Donie's ireland daily news BLOG update

New €10m investment plan for rural Irish towns ‘is not enough & needs to be much bigger’

   

A NEW GOVERNMENT PLAN TO INVEST €10M IN RURAL IRISH TOWNS NEEDS TO BE AT LEAST 20 TIMES BIGGER TO MAKE ANY REAL DIFFERENCE FOR RECESSION-HIT SMALLER COMMUNITIES, AN OPPOSITION TD HAS WARNED, 

Independent TD for Roscommon-Galway East, Michael Fitzmaurice, made the claim after the badly needed ring-fenced funding was announced by Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Heather Humphreys (above pic left).

Under a long-awaited initiative to help rural Ireland recover from a near decade of an economic crash, Ms Humphreys has published plans to invest at least €10m in small towns and villages this year.

The money, which will be provided through the relevant local authorities, will be focussed on 200 specific communities where less than 10,000 people live – with the majority of funding going to villages with populations of less than 5,000 people.

Announcing the plans in Clones, Co Monaghan, yesterday, Ms Humphreys said the renewal scheme is needed “to begin breathing life back into our rural towns and villages”.

While accepting one funding initiative is not “the silver bullet” for tackling longer term economic problems in rural Ireland, the Fine Gael TD said the money available has been “more than doubled” from €4m last year and that up to 200 locations are set to benefit from the Government action.

However, despite the positive comments, Independent TD Mr Fitzmaurice heavily criticised the level of funding, saying it needs to be at least 20 times bigger in order to make any real difference to hard-hit communities.

The Roscommon-Galway East TD said the €10m fund in reality works out at just €380,000 per county, and that the money being made available is “not significant”.

“It’s ticking a box, basically saying, that look it, we have done this trying to get the rural regeneration off. To be quite frank about it you would want 20 times that if you were to make an effort in regenerating parts of rural Ireland,” he said.

While the economic crisis caused havoc to all parts of Ireland, rural communities were among the worst affected due to the linked issues of joblessness and emigration.

Addressing the issue was among the key points raised during the post-election Government negotiations

Dublin Airport now named as one of the fastest growing airports in Europe in 2016

 

TRAFFIC AT THE TRAVEL HUB GREW FASTER THAN AT BARCELONA’S EL-PRAT AIRPORT, ISTANBUL’S SABIHA GOKCEN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND SCHIPHOL AIRPORT IN AMSTERDAM

Dublin Airport is one of the fastest growing airports in Europe over the last six months, new research has revealed.

And the booming business led to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce to urge the Government to move forward the construction of a second runway at the popular travel hub.

Passenger numbers climbed by 13.4% in the first half of the year, according to data from the trade associate for European airports (ACI), reports Dublin Live .

In the first six months of this year, traffic at the airport grew faster than at Barcelona’s El-Prat Airport, Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen International Airport, Copenhagen Airport and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Aebhric McGibney, Director of Public and International Affairs at Dublin Chamber said: “Growth levels at Dublin Airport continue to surprise on the upside.

“The challenge now is to ensure that Dublin Airport is equipped for further growth in the coming years.

“Dublin Airport’s reaction to faster-than-expected growth has been to prioritise the construction of a much-needed new second runway.

“The Minister for Transport must now show the same sense of ambition to ensure that the Metro North link between Dublin City Centre, Dublin Airport and the rapidly-expanding north County Dublin area is built much quicker than the previously-mooted target of 2027.”

He added: “Dublin Airport is a vital piece of national infrastructure, with four out of every five visitors who arrive to Ireland by air coming through it.

“A new rail link is needed not only to serve Dublin Airport, but also to cater for the additional 40,000+ people who will be commuting into Dublin city centre from north county Dublin by 2023.”

Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison said: “Dublin Airport had a very strong performance in the first half of this year, welcoming just over 13 million passengers.

“The growth in passenger numbers at Dublin Airport is having a significant impact on the Irish economy,”

Traffic growth across European airports was 4.9% in the first half of that year, with traffic at non-EU airports within Europe growing by just 0.5%

Why Volunteering is good for your mental health

    

Older people get the most benefit from helping others.

Volunteering is good for your mental health, especially in middle age and beyond, according to a new study.

The report, published in the journal BMJ Open, surveyed people living in 5,000 households in Great Britain over several years. About 20% of the people surveyed said they volunteered.

On a questionnaire that measured mental health and wellbeing—where lower scores were considered healthier—people who volunteered scored about 10.7, compared to the average score of 11.4 among people who didn’t volunteer. Volunteering may “provide a sense of purpose,” the researchers write in the study, while helping maintain social networks that are critical as people age.

Interestingly, people in the 40 and older groups appeared to have the greatest health benefit from the practice. The effect increased as people got older, and it was more robust among people who said they volunteered frequently compared to people who volunteered less often. “One explanation might be that during younger ages, volunteering may be perceived of as yet another obligatory task to fulfill in order to be a good student, parent, worker and so forth, so it does not have beneficial effects on health,” the researchers suggest.

The study is not the first to link volunteering to better health. Otherresearch has suggested that people over age 50 who volunteer regularly are less likely to develop high blood pressure than non-volunteers.

All that foot tapping and fidgeting could be good for your circulation 

  

FOR PEOPLE WHO FIDGET AND THAT NERVOUS HABIT OF TAPPING YOUR FEET MAY ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS, BUT IT COULD BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

For people who fidget and have that nervous habit of tapping your feet that may annoy your friends, but it could be good for your health.

It can keep the blood flow in your legs going when you sit for a long time.

Researchers at the University of Missouri tested young men and women before and after 3 hours of sitting.

They were surprised to find that fidgeting increased blood flow enough to prevent a decline in the function in leg arteries that’s tied to long periods of sitting.

“What we found on an average, people performed 250 taps per minutes that resulted in an increase in blood flow during the actual fidgeting,” says Dr. Jaume Padilla, leader of the study.

“We believe that any type of leg movement will be beneficial to the arteries of the lower limbs,” continued Dr. Padilla.

It’s not a substitute for exercise, but…

“Perhaps in situations where we are stuck in the office or on an airplane, in these situations fidgeting or leg movement may be a good alternative,” said Dr. Padilla.

The study was good news for M-U student Nathan Winn, a confessed “constant fidgeter.”

“So as long as you are not annoying your friends or bothering other people and you can get potential health benefits out of it, then why not do it?” says Winn.

Previous studies found another benefit to fidgeting – is that it helped young people with ADHD learn easier.

So there’s two good excuses if you are someone who fidgets.

Medieval skeletons found under disused Kilkenny car park

FEMALE REMAINS BELIEVED TO BE OF POOR ANGLO-NORMAN COLONISTS WHO DIED YOUNG

   

THE SKELETONS WERE DISCOVERED JUST A FOOT UNDERGROUND DURING THE DIGGING OF SERVICE TRENCHES FOR ELECTRICITY WIRES.

Four medieval skeletons have been discovered under a disused car park in Kilkenny city.

The female skeletons have been dated to between 1250 and 1350 meaning they were likely among the first Anglo-Norman colonists in Co Kilkenny.

They were discovered just a foot underground during the digging of service trenches for electricity wires.

The service trenches were for the €6 million St Mary’s Medieval Mile Museumin Kilkenny which is due to open in the next 12 months.

The area was formerly a car park which had been concreted over in the 1950s before the church and its grounds were bought by the council in 2009.

Archaeologists have determined that the women, aged between eight and 25, were the poor of the town.

They had been buried in the southwest corner of the city’s main graveyard around St Mary’s Parish Church. This area was reserved for the poor.

Tell-tale green stains on the bones of the skeletons suggest they were buried in shrouds rather than in coffins as the better off were at the time. The stains came from copper-alloy pins used to hold the burial shrouds together.

One of the skeletons, that of a teenage girl, showed evidence of hardship. Her spine was damaged from the prolonged lifting of heavy weights and one of her legs appeared to be shorter than the other, meaning she would have walked with a pronounced limp.

Their premature deaths showed how hard life was for the poor at that time. For these unfortunate girls, life was truly nasty, brutish and short.

The skeletons are being carefully recorded and analysed in the ground by the archaeological team and their osteoarchaeologist. Once exhumed they will be brought to a laboratory for further detailed analysis.

They may be reburied in St Mary’s, following consultation with the National Museum of Ireland.

Meteor shower set to light up Irish skies on next Thursday with dazzling display

‘THREE TIMES STRONGER THAN NORMAL’

      

HUNDREDS OF SHOOTING STARS WILL BE VISIBLE FROM ACROSS IRELAND ON THURSDAY EVENING AS THE ANNUAL PERSEID METEOR SHOWER PEAKS

Irish skies are set to sparkle later this week as a spectacular meteor shower is expected to peak this week.

The annual Perseid meteor shower is the strongest of the year, according to David Moore, chairman of Astronomy Ireland.

“This year is expected to be two to three times stronger than normal, because we’re passing through a particularly dense swarm of dust particles,” Mr Moore told RTE Radio One’s Morning Ireland.

He explained that although they look like stars shooting across a sky, they are actually debris from a comet.

“They’re just bits that have fallen off a comet goes around the sun every 120 years. It’s been around so many times that there’s now a huge swarm of particles all throughout its orbit, and we pass closest to that, a particularly dense strand, on Thursday night.

“We hit them at 100,000 miles an hour and they burn up as a fiery streak,” he said.

Stargazers hoping to take in the dazzling view are advised that the meteor shower will be visible from 10pm on Thursday until 4am on Friday morning, but that the spectacle should continue for several nights afterwards.

“Normally you’d expect to see a shooting star every ten minutes in a dark rural sky and less in towns and cities, but we could be seeing two or three if we’re lucky,” Mr Moore said.

He added that although there will be a moon until 12.30am, it won’t make much of a difference to the view, and that conditions are otherwise “perfect” for the shimmering display.     

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Think-tank calls for tax increases in next Irish budget

   

The Government has been urged to increase taxes in the next budget instead of pressing on with much vaunted cuts.

The Social Justice Ireland think-tank called on Finance Minister Michael Noonan to plough money from taxpayers into reversing cuts to caring, housing, and anti-poverty services that have been implemented over the last six years of austerity.

In two of the more controversial proposals, the group said businesses should pay a minimum effective corporate tax rate of 6% to generate at least €1bn for the state.

The better-off in society & those earning salaries of in excess of €100,000 a year — should be hit with a 3% income levy through the Universal Social Charge, which, the group said, would raise €210m.

Fr Sean Healy, director of the organisation, said the next budget would be about recovery and determining what kind of a country our children will inherit.

“This is not the time for tax cuts,” he said.

“All available resources should be used to invest in addressing Ireland’s major deficits — in areas such as caring, housing, and poverty that affect the young, the old and most in between.”

The think-tank, which each year costs its own version of the budget, said spending should increase by €1.5bn as set out in Government plans.

Some of the main spending ideas include an additional €680m to support the social housing strategy, with new options on low-cost finance; €350m spent on health to support primary care teams; and new measures to support older people and those with disability, and to tackle obesity.

Social Justice Ireland said a new universal pension should be introduced and welfare payments be increased by €6.50 a week.

It also called for a €350m investment in education to help adult literacy, afterschool care, and early childhood education; and €710m to be spent on broadband, rural transport, and a rural enterprise scheme.

Social Justice Ireland said the country should have EU average levels of tax in order to pay for an EU average level of services and infrastructure, but it does not.

Michelle Murphy, research and policy analyst, said: “After many years of coping with the financial downturn, we, as a nation, now need to consider what sort of a future we want for our children and our grandchildren.

“Some of the decisions we take now, on issues like social housing, childcare, and broadband, may not bear fruit for some years — yet it is vital that these good decisions are taken now, because these decisions will shape the way Ireland looks and functions in the future.”

Fr Healy added: “Whilst Minister Noonan is required to frame Budget 2016 within the parameters of the EU Stability and Growth Pact, this should not stop him from framing worthwhile, and overdue, investments in society, as well as the economy.”

Shane Ross & Independent Alliance to field up to 20 candidates in general election

  

Journalist Carol Hunt and Lord Mayor of Drogheda unveiled as new members

The Independent Alliance, headed by Independent TD Shane Ross and Michael Fitzmaurice is to field up to 20 candidates in the upcoming general election.

The Independent Alliance is to field up to 20 candidates in the upcoming general election.

The group – headed by Independent TD Shane Ross and Michael Fitzmaurice – introduced a number of its newest members at a press conference today.

Journalist Carol Hunt and former Lord Mayor of Drogheda Kevin Callan will stand for the alliance.

Senator Feargal Quinn will be chairman of the grouping and Senator Gerard Craughwell is also supporting the movement.

Deputy Ross said this was not a political party and will not impose any whip except on confidence motions.

He said: “We are radical but we are responsible.”

The press conference was cut short when DÁil ushers said non-members cannot be interviewed on the grounds of Leinster House.

John Halligan TD accused one of the ushers of being biased against Independents.

AbbVie (Abbotts) announces €40 million investment in Sligo

The biopharmaceutical company is to create 50 new jobs over next four years in Ballytivnan, Sligo.

  

AbbVie chief executive Rick Gonzalez and the Minister for jobs Richard Bruton at the official opening of the newly expanded AbbVie facility in Sligo.

AbbVie is to expand its medical device manufacturing facility in Sligo, creating 50 highly-skilled jobs over the next four years.

The biopharmaceutical company, which was formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories, is investing €40 million in its manufacturing facility at Ballytivnan in Sligo.

The company’s manufacturing site in Ballytivnan currently produces drug delivery devices, including a pen-style injector that is used by patients around the world who use AbbVie’s treatment indicated for a range of auto-immune conditions.

Including today’s announcement, AbbVie’s investment in Ballytivnan and broader manufacturing operations in the country has reached more than €134 million since 2013.

AbbVie employs more than 500 people at five different sites around the country, including three manufacturing plants – two in Sligo and one in Cork. The research-based biopharmaceutical company was formed in 2013 following separation from Abbott Laboratories.

A sex survey shows one in four men masturbate every day

  

Almost half of sexually active men do it more than once a week, compared with a quarter of women.

Almost half of the sexually active men who responded to The Irish Times sex survey masturbate more than once a week.

Men masturbate more than women, with one in four male respondents to the sex survey saying they do it every day, compared with 5% of females.

Almost half of sexually active men who responded masturbate more than once a week, compared with a quarter of women.

“My understanding is that it is more acceptable for men to do so,” says sexologist Emily Power Smith. “Women are still very embarrassed to admit that they do and are less likely even to know it’s an option when growing up.”

Psychotherapist Trish Murphy suggests that “masturbation for women could possibly be included in sex education to promote a sense of right to pleasure.”

Both men and women consider masturbation to be the solution to not having enough sex, yet ironically women who masturbate tend to have higher sex drives than women who don’t. So there is a pay-off in a committed relationship of engaging in “regular self-love”, Murphy says.

In addition, nine out of 10 people who responded to the survey say they masturbate alone.

According to Brendan Madden, a psychotherapist, “Sexual stimulation and release are clearly more important for men than women.

This ties in with other results of the survey that indicate men rate sexual encounters as highly enjoyable and important. And it ties in with a wide range of sex surveys around the world.”

The Irish Times sex survey was conducted on irishtimes.com over the course of a week in June 2015. A total of 12,639 participants completed the survey (a 71% completion rate), with 12,134 responses used in the follow-up analysis. Over 500 responses were excluded, the vast majority because the participant was under the age of 17 (below the required age to take part) or where it was obvious that false information had been provided. Click here to view the full results, with interactive graphics.

The survey was carried out among self-selecting individuals. It is not a weighted survey and does not purport to be accurately representative of the wider population, biased as it is towards certain age groups (over two-thirds of those who took the survey were between the age of 24 and 50) and towards those who are more sexually active. Therefore all results should be seen as indicative rather than definitive.

Women should be taught about female orgasm in school

   

The sex survey returned a fairly consistent result concerning an inability to orgasm.

Women should be taught about masturbation and female orgasm in sex education classes, two prominent Irish sex therapists have said.  The Irish Times sex survey of more than 12,000 people has found that up to half of women of all sexual orientations have experienced inability to orgasm during sex and this may be due to a lack of knowledge, said Trish Murphy, psychotherapist and Irish Times columnist.

Teresa Bergin, a psychosexual therapist, said that difficulties were also psychological in many cases and were “a very painful topic for women who were afraid to talk to anyone about it, even their female friends.”

An inability to orgasm was relatively consistent among participants across all female age categories at between 43 per cent among 35- to 49-year-olds to 51 per cent in the 17- to 24-year-old age category.

“Difficulty reaching orgasm is a very common issue,” said Bergin. “ Some women experience this difficulty from time to time and it is related to tiredness, distraction, not being sufficiently aroused, or not giving themselves enough time. It can also be a result of difficulties within the relationship and can indicate communication problems. On the other hand, there are many women who have never experienced orgasm and it is a very distressing and frustrating problem for them, particularly when they don’t feel able to talk to their partner about it.

“This issue can affect men too: for them it is an even more difficult topic to talk about and very stressful given the possible implications for fertility,” she added.

It may come as no surprise that men masturbate more than women, the survey found. Almost half of sexually active men said they masturbated more than once a week, while almost one in four did so at least once a day. This compares to almost one in three sexually active women who said they masturbated more than once week, and just 5 per cent who said they did so at least once daily.

Bergin commented: “The statistics here for men are certainly higher than for women and this figure is probably true of the general population. There has been a myth in the past that women simply don’t masturbate and that it is solely a male pursuit. This is certainly untrue, however; women don’t appear to talk about masturbation, even among themselves. It seems to be quite a private, unspoken activity.”

Younger women are keen users of sex toys, with seven out of ten 25- to 34-year-olds using them. The majority (58 %) of sexually active people have used sex toys. Women were slightly more likely than men to use them, at 61% compared to 55%.

Sex toys were most popular with bisexual women, with 80 per cent saying they had used them, followed by 79% of lesbians.

“From my clinical experience, this seems to be an accurate result. In comparison with 10 years ago, I notice that people are more likely now to be open to experimenting with sex toys. They are more likely to introduce these into sexual activity and to talk with a partner about it. Women in particular are now more likely to buy, and use, a vibrator for their own personal pleasure but do not tend to discuss this with other women,” said Bergin.

Look out Tuesday is here an Asteroid could be coming our way

Scientists and celebrities urge governments to defend the planet from space rocks

   

The passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 through the Earth-moon system,

Tuesday is the first annual Asteroid Day, an attempt by a coalition of scientists and celebrities to raise public awareness of the risks posed by space rocks striking the earth.

People are being encouraged to sign an international petition to governments encouraging them to spend more in defence of the planet.

The goal is to step up efforts to identify impactors such ascomets and asteroids before they reach us and to devise ways to steer these objects away from our orbit.

It all sounds very science fiction but the earth has always been at risk of being struck by such objects and the danger continues today.

RECENT STRIKE

The Chelyabinsk meteor exploded in the upper atmosphere over Russia in February 2013, showering the ground below with large fragments. It injured 1,500 people and damaged more than 7,000 buildings but luckily there were no recorded deaths.

The largest impactor in modern history also occurred over Russia, the Tunguska Event of June 30th, 1908. The asteroid flattened about 2,000sq km, an area the size of that within London’s M25 ring road, said Prof Mark Bailey, director of Armagh Observatory.

It landed in Siberia so it was forests that were destroyed, but had it struck a city like London the deaths and losses would have been staggering.

Chelyabinsk was 20m across while Tunguska measured more than 60m. Imagine, then, what the damage would be like with an impacting object 10km across. This is the estimated diameter of the impactor that wiped out thedinosaurs 66 million years ago.

It struck the earth at the northern tip of the YucatánPeninsula in Mexico, leaving an impact crater 180km across and 20km deep. It sent billions of tonnes of material into the atmosphere, blotting out the sun and wiping out life on land and sea.

GLOBAL IMPACT

Impactors have therefore had a powerful effect in shaping the biological history of the planet, forcing evolution to come up with organisms capable of living in a new environment post-collision.

Nor has the threat eased with time. Worldwide efforts to track these objects have identified more than 10,000 that cross our orbit. Of these, 867 have diameters of at least 1km, a size capable of having a global impact.

Armagh Observatory doesn’t look for them. It is trying to understand where they come from and why they have strange orbits. “The interesting question we are looking at is: are we currently in a high or low occurrence rate,” said Prof Bailey. “It looks like a lower rate, but this could be followed by a period of heightened activity.”