Donie's Ireland news BLOG Thursday

Ireland’s OAPs will pay up to €223 extra for their phone bill in 2013

    

Almost 400,000 pensioners will have to pay between €156 and €233 a year extra for their phone, due to Budget cuts.

Eircom has sent letters to its elderly customers in the wake of a Government decision to slash the State telephone subsidy.

It warned 270,000 over-66s they face having to pay between €195 and €233 extra per year from February.

As part of Budget cutbacks, pensioners availing of the scheme will see their Government subsidy drop from €22.58 to €9.50 a month.

Health and Safety Ireland decrease in workplace deaths in 2012

    

Figures from the Health and Safety Authority show a 13% decrease in the number of workplace deaths in 2012.

According to the latest figures, 47 people were killed in workplace accidents last year compared to 54 in 2011.

Health and Safety Authority CEO Martin O’Halloran said that while it is a positive development, deaths in the agriculture sector remain too high.

“It’s the best we’ve had since 2009, and prior to that it’s a long time since we’ve had this kind of significant reduction,” he said.

“However there has been a stubborn resilience in the agriculture sector. It’s still at 21, 2011 was 22, and 2010 was 22, so despite a very significant programme working with all the stakeholders, we’re not yet seeing the positive results from those programmes.”

The biggest reduction in fatalities occurred in the transportation and storage sector, with one reported in 2012 compared to seven in 2011.

The construction sector saw an increase in fatalities from six in 2011 to eight in 2012 and there was also an increase in the fishing sector with five deaths in 2011 and seven in 2012.

Mr O’Halloran said he is concerned about construction safety standards: “The increase in fatalities and feedback from our inspectors indicates there has been, in some areas, a slippage in standards.

“We carried out 3,000 inspections in the sector in 2012, and we will continue a high level of engagement during 2013.”

Irish exchequer returns show tax revenues were up €2.6bn in 2012

 

The Exchequer deficit last year was €10.8bn lower than 2011, according to end of year figures released by the Department of Finance.

Tax revenue was up €2.6bn on the year before to €36bn, while non-tax revenue was €45m higher.

The amount raised in taxes last month was better than expected.

The strong increase in the amount of tax paid in December – which mainly came from two multinational companies and some late payments by self employed people – left the government €270m ahead of target for the year, instead of €210m behind, as feared

That tax gain, a better than expected result from selling off the old analog TV signal to mobile phone companies, and some spending control means a significant improvement in the budget deficit.

The expenditure for 2012 was in line with target with overspends in health and social protection offset by underspending in other areas.

In a statement, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said the figures show the “continued improvement we are making”.

Ulster Bank to close in the region of some 20 branches in Ireland

  

IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick. 

Ulster Bank set to close 20 branches nationwide. Ulster Bank says it will close “in the region” of 20 branches and sub-offices in Ireland this year.

In a statement this afternoon, the bank said it will provide further details on the closures to customers and employees within the next few weeks.The Irish Bank Officials’ Association will meet the bank next week, having learned of the closures during a staff conference call last week.

The bank has 146 branches in the Republic of Ireland and 90 in Northern Ireland.

IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick said: “I’m shocked that an announcement like this was made during a teleconference with no prior consultation with our union.”In light of this, the bank has agreed to meet us next week,” he added.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns Ulster Bank, has injected at least £10.8 billion into the bank since 2008 to absorb losses after the property market downturn.

Ulster Bank’s operating loss widened in the first nine months of last year to £797m from £751m the same time in 2011, as a fall in interest income offset stabilising loan losses.

Meanwhile, a separate IBOA notice to Ulster Bank members in November said that Jim Brown, the unit’s chief executive officer, told the union that RBS remains committed to its Irish unit. Ulster Bank said last year it will eliminate 950 jobs.

RBS acquired Ulster Bank in 2000 as part of its purchase of National Westminster Bank and expanded three years later through the acquisition of the First Active building society.

HSE is an excuse for a health service in Ireland

 

Dr Ruairi Hanley says he has heard enough excuses from the HSE for its own shortcomings and analyses some of the damning findings in the PA Consulting report.

As regular readers will be aware, I am no fan of the HSE and its approach to running our health service. Over the past decade, I have been known to employ many colourful phrases to describe my feelings on this subject. Examples include “hellish creation”, and my personal favourite, “incompetent clowns who belong under a circus tent”.

It has been suggested to me recently that such language may be somewhat harsh and unjustified. I freely admit that my approach may occasionally lack finesse. I also acknowledge the existence of some administrators in the HSE who are of above average intelligence and for whom such terms of abuse are probably unjustified. Nonetheless, it remains my view they are part of an organisation that is guilty of managerial incompetence on an unprecedented scale.

My detractors would claim that I have little evidence to back up such a sweeping statement. I would reply by asking how many scandals and fiascos have taken place in our health service over the past decade? How many people have suffered as a result? How many times have our politicians declared that the official institution running the entire system is “unfit for purpose”?

Typical format

Alas, when faced with appalling demonstrations of their own incompetence, the HSE response follows a fairly typical format. First they try to deflect blame, preferably onto a member of the medical profession. Then they set up an ‘inquiry’, which usually drags on for months and never once names a single administrator. The HSE PR machine then announces that it will ‘implement’ the recommendations and the media forgets the scandal in 48 hours. No-one is fired and no-one is held to account.

A few months later, the whole cycle inevitably repeats itself as the latest debacle makes its way into the public domain.

In more recent times, the HSE has eagerly grasped a new excuse for its many failings. ‘Cutbacks’ are apparently the reason that our health service is performing so badly — €13 billion spent by 17,000 administrators is seemingly never enough to get the job done.

Regrettably, the truth is somewhat different. On December 9, The Sunday Independent published a ‘top secret’ leaked report carried out by a firm known as PA Consulting. This group was asked by the Minister for Health to look at the HSE and its approach to financial management. Its reported conclusions appear beyond damning, beyond shocking and beyond disgraceful.

To quote directly, the HSE budgetary difficulties were “a consequence of systemic failings in financial management over a number of years”. The authors went on to say that bureaucrats tended to take “short-term measures” which “do not take into consideration impact on targets or patients safety”.

My favourite part of the report was the revelation that the largest employer in our State, responsible for the health of 4.6 million people, has only a “limited number of staff capable of high-end financial management”. In other words, by definition, many of the people managing our health system are incompetent. That is no longer just my opinion; it now appears to be a statement of fact.

I find it fascinating that our Minister actually felt it necessary to hire a consultancy firm in order to discover this. I have no idea how much this exercise cost, but Dr Reilly could easily have read Irish Medical Times for the past seven years and probably thus reached the same conclusion.

The Sunday Independent also noted the HSE’s suggestion that a lack of “IT systems” was apparently a justification for the epic financial ineptitude revealed in the report. Those using this defence presumably did not mention PPARS — the infamous €160 million fiasco that arose the last time health service administrators tried to introduce a new computer payroll programme.  In such a context, I believe claims of technology problems are nothing more than yet another attempt to evade responsibility.

In conclusion, I think my past choice of language to describe the HSE is more than justified. Indeed, in light of this latest report, I have probably been too easy on them.

There is no greater scandal in our State than the incompetent manner in which our health system is being run. Perhaps the day might yet come when we elect political leaders capable of dealing with those responsible.

Quadrantid meteor shower 2013: Your guide to when and where to see the shooting stars

 

Dr Simon Foster, an astrophysicist from Imperial College London, explains the science behind the Quadrantid meteor shower and how best to see it.

According to Nasa, the Quadrantids come from the EH1 asteroid, which may have come from a piece of broken-up comet.

Amateur British stargazers will be able to view nature’s own “beautiful” firework display from space throughout much of the country depending on clear weather conditions.

The optimum time is expected to be at just before dawn on Friday January 4.

“You don’t want to be in a city or town, because there is lots of light pollution which could ruin any night-time viewing,” said Dr Foster. “You really want to be looking to the north west of the sky, which could be quite tricky if you haven’t got a compass.

“Try and look out for Ursa Major or the Big Dipper as more people know it. You should hopefully see the radiant point – and this where the meteors should be seen streaming from.”

 The Quadrantids derive their name from the constellation of Quadrans Muralis (mural quadrant), which was created by the French astronomer Jerome Lalande in 1795.

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Record high of 87,000 emigrated from the Irish State this year to April

      

Emigration from Ireland continued to increase last year, with more than 87,000 people leaving the State, the highest number recorded to date.

Migration statistics published by the Central Statistics Office show 46,500 Irish people moved abroad in the year to April, a rise of 16 per cent on the previous 12 months and a 260 per cent increase on 2007 figures, when just 12,900 Irish people emigrated.

Some 87,100 people of all nationalities left the Republic in the period, up from 80,600 the previous year. Irish nationals accounted for 53 per cent of the total.

The United Kingdom attracted 19,000 people, while 8,600 went to the United States and 35,600 to “rest of the world” destinations, which could reflect the popularity of working holiday visa programmes in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The number of Irish women emigrating rose from 17,500 to 20,600, while the number of Irish men leaving rose from 24,500 to 26,000.

Emigration among foreign nationals increased for the third year in a row, to 40,600.

The number of immigrants fell slightly from 53,300 to 52,700 over the same period. This figure includes 20,600 Irish people who came back to live in Ireland, the third annual rise in a row. The number is still much lower than in 2007, when 30,700 Irish emigrants returned.

Just 2,200 people from the UK moved to Ireland, while 17,600 people arrived from EU countries and 12,400 from the rest of the world.

People aged 25-44 accounted for the largest number of emigrants, with 39,500 people in this age group leaving the State. This increased from 31,300 in the previous 12 months.

Some 35,800 in the 15-24 age group emigrated, up from 34,500 the previous year. A total of 900 under-14s left, in addition to 5,600 in the 45-64 age group and 1,200 aged over 65.

The UK was the most popular destination for emigrants, with 19,000 moving there. This marked a reduction of 1,000 on last year. Some 24,000 moved to EU countries.

A total of 52,700 people came to live in the Republic in the 12 months to April, a fall of 65 per cent since 2007, when immigration peaked. Some 25,000 men immigrated last year, compared with 80,000 in 2007.

Responding to the statistics, Piaras Mac Éinrí and Caitriona Ní Laoire of the Department of Geography in University College Cork said that although emigration has been “a consistent feature” of Irish life, the fact that the increase in emigration has coincided with the economic collapse would indicate that it is “not voluntary”.

A research project into recent Irish emigration by UCC beginning next month will investigate factors such as gender, education and class to establish what social factors influence emigration.

Assistant director of the National Youth Council of Ireland James Doorley expressed “serious concern” at the figures, saying they “underline the need for immediate and stronger Government action to stem the flow of young people leaving the country”.

Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín said more people left Ireland than sat the Leaving Cert last year. “A generation is being lost to emigration . . . It is time that the Government reflected on this and changed policies in favour of ones that place our people and employment above bankers and developers.”

The CSO figures also show 74,000 babies were born in the 12 months to April, while 29,200 people died. This brings the natural population growth for the year to 44,900, a fall of 2,600 on the previous year.

However, the rise in emigration has slowed population growth, with the overall population growing by 10,500 to 4.59 million.

The figures include revisions to the population and migration estimates for the 2007-2011 period using data from the Census 2011 published earlier this year.

The male population is estimated to have fallen by 900 in the year ending in April, the first time a reduction has been recorded since 1990. This fall is attributed to the fall of 8,900 non-Irish men.

Ireland’s OAPs fear ‘becoming a burden to their families’

   

50% of older people in Ireland worry about becoming a burden while 20% would not feel good about having to enter a nursing home,

A new survey has revealed.

A quarter of over-65s also worry that they will not have enough money, according to the index, which tracks health and attitudes annually.

On the plus side, most are optimistic about getting older.

The findings of the index, conducted by the drug firm Pfizer, were launched by former GAA presenter Micheal O Muircheartaigh, who said with so many people now depending on the State for their healthcare, and particularly the elderly, the Government should set aside additional funds for their support.

“It’s a difficult job balancing the budgets, but when times are bad you need real consideration from the people in power,” he said.

The legendary GAA commentator also spoke of how he harboured no regrets about not running for the presidency.

The 82-year-old revealed that “pressure” had been put on him to join the race for the Aras last year, but that in the end he valued his freedom more.

“I always wanted to keep clear of politics, and even though they said the presidency is above politics, I never wanted to be attached to any political party,” he said.

The health index findings showed:

• One in four older people are grandparents.
• The vast majority of older people say they are happy to mind their grandchildren, but 15pc are not.
• Four in five suffer from a common condition such as arthritis. One in five have heart disease and 7pc have cancer.
• Around 72pc have a medical card but 37pc continue to pay for private medical insurance.

Mater Hospital geriatrician Dr Dermot Power said: “It is interesting to see that maintaining independence and not wanting to become an encumbrance on others comes out strongly in this research.

“I am fully supportive of older patients being returned to their own home as soon as they are fit and well, if this is a viable option. It is where the majority of older people are happiest.”

Majority of Irish people better off working than on the dole

   

The vast majority of people are better off working than claiming the dole, according to a new report by the ESRI. 

It found that only six per cent would receive more on social welfare. 

“You’re better off on the dole” is a perception challenged today by the Economic and Social Research Institute. 

Its latest research shows a vast majority of Irish people are better off working. 

For many jobseekers, their search is leading abroad. 

Engineer Conor McArdle is moving to Melbourne, after giving up waiting for the economic situation here to improve. 

According to figures out today from the Central Statistics Office, more than 87,000 people emigrated in the year up to April. 

That’s one new emigrant every five minutes, and they’re not necessarily young jobseekers. 

The level of emigration from Irish shores is now higher now than at any time since the 1980s.

Diabetes pill from 1958 may be the new Cancer Drug

 

The next new treatment for breast, colon and prostate cancers, among others, may be a diabetes drug first approved in 1958.

Metformin, the most commonly used medicine to lower blood- sugar, is the subject of about 50 cancer studies globally, according to U.S. government clinical trial information compiled by Bloomberg. The research began after scientists found metformin prevented tumors in mice and that diabetics were less likely to develop a malignancy if they were taking the 5 cents- a-day pill than other diabetes medications.

The medicine is dispensed about 120 million times annually, according to a 2010 report in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. If the latest trials on breast and other tumors are successful, the drug could become a cheap weapon in the fight against a myriad of diseases including pancreatic and ovarian cancers. All told, cancer kills one in eight people and is the second-leading cause of death in most developed nations.

“The hope is that if it does show safety and efficacy, it would be available in a cost-effective way,” said Chandini Portteus, vice president of research, evaluation and scientific programs at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a Dallas-based breast cancer advocacy group. “It would be wonderful for patients if we had something that we knew worked and was safe and low- cost.”

The organization has spent about $10 million investigating metformin for breast cancer, Portteus said. “We have to turn over every single rock to determine what the options are for patients who need them.”

Millions of Deaths

Global cancer deaths will climb to 13.1 million by 2030 from 7.6 million in 2008, the Geneva-based World Health Organization said in February. Cancer costs totaled $124.6 billion in the U.S. alone in 2010, according to the National Cancer Institute. Newer, more targeted drug therapies, such as Dendreon Corp. (DNDN)’s $93,000-a-year Provenge for prostate cancer, may add only a few months of life.

Metformin was the seventh most-dispensed medicine in the U.S. in 2011, according to a list published by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics in April that ranked a group of painkillers that includes Vicodin as the most-prescribed. A pack of 84 500-milligram tablets of the diabetes pill, taken twice daily, costs the U.K.’s National Health Service 1.37 pounds, or the equivalent of about 3 pence (5 U.S. cents) a day.

The MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is studying metformin in at least eight trials, according to a National Institutes of Health online database.

‘Safe and Cheap’

“It is safe and it is cheap,” said Donghui Li, an epidemiologist and professor of medicine at the center. “It reduces the risk and has better survival” in studies she’s done in pancreatic cancer patients.

Patients who had taken metformin had a 60 percent lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a case- control study Li published in 2009 in which she compared cancer patients taking metformin against people not on metformin.

Metformin didn’t benefit patients whose pancreatic cancer had already spread to other tissues, Li reported this year in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Those patients whose malignancies were confined to the pancreas survived longer if they were on metformin — an average of 15 months, or four months more than patients not taking the drug, she found.

More research is needed to confirm those benefits in patients as their disease is developing, Li said.

“I got a lot of calls from patients and other clinicians, but I told them I cannot give them a recommendation,” she said.

Insulin Levels

Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, does have a suggestion for doctors who diagnose and treat diabetics: Test patients’ insulin levels in addition to blood sugar.

People whose insulin levels are high should either take metformin or increase their exercise and control their diets by reducing the amount of carbohydrates eaten, Cantley said.

“That will have a huge impact in preventing you from getting cancer,” said Cantley, who trained as a biochemist and biophysicist, in an interview. “It may even slow down the growth of the cancer you already have.”

Mars rover discovers evidence of water stream-beds on the Planet

A rock slab inspected by NASA’s Curiosity rover looks like ancient gravel from a Martian stream-bed.

   

NASA’s Curiosity rover has now confirmed what scientists have long suspected — that water anywhere from ankle to waist deep once flowed on Mars’ surface.

The conclusion, scientists said at a briefing Thursday, is based on images showing what looks like an ancient gravel stream bed. One of those stream bed slabs, named Hottah, appears to be made of gravel cemented together by water that once ran freely on Mars and settled on the floor of Gale Crater, likely several billion years ago.

Mission scientist WiIliam Dietrich of the University of California-Berkeley said it looks like the water was moving about 3 feet per second, “with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep.”

Dietrich said there have been a lot of hypotheses about the water flows on Mars. “This is the first time we’re actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars,” he said in a statement on the discovery. “This is a transition from speculation about the size of the streambed material to direct observation of it.”

Curiosity arrived on Mars in August and is now on its 51st Martian day, known as a “sol.” The evidence that a warmer and wetter Mars once enjoyed floods of water inside Gale Crater adds to the $2.5 billion rover’s efforts to find evidence of chemistry hospitable to life now or in the past on Mars.

“The rock formed in the presence of a vigorous flow of water on the surface of Mars,” said mission scientist John Grotzinger of Caltech. The find confirms past observations of orbiting spacecraft of Gale Crater that helped lead to its selection as a landing site for the rover, now on a two-year mission to search for evidence of past habitable conditions on Mars.

Essentially, the rover is travelling over a gully wash’s fan of stones, ones that traveled down from a canyon on the crater wall “several billion years ago,” says Michael Malin of the rover imaging team. Most likely the canyon waters flowed sporadically over thousands to millions of years, depositing gravel in a broad fan of stones covering the floor of the crater. “We had anticipated this was where some water-lain sediments would be,” Malin says.

The rover is equipped with a laser, drill and on-board lab to investigate chemistry of Martian rocks such as Hottah, named after a Canadian geological formation. In coming weeks the rover will steer toward more rock deposits suspected to represent these gravel outcrops, looking to test chemical conditions for past habitability on Mars, Grotzinger says. “This is really just the start of the science mission for the rover.”

The final goal of the rover is to examine layers of clay that underlay the foothills of Mount Sharp, the 3.4-mile-high mountain in the center of Gale Crater. It is expected to arrive in those foothills in about a year.

Ireland rank 10^th on the list of the most educated countries in the world

   

Our economy might be halfway down the toilet, but if our ranking on the world’s most educated countries list is anything to go by, at least we’re doing something right.

Based on a study carried out by The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD), US website 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 countries with the highest proportion of adults with a college degree and it may surprise you to learn that Ireland features in the top ten alongside the likes of Australia, the UK, the US, Japan and top dogs Canada.

According to the study, 37 per cent of Irish people have a third-level degree and between the years 2000-2010, the percentage of people with a college education in Ireland nearly doubled, rising at an annual average of 7.3 per cent — faster than any country in the study, while graduation from second level education rose from 74 per cent to 94 per cent during the same period.

Canada finished on top of the most educated countries list after it was found that 51 per cent of the population had a college degree, a very impressive figure which indicates that they know something aboot the whole education process, eh?

You can read more about the study and the exact details here, but at a time when there’s little but doom and gloom in the news, it’s nice to hear something positive for once.

Now if we only had enough jobs on these shores for all our college graduates, we’d really be on the right track.

Most educated countries in the world

1. Canada

2. Israel

3. Japan

4. United States

5. New Zealand

6. South Korea

7. United Kingdom

8. Finland

9. Australia

10. Ireland

Donie's all Ireland news daily BLOG

Ireland’s OAPs facing €5 travel charge and electricity cutbacks

   

Civil servants are looking at charging old-age pensioners for free travel and cutting back on their electricity allowances, the Irish Independent has learned.

The proposals are being examined ahead of the Budget, which ministers have acknowledged is going to be savage.

It would mean pensioners would be asked to pay €5 for long rail and bus journeys.

High earners would also be hit, with anyone earning more than €200,000 set to be penalised.

But social welfare is seen as the area where most of the cuts will have to come.

It is not yet known if rent allowance for social-welfare recipients will be targeted.

The Government faces a potentially massive backlash if it goes ahead with the proposed cuts to allowances for the elderly. These include the free TV licence, electricity, gas and telephone allowances and the free travel pass — all costing a combined €450m a year. Under changes to the free-travel scheme that are now being considered, pensioners would be asked to pay towards the cost of their travel — possibly a €5 contribution for a train fare.

“It would be subsidised, rather than free,” a government source said.

Ministers believe that old-age pensioners would not object to making some contribution towards the cost of their travel.

However, cuts to the free TV licence and subsidised electricity and gas would be highly contentious.

The additional entitlements for pensioners – known as the Household Benefits Package – are under the spotlight as Social Protection Minister Joan Burton seeks to find cuts.

“It would be a surprise if the Department of Social Protectionwas not looking at all these schemes,” another source said. Aside from opposition from elderly people, there will also be concerns expressed by the companies that benefit from the funds. CIE, ESB, RTE and Eircom are among the companies that would be affected if there were cuts to the benefits.

Cuts to the package were also looked at last year when the department drew up a menu of potential measures. Around 400,000 people get the current package of benefits. The schemes cost almost €370m last year.

The package of benefits is available for all those aged 70 or over, regardless of their income. The benefits are also given to: people in receipt of the Carer’s Allowance, who live with the person being cared for; pensioners aged between 66-70, generally living alone and getting a social welfare payment; and people aged under 66 who are receiving a disability or a caring-related payment.

The Household Benefits Package is made up of:

- The electricity or gas allowance. – Telephone allowance. – Free TV licence.

The Free Travel Scheme is a separate entitlement available to over 1.1 million people – pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and their families.

Currently, there are 720,000 elderly and disabled people eligible for free travel. But when passes for spouses and companions are added in, this rises to over 1.1 million.

A review group – made up of officials from the departments of Social Protection, Transport, Public Expenditure and Reform and the National Transport Authority – is currently examining the scheme.

The cost of the Free Travel Scheme has risen from €46m in 2001 to €75m in 2011.

Impact: But the sums paid to transport companies have been frozen for the past two years. The review is to examine and report on the current operation and future development of the Free Travel Scheme.

The department says no decisions have yet been made about the scheme and that it appreciated the important role of free travel in preventing the isolation of elderly people. Any cuts would have a direct impact on the companies who get direct or indirect payments from the Department of Social Protection.

“You can bet the impact would be raised with ministers,” a source said.

Under the electricity and gas allowance, customers get 1,800 units. ESB customers with Electric Ireland receive an allocation of 150 units a month on their bills, with direct payment made by the department to Electric Ireland under the standard rate. Customers who use other suppliers, such as Airtricity or Bord Gais, or who use gas, receive a cash payment of €39.40 a month.

The telephone allowance is €22.22 a month. Eircom customers have this paid directly on their bills and under a special deal negotiated with the telephone company they get €26.86 off their bill each month.

Anybody else, including those who use mobile phones, gets €22.22 in cash. The free television licence is worth €160 a year.

Minister Reilly says plans for free GP care for long-term ill ‘is on track’

  

Government plans to roll out free GP care to people with long-term illnesses are “very much on track”, according to Minister for Health James Reilly.

Dr Reilly rejected a report in yesterday’s Irish Times that the measure was delayed by at least a year. However, he acknowledged there had been “some delay” and that the legislation underpinning the change was complex.

The Bill providing for the extension of free GP care to people with diabetes, epilepsy and other long-term illnesses will be published in the next Dáil term, Dr Reilly said.

The measure, the first step towards a Government promise to introduce free GP care for all, was supposed to have been introduced by last March, according to the programme for government.

Dr Reilly subsequently promised that everyone on the long-term illness scheme would have access to free GP care by the summer, but this deadline was not met.

The Bill has been delayed because of drafting difficulties arising from the proposal to grant medical cards on the basis of illness, rather than means. Another factor has been the priority given to other health legislation in the Attorney General’s office.

Talks have yet to take place with the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish College of General Practitioners on the measure.

Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said he had no confidence the measure would be introduced this year.

Warning for Irish household’s over bogus home tax charge callers

   

Ireland’s local authorities have issued a warning to householders to be wary of bogus callers demanding cash payment of the €100 household charge.

Cork County Council confirmed it had received numerous reports that individuals claiming to be from the authority were calling to houses and demanding payment.

Similar bogus callers are also understood to have been reported in Dublin, Waterford and Galway.

Gardai urged elderly people concerned about callers never to allow anyone into their house and to alert neighbours or family if concerned.

Organic food industry myth of more nutritious food is hard to swallow ‘claims a professor’

    

The organic food industry is wrong in its claims to produce more nutritious, healthier and tastier food, a leading Irish food scientist has said.

And its credibility will “go down the drain” when it is finally asked to prove these claims, said Professor Mike Gibney, director of UCD’s Institute of Food and Health.

He slated the “foolish debate” over the supposed superiority of organic food, noting that every major review, including a recent one by Stanford University, had refuted these claims.

The organic industry will eventually be brought to the European Food Safety Authority to prove its claims, but they have a record of rejecting 90pc of health claims made to them because there’s no scientific proof, Professor Gibney told an Agricultural Science Association conference in Wicklow yesterday.

Organic week was just finishing but the industry was wrong on all four counts that it produced more nutritious, tastier, healthier and more environmentally friendly food, he said.

“They are building themselves up for a big crash… Trust is hard won and easily lost”.

The organic lobby would be better to market their lifestyle appeal to middle-class people rather than trying to frighten them by claiming they fed their children inferior food if they didn’t buy organic.

Professor Gibney said he was incensed as a scientist by the claims made for different foods and had written a book, ‘Something to Chew On’, to try and dispel myths.

He accused environmental groups of “hideous scaremongering” in the debate on genetically modified crops, which had featured grim reapers and coffins in a protest in Dublin this week.

None of the warnings of environmental or health disaster had come to pass in the US or South America where GM crops were widespread, yet Europe remained risk-adverse to them, said Professor Gibney.

He also noted that while obesity was portrayed as the biggest public health nutrition issue, malnutrition among the elderly had been found to be even more costly, according to aEuropean Parliament white paper.

That was because while there were various drugs to deal with the impact of obesity on heart health, malnutrition among older people led to more hospital admissions and complications.

In Britain, oral nutritional supplements had been found to be highly effective in reducing these high hospital costs, but there was no such initiative or monitoring of this is Ireland.

“We live with a rapidly ageing population and thus there must be a greater investment in studies of diet in areas such as cognitive, motor and visual decline,” said Professor Gibney.

Owner of Lusitania insists it was carrying explosives when it sank

   

The owner of the wreck of the Lusitania has rejected the findings of a €1.5m documentary into what caused the liner to sink so fast.

Greg Bemis told the Irish Independent he was now looking for permission from the Government to organise a second dive to the wreck — some 16km off the Old Head of Kinsale.

Mr Bemis was speaking in Cork, where he attended a special event to mark the worldwide launch of the National Geographicdocumentary ‘Dark Secrets of the Lusitania’ — the most ambitious underwater film project ever attempted here.

“I believe the truth is vital, we need to pursue the truth in all major historical events,” Mr Bemis said.

The Lusitania was struck by a single torpedo from the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915 off the Cork coast.

However, a second explosion was reported just minutes later, and the ship sank in less than 18 minutes.

A total of 1,198 people died. There were just 761 survivors.

The British and American authorities wrongly accused the U-boat of having fired a second torpedo at the stricken ship.

The second explosion was then blamed on coal dust in a bunker igniting, and the new TV documentary speculates that a boiler blew up when cold sea water rushed into the hull following the torpedo strike.

But Mr Bemis said he remained convinced that Allied munitions being carried by the liner was the real cause.

“They (National Geographic) used insufficient data when they made their decision,” he said.

“In fact, they did not have all the information they should have had — they used a computer analysis to get their theory and a computer is only as good as the garbage you put in. You put garbage in, you get garbage out,” he said.

Mr Bemis said a second dive with full access to the hull was now required before the Lusitania centenary.

“You have to understand there were two different types of munitions being carried — there were three million rounds of .303 (rifle) ammunition on the ship.

“But they would not have caused the second explosion. That was caused, in my opinion, by explosives stored in a magazine at the base of the ship. This was in the bow in a converted coal bunker.”