Responding to the publication of Fine Gael and Labour's ‘Pathways to Work’ Wicklow Sinn Féin county councillor John Brady said “Pathways to Poverty” or "Pathways to Emigration" would be more apt titles because the government is not creating jobs for the unemployed to move into, unemployment nationally is 14.2%, here in Wicklow there are 12,541 out of work and it is continuing to grow .
He said “There are hundreds of thousands of people desperate to get off our dole queues and find work. This document offers them very little hope and instead threatens to cut their meagre incomes.
Much of the governments announcement is a rehash of provisions put in place by the previous government and objected to at the time by the Labour Party.
“And, without any new training places, new investment in education or new jobs, the plan is no better than waffle. It is aimed at building up the hopes of those languishing on dole queues only to dash them when they can’t deliver.
The only option now for Wicklow people is to join the 40,000 people emigrating every year, nearly 3,000 a month are packing their bags and heading abroad in the hope of finding work.
This main objective of this plan is to see dole payments cut sooner in the hope people will emigrate quicker"
“There are a couple of very big elephants in the room today. No.1 there is no work - the European Commission's Vacancy Monitor shows that there are currently 50 jobseekers for every single vacancy in this state.
No. 2 there are no additional resources being allocated for the activation supports, profiling etc.
No. 3 the Minister is cutting a further €1 billion from her Department’s Budget by the end of 2014 over and above those cuts announced in the Budget just passed.
Cllr Brady concluded “Just like the Budget the emphasis of the governments announcement is on punishing the unemployed.
Sunday 26 February 2012
Monday 20 February 2012
Commerce forges neighbourly bonds
Blessed by cultural similarities and helped by change in Northern Ireland, trade and investment between Ireland and the UK has been quietly revolutionised in recent years
TODAY, A WALK down Dublin’s Grafton Street differs little from its UK counterparts. For some, the changes signal cultural and commercial homogenisation. For others, it is a reflection of the increasing ties that bind both countries together.
Last year, Ireland sold €13.8 billion of goods to Britain and Northern Ireland, up 2 per cent on the previous year despite the economic difficulties – making the UK Ireland’s third most important export market, behind the US and, surprisingly, Belgium. Trade in services is even larger.
In reality, the statistics do not do justice to the relationship.
The US leads the export list, but the bulk of those sales are transactions between Irish-based subsidiaries of multinationals and their headquarters.
Belgium occupies second position because it is the hub for much of the world’s trade in pharmaceuticals – of which Irish-based “Big Pharma”, such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and a host of others exported nearly €2 billion worth of product in February alone.
As Conservative prime minister David Cameron never tires of saying, Ireland remains Britain’s fifth biggest export market, larger in 2010 than Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC countries, but also, though this is not usually mentioned, Japan.
The ties between the Republic and Northern Ireland are no less important – €1.3 billion worth of goods went north last year, while the Republic is home for 9.5 per cent of Northern Ireland’s total sales, but 75 per cent of all exports by its small and medium-sized firms.
Exports from the Republic were up 2 per cent on the year before, despite losses in previous years and continuing economic woes, while imports from the UK were up by 6 per cent to €13.6 billion, though the trade in services was sharply down in both directions.
FOR GILES O’NEILL, Enterprise Ireland director for UK and Northern Europe, the relationship is symbiotic: “For some companies in each country, it is their best export market. For many others, it is their export market, full stop.”
“Many companies are increasingly seeing the other country as being part of their home market. You can get on a ‘red-eye’ flight and be at an 8.30 meeting in Dublin or London and still get home that night,” says O’Neill.
Denis Harrington of PwC is the British-born son of Irish emigrants, but he has now lived in Ireland for more than a decade, and agrees with O’Neill: “British companies coming to Ireland don’t have to change much. So much is familiar. I hear few complaints. I am struggling to think of one, maybe nit-picking things like VAT classifications. In any event, a lot of the companies, retailers, for example, put in local management, while area management may be part of the Irish diaspora,” he says.
Traditionally, Ireland exported food and drink. Today, it is still the UK’s third largest supplier – behind the Netherlands and France – of food, selling €3.2 billion worth of product last year, 43 per cent of all such exports from the Republic.
Equally, the Republic is the UK’s top export market for its food and drink, while British supermarkets, such as Tesco, but also other non-food British retailers, have taken an increasingly large share of the Irish retail market.
The Republic is a profitable market. “You do hear anecdotally that the Irish market remains profitable. Price differentials between Ireland and their home market can be very significant,” says Harrington.
The two-way trade is worth €51 billion annually. Half of all tourists coming to the Republic come from Britain – often, but far from exclusively, one-time emigrants or their offspring – while one-third of all foreign investment into the Republic emanates from there.
The beef trade remains “the old reliable”, with 232,000 tonnes to be sold this year, making Ireland the UK’s leading supplier, with a 60 per cent market share – but accounting for half of all such sales from Ireland this year.
However, small Irish companies such as Glenilen Farm in Drimoleague in west Cork are also winning contracts to supply processed foods into the British market, on the back of securing smaller deals initially with Tesco in Ireland.
Having earned its spurs with the UK multiple supplying yoghurts, cheesecakes and desserts since 2008, Glenilen Farm recently won a contract to supply 100 of Tesco’s British stores with €500,000 worth of cheesecakes, employing five staff.
Dublin company Kooky Dough (a company that once rejected an investment offer on Dragons’ Den) that makes cookie dough for home-baking, has agreed a €550,000 deal to supply two new products for Tesco’s own-brand range, creating 10 jobs.
Construction, too, has its opportunities. Four years ago, Enterprise Ireland started to work with firms that had gained experience coping with major infrastructural contracts in Ireland to help them take those skills abroad.
Helped by major projects such as the Olympics and Crossrail in London, some have made significant progress. Last year, £750 million (€860 million) worth of such business was done, up 4 per cent on 2009. “In a market that was largely down, that is quite incredible,” says Giles O’Neill.
Aidan Gough of InterTradeIreland, which encourages North-South business, says the lessons in winning cross-border business are the same ones that will, if learned properly, serve them well in Britain.
Such companies are run by people who “have a million other things to do, like human resources, and they need help that is not bureaucratic, they want people to come in who have been there, who have done it”, he says.
THE LESS-VISIBLE TRADE in services is worth even more than the trade in goods, though the Republic’s figures have fallen back significantly from the 2007 peak of €15.75 billion, dropping by three percentage points in 2008 and even more sharply, by 12 points, a year later.
Nearly €4 billion of the 2009 trade comprised computer software and services, from firms such as Druid Software in Wicklow, which offers telecommunications software, to Daon, which combats identity fraud. Equally, Ireland is increasingly hosting the servers needed for “cloud computing”.
Meanwhile, €164 million worth of legal services were supplied to UK clients, with more than €20 million of that coming from Arthur Cox’s offices in London, while media companies such as Harmonia and Windmill Lane in Dublin are already doing business there.
Renewable energy could be one of the biggest export hopes, believes Enterprise Ireland’s Giles O’Neill on foot of the UK’s need to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels and to generate 15 per cent of its energy needs from green sources.
Energy regulator Ofgem predicts that up to £200 billion (€230 billion) will have to be spent over the next 10 to 15 years on power plants and other energy infrastructure to ensure that the UK both meets its climate-change commitments and avoids shortages.
Enterprise Ireland already has a team in Glasgow, seeking to carve out opportunities for Irish firms from first minister Alex Salmond’s ambitions to make Scotland the “Saudi Arabia of green energy”, using its wind and tides.
“A huge infrastructure has to be built: for every £1 million spent offshore you have to spend £10 million on land. We are looking to partner Irish companies with Scottish ones. Culturally, we like doing business with them and they like doing it with us,” he told The Irish Times.
THE ESB ALREADY has major UK interests. Having opened a 350MW gas-powered plant in Corby in Northamptonshire in 1993, it now controls Northern Ireland Electricity, runs a gas-powered station in Derry, wind turbines in Co Tyrone and a Southampton power plant.
Meanwhile, a subsidiary, ESB Novusmodus, has invested in Airvolution Energy, a new venture that will develop, construct and operate small onshore wind projects, while it has done the same in Bioflame, a developer of small-scale 2.5MW generation plants. Irish companies, pressed to find exports because of a sluggish climate at home, must have “something to offer” if they are going to break into the UK, says Giles O’Neill: “ ‘Me, too’ products won’t do it for them.”
“Sure, there are differences,” says O’Neill. “We tend to be a bit more relaxed. But Irish companies tend to sharpen up when they start looking abroad. Britain is not Germany or France, but firms do need to be aware that it is different. In my experience, companies pick it up very quickly.”
The issue now is not just Irish firms’ ability, but, also the state of the British economy in the years ahead, facing as it does the impact of billions worth of public spending cuts. “The British economy is still quite fragile,” O’Neill cautions.
Ireland’s own difficulties have made exporters’ jobs harder, says Neil Gibson, economic adviser at Ernst and Young: “There is a perception that Ireland has lost credibility, a belief that Ireland bluffed its success. The reality is that it didn’t, but it has to convince people again.”
TODAY, A WALK down Dublin’s Grafton Street differs little from its UK counterparts. For some, the changes signal cultural and commercial homogenisation. For others, it is a reflection of the increasing ties that bind both countries together.
Last year, Ireland sold €13.8 billion of goods to Britain and Northern Ireland, up 2 per cent on the previous year despite the economic difficulties – making the UK Ireland’s third most important export market, behind the US and, surprisingly, Belgium. Trade in services is even larger.
In reality, the statistics do not do justice to the relationship.
The US leads the export list, but the bulk of those sales are transactions between Irish-based subsidiaries of multinationals and their headquarters.
Belgium occupies second position because it is the hub for much of the world’s trade in pharmaceuticals – of which Irish-based “Big Pharma”, such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and a host of others exported nearly €2 billion worth of product in February alone.
As Conservative prime minister David Cameron never tires of saying, Ireland remains Britain’s fifth biggest export market, larger in 2010 than Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC countries, but also, though this is not usually mentioned, Japan.
The ties between the Republic and Northern Ireland are no less important – €1.3 billion worth of goods went north last year, while the Republic is home for 9.5 per cent of Northern Ireland’s total sales, but 75 per cent of all exports by its small and medium-sized firms.
Exports from the Republic were up 2 per cent on the year before, despite losses in previous years and continuing economic woes, while imports from the UK were up by 6 per cent to €13.6 billion, though the trade in services was sharply down in both directions.
FOR GILES O’NEILL, Enterprise Ireland director for UK and Northern Europe, the relationship is symbiotic: “For some companies in each country, it is their best export market. For many others, it is their export market, full stop.”
“Many companies are increasingly seeing the other country as being part of their home market. You can get on a ‘red-eye’ flight and be at an 8.30 meeting in Dublin or London and still get home that night,” says O’Neill.
Denis Harrington of PwC is the British-born son of Irish emigrants, but he has now lived in Ireland for more than a decade, and agrees with O’Neill: “British companies coming to Ireland don’t have to change much. So much is familiar. I hear few complaints. I am struggling to think of one, maybe nit-picking things like VAT classifications. In any event, a lot of the companies, retailers, for example, put in local management, while area management may be part of the Irish diaspora,” he says.
Traditionally, Ireland exported food and drink. Today, it is still the UK’s third largest supplier – behind the Netherlands and France – of food, selling €3.2 billion worth of product last year, 43 per cent of all such exports from the Republic.
Equally, the Republic is the UK’s top export market for its food and drink, while British supermarkets, such as Tesco, but also other non-food British retailers, have taken an increasingly large share of the Irish retail market.
The Republic is a profitable market. “You do hear anecdotally that the Irish market remains profitable. Price differentials between Ireland and their home market can be very significant,” says Harrington.
The two-way trade is worth €51 billion annually. Half of all tourists coming to the Republic come from Britain – often, but far from exclusively, one-time emigrants or their offspring – while one-third of all foreign investment into the Republic emanates from there.
The beef trade remains “the old reliable”, with 232,000 tonnes to be sold this year, making Ireland the UK’s leading supplier, with a 60 per cent market share – but accounting for half of all such sales from Ireland this year.
However, small Irish companies such as Glenilen Farm in Drimoleague in west Cork are also winning contracts to supply processed foods into the British market, on the back of securing smaller deals initially with Tesco in Ireland.
Having earned its spurs with the UK multiple supplying yoghurts, cheesecakes and desserts since 2008, Glenilen Farm recently won a contract to supply 100 of Tesco’s British stores with €500,000 worth of cheesecakes, employing five staff.
Dublin company Kooky Dough (a company that once rejected an investment offer on Dragons’ Den) that makes cookie dough for home-baking, has agreed a €550,000 deal to supply two new products for Tesco’s own-brand range, creating 10 jobs.
Construction, too, has its opportunities. Four years ago, Enterprise Ireland started to work with firms that had gained experience coping with major infrastructural contracts in Ireland to help them take those skills abroad.
Helped by major projects such as the Olympics and Crossrail in London, some have made significant progress. Last year, £750 million (€860 million) worth of such business was done, up 4 per cent on 2009. “In a market that was largely down, that is quite incredible,” says Giles O’Neill.
Aidan Gough of InterTradeIreland, which encourages North-South business, says the lessons in winning cross-border business are the same ones that will, if learned properly, serve them well in Britain.
Such companies are run by people who “have a million other things to do, like human resources, and they need help that is not bureaucratic, they want people to come in who have been there, who have done it”, he says.
THE LESS-VISIBLE TRADE in services is worth even more than the trade in goods, though the Republic’s figures have fallen back significantly from the 2007 peak of €15.75 billion, dropping by three percentage points in 2008 and even more sharply, by 12 points, a year later.
Nearly €4 billion of the 2009 trade comprised computer software and services, from firms such as Druid Software in Wicklow, which offers telecommunications software, to Daon, which combats identity fraud. Equally, Ireland is increasingly hosting the servers needed for “cloud computing”.
Meanwhile, €164 million worth of legal services were supplied to UK clients, with more than €20 million of that coming from Arthur Cox’s offices in London, while media companies such as Harmonia and Windmill Lane in Dublin are already doing business there.
Renewable energy could be one of the biggest export hopes, believes Enterprise Ireland’s Giles O’Neill on foot of the UK’s need to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels and to generate 15 per cent of its energy needs from green sources.
Energy regulator Ofgem predicts that up to £200 billion (€230 billion) will have to be spent over the next 10 to 15 years on power plants and other energy infrastructure to ensure that the UK both meets its climate-change commitments and avoids shortages.
Enterprise Ireland already has a team in Glasgow, seeking to carve out opportunities for Irish firms from first minister Alex Salmond’s ambitions to make Scotland the “Saudi Arabia of green energy”, using its wind and tides.
“A huge infrastructure has to be built: for every £1 million spent offshore you have to spend £10 million on land. We are looking to partner Irish companies with Scottish ones. Culturally, we like doing business with them and they like doing it with us,” he told The Irish Times.
THE ESB ALREADY has major UK interests. Having opened a 350MW gas-powered plant in Corby in Northamptonshire in 1993, it now controls Northern Ireland Electricity, runs a gas-powered station in Derry, wind turbines in Co Tyrone and a Southampton power plant.
Meanwhile, a subsidiary, ESB Novusmodus, has invested in Airvolution Energy, a new venture that will develop, construct and operate small onshore wind projects, while it has done the same in Bioflame, a developer of small-scale 2.5MW generation plants. Irish companies, pressed to find exports because of a sluggish climate at home, must have “something to offer” if they are going to break into the UK, says Giles O’Neill: “ ‘Me, too’ products won’t do it for them.”
Culturally, we like doing business with them and they like doing
Only a fraction of the companies who make opening approaches to Enterprise Ireland go further, but the preparations necessary should not deter.“Sure, there are differences,” says O’Neill. “We tend to be a bit more relaxed. But Irish companies tend to sharpen up when they start looking abroad. Britain is not Germany or France, but firms do need to be aware that it is different. In my experience, companies pick it up very quickly.”
The issue now is not just Irish firms’ ability, but, also the state of the British economy in the years ahead, facing as it does the impact of billions worth of public spending cuts. “The British economy is still quite fragile,” O’Neill cautions.
Ireland’s own difficulties have made exporters’ jobs harder, says Neil Gibson, economic adviser at Ernst and Young: “There is a perception that Ireland has lost credibility, a belief that Ireland bluffed its success. The reality is that it didn’t, but it has to convince people again.”
Saturday 11 February 2012
New Skoda garage comes to Wicklow Town
ŠKODA announces Sinnott Autos as new Wicklow dealership
New ŠKODA dealership to recruit an additional 10 staff in the coming months.
Their Open Day took place Saturday, 8th October, with test drives of brand new 4X4 range.
3rd October 2011 - ŠKODA Ireland is delighted to announce that Sinnott Autos of Wicklow Town is the latest addition to the growing network of ŠKODA retailers around Ireland.
The family-run business, employing 28 members of staff, has been operating in Wicklow Town for 24 years. As a result of the announcement Sinnott Autos aim to expand its workforce by recruiting an additional ten employees in the coming months.
The Company has an extensive local client base built on a reputation for quality, value and customer service.
Sinnott Auto’s new impressive showroom and forecourt facility in Wicklow Town will showcase the full ŠKODA range, including the new 4X4 range which was launched at the Ploughing Championships at the end of September.
To celebrate the opening of the new dealership, Sinnotts held an Open Day on Saturday, 8th of October.
As an added incentive, those who took a test drive received a free window deicing pack which will be particularly useful in the months ahead. In addition, there was a draw for a trip to Prague to the value of €1,000.
Sinnott Autos are also providing some special opening offers including free Satellite Navigation systems with all ŠKODA Yeti, Octavia and Superb models and 0% Finance on all Fabia and Roomster models ordered for 2012 delivery.
Speaking on the announcement, Stephen Healy General Manager of Sinnott Autos, “We are delighted to announce the opening of our new ŠKODA dealership in Wicklow. ŠKODA is one of Ireland’s fastest growing and most attractive brands offering excellent value for money across an ever expanding range. We are very proud to represent ŠKODA in the area and welcome everyone to call by and share in the ŠKODA experience”
Also present at the opening was John Donegan, Head of Sales and Marketing, Deputy Director – ŠKODA Ireland who added “The addition of Sinnott Autos is a real asset to our retail network.
The current market is difficult but the staff at Sinnott Auto’s have an abundance of expertise, energy and enthusiasm. I look forward to a positive and successful relationship well into the future.”
Thanks to all who entered our competition... and the winners of our Skoda deicing packs were: Debra Walker, Arklow, Christine Downey, Wicklow town and Monika Sztenderska, Wicklow town.
New ŠKODA dealership to recruit an additional 10 staff in the coming months.
Their Open Day took place Saturday, 8th October, with test drives of brand new 4X4 range.
3rd October 2011 - ŠKODA Ireland is delighted to announce that Sinnott Autos of Wicklow Town is the latest addition to the growing network of ŠKODA retailers around Ireland.
The family-run business, employing 28 members of staff, has been operating in Wicklow Town for 24 years. As a result of the announcement Sinnott Autos aim to expand its workforce by recruiting an additional ten employees in the coming months.
The Company has an extensive local client base built on a reputation for quality, value and customer service.
Sinnott Auto’s new impressive showroom and forecourt facility in Wicklow Town will showcase the full ŠKODA range, including the new 4X4 range which was launched at the Ploughing Championships at the end of September.
To celebrate the opening of the new dealership, Sinnotts held an Open Day on Saturday, 8th of October.
As an added incentive, those who took a test drive received a free window deicing pack which will be particularly useful in the months ahead. In addition, there was a draw for a trip to Prague to the value of €1,000.
Sinnott Autos are also providing some special opening offers including free Satellite Navigation systems with all ŠKODA Yeti, Octavia and Superb models and 0% Finance on all Fabia and Roomster models ordered for 2012 delivery.
Speaking on the announcement, Stephen Healy General Manager of Sinnott Autos, “We are delighted to announce the opening of our new ŠKODA dealership in Wicklow. ŠKODA is one of Ireland’s fastest growing and most attractive brands offering excellent value for money across an ever expanding range. We are very proud to represent ŠKODA in the area and welcome everyone to call by and share in the ŠKODA experience”
Also present at the opening was John Donegan, Head of Sales and Marketing, Deputy Director – ŠKODA Ireland who added “The addition of Sinnott Autos is a real asset to our retail network.
The current market is difficult but the staff at Sinnott Auto’s have an abundance of expertise, energy and enthusiasm. I look forward to a positive and successful relationship well into the future.”
Thanks to all who entered our competition... and the winners of our Skoda deicing packs were: Debra Walker, Arklow, Christine Downey, Wicklow town and Monika Sztenderska, Wicklow town.
Saturday 4 February 2012
Cold Snap 2012
An inclement start to 2010 follows a windy and icy finish to 2009 as road and rail services were disrupted yesterday due to the continuing cold snap.
Hazardous road conditions were reported across the country with flooding in counties Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow while high winds meant trees and debris added to the difficulties for motorists.
The warnings to motorists to drive carefully came as the National Roads Authority once again raised the issue of a shortage of grit for the country’s roads.
Train services were also affected yesterday. All services to and from Heuston Station in Dublin were delayed by up to 40 minutes yesterday due to flooding on the line at Hazelhatch in Co Kildare. Services between Limerick and Ennis Stations had to be suspended due to flooding there, with Iarnrod Éireann operating bus transfers for passengers.
Motorists faced the toughest conditions yesterday but the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and the Garda Síochána welcomed the news the number of road deaths in the country had fallen to an historic low in 2009. As of yesterday morning there had been 240 deaths on Irish roads, down from 279 in 2008. The RSA said the figure was still too high and that every death was a "devastating" tragedy for the families of those concerned, in addition to the injuries caused to people in accidents.
RSA chief executive Noel Brett said: "We are absolutely delighted the downward trend has continued for four years in a row and the credit for that must go to road users the length and breadth of the country."
He said speed cameras, a reduced drink-driving limit, reforms of the licensing system and more gardaí monitoring the roads would help lower the number further in 2010.
Weather conditions are likely to prove extremely challenging in the coming days, however, as Met Éireann warned that temperatures could fall to -10C in some parts of the country.
Gerald Fleming of the Met Service also said some parts of the country may not experience temperatures above freezing for a number of days.
"It is a more prolonged cold spell than we would be used to in the past few years," he said.
Polar air sweeping over the country will mean daytime temperatures might struggle to climb above freezing, while nighttime temperatures could fall to as low as -10C.
The midlands are likely to experience the worst of the cold spell, but plummeting temperatures are likely to affect most of the country. In some parts of the north west, north and east coast areas there will also be blustery, wintry showers to contend with.
"Tomorrow and the next few days will be bitterly cold," Mr Fleming said.
"It is a pronounced cold snap and through next week it will continue with cold and wintry showers."
While the whole country faces freezing weather, it is likely to be much drier for many parts than of late, although frost is still likely to make travel by road difficult.
Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/prolonged-cold-snap-to-continue-into-the-new-year-108801.html#ixzz1lPEzEuns
Hazardous road conditions were reported across the country with flooding in counties Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow while high winds meant trees and debris added to the difficulties for motorists.
The warnings to motorists to drive carefully came as the National Roads Authority once again raised the issue of a shortage of grit for the country’s roads.
Train services were also affected yesterday. All services to and from Heuston Station in Dublin were delayed by up to 40 minutes yesterday due to flooding on the line at Hazelhatch in Co Kildare. Services between Limerick and Ennis Stations had to be suspended due to flooding there, with Iarnrod Éireann operating bus transfers for passengers.
Motorists faced the toughest conditions yesterday but the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and the Garda Síochána welcomed the news the number of road deaths in the country had fallen to an historic low in 2009. As of yesterday morning there had been 240 deaths on Irish roads, down from 279 in 2008. The RSA said the figure was still too high and that every death was a "devastating" tragedy for the families of those concerned, in addition to the injuries caused to people in accidents.
RSA chief executive Noel Brett said: "We are absolutely delighted the downward trend has continued for four years in a row and the credit for that must go to road users the length and breadth of the country."
He said speed cameras, a reduced drink-driving limit, reforms of the licensing system and more gardaí monitoring the roads would help lower the number further in 2010.
Weather conditions are likely to prove extremely challenging in the coming days, however, as Met Éireann warned that temperatures could fall to -10C in some parts of the country.
Gerald Fleming of the Met Service also said some parts of the country may not experience temperatures above freezing for a number of days.
"It is a more prolonged cold spell than we would be used to in the past few years," he said.
Polar air sweeping over the country will mean daytime temperatures might struggle to climb above freezing, while nighttime temperatures could fall to as low as -10C.
The midlands are likely to experience the worst of the cold spell, but plummeting temperatures are likely to affect most of the country. In some parts of the north west, north and east coast areas there will also be blustery, wintry showers to contend with.
"Tomorrow and the next few days will be bitterly cold," Mr Fleming said.
"It is a pronounced cold snap and through next week it will continue with cold and wintry showers."
While the whole country faces freezing weather, it is likely to be much drier for many parts than of late, although frost is still likely to make travel by road difficult.
Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/prolonged-cold-snap-to-continue-into-the-new-year-108801.html#ixzz1lPEzEuns
Wednesday 1 February 2012
Ireland braced for more tremors after Donegal earthquake
There may be more tremors to come reports the Belfast telegraph after Donegal was hit by a mini-earthquake yesterday.
The quake, measuring 2.2 on the Richter scale, rocked an area of 30 square kilometres between Letterkenny and Buncrana in Donegal shortly after 1am.
Scores of people reported a loud rumbling noise lasting up to nine seconds. However, the tremor was too small to cause any damage.
"The last time this happened two years ago there were three of them within a few weeks of each other," said Brendan O'Donoghue, a physics teacher at St Columba's College in Stranorlar. His pupils were yesterday studying readings taken on the school seismometer.
"The earthquake hit Co Donegal around three minutes before 1am, peaking at 30 seconds past the hour. It's slightly bigger than the last quake in the same area two years ago which was 1.9 on the Richter scale," Mr O'Donoghue said.
"It has certainly caused quite a stir in the school and gives the students here renewed interest in geology."
There were no reports of any damage with the epicentre pinpointed between Rathmullan and Portsalon on the Fanad peninsula.
"It was a deafening noise and the house definitely shook," said Mary McGinley (33) from Letterkenny. "I thought at first it was thunder and then I looked outside and at that time it was a calm night with a clear sky."
Donegal sits on the Lennan faultline which runs on through Scotland and on to Norway.
David Galloway, from the British Geological Survey which picked up the earthquake, said it was "quite a moderate quake for Ireland".
He said it happened around 3km beneath the earth's surface and said while it was not possible to definitively say whether or not there would be more, he added: "There is a possibility of aftershocks, especially with the history of earthquakes in Donegal in recent years."
Dr Tom Blake of the Irish National Seismic Network wants to contact anyone who witnessed the quake.
"Anything above 2.0 on the Richter Scale could be regarded as a minor earthquake. We have had reports about the tremor and we would like to hear from people first-hand experiences of the tremor," he said.
The quake, measuring 2.2 on the Richter scale, rocked an area of 30 square kilometres between Letterkenny and Buncrana in Donegal shortly after 1am.
Scores of people reported a loud rumbling noise lasting up to nine seconds. However, the tremor was too small to cause any damage.
"The last time this happened two years ago there were three of them within a few weeks of each other," said Brendan O'Donoghue, a physics teacher at St Columba's College in Stranorlar. His pupils were yesterday studying readings taken on the school seismometer.
"The earthquake hit Co Donegal around three minutes before 1am, peaking at 30 seconds past the hour. It's slightly bigger than the last quake in the same area two years ago which was 1.9 on the Richter scale," Mr O'Donoghue said.
"It has certainly caused quite a stir in the school and gives the students here renewed interest in geology."
There were no reports of any damage with the epicentre pinpointed between Rathmullan and Portsalon on the Fanad peninsula.
"It was a deafening noise and the house definitely shook," said Mary McGinley (33) from Letterkenny. "I thought at first it was thunder and then I looked outside and at that time it was a calm night with a clear sky."
Donegal sits on the Lennan faultline which runs on through Scotland and on to Norway.
David Galloway, from the British Geological Survey which picked up the earthquake, said it was "quite a moderate quake for Ireland".
He said it happened around 3km beneath the earth's surface and said while it was not possible to definitively say whether or not there would be more, he added: "There is a possibility of aftershocks, especially with the history of earthquakes in Donegal in recent years."
Dr Tom Blake of the Irish National Seismic Network wants to contact anyone who witnessed the quake.
"Anything above 2.0 on the Richter Scale could be regarded as a minor earthquake. We have had reports about the tremor and we would like to hear from people first-hand experiences of the tremor," he said.
Troubled mortgage holder reprimanded for shopping in Tesco instead of Lidl
A bank official in Co Wicklow reprimanded a troubled mortgage holder for shopping in Tesco instead of Lidl, according to an extraordinary claim by TD Stephen Donnelly today.
Donnelly, elected as an Independent in the Wicklow constituency last year, has written a column for the Sunday Independent on Ireland's economic woes and the part played by the bailed-out banks in the day-to-day financial problems of the country's embattled population.
His article contained the extraordinary claim that one of his constituents was given a slap on the wrist by an official of an unnamed bank for failing to change their grocery shopping habits.
He wrote, "The banks have vast financial and legal resources which borrowers do not. They also have the law. The law says that your bank can repossess your house when you fall into arrears, and that a judge cannot take into account any mitigating circumstances. It says that your bank can move to bankrupt you for a debt as low as €1900.
"Your bank can extract every last penny from you. The ones I have asked, including AIB and Bank of Ireland, have no guidelines in place for what they will leave you with, for what qualifies as a 'reasonable standard of living'.
"One Wicklow local I spoke to recently was chastised by a bank official who spotted a bill for shopping which had been done in Tesco when there was a Lidl nearby."
With one in 12 mortgage holders in arrears of three months or more, and little immediate
Donnelly, elected as an Independent in the Wicklow constituency last year, has written a column for the Sunday Independent on Ireland's economic woes and the part played by the bailed-out banks in the day-to-day financial problems of the country's embattled population.
His article contained the extraordinary claim that one of his constituents was given a slap on the wrist by an official of an unnamed bank for failing to change their grocery shopping habits.
He wrote, "The banks have vast financial and legal resources which borrowers do not. They also have the law. The law says that your bank can repossess your house when you fall into arrears, and that a judge cannot take into account any mitigating circumstances. It says that your bank can move to bankrupt you for a debt as low as €1900.
"Your bank can extract every last penny from you. The ones I have asked, including AIB and Bank of Ireland, have no guidelines in place for what they will leave you with, for what qualifies as a 'reasonable standard of living'.
"One Wicklow local I spoke to recently was chastised by a bank official who spotted a bill for shopping which had been done in Tesco when there was a Lidl nearby."
With one in 12 mortgage holders in arrears of three months or more, and little immediate
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