Companies seek credit but Irish consumers focus on repayments
Central Bank says home-loan repayments exceeded loan drawdowns by €2.2bn in year.
The Central Bank’s November data shows household loan repayments exceeded loan drawdowns by €335 million during the month, while companies borrowed €139 million more than they repaid.
Companies are back in the market for credit but Irish consumers are still more concerned about paying back old debts than borrowing for fresh spending, according toCentral Bank money and banking statistics .
The November data shows that household loan repayments exceeded loan drawdowns by €335 million during the month, while companies borrowed €139 million more than they repaid.
Companies’ medium-term debt borrowings are the biggest climbers, up a net €205 million in November, suggesting a nascent puck-up in investment. Over the first 11 months of 2014, however, the debt levels of Irish companies fell by 6.4%.
Among consumers, annual repayments had exceeded drawdowns on home loans by €2.2 billion by the end of November, while net repayments on non-housing consumer debts fell by €1.6 billion.
There was €174 billion on deposit at the end of November, with 53% of this accounted for by household savings.
Bank borrowings from the Central Bank, as part of the Eurosystem’s liquidity programme, fell by €1.2 billion, as Irish banks moved back towards more mainstream funding methods.
Irish teens get gastric bands as obesity time-bomb explodes
Professor Donal O’Shea
Irish teenagers as young as 15 are being given gastric bands as the numbers needing drastic surgery continue to escalate.
Gastric bands reduce a patient’s stomach size to help prevent them overeating.
Experts say it’s the latest example of Ireland’s spiralling obesity epidemic among the younger age group. One-in-four children are either overweight or obese in Ireland.
“I’ve seen kids who are of such size that they’ve been referred to the UK for consideration of gastric banding,” explained Professor Donal O’Shea (pictured inset).
“The problem is that our treatment services are so underdeveloped that we don’t have the surgery capability for obesity in children in Ireland.
“The scale of the problem in this country is on par with that in Britain.
“And we lag only a little bit behind the US, where 33pc of children are overweight, or obese.
“There has been an absolute explosion in the extreme end of obesity in kids. We have 15-year-olds in this country who weigh 16 and 17 stone.
“We’ve reached a stage where the argument has progressed to what is the best type of operation for children who are obese.
“I’ve referred two patients, aged 15 and 16, to Great Ormond Street for consideration of bariatric surgery.”
Prof O’Shea, who heads the obesity management clinic in St Columcille’s Hospital, Dublin, said the obesity time-bomb was no longer just ticking – it had “exploded”. He said that we were fast heading towards the “nightmare scenario”.
“At current trends we will need obesity surgery for more children in Ireland within the next 10 years. That’s the sad reality.”
Dr Sinead Murphy, consultant paediatrician in Temple Street hospital, said the obesity crisis was affecting children as young as three and four years of age. “A healthy three-year-old should probably weigh about 15 kilos. But we regularly see three-year-olds weigh 25 kilos and upwards – they are clinically obese.”
Dr Murphy said children were presenting with a raft of medical problems as a direct result of their burgeoning waistlines.
“We’re seeing an awful lot of muscular skeletal problems. A lot of children have joint and back pain, and breathing difficulties,” she said.
“Half the kids we’re seeing have high insulin levels, which means they’re on a path to Type-2 diabetes.
“Half of the 10-year-olds we’re seeing have high cholesterol already.”
She said children eligible for bariatric surgery were given “psychological preparation” before going under the knife.
“These children could also be an anesthetic risk because they’re so overweight.”
Ireland’s only dedicated childhood obesity treatment programme, at Dublin’s Temple Street Children’s Hospital, has had a 400pc increase in just one year in referrals of children aged under five.
The long-term effects of being seriously overweight include reduced educational achievement, risk of heart disease and certain cancers, as well as the possibility of developing type 2 diabetes.
“We’re diagnosing diabetes in people in their 20s, and new cancers will double by 2030, driven by the obesity epidemic,” said Prof O’Shea.
“We can’t wait until we have to cope with kidney failure and amputation in people in their 30s and 40s.”
Woman (33) killed in first road fatality of the New Year
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
A woman was knocked down and killed in the early hours of this morning.
The 33-year-old was the first road traffic victim of the new year when she was hit by a van.
Gardaí are appealing for witnesses to the collision in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, at 1.50am.
The fatality happened as road safety chiefs revealed the number of deaths on our roads was up in 2014 compared to the previous year – with 196 people losing their lives.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and her body was removed to the Shiel Hospital, where a post mortem will be held.
“The driver of the van, a male aged in his 50s, was uninjured,” said gardai.
“The scene is preserved to facilitate Garda forensic collision investigators. The road is closed to traffic and diversions are in place.”
Doctor criticised for saying that cancer is ‘the best way to die’
Doctor Robert Smith’s comments recognised as a romantic view of dying”.
The doctor left and former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has been criticised after saying cancer is ‘the best way to die’.
Writing in the BMJ, Richard Smith said people with the disease have an opportunity to reflect on life before it ends, something not afforded to those who die suddenly.
Smith said dying from dementia or organ failure is a much worse fate.
“The long, slow death from dementia may be the most awful as you are slowly erased, but then again when death comes it may be just a light kiss.
“Death from organ failure—respiratory, cardiac, or kidney—will have you far too much in hospital and in the hands of doctors.
So death from cancer is the best … You can say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion.
“This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky. But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let’s stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death.”
In the article, Smith also urged charities and the medical world to “stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer”.
Cancer Research UK were among those to criticise his comments, labelling them “nihilistic”.
Over 96,000 new cars sold in Ireland last year 2014
2014 was a BUMPER year for new car sales with over 96,000 new cars sold in Ireland last year
This represents a 30% on the number of new cars sold in 2013 – or more than 22,000 extra vehicles.
The car industry had predicted total sales of approximately 85,000-90,000 units at the start of the year.
More than 21,000 new commercial cars were sold in 2014, up 43% on 2013 figures.
Over 1,000 motorcycles were also sold – representing a 25% annual increase.
Used car sales, which had remained relatively unchanged for the past number of years, increased by almost 50,000 vehicles in 2014. More than 835,000 used vehicles changed hands during the year, an increase of 6.3%.
Used cars imported into Ireland from other jurisdictions such as Great Britain and Northern Ireland were also up by 8.4%, with 54,290 used vehicles registered in 2014.
Michael Rochford, Managing Director of Motorcheck.ie – the site that compiled the figures – said 2014 had been “a really positive year for the motor trade all round”.
Early indications are that the positive trends will continue in 2015 with new car sales predicted to breach the magical 100,000 units. This was last achieved in 2008 when 142,000 units were sold.
The five most popular car models in 2014 were:
- Volkwagen Golf
- Nissan Qashqai
- Ford Focus
- Ford Fiesta
- Toyota Corolla
Researchers find that Birds slur their songs when drunk,
Just like humans do
A surprising new research suggests that birds have trouble singing and calling after downing a few drinks. Researchers found that birds act similar to humans after ingesting alcohol. According to researchers from Oregon Health and Science University, they offered juice spiked with alcohol to Zebra Finches birds (above right).
According to researchers, the birds’ slurs were similar to how people slur after ingesting alcohol. The researchers found that after drinking alcohol, the birds slurred their songs with a distinct drunken vibe.
The study published in the journal PLOS ONE stated that the zebra finch birds were intoxicated by the researchers for the study. According to the study, the acoustic structures of zebra finches’ songs were slurred at best. The researchers had chosen the bird because it learns a song in a way similar to how people learn speech. It was easy for researchers to identify whether the birds slur their songs after drinking alcohol.
According to the researchers, they have found remarkable similarities in how the bird song and humans speech learned and then produced. Those similarities allowed the researchers to better understand the effect of alcohol on the bird.
For the study, the researchers had given simple white grape juice to a group of birds, while they gave juice spiked with strong ethanol to another group. Second group of birds was not able to maintain their song’s normal structure and tempo.
The researchers said, “We did not detect visible effects on the birds’ general behaviors or health, as indicated by the normal appearance of feathers and the ability to perch, feed, maintain normal posture and fly inside the cage.”
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