Irish households continue to cut its debt by repaying loans 

LATEST FIGURES FROM CENTRAL BANK SHOW HOUSEHOLDS STILL THIRD MOST INDEBTED IN THE EU

    

HOUSEHOLD DEBT HAS DECLINED CONTINUOUSLY FOR THE LAST 29 QUARTERS AND HAS FALLEN BY 26.6% SINCE ITS PEAK. 

Irish household debt fell by 1.1% in the fourth quarter of last year as borrowers focused on repaying loans.

The latest figures from the Central Bank show household debt continued to decrease, falling by €1.6bn, or 1.1%, to €149.6bn.

This represented a household debt per capita of €32,269. Household debt is now at its lowest level since the first quarter of 2006.

The Central Bank said the decline over the quarter reflected net debt repayments (-€1.1bn) and debt write-downs (-€0.6bn), which were slightly offset by positive reclassifications (€0.1bn).

Household net worth increased by 1.4% to €626.1bn, or €135,078 per capita, during the same period. This increase was largely driven by a rise in housing asset values (€6.3bn), as well as a further decline in household liabilities (€1.6bn).

Compared to a post-crisis low of €444.0bn in the second quarter of 2012, household net worth has risen by 41%. However, it is still 12.8% lower than its pre-crisis peak of €718bn in the second quarter of 2007.

Household debt has declined continuously for the last 29 quarters and has fallen by 26.6% since its peak of €203.7bn in the third quarter of 2008.

Indicators of household debt sustainability continued to improve during the same period. Debt as a proportion of disposable income fell from 159.8% to 155.1%, reflecting both the decline in household debt, as well as strong growth in annualised disposable income.

Overall, the ratio of household debt to disposable income has fallen by 60.2% since its peak of 215.3% in the second quarter of 2011.

Debt as a proportion of total assets also decreased, falling to from 19.5% to 19.1% over the quarter.

Despite a “significant decline” in debt as a proportion of disposable income over the year to Q4, Irish households continued to be the third most indebted in the European Union. Irish household debt fell by 25.1 per points over the year.

The Central Bank noted this was “significantly more” than any other country examined.

Spanish and Portuguese household debt also fell considerably over the year declining by 6.1%% and 4.6% respectively.

Household investment in financial assets rose to €1.9bn. This represented the highest level of investment in financial assets by households since the third quarter of 2009.

The increase in financial assets over the quarter largely reflected transactions into deposits.

Investigation launched after death of a man in his (70s) in Garda custody

GSOC CONFIRM GARDAÍ ADMINISTERED CPR AFTER MAN ‘BECAME UNWELL WITH BREATHING DIFFICULTIES’ IN A GARDA CELL.

   

THE GARDA OMBUDSMAN HAS CONFIRMED THAT THEY ARE INVESTIGATING THE DEATH OF A MAN IN CUSTODY.

The man, who was in his 70s, was discovered dead in a cell at Westport Garda station in Co Mayo at 11am.

The man was detained earlier today and sources have indicated he may have suffered a heart attack.

A spokeswoman for the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) has confirmed that a team is on their way to the scene where an investigation will be carried out.

A referral was made to the body under section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005.

This evening GSOC released a statement about the incident.

A statement?

A spokeswoman confirmed: “The Garda Ombudsman is examining the circumstances surrounding the death of a man in his 70s while in custody at Westport Garda Station, Co. Mayo.

“The incident was referred to GSOC by the Garda Síochána under section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act at about 12.30pm this afternoon.

“The man who was under arrest became unwell with breathing difficulties and CPR was administered by gardaí. A doctor and the emergency services were called and the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

“The State Pathologist has been informed and a post-mortem is scheduled to take place in Castlebar in the coming days.

“GSOC Investigators are at the scene and an independent examination is underway to establish the facts of the situation.”

The published Panama Papers reveals thousands of secret offshore companies

A SEARCHABLE DATABASE DISPLAYS MORE THAN 200,000 ENTITIES FROM THE PANAMA PAPERS

     

THE INTERNATIONAL CONSORTIUM OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS (ICIJ) TONIGHT PUBLISHES A SEARCHABLE DATABASE (HTTPS://OFFSHORELEAKS.ICIJ.ORG) THAT STRIPS AWAY THE SECRECY OF NEARLY 214,000 OFFSHORE ENTITIES CREATED IN 21 JURISDICTIONS, FROM NEVADA TO HONG KONG AND THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS.

The data, part of the Panama Papers investigation, is the largest ever release of information about offshore companies and the people behind them. This includes, when available, the names of the real owners of those opaque structures.

The database also displays information about more than 100,000 additional offshore entities the ICIJ had already disclosed in its 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation.

THE PANAMA PAPERS DATABASE.  

(HTTPS://OFFSHORELEAKS.ICIJ.ORG)

THE ICIJ IS PUBLISHING THE INFORMATION IN THE INTEREST OF THE PUBLIC .

The data the ICIJ is now making public represents a fraction of the Panama Papers, a trove of more than 11.5 million leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of hard-to-trace companies, trusts and foundations.

The consortium is not publishing the totality of the leak, and it is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse. The database contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it does not disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.

In all, the database reveals more than 360,000 names of people and companies behind secret offshore structures. As the data are from leaked sources and not a standardised registry, there may be some duplication of names.

The data was originally obtained from an anonymous source by reporters at the German newspaper Süeddeustche Zeitung, who asked ICIJ to organise a global reporting collaboration to analyse the files.

More than 370 reporters (https://panamapapers.icij.org/about.html) in nearly 80 countries investigated the files for a year. Their investigations uncovered the secret offshore holdings of 12 world leaders, more than 128 other politicians and scores of fraudsters, drug traffickers and other criminals whose companies had been blacklisted in the US and elsewhere.

Their status as outlaws or public officials did not prevent them from obtaining shell companies in locales where secrecy laws often make it impossible for prosecutors and other investigators to trace their assets.

The files revealed, for example, that associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.

THE GLOBAL REACTION? 

The reaction to the Panama Papers was immediate and viral.

Outraged citizens took to the streets in Reykjavik, Malta and London while the hashtag #panamapapers trended on Twitter for days after the story broke on April 3rd.

The prime minister of Iceland resigned over the British Virgin Islands company he co-owned with his wife, while other world leaders scrambled to explain their secret holdings.

It took UK’s prime minister David Cameron three days to publicly acknowledge he had profited from an investment fund, created by his father, that was incorporated in Panama and managed in the Bahamas.

In Spain a minister resigned after being caught in a series of lies about his connections to offshore, and in Uruguay police arrested five individuals suspected of laundering money for a powerful Mexican drug cartel.

The Panama Papers underscore the fundamental injustices and inequalities created by the offshore system, media commentators and political leaders say.

“When taxes are evaded, when state assets are taken and put into these havens, all of these things can have a tremendous negative effect on our mission to end poverty and boost prosperity,”

Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, said as he opened the spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington soon after ICIJ and more than 100 other news organisations, including The Irish Times, began revealing the results of the media collaboration’s investigation.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, pointed out that the biggest problem was that many of the schemes revealed by the Panama Papers were legal. “It’s not that they’re breaking the laws, it’s that the laws are so poorly designed,” he said.

The revelations reignited the debate about the need for public registries in which information about who ultimately controls a company be accessible to all. The UK has made disclosure of beneficial owner data mandatory and public, but British Overseas Territories such the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, some the busiest offshore havens, have agreed to share that information by law enforcement.

Citing the Panama Papers, the US government also announced on Thursday that it has sent legislation to Congress to create a centralised federal registry of the actual owners of any newly created company.

The registry would help law enforcement authorities ferret out the real people behind anonymous companies used in money laundering and other wrongdoing.

The governments of Australia and Germany have said that they too intend to create public registries of company owners.

On Friday, the anonymous leaker of the Panama Papers, known only as “John Doe, ” spoke publicly for the first time in a written statement and called out for concrete steps to combat tax havens .

“In the European Union, every member state’s corporate register should be freely accessible, with detailed data plainly available on ultimate beneficial owners,” the source wrote. Doe added that the US “can clearly no longer trust its fifty states to make sound decisions about their own corporate data.”

EXPLORING THE DATABASE? 

(HTTPS://OFFSHORELEAKS.ICIJ.ORG)

The searchable database that ICIJ publishes today allows users to explore the networks of companies and people that used – and sometimes abused – the secrecy of offshore locales with the help of Mossack Fonseca and other intermediaries. The leaked data covers nearly 40 years, from 1977 through the end of 2015.

The data, which includes postal addresses, displays links to more than 200 countries and territories, from China to Chile.

Users can filter the information by country and by offshore jurisdiction. They can also explore the role of banks, law firms and other gatekeepers of the financial system in facilitating the creation of offshore companies for high net worth individuals.

For the first time, they can see details about shadowy Panamanian private foundations, including when available information about who controls them.

While the database opens up a world that has never been shown in this much detail, not every owner of a company that appears in the Panama Papers shows up in the public database.

This is because ownership information is often buried in emails, power-of-attorney letters and internal notes of Mossack Fonseca employees and cannot easily be extracted in a systematic manner.

In addition, Mossack Fonseca often failed to collect the necessary information about the ultimate owners of companies, relying instead on banks and other intermediaries to keep track of that essential data.

Still, it is expected that Panama Papers revelations will continue to surface as regulators and ordinary citizens from around the globe probe the newly available data and find new connections that may have escaped reporters. Concerned citizens are encouraged to share tips with ICIJ and the Panama Papers journalists who continue to investigate the documents. The full dataset is also available for download: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/pages/database.

“Transparency is not going to move backward,” Kim said in his World Bank spring meetings remarks, warning that those trying to avoid taxes or steal money from public treasuries should be “very careful” because they will eventually be tracked down.

“The world is only going to become more and more transparent as we move forward.”

Aldi and Lidl prove incredibly astute at tapping into what Irish consumers want

IRISH CONSUMERS MOVING TO OWN-BRAND OFFERINGS IS NO SURPRISE

    

IRISH CONSUMERS ARE NOW DISCARDING BRAND NAMES MORE IN FAVOUR OF THE OWN-BRAND OFFERINGS ON THE SHELVES OF ALDI AND LIDL IN GREATER NUMBERS THAN EVER SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE.

The share of the Irish grocery market held by the German discounters Aldiand Lidl has just increased dramatically, with confirmation due on Monday that nearly one in four Irish consumers do their shopping in either one of the two stores.

Last month, figures from industry analysts Kantar Worldpanel painted a very different picture.

THOSE FIGURES PUT SUPERVALU ON 24.9% OF THE IRISH MARKET, WHILE TESCO HAD 23.9% -JUST 0.4% AHEAD OF DUNNES STORES.

Lidl and Aldi had 8.5% and 8.4% market share respectively – good certainly, but nowhere as near as good as the new figures suggest.

The change is due to a recalibration from Kantar rather than any shift in spending.

There is no change in the running order, with Supervalu still in the number one position and Aldi still in fifth – but the combined market share of Aldi and Lidl is 22.1%. Lidl now has 11.5% of the Irish market, while Aldi is just behind it on 11.2%.

Aldi is arguably the better performing of the pair, because it has an almost identical market share with significantly fewer stores.

Brand names:  That Irish consumers are eschewing brand names in favour of the own-brand offerings on the shelves of Aldi and Lidl in greater numbers than ever should come as no surprise.

In the mid-1990s, Lidl and Aldi were unfamiliar to most Irish shoppers. Then, in 1998, Lidl arrived and was joined the following year by Aldi.

In the early days growth was slow, with Irish people reluctant to swap branded products for unfamiliar labels, while Irish suppliers and producers were reluctant to do business with untested chains who were not highly regarded among shoppers.

People were amused by the pair’s eclectic weekly special offer – but the allure of delights such as jackhammers jostling for position with canoes, luridly coloured onesies and flat-pack gazebos was not enough to bring people through their doors in significant numbers.

Their Spartan shelves did Lidl and Aldi no favours either. A big Tesco outlet might have more than 20,000 different items on their shelves, while the discounters contented themselves with around 1,000.

Then the bubble burst – and everything changed. The growth of both retailers has been relentless ever since but it would be wrong to suggest that growth has been simply down to cash strapped times. Far from it.

Both Aldi and Lidl have proved themselves to be incredibly astute at tapping into what Irish consumers want. They tweaked their product lines to offer more Irish produce, their ranges improved dramatically and they established very good relationships with Irish suppliers.

Crucially, both Aldi and Lidl were also able to prove that people who did their shopping in their stores saved money, a lot of money.

Canny shoppers realised they could easily knock over a third off their annual grocery spend by shopping with the Germans, without sacrificing anything significant in terms of quality.

The perception of both companies is also very good. Both featured in the top 10 most respected companies in the Republic in a survey published last month by the Reputations Agency, while a separate survey from Amárach on consumers’ attitudes published late last year rated Aldi fourth most highly rated company in Ireland in a poll of more than 2,700 people.

“That really surprised me,” said Gerard O’Neill of Amárach when the survey was published.

“We lived through the recession and watched as the discounters changed the retail rules and relentlessly pushed down prices, but now they are changing the rules again. They are aiming for better prices, better experiences, and better service.”

Speaking yesterday, O’Neill elaborated. “The recession gave them [discounters] a foothold – but there is more to it than that. They have completely changed the conversation about value and made people realise it is not all about price.

“It is about affordability, but also about the sense of how a person feels shopping. Aldi and Lidl have made people who shop in their stores feel prudent, discerning, more astute – almost German.”

O’Neill said the two had been “very clever in how they have dealt with their competition. It has been like a bait and switch. They made the conversation about price and then switched it to Irishness and community.

“If a Martian was to arrive in Ireland they would be sure that both Aldi and Lidl were indigenous companies, so embedded in the local communities do they appear,” he suggested.

Customer experience

He pointed out that customer experience “is driven not by value for money – because we rationalise that after the fact – but by something more emotional. We like to come away from the shopping experience feeling smug – in the nice sense of the word – and safe in the knowledge that we have got a bargain. Aldi and Lidl understand that.”

It is not just by offering good value and toying with our emotions that Aldi and Lidl have grown so strongly. Both have opened stores at a phenomenal rate.

Last Thursday, the former opened its 124th – and largest – store in Sallynogginin Co Dublin, while Lidl has 147 stores.

Both have plans for more openings in the months ahead.

Damian O’Reilly, who lectures in retail management in the Dublin Institute of Management, described how effectively the discounters have been playing the retail game in recent years, capitalising on changing economic conditions, improving consumer knowledge and very effective store design and stock maintenance.

He pointed out that their modular units were very cheap to put up – a store can be opened for about €3 million – and their compact size means they can be squeezed into small spaces in rural towns which has allowed them to take on Supervalu in areas where that retailer used to be traditionally untouchable.

And, he said, Aldi and Lidl have been outspending their rivals on television and newspaper ads over the last two years, working relentlessly to promote their Irishness.

They also have some canny tricks they play. “They have longer conveyor belts leading to the cash registers, so shoppers think they are nearly there when they start putting their shopping out – even though there might still be three people ahead of them. The staff have to scan 30 items a minute – so the check-out process moves very quickly.”

But where to next? “In terms of market share I think they are nearly there,” O’Reilly says. “They might be able to grow another couple of per cent but the rate at which they are opening stores is slowing and that will put a limit on how much they will grow.”

O’Neill agreed, although he suggested the Germans could get to 30% of the market. “They will be constrained by the amount of real estate they can buy and the competition is not just going to sit there and watch as they grow bigger.”

Full moons influence less sleep in children

    

THE FULL MOON CAN SOMEHOW INFLUENCE CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOUR AND EVEN AFFECT THEIR SLEEP? ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO STRENGTHEN ANCIENT BELIEF ON THE LUNAR PHASES’ EFFECTS ON HUMAN BIOLOGY.

A recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics showed that children are no more active during full moon than in any other phase of the moon. The full moon, on the other hand, may interfere with their sleeping time, potentially owing to its brightness particularly “if the window curtain is not sufficiently opaque.”

“[S]leep duration was 1 percent shorter at full moon compared to new moon, while activity behaviours were not significantly associated with the lunar cycle in this global sample of children,” wrote the researchers, with this specific finding translating to around five minutes less sleep.

According to researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Canada, the study offers “solid evidence” that the links between moon phases and children’s sleep duration and activity behaviors do not come across as meaningful from a public health perspective.

The team analyzed data from over 5,800 children, who were ages 9 to 11 and came from 12 countries. Unlike previous research relying on human judgment, subjects wore accelerometers, which are akin to fitness trackers recording body movements or monitoring sleep for 24 hours a day for at least seven days.

The kids got five minutes shorter sleep on nights with a full moon, deemed an effect “unlikely to be important.” And it remains unclear why children had less shuteye on full-moon nights.

 It could be that the full moon’s brightness was interfering with sleep, although the researchers considered this implausible given the abundance of artificial light – such as from smartphones and mobile devices – in modern societies.

The team urged future studies to see if the human body is somehow synchronized with the moon’s cycles, or if the full moon has a more pronounced effect on certain groups of people.

The belief that the moon affects people’s behavior dates back ancient times, although studies have seen little evidence to back up this idea. The moon mystery, suffice it to say, has fascinated many civilizations and generations.

For instance, no peer-reviewed study yet has seen any notable association between the full moon and epileptic seizures, psychiatric ward visits, or emergency room cases. Even when it comes to menstrual cycles, there is no research so far that makes a significant correlation between lunar phases and the condition across a huge swath of participants.

In addition, the effects of the moon on the ocean are notable not only during the full moon – the tides, too, are highest during the new moon.   

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG update

Economic recovery creates room for income tax cuts, says Tánaiste Burton

 

Revenue growth to enable long-term investment in education and road network. 

The Tánaiste Joan Burton has said the recovery in the public finances means the Government can now make plans to long-term investment in education and roads in addition to mooted income tax concessions.

After new exchequer figures showed a big increase in tax returns last month, Ms Burton said other indicators pointed to a nascent recovery in consumer sentiment and improved prospects for the tourism industry.

“Without a doubt there is a surge in consumer confidence,” she said. “For everybody who has been at work – taken tax hikes, taken pay cuts – it’s possible now to see a route to restoration.”

The Tánaiste was speaking to The Irish Times before the release on Wednesday of fresh live register figures, which are set to put the February unemployment rate just above 10 per cent as people return to work.

A new set of exchequer returns showed the State collected €6.74 billion in tax in January and February, €925 million more than in 2014 and €345 million ahead of the target set in the October budget.

Figures distorted

While the figures showed the exchequer deficit declined to €205 million at the end of February from €1.68 billion a year ago, the 2014 figures were distorted by once-off changes last year to Europe’s payment systems.

Conall MacCoille, economist at Davy stockbrokers, said the returns provided tentative evidence to suggest the Government could beat its target for a budget deficit this year of 2.7 per cent of gross domestic product.

“Tax revenues are beating budget forecasts by a wide margin across a broad range of categories and spending discipline is being maintained,” he said.

Although Ms Burton emphasised that caution was required in the assessment of returns for only the opening two months of the year, she said it was now clear the economy was poised for growth.

As the Coalition prepares to set a future course for the State in its “spring economic statement” due next month, she said the continued recovery in the public finances and other positive indicators suggested resources would be available to tackle the deficit in Ireland’s public infrastructure.

“The figures tell the story about where the Irish economy is now and where we hope it is moving to,” she said an interview.

Capital infrastructure

“We would like a resource becoming available for critical capital infrastructure. We need, for instance, to upskill our workforce because that’s the route to well-paid employment. We need to invest and continue to invest in education at all levels, particularly in third level,” she added.

“We need for instance in some areas to finish our road transport network: just let’s say Limerick to Cork, Limerick to Tralee and Killarney, and to finish the route to Rosslare.”

In addition,the improvement in the public finances would secure the funding required to invest some €4 billion in social housing in the next five years .

Citing agreements with Taoiseach Enda Kenny to reform the universal social charge, raise the entry point for the higher income tax rate and look at tax rates, she said the Government was on course to deliver further concessions in the next budget.

“All of that means that people in work should be able to get in next year’s budget if things continue to go well a little bit more tax relief,” said Ms Burton.

Irish taxman takes almost €20m from 128 under compliance medical consultants 

   

The Irish Revenue Commissioners have collected almost €20m as part of a long-running investigation into the earnings of medical consultants.

The probe was launched amid concerns that certain consultants were not declaring their full private incomes for tax reasons.

Revenue has set up a system with the HSE to differentiate between consultants’ public and private incomes.

According to information supplied to Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, the incomes of 331 consultants have been scrutinised.

Around 128 of these cases have been concluded, a Revenue spokesperson said, resulting in almost €20m being collected.

According to the figures, the average settlement is around €150,000.

“I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that they are engaged in an ongoing programme of compliance work in relation to medical consultants.

“Revenue’s main focus at this time in the context of this programme is the tax issues arising from the incorporation of medical consultants businesses,” said a parliamentary response from Finance Minister Michael Noonan.

“To date, Revenue has opened a total of 331 compliance interventions.

The investigations that have been concluded have resulted in the collection of €19,199,325 in tax, late payment interest charges and penalties, he added.

Revenue contacted the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) last year and informed it that its members may be subject to audits.

The body has said that each consultant has individual tax arrangements and therefore they should consult their accountants to ensure that they are tax compliant.

Mr McGrath, a TD for Cork South Central, last night described the figures as “extraordinary”, adding that the final sum could be significantly higher.

“With a further 200 cases still live, the overall amount being recouped from medical consultants could well be in region of €50m.

“It seems to me that many are being very badly advised by professional advisers in terms of how they are setting up and operating private structures.”

Mr McGrath said he believes the matter should be examined by the HSE and Health Minister Leo Varadkar.

“Every individual citizen has an obligation to be tax compliant,” he added.

One in five (20%) of wives in Ireland keep secret ‘run away’ accounts?

  

Almost one in five (20%) of women in Ireland keep secret bank accounts unknown to their husbands, a survey has revealed.

Fewer men stash money in secret accounts, with one in 12 husbands confessing to having accounts their wives have not seen.

The prevalence of partners having secret “running away” money was revealed in a Love and Money survey published by savings group RaboDirect.

Most couples (75%) said, however, that they work well together when it comes to planning budgets and managing money. However, full disclosure about money is a hurdle for some couples to overcome.

An overwhelming 78% felt it was important to know everything about their partner’s finances, a figure that rises to almost nine out of 10 women (89%).

Yet fewer men (62%) than women (79%) actually believe they know everything about their partner’s finances.

“For those who find talking about finances tricky, it helps to see yourselves as a team working together,” said psychologist Niamh Hannan.

“By keeping calm and focusing on the goals you wish to achieve you’re much more likely to reach agreement.”

A heart attack recovery relies on a positive mental attitude

RESEARCH NOW SHOWS

The most positive patients are less likely to suffer another heart attack

  

People who have suffered a heart attack are much more likely to experience a healthy recovery if they have an optimistic attitude, new research has shown.

The study found that the most positive patients are half as likely to suffer another heart attack, require surgery or die in the four years after a heart attack, than those who displayed the most pessimistic attitude.

While a link between an optimistic outlook on life and better heart health is well-established, the impact of a patient’s attitude after suffering a heart attack or other serious cardiovascular problem was not known until now.

A number of factors could like behind the link, said experts from University College London (UCL) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which backed the study. More optimistic patients were less likely to persist with unhealthy behaviours like smoking, and more likely to adopt healthier diets.

UCL’s Professor Andrew Steptoe, who led the study said: “Optimistic people are more likely to take advice about lifestyle changes on board. This results in better outcomes after a patient suffers from unstable angina or a heart attack.

“Our findings could be used to identify pessimistic patients and encourage them to make the necessary changes to their lifestyle that can ultimately lead to better health.”

The study, which looked at 369 patients, followed up over four years, is published in the journal Psychomatic Medicine.

Patients were asked to take part in questionnaires that assigned them an optimism score based on how strongly they agreed with statements such as: “In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.”

It found that half of the most pessimistic patients were still smoking one year after a heart attack,  compared to 85% of the most optimistic group, who had quit entirely one year on.

Similarly, 40% of the most optimistic patients were eating five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day after one year, compared to only 20% in the most pessimistic group.

Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the BHF, said that the next step would be to prove that psychological support could improve the chances of more pessimistic patients having a good recovery.

“Suffering from a serious condition like angina or heart attack can take a drastic emotional toll, which we know can lead to depression, further lowering the chances of a full recovery after a heart attack,” he said. “If you’re living with a heart condition and struggling to cope, we would urge you to contact your GP who can put you in touch with the necessary support.”

NUI Galway students win vote for the legalisation of cannabis

 

Nearly 1,800 votes supported the motion, while 838 were against

Some 68% of votes were in favour of the legalisation, cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis for adults.

Students at NUI Galway (NUIG) have called on other universities to vote on legalising cannabis use for adults, following their referendum in favour of such a move this week.

Some 68 per cent of votes cast on the issue in NUIG supported legalisation and regulation of the of the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis for adults age 18 and over.

A total of 1,796 votes approved of the motion, while 838 votes were against. The university has over 17,000 registered students.

Ciarán Maher, spokesman for the NUIG Students forSensible Drug Policy Society, said the outcome meant that the legalisation would be adopted as students’ union policy.

His society, along with NUIG’s Sinn Féin cumann, theNUIG Misneach Society and the NUIG Socialist Society had united to call for a “Yes” vote, and it was endorsed by North and West MEP Luke “Ming” Flanagan at a debate on campus last week.

Garda whistleblower John Wilson, who was also invited to speak, called for a rational, mature” debate on legalising cannabis in Ireland, given its widespread use.

Regulation of cannabis without the harmful psychoactive compound linked to schizophrenia and other illnesses could ensure that thousands of people currently using the substance avoided criminal conviction, Mr Wilson said.

NUIG professor of pharmacology Prof David Finn, who is director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre, said that he wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the student vote, as it probably reflected the opinion of the majority of young people in Ireland.

However, Prof Finn said he would urge some caution around “full, uncontrolled” legalisation of cannabis, while also believing it needed to be “decriminalised”.

He said his concerns related to the amount of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, in cannabis, as “the higher the content, the riskier it is”.

THC is the chemical responsible for most of the drug’s psychological effects, and use of cannabis by young people with developing brains could lead to psychosis or other psychological disorders, he said.

“If alcohol or tobacco were discovered today, we would probably ban them, and there are schedule A drugs such as heroin which are far riskier than cannabis,”Prof Finn said.

“Regulation to ensure young people do not have access to cannabis, and regulation to ensure the safest type is used, is key,”he said.

University College Dublin’s (UCD) students’ union council voted against the legalisaton of cannabis in late January. Spokesman Brian Maher said that the UCD students’ union had “no plans” to hold a full referendum, but students were always entitled to do so and any conversation was “welcome”.

Regulations to enable authorised cannabis-based medicinal products to be legally prescribed by medical practitioners, and used by patients, were signed into law on July 11th last year.

The Health Products Regulatory Authority granted a marketing authorisation for cannabis based medicinal product Sativex to be marketed in Ireland for treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms.

However,reimbursement under the community drugs scheme is still the subject of a Health Service Executive assessment, according to the Department of Health.?”

‘Man-Made’ climate change is a major problem for women

  

Men and women may not always be on the same footing but you would think both sexes would be equal in the face of gigantic floods, typhoons or droughts. Think again.

Countless studies show that natural disasters on average kill more women than men — 90% female fatalities in some cases prevent girls from going to school, increase the threat of sexual assault. And the list goes on.

This issue has leaped to the fore in global negotiations on climate change, which scientists warn will be responsible for increasingly violent and frequent natural catastrophes around the world.

“It boils down to the fact that women and men have different types of vulnerabilities already in the world,” said Tara Shine, special advisor to the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice think tank, headed by the former Irish president-turned U.N. special envoy for climate change.

“And then climate change comes along and accentuates all of those,” she added on the sidelines of the ongoing U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, where the issue of climate change and rights was debated.

According to the World Bank, 90% of some 140,000 victims of the 1991 cyclone that battered Bangladesh were women, as were nearly two thirds of those killed by Myanmar’s 2008 Cyclone Nargis.

“There are many reasons but one of them is that they cannot swim, they cannot climb trees, it’s cultural,” said Elena Manaenkova, assistant secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

“In many countries — and it’s also cultural — they are not supposed to run, they are supposed to wait until their husband will call them to action.”

One of the WMO’s objectives is to reach out to people in disaster-prone areas with forecasts that could save their lives or livelihoods, for which mobile phones are an important tool.

But according to Manaenkova, 300 million fewer women have mobile phones than men, which means warnings often do not reach them.

Beyond this, women and girls are also impacted by climate change in their everyday lives — education being a prime example.

In many parts of the developing world, for instance, they are the ones who fetch water for their families, and as global warming impacts the availability of fresh water sources, they have to trek farther afield to find them — meaning less time for school.

According to the United Nations Development Program, a survey conducted in Tanzania found girls’ attendance to be 12% higher for those in homes located near a water source than in homes one hour or more away.

Attendance rates for boys appeared to be far less affected.

Plan International conducted extensive research on the subject in 2010 in drought-ridden Ethiopia and flood-prone Bangladesh, and found the long walks were also dangerous.

“I know two girls who were raped going to fetch water. When you go far and there are not many people around, it happens,” Endager, a 16-year-old girl from Lasta district in Ethiopia, was quoted as saying in the NGO’s report.

Poverty-inducing natural disasters can also increase the propensity for child marriage.

“After cyclones, families think their condition is worse and send their daughters to get married,” a young girl from Barguna in Bangladesh was quoted as saying.

“Almost 50% of girls drop out of education because of early marriage. In very remote villages, it is probably more 70 to 75%.”

So what can be done? Simple, experts say — empower women, get them involved at all levels, and remember that they exist.

According to Shine, the issue is expected to feature prominently in a crucial new agreement aimed at averting catastrophic global warming to be signed in Paris later this year.

Some countries — such as Mozambique — are already factoring gender into their response to climate change, she says.

“When it (Mozambique) is increasing the resilience of smallholder farmers’ livelihoods to the impact of climate change, it doesn’t forget the majority of its smallholder farmers are women,” she said.

“It therefore has to tailor the supports, advice and technologies that it makes available to them to be appropriate to their needs and to ask them what they want.”

Other concrete measures include making sure typhoon shelters have separate female and male toilets, so women will feel safe and go there during a storm.

“It’s often such obvious stuff but if the people responsible for it aren’t a little bit aware that there are gender differences…, with all the good intention in the world, they can end up doing something that has a negative effect,” said Shine