Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

The Labour party is to abolish USC for low and middle income earners if elected

THE PARTY LAUNCHES IT’S ELECTION MANIFESTO AND SAYS IT ENDED THE ECONOMIC CRISIS?

   

Brendan Howlin, Joan Burton, & Alan Kelly at the launch of the Labour Party’s election manifesto in Dublin on Monday.

Labour will establish a new savings scheme to help first time buyers purchase a home if re-elected to Government.

The party launched its manifesto on Monday committing to abolishing the Universal Social Charge for all low and middle income earners.

It also promises to negotiate a new public sector pay deal in 2018 in advance of the end of the Lansdowne Road Agreement and will increase the pension to €260.

There are also measures to introduce a register for childminders to allow for inspection, increased child benefit payments and for universal free GP care by 2021.

Under the Labour proposals for every € 4 a first time buyer saves the Government will provide a top-up of € 1.

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This is subject to a cap of € 1,200 a year for every five years.

This would a buyer could receive a maximum of € 6,000 over five years saving.

The party’s manifesto commits to a referendum on repealing the eighth amendment of the Constitution.

It also vows to introduce mandatory training on sexual violence for all trainee Gardaí and recruit an additional 700 Gardaí a year to bring the strength of the force to 14,500.

The manifesto commits to the formal recognition of the travelling community.

A Constitutional Convention will also be re-established to examine end of life issues and the place of faith in the Constitution including the requirement of religious declarations by office holders.

Tánaiste Joan Burton said Labour in Government ended the economic crisis.

However she insisted there was much more work to be done.

Ms Burton said: “We cannot take this opportunity for granted. There are parties who have been reckless with the country’s finances in the past and parties who would be reckless with them if in Government.

“Those parties would return us to crisis. Labour will not allow that to happen.”

Scam artists in Donegal are posing as ESB technicians

MEN ARE ATTEMPTING TO FIND OUT WHEN THE HOUSES WILL BE VACANT BY ASKING RESIDENTS WHEN THEY ARE AVAILABLE FOR REPAIRS OR UPGRADES.

     

LOCAL’S IN CO DONEGAL ARE BEING TOLD TO BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR SCAM ARTISTS POSING AS ESB TECHNICIANS.

A spate of incidents has been reported in recent times in which a man in a yellow ESB jacket and driving a yellow van emblazoned with the ESB logo has sought to gain entry to people’s homes across the county.

The pretext for his visit is usually to read a meter or to examine a fuse box.

The most recent incident has been reported in the Castlefin area near Lifford.

“I was canvassing next door to where the latest instance happened,” Fianna Fáil councillor Patrick McGowan told TheJournal.ie. So yes, I can confirm that it is happening.

The woman in question didn’t let the man in, but she doesn’t want anyone to enter her house now, she is obviously worried.

McGowan confirmed with the ESB at the time that they had no such meter readers operating in the Castlefin area.

“It was very, very real, and confirmed. They had no-one in that area. We need to deal with this now because the next thing we know they’ll have moved to Galway or Mayo or somewhere else,” he said.

Gardaí were informed of the incident at the time but “they didn’t come out til the next day” according to McGowan.

“I was involved with setting up the text alert in the Finn valley area,” the councillor says.

We have a lack of Garda resources here – there’s only one or two gardaí in Letterkenny who can deal with this.

People around here tend to be in touch with each other and to perform their own security.

McGowan says he has “no idea” who the perpetrators are, but the suspicion is that the men involved are casing houses with a view to future burglaries – by asking residents about when they are available for repairs or upgrades.

“There’s been a lot of sightings of ESB vans about the place now but they have all turned out to be legitimate when confronted,” he says.

Can sex in later life (Over 50’s) improve & protect brain health?

   

DR HAYLEY WRIGHT DISCUSSES RESEARCH WHICH EXPLORES WHETHER SEX FOR THE OVER 50’S CAN PROTECT AND EVEN IMPROVE COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS.

Would it be such a bad thing if we can add a healthy sex life to our lifestyle choices that help to keep us mentally and physically healthy in later life?

Scientific and medical research has unveiled a whole host of lifestyle factors that promote or protect cognitive functions – especially memory – in older age. Memory is a particularly hot topic at the moment, especially with the increased public and political focus on dementia.

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX

In light of all this evidence for the effects of health and lifestyle on brain function, it is surprising that there has been little focus on sexual activity and cognition. We could argue that sexual activity impacts upon all areas of life – the social, emotional and physical aspects at least – so let’s talk about it!

We used cross-sectional data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to answer our research question. In our analysis, we took into account many factors that might influence either sexual activity or cognition – age, education, wealth, levels of physical activity, cohabiting status, general health, depression, loneliness and quality of life.

Even after adjusting for all of these factors statistically, we established that there is indeed an association between sexual activity and higher scores on tests of cognitive function in people over the age of 50 years.

WHAT NEXT?

Our finding is very exciting, but it does open up the proverbial can of worms. We have simply revealed an association between two variables – a correlation. There are many words of caution to heed when interpreting correlational data, especially in light of the many spurious relationships that can be detected if we only look for them (e.g. the divorce rate in Maine correlates with the per capita consumption of margarine).

What we need to clarify now, is whether engaging in sexual activity leads to better cognitive function, or indeed the other way around – whether people who have higher cognitive functioning are those who tend to remain sexually active in later life.

WOMEN AND HORMONES?

Our study also uncovered a surprising gender difference in our findings. Sexually active men performed better on tests of memory (word recall) and executive function (number sequencing) than those who were not sexually active.

However, in women, we only found a strong association between sexual activity and memory function. So, in short, sexually activity was not related to scores on the number sequencing task (e.g. fill in the blank – “9, 7, _, 3”) in women. This finding has left us with a great deal more research questions in our quest to find out why.

As with all new findings, it’s possible that these results could be due to a whole range of biological, social, or psychological variables. The good news is that we have already begun our search for answers.

Previous scientific research has already shown that sex-specific hormones that circulate around our bodies before we are even born, can actually impact upon brain development and cognitive function throughout the lifespan. We are currently exploring whether the gender difference we have found is due to hormonal differences in men and women, which influence certain brain regions and functions.

IS IT LOVE?

We think that there could be two broad underlying mechanisms that affect brain function in our study: i) heightened levels of intimacy and companionship in sexual relationships; ii) surges in sex-related hormones as a result of regular arousal.

Basically, we now want to find out whether we are dealing with a biological or a social phenomenon.

You might be thinking, “but couldn’t it be a combination of both?” and you’d be right, it could be. Everyone loves a good old nature versus nurture debate, and it would be great to hear your opinions of what might be underlying the association we have found. Nature or nurture, biological or social, love or sex?

HEALTHY (SEX) LIFE, FOR A HEALTHY BRAIN

There are many exaggerated examples of how to keep our minds active and brains healthy as we get older, such as “eating leafy vegetables improves your IQ”, or “brain training prevents dementia”, and so on. Whilst these are inflated versions of scientific research, they resonate with all of us. However, when we get down to the real science, all of this research has actually highlighted that what is good for your heart is good for your brain.

Would it be such a bad thing if we can add a healthy sex life to our lifestyle choices that help to keep us mentally and physically healthy in later life?

A dad’s rubbish bin ice battle is a metaphor for our life’s struggles

HILARIOUS VIDEO SHOWS A MAN TRYING AND FAILING TO REPEATEDLY DRAG A BIN UP AN ICY DRIVEWAY IN THE FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

  

THIS FATHER’S HILARIOUS BATTLE WITH A WHEELIE BIN ON AN ICY DRIVE PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP LIFE’S EVERYDAY STRUGGLES.

A Gloucestershire man has become a viral star after millions watched a video of him struggling with the rubbish bin on an icy morning

Alun Miles, from the Forest of Dean, is the star of the viral video which has racked up more than 2.5 million views in three days and been shared more than 30,000 times.

He posted the video on Facebook with the caption: “Trying to put the bins out this morning, a little bit frosty one could say!!!” Go on and have a laugh at the man's expense????????

Mr Miles added: “It took me ages to get the bin out, the bit you can’t see is the dustbin men at the top of the drive laughing also!!!”

In the clip he is seen trying to push the rubbish bin towards his gate to catch the bin men only for him to repeatedly slide backwards on the ice.

His wife, heard laughing loudly throughout the clip, recorded the video as she watched the slapstick Chuckle Brothers-style scene unfold alongside her their two children.

She explained: “He had been out there a while before we even noticed … then I watched for a minute before running for the phone.”

His sister-in-law, Carrie-Anne Bailey, added: “My brother-in-law attempted to put the family’s weekly rubbish out for collection.

“It was a cold frosty morning in the Forest of Dean and little did he know just how challenging his morning task would be.”

Extinct new plant species discovered in chunk of amber wood

   

BIOLOGISTS HAVE DESCRIBED A NEW SPECIES OF EXTINCT PLANT, BASED ON TWO FOSSIL FLOWERS THAT WERE TRAPPED IN CHUNKS OF AMBER FOR AT LEAST 15 MILLION YEARS.

Strychnos electri belongs to the genus whose tropical shrubs, trees and vines are famous for producing the deadly toxin strychnine.

The US researchers named it after the Greek word for amber (“elektron”) – the fossilised resin of long-dead trees.

The two flowers were among 500 fossils collected on a 1986 field trip by Professor George Poinar of Oregon State University.

Prof Poinar is a renowned entomologist and most of these specimens were insects. But after nearly 30 years working on the bugs, his eye settled on the flowers.

They were remarkably complete – unlike most plant fossils found in amber, which are usually just fragments.

In 2015, he sent high-resolution photos to Professor Lena Struwe at Rutgers University.

Probably poisonous

“These flowers looked like they had just fallen from a tree,” said Prof Poinar. “I thought they might be Strychnos, and I sent them to Lena because I knew she was an expert in that genus.”

Prof Struwe set about comparing the physical structure of the flowers to all 200 known Strychnos species, combing the collections of multiple museums and herbaria.

“The characters mostly used to identify species of Strychnos are flower morphology, and that’s what we luckily have for this fossil,” said Prof Struwe.

“I looked at each specimen of New World species, photographed and measured it, and compared it to the photo George sent me. I asked myself, ‘How do the hairs on the petals look?’ ‘Where are the hairs situated?’ and so on.”

For the animals of the late cretaceous, S. electri was probably not very good eating, “Species of the genus Strychnos are almost all toxic in some way,” said Prof Poinar.

“Each plant has its own alkaloids with varying effects. Some are more toxic than others, and it may be that they were successful because their poisons offered some defence against herbivores.”

The most famous such alkaloid, strychnine, is a toxin that once formed the basis of many rat poisons – as well as being one of Norman Bates’s murder weapons in the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho.

But these plants also fall within the “asterid” family, which includes more than 80,000 flowering plants including many of the ones humans eat, from potatoes and mint to sunflowers and coffee beans.

The new discovery is a crucial addition to the fossil record of this family, which is very poorly understood.   

Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG Monday

Europe could see a wave of bank mergers under Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM)

 

‘WE NEED PROFITABLE, VIABLE AND STABLE BANKS’ ECB VICE PRESIDENT TELLS DUBLIN CONFERENCE

European Central Bank vice president Vitor Constancio said today the region could see a wave of bank mergers as the presence of the Single Supervisory Mechanism prompts deeper integration.

“The weak profitability and excess capacity of the European banking sector suggests that efficiency gains could be achieved,” Mr Constancio said at an event in Dublin today.

“I would not be surprised if the SSM would open a period of restructuring in the European banking sector.”

The Frankfurt-based ECB is set to assume oversight of euro- area lenders in November 2014, as part of a regional banking union that aims to fix some of the faults of monetary union.

The ECB has already started to examine bank balance sheets and has encouraged financial institutions to raise capital ahead of the publication of results next year.

“MandA activity has been very weak in the euro area since the crisis — from 2008 to 2012 the overall value of deals decreased fourfold to just €10 billion ,” Mr Constancio said.

“I expect this process of restructuring to be driven first and foremost by the incentives of the private sector to raise profitability and increase returns on assets.”

Modern methods

Mr Constancio said the ECB will use the most modern, forward- looking methods once it takes over supervision and push forward harmonization of banking practices across the region.

The ECB will directly supervise about 130 of the euro area’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank AG and IntesaSanpaolo Spa, and has the right to intervene directly in any lender in the currency bloc.

“The SSM will have to address the problems created by the heterogeneity in the way that banks calculate risk-weighted assets,” Mr Constancio said.

“Investors seem to still have concerns about their robustness due to lack of transparency on how they calibrate their internal risk models, as well as differences in how models are validated across jurisdictions.”

In addition, the ECB will promote a more standardized treatment of banks’ bad loans, Mr Constancio said.

While the London-based European Banking Authority criteria on defining NPLs will take time to implement, the ECB will “adopt its own simplified standards” as it checks balance sheets, he said.

Viable banks

“We will explain by end of January the methodology of an enhancement of this simplified version,” Mr Constancio told reporters.

“The EBA has two models; a more complex one and a more simplified one. The solution for the comprehensive assessment will be something between the two.”

A decline in the size of the banking industry in Europe can be expected, Mr Constancio said, as well as a shift away from a bank-based model for funding the economy to greater importance for capital markets.

“The euro area would greatly benefit from deepening debt capital markets for long-term financing, in particular for infrastructure projects,” Mr Constancio said.

Even so, “I do not think we should go too far in the opposite direction and replicate the US model” of high reliance on capital markets, he said.

“A balanced funding mix is best for financial stability,” according to Mr Constancio. “We need to have profitable, viable and stable banks in the euro area.” 

Irish Teachers could be first public servants to lose jobs

  

Irish Teachers in up to 30 schools face losing their jobs next year if the ASTI rejects the Haddington Road pay and productivity deal again.

It would be the first time that compulsory redundancies would be imposed, not only on teachers, but among permanent and pensionable staff in the public service.

The Department of Education has circulated a list of schools where teachers are at risk of redundancy if their union does not sign up to the agreement.

It covers up to 48 teaching posts in 29 named schools where the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) has members.

The list, circulated to union leaders and school management bodies, does not identify individual staff, and if redundancies were to happen it would be up to a school to decide who was surplus to requirements.

It will raise tensions as the dispute between ASTI and Government reaches a critical stage, with the union recommending another “no” vote in a ballot on the HRA, starting this week.

As the ASTI prepares for its third ballot, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has warned that the Government will take a hard line if the ASTI does not accept the deal.

Schools have already suffered disruption because of ASTI industrial action, and if the dispute continues, chaos is threatened in the 70pc of second-level schools where ASTI has members.

The department does a teacher ‘stock-take’ every year, but this year’s list takes on a particular relevance because of the ASTI’s resistance to the HRA.

The 17,000-member union is the only one not to have accepted the deal, and, for teachers, a downside of not signing up is the threat of redundancy if they become surplus to requirements in their school.

The list is provisional and subject to verification when the department completes processing of the annual September 30 returns from schools.

It is also subject to appeal by individual schools.

If redundancies were to take place, it would be before the start of the next school year, in September.

The teaching posts involved are what is known as “ex quota”, which means they are above the official staffing allocation for the school based on its enrolments.

This generally happens where the number of pupils in a school has dropped to below the Department of Education-approved figure for the number of teachers.

It can arise where there has been a fall-off in enrolments to a school, or where the Department of Education has imposed a change in the pupil-teacher ratio.

A worsening of the pupil-teacher ratio in fee-paying schools in recent years may explain why this sector is strongly represented on the list.

While the deal has led to negative changes in terms and conditions, one of its benefits is continuing protection from compulsory redundancy.

Teachers employed on a permanent full-time basis or those with a Contract of Indefinite Duration are guaranteed redeployment if they become surplus to requirements in a school. But the scheme will not continue to operate for teachers if their union has not accepted the HRA.

QUOTA

ASTI general secretary Pat King confirmed that the union had received the list from the department “for schools which are over quota” and the union had informed the schools.

He added the union had told its members that in the event of rejecting the latest proposals, the department had stated that the redeployment arrangements and protections would not apply to ASTI members.

Mr King said the ASTI would consider any move to make teachers redundant as “totally unacceptable”.

A department spokesperson confirmed it had circulated a “factual document setting out the over-quota position as of now. We have made it clear to unions and management that this might change, depending on information on enrolments based on the September 2013 returns. This information has been provided to union and management and we won’t be commenting further”.

Drugs to treat male sexual problems improve sex life but might not improve relationships

  

Medical treatments help men who have difficulty getting erections, but they don’t have an effect on overall quality of life, a review of studies shows.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ALREADY?

There are good treatments available for erection problems that can help men who can’t have an erection or keep one for long enough to have satisfying sex. In the UK, three tablets are approved to treat erection problems – sildenafil (brand name Viagra), tadalafil (name Cialis), and vardenafil (Levitra).

We know from previous studies that these treatments can help men to get erections when they are sexually excited. But there’s less evidence about whether the treatments help people feel more satisfied with their relationships, or have a better quality of life.

So, researchers reviewed published studies that looked at whether treatments for erection problems made a difference to men’s quality of life. They looked at 40 studies of men aged between 45 and 65 years old. The men in the studies had experienced erection problems for at least six months, but had no other major illnesses that might have caused their erection problems. Some of the men were given tablets for erection problems and some were given dummy pills (placebo).

WHAT DOES THE NEW STUDY SAY?

As expected, the treatments all helped men with their erection problems.

Men who took tablets for erection problems had more self-esteem and confidence than before having treatment, and were more satisfied with the sexual aspect of their relationships than men who took a dummy treatment.

In some studies, a few men who had erection problems also had symptoms of depression. These men were less likely to have symptoms of depression after having treatment for their erection problems. But the review found the treatments didn’t make any difference to how generally satisfied men were or how happy they were overall in their relationships.

HOW RELIABLE ARE THE FINDINGS?

It can be useful to review different studies to see how well a treatment works. The findings of reviews are usually more reliable when the studies looked at in the review are quite similar. In this case, the researchers say that the studies were quite different, and this might limit how much we can generalise from their results.

Most studies in this review lasted between six and twelve weeks, which might not be long enough to make a difference to how happy people feel about life or their relationships. In some studies, men were only included if they had been in a stable relationship for at least six months, in which case they already may have been fairly happy and there may not have been much of a change after treatment.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

The researchers say it’s important that men with erection problems don’t downplay the importance of how sexual problems can affect their happiness and relationships. If you are having sexual problems, drugs can improve your ability to get erections. But they can’t affect how you feel about your life and your partner. Other treatments, like psychosexual counselling, may help with sexual problems caused by your emotions. To find out more about psychosexual counselling, speak to your doctor.

Remember the morning after feeling while out celebrating Xmas

 

drinkaware.ie and the Road Safety Authority are reminding all drivers to remember the ‘Morning After’ when they are out celebrating over the Christmas period.

Launching this year’s campaign to reduce the incidence of ‘Morning After’ drink driving over Christmas, drinkaware.ie and the Road Safety Authority are challenging Ireland’s drivers with the question “You’d never ever drink or drive. Or would you?”

The message is simple: it takes your body roughly ONE HOUR to get rid of ONE STANDARD DRINK. That’s one hour for a half a pint, or a small glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits, and two hours for a pint to be eliminated from your body. The secret to sobering up is TIME – no amount of coffee, energy drinks, cold showers or breakfast rolls will speed up the process. You might feel better but it doesn’t mean you are fit to drive.

According to official Garda figures, over 400 incidents of “drivers under the influence” were detected in the hours of 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings in the period from January 1st to September 27th 2013.

In that period, on Saturday mornings, a total of 101 such detections were made by Gardai; on Sunday mornings the number was 208, more than five times greater than the mid-week detection figure. On Mondays, between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. over that period, a total of 94 incidents of “drivers under the influence” were reported.

Half of the drivers involved were less than 35 years old, peaking in the 30-34 age group

Britain’s £85 billion bill for climate policies

 

A new study claims Britain’s climate change initiatives are both ‘staggeringly costly and excessive’

About £47.6 billion will go on funding green levies, such as subsidies for wind farms, added to consumer fuel bills Photo: PA

Climate-change policies are expected to cost Britain more than £80 billion by the end of the decade, as critics warn that the global-warming industry is spiralling out of control.

Vast sums are being spent on initiatives ranging from climate-change officers in local councils to the funding of “low carbon” agriculture in Colombia at a cost of £15 million alone. Billions of pounds are also being added to fuel bills to pay for green policies.

The full cost is contained in a study published on Monday by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank founded by Lord Lawson, the former chancellor.

Its analysis puts the cost to the British public of climate- change policies at £85 billion in the 10 years to 2021. More than half — about £47.6 billion — will have gone on funding green levies, such as subsidies for wind farms, added to consumer fuel bills.

A further £17 billion will have been spent by government departments and quangos, according to the study.

The rest — about £20 billion — will have gone to the European Union for global-warming initiatives.

Last month, the EU’s commissioner for climate action said that a fifth of the EU’s £805 billion budget from 2014 to 2020 would go on “climate-related spending”. Britain contributes about an eighth of the total EU budget.

Benny Peiser, the foundation’s director, who compiled the report, said: “The public has absolutely no idea how staggeringly costly and excessive the Government’s climate initiatives are. Even we were shocked when we discovered the astronomical funding streams and added them up.

“Britain’s climate policies combine to a mind-boggling amount of subsidies and departmental spending, which will drastically increase in the next few years.”

Dr Peiser said Britain needed urgently to rethink its climate policies. “Major economies such as Canada, Australia and Japan have now begun to curtail and abandon their unilateral climate policies and targets,” he said. “It does not make any sense that the UK alone is accelerating its exorbitant spending.”

Although the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) sets policies on green levies, much direct spending comes from other departments and quangos, such as the Department for International Development (DfID), which the foundation estimates spends £610 million a year on climate initiatives overseas.

The study also found more than £2 billion is being spent by the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs on climate-change policies over a decade; £1.5 billion by the Department for Transport; and £1.3 billion by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Quangos spending millions include the Committee on Climate Change and the Carbon Trust, the study says. Ofgem, the energy regulator, is investing nearly £100 million over three years in “contributing to the achievement of a low-carbon sector” and delivering of government programmes “for a sustainable energy section”.

An EU database of UK schemes details 185 payments totalling £1.5 billion to overseas projects.

By contrast, France’s spending totals £275 million.

British spending includes:

Þ about £135,000 a year by local authorities on climate-change officers;

Þ a £15 million grant over four years in Colombia to “reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, improve the livelihood of farmers, protect local forests and increase biodiversity”;

Þ £323,000 on a pilot programme for “climate resilience in Tajikistan”;

Þ £7 million on a “Carbon Markets Readiness Fund”, to give grants to “middle-income” countries, such as China, to develop policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions;

Þ £35,000 on a report on how climate changes might affect the Caribbean tourism sector.

A DECC spokesman said: “The evidence for climate change is clear, and we need to act now. Alongside this, the Government needs to ensure security of energy supply, whilst ensuring consumers get the best deal.

“Our long-term economic and climate security depends on developing countries being more low-carbon and adapting to the impact of climate change. Climate investments in developing countries represent about 0.05 per cent of UK gross national income.”