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Monday, May 30, 2016

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Crisis talks now needed to patch up cracks in new Irish Government

FIANNA FAIL ANGER OVER FINE GAEL ROW-BACK ON GUIDANCE COUNSELLORS

  

FIANNA FAIL AND FINE GAEL WILL HOLD CRISIS TALKS IN THE COMING DAYS AS THE FIRST CHINKS IN THE CONFIDENCE AND SUPPLY DEAL HAVE EMERGED OVER PLANS TO HIRE MORE GUIDANCE COUNSELLORS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is understood to be furious that Fine Gael is rowing back on what he believed was a commitment to fully restore the number of guidance counsellors in schools to pre-financial crisis levels.
The issue of guidance counsellors was a sticking point during government negotiations with Fianna Fail insisting it form part of the agreement for facilitating a Fine Gael-led minority government.
The agreement states that Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s government will commit to “reintroduce guidance counselling to secondary schools”
However, the parties are now at loggerheads over how this should be achieved.
The Fine Gael/Labour ¬Coalition abolished so called ex-quota guidance counselling hours and included counsellors in pupil/teacher ratios.
Fianna Fail is insisting guidance counsellors should be reintroduced in all secondary schools and the roles should be excluded from pupil/teacher ratios when funding is allocated.
Fine Gael believes guidance counsellors should be included in pupil/teacher ratios and schools should have the power to decide on their own staffing resources.
A senior government source said school management and principals hold a “very different view” to Fianna Fail on guidance counsellors.
“There is also a big difference in what school management would say and what the lobby for guidance counsellors say about this,” the source said.
Fianna Fail’s education spokesman Thomas Byrne is to meet with Education Minister Richard Bruton this week to discuss the issue. He said reintroducing guidance counsellors is a “priority” for Fianna Fail.
“It’s very clear in the confidence and supply agreement but more importantly this service has never been more necessary in our schools,” he said.
“Mr Bruton will simply have to deliver what Fine Gael has already agreed to in the confidence and supply agreement and I look forward to meeting him this week to get confirmation on that,” he added.
The minister’s spokesman said he is also looking forward to meeting Mr Byrne to discuss “how to best implement the commitment on guidance counselling”.
“Minister Bruton will be keen to listen to views as to how best implement this commitment through future budgets,” he said.
“In deciding the best approach, the best interests of the child and the best means of providing guidance counselling will be paramount,” he added.
In response to a parliamentary question last week, Mr Bruton said to fully restore guidance counsellors it will require an additional 300 teaching posts at an estimated cost of €19m per year.
Mr Burton is understood to have scheduled meetings with all of the opposition ¬education spokespersons.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail is preparing a raft of new legislation which it hopes will get cross-party support in the new Dail.
The party is set to introduce up to 20 bills in the coming weeks. Last week, the party’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan introduced a private members bill which will strip the power to rule on parole hearings from the ¬Justice Minister. Parole hearings would instead be heard by an independent review body.
Sinn Fein’s justice spokesman Jonathan O’Brien said he agreed in principle with the bill and said his party is likely to vote for it in the Dail.
Fianna Fail is also bringing forward legislation to clamp down on abuses of the au pair system. It will introduce a cultural exchange programme which will take in au pairs and ensure they do not work more than five hours a day and have two days off a week.
Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry has drafted a bill to ring-fence tax from alcohol sales for mental health services, and legislation to prevent repossession of the family home.
The Government is set to discuss re-introducing bills drafted by the last administration at this week’s cabinet meeting. New ministers are also expected to draft new ¬legislation in the coming weeks.

Brendan Howlin expects this minority Government to fall within 12 months

NEW LABOUR LEADER SAYS PARTY NOT REWARDED BY VOTERS FOR ‘SPECTACULAR’ ECONOMIC RECOVERY

   

BRENDAN HOWLIN (ABOVE LEFT) NOW SAYS I THINK WE WILL HAVE ANOTHER GENERAL ELECTION IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS?

The Labour Party leader said on Saturday he expects the minority Government to collapse shortly and his party is preparing for another general election within 12 months.
Brendan Howlin was speaking on Saturday after meeting party councillors for the first time since becoming party leader.
Mr Howlin said what the country required was a Government that was agile and had the trust of the people to respond to crisis.
“We don’t have that now. I think we will have another general election in the next 12 months, that would be my view. We have to prepare for that.”
Addressing his party’s disastrous election performance, in which it lost 30 of its 37 seats, Mr Howlin wry observed that “if Bill Clinton had been right – and it was all about the economy stupid – we should have fared better at the last election.”
“But economic statistics are arid affairs and difficult to excite the public about. And it is the case too that the debate about the last election had a touch of survivors bias about it.”
Mr Howlin said Labour’s opponents Sinn Féin and the AAA/PBP “would have driven the economy into the ground had they been let. We didn’t let them. The economy recovered. Spectacularly.”
He said his party was not given credit for solving the big problem of the State’s solvency and could not solve all of the other problems and suffered as a consequence at the hands of the voters.
Mr Howlin pointed to data this week showing that unemployment has almost halved from 15 per cent to 8 per cent and said this was a statistic that the party should “shout from the rooftops. This is nothing to do with the new Government. It is all our work and we should be proud of it.”
Describing this as an incredible achievement which had directly led to 155,000 people and their families becoming better off, he said it was ironic that this did not work in the party’s favour during the election.

The not so clear understanding of body mass index (BMI)

IS IT TIME TO MOVE AWAY FROM A BMI-FOCUSED APPROACH AT THE LEVEL OF THE INDIVIDUAL?

     

GIVEN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INCREASED WEIGHT, AND DIABETES AND HEART DISEASE, YOU WOULD EXPECT THAT A RISING BMI WOULD BE ASSOCIATED WITH INCREASING MORTALITY BUT THAT IS NOT THE CASE

“The road is long, With many a winding turn, That leads us to who knows where”
The lyrics of the Hollies hit He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother fit nicely along the convoluted road that is the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and health.
From being an accepted arbiter of whether you were overweight, obese or a member of that elusive category, normal, the emperor’s clothes have become somewhat tattered of late. Add conflicting advice on healthy eating, and the world of fitness and health has become most uncertain.
BMI, which is calculated by dividing your weight (in kg) by the square of your height (in metres), gained currency as a more accurate measure of “healthy” weight following the publication in 1972 of a paper in the Journal of Chronic Diseases by Ancel Keys.
He argued that BMI was, “if not fully satisfactory, at least as good as any other relative weight index as an indicator of relative obesity”.
Keys was prescient in describing BMI as “not fully satisfactory”. Using the ultimate outcome of mortality, the optimal BMI associated with lowest risk of all causes of mortality is no longer certain.
Given the relationship between increased weight and a greater incidence of diabetes and heart disease, you would expect that a rising BMI would be associated with increasing mortality. However, compared with normal weight, being underweight is associated with increased mortality, and a moderately elevated BMI is associated with lower mortality. This unexpected relationship is called the obesity paradox.
In a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Danish researchers found that the optimal BMI associated with lowest mortality had increased from 23.7 to 27 over three decades. In addition, they reported the risk of all-cause mortality linked to a BMI of 30 (traditionally the cut-off point between being overweight and obese) now equates to the risk associated with having a BMI of 18.5-to 25 (underweight/ normal range).
Their finding calls into question the validity of the World Health Organisation(WHO) overweight categories, which define a BMI of 20-25 as normal, with 25-30 classified as being overweight.
“If this finding is confirmed in other studies, it would indicate a need to revise the WHO categories presently used to define overweight, which are based on data from before the 1990s,” the authors say.
Why the increase in BMI associated with lowest all-cause mortality has occurred over time is a mystery that needs further study.
Is the improved treatment of cardiovascular disease in people who remain overweight conferring a survival advantage that is independent of the person’s weight?
How is the known link between obesity and higher rates of cancer feeding into this mortality decline? Is weight gain in later life more or less life-limiting than being overweight from childhood?
It may be time to move away from a BMI-focused approach at the level of the individual patient. For example, obesity staging systems focus on overall cardiometabolic health, rather than BMI.
Better measurements of body fat, such as waist circumference, may also help. And some mechanism for incorporating a person’s exercise levels into the obesity “equation” is worth exploring also.
The publication in Britain last week of a controversial report, advocating that we eat more fat, muddies the waters even more.
The National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration called for a diet low in refined carbohydrates but high in healthy fats, saying it offers “an effective and safe approach for preventing weight gain and aiding weight loss”.
There is no doubt that, from the frontline of clinical practice, guidelines suggesting high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets were a universal panacea, did not reduce obesity levels. Looking back, dietary guidelines demonising fat were an open invitation to increase sugar and carbohydrate consumption.
Between measuring and dieting, overweight/ obesity is truly in a “terrible state o’ chassis”.

HSE group to consider funding for two new life saving cancer drugs?

        
The new Health Minister Simon Harris (above picture).

A SPECIAL DRUGS GROUP IN THE HSE IS EXPECTED TO MEET ON WEDNESDAY TO CONSIDER FUNDING FOR TWO NEW CANCER MEDICINES.

Cancer specialists have warned that time is running out for a group of patients with advanced skin cancer and other forms of the disease who could benefit from the blockbuster drugs.
Health Minister Simon Harris said this evening he has asked the HSE group to convene this week to discuss making the drugs pembrolizumab and nivolizumab available under HSE schemes.
He said he was very concerned about the patients involved. It is unclear if the funding of the drugs will come out of HSE funds or whether the Department of Expenditure and Reform will have to make more money available.
The HSE has insisted it has a responsibility to source the most effective medicine on behalf of patients at an affordable price to the taxpayer.
“As is the case for all new medicines, the clinical benefits of pembrolizumab and nivolizumab are being carefully considered under a process of health technology assessment, in order to determine value for money and patient benefits.
It estimated if it had to pay the price demanded by Merk Sharpe and Dohme for mbrolizumab it would cost €64m over five years.
“Affordability of drugs generally, and of new medicines, is an issue globally and there are a range of other new medicines also becoming available to the market in 2016.
“The HSE must operate within its allocated budget for 2016 and within this prioritise the allocation of resources across the entire health system. In the 2016 HSE Service Plan an additional €7 million was allocated for Cancer Drugs to support the National Cancer Control Programme’s Systemic Therapy Programme.”
It has been claimed that decision on funding expensive new medicines was being removed from the HSE, and given to the Department of Expenditure and Reform , with senior Ministers having the say on whether they be made available to patients.
A spokeswoman for the HSE said the HSE will continue to assess and make decisions in relation to new medicines in the normal manner.
However, decisions that would have a substantial budget impact for will go to the Department.

The natural beauty of Inchydoney Island Lodge and Spa resort in beautiful West Cork

DES O’DOWD, OWNER OF INCHYDONEY ISLAND LODGE AND SPA, TELLS SEAN GALLAGHER WHAT MAKES THE RESORT SO SPECIAL

      
Des O’Dowd with Sean Gallagher (right Pic.) on the beach at Inchydoney.
To most of us who live here and to the millions of tourists who visit us each year, Ireland is most definitely a country of great natural beauty.
From our towns and villages, to our rolling green hills and beautiful sandy beaches, there’s something natural and unspoilt about this land we live in. Add to this the quality of our food, the uniqueness of our culture, and the warmth and friendliness of our people and it’s easy to see why tourism plays such an important role in Ireland’s economic future.
With that in mind, I paid a visit last week to Des O’Dowd, owner of one of the country’s best known holiday destinations – Inchydoney Island Lodge and Spa in beautiful West Cork.
Located just outside the heritage town of Clonakilty and overlooking the magnificent Blue Flag beaches of Inchydoney Island, this is a real gem in Ireland’s tourism offering. Built in 1998 and with an annual turnover of €7m, the resort is now a significant local employer with as many as 185 staff employed there at peak times.
“We are an Irish owned and operated four-star hotel and spa,” explains Des proudly as he shows me around the hotel’s expansive facilities which includes 67 bedrooms, 14 self-catering apartments, a seawater spa, two restaurants, a bar and a large function room.
The most striking feature of this hotel is, without doubt, its unique setting. Perched on a slope overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the entire resort enjoys magnificent panoramic views of the sprawling white sandy beaches that stretch out endlessly in front of it.
“We recently carried out research into why our guests choose to come back so regularly to us. And what we discovered really surprised us,” explains Des. “We were sure it would be the high quality of our food, the uniqueness of our seawater spa or the high level of customer service delivered by our staff. But in fact, the answer turned out to be our unique location in West Cork, our proximity to Clonakilty – and this beautiful beach,” he adds as he leads me onto the strand.
“While it’s a gorgeous sunny day here today, the beach is seldom empty. People swim here all year round and there are always plenty of individuals and couples walking by themselves or with their dogs,” he adds.
I also notice a thriving surf school adjacent to the hotel, and further down the beach I even spot a group of women exercising as part of a summer fitness boot camp. Back in the hotel, we visit the Gulf Stream restaurant. Specialising in seafood dishes, it too enjoys the most stunning sea views. Downstairs, the more informal Dunes Bar has become a real favourite for those who enjoy their steaks.
“The quality of our food is very important – and for that reason we source from local West Cork suppliers,” explains Des.
Next, it’s on to the hotel’s award-winning spa. Back in 1998, this became the country’s first Thalassotherapy Spa (the term derives from the Greek words for ‘sea’ and ‘medical treatment’) and includes a unique heated seawater therapy pool, as well as a myriad of treatments based on sea muds and seaweed.
“Our main market is Irish people who want to get away and spend quality time by themselves or with partners, friends and family,” explains Des. “We are blessed with a very loyal customer base, with most of our business coming from repeat customers or those who have received recommendations from family or friends. Many of these have been coming here for years, which means a lot to us. While we do attract guests from the UK, Europe and the USA, these are normally individuals or small groups looking for an authentic Irish experience – rather the larger bus or tour operator type bookings,” he adds.
Des O’Dowd is no stranger to Inchydoney. In fact, he grew up only a few miles away in Bandon. After school, he spent a summer working in Waterville Hotel on the Ring of Kerry which sparked his initial interest in the hotel sector. He later joined a local accounting firm in Cork as a trainee accountant before moving to Dublin where he qualified as a chartered accountant in 1991.
After a year working in the hotel industry in South Africa, he returned home to a job as an accountant in Mount Juliet. However, his break came in 1998, when Cork developer John Fleming – who had just finished building the new Inchydoney Lodge and Spa – began looking for an operator to run the hotel. It was the opportunity Des had been looking for. Together with another colleague, whom he had met in Mount Juliet, he decided to take on the challenge.
At the time, the pair also negotiated an option to buy out the hotel at some point in the future if the opportunity arose. And in 2008 (at which point his partner had moved on to pursue other opportunities), Des decided to exercise the option himself and became the proud owner of the hotel.
“My timing couldn’t have been more off – it was right at the start of the downturn,” says Des. “One bit of advice I got at the time was that Inchydoney is a jewel and to be successful, my primary job was to keep polishing that jewel. And that’s what I’ve tried to do ever since,” he adds.
While running any hotel involves managing a lot of complex moving parts, running an Irish owner-operated hotel brings its own challenges. When Des first began running the hotel during the boom years, he found he had to compete with hotels funded by wealthy individuals, who were not as focused on commercial returns as he needed to be. When the downturn took hold, he was then faced with having to compete with hotels that were being run by receivers or Nama.
“Today, we find ourselves increasingly competing with wealthy foreign companies who have more resources than we do,” he adds.
Deciding not to drop prices and lose quality as some hotels did, Des instead took the more strategic decision of focus on his target market – loyal and repeat customers.
“You can’t be exclusive and not exclude some markets,” explains Des. “So we don’t try and be five-star or three-star. We want to be an excellent four-star. Similarly, we don’t cater for groups like hen or stag parties, as it would detract from our core market,” he adds.
Key to their ongoing success has been the commitment and loyalty of his staff, most of whom have been with the hotel since it opened or shortly afterwards. Having survived the downturn, the team is now stronger than ever before.
“I take the responsibility that comes with being an employer seriously, and I strive to make this not only a great place to visit but a great place to work. Happy staff also make for happy customers,” he adds. He recently invested over €500k on general improvement works and plans to invest the same again in the near future.
“My commitment to this business is not like that of a short-term investment by a hedge fund or an international opportunist buyer. My ambition is to be the long-term owner and operator of one of the most relevant and interesting four-star hotels in Ireland,” explains Des passionately. “I absolutely love West Cork and I’m lucky to live and work in such a beautiful and friendly place.”
Having experienced the uniqueness that is Inchydoney, together with its welcoming atmosphere and magnificent surroundings, I look forward to joining the ranks of those who come back again.   

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

The LÉ Róisín Irish vessel helps and saves more lives in rescue of 688 migrants off Libyan coast

   

THE LÉ RÓISÍN RESCUES 123 MIGRANTS OFF THE COAST OF LIBYA.

SOME 668 MIGRANTS WERE SAVED FROM BOATS IN DISTRESS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN OFF LIBYA ON SATURDAY, OFFICIALS SAY.

They were rescued by Italian coast guard and navy ships, aided by Irish and German vessels and humanitarian organisations, Italian and Irish officials said.
The rescues are the latest by a multi-national patrol south of Sicily that has saved thousands this week.
The Defence Forces said the vessel Le Roisin, deployed earlier this month in the humanitarian search and rescue mission, saved 123 migrants from a 12-metre-long dinghy and recovered a male body.
Immediately afterwards, the LÉ Róisín was re-tasked to rendez-vous with an Italian ship, ‘Bettica’, and a further 101 migrants were transferred it to the LÉ Róisín.
Then the German ship ‘Karlsruhe’ asked the LÉ Róisín to transfer a further 123 migrants onboard the LÉ Róisín.
A spokesperson said all three taskings have now been completed and the LÉ Róisín currently has 347 migrants on-board.
The LÉ Róisín left Haulbowline, Cork on May 2 to help the Italian Authorities with humanitarian search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
A German ship, part of the EU Navfor Med deployment on patrol for migrant smugglers’ boats, was also involved in what was a total of four separate rescue operations, the Italian coast guard said.
Meanwhile, with migrant shelters filling up in Sicily, the Italian navy vessel Vega headed toward Reggio Calabria, a southern Italian mainland port, taking 135 survivors, along with 45 bodies, from a rescue a day earlier. The Vega was due to dock on Sunday.
Under a European Union deal, tens of thousands of those rescued at sea and seeking asylum were supposed to be relocated to other EU nations from Italy and Greece, whose shores have received most of the migrants in recent years. But with resentment building in some European countries about taking in migrants, the plan never really took off, and only a small percentage have actually been moved.
At the Vatican on Saturday, Pope Francis told several hundred children, among them many migrants, who came from the Italian south to see him, that migrants “aren’t a danger but they are in danger”.
The pontiff held a red life vest, given to him recently by a volunteer, and told the children it was the vest used by a Syrian girl who died while trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos. “She’s in heaven, she’s watching us,” Francis told his young audience.
Among those in the audience was a Nigerian youth, who lost his parents in 2014 as the family tried to reach Italy by sea. Francis has repeatedly expressed dismay that some European nations have refused to accept migrants fleeing poverty or war, and have even thrown up fences and other barriers to thwart the arrivals from journeying northward after reaching the continent’s southern shores.

Electricity prices In Ireland way above the EU average “So says Eurostat”

    

ELECTRIC IRELAND REDUCED ITS STANDARD RATES BY 6% FROM THIS MONTH AFTER ITS PARENT COMPANY, ESB, MADE OPERATING PROFITS OF €630M LAST YEAR.

Householders here pay the third highest electricity prices in the European Union, despite having seven suppliers in the market.
And new figures from Eurostat also show that domestic electricity charges here are the second highest in the EU, once taxes and levies are stripped out.
The European Union’s statistics agency found that prices here were way higher than the average across 28 countries.
A statement from the European Commission office in Dublin confirmed the new figures show that Irish households pay more for their electricity than anywhere else in the EU except Germany and Denmark.
When taxes are excluded, Irish households pay more than anywhere in Europe, except the UK.
The EC spokeswoman said: “The picture is somewhat better for gas, with Irish households coming in ninth place in the rankings.
“When taxes are discounted, domestic Irish gas prices are the sixth highest in the EU.”
However, the figures for the second half of 2015 show that domestic energy prices here fell in contrast to many EU countries.
Electricity prices fell by 3.2% in the second half of last year compared with the same six months in 2014. Gas prices were down 2.8%.
Energy companies have been heavily criticised for failing to cut prices more at a time when wholesale gas prices, the main input here, have fallen by half.
Electric Ireland reduced its standard rates by 6% from this month, in a move that will save the average household €58 a year. It came after its parent company, ESB, made operating profits of €630m last year.
But the other six suppliers have yet to announce price cuts.
Mark Whelan of price comparison site Bonkers said: “This news will undoubtedly lead to more calls for suppliers to cut their prices. However, suppliers will likely point to the statistic that Ireland actually had the third largest decrease in electricity prices in 2015, at 3.2%.”
He said householders can save €235 by switching electricity suppliers, but 1.9 million electricity customers didn’t do so.

Former Tánaiste Ray MacSharry defends Irish politicians’ pensions

THE EX- FF MINISTER SAYS HE IS IN RECEIPT OF ‘QUITE A NUMBER’ OF PAYMENTS IN A NEW INTERVIEW

      
The former Fianna Fáil tánaiste Ray MacSharry has said he has “quite a number” of pensions and he does not begrudge retired politicians the money they are paid.
Mr MacSharry, who served as a minister for finance and an EU commissioner during a 30-year career in politics, was in receipt of a State pension just in excess of €41,000 as of 2014.
He also has a separate “small” income from Europe.
In an interview on Saturday, he was asked how many pensions he was currently receiving.
“Oh quite a number. I am doing fine. I am very happy,” he said.
“But I can say this. I would not begrudge the Taoiseach, the Ministers, or all the TDs and Senators the monies they are getting because let’s face facts.
“The fact is that every TD . . . there is something going on in all the parishes in his or her constituency, the first person asked to support the £100 raffle or the £50 raffle is the TD.”
Speaking on the Marian Finucane Show on RTÉ Radio 1, Mr MacSharry said politicians paid taxes on their salaries.
“And what they have left, they have to live,” he said.
Mr MacSharry was also questioned on the issue of the Ansbacher accounts?
Mr MacSharry was named as an Ansbacher account holder under Dáil privilege by Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou McDonald in 2015, following claims in the disputed “Ansbacher dossier” that former ministers had used offshore accounts to evade tax.
Mr MacSharry had subsequently instructed his lawyers to write to the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) seeking access to the dossier in question.
“I didn’t know ever about Ansbacher accounts. I don’t know really where theCayman Islands are,” he said.
“I can say from my point of view it was rubbish and untrue. And I’ll say to Deputy Mary Lou MacDonald or anybody else that if they can find an account associated in any way with me, anywhere in the world, I’ll gladly give it to charity,” he said. “I know it doesn’t exist.”
Innuendo
Mr MacSharry said there was a broader issue of innuendo and falsities being applied to those in public life.
“Obviously there are always people running around making up stories and rumour and gossip and innuendo becomes established as fact . . . particularly in relation to public figures,” he said.
“Those who know the people concerned know that most of that rumour, gossip and innuendo is not fact, it’s nothing but lies.”

Irish farmers paid the sixth highest R3 heifer price in Europe

   

IRISH FARMERS WERE PAID THE SIXTH HIGHEST R3 HEIFER PRICE IN EUROPE LAST WEEK, ACCORDING TO FIGURES FROM THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

During the week ending May 22, Irish R3 heifers made 406c/kg, almost €1/kg cheaper than the highest priced market.
Swedish beef farmers were paid 504c/kg for R3 heifers last week, while R3 heifers in Greece made 442.9c/kg.
However, when compared to the lowest priced market, Latvia, Irish farmers where paid 221c/kg more for R3 heifers than farmers in the eastern European state.
Gap Widens Between Irish And UK Heifers
The price gap between Irish and UK R3 heifers widened last week, figures from the European Commission show.
Last week, an Irish R3 heifer traded at 406.9c/kg, while UK farmers received 416.3c/kg for the same heifer.
Over the past month, UK heifers were cheaper than Irish heifers on a number of occasions,mainly due to a weaker Sterling and lower UK beef prices.
But, there are some signs that the UK market is starting to stabilise, with European Commission figures showing a 11.4c/kg price increase last week.
Northern Irish Heifer Price
The price gap between Northern Irish and Irish heifers narrowed last week.
The narrowing of the beef price has occurred as Northern Irish farmers seen the price paid for R3 heifers jump by 9.41c/kg last week.
During the week ending May 22, Irish R3 heifers made 9.4c/kg more than Northern Irish heifers, on a 280kg heifer carcass this is a price difference of €26.
However, back in the last week of April a 280kg Irish heifer carcass was €42 dearer than a Northern Irish heifer carcass.
Some Movement On The Continent
There has been some movement in the main European beef markets in terms of R3 heifer price, with German and Italian R3 heifers falling by 2.8c/kg and 3.5c/kg respectively.
But there was little movement in the Spanish R3 heifer markets with prices unchanged, while prices in Poland declined by 0.1c/kg.

Contradictory nutritional advice gives consumers food for thought

   

IT APPEARS THAT THE BEST APPROACH TO BEING THE PERFECT HOME MAKER IN THIS MODERN AGE IS TO COMPLETE A DOCTORATE IN FOOD NUTRITION.

How else to responsibly nourish yourself and your family given the masses of conflicting advice that exists, varying almost from day to day, and added to this week by a UK report which appeared to turn much of what we have previously been told over decades on it’s head.
Fat is now actually your friend apparently. The old advice to stick to a low fat diet in order to lower your cholestrol is “flawed science” and has resulted in “disastrous health consequences” according to the report from the National Obesity Forum (NOF) and the Public Health Collaboration. Rather than the desired result this advice, the report argued, had actually seen an increase in the amount of carbohydrates and junk food consumed.
Our fridges and cupboards should be stocked with “whole foods” such as fish, meat, and dairy, as well as healthy, high fat foods like avocados. In further contradiction of the advice that has been shoved down out throats for years we were told that saturated fat does not in fact cause heart disease, while full fat dairy products such as milk, yoghurt, and cheese, can actually protect the heart. Recommendations, they rather appealingly suggest, should focus on the health benefits of eating food in its natural form. This was no sooner in the public space than it was massively contradicted.
There was the sound of crashing plates as nutritionists, scientists, doctors, and other experts had a highly serious disagreement. Public Health England thundered that the advice in the report was “irresponsible and misleads the public” and most of the public health establishment agreed with that. The public as ever was left in a state of confusion, even for something as basic as whether we should now be opting for full butter on our morning toast, or a low fat spread?
There is a pattern here. Who will forget the shambolic manner in which the World Health Organisation last October announced the cancer risks from eating processed meats and red meat? The combination of poor communication and a media looking to hype dangers meant we saw headlines equating the risk of eating two rashers a day with smoking.
On top of all of that was the news this week that we are not apparently eating enough salt. In our house the salt cellar is kept on the top shelf, but it turns out this may now actually be poor parenting. A study published in the Lancet, which was co authored by Prof Martin O’Donnell of NUI Galway, is a further example of traditional advice being turned on its head. it suggests that most people are actually consuming the right amount of salt and actually warns against the dangers of low salt diets saying they may increase the risk of heart disease and death.
On the same day I saw the Professor of Food and Health at UCD, Mike Gibney argue that a tax on fizzy drinks is a waste of time in terms of curbing obesity. If you look at the data around national food intake, he says, you see that in terms of foods with added sugar it is the contribution of table sugar and jams that is usually the main culprit in driving high intakes.
The quantity contributed by carbonated sugary beverages shows little variation as a proportion, no matter how great or small a person’s sweet tooth, he argued. “So where is the risk-assessment report that looks at all sources of added sugars and, taking everything into account, opts to focus solely on sugar-sweetened beverages for taxation? None exists.”
We are planning on introducing such a tax here, says Prof Gibney, simply because it is a global fashion built on dubious science and popular prejudice. Mexico did introduce such a sugar tax but according to The Wall Street Journal just 18 months later faced a return to pre-tax soda intakes.
Prof Gibney expressed his concern about public health nutrition credibility being set back decades by a sugar tax. He makes a strong and cogent argument. But the problem here for the punters, who feel powerless in the face of all of this conflicting information, is just who to believe and exactly what to put in our mouths.
Prof Gibney also touched on an aspect of all this which really shocked me when I first read of it elsewhere earlier this month.
It is the fact that the body defends its prevailing weight vigorously, which is why conscious weight loss through dieting is so hard to maintain. It turns out that the problem is not our will power, or lack of it, but in fact it is down to neuroscience.
A study released in the US earlier this month, concentrating on the contestants on the reality TV show Biggest Loser, over a six year period, added futher to the evidence that in the long run dieting is rarely effective. It is frightening to see the manner in which the body battles against weight loss. The brain uses metabolic suppression to keep the body within a certain weight range, called the set point. That range is determined by genes and life experience. If you drop below that weight not only do you burn fewer calories but you also produce more hunger inducing hormones and want to eat more.
In their contentious report the chairman of The National Obesity Forum Professor David Haslam pointed out that current efforts to reduce and prevent obesity have failed and the proof of that is obesity levels are higher than they have ever been, and show no chance of reducing despite the best efforts of government and scientists. But it is also fair to point out that maybe the current guidelines are failing because not enough people are following them.
The controversial UK report also touches on how vested interests have been responsible for the spreading of poor dietary advice. The food lobby internationally is massively powerful, as is the diet industry which would go out of existence if we were all at our ideal weight.
Even the introduction of something like a traffic light system which would make it easier for us shoppers to tell at a glance which foods on the supermarket shelves are healthiest are blocked.

The Australian Government censored a Global Climate report

   

IT’S NO SECRET THAT THE GREAT BARRIER REEF IS IN THE MIDST OF A MASS DIE-OFF, NOR THAT SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THE CORAL BLEACHING EVENT IS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE. BUT APPARENTLY, AUSTRALIA COULD NOT BEAR THE THOUGHT OF PUTTING THESE INCONVENIENT FACTS TOGETHER ON PAPER. THE COUNTRY’S DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT CENSORED A MAJOR GLOBAL CLIMATE REPORT JUST BEFORE PUBLICATION THIS WEEK.

The report, “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate” was a joint collaboration between Unesco, the UN environment program, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Given that Australia is home to some of the most celebrated World Heritage sites on the planet—including the Great Barrier Reef and Tasmania’s old growth rainforests—you might expect some mention of how these ecosystems are faring in a changing climate. Oddly enough, Australia is mentioned nowhere in the entire document.
But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”.
No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions.
Explaining the decision to object to the report, a spokesperson for the environment department told Guardian Australia: “Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.”
Ah, okay! So Australia was concerned that people might not be so keen to go scuba diving if they knew that a post-apocalyptic scene awaited their eyes.
A Nightmare Is Unfolding in the Great Barrier Reef
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The thing is, it takes a special kind of willful ignorance to pretend that your land isn’t on fire when people can see the smoke from a thousand miles away. Gizmodo and many other outlets reported on fires that devastated Tasmania’s World Heritage Forests earlier this year, which most scientists agree were made more likely by climate change. About a month later, the worst global coral bleaching event on record hit the Great Barrier Reef, causing more than 90 percent of the northern reef to turn a ghostly white. Much of the reef isgoing to have difficulty recovering. This news, too, has been broadcast far and wide.
But sadly, Australia’s latest actions are far from an isolated event: less than a year ago, the government lobbied Unesco not to list the Great Barrier Reef as a “World Heritage Site in Danger,” perhaps so that it could proceed with a plan to turn the reef into a shipping lane for one of the world’s largest coal mineswithout the international community raising eyebrows.
If you were hoping to read the censored section of the report on the Great Barrier Reef, Guardian Australia obtained a copy of it late yesterday.