Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Irish revenue tax take €500m ahead of target

EXCHEQUER RETURNS SHOW A VAT SHORTFALL BUT REVENUE IS WELL AHEAD OF TARGET

     

The Irish State collected €14.04 billion in the first third of the year, €1.17 billion more than in 2015 and €475 million more than forecast by the Department of Finance.

Tax collection is running close to €500 million ahead of target this year but a VAT shortfall raises questions about the strength of consumer spending.

As political talks continue, exchequer returns from the Department of Finance point to relative strength in the public finances as a Fine Gael-led minority government prepares to take office.

Talks between Fine Gael and two groups of Independent TDs have intensified in an effort to have a new government in place by the weekend.

The Independent rural TDs and the Independent Alliance members are to be given a draft programme for government at a meeting today.

It is understood the Independents have secured concessions in the areas of health, agriculture and rural Ireland. The talks were continuing late last night.

Fine Gael sources insisted a vote for taoiseach could take place today but admitted it was more likely to take place tomorrow.

The exchequer returns will be encouraging for the new government in that the overall level of spending remains under control.

However, they also reflect the onset of pressure on the health budget, which signals potentially major problems for the incoming administration.

Year-on-year improvement.

The exchequer was in deficit by €1.055 billion at the end of April, a year-on-year improvement of €1.27 billion which was attributed to the increase in overall tax revenue.

The figures were released on same day as data showing the unemployment rate dropped in April to 8.4 per cent from 8.6 per cent in March.

The State collected €14.04 billion in the first third of the year, €1.17 billion more than last year and €475 million more than forecast by the department.

“April is not significant in terms of corporation tax receipts and is not a VAT due month . . . However, there were some significant one-off and timing factors, which have helped flatter the April tax position,” the department said.

Collections of Value Added Tax, the tax on sales, remain ahead of 2015 at €4.17 billion but the return was €161 million behind target for the first four months.

Corporation tax collections are running well ahead of profile. The €759 million out-turn in four months was €315 million or 70.8 per cent more than projected.

Income tax on target.

The collection of €6.1 billion in income tax in four months was on target, with a shortfall in earlier months recovered by a €158 million overperformance in April. The department cited “one-off payments” in April, but said the overall outturn was broadly consistent with recovery in the labour market and increased earning.

On the expenditure side, some €13.65 billion in net voted spending over four months was €89 million below target and €68 million lower than last year.

While 15 of the 16 government departments were on or under profile, health spending was €78 million ahead of target at the end of April.

This is generally seen to be a sign of a major deterioration in the health budget later this year, something that comes amid pressure on public pay and demands for additional spending in the political talks.

Total exchequer debt servicing costs in the first four months of the year reached €3 billion, down €81 million on the same period last year on foot of early IMF repayments.

Consumers now moving more to digital payments with financial services

A THIRD OF CONSUMERS WOULD LEAVE THEIR PROVIDER IF THEY DIDN’T OFFER UP TO DATE TECHNOLOGY, A NEW SURVEY FINDS

CONSUMERS ARE INCREASINGLY LOOKING FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES PROVIDERS THAT ARE EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY, TURNING TO DIGITAL AND MOBILE PAYMENTS, A NEW SURVEY HAS FOUND.

A new study, by Fujitsu, showed that more than a third of consumers would leave their provider if they didn’t offer more up to date technology, with 32% of those surveyed using mobile device payments and 22% using wearable technologies. Across Europe, on-line banking remains the most popular channel, with three quarters of customers using it once a week or more.

“Banks have no option but to embrace change,” said Anthony Duffy, senior banking technology consultant with Fujitsu UK and Ireland, noting how revenue at traditional banking institutions had fallen since the days before the economic crash.

“Doing banking as we have in the past 20 years isn’t going to be possible going forward,” said Mr Duffy. “The digital revolution has come along at the right time.”

Driving this adoption of technology is the smartphone, as people become more confident using the technology.

“People just started to recognise the convenience factor digital banking offered,” said Mr Duffy.

Banks themselves are also taking advantage of the shift, pushing people to use alternative channels such as smart ATMs and deposit machines in branches.

“Digital is transforming each and every aspect of society and this has irrevocably changed consumer behaviour. Today’s customers are no longer guarded and conventional,” said Francois Fleutiaux, Senior Vice President, Head of Country Leadership, EMEIA, Fujitsu. “Modern day consumers are ready and willing to embrace innovation when it makes interaction more convenient.”

Already in Ireland, there have been some “digital only” banks offering services to customers. But Mr Duffy said competition shouldn’t be new to Ireland’s traditional players, who are seeing supermarkets and other providers begin to offer insurance and other services to customers.

“If traditional banks want to stay in business they will have to compete and reinvent themselves,” he said.

Consumers are also more willing to buy extra services from their financial providers, the survey found, with a third open to buying energy for their home from their bank or insurer, while a similar number would also consider purchasing personal data storage from the institutions, and 30% would buy broadband.

That goes both ways though; with a fifth of consumers willing to buy their banking or insurance services from companies such as Google, Amazon or Facebook.

However, Irish people are still reluctant to move away from the established service providers. Traditional channels shouldn’t be written off either. On a Europe-wide basis, 34% of people said they visit their bank branch weekly, and 36% use phone banking, leading to the conclusion that digital is simply another way to communicate for consumers.

The survey questioned 7,000 consumers from across Europe.

About a fifth of those surveyed said they used cryptocurrencies, but that high figure was driven by Eastern European countries, where 44% said they used it.

Although much has been made of cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin in recent years, Mr Duffy said he didn’t think it would gain widespread adoption in the short term. Instead, the blockchain – the technology that underlies Bitcoin – could be more relevant as banks begin to look at the technology.

One area that looks set to evolve, however, is canticles payments as services such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay allow people to use their phones and smartwatch to pay for goods and services.

“I think organisations like Apple and Samsung getting involved significant gives the mechanism a credibility,” he said.

However, the majority of contactless payment are still done through cards, especially in Ireland where Apple and Samsung have yet to launch their payment systems. The chief driver of adoption has been the lifting of the limit on transactions to €30, allowing contactless payments to be used for a wider range of transactions.

The ECB to stop issuing €500 note but will keep its legal status

THE €500 NOTE WAS NEVER ISSUED BY THE CENTRAL BANK IN IRELAND

  Going 

THE ECB HAS BEEN LOOKING TO GET RID OF THE €500 NOTE DUE TO CONCERNS THAT IT IS USED BY CRIMINALS AND MILITANTS TO FINANCE THEIR ACTIVITIES.

The European Central Bank will stop issuing €500 bank notes towards the end of 2018 on concerns it could facilitate illicit activities but outstanding bills will remain in use indefinitely, the ECB said in a statement yesterday.

“The €500 note will remain legal tender and can therefore continue to be used as a means of payment and store of value,” the bank said.

“The €500 banknote, like the other denominations of euro banknotes, will always retain its value and can be exchanged at the national central banks of the Eurosystem for an unlimited period of time.”

The ECB has been looking to get rid of the €500 note, despite the objections of Germany’s central bank, due to concerns that it is also used by criminals and militants to finance their activities. It is said a €1 million bundle of the notes weighs only about 2kg, a weight easily transportable across borders. The €500 note was never issued by the Central Bank in Ireland

Labrador dogs have an overeating gene problem?

A NEW STUDY SHOWS

   

A NEW STUDY SAYS AN OVEREATING GENE CAN EXPLAIN WHY SOME LABRADORS BECOME OBESE?

Labradors are often overweight because they have a gene linked to overeating, new research has suggested.

The most common breed of dog in the UK and the US, Labradors are more likely to become obese than others.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that 23% of the loveable dogs have a variant of an obesity-related gene strongly associated with weight and appetite.

In a study published today in the journal Cell Metabolism, a team of researchers studied 310 pet and assistance dog Labradors to look for variants of three candidate obesity-related genes.

They also examined the dogs’ “food motivation” by asking owners about their animals’ relationship with food.

The researchers found that a variant of one gene in particular, known as POMC, was strongly associated with weight, obesity and appetite in Labradors and flat coat retrievers.

In both breeds, for each copy of the gene carried, the dog was on average 1.9kg heavier, an effect size particularly notable given the extent to which owners, rather than the dogs themselves, control the amount of food and exercise their dogs receive.

Lead author Dr Eleanor Raffan said: “This is a common genetic variant in Labradors and has a significant effect on those dogs that carry it, so it is likely that this helps explain why Labradors are more prone to being overweight in comparison to other breeds.

The gene affected is known to be important in regulating how the brain recognises hunger and the feeling of being full after a meal.

“People who live with Labradors often say they are obsessed by food, and that would fit with what we know about this genetic change,” says Dr Raffan.

The scientists even believe that understanding how the gene – which is also found in humans – works in dogs might help tackle the obesity crisis.

Professor Stephen O’Rahilly, Co-Director of the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science, says: “Common genetic variants affecting the POMC gene are associated with human body weight and there are even some rare obese people who lack a very similar part of the POMC gene to the one that is missing in the dogs.

“So further research in these obese Labradors may not only help the wellbeing of companion animals but also have important lessons for human health.”

Major breakthrough in laboratory grown human embryos

  

Scientists reported today they had grown human embryos in the lab for nearly two weeks, an unprecedented feat that promises advances in assisted reproduction, stem-cell therapies and the basic understanding of how human beings form.

Scientists reported today they had grown human embryos in the lab for nearly two weeks, an unprecedented feat that promises advances in assisted reproduction, stem-cell therapies and the basic understanding of how human beings form.

Besides opening a window onto the first steps in the creation of an individual, the findings in parallel studies may help explain early miscarriages and why in vitro fertilisation has such a high failure rate.

The research also showed for the first time that newly-forming human embryos can mature beyond a few days outside a mother’s womb, something that was previously thought to be impossible.

But the widely hailed results also set science on a collision course with national laws and ethical guidelines, experts cautioned.

Up to now, a so-called “14-day rule” which says that human embryos cannot be cultured in the lab for more than two weeks — has never been seriously challenged simply because no one had succeeded in keeping them alive that long.

In this case, the scientists destroyed the embryos to avoid breaching that limit. The findings were published in Nature and Nature Cell Biology.

Next to nothing is known about how the small, hollow bundle of cells called a blastocyst — emerging from a fertilised egg which attaches to the uterus, allowing an embryo to begin to take shape.

“This portion of human development” is called implantation and “was a complete black box,” said Ali Brivanlou, a professor at The Rockefeller University in New York, and the main architect of the Nature study.

Building on previous work with mice, Brivanlou and colleagues concocted a chemical soup and scaffolding to duplicate this process “in vitro”, or in a petri dish.

“We were able to create a system that properly recapitulates what happens during human implantation,” said Rockefeller scientist and lead author Alessia Deglincerti.

As hoped, the blastocyst grew, beginning to divide into the different types of cells that eventually give rise to a foetus and its placenta.

But unlike earlier experiments, in which growth has rarely continued beyond seven days, the embryos showed an unexpected ability to self-organise.

“Amazingly, at least up to the first 12 days, development occurred normally in our system in the complete absence of maternal input,” Brivanlou said in a statement.    

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Is the Irish general election around the corner?

• Martin uses the ard-fheis keynote address to set out the FF stall
• FF chief highlights broken Coalition promises as general election campaign gets under way

    

“If it was a fresh approach you were looking for, [Micheál Martin’s keynote] speech didn’t provide it. It simultaneously offered very little, and a lot more of the same.

Make no mistake about it – the general election campaign is under way.

At least nine months out from the the polls, Micheál Martin used his party’s ardfheis to set out Fianna Fáil’s stall.

The leader used his 30-minute live keynote address to highlight a string of broken Coalition promises – before making a list of promises of his own.

Fianna Fáil wants to reduce the Universal Social Charge (USC) and eventually abolish it.

The party wants to increase mortgage interest relief, extend welfare benefits to the self-employed and put more gardaí on the ground. But ultimately, who doesn’t want this?

If it was a fresh approach you were looking for, this speech didn’t provide it. It simultaneously offered very little, and a lot more of the same.

The party chief missed an opportunity to announce a big-ticket item to win over the public or to atone for their past mistakes.

Mr Martin used his chance to tear apart the Coalition’s record in Government, highlighting the Irish Water scandal, the health crisis and the mortgage arrears issue to remind Saturday night viewers of the error of Fine Gael and Labour’s way.

No amount of spin, fist pumps or photo opportunities can take that reality away, Micheál told delegates and the television audience.

And what of Sinn Féin? They would be a million times worse.

Gerry Adams’s party will promise you everything and deliver you nothing, Mr Martin said.

However, a notable aspect of the address was how little time he spent attacking the party’s main rivals.

The party leader has gone on the attack against Sinn Féin in recent weeks. If the weekend poll is any indicator, this approach might be proving counterproductive. Sinn Féin’s support has risen by 5%.

Fianna Fáil remain calmed.

A Bruising week? No big loss for the party, but no big gain either after a bruising week for the two Government parties.

Martin’s message to delegates this weekend is that it is time to get focused, get on the ground and take the fight to every community in the country.

The only people who can win the fight for Fianna Fáil are Fianna Fáil themselves.

Their biggest stumbling block? Fianna Fáil (and recent history).

Mr Martin’s speech isn’t going to attract the masses to the party, but it may be enough to keep the grassroots happy for now.

He was eager to remind them that their party was founded from the great men and women of 1916.

This was a comment clearly aimed at Sinn Féin, as he stressed that no single party should be allowed to hijack the commemorations.

There was a brief mention of the Celtic Tiger and the collapse of the economy.

This was a warning against making the same mistakes again – something he said Fianna Fáil would be well placed to do, given their hands-on experience during the crash.

Martin did very little wrong with his speech. He looked good, he sounded well and he didn’t frighten the horses.

But if it was inspiration, energy or an alternative you were looking for from the RDS main hall, this didn’t provide it.

Martin is doing his best to juggle the diehard Fianna Fáilers who stayed with the party through thick and thin with the young guns who want a break from the past and a fresh start.

He used the speech to reassure the party faithful, rather than appeal to those outside the FF fold in the RDS. With time running out, he needed to do that.

Fianna Fáil and Micheál may have come through the worst of the storm but on tonight’s showing, there is a still some way to go.

As much as 9% of AIB staff (some 993) are earning €100k or more?

     The old CEO David Duffy above left and the new man Bernard Byrne right pic, will anything change? Probably not.

The number of high-fliers at the State-owned AIB with pay packages in excess of €100,000 totalled almost 1,100 at the end of last year.

New figures provided by AIB to Finance Minister Michael Noonan disclose that 1,092 people at AIB enjoyed remuneration of over €100,000 in 2014. It represents just over 9% of the bank’s 11,047-strong workforce.

Nine staff members enjoyed remuneration of over €400,000; 13 staff workers were on remuneration of between €300,000 and €400,000; and another 77 were paid between €200,000 and €300,000.

The figures, released to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman Michael McGrath in response to parliamentary questions, show that 993 AIB staff members were on remuneration of between €100,000 and €200,000.

The remuneration includes annual salary, non-pensionable allowances, and pension contributions.

The number of staff members on salaries of over €100,000 is significantly lower, with 597 in that bracket. This includes:

• Seven people on salaries over €400,000;
• Three on salaries between €300,000 and €400,000;
• 28 on salaries between €200,000 and €300,000;
• 559 on salaries between €100,000 and €200,000.

Employee numbers at AIB have declined from 13,429 to 11,047 between December 2012 and December 2014.

AIB said it “continues to comply with its remuneration requirements following receipt of Government support”.

Larry Broderick of IBOA, the finance union, said: “The overwhelming majority of employees in AIB earn less than half of the minimum amount quoted in the parliamentary question. Indeed a substantial number earn less than one third of the figure.”

“The last improvement in pay for any of our members in AIB took place in 2009. Since then there have been no increases in rates, no payment of increments, and no payment of performance awards and major changes in the pension scheme.

“At the same time, over 3,000 employees have been made redundant in AIB since the onset of the banking crisis — with many more being outsourced to other companies. Over 70 branches have been closed around the country. At the same time, AIB employees have agreed, albeit reluctantly, to an increase in the standard working week of two hours.

“Through the difficult years since the crisis, the bank’s senior management told our members that pay would return to the bargaining agenda once the bank returned to profit. AIB Group returned to profit in 2014. So our members believe that the time has come for the employer to honour that earlier commitment.”

Separate figures for Permanent TSB show that 160 staff members were on remuneration of over €100,000 at the end of last year:

• Two people were on remuneration of over €400,000;
• Three were on remuneration between €300,000 and €400,000;
• 12 were on remuneration between €200,000 and €300,000;
• 143 were on remuneration between €100,000 and €200,000.

Again, the remuneration includes non-pensionable allowances and pension contributions.

The number of PTSB workers on salaries over €100,000 is significantly lower, with fewer than half of the 160 in that bracket. This includes three members of staff on salaries between €300,000 and €400,000.

FF promises deposit cash for first-time house buyers,

• Depending on Irish economy

    

Fianna Fáil is promising a cash bonus to help first-time buyers get on the property ladder.

It is offering up to €10,000 for couples – and €5,000 for single people – to top up their deposits by 25%.

Up to 80,000 people could benefit, under a new housing policy that also aims to build 150,000 homes.

The whole policy would cost more than €300m, but finance spokesman Michael McGrath says none of Fianna Fáil’s policies will be pursued if there is not enough money to do it.

He said: “The promises and the commitements made by all political parties going into the next election will be dependent on economic performance.

“I think that’s a point the parties have not been honest about with the people in the past.

“They have made promises with no conditionality, and they’ve given the clear impression that come what may, this is what’s going to happen.”

Irish pharmacists want women with medical cards to have easier access to the morning after pill

   

Pharmacists want women with medical cards to have easier access to the morning after pill.

Pharmacists have called on the HSE to make the morning after pill available to women with medical cards directly from their pharmacy free of charge.

Pharmacists have been allowed to supply the emergency contraceptive Norolevo to women without a prescription since 2011. However women with medical cards still have to go to their GP if they wish to get the medicine free of charge.

At the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) national conference in Killarney today, President Kathy Maher said the effectiveness of emergency contraception diminishes between the time of unprotected sex and the time of taking it and this emphasises the need for convenience and accessibility.

77% of pharmacy consultations about the morning after pill occur within 24 hours of unprotected sex and pharmacists say this shows the value of having the medicine available to women as soon as they need it.

• 22% of women who avail of the emergency contraceptive services in pharmacies have a medical card.

Pharmacists claim that making women with medical cards attend their doctor for a prescription in order to obtain the pill free of charge is “farcical, discriminatory and unacceptable”.

“It is unacceptable that a medicine, which is known to be most effective within a 24-hour period, cannot be accessed immediately free-of-charge by women with a medical card. The delay in accessing treatment for GMS patients is a huge concern, given the potentially far-reaching and life-changing consequences of an unplanned pregnancy,” Maher said today.

“This situation discriminates against women with a medical card over private female patients and needs to be changed as soon as possible.”

Pharmacists today passed a motion at their National Conference calling on the HSE to put a mechanism in place “to make emergency hormonal contraception available to women with medical cards directly from the community pharmacy.”

Ladies always think before you go drinking?

Because it’s your friend/enemy

Alcohol is not a woman’s best bubbly friend; it is her biggest let-down?

     

Ladies! Hard day? Have a drink. Great day? Have a drink. Going out? Have a drink. Staying in? Have a drink. Feeling good / bad / tired / bored? Have a drink.

This week a conference in Dublin looked at women and booze, says how women now drink as much as men, and sometimes more.

Girls, Women and Alcohol: The Changing Nature Of Female Alcohol Consumption In Ireland was told that since 1995, teenage girls are out-boozing boys, and the seminer also examined the overall rise in female drinking, and how it impacts on our minds and bodies.

According to Alcohol Action Ireland, four out of 10 women report harmful drinking patterns — meaning their drinking is already harming their physical and / or mental health.

Between 1995 and 2004, there was a 29% increase in teenage girls being admitted to hospital for alcohol-related conditions, compared with a 9% increase in teenage boys.

Middle-aged women are developing alcohol-related ill health and dying more prematurely than their male counterparts, with professional women drinking significantly more than non-professionals.

Pictured at the Alcohol Action Ireland conference in Dublin were: (L-R) Ann Dowsett Johnston, author and alcohol policy advocate, Suzanne Costello, CEO of Alcohol Action Ireland, Katherine Brown, Director, Institute of Alcohol Studies, UK and Lucy Rocca, author and founder of Soberistas.com

“In recent decades, Irish women, particularly younger women, have begun to drink more alcohol, more often,” says Suzanne Costello, CEO of Alcohol Action Ireland.

“The shift we have seen in the nature of women’s drinking in Ireland has been influenced by a number of factors, but the main one is undoubtedly how heavily targeted they have become by alcohol marketing and advertising, including the development of many products — often high in alcohol content – specifically for the ‘female market’.”

These facts are here not to induce shame, guilt or fear at an individual level, but to look at the steady growth in the female alcohol market, and how it is affecting our health and well being. Around 57% of Irish women binge drink, followed by 33% of British women, making us Europe’s biggest bingers .

Alcohol is marketed to women as glamorous, sophisticated, feminine, sexy, often placed alongside lipstick, handbags and shoes. “A shot of tequila has just 65 calories,” trills a feature in Woman magazine. “Malt whisky is one of the healthier spirits at just 72 calories.” Forget your liver, just don’t get fat.

“The ‘pinking’ of the market began in the 1990s,” Ann Dowsett Johnston tells me. She is the Canadian best-selling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, and was a speaker at the conference.

In profit and marketing terms, she says of the alcohol industry that: “There was an entire gender underperforming. The invention of alcopops was aimed to steer teenage girls away from beer towards spirits. The profits of Smirnoff went up. Today in Canada and the US, there is Cupcake Wine, Girls’ Night Out wine, MommyJuice wine, berry flavoured vodkas. These are not marketed at men.”

The infantilised alcoholic drinks are next generation Babycham — traditionally a woman’s drink, like cream liqueurs or a small sherry — with social equality, this has changed.

“Socially, we are equal, but metabolically and hormonally we are not,” continues Johnston. “There has been an overall 30% increase in liver disease in the past decade, and 15% of all breast cancers are linked to alcohol consumption.

“But alcohol is our favourite drug and we don’t want to look at that. This is a public health crisis, yet we have very fuzzy values around women and drinking. You can keep your masculinity and have too much to drink — but not your femininity.”

Johnston says that in terms of social acceptability around drinking, the pecking order is highly defined: at the top end are men, followed by women, mothers, poor mothers, and pregnant women. Conflicting reports around ‘safe’ levels of drinking during pregnancy adds to the overall blurriness, (80% of Irish women drink during pregnancy— the highest rate internationally. I was one of them).

Men drink in groups, openly and socially, while — raucous hen nights aside — women tend to drink more in isolation — the glass of wine at home. But why do we drink so much these days?

Three reasons, says Johnston. “First, there is heavy pitching of alcohol to women. Second, it’s the modern woman’s steroid, enabling her to do the heavy lifting. We come home from work, and we start another day’s work. Emancipation has resulted in complex lives.” In other words, women do a double shift at work and at home , and wine makes it easier / more pleasant / takes the edge off / acts as a reward. Or as the book Great Lies To Tell Small Kids puts it, “Wine makes mummy clever”.

“And thirdly,” says Johnston, “We use alcohol to self-medicate. It’s a lot easier to pop a cork than to seek help for depression and anxiety — which we are more prone to suffer from than men. Alcohol is too cheap, too accessible, and too heavily marketed.”

Johnston’s book is sold in the US as Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, but in the UK and Ireland as Drink: The Deadly Relationship Between Women and Alcohol.

This is not mere semantics. “We need a public health dialogue about women and drinking,” she says. “We need to know that low risk drinking is 10-11 units a week, with at least one night off.”

That’s 10-11 measured units, and not all at the same time either. When I used to drink, 10-11 units would have been the equivalent of a snack, a few drinks before I ever went out.

When I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, the doctor suggested it might be connected with my drinking, but I still celebrated my survival with champagne and carried on. Madness? Stupidity? Death wish? No. Alcoholism. (I eventually stopped drinking for good almost a decade ago, and with the ongoing input of 12-step recovery, discovered life was miles more fun without it — who knew?)

Another conference speaker, Lucy Rocca, is the founder of Soberistas, a social media site which offers an online forum for alcohol-dependent women to connect and support each other. Lucy stopped drinking at 35 — she dislikes the term ‘alcoholic’, and 12 Step recovery didn’t appeal, yet four years on she remains sober.

“I didn’t want to define myself as alcoholic despite blackouts and not being able to stop once I had started,” she tells me. “It’s a negative word, and I wanted to reframe my attitude to alcohol to one of pride, not shame.”

She mentions a book by Jason Vale, How To Kick Drink, which states that there is no such thing as an alcoholic or alcoholism. “It changed my life,” she says.

Although Soberistas was originally designed for women to share their alcohol-related experiences anonymously — thereby providing support and identification not dissimilar to 12 Step recovery — these days 25% of its users are men.

Rocca has also written several books about alcohol dependency. She says she loves her post-alcohol life, and has never felt better. I relate totally.

But you don’t have to be alcoholic or alcohol dependent for alcohol to mess with your health. Heavens, no. Anyone can get cancer or cirrhosis — you don’t have to be face down on a park bench. You just need to be sucked in by all the advertising, availability, affordability, and the fact that in Ireland, drinks corporations continue to sponsor sporting events, linking our favourite liquid drug with running around outdoors being healthy.

Yet nobody questions the insanity of this paradox — not when there’s so much money to be made from it.

Shouting at individuals to stop drinking so much hardly works when we are bombarded by cheap, ubiquitous, socially acceptable booze — so do we have to develop disease / hit a wall / start losing things (jobs, partners, kids, the will to live) before we wake up a bit and cut down a bit?

“In order to make any meaningful improvements in problem drinking among women it is essential that we tackle the main drivers of of consumption,” says Katherine Brown, director of the UK’s Institute of Alcohol Studies.

“These are the affordability, availability and promotion of alcohol, which have been recognised by the World Health Organisation as the key areas for policy action.

“Interventions that rely solely on changing individual behaviours simply won’t work while we are surrounded by promotions and cheap offers that normalise everyday and excessive drinking.

“The alcohol industry has worked for years to make alcohol products appealing to women, bombarding us with messages that glamorise drinking while ignoring all the negative health effects such as breast cancer. It’s extremely important that women are told about these risks so that they can be empowered to make informed decisions about their drinking.”

Because ladies, alcohol is not your bubbly best friend or your low-calorie medicine. Have too much — and very little is too much — and it’s your biggest friend-enemy.

Gene Modification technique’s are dangerous to use in Human Embryos,

Say experts

   

The new of Chinese Scientists having modified the genes of human embryos spread like wild fire all over the world. Now, many scientists have called to bring the practice to halt as it’s full of danger for use in human embryos.

A study of Chinese scientists was published in the journal Protein & Cell on April 18, showing that they made use of a genetic engineering technique called CRISPR to cut out a faulty gene and replace it with a healthy one in human embryos.

The gene editing technique has the potential of permanently altering the DNA of every cell to pass any changes from generation to generation. This has prompted leading researchers to issue urgent calls in major scientific journals last month to stop using such techniques on human embryos.

The experiment was given a try by Chinese scientists, but they failed exactly the same ways that had been feared.

They were not trying to produce a baby, but wanted to have an embryo with a precisely altered gene in every cell but no other inadvertent DNA damage. This is the reason they brought into use defective human embryos. But they failed to end up with fulfilling those criteria for any of the 85 human embryos they injected with the CRISPR/Cas 9 complex.