FG and SF will fight to lead a new government as FF, Independents fade
Exclusive files reveal FF survival plan is all but in‘oblivion’.
Fine Gael and Sinn Fein have decisively moved ahead in the race to lead the next government, according to the latest Sunday Independent/Millward Brown opinion poll.
Both parties have benefited from a sharp drop in support for Independents and have now emerged as the clear front-runners to lead a new coalition.
The poll has also found that support for the formation of a new political party continues to fall and that coalitions led by either Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael or Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein are most favoured.
In other findings, a majority (62%) believe same-sex marriage should be constitutionally recognised, but more than one-in-five (22%) are undecided.
And over half (56%), unchanged, are in favour of repealing the eighth amendment in relation to abortion, but uncertainty has increased among those opposed since December.
The poll also finds that two-in-five (40%) intend to pay water charges and 30% do not, while 10% say it depends; 10% don’t know and charges are not applicable for 10%.
There has been a dramatic fall in support for Independents/others (23%), down nine points since a comparable poll at the height of the water charges protests in December.
The poll was conducted nationwide among 1,019 voters between January 29 and February 9.
Fine Gael (25%), up three points, and Sinn Fein (26%), up five points, have benefited most from the fall in support for Independents/others and are now neck-and-neck to lead the next government.
The poll will come as a blow to Fianna Fail (19%), up one point, and still within the margin of error of its meltdown result in the last General Election.
Also, today, the Sunday Independent publishes an internal Fianna Fail document – the party’s blueprint for recovery – which was drawn up in the aftermath of the 2011 election.
It outlines a four-year plan to restore the party’s fortunes but on the evidence of today’s opinion poll the strategy has failed. “We’re facing oblivion,” a frontbench TD said yesterday.
The document identified six areas that the party needed to address, including “core values” and “policy development”.
It says Fianna Fail needs to “define what it stands for”; what its “vision” is; embark on a “renewal agenda” and “embrace change” to “become relevant”.
Gerry Adams: Fight for next election started when polls closed on Friday.
It also says the party needs to “create a real policy development process” and identify “key new areas of policy”.
Today’s poll is likely to lead to recriminations within the Fianna Fail parliamentary party and cause much soul-searching at senior level.
- There will also be renewed disquiet in Labour (6%), up one point, but a massive 13 points short of its General Election result.
- However, the poll finds satisfaction with the Government (23%), up four points, has recovered somewhat with dissatisfaction (68%), down three points.
- Government satisfaction is now at the level it was when the country emerged from the Troika bailout in January last year.
- Satisfaction with each party leader has improved but remains low: Enda Kenny (24%), up three points; Joan Burton (23%), up one point; Micheal Martin (29%), up five points and Gerry Adams (29%), up six points.
- Support for the formation of a new political party (38%), down two points, is now 12 points lower than in December 2012.
- Shane Ross (16%) and Lucinda Creighton (13%) remain favourites to lead such a party, ahead of Michael Fitzmaurice (4%) and Stephen Donnelly (4%).
Asked their preferred coalition options after the election, those polled said Fine Gael/Labour (11%) and Sinn Fein/Independents (11%) ahead of Sinn Fein/another party (10%); Fine Gael/Fianna Fail (7%); Fianna Fail/ Independents (7%) and Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein (6%).
A clear majority (62%) want same-sex marriage to be recognised in the Constitution but 22% don’t know and 16% are against, a finding which indicates the referendum in May is not a foregone conclusion.
The poll also finds that 30% are “soft” yes and 33% are “soft” no.
Asked their views in relation to repealing the eighth amendment, 56% were in favour, unchanged since a comparable poll last December; 13% were against, down six points and 31% did not know, up six points.
Not enough effort to tackle the Irish hospital's overcrowding “says Leo Varadkar”
Situation in A&E ‘now considerably worse than this time last year or the year before’
The Minister said a number of measures had been put in place to tackle emergency department overcrowding since the start of the year.
Efforts to tackle overcrowding in hospital emergency departments have not been enough, Minister for HealthLeo Varadkar has said.
He said about 1,000 additional beds had been put into the system through the Fair Deal a nursing home places scheme, home packages and additional transitional care beds but this had not been sufficient to deal with the problem.
He said the situation in emergency departments was “now considerably worse than this time last year or the year before”.
Mr Varadkar said the health service would be “redoubling efforts” in the weeks ahead to deal with overcrowding. This would involve putting in place 175 additional community nursing unit beds and step- down beds.
Fair Deal waiting time
Asked about comments by Health Service Executive director general Tony O’Brien last week that the waiting time for access to a nursing home place under the Fair Deal scheme could stretch to 20 weeks by the end of the year as a result of budgetary constraints, Mr Varadkar said: “That will only happen if we do nothing, and we are not proposing to do nothing”.
The Minister said a number of measures had been put in place to tackle emergency department overcrowding since the start of the year.
In January, 500 transitional care beds were funded in private nursing homes and a further 250 beds had been funded this month to assist in the discharge of patients from acute hospitals, he said.
“A Flu virus “
A total of] 173 short-stay public beds are being opened across the country for a three- month period in response to potential additional admissions arising from the current flu virus.
“These include Cuan Ross in Dublin, with the first 10 opening next week; Fairview in Dublin; Farranlea Road in Cork; Galway; and Ballinasloe. [Some] 24 private nursing home beds will come on stream in Drogheda from next week.”
He said arrangements were in place in the HSE to recruit front-line staff where there was an urgent service requirement.
The day and night shift nursing numbers had increased in Beaumont Hospital, while 70 nursing posts had been agreed for the University of Limerick hospital group.
Rural areas of Ireland’s broadband black spots
Farmer John Bateman (middle photo above) from Meanus, Co Limerick can’t get broadband.
Our cities have world-class internet speeds and distribution, but rural areas rank among the worst-served regions of Europe. Will the national broadband plan finally change that?
Rural electrification was one of the great infrastructural projects of 20th-century Ireland. Rural broadband – no longer a luxury but an economic necessity – is its 21st-century equivalent.
Since 2004 there have been four government initiatives to improve broadband, all of which have worked up to a point. But major problems remain. Broadband has got faster, and more places than ever are served, but 40 per cent of the population – and 96 per cent of the Republic, geographically – still lack commercial coverage.
The good news, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet report, is that Ireland is now seventh in the world for average broadband speed, at 13.9 megabits per second (Mbps). The bad news is that Ireland has some of the most pronounced two-tier coverage in Europe. High speeds in urban areas have obscured poor coverage elsewhere.
Only 35 per cent of Irish premises have broadband speeds of 10Mbps or higher. More significantly, only 69 per cent of Irish homes have broadband that is faster than a very modest 4Mbps. Ireland ranks only 42nd in the world in the distribution of fast broadband. Commercial companies advertise broadband speeds of 240Mbps in cities and towns while rural areas subsist on speeds of 1-2Mbps no broadband at all. The digital divide has become a chasm.
Everybody with an interest in rural Ireland recognises the importance of broadband and the problems caused by its absence, which affect young and old. Rural primary schools have bought expensive electronic equipment, such as whiteboards, that are undermined by poor broadband.
“The current position is like having bought a powerful car but discovering it has been restricted to a crawl, as it has only one gear,” says Brendan McCabe, president of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network.
Age Action says its efforts to promote computer literacy among the elderly are being thwarted in rural areas because of poor broadband. The Irish Rural Network estimates that 10,000 jobs are lost in rural areas every year because of poor broadband service.
But good broadband can help struggling rural areas. Those involved in internationally traded goods and services, for example, can set up anywhere there is broadband. Broadband opens up a global market for rural tourism and for small artisan producers.
The World Bank has found that a 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration increases economic growth by 1.3 per cent over the long term.
30 Mbps for all
The Government has said that its national broadband plan, announced last year, will deal with this long-standing problem. By 2020, it says, all premises will have access to broadband of at least 30Mpbs, the minimum that the European Commission has set for a viable service.
Minister for Communications Alex White says the importance of rural broadband has been brought home to him many times. “A farmer said to me just a few weeks ago – and I agree with him – [that] there is no more important issue in rural Ireland in terms of economic infrastructure and the future prospects for rural Ireland. Broadband is going to make rural Ireland sustainable into the future.”
He acknowledges that people are frustrated by having to wait for broadband, but he asks for patience. “We want people to keep faith with it, because, when they get it, they are going to get it at a standard comparable to anywhere in the world,” he says. Monthly progress reports will be published between now and 2020.
White has already spoken to the European Investment Bank and the European Commission about finding the bulk of the estimated €500 million to fund the State end of the project. “I would see this as being funded from a variety of sources,” he says.
Eamonn Wallace of Ireland Offline, an internet lobby group, believes the problem of poor broadband is most acute along the western seaboard. He likens parts of Cos Galway, Mayo and Clare, and swathes of Co Cork, to a broadband wasteland. “The national broadband plan is the only hope for these places. It has to work.”
It is estimated that, by the end of 2016, commercial operators will cover 70 per cent of premises, leaving 750,000 without commercial broadband. It will then be up to the State to step in and provide broadband for the rest. To achieve that, the Government will first have to survey the problem down to the last house, in accordance with the rules governing state intervention.
Every advanced country has a problem with the digital divide, but Ireland’s problem is unique in Europe. Our population density, at 65 per square kilometre, is among the lowest in Europe; the way the population is dispersed compounds the problem.
About 30 per cent of the population live in rural areas not covered by commercial broadband – the average in Europe is between 15 and 20 per cent – but only 17 per cent of those people live within a kilometre of the centre of a village, which is to say close enough to connect easily to a high-speed network.
The Irish love of one-off housing and ribbon development has made bridging this digital divide a particular challenge.
The Department of Communications has said it will provide the network of fibre-optic cables to connect rural areas. Whichever operator or operators win the contract will then link rural homes to that network, bringing high-speed broadband the last step of the way to the public.
Eircom, which has confirmed that it will bid for the contract, believes the total cost of universal broadband will be less than €1 billion.
The buzzword around the national broadband plan has been “future-proofing”. Our expectations of and demand for broadband have shot up. Ten years ago most people had a dial-up service that worked at less than 1Mbps. UPC already offers a 240Mbps service in some areas; future-generation broadband may have speeds of 1Gpbs (1,000 megabits per second).
EU approval
A draft intervention strategy, outlining how the plan will be rolled out, is to be published in the middle of this year, after consultation with the public and commercial operators. Then plan will go to the European Commission, which has to be satisfied, first, that the State is not intervening where the commercial sector should be and, second, that the new service will be a big improvement on what is currently available.
The plan will go out to tender at the end of the year. Eircom, BT and, in a joint venture, ESB and Vodafone – some of the biggest telecoms operators in the State – have all expressed an interest in winning the State contract. (ESB and Vodafone would use the electricity network to offer broadband too.)
The project should start in mid 2016, and the first homes will see high-speed broadband shortly afterwards. Most homes are expected to be completed by 2018, and all by 2020.
Among the first to get broadband will be the 1,300 rural primary schools and the 600 business parks not currently served by commercial broadband.
This will be cold comfort to businesses, in particular, that find themselves on the wrong side of the digital chasm, but the department says there is no other way. “It will take time. You can’t build a railway or a road network overnight,” a spokeswoman says. “You could solve it on the cheap fairly quickly, but we’re there to fix it properly and for good. We must never have to intervene in the broadband plan again.”
Types of broadband: A bluffer’s guide?
There are two types of broadband: fixed-line and wireless. Fixed-line broadband involves providing a service through an existing telephone line – known as a digital subscriber line (DSL) – or through the cable network of an operator such as UPC using a copper coaxial cable.
The speed and quality of a DSL connection vary according to the distance to the telephone exchange. Some broadband can also be slowed down by the contention ratio – the number of houses sharing the line.
UPC and Eircom are delivering high-speed broadband via a technology called “fibre to the cabinet” (FTTC) . This is where a new fibre-optic cable is brought to a street cabinet and then to the home using a telephone line (Eircom) or a coaxial cable (UPC)
UPC offers speeds of up to 250Mbps (megabits per second), the fastest of any commercial provider. Vodafone, Digiweb and Sky use Eircom’s network to offer their customers fibre broadband.
Only Magnet brings fibre as far as your home. Eircom and, in a joint venture, ESB and Vodafone, plan to deliver fibre to the home over the coming years, giving speeds of up to 1,000Mbps (1Gbps). But as fibre is expensive to install, it is economical only in built-up areas.
– Wireless broadband – the most common form of broadband in rural areas outside towns and villages – connects a home or business to the internet using a radio link to the service provider. That link can be via your smartphone, via a wireless dongle or via a router that picks up the signal and transmits it around your house or business.
– Wireless can be used in places where it is too expensive to bring cable, but multiple users can slow down the speed. Wireless also needs a clear line of sight, so premises in a valley or behind a hill might not be able to use it.
– Mobile broadband is becoming the saviour of many rural areas. 3G (third-generation) and 4G (fourth-generation) broadband on smartphones can bring people wider access to fast broadband .
– 4G can deliver speeds of up to 50Mbps. Customers can access 4G through a wireless modem, allowing them to use their laptops. But with most contracts imposing data limits, it can result in big bills.
– Satellite broadband is usually used by people who can access no other service. It is expensive to set up, subject to severe data restrictions, and slower than other forms of broadband.
Ancient artifacts found at Tullaghoge Co Tyrone
An archaeological bid to discover more about the hilltop where Ulster chieftains were crowned 700 years ago has uncovered artefacts dating back more than 7,000 years.
Tullaghoge Fort in rural Co Tyrone was the place leaders of the dominant O’Neill clan came to be crowned from around the 14th Century to just before the arrival of the planters at the start of the 17th Century.
Targeted excavation work around the picturesque tree encircled earthen mound ahead of the planned development of new visitor facilities hoped to find and preserve buried artefacts from that period – but it ended up unearthing a lot more.
Archaeologists have revealed that flint tool fragments have been found dating back before 5000 BC to the Mesolithic period when hunter gatherer settlers inhabited Ireland.
Dr John O’Keeffe, principal inspector of historic monuments at the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), explained the significance of the surprise find.
“We were looking back 700 years and we got 7000, that would be a good way to put it,” said the expert.
“What we can now say is the hill where Tullaghoge stands was also being used and exploited by hunter gatherers – amongst the first people to settle on this island at all.”
Dr O’Keeffe said archaeologists had previously found evidence of prehistoric burial tombs at the present-day Mid Ulster Sports Arena in nearby Cookstown.
He said his teams were delighted to find evidence of settlements from the same era at Tullaghoge.
“I suppose when you think about it, it is not terribly far away from Lough Neagh and we tend to think of these hunter gatherer settlers following the river systems and then, depending on the season, either taking fish or coming on to land to take nuts, berries, seeds or to go after wild pig,” he said.
Dr O’Keeffe said the small pieces of flint would have been stuck to sticks using resin to make harpoons, spears or saws.
Around 400 school children helped experts from the NIEA and Queen’s University, Belfast during two separate excavations.
Evidence of cereal harvesting on the site between the 7th and 9th centuries AD were also discovered.
Dr O’Keeffe said the new finds merely added to the rich story of a site more usually associated with the Medieval era and the time when the O’Neills ruled Ulster.
The Tullaghoge place name is taken to mean ‘Hill of the young warrior’ or ‘Hill of Youth’, from the Gaelic Tulloch Oc.
“We think we have a better understanding of the site as it would have been when the O’Neills were there but now we have found this other layer of history that we didn’t expect to find,” said Dr O’Keeffe.
“That is quite an interesting thing to find.”
