Irish taxpayer being forced ‘to plug €58m hole in regulatory bill’
Noonan pledges to establish working group to examine costs to State of financial regulation
Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty said this was an unacceptable way for such an important and profitable industry to be regulated.
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan is to establish a special working group to examine the costs to the State of financial regulation.
This comes in the wake of revelations that the Irish taxpayer is being forced to plug a €58 million hole in the State’s annual regulatory bill.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the Central Bank confirmed to him that €57.9 million of the State’s €136 million bill for overseeing the sector in 2013 went “unrecovered”.
Mr Doherty had raised the question of regulatory costs with Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan at a recent finance committee meeting.
In a written reply to the Donegal TD, Prof Honohan confirmed that just under 50 per cent of the regulatory costs were still being funded by the State.
“This effectively means the taxpayer is picking up the tab for regulating the financial industry. That is an unacceptable way for such an important and profitable industry to be regulated,” Mr Doherty said.
“The time has come for Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to tell the financial services industry that it must pay for its upkeep,” he said.
In a statement, the Department of Finance said Mr Noonan planned to establish a working group in the new year to examine the issue on foot of a request from the Central Bank.
The group is to be made up of personnel from the department and the Central Bank and would feed into a consultation process aimed at shifting the entire cost of regulation onto the industry itself, the department said.
Currently, banks and other financial institutions pay only half the costs of the State’s financial regulatory budget, albeit with some sectoral variations, an arrangement that was agreed back in 2010.
Most of the regulation costs stem from the introduction of new EU banking rules imposed on the sector after the financial crash.
Prof Honohan is, however, keen to move to 100 per cent funding by the industry prior to the introduction of new rules connected with the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), which will increase the costs of the regulation further.
The department said: “The [proposed consultation] process would also take into consideration issues such as; the fee model proposed under the SSM; the use of 100 per cent industry funding by Irish regulators in other sectors; the disparate sectoral complexities within the financial services industry; affordability; and the impact on Ireland’s competitiveness vis-à-vis competing jurisdictions in the area of financial services.”
In his letter to Mr Doherty, Prof Honohan listed the sectors that only contributed 50 per cent of their regulatory costs. These included insurance undertakings, securities and investment firms, investment funds and investment fund service providers and moneylenders.
“We are talking about some businesses with turnovers in the millions if not billions,” Mr Doherty said.
In 2010, the Government established an annual industry funding levy to fund approximately 50 per cent of the cost of the annual budget for financial regulation.
Following a consultation process last year, the Central Bank introduced a revised approach to the levy calculation process designed to more closely align the funding of the costs of financial regulation with its supervisory resources.
40% of us vow to get fit in the New Year
Two in five 40% of people are aiming to get fit in the New Year and three quarters of people asked for workout gear for Christmas, a survey has found.
In the age of computer games and electronic gadgets, people are more than ever pledging to beat the sedentary life.
The New Year has traditionally been the favoured time for new resolutions and a survey of 2,500 people found that even before the Christmas holidays, 85% had already decided what they would change for 2015.
The survey asked how many people has split their pants in the gym, with 8pc admitting that this had happened to them while 10pc admitted to a treadmill tumble.
It also found that music was a must for working out at the gym with and that one in four four had a gym crush.
When questioned about a “gym idol,” two names were outright winners, actress Jessica Alba and wrestler and actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Technology has also changed the way that people train, with three out of four runners saying that they now track their runs using GPS devices, such as a phone app.
The survey also asked how far each respondent thought that they could run with two in five claiming to be able to travel at least 5km and one in five saying at least 10km.
The survey was carried out by Irish sports chain Life Style Sports. It also found that 50% of people were exercising at least three times a week.
Tracking
“This is the first running and fitness survey that we have conducted and it made for some fascinating reading.
“It’s inspiring to see that people are running or working out at least three times a week, even during these cold winter months,” Debbie Byrne, marketing manager, said.
HSE to launch new supports to help smokers quit
The HSE is today launching new additional supports as part of its QUIT programme to help people who want to give up smoking.
The QUIT service provides a support team of counsellors over the phone, by email, live web-chat or via Twitter and Facebook.
It also features a new interactive website with an online QUIT plan.
People who sign up to the standard treatment programme will be tracked and supported for 12 months.
More information is available on the website QUIT.IE. More than 7,200 people signed up to the QUIT programme in 2014.
Dr. Stephanie O’Keeffe outlined how the HSE will promote the new QUIT service.
“On this day last year, our QUIT campaign launched its powerful advertising featuring Gerry Collins from Greystones in Co. Wicklow, who died earlier this year from lung cancer caused by smoking,” she said.
“Gerry’s trio of unique adverts have prompted a remarkable response from smokers trying to quit since they first aired in January 2014, and his family have generously committed to allowing the HSE to continue to use these adverts to lead the QUIT campaign.
“We will continue to show Gerry’s ads – giving people a chance to reflect on why they should quit.
“From now on, they’ll be matched by a call to contact the new QUIT support service – helping smokers know how to quit. We aim to add to the fantastic total of over 500,000 quit attempts prompted by our campaign since 2011.
“We want to continue to reduce the number of smokers, preventable deaths and many thousands of disabilities caused by tobacco that devastate families across the nation each year.”
‘I’m struck by the green every time I fly back to Ireland’
‘Ireland and Me: by Margaret O’Donnell, San Diego, California.
‘On our approach into Dublin, once we have lurched our way through several layers of those dark, threatening clouds, there it is, in all of its verdant shades.
It’s been eleven years since I left. I did not intend to stay this long. The original plan was to leave after seven years, taking husband and cats with me, and move back to my apartment in Dublin.
Then, I became used to my life on a small island across the bay from San Diego. The weather is perfect here. Most days, I need no longer rush to the window to pull back the curtains to see if there’s an aqua blue sky outside. It’s usually there and, if not, it will be back shortly. No living under low, threatening, dark clouds for me. “Ah, but that’s what makes Ireland so green” I’m told here.
Yet, I’m struck by that green every time I fly back to Ireland. On our approach into Dublin, once we have lurched our way through several layers of those dark, threatening clouds, there it is, in all of its verdant shades. It speaks to me as if my very blood were green.
I feel a childlike delight when I listen to the announcements (in Irish and in English), that I’m back in Dublin again. My spirit veritably jumps up and down, listening to people who speak like I do. It is through the people at home (and I still call it “home”) that I again find my own identity. Strangers, family, good friends. All of them help me knit myself back together again.
The people in Southern California are, in the main, kind and well-meaning. Most of them rejoice in my Irishness and that still fills me with wonder. Being Irish here is like having that extra passport that lets you pass by the normal borders people have with strangers.
I sometimes get away with things because it is put down to my Irish “quirkiness”. It is even said I am some people’s favourite Irish person. That possibly would be because I’m the only Irish person they know. In some instances, my role as an “ambassador” makes me want to present the best me possible, so that we don’t all get a bad name. I strive to be better in all kinds of ways which, of course, has to be a good thing.
But no matter how well received I am here, I feel like I’m getting into a comfortable suit of clothes when I go home. I never feel that in San Diego. I’m too watchful, alert to the very high sense of “political correctness” I find here sometimes. There’s nothing wrong with being careful about others’ feelings, but when you have to watch your Ps and Qs because someone might take umbrage against my saying the word “Christmas” for instance.
And sometimes I just don’t care what I say. Not in a bad way, but I just have to let go of the constraints for a moment. There is also the dichotomy of what I hear and the behaviours I see that really confuse me sometimes. At home, everything tends to be more overt.
There’s an ache in my heart when I think of family and friends that an annual two-week holiday never fills. Yet I know I have an incredibly good life here in so many ways and should feel thankful. I do feel thankful. I just want it all. The Irish and the American. I will have to just be content with what I have. And it is indeed a good life.
UK scientists plan to grow lettuce on Mars
Photos of the lettuce are to be transmitted to Earth so the public and scientists would be able to watch the lettuce mature
Scientists could soon be enjoying out of this world lettuces
A team of scientists have created a plan to grow lettuce on Mars, and it has been short-listed to be included in a future space flight to the red planet.
The project, being run at the University of Southampton, aims to put the first life on Mars by growing the salad vegetable in a greenhouse which will use the atmosphere and sunlight to help it grow.
The plan is one of 10 short-listed university projects, and the only one from the UK, to be selected for potential inclusion in the payload for the Mars One landing in 2018.
Project leader Suzanna Lucarotti said: “To live on other planets we need to grow food there. No-one has ever actually done this and we intend to be the first.
“This plan is both technically feasible and incredibly ambitious in its scope, for we will be bringing the first complex life to another planet.
“Growing plants on other planets is something that needs to be done, and will lead to a wealth of research and industrial opportunities that our plan aims to bring to the University of Southampton.
“We have tackled diverse sets of engineering challenges, including aeroponic systems, bio filters, low-power gas pressurisation systems and fail-safe planetary protection systems and then integrated them all into one payload on a tight mass, power and cost budget.”
For the project called £LettuceOnMars, the greenhouse would be launched from Earth with lettuce seeds, water, nutrients, and systems for atmospheric processing and electronic monitoring.
On the way to Mars, it would be powered down and inactive whilst the lettuce seeds are frozen.
Following a safe landing, the Mars One lander will start to supply power and heating elements to maintain a temperature between 21C to 24C.
Carbon dioxide, which is essential for plant life, would be extracted from the Martian atmosphere and processed before entering the growth chamber.
The lettuce would then be grown without soil and would be regularly sprayed with water and nutrients (aeroponically).
Once the environment had reached suitable conditions, the plant would start growing.
The aim is then for photos of the lettuce to be transmitted to Earth, so the public and scientists would be able to watch the lettuce mature from seed to full plant. Once the mission is completed, the heaters would switch to full power, exterminating all life in the payload.
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