Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

I told Enda Kenny that Ireland has no chance of a bank debt deal

  

An alley of German chancellor Angela Merkel has said he told Taoiseach Enda Kenny that Ireland cannot use the new eurozone bailout fund to retrospectively recapitalise its banks.

Dr Joachim Pfeiffer, economic policy spokesperson for Merkel’s party the Christian Democrats, has said that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) can only be used for future banking debt issues and not legacy ones.

He told TheJournal.ie today that he communicated this to Enda Kenny in a meeting yesterday but said the Taoiseach did not share his view.

“He said the instrument was put in situ – that it can be used. But from my point of view it’s an instrument for the future,” Pfeiffer said of Kenny’s response.

For over two years the Irish government has been pushing for the use of the ESM to retrospectively recapitalise its pillar banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, which received some €25 billion in State funding at the height of the financial crisis.

The government and Finance Minister Michael Noonan have repeatedly maintained that they will seek relief on legacy bank debt when the ESM is fully established later this year but these latest comments will do little to bolster the government’s case.

Pfeiffer has been in Dublin this week attending events and meetings with the German-Irish Chamber of Industry and Commerce. He has repeatedly said in interviews that Ireland has no chance of using the ESM for legacy debt.

“The ESM is an emergency instrument for the handling of the future problems that hopefully we are going to prevent,” he said this morning, adding “definitely not” when asked if it could be used for legacy debt.

He said that every country has to deal with its own debt burden, saying it is not the responsibility of other eurozone nations to provide relief.

He said: “Every country has to carry it’s own burden. We [Germany] took about €500 billion in our account with guarantees and we are not asking [for] Ireland to repay our problems.”

Pfeiffer repeatedly said that the ESM is “an instrument for the future and not for legacy”.

He added that his view was shared unanimously by other German parliamentarians and that he believes Chancellor Merkel also shares his view.

Miriam O’Callaghan gets behind epic children’s charity push

 

RTE’s  broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan has put her shoulder to the wheel to help push the Bumbleance all the way from Dingle to Dublin.

Adventurer Mike O’Shea has trekked across Polar icecaps and some of the world’s most unforgiving terrain, but this will be his toughest challenge yet.

The Kerryman will be joined by Tony Heffernan, who founded the national children’s ambulance service, along with his wife Mary of the Saoirse Foundation and a team of volunteers to help them complete the 355km challenge.

The Bumbleance Mega Push, which aims to raise €250,000 and put two more child-friendly interactive ambulances on the road, was launched by charity patron Miriam.

The group will set off from Dingle, Co Kerry, on September 10 and hope reach St Stephen’s Green 10 days later. They will push the ambulance over the Conor Pass before going through towns and villages including Castleisland, Adare and Kill before reaching Dublin.

OVERWHELMING

Mike got behind the charity when he heard about the Bumbleance’s ‘Angel Trips’ – the last journey a terminally-ill child will take to or from hospital.

“This was the project for me. All funds raised will go towards the purchase of a new ambulance, and two if we can make it happen,” he said.

Mary and Tony’s son Liam (5) made his own trip aboard the Bumbleance shortly before he died in May from the extremely rare and fatal Batten’s Disease which also claimed the life of his older sister Saoirse (5).

“The positive effect that Bumbleance has had on the sickest of Irish children has been overwhelming, so much so that it is now a priority to get two more Bumbleances,” Tony said.

Members of the public can get behind Bumbleance by texting BUZZ to 50300 to donate €4. Volunteers are welcome to join the team along the route and can get involved by calling 083 0044444.

Cancer map of Ireland reveals wide variance in both incidence and mortality rate

  

A map developed as part of the Irish Examiner’s county by county report on the state of Ireland’s health has revealed wide variations in both the incidence and mortality rates for all the main cancer types.

Based on statistics from the National Cancer registry the map reveals Waterford as the county with the highest death rate from breast cancer in the country.

Cork has the highest incidence rates of non-melanoma skin cancer, while Tipperary has the highest death rate from non-melanoma skin cancer.

The map also shows how Kerry has the second highest incidence of breast cancer, while Carlow has the highest number of lung cancer deaths.

An Post plans 80,000 digital era letter boxes

  

The postal service has started on plans for the manufacture of up to 80,000 new delivery boxes

IT IS a persistent problem for the online shopper – ordering a package but not being home when the postman calls.

But semi-state An Post believes it has found the solution.

The postal service has started on plans for the manufacture of up to 80,000 new delivery boxes.

The company has begun searching for a manufacturer to enter a three-year contract to manufacture new specialised boxes that will be placed at people’s homes.

According to tender documents seen by the Herald, the agreement will consist of an initial supply of 10,000 boxes.

ONLINE

However, it said that the figure for requirements may be extended by 70,000 additional boxes in tranches of 10,000 units.

An Post said that the plan was a response to a steady growth in customers’ online and catalogue shopping preferences and in anticipation of future growth.

Parcel delivery volume increased at the company by 22pc last year.

A trial scheme for prototype boxes in areas including Dublin was “very positive”, according to An Post.

A spokeswoman said the new boxes should be available to households by the first quarter of next year.

“It will be available to anyone who wants one,” she said.

The pricing structure for the boxes has yet to be determined, but the company has promised to keep the prices “as low as possible”.

An Post has also specified that the boxes should be self-
installable.

“We are now looking for expressions of interest from suppliers interested in working with us to perfect the design and produce top quality die-cast metal, secure delivery boxes,” the spokeswoman said.

According to the tender, the boxes will allow for delivery of a range of different-sized mail items directly to a point that sits outside, but in close proximity to, a person’s home.

Specifications have also been laid out for the size of the boxes.

The internal dimensions should allow for the storage of a package 37cm long, 25cm high and 16.5cm wide.

The winning design should also be able to withstand temperatures of between -5C and 35C and be secure against water.

SHOPPING

The boxes will be designed in such a way that only the owner and An Post will be able to gain access.

It has been estimated that the value of Ireland’s internet economy will grow from its current level of €8.4bn a year to €21.1bn by 2020, with consumer spending making up 60pc of this figure.

More than half of online spending by Irish consumers, goes to sites abroad.

Gulls eating rabbit is just ‘normal’, says Birdwatch

 

Concerns raised about impact of filming Star Wars during breeding season on the world heritage site

A young rabbit defends itself against a herring gull on Skellig Michael, Co Kerry.

As Skellig Michael braces itself for an encounter with Star Wars film crews, life and death continues on the Unescoworld heritage site off the Kerry coast. Birdwatch Irelandhas said that a baby rabbit’s terrifying encounter with a herring gull, as captured by photographer Michael Kelly, is “ a natural enough” event.

Birdwatch Ireland’s senior conservation officer for seabirds, Stephen Newton, said the rabbit population on Dublin’s Dalkey Island was controlled by predatory gulls, and the same could be said for any coastal location. Black-backed gulls were particularly voracious, and he had witnessed one such gull swallowing a mallard duck whole.

Ornithologists say there is no such species as a “seagull”, but gulls have been in the public consciousness sinceFianna Fáil Senator Ned O’Sullivan told the Seanad in mid-July that the birds were attacking children and taking lollipops.

“Rogue gulls tend to be after food, not people,” Mr Newton said.

Skellig Michael’s extensive bird population, including puffins, Manx shearwaters, guillemots and petrels, is in the middle of a breeding season, and there is serious concern among ornithologists about the impact of the proposed filming on the island’s wildlife.

Approval

It is understood that an environmental impact assessment to support approval by the National Parks and Wildlife Service was only sought several weeks ago. Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys has responsibility for both the NPWS and the Irish Film Board – a potential conflict of interest, according to environmental sources.

Irish Film Board chief executive James Hickey said “all requisite consents including the NPWS approval are in place with the production company for a limited amount of film-related work on the island”.

The board said the filming programme “has been designed specifically to avoid disturbance of breeding birds” and the NPWS “has approved the proposal on that basis”.

Only 8.2% of Human DNA Is ‘Functional & useful’ The Rest Is Just useless and pure Junk’

  

ABOUT 90% OF HUMAN DNA COULD JUST BE “JUNK.”

Only about 8.2 percent of human DNA is believed to have an important role.

Past studies have suggested 80 percent of human DNA has a biochemical function, but this new research disputes that idea, University of Oxford reported. The study, published recently in Plos Genetics, suggests past definitions of “functional” have been too broad.

“This isn’t just an academic argument about the nebulous word ‘function’. These definitions matter. When sequencing the genomes of patients, if our DNA was largely functional, we’d need to pay attention to every mutation. In contrast, with only [eight percent] being functional, we have to work out the [eight percent] of the mutations detected that might be important. From a medical point of view, this is essential to interpreting the role of human genetic variation in disease,” said joint senior author Professor Chris Ponting of the MRC Functional Genomics Unit at Oxford University.

To make their findings the researchers looked at how much of the human genome has avoided accumulating changes over the past 100 million years; this indicates the DNA has an important function that must be preserved. The rest of the DNA that has undergone numerous losses or gains is considered to be leftover evolutionary material, or “junk DNA.  The team took a computational approach to comparing completed DNA sequences in humans as well as other mammals such as guinea pigs and horses.

“We tend to have the expectation that all of our DNA must be doing something. In reality, only a small part of it is,” said Doctor Chris Rands, first author of the study and a former DPhil student in the MRC Functional Genomics Unit at Oxford University.

Only about one percent of human DNA is believed to account for the proteins that carry out most biological processes; the other seven percent is responsible for switching on and off genes that encode proteins.

“There appears to be a lot of redundancy in how our biological processes are controlled and kept in check. It’s like having lots of different switches in a room to turn the lights on. Perhaps you could do without some switches on one wall or another, but it’s still the same electrical circuit,” Ponting said.

Is this Britain’s biggest ever jellyfish? Watch giant sea beast stun divers off Cornish coast

  

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water and then this GIANT jellyfish appears off the coast of Cornwall .

The enormous barrel jellyfish is thought to be one of the biggest of its kind ever recorded in British waters.

Diver Robert Lenfert, 42, was dwarfed by the magnificent creature as he and wife Natasha, 39, swam beside it off Pendennis Point in Falmouth.

The rhizostoma pulmo, also known as a dustbin-lid jellyfish, can measure up to four feet from tip to tail and up to three feet in diameter.

But despite its imposing presence, it has only a mild sting, which is sometimes compared to a nettle sting.

Whopper: Diver Robert Lenfern with the gigantic jellyfish

Experts say record numbers of barrel jellyfish are swimming in our seas this summer, particularly off the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and south Wales.

The boom has been put down to the mild winter, which allowed more adults to survive and resurface in spring.

Other commonly-sighted species include the compass, lion’s mane and blue jellyfish.   

Donie's news Ireland daily BLOG

15,300 Discretionary medical cards to be restored at a cost of 13 million

 

The Government has decided it will return discretionary medical cards taken off those with serious medical conditions over the past three years.

The Cabinet has approved a plan which does not require a change in the law and can see cards returned in a matter of weeks.

A statement from the Department of Health said the Government could not stand over the removal of cards from those with an acute medical condition, or a lifelong condition, including a disability.

The statement said it is anticipated that about 15,300 cards will be restored to people with serious medical conditions as part of this process.

The decision to return cards without changing the law follows intensive negotiations with the Attorney General.

Today’s announcement covers cards withdrawn between July 1, 2011, and May 31, 2014. in a statement, the Department of Health said the review of the cards “produced unintended consequences” and that “much anecdotal evidence” revealed that those with a lifelong condition lost their cards.

However, he said that all decisions were made legally, and there would be no refund for medical expenses incurred in the intervening time, saying “there is no basis for a refund” and the Government had no plans to offer one.

The HSE has established an expert panel to consider the “broader issue” on how medical cards should be issued, and what makes an applicant eligible.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, the Minister for Health, James Reilly, said that responsibility for the “unintended consequence” was shared between the last Government, which decided to centralise medical card applications, and the current Government, which implemented it.

The Taoiseach also apologised in the Dáil for the “very many families being severely inconvenienced which] really did cause a great deal of stress for people.”

Michael Noonan to persist in push for Irish banking debt relief

 

Minister for Finance rules out any link between corporate tax rate and debt relief

Speaking in Brussels yesterday, a senior euro zone official said retroactivity was not envisaged in the scope of the European Stability Mechanism’s direct bank recapitalisation instrument being finalised.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan will continue to press the case for direct recapitalisation of Bank of Irelandand AIB when euro zone finance minister meet later this week in Luxembourg, despite receding political support in the euro zone.

“The rules as we have adopted them are forward-looking, so I see no case for retroactive application,” he said.

The powerful euro working groupof senior officials based in Brussels signed off on the framework for direct bank recapitalisation last week, following agreement by finance ministers a year ago. While the provision to consider retroactive direct bank recapitalisation on a “case-by-case basis” is understood to remain, senior EU sources said that political support for Ireland’s claim for debt relief through the fund was negligible.

“The idea that Ireland’s bank debt would be put on the balance sheet of the ESM is very unlikely,” said one EU source. “The whole point of the ESM direct bank recap facility is that it is used in an emergency, if a bank is in trouble, and only when other categories of creditors have been bailed-in.”

The Department of Finance stressed this evening the agreement “keeps open the possibility to apply to the European Stability Mechanism for a retrospective direct recapitalisation of the Irish banks, should we wish to avail of it.”

Any decision to activate the ESM’s direct bank recapitalisation mechanism must be made with the support of every country in the euro zone. In addition, up to six countries, including Germany, must vote on the direct bank recapitalisation instrument by the year’s end.

The ESM is the only “mutualised” fund in the euro zone, and there is a strong reluctance from members to use the fund to bail-out individual states. The renewed focus on the ESM direct recapitalisation instrument comes less than a week after the European Commission launched an investigation into the tax deal offered by Ireland to computer giant Apple.

The issue is also expected to be raised by German MPs visiting Dublin this week. Speaking in Limerick today, Mr Noonan ruled out any link between Ireland’s corporate tax rate and further debt relief.

“That link has never been made to me and I am a few years going out to Europe, ” he said.

The VHI records €65 million surplus for last year 2013

 

Company signs four-year reinsurance deal with Berkshire Hathaway VHI chief executive John O’Dwyer (above)  “We recorded a strong surplus on our consolidated business, improved our solvency position and maintained a low operating cost ratio.”

The country’s largest health insurer, the VHI, recorded a financial surplus of €65 million last year.

The State-owned company also said it had finalised a four-year reinsurance agreement with Berkshire Hathaway, the insurance giant headed by investor Warren Buffett.

The company said it had made an application for its long-planned authorisation by the Central Bank of Ireland and that it would not need support from the exchequer to achieve the required solvency levels.

VHI said its surplus for 2013 represented a margin of 4.4 per cent and was an improvement on the surplus of €54.3 million, or 3.8 per cent margin, achieved in the previous year.

It said that at the end of 2013 VHI Healthcare had free cash reserves of more than €389 million, bringing the company’s solvency level to 156 per cent, compared with 108 per cent in 2012 and 100 per cent in 2011.

Special investigation unit

VHI said its special investigations unit – which examines claim of overcharging and erroneous payments to hospitals and doctors – and its medical review process had recovered €14.8 million.

VHI chief executive John O’Dwyer said: “VHI Healthcare continued to perform well in a challenging market in 2013. We recorded a strong surplus on our consolidated business, improved our solvency position and maintained a low operating cost ratio. The improved financial results have been achieved on the back of a number of key initiatives taken in 2012 and 2013 which will continue to bear fruit in future years.”

He said a key business priority in 2013 was preparing to submit an application for authorisation by the Central Bank. He said a significant element of this submission was the inclusion of a long-term, sustainable business plan that would secure the viability of the business.

Warren Buffett deal with VHI will save Irish taxpayers some €200m

  

BILLIONAIRE’S LIFELINE WILL ALSO REDUCE PRESSURE FOR FURTHER PREMIUM HIKES

The current relentless pressure on health insurance customers is expected to ease after the country’s largest health insurer extended a lucrative deal with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The VHI’s new four-year contract with a company headed by Mr Buffett is also set to save millions of euro for taxpayers.

His Berkshire Hathaway holding company has signed an agreement to take over some of the risks of VHI, in what is known as a re-insurance deal.

Head of the VHI John O’Dwyer said the deal is set to save taxpayers from having to pump up to €200m into the company and will help keep down premium hikes for the insurer’s one million-plus customers.

“This is a good deal for VHI customers and it is a good deal for the Exchequer,” Mr O’Dwyer said.

Families have faced huge costs in order to keep up health insurance payments in recent years, as premiums have doubled since the start of the economic downturn.

The spiralling costs have forced as many as 266,000 people to completely drop out of the market for private health insurance, and has pushed many others to downgrade their cover.

The most recent VHI hike was announced in January and meant families would have to pay an extra €250 a year for cover.

The annual cost of some of its plans has shot up by more than €1,000 during the past few years.

Insurers have blamed cost pressures that forced them to announce multiple rises in the past five years.

But Mr O’Dwyer said the focus of the VHI would be to continue to keep premium rises to a minimum, by keeping claims costs down.

“We remain focused on keeping prices as low as is feasible, and on delivering back savings through offers and promotions where possible,” he said.

The VHI boss said the four-year deal with Warren Buffett’s company would put the insurer on a sound footing and take away some of the pressure that has meant multiple premium rises in the past couple of years.

He also pointed out that in the past two years the VHI has had the lowest premium increases in the market.

However, it did increase premiums by an average of 3pc in March this year, although some plans went up by more. And last year the average premium went up by 6pc.

The deal with Mr Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway also removes the threat of fines from the EU over the failure of the VHI to put sufficient reserves in place up to now.

Mr Buffett (83) is estimated by ‘Forbes’ magazine to be worth $58bn (€43bn), and is renowned as the world’s most savvy investor.

It is seen as a major achievement to get the company he leads to commit to a four-year deal with the VHI.

The new deal extends a previous one-year deal, which had surprised market watchers.

Mr Buffett is the chairman, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway.

The agreement with one of the richest men in the world involves his Berkshire Hathaway firm insuring some of VHI’s claims.

Effectively, large chunks of the VHI’s health insurance claims are being laid-off with Berkshire, though customers will still deal with VHI.

Mr O’Dwyer said the deal would save taxpayers between €150m and €200m. This was the amount of money the Exchequer was expected to have to pump into the VHI to boost its reserves.

EU officials are pressing the Government to have VHI regulated by the Central Bank, but its reserves have been too low up to now.

VHI would have needed between €150m and €200m put into it from taxpayer if it had not been for the re-insurance deal with Mr Buffett’s company.

It is understood it will cost the VHI around €20m a year in fees to cover the cost of the re-insurance arrangement with Berkshire Hathaway.

Mr O’Dwyer said: “This is a major vote of confidence in the VHI from a highly respected company.”

News of the re-insurance deal, that runs up to 2017, came as the VHI said it made profits of €65m last year, up from €54.3m in 2013.

The semi-state company now has reserves of €389m which should mean the Central Bank will approve it to be regulated as a standalone entity, without needing to fall back on a State guarantee.

An application to be regulated by the Central Bank was submitted last month. VHI missed at least seven deadlines to meet the solvency targets it needs to be regulated on the same footing as its competitors GloHealth, Aviva and Laya, an insurance industry executive said.

The European Court of Justice has made several findings against the State due to the failure to bring VHI under the regulation.

The court ruled against the State in September 2011, requiring that VHI be regulated in a similar fashion to all the other non-life insurers.

It also noted that “discriminatory” structures were in place in the Irish health insurance market.

Titan the Earth like moon smells like gasoline and farts

 

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has unusually Earth-like qualities and hence has interested scientists for YEARS. 

Before the arrival of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, since Titan is shrouded in a thick golden haze of photochemical smog that obscured its surface, it was difficult to study. Observations gathered by this instrument have now transformed investigations of this curious moon, and now a novel set of laboratory experiments has teased out even more information.

A team of NASA scientists has got tantalizingly close to recreating an unknown material discovered in Titan’s hazy atmosphere, furthering our knowledge of its composition, using Cassini data.

This unidentified material was detected using Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer which collects spectral data in far-infrared regions. The signature of this material suggested that it was composed of several different ingredients, but what precisely these were remained a mystery.

In order to figure out the possible constituents, scientists used a trial and error method of combining different mixtures of gases in a chamber and seeing what came out. The team knew that if they could get the concoction right, then under the correct conditions it should be possible to recreate the unknown material. Although this may sound relatively simple, given the number of possible combinations this was no mean feat.

The team started off their experiments by combining the two most abundant gases in Titan’s atmosphere, nitrogen and methane, but the resulting mixtures never matched up with the signature picked up by Cassini. So the team experimented by throwing something else into the mix; aromatic hydrocarbons. These are hydrocarbons that contain one or more benzene ring. Since these are partly responsible for Titan’s burnt orange color this seemed logical.

The researchers began with the simplest aromatic hydrocarbon, benzene, which has been previously detected in Titan’s atmosphere and then worked their way through a list of closely related aromatic compounds.

They discovered the best spectral match to the Cassini data when they added aromatic hydrocarbons containing nitrogen, which are part of a subgroup known as polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles. These are polycyclic aromatic (contain more than 1 aromatic ring) hydrocarbons where carbon atoms have been replaced by nitrogen.

“Now we can say that this material has a strong aromatic character, which helps us understand more about the complex mixture of molecules that makes up Titan’s haze,” said planetary scientist Melissa Trainer in a news-release.

Although the spectral signatures were not identical when the team aligned them, they were strikingly similar which suggested that the scientists were very close to the right combination.

“This is the closest anyone has come, to our knowledge, to recreating with lab experiments this particular feature seen in the Cassini data,” said co-lead author of the study Joshua Sebree.

The team will now continue to play with the experimental conditions in order to hopefully yield a better fit to the Cassini signature.

“With the combination of laboratory experiments and Cassini data, we gain an understanding of just how complex and wondrous this Earth-like moon really is,?