Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Tuesday

Weak international demand sees Irish exports fall by 10%

  

NEW CSO FIGURES SHOW VALUE OF EXPORTS FELL BY €753 MILLION IN FEBRUARY

Weak international demand saw the value of Irish exports fall by 10 per cent in February.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) indicate exports decreased by €753 million to €6.65 billion in February compared with the same period last year.

The decline was driven by a 15 per cent (€309 million) fall in exports of medical and pharmaceutical products and an 18 per cent (€286 million) drop in organic chemical exports.

The value of imports also fell in February compared with the same month last year, dropping by 2 per cent (€61 million) to €3.89 billion on the back of a 21 per cent fall-off in the import of petroleum products.

On a monthly basis, the figures for February show a seasonally adjusted increase in exports of 2.2 per cent (154 million) to €7 billion from January, while imports fell by 2 per cent (69 million) to €3.88 billion.

The combined effect resulted in an 8 per cent rise in the economy’s seasonally adjusted trade surplus to €3.13 billion.

The figures showed the EU accounted for 58 per cent (€3.85 billion) of total exports in February, while the main non-EU destination was the US which accounted for 22 per cent (€1.49 billion).

Two-thirds of the value of Irish imports in February came from the EU, with one-third coming from Britain, 9 per cent from the US and 6 per cent from China.

“In all, this is a weak start to the year, albeit one that is not unexpected given the trends evident,” NCB economist Philip O’Sullivan said.

He noted that of the nine principal export categories, only three – food, beverage and animal/ vegetable oils – recorded an annual improvement.

Officially, Ireland says children are a treasure but acts otherwise

  

In 1868 Frances Power Cobbe, an Irish writer and social reformer, wrote a paper calledCriminals, idiots, women and minors, is the classification sound? At that time, dividing the population into two groups – men and everyone else – seemed normal.

Most large public and private buildings, such as airports and hotels, still have toilet facilities for two groups. Men get their own exclusive toilets while women’s include baby changing and feeding areas and, often, facilities for wheelchair users.

Politically correct public toilets are unisex for people of all ages and mobility. Look for them next time you are out and about and you might find a few.

Women and children are still seen as a unit by most sectors of Irish society. When Leo Varadkar said childcare will be taken into account in insolvency arrangements if the cost prevents parents from making their mortgage repayments, people assumed he was referring to women. This was a fair assumption.

In Ireland, women with children work fewer hours than men with children and earn less money. Nearly 80 per cent of men with children work a 40-hour week or more, whereas only 15 per cent of women with children do. Childcare costs are not seen as essential family expenditure, they are an optional luxury.

An essential public good
Childcare services are no luxury. They are an essential public good without which no country can claim that women and men are treated as equals.

Without affordable childcare, women do not work the same number of hours per week as men. Costs are much higher here than in all other EU countries.

An OECD study found that net childcare costs for a dual-earner family in Ireland are 45 per cent of the average wage. In Sweden and Denmark, net costs are only 8 per cent of average wages.

The overall EU cost is 15 per cent of average wages. Costs of childcare for single parents in Ireland are 52 per cent of family net income in comparison with 4 per cent in Finland.

EU countries have two main models of childcare: one heavily subsidised by the State and the other paid for by parents. The models are based on whether children are seen as a resource, an expensive lifestyle choice, or a burden if the mother is single.

When children are seen as a valuable resource, taxpayers pay for childcare. When children are seen as a burden, or a choice a couple should not make unless they can afford it, parents are expected to pay for childcare with very little help from the State.

In theory, Ireland espouses the notion of child as treasure; in practice the cost of childcare and lack of State-funded affordable services says otherwise.
Large mortgages
Prime Time featured childcare last week. The programme consisted of a trivial chat about costs with parents in the audience paying the equivalent of large mortgages every month (€1,100) to have two children minded on a part-time basis. Political ideologies behind different models were not debated.

The programme did not even define what childcare is and panellists and audience confused babysitting and the Free Pre-School Year (FPSY) for three to four year olds with childcare.

Childcare is a professional service for children from 0 to five years with after-
school facilities, so that all parents can work full-time if they want to. The FPSY scheme is not childcare. It is designed to prepare children for learning and consists of three hours, five days a week.

Although great for the child, FPSY can add to the childcare challenges of working parents as they have to drop children off in the morning and pick them up at lunchtime, thus disrupting the normal working day. Few workplaces, whether public or private, are this flexible.

The role of women
Low supplies of affordable childcare services reinforce the role of women as carers. The OECD 2012 report, Closing the Gender Gap: Act Now , notes that “if childcare eats up one wage and there is little or no financial gain in going out to work, parents (most often mothers) are less likely to seek a job”.

Ireland’s childcare model is unsustainable. Unless the Government decides to provide or heavily subsidise affordable high quality childcare, it is only a matter of time before women refuse to have any children or have only one child.

This will create huge social problems not least of which will be who will mind the mostly male (85 per cent) TDs in their old age.

Five obese Irish children referred to hospital every day

1-IN-4 PRIMARY PUPILS IS OVERWEIGHT IN IRELAND

   

Five children are now referred to Temple Street Hospital every day because they are obese.

As the only children’s hospital with an intervention programme for overweight young people, Temple Street has a nine-month waiting list.

The launch of the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute’s (INDI) inaugural Nourish Children Week at the Mansion House in Dublin was told that parents have little or no services to turn to in their community if their children are overweight or obese.

Richelle Flanagan, dietician and president of the INDI, said: “Seventy-three per cent of the country does not have access to a childhood obesity prevention programme for children at risk of becoming obese and 88pc of the country does not have access to a group intervention programme.”

weaning

She said that around one in four – 30,000 – primary school children in Ireland today are overweight or obese.

“Six per cent of three years olds are already obese,” she said.

Ms Flanagan said that a number of factors are contributing to these rates. She pointed out that weaning of babies is happening earlier, at four months, when it shouldn’t be happening until six months. Also, a lot of high-fat foods are introduced quite early in the diet, she said.

“You can see that obesity has increased 1pc a year since the 1990s,” she said.

“Children who start out obese in life are likely to be obese adults as well.

“It’s a vicious cycle that we want stopped earlier. The earlier the better in terms of prevention,” she said.

Fiona Ward, lead dietician on Temple Street’s W82G0 successful childhood obesity treatment programme, said that children referred to the programme generally eat a diet high in fat and high in sugar. “In comparison to their peers, they are gaining weight at an alarming rate from a very young age.

“Most children will gain weight at the rate of about 2kg to 4kg per annum. These kids are gaining weight of about 1kg per month, which lends to a weight gain of 10kg to 12kg per annum,” she said.

A total of 312 children aged from 18 months up to 16 years were referred to the Temple Street programme over the past five years. A total of 370 have been assessed.

However, 25pc of families refuse to participate in treatment. Some of the reasons are that it might be too far for them to attend every week.

Some families struggle with the diagnosis of obesity and choose to ignore it. Others elect to try to treat the child at home, Ms Ward said.

Of the children they see: “About 40pc of them have high cholesterol. About 30pc are already reporting problems with knee pain, back pain, and these kids are all under the age of 16,” she said.

Dr Sinead Murphy, consultant paediatrician at Temple Street Children’s Hospital, urged that there should be weight and height surveillance checks at various stages of childhood. She also urged that the Department of Education should reinstate physical education as a core curriculum subject.

The INDI said that there are no dedicated clinics for obese children at Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin, but just limited access through endocrinology and other specialties.

Meanwhile, obese children are seen by a dietician at the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght but the waiting list is over a year.

A glass a day of beetroot juice helps to lower blood pressure by as much as 7%

  

• Say’s researchers 
  The effect is produced by beetroot’s naturally high levels of nitrate
• High concentrations of nitrate are also found in celery and cabbage 

Drinking beetroot juice every day could help to lower blood pressure, say researchers.

They found a dose of eight ounces – around one cup – may help people with high blood pressure, cutting their readings by about 7 per cent.

Tests suggest the effect is produced by beetroot’s naturally high levels of nitrate.

High concentrations of nitrate are also found in celery, cabbage and other leafy green vegetables such as spinach and some lettuce.

Eating high-nitrate foods triggers a series of chemical reactions in the blood, which can increase oxygen in areas of the body which are specifically lacking supply.

The beetroot juice used in the study contained about 0.2g of dietary nitrate, levels found in a large bowl of lettuce or two beetroots.

Amrita Ahluwalia, lead author of the study and a professor of vascular pharmacology at The Barts and The London Medical School, said: ‘We were surprised by how little nitrate was needed to see such a large effect.

‘Our hope is that increasing one’s intake of vegetables with a high dietary nitrate content, such as green leafy vegetables or beetroot, might be a lifestyle approach that one could easily employ to improve cardiovascular health.’

Beetroot juice is found in most health food shops and usually costs around £2 a bottle.

An estimated 16million people in the UK have high blood pressure, including a third who do not know they have it, and it is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure.

Changes in lifestyle, such as cutting down salt and alcohol and taking more exercise, may control blood pressure and there are a number of drug treatments available.

A high blood pressure reading is one that exceeds 140/90 mm Hg. The first figure, the systolic pressure, corresponds to the ‘surge’ that occurs with each heart beat.

The latest study recruited eight women and seven men with systolic pressure between 140 and 159 mm Hg who were not taking blood pressure drugs.

The participants drank 250ml of beetroot juice or water containing a low amount of nitrate, and had their blood pressure monitored for 24 hours, says a report in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

Compared with those drinking water, people having beetroot juice cut their systolic pressure by about 10 mm Hg.

The effect was most pronounced three to six hours after drinking the juice but still present even 24 hours later.

Previous research has shown beetroot increases stamina, and can boost blood supply to vital areas of the brain.

Donegal schools struggling with a funding crisis & debt

  

Schools are struggling with debt and there is now a funding crisis here, claims Donegal TD.

More and more primary schools across Donegal are falling into unmanageable debt, it has been claimed.

Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Education, Charlie McConalogue says teachers and parents from different schools county wide have contacted him to express their concerns about the deepening financial problems at their schools.

He says the problem is a result of a series of cuts introduced by the Education Minister Ruairí Quinn over the past two years.

McConalogue called on the Government to immediately address what has become a funding crisis at primary school level in the North West region. According to Deputy McConalogue, the scrapping of the Minor Works Grant last year has hit local schools particularly hard.

“Teachers and parents attached to a number of different schools have contacted me to express their concerns about the deepening financial problems at their school. The loss of the minor works grant has pushed many schools over the edge.

“This grant was worth between €5,000 and €12,000 to primary schools and its loss has had a significant impact on the financial health of primary schools right across Donegal. Many schools depended on this cash injection to carry out small but necessary works to the facilities that the pupils use every day. The grant was particularly valuable in light of other significant cuts to resources, including cuts to the capitation grant and the scrapping of the summer works scheme. Abolishing the minor works grant on top of everything else has pushed many schools over the edge.

“I am calling on the Government to reinstate the minor works grant before the next academic year. The Fine Gael TDs in this constituency have a duty to explain to the Minister the problems that this cut has caused to our local schools. I am asking them ensure that these problems are addressed as a matter of priority in order to maintain the high standard of education that our local schools provide.

“The Government cannot continue to stand over a situation where public primary schools are unable to cope with an ever growing black hole in their finances. We can already see that this is putting enormous pressure on staff, boards of management and on parents who are often expected to help raise the additional extra funds to keep the school’s doors open. If this is not addressed urgently, there is no doubt that pupils will suffer as a result,” Deputy McConalogue said.

Donie's news Ireland daily BLOG Wednesday

Irish Customs seized 600 illegal weapons in 2012

   

Irish customs have seized almost 600 illegal weapons to date this year.

A haul of almost 600 illegal and dangerous weapons has been seized by Customs this year, with an AK-47, a sub-machine gun, ninja-style throwing stars and samurai swords among the most lethal.

The Revenue Commissioners revealed that officers made 165 seizures up to mid-December, with 596 weapons prevented from reaching the streets.

The most deadly haul was recovered in May and included the AK-47 assault rifle and sub-machine gun, an automatic rifle, a bolt-action rifle, a pistol and three magazines of ammunition.

Customs said the cache came into the country from Germany and was valued at €1,137.

The most expensive seizure was 61 weapons used by fans of the war games phenomenon — billed as the reality of war without the danger. The replica guns included 48 rifles and a dozen revolvers from Hong Kong valued at €6,000 with the Airsoft make. The guns are not illegal in Ireland but agents selling weapons have enforced a tagging system supported by Government to monitor the replica guns used.

The Customs report on illegal weapons also revealed 43 items of what officers classed as military memorabilia, but still illegal.

They included a Browning 50mm machine gun, rifles known as K-98, Ross and Valmet, a Mauser semi-automatic, a Webley and Scott revolver, a Webley MK1V and associated extras such as tripod stands. The weapons were given a nominal value of one euro.

There were a large number of unusual seizures, such as a sword concealed in a black walking stick, a modified silencer and a pair of sabre claws, as featured in The Chronicles of Riddick film starring Vin Diesel.

Many varieties of illegal knives, such as flick, stiletto and butterfly knives, machetes, samurai and katana swords and a Gurkha sword from India were seized.

The list also included 40 lasers, 20 Taser-style weapons, 37 stun guns and more than 30 signal and mobile phone jammers.

Two boxes of meat cleavers were impounded, the Customs review said.

We do not have enough Gardai? but they are using their resources much better

 

We don’t have enough Gardai in the force now to have the spread of yellow jackets we need to properly police our roads.

I am a huge believer, as most people are, in the presence of Gardai.

I am a great believer in the presence of those yellow jackets, whether they are on foot, on motorbikes, bicycles or in cars – not just in traffic enforcement, but in general enforcement everywhere.

The presence of a Garda has an effect on people.

Obviously it has a good effect if people feel safe and sound and it gives them a sense of security.

And if you are doing something wrong, it makes you feel uneasy.

The numbers of Gardai are way down in the Traffic Corps. We all know that. That is public knowledge.

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan assures us that with changing shift arrangements and with the addition of the Go-Safe safety cameras and the activities of individual Gardai here, there and around the country, they are making up for that deficiency.

  In other words, the Gardai are working harder with the resources they now have to bring it up to the resource they used to have.

Who is to blame for the big cutback in Garda numbers? The Government is of course.

We’re all going through the same thing. It’s called the bankrupt country, have you not heard? We’re short of money, and we’re short of money everywhere, and that’s the problem.

No matter where you advocate saving money to put into others areas, such as Garda recruitment, that quarter will resist and say: “No, you’re not taking it off us.”

I’m going to continue on in the role as RSA chairman for the moment and when the time comes to say “I’ve had enough”, I’ll say I’ve had enough.

I don’t know when that time will be.

The minister asked me last year to stay for another three years and I said I would and that’s the state of mind I’m in at the moment.

I think people are more and more getting the message about road safety. I know we had a bad, bad June, and we were very despondent because for some strange reason there was no pattern to it.

It was just one after another, a series of big happenings and we were very depressed and downhearted about that.

We thought that we had the problem licked as it were and we had no right to think that at any stage at all.

Since then things have remarkably improved and we now have 20 fewer deaths than this time last year.

But as I always say, the minute I mention a figure, it is already out of date because we don’t know at this instance what is happening somewhere around the country.

I think the reduction in road deaths is down to a combination of factors, and you cannot ascribe it to any one thing.

I think it is the cumulative effect of all the various measures we have taken, are taking and will be taking.

We knew they would have to have some effect along the way, and they are, apparently.

There will be a general shift of the Go-Safe vans around the country in January. That is part of the overt enforcement.

They will be changing locations, and they will be notifying motorists of the changed locations. That will mean that different parts of the country will now be tackled.

We hope that drivers are getting the message to slow down from the cameras.

Once they were established in an area, the word got around very quickly.

People were saying: “They are in our area, so we’d better watch out.”

The hope is that when they move to some other area, the feeling will be the same in that drivers will decide to keep under the limit.

Also new measures on penalty points and novice drivers will come into effect in the first quarter of 2013, according to Transport Minister Leo Varadkar.

These will put more restrictions on young drivers before they get their licence and for the first two years afterwards.

I think this will help because again and again and again this is one of the special problems we have – young male drivers. Not young female drivers.

We need to get them over that hump from the time they are 17 and start driving to around 22.

Presumably at that age they will have a little more maturity and a little more sense, and we think they will be safer.

Why Women live longer than men

 

Stress alone does not explain the longevity gap

If there are any men left who still believe that women are the weaker sex, it is long past time for them to think again. With respect to that most essential proof of robustness—the power to stay alive—women are tougher than men from birth through to extreme old age.

The average man may run a 100-meter race faster than the average woman and lift heavier weights. But nowadays women outlive men by about five to six years. By age 85 there are roughly six women to every four men. At age 100 the ratio is more than two to one. And by age 122—the current world record for human longevity—the score stands at one-nil in favour of women.

So why do women live longer than men? One idea is that men drive themselves to an early grave with all the hardship and stress of their working lives. If this were so, however, then in these days of greater gender equality, you might expect the mortality gap would vanish or at least diminish. Yet there is little evidence that this is happening. Women today still outlive men by about as much as their stay-at-home mothers outlived their office-going fathers a generation ago.

Furthermore, who truly believes that men’s work lives back then were so much more damaging to their health than women’s home lives? Just think about the stresses and strains that have always existed in the traditional roles of women: a woman’s life in a typical household can be just as hard as a man’s. Indeed, statistically speaking, men get a much better deal out of marriage than their wives—married men tend to live many years longer than single men, whereas married women live only a little bit longer than single women. So who actually has the easier life?

It might be that women live longer because they develop healthier habits than men—for example, smoking and drinking less and choosing a better diet. But the number of women who smoke is growing and plenty of others drink and eat unhealthy foods. In any case, if women are so healthy, why is it that despite their longer lives, women spend more years of old age in poor health than men do? The lifestyle argument therefore does not answer the question either.

As an experimental gerontologist, I approach this issue from a wider biological perspective, by looking at other animals. It turns out that the females of most species live longer than the males. This phenomenon suggests that the explanation for the difference within humans might lie deep in our biology.

Many scientists believe that the aging process is caused by the gradual build-up of a huge number of individually tiny faults—some damage to a DNA strand here, a deranged protein molecule there, and so on. This degenerative build-up means that the length of our lives is regulated by the balance between how fast new damage strikes our cells and how efficiently this damage is corrected. The body’s mechanisms to maintain and repair our cells are wonderfully effective—which is why we live as long as we do—but these mechanisms are not perfect. Some of the damage passes unrepaired and accumulates as the days, months and years pass by. We age because our bodies keep making mistakes.

We might well ask why our bodies do not repair themselves better. Actually we probably could fix damage better than we do already. In theory at least, we might even do it well enough to live forever. The reason we do not, I believe, is because it would have cost more energy than it was worth when our aging process evolved long ago, when our hunter-gatherer ancestors faced a constant struggle against hunger.

Under the pressure of natural selection to make the best use of scarce energy supplies, our species gave higher priority to growing and reproducing than to living forever. Our genes treated the body as a short-term vehicle, to be maintained well enough to grow and reproduce, but not worth a greater investment in durability when the chance of dying an accidental death was so great. In other words, genes are immortal, but the body—what the Greeks called soma—is disposable.

Free Dublin bike passes available for EU delegates during Ireland’s presidency

  

Top brass European delegates will get free passes for Dublin’s rental bikes for travelling to major events during Ireland’s EU presidency.

Senior political figures such as European Council president Herman Van Rompuy could be among those given the special offer, as the Government attempts to cut costs during its six-month term.

Minister of state for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton said this was just one of a number of efforts to ensure value for money and sustainability.

“Delegates will be staying close to the city centre which will give them the opportunity to avail themselves of free access to Dublin Bikes,” said Ms Creighton.

“The proximity to the city will also allow visitors to experience Dublin city and I hope that most will avail themselves of that opportunity.”

Other belt-tightening measures will see tap water used instead of bottled water at meetings and a strict cut back in stationery and mementoes.

The majority of presidency-related events will take place at Dublin Castle, which will serve as headquarters.

All other venues that will be used are state-owned and operated by the Office of Public Works. Farmleigh will also be used.

The Dublin Bikes scheme was rolled out in 2009, bringing the city in line with other cycle-friendly cities, such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Berlin.

There are 44 rental stations dotted throughout the city, with a total 550 bikes available.

Offering delegates free passes for the bikes is a far cry from the chauffeur-driven luxury cars they were treated to during Ireland’s last presidency in 2004 as the Celtic Tiger began to roar.

The total cost of the last term was an estimated €110m. Ms Creighton said the State expects to spend around €60m this time round, with some additional security costs.

“Throughout our preparations we have striven for value for money and sustainability,” she said.

“Dublin Castle, also in the city centre, is set to be our presidency headquarters and is where the bulk of our events are set to take place.”

Organisers have also tried to ensure the six-month term is as paperless as possible – both to save money and reduce the presidency’s carbon footprint.

Video conferencing between Dublin and Brussels in the run-up to the term, which begins on January 1, has seen a reduction in files and documents.

And the host broadcaster has plans to transmit its footage digitally – to save on using tapes.

“Large volume handbooks will not be printed in hard copy, nor will the main presidency programme,” Ms Creighton added.

“All documents will be available for download on the presidency website.”

After Xmas Sales boom expected from Thursday in the North-West

   

The pre-Christmas boom in many retail outlets experienced throughout the county will receive yet another much needed cash injection as shoppers shake off the Christmas cobwebs and make a dash once again to the shops.

Retailers on Christmas Eve indicated that over the last few days before Christmas the tills simply never stopped ringing with customers snapping up every bargain they could lay their hands on.

Stephen Harron of Magee Donegal said trade has been steady the whole way through December but the last few days have been superb – people are spending but they are looking for both value and quality.

“We will be opening our doors this morning offering up to 75% of many items.”

In West Donegal, The Cope in Dungloe will also open its doors bright and early on Thursday morning with discounts of up on 50% on many items.

Emma McGarvey said, “People have stayed at home this Christmas and shopped local – this was not out of patriotism, it was because the value and selection at home was simply unbeatable this year with sterling being so strong against the Euro and retailers really being competitive.

Ramona Nicholas of Cara who is soon to start filming for Dragon’s Den, said, “This Christmas defies all logic – it has been simply unbelievable in both Cara and C2.

“Without exaggeration this Christmas has been even better than our experience in Celtic Tiger times.”

In Letterkenny major shopping outlets reported very strong pre-Christmas trade, bolstered by the favourable hig cost of sterling which saw many more Northern Ireand shoppers.

Local entertainment and food operators have been working very hard to offer excellent value for customers and reports suggest that trade in the hotel/food sector int he county was steady.

Throughout the county you will find all the major stores open and ready to do business so maybe getting up that little bit earlier on Thursday morning might be to your advantage this year.

Donie's all Ireland news daily BLOG Tuesday

Ireland’s hospitals ‘may run out of cash by this October’

   

A consultant at the Mater Hospital in Dublin has suggested that hospitals in the city and other parts of the country could run out of money by October.

It comes as efforts are being made to resolve a split between the Government parties over proposed cuts to the health budget, with suggestions by some TDs that the rift could spark an early election.

The Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin met with the Health Minister James Reilly over the weekend in an effort to clear up the row, which centres on €130m worth of cuts announced earlier this week.

Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, Micheal O’Keeffe, has said it is not clear where these cuts can be made.

He also said there are strong rumours that hospitals in the capital may be out of cash before the year is out.

Mr O’Keeffe said: “We don’t know where these cutbacks are going to happen, where they are going to come, what the deficit is and what it means.

“There is a rumour, and I think it is more than a rumour, that a lot of hospitals in Dublin and elsewhere will run out of money by October and there is even a rumour that at that stage they will not even be able to pay the wages of the staff.

“This has a lot to run yet and if that is true, the crisis will be many times what it is now.”

Only 10% avail of Government’s €5 offer to register their septic tanks

  

With less than a month to go before a 10-fold rise in the registration fee, only about 30,000 people have so far registered their septic tanks under the Government scheme – far below the almost 500,000 septic tanks and other waste-water treatment systems in the State.

The charge for the mandatory registration, part of a scheme introduced by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan on June 26th, goes up from €5 to €50 on September 28th.

Registration is required before February 1st, 2013.

There are 497,281 septic tanks and other on-site waste-water treatment systems in the State, according to last year’s census.

The controversial registration plan has been criticised by some rural dwellers, who claim it discriminates against them and will force them to spend thousands of euro upgrading their tanks, while city dwellers face no such charges.

The Government originally planned a flat €50 fee, but following an outcry, it announced in February that the charge would be €5 for the first three months.

A department spokesman said 22,500 applications for registration had been received online by last Friday. This figure does not include recent applications received across the counter at council offices, which are estimated to number 6,500.

On Friday Fianna Fáil agriculture spokesman Éamon Ó Cuív urged people not to register until they had more information.

“People shouldn’t register until the Minister outlines what he is going to do in relation to grant-aiding people who have to make mandatory upgrades,” he said.

He said a European Court ruling due in October would bring further clarity and he called on the Minister not to raise the registration fee until after the outcome of that ruling was known.

The department spokesman said newspaper adverts and a local radio campaign informing people of their obligations would be run in mid-September.

Franklin Templeton senior fund manager backs an Irish recovery

    

Ireland’s aggressive tackling of its fiscal mess has impressed many investors and policy makers – but arguably none more so than Michael Hasenstab, a senior fund manager at Franklin Templeton.

The venerable US money manager’s funds – primarily those controlled by Mr Hasenstab and Sonal Desai, his co-manager – snapped up Irish bonds with a face value of at least €6.1bn by the end of June, according to Financial Times calculations from Bloomberg data.

“Ireland has set itself apart from the peripheral nations in Europe in how it has embraced austerity through fiscal discipline and growth through maintaining competitive labour, tax and product markets,” Mr Hasenstab, co-director of the fund manager’s international bond department, told the FT by email.

Rival money managers are more circumspect, however. Some argue that the outstanding performance of Ireland’s bonds this year has, at least partly, been caused by Mr Hasenstab’s heavy purchases – giving the impression of a stronger recovery than is warranted by the country’s economic and financial fundamentals.

Rising exports last year helped the country return to growth for the first time since its economic crisis began in 2008. Yet anaemic growth in Europe and the UK, Ireland’s two biggest export markets, is derailing its recovery.

Citigroup economists expect Ireland’s economy to shrink 1 per cent this year and only eke out modest growth of 0.4 per cent in 2013. Coupled with a yawning budget deficit, Citi estimates that this will swell Ireland’s government debt to 130 per cent of gross domestic product next year – much higher even than Spain.

Ireland is also vulnerable to a worsening of the eurozone crisis. Some investors and economists warn that if Greece leaves the currency union, Ireland’s euro future would also come under intense scrutiny.

“Its future still rests on the broader eurozone,” argues one senior bond fund manager at another US investment group. “We continue to be cautious. Ireland’s economy has stabilised but they still have a lot of wood to chop.”

If Ireland’s borrowing costs start to rise again, Franklin Templeton would find itself in a precarious position. The asset manager’s holdings are so large and the market so thin and illiquid that traders say it would be extremely difficult to reduce them without big losses.

“You wouldn’t want to have to get rid of all that in a hurry,” a UK bond fund manager said. “Having a large position in the eurozone periphery is a pretty punchy decision.”

Nonetheless, investors and traders say Franklin Templeton’s big Irish bet could prove astute – and very profitable.

For example, Dublin’s indebtedness would be significantly reduced if eurozone negotiations lead to some form of European banking union that allows thecontinent’s rescue funds to assume responsibility for about €64bn of Irish bank debt currently guaranteed by Ireland.

While hedge funds could try to bet against Dublin – much as JPMorgan found itself wrongfooted in the credit derivatives market this year – this would be difficult in the Irish bond market given its small size and Franklin Templeton’s heft.

“The advantage of buying big in a small market is that it makes it hard to short it,”a senior London-based government bond trader said.

The US money manager has certainly done well out of its Irish bet so far. Ireland’s nine-year bond yield – which moves inversely to the price of the securities – has fallen below 6 per cent, the lowest since October 2010.

Although the progress this implies might be exaggerated by Mr Hasenstab’s big bet, Ireland can still draw comfort that a respected bond investor is willing to back the country’s recovery story to the hilt.

“Having large international fund managers like Franklin Templeton willing to buy Irish government debt is an important sign that investors believe in the Irish recovery story,” said Owen Callan, a bond trader at Danske Bank, one of the biggest dealers in Irish bonds.

The benefits of frozen IVF human embryos highlighted

   

CURRENT BEST practice in the preparation of embryos for in-vitro fertilisation may be wrong and may have to change.

New research shows both the mother and the infant do better if the embryos used have been frozen and then thawed prior to implantation in the mother’s womb.

The assumption has been that it was always better to use a fresh embryo rather than a stored embryo, said Dr Abha Maheshwari, senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and consultant in reproductive medicine with UK National Health Service Grampian.

Research has shown that foetuses developing from previously frozen embryos stood less of a chance of being born early and at low birth weight, while the mother experienced less bleeding during the pregnancy.

Dr Maheshwari’s findings are presented this morning on the opening day of the British Science Association’s annual Festival of Science, taking place this year at the University of Aberdeen. They have also just been published in the journal Fertility Sterility.

He and his research team had looked at 11 international published studies involving more than 37,000 pregnancies following implantation of either a fresh or a thawed frozen embryo.

“We found pregnancies arising from the transfer of frozen thawed embryos seem to have better outcomes both for mums and babies when compared to those after fresh embryo transfer,” he said. The assumption had been that “fresh is always better”, with fresh embryos used as a first choice.

Doctors working in the field have traditionally tried to increase the chances of implantation and a successful pregnancy by introducing several embryos into the womb, with a higher than usual multiple birth rate when using these techniques.

Over time, however, there has been a move to single embryo transfer, backed by the UK’s Health and Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

It has still been the practice, however, to extract several eggs at the same time, leading to the increased use of freezing to preserve viable embryos, said Dr Maheshwari. “If pregnancy rates are equal and outcome in pregnancies are better, our results question whether one should consider freezing all embryos and transfer them at a later date, rather than transferring fresh embryos,” he said.

He noted the existing data had limitations, and larger studies were needed before any change in best practice was introduced.

Meanwhile, attendees at the festival heard yesterday of advances in silicon chip technology that have the potential to make phones and computers effectively unhackable. Scientists at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Quantum Photonics announced a chip that can be mass-manufactured and which works not by channelling the movement of electrons through its circuits, but the transfer of light particles or photons.

The prototype devices were 1,000 times smaller and more complex than current technologies, said Prof Mark Thompson, deputy director of the centre. The full chip is only two by four millimetres and the circuits handling the photons are only several hundred-millionths of a metre across.

The Festival of Science is an annual celebration of science that typically attracts 50,000 people, including 10,000 schoolchildren. Those attending will be able to choose from 200 different events involving 350 international scientists at the six-day event, which runs until September 9th.

Do you want to live a longer life? Then go eat your calories

   

A study involving rhesus monkeys over a period of 20 years had anticipated that if monkeys lived longer, healthier lives by eating a lot less, then maybe humans would too.

A new study on monkeys did not bring the vindication calorie-restricted enthusiasts anticpated

For more than 20 years, the rhesus monkeys were kept semi-starved, lean and hungry. The males’ weights were so low they were the equivalent of a 6ft-tall man who tipped the scales at just 120-133 pounds. The hope was that if the monkeys lived longer, healthier lives by eating a lot less, then maybe people, their evolutionary cousins, would too.

Some scientists, anticipating such benefits, began severely restricting their own diets. The results of this major, long-awaited study, which began in 1987, are finally in. But it did not bring the vindication calorie-restriction enthusiasts had anticipated. It turns out the skinny monkeys did not live any longer than those kept at more normal weights. Some lab test results improved, but only in monkeys that were put on the diet when they were old. The causes of death – cancer, heart disease – were the same in both the underfed and the normally fed monkeys.

Lab test results showed lower levels of cholesterol and blood sugar in the male monkeys that started eating 30 per cent fewer calories in old age, but not in the females. Males and females who started dieting when they were old had lower levels of triglycerides, which are linked to heart disease risk.

Monkeys put on the diet when they were young or middle-aged did not get the same benefits, although they had less cancer. But the bottom line was that the monkeys that ate less did not live any longer than those that ate normally.

Rafael de Cabo, lead author of the diet study, published last week in the journal Nature, says he is surprised and disappointed that the underfed monkeys did not live longer. Like many other researchers on ageing, he had expected an outcome similar to that of a 2009 study from the University of Wisconsin that concluded that calorific restriction did extend monkeys’ lifespans.

But even that study had a question mark hanging over it. Its authors had disregarded about half of the deaths among the monkeys they studied, saying they were not related to ageing. If they had included all of the deaths, there was no extension of life span in the Wisconsin study, either.

“This shows the importance of replication in science,” says Steven Austad, interim director of the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Austad, who was not involved with either study, says the University of Wisconsin study “was not nearly as conclusive as it was made out to be” and that the new study casts further doubt on the belief that caloric restriction extends life.

But other researchers still think that it does, and one of the authors of the new study, Julie A Mattison, says there is still a bit of hope. The study is continuing until the youngest monkeys are 22 years old. While the data almost certainly rule out any notion that the low-calorie diet will increase average lifespans, there still is a chance that the study might find that the diet increases the animals’ maximum lifespan, she says.

Meanwhile, some others say that the Wisconsin study makes them reluctant to dismiss the idea that low-calorie diets result in longer life. “I wouldn’t discard the whole thing on the basis of one study when another study in the same species showed an increase in life span,” says Eric Ravussin, director of the nutritional obesity research centre at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana. “I would still bet on an extension of life.”

The idea that a low-calorie diet would extend life originated in the 1930s with a study of lab rats. But it was not until the 1980s that the theory took off. Scientists reported that in species ranging from yeast to flies to worms to mice, eating less meant living longer. And, in mice at least, a low-calorie diet also meant less cancer. It was not known whether the same thing would hold true in humans, and no one expected such a study would ever be done. It would take decades to get an answer, to say nothing of the expense and difficulty of getting people to be randomly assigned to starve themselves or not.

Researchers concluded the best way to test the hypothesis would be through the monkey studies at the University of Wisconsin and the National Institute on Aging, although the animals would have to be followed for decades. It was a major endeavour. The National Institute on Aging study involved 121 monkeys, 49 of which are still alive, housed at a facility in Poolesville, Maryland.

Those that got the low-calorie diet did not act famished, de Cabo says. They did not gobble their food, for example, but ate at the same speed as the control animals, even though their calories had been cut by 30 per cent.

As the studies were under way, some human enthusiasts decided to start eating a lot less, too. In those same years, though, studies in mice began indicating there might not be a predictable response to a low-calorie diet. Mice that came from the wild, instead of being born and raised in the lab, did not live longer on low-calorie diets. And in 2009, a study of 41 inbred strains of laboratory mice found that about a third had no response to the diets. Of those that responded, more strains had shorter life spans than had longer ones when they were given less food.

The response to that study was “absolute disbelief,” Austad says. “Even though the authors are well-respected calorie restrictors, people said the result was not interesting, that there was something weird about the mice.”

Now, with the new study, researchers are asking why the University of Wisconsin study found an effect on lifespan and the National Institute on Aging study did not.

There were several differences between the studies that some have pointed to as possible explanations.

The composition of the food given to the monkeys in the Wisconsin study was different from that in the ageing institute’s study.

The university’s control monkeys were allowed to eat as much as they wanted and were fatter than those in the ageing institute’s study, which were fed in amounts that were considered enough to maintain a healthy weight but were not unlimited.

The animals in the Wisconsin study were from India.

Those in the ageing institute’s study were from India and China, and so were more genetically diverse.

De Cabo, who says he is overweight, advises people that if they want to try a reduced-calorie diet, they should consult a doctor first. If they can handle such a diet, he says, he believes they would be healthier but, he says, he does not know if they would live longer.

Some scientists still have faith in the low-calorie diets. Richard Weindruch, a director of the Wisconsin study, says he is “a hopeless caloric-restriction romantic”, but adds that he was not very good at restricting his own calories. He says he might start trying harder. “I’m only 62,” he says. “It isn’t too late.”

Then there is Mark Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, who was not part of the monkey study.

He believes there is merit to caloric restriction, but his routine is to do it intermittently, eating much less, but not every day. It can help the brain, he says, as well as make people healthier and probably make them live longer.

Mattson, who is 5ft 9in and weighs 130lbs (59kg), skips breakfast and lunch on weekdays and skips breakfast on weekends. “I get a little hungry,” he admits. “But we think being hungry is actually good.”