Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

2015 on track to be Ireland’s best-ever year for tourism

   

2015 is set to be a record year for tourism, according to a new report from the CSO.

Figures show that more than 1.5 million trips were made to Ireland by overseas visitors in the first three months of 2015.

That represents a 13% rise on the same period last year.

The news comes as Fáilte Ireland is reminding towns that today is the closing date for entrants to apply to the 2015 Tourism Towns Award.

Alex Connolly from Fáilte Ireland said that that these figures are good news for tourism operators across the country.

“The American market is extremely strong – that’s been helped by the fact that the American economy is improving – but also by the fact that the currency is currently working in favour of American visitors,” he said.

“Also the UK market, the British market, is very strong at the moment.

“We’ve recently surveyed the tourism businesses in Ireland and eight of 10 tourism operators are telling us that they reckon their business will be up this year.

“We could be looking at the best tourism year on record.”

Drumm, Fitzpatrick, McAteer, Whelan (The notorious four) given inquiry date

 

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern asked to appear on July 16th, before former Anglo executives.

Former Anglo Irish Bank executives David Drumm, Sean Fitzpatrick, Willie McAteer and Pat Whelan have been directed to appear before the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry on July 29th.

Other high-profile Anglo executives John Bowe and Tom Browne have been directed to appear on July 24th. Mr Bowe was a former head of capital markets at the bank and featured prominently in the Anglo Tapes controversy.

Mr McAteer and Mr Whelan were found guilty last year of giving illegal loans to 10 developers to buy shares in the bank and ordered to do community service. This followed a 48-day trial.

In addition, former Irish Nationwide Building Society chairman Michael Walshhas been directed to attend on September 2nd, along with John Stanley Purcell, a former director with the institution.

Anglo and INBS received €34.7 billion in bailout cash from Irish taxpayers following the crash of the Irish financial sector in late 2008.

However, no date has yet been set for the appearance of INBS’s former chief executive Michael Fingleton, who was issued with a notice to attend the committee on May 21st.

Other high profile players in the financial sector before and after the crash who have yet to be given a date include, Alan Dukes, the former chairman of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, Mike Aynsley, IBRC’s ex chief executive, Gillian Bowler, a former chair of Irish Life & Permanent, Gary McGann, a former director of Anglo, Fergus Murphy, a former head of EBS Building Society who is now an executive with AIB, and Matt Moran, an executive with Anglo.

These directions were issued late yesterday as part of the latest tranche of communications by the Inquiry to witnesses to appear before the committee, which is investigating the events that led up to the financial crash in 2008.

The 11-person committee is being chaired by the Labour Party’s Ciarán Lynch.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has been asked to appear on July 16th while the current holder of the office Enda Kenny will appear a week later, along with jobs ministerRichard Bruton.

Tánaiste Joan Burton will appear on the same date along with the former Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte.

The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan is set to go in front of the committee on September 10th.

It now remains to be seen if all of those directed to appear will actually turn up at the committee, in particular Mr Drumm, who moved to the United States after his exit from Anglo and has shown little interest in returning to Ireland.

Rethink again how you eat your vegetables

    

We’re always being told to eat our greens, pack our diet full of fruit and vegetables and get much-needed nutrients into our bodies.

But while many of us think that pinging a steam fresh bag of veg in the microwave or popping a few florets of broccoli in a pan to go with our dinner will do the job, it turns out that a lot of our storing, preparation and cooking methods of vegetables are actually diminishing their nutritional value.

In her new book Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health, journalist Jo Robinson has shared some top tips on how to make sure you are getting the most out of the veggies you eat.

Cook tomatoes for longer. The longer you cook tomatoes for, the more nutritious they become because the heat changes the lycopene within them into a form our bodies can process a lot easier. This means that canned tomatoes have more nutritional benefits than the fresh variety thanks to the cooking and canning process.

Boiling vegetables. Most of us will have heard before that boiling vegetables like spinach is wrong because water soluble vitamins like vitamin C seep out during the process. However Jo reveals that antioxidant levels also lower when boiled. Instead, try steaming, sautéing or roasting your veg to keep it nutritious.

Don’t cook chopped garlic straightaway. If you put chopped or minced garlic in a hot pan as soon as you’ve prepared it, you stand little chance of absorbing any allicin, the beneficial compound that makes garlic such a fundamental part of a healthy diet. This is because it hasn’t had chance to activate, so leave it for ten minutes after preparing before putting it on the heat as this will give the enzyme a chance to do its thing.

Cutting carrots before cooking. We’re all guilty of this mistake at some point: cutting carrots before cooking them. While it seems like the logical thing to do, cooking them whole, then chopping them into your desired shape helps keep more nutrients in the little orange numbers. Jo adds that cooked carrots are better for you than in their raw form, as it helps break down the cell walls, which means the nutrients are easier to get to.

Some 7,700+ patients on Irish Hospital trolleys during May

    

It’s the highest May figure since records began

Over 7,700 patients were left waiting on trolleys for an inpatient bed last month – a 31% increase on the same period last year, new figures have shown.

According to the latest ‘Trolley/Ward Watch’ figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), 7,713 patients were left waiting on trolleys during May of this year compared to 5,891 during May of last year.

These are the highest May trolley figures seen since records began in 2006. In May of that year, 4,214 people were left waiting on trolleys, therefore last month’s figure of 7,713 represents an 83% increase.

The hospitals with the highest number of patients on trolleys last month included Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital (782), Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda (718), University Hospital Limerick (538) and University Hospital Galway (524).

The INMO pointed out that in recent weeks, two patients who were over 100 years old, were left waiting on trolleys for more than 24 hours. However, it insisted that ‘every day is the same inside Emergency Departments (EDs), with elderly people on trolleys lined up, head to toe, along small narrow corridors’.

The organisation said that there are not enough nurses to care for these patients and at this point, many of its members are ‘embarrassed to have to face patients and their families who have to suffer this indignity’.

INMO general secretary, Liam Doran, described the treatment of these elderly patients as ‘a damning indictment of our society’.

“While some investment has been made recently, it is only the tip of the iceberg. The Government as a whole needs to take responsibility for this ongoing crisis as we continue to see a deterioration in the figures month on month,” he commented.

He added that the stated target of having a reduction in the level of daily overcrowding in EDs by October 1 ‘is merely a pipe dream’, unless there is major investment in acute beds, step-down beds, community services and recruitment initiatives for nursing and other staff.

Six care workers in court for alleged assault of Áras Attracta patients

  

Case put back until July 14th to allow disclosure of TV footage and various documents

Six people appeared in court on Friday for allegedly assaulting patients who are intellectually disabled at the HSE-run Áras Attracta centre in Swinford, Co Mayo

Six people appeared in court on Friday for allegedly assaulting patients who are intellectually disabled at the HSE-run Áras Attracta centre in Swinford, Co Mayo.

The cases against all six, five women and a man, were put back until July 14th for mention by Judge Mary Devins at a sitting of Ballina District Court.

The cases against the defendants were put back to allow for disclosure of TV footage and various documents and papers that the State is seeking to rely on.

The six accused, Joan Gill (62), Dublin Road, Swinford; Patrick McLoughlin (56), Lalibella, Mayfield, Claremorris;Christina Delaney (35), Seefin, Lissatava, Hollymount;Kathleen King (56), Knockshanbally, Straide, Foxford; Joan Walsh (42), Carrowilkeen, Curry, Co Sligo and Anna Ywunsong Botsimbo (34), Lowpark Avenue, Charlestown, were all present for this morning’s brief court hearing.

An intensive garda investigation into allegations of assault was mounted following a Prime Time TV investigation late last year.

Footage, which was secretly filmed by an undercover reporter, showed residents at the centre being forced fed, physically restrained, shouted at and slapped.

The assaults allegedly occurred in November at what is known as ‘Bungalow 3’ in the Áras Attracta complex.

One of the accused, Ms Gill, faces five assault charges, the others one each.

Judge Devins put back all the cases to July 14th for mention to allow disclosure be provided. A date for a full hearing will be decided thereafter.

Solicitors for five of the accused requested that an application for free legal aid be deferred until a later date.

On the instructions of the DPP charges against all six defendants have been brought under Section 2 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.

The penalties for conviction are a fine of €1,905 or six months in prison.

The State was represented at the hearing by the State Solicitor for Mayo, Vincent Deane.

Polar bears develop a taste for dolphins as the Arctic warms up

   

Norwegian scientists have seen polar bears eating dolphins in the Arctic for the first time ever and blame global warming for the bears expanding their diet.

Polar bears feed mainly on seals but Jon Aars at the Norwegian Polar Institute has photographed dolphins being devoured by a bear and published his findings in the latest edition of Polar Research this month.

“It is likely that new species are appearing in the diet of polar bears due to climate change because new species are finding their way north,” he told AFP.

The first incident he documented was in April 2014 when his team came across a polar bear feeding on two white-beaked dolphins.

Although dolphins are regularly seen in the Norwegian Arctic in the summer when the ice has melted, they have never been observed during winter or spring when the sea is usually still covered in sheets of ice.

But Norwegian scientists have reported a strong retreat of ice and two nearly ice-free winters in recent years which they said could have attracted the dolphins further north, where they probably became trapped by the sudden arrival of dense ice blown into a fjord by strong northerly winds.

Aars said the bear he photographed had probably caught the two dolphins when they surfaced to breathe through a tiny hole in the ice.

“Even if they saw the bear, the dolphins did not necessarily have any other choice,” he said.

In the photos a skinny old male bear devours one of the dolphins and appeared to have stored a second one under snow for later – something which scientist had never seen before.

“We think that he tried to cover the dolphin in snow in the hope that other bears, foxes or birds would have less of a chance of finding it. Maybe to be able to eat it a day or two later, once he had digested the first one,” Aars said.

After the first incident in 2014, a further five cases of dolphins stranded or captured and then eaten by bears have been reported.

“I don’t think that this signifies a great upheaval” in the diet of the carnivores, Aars said. “It’s just that the polar bear is coming into contact with species they have not been used to meeting until now.”

Polar bears are opportunistic predators that are also known to feed on small whales if the opportunity arises.     

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG UPDATE

Moneypoint Co Clare power station could meet Ireland’s 25% of renewable energy targets

   Moneypoint power station

Malcolm Brown of BW Energy (left) and Paddy Massey of ReThink Pylons (above left) at a press conference in Dublin today outlining their plans for a pylon-free alternative to Grid25.

Converting Clare plant from coal to biomass would help deliver 40% of target, 

Ireland’s target of having 40% of energy needs met by renewable sources by 2020 could be met in a single stroke if the Moneypoint power station in Co Clare was converted from coal to biomass, according to a UK-based energy analyst working for ReThink Pylons, one of the groups opposing EirGrid’s Grid25 pylons project.

Malcolm Brown of BW Energy today said converting Moneypoint’s three coal-fired boilers, one at a time over an extended period, would cost €380 million. Electricity generated from burning biomass (mainly wood pellets) at Moneypoint would add 25% to the existing 19.6% of renewable energy already produced in the State.

The two together would exceed the 40% target Mr. Brown said.

Converting Moneypoint would also cut out the need for the €3.8 billion cost of increasing Ireland’s windpower capacity necessary under government plans to meet the 40% target, he argued.

In a report prepared for Re Think Pylons, he also argued that converting Moneypoint station would remove the €2.3 billion cost of the Grid25 pylon project and the €600 million cost of the interconnector with the UK to stabilise the power network due to its planned reliance on wind.

Grid25 is a project by Eirgrid, the company that runs the electricity transmission network as opposed to the power stations that generate the current, to upgrade transmission lines in the northwest, the south and southeast, and between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Interconnector capacity between Ireland and the UK is also to be upgraded.

The plans have garnered significant opposition from local groups, however, and in January, amid fears the issue would impact on the June local and European elections, the Government asked former Supreme Court Judge Catherine McGuinness to examine whether underground cabling was a feasible alternative to pylons.

Opponents argue that the pylons, in most instances 60 metres tall, would damage the landscape and reduce the value of their property. Some opponents also cite health fears for people living close to high voltage electricity transmission.

Speaking today at the launch of his report in Dublin, Mr Brown based much of his argument on an analysis of the operation of the Drax power station at Drax in North Yorkshire in England. It is the largest power plant in western Europe and provides some 7% of the UK’s energy needs but is also the single largest emitter of CO2.

Starting in 2004, Drax began a gradual conversion to biomass, burning locally sourced willow in parallel with coal. In 2012, the process of changing three of the plant’s six units to biomass began – the first of which was fired last June. A second unit is due to go fully biomass this year, and the third by 2017.

Mr Brown argued that recent advances in technology had made biomass electricity production both feasible and cost-effective. Security of biomass fuel supply, generally wood pellets, was guaranteed from US timber sources willing to enter nine-year fixed term contracts.

Most Irish consumers against Supermarkets vegetable price wars

  

Support for legislation to protect food producers from sharp practice by Irish based supermarkets. 

When asked by the Ipsos/MRBI survey if the below-cost selling of vegetables before Christmas was good for consumers in the long term, some 64% said it was not. Some 66% of those surveyed said retail multiples did not treat farm families fairly when buying their produce.

Just three in 10 people believe the sale of cheap vegetables has long-term benefits for consumers, new research by Agri Aware, the agri-food educational body, has found.

When asked by the Ipsos/MRBI survey if the below-cost selling of vegetables before Christmas was good for consumers in the long term, some 64% said it was not. Some 66% of those surveyed said retail multiples did not treat farm families fairly when buying their produce.

In December, Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes Stores were carrots and onions for as little as 5 cent a kilo. They insisted they were covering the cost of the promotion, but the Irish Farmers’ Association claimed farmers would pay for it and it staged protests.

However, National Consumer Agency chief executive Karen O’Leary described the price war as positive.

The Agri Aware survey of more than 1,000 people also found almost 88% of people think legislation should be introduced to ensure food producers get a fair price from supermarkets. A Bill expected to address this issue has been promised by the Government.

Agri Aware chairman Bernard Donohue said it was clear the public was very much behind the introduction of new legislation to ensure that retailers pay a fair price to farmers for quality produce.

“Following the vegetable price war at Christmas, the National Consumer Agency described this as positive, yet this Agri Aware survey clearly demonstrates that the Irish public expect retailers to treat farm families fairly,” he said.

The Agri Aware study also asked if quality or price was the most important consideration when buying groceries. Some 79 per cent cited quality. There was a difference between the importance of quality for those working and those unemployed. Some 83% of those working cited quality first compared with 63% of the unemployed.

Irish Dairy Board secures €420 million syndicated loan to fund a global expansion

 

The Irish Dairy Board (IDB), which owns Kerrygold along with brands such as Dubliner cheese, has secured a five-year syndicated loan of €420m to fund dairy businesses expanding overseas as milk quotas end in 2015.

The new loan replaces an existing three-year €350m facility, the IDB said yesterday. It includes a €165m syndicated loan facility to fund IDB’s own working capital requirements and its growth strategy.

The remaining €255m will be used for syndicated reverse invoice discounting for members.

The money comes from Allied IrishBank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch,Barclays, HSBC, Rabobank and Ulster Bank.

Reverse invoice discounting was first introduced in 2012 and allows members to discount their sales invoices to IDB, receiving funds up front, with IDB providing security of payment to the banks.

It was set up to help companies and individuals as they look for new markets in the wake of theEuropean Commission’s decision to liberalise the milk industry.

“The successful refinancing demonstrates the strong support that exists amongst our participating banks for both the IDB and the Irish dairy industry generally,” said group finance director Donal Buggy.

“This strong support was clearly voiced in recent meetings with all of our banks and is evidenced by our new facilities being significantly over-subscribed,” he added.

The Irish Dairy Board markets and sells dairy products on behalf of the country’s dairy processors and farmers.

The board has sales of around €2bn and employs about 3,100 people globally. It is responsible for exporting about 60pc of Ireland’s dairy products to more than 100 countries. It does this by sharing the story of Irish farming and explaining how Irish dairy products are produced.

By building markets for dairy products, it aims to increase the value of Irish milk and to deliver strong returns for farmers.

With pre-packing and blending facilities located in Germany, the UK, the US and the Middle East the board also develops specialist food ingredients for many of the world’s major food manufacturers.

Former Anglo director said he was not involved in the Sean Quinn unwinding deal?

  

William McAteer denies helping to orchestrate plan to unwind Quinn’s holding in bank.

William McAteer, the former director of finance at Anglo Irish Bank, told gardaí he “was not instrumental” in a deal to unwind businessman Sean Quinn’s holding in Anglo Irish Bank in July 2008, the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard this morning.

In a Garda interview in November 2011, Mr McAteer denied he was an integral part of the plan to dispose of Mr Quinn’s holdings, that he helped to orchestrate the plan, and that he was aware at all times of the details of the plan.

His interviews with Gardaí at Irishtown Garda Station in 2010 and 2011 were read into the record by Paul O’Higgins SC, for the prosecution, and confirmed by Detective Sergeant Glenn MacKessy and Detective Sergeant Michael Prendergast.

Mr McAteer (63) of Rathgar, Dublin; Seán FitzPatrick (65) of Greystones, Co Wicklow and Pat Whelan (51) of Malahide, Dublin, have been charged with 16 counts of providing unlawful financial assistance to 16 individuals in July 2008 to buy shares in the bank, contrary to section 60 of the Companies Act.

Mr Whelan has also been charged with being privy to the fraudulent alteration of loan facility letters to seven individuals.

All three men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The court had heard, by July 2008, Mr Quinn’s contracts for difference – investment products based on share value – involved more than 28 per cent of the bank’s shares.

As part of a deal to unwind them, the Maple 10 businessmen borrowed €45 million each from Anglo to buy 1 per cent of the bank’s shares and the Quinn children borrowed €170 million to buy almost 15 per cent of the shares.

The unwinding deal was carried out in the week of July 14th, 2008.

In his interview with gardaí, Mr McAteer said he had no involvement in the lending to buy the shares. When asked by gardaí Mr McAteer had said he did not recall a series of emails from around the time the deal closed.

Mr McAteer agreed he did play a part in trying to find institutional buyers for the Quinn CFDs. He also said he was broadly aware of the unwind deal but there were meetings and telephone calls he was not a party to.

Asked by gardaí if he had instructed others in Anglo to implement the unwind deal, he said he was sure he “instructed people to make sure it was properly executed”.

When asked by gardaí if he had anything to add, Mr McAteer said the Quinn CFD position was “unacceptable” and the financial regulator had been “very anxious” to get the holding unwound.

Also giving evidence this morning, house builder Seamus Ross, one of the Maple 10, said he had been a client of Anglo for more than 15 years and had a “very strong relationship” with the bank.

He was surprised when he was asked to meet Mr Whelan and former chief executive of the bank David Drumm on July 10th or 11th 2008.

He said he was asked if he would buy shares in the bank and was told about the Quinn CFD holding and that the financial regulator had approved a deal to unwind it.

He told the court he didn’t ask “that many questions” and was a bit surprised by the discussion. He thought what he was told was “bad news” and “he didn’t like to hear there was a problem”.

He also said he was surprised the terms involved a loan in his “own personal name” and it was to be a “private venture”.

Asked by Mr O’Higgins if he understood the recourse – what would have to be paid back if there was an outstanding balance – he said he believed the recourse was only to the value of the shares and there was no personal recourse.

The meeting didn’t take long, he said and he agreed to “go ahead and give the helping hand to the bank”.

“I was delighted to do that,” he said. The bank had helped him in the past.

Mr Ross said the documents had already been prepared.

“I signed whatever documents was put down and I left,” he said. He did not vet the documents, he said.

He also told the court that at the time he was fighting a court action which lasted three and a half years related to the presence of pyrite in people’s homes. He said he had “hundreds of people knocking on my door, their houses falling down”.

“This was in the middle of all this, so all I can do from memory is to help you the best I can,” he said.

Three-quarters of Ireland’s SME's were not giving pay rises in 2014

    

Up to 75% of small and medium businesses say they will not be handing out pay rises this year, according to a survey by office supply company Office Depot.

That is despite confidence in the sector continuing to grow.

The business survey also found that 51% of companies reported that positive media stories on the industry does not reflect the tough reality for most of the companies.

Stephen Ireland’s (dead?) grandmother asks Roy Keane to put him back into the Republic of Ireland squad

  

The Republic of Ireland assistant manager Roy Keane has been urged to recall Stephen Ireland – by the Stoke City midfielder’s grandmother he once falsely claimed was dead.

Ireland has not played international football since 2007, when he pulled out of the squad ahead of a match, saying that his grandmother had passed away.

When it was revealed that his story was false, Ireland said it was his grandfather’s second wife who had passed away, but once more this was proven to be fake.

Eventually he admitted that he left the Ireland squad to visit his girlfriend, who had reportedly had a miscarriage.

Keane revealed in the Irish Independent that by a quirk of fate he recently shared a flight with Ireland’s “dead” grandmother, who asked him whether he pick her grandson again.

“Well, I spoke with the grandmother this morning, she was on the flight coming over – and she asked me would he get back involved,” Keane told the paper.

“I couldn’t lie to her. I said he’d have a chance if he’s playing well. I think [manager] Martin  [O'Neill] had a conversation with him, and all that needs to fall into place.

“We all know how talented Stephen is and Martin will look at that.

“We wouldn’t be shutting the door on any player.

“What is important for any player, and Stephen is the same, is it does help to be playing week-in week-out.

“He’s obviously had a difficult spell. He’s only just got a run of games at Stoke now. So I certainly wouldn’t be ruling anyone out.”

Ireland spoke of his “regret” at the lie at the time, and suggested last year that he would be willing to return to international football.

Clever Crows smart like 4 year old children with causal reasoning

  

New Caledonian crows were tested with tasks based on Aesop’s Fables

A new study of the intelligence of New Caledonian crows suggests that the birds have reasoning powers roughly equal to those of a five to seven-year-old child.

The research, which was published in the journal Plos One, subjected six wild crows to a range of tests including a “water displacement” tasks based on one of Aesop’s fables, ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’.

In the test (and the fable) the thirsty crow has to drink out of narrow container filled with water. The bird cannot reach the liquid but works out that it can raise the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher.

When the crows were faced with this task they not only completed it, but did so in the most efficient way possible, choosing containers with higher water levels and choosing objects that were solid, rather than hollow, to raise the water level.

The tasks asked for crows to raise water levels to reach food.

However, it wasn’t all easy for the crows, and birds were stumped by more difficult tasks involving a U-shaped container with hidden connections. In this the birds were supposed to drop stones into one of the pipes to raise the water level in the other but “showed no signs of learning which tube would bring the reward.”

“These results are striking as they highlight both the strengths and limits of the crows’ understanding,” said Sarah Jelbert from University of Auckland, who led the study.

“In particular, the crows all failed a task which violated normal causal rules, but they could pass the other tasks, which suggests they were using some level of causal understanding when they were successful.”

The study concluded that the birds’ understanding of causal and effect was roughly equal to that of a five to seven-year old child. Caledonian crows, a species well known for their intelligence, have been observed making and using tools in the wild as well as placing nuts on busy roads so that they will be cracked by passing cars.

Any doubts about crows’ intelligence? Watch the video below of a crow solving a eight-stage puzzle from a recent BBC documentary.

Giant shrimp sheds new light on our evolution

 

Ancient shrimp-like creature (like artists impression above right) that lived 500 million years ago was not a SAVAGE predator?

A savage predator or a gentle vegetarian? For years an ancient shrimp-like creature that lived 500 million years ago had a fearsome reputation as an apex predator. New research from the University of Bristol suggests, however, that the creature was far more placid, avoiding meat and living on plankton.

The free-swimming creature Tamisiocaris borealis lived during the Cambrian period between 485 and 540 million years ago. This was a particularly important time for life on Earth, with an explosion of radically new animal designs evolving.

The dangerous-looking met re-long T borealis swam about eating all before it, according to original assumptions made about it. These were largely based on fossil remains showing grasping-like appendages near its mouth that are common in other animals in its group, the Anomalocarids.

Dr Jakob Vinther and colleagues from Bristol dug up a number of fossils from early Cambrian sediments in northern Greenland and they proposed an alterative view of what the creature had for dinner, in their research report published this evening in the journal Nature .

They suggest the appendages on T borealis were used as combs to collect plankton by sweeping it up off the seabed or filtering it out of the water. The appendages had a series of closely placed spines with longer ones and shorter ones and the scientists argue that at least with T borealis , they were used to collect vegetarian fare in the same way as anyfilter feeder.

The proposal is of interest to palaeontologists studying the emergence of animals during the Cambrian. If this large animal could survive on plankton, there must have been plenty of it about in the seas at the time, something that tells us more about the local food web, the authors say.

It also tells scientists that filter feeding was present at least as far back as the Cambrian era.