Advocate general of the European Court of Justice Yves Bot said yesterday that airlines were obliged to pay the costs incurred by passengers whose flights were disrupted by “extraordinary events” like the 2010 Icelandic volcano.
Ryanair had argued that such events were so extraordinary airlines should not be expected to pay the costs.
Caught out by the small print. Miss Morrissette, you’re on.
THE SECOND-LARGEST trade union in the State has urged its members not to pay the household charge.
Unite yesterday called on its 60,000 members not to register for the charge ahead of the March 31st deadline.
Unite was among several trade union groups which yesterday voiced their opposition to the €100 household charge.
And where do you stand, comrades?
Tony O’Reilly jnr, chief executive of Providence Resources, believes the company has a one-in-four or one-in-five chance of making a commercial oil find off the Dublin coastline.
Providence’s plans to drill wells six kilometres off Dalkey have sparked considerable opposition, particularly in south Dublin. More than 700 submissions, most of them objecting, have been made to the Department of Environment, which will decide shortly whether to grant a foreshore licence application.
People Shouldn’t Worry About Dublin Oil Drilling, Says O’Reilly (Paul Cullen, Irish Times)
(Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland)
Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health he “just got the provisional figures from the CSO” which showed the average per capita consumption of pure alcohol increased from 11.9 litres in 2010 to 12 litres (11.97 litres) last year.
“That’s against the background of increased affordability of alcohol.”
Dr Holohan was addressing the committee as chairman of the Department’s steering group the National Substance Misuse Strategy, along with Minister of State for primary care, Róisín Shortall. The strategy aims to cut average alcohol consumption to 9.1 litres of alcohol per adult.
The Committee also heard about plans to end home deliveries of alcohol.
People, we have a problem.
Alcohol consumption increases (Irish Times)
(Photocall Ireland)
Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan has been thinking about them. And not in a nice way, either.
Banks will have to be more aggressive in repossessing properties in the buy-to let sector, the Governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan warned while ruling out a widespread debt forgiveness programme as unaffordable.
Speaking this evening in Limerick, Mr Honohan stressed that although public policy should aim to avoid the repossession of family homes “where this is unnecessary” when it came to investment properties “there are many circumstances in which there is less reason to be inhibited about repossessing”.
Call For ‘Aggressive’ Action On Buy-To-Let Repossessions (Irish Times)
(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)
BANKS MAY be granted greater powers to contact customers who are in mortgage difficulty, under proposals being considered by the Central Bank.
Under the existing code of conduct set out by the Central Bank, lenders are forbidden from contacting customers who are in arrears more than three times in one calendar month.
It is understood the Central Bank is seeking to review this stipulation, amid concern that some customers are not addressing their arrears problem.
Banks may get greater powers to contact clients in arrears (Irish Times)
“I’ll tell you what makes me angry – lefty crap,” he thunders in response. Like? “Well, like spending £20,000 on a dinner at the Dorchester for Sinn Fein!”
(Boris Johnson interviewed by Jemima Khan in the New Statesman, 9 Feb, 2012)
In a letter released yesterday, Mr Johnson, who has fallen behind in the polls after months during which he enjoyed a comfortable lead, apologised for the New Statesman row, but claimed the issue had been exploited to suggest he had anti-Irish feelings.
“There has been real and admirable progress in the fight against any lingering anti-Irish sentiment in London and it is deeply upsetting that people have alleged that I harbour such feelings,” he told Catherina Casey, who chairs the city’s St Patrick’s Day Advisory Forum.
The issue of Mr Johnson’s relationship with London’s Irish has emerged again this week, days before the City Hall-funded St Patrick Day’s parade to Trafalgar Square, as it emerged that the mayor, yet again, is not planning to attend.
Johnson Apologises To London Irish For St Patrick’s Day Slur (Mark Hennessy, Irish Times)
Shedding a little more light on the bailed-out, failed-ass, employee-shedding mess that is AIB, the Irish Times’ Simon Carswell has seen a series of reports that reveal nothing less than Anglo’s ugly sister:
“The spoils of the property market lured the mighty AIB into a heavy concentration that felled it.The loan book increased by €76 billion between 2002 and 2008, when the percentage of property loans as a proportion of overall loans went from 18 per cent to 37 per cent.”
And there’s more.
Property’s spoils ruined mighty AIB (Simon Carswell, Irish Times)
(Photocall Ireland)
Seriously jarring stuff from NAMA Wine Lake:
Is it time to demand the Minister come to the Dail and make a statement justifying what now seems a bewilderingly stupid action, which has the potential to strand this country without feasible funding sources in 2014 unless this forthcoming referendum is passed? The July 2011 ESM Treaty made access dependent on fiscal discipline, but the Fiscal Compact now being put to the country goes far further in handing over sovereignty and control of our national finances to a Europe which, in recent times, has not shown itself to be particularly sympathetic to the domestic economic problems of this country. Maybe on 2nd February, 2012 Minister Noonan thought a referendum on the Fiscal Compact would not be necessary and that ratification of the Compact was a done deal. That would have shown serious contempt for the deliberations of the Attorney General, and would also have been incompetent. The Minister now has very serious questions to answer.
That proposed delay on the €3.1 billion cash payment due on March 31?
Not looking good.
More than six months after Dublin first raised the matter with the ECB, the Frankfurt-based institution is pushing back heavily against persistent Irish demands for a concession to ease the cost of rescuing the former Anglo Irish Bank.
Within the ECB, the view remains that alternative avenues are open to the Government to improve its finances, among them reductions in public sector pay and welfare entitlements.The argument is made that average public pay and welfare levels in Ireland are higher than the average in some of the other euro zone countries that are supporting Ireland’s bailout, among them Spain, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Push to get debt burden reduced hits strong ECB resistance (Irish Times)
Meanwhile in other ‘Good Luck With That’ news:
