Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Ireland’s economy is no longer built around one industry,

We have left the Celtic Tiger behind says Kenny

  

Taoiseach tells US audience that country has left excesses of Celtic Tiger behind.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny started his St Patrick’s Day trip to the United States by telling an audience of businesspeople in Atlanta that Ireland had moved beyond an economy built around one industry.

Speaking at a business breakfast to the Irish Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta, Mr Kenny spoke about the country’s recovery saying that it had left behind the excesses of the unsustainable economic boom era.

“The so-called Celtic Tiger years were a veneer driven in many cases by shallowness and by greed,” the Taoiseach said.

“The economy was expected to be built and to be sustained on one platform only and that collapsed with all the consequences that came with it. But now it is different where all the sectors are growing, all of them, and that is the broad-based economic growth that we are pleased to see happening.” Mr Kenny told the business audience that Ireland had endured a “torrid time” over the last number of years and the Government had to take some “very difficult decisions” .

“Thanks to the sacrifices made by many hundreds and thousands of the Irish people and the decisions taken by Government as part of a clear strategy and a clear plan, I can say with confidence here in Atlanta that the economic recovery has now taken hold in Ireland, is taking hold in Ireland and will be managed very carefully for the benefits of everybody’s future, ” he said.

The Taoiseach paid tribute to Irish-American businessman Don Keough, the former veteran executive of Atlanta-based Coca Cola and economic adviser to the Government who died recently, describing his advice as “always a source of great assurance and of great strengths”.

“The best tribute we can pay Don is to build on that strong relationship that he helped create [between Ireland and Atlanta],” he said.

Afterwards, Mr Kenny met Coca Cola chief executive Muhtar Kent and Irishman Irial Finan, executive vice president of the company and president of the bottling investments and supply chain, at the company’s worldwide headquarters.

The Taoiseach is on a six-day visit to the US for St Patrick’s Day. He will travel to Austin, Texas where he will officially open the new Irish consulate before he travels on toWashington for business meetings on Monday.

He will meet US President Barack Obama in the White House on St Patrick’s Day on Tuesday for their annual meeting in the Oval Office and for the St Patrick’s Day lunch hosted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner at the US Capitol.

These leading Irish people tell us why they’re involved with Renua Ireland

 

These three ordinary people who want to run for Ireland’s newest party in the next election.

LUCINDA CREIGHTON was definitely the star of the show at the launch of Renua Ireland today, but the party also had a number of its members in attendance.

Renua has 180 people who want to run in the general election. Not all of them will with Creighton indicating that the party will field between 50 and 60 candidates at the next election.

We spoke to three of them to gauge why they wanted to get involved and what persuaded them to run for the country’s newest political party.

  Mailo Power, a hotelier in Waterford, says the reason she got involved was because of the challenges that are facing family-run businesses like her own.

It’s a voice for those people who are actually struggling, the whole idea of cashflow and all that was a major challenge for us.

“I’ll be going forward as a candidate for the selection process in Waterford. None of us are confirmed candidates, we all have to go through the selection process, but I’ll be putting my name in the hat!”

  Anne Farrell, from Roscommon, says she’s always been politically interested but resisted the urge to get “dragged into it” up until now.

She describes Creighton as a “very vibrant, young, steely, confident girl”.

On this occasion when Lucinda Creighton took the stand she did on the vote in Dáil Éireann, I respected her stance on the issue. She voted against her own party, one which she was, politically, moving upwards in. I found that her honesty and integrity appealed to me.

She said the Irish people are “crying out for honesty and integrity” and to be included in the process of government. For her it was a case of “do it now, or shut up”.

Farrell is the sister of Labour senator John Kelly. Michael D Higgins was one of her tutors in NUIG “back in the day” and she did canvass for Labour in Galway in the past.

But ultimately, she hopes to run for the party in Roscommon-Galway East.

Finally, we also spoke to Shane Dunphy above main picture is a social worker, commentator and journalist, who wants to run for the party in Wexford “if they’ll have me”.

One of the things that just struck me time and time again when I was a child protection worker was the fact that everybody who was working in the area was full of the best intentions in the world, wanting to do the best for their clients. But they were hamstrung by lack of finances, resources, social workers, and psychologists on the ground.

He said in Renua Ireland he has found people who are “absolutely committed to making real change”.

He says getting involved was an opportunity to implement “real, positive change”.

Anglo Irish wind-down leaves €1.85 billion for unsecured creditors

  

Pedestrians are seen walking past a branch of the Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin in this September 30,

The winding down of the lender at the heart of Ireland’s 2010 financial crisis has left 1.85 billion euros for unsecured creditors which may be distributed before the end of the year, the Irish finance ministry said on Friday.

Anglo Irish Bank’s wind-down vehicle, the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (IBRC), has paid 14.7 billion euros to creditors and has given deadlines to unsecured creditors for further claims, the ministry said in a statement.

“The Special Liquidators inform me that they could be in a position to make an interim distribution to unsecured creditors in the last quarter of this year,” Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in a statement.

He said there was no risk that the state would need to inject additional funds into the lender.

IBRC was put into liquidation in 2013 in a deal that released Dublin from a commitment to quickly pay off a 29 billion-euro debt incurred by Anglo Irish.

FIND OUT WHERE IRELAND RANKS IN THE LONGEST WORKING HOURS IN EUROPE?

  

If you’re heading to the pub this weekend, here’s the proof you need to know you deserve it.

We’re a hard-working bunch, and it appears we’re carrying a fair share of the load with our European neighbours.

The latest news from Statista has outlined the longest working hours in Europe… and let’s just say we’re glad we’re not toiling away in Greece.

Coming in at 42 hours a week, the Greeks topped the poll for longest hours in a working week, followed closely by Portugal on 39.3 and Spain at 38 hours per week.

The study also found France falling to number four with 37.5 hours per week.

Ireland came in at number seven on the list – with the Irish workforce racking up 35.4 hours on average per week. We fair marginally better than Italy and our neighbours over in the UK who averaged 36.9 and 36.5 hours respectively.

So feel free to order another pint and have a sleep-in in the morning.

AFTER THE WEEK YOU’VE HAD, YOU DESERVE IT.

Grafton Street Dublin goes green to celebrate St Pat’s & its new pavements

  

Grafton Street above left before the street was repaved.

Dublin’s Grafton Street will go green on Friday night in a joint celebration of St Patrick and the completion of the street’s repaving scheme.

The €4 million repaving project saw sections of the street cordoned off for months at a time since May 2013 so that the old red brick surface could be replaced with stone.

With the project now completed the council is moving on to the streets to its west, starting with Johnson’s Court, a narrow lane that runs from Grafton Street to the Powerscourt Town Centre, and the pedestrianised section of Wicklow St.

Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke will perform the ceremonial switching on of the new street lights at 6.45pm. The lighting will be green for this weekend to mark the St. Patrick’s Festival. “This will showcase a new public lighting feature which allows the council to change the colour of street lights on Grafton Street to mark special occasions,” the council said.

Mr Burke thanked businesses and shoppers for their patience during the work. “Following these works Grafton Street is now an even bigger draw for shoppers and tourists. The works were carried out with the minimum of disruption and that is a credit to everyone involved, in particular the City Council, the contractor, the businesses and members of the public.”

Work on Wicklow Street and Johnson Court is due to start next month and be completed by late September at a cost of €0.5 million.

The work is part of the Grafton Street Quarter Public Realm Plan published in 2013, which envisages a €14 million investment over three years to upgrade the largely Victorian area from St Stephen’s Green to College Green and from South Great George’s Street to Kildare Street.

Ultrasound technology may help to treat Alzheimer’s

    

In a breakthrough, scientists have found that non-invasive ultrasound technology can be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and restore memory in mice.

Researchers from Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland discovered that the innovative drug-free approach breaks apart the neurotoxic amyloid plaques that result in memory loss and cognitive decline.

Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research director Professor Jurgen Gotz said the new treatment method could revolutionise Alzheimer’s treatment by restoring memory.

“We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics,” Gotz said.

“The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses,” Gotz said.

The approach is able to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier, activating mechanisms that clear toxic protein clumps and restoring memory functions.

“With our approach the blood-brain barrier’s opening is only temporary for a few hours, so it quickly restores its protective role,” Gotz said.

Researchers have tested the new approach using mice with an Alzheimer’s model, and the next step is to scale the research in higher animal models ahead of human clinical trials, which are at least two years away.

“This treatment restored memory function to the same level of normal healthy mice,” Gotz said.

“We’re also working on seeing whether this method clears toxic protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases other than Alzheimer’s and whether this also restores executive functions, including decision-making and motor control,” Gotz said.

Ancient teeth found in Sri Lanka shows of earlier human life in the rain-forests

  

The site of Batadomba-lena in Sri Lanka, where human teeth dating back 20,000 years old were excavated, is pictured in this undated photo for March 11, 2015.

People adapted to living in tropical rainforests thousands of years earlier than previously known, say scientists who found crucial evidence in 20,000-year-old fossilized human teeth discovered in Sri Lanka.

The researchers said there has been a debate about when our species began living in rainforests, with some experts arguing such habitats may have been too daunting for early human hunter-gathers.

In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, the scientists examined teeth from 26 people found at various archaeological sites in Sri Lanka for evidence of whether their diet consisted of rainforest plants and animals. They obtained small tooth enamel samples and analyzed them with an instrument called a mass spectrometer.

Almost all the teeth, including the oldest ones from about 20,000 years ago found at the Batadomba-lena rock shelter in southwestern Sri Lanka, indicated a diet primarily of food from the rainforest.

“Humans have been manipulating and living within dynamic rainforest environments for at least 20,000 years and probably even longer,” said University of Oxford archaeologist Patrick Roberts, who studies early human adaptations. “The lifestyle, as we can see, was dedicated rainforest subsistence.”

Scientists previously had not found direct evidence of human occupation of rainforest regions before about 10,000 years ago.

Compared with open habitats, rainforests present difficulties such as dense vegetation that makes it tough to get around; small, nimble and often arboreal prey animals; and a bewildering array of plants and fruit, including poisonous ones.

“However, it is clear that hunting and gathering communities in Sri Lanka figured out how to adapt to such settings,” said Oxford archaeologist Mike Petraglia, another of the researchers.

The researchers said these people hunted monkeys, giant squirrels, mouse deer, porcupines and other mammals, as well as freshwater and forest snails, while also eating nuts and starchy rainforest plants.

“These results further the picture that our species was incredibly adaptive, and it is arguably this that made us the first species to expand across the diversity of the globe’s ecologies and environments,” Roberts said.

While the study provides the earliest direct evidence for human reliance on rainforest resources, the researchers said other evidence suggests people may have taken to Sri Lanka’s rainforests as early as 38,000 years ago.

Roberts said archaeological work in Africa, Southeast Asia and Melanesia suggests humans may have used rainforest resources at least 45,000 years ago.     

Donie's news Ireland daily Bog Thursday

Arranmore Donegal Priest challenges politicians on abortion issue

   

Brendan Byrne, Mayor of Donegal and Fr John Joe Duffy of Arranmore with other members of Donegal County Council.

An Arranmore curate has told his congregation that any legislation on abortion should not be passed under the terms of the X case, saying he believed that would make Irish abortion laws the most liberal in Europe.

Speaking on the island on Sunday, Father John Joe Duffy told parishioners that he welcomed the decision of Donegal County Council, who voted at their regular meeting last month to oppose any form of legislation of abortion.

“I welcome the decision taken by Donegal County Council in relation to their stance on the abortion issue, in that they are not in favour of the Minister for Health, James Reilly legislating for abortion under the terms of the X case,” Father John Joe said.

However, the head of the Irish Family Planning Association said that even if legislation were brought in for the X case, Irish legislation would remain among the most restrictive in Europe.

Father John Joe called on all political representatives to state their position on the subject. “I now call on all political representatives at local and national level to clearly state where they stand in relation to the proposed legislation by Doctor James Reilly,” Father John Joe said. “It is time to get off the fence. I am calling, in particular, on Sinn Féin locally and nationally to clearly state where they stand, in the same manner that I am calling on all political parties to clearly state where they stand. It is now time for political parties to show moral courage and protect the rights of the unborn child.”

He added that this was going to be a very difficult debate, and urged everyone to be sensitive to the language they use.

“Abortion is wrong under any circumstances and no matter how you may try to dress it up linguistically, it is what it is,” he said. “But we must be exceptionally sensitive in our use of language in relation to the future debate which will be on abortion.”

He added that he believed any legislation adopted in terms of the X case would make Irish abortion laws the most liberal in Europe. “The only way that the abortion debate can be revisited is by a referendum where the choice will be put to all the Irish people and that all Irish people will have their say on this matter,” Father John Joe said. “Legislation is not the way forward on this issue and it would be wrong for any government to forward this matter by legislation alone.”

The Chief Executive of the Irish Family Planning Association, Niall Behan, disagreed. He said: “If the legislation was brought in for the X case, we would still remain the one of the most restrictive in Europe. If you were to take the 48 members of the Council of Europe, from Russia to the Ukraine to Iceland, we would still be the 45th most restrictive of the 48 countries.”

He added that should legislation be brought in relation to the X-case it would be a woman’s life that would be under discussion and not her health.

Women in Ireland with a pregnancy deemed life-threatening cannot access abortion services without travelling abroad, despite a 2010 European Court of Human Rights ruling which found the State to be in breach of its obligations, according to the Irish Family Planning Association. Answering a Parliamentary written question, Minister Reilly confirmed that the situation of women with life-threatening pregnancies remains the same as before the ruling. No interim measures to deal with such incidents have been developed since the judgement.

Irish people working overtime unpaid on the increase

  

An increasing number of employees are working weekends and evenings on an unpaid basis to cope with rising workloads.

A rising number of Irish employees are taking on unpaid overtime in a bid to cope with increasing workloads.

A survey from Peninsula Ireland, which questioned 934 employees, found that 67 per cent said they worked additional hours on occasion at evenings and on weekends. That was a rise from the 58 per cent recorded in 2011.

The survey also found that 76 per cent of employees work an average of up to 65 minutes extra each month.

It noted that employees frequently use mobile devices to keep up with work while outside their contracted hours, including checking emails and making calls.  However, 43 per cent also said they felt their extra work was not acknowledged by their boss.

Managing director of Peninsula Ireland Alan Price said the issue needs to be addressed.

“The current economic recession has accounted for major cuts for many businesses, and subsequently many companies have reduced staff numbers. This has led to a greater workload for the remaining employees who are forced to comply in order to keep their job safe,” he said.

“It may seem petty to be picking up on what may only be a 5 or 10 minutes each time, but these short periods can add up when looked at on a grander scale. Employers should consider incorporating overtime pay into the average rota, to account for any additional minutes clocked up.”

However, he said it was the employee’s responsibility to inform their bosses of overtime. “It is also important that employers are not enforcing overtime, and creating a large workload for their employees. By simply improving the delegation of tasks between their employees, all tasks could be completed within normal working hours,” he said.

Fossils suggest 2 new pre-human species 

Say Leakeys family

    

Picture left shows Meave Leakey carefully excavating the new face KNM-ER 62000 near Koobi Fora in northern Kenya. Pic. right Meave (L) and Louise Leakey, discussing one of the new fossils at the time of discovery. Found within a radius of just over 10 km from 1470’s location,

Our family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly two million years. A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans.

A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found facial bones from one creature and jawbones from two others in Kenya. That led the researchers to conclude that man’s early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species.

These would not be Homo erectus, believed to be our direct ancestor. They would be more like very distant cousins, who when you go back even longer in time, shared an ancient common ancestor, one scientist said.

But other experts in human evolution are not convinced by what they say is a leap to large conclusions based on limited evidence.

LONG-RUNNING SQUABBLE

It is the continuation of a long-running squabble in anthropology about the earliest members of our own genus, or class, called Homo — an increasingly messy family history. And much of it stems from a controversial discovery that the Leakeys made 40 years ago.

In their new findings, the Leakey team says that none of their newest fossil discoveries match erectus, so they had to be from another flat-faced relatively large species with big teeth.

The new specimens have “a really distinct profile” and thus they are “something very different,” said Meave Leakey, describing the study published online Wednesday in Nature.

What these new bones did match was an old fossil that Meave and her husband Richard helped find in 1972 that was baffling. That skull, called 1470, just did not fit with Homo erectus, the Leakeys contended. They said it was too flat-faced with a non-jutting jaw. They initially said it was well more than 2.5 million years old in a dating mistake that was later seized upon by creationists as evidence against evolution because it indicated how scientists can make dating mistakes. It turned out to be 2 million years old.

For the past 40 years, the scientific question has been whether 1470 was a freak mutation of erectus or something new. For many years, the Leakeys have maintained that the male skull known as 1470 showed that there were more than one species of ancient hominids, but other scientists said it wasn’t enough proof.

LEAKY TEAM INSISTS ON 3 SPECIES

The Leakeys’ new discoveries are more evidence that this earlier “enigmatic face” was a separate species, said study co-author Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The new bones were found between 2007 and 2009 about six miles (10 kilometres) away from the old site near the fossil-rich Lake Turkana region, Leakey said.

So that would make two species — erectus and the one represented by 1470.

But it’s not that simple. The Leakey scientific team contends that other fossils of old hominids — not those cited in their new study — don’t seem to match either erectus or 1470. They argue that the other fossils seem to have smaller heads and not just because they are female. For that reason, the Leakeys believe there were three living Homo species between 1.8 million and 2 million years ago. They would be Homo erectus, the 1470 species, and a third branch.

“Anyway you cut it, there are three species,” study co-author Susan Anton, an anthropologist at New York University. “One of them is named erectus, and that, ultimately, in our opinion is going to lead to us.”

Both of the species that Meave Leakey said existed back then went extinct more than a million years ago in evolutionary dead-ends.

“Human evolution is clearly not the straight line that it once was,” Spoor said.

The three different species could have been living at the same time at the same place, but probably didn’t interact much, he said. Still, he said, East Africa nearly 2 million years ago “was quite a crowded place.”

JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

And making matters somewhat more confusing, the Leakeys and Spoor refused to give names to the two non-erectus species or attach them to some of the other Homo species names that are in scientific literature but still disputed. That’s because of confusion about what species belongs where, Anton said.

Two likely possibilities are Homo rudolfensis —which is where 1470 and its kin seem to belong — and Homo habilis, where the other non-erectus belong, Anton said. The team said the new fossils mean scientists can reclassify those categorized as non-erectus species and confirm the earlier but disputed Leakey claim.

But Tim White, a prominent evolutionary biologist at the University of California Berkeley, is not buying this new species idea, nor is Milford Wolpoff, a longtime professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. They said the Leakeys are making too big a jump from too little evidence.

White said it’s similar to someone looking at the jaw of a female gymnast in the Olympics, the jaw of a male shot-putter, ignoring the faces in the crowd and deciding the shot-putter and gymnast have to be a different species.

Eric Delson, a paleoanthropology professor at Lehman College in New York, said he buys the Leakeys’ study, but added: “There’s no question that it’s not definite.” He said it won’t convince doubters until fossils of both sexes of both non- erectus species are found.

Irish Consultants to reopen talks with the HSE

        

A body representing hospital consultants has written to the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) saying it is willing to engage with the HSE after talks broke down last month.

The Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association contacted the commission yesterday “to confirm its willingness to engage in non-binding discussions with the HSE under the Public Service Agreement”. The HSE referred the matter to the LRC last week.

IHCA president Denis Evoy said consultants “already work well beyond their contracted hours” and services could only be extended further “if there is an agreed minimum number of consultants in each speciality”.

Ireland’s turf cutters paid €1.5m compensation to date for 53 preserved bogs

  

More than 1,000 turf cutters have been paid €1.5 million in compensation to date as part of the deal to preserve 53 raised bogs in Ireland.

An EU habitats directive imposed restrictions on turf cutting because of environmental damage on the bogs, designated areas of special conservation.

But Minister for Heritage Jimmy Deenihan earlier this year said almost one-third of those bogs had been irreparably damaged.

A small but vocal opposition group has questioned the department’s handling of the issue and a number with cutting or “turbary” rights have continued to cut turf illegally on 11 of the bogs.

Latest figures show that 1,082 payments from 2,308 applications have been made. The department estimates the applications represent a majority of cutters, but does not know the total number of turbary rights-holders on the bogs.

Those whose rights are on the affected bogs have been offered compensation of €1,500 a year for 15 years in the scheme along with a once-off sign-up bonus of €500 paid this year on completion of a legal agreement between the cutter and Minister.

The total individual compensation package is worth €23,000 tax free and index-linked over the 15 years.

The other option is relocation to another bog, if available, where they can continue to cut turf lawfully. While waiting for another location cutters can opt for financial compensation or a delivery of 15 tonnes of turf to their home.

Of the total number of applicants, 676 or 29 per cent have sought relocation to another bog. Cutters opposed to the scheme have claimed appropriate alternative bog locations have not been provided, but the department said work was ongoing to investigate and assess potential relocation sites. A group from Clara bog in Co Offaly had been relocated to a nearby bog.

The Minister said progress had been made. “The majority . . . have worked with us.”

Opponents have complained that larger stakeholders would receive only the same amount as those with smaller stakes.

In June more than 200 people were involved in an 18-hour stand-off between cutters, gardaí and the National Parks and Wildlife Service at Clonmoylan bog in south Galway.

Ireland faces fines of up to €25,000 a day for failure to implement the directive. The State had a 10-year derogation until 2009 and EU conservation regulations were announced in 2010.

Irish growth outlook improves on stronger exports

    

Ireland’s economy will grow slightly faster than previously thought this year thanks to stronger exports, keeping Dublin on track to meet deficit targets agreed under its EU/IMF bailout, a Reuters poll shows.

The poll, released on Wednesday, forecast the economy expanded 0.5 percent in the second quarter on a quarterly basis, bouncing back from a 1.1 percent contraction in the first quarter although it remains fragile.

Economists forecast 0.7 percent growth for this year, matching the government’s estimate and up from a projected 0.6 percent in a poll last month.

The 10 economists polled cited a better outlook for exports as the main reason for lifting their growth forecast, helped by a weaker euro, but said personal consumption and retail sales would fall this year.

They see exports rising 3.5 percent this year, up from a forecast of 3 percent in the July poll.

“Ireland is set to benefit more than any other euro zone country from the weaker euro,” Fergal O’Brien, chief economist at the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, said.

“This is going to help reflate the economy and boost nominal GDP, which in turn will improve debt sustainability and make it easier to reach the fiscal deficit targets.”

More than 60 percent of Ireland’s exports are to markets outside the euro zone, making it far more susceptible to currency fluctuations than most other euro zone members.

Ireland desperately needs export-led growth to make inroads into a debt pile set to peak at 120 percent of GDP next year.

Dublin is still on track to get its deficit down to 8.6 percent of GDP this year, from 9.4 percent last year, as agreed under its EU/IMF bailout, the poll showed.

The government got a boost last month when it became the first euro zone bailout recipient to issue longer-term bonds, with a five-year issue totalling 4.2 billion euros. It had been forced out of bond markets in September 2010.

Four of six economists who answered said Ireland was likely to be able to make a full return to the bond market, with an issue of 10 years or more, by the end of next year.

The economy will grow by 1.8 percent in 2013, according to the poll, compared to a government forecast of 2.2 percent. GDP grew 1.4 percent last year, the first expansion in four years.

Very weak domestic demand will continue to weigh on the economy with personal consumption set to fall 2 percent this year and retail sales dropping 2.4 percent, the poll forecast.

Ireland’s manufacturing sector grew at its fastest pace in 15 months in July but weak domestic demand meant its service sector contracted for a third straight month, purchasing managers’ surveys showed.

“Economic recovery is tentative and the risks remain firmly weighted to the downside, not least due to the lingering euro zone sovereign debt crisis,” said Melanie Bowler, economist at Moody’s Analytics.