Category Archives: News

news as it is happening-ish

The Government is obliged to cut the deficit by €3.1 billion in 2014 and €2 billion in 2015, a total of €5.1 billion. Following the arrangement with the ECB to replace the promissory notes with long-term bonds, the Government believes it has scope to reduce the €5.1 billion by €1 billion in the two years.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton made a play in a Dáil debate last week to start using the proceeds from the deal this year, saying there was “a limit beyond which additional austerity becomes counterproductive”. Such remarks were very poorly received in troika circles.

“This doesn’t go down at all well,” said a European source in Brussels familiar with the rescue programme. “It doesn’t send the right signal to the other member states.”

Although Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar took an opposing view to Ms Burton in the Dáil debate, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said on Friday the deal will bring “a tangible benefit for people” in the next budget.

Keeping schtum. It was all you had to do. But nooooo….

Troika opposes easing next budget with Anglo deal (Arthur Beesley, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

Former taoiseach and Fine Gael leader John Bruton has created a political headache for his successor, Enda Kenny, by declaring the Government’s planned abortion legislation is contrary to the Constitution.

Mr Bruton claims it is “not consistent with the plain words of the Constitution” to include the threat of suicide in the terms of the legislation that will permit abortion where a woman’s life is at risk.

The Coalition has committed to introducing legislation to give effect to the Supreme Court judgment in the X case which found that a threat of suicide constituted a threat to a mother’s life.

Minister for Health James Reilly is due to bring the draft heads of the Bill on the subject to the Cabinet shortly.

‘Fresh divisions within the coalition’ ahoy.

John Bruton says Government abortion legislation contrary to Constitution (Stephen Collins, Irish Times)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

Access to common procedures such as cataract surgery and varicose vein treatment is to be restricted under proposals from the State’s health watchdog.

The Health Information and Quality Authority has published a series of reports which propose specific thresholds to be met before a patient could avail of treatment for certain conditions in the hospital system.

The proposals, which were drawn up at the behest of the HSE, would radically reduce waiting lists. However, they may be interpreted as an attempt to massage the HSE’s performance figures. Last year, almost 50,000 patients were on waiting lists for elective procedures.

Less than seven episodes of tonsillitis in the last year? Too bad.

Worried about the look of those varicose veins? Get used to ’em.

Anything less than persistent and/or frequent upper respiratory tract symptoms? You’re keeping those adenoids, kid.

Etc.

State planning to restrict access to surgical treatment (Paul Cullen, Irish Times)

The Government has resolved to change elements of the incoming property tax but it has refused to yield to the clamour for a fundamental review of the charge.

The move, to be made public today by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, will increase the number of exemptions to the tax.

But Government sources indicated last night that there would be no reprieve for homeowners who made big stamp-duty payments at the height of the property boom.

Measures to ease the disproportionate burden on property owners in Dublin, a source of contention for some Government TDs, have also been ruled out.

Under one new exemption, however, all local authority and voluntary housing association homes will be put into the valuation band for properties worth up to €100,000, the lowest of the bands.

Under a further measure, previously signalled by Mr Noonan, the tax will not be levied on houses that require remedial work due to damage caused by pyrite.

The rest of you – pay up.

Changes to property tax but no widespread review (Arthur Beesley, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

(Above: Magdalene survivor Maureen Sullivan)

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is expected to deliver an apology on behalf of the State to survivors of laundries run by religious orders following a meeting with a representative organisation yesterday.

The Cabinet will discuss the matter this morning and agree a Government counter-motion ahead of Fianna Fáil’s call for redress as well as an apology during Private Members’ business in the Dáil tonight.

Members of the Magdalene Survivors Together group spent three hours with Mr Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore yesterday afternoon. They believe the apology will be delivered next Tuesday when a debate on former senator Martin McAleese’s report on the Magdalene laundries’ workers begins in the Dáil.

It’s not over ’til the reluctant eejit apologises.

Previously: A Sorry Promise

Hopes rise of apology for Magdalenes (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)

Politicians have repeatedly claimed that falling grocery prices have helped offset higher taxes and falling wages, but a new survey suggests the opposite has happened.

The price of a typical basket of groceries, made up of staples including bread, milk, sugar and tea, has increased by more than 12 per cent in less than two years, with some products increasing in price by almost 40 per cent, the Consumer Association of Ireland survey shows. The association has regularly tracked prices of a set list of commonly bought groceries for more than a decade and has found that 16 of 19 products it priced last month had risen in price by between 5.5 per cent and 38 per cent in 20 months.

We wouldn’t know, having been skip-diving since 2010.

Grocery staples rise in price by 12% in less than two years, survey finds (Conor Pope, Irish Times)

(Leon Farrell/ Photocall Ireland)

Irish Bank Resolution Corporation’s biggest borrowers have six months to refinance their loans or face having them sold to a third party or transferred to the National Asset Management Agency.

The bank’s high-profile clients include telecoms and media businessman Denis O’Brien and property developer Paddy McKillen, who is battling the Barclay brothers for control of some of London’s best-known luxury hotels.

About €15 billion of loans that remain on IBRC’s books have been taken over by the special liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, appointed by the Government. They will seek to get full current value for these loans by the middle of this year.

Cheques in the post ahoy.

Bank’s biggest borrowers face Nama deadline (Ciarán Hancock, Irish Times)

(Pix: Yui Mok/PA Wire, Wanderley Massafelli/Photocall Ireland)

 

British prime minister David Cameron’s plan to legalise gay marriage passed its first hurdle in the House of Commons last night – but he was unable to get a majority of his own Conservative MPs to back him.

The legislation, on which MPs had a conscience vote, passed its second stage easily with the support of most Labour MPs, Liberal Democrats and a smattering from the smaller parties, bar the Democratic Unionist Party.

Fifty-five Conservative MPs voted against the government, including DUP Upper Bann MP David Simpson (you’ll remember the hoo-hah caused last year when a recording device was found in the toilet of his constituency office, leading to the arrest of his political advisor), who brought many lols to the House with the following:

 “This is not the jurisdiction of this government, of any European government or any government in the world. This is an ordained constitution of God. In the Garden of Eden it was Adam and Steve . . . It was Adam and Eve, it wasn’t Adam and Steve.”

South Antrim MP the Rev William McCrea said moral truths learned “at mother’s knee” were threatened by the legislation, which would “wipe away” values that had held true for centuries for people around the world, irrespective of their beliefs.

The DUP. A great bunch of lads.

British MPs back gay marriage legislation (Mark Hennessy, Irish Times)

(Photo: PA)

The next annual repayment of €3.1 billion of the €30 billion debt incurred in order to shore up the former Anglo Irish Bank falls due on March 31st.

Yesterday Mr Gilmore refused to confirm or deny if he told European leaders in private last week that the Coalition might collapse in the event of a deal not being reached.

Asked in Brussels about reports he had privately voiced the warning to German chancellor Angela Merkel, commission president José Manuel Barroso and council president Herman Van Rompuy during a recent EU Latin America summit, Mr Gilmore would only say: “The future of the Irish Government is a matter for the Irish Government and the Irish people.”

A senior Government source said the the details of a private meeting could not be divulged but pointed to recent comments made by the Tánaiste on the matter, including his description of the “catastrophic” consequences of a failure.

 

Tensions are….(yawn)….running high.

Kenny and Gilmore deny tensions over bank deal (Harry McGee, Irish Times)

(Wanderley Massafelli/Photocall Ireland)

(Above: the protest outside Stepaside Garda Station yesterday)

Shane Ross, Independent TD for the area, told the crowd yesterday the four other TDs were “duty bound to support you in this mission”.

“I would urge you to block up the telephones and the emails of the Department of Justice so they can’t do any business and they’ll realise what the depth of public opinion is here,” he said.

But in a statement hours later Mr Shatter said Stepaside Garda station was among those identified in the Garda Commissioner’s policing plan for closure and he was not going to “second guess” that assessment.

“I have not done so in the context of Garda stations to be closed in other parts of the country and neither will I do so in my own constituency,” he added.

Presumably, all operators are busy at present and your call will be answered in strict rotation.

Shatter says station to close despite protest rally (Judith Crosbie, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)