Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

We in Ireland must do enough to entice UK finance firms here

  

WE IN IRELAND MUST ABSORB THE MESSAGES OF THE VOTING PATTERNS THAT REFLECT UNDERLYING PROBLEMS,

“We must absorb the messages of the voting patterns that reflect underlying problems we must combat with force in Ireland too.”

Even the darkest Brexit clouds can have silver linings . . .

I am just back from Glasgow (day of vote), Belfast (days after result) and London. Train and plane rides allow a lot of reflection.

For many months, I’ve worried that voters might, despite the bookies, deliver a shock.

Like others, I was saddened by xenophobic arguments polluting the debate and polarising a country in contrast to the strong positive message from the mayoral election in London. Now I am just angered the open pluralist views of a clear majority of younger voters, the future of the UK, have been relegated to the back seat.

There are many messages for Ireland.

1. Firstly, young people even in the UK reject this inward-looking vision of the future.
2. We must resoundingly reiterate that Ireland rejects it too.

The joy of voters after the same-sex referendum for our new pluralist, diverse, accepting Ireland is our reality and the aspiration of young and old for our country and for Europe, not that of the poster choices of Nigel Farage.

We do not have Céad Míle Fáilte as one of our national anthems for nothing. We welcome migration from the EU and beyond. Our #COYBIG fans partying with all nationalities in France has been a welcome tonic against the shame we feel when see abuse directed at other immigrants in the UK.

Secondly, we must absorb the messages of the voting patterns that reflect underlying problems we must combat with force in Ireland too.

We must find sustainable ways to fix the despair of many about growing inequalities and the negative impact globalisation and new technology have on their own lives and their communities (mainly in former industrial hinterlands or rural communities).

DUBIOUS CLAIMS

How many of our own population when the status quo seems so unattractive might accept similar dubious claims of populist politicians about a rosy future and ignore warnings of economic failure they feel hit not them but the “elite”?

Thirdly, we must act now that the result is known, not ignore it.

I still believe that new UK leaders (and especially its pragmatic parliament) can better expose the downsides of the new reality and retest national opinion before having to trigger article 50, and that a united Britain will reopen its arms to Europe and recognise that the reform so necessary for a safe, successful Europe is best achieved from within.

Of course, this might not happen and we must react and devise solutions that solve our own structural problems too.

Each sector is different. Back from the City of London, here’s my humble suggestion for our letter to financial services companies: Dear Big Boss of Big Bank,

You, your employees and your families are probably reeling in shock. Like us, you’re probably asking how now am I actually to implement this contingency plan?

We are writing to you as we think that the solutions you need are also the solutions we need

If you can engage with us, we will respond with open arms.

WE ARE NOT PERFECT. NO ONE IS BUT WE KNOW WE HAVE AT LEAST TWO YEARS TO PUT IN PLACE WHAT ELSE WE NEED. WHAT WE WILL PROMISE IS:

(a) A new pan 28 country operating strategy for you straddling from here the new EU and while keeping a foot in the UK. (b) To develop and transition you to a more efficient operating cost model, especially if you consider a new campus we want to build in a regional city as Dublin is already very successful.

(c) To allow you and others operate in big scale in either or both of only two FS clusters we are building, one in Dublin and another in a new regional urban campus where you will find the best housing, the best third-level facilities integrated into your industry and a quality of life much better and cheaper than that you have at present. We also have suffering voters and we want our non-Dublin voters to be part of the solution too.

(d) To improve wifi-enabled public transport (a) within Dublin, (b) between Dublin and this new campus, and (c) air connections between both, the UK and the rest of Europe.

(e) A place where English is your working language and your kids can grow-up fluent in that language too but we will improve foreign language teaching in our schools.

(f) A welcoming place that acts and will continue to act as a magnet for talent from all over Europe. You can ask the mayor of Paris if you want a reference for our young (and not so young)!

(g) A place where we value education although with the UK gone, we know it’s up to us now to invest more to create the EU’s best English language-based universities.

(h) A place that has shown we value and support business.

(i) An administration which during its EU presidency showed we can understand and advance complicated financial services matters.

(j) To make the laws of Ireland (so similar to the UK ones) the logical replacement choice of an EU law for contracts by having the most efficient courts and allowing your own legal teams and employees to even participate in cases themselves.

WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO

(a) Come visit

(b) Bring your friends

(c) Help us convince the European Banking Authority that their future is here too in our new urban financial services campus.

WITH HOPE FOR A COMBINED FUTURE,

Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister to work with Dublin to forge a new relationship with Europe

   

FOLLOWING THE BREXIT REFERENDUM RESULT, THE NORTH’S MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, MICHELLE MCILVEEN HAS SAID THAT SHE WILL BE ENGAGING WITH DUBLIN TO HELP FORGE A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH EUROPE.

Speaking at a CAFRE awards day, the Minister promised her commitment to supporting the industry following the EU referendum.

“I will be engaging with Westminster and elsewhere in the UK, as well as in Dublin and Brussels, to help forge a new relationship with Europe and to develop a support framework that meets the needs and aspirations of our agri-food sector.

“It is only right that we take our time to agree new arrangements, and in the meantime, wecontinue to access the CAP support regime and the EU trading opportunities on the same basis as before,” Minister McIlveen said.

She said that she is aware of the challenges caused by the impact of global market volatility, exchange rate fluctuations and international trade.

As of last Friday, we have an additional uncertainty following the referendum result and the changes – and opportunities – that this will eventually bring.

But, the Minister reiterated that she is committed to addressing all of these challenges.

“By working collectively with stakeholders, producers, suppliers, processors and retailers, we can build a dynamic and flexible industry that is well positioned in the global marketplace to capitalise on the growing demand for food worldwide and to meet both the challenges and opportunities presented by the EU exit.

“Through the Executive, I will be work to ensure a joined up approach to developing new market opportunities.”

Parents call for end to religious discrimination in Ireland’s schools

EDUCATION EQUALITY MARCH CALLS FOR AN END TO STATE-FUNDED RELIGIOUS SEGREGATION IN SCHOOLS

   

PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN AT A DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE LEINSTER HOUSE ORGANISED BY EDUCATION EQUALITY CALLING FOR RELIGIOUS EQUALITY IN EDUCATION.

Hundreds people marched to Leinster House on Sunday calling for an end to religious discrimination in State-funded schools.

The march was organised by Education Equality; an organisation established to campaign for equality in the provision of education for all children, regardless of religion.

Paddy Monahan, a parent from Raheny in Dublin said the baptism barrier must be removed.

Minister for Education Richard Bruton is drawing up plans to encourage the Catholic Church to transfer the patronage of hundreds of primary schools to other models, including State-run schools.

At present more than 90% of the State’s 3,200 primary schools are under Catholic patronage. However, efforts to provide greater choice for parents have proven slow and divisive.

“I want my child to the same school as his neighbours and I don’t want to have to baptise him for the honour of doing that just to go to a taxpayer-funded school,” said Mr Monahan.

“The Government has been banging on for some time now about choice. Choice sounds great and I am a big believer in divestment but if we only focus on choice and building more schools; that is not choice, it is segregation,” he said.

“The blindingly obvious effects of keeping the Equal Status Act and building more schools to create this idea of choice, is segregation. We’re going to have a Muslim school here, a Hindu school there. You’re going to have kids growing up not meeting anyone from different backgrounds. It is bonkers and utterly retrograde.”

“Labour’s radical bill was to bump our kids up from third class citizens to second class citizens. As it stands, children who are not baptised are on the waiting list behind children who are baptised children from other areas who are baptised. It is still going to be local Catholic first when it comes to school places,” he said.

Last week, Labour’s education spokeswoman Joan Burton urged Minister for Education Richard Bruton to accept her party’s Private Members’ Education (Admissions to School) Bill 2015 amending the Equal Status Act.

The Labour proposal, she said, would “balance the constitutional right of religious bodies to organise and run schools with the rights of the child to have access to his or her local school”.

Mr Monahan said the Constitution “does not stand for religious segregation in our taxpayer funded schools.”

“Minister for Education Richard Bruton said we have to move swiftly before he moved the debate back for a year. That debate is on a bill that will make our children second class citizens anyway,” he said.

“The Constitution clearly and unambiguously states there should be no discrimination on the basis of religion so I don’t see where he can hide behind,” said Mr Monahan.

Simon Lewis, principal of an Educate Together school, said the issue of the baptism barrier was not confined to Dublin.

“My little boy can go to the local primary school, he can also go to this local educate together,” said Mr Lewis.

“Education should not be about luck – it is about equity, respect and access. Whether this affects you as a parent or guardian or not, we should all come together to ensure equality of access for all children,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the Minister would treble the rate of delivery of multidenominational schools “by delivering a total of 400 non-denominational and multidenominational schools by 2030”, saying this would provide “greater choice and diversity for parents and children”.

“The Minister will also publish and enact a new Admissions Bill, which will reform the process of school admissions, including banning waiting lists and admissions fees and requiring more information and consultation for parents throughout the process,” said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson added that any change to the Equal Status Act would be “extremely difficult as this is a hugely complex area legally, constitutionally, and in other ways”.

New car sales in Ireland on target to hit the Celtic-Tiger level figures

   

THE NUMBER OF NEW CAR REGISTRATIONS PASSED THE 100,000 MARK BETWEEN JANUARY AND JUNE.

New car sales rocketed in the first six months of this year – returning to nearly the same levels as the time of the Celtic Tiger in 2008.

The number of new car registrations passed the 100,000 mark between January and June. That is 25% more sales than the same period last year.

And dealers are confident that sales for all of 2016 will surpass 150,000 for the first time in eight years.

And in a potent symbol of a return to economic growth, ‘white van man’ is back, with sales of commercial vehicles also rising sharply.

New car registrations were up to 101,338 compared with 82,337 in the first six months of 2015. Light commercial vehicles rose 26% to 18,417 in the first half of the year and overall heavy goods vehicle registrations are up 42% compared with the same period last year.

Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) director general Alan Nolan said: “At the start of the year we predicted that this year’s registration numbers should reach 150,000 for the first time since 2008 and these figures keep us on track to deliver that.

“From today, of course, the focus turns to the 162 registration period. This year promises to be the first normal year of registrations since the recession and with the range of attractive offers available across all brands, we are confident that 162 will also deliver in the coming months.”

Ford is the overall market leader with combined sales of more than 15,000 cars and vans in the six months to June 30.

The marque registered 10,027 cars and 4,979 vans in the first six months, slightly ahead of VW, which actually sold more cars (10,945) but fewer vans (3,060). Toyota is in third place (10,807 cars and 1,358 vans).

So far this year, the best -selling car is the Hyundai Tucson, followed by the Volkswagen Golf (3,585) and the Ford Focus (3,315).

At the upper end of the market, the BMW 5-Series is the most popular. In all, 1,041 have been bought in the first six months, slightly ahead of the Audi A4 (1,025).

Seven out of 10 vehicles sold in the first six months were diesel models.

‘Ethiopia hit by climate change despite negligible emissions claim’ 

SAYS THE UN SPECIAL ENVOY MARY ROBINSON.

    

Former president of Ireland Mary Robinson has said it is unfair that Ethiopians are suffering the worst effects of climate change as 10m people are hit by food shortages following the worst drought in 50 years.

The UN special envoy for climate change and the El Nino weather pattern is spending three days in the country this week after widespread failure of rains and flash floods in the region over the last year.

Ms Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights, said Ethiopia suffers some of the worst effects of climate change despite doing so little to cause it.

“I am saddened that Ethiopia should have to cope with this El Nino situation,” she said.

“Despite the efforts of the government of Ethiopia, and humanitarian partners, the impacts of climate change have weakened people’s ability to cope with El Nino which is unfair considering Ethiopia’s negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.”

The trip is Ms Robinson’s first visit to Africa since being appointed to her role two months ago by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

It also takes place amid the deepening food crisis in the Horn of Africa where millions of people are at risk of malnutrition as El Nino warming in the Pacific compounds the debilitating impact of climate change elsewhere around the world.

The weather pattern, which hits every two to seven years, is taking place where temperatures are already warmer and it is usually followed by the La Nina cooling period which can spark floods and droughts.

During her trip, Mrs Robinson will see the work of aid agencies, including Concern, Trocaire, and Goal, which have been pleading for the international community to do more to prevent the Ethiopian drought becoming the worst food emergency in the region since 1985.

She called on world powers to live up to their responsibilities as millions of Ethiopians are put at risk.

“In addition to supporting relief efforts for this immediate crisis, the international community must take a much longer term view,” said Ms Robinson.

“Climate change impacts will continue to undermine development gains and increase the vulnerability of people to natural disasters, therefore the international community has a duty to reduce emissions, support resilience and adaptation efforts in the hardest hit communities.”

It is estimated that €3.4bn is needed to combat the impacts of the El Nino crisis .

Despite its vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change, Ethiopia and its population of more than 100 million has one of the lowest carbon emission rates in the world. It is estimated that it takes 88 Ethiopians to emit as much carbon dioxide as one Irish person.     

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Enda Kenny & Cameron hope for a Stormont deal soon?

‘This week sometime’

      

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he hopes a Stormont deal can be reached within days, to resolve the political crisis that is threatening power sharing in the North.

Talks began in September, aimed at tackling the dispute over welfare reform, paramilitarism, and budget matters.

British prime minister David Cameron recently met Stormont’s political leaders as the pace of negotiations stepped up. The Taoiseach said “I am very hopeful and happy that the reports I am getting are that a deal is on here.

“I do hope it can be concluded successfully in the next couple of days.”

A vexed budget wrangle has left the power-sharing administration in Belfast facing an unsustainable black hole of hundreds of millions of pounds.

A resolution to the long-standing impasse over the executive’s failure to implement the government’s welfare reforms in the North will be crucial to any breakthrough.

It is understood that Stormont’s leaders want the British government to commit extra funding to the power-sharing executive, both resource and capital, as part of any settlement.

The wider negotiations, which have been on-going for weeks, are also trying to find a way forward on other problems causing the current instability at Stormont, including the fallout from a recent murder linked to the IRA and a row over how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles.

Mr Kenny is meeting David Cameron at 10 Downing St this afternoon for bilateral talks.

Yesterday, Mr Kenny laid a wreath at the war memorial in Enniskillen, 28 years to the day after the IRA bombed the annual Remembrance Day service.

Eleven people, who had gathered to pay their respects, were killed and dozens more were injured in the no-warning blast in 1987, just minutes before the event had been due to start.

In terrible weather conditions, Mr Kenny joined other dignitaries in laying a wreath at the foot of the memorial.

In Belfast, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan laid a laurel wreath at the Cenotaph.

He said: “I am pleased to represent the Irish Government for the second year at the Remembrance Sunday commemoration at Belfast City Hall.”

More than 200,000 Irish-born soldiers served in the British Army and Navy from 1914 to 1918.

Businessman Bobby Kerr announces cancer diagnosis

The broadcaster is receiving treatment for cancer of the neck and head

      

Businessman Bobby Kerr has started receiving treatment for cancer of the head and neck, and is temporarily stepping aside as host of his Newstalk radio show. 

Businessman Bobby Kerr has revealed live on his own radio show that he has been diagnosed with cancer.

The self-made millionaire and owner of the Insomnia chain of coffee shops told listeners of his Down to Business show on Newstalk that he has started receiving treatment for cancer of the head and neck, and is temporarily stepping aside as host to “make myself better”.

“Did you know 35,000 people hear the dreaded words every year ‘we have the results of your biopsy, you need to come in and see me’. Well folks, it’s 34,999 and one other- me,” he said, “because guess what, I’ve been diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck, and I’m currently receiving treatment to make myself better.

“I have a very serious disease, it’s been caught early, it’s only in one place, and because it’s been caught early my chances of beating this increase incrementally,” added the 55 year-old, who has been presenting the Saturday morning magazine show for six years.

Mr Kerr, who was previously an investor on RTÉ’s Dragon’s Den series, said he wanted to broach the issue in such a public manner to raise awareness of Movember and Men’s Health Month in the hope that more people will get themselves checked out.

“So, why am I telling you this, what you might consider a very personal and private piece of news? The reason’s simple- it’s Movember, it’s Men’s Health Month. Get yourself checked out, I did.

“I’ve always considered myself a glass half-full type of person, always tried to take a positive attitude of whatever life throws at me, and I believe that life is absolutely for living,” he said.

He went on to mention the “arsenal of armoury” he has to beat the illness including support from his mother, brother, extended family and business colleagues alongside his wife Mary and their four daughters Meghan, Emily, Rebecca and Michaela.

He also paid tribute to co-workers and station management at Newstalk, as well as fellow presenters Jonathan Healy and Vincent Wall who will take over hosting duties for Down to Business until Mr Kerr’s expected return in the new year.

“God bless you all and thanks, and I’ll see you next year,” he concluded.

The perfect solution to stop office colleagues from stealing the milk?

    

Yes, we have all been in that situation where that pint of milk you lovingly bought and stored in the fridge at work has miraculously disappeared.

And you know all too well that your chances of catching these milk thieves at work are pretty slim.

After all, which colleague in his/her right mind will admit to the fact that they have made (and drank) several cups of tea using the milk that YOU bought?

But it seems someone may have found a rather passive aggressive solution to this problem by going to extreme lengths to keep their milk for themselves.

And it requires a lock… and the means to drill holes into the milk carton. (Either that, or they’ve gone to great lengths on Photoshop to put a padlock on the image).

Real or fake, this hilarious picture of the padlocked milk has been viewed more than 1.8 million times on Imgur.

The photo was posted on Reddit by a user called banginthedead with the caption: “The milk situation at work is starting to get a little serious.”

But the story doesn’t end here.

It seems banginthehead later posted a second image of a milk container with what looks like an explosive booby trap device on it saying: “The milk situation hasn’t improved.”

It’s hard to say whether this person really went and padlocked and booby-trapped their milk container, but it’s definitely a good laugh.

Hundreds of Web Summit attendees go west for guaranteed Sligo surf waves

Surf Summit weekend event included talks from local and international surf champions

      

The web Summit attendess took part in a range of activity sports including stand up paddling, kayaking, kite boarding and surfing at the Surf Summit in Strandhill Co. Sligo.

Hundreds of Web Summit attendees made the break for the West lured by stand up paddling around the lake isle of Innisfree, kayaking on Lough Gill and making business deals on the waves alongside some of the world’ s top surfers.

Watching Peggy Johnson, one of Microsoft’s top deal makers, pulling pints at Sligo pub Shoot the Crows on Saturday evening was a bonus.

“There was a time when the golf course was synonymous with networking and deal making but a lot of people in the tech world are into activity sports,” explained local surfer and tech enthusiast Allan Mulrooney, one of the organisers of the Surf Summit.

He and his friend former Westlife singer Kian Egan were among the hosts who brought high profile guests including world record big wave surfer Garrett McNamara and Adam Berke of AdRoll, on a whirlwind tour of Sligo’s best known surfing and party locations.

About 300 people, most of them delegates from the Web Summit, attended talks by Mr McNamara, European surf champion Pauline Ado and local sufer Easkey Britton over the weekend.

Mr McNamara, who broke the world record when he surfed a 100 foot wave in Nazare in Portugal, had never been to Ireland before. “We took him to Mullaghmore and Bundoran and he told us he will be back to surf here next month,” said Mr Mulrooney.

A range of activity sports including stand up paddling, kayaking, kite boarding and surfing kept delegates busy on Saturday.

“The weather was amazing. We even had a double rainbow,” said Easkey Britton, founder of Waves of Freedom whose lecture focussed on how surfing can be a tool for social change.

While guests sampled everything from locally brewed White Hag craft beer to traditional music in well-known Sligo bars Connollys and McGarrigles, there was also time for some business at the Surf Summit.

“ We had investors here from Singapore, the US and Australia and a few deals were clinched”, said Mr Mulrooney.

“The setting may have been unusual – some investors did not expect to be drinking hot whiskeys at a camp fire on the shores of Lough Gill listening to Dave O’Hara of SUP forAll reciting Yeats poetry but I think they enjoyed it”.

A bonus, he added, was that the Wifi worked well, there were no traffic jams and Peggy Johnson knows how to pull a pint of Guinness.

MEANWHILE:-

Lisbon’s Web Summit won’t be the same as Dublin

Ireland’s high-profile tech event packed its bags on Thursday and set sail for Portugal. But will it succeed there, and will Dublin rue its departure?

     

On the Dart to Sandymount they’re talking about angels and unicorns. Which is strange, as they’re not five-year-olds. In fact pretty much everyone in the carriage is a 25- to 45-year-old man wearing the same uniform: suit jacket, no tie, jeans. The chat is also of VCs and VR, pivots and platforms, bootstraps and wearables. You’d need an app to translate this stuff.

My phone pings – again – with a notification from the Web Summit app. “Hi Hugh! I’m a 20 year old girl from Australia, co-founder of ClosetDrop – Rent out your wardrobe. To put it simply, we’re basically the Airbnb of fashion. My best friend and I started ClosetDrop to help girls all around the world fulfil their expensive taste in fashion for just a fraction of the price. ClosetDrop is a global online market-place where girls can rent out their own clothes, shoes & accessories between each other . . .”

I’m still 10 minutes from the entrance, but I feel as if I’m already deep inside the forcefield of Web Summit. (The definite article is always absent, as with Fight Club or Electric Picnic, or Narnia). What is this strange place, and why does it exist?

Part evangelical prayer meeting, part digital flea market, it’s a mixture of the huckster and the hipster, and in its own way it provides a snapshot of a lot of the forces that, for good or ill, proclaim that they’re going to change your world.

And what exactly does the word tech mean? I like this description, by Nathan Heller: “Tech today means anything about computers, the internet, digital media, social media, smartphones, electronic data, crowd-funding, or new business design. At some point, in other words, tech stopped being an industry and turned into the substrate of most things changing in urban culture.”

Through some happy conjunction of luck, timing, brass neck, hard work and sheer pig-headedness, Web Summit’s founders,Paddy Cosgrave and Daire Hickey, tapped into that substrate over the past few years and built from scratch an international event that this year claimed an attendance figure of more than 40,000. Web Summit has grown and grown, and now it has grown too big for Dublin. Some might say it has grown too big for its bootstraps.

Irish media coverage this week has been as plentiful as ever – to the annoyance of those who regard the whole thing as overhyped in the first place – refracted through the prism of the absurd handbags that broke out between Cosgrave and the Government about who wanted what and who said whatever to whom in the months leading up to the announcement that Web Summit would be moving to Lisbon for the next three years.

It flared up again with rows about invitations and snarky interviews on radio and television.

Nobody came very well out of this small-town bickering, but it didn’t seem to have registered particularly with the international visitors I met this week. Talking to a cross section of them during the pub crawls organised across central Dublin on Monday night, one thing came across clearly, however. They did like being here.

It helped that the weather was better than it had been in August, but over and over I was told what a beautiful, interesting, friendly city I lived in. The impression was unavoidable that there’s a connection between Web Summit’s success and its location.

It’s something the Government would do well to pause and ponder, no matter how well the move to Lisbon works out. Because, whatever method you use to calculate the value of Web Summit to Dublin in cold, hard cash terms, and whether or not you buy into the proposition that it contributes to the growth of an indigenous tech sector, there is no doubt that these tens of thousands of people are highly educated, highly connected and potentially highly influential, which has to be worth something.

The people I talked to came from North and South America, from across Europe, the Middle East and (to a lesser extent) Asia. To my inexpert ear some of them seemed to be involved in substantial enterprises. One was helping to build a platform for the sale and distribution of education services and distance learning across the Indian subcontinent. Another was developing a digital marketplace for advertising inventory on digital billboards in Brazil.

Some of them, though, do fit the start-up cliche. Two young guys have an app that allows you to hook up and socialise with like-minded people when you’re away from your own country. “So it’s like Tinder for city breaks,” I say, but their faces darken. Someone must have got to that line first.

All this frenetic activity, all these tiny start-ups selling variations on a theme: does it really amount to anything substantial? Henry Hwong, a Palo Alto-based marketing consultant, tells me that cloud-computing platforms like Amazon Web Services andMicrosoft Azure mean there is a very low barrier to entry, which is the reason for the glut of “Uber for this” or “Airbnb for that” type of companies.

“It would be nice if there were more investment in really hard engineering projects that move technology forward,” Hwong says. “But that’s just technology capitalism, and Darwinism, at work – lots of investment in many companies that will go nowhere, but the ones that succeed could have a major impact on society.”

At the RDS over the succeeding three days the sheer scale of Web Summit now creates its own dynamic. With so many stages operating simultaneously, and so many different “summits”, each with its own rows of start-ups pitching for business from cramped plywood booths, this year’s event starts to feel as if it has split in two, with one Web Summit in the main RDS complex and the other across Anglesea Road in Simmonscourt.

As the Irish Times columnist Karlin Lillington pointed out, too many of the events are just too short, and therefore don’t go deep enough to yield anything truly interesting. But, despite all the self-aggrandisement and messianic claims of changing the world, there are plenty of thoughtful, impressive people with something to say.

Then there’s the Food Summit in Herbert Park. In previous years this was an impressively organised series of tents feeding thousands of people excellent Irish food, with front-of-house duties carried out with aplomb by the likes of Darina Allen – all included in the price of your ticket.

That you had to pay an extra €20 a day this year, and that the quality of the food seemed to have fallen significantly, provoked some angry reaction. The tents looked grim and empty compared with previous years, and the organisers stood accused of price-gouging – the very charge they had levelled at Dublin hotels.

Who knows what Web Summit will be like at the end of its three-year stint in Lisbon? Cosgrave seems to model it, and the spin-off events he now runs in other countries, on the digital-business model of scaleability, where rapid growth and the acquisition of new customers are the overriding imperatives.

He may be right – and there are other successful events internationally that outrank Web Summit in size. But human beings aren’t software, and the impersonality of a purpose-built conference facility on a city’s fringe could drain away some of the improvisational and occasionally ramshackle elements that made the whole thing work in the first place.

Rising temperatures could drive 100m people into extreme poverty,

The world Bank warns?

    

Efforts to curb climate change must be twinned with programmes to cut poverty, warns a study of the threat posed by global warming to food security.

A dead acari-bodó, a type of catfish that can remain alive for a couple of days out of water, lies before stranded floating houses on a dried out stretch of Brazil’s Rio Negro.

The world must pair efforts to stabilise climate change with programmes to eliminate poverty if vulnerable people are to be kept from falling back into hardship as rising temperatures wreak havoc on food security and livelihoods, a report has said.

As many as 100 million people could slide into extreme poverty because of rising temperatures, which are caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank report said. The bank’s most recent estimate puts the number of people living in extreme poverty this year at 702 million, or 9.6% of the world’s population.

Climate change has led to crop failures, natural disasters, higher food prices and the spread of waterborne diseases, creating poverty and pushing people at risk into destitution, according to Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, released on Sunday.

Efforts to stabilise climate change should incorporate strategies to eradicate poverty, said Stéphane Hallegatte, a senior economist at the World Bank’s climate change group and co-author of the report. “The policies, the investments, the financing, all of that should be integrated. Otherwise, we’re just less efficient.”

Poor people need social safety nets and universal healthcare to sustainably eradicate poverty, according to the report. Programmes to lessen the impacts of climate change should not create new vulnerabilities and they should inform development policies by taking into account future climate conditions.

Beating climate change is key to making nutritious food needed to beat hunger

Neven Mimica and Phil Hogan

“When we [build] infrastructure, for instance, [we need] to make sure it’s in a safe place today but also in a safe place with sea level rise and the change in rainfall and so on,” said Hallegatte.

He added that the world needs to take urgent action to reduce the impacts of climate change if the sustainable development goal on eradicating extreme poverty is to be met.

“We really want to reduce poverty before people get affected by even bigger climate impacts. It’s easier to get people out of extreme poverty now rather than doing it later,” said Hallegatte.

Without proper planning, efforts to stabilise the impacts of climate change can undo decades of progress in lifting vulnerable people out of poverty, the study warned. Environmental taxes, designed to reduce emissions, can raise the cost of fuel and food, which hit poor people hardest.

“These same policies can be designed to protect, and even benefit, poor people – for instance, by using fiscal resources from environmental taxes to improve social protection,” the report said.

Ethiopia’s social protection and Rwanda’s health coverage have boosted long-term poverty reduction efforts in both countries, making it less likely that poor people will fall back into poverty as a result of climate change.

“In most cases, what we want is a package of policies – the climate polices themselves and additional policies to smooth the transition and to support poor people in the transition,” said Hallegatte.

Hallegatte is optimistic that world leaders will take urgent action to stabilise climate change, which he says will boost efforts to eradicate poverty.

This year, a series of high-profile meetings took place, creating a sense of gathering momentum around the battle against global warming. A key step was the adoption of the global goals – which set a 2030 deadline for the eradication of poverty in all its forms and sought to galvanise action to combat climate change and its impacts – at the UN general assembly in September.

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Other milestones have included the Addis conference on financing for development and the Sendai conference on disaster risk reduction, while next month world leaders will convene in Paris for the 21st session of the conference of the parties to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“You can see there is a convergence – these conferences have been designed as a package and you can feel the urgency,” Hallegatte said.

But many challenges remain. According to the report, the world needs to find $1tn (£645bn) more each year to boost key infrastructure if the goals are to be met. Climate summits have in the past been thwarted by the US and China, which have been reluctant to sacrifice economic growth for reduced emissions.

Expectations for next month’s climate summit have been buoyed by fruitful talks held last year in Beijing, where China pledged to bring its emissions to a peak “around 2030”, and the US said it would cut its emissions by 26-28% of their 2005 level by 2025.

Hallegatte said: “Now there is the implementation, and that’s really the challenge – to translate this willingness to act into something that makes a difference on the ground.”