Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Restoration work starts on Easter Rising headquarters for 2016 celebrations

The Moore Street site where 1916 rebels surrendered will become a commemorative centre.

    

The site of Easter Rising headquarters on Moore Street in Dublin.

Restoration work has begun on the site of the final headquarters of the Easter Risingrebels on Moore Street in Dublin ahead of next year’s centenary celebrations.

The Government purchased14-17 Moore Street for €4 million earlier this year.

The site is to be turned into a commemorative centre, which Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys expects to be completed next year.

Number 16 is recognised as the site where the Rising leaders agreed to surrender.

All four of the buildings will be restored to their 1916 condition following structural stabilisation work and the reinstatement of contemporary interiors.

It was announced that the company behind the recent restoration of Kilmainham Courthouse, Dublin-based conservation and heritage specialists Lissadell Construction Ltd, will undertake the Moore Street project.

A National monument?

The buildings in question date back to the 18th-century, and were declared a national monument in 2007.

“I am delighted to see this project moving ahead. The national monument at numbers 14-17 Moore Street has such special historical significance in the context of the Easter Rising,” Ms Humphreys said.

“This project is a very important element of the Government’s plans for the 1916 centenary commemorations.

“The conservation work will reveal the period architectural detail, the living conditions and, above all, the imprint of the insurgency.

“The primary focus of the work is to reveal the buildings as they were during the Rising, allowing them to illuminate that period in our history.”

Preservation campaigners have praised the Government for its actions in securing the future of numbers 14 to 17, but some have voiced concerns about development proposals for adjoining houses.

Planning permission still stands for a stalled retail development in the neighbouring area, which may be resurrected after Nama sold its stake in the premises to UK-based property group Hammerson last month.

As much as 38,519 killed on roads across the island of Ireland

   

More than 38,500 people have been killed on roads throughout the island of Ireland since records began.

Just over 38,500 people have been killed on roads throughout the island of Ireland since records began.

A total of 38,519 people have died on the roads on both sides of the border, including 23,752 in the Republic of Ireland and 14,767 in Northern Ireland.

The records of road deaths in Northern Ireland go back as far as 1931, while fatalities in the Republic of Ireland were only counted from 1959 onwards.

The statistics were released as events are being planned around the island for Sunday to mark World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.

NI Environment Minister Mark H Durkan, who lost his sister in a car crash in 2000, said: “Many generations and thousands of families in the North, including my own, have been devastated by the grief of loss and the heartache of road tragedy.

“Almost 15,000 people, just like you and me, have lost their lives. And this is why I am working along with my road safety partners – the PSNI, the NI Fire and Rescue Service and the NI Ambulance Service amongst others – towards reducing the carnage on our roads. We must do everything possible to prevent this loss and suffering touching any more lives.

The Minister added: “The certainty of the unexpected means that it is crucial to reduce speed, wear seatbelts and eliminate high risk behaviours.

“I am fully committed to improving safety for all road users. I firmly believe that by working together, we can rise to the challenge of making our roads safer for everyone.”

So far this year 61 people have been killed on Northern Ireland’s roads.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd commented: “Behind each of these statistics are family and friends who have been affected and we must remember them.

“This Sunday provides us with an opportunity to remember all those people who have lost their lives on our roads. Our thoughts are with all their family members and friends not just today, but throughout the year.”

Irish Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe, welcomed the fact that people across the island were coming together to remember all the lives lost on the roads.

He said: “Many lives have been saved and injuries prevented as a result of the collaborative work by road safety agencies on both sides of the border in recent years so it is fitting that we should come together on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims to remember those who have tragically died on the road and to also think of their families.”

The Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, was first held in 1993 in the United Kingdom and organised since then by non-governmental organisations in a number of countries.

The RSA, along with members of An Garda Síochána, Road Safety Officers in Local Authorities, the Emergency Services and road safety support groups have organised masses, services and commemorative events around the country this Sunday to remember the lives that have been lost and changed forever on our roads.

Undiagnosed diabetes more common among older people outside Dublin

Access to health services may be reason for result of Tilda study

    

Undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes is more common among older people living outside Dublin.

Undiagnosed Type 2 diabetes is more common among older people living outside Dublin.

A new report from Trinity College Dublin’s longitudinal study on ageing (Tilda) shows one in 10 people over 50 in Ireland (120,000) has diabetes.

Led by Prof Rose Anne Kenny at Trinity, Tilda has completed three waves of data collection from its nationally representative cohort of more than 8,000 people living in Ireland, aged 50 and over.

The study found those with private health insurance were less likely to have undiagnosed diabetes.

Distance from GP

Dr Siobhán Leahy said the study covered three areas: Dublin city or county, urban areas outside Dublin and rural areas.

“People in Dublin are less likely to have undiagnosed diabetes. One of reasons potentially for this is access to health services,” Dr Leahy said.

“We haven’t drilled down our research in the rural areas yet . . . two rural areas aren’t comparable so we don’t know the finer detail. However, things like distance from your GP may affect how often you visit them or how early it is diagnosed,” she said.

Dr Leahy said the incidence of diabetes is in line with other European countries. “While it’s not a particularly high prevalence . . . it is a modifiable disease and highly affected byphysical activity and lifestyle. Ten per cent of people with diabetes are undiagnosed.”

70% of Irish population now owns a smartphone

   

Some 70% of the population of Ireland now carries a smartphone device, according to an Eir survey.

This means 2.37m Irish people use smartphones, which is up from 39% of the population using smartphones in 2012.

The study found that there is also growing use of digital technologies among older generations, with 45% of those over the age of 50 going online every day.

The survey found that 75% of the population of Ireland uses the internet at least once a day, up 6% year-on-year. Out of this, 18% claim to be connected during every waking hour, rising to 41pc among 16-to-24-year-olds.

Some 21% of Irish households now use smart TVs, up from 14% last year. The Eir study reveals that with people planning to buy new smart TVs, the number of households with smart TVs will exceed 500,000 by the end of the year.

In terms of what people do online, 66% use the internet to manage email followed by 59% who view YouTube, while on-demand services like Netflix account for 30% of users’ time online.

Older generations are now hopping online more frequently and while laptop usage among over-50s remains static at 53pc, smartphone usage has shown a surprising jump from 6% to 39pc in just a year.

Most parents’ attitudes towards broadband are favourable, according to Eir, with four-out-of-five parents of five-to-17-year-olds saying broadband helps their kids with their homework.

The social nation of Ireland

Unsurprisingly, 94% of 16-to-24-year-olds are power users of social media, with Facebook being used by 92pc of people in this age group.

Snapchat is used by 67% of users, Instagram by 58% of users, Spotify by 39% of users and Pinterest by 23% of users.

“The findings really highlight how, as a society, we have an insatiable desire to be connected,” commented Lisa Comerford, director of brand and communications at Eir’s consumer division.

“Whether it’s keeping on top of work emails in the evening, helping children with their homework, looking up the best recipes, or planning a night out, access to the internet and a love of devices play an increasingly central role in our lives. The trends over the past couple of years only point to one thing: demand for greater and better connectivity is only going to increase.”

E-commerce

Despite recent evidence that over 90pc of Irish businesses can’t transact online, with Christmas looming the propensity of Irish consumers to shop online should be a cause for concern as it means money will leave the economy to go overseas.

Clothes (69pc) are now vying with flights (70pc) and hotels (66pc) to be the top online shopping category, with those in Dublin more active compared with rural areas.

Some 57pc of the population say they shop online, equally divided between men and women.

This rises to 77pc for those between 25 and 34.

Ireland is becoming a nation of DIY online doctors

The big finding of the year is people’s attitudes towards lifestyle and health. It points to the rise of the ‘noodie’, individuals who happen to be nutrition foodies and use the internet to find healthy food and recipes.

The study also found that there is an appetite for remote monitoring of health of relatives and family members.

Some 25pc of those surveyed agreed that the internet has become their first port of call when seeking medical advice.

However, one in five agreed that they had worried unnecessarily about their health after reading something online.

Only 7pc would be willing to order pharmaceuticals online.

But do we need to power down?

A need to power down is becoming evident, with 59pc of the working population revealing they do some form of work from home, either checking email or bringing work home.

One in four said that they often catch up with work in the evening or at the weekend.

The survey also showed that 15pc of the working population now run a business from home.

Search for meteor that flashed across the Irish skies last Sunday.

   

A bright flash illuminated Irish skies on Sunday evening as a meteorite disintegrated hundreds of miles above the Earth. Parts of a meteorite that collided with Earth last weekend may have landed in Ireland, according to Astronomy Ireland.

Last Sunday evening at around 8.13 pm, reports of a flash so bright that it lit up the sky for a few seconds flooded into Astronomy Ireland from all over Ireland. Confirmed sightings came from counties as far apart as Clare, Dublin, Meath and Monaghan.

Astronomy Ireland believe the flash was caused by a rock from space colliding with Earth and breaking up as it hurtled towards the ground hundreds of miles above Irish soil.

“No man-made explosion (except for a nuclear weapon being detonated) could have caused a flash this bright. So Astronomy Ireland reckons it was a rock in space colliding with Earth and burning up in the sky hundreds of miles above Ireland,” said David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine.

One amateur astronomer even managed to catch the explosive occurrence on camera. Michael O’Connell captured the video below of the incredible burst of light in the sky from Kildare at 20:12:47 on Sunday November 8. O’Connell writes that it was most likely a northern Taurid [annual meteor shower associated with the comet Encke] and that he believes it occurred over the Irish Sea near Wales.

Astronomy Ireland also believe that such was the force of the flash and the “colossal explosion” in Irish skies that fragments of the meteorite may have made it to ground. They have issued an appeal for further reports from the public to locate any such remnants of the meteor’s collision.

“From a flash this bright it is possible that part of the rock survived the reentry process and landed on Earth,” Moore added.

“From all the sightings we can predict where any meteorite fell and then people can search that area for the highly valuable meteorites. Astronomy Ireland will add anyone who sends in a report to its email list and when the analysis is completed in a few days a message will be emailed to everyone on that list so everyone can search for the meteorite at the same time.”

And as if discovering a bit of outer space wasn’t incentive enough to report a sighting, meteorites can also fetch an astronomical sum, according to Moore.

“A fireball in November 1999 that dropped a meteorite on Ireland was found in Co. Carlow after a similar analysis by Astronomy Ireland,” he said. “Collectors were later selling bits of this meteorite for 50 times the price of gold at the time, so meteorites can be very valuable.”

If you think you may have seen something of interest to Astronomy Ireland you can report the sighting to astronomy.ie.     

Donie's Ireland news Blog Tuesday

As many as 1,200 Irish civil servants earning over €70,000 & receiving pay increments

    

More than 1,200 staff in the Civil Service are on salaries in excess of €70,000 per year are receiving incremental pay increases, according to new official figures released last night.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said that overall 12,463 staff in the Civil Service are this year due to receive either an annual increment or a long-service increment. He said the number of civil servants due to receive increments next year would fall to 11,280.

The Minister said about 10 per cent of staff who receive increments are earning salaries of more than €70,000. He said 76 per cent of employees who receive increments had salaries of less than €50,000.

The details were provided in letters sent by the Minister to TDs Seán Fleming of Fianna Fáil and Independent Stephen Donnelly. Both deputies asked parliamentary questions in recent months about the payment of increments.

The data provided by the Minister showed that the largest group of staff in the Civil Service who are due to receive increments this year – more than 8,600 – receive salaries of between €25,000 and €50,000.

Mr Howlin, in his letters, again defended the payment of increments which has been criticised by Ministers such as Leo Varadkar. “The data confirms my view that the vast majority of persons who are on incremental pay scales are the lower-paid and people who have been recruited to the public service more recently.”

“On this basis, there are fairer ways to control the cost of public pay, given that only a proportion of public servants, in particular lower-paid and front-line staff, would be affected by a suspension of increments.”

Mr Howlin said the suspension of increments would have the effect of reducing pay, “particularly for the groups with long incremental scales and relatively flat promotional structures, in particular teachers, clerical staff and the Garda Síochána”.

Meanwhile, a review of more than 800 allowances paid to staff across the public service which has been carried out over recent months by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is expected to be considered by the Cabinet today.

However, informed sources said last night that given the complexity of the issue as well as the number of items on the Cabinet agenda, it was unlikely that a decision would be taken today by the Government on the issue.

Some unions have warned that any move to cut existing allowances would be in breach of the Croke Park agreement.

The Government currently pays out about €1.5 billion on allowances for staff each year. It has set a target of making savings of €75 million this year.

Severely obese children’s hearts

already at risk to serious Heart disease

    

Severely obese children are putting their heart at danger to early heart disease even while they are still in primary school, according to a Dutch study.

Heart disease is normally associated with middle age, but the early warning signs were detected in children between the ages of two and 12.

Two-thirds of the 307 children studied had a least one early symptom such as high blood pressure.

The findings were presented in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Obesity is a growing problem around the world with more people becoming obese and at a younger age.

Two-year-olds with a Body Mass Index, a measure of obesity, greater than 20.5 are classed as severely obese. By the age of 18, a BMI of 35 is a sign of severe obesity.

Researchers at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam collected data from the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2005 and 2007.

They looked at warning signs of heart disease in the severely obese children.

“Remarkably, 62% of severely obese children under 12 years of age already had one or more cardiovascular risk factors,” the study concluded.

More than half had high blood pressure, and there were also cases of low “good cholesterol” and high blood sugar, which can result in Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers said this “may lead to cardiovascular disease in young adulthood”.

Doireann Maddock, a senior cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation, said: “Although it was a small study, the findings leave a bad taste in the mouth.

“It’s a huge concern so many obese children were identified as already having at least one risk factor for heart disease, including high blood pressure, high blood glucose and problems with cholesterol levels.

“However, this is a problem that can be addressed by stopping young people becoming overweight and obese in the first place.

“Highlighting the importance of healthy eating and physical activity from an early age will help protect the heart health of future generations.”

Joan Burton points to concerns over tax shelters in Ireland

    

The Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton told the MacGill Summer School of her concern that some aspects of the Irish tax system fail to command proper allegiance.

The Minister highlighted “the many shelters that enable many very wealthy people to escape paying the share of their income that is needed to finance the efforts of the State”.

“Personally, I cannot reconcile the lax rules on residence that facilitate tax exiles with any notion of loyalty to the State,” she added.

She was not an advocate of “super-high” income tax rates but there were “far too many opportunities for some groups and individuals to escape the level of contribution that can reasonably be expected from those in their position”.

She said: “The extent to which we pay our taxes is a measure of our loyalty to our State, and the extent to which the State returns our commitment with quality services is the measure of the State’s loyalty to its citizens.”

She added that many of the business people who prospered in the boom years “have shown an extraordinary lack of loyalty to the State in putting their private wealth beyond the reach of their creditors, even when those creditors include the ordinary taxpayers”.

“I am thinking in particular of some senior figures who have gone to extreme lengths to put their assets beyond the reach of the banks, many of them now totally State-owned or heavily reliant on State support.

“There are some who comment negatively on an entitlement culture among people claiming welfare, but quite frankly I am struck by the sense of entitlement of people who want to maintain a millionaire lifestyle while leaving the ordinary citizen to pick up the tab for their reckless borrowing.

“We should not debase the language of our political life. Issues that concern right and wrong, fraud and theft, crime and punishment, merit description in terms that do not mitigate their impact. When we soften our language in situations that suggest there is one law for corporate crime and a different one for routine theft or welfare fraud, we become complicit with wrongdoing that corrodes trust.

“I take heart from some recent court decisions which suggest that we are finally beginning to take white-collar crime seriously. The conviction and exemplary sentence in the Waterford corruption case is indicative of this.

“I can assure you, too, the future will be different, and this Government will put in the hands of the judiciary plenty of legal weapons with which to deal with bribery and corruption allegations,” she added.

Hogan’s non-regulation approach continues with household bins free-for-all  ‘surprises everybody’

   

The decision by the Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan to forsake a tenet of the programme for government and not introduce regulation of waste collection will surprise some and dismay others, but it does not necessarily show partiality towards the private waste sector.

Allowing the free-for-all in the household bin market to prevail is more a continuation of his non-interventionist approach to waste that previously benefited Dublin City Council when, soon after taking up the environment post, he said he would not intervene to prevent the construction of the Poolbeg incinerator.

The private sector has argued that abandoning plans to introduce competitive tendering was the only logical option. The policy had been overtaken by events, with almost all local authorities having exited the waste collection market, and there was talk from some operators of legal action if the State chose to interfere in their businesses.

Dublin City Council was the main force behind the tendering proposal, having tried to introduce the policy in its own area in 2007. Panda and Greenstar took action against the council and the High Court in 2009 found in their favour.

The Minister’s decision might now seem an irrelevancy to the council, which last year took the decision to leave the market, selling its waste collection business to Greyhound.

However, the council has not withdrawn its appeal against the court’s decision and its submission on Hogan’s new policy, calling for the tendering system, was made after it decided to stop collecting waste.

The reason the council outlined in the submission was it will need to have legal ownership of the waste collected by private operators and the right to determine the facility at which the waste will be disposed to make the Poolbeg incinerator “bankable”.

The council has been trying to build the plant for more than a decade. Construction started in December 2009 but was suspended the following May and has yet to resume. Negotiations are continuing with the US developer Covanta, the council says. An estimated €80 million in public money has been invested in the project so far, including the cost of land acquisition.

Hogan’s decision to wash his hands of the waste collection row looks like a triumph for the private sector. However, some larger players might have benefited from competitive tendering as it would have weeded out smaller operators nibbling at the edges of their markets.

Private waste companies have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Limerick-based waste company Mr Binman was placed in receivership last year, while Greenstar, the largest waste operator in the country, has effectively been on the market for almost two years. The company, which is owned by NTR, posted a loss of €64 million for the year ended March 2011.

The new policy comes as Bord Na Móna yesterday reported a €23.1 million write-down in the value of its waste business, AES, last year. Chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy said waste industry volumes had shrunk by 30 per cent since it acquired AES, while the number of small players in the market had grown, prompting his call for industry “consolidation”.

Hireland for Ireland 5,000 jobs pledged in hiring scheme

   

An initiative to encourage employers to “hire instead of fire” has resulted in about 5,000 jobs being pledged and 2,000 positions filled in less than six months.

Hireland is a not-for-profit movement aimed at encouraging employers to hire some of the thousands of skilled people who are out of work.

The job pledges made on the hireland.iewebsite have come from hundreds of companies across sectors such as software design, engineering, pharmaceuticals, sales, marketing, retail, hotel, hospitality and sports and leisure.

Lucy Masterson, co-founder of Hireland, said the group had now surpassed its original target of 5,000 job pledges in the six months since its launch.

On average, companies have pledged between one and five jobs. The vast majority of job promises came from companies in Dublin (3,128), followed by Cork and Galway.

Ms Masterson said all job pledges would be monitored to ensure that they were not empty promises and that the posts were actually filled.

She said the group never imagined the extent of the support it would receive from the Irish business community and the media industry.

“This truly is a people-powered movement, which is being run on the goodwill of those with a can-do attitude. Since its launch on the 16th of January this year, over 2,000 new people are taking home a weekly wage, which is just brilliant,” she said.

The group is now planning to develop a network of volunteers across the State as part of its “county call” campaign.

“We believe that local communities have a passionate pride and self-belief,” Ms Masterson said.

“All we need is one person per county to help us kick-start the local movement. So we’re looking for one volunteer representative from each county who would act as the local Hireland lead.”

Those interested in getting involved as the local representative can log on to hireland.ie/yes-we-willfor further details. Closing dates for receipt of applications is September 30th, 2012.

The idea for Hireland came from a chat around the kitchen table between Ms Masterson, a lecturer in social and not-for-profit marketing, and some friends last year.

“We thought, what if we could challenge the current status quo of firing to one of hiring?” she said.

“What if we could get employers thinking differently – about the benefits of creating a job instead of cutting?”

The 2,000 positions filled so far have been in firms including Byrne Curtin Kelly, Ely Winebar, Murex Advanced Technologies, Hauste Group, Red Tree Consulting and Spirit Motor Group.

The Moon to blaze alongside Mars and Saturn over Ireland

   

Two spectacular celestial events will take place over the next two nights, when the Moon will be placed next to Mars on Tuesday and next to Saturn on Wednesday in the sky above Ireland just after sunset.

Astronomy Ireland says that the Moon, Mars, and Saturn can all be observed using the naked eye, and has urged everyone to go outside on both evenings and use the Moon as a ‘signpost’ to spot the planets for themselves.

Those who wish to see the ice caps on Mars and the famous rings and moons around Saturn are advised to bring along a telescope.

“This week is great for astronomy with two conjunctions between the Moon and planets,” said David Moore, Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine. “I’ll be out viewing them myself and I hope everyone else will too! Of course, if you have a telescope, you’ll even get an extra close look at these two stunning planets.”