Endorsements by broadcasters of election candidates, participating political parties or election interests are not permitted.
“Similarly, endorsements by staff who are employed, contracted or who volunteer with a broadcaster are also not permitted.
“Broadcasters should ensure that those with responsibility for overseeing election coverage are fully familiar with the content of these guidelines and the provisions of the Code Of Fairness, objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs.”
Senator Mullen was unavailable yesterday but his spokeswoman said the picture was used to illustrate “public activity”.
She added: “Ronan hasn’t sought endorsement. This was cleared personally with Miriam O’Callaghan as a courtesy.
“He contacted her in advance, advised her that he wasn’t in any way seeking an endorsement of presenting it as same.
“He realised her position as a journalist. He mentioned it as a courtesy and there was none. Miriam was very courteous.”
FG Brian Hayes stares defeat in the face in European elections,
A RECENT POLL SHOWS
Fine Gael Junior Minister Brian Hayes is facing defeat in next month’s European elections as Sinn Fein and Independents look set to capitalise on a wave of anti-Government public sentiment.
According to a new Sunday Independent/MillwardBrown opinion poll of the make or break Dublin constituency, the first comprehensive poll of its kind in this election, a decisive backlash against both Fine Gael and Labour is crystallising, with less than five weeks to polling day.
Today’s poll shows Fine Gael junior finance minister Brian Hayes, the perceived early favourite to take the first seat, is lagging behind Sinn Fein’s Lynn Boylan (20%) and Independent MEP Nessa Childers (19%).
Based on the figures published today, Mr Hayes, on 15%, is in a dogfight for the last seat with Fianna Fail’s Mary Fitzpatrick (13%), Labour’s Emer Costello (12%) and Green Party leader and former Minister Eamon Ryan (11%).
Our poll also asked for people’s second preference in terms of candidate and of greater concern for Mr Hayes, is the fact he is not as transfer friendly as Ms Costello, Mr Ryan or even Ms Fitzpatrick.
On this basis, Mr Hayes is facing an uphill battle to take one of the three Dublin seats. Any failure by Fine Gael to win a seat in Dublin would have serious internal ramifications for Mr Kenny within a party who are furious about the mishandling of the Shatter crisis.
Nationally, taking both yesterday’s Irish Independent poll and today’s poll together, Sinn Fein look set to take three seats in the European Parliament, one in each constituency, which would represent a remarkable surge in their fortunes. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail look set to take two seats each, while Labour are only in contention for one seat.
According to today’s Dublin poll, which was taken last Tuesday and Wednesday, Ms Childers is the most transfer friendly of all of the candidates, with18 per cent saying they would give her their number two preference.
Sitting unelected Socialist MEP Paul Murphy, who replaced Joe Higgins after he was elected to the Dail in 2011, is polling at just 4pc and at this stage looks unlikely to retain his seat.
Mr Murphy is sitting one point behind the People Before Profit candidate, Brid Smith, while Direct Democracy Ireland’s Tom Darcy is at 1pc.
For full Coverage of the Sunday Independent/MillwardBrown opinion poll, see tomorrow’s Sunday Independent or Independent.ie
Irish broadband connection’s to be improved with Fibre powered service for everybody
RURAL IRELAND’S DODGY BROADBAND IS GOING TO GET MUCH BETTER?
Almost one million rural households and businesses in Ireland are to see a boost in their broadband service following an announcement that fibre powered broadband is spreading all over the country.
Fibre Powered broadband
The Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, announced that the Government has committed to a “major telecommunications network build-out to rural Ireland” which will see reliable high speed broadband for all.
In today’s poll up to 2am the poll results below show that Irish people rate their internet connection as pretty poor at 30%.
The Poll Results:
Ireland’s Government to invest €512m on Internet to ensure entire country is covered with fibre cable
IRELAND’S GOVERNMENT TO INVEST €512M TO ENSURE ENTIRE COUNTRY COVERED IN FIBRE
Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has said his department has Cabinet sign-off on a €512m plan to ensure 1,100 villages in areas commercial operators don’t consider viable will be connected to future-proofed fibre networks.
Rabbitte said in urban areas in Ireland, broadband is already comparable with any city in Europe or the US and that industry investment since 2012 has been €2bn.
Currently, Eircom is rolling out a €400m Next Generation Access fibre network that will provide 1.4m homes with 100Mbps by 2016 – 800,000 homes can now access this network.
As well as this, UPC has invested €500m in connecting more than 700,000 homes with 200Mbps broadband and businesses with up to 500Mbps broadband.
The ESB is entering into a joint venture with Vodafone to bring fibre to towns and villages across Ireland in a plan that will address 450,000 homes.
And three out of four of Ireland’s mobile operators have begun rolling out their 4G networks.
Wooden poles
However, Rabbitte pointed out that the private-sector companies’ plans do not address 1,100 villages and districts in rural Ireland, amounting to around 900,000 homes and businesses.
He said the Government is deliberately stepping away from metrics, such as having a minimum of 30Mbps to every home by 2015, and will instead look further down the line and aim to have future-proofed fibre as readily available as possible.
The new plan envisages spending between €355m at the lower end and €512m at the upper end to connect between 1,000 and 1,200 villages.
“Large tracts of Ireland have a basic service that is not acceptable. People are entitled as citizens to the same quality and there’s a huge argument in terms of regional development and facilitating businesses in provincial Ireland.”
He pointed out Ireland spent €17.5bn on its roads between 2002 and 2012 and virtually nothing on telecoms infrastructure, which is vital to the future.
“Fibre is the Rolls-Royce of connectivity and this investment will provide the opportunity for parts of rural Ireland to anticipate they will have this access.”
He said it is intended to connect rural areas with fibre via ESB poles whereby a third, slightly lower-hanging cable containing the fibre would be added and which would be contained in a protected sleeve.
Rabbitte said the plan is ultimately to address areas simply not served by existing operators and that a commercial operator selected by the State would sell the fibre services to homes and business.
Delivery of the fibre network is dependent on the Government also qualifying for funding from the European Investment Bank, as well as getting funds from the Strategic Investment Fund (National Pension Reserve).
Rollout of the new infrastructure will only happen once a detailed mapping exercise is carried out for the European Union.
While Rabbitte acknowledged the rollout won’t be complete “during the life time of this Government” he said the aim is to have the process complete in the next four years.
“Data is exploding. What we know for certain is the pace of change of technology requires future-proofing, not solutions that would be inadequate in a few years. It’s important to get the solution right.”
Economic impact
Rabbitte said he is hopeful the arrival of the ESB/Vodafone joint venture will help drive competition and ensure services are affordable.
“Eircom sees the new joint venture as competition for them, but competition is good.”
In talking with the Irish Farmers Association, he said the use of ESB poles to distribute the new fibre will not require any changes to existing relations with landowners.
Ultimately, Rabbitte said, the people of Ireland, especially rural Ireland, right now want the proper broadband quality that people are enjoying in towns and cities across the world.
“People of rural Ireland are more concerned about getting a quality service than whether the State owns the network.”
The real reward, he said, will be the economic impact fibre will have on local economies.
“The exciting thing is it will provide young people in rural Ireland with the opportunity to employ themselves and stay employed and stay in their own region.
“This is an opportunity that the entire west coast of Ireland never had before when faced with emigration.
“This technology offers the opportunity for people to make a living in their domestic environment.”
He cited the example of an architect in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, who works with customers in London, who would be otherwise unemployed if not for an 80Mbps broadband connection. Another company, Western Print & Packaging in Loughrea, Co Galway, has seen its business prospects transformed because of the ability to transact online.
“I believe this kind of transformation can have the same impact in Clonakilty or anywhere else in the country,” Rabbitte said.
Our generation will be the last to worry about dying from cancer
SAYS TOP GB SCIENTIST
A leading research scientist in Cambridge GB Prof. Evan (above left) is confident the next generation will not have to “worry” so much about dying from cancer.
World-renowned cancer research expert Professor Gerard Evan believes that remarkable developments in technology and knowledge of gene mutation has revolutionised the treatment of cancer.
“We are going to see dramatic shifts in our abilities to treat and contain human cancers in the next 10, 15, 20 years,” said the Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge in Britain.
“I can pretty confidently say that my children will never have to worry about dying from cancer in their lifetimes.”
Prof Evan was speaking ahead of joining 40 researchers from throughout Ireland who will gather next week to help explain the latest developments in the science behind battling cancer – as the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) announces the ‘Researcher of the Year’ award for pioneering work.
“I can’t tell you how exciting it is at the moment for someone who has spent their life in cancer research,” Professor Evan told the Irish Independent.
The researcher explained that his own offspring were now aged 24 and 32 but in 30 years’ time, he strongly believes, cancer will be treatable.
“I’m more worried about global warming than my children dying of cancer,” he said.
“I started my life as a graduate student in 1977 and for the first 25 years of that, most of us thought if breakthroughs would come it would be 100 years from now – it was almost banging your head against a brick wall.”
Over the past 15 years a combination of technological developments and increased understanding of gene mutation has driven research forwards. Now laboratories can strip cells down and identify the ‘drivers’ behind the cancer which has allowed pharmacists to make drugs to inhibit them.
“The combination has done amazing things – for decades there were no really new cancer drugs working in new ways,” he said.
Now, some drugs can put patients into remission in 60pc of cases for five or 10 years.
“The way things are going, if the person relapses there will be lots of new drugs in five or 10 years,” he said.
“We will be able to knock them back again and again.”
He highlighted multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells, once considered “pretty much a death sentence”, yet a combination of three drugs has now “transformed the lives” of a large number suffering from the disease.
Prof Evan is just one of a number of experts who will be addressing the ICS’s free public event on research aiming to eliminate cancer on Wednesday, April 30 at the Hilton Hotel, at Charlemont Place, in Dublin 2.
The event, taking place from 5pm to 7pm, is free.
Warning’s on side effects of drugs for Irish people suffering from mental illness
Failure to monitor the side-effects of drugs to treat long-term mental illness is shaving up to 20 years off the lives of thousands of patients, according to a leading consultant psychiatrist.
Siobhán Barry said up to 100,000 people, “enough to fill Croke Park on any given Sunday”, are on psychotropic medications — which have been shown to cause conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
This was mainly because of the significant weight gain associated with these drugs, said Dr Barry. In addition, many suffering mental ill health also smoked, and this compounded their physical health problems.
Yet the reality was psychiatric outpatients were not regularly monitored for the adverse health effects of long-term medication.
Ideally, their metabolic and cardiac health should be monitored from the time they started on medication and then checked every six months, Dr Barry said.
Potential problems could be picked up that way and addressed early. Failure to carry out these health checks was “reckless”, she said.
Instead, she said, they “die 20 years younger than their peers” who do not have enduring mental illness and are not on long-term medication.
The drugs in question included powerful tranquillisers such as Olanzapine, used to treat schizophrenia, rather than common antidepressants.
Addressing doctors at the Irish Medical Organisation’s AGM in Co Kildare, Dr Barry proposed a motion calling on Health Minister James Reilly to request that the Mental Health Commission audit the adequacy of facilities available for the physical monitoring of outpatients prescribed long-term psychotropic medication.
The motion was passed unanimously.
A separate motion calling on Dr Reilly to “urgently publish guidelines” in respect of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was also passed.
Outgoing IMO president, consultant psychiatrist Matt Sadlier, said failure to supply guidelines to doctors was akin to giving someone sitting a driving test a copy of a Road Traffic Act instead of the rules of the road.
However, the Department of Health said yesterday that a final draft of the guidance document to assist health professionals in the implementation of the Act has been signed off by a committee tasked with drawing up the guidelines.
“It is expected that this document will be ready for publication and dissemination shortly,” a department spokesman said.
How sloths breathe upside down as explained by Zoology scientists
Zoology researcher Rebecca Cliffe studied how sloths were able to breathe normally hanging upside down
A Swansea University team has found out how sloths are able to spend up to 90% of their lives hanging upside down yet continue breathing normally.
The research found the mammals, which live in the rainforests of south and central America, have a way of fixing their internal organs to the rib cage.
These adhesions prevent the stomach, liver, kidneys and even the bowels and bladder from pressing on the diaphragm.
The research carried out in Costa Rica is published by the Royal Society.
The scientists say much is still to be learned about these elusive and endangered creatures – the world’s slowest mammals – as even basic information such as their natural diet and habitat preference remains a mystery.
PhD zoology researcher Rebecca Cliffe, 24, is one of the authors of the paper, based on work at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica.
The research was carried out a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica
She said: “With an extremely slow metabolic rate and low energy diet, sloths are experts at saving energy.
“They have a very slow rate of digestion and can store up to a third of their body weight in urine and faeces. For a mammal that spends a significant amount of time hanging upside down, this large abdominal weight pressing down on the lungs would make breathing very costly in terms of energy, if not impossible.
“Sloths have solved this problem by anchoring their organs against the rib cage.
The facts about Sloth’s.
• The sloth is the world’s slowest mammal, so sedentary that green algae grows on its coat, which helps camouflage it
• They sleep for 15-20 hours a day and even when awake will remain motionless
• Sloths carry up to a third of their bodyweight in urine and faeces and will only defecate once a week
• Sloths are endangered.
“They have multiple internal adhesions that bear the weight of the stomach and bowels when the sloth hangs inverted. We estimate that these adhesions could reduce a sloths energy expenditure by 7% – 13% when hanging upside down.
To a sloth, an energy saving of 7% – 13% is a big deal. They generate just about enough energy from their diet to move when and where required, but there is not much left in the tank afterwards.
“It would be energetically very expensive, if not completely impossible, for a sloth to lift this extra weight with each breath were it not for the adhesions. The presence of these simple adhesions therefore really is vital.”
Prof Rory Wilson, of the College of Science at Swansea University, a joint author of the paper, said: “Nothing that sloths do is normal.
“They are quite the most extraordinary and “off-the-wall” mammals I have ever come across and yet we know so very little about them.
“How foolish we would be to watch these creatures become victims of deforestation and habitat fragmentation and the like without having the slightest idea how to help.”
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