Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Fine Gael official denies sinister corruption at party selection convention

John Perry TD claims serious irregularities in Fine Gael Sligo-Leitrim ballot

   

Fine Gael TD John Perry whose counsel told the High Court there had been a “sinister corrupting of the democratic process”.

A Fine Gael official has denied there was any “sinister corrupting” of the democratic process in relation to the party’s selection convention for Sligo-Leitrim.

Darragh Kelly, regional organiser and returning officer on the night of the convention, was under cross-examination on the fourth day of local Deputy John Perry’s action against his Fine Gael party claiming the convention result, at which he failed to win a nomination, should be set aside and a new convention held.

He claims there were serious irregularities in the conduct of the convention in the Mayflower Ballroom in Drumshanbo, Co Leitrim, on the night of October 16th, when two candidates were selected to contest Sligo-Leitrim for Fine Gael.

Mr Perry claims there should be three candidates and says he is entitled to stand, given a commitment made by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny at a parliamentary party meeting last December that no sitting TD would be stopped from running.

During cross-examination by Micheál P O’Higgins SC, for Mr Perry, it was put to Mr Kelly that, as returning officer he operated two, or multiple, registers in which voters at the convention were marked off.

Mr Kelly replied he was not running two registers and also said no registers were withheld from Mr Perry’s side.

“Myself and my legal team complied with all requests (to disclose documents),” he said.

Asked why both versions of a certain statement had not been provided to Mr Perry’s side as part of the legal disclosure process, he said that was because one of them was a draft.

The first of those statements contained a reference that it was “suggested by (Fine Gael general secretary) Tom Curran to remove two votes”, and Mr Kelly had said he would not do that “as a matter of conscience.”

Pressed on why it was not contained in the second version of his statement, he said it was a draft but he also did not “wish to impugn the general secretary or his character”.

He stressed the word “suggested” had been used in the original statement.

Mr O’Higgins said what had happened was a “sinister corrupting of the democratic process”. Mr Kelly replied that “no corruption took place”.

He added: “I didn’t carry out that deed or action.”

Earlier, Mr Kelly told Fine Gael counsel Seamus Woulfe, he accepted that there were irregularities in a small number of votes but they were the result of impersonation or due to genuine errors on the night.

He also disputed the convention was disorderly and said he had ensured it would be marshalled and run in as orderly manner as possible.

It was claimed by Mr Perry that the convention was quite disorderly because of the number of people, around 800-900, at what was an unsuitable and congested venue.

Mr Kelly said the decision to use this venue was taken by the local organisation based on geography and budget and because it had been previously used in the last convention for the constituency in 1996.

While there were efforts to move people into the main hall, he “would not call it chaotic or out of control”.

He also said if the court was to order a new convention it would demotivate and disenfranchise members including because those who voted the first time may not be available to do so at a second convention.

He said the court challenge had meant the general election campaign was in abeyance in terms of organising posters, literature and teams of canvassers.

This has led to frustration among candidates and members and also provided an opportunity for the party’s opponents to take advantage of the situation, he said.

Meath East Fine Gael TD Helen McEntee told the court the Taoiseach did not give any commitment at last year’s parliamentary party meeting that all sitting TDs would be allowed to run in the general election.

Ms McEntee, who acted as secretary and marked off those in attendance at that meeting, said she had no record of Mr Perry being there.

While she did not take a note of what the Taoiseach said, she said his comments were in the context of a long conversation and the effect which the imposition gender quotas would have.

The Taoiseach did not mention the word convention but she took it to mean the same thing: that no sitting TD would be prevented from running at convention.

Had the Taoiseach said no TD would be prevented from running in the general election, she would have taken a note of that because that was different from running at convention.

Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy awaits sentencing after conviction

Former IRA chief to know fate next year after guilty verdict on nine charges of tax evasion

      

Thomas the ‘Slab’ Murphy (66) was found guilty at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin of not paying income tax for nine years.

Thomas “Slab” Murphy, who was once the head of the IRA’s so-called army council, will be sentenced next year by the Special Criminal Court following his conviction yesterday on nine charges of tax evasion.

After a 32-day trial, Murphy (66), Hackballscross, Co Louth, was found guilty by the three judges in the non-jury court of failing to furnish tax returns for nearly a decade from 1996.

The trial came nearly a decade after files were seized in sheds on his farm that straddles the Border during a raid led by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab), backed up by 400 British and Irish soldiers, PSNI members and gardaí.

Delivering the verdict, Mr Justice Paul Butler said the court was “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that in each of the individual counts on the indictment the accused is guilty”.

State subsidies

The court heard Murphy received €100,000 in State and EU subsidies and had been involved in cattle sales worth hundreds of thousands of euro at a number of marts.

The 2006 raid led to the seizure of €625,000 in cash and cheques. Following the raid a €1 million settlement was made with Cab and the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency.

“I am aware of the reports of this morning’s judgment and that Tom Murphy has been released on bail,” Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said. “He has strongly contested the accusations. I have no comment to make until the legal process has been concluded.”

Moustache a bonus for men

A STUDY FINDS

       

Women are still outnumbered in medical leadership by men with moustaches, a study has found.

If you think this study must be some kind of a joke, you’re right.

Every year, the British Medical Journal puts out a special Christmas issue full of quirky (but still peer-reviewed) studies. They’re all designed to make you chuckle. This year, there’s a serious topic: Sexism in science and medicine.

The study, in short, found that moustaches – while increasingly rare, with the researchers citing reports that less than 15 per cent of men in the United States sport such facial hair – still outnumber women in positions of medical power.

“We defined a moustache as the visible presence of hair on the upper cutaneous lip and included both stand-alone moustaches [for example, Copstash Standard, Pencil, Handlebar, Dali, Supermario] as well as moustaches in combination with other facial hair [for example, Van Dyke, Balbo, The Zappa],” the researchers write in the study. “Department leaders with facial hairstyles that did not include hair on the upper lip (for example, Mutton Chops, Chin Curtain) were considered not to have a moustache.

We evaluated each leader for the presence of facial hair regardless of sex.”

The cross-sectional analysis of medical leaders was published by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Berkeley Law, and the University of California San Francisco. The researchers pointed out that women were once scarce in medical schools, but have made up about half of most classes for long enough that positions of leadership at health institutions should be looking a little more diverse by now. But in the world of US academic medicine, just 38 per cent of fulltime faculty, 21 per cent of full professors, and 16 per cent of deans are women.

“Moustachioed individuals significantly outnumber women as leaders of medical departments in the US,” the researchers conclude in the study. “We believe that every department and institution should strive for a moustache index.”

Of the 1018 medical department leaders examined by the study, only 190 were moustachioed men. But only 130 were women. That’s 13 per cent women and 19 per cent men with visible hair on their upper lip. Bringing the moustache index up to 1 without adding more leadership positions would actually still leave us pretty far from gender parity.

Just five specialties had more than 20 per cent women department leaders, and these were obstetrics and gynaecology (36 per cent), paediatrics (31 per cent), dermatology (23 per cent), family medicine (21 per cent), and emergency medicine (21 per cent).

Moustache density was thickest in psychiatry (31 per cent), pathology (30 per cent), and anaesthesiology (26 per cent). But 10 specialties were 20 per cent moustachioed or more.

It’s true that this isn’t, like, the be-all-end-all argument that medical schools need more women at the top. It’s clearly a gag, and as my roommate wisely said this morning, “I’m sure if someone made a chart, we’d see that moustaches are going down and women are on the up.”

The study is inspired by more “serious” research, and the problem is a real one. “Sex discrepancies in leadership are distressingly common across specialties,” the researchers write.

The researchers advise against improving the moustache index by pressuring male doctors to shave, as this would be discriminatory. Instead, they write, medical institutions might consider making their ranks more welcoming to qualified women.

This tiny swallow-able camera could help diagnose cancer more efficiently

      
Tiny sensing system cameras swallowed by patients has been used in recent years rather than endoscopes as a less intrusive way of gaining images inside the throat and gut.Scientists have developed a new type of “video pill” – a swallow-able camera that could detect throat and gut cancers more effectively.

The cameras rely on a small light source produced by the video pill to illuminate affected areas and produce images but researchers from the University of Glasgow have now created a pill that uses fluorescence imaging to identify the rich blood supplies which support cancers and help them to grow.

The fluorescence imaging technique is already an established diagnostic tool in medicine but it is known to be expensive and bulky, a factor usually confining it to laboratories.

However, the university’s School of Engineering team has managed to use fluorescence imaging in a small pill form for the first time using an advanced semiconductor single-pixel imaging technique.

Research associate Dr Mohammed Al-Rawhani said: “The system we’ve developed is small enough and power-efficient enough to image the entire human gastrointestinal tract for up to 14 hours.

“We’ve confirmed in the lab the ability of the system to image fluorescence ‘phantoms’ – mixtures of flavins and haemoglobins which mimic closely how cancers are affected by fluorescence in parts of the body like the intestines, the bowel and the oesophagus.

“The system could also be used to help track antibodies used to label cancer in the human body, creating a new way to detect cancer.

“It’s a valuable new technique which could help clinicians make fewer false positives and negatives in cancer diagnosis, which could lead to more effective treatment in the future.”

Professor David Cumming, the university’s chair of electronic systems, said: “We’ve played an important role in developing the technology behind video-pill systems and this is an exciting new development which offers a valuable new resource for gastrointestinal imaging.

“There’s still some way to go before it will be ready for commercial production and clinical use but we’re in early talks with industry to bring a product to market.

“We’re also interested in expanding the imaging capabilities of video-pill systems to new areas such as ultrasound in the near future.”

Curiosity rover begins to study dunes on Mars

     

The rippled surface (left pic.) of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close fills this Nov. 27, 2015, view of “High Dune” from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has begun an up-close investigation of dark sand dunes up to two stories tall on the Red Planet.

The rover will be passing over the dunes on its trek up the lower portion of a layered Martian mountain, a trip that should take several months.

The dunes close to Curiosity’s current location are part of “Bagnold Dunes,” a band along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. The dunes are made from basaltic minerals, which give them their dark color. Observations of this dune field seen from orbit show that edges of individual dunes move as much as 3 feet per Earth year.

They don’t look all that different from dunes found on Earth. But this is the first investigation of an active sand field on another planet.

NASA plans to have the rover scoop up a sample of the dune material for analysis with laboratory instruments inside Curiosity.

Among other things, scientists hope to learn how the dunes move and whether they are different than those found on Earth – since the Mars atmosphere is less than 1 percent as thick as Earth and its gravity is only a third of Earth. They also want to find out whether sand grains of different sizes possibly include different types of minerals.

Curiosity has been working on Mars since early August 2012. It reached the base of Mount Sharp in 2014 after investigating outcrops closer to its landing site and then trekking to the mountain. The main mission objective now is to examine successively higher layers of Mount Sharp. 

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Most Irish fires start in bedrooms and cigarettes are the main cause

 

Ten years of data, of 366 deaths from 326 fires, shows often the cause is unknown.

Cigarettes were the suspected cause in a quarter of cases, electrical appliances were suspected in 18 per cent of cases and electric blankets in 3 per cent. Matches, candles and chip pan fires were the next most likely causes

Cigarettes were the suspected cause of a quarter of fatal fires an analysis of a decade of statistics shows.

A total of 366 deaths connected to 326 fires were recorded across Ireland from 2005 to 2014, according to statisticsprovided by fire services across the countryand published by the Department of the Environment.

In many cases, the cause of the fire is unknown or was passed on to the Garda to investigate. However, in the 158 instances where the cause of the fire was identified, cigarettes were the suspected cause in a quarter of cases. Electrical appliances were suspected in 18 per cent of cases, while a further 3 per cent were attributed to electric blankets.

Chip pan fires

Matches, candles and chip pan fires were the next most likely causes of fire fatalities during the time. Four people died after falling into an open fire, one of whom was a man thought to have had a heart attack beforehand. Self-immolation using petrol was recorded in one fatality which occurred in 2013.

More fires began in a bedroom than any other room of the home. Bedrooms were the suspected place a fire started in 99 incidents, or three in 10 fires.

The livingroom was the second most likely site of a fatal fire, with over a quarter starting there, with cigarettes again the most likely cause.

Irish primary schools class sizes largest in the EU

  

Irish primary schools have some of the largest class sizes in Europe, with almost one quarter of pupils enrolled in classes of 30 or more.

The average class size in Ireland is 25, which compares with an average of 21 across the developed world, the Irish Independent reports.

A new survey studying the number of enrolments by local authority areas based on data by the Department of Education, revealed that almost one in four (24%) of 532,993 pupils are in classes of 30 or more.

The most crowded classrooms are found in the Dublin commuter regions of Carlow, Meath, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Wicklow.

The survey also found that just 10% of students are in a class with 20 or less.

The new findings are set to be one of the main topics of discussion at the annual conference of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) which opened in Ennis, Co Clare on Monday.

Over 850 delegates representing 32,000 primary teachers are expected to attend the three-day event at the West County Hotel.

Teachers’ pay, funding of schools, class sizes, special education, school leadership, lack of promotion and increasing workload top the conditions on the agenda.

Speaking to delegates on Monday, director of the economic think tank NERI, Tom Healy, cited data from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) which found that in 2012, Irish teachers were paid less well than higher education graduates.

“Although the comparison is for teachers at what OECD calls ‘lower secondary level’, the comparison holds true at primary level as well given the common pay scale in operation at first and second levels.

“Moreover, the ratio of salaries of Irish teachers to higher education graduates in Ireland is significantly lower than is the case on average across OECD,” he said.

He said that while primary schools are “brighter, better and possibly happier than was the case a few generations ago”, the “democratic revolution and programme promised and believed in 100 years ago was never born or delivered”.

“THE COMING GENERATIONS WILL NOT THANK THIS GENERATION IF WE FAIL TO PROVIDE A HOME AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT THAT IS WORTHY OF 21ST CENTURY IRELAND”

He also suggested three “fundamental and non-negotiable principles” in order to achieve this:

• No further cuts to public services and goods including health and education
• Protection of living standards of households and the beginning of a gradual process of reversal of wage cuts in the past with priority for the young, the vulnerable, the precarious and those working but still in poverty.
• The protection of children from the ravages of the tax-cutting mania.

NUI Galway ‘out of step’ on gender equality, say internal reports

Greater transparency called for in appointing professorships

  

University management should give “serious consideration” to the “very disappointing” outcome for women seeking senior lecturerships, noted a report by a group representing NUIG’s arts, business and law faculties last September.

Two internal reports on NUI Galway’s (NUIG) promotion systems warned last year the university was “out of step” in advancing women, and that greater transparency was required in appointing professorships.

University management should give “serious consideration” to the “very disappointing” outcome for women seeking senior lecturerships, a report by a group representing NUIG’s arts, business and law (ABL) faculties said last September.

Its report was completed two months before the university became embroiled in controversy over gender equality among academic staff, due to the publication of Equality Tribunal findings in favour of Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington.

Dr Sheehy Skeffington, a respected botanist, had taken a discrimination case against the university after she was turned down for promotion in 2009. She was awarded €70,000 by the tribunal.

In what is described as a “feedback report” on NUIG’s senior lecturer promotion scheme, the ABL group noted that several women who had been unsuccessful in applying for higher posts were “truly altruistic and dedicated to the areas of university business that are not show-stopping headlines, but essential bricks and mortar”.

“There is something unenlightened about a university process that does not capture more of these essential abilities,” the report said.

It noted that this had led to situations where there were several male professors and just one senior woman, or none at all, in some departments.

Two months later, the university’s promotion system was described as “ramshackle” in the Equality Tribunal ruling in favour of Dr Sheehy Skeffington.

The Higher Education Authority also found NUIG late last year to have the most pronounced gender divide among Irish universities, with almost four in every five (79 per cent) senior academic staff members being male and with women accounting for just 13 per cent of associate professorships and 14 per cent of professorships.

A separate internal study by a working group for the NUIG governing authority on the operation of the personal professorship scheme at NUIG dated December 2014, notes that “men report that they are encouraged more than women to make an application for promotion”.

Men also “plan to apply sooner than women” for professorships, even though a substantial proportion of women believed they were close to meeting requirements, this report says.

An analysis of six rounds of promotion to personal professor from October 30th, 2009 to March 23rd, 2013, found that 34 men and seven women applied, with 18 successful male applicants and two successful female applicants.

A survey conducted among staff for the report elicited calls for greater transparency and clearer guidance on measurement of achievement.

The report notes that several women surveyed felt “discouraged by a range of factors”, citing the “gargantuan effort” required to achieving senior lecturer promotion.

The women also cited previous unsuccessful efforts at promotion, “feelings of tiredness” with the politics of the university, and “zero expectation of success after a challenging and time-consuming process”.

A big disappointment: 

The university has set up a task force on gender equality, which has promised to report no later than Spring 2016, but Siptu has criticised what it describes as its lack of independence. The union has directed its members not to co-operate with the task force on these grounds.

In a related development, Dr Sheehy Skeffington has expressed disappointment at what she describes as a “threatening” letter sent to her by NUIG in relation to her use of data.

The university warns that it will take “any appropriate action” if she does not give assurances that she will “no longer reference data relating to other employees of the university in future”.

Dr Sheehy Skeffington says she drew on information already available on the university’s website to highlight gender discrimination.

NUIG said in a statement that “it is standard practice in the university to review a promotion scheme once a promotions round has been completed, as part of a continuous process of change and enhancement”.

“The review of the 2013-14 senior lecturer promotion round is currently taking place,”it said.

“Both boards of assessors provided feedback on the scheme ahead of an initial feedback meeting, which was held at the end of February 2015. Follow up meetings are due to be held shortly to finalise feedback on the 2013-14 scheme before announcing a new scheme for 2016.”

“In a completely separate process, the appeals board for the 2013-14 senior lecturer promotion round made recommendations to the governing authority on the outcome of appeals made by a number of candidates,”it said, and it “did not have sight of the feedback from the ABL panel, which came after the appeals process”.

“The appeals board’s report included recommendations for future promotion schemes, relating to procedural aspects of the scheme. These recommendations have been included in the currently ongoing review of the scheme,”it said.

‘Equality’

It said that NUIG “considers the 2013-14 senior lecturer scheme to be a fair and robust scheme in respect of gender equality.”

“Between 2008 and 2013, the university made a number of very significant changes to its senior lecturer promotion scheme to ensure greater gender equality including making provision for affirmative action, whereby at least one third of all promotions were guaranteed to go to women, gender awareness training for all board members and gender balanced boards of assessors,”it said.

“ The outcome of the 2013-14 senior lecturer promotion scheme was that 39 per cent of promotions went to female candidates,”it said.

“ NUI Galway is completely committed to achieve gender equality across all of its processes and procedures,” it concluded.

Blood test using sound to detect cancer could replace biopsies

 

THE DEVICE USES ACOUSTIC WAVES TO SEPARATE CIRCULATING BLOOD-BORNE TUMOUR CELLS FROM WHITE BLOOD CELLS

A simple blood test using sound to detect cancer could soon make biopsies a thing of the past, new research found

The device uses acoustic waves to separate circulating blood-borne tumour cells from white blood cells.

Currently oncologists wanting to know if a tumour is malignant taken cell samples from the tumour which can be painful, require a stay in hospital for a few hours and stitches or a dressing.

But a new prototype has an advanced microfluidic chip that uses sound waves to separate circulating tumour cells (CTC) from white blood cells, to be up to 20 times faster than prior attempts.

And for the first time in experiments on breast cancer samples found it to be as effective as current approved technique to detect CTCs.

Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh said: “Using computer modelling, we were able to significantly improve the chip’s throughput. With further refinements, this device could enhance our ability to diagnose and treat cancer.

“The current gold-standard for finding CTCs requires scientists to tag the cells using antibodies.

“Our technique has the added advantage of being label-free, without the need for any tagging that could chemically alter the cells.

“Our new approach would allow scientists and clinicians to gain more information on cell pathology and cancer metastasis than is currently possible.”

CTCs offer the promise of a much less invasive option, often referred to as a “liquid biopsy” as they can provide more information about metastasis, treatment response and the genetic nature of a patient’s cancer than cells taken directly from a tumour.

But in many cases CTCs are too rare to be detectable because there might be only one CTC among hundreds of thousands of white blood cells.

Currently, most researchers find and isolate the travelling tumour cells either by using fluorescence and magnetic techniques or by mechanical means which might damage cells.

While the techniques allow researchers to count the number of CTCs they cannot use the altered cells to reliably perform any additional functional tests.

The refined device uses gentle mechanical force created by sound waves to recover whole, unaltered CTCs that can be used for further testing, somewhat similar to the gentle way in which ultrasound has long been used in medical imaging and diagnostics.

Although the new prototype is faster than previous attempts, it still takes five hours to process a 5-milliliter sample.

Researchers hope to get it down to half an hour and not need to take out red blood cells first so it can be used in surgeries.

Currently red blood cells are removed and the remaining blood passes through a channel in a chip.

Sound waves angled across the channel creates a gauntlet of pressure nodes that push the cells away from the centre of the channel.

Since cancer cells have different size and compressibility than normal white blood cells, they are propelled at different trajectories by the sound waves allowing them to be siphoned off.

Fear of spiders became part of our DNA during evolution, say scientists

 

Arachnophobia could be a product of human evolution, according to new research.

Spiders presented such a great danger to humans during the early evolutionary stages that a fear of the species became part of our DNA.

In Africa, early in human evolution, those with a keen ability to spot the creatures outlived their less wary counterparts, according to The Sunday Times.

Joshua New of Columbia University in New York said:  “A number of spider species with potent, vertebrate-specific venoms populated Africa long before hominoids… and have co-existed there for tens of millions of years.”

“Humans were at perennial, unpredictable and significant risk of encountering highly venomous spiders in their ancestral environments.

“Even when not fatal, a black widow spider bite in the ancestral world could leave one incapacitated for days or even weeks, terribly exposed to dangers.”

The study tested how quickly people could spot a spider when presented with a number of other images.

Of the 252 people reviewed in the study, most recognised the spiders much quicker than other images known to induce fear, such as flies and needles.

There are, however, other theories that have been suggested to explain human fear of spiders.

Plymouth University Psychology professor, Jon May, suggested that it is their angular legs, dark colours and unpredictable movements that make archnids so unpalatable to humans.

Professor May said: “Spiders just tick all these boxes, and like any phobia, when it builds up in someone’s mind they can become scared even seeing a picture.

”We like bright-coloured butterflies and ladybirds, but spiders are dark coloured with long angular legs – and the shape and colour both have strong negative associations.

“We are also very sensitive to seeing things moving out of the corner of our eye and immediately notice it, and insects move quickly and unpredictably.”

In contrast to the research from Columbia University, May has also suggested that this fear is developed through social conditioning , as children are much more likely to become arachnophobic if they see parents or siblings reacting to the creatures in a certain way.