All Ireland news by Donie Sunday

Mayo FG TD says ‘We have too many one night stands in Ireland’

        

Fine Gael deputy Michelle Mulherin

THE TD who shocked the Dail by saying most unwanted pregnancies stem from “fornication” denies she is old-fashioned, adding: “We have too many one- night stands.”

Fine Gael deputy Michelle Mulherin stunned many of her Dail colleagues when she claimed fornication — the term for sex outside of marriage — was the main reason 4,500 Irish women have abortions every year.

THE WORD FORNICATION’S LATIN ORIGINS

• The word ‘fornication’ comes from the Latin word for Romans having sex with prostitutes.
• It stems from ‘fornix’, meaning a vault or arch. This was used to refer to the vaulted cellars and similar places where prostitutes would consort with men.
• Later Latin used the verb ­‘fornicari’, meaning ‘to commit fornication’. The word was first recorded in Middle English in 1303.
• The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as: ‘Voluntary sexual intercourse between a man (in restricted use, an unmarried man) and an unmarried woman. In Scripture extended to adultery.’

The comments were dubbed “disgusting” by Socialist TD Clare Daly, who said she had “played out a Monty Python sketch in the Dail”.

However Ms Mulherin, a first time TD, today stood by her use of the word ‘fornication’, adding that many people’s views towards sex are “in the shadows”. She told the Herald: “People are not looking at the bigger picture here. They are looking at one word which in the dictionary means consensual sex between two people outside of a relationship. There’s no doubt this is the cause of abortions and we need to have a debate about this.

“I’m not being judgmental. I’m not pushing my views down people’s throats. I’m merely saying that we have serious issues in this country, such as one- night stands and that is resulting in terminations.”

The 40-year-old’s comments were made during a debate on a bill which called for abortion to be allowed in the event that a woman’s life is in danger.

The bill, proposed by Clare Daly, was defeated.

However during her speech, Ms Mulherin said that nobody should be having unprotected sex in Ireland, adding: “Fornifcation … is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country.”

Ms Mulherin admitted that she had received plenty of “adverse reaction” but said she stands firmly behind her views.

The Government’s €12m funding will help to keep researchers in Ireland

The Government is to provide over €12 million in research funding to encourage early career scientific researchers to remain in the country and help develop technologies and products that will benefit the economy.

Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock said the funding will support 44 researchers and postgraduate students over four years through Science Foundation Ireland.

Ireland had developed “an internationally recognised credible research base” in recent years and it was essential to achieve scientific excellence to yield a competitive advantage that would provide for future economic growth and job creation, the Minister said.

Announcing details of the funding at the National Tyndall Institute in Cork yesterday, Mr Sherlock said researchers in areas relevant to Irish enterprise would benefit from the €12.3 million channelled through SFI’s starting investigator research grant programme.

The researchers are based at nine higher education institutions

A history of Ireland in 100 objects and the 1640 O’Queally Chalice and the cup of salvation

This superb silver chalice declares its origins very clearly. Engraved on the base in Latin is “Malachy O’Queally Doctor of Sacred Theology from Paris and Archbishop of Tuam had this chalice made for the convent of friars minor ofRosserrilly [Co Galway], (The Friary above right) 1640.” O’Queally,with his continental connections, was representative of the key role of the Franciscans in re-creating an Irish Catholic identity after the Flight of the Earls. Driven by the scholar and historian Luke Wadding, the order established the Irish colleges at Louvain and Rome and re-established their own houses in Ireland.

With its inscription “I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord”, and its bold engravings of the Crucifixion alongside O’Queally’s own coat of arms, the chalice speaks of a resurgent and militant faith. It is not surprising that, with the outbreak of a Catholic rebellion the year after it was made, O’Queally himself took up arms in its cause.

After initial rebel successes in Ulster, government forces quickly regained the upper hand, and by the summer of 1642 the rebellion was close to collapse. But in August civil war broke out between King Charles and his parliament in England. The government offensive ground to a halt. The war in Ireland settled down for seven years of bloody stalemate.

The indigenous and Old English sides of the Catholic elite formalised their alliance as the Confederate Association, with its capital in Kilkenny and its military organisation strengthened by the return from continental wars of veteran soldiers, most notably Owen Roe O’Neill. It was ostentatiously Catholic – its banners bore images of the Virgin Mary – and its effective leader was the nuncio, Archbishop Rinuccini.

At the same time, the Scottish Covenanters sent troops, under Gen Robert Monro, to Ulster to protect Protestant settlers; some of them committed revenge atrocities against Catholic civilians. The three armed forces in Ireland – royalist, confederate and Scots – became four in 1644, when the royalist commander in Munster, Lord Inchiquin, defected to parliament.

Archbishop O’Queally raised troops for the confederacy from the early stages of the rebellion. In October 1645 he led his forces to attempt to retake the port of Sligo, which had fallen to the parliamentarians. He was killed in a surprise attack by Scots and his army routed.

A similar fate met confederate troops in 1647. After the king’s defeat in England, Ormonde surrendered Dublin to the parliamentarians, under Michael Jones, who then routed a large confederate army outside the city at Dungan’s Hill. Large numbers of prisoners were put to the sword. Shortly afterwards, the confederates suffered further losses when Inchiquin, reinforced with fresh men and supplies from England, launched a bloody offensive in Munster.

In 1648 a second civil war erupted in England, stalling this parliamentary offensive. Owen Roe O’Neill, disgruntled over a renewed peace deal between the confederates and the royalists, agreed a temporary truce with parliamentary commanders. The following year, Jones repulsed Ormonde’s attack on Dublin, defeating his forces at Rathmines, clearing the way for the landing of the triumphant parliamentary New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell

The department of Environment rejects claim’s on water meters

   

A spokeswoman for the Minister for the Environment has rejected a claim that one-third of households are not suitable for the installation of water meters.

Department of Environment has rejected claims that one third of households are unsuitable for water meters

Executive manager with Dublin City Council Tom Leahy is quoted by the Irish Times as saying that one third of homes will always be on a standing charge and will never have water meters installed.

This would amount to around 533,000 households – based on an estimate of 1.6 million households in the State.

Mr Leahy said that apartments would pose particular problems – as would houses built between the 1940s and 1960s.

A spokeswoman for Minister Phil Hogan said that, according to the Department’s figures, a maximum of 300,000 households are likely to be without water meters after the initial stage of the metering process.

She said the quickest and easiest homes would receive meters first, and the figure of 300,000 would come down as the metering process continued.

The exact number of homes to receive water meters in the initial stages would be a matter for Irish Water, she added.

Still £283m of punts in circulation in Ireland

       

Check under your blankets and the side of the sofa – there is still £283 million of Irish pound currency knocking around the country.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan told Sligo-North Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlin (FG) just before the Dáil broke for Easter that there remained £185m of banknotes and £98m of coins in punts still in circulation. This figure was correct on 15 March.

The total – £283 million, worth €359m – is a full 7.5 per cent of the value of the punts notes and coins that were in circulation at the end of 2001. The euro was introduced to Ireland on 1 January 2002 – and by 9 February 2002, the punt ceased to be legal tender.

Don’t panic though – at the moment there is no deadline on the Central Bank accepting an exchange of punts for euro. However, it’s worth keeping an eye out on the situation – the Central Bank has said that the exchange facility costs €368,600 to run every year and that at some point, it may have to review the provision of the service.

In February the Central Bank said that it was still exchanging just over €10,000 a day from punts to euro. (At that revelation, Justice Minister Alan Shatter had to move to assuage fears that such a large figure had anything to so with criminal activity.)

Around £2m worth of punts have been exchanged between mid-February and mid-March this year.

Do you think your punts might be worth something to a coin collector? Sadly, unless they are in mint condition – ie, were never used in circulation, and were a special edition coin, eg, the 1988 Dublin Millennium 50p – you’re not likely to get more than face value for them.

This collectors site, irishcoinage.com, has interesting tables that put a guesstimate value on punt coins. One note from the author says that one coin to look out for, and which is “extremely rare” is a 20p coin, dated 1985:

In 1985 prior to the introduction of the new twenty pence piece in 1986, a quantity of coins dated 1985 were struck for testing. Some of these coins escaped being melted down and are in private hands. I have heard of only a very small number of exchanges of these coin and the prices I have heard for them varied widely. I believe that the minimum number identified in collections (as opposed to sitting gathering dust somewhere without its value being understood by its owner) is four.

Saturday's Ireland news Blog as told by Donie

Call’s for ‘urgent legislation’ as a record €11.5m awarded for boy’s catastrophic injuries by his  'Mother's lapse of concentration'

 

Cullen Kennedy (10), who suffered injuries in a car crash in 2008 that left him permanently confined to a wheelchair, with his grandmother Monica Kennedy and mother, Margaret Kennedy. A settlement of €11.5 million in his case was approved at the High Court yesterday

The courts are “gambling” daily with the welfare and security of those who suffer catastrophic injuries because of the failure to legislate to ensure lifelong care needs will be met, a High Court judge has said when approving a record €11.5 million settlement for a young boy left quadriplegic after a road crash.

Ms Justice Mary Irvine, while stressing that the case before her involved an “excellent” settlement, called yesterday for “urgent and prompt” attention to the need for laws providing for periodic payments in catastrophic injury cases.

“The reality is the courts don’t know when people are going to die,” she said. “We are gambling every day.” It was an “absolute tragedy” and, in certain cases where lump sum payments had been made the money to meet care needs was running out.

She made the remarks addressing the general position in catastrophic injury cases when approving the €11.5 million lump sum settlement, the highest to date in a personal injuries action, in the case of Cullen Kennedy (10), Corheen, Loughrea, Co Galway.

Cullen suffered devastating injuries when, due to what the court heard was a “momentary lapse of concentration” by his mother, Margaret, when, distracted by him as she drove him to school in Co Clare in June 2008, her car veered on to the wrong side of the road and collided head on with another car. Ms Kennedy was uninsured at the time.

The other driver suffered minor injuries. Ms Kennedy suffered some injuries but Cullen, then aged six and restrained in a booster seat in the back of the car, suffered very severe injuries when his head hit the front windscreen. As a result he is quadriplegic and wheelchair-bound and will require 24-hour care for life.

Cullen’s mother and his grandmother Monica Kennedy play a large part in providing that care at his mother’s rented home and are supported on a 24-hour basis by nurses and special needs assistants, who assist Cullen in attending school. The child has no mental impairment and was described as “lively and vivacious”.

Cullen, suing through his grandmother, who gave up her job to help care for him, brought the proceedings against his mother and the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland. Under the settlement, the bureau will pay the €11.5 million judgment sum, plus costs.

While stressing the settlement in this case was “excellent” as it was expected to meet all Cullen’s lifelong care needs, Ms Justice Irvine said the continuing failure to enact laws providing for period payment orders involved injustice, as some catastrophically injured persons would run out of funds for their care. A second, lesser injustice due to the absence of legislation was that some such persons would die earlier than expected, resulting in a “windfall” for their next of kin.

Ms Justice Irvine noted that a working group on periodic payment orders (PPOs) was set up by the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, 3½ years ago, chaired by Mr Justice John Quirke and including herself. It had reported unanimously in October 2010 that legislation was required to allow cases be settled on the basis of PPOs.

It was recommended that catastrophically injured persons would be paid a sum annually for the rest of their lives, a system that would guarantee their care, she said.

She said the report was delivered in October 2010 to the last government and had been with this Government since it came to power. While she had no doubt the Government had “very significant” issues to deal with, the absence of legislation had left the courts “gambling” with the futures of the most vulnerable litigants.

Kenny and Noonan show no sympathy towards the Kelly couple evicted out of their home

     

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan have shown little sympathy for the couple who were dramatically evicted from their home on Wednesday afternoon.

Enda Kenny described the circumstances in which Brendan Kelly (71) and his wife, Asta (63), found themselves evicted from their home as being “peculiar”.

Mr Kenny told Newstalk he did not understand why the couple had not made arrangements to live elsewhere since they were served with a repossession order two years ago.

Michael Noonan said the Government would distinguish between those who wanted to stay in their homes and professional landlords.

“We have no pledge to keep people in 21 different homes and we must distinguish between people who can’t pay and people who won’t pay,” he said.

Yesterday, The Irish Times reported that the couple had bought 21 properties during the 1990s and the last decade.

Mr Kelly spent yesterday in the Dáil talking to politicians, including Dún Laoghaire People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, according to neighbours.

His wife, who remained outside the house from which they were evicted, declined to comment citing legal matters before going into a neighbour’s house.

A small blue tent remained outside the driveway of the five-bedroom red-brick home at St Matthias Wood, Killiney, Co Dublin.

Neighbours at the immaculately kept, gated cul-de-sac said the couple did not intend to spend last night in the tent.

One neighbour who declined to be named said the couple’s property empire had “made their argument very difficult”, but added that nobody deserved to be evicted in a “brutal manner”.

The house was being looked after by security guards employed by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

Irish Nationwide Building Society, which is now part of the corporation, gave the couple a €2.2 million mortgage for the house in 2004. The outstanding portion of the mortgage is in the region of €2 million, with the last mortgage payment on the house having been made in 2009.

When asked why they had not sold some properties to meet debts, Mr Kelly said it was practically impossible to sell in the current climate.

Sympathy came from an unlikely source yesterday when members of the Occupy Dame Street movement visited the house to express their solidarity with the couple.

Mrs Kelly thanked the protesters, who said they would offer every assistance to her and to anybody else who found themselves in danger of eviction.

One protester, Seán Ryan, said the number of homes the couple owned was “irrelevant”.

“Do we define these people by their net worth?” he asked.

Healthier lifestyle’s can ‘switch off ‘the ageing gene process

   

A healthy lifestyle and diet can switch on and off the genes (centre pic.) that are responsible for ageing.

Scientists have identified four ‘Father Time’ genes that help determine the rate at which we age.

These genes may be programmed from an early age, but being aware of how they are altered could lead to the development of innovative anti-ageing drugs, researchers say.

Scientists already knew that ‘epigenetic’ changes – chemical alterations to DNA made by external factors in the environment – are important to ageing.

But the new research goes helps to explain how and when these effects occur.

Dr Jordana Bell, from King’s College London, one of the study authors, said: “We found that epigenetic changes associate with age-related traits that have previously been used to define biological age.

“We identified many age-related epigenetic changes, but four seemed to impact the rate of healthy ageing and potential longevity and we can use these findings as potential markers of ageing.

“These results can help understand the biological mechanisms underlying healthy ageing and age-related disease, and future work will explore how environmental effects can affect these epigenetic changes.”

The scientist studied 172 twins, who were aged 32 to 80. They looked for epigenetic changes in their DNA.

Twins are often used in such studies because identical pairs share exactly the same genes, making it possible to differentiate genetic and environmental effects.

Analysing the changes in relation to chronological age, the researchers identified 490 age-related epigenetic changes.

Matching these to specific age-related traits highlighted four genes displaying changes linked to cholesterol levels, lung function and maternal lifespan.

Further research showed that many of the epigenetic DNA alterations were also present in a group of 44 younger twins aged 22 to 61.

This suggests that while many age-related genetic changes caused by environmental factors occur throughout a person’s life, some might be triggered early on.

Professor Tim Spector, director of the Department of Twin Research at King’s College, said: “This study is the first glimpse of the potential that large twin studies have to find the key genes involved in ageing, how they can be modified by lifestyle and start to develop anti-ageing therapies.

“The future will be very exciting for age research.”

 

Overcrowding is still a big issue in Ireland’s Mountjoy prison

 

Overcrowding and confinement for up to 23 hours a day continue to blight the prison system, especially Mountjoy, according to the latest annual reports from the prison visiting committees.

The committees have provided reports on Mountjoy, Cork, Cloverhill and Wheatfield prisons to the Minister for Justice, who has published them on the department’s website.

The committee said that beds in Mountjoy were unsuitable, and in 2011 many prisoners had to sleep on mattresses on the floor. Too many people were confined in small spaces for up to 23 hours per day, and financial constraints were not an excuse for this to continue for much longer, it said. It also recommended an enhanced programme of education.