Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Ireland’s borrowing costs drop as ratings agency S&P raises our outlook

 

IRELAND’S BORROWING COSTS FELL SHARPLY AFTER A LEADING GLOBAL RATINGS AGENCY LIFTED ITS OUTLOOK FOR THE COUNTRY.

The ratings change is a major boost for the Government’s plans to exit the bailout at the end of this year.

The vote of confidence in Ireland was in sharp contrast to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Italian government debt earlier in the week.

The rating agency said there was now a one-in-three chance that it could raise Ireland’s main credit rating over the next two years.

After years of ratings downgrades, it would be the first upgrade for Ireland since 2001. A better rating is crucial for borrowing cheaply on the international markets.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said it had raised its outlook for the country from stable to positive and heaped praise on Ireland, saying it had not deviated from its budgetary targets since the bailout in 2010.

“Ireland’s economic recovery is under way,” the agency said.

“Given still weak external demand and Ireland’s exports exceeding 100pc of GDP, we expect growth to remain slow in 2013 and 2014.

“Nevertheless, Ireland’s domestic economy is showing signs of stabilising. Unemployment has started to decline while private sector employment numbers are improving.”

The Department of Finance and the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) hailed the move as reinforcing the positive reputation Ireland has earned with the markets.

“It is encouraging that Standard & Poor’s acknowledges the continued progress Ireland is making on the fiscal side and the improved access to capital markets,” an NTMA spokesman said.

The move contrasts with Moody’s ratings agency, which dashed Ireland’s hopes of an upgrade earlier this year when it reaffirmed its negative outlook.

S&P, which upgraded its outlook for Ireland in February also, said it expected our debt level to peak at 122pc of the value of the economy this year, before falling to 112pc by 2016.

It said it believed there was potential for Ireland to recover more rapidly if the eurozone economy picked up. And it also upgraded its outlook for the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) from negative to positive.

But the agency also warned that risks remained, including the rising level of bad loans in the banks, particularly mortgage arrears.

Standard & Poor’s predicted the banks would not return to profitability this year, and in some cases probably not until 2015.

CRITICISM

It said that if the economy remained sluggish and banks were unable to deal with distressed loans, Ireland would not be upgraded.

The announcement follows criticism of the ratings agency yesterday from Italian Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni for downgrading Italy’s credit rating, saying it failed to take account of recent government measures to boost growth.

The Mediterranean country’s rating was reduced from BBB+ to BBB due to weakening economic prospects and the country’s impaired financial system, according to S&P.

Greece is also struggling to recover from the economic backlash as its public sector took to the streets in protest this week against further austerity measures that were put in place.

Bankers tell Shane Filan to sing his way out of his €23m debt

 

Former Westlife star Shane Filan has revealed how bankers told him how he would have to “sing” to pay back his massive debts.

Faced with a bill of €23m over a series of property investments gone wrong, the 33-year-old described how he met with bank officials to try and find a solution.

“I’m sitting there, looking at this person, going ‘So where does that leave me?’

“‘Well you can sing, can’t you?’ That’s what I was told by one of them, ‘you can pay it back that way’.

“I was like, ‘I might be in Westlife, I am not in U2, it’s a lot of money to try and get back’. It wasn’t fair, but then life is not fair,” said Shane Filan.

Speaking for the first time about going bust, the Sligo man revealed how he had found himself next to broke in London last year just days after Westlife played two sell-out concerts in Croke Park.

“It was one of the scariest days I ever had. I walked out of a shop to get some money and there was only £470 in my account. My son asked if I could buy a Spiderman toy, and instead I said I promised I would get it for his birthday.

“I was crying my eyes out inside because, I couldn’t tell anybody how bad my money situation was. I had no money, no record deal and my band was over,” he recounted.

Launching his debut single Everything To Me on Ryan Tubridy’s 2fm show yesterday, the chart-topping singer revealed how he done everything he could to avoid bankruptcy, struggling to pay €30k to €40k each month in interest on loans run up by the property company he operated with his brother Finbarr.

“I sat down and had lots of meetings with the banks. I put it to them: a really good deal that they could have looked at, where I could have worked with them over number of years, and given them back as much as I could.

“It could been all of it, it could been some of it. It was an open book, and they said, ‘No, not suitable to us.’ It got to the stage where no matter what I offered it wasn’t going to happen, I don’t know if that was a public thing I don’t know. I will never know,” he said.

Forced to declare himself bankrupt in the UK in June 2012, he denied the move to Britain was a “bankruptcy thing” and said he had owned “a nice house, not a mansion” in Surrey for seven years.

ENCRUSTED:  Going bust had led to him having to buy back his own diamond-encrusted wedding ring. “The trustees took out a value on it and I had to buy it back.

” You don’t expect to buy your wedding ring twice, it’s not nice,” he said declining to put a price on what the ring had cost to buy back.

However, the father-of-three credited wife Gillian with getting him through the dark days, and said she was the inspiration for most of the new songs on his new album.

“Gillian was incredible at keeping me focused. She kept telling me how everyone who had invested in the property business in Ireland had lost. She gave me 100pc support,” he said.

Ireland’s first Real Estate Investment Trust raises €310m

 

Ireland’s first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) has raised €310m after strong international interest in the property investment vehicle led to it being significantly over-subscribed.

The REIT backed by executives at Green Property received a major endorsement from US-headquartered global investment group Pimco, which, through a vehicle it controls in Luxembourg, has taken a 10pc stake in the REIT. Pimco has over $2 trillion (€1.5trn) of assets under management.

The Green REIT – due to float on theIrish Stock Exchange next Wednesday – will primarily target investment property in south Dublin.

Green Property executives backing the REIT – including the firm’s chairman Stephen Vernon and chief executive Pat Gunne – had hoped to raise €200m for the investment vehicle. They and other Green Property top brass are stuffing a total of €10m of their own money into the REIT.

Green Property owns the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre in Dublin and has been a canny player in the property market, offloading some valuable assets before the market imploded.

The REIT is the first to be launched in Ireland and comes on the heels of changes made this year to legislation in the Finance Act. It’s also the first such vehicle to be listed on the stock exchange.

Gary Kennedy, the chairman of the REIT, said the fundraising was a “strong endorsement” of investors’ confidence in the Green Property management team and their track record.

“It also highlights the opportunity evident in the sectors of the Irishcommercial property market that Green REIT is targeting,” he said.

After the lock up in the Asylum for Mags

 

People with mental-health problems were once locked away in asylums. Now most live in the community, like Mags Kelly, whose story is told here. But they can easily fall through the cracks of an underfunded service.

Mags wakes up and waits for her heart to slow down. She feels like a woman pulled from a burning building: still not quite able to believe she’s safe.

At 6.30am she slides out of bed, sits at her dressing table and rolls a cigarette. Today, like lots of days, her anxiety is sky-high. In a few minutes she’ll take her anti-depressants and mood stabilisers. They numb the distress and ease the panic – but they don’t take away the pain.

Shards of memories tumble around her head. They are of rough-and-tumble years spent living on the streets: unprovoked assaults, bloodied noses, crack-houses and pimping. It all seems part of one chaotic mess.

Then the faces of her children. The girls she never knew, taken into care because she couldn’t cope.

And the fear that courses through her. What if the psychiatrist she saw thinks she can’t cope living in the community? Maybe she’ll get sectioned again and end up in a locked ward? Or maybe she’ll slip through the cracks of the system and end up back on the street?

“Fear is an awful thing,” Mags says. “If you have a lot of fear in your body, it just doesn’t go away . . . I can put on a false front. Put on a bit of make-up and act like I’m well. People say, ‘She’s better,’ but I can’t seem to relax or anything.

There are days when it feels like she’s making progress. Like the other week, when she discovered a bunch of newborn ducklings in a corner of the garden, all open beaks and yellow and black fur. She was the first to find them. It made her feel elated for days afterwards.

Or recently, when she got a letter to say one of her daughters in foster care wanted to make contact with her. She’ll dress up nicely and send on some photos of herself. Maybe one day they’ll be able to strike up a relationship.

But the bad days still come. And when they do, it can be overwhelming. “Depression is terrible. It’s rotten. Look what it’s done to me,” she says, baring her arms. “I’m destroyed. I’ve used myself like a human ashtray, stubbing cigarettes into myself.

“There are sometimes all these thoughts of self-harm in my head . . . I talk to someone, and I feel okay. Then, an hour later, it’s back. It’s like I’m slipping back into the past, and I can’t see a road ahead.”
Until recently, Ireland’s mental health system dealt with people such as Mags through institutionalisation and drug treatment. It was a model with a long history. For hundreds of years, people with psychiatric health problems were locked away in asylums, behind high walls. We led the world locking people up in institutions, with inpatient admission rates that were multiples of other countries.

Today, most of these institutions have closed or ceased admissions. Only 300 patients remain, down from 25,000 about 20 years ago. The last remaining asylum is due to close within the next 12 months or so. The State’s policy now is to provide care in the community. To do this, it is funding the development of teams of professionals – psychiatrists, therapists, nurses and social workers – who support those with mental-health difficulties in a home environment.

Everyone agrees A Vision for Change, the policy launched in 2006, is a more enlightened and progressive approach. Research shows that a wider range of support is much more effective at helping patients recover than the narrower “medical model” associated with institutional care.

But our community mental-health services are under real strain. Dr Patrick Devitt, the Inspector for Mental Health Services, found the system of support was “stagnant and perhaps slipped backwards” last year as a result of dwindling staff numbers and poor governance.

The concerns were echoed by John Saunders, chair of theMental Health Commission, the State’s watchdog for psychiatric services. “We have incomplete mental-health teams trying to provide multidisciplinary care,” says Saunders.

Last year, millions of euro ring-fenced by the Government to hire more than 400 staff to modernise mental-health services disappeared. It ended up being used to tackle cost overruns in other parts of the health services.

The Health Service Executive says all these posts are being filled this year. But staff have been retiring in even greater numbers, so the extra recruitment is like pouring water into a fast-leaking bucket.

New figures show more than 1,000 fewer full-time posts exist in mental-health services today than in 2009. Staffing levels in some sectors are now at about 50 per cent of those recommended in the Vision for Change policy as being needed to run an effective service.

Records obtained by The Irish Times show unfilled posts are resulting in professionals being pulled out of community services to plug gaps in inpatient care, a move that flies in the face of Government policy. “With the huge exodus of nurses who are retiring, coupled with the recruitment embargo, the community services of which we are so proud are being decimated,” reads an internal email from the clinical director of one HSE service.

DCU Student aims to be the first Irishman to go into space

DCU student, Seán Corcoran will compete this weekend in the Lynx Apollo Space Academy National Challengein London in a bid to win a coveted place on board a space flight next year. 

The Lynx Apollo Space Academy is the deodorant brand’s global campaign to launch one lucky person into space and has attracted 87 000 entries in Britain and Ireland alone.   Seán, a second year Software Engineering student from Finglas will battle it out against 200 other potential astronauts from across Britain and Ireland in a series of gruelling NASA-style physical and mental challenges.

The four strongest candidates from the National Challenge in London will progress to the Global Space Camp in Orlando, Florida to join with finalists from 22 countries across the world.  Following intense preparation for the rigours of space travel and a final set of challenges, one lucky winner will be selected to fly 103km into space in 2014 with space tourism company Spacexc.

The Lynx Apollo Space Academy National Challenge London will take place in front of a live audience at Westfield London on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th July.

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Martin fears home repossessions will be ramped up by Irish banks

     

Michael Martin of Fianna Fáil says the Government has failed to deal with the mortgage crisis

The Government has handed the banks a charter to repossess family homes and failed to grasp the scale of the mortgage arrears crisis, Fianna Fáil  claimed this morning.

The party has published a private members bill on mortgage arrears which is being debated in the Dáil today and tomorrow.

It wants a clear definition of what constitutes a sustainable mortgage to be included in the Central Bank’s code of conduct on mortgage arrears and believes a minimum income level should be protected as part of all negotiations.

It also seeks the reintroduction of a ceiling of unsolicited contacts a bank can have with a borrower in arrears and wants a new clause put into the code which would forbid a bank from moving a borrower off a tracker mortgage unless they were given independent financial advice from a third party.

The bill also wants a 12 month moratorium on home repossessions to be reinstated and a new rule put in place which would force banks to record all calls made to borrowers and given the Central Bank access to those recordings .

Describing the arrears crisis as a “major economic and social issue” which had created a “paralysis” across the wider economy, party leader Micheál Martin accused the Government of repeatedly failing to deal with the issue and described the banks’ engagement with distressed borrowers as “pitiful”.

He said he was “very fearful repossessions will be ramped up” over the next six months.

Finance spokesman Michael McGrath said the Government had given increased powers to the banks through changes to the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears which was published late last month and he said the banks had been given a “charter for the repossession of family homes”.

He said repossession was supposed to be used as a last resort but suggested that banks were becoming increasingly aggressive and repossession was becoming the “solution of choice” for many lenders.

“There are now 70,000 family homes where banks have been given carte blanche to repossess,” Mr McGrath said. “It is very difficult to understand the deferential approach to the banks.”

He said the number of real alternatives being offered by the banks to distressed borrowers was inadequate and lacked consistency. He pointed out that the banks had offered fewer than 150 split mortgages to borrowers in arrears and said that while AIB did not charge interest on the warehoused portion of such loans, Bank of Ireland did which meant “they were not a sustainable solution.

Fianna Fáil has already published a number of proposals on mortgage arrears since 2011 which have been ignored by Government and both Mr Martin and Mr McGrath did not indicate that things would be any different on this occasion.

“We have a platform and we will continue to make the case,” Mr Martin said.

“We are being constructive rather than populist and we have been repeatedly told by groups such as New Beginnings, the Irish Mortgage Holders Association and the Free Legal Advice C entre not to underestimate the power of the pressure we are applying.”

165 different amendments to Irish abortion bill tabled by TD’s & various other groups

  

The amendments will be discussed prior to the final vote on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013.

A List of all of the amendments tabled regarding the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 has been published.

The 165 amendments come from a range of TDs and cross a number of different aspects of the bill. They will be discussed in the Dáil tomorrow.

TDs will cast their votes on the bill tomorrow in the Dáil, and the document released this evening is a compilation of amendments tabled by the deputies over the past few days.

There is likely to be heated discussion over which of the 165 amendments do get discussed, given that there could be time constraints tomorrow evening.

Some of the most contentious amendments have related to Section 9 of the bill, which concerns suicide grounds as a means to obtain a lawful termination.

In her amendments, Fine Gael Minister Lucinda Creighton seeks the removal of the suicide section, and sets out a line of care for women who present as suicidal.

Deputy Terence Flanagan also seeks the removal of the suicide section.

Meanwhile, an amendment jointly tabled by TDs Clare Daly and Joan Collins would allow for lawful terminations in cases of rape and incest.

In the first Dáil vote, 24 TDs voted against the legislation. This led to four Fine Gael members losing the party whip.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore told RTÉ today that the amendments discussed by Cabinet won’t involve any “fundamental or substantial change” to the bill.

He said that there will be no change to the issue of suicidal ideation in the bill.

Non-payers of water charges face having pressure reduced

      

THE GOVERNMENT HAS CONFIRMED PLANS TO LIMIT THE WATER PRESSURE IN HOMES WHO DON’T PAY THEIR WATER CHARGES.

The Department of the Environment says the measure will be included in legislation to be published in the autumn.

The measure is intended as an alternative way of punishing homes without having to cut off their supply.

Water charges are due to take effect in October 2014, with the first bills due in January 2015.

Leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan said the approach would not work.

“The way Phil Hogan has set this up, it’s pushing for revenue, it’s done in a way that I fear could be privatised in the long run,” he said.

“Everything about having one single Irish water company which they’ve set up rather than, I think, a regional structure which would make more sense.

“It would connect to the river basin districts where our water actually comes from, it would connect to the planning systems.

“Everything that’s been done by Phil Hogan is driven by a revenue-raising, finance-led approach. I think that’s not going to work.”

‘A Dead’ woman opens her eyes on operating table as her organs are about to be removed

       

A woman in New York state was pronounced dead and about to have her organs removed for transplant when she awoke and opened her eyes.

Colleen Burns had been taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Centre in Syracuse after taking a drug overdose in 2009. She was thought to have passed away, a victim of “cardiac death”, and so her family agreed to turn off the 41-year-old’s life support machine and donate her organs.

It was not until she was wheeled into the operating theatre and opened her eyes in response to the lights that doctors called off the procedure.

Lucille Kuss, Ms Burns’ mother, told Syracuse’s The Post-Standard newspaper that the doctors never explained what went wrong.

“They were just kind of shocked themselves,” she said. “It came as a surprise to them as well.”

Ms Burns, a mother of three, was discharged from the hospital a fortnight after the operation, but committed suicide less than two years later.

“She was so depressed that it really didn’t make any difference to her,” said her mother.

The family did not sue but the hospital was fined $6,000 (£4,000) by the state health department in September – the case only came to light after the newspaper made requests through the Freedom of Information Act.

“These sorts of things do happen,” said Lisa McGiffert, director of Consumers Union Safe Patient Project. “It’s pretty disturbing.”

Mrs McGiffert said there is no way of knowing how often near-catastrophes like the Burns case happen because in the US there is no system in place to collect information from hospitals about medical errors.

The state started investigating the case in March 2010 in response to an inquiry from The Post-Standard.

The investigation revealed a catalogue of errors in the handling of Ms Burns’ case.

The drugs overdose had sent her into a deep coma, the state health department found, and hospital personnel misread that as irreversible brain damage without doing enough to evaluate her condition.

Furthermore, the day before her organs were to be removed, a nurse had performed a reflex test – scraping a finger on the bottom of her foot. The toes curled downward – not the expected reaction of someone who’s supposed to be dead.

Outside the operating theatre, her nostrils appeared to show signs of breathing, and her lips and tongue moved.

“Dead people don’t curl their toes,” said Dr Charles Wetli, a forensic pathologist from New Jersey. “And they don’t fight against the respirator and want to breathe on their own.”

Twenty minutes after those observations were made, a nurse gave Burns an injection of the sedative Ativan, according to records.

In the doctors’ notes, there’s no mention of the sedative or any indication they were aware of her improving condition.

“If you have to sedate them or give them pain medication, they’re not brain-dead and you shouldn’t be harvesting their organs,” said Dr David Mayer, a surgeon and an associate professor of clinical surgery at New York Medical College.

St. Joseph’s submitted a plan to correct problems identified in the investigation to the state health department in August 2011.

The state fined St. Joseph’s and ordered it to hire a consultant to review the hospital’s quality assurance program and implement the consultant’s recommendations.

The hospital also was ordered to hire a consulting neurologist to teach staff how to accurately diagnose brain death.

Kerri Howell, spokeswoman for the hospital, told the newspaper: “St. Joseph’s goal is to provide the highest quality of care to every patient, every time.

“These policies were followed in this case, which was complicated in terms of care and diagnosis.

“We’ve learned from this experience and have modified our policies to include the type of unusual circumstance presented in this case.”

Irish drinks industry is willing to work with Government to combat misuse of alcohol

    

There is no evidence a ban on sponsorship of sporting events will impact on problem drinking

Tourists come to Ireland and hope to visit places connected with our beer and whiskey industries just as they would want to visit a vineyard in France.

I work in the alcohol industry. I work so that people can share a drink with colleagues in the pub on a Friday evening. I work so that people can invite friends over for Sunday dinner and enjoy a drink with their meal. Working for Irish Distillers also means that I promote the craftsmanship and tradition of Irish whiskey – a product that is experiencing a global renaissance and is an important part of Ireland’s food and drink success in recent years.

This is what it means to be part of the drinks industry.I very much welcome the current debate on alcohol and society, and want to be very clear on behalf of the industry that we are absolutely committed to tackling misuse. However, I also want to be clear that to suggest otherwise is not only untrue but unfair to more than 62,000 people who work in our sector.I am not blind to the problem of alcohol misuse. Working in this industry without commitment to promoting responsible drinking would be like working in the car industry and not caring about seat belts and brakes. Drinking too much or too often has negative consequences for individuals, for their families and for wider society. We value our customers and wish them long, happy and healthy lives.

We in the Irish drinks industry agree with the vast majority of the proposals in the National Substance Misuse Strategy. However, some parts of Government do not appear willing to engage with us on this topic. If they would engage they would see how committed we are to promoting responsible drinking.

When considering the problems with alcohol, it is important we acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of people consume alcohol responsibly. It is a fact that alcohol consumption in this country has fallen by more than 19 per cent since 2001, and our consumption levels are fast approaching European norms.

A Unicef report of 29 countries, published earlier this year, found the percentage of young people who reported having been drunk on more than two occasions has fallen in Ireland. Irish consumption is falling and youth consumption is declining.

Scientific proof

It is, of course, still vital that we implement policies that are scientifically proven to combat alcohol misuse. There are many such examples, some of which are very well-articulated in the current proposal from the Department of Health. However, I would like to see further initiatives explored, specifically in the area of young adult education.

For example, I know from my own experience in my home country of Sweden how effective education can be and I would be happy to share independent Swedish research with anyone who would like to discuss this science-based approach. But some of the proposals being considered by the Irish Government will be completely ineffective in combating alcohol misuse and at the same time bring with them many negative economic consequences for this important industry.

I would like to give two examples.

First, let us consider the proposed ban on sponsorship. While initial reports indicated that all sporting, cultural and arts events would be banned from using alcohol sponsorship by 2020, recent media reports seem to imply that this ban would now only apply to major sporting events. As was noted by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications in its Report on Sponsorship of Sports by the Alcohol Drinks Industry, there is no evidence to show that banning the sponsorship of sporting events will have an impact on reducing alcohol misuse.

It would, however, remove a significant source of funding from our sporting organisations. Also, I do not believe that this is where the ban on sponsorship will end. Next in line will be undoubtedly be events related to the arts, culture and music.

Nasa’s next Mars rover will advance the hunt for past life

    

This view obtained on July 9, 2013 from the left Navigation Camera (Navcam) of Nasa’s Mars Rover Curiosity looks back at wheel tracks made during the first drive away from the last science target in the ‘Glenelg’ area.

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The next robotic rover to explore Mars in 2020 should scour the surface of the red planet more closely than ever for signs of past life, a Nasa science team said Tuesday.

The US space agency’s science definition team (SDT) released a 154-page document containing its proposals for the next Mars rover, after five months of work.

The mission would use microscopic analysis for the first time, collect the first rock samples for possible return to Earth and test ways to use natural resources on site for a future human trip, it said.

The Mars 2020 mission would build on the work being done by Nasa’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring the red planet since August 2012 and has already found evidence of potentially habitable environments.

The mission would present “a major step toward seeking signs of life,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at Nasa headquarters.

The next step is for Nasa to analyze the recommendations and issue a call for scientific instruments, which could include higher resolution imaging devices, microscopes, fine scale minerology, chemistry and organic carbon detection tools to scan for biosignatures on the surface of Mars.

“To combine this suite of instruments would be incredibly powerful,” said Jack Mustard, SDT chair and professor of geological sciences at Brown University.

The rover would collect about 31 samples that might someday be returned to Earth, representing “a legacy for understanding the development of habitability on the planet,” he told reporters.

The US space agency has not yet devised the technology to bring the cache back to Earth without disturbing its contents, and no plans have been set for any potential sample-return.

The next Nasa mission to Mars is a November launch of MAVEN, an orbiter that will study how Mars interacted with the solar wind and lost its atmosphere.

The European Space Agency will follow in 2018 with its ExoMars rover.

John Grunsfeld, Nasa’s associate administrator for science, said the 2020 Mars rover would get the US space agency to the next step in the “quest to answer the grand questions,” before a planned human mission in the 2030s.

“Do we see any evidence of past life in those habitable environments?” he said, alluding to the aims of the future missions.

Donie's daily BLOG on Ireland news

Evidence suggests that Irish growth & the economy is slowly recovering

 

GROWTH WILL BE PRIMARILY DUE TO EXPORTS AS DOMESTIC DEMAND SLUGGISH

“Unemployment (both short- and long-term) began to fall towards the end of last year. If our forecasts prove to be correct, then this means an annual average below 300,000 unemployed in 2014.” Photograph: Frank Miller

In the ESRI’s latest outlook for the Irish economy, we forecast that growth will improve in 2013 and 2014. If we are right, growth, as measured by GNP, will amount to 1 per cent this year and 1.5 per cent in 2014. The corresponding growth rates for GDP are 1.8 and 2.7 per cent. As has been the case over the past number of years, this growth will be primarily due to increasing exports and we expect that this export growth will continue to be driven predominantly by the service sector. We are currently forecasting that domestic demand will grow by around 0.7 per cent in 2013 and 2014.

If the growth rates we forecast are realised, what will they mean for the Irish economy? One of the main impacts of the crisis has been a sharp increase in the numbers unemployed. We would expect to see some reduction in the unemployment rate to an annual average just below 14 per cent in 2014. Indeed, unemployment (both short and long term) began to fall towards the end of last year. If our forecasts prove to be correct, then this means an annual average below 300,000 unemployed in 2014.

While this is a positive development, it is not all due to job creation. Unfortunately some of the reduction will reflect continuing high emigration. It is hoped that as we move into 2014 an increasing amount of the fall in unemployment will be due to job creation and that emigration levels will be lower.

If there is, as we anticipate, some recovery in the labour market over the next two years then we expect that there will be some moderate increases in average annual earnings. Because of high unemployment and continuing uncertainty in the economic outlook, we would expect that households will continue to save for precautionary reasons, so the saving rate will remain high. In addition, since households are continuing to pay down accumulated debt, it is likely that any growth in household consumption will be moderate.

The public finances look set to benefit from a combination of economic recovery and the deals on promissory notes and extending the maturity of EU/IMF programme loans. Taking account of these it looks likely that the deficit targets set as part of the bailout programme will continue to be met and probably exceeded.

However, we argue again in this commentary that the remaining consolidation measures should be introduced as planned. This is because uncertainty remains for domestic and international growth. Even at the end of the consolidation process the government will still be running a deficit. In addition there is a continued need to reduce government debt. At the end of 2013 it is estimated the debt will be €207 billion, equivalent to 123 per cent of GDP. Such a high debt means interest costs of approximately €8 billion this year.

Our forecasts of growth in the Irish economy are based on forecasts showing the European economy returning to growth in 2014. This is a crucial assumption.

In recent years forecasts for economic growth in Ireland’s main trading partners have been consistently revised downwards. For example, over the past two years, forecasts for world economic growth have been revised from approximately 4 per cent in 2013 to around 3.3 per cent. The expectation at present is that growth in the world economy will pick up in 2014.

If the anticipated international upturn does not occur, then the outlook for the Irish economy is less positive than we have forecast. However, what the current forecasts do suggest is that the Irish economy is slowly recovering.

Dr David Duffy, research officer with the Economic and Social Research Institute, co-authored the latest ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary with research assistant Kevin Timoney.

30,000 Irish people a day are now sending in property tax returns

 

With less than two weeks to go until the final deadline for paying the property tax,

The revenue service says that more than 30,000 homeowners a day are returning their property tax forms as the deadline for the charge draws close.

More than 845,000 property owners have so far paid the charge, exactly two-thirds of whom have used the internet to make the payment. The remaining third have paid the charge by letter.

Revenue said the rate of payment has increased in recent days as the deadline of Tuesday 28 May draws closer, and has urged homeowners planning to pay to register on the website.

Anyone who received a property tax form despite not being the owner of a property has been asked to contact Revenue with the contact details of the person who is liable for the charge. Revenue has repeatedly said that the onus is on people who receive the form to correct mistakes or else face being pursed for the charge.

Revenue Commissioners say they have received more than 330,000 phone calls to the property tax helpline as homeowners attempt to ascertain the value of their homes and the correct band the property falls into in order to determine how much tax to pay.

Health warning for people to avoid retiring early

  

Research shows there is a small boost in health immediately after retirement but that, over the longer term, there is a significant deterioration.

Research found that both mental and physical health can suffer.

It suggests retirement increases the likelihood of suffering from clinical depression by 40pc and the chance of having at least one diagnosed physical condition by about 60pc. The probability of taking medication for such a condition rises by about 60pc as well, according to the findings.

People who are retired are 40pc less likely than others to describe themselves as being in very good or excellent health.

Benefits

The length of time spent in retirement can also cause further disadvantages.

The study was carried out by Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs and the Age Endeavour Fellowship. It concluded that, for men and women alike, “there seem to exist longer-term health benefits of employment among older people”.

Its authors said: “This, in turn, indicates that politicians do not face a trade-off between improving the health of the older population, increasing economic growth, decreasing health spending among the elderly and producing solvent pension systems.

“The policy implication is that impediments to continuing paid work in old age should be decreased. This does not necessarily mean that people should be expected to work full-time until they die, but rather that public policy should remove the strong financial incentives to retire at earlier ages.”

Philip Booth, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “Over several decades, governments have failed to deal with the ‘demographic time bomb’.

“There is now general agreement that pension ages should be raised. Working longer will not only be an economic necessity, it also helps people to live healthier lives.”

Edward Datnow, of the Age Endeavour Fellowship, said: “Those seeking to retire should think very hard about whether it is their best option.”

Clinical trials the best method we have for assessing medicines and treatments

 

CLINICAL TRIALS ARE THE BEST METHOD WE HAVE FOR ASSESSING MEDICINES AND TREATMENTS. SO WHY IS CLINICAL-TRIAL ACTIVITY IN IRELAND AND EUROPE IN DECLINE?

What have cider, elixir of vitriol, vinegar, seawater, citrus fruits and spicy barley water got in common? They were the “treatments” given to six pairs of sailors suffering from scurvy aboard HMS Salisbury in 1747 by Royal Navy physician, James Lind.

Scurvy is a condition characterised by bleeding gums, stiff joints and slow wound-healing. The sailors given the citrus fruits recovered demonstrably more than any other pair, a result we now know was attributable to Vitamin C.

This experiment, carried out almost 300 years ago, is commonly viewed as the first “clinical trial”. May 20th is World Clinical Trials Day, a celebration of this experimental tool, arguably one of the most important means to improving health.

In simple terms, the purpose of a clinical trial is to prove a medicine works and is safe for humans. Prior to the advent of proper clinical trials, many drugs were introduced to the market that did not meet these requirements.

The thousands of children born with limb defects due to thalidomide, which was prescribed to pregnant women with morning sickness, dramatically attest to this. More recently, poorly interpreted clinical-trials data contributed to the MMR scare in the late 1990s, led by Andrew Wakefield. The spike in measles cases observed recently in the UK, arising from reduced immunisation rates, illustrates clearly the consequence of this.

It’s regrettable that certain forms of “medicines” escape the rigour of proper scientific and clinical validation. The so-called cures of many homeopathic remedies are most likely attributable to the placebo effect, a phenomenon observed in a patient following a particular treatment that arises from the patient’s expectations concerning the treatment, rather than from the treatment itself. A properly designed clinical trial can eliminate such biases when testing the claims of a particular therapy and accurately gauge whether it is effective or not.

Positive outcomes
On the plus side, and thankfully the clinical-trials story is mostly a positive one, many medicines have been approved by the relevant regulatory bodies. These have been assessed and proven safe and effective by this most pivotal of scientific tools.

Pause a moment and look at this list, which samples just a few medicines that have been vetted by the clinical trial: the contraceptive pill, vaccines, cholesterol-lowering drugs. It is probable that the life of someone close to you, perhaps even your life, has been improved or saved by a treatment approved for use following clinical trial.

The randomised, controlled trial, the most modern form of clinical trial, was recently voted in a top 20 of great British innovations, along with illustrious companions such as the world wide web and Turing’s virtual machine.

Unfortunately, clinical trials activity in Ireland, as in much of Europe, is declining. There is much debate on this topic but in my view the cause is essentially this: the burden of proof to demonstrate a medicine’s safety and effectiveness has, rightly, become very high but the systems to support meeting that burden are struggling to cope. Such systems include legislation, regulation, research-led clinical care and patient participation.

There are considerable developments afoot in many of these areas including imminent changes to our clinical trials legislation. Driven from Brussels, it will effectively create a common market for approval of treatments, operating to a single, high standard across Europe.

Other changes in our clinical research infrastructure, such as the networking of our clinical-research centres, should complement the legislative changes to help meet the requirements to prove a medicine’s safety and effectiveness in an efficient manner.

However, these alone will not deliver a well-functioning clinical-trials system in Ireland. Patient participation is required at levels substantially above where they are today. Whilst legislation, research infrastructure and so on are matters of resource allocation and commitment to implementation, patient participation is a more challenging, cultural matter.

At the individual level, there are significant advantages to participating in clinical trials, such as early access to new medicines. However, the real benefit is not at the level of the individual but at the level of society. The cumulative effect of patients participating in clinical studies and trials is to generate new medical knowledge that can be put into practice in preventing, diagnosing and treating disease.

In many ways, participating in a clinical trial is much like donating blood. Both are matters of civic responsibility and a high donor/participation rate is an indicator of a society investing in itself.

For those of us responsible for the clinical-trials system, it is critical we build it and deliver it with the patient at the centre, on a firm foundation of trust. On Monday, when we celebrate World Clinical Trials Day, let us recognise that we have come far but we have some way to go.

New hospital re-grouping to improve patient safety in Galway Hospital’s

  

Patient safety at Galway’s three public hospitals will improve under the new hospital grouping unveiled this week, according to Galway Senator Fidelma Healy Eames.

Patient safety at Galway’s three public hospitals will improve under the new hospital grouping unveiled this week by Health Minister James Reilly.

That’s according to Galway Senator Fidelma Healy Eames, who has welcomed the announcement that University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park Hospital and Portiuncula are to form the West/North West Hospital Group with hospitals in Roscommon, Sligo, Letterkenny and Mayo General Hospital.

“I believe that this new configuration will give a greater level of autonomy to UCHG/Merlin Park and will result in better service provision, the retention of well trained staff and the development of specialties in smaller hospitals,” said Senator Healy Eames.

She added that each hospital in the group will play a significant role in the provision of services. “This benefits all hospitals in the group. The grouping of these hospitals will enable each hospital to specialise in certain procedures and should result in reductions in waiting lists and the number of people on trolleys,” she said.

Senator Healy Eames added that, since the establishment of the pilot Galway/Roscommon grouping last year, there has been a notable improvement for patients.

“Waiting lists over nine months for inpatient and day case procedures were eliminated in each of the hospitals by the end of 2012. Across the group, the number of patients counted on trolleys fell by 37 per cent last year. This is substantially larger than the national reduction of 23 per cent.

“In future, staff will be recruited to the West/North West Hospital Group rather than to an individual hospital. This ensures that patients in Galway will have access to world class medical staff. The increased flexibility of staff will enable a reduction in the hours for junior doctors, which will improve patient safety at Galway hospitals.”

Human race are to blame for our climate change

 

A review of 12,000 scientific papers has found the consensus among scientists that humans are to blame for climate change is “overwhelming” and the dissenting view was held by less than two per cent of scientists.

A review of 12,000 scientific papers has found the consensus among scientists that humans are to blame for climate change is “overwhelming”

The survey – the largest peer-reviewed study of its kind – found that a third of papers expressed a view on the causes of global warming – and 97.1 per cent of these said it was mainly man-made. It found a growing consensus among scientists that human activity, led by the use of fossil fuels, was the main cause of rising temperatures.

The lead author, John Cook, a fellow at the University of Queensland and founder of the website skepticalscience.com, said the findings debunked widely-held perceptions of a scientific debate about global warming.

“There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception,” he said.

“There is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary When people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they’re more likely to support policies that take action on it.”

The survey, published in Environmental Research Letters, examined 11,944 scientific abstracts published between 1991 to 2011.

Mr Cook said the number of papers rejecting the consensus was “vanishingly small”. Increasingly, he said, scientists did not see the need to express a position on the causes of climate change in journal abstracts “just as geographers find no reason to remind readers that the earth is round”.

“When people think scientists agree, they are more likely to support a carbon tax or general climate action,” he told The Age.

“But if they think scientists are still arguing about it, they don’t want to do anything about it.”

A survey in the United States last October found 43 per cent of Americans thought scientists were divided on man-made global warming while 45 per cent thought there was a consensus. Global average surface temperatures have risen by 1.4F (0.8C) since the industrial revolution.

A co-author of the new study, Mark Richardson, from the University of Reading, said: “If people disagree with what we’ve found we want to know.”