Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Sterling slump less a problem for State than in past, Central Bank says

RISKS TO ECONOMY REMAIN ‘CLEARLY TILTED TO THE DOWNSIDE’, SAYS REPORT FROM REGULATOR

     

THE CENTRAL BANK MAINTAINS THAT DEMAND FOR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES IN TRADING-PARTNER COUNTRIES OUTWEIGHS EVERYTHING, INCLUDING FOREIGN-EXCHANGE RATES.

Ireland’s economy is better able to deal with a slump in sterling than it has been in the past, the Central Bank has said, as the euro hovers at a five-year high against the British currency as a result of the UK Brexit vote.

The euro has surged by more than 14% since the UK referendum on June 23rd to more than 88p and some, including analysts in Investec and UBS, see the exchange rate reaching 90p by the end of the year.

The Central Bank’s latest economic forecasts, published on Thursday, which see Irish gross domestic product expanding by 4.5% this year and 3.6% in 2017, is based on a euro-sterling rate of 84p, said John Flynn, the head of Irish economic analysis at the bank.

Mr Flynn said that if the current rate persisted it would have some impact on future forecasts.

However, he added: “We’ve seen over a long period of time the economy demonstrate considerable flexibility and it’s able to deal with the sterling rate at quite different levels. The Irish economy is a much more flexible economy now than it was at various times in the past, when sterling was a challenge for us.”

The demand?

The Central Bank maintains that demand for products and services in trading-partner countries outweighs everything, including foreign-exchange rates. While recent UK economic data suggested the British economy was faring better than many had feared following the Brexit vote, the Central Bank’s chief economist, Gabriel Fagan, said it was “far too early” to determine the real impact of the decision on the world’s fifth largest economy.

Meanwhile, Mr Flynn noted that the euro-sterling rate was much more important to companies in the food, clothing and footwear sectors, as well as tourism, than elsewhere in the economy.

“And the exchange rate is generally more important for indigenous firms because the UK accounts for a greater share of export markets for those groups,” he said.

The comments follow the Central Bank’s publication of its latest quarterly bulletin in which it shaved its forecasts for personal consumption, exports and overall economic growth for this year and warned risks to these projections “remain clearly tilted to the downside” as a result of Brexit.

The organisation lowered its forecast for gross domestic product growth for this year by 0.4% points to 4.5% and left its 2017 projection unchanged at 3.6%, having downgraded its estimates more materially in July in the wake of the surprise Brexit vote.

Mixed signals confusing?

“Signals in relation to consumer spending have become more mixed, although the balance of evidence across a range of indicators points to only a marginal slowdown, with consumer spending supported by solid gains in employment and rising earnings,” the Central Bank said.

The Central Bank lowered its forecast for personal spending growth, which rebounded two years ago following years as consumers showed the first signs of recovery from the financial crisis, to 3.8% for this year from 4% previously. Its 2017 forecast has come back to 2.2% from 2.3%.

It sees underlying domestic demand, a measure of the economy preferred by some analysts given how multinationals’ activities can skew the headline figures, slowing to 4% this year from 5% in 2015, before easing further to 2.7% in 2017. It has raised its forecasts for the economic contribution from activity in aircraft leasing and multinationals moving intellectual property.

Export growth is likely to slow to 5.6% this year from a previous projection of 6.4%, before easing back to 4.4% in 2017, according to the Central Bank.

With an eye on the unveiling of Budget 2017 next week, the Central Bank said “a prudent fiscal strategy remains essential, given the negative loops between fiscal stability, financial stability and macroeconomic stability.”

It also said the Government set long-term targets that were “robust to statistical issue”, clearly a reference to the 26% GDP growth rate for 2015 that had little to do with the underlying economy.

Uncertainties

“While the uncertainties in relation to the measurement of economic growth make it more difficult to calculate the underlying path for tax revenues, it would be prudent to assume that some fraction of the recent surge in corporation tax revenues might be temporary in nature,” it said.

Corporation tax rose to €4.16 billion for the first nine months of the year from €3.9 billion for the same period in 2015, according to the latest exchequer return figures, published earlier this week.

Nóirín O’Sullivan ‘doing so much damage to An Garda Síochána’, says Mick Wallace

   

THE GARDA COMMISSIONER NÓIRÍN O’SULLIVAN IS DOING “SO MUCH DAMAGE” TO THE FORCE THAT IT IS IN “TURMOIL”, THE DÁIL HAS HEARD.

Revelations in this week’s Irish Examiner, about a campaign by senior officers to destroy a whistle-blower, dominated leaders’ questions yesterday

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald came under serious fire over the scandal from Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, as well as Independents.

The Dáil heard claims that Ms O’Sullivan had given some members of An Garda Síochána carte blanche to hound and discredit whistle-blowers.

Independents4Change TD Mick Wallace, in a heated exchange, pleaded with Ms Fitzgerald to remove the commissioner.

Mr Wallace said he and his colleague, Clare Daly, have met with the two whistle-blowers who made the latest protected disclosures. he said Ms O’Sullivan has failed to end the persecution of whistle-blowers in the force.

“The Garda is in turmoil. There is a split in it with two camps. The Garda commissioner has promoted a ring around her. It is corrosive,” said Mr Wallace.

Nóirín O’Sullivan

“She is doing so much damage to An Garda Síochána that there are many good gardaí shocked at how she is operating. The Tánaiste and minister for justice and equality cannot leave her in position.”

Asked if she had any other protected disclosures on her desk, Ms Fitzgerald said: “There are no other protected disclosures on my desk.”

Mr Wallace informed the Dáil that whistle-blower Nick Keogh has written to the minister four times, but received only one reply.

“Nicky Keogh wrote to the minister four times and she replied once,” said Mr Wallace. “When he told the minister about the harassment and that he could not have been suffering without the commissioner’s knowledge, the minister wrote back to him to say she was looking for an urgent report from the Garda commissioner.

“That was May this year. The minister says she follows things up quickly. May was a long time ago.”

Ms Fitzgerald said while details of the disclosures are in the public domain, she is precluded by law from commenting. She said those involved are entitled to due process and that she would not be rushing to judgment.

“I will follow the legislation, passed in this House, where people have a right to confidentiality and due process,” she said.

“I would not be doing my job as minister for justice and equality if I did not follow due process and the law laid down regarding protected disclosures, a law on which we have all agreed should be followed.”

In response to Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, Ms Fitzgerald said Ms O’Sullivan is entitled to her full confidence.

“I want to be very clear about one thing: No findings of wrongdoing of any kind have been made against the Garda commissioner and I believe in those circumstances she is entitled to our full confidence,” said Ms Fitzgerald, adding that she would not be slow in establish a full inquiry into the allegations should it be merited.

Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McConalogue asked Ms Fitzgerald to state whether it was true that the two people behind the disclosures are likely to refuse to co-operate with any pending inquiry.

“The dysfunctionality of the Garda Síochána because of perceived system and management failures — it is hard to see beyond the saying, ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’,” said Mr McConalogue.

People are sheltering in libraries as they cannot afford fuel, claims Willie O’Dea?

VARADKAR HOPES TO INCREASE FUEL ALLOWANCE IN BUDGET BUT ‘CANNOT GUARANTEE IT AT THIS STAGE’

       

Willie O’Dea of Fianna Fáil: “Growing older increasingly seems to mean growing colder.

PEOPLE ARE USING PUBLIC TRANSPORT OR SHELTERING IN LIBRARIES BECAUSE THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO HEAT THEIR HOMES DURING THE DAY, ACCORDING TO FIANNA FÁIL SOCIAL PROTECTION SPOKESMAN WILLIE O’DEA.

Appealing to Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar to increase the fuel allowance in next week’s budget, he said organisations representing the elderly had conducted surveys showing “people who do not light a fire until the afternoon and who go to bed early in the winter to save fuel”.

“Other people resort to taking public transport or taking shelter in public libraries and other public buildings because they simply cannot afford to heat their homes properly for a sufficient period of time to enable them to live comfortably in their homes.” The Limerick city TD said, “Growing older increasingly seems to mean growing colder.”

Mr Varadkar said the fuel allowance was increased 10 per cent last year from €20 to €22.50, and he hoped they could continue “in the same direction” next year “but I cannot guarantee that at this stage”.

The allowance is given for 26 weeks to 380,000 households at a cost of €224 million, along with an electricity or gas allowance at a cost of €228 million.

Mr O’Dea said recent research found that the island of Ireland “has the highest rate of excess winter mortality in Europe, with an estimated 2,800 excess deaths each winter”, and fuel poverty was a factor in this.

Sligo Food train leaves Dublin for theWild Atlantic Way

   

L-R: Anthony Gray, Sligo Food Trail; Eva Dearie of Failte Ireland; Finbar Filan, Sligo BID; and Marguerite Quilann, Beltra Country Market.

FÁILTE IRELAND IS PARTNERING WITH IARNRÓD ÉIREANN AND THE SLIGO FOOD TRAIL TO BRING A GROUP OF VIP WRITERS TO SLIGO, AS PART OF A SERIES OF NEW INITIATIVES TO STIMULATE REGIONAL DISPERSION AND SEASONAL EXTENSION ALONG THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY.

The media VIPs will board a Sligo Food Train from Connolly Station to Sligo, where passengers will get to sample food from Sligo and also receive information on the Sligo Food Trail as they make their journey to the Wild Atlantic Way. Fáilte Ireland will also give a brief talk on the coastal route to the media as the train progresses towards Sligo.

The focus for Failte Ireland is to help businesses and regions broaden the so-called ‘shoulder seasons’ immediately prior to and following the main summer season in tourist destinations. This is especially important along the Wild Atlantic Way, where many businesses close outside of the peak months.

To this end Failte Ireland is supporting the Sligo Food Trail by partnering with Iarnród Éireann and bringing food writers and bloggers by train from Connolly Station to Sligo, where they will be treated to a 24 hour foodie experience in and around Sligo for this Sligo Harvest Feast event.

Fáilte Ireland’s Head of the Wild Atlantic Way, Fiona Monaghan said: “The Wild Atlantic Way has been incredibly popular with the domestic market and we believe there is great potential to grow activity outside of the summer season. We have been working with hundreds of businesses along the route – who have traditionally experienced a short tourism season – to help them become ‘autumn-ready’ and grow their trading season. With an emphasis on some of the quieter places, we are working to boost visitor traffic all along the route and especially beyond the usual hotspots throughout this autumn.”

For older women, caffeine could be pill needed in warding off dementia

   

Among a group of older women, self-reported caffeine consumption of more than 261 mg per day was associated with a 36% reduction in the risk of incident dementia over 10 years of follow-up. This level is equivalent to two to three 8-oz cups of coffee per day, five to six 8-oz cups of black tea, or seven to eight 12-ounce cans of cola.

Could drinking coffee be linked to a reduced risk of dementia?

Among a group of older women, self-reported caffeine consumption of more than 261 mg per day was associated with a 36% reduction in the risk of incident dementia over 10 years of follow-up. This level is equivalent to two to three 8-oz cups of coffee per day, five to six 8-oz cups of black tea, or seven to eight 12-ounce cans of cola.

“The mounting evidence of caffeine consumption as a potentially protective factor against cognitive impairment is exciting given that caffeine is also an easily modifiable dietary factor with very few contraindications,” said Ira Driscoll, PhD, the study’s lead author and a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “What is unique about this study is that we had an unprecedented opportunity to examine the relationships between caffeine intake and dementia incidence in a large and well-defined, prospectively-studied cohort of women.”

The findings come from participants in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study, which is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Driscoll and her research colleagues used data from 6,467 community-dwelling, postmenopausal women aged 65 and older who reported some level of caffeine consumption. Intake was estimated from questions about coffee, tea, and cola beverage intake, including frequency and serving size.

In 10 years or less of follow-up with annual assessments of cognitive function, 388 of these women received a diagnosis of probable dementia or some form of global cognitive impairment. Those who consumed above the median amount of caffeine for this group (with an average intake of 261 mg per day) were diagnosed at a lower rate than those who fell below the median (with an average intake of 64 mg per day). The researchers adjusted for risk factors such as hormone therapy, age, race, education, body mass index, sleep quality, depression, hypertension, prior cardiovascular disease, diabetes, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

A 7,000 year-old York dog is forcing experts to rethink on Stonehenge

  

EVIDENCE OF THE EARLIEST JOURNEY IN BRITISH HISTORY HAS BEEN UNCOVERED AND A PET DOG CAME ALONG FOR THE GRUELLING 250-MILE TRIP FROM YORK TO STONEHENGE IN WILTSHIRE.

Archaeologist David Jacques has found evidence that Mesolithic man’s best friend was an Alsatian – and bones found nearby suggest the dog would have feasted on salmon, trout, pike, wild pig and red deer.

The domesticated dog tooth was dug up at Blick Mead, a site a mile from the World Heritage Site and scientific tests have shown the dog most likely came from the York area.

Mr Jacques said the findings were significant because archaeologists did not know people travelled such long distances 7,000 years ago and the journey adds to the weight of evidence of people coming to Stonehenge 2,000 years before the monument was built.

He said previous excavations uncovered a slate tool from Wales and stone tools from the Midlands and the West of England.

As the Ice Age had just ended, one of the attractions of Blick Mead would have been a natural spring in which the only puce stones in the country could be found.

It would also have been relatively easy to reach because the nearby River Avon was the M1 of its time. Large numbers of deer and aurochs – extinct massive prehistoric cattle – grazed there.

Burnt stones, wood and auroch bones from the site indicate that it was popular for feasting, an important ritual activity.

Mr Jacques, a senior research fellow at the University of Buckingham, said at that time prehistoric people were starting to tame dogs and keep them as pets and the Alsatian may even have been brought to Stonehenge to exchange.

“The fact that a dog and a group of people were coming to the area from such a long distance away further underlines just how important the place was four millennia before the circle was built,” he said.

“Discoveries like this give us a completely new understanding of the establishment of the ritual landscape and make Stonehenge even more special than we thought we knew it was.”

Andy Rhind-Tutt, chairman of Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust, said: “These amazing discoveries at Blick Mead are writing the history books of Mesolithic Britain.

“A dog tooth from York, a slate tool from Wales and a stone tool from the Midlands show that this wasn’t just the place to live at the end of the Ice Age, but was known by our ancestors for a long time widely across Britain. They kept coming here.”    

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Ireland's broadband users face price hikes of 18% from next September?

TELCOS SAY THEY INTEND TO PASS ON EIR’S INCREASE IN WHOLESALE RATES TO CONSUMERS

    

EIR DEFENDS PRICE CHANGES, SAYING THEY WERE LINKED TO THE COMPANY’S INCREASED INVESTMENT IN HIGH-SPEED FIBRE BROADBAND.

Consumers can expect an 18% hike in broadband prices from next September as a result of changes to Eir’s wholesale rates.

The State’s largest telco rents space on its network to rival operators such as Vodafone, BT, Magnet and Sky, as well as its own retail arm.

From September, it plans to raise fibre broadband prices for wholesale customers from €19.50 to €23 a month. Non-Eir operators have signalled the hike, which has been approved by regulator Comreg, would be passed on in full to consumers.

Eir, however, said the rate increase, when combined with a €2.11 reduction in its traditional fixed-line rental rates due in July, was broadly price neutral, and therefore did not necessitate a price rise at the retail end.

The assertion was disputed by rivals, which claimed the two price changes related to different product sets and could not be used to offset each other.

Alto, the umbrella group for non-Eir companies, described Eir’s move as “cynical”, claiming it bore no relation to the costs associated with providing the service. “With improved efficiencies and economies of scale, the costs should actually be decreasing,” Alto spokesman Ronan Lupton said

He said Eir was imposing such charges with impunity and without any regard to the impact it would have on wholesale customers and ultimately the consumer.

In the context of the National Broadband Plan, Mr Lupton said Eir’s move emphasised the importance of having “very strict price controls on the winning tenderer”.

However, Eir defended the price changes, saying they were linked to the company’s increased investment in high-speed fibre broadband.

“We believe it is fair that we can make a reasonable return on investment that delivers much improved services,” the company said in a statement.

The likely price hike comes in the wake of an analysis by the European Commission, which suggested Irish consumers already face the second highest prices in the EU.

Priest claims Irish Catholic Church 

‘is beyond the point of redemption’

Fr Tony Flannery says female clergy would make a dramatic change amid serious crisis.

      

REDEMPTORIST FR TONY FLANNERY PIC ABOVE LEFT: ‘THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT, THIS MALE CELIBATE THING, IS GONE.’

Dissident Irish priest Fr Tony Flannery has said the Catholic Church inIreland is in such “serious crisis” that it may well have gone beyond the point of redemption.

Fr Flannery, a Redemptorist priest who was suspended from duties in 2012 by the Holy See, was speaking in Rome on Wednesday at a meeting of WOW (Women’s Ordination Worldwide) in the celebrated House of Women, just down the banks of the Tiber from the Vatican.

Fr Flannery’s support for the concept of women priests in the Catholic Church was one of many issues which led to disciplinary sanctions against him.

Despite that, he repeated his support for women priests , saying: “We all know that the Church in Ireland is in serious crisis, indeed a lot of people would say at this stage that it has gone beyond the point of redemption.

“If you could release the energy of women, it would make a dramatic change.

“I’d say for example that a fair number of Redemptorist priests agree with what I say about women priests but they just think that I made the mistake of saying it publicly,” he said. “A lot of them keep their heads down because they don’t want to lose their ministry.

“The argument that a woman cannot be a minister of the Eucharist because she cannot be a persona Christi (someone who acts as Jesus and as God), that is such a ridiculous argument.

“That argument belongs to the time of the flat earth, when Galileo was persecuted.

“It is depressing and sad and disturbing that Pope Francis, a man for whom we have so much hope, seems to have that dreadful attitude (towards women priests)”.

Fr Flannery said parishoners “have moved light years ahead of the bishops in attitude”, which makes it difficult to maintain a dialogue with an ecclesiastical authority that is out of touch.

He said that within the church reform movement, people were warned “not to talk about the ordination of women”, because that was too “radical”.

Even though he conceded Pope Francis remains doctrinally conservative, he said he is “still quite hopeful” about the reform movement.

“The Catholic priesthood as we have known it, this male celibate thing, is gone,” he said. “So while all of that is happening, it gives me hope for real, real change. I certainly won’t live to see it…if it bears fruit in one hundred years’ time, it will have been worth doing.

“As for Ireland, it is no longer a Catholic country. A lot of people now say I don’t see what the issue is anymore, people just take it (sexual equality) for granted. Young Irish people will tell you that this Church is mediaeval in its thinking, they simply don’t care.”

Men can underestimate how much sex their wives and girlfriends want?

      

Men in long-term relationships tend to underestimate their female partners’ sex drive, new data from two Canadian universities show. A study published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology indicates that the conventional wisdom eternally exploited in sitcom riffs and stand-up routines and that wives are incapable of satisfying their husbands’ gargantuan libidos which may be a figment of the male imagination.

Psychologists from the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario studied 229 North American couples, most of which were heterosexual partnerships. (A few same-gender couples participated, but not enough to produce any statistically significant data.) Research subjects were aged 18 to 68 and had been in their current relationships for an average of six years; they reported having sex about one to two times per week.

The members of the couples either visited the lab once to report on their general sexual desire, their perception of their partner’s sexual desire, and their satisfaction with their relationship, or kept a daily three-week diary on those same three factors. Some also reported on their daily level of motivation to evade sexual rejection.

The researchers found that, on a regular basis, men significantly underperceived the degree of their female partners’ sexual desire, while women consistently made accurate judgments about how much their male partners wanted sex. Among diary-keeping couples, on days when men underestimated their female partners’ libido, the women showed higher levels of relationship satisfaction.

This suggests that, whether consciously or not, men might be better partners when they think they have to work for it—in other words, a man will try harder to please his female partner if he thinks she’s not responding to his advances, which keeps him from taking the relationship for granted and getting lazy. Another likely explanation for male sexual underperception: fear of rejection. On days when men reported in their diaries a high level of motivation to avoid sexual rejection, they were more likely to underestimate their partners’ desire for sex, perhaps as a precaution against making advances that could go unreturned.

Socialized beliefs and behaviors could contribute to the perception gap, too. Women may make fewer or subtler sexual overtures that their partners, or, Elizabeth Bernstein suggests at the Wall Street Journal, if a woman knows she has a higher sex drive than her husband in general or on a particular occasion, she may refrain from making a move to avoid embarrassing or emasculating him if he wants to say no.

But there’s a larger, more amorphous barrier to accurate male sex predictions out there: The prevailing notion that women just aren’t that concerned with sex. As Taryn Hillin writes at Fusion:

Consider this—when this study started making news this week, the most common headlines were some variation of “Women are more interested in sex than you think” or “Hey guys, women want sex more often than you think.” These headlines assume that we, the readers, believe women are not interested in sex to begin with, and so this news is somehow shocking.

These framings ignore the fact that women also read news reports and probably already know that all those sitcom gags about sexually uninterested wives don’t match up with the reality of their experiences. As a lump demographic, men report higher sex drives than women, but women’s reports cover a much larger range that varies based on geography and other environmental factors, suggesting that the concept of sex drive is molded by sociocultural forces. Kristen Mark’s June 2015 paper in Current Sexual Health Reports analyzed 31 studies on sexual desire and sex-drive discrepancy in relationships; she found that, in long-term heterosexual partnerships, women and men are equally likely to be the lower-libido member of their couple.

Still, the findings of this new Canadian study were somewhat surprising, because the only previous research on men’s sex-drive perception focused on the situation of a man meeting a woman for the first time or evaluating the sexual interest of a fictional or unknown woman. These studies have reliably shown that men tend to overestimate the sexual interest demonstrated by these women’s behaviors.

That explains the circumstances of most overaggressive late-night bar encounters. Taken together, these contradicting trends suggest that when many men try to gauge a partner or potential partner’s desire, they perceive what they want to believe.

Now you can obtain a Wild Atlantic passport!

     

PICTURED (RIGHT) AT THE LAUNCH OF A NEW PASSPORT FOR THE WILD ATLANTIC WAY ARE MINISTER OF STATE FOR TOURISM AND SPORT PATRICK O’DONOVAN WITH FIONA MONAGHAN, HEAD OF WILD ATLANTIC WAY, FAILTE IRELAND

Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan has launched the official Wild Atlantic Way Passport.

The joint Fáilte Ireland and An Post initiative provides visitors to the west with a recorded souvenir of their journey along some or all of the 188 Discovery Points on the world’s longest coastal touring route.

Minister O’Donovan said: “The Wild Atlantic Way is already proving popular with visitors – both from overseas and from Ireland. We want to deepen visitor engagement and encourage those who travel along the route to slow down, dwell longer and immerse themselves in the local towns and villages of Sligo along the west coast. The local Post Office is at the heart of these communities and the passport is a clever means to build such interaction into the Wild Atlantic Way experience.”

The new passport contains a section for each of the various zones along the route and visitors to Discovery Points can call in to the local Post office to have their passport stamped with a unique motif for each one. The Wild Atlantic Way Passport may be purchased (for €10) at over 130 selected An Post Offices, along the Wild Atlantic Way route as well as at Dublin’s GPO and St Andrew’s Street Post Offices.

Fiona Monaghan, Fáilte Ireland’s Head of the Wild Atlantic Way, today emphasised: “This passport is a wonderful way for visitors to record their experiences along the Wild Atlantic Way. However, by encouraging visitors to visit local towns to get their passport stamped in the Post Office, we also hope the passport will help increase tourist activity and engagement with people and places of Sligo.

“The passport is also neatly placed to encourage a return trip for those that have part-completed their passport – and we will be urging visitors to think about completing their collection of Wild Atlantic Way stamps over a number of years.”

Visitors will be rewarded for buying a passport with free entry into a draw for a holiday of a lifetime along the Wild Atlantic Way. Additionally, every time a visitor reaches 20 new stamps in their passport, they are encouraged to call into the nearest Tourist Information Office to receive a Wild Atlantic Way gift.

An Post Director of Innovation and Quality, John McConnell said that visitors are assured of a warm welcome at Post Offices along the Wild Atlantic Way.

“Ensuring the best possible customer experience is what An Post does on a daily basis throughout our retail network. This colourful, keepsake Passport is a great addition to our range of products and services and will help to drive footfall into rural Post Offices along the route. We’re delighted to be working so closely with Fáilte Ireland and here’s to a busy summer season ahead.”

Promotional material will be visible in all participating Post Offices and 16 Tourist Information Offices advertising the Passports to both domestic and overseas visitors. Training for all the Post Office staff involved has been provided to ensure they are knowledgeable about the Wild Atlantic Way initiative and its objectives.

The Wild Atlantic Way Passport is also being promoted across all Wild Atlantic Way digital platforms – the website, the dedicated App and social media channels.

Fungie the bottlenose dolphin injured by a ‘propellor blade’

      

THE BELOVED DINGLE DOLPHIN, FUNGIE, HAS BEEN INJURED, MOST LIKELY DUE TO A PROPELLER OF A BOAT.

Spotted yesterday, photos show the bottlenose dolphin has a deep wound on his side while a scratch goes over the side of the dorsal fin.

A Facebook page devoted to the dolphin and his welfare, Fungie Forever, posted the images of the injury saying that “while it looks deep, wide and red but we have seen deeper wounds on other dolphins that healed quite well”.

In a post on Facebook, they said they will continue to keep an eye on him:

“At first Fungie seemed to be quiet and stayed under water but after as while he started to play spontaneous and jump over and over and over… We tried to leave him in peace, give him some rest but he started to jump again and again.”

They also say that while they are “gutted”, they expect him to make a full recovery – last year, he sustained an injury to his chin which has healed within weeks.

It is unknown how exactly the injury was sustained – Fungie is said to be well used to the local boats, he is sometimes attracted to visitors to the harbour.

Our Universe is expanding way faster than we had thought, Researchers now say

I WRITE ABOUT THE UNIVERSE AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.  

      

LEFT PICTURE IS A DIAGRAM OF THE COSMIC DISTANCE LADDER.  THE BRIGHT SPOT IN THE LOWER LEFT OF THE MIDDLE PICTURE IS A SUPERNOVA IN THE NGC 4526 GALAXY.

The Universe is expanding. In the standard model of cosmology the rate of that expansion is given by the Hubble parameter, which is a measure of the dark energy that drives cosmic expansion. New observations of distant galaxies yield a higher than expected Hubble value. That may mean the Universe is expanding faster than we thought, but there’s no need to start rewriting textbooks just yet.

Since the Hubble parameter measures the rate of cosmic expansion, one way to determine it is to compare the redshift of light from distant galaxies with their distance. The cosmological redshift of a galaxy is easy to measure, and is due to the fact that cosmic expansion stretches the wavelength of light as it travels across millions or billions of light years, making it appear more red. By comparing the redshifts for galaxies of different distances we can determine just how fast the Universe is expanding.

Unfortunately distance is difficult to determine. It relies upon a range of methods that vary depending on distance, known as the cosmic distance ladder. For close stars we can use parallax, which is an apparent shift of stars relative to more distant objects due to the Earth’s motion around the Sun. The greater a star’s distance the smaller its parallax, so the method is only good to about 1,600 light years. For larger distances we can look at variable stars such as Cepheid variables.

We know the distance to some Cepheid variables from their parallax, so we can determine their actual brightness (absolute magnitude). From this we’ve found that the rate at which a Cepheid variable changes in brightness correlates with its overall brightness. This relation means we can determine the absolute brightness of Cepheid variables greater than 1,600 light years away. If we compare that to their apparent brightness we can calculate their distance. By observing Cepheids in various galaxies we can determine galactic distances. We can observe Cepheids out to about 50 million light years, at which point they’re simply too faint to currently observe.

Enter the supernova. In a single burst of light a supernova can outshine an entire galaxy, so they can be detected across billions of light years. While there are several types of supernovae, one type (Type Ia) has a fairly consistent maximum brightness. We know this by observing several in galaxies where Cepheids have been used to determine their distance. Just like Cepheids, we can compare the actual brightness of a Type Ia supernova with its apparent brightness and determine the distance of a galaxy.