A Tale of Three Countries: Recovery after Banking Crises

Highlights: • Iceland, Ireland and Latvia experienced similar developments before the crisis, such as sharp increases in banks’ balance sheets and the expansion of the construction sector. However the impact of the crisis was different: Latvia was hit harder than any other country in the world. Ireland also suffered heavily, while Iceland came out from the crisis with the smallest fall in employment, despite the greatest shock to the financial system. • There were marked differences in policy mix: currency collapse in Iceland but not in Latvia, letting banks fail in Iceland but not in Ireland, and the introduction of strict capital controls only in Iceland. The speed of fiscal consolidation was fastest in Latvia and slowest in Ireland. • Economic recovery has started in all three countries and there are several encouraging signals. The programme targets in terms of fiscal adjustment, structural reforms and financial reform are on track in all three countries. • Iceland seems to have the right policy mix. • Internal devaluation in Ireland and Latvia through wage cuts did not work, because privatesector wages hardly changed. The productivity increase was significant in Ireland and moderate in Latvia, yet was the result of a greater fall in employment than the fall in output, with harmful social consequences. • The experience with the collapse of the gigantic Icelandic banking system suggests that letting banks fail when they had a faulty business model is the right choice. • There is a strong case for a European banking federation.

Developing The Ladder To Professionalism

Developing The Ladder To Professionalism by Tom Baum, Manager, Curricula Development Unit and Patricia Reid, Training Advisor, Curricula Development Unit at the Council for Education, Recruitment and Training, State Agency for Hotels, Catering and Tourism in Dublin, Ireland: “Developments are currently in hand to promote increased professionalism in management within the hotel and catering industry in Ireland. The authors discuss the particular responsibility of educational agencies. Recent initiatives to provide a comprehensive and flexible career ladder encompassing craft training, in-service and “second-chance” education, as well as more conventional college-based initial management are reviewed, as are attempts by various industry associations to enhance the professionalism of members.” In this discussion, the authors have primarily devoted their attention to degree gaps in professionalism in the hospitality industry, and the measures that can be taken to mitigate these circumstances. “The hotel, catering, and tourism industry, in common with others involved in the service function, has been relatively slow to adopt modern approaches to management and technology at all levels,” Baum and Reid want you to know. The authors hail from Ireland and point to steps that the industry, in Ireland, is taking to address service problems. “Developments are taking place in Ireland toward professionalism in management in the context of the Irish hotel and catering industry; education and educationally related institutions have taken a role in contributing to the professionalization of work in this area,” say the authors. Baum and Reid point to CERT’s - The State Training Agency for Hotels, Catering and Tourism - involvement in promoting professionalism in the Irish hospitality industry, and provide a comprehensive graph to illustrate CERT’s paths to successful management. Worthy of note is, proprietor management is more common on that side of the Atlantic’, with most properties tending to be smaller than U.S. chain operations. That fact, by no means suggests that management style is indeed complete in the U.K, but it can be said that maybe such style is more congenial. “However, finding the balance between operationalism and the management and development functions seems to underpin perhaps the cardinal problems of professionalism in hotel and catering management in Ireland,” say the authors. “The dichotomy, clearly represented in the management of the industry, is equally evident within the educational and training system and also in the limited influence of associations…” Baum and Reid expand on that issue. The authors do concede that it is difficult to quantify what exactly constitutes good professionalism in the hospitality industry; it is, after all, a fairly subjective concept. They continue by describing some of the degree and sub-degree programs being offered in Ireland.

Using population-based critical care data to evaluate trauma outcomes

Copyright © 2015 Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Scottish charity number SC005317) and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group (SICSAG) for providing the data for this study. Mr Jan Jansen is in receipt of an NHS Research Scotland fellowship which includes salary funding.

Using population-based critical care data to evaluate trauma outcomes

Copyright © 2015 Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Scottish charity number SC005317) and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group (SICSAG) for providing the data for this study. Mr Jan Jansen is in receipt of an NHS Research Scotland fellowship which includes salary funding.

A Viking Age maritime haven: a reassessment of the island settlement at Beginish, Co. Kerry

The results of O'Kelly’s excavations on Beginish Island are reassessed and it is proposed that there was a long-lived settlement there that functioned as a Viking-age maritime way-station. This re-evaluation is conducted in the light of recent scholarship on the nature of Scandinavian and Hiberno-Scandinavian settlement in Ireland and, in part, is based on the finds that have emerged on Beginish since the conclusion of the excavations there. The site is considered in the context of its location on the sea route that joined Hiberno-Scandinavian Cork with Limerick, and it is suggested that other such way-stations await.

Measured parental weight status and familial socio-economic status correlates with childhood overweight and obesity at age 9

Background: Parental obesity is a predominant risk factor for childhood obesity. Family factors including socio-economic status (SES) play a role in determining parent weight. It is essential to unpick how shared family factors impact on child weight. This study aims to investigate the association between measured parent weight status, familial socio-economic factors and the risk of childhood obesity at age 9. Methodology/Principal Findings: Cross sectional analysis of the first wave (2008) of the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study. GUI is a nationally representative study of 9-year-old children (N = 8,568). Schools were selected from the national total (response rate 82%) and age eligible children (response rate 57%) were invited to participate. Children and their parents had height and weight measurements taken using standard methods. Data were reweighted to account for the sampling design. Childhood overweight and obesity prevalence were calculated using International Obesity Taskforce definitions. Multinomial logistic regression examined the association between parent weight status, indicators of SES and child weight. Overall, 25% of children were either overweight (19.3%) or obese (6.6%). Parental obesity was a significant predictor of child obesity. Of children with normal weight parents, 14.4% were overweight or obese whereas 46.2% of children with obese parents were overweight or obese. Maternal education and household class were more consistently associated with a child being in a higher body mass index category than household income. Adjusted regression indicated that female gender, one parent family type, lower maternal education, lower household class and a heavier parent weight status significantly increased the odds of childhood obesity. Conclusions/Significance: Parental weight appears to be the most influential factor driving the childhood obesity epidemic in Ireland and is an independent predictor of child obesity across SES groups. Due to the high prevalence of obesity in parents and children, population based interventions are required.

Investigation of factors driving the costs of operating the 2020 Irish power system with large-scale wind generation

The main goal of this work is to determine the true cost incurred by the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in order to meet their EU renewable electricity targets. The primary all-island of Ireland policy goal is that 40% of electricity will come from renewable sources in 2020. From this it is expected that wind generation on the Irish electricity system will be in the region of 32-37% of total generation. This leads to issues resulting from wind energy being a non-synchronous, unpredictable and variable source of energy use on a scale never seen before for a single synchronous system. If changes are not made to traditional operational practices, the efficient running of the electricity system will be directly affected by these issues in the coming years. Using models of the electricity system for the all-island grid of Ireland, the effects of high wind energy penetration expected to be present in 2020 are examined. These models were developed using a unit commitment, economic dispatch tool called PLEXOS which allows for a detailed representation of the electricity system to be achieved down to individual generator level. These models replicate the true running of the electricity system through use of day-ahead scheduling and semi-relaxed use of these schedules that reflects the Transmission System Operator's of real time decision making on dispatch. In addition, it carefully considers other non-wind priority dispatch generation technologies that have an effect on the overall system. In the models developed, three main issues associated with wind energy integration were selected to be examined in detail to determine the sensitivity of assumptions presented in other studies. These three issues include wind energy's non-synchronous nature, its variability and spatial correlation, and its unpredictability. This leads to an examination of the effects in three areas: the need for system operation constraints required for system security; different onshore to offshore ratios of installed wind energy; and the degrees of accuracy in wind energy forecasting. Each of these areas directly impact the way in which the electricity system is run as they address each of the three issues associated with wind energy stated above, respectively. It is shown that assumptions in these three areas have a large effect on the results in terms of total generation costs, wind curtailment and generator technology type dispatch. In particular accounting for these issues has resulted in wind curtailment being predicted in much larger quantities than had been previously reported. This would have a large effect on wind energy companies because it is already a very low profit margin industry. Results from this work have shown that the relaxation of system operation constraints is crucial to the economic running of the electricity system with large improvements shown in the reduction of wind curtailment and system generation costs. There are clear benefits in having a proportion of the wind installed offshore in Ireland which would help to reduce variability of wind energy generation on the system and therefore reduce wind curtailment. With envisaged future improvements in day-ahead wind forecasting from 8% to 4% mean absolute error, there are potential reductions in wind curtailment system costs and open cycle gas turbine usage. This work illustrates the consequences of assumptions in the areas of system operation constraints, onshore/offshore installed wind capacities and accuracy in wind forecasting to better inform the true costs associated with running Ireland's changing electricity system as it continues to decarbonise into the near future. This work also proposes to illustrate, through the use of Ireland as a case study, the effects that will become ever more prevalent in other synchronous systems as they pursue a path of increasing renewable energy generation.

Using parent report to assess bilingual vocabulary acquisition: a model from Irish

This chapter describes the adaptation of a parent report instrument on early language development to a bilingual context. Beginning with general issues of adapting tests to any language, particular attention is placed on the issue of using parents as evaluators of child language acquisition of a minority language in a bilingual context. In Ireland, Irish is the first official language and is spoken by about 65,000 people on a daily basis. However all Irish speakers are bilingual, and children are exposed to the dominant English language at an early age. Using an adaptation of a parent report instrument, 21 typically developing children between 16 and 40 months were assessed repeatedly over two years to monitor their language development. The form allowed parents to document their children’s vocabulary development in both languages. Results showed that when knowledge of both languages was accounted for, the children acquired vocabulary at rates similar to those of monolingual speakers and used translational equivalents relatively early in language development. The study also showed that parents of bilingual children could accurately identify and differentiate language development in both of the child’s languages. Recommendations for adapting and using parent report instruments in bilingual language acquisition contexts are outlined.

Developing a framework for mobile payments integration

This paper derives a theoretical framework for consideration of both the technologically driven dimensions of mobile payment solutions, and the associated value proposition for customers. Banks promote traditional payment instruments whose value proposition is the management of risk for both consumers and merchants. These instruments are centralised, costly and lack decision support functionality. The ubiquity of the mobile phone has provided a decentralised platform for managing payment processes in a new way, but the value proposition for customers has yet to be elaborated clearly. This inertia has stalled the design of sustainable revenue models for a mobile payments ecosystem. Merchants and consumers in the meantime are being seduced by the convenience of on-line and mobile payment solutions. Adopting the purchase and payment process as the unit of analysis, the current mobile payment landscape is reviewed with respect to the creation and consumption of customer value. From this analysis, a framework is derived juxtaposing customer value, related to what is being paid for, with payment integration, related to how payments are being made. The framework provides a theoretical and practical basis for considering the contribution of mobile technologies to the payment industry. The framework is then used to describe the components of a mobile payments pilot project being run on a trial population of 250 students on a campus in Ireland. In this manner, weaknesses in the value proposition for consumers and merchants were highlighted. Limitations of the framework as a research tool are also discussed.

The impact of widowhood on Irish mortality due to suicide and accidents

The impact of widowhood on suicide and accident mortality in Ireland was investigated using Poisson regression analysis applied to routine data relating to all 10 561 suicidal and accidental deaths of married or widowed persons aged at least 35 years in Ireland during 1986–2005. Mortality rates were almost always higher among the widowed and often by a 2-fold, statistically significant difference. The excess mortality was equivalent to 2083 or 57.6% of all suicidal or accidental deaths of widowed persons in 1986–2005. Routine contact with recently widowed persons by public health professionals may be warranted with a view to reducing their excess mortality.

Intersections: proceedings of the youth work and music education symposium

The ‘Intersections: Youth Work and Music Education’ Symposium took place on Friday, 27th June 2014 in University College Cork. This event, held in association with the Institute of Social Sciences in the 21st Century (ISS21), was made possible thanks to funding from UCC’s Strategic Research Fund. The principle aim of this seed funding is to generate new research interests and this presented the ideal opportunity for developing collaborative relationships between youth work and music education lecturers, researchers and practitioners across the island of Ireland. This led to the formation of a new ‘Intersections’ research cluster, comprising representatives from four third-level institutions, each of which offers both youth work and music education undergraduate and/or postgraduate programmes, namely: University College Cork; National University of Ireland, Maynooth; Dundalk Institute of Technology; and, University of Ulster. This document presents some preliminary findings from primary research conducted through each of the participating institutions in their local areas. Data was also collected during the symposium, through engaging in small group discussions populated by the event’s participants. The publication and dissemination of this document was included in the original Strategic Research Fund proposal. Its intended audience includes youth workers, music educators, community-based practitioners, policy-makers and academics who are motivated and enthused by the possibilities of music-oriented youth work in Ireland and beyond.

A geographical perspective on the decline and extermination of the Irish wolf Canis lupus - an initial assessment

Wolves were a component of the Irish landscape until 1786 when the last one was killed. It had taken a concerted effort by Cromwell and his Government in Ireland to bring this about particularly through deforestation and landscape change, legislation, bounties and the efforts of a few professional wolf hunters. This paper estimates the wolf population in Ireland at three lime periods in the 1600s and examines how each of the forces already mentioned led to their eventual extermination. The 87 dated and documented wolf incidents which include wolf attacks on both animals and humans, wolf observations and the hunting and killing of wolves over the period 1560-1789 show both spatial and temporal variations.

Impurity profiling and synthesis of precursors to the hallucinogenic amphetamine DOB

DOB (4‐bromo‐2,5‐dimethoxyamphetamine) is a newly emerging hallucinogenic amphetamine that sparked serious health warnings in Ireland, following its first seizure back in 2003. Known more commonly as “snowball”, this drug is highly potent and may be used as a substitute to ecstasy (MDMA) and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). To date, the work carried out on the impurity profiling of DOB is limited in comparison to amphetamine, methamphetamine and MDMA. In this work, the impurity profile of 4‐bromo‐2,5‐dimethoxyphenyl‐2‐propanone (4‐Br‐2,5‐P2P) is explored. This ketone is a direct precursor to DOB. Its more versatile non‐bromo analogue, 2,5‐ dimethoxyphenyl‐2‐propanone (2,5‐P2P) is also examined, as in addition to DOB, it may be used in the synthesis of a range of several other hallucinogenic amphetamines. A number of different routes to both 2,5‐P2P and 4‐Br‐2,5‐P2P were investigated. For each of these routes, the impurities produced were carefully isolated. Following isolation, the impurities were fully characterised (by 1H‐NMR/13C‐NMR spectroscopy, IR, MS), in order to aid structure elucidation. Compounds not easily resolved by flash column chromatography were analysed by LC‐MS and/or independently synthesised for the purpose of attaining reference standards. Adaptation of the well‐known ‘phenylacetic acid route’ to synthesis of both 2,5‐P2P and 4‐Br‐2,5‐P2P, was found to provide low yields of the expected ketone products. Four impurities were isolated during the preparation of both ketones. The yield of one of these impurities (possessing a dibenzylketone core), was greatly influenced by the amount of acetic anhydride reagent used during the reaction. Having carried out the reaction with several different equivalents of acetic anhydride, it was found that formation of the ‘dibenzylketone’ could not be eliminated. This may increase its likelihood of being detected in the final drug product. The ‘Darzens route’, having very recently emerged as a synthetic route to amphetamine and MDMA precursors, was discovered to be a viable route for manufacture of 2,5‐P2P and 4‐Br‐2,5‐P2P. Despite execution of the reaction being more tedious, the route provides superior yields (≈50–60%) to those achieved using the ‘phenylacetic acid route’ (≈35–38%). Incorporation of a bromine atom (at the aromatic 4‐position) is required at some stage during synthesis of DOB. The bromination of many intermediates/starting materials was therefore also examined in detail. Bromination of the acid starting material 2,5‐dimethoxyphenylacetic acid (2,5‐PAA) was found to be clean and high yielding. This was in stark contrast to the bromination of the benzaldehyde starting material, the ketone precursor 2,5‐P2P and the dibenzylketone‐based impurity. Numerous brominated products were isolated from each of these reactions, many of which were novel compounds, and previously unreported as impurities in the literature. The unpredictable/nondescript nature of these brominations is likely to have a significant impact on the impurity profile of illicitly produced DOB.

Convergence and translation: attitudes to inter-professional learning and teaching of creative problem-solving among medical and engineering students and staff

Background: Healthcare worldwide needs translation of basic ideas from engineering into the clinic. Consequently, there is increasing demand for graduates equipped with the knowledge and skills to apply interdisciplinary medicine/engineering approaches to the development of novel solutions for healthcare. The literature provides little guidance regarding barriers to, and facilitators of, effective interdisciplinary learning for engineering and medical students in a team-based project context. Methods: A quantitative survey was distributed to engineering and medical students and staff in two universities, one in Ireland and one in Belgium, to chart knowledge and practice in interdisciplinary learning and teaching, and of the teaching of innovation. Results: We report important differences for staff and students between the disciplines regarding attitudes towards, and perceptions of, the relevance of interdisciplinary learning opportunities, and the role of creativity and innovation. There was agreement across groups concerning preferred learning, instructional styles, and module content. Medical students showed greater resistance to the use of structured creativity tools and interdisciplinary teams. Conclusions: The results of this international survey will help to define the optimal learning conditions under which undergraduate engineering and medicine students can learn to consider the diverse factors which determine the success or failure of a healthcare engineering solution.