Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Newly crowned Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh reveals that she is gay

  

The Philadelphia Rose Maria Walsh who was crowned The Rose of Tralee 2014 at The Dome in Kerry.

Maria Walsh opened up about her sexuality in an interview with the Irish Sun on Sunday after winning the competition on Tuesday.

“I’m confident in who I am as a person,” the 27-year-old said.

“To me, being gay is normal. I told my parents and they were supportive, as I knew they would be.”

The 56th winner of the Rose of Tralee has said that she started a relationship with a woman some years back which lasted for two years, but she is now single.

A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Maria moved to Shrule in Co Mayo with her family 20 years ago but following her graduation in Journalism and Visual Media at Griffith College, moved to New York and later to Philadelphia.

Maria drew tears from family members during her interview at the Dome in Tralee on Tuesday night when she remembered her cousin 19-year-old Teresa Molloy, one of four women killed in a crash on the N17 near Milltown, Co Galway in November 2009.

“It’s moments like this, like being in the Rose of Tralee, that make you really seize the day and appreciate life and take everything as it comes,” said Maria.

“She has given me a lot of good luck to date, so I know she’s looking down on me and my family.

“I’m not ashamed of my sexuality by any means,” she told the Irish Sun on Sunday.

“The Rose of Tralee is about celebrating women’s intelligence, careers, their volunteer work. The question of sexuality never came up. To me, being gay is normal; it’s natural.”

Former Rose of Tralee Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin tweeted: “Our new @RoseofTralee_ Maria Walsh is a wonderful representative for both the festival and young women everywhere.”

Ms Walsh’s sexuality is likely to “create some interest, hopefully all positive”, the executive chairman of the long-running festival Anthony O’Gara has said.

Next eruption will be much less devastating to global economy

  

The anticipated eruption of an Icelandic volcano will not have as big an impact on aviation as the ash cloud crisis that struck in the summer of 2010.

As much as €3.5bn was wiped off the value of the global economy back in 2010 as a result of the euruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

More than 100,000 passenger and freight flights were cancelled as a result of no-fly orders because of fears that an ash cloud that spread from Canada to Siberia would damage aircraft flying through the particles.

The direct cost to the airline sector was around €1.3bn.

Airlines were forced to tear up timetables and wait for the ash to disipate.

But this time around the disruption is likely to be far less, because airlines have adopted a more scientific process to identify dangerous skies.

Back in 2010 80pc of flights were grounded on the worst day of the crisis, but a similar event now would bring significantly fewer cancellations, according to airspace manager Eurocontrol.

“There has been a move towards a more harmonised approach which recognises that decisions to perform flights in airborne contamination such as ash or sand should be made by airlines, based on conclusions of their safety risk assessment,” the Brussels-based organisation said.”This approach significantly reduces the number of flights that would have to be cancelled in the event of another ash crisis.”

After the events of 2010 were repeated on a smaller scale the next year, Eurocontrol began annual ash-crisis exercises and developed an interactive tool to map dust-concentration data from volcanic research centers in London and Toulouse, rather than relying on predictions based on weather forecasts.

Seismic activity around Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano has prompted authorities to lift the risk-assessment estimate to “orange”, the second-highest level.

Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines and Deutsche Lufthansa are among carriers on alert for ash, which is a menace to jets because the glass-like particles can damage engines.

In the event of a Bardarbunga eruption, EasyJet plans to test ash-detectors it’s developing with partners including Airbus Group and Nicarnica Aviation.

The technology available today would have resulted in the closure of less than 3pc of the airspace affected in 2010, EasyJet’s Paul Moore said.

MEANWHILE:-

Airlines on alert as Iceland raises volcano warnings to red after recent eruption

   

A small volcanic eruption has occurred under Iceland’s Dyngjujokull glacier, prompting authorities to raise the warning code for aviation to red, the highest level, Iceland’s meteorological office said on Saturday.

Airlines are on alert and there are fears that flights may have to be cancelled if the situation worsens.

A Virgin Atlantic flight from London Heathrow to San Francisco was re-routed away from the volcano as a “precautionary measure,” the company said today.

The region, in the centre of the North Atlantic island nation, has already been evacuated due to days of heightened seismic activity there.

“It is believed that a small subglacial lava-eruption has begun under the Dyngjujokull glacier,” the Icelandic Met Office said. “The aviation color code for the Bardarbunga volcano has been changed from orange to red.”

Ash from the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 shut down much of Europe’s airspace for six days.

The red code indicates that an eruption is imminent or underway with a significant emission of ash likely.

Brussels-based aviation authority Eurocontrol said that as soon as the volcano had erupted, the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London would produce a regular forecast about the levels of volcanic ash in the atmosphere.

Based on this forecast, civil aviation authorities may issue a notice but it was the responsibility of individual airlines whether they would operate and how they would adapt their flight schedules, Eurocontrol said.

Heart surgery can increase the risk of depression 

  

No one knows what led Robin Williams to kill himself. It wasn’t just one thing, but likely a fatal stew of lingering alcohol and drug addiction, depression, being middle-aged and male, and the prospect of facing Parkinson’s disease.

Rarely mentioned, though, is the open-heart surgery he’d undergone five years ago. But according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, research suggests up to 40 per cent of Canadians may suffer from depression after heart surgery – a one-two calamity with potentially deadly consequences.

Even when the surgery to replace my aortic valve was a success and my lingering irregular heartbeat had been stabilized – in other words, even after I was “well” – I fell into a deep depression. It took me more than a year to crawl back out, plenty of time to wonder how I could be so much better in my body and so much worse in my mind.

WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN HEART SURGERY AND DEPRESSION?

One media report following Williams’s death pointed to three possible scenarios: Tiny particles of plaque could break off from the heart and move to the brain, altering its structure; the lowering of body temperature during surgery could cause a change in brain chemistry; or major surgery could lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.

(I’ll go with a fourth, more personal explanation: that stopping your heart in order to replace part of it represents a “gross insult” that your heart resents at some profound and mysterious level.)

What’s not in doubt is that we remain dangerously unaware of the connections between heart surgery, depression and suicide. I need to be cautious here: Researchers can’t prove a direct causality between the three. But there is a demonstrable connection between heart surgery and depression, and an even more obvious one between depression and suicide. So the irresistible inference is that we need to pay more attention to the connection.

Approximately 11 out of 100,000 Canadians commit suicide each year, according to Statistics Canada, with depression the most common illness among those who die by suicide.

This may be shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising. A recent study by the World Economic Forum revealed that in rich countries like ours, 38 per cent of all illness is mental illness, and when it comes to people of working age, mental illness accounts for half of all illness. Yes, half.

The daunting size of these numbers suggests there’s little we can do about them. But we can. Depression can kill, but it’s not necessarily a fatal disease.

Still, too many of us are ashamed of feeling helplessly sad. So we’re slow to seek treatment, and once we do, it’s tough to find timely help in Canada where less than six per cent of our health-care dollars go to treating all mental illnesses.

Things are changing, especially around the tangled trip-wire of heart surgery, depression and suicide. Toronto’s University Health Network has three staff psychologists who specialize in cardiac psychology. One of them is Dr. Adrienne Kovacs.

She strongly recommends that all cardiac patients enter cardiac rehab programs after their surgery. You’d think everyone would, but the astounding fact is that, according to University Health Network research, almost 80 per cent of patients leave the hospital after heart attack or heart surgery and don’t enter cardiac rehab. So one step is to get more of us into rehab, which is offered at no cost in Canada.

The second idea is to add a strong component of psychological rehab to the process.

“I think cardiac psychology is a decade behind psycho-oncology,” Kovacs says. “You wouldn’t think of building a cancer centre today without building in a program to deal with depression and anxiety. I’d like to think we’re headed that way, too.”

She also points to another major risk around depression that’s not getting the attention it deserves – the fact that depression leaves you much more susceptible to heart disease. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, “if you have any medical condition, you are far more likely to have depression than someone who doesn’t.”

And, Kovacs says, you have double the risk of another cardiac event if you’re depressed.

American author Andrew Solomon, who has written on depresson and suicide, summed up the situation well in a recent piece for the New Yorker: “Depression is a risk factor for heart disease; open-heart surgery is a risk factor for depression.”

Poor Robin Williams, whose heart was so large. He may have broken ours’ because of all this.

Robots could kill us humans out of kindness

 SAYS A LEADING FUTURIST

  

Robots should be taught to appreciate human value to ensure they do not one day “kill us out of kindness,” a leading futurist has warned.

Nell Watson told The Conference in Malmo, Sweden, that robots will soon reach the stage where they have the same level of cognition as a bumblebee, creatures which are both socially aware and can navigate their way around their environment.

This advancement in artificial intelligence will be the first example of machines exhibiting ‘system one’ thinking used by humans to develop assumptions about the world around them.

Robots currently use ‘system two’ intelligence systems which rely on rules, according to Wired.

Ms Watson said the emergence of system one robots will create “huge change” in society globally. Households will have domestic-help robots and self-driving cars, while professions such as stockbroking, law and medical analysis will be undertaken by robots, not humans.

However, Ms Watson expressed concerns over super-intelligent robots. “I can’t help but look at these trends and imagine how then shall we live?” she said. “When we start to see super-intelligent artificial intelligences are they going to be friendly or unfriendly?”

It would not be enough to teach robots benevolence, as they may decide destroying the human race is the kindest thing they could do.

“The most important work of our lifetime is to ensure that machines are capable of understanding human value,” said Ms Watson. “It is those values that will ensure machines don’t end up killing us out of kindness.”

Her words of caution come after Stephen Hawking warned that while the rapid progress in artificial-intelligence (AI) research could be best thing that happened to humanity, it could also be the worst.

Writing in The Independent, he said that while it’s tempting to dismiss the notion of highly intelligent machines as science fiction, “this would be a mistake, and potentially our worst mistake in history.”

The development of robots also sparked concerns earlier this year when Human Rights Watch warned ‘killer robots’ could “jeopardise basic human rights” as the United Nations held its first ever multinational convention on lethal autonomous weapons systems.

So-called killer robots are autonomous machines able to identify and kill targets without human input. Fully autonomous weapons have not yet been developed but technological advances are bringing them closer to fruition.   

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Rose of Tralee’s crest name on silverware two days before final night

  

Conspiracy theories are mounting after the Rose of Tralee’s name and family crest appeared on the prize of silverware cutlery two days before the winner was announced.

Several eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the family crest of eventual winner, theTexas rose Haley O’Sullivan, had already been emblazoned on to the winner’s Newbridge Silverware cutlery on Monday night.

Haley won the coveted crown last night, beating out 31 other contestants from around the world.

As tradition dictates, the winner receives a Newbridge Silverware cutlery set with her family crest as part of her prize.

Viewers noticed that the O’Sullivan family crest had already been engraved into the set on Monday night, when the cameras flashed to the prize.

After M/s O’Sullivan appeared on The Ray D’Arcy Show on Today FM earlier today, several listeners contacted the station in order to query whether or not the winner had been chosen prior to the live broadcast.

“Last night’s winner Hayley O’Sullivan’s crest was already engraved on the cutlery on Monday night,” one listener said. “It was shown by the camera man before the best escort was announced. Coincidence?!! Not likely!”

Another listener wrote: “I could be wrong but I’m nearly sure on the first night, when showing the silver cutlery during the escort award, O’Sullivan was engraved on the knife…If so this would mean the winner was picked before the live show.”

John Drummey from the festival office told The Ray D’Arcy Show on Today FM: “Yes apparently that was an O’Sullivan family crest on the cutlery on Monday night. That’s just a coincidence. Newbridge just wanted to show that they can provide cutlery with the family crest. The escort will have his own family crest engraved on it.”

The show also contacted Newbridge Silverware, who responded: “That was purely coincidental. RTE filmed promotional stock and the O’Sullivan crest was picked because it’s a good Kerry name. That is not the actual cutlery that the winning Rose or escort receives. They will have their own family crest engraved on it.”

VODAFONE GROUP, Reclaim’s €67m in tax paid to the Irish Government.

      

In 2009, the Vodafone Group made a massive settlement with UK authorities, linked to its Irish unit, it has emerged.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper has reported that accounts filed with the Irish Company Registration Office (CRO) revealed the deal.

The paper revealed how Vodafone used an Irish subsidiary, Vodafone Ireland Marketing, to collect royalty payments from companies and joint ventures operating around the world.

It did this to take advantage of Ireland’s 12.5pc corporation tax rate, compared to the 28pc rate in Britain in the period between 2008 and 2010.

DIVIDENDS: Vodafone set up a company in Leopardstown, Dublin, in 2007 that originally did not employ any staff but was reporting a turnover of €380m a year.

Its use of the company helped to send dividends of more than €1bn to the low tax jurisdiction of Luxembourg.

The payments included a final instalment due this year of €142m and came from profits made after taking advantage of Ireland’s low corporation tax rates. The overall size of the settlement with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was not revealed.

However it involved Vodafone reclaiming €67m from the Irish Government in tax that should have been paid in the UK.

Dublin property prices rise 8% over last 12 months according to CSO

    

Apartment prices in the capital were 11.6 per cent higher in July

Property prices in Dublin have increased 8 per cent in the last 12 months, according to new figures released by the Central Statistics Office.

Dublin house prices were 7.5 per cent higher last month than July 2012, while apartment prices were 11.6 per cent higher.

The CSO said house prices in Dublin were 52 per cent lower now than at their peak in early 2007, while apartment prices were 59 per cent lower.

The fall in the price of residential properties in the rest of Ireland is somewhat lower at 48 per cent.

The price of residential properties in the rest of Ireland fell by 0.1 per cent in July compared with an increase of 0.3 per cent in July last year.

Goodbody economist Dermot O’Leary said residential prices in Dublin are now rising at their fastest annual pace since May 2007, due to tightening supply conditions in the capital.

“Of some concern is the fact that this acceleration in price inflation has come without any pick-up in mortgage lending,” he said.

Too much Copper in people's diets linked to Alzheimer’s disease

 

A LIFE-TIME OF TOO MUCH COPPER IN OUR DIETS MAY BE CONTRIBUTING TO ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, US SCIENTISTS CLAIM.

However, research is divided, with other studies suggesting copper may actually protect the brain.

The latest study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed high levels of copper left the brain struggling to get rid of a protein thought to cause the dementia.

Copper is a vital part of our diet and necessary for a healthy body.

Tap water coming through copper pipes, red meat and shellfish as well as fruit and vegetables are all sources of dietary copper.

Barrier: The study on mice, by a team at the University of Rochester in New York, suggested that copper interfered with the brain’s shielding – the blood brain barrier.

Mice that were fed more copper in their water had a greater build-up of the metal in the blood vessels in the brain.

The team said this interfered with the way the barrier functioned and made it harder for the brain to get rid of a protein called beta amyloid.

One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the formation of plaques of amyloid in the dying brain.

Lead researcher Dr Rashid Deane said: “It is clear that, over time, copper’s cumulative effect is to impair the systems by which amyloid beta is removed from the brain.”

He told the BBC that copper also led to more protein being produced: “It’s a double whammy of increased production and decreased clearance of amyloid protein.

“Copper is a very essential metal ion and you don’t want a deficiency and many nutritious foods also contain copper.”

However, he said taking supplements may be “going overboard a bit”.

Mixed evidence: Commenting on the latest findings, Chris Exley, professor of bioinorganic chemistry at Keele University, said there was “no true consensus” on the role of copper in Alzheimer’s disease.

His research on human brains reached the opposite conclusion: “In our most recent work we found evidence of lower total brain copper with ageing and Alzheimer’s. We also found that lower brain copper correlated with higher deposition of beta amyloid in brain tissue.

“He said at the moment we would expect copper to be protective and beneficial in neurodegeneration, not the instigator, but we don’t know.

“The exposure levels used mean that if copper is acting in the way they think it does in this study then it must be doing so in everyone.”

Dr Eric Karran, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “While the findings present clues to how copper could contribute to features of Alzheimer’s in mice, the results will need replicating in further studies. It is too early to know how normal exposure to copper could be influencing the development or progression of Alzheimer’s in people. “

Dr Doug Brown, from the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Considering copper is a vital mineral for the body, people should treat these results with caution and not cut it out of their diet. More research is needed to understand the role that copper might play in the brain.”

Dogs used as ‘early warning system’ for low blood sugar levels in people with diabetes

 v 

Dogs could be trained to warn diabetic patients when their blood sugar levels are about to become low, according to a new study.

Specially trained “glycaemia alert dogs” were able to detect when their owners’ blood sugar levels were outside their normal range and warn them of the fact, researchers found.

It is believed that the dogs are able to detect potential danger because their keen sense of smell can detect chemical changes in their owner’s sweat or breath.

Similar studies have suggested that dogs may be able to detect cancer by catching the scent of chemical compounds released by tumours.

In the new project, funded by pet training specialists The Company of Animals, studied seventeen dogs which had been trained to spot when their owner’s blood sugar levels began to drop too low or rise too high.

Some of the dogs had been donated and trained by the Medical Detection Dogs charity, while others belonged to participants and were specially trained for the study.

Results published in the PLOS ONE journal showed that all seventeen patients reported benefits, including fewer ambulance call-outs and fainting episodes, and greater independence.

Data recorded by the patients suggested that the dogs had been able to warn their owners of high or low blood sugar with an accuracy significantly above the level of chance, although the success rate varied from animal to animal.

Dr Nicola Rooney, who led the study, said current electronic systems designed to do the same job have “numerous limitations” and that dogs could offer “significant improvements”.

She added: “Some of the owners also describe their dogs respond[ing] even before their blood sugars are low but as they start to drop, so it is possible that the dogs are even more effective than this study suggests.

“While it is believed that dogs use their acute sense of smell to detect changes in the chemical composition of their owner’s sweat or breath to respond to glycaemic control, further research is now needed to further understand how dogs carry out this amazing task.”

Scientists ‘95 % cent certain’ that climate change is man-made

    

UN panel estimates sea levels could rise by 2ft 8in by the end of the century in latest draft report

Scientists are more certain than they have ever been that humans are causing climate change and believe that sea levels could rise by up to 2ft 8in by the end of the century.

These are among the key findings likely to be published next month in the most authoritative and comprehensive report ever conducted into climate science – the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth assessment, known as AR5.

According to a draft of the report, the certainty that humans are the main cause of climate change has risen to 95 per cent, from 90 per cent in the previous – fourth – assessment six years ago. This, in turn, was a significant increase on the 66 per cent certainty reached in 2001’s third assessment and just over 50 per cent in 1995.

With every IPCC report there is a key phrase that encapsulates the latest consensus on climate change, which scientists wrangle over for months.

According to a leaked copy of the draft, the key phrase in the forthcoming report will say: “It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010.”

“There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes,” adds the draft, which could be changed before the final version is published in Stockholm in September.

The draft projects that seas will rise by between 29cm and 82cm (11.4 to 32.3 inches) by the end of the century, while greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar.

The latest in a series that began in 1990 and last reported in 2007, AR5 has 840 main authors recruited from 38 of the IPCC’s 195 member countries, with British and American scientists making the biggest contribution.

At more than 3,000 pages, the report is so big that it will be released in three parts over the next 14 months. The first part covers the physical science of climate change. The second instalment will concentrate on the impacts of climate change and how to adapt to them, while the third will examine ways to curb the warming.

The report will also explain why global temperatures, while still increasing, have risen more slowly since the late 1990s despite accelerating increases in the greenhouse gas emissions widely thought to be responsible for climate change.

The draft report says there is “medium confidence” that the slowing of the temperature rise is “due in roughly equal measure” to natural variations in the weather and to other factors affecting energy reaching the earth’s surface. Other factors include an increase in the amount of heat being absorbed by deep oceans.

As with the other IPCC reports, AR5 will be a synthesis of the findings of thousands of peer-reviewed research papers from the past few years. It comes at a crucial time in global climate change politics since it will be the last IPPC report published before the Paris summit in 2015, when the world’s governments have pledged to reach hugely-ambitious and legally-binding targets to reduce their emissions in a bid to limit global warming to 2C, compared to pre-industrial levels.

The report’s authors are being extra cautious with this report after climate sceptics seized on a number of errors in the previous assessment to bolster their case that climate change is greatly exaggerated. The errors included the suggestion that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

The key phrase on the likely human influence on climate change in the draft of the latest IPCC assessment strengthens that of 2007’s fourth assessment, which said that “Evidence of the effect of external influences… on the climate system has continued to accumulate since TAR [Third assessment report in 2001]”.

TAR, in turn, concluded in 2001 that “there is new and stronger evidence [than in 1995] that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”. The second assessment report in 1995 said: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

Giant leatherback turtle washed up on Wexford strand a whopping 1,000kger

 

THE ARRIVAL OF A GIANT LEATHERBACK TURTLE MADE A BIG SPLASH AMONG LOCALS IN CULLENSTOWN STRAND, CO WEXFORD OVER THE WEEKEND BUT IT WAS DEAD.

The turtle, as big as an upturned rowing boat, washed up on the beach last Friday.

The Co Wexford coast is a popular feeding ground for these turtles, which arrive en masse every June to feed on jellyfish until early autumn.

A number of dead leatherback turtles washed up off the south coast last year, but this was the first at Cullenstown Strand for some time, Wexford naturalist Jim Hurley said.

“There were people arriving having a look and taking photos over the weekend.

“Often these turtles die after they mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and swallow them.”

Carcass: The cause of the leatherback turtle’s death remains unknown.

John Kinsella of Wexford Naturalists Fieldclub said large leatherbacks could weigh up to 1,000kg – “the best part of a ton” – and be two-and-a-half metres long.

They breed in the Caribbean and are so big not even sharks would bother to attack them.

He said it was likely that the turtle died offshore and the carcass was washed in by the tide: “They don’t beach themselves like whales.”

Mr Kinsella said the biggest recorded leatherback turtle washed up on a beach in Wales about 10 years ago and weighed over one tonne.

The species takes about 50 years to mature and turtles live at least 80 years.

The turtle has since been taken from the beach by council workers and buried.

Donie's Ireland news Blog Thursday

Government must put pressure on Irish banks to open their books

  

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) has today called on the Government to demand that bailed-out banks open their books after a study claimed Ireland is second only to Greece in terms of refusing loans to small firms.

Business groups maintained the Central Bank survey backs their long-standing argument that access to finance is being denied to viable but vulnerable companies.

The report revealed more than one in four small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) have been turned down for a loan or overdraft in the six months to March – double the eurozone average.

ISME’s Mark Fielding called on Government to demand full and complete disclosure from bailed-out banks on lending.

“While Irish banks have been recapitalised with enormous fiscal injections, the truth of the matter is the bailed-out banks are not fixed, rescued bankers continue to utter untruths, banking reform is delayed and banking policy is turning good business bad,” said Mr Fielding.

“This present administration must stop their current love affair with the banks, demand changes in bank operations and insist that they partake in a positive way in the recovery.”

However, the Irish Banking Federation (IBF) rejected the report’s findings and accused the Central Bank of pursuing a populous line.

IBF chief executive Pat Farrell said: “I can understand why sentiment towards banks is very negative because of the circumstance we find ourselves, but I would have expected more than a populous line from the Central Bank.

“I would reject the findings of the report because the definitive report on this area is the Mazars Report.”

He said the Mazars Report – which was commissioned by the Department of Finance and examined 1,500 SMEs in the same period – established banks were meeting the demand from small businesses.

Less than 500 firms were surveyed for the Central Bank study, which also found Ireland had the second highest number of firms afraid or discouraged from borrowing, while changes in terms and conditions linked with new bank credit were among the least favourable in the euro area.

Co-author and economist, Fergal McCann, denied the study was spin.

“The Central Bank is an independent institution and all we have done in this report is place Ireland in a ranking of European countries using two useful and valuable data sources,” he added.

New lending to SMEs amounted to €407m at the start of 2012, a 29.6% drop from three months earlier and down from more than €700m since the end of 2010.

The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) said hotels continue to face unjustifiable difficulties in accessing appropriate levels of credit from financial institutions.

John Whelan, of the Exporters Association, added: “The simple fact of the matter is that many exporting firms are still unable to get adequate finance to sustain their existing business and to grow their export markets.”

Elsewhere, Chambers Ireland raised concerns at the high level of businesses not applying for loans for fear of rejection.

However, Allied Irish Banks (AIB) maintained it exceeded its SME lending target of €3bn in 2011 and was 17% ahead of its €3.5bn target for 2012.

“We fully recognise that today’s credit process is more extensive than it was in previous times,” it said.

“We believe this is appropriate and is in no way meant to be an obstacle to obtaining credit

Green tea extract ‘eradicates skin cancer with no side-effects’

BUT DRINKING IT DOES NOT WORK

  

A green tea extract has a potent effect on cancer cells in the lab

A chemical found in green tea has been used to treat two types of skin cancer, scientists say.

The extract is too weak to make an impact when consumed in tea. However, when applied to cancer cells in the lab it made two-thirds of tumours shrink or disappear.

Scientists at the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, who carried out the research, found the extract, known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), had no side-effects on other cells or tissue.

They created a cell with EGCg and transferrin, a protein that naturally targets and latches on to the surface of cancer cells, and applied it to tumours.

Tests were done on two types of skin cancer: epidermoid carcinoma which forms scales on the surface of the skin and melanoma which often develops in people who have moles on their skin.

In both studies, 40 per cent of tumours vanished, while 30 per cent of tumours in carcinoma cases and 20 per cent in melanoma cases shrank. A further 10 per cent of melanoma tumours were stabilised, so did not grow or shrink.

Around 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with melanoma each year, with the majority women, according to the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.

Anti-cancer properties of EGCg were established in earlier laboratory tests elsewhere. Scientists at other universities around the world have experimented with it to treat prostate cancer and leukaemia.

Lead researcher Dr Christine Dufes, from the University of Strathclyde, said: ‘These are very encouraging results which we hope could pave the way for new and effective cancer treatments.

‘When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of the tumours every day, in some cases removing them altogether. By contrast, the extract had no effect at all when it was delivered by other means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow.

‘This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the biggest killer diseases in many countries.’

The research is published in the medical journal Nanomedicine.

Lovely roses of Tralee are in full bloom right now

  

The lovely Girls Rose’s have hit Tralee — and none of my fellow red-blooded Kerrymen are complaining.

It has its critics and sniggerers but year after year the Rose of Tralee proves a huge public, and TV, draw.

Who needs bikinis when you have a twinkle in the eye and a bit of Daithi O’Se’s Dingle patter?

It might be 2012 outside but in the Dome it’s still DeValera’s dream of comely maidens riverdancing at the crossroads. Or attempting to.

Excess weight & Obesity leads to diabetes

  

Lifestyle changes is the key to tackling Diabetes among  lower socio-economic groups in our society, say researchers who found that excess weight is the most important single contributing factor for developing the condition among these disadvantaged groups. 

The burden of type 2 diabetes disproportionally affects these groups. Lifestyle related risk factors are thought to play a key role, but previous studies have tended to underestimate their effect. 

So an international team of researchers set out to measure the contribution of several major risk factors for type 2 diabetes to socio-economic differences across society. 
They assessed health behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity), body mass index, and biological risk markers (blood pressure and lipid levels) in 7,237 middle-aged adults without diabetes, measuring these risk factors repeatedly over an average of 14 years. 

All the study participants were taking part in the Whitehall II study, which is evaluating the impact of social and economic factors on the long-term health of around 10,000 British civil servants, aged between 35 and 55 in 1985. 

Socio-economic status was assessed through occupational position and reflected education, salary, social status, and level of responsibility at work. 
Over the average follow-up of 14 years, 818 cases of diabetes were identified. Participants in the lowest occupational category had a 1.86-fold greater risk of developing diabetes relative to those in the highest occupational category. 

Health behaviours and body mass index explained up to 45 percent of this socio-economic differential in both men and women when changes over time and long-term exposure were accounted for. With additional adjustments for biological risk markers, a total of 53 percent of the socio-economic differential was explained. 

Body mass index was the most important single contributing factor, explaining about 20 percent of socio-economic differences. 
This finding is not surprising, said the researchers, as weight gain is strongly socially patterned. 

However, the effects of diet and physical activity were smaller than expected, given that these behaviours are also strongly socially patterned, they added. The contribution of smoking and alcohol consumption was also modest. 

“Given the increasing burden of type 2 diabetes and the observed increase in social inequalities in prevalence of type 2 diabetes, further efforts to tackle these factors are urgently needed,” they concluded.

Footage emerges of massive blaze engulfing closed Donegal hotel

The huge blaze took control of the disused Lough Swilly Hotel in Buncrana Co Donegal last night Wednesday.

   

The blaze at the old Lough Swilly Hotel in Buncrana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rzjLvPC-bQ&feature=plcp

THE video footage (click above link) of a huge blaze which gutted a landmark Donegal hotel last night click above link to see the 42 second footage.

Lough Swilly Hotel on fire, Buncrana, Inishowen, County Donegal. Burning down on the 22nd August 2012

The former Lough Swilly Hotel in Buncrana, which was around 150 years old, had closed in the 1970s, and had been used as a music venue and a warehouse since then,  Local company Flanagans took the building over several years ago, but it had been under the control of Deloitte and Touche since Flanagans went into receivership last year. Brian Flanagan told Highland Radio that there had been some issues with vandalism at the site when it was in their control, leading to increased security.

In 2010 An Bord Pleanála had given the go ahead for the hotel to be knocked down to make way for a new development, but the work never went ahead.

Gardaí are launching an investigation into the cause of the blaze, which has now been extinguished. Roads in the area have reopened and Visit Inishowen has tweeted that the local ferry service is back in operation.