Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

The Irish Central Bank is ‘delaying approval to new lender’ “Frank Money”

     

BRENDAN BURGESS OF THE FAIR MORTGAGE CAMPAIGN CLAIMED REGULATORS HAVE CONSTANTLY SAID COMPETITION WAS THE SOLUTION TO HIGH VARIABLE RATES.

The Central Bank has been accused of hypocrisy for its failure to so far approve new lender Frank Money.

Brendan Burgess of the Fair Mortgage Campaign claimed regulators have constantly said competition was the solution to high variable rates.

But he claimed the regulators had already taken seven months to authorise the new lender.

The new lender is awaiting approval from the Central Bank to enter the mortgage market, and will be targeting switchers and new borrowers once it gets authorisation.

Frank Money is aiming to have mortgage rates of 2.8pc – some 0.6pc lower than the new AIB variable rate, which will be the lowest in the market.

According to the Central Bank, the average variable rate for new buyers is 3.64pc currently.

This compares with an average rate of 2pc being charged by banks across the Eurozone.

For existing homeowners, the average variable rate being charged by banks here is 3.93pc.

Mr Burgess said a vulture fund could come in and buy a mortgage book and not be required to be authorised or licensed by the Central Bank.

“Yet Frank Money wants to introduce competition, which we all agree is needed, and the Central Bank has been sitting on the application for six to seven months,” Mr Burgess said.

“If they were serious, they would have this sorted out in a couple of weeks.

“It is hypocritical of the Central Bank to say we need more competition in the mortgage market and yet delay approving a potential new entrant,” he said.

There was no comment when the claims were put to the Central Bank.

Earlier this week, the Government avoided legislative defeat by not challenging to a vote the Fianna Fáil bill giving the Central Bank the power to regulate mortgage rates.

The Government did not press its amendment that the bill be referred to a pre-legislative stage. It now goes to committee stage.

Banking analysts now expect interest rates to fall. John Cronin, of Investec, said: “We expect further compression in mortgage rates over the course of the rest of 2016 and beyond.”

Irish factory gate prices down by 0.4% for year since April 2016

    

THE PRICE OF ENERGY PRODUCTS DECREASED BY 24.3% IN THE YEAR SINCE APRIL 2015

New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that monthly wholesale or factory gate prices decreased by 0.4% in April.

The CSO said that the annual percentage change showed a decrease of 3.8% in April, compared with a decrease of 3.3% in the year to March.

The most significant changes on a monthly basis were increases in the prices of fish and fish products, which rose by 4.8%, while basic metals increased by 3.7% and meat and meat products rose by 0.9%.

Decreases were seen in dairy products prices, which fell by -2.6% in the month.

Basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations were also 1.1% while other food products including bread and confectionary eased by 0.5%.

The CSO noted that the price of energy products decreased by 24.3% in the year since April 2015, while petroleum fuels decreased by 12.2%.

It also said that all building and construction materials prices increased by 1.1% in the 12 months to April.

Ireland’s families opt for cheaper health insurance cover to cut costs?

    

 HEALTH INSURANCE BROKER DERMOT GOODE (LEFT PIC), SAID THE DECREASE IN THE AVERAGE SPENT ON PREMIUMS INDICATES THAT CONSUMERS ARE BECOMING MORE PROACTIVE IN TERMS OF DIGGING OUT THE BEST DEALS AND REVIEWING THEIR COVER EACH YEAR.

Irish families have moved to cheaper and better-value health insurance in response to the rising cost of cover.

New figures from the Health Insurance Authority (HIA) show that the average premium was €1,173 for an adult last year.

This is down from the average of €1,200 paid in the previous year.

Some 2.12 million people now have health insurance, up 4,000 since last December, the HIA has said.

The move by families to seek better value, with others downgrading their cover, comes despite ongoing premium increases.

VHI pushed up the cost of more than 50 plans on May 1, with rises of between 1pc and 7pc, the HIA said.

Laya Healthcare increased premiums on Essential Connect Family and ended a special offer on children’s premiums.

GloHealth raised the cost of 37 plans at the start of this month, while Aviva increased the cost of nine of its plans this month.

These rises come after increases last December, and a string of other hikes last year.

Health insurance broker Dermot Goode, of TotalHealth¬Cover.ie, said the decrease in the average spent on premiums indicates that consumers are becoming more proactive in terms of digging out the best deals and reviewing their cover each year.

“However, four out of five consumers are still insured on the wrong plans and are paying too much.

“Reviewing your cover every two and three years is not enough – you must do this annually to keep pace with all the changes and bag the best deals as you would car or home cover.”

There are around 420 different plans from the four insurers.

Chief executive of the HIA Don Gallagher said the market was dynamic, with a range of polices and price ranges.

“There is value to be had, but consumers need to actively consider what cover they want and be prepared to switch insurers to get cover at the right price.”

Mr Gallagher added that if consumers have not looked at their health insurance plan in the last two to three years, they may not be getting the best value available in the market for the level of cover they want.

He said there was a recovery in the health insurance market in terms of the numbers insured.

The four insurers got a boost this time last year when close to 100,000 people took out cover for the first time.

This was to avoid penalties imposed on those over the age of 34 who take out cover for the first time as part of lifetime community rating.

Mr Goode said that once the numbers who took out cover to avoid the penalties is stripped out, the market has largely remained stagnant.

“We are still a long way off the 2.3 million insured in 2008,” he said.

Total health insurance premiums paid in 2015, gross of tax relief, amounted to €2.4bn, which was an increase of 0.5pc from 2014.

Based on population estimates, around 45.9pc of the population held private health insurance at the end of March 2016.

At its peak in 2008, close to 51pc of the population held private health insurance.

New EU rules ban 10 pack cigarette’s, & increase size of health warnings

IRELAND HAD ALREADY INTRODUCED SIMILAR MEASURE AGAINST PACKETS OF 10 IN 2007

      

IRREGULAR SHAPED TOBACCO PRODUCT PACKS THAT CAN POTENTIALLY OBSCURE THE VISIBILITY OF HEALTH WARNINGS HAVE BEEN BANNED IN THE EU.

Packs of 10 cigarettes are being withdrawn from sale and the size of graphic health warnings on tobacco products is increasing as part of EU rules coming into force from today.

A new directive by the European Commission (EC) means member states must comply with regulations that ban the sale of smaller or promotional packs, which are perceived as being more attractive to younger smokers due to the reduced cost. The minimum carton size will now be 20.

Ireland had already introduced a similar measure in 2007.

Graphic photos and text outlining the adverse consequences of smoking must now cover 65 per cent of the front and back of cigarette and roll your own tobacco packs.

Irregular-shaped packs that can potentially obscure the visibility of health warnings have been banned.

Ireland is one of 11 countries – including the United Kingdom, Germany andItaly – that have already transposed the directive into national law; from tomorrow, countries that have not done so face infringement proceedings from the EU.

Vendors must also cease trading tobacco products with “characterising flavours” such as vanilla or candy, but flavoured products that have an overall market share of greater than 3 per cent will remain available until 2020.

The EC has said it will establish a procedure for determining what constitutes flavoured tobacco products and will impose bans accordingly.

The tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide labelling currently on packs will be replaced with an information message saying: “Tobacco smoke contains over 70 substances known to cause cancer.”

The directive also includes changes to the regulation of e-cigarettes, which must now abide by maximum nicotine concentrations and maximum cartridge volumes.

Health warnings will become mandatory for e-cigarettes, informing consumers that they contain nicotine and should not be used by non-smokers. E-cigarette packaging will include a list of all ingredients contained in the product and nicotine concentration.

Furthermore, the EC has outlined new measures to combat the illicit trade of cigarettes across Europe, and an EU-wide tracking and tracing system will now be established.

Legitimate tobacco products will contain added security features, including holograms to aid the detection of illegal or counterfeit supplies.

The more stringent regulations aim to reduce the estimated 700,000 premature deaths across member states each year caused by smoking.

Ireland became the first country in the EU to introduce legislation for plain cigarette packaging in 2015, but the policy has not yet been implemented due to protracted legal wrangling.

Great fears about extremely rare ‘blue moon’ event this SATURDAY night

WHICH COULD SIGNAL DOOM FROM ABOVE?

    

A concerned Bonnie (left pic) over a Blue Moon in previous years 

A VERY RARE ‘BLUE MOON’ EVENT THIS SATURDAY NIGHT HAS LEFT MYSTICS FEARING IT IS AN OMEN THAT? “SOMETHING REALLY BAD IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN ON EARTH.”

Paranormal YouTubers have been posting videos ahead of the event with some saying “something just doesn’t feel right”

A blue moon is a second full moon in the same calendar month.

But Saturday’s event is even rarer as it also a fourth full moon in one season – the period between a solstice and an equinox, as there would usually be just three.

It happens every three years, and this particular blue moon was known as the full flower moon by Native Americans.

During the event, which will be visible across the UK at around 10.14pm on May 21, the moon does not actually go blue.

But the scarcity of the phenomena gave rise to the saying about rare events happening once in a blue moon.

Bonnie, a tarot card reader on The Sacred Love Oracle YouTube channel based in Canada, said in a video she felt “negative energies” and it may be due to planetary alignments and the “full Moon”.

In a video entitled Full Moon/Blue Moon May 21 2016 Oracle Special, she said: “I’m going to start with the oracle card for this full moon for this month

“There are energies now that are bothering me, I am becoming more sensitive.

“There is something there that is not really great for everyone

“Something is wrong, something is not right. I feel something is bad.”

While Bonnie couldn’t seem to put her finger on it, the Nemesis Maturity channel warned the blue moon event could be associated with more bizarre behaviour than is commonly linked to a typical full moon.

The channel said in a video: “Since ancient times, full moons have been associated with odd or insane behaviour, including sleepwalking, illegal activity, fits of violence and, of course, transforming into werewolves.

“In 18th-century England, people on trial for murder could campaign for a lighter sentence on grounds of lunacy if the crime occurred under a full moon, meanwhile, psychiatric patients at London’s Bethlehem Hospital were shackled and flogged as a preventive measure during certain lunar phases.

“Even today, despite studies discrediting the hypothesis, some people think full moons make everyone a little loony.”

Other videos have been posted online claiming the astronomical event is a sign before a mythological huge Planet X or Nibiru is about to pass us, with the gravitational pull wreaking havoc on Earth.

So what are the chances of something bad coming this way on Saturday?

Online doom mongers warned before last July’s blue moon it was a bad sign, particularly as it came before the infamous Blood Moon of last September which was also supposed to spell the end of the world.  

Donie's Ireland daily news blog Saturday

Reilly hopes to strengthen Private Health Insurance regulation next year

 

IMO’S GP COMMITTEE SAY ‘NO HOPE’ OF FREE GP CARE FOR ALL BY 2016 

Minister for Health James Reilly said he would introduce legislation to further regulate the health insurance market to ensure it is ‘fair and transparent’.

Minister for Health James Reilly has said he will introduce legislation to further regulate the private insurance market in next year.

Speaking on RTÉ radio today Dr Reilly said he would legislate “to empower the Health Insurance Authority as the regulator of the market to ensure that we have a fair and transparent market”.

Dr Reilly said there were “far too many” private health insurance plans on the market which were confusing for customers.

“The reason (they) try to confuse you in my view is so that you can’t make a valid and valued decision in relation to what is best for you and to me that’s not right and proper or appropriate,” he said.

“The Health Insurance agency needs to have its powers beefed up so that it can dictate to the market how many policies are allowed on the market at any one given time… I am determined that we will address this issue of the proliferation of plans in the new year in order to simplify things for the consumer.”

Dr Reilly also voiced his commitment that free GP care for all would be delivered by the next general election in early 2016.

“That’s absolutely the commitment of the Government,” he said. “I am absolutely committed to it, my Government are committed to it… that remains our goal, remains an absolute must to achieve,” he said.

Reacting to his comments, the GP committee of the Irish Medical Organisation has said there is “no hope” that free GP care for all will be achieved by 2016.

Committee chairman Dr Ray Walley said Dr Reilly’s commitment that free GP care would be implemented within the next two years was “Government by sound-bite”.

“The Department of Health have no plan to support this objective and no appreciation of the resources required to implement it,” he said.

“Politicians talk up free GP care as if it’s free for everyone but the reality is that people will still pay for their GP but will simply do so indirectly through their taxes or through an insurance scheme instead of directly as at present,” he added.

Irish Government to exclude small firms from tendering for public contracts

New  Government rules on the tendering and awarding of public contracts will exclude small businesses, the Small Firms Association (SFA) warned.

The organisation’s chairman said the Government’s new policies for deciding which bidders should win public contracts have the potential to eliminate small businesses from the tendering process. The rules, which seek to save taxpayers €500m, emphasise cost-saving and electronic transactions.

“In its pursuit of the cheapest price, the Government is neglecting the fact that this will not deliver either the quality, cost-in-use savings or service levels it desires – but will result in lost jobs,” said SFA chairman AJ Noonan.

He was speaking at the organisation’s annual lunch in the former Burlington Hotel in Dublin, now trading as a Hilton DoubleTree Hotel. The SFA also called for better access to credit for small firms in addition to a fairer public procurement system.

“Access to credit is still one of the biggest issues for small firms,” said Mr Noonan. One in four small firms still finds it hard to access credit, according to research from his organisation.

“Both AIB and Bank of Ireland claim they have a huge approval rate for loan applications from businesses, but there is shockingly low draw-down levels.

“This is because the price and terms and conditions attached to these loans are just not feasible. There’s no point approving a loan if what you are offering is not actually going to be any use to the consumer.” He called on the Government to establish a new state-owned bank aimed solely at lenders, modelled on the now-defunct Agricultural Credit Corporation.

The SFA also called on the Government to clarify what Ireland’s exit from its bailout programme on December 15 will mean for small businesses here.

“Will regained sovereignty mean parity for entrepreneurs and small businesses in accessing finance and credit?” said Mr Noonan.

“Will it mean that our pension contributions will be safe from further levies?”

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar spoke at length at the event, calling among other things for a hike in the point at which Irish people are charged a higher tax rate.

Currently, the higher tax rate of 41pc kicks in on any income above €32,800 for a single person and €45,400 for a married couple or civil partners.

“Irish people are hit with the highest rate of tax even on modest incomes,” said Mr Varadkar, who added that these taxes were damaging domestic spending, which is crucial for small firms.

Lower income women more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer later  

A STUDY SHOWS

Cancer charities have called for urgent action on health inequalities after a study revealed that ‘social deprivation’ may be responsible for as many as 450 avoidable deaths from breast cancer every year.

Women from lower income groups are much more likely to be diagnosed later, when cancers are more advanced and more difficult to treat, according to research to be presented at the National Cancer Research Institute conference in Liverpool today.

The treatment history of more than 20,000 women was analysed by researchers and it was found that if all groups of women had their cancers diagnosed at the same stage as the most affluent women, 40 lives could be saved.

The charity Breast Cancer Campaign called on public health leaders to give “urgent consideration” to new action to ensure breast cancer is always diagnosed early.

The research was funded by Cancer Research UK. Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at the charity, said that other research had shown that poorer women were more likely to feel “embarrassed or worried” about going to see their GP.

“People are much more fearful of serious illnesses in a deprived community, perhaps more so than in more affluent areas where better access to accurate information allows people to know that cancer isn’t necessarily a death sentence,” said Dr Simon Abrams, a GP in Everton, which has the most deprived population in England, according to Department of Health indicators. “There is a lack of information about symptoms and also a fear factor that is quite substantial,” he told The Independent.

Eluned Hughes, head of public health at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “By focusing on improving early diagnosis particularly in deprived areas we can have most impact in stopping women dying from breast cancer.”

“Most cases of breast cancer are found by women noticing unusual changes in their breasts and visiting their GPs. The earlier breast cancer is found, the better the chance of beating it, so it is important women check regularly.

Dr Sharp added: “All women should be aware of how their breasts normally look and feel because we know that early diagnosis is one of the most important factors in whether breast cancer treatment is effective.”

In Ireland, there were 2,463 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in 2007 making it the most common invasive cancer in Irish women.

Introducing a do it at-home fertility test for men

To any man rushing out to buy the new over-the-counter fertility test available from Boots, I say this: enjoy the excitement while it lasts. For you, the chance to find out whether your sperm count is “normal” or “low”’ may feel like one small step for a man.

But women know that when that first packet of Sperm Check Fertility drops into the shopping basket you’ve taken one thumping great leap for mankind – straight into an abyss of anxiety.

Today, that quickie test – taking 10 minutes, available for just £29.99 – may make you feel “in control” of your end of the fertility business, revealing who is hitting the World Health Organisation’s target level of 20 million or more sperm per millilitre.

Tomorrow, you may purchase a second test, or a third, or bulk-buy online “for friends”, because it was “fun” or “fascinating” to do, or you dropped the test in the loo, or the result can’t be right and must be due to yesterday’s bike ride, or those tight trousers, or that hot bath, or actually because the first test was clearly part of the two per cent margin of error quoted by manufacturers.

From now on, you are just one more minnow swimming about in the maelstrom of an infertility business estimated to be worth £3 billion globally and rising, shopping for facts and certainties, when all you can really do is grasp at hopes and dreams.

Welcome, gentlemen, to our world, where women are constantly sold the promise of “control” – over our faces, figures and finances, but especially over our fertility. The world where we’ll happily spend all our disposable income and more on products to assist conception: from expensive herbal supplements to ovulation kits, pregnancy detectors to thermometers. The world where oocytes – egg cells, to the uninitiated – are an obsession, not a high score in Scrabble. For now it’s your turn to enter this emporium of reasons to rejoice, or to despair.

Perhaps you are tempted by some red healing crystals, or Ayurvedic medicine, or even the prospect of “Snowballs” cooling underwear (still in development, and based on the theory that the testes need to be kept cool to produce healthy sperm). Or maybe you just want to stock up on one of the vitamin supplements packed full of amino acids and herbs known to thin the blood, in the hope of improving erectile quality.

Of course, the reality for men – as for women – is far less frivolous than my shopping lists suggest.

Male fertility is in decline, as research published last December showed. Between 1989 and 2005, average sperm counts fell by a third in a study of 26,000 men, increasing their risk of infertility, according to researchers from the Institut de Veille Sanitaire in St Maurice. The quantity of healthy sperm produced was also reduced, by a similar proportion.

The findings, published in the journal Human Reproduction, confirmed findings over the past 20 years that shows sperm counts declining across the world. Many reasons, ranging from tight underwear to toxins in the environment, have been advanced to explain the fall, but no definitive cause has been found. The European Commission has even set up a working group, Reprotrain, to tackle the increasing crisis around “Male Reproductive Biology and Andrology”.

Some men won’t need the new test. They already know, or suspect, they have a problem (it is estimated that problems with sperm account for about a third of known fertility problems) but are probably suffering in silence. Far less attention, after all, is paid to the psychological effect failure to conceive can have on men.

Jo Hemmings, a behavioural psychologist and relationship coach, says: “Perhaps because women are deemed to have a stronger maternal instinct than men’s paternal instinct, and gestate, give birth and breast feed, they have received more attention than men. And so men are often seen as having an almost interdependent role – more of a support role to their partner’s emotions, than a need to express emotions in their own right.”

Men do not have quite the same sort of societal “permission” to express feelings around infertility, she notes. “Yet for many men, there are feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, guilt, shame and anger. This can often lead to a withdrawal from communication – and indeed sexual dysfunction – making the problem that much more difficult.” Old stereotypes have not done much to help. Men with fertility problems may find it grimly ironic that, until recently, all males were considered fertile until proven otherwise, even in old age. And there were only two realistic ways of altering that: a vasectomy or condoms.

For, just as attention has focused on women’s experiences of infertility, so has the medical establishment concentrated on women’s control of fertility.

Scientists have been talking about a male contraceptive pill since the early 1980s (with many women sceptical as to whether they would trust a man to take it), but we are still not there.

According to the NHS, research is focusing on combinations of hormones – synthetic testosterone and progestogens – with some in phase III trials, the last stage of clinical trial before a medicine is given a marketing licence. Scientists in Israel are looking into how blood-pressure drugs called calcium channel blockers (such as nifedipine) may alter the metabolism of sperm so that they are not able to fertilise an egg – such a pill could be on offer as early as 2015, researchers suggest. We won’t hold our breath.

In the meantime, rising levels of anxiety seem to be doing a better job on suppressing fertility than hormones. Researchers note that the increase in the number of men diagnosed with infertility seems to correlate with increasing anxiety in general. In July, psychiatrists at the University of Cambridge and the University of Hertfordshire reported that more than 8 million people in Britain suffer from anxiety disorders – up from 2.3 million people in a 2007 study.

Of course, infertility makes people anxious, raising the possibility of a vicious cycle. The impact of male infertility is an area “where the man’s psychological and physiological reactions should be considered far more seriously than current research would suggest”, argues Hemmings.

And yet, silence still surrounds the issue in many quarters. Visitors to the female-dominated Mumsnet website forum discussing conception quickly learn that there is no such thing as TMI (too much information) among women desperately seeking reassurance as they attempt to get a BFP (Big Fat Positive) line on their pregnancy test. But hop over to the Men’s Health site forum on “becoming a dad” and users seem more worried about whether their wives will still be attractive after giving birth.Look, too, to the Hollywood stars who – refreshingly – are admitting to fertility problems more openly than before; they are overwhelmingly female. You won’t find many men risking their He-Man reputations. A rare exception is Tom Arnold, the hero of True Lies and ex-husband of Roseanne Barr, who said earlier this year: “I have a very low sperm count. I didn’t think fatherhood was in the cards for me, I’ll be honest.”

Given this backdrop, perhaps SpermCheck will help to get men talking about infertility as openly as women do. Certainly, men and women need to accept when there is a legitimate problem – and not be afraid to ask for support. At the time of the contraceptive pill being introduced, Germaine Greer said: “The management of fertility is one of the most important functions of adulthood.”

Fifty years on, how we handle infertility is at least as vital.

Rare solar hybrid Eclipse this Sunday see it 

Heres how to view it

There’s a rare hybrid solar eclipse coming on Sunday, and no matter where you are in the world, you will be able to see it — thanks to the Internet.

The eclipse will be easy to see from Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe, the Caribbean, and Northern South America. The eastern U.S. and Canada will also have a chance to view the event, but it could be more difficult. People living in this region that wish to see the eclipse should make sure they have an “open view” of the eastern horizon.

If you live on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, in parts of southern Europe or anywhere in Africa, then you can enjoy this eclipse firsthand with a little planning and the proper viewing glasses, of course.

If you live in Los Angeles or somewhere that is not any of the places mentioned above, then you will have to turn to your computer if you want to watch the eclipse live.

Luckily, Paul Cox, an astronomer at the online observatory Slooh.com, is shepherding a telescope and other equipment to a remote spot in Kenya, where he plans to live-stream the total eclipse to viewers across the world.

Those of us on the West Coast will have to get up early if we want to see the total eclipse as it happens. The Slooh broadcast begins at 3:45 a.m. PST Sunday. (We will have just set our clocks back as we moved from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time). The broadcast, which also include feeds from telescopes in Gabon, Africa, and the Canary Islands, will end at 7:15 a.m. PST.

The Nov. 3 eclipse is known as a hybrid eclipse. When it first occurs, it will be in the annular form, which is also known as a ring eclipse. At this point, the moon is not quite big enough to fully cover the sun, so it leaves what’s known as a ring of fire around its periphery. But as the eclipse moves east, the curvature of the Earth makes the moon appear larger, and by the time the eclipse gets to central Africa, the moon will cover the sun entirely.

If you are on the East Coast of the U.S., you can catch a partial eclipse, in which the sun will appear to have a bite taken out of it, at 6:30 a.m. EST on Sunday. Get yourself to a place where you have a clear view of the eastern horizon, and make sure you have eclipse glasses or No. 13 or No. 14 welder’s glasses. But don’t be late. Your window of opportunity to see the partial eclipse is just 30 minutes.

If you want more information about what our East Coast friends will see Sunday morning, check out Sky and Telescope’s story about the eclipse. The site has also put together this handy graphic to help you understand when and where the eclipse will be visible.

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Tuesday

64,000 Irish people give up private health insurance

  

A TOTAL of 64,000 people dropped their health insurance last year, according to latest figures from the Health Insurance Authority.

It said that at the end of 2012 there were just under 2.1 million people with in-patient cover. The average premium paid last year per person (including children) was €1,048 – net of tax – an increase of 12pc from 2011.

At the peak of the market in 2008, there were almost 2.3 million people with in-patient private health insurance.

It means that now over 45pc of people have cover, compared with nearly 51pc at the peak.

Italian election hurts sentiment

EUROZONE sentiment tumbled in March, ending a six-month trend of gains due to fears of renewed political uncertainty following Italy’s inconclusive election.

The Sentix research group said its monthly index tracking investor sentiment in the eurozone fell to -10.6 in March from -3.9 in February.

This compared with a Reuters consensus forecast of -5.2.

“The reason for this setback is obvious: it is the outcome of the election in Italy which has caused uncertainty over the country’s future development to skyrocket,” Sentix said in a statement.

Latvia will apply to join EU in 2014

BALTIC state Latvia has decided to apply to join the eurozone next year. This is a sign of the faith in the currency which still exists in eastern Europe after three years which have threatened the project.

Latvia pegged its currency to the euro after joining the European Union in 2004.

Latvia and Lithuania, which pegged in 2002, stuck with the links through two years of turmoil after 2008 which saw their economies shrink by up to a fifth.

Both have recovered strongly – in Latvia’s case helped by an EU and IMF bailout in 2009 – and have been on track to seal membership of the 17-member club after neighbouring Estonia joined successfully in 2011.

Flights grounded in Iberia strikes

SPANISH airline Iberia has said that about 1,300 flights will be cancelled this week as workers begin a second round of strikes. The action is in protest at the loss-making company’s plans to lay off almost a fifth of its workforce.

The government has ordered a minimum amount of services should remain, meaning 85pc of long-haul flights, 62pc of medium-haul and 47pc of domestic flights are guaranteed.

Majority of Irish motorists struggling to pay their bills

  

Nearly 60 per cent of people say they had difficulty paying for either fuel, car tax, NCT or motor insurance over the last 12 months.The majority of motorists in Ireland are struggling to keep their cars on the road, according to a new survey.

The survey, conducted by AA Ireland shows that 58 per cent of people agree that they have struggled to fund either fuel, car tax, NCT or motor insurance over the previous year.

Of the 9,600 people who carried out during January of this year, a total of 79 per cent said they plan to stick with their current car for as long as possible.

Of the respondents, 28 per cent are saving or have saved for when they next go to purchase a new or second hand car.

Some of the respondents said that finances have become so tight, they were forced to take their cars off the road for periods stretching from a few weeks to a few months.

Director of AA Consumer Affairs Conor Faughnan said there is growing financial pressure placed on drivers.

Motorists have been squeezed and squeezed and clearly the money they’re putting into running their cars has to come from elsewhere,” he said.

From what we’re hearing from the front line we’re going to be seeing more and more older vehicles on our roads and drivers need to be really conscious of wear and tear.”

Eir-Grid identifies potential routes for Grid West

  

EirGrid said no decisions regarding the final corridor or route have been made at this stage

Potential routes for a high-capacity overhead power line in the west of Ireland have been identified by EirGrid.

It is proposed that the €240m line will link Bellacorick in Co Mayo to the electricity grid at either Flagford in Co Roscommon or Casla in Co Galway.

The Stage 1 report on the Grid West project identifies a number of kilometre-wide “corridors” for the line.

One of these, between Bellacorick and Flagford, is described as the “least constrained”.

It is considered to be the corridor that best avoids environmental, heritage or technical issues that have been identified.

This route travels near the towns of Ballina, Swinford and Ballaghaderreen before terminating at Flagford, close to Carrick-on-Shannon.

The project is part of a wider plan to upgrade the national grid by 2025.

EirGrid is seeking public feedback on the proposed corridors and will be holding eight open days in Galway, Roscommon, Leitrim and Mayo in the coming weeks.

The company said no decisions regarding the final corridor or route have been made at this stage.

The Industrial Development Authority has said upgrading the country’s electrical infrastructure is essential for future competitiveness.

Brendan McDonagh of the IDA’s Business Intelligence Division said energy security was a key component in attracting multinational corporations.

Mr McDonagh said the provision of a strong, secure electricity supply was vital in the effort to attract inward investment to the region, particularly in the information and scientific sectors.

The Council for the West has appealed to communities and landowners in the area to support the Grid West project.

Chairman Sean Hannick said concerns about electricity supplies had been an issue over the last ten or 15 years and had a negative impact on getting new industry to set up in the western region.

My brain’s is so tired!

Scientists looking at seratonin find you may well be right

   

Physical exhaustion can occur when the brain – as well as the muscles – grows tired according to a study that sheds fresh light on the role played by the mind in determining endurance levels.

Scientists have found that a key neurotransmitter in the brain, which controls the signaling process between nerve cells, can determine whether someone feels exhausted following physical exercise or after taking anti-depressant drugs such as Prozac.

Although levels of serotonin rise during exercise, which provides a psychological boost and “feel-good” factor, it can also result in a widespread central fatigue that ultimately leads to someone feeling exhausted and unable to carry on, scientists found.

Researchers led by Professor Jean-Francois Perrier of the University of Copenhagen found that while serotonin helps to keep people going during the early stage of vigorous exercise, a build-up of the neurotransmitter in the brain can have the opposite effect by causing “central fatigue” of the nervous system even when the muscles are still able to carry on.

“We can now see it is actually a surplus of serotonin that triggers a braking mechanism in the brain. In other words, serotonin functions as an accelerator but also as a brake when the strain becomes excessive,” said Professor Perrier, whose study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The discovery brings us a step closer to finding ways of controlling serotonin. In other words, whether it will have an activating effect or trigger central fatigue. It is all about selectively activating the receptors which serotonin attaches to,” Professor Perrier said.

“For selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors [eg Prozac] we can possibly help explain why those who take the drugs often feel more tired and also become slightly clumsier than other people. What we now know can help us develop better drugs,” he said.

EU tobacco product firms ‘must accept damage they are causing’

  

Minister for Health James O’Reilly (right) and Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan pose in the RHA Gallery in Dublin with photographs which will appear on cigarette packaging sold in Ireland.

EU tobacco-producing countries must accept damage to their industry in the drive to stop people smoking, Minister for Health James Reilly has said.

Ireland had prioritised a plan to ban flavoured tobacco and stylish cigarette packaging even if this hurt jobs in the tobacco industry in some countries, he said today following a two-day meeting of EU health ministers in Dublin.

“We have to remember it should never be a case of jobs or lives,” he said.

He said the EU should help countries to “get out of tobacco production” and to develop other types of industry instead.

European health commissioner Tonio Borg also acknowledged there would be opposition to the proposed ban. “It is natural in those countries where tobacco production is high there will be considerations other than health which will be put forwards to put it mildly,” he said.

The aim of the law was to prevent young people from starting smoking, said Mr Borg. “Tobacco products should look like tobacco products … and it should taste like tobacco,” he said. It was hoped the effect would be a 2 per cent reduction in the number of smokers over five years in the EU. This would represent 2.4 million less smokers, he added.

Thirteen EU states produce tobacco, including Italy, which produces the biggest amount, followed Bulgaria, Poland and Spain.

The ban would affect menthol cigarettes, which are sold in Ireland, and vanilla flavoured cigarettes. Stylishly packaged cigarettes were a particular problem, Mr Reilly said. “That’s what they are trying to attract our children to, particularly young girls,” he said.

The Minister said he was hoping to win agreement from other health ministers on the directive during Ireland’s presidency of the EU which lasts until June which would then be submitted to the European Parliament for approval. The aim was to have agreement on the directive by next year and to have it enforced by 2015 or 2016.

He said 700,000 European were dying each year and the tobacco industry were looking for people to replace them. “They are focusing on children,” he said.

He said he supported a proposed new law in Ireland banning smoking in cars carrying children under 16, adding it was a “child protection issue”. The law could be enacted later this year. Since February 1st all cigarettes sold in Ireland must now carry graphic images and health warnings about the dangers of smoking.

Ancient Arctic camel a curious conundrum

  

The fossil evidence consists of about 30 bone fragments, which together form part of a limb bone of a Pliocene camel.Found on Ellesmere Island, this is the northernmost discovery of camels in the Arctic, about 1,200 km further north than the Yukon camel.The fossil record from this area shows the camel lived about 3.5 million years ago, when the region supported a boreal-type forest.Ellesmere Island..

“Fyles Leaf Bed site” refers to an exposure located about 9 km Southwest of the Beaver Pond site near Strathcona Fiord. The section was visited previously by John Fyles (Geological Survey of Canada), and briefly in 1992 by Fyles and Richard Harington. In 1992 they prospected for about 2 hours. The first detailed stratigraphic work on the site was by Adam Csank (supervised by Jim Basinger) as part of his M.Sc. thesis (2006). At the time Adam measured 40 m of section, but in 2008 John Gosse determined that the Tertiary section was 90 m in thickness. (Martin Lipman, Canadian Museum of Nature)

Next Slide Previous Slide

OTTAWA –  Ancient, mummified camel bones dug from the tundra confirm that the animals now synonymous with the arid sands of Arabia actually developed in subfreezing forests in what is now Canada’s High Arctic, a scientist said Tuesday.

About 3.5 million years ago, Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island’s west-central coast would have looked more like a northern forest than an Arctic landscape, said paleobotanist Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

“Larch-dominated, lots of wetlands, peat,” said Rybczynski, lead author of a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Nearby fossil sites have yielded evidence of ancient bears, horses, deer, badgers and frogs. The average yearly temperature would have been about 32 Fahrenheit.

“If you were standing in it and watching the camel, it would have the feel of a boreal-type forest.”

The Arctic camel was 30 percent larger than modern camels, she said. Her best guess is it was one-humped.

Although native camels are now only found in Africa and Asia, scientists have long believed the species actually developed in North America and later died out. Camel remains have been previously found in the Yukon.

What makes Rybczynski’s find special is not only how far north it was found, but its state of preservation.

The 30 fragments found in the sand and pebbles of the tundra were mummified, not fossilized. So despite their age, the pieces preserved tiny fragments of collagen within them, a common type of protein found in bones.

Analyzing that protein not only proved the fragments were from camels, but from a type of camel that is much more closely related to the modern version than the Yukon camel. Out of the dozens of camel species that once roamed North America, the type Rybczynski found was one of the most likely to have crossed the Bering land bridge and colonized the deserts.

“This is the one that’s tied to the ancestry of modern camels,” she said.