Lucinda Creighton to "REBOOT IRELAND" with Eddie Hobbs in a new Irish party
Former Fine Gael junior minister Creighton calls for a ‘reboot’ of Ireland with a new party.
Former Fine Gael Minister Lucinda Creighton, Independent Offaly Councillor John Leahy and financial commentator Eddie Hobbs at the announcement of the new party in Dublin.
Former Fine Gael minister Lucinda Creighton has said a new political party will be launched “within eight weeks”, with candidates running in every constituency at the next General Election.
M/s Creighton was joined by financial commentator and advisor Eddie Hobbs at the announcement of the new party in Dublin.
M/s Creighton said the new party, which does not yet have a name, would be “hugely ambitious, bold and brave” and had the potential to win “many, many seats”.
Appealing to others to get involved, she said she wanted to harness a spirit of volunteerism that, she argued, no longer existed in other parties. Ms Creighton said 100 volunteers, including actuaries, barristers and people working in the community sector, were already helping.
Candidates, policy advisors, advocates and supporters were required. She stressed members would be free to adopt their own positions on matters of conscience, such as the upcoming marriage equality referendum.
Mr Hobbs cast himself in the role of recruiter for the party, but said he may consider running. He said approximately 200 people were needed.
“I am here because I believe Irish people deserve a genuine choice at the next election. It is my intention to provide that choice,” M/s Creighton said.
“Since last April I have been working with an ever-expanding group of highly motivated professional volunteers so that we can radically change how we run this country.”
Independent Offaly-based councillor John Leahy, who was also present at the event in the Marker Hotel in Dublin, will be joining the party.
Mr Leahy, who was elected to Offaly County Council in 2009 and represents the Ferbane area, said he wanted to tackle the demise of rural Ireland. “I, like many others in this political movement, see the demise of rural Ireland unfold before our very eyes. A modern Ireland should be proud of its rural traditions,” he said. “This new movement will embrace the views of rural Ireland. We will act on the issue of rural demise in a focussed and determined manner.”
M/s Creighton said the four founding principles of the party would be:
* Building an economy for entrepreneurs across the social, private and public sectors
* Make the public sector public
* Giving politics back to the people
* Measuring Government with a clear social target
She said she wanted a party that served the people. “I am pleased to announce that we will launch a new political party this spring. Between now and then I am inviting ordinary Irish citizens the length and breadth of this country to get involved,” she said.
“We want to ‘Reboot Ireland’ and we want those who are as passionate about this country as we are to join us on this mission.”
A website – rebootireland.com – has also been launched, along with a hashtag #rebootireland Responding to the announcement, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said “the last thing Ireland needs is yet another conservative political party”.
“There is little in the background, outlook or policies of Lucinda Creighton or those aligned with her that offers the type of political change that citizens now seek,” he said.
Irish SME’s urged not to increase wages
ISME cautions against unrealistic pay expectations as it argues that outlook for smaller businesses remains ‘precarious’
SME representative association ISME has warned its members about following the lead of larger companies by increasing wages
Irish small and medium sized enterprises are being urged to hold wages level, despite growing momentum favouring wage hikes.
In its wage rate expectation survey ISME, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said that almost three quarters (71%) of SMEs expect to leave employee wage rates unchanged in 2015, as it cautioned against unrealistic pay expectations.
A survey from business and employers group Ibec today showed that more than one in two of its member companies expect to increase their employees’ salary levels in 2015.
Mark Fielding, ISME CEO, said that while there are signs of stability and possible growth in the domestic economy, the situation for SMEs “remains precarious”.
“They have been struggling to stay afloat and owner-managers in particular have borne the brunt of the pain by taking huge pay cuts, and in some cases no salary at all, in an effort to keep their businesses afloat,” he said, adding that the majority of SMEs “will not be in a position to increase wages during 2015 and in a small percentage of cases further reductions will be necessary”.
Referring to the IBEC survey results, Fielding advised caution. “The headline figures have created an unrealistic pay expectation and cannot be used across the economy as the more recent ISME survey of almost 1,000 SMEs proves.”
The survey from ISME shows that of the 26% who anticipate wage increases in 2015, the increase averages at just above one per cent. Some 70% of SME owner-managers do not expect to change their own wage rate, while 15% believe they will have to further decrease their salaries in the coming year.
Number of organ donations down by 25% in Ireland
Key to enhancing organ donation is through specialist nurses and doctors, says professor Jim Egan.
Liver transplants have fallen by 20 per cent to 44, while for the second year in a row, the Irish Kidney Association failed to reach its target of 50 living donor kidney transplants in the State.
The number of organ donors in the State dropped by a quarter last year, making 2014 one of the worst in recent years for organ donations.
Preliminary figures from Organ Donation and Transplant Ireland (ODTI) show the number of deceased organ donations dropped from 86 in 2013 to 63 in 2014.
Liver transplants have fallen by 20 per cent to 44, while for the second year in a row, the target of 50 living donor kidney transplants in the State was not achieved.
Initiatives focused on reducing road accidents and the rate of strokes has led to a downward pressure on organ donation internationally, Professor Jim Egan from the ODTI said.
“It’s a very rare event that someone might die in circumstances that allows organ donation so we’d ask people to be aware of the benefits of organ donation and discuss their wishes with their family because lives can be saved,” Prof Egan told RTÉ.
“Life can be one’s legacy if one dies in circumstances that allow organ donation,” he said.
Rather than applying a “soft opt-out system”, the key to enhancing organ donation is through the deployment of specialist nurses and doctors, he said. This month, five new organ procurement coordinators are scheduled to begin working in Irish hospitals, followed by six specialist nurses and intensive care doctors in the spring.
These organ donor specialists will support family and local staff when dealing with the difficult circumstances surrounding death and organ donation, said Prof Egan.
Despite the low level of deceased organ donors in 2014, the Mater hospital in Dublin recorded a record number of transplants last year with 31 lung and 18 hearts.
The lowest figure for donations from deceased donors in recent years was in 2010 with only 58 donors. This figure rose in 2011 with 93 deceased donors. According to the ODTI, kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organ, followed by the liver and the heart.
In a statement, the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) raised concerns that Beaumont Hospital did not have the infrastructure in place to increase the number kidney transplants and said the hospital was in short supply of transplant surgeons. The hospital has also failed to commission an extra operation theatre, it said.
The HSE said transplant services at Beaumont Hospital had been “prioritised” and the hospital was “actively pursuing a number of options” to develop the existing donor team.
Prof Egan says the HSE should look internationally to countries like Spain for advice on the type of infrastructure need to improve organ donation levels.
“The key component of the Spanish system is specialist doctors and nurses involved in organ donation throughout the healthcare system,” he said other countries like the UK and Australia have replicated that and invested in that area.”
Spain is the top European country for deceased organ donors where there are 35 donors per million of the population. Ireland comes 14th in Europe with 18 donors per million.
Prof Egan hopes the upcoming specialist donor recruits in 2015 will play an important role in relaying the benefits of organ donation to the public.
“We have to continue to try and make the public aware of the large number of people awaiting organs,” he said, adding that 650 Irish families are currently waiting for life-saving transplant treatment.
“We don’t want people to be donors, we want them to drive carefully and mind themselves. But in the unlikely circumstance that something was to happen, we’d ask them to give the gift of life.”
For organ donor cards freetext DONOR to 50050 or visitika.ie
How you can stick to your new year’s resolutions
By the end of the cold, dull month of January, 92% of resolutions are dead on arrival.
That is not some bubblegum statistic – that is according to a survey published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology by the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Researcher Dr John Norcross, who also published his research in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, found that about 50% of people make resolutions each New Year and top of the list are ones relating to weight loss, exercise, stopping smoking and better money management.
As with most things in life it is not what we do but how and why we do it that can make the difference between success and failure.
We have looked at some of the most popular resolutions; stopping smoking, losing weight, sticking to a hobby, sorting out your money woes and taking a digital detox and spoke with experts about how to turn your words into action.
Weight loss
As is the certainty of death and taxes, dieting is also a confirmed lose-lose game. Reaching one’s set-point weight comes about because of a well-maintained metabolic rate, which is generated by keeping the fire stoked – in other words, eating regularly.
Dieting works off deprivation as opposed to eating well and having a life.
What is more, it can lead to obsessive thoughts about food and worse eating disorders.
Marie Campion, author of Hope: Understanding Eating Distress (Eating Disorders) and Director of the Marino Therapy Centre in Dublin, says that dieting leads to “trouble.”
“Generally with dieting the more we do it the more trouble we are in.
“In the New Year it creates a sort of double disappointment because dieting never works. And in the New Year there’s an emotional excitement to it and then you get disappointed in yourself,” explains Ms Campion.
Instead she advises balance and the simple act of listening to your body.
“Dieting creates obsessions because you are depriving yourself. It’s all about balance.
“On the mental level, even with the language, we say ‘I won’t do that’, or ‘I can’t have that,’ and on a physical level, we are depriving ourselves and destroying our metabolic rate instead of listening to the body,” she adds.
Ms Campion notes that as opposed to vowing to weight loss people should commit to respecting their bodies all year around.
“See the New Year as a time to get excited and not to punish the body. If you want to make a resolution, decide to treat your body respectfully for the whole year, if you want to be slim you need to listen to your body,” she says.
Digital detox
You fall asleep with your phone in your hand and it is not because of a late-night call to your nearest and dearest. You step out into oncoming-traffic because you are checking how many people liked your ‘selfie’ from this morning’s bus journey. And instead of listening to your friend tell you about their up-coming job interview over coffee you are too busy texting your other friend to arrange another coffee date.
It is time to step out of the online world and back into reality.
Child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune has witnessed the rapid growth of our internet use firsthand through her work with young clients.
“The average teenager is checking their social media between 60 and 120 times a day, which may sound shocking, but this is not just a teenage phenomenon, with many studies citing adults spending in excess of ten hours a week on social media,” explains the psychotherapist.
She says that internet addiction is now a recognised addiction.
“We are becoming tech-obsessed with over 500 million tweets sent each day and 1.28 billion people declared regular Facebook users. Addiction to social media is now a recognised condition with many addiction clinics offering treatment programmes for it,” adds Ms Fortune.
Addiction or over-use – she advises that everyone can do with a bit of time-out and cooling off from their smart phones in the New Year.
“Whether you think you are addicted or not I think we could all do with switching our phones off a bit more and switching our real life engagement on a bit.
“When I do school talks I issue a challenge to teens that I would encourage people to take on this year as a New Year’s Resolution: turn your phone off (or disable internet access) from 8pm to 8am or 8am-8pm (depending on your lifestyle), each day for a month and take note of how your mood, sleep and overall behaviour changes as a result,” advises Ms Fortune.
Quit smoking now
Smoking is a chemical addiction to nicotine but it does not stop there unfortunately. There are also a rainbow of myths that keep you smoking.
Apparently the one cigarette simultaneously relaxes you and relieves boredom too. While stopping smoking can seem like hell on earth if you go cold turkey, withdrawals from nicotine are actually so mild that they do not even wake the heaviest of smokers up at night.
You do not need to smoke, you just think you do. Allen Carr invented the Easyway to Stop Smoking and published his book, with the same name, 30 years ago this year.
It has sold 13 million copies so far.
Director of the Irish branch, Brenda Sweeney, says that stopping smoking does not have to be hard.
“Stopping smoking is easy if you go about it the right way, Allen Carr’s Easyway has a different approach in that we don’t use any aids or gimmicks, we do remove the myths and illusions surrounding smoking and more importantly we remove the fears associated with stopping smoking,” she says.
“Other methods like NRT (nicotine-replacement therapy), beware they contain nicotine, and cold turkey may get cigarettes out of your mouth but not out of your head, whereas Easyway does,” she adds.
Sticking to a sport
Another popular New Year’s resolution can be to take up a sport or acquire a new skill but often we book ourselves in for class but fail to show up on the day.
Fitness consultant and motivational speaker Pat Henry (below) advises people that if they want to take up a new sport, then slow and steady will win the race.
“There are three things I would recommend if you want something to stick. If it’s exercise, then do the exercise in the morning. Exercise gets shoved down the priority list. Get exercising early in the morning, get it finished early and you will have increased energy,” he explains.
In terms of taking up a new sport, for example, the second thing he recommends is to find a buddy.
“The only way to do it, say someone wants to take up rowing, get a training partner, make a committment, that’s the motivation you need to get out on the Liffey early in the morning. Find someone you know, or go to one of the clubs, everyone’s looking for a good training partner,” says the fitness expert.
And the third thing he advises is to not declare your goal to the world at large as it only sets you up for failure.
“They tell people they’re going to do x, y, z and then people say: ‘oh that will last a week.’ Don’t go around telling people what you’re doing, people can be negative. Let your mind alone focus on your goal,” says Pat.
And finally, get a life.
“Slow and steady is the way to do it, people who are training three and four hours a day don’t have any advantage. Get your job done and get a life. Do your own thing and don’t be spending half an hour looking in the mirror,” he adds.
Sort finances
Whether your taste is more expensive than the value of your wallet or whether you are as frugal as possible but you always find yourself stretched to the pin of your collar on the eve of pay-day – financial planning can ease the stress when it comes to money woes.
“Planning is the fundamental backbone of any project in which you wish to succeed,” says John Lowe, author of the best-seller the Money Doctor and Personal Insolvency Practitioner.
“Budgeting is an essential part of that planning process and especially at the start of the year for singles and families.
“Remember if your expenditure exceeds income, you have three choices: cut costs, earn more or prioritise,” he advises.
If you know you’ll spend later in the year (birthdays, holidays, Christmas) why not start saving now and include it as part of your monthly outlay,” he adds.
In terms of tips the money expert says that checking in regularly on your current account will help you stay on the straight and narrow.
“Planning and budgeting is a marathon not a sprint.
“Regularly checking your monthly cash flows will in itself keep you on track or if you have to adjust, allow pre-planned options come into play,” he states.
Exotic animals are putting our ladybirds and other native species in danger of extinction
Exotic pets released into the wild are putting native animals at risk by spreading disease and competing for resources.
A new report has warned that a lack of information on the types of species traded in Ireland means that a proper risk assessment cannot be carried out. It also called for a national database of traded pets to be set up.
The National Biodiversity Data Centre said that invasive species cost the economy as much as €261m a year. Worryingly, one in four ‘high risk’ species have been recorded in the last decade.
Pets which grow very large, reproduce easily or require specialised care are the most likely to be introduced into the environment.
They can prey on native wildlife, compete with plants and animals for resources, and introduce and spread diseases.
Even pets not considered exotic, such as cats, rabbits, goldfish and other fish species, can have major negative impacts on native biodiversity.
The report – ‘Ireland’s invasive and non-native species – trends in introductions’ – noted that with increased globalisation there was an increase in movement of non-native species across the world.
“Invasive non-native species are a threat to our biodiversity ecosystem functions and have a cost to our economy,” it said.
“Of the 377 recorded non-native species in Ireland that were risk assessed, the majority (66%) are at risk of low impact, 21% ranked with a risk of medium impact and 13% ranked as having a risk of high impact.
“The trend in introductions has increased dramatically since the beginning of the 20th Century and has accelerate further in the last decade. Most of the species are native to North America and Asia.”
It added that the vast bulk of species were plants, and that most (67pc) were on land, followed by 21pc in freshwater environments and 12pc in marine.
The implications are “immense, insidious and usually irreversible”, said the World Conservation Union, because of their impact on wildlife, economic activity and human health.
Among the species listed as high risk were the American mink, Asian clam, grey squirrel, harlequin ladybird, giant hogweed and feral ferret.
The report also found:
Some 377 species were assessed as being recorded up to 2012. Another 342 have not yet been recorded in Ireland, but were considered likely to arrive in the future;
127 species are assessed as being high or medium risk;
Of the 48 high-risk species, 12 were recorded in the last decade. Another three medium-risk species were also recorded since 2000;
The highest number of high-impact species are from Asia (29pc), followed by North America (20p), Europe and the UK (16pc), Eurasia (15pc) and Australia (8pc);
‘Citizen science’ is key to detection, with members of the public reporting many new species found in the last decade.
The report found that the “process of biological invasion” was changing constantly with new species arriving to our shores on a regular basis.
The initial response is crucial, including early detection and early warning systems.
While a rapid eradication programme is needed in many cases, prevention of the spread of some species including the Harlequin ladybird “may not be feasible once the species becomes established”.
The report makes 10 recommendations, but said the “reality” for policy-makers was that “limited resources” were available to prevent and respond to threats.
It also warned about the need for a database of invasive species, including exotic pets.
“One significant recent development has been the increased reporting in the wild of traded pet species that have the potential to become invasive in Ireland.
“An openly accessible database of these traded species should be available to better assess the risk of future introductions to the wild.”
