Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Ireland’s Tax take up 2.3% for 2013  Means a recovery is in progress

TAX REVENUE BOOSTED BY CORPORATE CONTRIBUTIONS

  

Ireland’s tax revenue rose 3.2% in 2013 from the previous year, providing evidence that the Irish economy is on the mend following the country’s exit from its three-year international bailout, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said.

Ireland’s tax revenue rose 3.2% in 2013 from the previous year, providing evidence that the Irish economy is on the mend following the country’s exit from its three-year international bailout, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Friday.

Tax revenue through the end of December totaled €37.8 billion ($51.68 billion), up from €36.64 billion at the end of December 2012.

The tax data show revenue from corporation taxes was above target in the year, but the sums raised from value-added taxes, or spending taxes, were about 2% less than the ministry had expected, suggesting that consumer spending remains under pressure. Overall, tax revenue was slightly lower than expected.

Ireland formally exited its bailout last month when it drew down the last of its bailout loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. However, under the program, the government is obliged to introduce more austerity to control its budget deficit through 2015.

The government projects the economy will grow 2% this year, helped by stronger demand for Irish exports, particularly from the rest of the euro zone and the U.K., the country’s main markets. “The exchequer performance in 2013 is evidence of the significant progress that has been made in stabilizing and now growing the economy and creating jobs,” Mr. Noonan said.

The finance ministry also said a so-called exchequer—or central government—deficit, at €11.49 billion in 2013, narrowed from a deficit of €14.89 billion in 2012.

Fitness-to-practise inquiries for nurses & mid-wives to be held later this year

 

FOUR NURSES AND ONE MIDWIFE STRUCK OFF IN 2013 FOLLOWING 13 INQUIRIES

Fitness-to-practise inquiries into complaints about nurses and midwives are to be held in public from later this year,An Bord Altranais has said.

It is expected the first public hearing will be held in May or June at the offices of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland in Blackrock, Dublin.

The Nurses and Midwives Act was passed in 2011 but sections dealing with how complaints against nurses and midwives are handled, including public hearings, were not commenced by Minister for Health James Reilly until October 2nd, 2012.

All complaints received about nurses and midwives after October 2012 are being dealt with under the new Act, and any received before the commencement date are being dealt with under the old legislation, which requires inquiries to be held in private.

Complaints under the new legislation are initially considered by the preliminary proceedings committee in private, in a process similar to that operated by the Medical Council when dealing with complaints against doctors.

The nurses’ preliminary committee held its first meeting to consider complaints last September. Under the old legislation, complaints could only be considered on two grounds: alleged professional misconduct or alleged unfitness to engage in practice due to physical or mental disability.

But the new legislation has nine grounds of complaint, including professional misconduct, poor professional performance, non-compliance with a code of professional conduct, a relevant medical disability or an irregularity in relation to the custody, prescription or supply of a controlled drug.

Once the preliminary committee finds there is sufficient evidence in a case to hold a fitness-to-practise inquiry, details of it will be passed on to an inquiry team. Though the inquiry that follows will normally be heard in public, under certain circumstances, it can be held in private or partly in private if the committee is satisfied “it would be appropriate in the circumstances”.

A nursing board spokeswoman said it was not possible to know how many inquiries would be held this year under the 2011 legislation.

“But based on experience under the Nurses Act, 1985, approximately 40 to 60 per cent of complaints received each year progress to an inquiry,” she said. She did not specify the number of complaints received so far under the new legislation.

In 2013, the results of 13 fitness-to-practise inquiries were confirmed by the High Court; four nurses and one midwife were struck off, seven were censured and one had conditions attached to her registration, according to the board’s website.

In 2012, the results of 17 fitness-to-practise hearings were confirmed by the High Court resulting in eight practitioners being struck off, seven having conditions attached to his or her practice and one practitioner being censured.

EirGrid’s €3.2bn plan must be financially justified  'says Marian Harkin MEP'

  

SAYS MARIAN HARKIN AS CONSULTATION DEADLINE APPROACHES

The public by accepting the harsh austerity measures imposed on them in the past five years have earned the right to be consulted on all future major public expenditure projects. This is according to Independent MEP Marian Harkinin the context of the planned €3.2bn investment by EirGrid in a number of infrastructural projects across Ireland.

She said: “As the Irish people face into further erosion of their quality of life they have every right to be consulted on large scale capital expenditures that they will ultimately have to pay for.  For example, no independent justification has been produced to prioritise investment in the national electricity grid.

In a situation where demand for electricity will not meet originally made forecasts, and where cost of production will severely hamper the prospect of power exports, there must be absolute clarification on the need for the proposed expenditure of €3.2bn on electricity grid enhancement.”

The MEP continued: ”It is the consumer who will have to provide this funding and the least the public deserves before further  erosion of their incomes is a full cost benefit analysis to justify the proposed €3.2bn expenditure.  The time is past when the public have to accept the word of ‘experts’ on what is necessary investment in infrastructure.

The multibillion overrun in expenditure on the inter urban motorway project is an example of spending control by ‘experts’.  This must not be allowed to happen with the Grid 25 proposal and other projects that involve further cost impositions on the public.

“There may be a good case made for Grid 25 but having regard to the fact that it was devised with substantially different circumstances and prospects involved there is a need to review the project to establish its current relevance on a cost benefit basis. Accordingly I have written to Minister Pat Rabbitte proposing the initiation of an immediate study to ensure that already hard pressed citizens do not have a further €3.2bn burden imposed on them without full justification on a cost benefit basis,” Harkin MEP concluded.

Meanwhile the deadline for third phase of public consultation on the EirGrid Link Project is next Tuesday, 7 January at 5pm. Its project would see the construction of hundreds of kilometres of overhead power lines suspended by pylons throughout the south-east and the Midlands.

The current period of consultation has been under way since 3 September, when EirGrid published a report identifying possible corridor options for the pylons. Previously, the deadline for feedback and submissions was  26 November, but that has been extended.

Members of the public are encouraged to make submissions to the project team in the following ways:

By visiting the Grid Link Project information centres, view the route corridor maps and provide feedback to the project team; and/or

The truth about human egg donation's

 

We have donated eggs to many including gay men, through an agency, in exchange for money. At one point, we were in the Washington Post about it. As a result of going public, we’ve gotten a good number of questions about it, and more requests than we can count from young women writing for their school newspapers.

The basics: The way egg donation is run, the parents who received my eggs have seen photos (and even a video interview) of me, whereas all we ever learned about them was first name and state of residence.

At one point we were told that one of our donations had been successful.

Intended parents who receive the eggs can basically use them at will, so it’s possible that someone used my eggs to have twins and then kept some more embryos in the freezer for later (embryos freeze a lot better than unfertilized eggs). So our egg donations have produced at least one child, and possibly quite a few more.

In 2007, we were on a panel about egg donation, along with doctors and psychologists. A psychologist remarked that egg donors are so giving and would never do something like that for the money.

Of course there are no such expectations of sperm donors.

We retorted by saying that financially struggling young women donate eggs out of the goodness of their hearts is like saying that poor men work in coal mines because they are so concerned that the rich have enough electricity.

Obviously, we were making some sarcastic comments, but egg donation and coal mining do have a few things in common in that they involve some physical danger, and they’re both forms of income generation that are not even considered by people who are born wealthy. When my grandmother died of ovarian cancer, it did not escape us that holy shit, I hyperstimulated my ovaries with hormones on purpose.

Egg donation is dangerous, folks. Or at least, it very well could be, and there isn’t a lot of financial motivation on anyone’s part to find out.

Of course, some egg donors, and some sperm donors, are indeed motivated primarily by altruism. In fact, the panel on which I was sarcastic (that actually could refer to a lot of events in our lives) also featured another egg donor who had donated three times, at least one of which she had not been paid for, because she was a really nice and earnest person who loved babies and wanted others to love them too.

But when agencies advertise for egg donors, the ads never say, “Do you have a big heart?” They usually have a picture of a blonde model and say something about making some €10,000 or so.

Two sisters in their 20s die in Letterkenny house fire in Co Donegal

 

Jodie Brogan (left) and her sister Anngeline died following a house fire at Ceanann View, Letterkennt, Co Donegal.

Man sleeping in back of house escapes unhurt from blaze in Letterkenny area

The scene outside the house at Cannon View at Mountain Top, Letterkenny today where a fire claimed the lives of two sisters.

Two sisters have died in a house fire in Co Donegal.

The two sisters, named locally as Jody (24) and Anngeline Brogan (28), died in the blaze in Letterkenny this morning.

The alarm was raised after the fire broke out at the house at Cannon View at Mountain Top at about 11am.

Emergency services rushed to the scene and found the two young women in one of the bedrooms.

One of them was understood to have died at the scene while the other was rushed to nearby Letterkenny General Hospital, but died a short time later.

A man who was sleeping at the back of the house escaped unhurt.

Gardaí sealed off the house as fire crews and Garda forensic officers carried out a full investigation.

Former Fianna Fáil minister Dr James McDaid, the local GP, was called to the scene after he got an emergency call to his offices at Scally Practise.

He said was shocked by the incident.

“It was just a horrific scene. That’s all I can say about it. My thoughts are with the family,” he said.

Local priest Fr Brian Quinn of the Church of the Irish Martyrs also attended the scene.

Other relatives of the women also gathered at the house as the news emerged.

The young women’s uncle, Frank Brogan, said: “I just can’t say anything at the moment. It’s just awful.”

Mayor of Letterkenny Cllr Pascal Blake said he was devastated at what happened. “It is just terrible news and my thoughts and prayers are with the family.

“It is just such a tragic start to the New Year and no family ever wants to hear this news. These two young women had their full lives to lives and for them to be cut down like this is just awful,” he said.

First asteroid of 2014 discovered by NASA

  

Early January 1, 2014, the Catalina Sky Survey collected a single track of observations with an immediate follow-up on what was possibly a small asteroid on a potential impact trajectory with Earth.

This shows Asteroid 2014 AA, discovered by the NASA-sponsored Catalina Sky Survey on January 1, 2014, as it moved across the sky.

Early Wednesday morning, January 1, 2014, while New Year’s 2014 celebrations were still underway in the United States, the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, collected a single track of observations with an immediate follow-up on what was possibly a small asteroid — 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) in size — on a potential impact trajectory with Earth.

Designated 2014 AA, which would make it the first asteroid discovery of 2014, the track of observations on the object allowed only an uncertain orbit to be calculated. However, if this was a small asteroid on an Earth-impacting trajectory, it most likely entered Earth’s atmosphere sometime between 2 p.m. EST Wednesday and 9 a.m. EST Thursday.

Using the only available observations, three independent projections of the possible orbit by the independent orbit analyst Bill Gray of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Steve Chesley of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are in agreement that 2014 AA would hit Earth’s atmosphere. According to Chesley, the potential impact locations are widely distributed because of the orbit uncertainty, falling along an arc extending from Central America to East Africa. The most likely impact location of the object was just off the coast of West Africa at about 9 p.m. EST January 1.

It is unlikely asteroid 2014 AA would have survived atmospheric entry intact, as it was comparable in size to asteroid 2008 TC3, which was about 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) in size. 2008 TC3 completely broke up over northern Sudan in October 2008. Asteroid 2008 TC3 is the only other example of an object discovered just prior to hitting Earth. So far, there have been a few weak signals collected from infrasound stations in that region of the world that are being analyzed to see if they could be correlated to the atmospheric entry of 2014 AA.

Donie's all Ireland news daily BLOG

More Irish household property tax protests on the way

  

Two of the four people injured in disturbances at South Dublin County Council last night did not turn up for work today, the council said.

Five protesters were arrested last night after a group disrupted a meeting of South Dublin County Council by forcing its way into the council chamber in Tallaght. Demonstrations were also held at meetings of Fingal, Galway and Kilkenny councils, but no arrests were made in those cases.

Senior staff who spent much of yesterday with gardai at the council offices in Tallaght said three employees of a Security Company G4S had been injured during the protest which was organised by the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes.

A fourth person, a female member of staff who was caught up in the protest when she opened a foyer door, was also said to be badly shaken and upset by the ordeal.

According to the council’s director of corporate services Philip Murphy, all three security men received blows during scuffles with the protesters. He said one man had a severely swollen face and complained of being hit by a protester’s fist.

Another security man received a torn shirt and bruising while a third complained of kicks to his knee. All three were treated for their injuries on site by council staff. Mr Murphy said two of the security staff were unable to come to work today due to their injuries.

Mr Murphy said council staff had expected a visit from the Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes and members of the group had been met in the foyer, and offered accommodation in the public gallery. However when the female member of staff came out of the council chamber and into the foyer, Mr Murphy said the group stormed the door. This door was open, but was just the first of two doors, the second of which was damaged in the charge, he said.

Mr Murphy said the second door was electro-magnetically locked and was burst open by the protesters. He said after the meeting the lock was no longer working.

It is understood the gardai, who took statements from staff yesterday also took possession of closed circuit television footage.

The Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes said it plans to hold further demonstrations to campaign against the property tax.

Socialist MEP Paul Murphy, who was arrested yesterday, said “any political party or institution involved with the property tax” is a target.

He was “surprised” members of the group were arrested and accused the gardaí of being “very heavy-handed”. One of the protestors was hospitalised after the demonstration, he said.

This morning Fine Gael South Dublin councillor Colm Brophy dismissed the demonstration as “an act of violent protest” which amounted to “a piece of political grandstanding” designed to get Paul Murphy re-elected.

Protesters forced their way into the chamber and started “jumping up and down and shouting”, Cllr Brophy told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland . Gardaí had “no choice” but to make arrests, he said.

Some 1,100 Irish elderly people awaiting places in nursing homes

  

More than 1,100 vulnerable elderly Irish people have been forced onto unofficial nursing home waiting lists in just two years, due to the HSE’s chronic funding problems.

Figures revealed in response to Health Minister James Reilly’s plan to officially introduce public waiting lists systems this year show that, in reality, the policy is already in operation.

According to the HSE, since the Fair Deal nursing home scheme was created in Oct 2009 to help reduce the cost of care for pensioners, 22,957 older people have been placed in public facilities.

However, since Dec 2011 — when the new scheme began to be impacted by wider health service funding issues — the number of people told they must wait for rooms until existing spots are “vacated” has surged.

At the end of 2011, a total of 583 people were waiting an average of one month for the vital care, with the figure increasing to 656 by the end of 2012.

The rates mean that, in just two years, 1,139 people have been told they cannot access public nursing home care.

However, these delays are not counted as official waiting lists. They are instead described as “placement list” applications.

Officially, it means the delays were not waiting lists until Dr Reilly ann-ounced the change in category earlier this month.

“Applicants are put on the ‘placement list’ when their application has been successfully processed to completion — that is, when they have been found to clinically require long-term residential care and the financial assessment has determined the amount the applicant must pay,” said a HSE spokeswoman.

“Funding approval is granted, within the resources available, before the individual can take their place.”

The decision to make nursing home waiting lists official policy was confirmed in the HSE’s national service plan for this year, released in January.

The document said the situation could not be avoided due to ongoing financial pressures on the HSE.

Ryanair’s bid for Aer-Lingus  blocked by EU Commission 

 

Ryanair says it is not getting a ‘fair hearing’ by the European Commission.

Ryanair has been notified that the EU Commission intends to reject the low-cost carrier’s attempt to takeover Aer Lingus.

The airline says it will appeal the decision in the European courts, as it is “being held to a much higher standard than any other EU airline” and described the decision as political and unfair. However the European Commission said a final decision had not yet been taken.

Ryanair added it had “met every competition concern raised” by the EU during the process and provided “irrevocable commitments from not one, but two, upfront buyers to eliminate all competitive overlaps” between the airlines, as IAG and Flybe stepped in to take over a number of routes.

The airline’s head of communications Robin Kiely said, “It appears clear from this morning’s meeting, that no matter what remedies Ryanair offered, we were not going to get a fair hearing and were going to be prohibited regardless of competition rules.”

Ryanair, which has indicated that this third bid for Aer Lingus would be its last, said it would launch an appeal in European courts against the decision by the Commission, which acts as the European Union’s competition authority.

“This decision is clearly a political one to meet the narrow, vested interests of the Irish government and is not based on competition law,” Keily added.

The government, which has said it is against the merger, declined to comment, as did an Aer Lingus spokesman.

Aer Lingus’s shares were 5 per cent lower at €1.27 in lunchtime trade, when Ryanair’s shares were unchanged at €5.67.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, was told last month that it had one last chance to submit measures to ensure the proposed €694 million merger did not reduce competition.

Ryanair’s latest offer to the Commission included ceding 43 routes to Flybe and hand to British Airways the routes Aer Lingus operates from London’s Gatwick Airport.

The Commission blocked Ryanair’s first attempt to take over Aer Lingus in 2007 and Ryanair dropped its second in 2009.

“The Commission will take a decision in this case at the end of February or the beginning of March,” said a spokesman for EU competition chief Joaquin Almunia.

Ballyshannon House fire earmarked for a Traveller family of 13 believed to be arson

 

Gardaí believe arsonists were behind an attack which has gutted a house into which a family of 13 Travellers was preparing to move to.

The family was allocated the house by Donegal County Council despite public protests that they were being placed among a community of settled, mainly retired, people.

Three weeks ago councillors criticised the plan by council officials to place the family in a five-bedroom house on a hilltop at Parkhill, less than two kilometres outside Ballyshannon.

Donegal Fianna Fáil councillor Seán McEniff denied he was racist or bigoted when he said Travellers should live in their own communities away from settled people.

Spike Island: Ballyshannon Fine Gael councillor Eugene Dolan, a former mayor of the town, said Travellers could be sent to Spike Island for all he cared.

Both condemned the attack which occurred at 3am. Nobody was inside at the time.

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty yesterday accused the councillors who criticised the decision to place the Traveller family in the home of “lacking political” leadership in their comments. He said their language could be considered as incitement to hatred.

Gardaí are investigating a complaint from the Donegal Travellers Project that the councillors incited hatred.

Independent TD, Thomas Pringle said it “would have been better for the local councillors to have taken a constructive approach, working towards ensuring that the family received all the support they required and work with the community to make sure that there was a smooth transition for the family.”

Gardaí carried out door-to-door inquiries in the area. Forensic examiners were warned by fire chiefs not to enter the burned building as it was structurally dangerous.

Locals said if the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction the fire could have spread to a neighbouring house.

Criminal behaviour: Mr McEniff said yesterday: “I stand by my view that Travellers should live in their own communities. Of course I don’t condone the fire attack. I did not in any way give any succour to any type of criminal behaviour.”

Mr Dolan said: “The fire attack should never have happened. I am totally opposed to anything like that.”

Ballyshannon and Bundoran fire services responded to the alert.

Donegal Council stated that due to the extent of the fire, it was not possible for teams to search the house and there were no occupants inside.

“It is confirmed that the house was very extensively damaged in the fire. The scene has now been handed over to the gardaí.”

Donegal County Council bought the house for €230,000 to allocate it for social housing. At the height of the boom houses on the same road were reckoned to be worth more than €400,000.

NUI College Galway secures funding to continue software design conversion course

  

NUI Galway secures funding to continue software design conversion course

NUI Galway, along with software industry partners, has secured funding from the Higher Education Authority to continue running its one-year higher diploma in software design and development, a conversion course targeted at graduates with limited or no IT experience.

The conversion course, which started in 2012, is targeted at helping to increase the supply of skilled graduates to work in the software industry in Ireland.

During the course, students will also get industry work experience to help start their careers in the software development field.

According to NUI Galway, those who enroll on the course will get a solid foundation in key software design knowledge, a choice of software architecture specialisation in either .NET or Java Enterprise, and a work placement with an industry partner in the Galway region.

The industry partners for the course will include Avaya, Ericsson, the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), Hewlett-Packard, Storm Technologies, The Marine Institute, Solano Tech NetFort Technologies, SourceDogg, Schneider Electric, Cisco and IBM.

Course director Dr Enda Howley said the higher diploma is an opportunity for graduates from fields such as engineering, science and business to invest one year in further education.

“Through placement experience with our industry partners, they will have an excellent prospect for recruitment as software developers in Ireland’s high-tech ICT sector,” he said.

Man dies in Drumfin Sligo 2 car road accident

  

A man in his 20s has died in a road crash in Co. Sligo. The two vehicle collision happened on the N4 near Drumfin at around 8.30pm last night.

The man died when the car he was driving collided with another.

He was taken to Sligo General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The passenger in his car and both the driver and passenger in the second car were all taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The road is closed this morning and gardai in Sligo are appealing for witnesses.

Donie's Monday news Ireland Blog

Ireland’s trade mission to France yields almost €13m in deals for Irish companies

        

Almost €13 million in new sales contracts have been signed as part of a three-day Enterprise Ireland trade mission to France.

Three Irish companies working in agri-technology signed new business contracts with existing and new customers in France yesterday.

Co Meath-based Dromone, which designs and manufactures coupling technology for the agriculture and construction sectors, secured a €9.7 million contract with Beauvais-based AGCO Group, France’s largest exporter of agricultural products.

Limerick-based agricultural manufacturing company Samco signed its first contract with a French co-op, securing a €220,000 deal with Cavac.

Cavac will be the sole distributor of Samco machines and degradable plastic film in the Vendée region in west France.

Kerry-based Dairymaster, a leading manufacturer of dairy farm equipment, signed a contract with animal genetics company Genes Diffusion that is expected to deliver initial sales of €3 million.

Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton, who is leading the trade mission, said the contract wins by three indigenous Irish companies showed “what is possible for innovative exporting companies operating in growth sectors”.

The deals demonstrated “Ireland’s international reputation as a source of high-quality products” in agri-technology, he added.

Irish exports to France increased by 14 per cent last year to €9.6 billion. The world’s fifth-largest economy is Ireland’s fifth-largest market for merchandise and fourth-largest market for services. Major exports to France include pharmaceuticals, food and computer software.

'Donegal Woman’s body found named' 2 days after house fire happened

       

The woman’s body that was discovered in her bungalow two days after there was a fire in it was named as that of Bridie McFadden

Gardaí were alerted by concerned members of the community in Falcarragh, Co Donegal, on Saturday night and officers had to break into the home of Ms McFadden. The 40-year-old’s body was found in the hallway and there was evidence of a fire in the living room which had extinguished itself some time earlier.

There was no evidence of a blaze outside the house and most of the interior damage was caused by smoke. All doors and windows were closed.

Garda Supt Eugene McGovern said yesterday investigators had not ruled out the possibility that the fire might have started in an electric heater.

“The fire appears to have been in the living room and it burned itself out quickly. Most of the damage seems to have been caused by smoke,” he said.

“It could have happened up to two days before the body was found. . .It appears the fire may have been extinguished because of lack of oxygen,” he added.

Ms McFadden lived alone in the house at Dunmore Lane. A native of nearby Ranafast, she was a member of the choir at her local Catholic church, St Fionan’s.

Prayers were said for her at both Masses yesterday morning.

“People around here are stunned by what happened. She was a lovely person who did quite a bit of voluntary work,” said parish priest Fr Denis Quinn.

Gardaí believe the fire was an accident but forensics officers were still investigating it yesterday.

Ms McFadden’s body was removed to Letterkenny General Hospital, where a postmortem will take place today.

The Ulster Bank fails to meet the new deadline of clearing backlog for today Monday 

     

Mr.Stephen Hester, RBS

The Ulster Bank says it does not expect full services to resume today, despite earlier pledges that a backlog of payments would be cleared by the beginning of this week.

In a statement, the bank said it was continuing to work through thousands of transactions affected by IT issues.

However, due to the “complexity and scale” of the backlog, it was unlikely to be fully up to date later today.

“We know this disruption is unacceptable and we continue to do all we can to help our customers,” the bank said.

“The staff in our branches and call centres are doing everything possible to help customers.”

The bank said about 50 of its branches will have extended opening hours – from 9.30am to 7pm – until Friday of this week.

Queues of people were visible over the weekend at some of the branches that were kept open on Saturday and Sunday.

In an information note for customers, Ulster Bank has sought to address concerns among those who are worried they may be disconnected from a utility or service provider if their account is not paid.

“We would like to reassure our customers and those of other banks that in most cases there will not be any impact,” the bank said.

It added some social welfare and children’s allowance payments continued to be affected by delays.

The bank said it would continue to provide welfare recipients with access to funds if they visited any branch with photographic ID and their account number.

The bulk of salary payments are now up-to-date; however, a small number of customers may still experience a delay, the bank added. It said any customer can access money via its ATM and branch network.

On the issue of credit ratings, it said it was working with the credit reference agencies to ensure customers’ credit ratings were not affected as a result of the payment backlog.

Will the world end in 2012?   Newly discovered Mayan text says no

Archaeologists in Guatemala have discovered Maya text that references the “end date.” However, the Maya text suggests that the Maya calendar is not meant to predict the end of the world, but to promote continuity and stability.

    

Is 2012 the end of the world? A new Mayan text says absolutely not. While apocalyptic predictions will abound throughout the year, archaeologists have proof that the world won’t end in 2012. Archaeologists digging at the site of an ancient Mayan city in Guatemala have unearthed a 1,300-year-old Mayan text that includes the second known reference to the dreaded “end date” of the Mayan calendar (also known as December 21, 2012). Archaeologists presented their findings at the National Palace in Guatemala on Thursday.

“This text talks about ancient political history rather than prophecy,” says Marcello Canuto, director of Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute, in a press statement. Canuto and Tomas Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala have been in charge of the archaeological dig at La Corona since 2008. In the past, La Corona has been defiled by looters.

“Last year, we realized that looters of a particular building had discarded some carved stones because they were too eroded to sell on the antiquities black market,” said Barrientos, “so we knew they found something important, but we also thought they might have missed something.”

Canuto and Barrientos stumbled upon the longest text ever uncovered in Guatemala. The Mayan text is carved on staircase steps and details approximately 200 years of La Corona history, notes David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Stuart was the first to see the 2012 reference in the Mayan text. He says it was carved on a stairway block that features 56 carefully carved hieroglyphs.  The archaeologist say that the Mayan text chronicled a visit to the Mayan city in AD 696 by Yuknoom Yich’aak K’ahk’ of Calakmul. The Mayan ruler was visiting allies and reasserting his power after being defeated by Tikal in AD 695.

“This was a time of great political turmoil in the Mayan region and this king felt compelled to allude to a larger cycle of time that happens to end in 2012,” says Stuart.

The archaeologists say that the 2012 reference is not an apocalyptic prediction, but an attempt to restore stability by explaining the Mayan king’s shaky reign in the context of something much larger.

“In times of crisis, the ancient Mayan used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse,” says Canuto.

The “end date” of December 21, 2012 is not actually the end of the Mayan calendar. In fact, the “end date” is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then another long-count period starts for the Mayan calendar on December 22, 2012.

In December 2011, NASA also weighed in on the question of whether 2012 is the beginning of the end. Citing Y2K as a similar example, space agency officials said that the “end date” will generate a lot of fanfare, but that 2012 will come and go just like any other year.

“Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012,” scientists said as part of a question and answer session.

NASA also noted that there are no threats to Earth or happenings in space that could end the world as we know it in December. Furthermore, the space agency cautioned that if unusual planetary alignments were to occur, the impacts on the Earth would be “negligible.”