Griffith Book of Investigative Journalism 2012

Griffith College Dublin Faculty of Journalism and Media Communications

The Griffith Book of Investigative Journalism 2012 Volume II

Written by students of the Journalism and Media Communications Faculty, Griffith College Dublin Edited by Barry Finnegan

Written by students of the Faculty of Journalism and Media Communications, Griffith College Dublin Edited by Barry Finnegan Š 2012 Griffith College Dublin and students of the Faculty of Journalism and Media Communications.

Published by Griffith College Dublin, South Circular Road, Dublin 8, Ireland Tel: 01 4150400 Web: http://digital.gcd.ie/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Layout and design by Alan Gill

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The Griffith Book of Investigative Journalism 2012, Vol. II

Health 9

Home Support Service Failing Elderly and Vulnerable

According to a senior home support co-coordinator within the HSE, following the implementation of severe, wide ranging cuts, levels of care and staff morale within the home help service are at an all-time low. Ronan Moyles investigates.

State Turns Its Back On Elderly

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Three Beds For 200,000 Eating Disorder Sufferers

16

MSG: Ireland’s Best Kept Secret

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Alcohol Mouthwash: Spit it Out!

25

If Looks Could Kill

28

Sophie Kelly investigates the Home Care Scheme for the elderly and asks why, after ten years in existence, it remains completely unregulated.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric conditions.

Lee Gillick investigates the appalling lack of services.

Lenna Morris investigates the dangers behind Ireland’s most pervasive additive.

Scientists in Australia say that alcohol-containing mouthwash increases the chances of oral cancer by 50%. Gina Karoline Dalen investigates.

Recently banned in Ireland, a popular hair treatment product is still widely used in the USA. Seraphina Chabinec investigates.

Medicine Pharmacies Defraud State in Medicine Reimbursement Scam

30

Stem Cell Research: No Law, No Ethics, No Research

34

One-Click Abortion

38

Abortion In The Digital Era

41

Alternative Medicine: Benign Placebo or Nefarious Scam?

45

Documentary evidence shows pharmacies are successfully using patient information to make fraudulent claims to the HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service for prescription drugs which patients never receive. Edel O’Shea investigates.

The lack of legislation and coalition disagreement surrounding stem cell research in Ireland is leading to a loss of research funding for the state. Will English reports.

Ophelie Martin investigates the illegal online market for abortion pills in Ireland.

Availability of abortion pills on the internet shows a need for change in current law. Sinead Nolan investigates.

Despite the lack of evidence as to the efficacy of complementary and alternative treatments, its research funding and popularity continue to rise. By Suzanne Fitzpatrick.

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The Griffith Book of Investigative Journalism 2012, Vol. II

Resource Allocation Ireland’s Natural Resources: Documentation Of A Robbery

49

Prioritising Research Is Jeopardizing Undergrad Teaching

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Lifting the Lid on Dublin Bus Route Changes

57

‘Grand Paris’ Project: Misunderstood & Lacking Consultation

60

Cash grants, tax holidays, no restrictions on repatriating profits: how the State made the exploitation of Ireland’s minerals so attractive for multinationals and how history is set to repeat itself with oil and gas. Ruaidhrí Giblin investigates.

How the universities are jeopardizing undergraduate teaching in order to climb research-led league tables. Charlotte Clarke investigates.

Supposed to improve services, Mary Byrne investigates the real effects of the implementation of the new ‘Dublin Bus Network Direct’.

‘Grand Paris’ aims to consolidate into a single entity, the four departments of Paris and its suburbs. But where is the money coming from, who was consulted, and when is it starting?

Paola Khawatmi investigates.

State Regulation Fake Taxi Deregulation Fiasco

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Illegal Music Downloading: A Human Right

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Neutral in Name, Not in Deed

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The Astounding Case of the ‘Accidental Bomber’

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According to the National Taxi Drivers’ Union, a large number of car owners are driving illegally. Jane Lundon investigates.

How do we defend our human rights, encourage creativity and the sharing of cultural products while ensuring artists get paid for their work. Suzanne Fitzpatrick investigates.

A Programme for Government commitment to end the use of Shannon by the U.S. military is simply rhetoric. Liam Kneafsey investigates.

Over one year on, Darren Cleary investigates the events which led to an innocent man boarding a plane with plastic explosives bound for Dublin.

Recessionary Times Recession Causes Increase in Animal Cruelty and Abandonment

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The Perfect Pokerface

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Fool’s Gold: Trade Your Unwanted Gold for Cash

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Animals have been another victim of the current recession. By Fiona O’Sullivan.

How ‘poker bots’ cheat online poker players. An investigation by Roman Payer.

The cash for gold phenomenon has gripped the nation, but is lack of regulation hurting both the businesses and the consumer? Marc Dennehy investigates.

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Home Support Service Failing Elderly and Vulnerable According to a senior home support co-coordinator within the HSE, following the implementation of severe, wide ranging cuts, levels of care and staff morale within the home help service are at an all-time low. Ronan Moyles investigates.

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he co-coordinator, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, believes that “at this stage, when there have been huge cutbacks in administration and management and resources generally, they are trying to implement policies and procedures which should have been done when there would have been plenty of resources - which to my mind were wasted on ‘jobs for the boys.’”

It was in May 2009 that the HSE, in cooperation with the previous Fianna Fail/ Green Party government introduced plans to restrict the number of home help hours to which a patient would be entitled to a maximum of 7.5 a week, and only between Monday and Friday during office hours. Under the new guidelines, home help personnel are permitted to spend no more than 10 minutes getting older people up and dressed in the morning and 15 minutes assisting them with showering. Criticising the move at the time, Age Action Ireland spokesman Eamonn Timmins said, “if the service is inadequately resourced, and is then restructured to operate without sufficient funding and personnel, it will result in a service which poses a threat to the wellbeing of the very people it sets out to protect.”

The home help service is provided by the HSE in order to help elderly, disabled and unwell people to remain at home and to ensure that do they do not have to be placed in long-term residential care. While Local Health Authorities are not legally obliged to supply this service, in practice they either do so directly or make arrangements for it to be administered by voluntary bodies. Home help workers generally assist people with household duties and with personal care. Clients are assessed on a case-by-case basis by the Home Help Co-coordinator and the local public health nurse, and the number of hours’ service are granted based on need and within the limitations of regional funding and staffing levels.

Ciaran Hegarty, from the Press and Communications Office in the Department of Health & Children argues that, despite the funding pressures on the health system overall in recent years, no reduction in base funding has been applied to home support services for older people. On the contrary, he states that “additional funding of €18m

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was provided over 2010-11 inclusive, to bring total annual investment … to €138m per annum.”

However, the home help coordinator I spoke to sees the reality on the ground as being somewhat different. She says that whilst the statistics might appear to show that cuts have not been widespread in the service, they have been quite severe in some instances. Funding may appear increased, however, in practice the range of support which they are now expected to provide has expanded far beyond what was initially Staff who were originally employed envisaged. to carry out domestic chores are Traditionally, home now required to give specialist care help workers were assigned unaccompanied and with little or no to carry out domestic chores for older people in training their own homes. However, she tells me that in practice it is no longer this kind of service. It is now more like a nursing service, and is mostly a continuation of hospital acute care. “The service now falls mainly into the area of personal care, involving getting patients up, washed, and dressed. These patients would often be immobile and need to be hoisted or may need colostomy and catheter bags changed. This is happening mainly because of the lack of bed capacity in our hospitals and patients often have to be discharged home. In my opinion, sometimes this not the correct setting for them.”

Even more worryingly, staff who were originally employed to carry out domestic chores are now required to give this type of specialist care unaccompanied and with little or no training.

This, quite understandably, has affected staff morale levels. The coordinator speaks of a culture where workers are given the minimum of time to carry out their tasks and there are frequent complaints about this. “They are given a prescribed time for ‘toileting’ a client. How are they supposed to be ready to go to the toilet when they arrive and also finish on time?”

The organiser is also highly critical of the HSE as an organisation, saying that its introduction has been extremely badly managed and was introduced without any proper forward planning. “My biggest criticism would be that there is very little local input in decision making, which affects the lives of client, patients, management and staff.” The Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation agrees. Commenting on the cutbacks in hours,

Home Support Service Failing Elderly and Vulnerable, Moyles

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they said: “those who drew up the proposals were a long way from the people doing those tasks on the ground.” Some efforts have been made by the middle-management grades, in conjunction with unions, to highlight this but these seem to have been somewhat fruitless.

When contacted, Fine Gael Head of Internal Communication, Vincent Gribben, outlined the current government position: “investment in the supply of more and better care for older people in the community and in residential settings will be a priority of this Government.” In effort to achieve this, they commit to additional funding each year for older people and to review current structures for the financing of nursing services.

A spokesperson for Sinn Féin deputy leader, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, condemned “the savage cuts It will result in a service which poses to all services for older peoa threat to the wellbeing of the very ple, including the reduction people it sets out to protect in home help hours” and re-asserted the party’s 2011 Election Manifesto pledge “plan for enhanced provision of essential public nursing home beds, community care facilities and home care”.

Despite numerous calls and emails, no official comment could be elicited from either Fianna Fáil or the HSE. An independent 2004 report showed that two-thirds of older Irish people would prefer to be cared for at home if they were dying. In reality, only 20% of the population receives this. There is clearly serious concern at the coalface of our health services that poor planning, resourcing and management is having a profound and detrimental effect on the quality of care given to our elderly citizens. Surely, there are serious questions to be asked about the ability of the service in its current form to achieve the government’s stated guiding principle: “to support older people to live in dignity and independence in their own homes and communities for as long as possible.”

State Turns Its Back On Elderly Sophie Kelly investigates the Home Care Scheme for the elderly and asks why, after ten years in existence, it remains completely unregulated.

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or the majority of us, growing old is almost a certainty, but we rarely think about putting a care plan into place detailing who we would like to care for us and where, before we actually need it. When the time comes, it can be very difficult for a person of sound mind, who is accustomed to living independently, to give up their freedom in return for a life dictated by a nursing home’s schedule.

With a population living longer, the government needed to put a plan into place to accommodate those who were fit, both mentally and physically but simultaneously need support in order to continue living in their home. The Home Care Support Scheme was brought into existence in 1997. Until the establishment of the Health Service Executive (HSE) in 2005, it was operated by each Regional Health Board.

The scheme aims to provide medium to high caring support for the elderly who wish to remain living independently in their own home. There are seven types of packages to cater for everyone. The package one would receive would be tailored to suit their specific needs.

Home helps assist with normal household tasks, such as shopping or cleaning and are assigned to people who are unable to carry out those tasks by themselves. The assistance of a home help can enable many incapacitated people to live a successfully independent life.

However there are serious flaws with the system. Firstly, there are no national guidelines as to how to qualify for the scheme. In some parts of the country, there is a general rule that if someone requires more than ten hours of care a week, they are eligible, in others it merely comes down to the availability of home helps in the region, or availability of funding.

Secondly, there are no rules as to how a public health nurse carries out any assessment on an individual. He or she will assess the individual’s care needs and will alone determine how their needs are met appropriately. They are strongly advised by the HSE to make this decision with the individual in question along with their family.

Thirdly, there is a lack of supervision and regulation of the home helps while working in the homes of the elderly. If you are eligible for a home help, you may have to make a contribution towards the cost, even if you hold a medical card. In some cases, you may have to pay all the costs involved and if you are in a position to pay the costs involved,

State Turns Its Back On Elderly, Kelly

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you can ask the HSE for an arrangement whereby the HSE has all the responsibilities of the employer while you pay the costs.

I approached two families from Co. Kildare and Co. Wexford, who were willing to speak about their experience of going through the process of enlisting a home help and having one care for their elderly loved one.

Both expressed their annoyance and concern about the lack of supervision, stating that home helps are in an extremely influential position when it comes to giving care to an elderly person and can take advantage of the situation in order to gain more money or do less work. According to the HSE, the number of people receiving home help care in Ireland stands at just under 55,000. Due to the nature of the framework of the scheme at present, each region runs the scheme independently and is then subsequently divided up between public, private and voluntary agencies and organisations, the HSE claim they do not have access to a final figure of how many home help employees are actually working in the sector.

Carmel Fay is from Co. Kildare, her mother has been availing of the home care scheme for over five years. She says that her mother has had a number of home helps who have all taken liberties with the hours that they put in at her mother’s home and the amount of work they do there.

“There was one particular instance where my mother was going to be staying in my house for two weeks. She notified her home help of this arrangement and that she would not be needed. The home help in question replied, ‘what will I do then, get you to sign my workThe HSE claim they do not have ing slip as if I was working access to a final figure of how many here for the two weeks?” home help employees are actually “This put my mother working in the sector in a very awkward position.

She would be a very mannerly woman and did not want to fall out with her home help by saying no she did not feel it was ethical to sign the form which stated the home help had worked those hours and would be paid for them but at the same time she felt bad that because of her, the home help would not be getting paid for those two weeks.”

“The home help should not have asked my mother that question. It was inappropriate, not to mention a fraudulent thing to do. Home helps should realise that they have a lot of influence over an elderly person and that they may have friendship with the

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patient but that they are first and foremost employees of the State and should behave in a professional manner.”

In Co. Wexford, Fiona Brennan is also finding that her father’s home help is not working to the highest of standards. “My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a little less than four years ago. It has been very difficult for my mother to care for him for the last two years by herself and so we enquired about enlisting outside help. My father is only eligible to receive a home help for one hour Monday to Friday. And in turn this means that my mother gets just one hour off each day.”

She says, “I find the whole system ridiculous. The fact that there are no national guidelines drawn up is scandalous. We are talking about dealing with the most vulnerable group who have given so much to society during their life and this is how they are treated. A national framework must be put in place in order for everyone availing of the scheme to be treated fairly and equally, not because there is a lack of funding in There is no statutory basis for their region.”

Fiona also expressed regulation and inspection of home her concern over the lack care services of supervision there is of a home help’s work. “My parents are in awe of my father’s home help. She cannot put a foot wrong in their eyes but I am aware that the home help usually arrives ten to fifteen minutes late and leaves ten or fifteen minutes early. This is not acceptable. There must be adequate supervision of them to ensure that the patients are receiving the care they need.”

The HSE has said that the level of home help service provided to clients is assessed on a regular basis by the HSE’s Public Health Nursing staff. However they are in fact contradicting themselves as on a separate occasion they have also admitted that there is no statutory basis for regulation and inspection of home care services.

Carmel believes the latter is the truth. “My mother has always taken great pride in her house. She is now 87 years of age and cannot do as much housework as she once did. This is where the home help should come in, but I have noticed the cleanliness of her house has decreased drastically and I am now finding myself cleaning her house at the weekends because she is too frightened to make a complainant to the public health nurse, in case he or she decreases the hours of help she receives or takes the home help away completely.”

Since March 2010, the government have been stating that they are drawing up guidelines for the home help sector. A year has passed and the system remains the same

State Turns Its Back On Elderly, Kelly

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with no guidelines published. When contacted, the HSE merely said that they were in the process of working on standardising a national need of assessment for all individuals.

In 1997, the National Council of Aging and Older People was set up in order to advise the Minister for Health and Children on all aspects of ageing and the welfare of older people and to assist the development of national and regional policies and strategies designed to produce health gain and social gain for older people. After ten reports on the areas of home helps, care management, day care, assessment and income and standards of living, the council was disbanded in 2009, with very little achieved.

Now in the current economic climate, the HSE seem to be focusing more on cutting the hours of home helps across the country rather than on publishing desperately needed guidelines. According to media reports, in Mayo alone, home help hours have been reduced by 40,000 hours in the past three years and in Tipperary, home help hours are also being reduced or services are being discontinued.

In the HSE Service Plan 2011, it says the HSE’s strategic priority for 2011 and beyond is to maintain older people in their own home for as long as possible and where this is not possible, to provide high quality residential care, appropriate intermediate step up/step down and respite beds. Age Action Ireland, the largest NGO in the sector, say state investment in key community services of home help and home care packages is crucial. They say, “the challenge will be to ensure there are adequate resources for these services and that they are regulated, with independent inspections, to ensure they meet the necessary standards.�

People who require support in the home must be treated fairly no matter where they live in the country and be put through the same assessment to ensure fairness and equality. While those under the home care system are in a vulnerable position where a great amount of trust is placed in the people who are assisting them. In order for these carers to work to the best of their ability and provide a high standard of care they must be subject to regular inspection. Until these two issues are addressed fully, the elderly may sit and suffer silently.

Three Beds For 200,000 Eating Disorder Sufferers Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric conditions. Lee Gillick investigates the appalling lack of services.

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t is estimated that there are over 200,000 people suffering from an eating disorder (ED) in Ireland and that 80 die each year as a result. However the figures are likely to be far higher as many sufferers do not go for treatment and live with their illness in secret. Also, death resulting from an eating disorder may not be documented.

Mary Crean, from Bodywhys, the Eating Disorders Association of Ireland, said that it is difficult to establish mortality rates because many who die from complications of an eating disorder may be listed as having died from organ failure or suicide.

This is a costly illness. Treatment lasts a minimum of two years and if correct treatment is not obtained, the process can go on for much longer.

According to “A Vision for Change Programme”, drawn up by the Department of Health and Children in 2006, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric conditions. With this in mind, together with the knowledge that such a large number of people in Ireland are suffering from this illness, one would expect to find highly developed and extensive public health services to treat this problem.

In fact, there are just three public beds in the country for this large number of people, and they are situated in St. Vincent’s hospital in Dublin.

These beds have a very slow turn-over as the length of stay can be long. If a person is outside the system then they are deprived of treatment until a bed becomes available.

But due to the high levels of recidivism in hospitals, the same tiny number of people are receiving the treatment. It is a revolving door system and one that shuts the majority of sufferers out.

The treatment for sufferers is disproportionately centred in Dublin. This makes it difficult for people living outside the capital to access. Sufferers of ED may be too sick to travel which makes the distribution of healthcare for this problem not only grossly unequal but for the majority of the population, altogether absent.

There are two private hospitals in Dublin which run programmes specifically to treat ED. These are, St. Patrick’s hospital, Drumcondra, where the full 12 week programme comes at the cost of €30,000; and St. John of God’s, Stillorgan, which in 2006, cost €901 per day. The average programme lasts between three and a half and five months.

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These programmes are covered under private health insurance, however when I spoke to a representative from the VHI, I was told that new members with a pre-existing condition need to wait five years before they start to avail of cover for treatment.

Mary Crean said: “There is a high rate of relapse with eating disorders and you need to question why that is. Maybe the aftercare is not sufficient or maybe the programmes aren’t long enough to effect lasting change. It’s difficult to get statistics as to what the success rates of these hospitals are. One problem is with the definition of recovery. We don’t know how they are defining it.”

There seems to be no agreement across service providers on a definition of recovery.

Many programmes focus primarily on the elimination of surface symptoms and restoration of a healthy body weight – other programmes adopt a more holistic approach and work to tackle the underlying physiological and emotional processes which drive the visible patterns of disordered eating.

If professionals are not in agreement about what recovery is and how to reach it, there can be no consistency in treatment approaches. This would, surely, make it difficult for professionals to work together and for systems of referrals to reinforce each other and benefit from continuity.

Marie Campion, founder of the Marino Therapy Centre, a private There are just three public beds in centre in Fairview, Dublin, the country for this large number of which specialises in the people treatment of eating disorders, said that there is no point in opening up new hospitals and providing new services until there is more understanding of ED. “We already have services in place but when they are not working, it is too much. We need to work at improving what we have.” She pointed out that the existing hospitals don’t carry out the full range of blood tests that are necessary to monitor the physical condition of sufferers; nor do they give sufferers dexascans to observe bone density (osteoporosis is one of the most common consequences of disordered eating).

Many professionals rely on Body Mass Index (BMI) to measure the severity of ED. BMI is a formula used to assess whether a person is a healthy weight for their height.

However, it has been criticised as you cannot see the condition of a person’s internal organs or the levels of their electrolytes from the outside. With many sufferers of ED the condition is invisible. A person can be a healthy weight and still have a very severe eating disorder.

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Hospital programmes have been criticised for focusing mainly on restoration of BMI and re-feeding. Body weight and self-destructive behaviours around food are only surface symptoms of the ED so this approach does not treat the real problem i.e. the underlying distress and the negative mindset which drive these behaviours, and so they are not effective.

Marie Campion also said that hospitals are a bubble which cocoon the person away from the world. As ED is a reaction to life, the person will not learn how to deal with their life by being “incubated” in an artificial, institutionalised environment. This may be ok in the short-term, to take the person out of physical danger, but it rarely provides a long-term resolution.

The literature suggests that recovery from an eating disorder requires more than hospital treatment alone. Ms Campion, says that a multi-disciplinary approach is necessary and professionals need to work together.

The multi-disciplinary approach adopted at Marino Therapy Centre involves “thorough medical assessment, nutritional guidance and education, individual, group and family work, professional carework, and medical follow-up... Treatment needs to address the physical, psychological, spiritual, environmental and social domains of health”.

It has been recognised that the lack understanding of the condition in the medical field is a huge problem. GPs have an important role to play but currently the main treatment offered at primary-care level is anti-depressants.

Marie Campion said the government need to put money into educating GPs so that sufferers get the correct treatment and medical checks at primary-care level. She also said that medical staff in general hospitals should be educated as to how to treat ED.This view is supported in the Vision for Change Programme, drawn up by the Department of Health and Children, in 2006: “There is strong evidence that general practitioners in this country are ill-equipped for the task because of lack of a education in the field of eating disorders. This deficit should be addressed in undergraduate and on-going medical education. The same is also true for other professional workers, such as public health nurses and other nurses, teachers and parents, all of whom are obviously strategically placed to encounter the early signs.”

There are private centres which specialise in the treatment of eating disorders in Ireland. These include three in Dublin: Loas Bridges, Sutton; Marino Therapy Centre, Clontarf; The Eating Disorders Resource Centre, Rathfarnum; and one in Cork, the Shandon Therapy Centre.

I rang up the HSE’s information helpline to see what support they offer. I got speaking to Sarah; she refused to give me her full name and came across as being extremely frustrated and impatient at my enquiries. She told me that the HSE does not provide

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any funding to sufferers of eating disorders for private treatment. Sufferers can apply to the general manager of their local health office. On occasion funding may be given, but it is at the discretion of the general manager, she claimed.

Without funding or the availability of public health services, treatment is not always feasible for the ordinary person.

When a person has an eating disorder s/he is often There is strong evidence that unable to work and so their general practitioners in this financial means are limited.

If sufferers cannot get the country are ill-equipped for the help they need on a longtask because of a lack of education term, regular basis they will in the field of eating disorders not recover.

(Dept. of Health and Children) An eating disorder is a costly illness and it also results in a multitude of health problems which exacerbates the cost. Common problems include organ damage/failure, dental decay, electrolyte imbalance, dry/sore eyes, digestive failure/digestive problems, damage to voice and throat, oesophageal tears, muscle wastage and vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Sufferers can’t work, go to college/school or have a normal life due to the severity of their illness. They often rely on parental/spousal or other forms of support.

Bodywhys is an information provider which receives funding from the government.

They offer a free group in Dublin twice a week (Monday & Wednesday) and run a local helpline (1890 200 444). Free group support is also available in a number of other counties including Galway, Waterford, Dublin, Carlow and Cavan and there is also an online group for people who live too far away to avail of these services.

However, Mary Crean told me that these services are not run by trained professionals but by volunteers who receive as little as two days training. This training is followed up by “sitting in on groups and phone calls and observing, until they feel ready to take calls and run the group themselves.”

Bodywhys does not treat people, but contact details for a selection of people who do offer treatment, can be found on their website. However, those listed have not been sourced by Bodywhys. They are people who have contacted Bodywhys themselves and have “expressed an interest in working with people who have eating disorders”.

Those who contact them are not qualified in treating ED specifically, “they are usually general counsellors”. However, it has been recognised by experts in the field that eating disorders are different from other mental health problems and need to be treated by mental health professionals who specialise in the treatment of eating disorders.

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Crean acknowledges that counselling can be hit and miss, as counselling in Ireland is unregulated. For this reason, Bodywhys requires that counsellors listed on their website have a certain standard of training, because “some people do a two day course and then start practicing as a counsellor and treating people.”

This is not a situation that the government are ignorant of. In 2006 the Department of Health and Children drew up the Vision for Change, which addresses the severe deficit of services for sufferers of eating disorders. The following plan of action was proposed: 1. There should be a National Centre for Eating Disorders, located in one of the main national children’s hospitals. This centre should be staffed by a multidisciplinary team with appropriate skills and training to deal with the very complex cases that will be referred to it.

2. It is recommended that four specialist eating disorder teams for adults be provided nationally, one in each of the HSE regions. Each of these should have six beds in a regional mental health unit.

3. It is essential that the full range of best-practice interventions are made available to individuals with eating disorders.

Where are these promises five years later, when nothing has changed?

The Vision for Change opened with the address below from Tom O’Malley (then the Minister of State at the Department of Health & Children, with special responsibility for mental health): “Good mental health is an integral component of general health and wellbeSufferers can’t work, go to college/ ing, allowing a person to school or have a normal life due to fully realise his or her abilithe severity of their illness ties … The Government’s on-going investment in community-based mental health services, the legislative reforms of the Mental Health Act, 2001 and the publication of this Report all confirm that the area of mental health is now receiving the attention it deserves. I am hopeful that these developments will facilitate further advancements within our services and that the lives of those who suffer mental illness, and their families, will be improved and enhanced by our efforts.”

There have been no further advancements, no signs of these improvements. There are still the same number of beds available to sufferers as there were five years ago. There is no funding for out-patient care. There are very limited services. The day to day life for those suffering from eating disorders and their families is very scary, costly and filled with desperation. They are going to GPs who don’t understand how to treat it; to a public

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health service that provides no solutions. Meanwhile, years of these peoples’ lives that can never be retrieved are wasted and there is great risk of suffering irreparable damage to the body the longer the condition is left without effective intervention, that is, if they are lucky enough to survive.

Ireland is a country where sufferers of eating disorders are not given the ability to realise their potential. Instead, Irish women and men, girls and boys, daughters and sons, are dying unnecessarily. Families are burdened with suffering, fear and despair. They are often alone in dealing with the problem. The vast majority of people who develop eating disorders in Ireland are faced with a battle to find, get and afford helpful treatment.

Both the state and society needs to understand that having a value for full recovery from an eating disorder is equal to having a value for life. Sufferers cannot recover without effective treatment and proper understanding. Due to the high mortality rates associated with this condition and the destructive nature of the illness, achieving full recovery from eating disorders needs to become a priority in this country.

MSG: Ireland’s Best Kept Secret Lenna Morris investigates the dangers behind Ireland’s most pervasive additive.

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e all know sugar, fat and salt to be the main causes of obesity and diabetes, but when you think of MSG you can be forgiven for not knowing that it too is the one of the causes of these serious health issues. We are faced everyday with the harsh reality of how sugar and fat are creating a health epidemic in our country and yet, we hear nothing about MSG and the role it is also playing.

There are countless amounts of food products claiming to contain less fat, sugar or salt and yet there are none stating “less MSG” even though it causes the same health problems as the other ingredients. There has never been any media focus on MSG and the question is why, and what is this additive doing to us.

Monosodium Glutamate, more commonly known as MSG, has been around for a century. Most people will probably have heard of it, but very few know the full truth about the ingredient. It most certainly is our country’s biggest secret of the food industry.

MSG was first discovered in Japan in the early 1900s. Glutamatic acid is a nonessential amino acid which naturally occurs in food, especially meat, fish, dairy products and vegetables. When cooked, fermented or ripened the glutamatic acid becomes glutamate and this is the unique flavour. It is a taste called “umami”, one of the five basic tastes. While the word is used in English, it translates directly from Japanese to mean “deliciousness”. When added to sodium, glutamate becomes MSG. There are many ingredients and flavourings added to our foods like sugar and salt and we are all made aware of the dangers of these when eaten in access. The question is why we do we hear nothing about MSG? Through research done in America this flavour enhancer has been proved just as dangerous to our health as the others and yet we do not hear of people going on diets free of MSG and there are no diet or healthy eating products that promise us no MSG or lowered levels of it.

MSG is linked by American researchers and doctors to obesity, diabetes, dementia, migraines, Alzheimer’s, irritable bowels, heart irregularities, asthma, seizures, depression and even cancer. It is also addictive, leading to over eating as it increases the appetite.

And yet this poison is still in nearly everything, from fast food to diet products. The Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute claim that “Monosodium glutamate is one of the most extensively studied food ingredients in our food supply. Hundreds of studies and numerous scientific evaluations have concluded that monosodium glutamate provides a safe and useful taste enhancer for foods.” To contradict this you can read any of the online,

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first hand accounts, books or medical reports written documenting the health defects.

John Erb, an American Research Assistant, wrote a book called “The Slow Poisoning of America”. In this he publishes medical data that reveals in great detail all the illness caused by MSG. He claims “MSG is added to foods for the addictive effect it has on the human body”. This ultimately leads to obesity. To see the proof you only have to go to the U.S. “National Library of Medicine” website, key in ‘obesity and MSG’ then read one of the 221 medical reports that link the additive to weight gain. This can be backed up by the nutritionist and medicinal herbalist, Gabriel MacSharry, who claims that MSG “excites the brain cells and creates the impulse to eat.”

John Erb also discovered that studies all over MSG is linked by American the world are being carried out by scientists to make researchers and doctors to obesity, rats and mice obese for diet diabetes, dementia, migraines, and diabetes tests. This is Alzheimer’s, irritable bowels, heart done through injecting the irregularities, asthma, seizures, animals with MSG from when they are born. The depression and even cancer injected MSG triples the amount of insulin in the pancreas causing the rats and mice to become severely obese.

American Doctor, Russell Blaylock, has also written books documenting the health risks of the food additive, one of which is called “Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills”. In this book he connects MSG with cancer. He states that with an increased glutamate level, cancer cells grow rapidly. Once the glutamate is blocked, the growth of the cancer is slowed dramatically. He also connects high consumption of the additive to cardiac death and obesity that begins from childhood. MSG in its purest form was taken out of baby food in Ireland but was replaced by hydrolysed protein and caseinate which are still a source of MSG. If you look for the ingredient MSG or monosodium glutamate on products, your unlikely to find it. It is hidden under many different aliases. These include: natural flavourings, monopotassium glutamate, monosodium glutamate, glutamate, glutamatic acid, yeast extract, vegetable protein extract, textured protein, autolyzed yeast extract, calcium caseinate, sodium caseinate, E621 and hydrolysed vegetable protein. These are all sources of MSG. “Natural flavourings” is the most misleading. When we think of natural flavourings we imagine healthy replacements for the usual sugar, salt or in this case, MSG. Products are allowed to list this substance as natural and therefore mislead the consumer into believing they are choosing a healthier option.

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Aside from fast food, which has high levels of the additive, MSG is in an extensive amount of other food products where you would least expect to find it. Even if you are trying to avoid MSG, are on a healthy diet or trying to loose weight, you are probably still eating it. The fact that it is listed under so many different pseudonyms and brand names, makes it almost impossible to detect. MSG is in a myriad of common processed food brands such as Knor, Batchelors, Mi Wadi, Heinz, Robinson, Tayto, Bisto and baby food. Each of these had the additive listed under different names.

MSG is also in nearly every low calorie or “light” brand. Tayto crisps that advertise only 88 calories per packet contain this additive. They may only have 88 calories but they also have MSG, which leads to obesity and has addictive tendencies which will lead to higher consumption. It is also in most Tesco brand “light” option foods, like their mayonnaise and salad dressing. The products all claim to have less saturated fats and salt but then contain the addictive ingredient MSG which to some extent counteracts this dietary option.

If this additive is not harmful in any way then MSG is added to foods for the why, unlike fats and sugars, addictive effect it has on the human has there been no attempt body … This ultimately leads to to educate the public on obesity its health risks. When interviewed Gabriel MacSharry, a nutritionist and medicinal herbalist, stated that MSG is “definitely being hidden and manufactures don’t care about the health of the nation. They only care about money.”

When asked about the approval of an additive that has been linked to obesity and food addiction, the Irish Food Safety Authority (FSA) repeatedly claimed that MSG has been proved safe by the EU through many tests: “If there were any doubts about the safety of an additive, the substance would not be authorised for use”. The FSA also denied knowing anything, and did not comment about the tests carried out by scientists or medical reports that highlight the dangers of MSG. So why hasn’t the truth come out and why hasn’t the public been educated regarding this dangerous and evasive additive? Until it does, the health problems of this country will continue to grow and people will continue to suffer its effects. While the public remains ill informed, manufacturers will continue to benefit from their consumers’ ill health and addictive eating habits.

Alcohol Mouthwash: Spit it Out! Scientists in Australia say that alcohol-containing mouthwash increases the chances of oral cancer by 50%. Gina Karoline Dalen investigates.

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very morning hundreds of Irish men, women and children are gargling and gurgling mouthwash. Why wouldn’t they? We see TV advertisements for various mouthwash products and the models promoting them have brilliant white teeth.

Over the last few years it has become more popular to use antiseptic mouthwash as a part of daily oral hygiene. But a lack of knowledge by the consumer leads to many people using the wrong type of mouthwash. Take for example Listerine. Listerine is a big name here in Ireland and it has been the main mouthwash label on the American market for decades. On the other side of the planet, research shows that the daily use of mouthwash containing alcohol will increase the chances of getting oral cancer. This is because the ethanol in mouthwash is killing the natural bacteria in the mouth and let the cancercausing substances to penetrate the mouth and the mucus.

In the academic journal article, ‘The role of alcohol, in oral carcinogenesis with particular reference to alcohol-containing mouthwashes’, written by MJ McCullough from The University of Melbourne and CS Farah from The University of Queensland, it states that you only need a 15% concentration of alcohol to penetrate the mucus and the tongue . In their research they can prove that most Listerine mouthwash products contain more than 20% ethanol.

There are three different types of mouthwash out there: one with flour that helps against cavities, one that protects against bacterial coating in the mouth and then the last ‘old fashioned’ one that gives you nice breath. What the consumer doesn’t know is that daily use of this latter mouthwash will stain your teeth, kill the protective bacteria and leave your mouth open to cancer-causing bacteria to emerge, writes McCullough.

Most mouthwashes contain chlorhexidine and alcohol, both are proven to dry out the mucus and damage the bacteria flora. “Not everyone would get the idea of cleaning your mouth with 22% alcohol,” said dentist Elisabeth Philip to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in 2009.

The same year the newspaper reported on Tommy Wahlsröm (44) who used Listerine day and night for a year to get rid of his tartar. He ended up with brown teeth and when he visited his local dentist she explained to him that the mouthwash he used caused the problem. Karin Hjärtsten, dental nurse, pointed out that the intense use of Listerine caused the miss-colouring. In order to get his white teeth back he had to visit

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a professional dentist to clean his teeth.

The Sweedish Tandläkrförbundet (Dental Union) took their logo off the Listerine bottle because of the bottle containing too little flour, which prevents cavities.

The Sea Point Clinic in Dublin is known for their expertise in dental health and they recommended brushing teeth and flossing twice a day but they did not recommend an everyday use of mouthwash. “If you have a gum disease or in any way can not brush your teeth you should use mouthwash, but no longer than two weeks,” says Susan Darley, dental receptionist. She tells me the Sea Point Clinic recommends the Corsodyle mouthwash for their patients with a gum infection.

Most people don’t need There is sufficient and reliable to use a mouthwash that evidence of a correlation between contains chlorhexidine. alcohol-containing [mouth] rinses Unless you have a gumand oral cancer (Australian Dental disease, the mouthwash will do more harm than Journal) help, says Susan Darley.

Chlorhexidine will stain your teeth if you use it daily.

In McCullough and Farah’s 2008 academic paper published in the Australian Dental Journal, the official journal of the Australian Dental Association, they say that it is proven that use of alcohol-containing mouthwashes increases the chances of getting oral cancer by 50% more than for people who don’t use it. In their article they also say that if you have cancer in the mouth or of the tongue you have a five-year survival rate of 50%. The alcohol percentage needed to penetrate the mucus or the tongue itself is 15 %. Listerine uses 22% alcohol in their products. The use of ethanol in mouthwash may increase your chances of getting cancer. The reason for this is that the alcohol is removing the natural bacteria in your mouth and makes it easier for cancer-causing substances to penetrate the lining in your mouth more easily.

The Australian academics say, “there is sufficient and reliable evidence of a correlation between alcohol-based rinses and oral cancer”. But both the American Dental Association and the United States National Cancer Institute rejects such research.

When I called up the owners, Johnson and Johnson, they couldn’t comment on how many bottles of Listerine have been sold in Ireland. Listerine has a unique history, before the formula was marketed as mouthwash in the 1920s, it was used in the treatment of gonorrhoea and to wash floors. It was originally meant for doctors and it was used as a disinfectant during surgery. It wasn’t until the 1970s when the Listerine formula was commonly used as a mouthwash. They had a brilliantly successful campaign in the 1920s

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that Listerine would kill bad breath; this, in a time where bad breath was so common, that people didn’t see it as a problem.

Listerine was originally formulated in 1879 by Dr Nicole Dyer Lawrence and Christian Bach as a surgical antiseptic. It was used to clean surgical sites and irrigate wounds, reducing the risk of dangerous infections after surgery. It was because of them that the number It was [originally] used to clean of people dying of surgery surgical sites and irrigate wounds, infections decreased drasreducing the risk of dangerous tically.

Listerine is distributinfections after surgery [and later] ed by Johnson and Johnit was used in the treatment of son here in Ireland. Their gonorrhoea and to wash floors mouthwash is known for its antiseptic formula that is said to remove plaque and bacteria in between your teeth. What the consumer doesn’t know is that the formula contains substances such as chlorhexidine and sodium fluoride. Sodium Fluoride is good for your teeth but it is marked as a high toxicity level substance and it is proven to have a negative effect on your nervous system, brain and lungs. In its pure form it is dangerous to inhale and ingest, states Avantor Performance Materials, who sell the substance to manufactures and laboratories.

So the relevant medical experts in Australia and Sweden recommend against the daily use of alcohol-containing mouthwash, while the experts in America say its fine. In the meantime, Johnson and Johnson now market an alcohol-free mouthwash, Listerine Zero.

If Looks Could Kill Recently banned in Ireland, a popular hair treatment product is still widely used in the USA. Seraphina Chabinec investigates.

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ormaldehyde. It is a known carcinogen associated with nasal and brain cancer and even leukaemia. When inhaled, the gas can burn the nasal passages and lead to chronic nosebleeds. Exposure can also lead to severe respiratory injury, such as pulmonary edema. When it comes into contact with the skin, formaldehyde causes burning, cracking, and discolouration. In the eyes, it can cause permanent clouding of the cornea and even vision loss. So why would anyone purposely expose himself or herself to this chemical?

Knowingly, one probably would not. The problem is: how would one know?

Right now, salons across the United States are offering a service know as Brazilian Keratin Treatment (BKT). It is supposed to relax curly or frizzy hair and give the customer a sleek, shiny style for up to three months. However, these straightening treatments, also known as Brazilian Blowouts (which can also refer to a specific range of products), escova progressiva treatments, or keratin treatments, contain a high level of the carcinogen formaldehyde. BKTs were pulled off the market and banned in Ireland in October 2010 after studies revealed the high formaldehyde content. A stylist at the Irish, Toni & Guy salon, who wished to remain unnamed said, “We used to offer that service, but we no longer do. We tried other products but none of them worked as well [as the keratin treatment] so we stopped offering it.” Peter Mark salons also stopped offering the straightening treatment after BKT was banned in Ireland. These keratin treatments have also been banned in Brazil and Canada as well as in many other South American and European countries. In the United States, however, the treatments are still legal.

In the United States, the legal level of formaldehyde in a cosmetic product is 0.2% but when tested, the Oregon Occupational and Safety Administration (OSHA) found the formaldehyde content in the keratin treatments, and specifically in the brand Brazilian Blowout, to be between 4.85% and 10.6%. In a separate study conducted by Allure magazine, the level of formaldehyde found in keratin treatments from various salons was between 3.4% and 22.1%.

Users of the keratin treatments are exposed to the high levels of formaldehyde, but it is the stylists who work with the products on a daily basis who are at the most risk of developing side effects. A stylist from Portland, Oregon made the complaint that started OSHA’s investigation in July 2010. She claimed that after using Brazilian Blowout products she was having trouble breathing and was experiencing nosebleeds and eye irritation. OSHA found high levels of formaldehyde in Brazilian Blowout products despite the company’s claim that its range was formaldehyde-free.

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When the OSHA published the results of its study, it led to a backlash and a lawsuit by the Brazilian Blowout company. Brazilian Blowout claimed and advertised its products as safe and formaldehyde-free and even after the OSHA study they continue to maintain that their products do not contain formaldehyde. The company said that the OSHA study was conducted improperly and that its claims were damaging for business. When contacted the company said that any questions could be answered by visiting their website, however, an ingredient list was not available through their website. The lawsuit against OSHA has subsequently been dropped.

The Cosmetic Ingredient Review subsequently found that even when formaldehyde is not listed as an ingredient, keratin-based products still release it when heated. Consumers need to be wary of any keratin straightening treatment, as straightening irons are used to seal the cuticle of the hair after the keratin product is applied. Some companies are even trying to hide the presence of formaldehyde in their products by giving it a different name such as formalin (a liquid form of formaldehyde) but most commonly as methylene glycol. When heated, this chemical is released into the air as formaldehyde.

Keratin straightening treatments are not regulated or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and while the FDA claims to be working with state and local authorities to determine whether these straightening treatments will cause health problems, it seems unlikely that this popular service will be banned in the US. FDA regulations already in place make it difficult to ban keratin treatments that contain formaldehyde because of the vast number of different products and brands. In addition, of the thousands of salons that offer keratin straightening services in the US, many would be harmed financially by the banning of BKTs. In order to minimize damage done by these keratin treatments, the government needs to conduct tests on all BKT products to determine their level of dangerous chemicals. This testing could then be seen as conclusive and would help the treatments be regulated or banned.

Until then, it is up to consumers and salon workers to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the Brazilian Blowout.

While banned in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, Ireland, and much of Europe, keratin straightening treatments are still legal in the United States. Until such time that the FDA regulates or bans Brazilian Keratin Treatments in the US, consumers must be cautious. Even being in the same room as someone receiving one of these treatments can be damaging. The heat releases the formaldehyde into the air and everyone in the room is at risk of inhaling it. Cosmopolitan magazine recommends calling ahead of a salon appointment and rescheduling if any BKTs are going to be performed at the same time. Some US salons have banned the straightening treatment themselves and no longer offer it, but at the moment efforts to ban the products permanently in the USA are limited to state-by-state movements.

Currently, Brazilian Keratin Treatments are legal in all 50 states.

Pharmacies Defraud State in Medicine Reimbursement Scam Documentary evidence shows pharmacies are successfully using patient information to make fraudulent claims to the HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service for prescription drugs which patients never receive. Edel O’Shea investigates.

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Dublin 4 pharmacy is using patient information to make fraudulent claims to the Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS) for prescription drugs which the patient never received. The amount of drugs being claimed for exceeds that of realistic drug consumption by any single patient within a calendar month.

The PCRS have overlooked extreme discrepancies in Health Service Executive (HSE) public health schemes running in the community pharmacy such as Long Term Illness (LTI), the Drug Payment Scheme (DPS) and the General Medical Services Scheme (GMS). These schemes allow patients to obtain certain medications either free or through a subsidy , and the HSE, through the PCRS, reimburses the pharmacy.

Documentary evidence obtained in this investigation proves that claims were made to the PCRS using names of recently deceased patients. One of the deceased had not availed of his Drug Payment Scheme (DPS) for the month of November 2009 due to hospitalisation. He died on November 25th 2009, yet the document states that using his DPS number, name and address, his medications were claimed for during that month to the PCRS on the 30th of November 2009.

Another document states that the pharmacy made claims using a deceased patient’s GMS number in October 2010 after the death of the patient in September 2010.

“Prescriptions are not required by the PCRS for DPS, LTI or Health Amendment Act [payments],” explains Margaret Murray, a pharmacist and employee of a South Dublin pharmacy. “All claims have to be sent electronically by day three of a new month for the previous month’s claims Between 24 and 72 hours after claims have been submitted, the rejects come back and only ever consist of a wrong digit in a scheme number explained Ms Murray. “But there appears to be no check on how much medication is being claimed off individual scheme numbers. The nonsense claims being submitted are for an overdose of medication but this is not spotted by the PCRS and is not possible to be spotted between 24 and 72 hours after the claim. No questions are asked by the PCRS, they simply write the cheques,” she went on to explain.

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GMS prescriptions are required by the PCRS by post as well as electronically. However, if a patient does not require all the drugs on his or her repeat GMS prescription for that particular month, “the pharmacy is supposed to type ‘not dispensed’ by the unwanted drug in the patient file on the pharmacy’s dispensing computer,” said Ms Murray.

“The pharmacy will still get a handling fee for typing ‘not dispensed’ and is somewhere in the region of €3.60 for doing so. However in this pharmacy we are forbidden from stating ‘not dispensed’ so the proprietor can claim the full amount for the drug from the PCRS, even though the patient didn’t receive that item. GMS is not the biggest profit maker for pharmacies; it’s nothing compared to the amount they receive for DPS and LTI [schemes].”

Claims being submitted are for an Other documents I overdose of medication but this obtained hold evidence of fraudulent claims through is not spotted by the PCRS … No one patient’s LTI and questions are asked, they simply GMS numbers. In this write the cheques case the PCRS have failed to recognise, while processing these claims on a monthly basis, that no patient is qualified for more than one scheme at a time and therefore the obsolete number should be deleted from their system.

The patient being used for fraud in this case is no longer an LTI patient. As far as he, his doctor and the HSE are aware, he is now under the GMS scheme, but his local pharmacy have other plans for his old LTI number which the PCRS have not yet deleted.

The document shows that the pharmacy used the type two diabetic patient’s LTI and medical card number, within the same month, to claim for test strips, for testing diabetics’ blood, on both schemes; 200 on the LTI and 100 on the GMS The price of these strips at the time the claim was made in July 2009 was €77.17 per 100 strips. 300 strips were claimed for that month by the pharmacy but only two hundred were received by the patient.

From the period July 2008 to April 2009, the offending pharmacy used the same LTI patient number, before the patient became a GMS card holder, to claim back astronomical amounts from the PCRS under the scheme.

The document shows for one month alone in January 2009, the pharmacy claimed for 40 insulin lantus CTG 3ml injection 100u/ml and 50 insulin Novorapid Penfill cartages 3ml injection/SC. However, as Ms Murray explains, “within one month, for type

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two diabetics, only one to two pens for each type of insulin could possibly be needed.

Anything more than that within a one month period would be a potentially fatal overdose for the patient.”

The cost to the HSE for the 40 insulin pens claimed, for one month, was €906.16. If the patient received the two pens of one type of insulin, as Ms Murray suggested as the likelihood, the cost to the HSE would have been €45.13. So for this one pharmacy, for one item for one month, approximately €861 of fraudulent profit was made.

Likewise the other type of insulin claimed for in this case during the same month cost the HSE €776.75 for fifty pens. Again one to two pens is the usual amount actually being consumed during any month by one patient.

Two pens of this type costs In this pharmacy we are forbidden approximately €30.80, so from stating ‘not dispensed’ so the the estimated fraudulent proprietor can claim the full amount profit was €740. for the drug … even though the “For any prescription item costing over €100 the patient didn’t receive that item PCRS is supposed to need a copy of the wholesaler invoice for the item which they never make a request for,” said Ms Murray.

The outlandish claim states within the same month that 200 needle tops, for use with the pens, were claimed for. However, according to Ms Murray, for that amount of insulin being claimed, 5,000 needle tops would be needed to administer that amount of insulin.

In July 2008 this same document shows that 40 Novorapid pens were claimed, costing the HSE €622.00, and in the same month 30 insulin lantus pens were claimed at a cost of €680.37, among other expensive medications that are excess claims “Another problem arises when the pharmacy claims for drugs they haven’t even ordered from the wholesaler, which means they are making pure profit from these false claims,” said Ms Murray.

That profit was for one month alone, from just one patient, within just one pharmacy in the country. With over 1,500 dispensing pharmacies in the Republic of Ireland and with the average person visiting their local pharmacy approximately 23 times a year , the loss to the HSE could be potentially massive. If the PCRS are failing to notice the fraudulent claims, it leaves Irish pharmacies with the opportunity to dabble in this type of fraud and could potentially cost the HSE and Irish citizens millions of euro.

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The entire patient history report document states the claims made between July 2008 and April 2009 came to €6,209.36.

“No diabetic, especially a type two diabetic, would use over €6,000 worth of diabetic medication,” says Ms Murray.

The claim dealt with in this article makes no rational sense and is outright fraud being practiced by one pharmacy. The bigger picture and the biggest worry, is that the state have not yet spotted and acted on this major mistake in the Irish healthcare system and poses the question and concern of how many more pharmacies have fiddled with the system and to what extent?

When asked, the pharmacy department of the So for this one pharmacy, for one PCRS who handles these item for one month, approximately claim forms, I was told it was “HSE staff ” that han€861 of fraudulent profit was made dled them. When I asked what qualifications these HSE staff held who are checking these documents, I was told it was, “just HSE staff.” I was then instructed to email Mr Patrick Burke, head of the PCRS, if I wanted those questions answered; I’ve yet to receive a reply.

In one pharmacy where I worked, in Rathcoole, South County Dublin, from June 2006 to March 2007, the proprietor requested I and other members of staff, forge signatures on DPS and LTI claim forms. The patient could not sign for something they never asked for.

Ms Murray believes a system should be put in place whereby the PCRS send a copy of medications out to each patient who is covered under a scheme at the end of the year and declare that the details of amounts of drugs being used and received, are in fact accurate.

Stem Cell Research: No Law, No Ethics, No Research The lack of legislation and coalition disagreement surrounding stem cell research in Ireland is leading to a loss of research funding for the state. Will English reports.

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rish stem cell research is set to remain in a legal vacuum due to conflicting views on stem cell research between Fine Gael and Labour. Public universities are currently denied funding and this will result in Ireland missing out on developments and expertise in health research.

Currently there exists no legislation on the use of human embryonic stem cells (HESC) in Ireland, however the right to “life” of the unborn child is protected by the Irish constitution. The Programme for Government baldly states that, “we will legislate to regulate stem cell research”. However, there is a wide difference in the stance on bioethics between the two parties, with no clear sign of proposals being implemented.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, did respond to my questions regarding this, saying “The Programme for Government contains a commitment, agreed by both Fine Gael and the Labour Party to clarify the law surrounding assisted human reproduction and to regulate stem cell research.” Just what direction this clarification and regulation will take remains unclear.

Minister Quinn continued: “I will carefully consider … any proposals that are put forward by Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, when this section of the Programme for Government is being implemented.”

Upon being notified of this statement, Dara O’Riordan of the Irish Stem Cell Foundation (ISCF) replied: “The key question is when this section of the Programme for Government is being implemented, what it will contain and whether it will be scientifically and medically informed.”

Stem cells are immature cells that have not yet specialised in becoming a particular cell type. Given a specific biochemical environment, they can develop into many different cell types such as heart, liver or nerve cells. This property allows them to be used as “repair kits” for the body by replacing dead or injured tissue. There are two main types of stem cell: adult and embryonic.

Ireland currently permits adult stem cell research (e.g. immature skin cells), which has led to significant developments (most notably for leukaemia). The name “adult” stem cells, differentiates them from embryonic stem cells, which are formed at the early stages

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of development, 4-5 days after fertilization of a female egg cell a sperm cell. These embryonic stem cells have the innate ability to become almost every other cell type, whereas adult stem cells are less versatile. Embryonic stem cells are also required to test the efficacy of adult stem cells.

Worries over the opposed stances between the two leading parties on the use of HESC have grabbed the attention of the international science community. The highly influential, scientific journal, Nature, published an article titled ‘Irish election raises questions for stem cell research’.

In a statement posted on the Pro Life Campaign website Fine Gael iterated they were “opposed to research conducted on human embryos, and favours alternative stem cell research that does not involve human embryos such as adult stem cell and umbilical cord research.”

The Labour Party’s manifesto, however, states The key question is when this that they wish to introduce section of the Programme for legislation on stem cell reGovernment is being implemented, search “with regard to the recommendations of the what it will contain and whether it Irish Council for Bioethwill be scientifically and medically ics”. This council ceased informed operation in 2009 after the Fianna Fáil led government withdrew funding.

They had advocated HESC should be used under limited circumstances in accordance with the laws of some other EU countries.

A statement received by me from Dr Stephen Sullivan of the ISCF reads: “Research should be done along all avenues, including embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and reprogrammed cells if Ireland is to interface effectively with the international stem-cell community and become competitive in the regenerative medicine sector.”

The state’s two biggest funding agencies, Science Foundation Ireland and the Health Research Board, have banned grants for any research involving HESC in the absence of any legislation. Also, according to the ISCF, the lack of legislation is preventing more lucrative funding from alternative sources, such as international investors.

Trinity College, Dublin and University College, Cork (UCC) have attempted to address the situation by drawing up their own codes of ethics, allowing research involving imported HESC provided that a research grant has been obtained from a foreign research body. At present, it remains the case that no such funding has been taken up with the current legal limbo.

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A spokesperson for the Scottish Stem Cell Network (SSCN) told me: “Over here, the debate has moved on from the ethical one, to one of, ‘ok, how do we realize the benefits of this’”. In the UK, legislation regulating the use of HESC has been in place since 1990. In 2007/2008, the government there provided £100million to research bodies using HESC. The SSCN informed me that they must receive the approval of four regulating bodies before they can begin research. This well regulated environment is more appealing to serious medical researchers as investors are less likely to pump money into lawless economies open to unethical research.

Major ethical debates swirl around the use of these cells. One of the key issues is the source of the cells. According to the SSCN, “the ratio of adult stem cell research to that involving HESC is about 50:50”. HESC are obtained through the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) programme in Scotland. These IVF embryos are surplus from those programmes that would otherwise be discarded or remain in a cryogenic freezer.

This surplus arises because many embryos are Research should be done along produced (outside the womb) but not used in IVF all avenues, including embryonic procedures. Often a womstem cells, adult stem cells, and an will have a successful asreprogrammed cells if Ireland is sisted reproduction before to interface effectively with the all the embryos produced by her eggs and donor international stem-cell community sperm are used. These suand become competitive in the pernumerary IVF embryos regenerative medicine sector can be donated to research, whereupon they can be used to create HESC lines.

A brief glance at the situation in Scotland gives us an idea of the research money being forfeited here. The SSCN estimate that the stem cell research industry in Scotland alone is worth £20million. The SSCN is itself jointly funded by public bodies and the EU Regional Development Fund. The latter of these match any public money that can be raised in a process known as a ‘matched funding system’. Ireland, due to the legal uncertainty, is missing out on this.

HESC research remains critically important to realising the potential of future treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease as well as its potential for stroke victims, paralysis, and sight related disorders. In the US, the Shepherd Institute and Geron Corporation have begun phase-1 clinical trials on humans using

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HES cells in patients suffering from paralysis and loss of sight.

In Ireland there remains an ethical debate around the legal status afforded to embryos outside the womb and, more prominently, around the legal and moral status of cells in nascent stages of life. Given the power of the Catholic Church until recently, it is this debate that past governments have been careful to avoid.

Before they were forced to cease operations, the ICB made the following recommendation: “…the Council supports the carefully regulated use of supernumerary IVF embryos—that are otherwise destined to be destroyed—for the purposes of embryonic stem cell research aimed at alleviating human suffering. The decision to donate supernumerary embryos for research should be voluntary, free from any form of coercion and made under the strict conditions of informed consent.”

That statement was made in 2008. Three years later, Fine Gael and Labour’s opposing viewpoints are preventing any of the potential benefits of this important research being realised. Despite talk of a “knowledge economy”, this, along with funding bans provides another reason for scientific expertise to go elsewhere.

Endnotes • During my investigation, while trying to discover the government’s position on this, it became apparent that there is some confusion as to who is the responsible minister. Scientific research is currently under the remit of three cabinet members: Minister for Education and Skills (Ruairí Quinn), Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment (Richard Bruton) and Junior Minister for Research and Innovation (Seán Sherlock).

• For the ICB’s recommendations to the government in 2009 and an overview of the ethical arguments, check out www.bioethics.ie.

• Ask your local politician why there is currently no bioethical advice to government in Ireland: http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0

One-Click Abortion Ophelie Martin investigates the illegal online market for abortion pills in Ireland.

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bortion in Ireland is illegal unless there is a substantial risk to the life and health of the mother. Since 1992, Irish women can legally travel to obtain abortions abroad. Thousands of women travel abroad each year to have an abortion and thousands more are looking for other solutions because they cannot travel abroad for financial and family reasons. These other solutions include the purchase of illegal abortion pills on the internet. Many websites offer women the possibility of having an abortion at home. It is unsafe and illegal, but hard to detect for Irish authorities. Demand has increased in Ireland and this has led to the creation of a big business on the internet.

While some organisations attempt to help women in need, others are fake associations, which sell bogus and dangerous pills.

According to the Irish Medicines Boards, each year 4,400 Irish women travel to the UK to have an abortion and three women a day order pills in Ireland. According to Stephanie Lord, a member of the Irish pro-choice association Choice Ireland, “the demand is huge and cannot be easily detected”. Ireland’s laws on abortion are among the most restrictive in the world. Having an abortion in a clinic in the UK costs about €750.

With the costs of travel and accommodation added, it reaches a larger sum. The illegal purchase of abortion pills online is the cheapest solution for many women. Associations such as The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) offer post-abortion aftercare to women. According to Niall Behan, the head of the IFPA, the criminalisation of abortion in Ireland “has little impact on abortion rates” and the government has failed with its strict policy.

The abortion pill is called Mifepristone or RU 486. Mifepristone is a steroid compound, which acts as a pharmaceutical anti-progestin. Anti progestin prevents cells from making progesterone. Mifepristone is also marketed under trade names such as Mifegyne or Mifeprex. In the countries where abortion is legal, the use of abortion pills is frequent but requires strict medical support. The abortive protocol is strict. To have a safe medical abortion, a woman has to take three pills of Mifepristone in one intake. 48 hours later, she takes two pills of Misoprostol. Misoprostol induces the risk of gastric ulcer for women having an abortion. Generally, the side effects are light; it can be cramping, nausea or headache. But in some instance, it can be very painful and dangerous (e.g.: uterine haemorrhage, dangerous inflammation of the vaginas and strong aches and pains). That is why women need a medical follow-up after they take these pills.

According to the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), women cannot know if the pills

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they ordered on the web are real or fake. There are more and more counterfeits which are not easy to detect. If the counterfeit is a placebo, the risk is insignificant. But if a counterfeit contains a generic drug or unknown compound, the risks are high. The IMB has reported that of the 1,216 tablets in 62 individual importations detained by Customs and the IMB in 2009, 50 intended recipients were female and 12 male. These figures indicate that the number of illegal abortifacients seized in 2009 was almost 50 times higher than in 2008 which saw seizures of 14 mifepristone tablets and 34 misoprostol tablets).

The packages sized in 2009 comprised of Mifepristone (98 tablets) and Misoprostol (1,118 tablets). “These tablets can be supplied in kit form such as ‘Profam Mifemiso Kit’ containing 1 Mifepristone tablet and 6 Misoprostol tablets, ” explains the IMB. These tablets were evidently not bound for just 62 individuals. That implies the existence of a black market in Ireland. In January 2011, the IMB reported the prosecution of Fang Susan Huang for selling Mifepristone at Rong Xing Supermarket, in Dublin 1.

The Irish authorities have their hands tied as the pills cannot be easily detected.

The IMB, the Crisis Pregnancy Programme, Each year 4,400 Irish women and the Government try travel to the UK to have an abortion to remedy the use of iland three women a day order [the legal abortion pills but abortion] pills the online nature of the business makes regulation tough. There is co-operation within Ireland and between agencies in Europe and beyond. The Council of Europe has recently concluded an Anti-Counterfeiting Convention on Medical Products. Once adopted and transposed into national law, sanctions will include an offence of counterfeiting a medical product. But for the time being, changes to European legislation governing medicinal products are only in progress.

I have decided to verify if it would be easy to order these pills. Will customs find out my order? Will I receive the real pills? There are many websites which offer abortive pills online and I chose two of them. The first one is referenced as the “safest way to have an abortion at home” and the other one as “the quickest way to get abortion pills”.

On the first website, I fill-in an online consultation. I have to answer different questions such as “are you sure that you want to have an abortion; ‘ How do you feel about your decision; Are you sure you want to end your pregnancy and no one is forcing you?”

At the end of this virtual consultation, the website requests the name of country where I will receive my pills. When I ticked “Ireland”, this message appeared: “Sorry, medical abortion can not be provided to Ireland. Recently some packages have been seized by the Irish Medicines Board and we cannot guarantee that the package will get to you safely. However, the package can be sent to Northern Ireland if you can provide an ad-

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dress there.” The only way to get my pills from this website is to contact them for more information. If I do not find a means to get an address in Northern Ireland, they can find one for me.

I went on different online forums to find help from other women who had already experienced online abortion pills. In most cases, women that I “met” think that the first website I tried is the safest way to have an abortion at home. It offers an aftercare service with a doctor by email. Even if the procedure is longer and very expensive (about €500) compared to others websites, they advised me to use this website because they had “a good experience with them”.

In the shoes of a woman who needs to have an abortion very quickly, I decide to visit the second website. It looks like less professional, but the promise is the same: “a quick and safe abortion at home”. There is information about the RU486 pill and the Misoprostol. I just have to fill-in my bank details without any questionnaire if I want to order it. To get my pills, I have to pay $65, which is equal to €47. I was supposed to receive it two business days after my order. The website indicates that it is based in the United States. Eight working days later, my pills were in the mailbox. The stamp on the envelope does not look like an American one: it is written in Thai. The “simple package” that they promised is a plain bubble wrap envelope. Inside, there are only three pills; a plastic sachet bundles them up. The three pills are the same, whereas it was supposed to contain three pills of Mifepristone and two of Misoprostol. The most surprising thing is that there is no notice inside the envelope.

According to Dr Castillon, a French gynaecologist specialised in abortion matters, the pills could be placebos. He told me: “The pills that you are showing to me cannot be Mifepristone and Misoprostol because they are identical. The abortion pills are supposed to be cylindrical and pale yellow. Either they are fake or generics, but it does not look like abortion pills!”. Another website specialising in in information relating to abortions, has revealed that the website where I ordered the drugs from could send fakes. The only proof given to this claim is an extract from a scientific result written in German. Between all the links I have visited, it is difficult to tell if the websites are biased, or if I am dealing with real businesses.

On the 16th of February 2011, the Irish Medicines Board took the decision to approve the morning after-pill NorLevo for sale without a prescription in Irish pharmacies. From now on, minors as well as adults, will have access to the morning after pill in a pharmacy without the expense of having to see a doctor buy a prescription. In the long term, this decision may have a positive impact on unsafe abortions in Ireland by reducing the numbers of unwanted crisis pregnancies. Many medical organisations and pro-choice associations have welcomed this decision.

Abortion In The Digital Era Availability of abortion pills on the internet shows a need for change in current law. Sinead Nolan investigates.

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ue to abortion being illegal in this country, every year thousands of Irish women will travel to have abortions. Several international human rights bodies have expressed concern over the impact of Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws on women’s human rights, including: UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner.

According to the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), between 1980 and 2009, at least 142,060 women travelled to England and Wales for abortion services with 4,422 travelling in 2009. The IFPA believe however, these figures are underestimated as some women are reluctant to provide their address.

However, a worrying trend has emerged in the last few years as Irish woman are turning to the internet to buy ‘abortion medication’. A Google search for ‘abortion pill’ shows hundreds of websites offering the medication.

In October of last year, a Freedom of Information request submitted to the Irish Medicines Board by a pro-choice group, Choice Ireland, showed 1,216 seizures were made by the customs authorities of drugs known to induce abortions. The majority of seizures related to the drug Misoprostol (1,118 units) and Mifepristone (98), which are easily available on the internet.

In a statement, the Irish Medicines Board said, “Counterfeit and illegal medicines pose a serious threat to public health. The board, in conjunction with the Revenue’s customs service and An Garda Síochána, continually monitors and investigates instances of illegal supply of medicinal products via the internet and other avenues and we actively enforce suspected breaches of the law,” it said.

Women on Web, a non-profit organisation, offers an ‘abortion by post’ service to women in countries where they don’t have access to the service.

Last week, I contacted Women on Web, posing as a 15 year old girl, desperately seeking help in terminating my pregnancy. The website offers no contact telephone numbers and all correspondence is done via email. I received a reply within ten minutes of contacting Women on Web who told me, “The medicines are very safe and work 95-98% of the time up to nine weeks of pregnancy,”.

When I asked what I could expect to happen after administering the medication, they stated, “the medicines cause cramping and bleeding, like with a normal miscarriage”.

At no stage during our correspondence did the fact I was an ‘under-age’ girl come

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into question. Nor did Woman on Web advise me to speak to a parent/guardian for support. In fact, my general mental health or well being was never addressed. They did, however, supply a link to an online consultation which consists of twenty-five yes/no questions regarding a patient’s pregnancy, all of which can be falsely answered.

When asked to provide a country of residence, I received a message stating, “Recently some packages have been seized by the Irish Medical Board and we cannot guarantee that the package will get to you safely. However, the package can be sent to Northern Ireland or to the U.K. if you can provide an address there”.

Medical experts have warned women against using these drugs bought on the internet as they may be unaware of the proper dosage or administration of the drugs. The complications involved in using the drugs incorrectly could result in severe bleeding, infection, incomplete abortion, laceration of the neck of the womb, perforation of the womb and the possibility of a clot moving.

South Dublin based pharmacist, Maura Egan, has seen six women in the last year seeking assistance after taking abortion medication accessed online.

“Women are very reluctant to go to their GP or to hospitals to receive medical attention. We are seeing young women, mostly teenagers, It is time to face up to the reality who are afraid to tell their that Irish women will go to parents or are afraid they desperate lengths and take huge may get into trouble legalrisks to end pregnancies they feel ly that have bought these abortion pills online. Two they cannot continue. We need to weeks afterwards women consider women’s health and their should get a scan to enfundamental human rights, we need sure all lining has been change (Choice Ireland) expelled from the womb and if necessary curettage should be carried out. If this isn’t carried out it could cause serious risks,” she said.

Clinics such as the Marie Stopes Reproductive Choices, say they have also seen an increase in women seeking assistance after taking these drugs. “Women we spoke with said they could not afford to travel abroad for an abortion or were unable to leave the country due to their residency status,” said a spokesperson.

Sinead Ahern, spokesperson for Choice Ireland said, “It is time to face up to the reality that Irish women will go to desperate lengths and take huge risks to end pregnancies they feel they cannot continue. We need to consider women’s health and their fundamental human rights, we need change”.

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With abortions in Britain costing approximately €1,200, buying medication online for €70 may seem a much better option, especially for younger women.

One young woman I spoke with, who wished to remain anonymous, purchased the online medication from Women on Web in January 2010. She used this service, she said, because it was significantly cheaper than having to travel abroad. However, after taking the medication she experienced severe bleeding and cramps and was admitted to hospital. “I couldn’t stand up straight with the pains in my stomach and lower At no stage during our back. I was taken to hoscorrespondence did the fact I was an pital where I had to have ‘under-age’ girl come into question a dilation and curettage (D&C), after I told doctors I was having a miscarriage”.

While she made a quick recovery physically, she described her experience as “a traumatic ordeal”.

“I wasn’t prepared for the emotions I felt afterwards. On one hand I felt relief and on the other I felt really guilty. When you have an abortion you really need counselling to cope but in Ireland it’s very hard to admit to having an abortion, let alone getting help afterwards,” she said.

Last year, Human Rights Watch, the well-known international human rights organisation, issued a report which documented the consistent obstacles women have faced to gain information in Ireland, it claimed women were “not allowed to access the services they needed and they are aggressively discouraged from seeking the care they needed”.

In the report they stated, “Abortion, as a medical procedure, is safest when provided within the first eight weeks of the pregnancy. And the longer a woman with a crisis pregnancy has to wait for the services she needs, the deeper her distress and ordeal. If the woman is suffering through a pregnancy with fatal foetal abnormalities or that has been the result of rape or incest, this is in some cases even truer. By stalling women’s access to the care they need, the Irish government is complicit in their distress”.

In a recent survey I conducted on 150 women, aged between 16 and 40, 87% believed abortion in Ireland should be legalised and the choice should ultimately be that of the woman involved. While 60% said that moral or religious beliefs would prevent them from having abortions themselves, they believed a change in the law was needed.

When asked for Fine Gael and Labour’s position on abortion and the possibility of once again holding a referendum on the subject, they were unavailable for comment. It has been almost 20 years since the topic of abortion has been brought to the Irish people

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and in those 20 years, a new era of internet and information has emerged. The Irish Government have been accused by pro-choice organisations of ignoring the issue, however, a woman’s health and well being should ultimately be a priority. Women are and will continue to seek out alternative ways of having abortions.

Whether or not abortion will be legalised in the future, the stigma that surrounds By stalling women’s access to abortion in this country is the care they need, the Irish the fundamental element that should be addressed. government is complicit in their Abortion has been ildistress (Human Rights Watch) legal in Ireland since the passing of the British 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. In 1983 the ‘Pro Life Amendment’ referendum was approved which established the right to life of the foetus, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother.

However, under the 1983 amendment, family planning groups were barred from offering abortion counselling, information and aid in travelling to Britain to procure abortions.

In 1992, a referendum was held, following a case in which a fourteen year old rape victim became pregnant. The girl, named only as “X” in the courts and the media, to protect her identity, sought to terminate her pregnancy in England, as abortion was illegal in Ireland. However, the Gardaí became aware of her plans to travel and the Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, sought an injunction under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland (which outlaws abortion) preventing her from leaving the state. The injunction was granted in the High Court but the family appealed to the Supreme Court, stating that X was having suicidal thoughts and that her mental health was at risk. The injunction was overturned by a majority of four to one. The Supreme Court held that a woman had a right to leave the state to avail of abortion services in certain limited circumstances, seen in the X case as, “a real and substantial risk” to her life.

Subsequently, the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution, 1992, was passed in a referendum establishing (a) the ‘right to travel’ abroad to avail of services which are illegal in the Irish state; and (b) the ‘right to information’ regarding abortion services available in foreign states. A third amendment that would have defined when abortions could be considered legal was defeated.

Alternative Medicine: Benign Placebo or Nefarious Scam?

Despite the lack of evidence as to the efficacy of complementary and alternative medicine and therapies, its research funding and popularity continue to rise. Suzanne Fitzpatrick investigates.

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ossibly due to our current economic climate, the level at which we consume alternative treatments is slowly rising. In Ireland, an independent study carried out by doctors at Rath Mhuire Health Centre in Swords showed that 27% of 328 people had visited an alternative practitioner in 2010. The most common reason for attending was “to treat an illness for which conventional medicine was already being used”. 52% claimed that personal recommendation from a friend or family member was the biggest factor in their decision to visit and 41% had not admitted it to their GP. In the USA, usage of CAM has steadily risen from 36% of adults aged 18 and over in 2004, to 38% in 2008. Approximately 12% of children have been noted to use or have used some form of CAM. Those percentages continue to grow.

Also on the rise is doubt as to whether it works or not. It’s indeed questionable if natural health aids really have medicinal benefits. A lot of people who suffer from serious illnesses such as diabetes and cancer take CAM as well as prescriptions, hence the term ‘complementary’.

In Western culture, the term ‘alternative medicine’ refers to ways of healing “that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine.” In a more cynical sense, it could also be described as “that which has not been shown consistently to be effective”. What classifies as CAM ranges from Chinese herbal medicines and homeopathy, to dance therapy and chiropractory.

It’s quite surprising how popular CAM has become when one considers that, for instance, a dietary supplement manufacturer does not have to prove a product’s safety and effectiveness before it is marketed, especially when the World Health Organization (WHO) claim they aim to “ensure the use of safe, effective and quality products and practices, based on available evidence” in their manifesto about alternative treatments.

In the United States, a manufacturer is permitted to say that a dietary supplement addresses a nutrient deficiency, supports health, or is linked to a particular body function (e.g., immunity) if there is research to support the claim. The claim must be followed by the words “This statement has not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

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But where is the irrefutable proof that it can help? Studies have indeed shown that some people, particularly those suffering illness and who take prescription medication, can improve their condition with alternative treatments. The argument lies in whether or not these results can be put down to some factor other than placebo, in other words, the theory of ‘it will work if you believe it works’. According to critics, it’s possible that CAM only works on the basis of the strength of belief of its user.

In America, the organization responsible and key to this research is the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). A US government agency, the NCCAM’s aim is to explore alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, training ‘CAM researchers’ and spreading authoritative information about the results to the public and professionals.

Last year, NCCAM’s budget for research and activity was $128.8 million, but there is widespread criticism that they have little or nothing to show for it. Steven Salzberg, a genome researcher and computational biologist at the University of Maryland said in 2009: “With a new administration and President Obama’s stated goal of moving science to the forefront, now is the time for scientists to start speaking up about issues that concern us. One of our concerns is that the National Institute of Health (NIH) is funding pseudoscience.”

To find out more about this budget and the placebo effect of CAM, I spoke to Katy Danielson One of our concerns is that the M.D., head media specialNational Institute of Health is ist at NCCAM. Firstly, funding pseudoscience she admits that the Centre’s studies have returned unnerving results as well as positive: “scientific evidence has found that the herb St. John’s Wort may be useful for short-term treatment of mild or moderate depression. However, St. John’s Wort has also been found to interact with medications in ways that can interfere with their intended effects, including antidepressants, birth control pills and anticoagulants”.

A horrific example of this negative interaction was realized by Associate Professor Alastair MacLennan of Adelaide University in Australia in 2000. When one of his patients almost bled to death on the operating table after she failed to tell him beforehand that she had been taking herbal medicines in order to “build up her strength” before the operation, some of which had a powerful anticoagulant side-effect that nearly caused her death.

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Danielson defends the criticism of insignificant or inefficient research by pointing out: “Our staff here, the researchers we fund, and NCCAM’s Advisory Council all come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Some come from more CAM-focused disciplines and some come from conventional disciplines. In fact, NCCAM’s director, Dr. Josephine Briggs, is an MD and a nephrologist by training”.

When asked whether the staff and researchers are of a scientific background or just have an interest in CAM, Danielson asserts: “There is a lot of real-world interest in these types of modalities and our research priorities have evolved as we learn more about the reasons Americans give for turning to CAM”.

Through the interview, it becomes noticeable that Ms Danielson may be The results for the majority of cases avoiding going into detail are cited as placebo effects or that about whether or not the significant results couldn’t be found researchers have extensive medical background as she quickly reverts to talking about the organisations aims.

Referring to the significance of the placebo effect, Danielson reveals: “we are interested in understanding and exploring the many components of the placebo effect, like what role does expectation play, how important is the patient-provider interaction in health and also what is the mind-body connection and how can it be harnessed to promote health and well being. These are questions and examples of the challenges facing NCCAM and the researchers we fund develop methodologies to study complex CAM interventions while upholding the rigorous standards of modern research.”

Upon my asking of what the most common ailments or conditions CAM is used for and whether the organization focuses on specific illnesses, she replies: “We focus on the role of CAM in symptom management. Back pain and pain in general are among the main reasons that people are turning to CAM. We have a robust research portfolio in back pain management. Current NCCAM-funded studies continue to examine the effect of specific therapies - such as acupuncture, yoga and spinal manipulation - on low back pain. This is an area where our research is having an impact on practice. For example, the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society include CAM treatments in their guidelines as options for treating low-back pain.”

From a chemical and scientific view (for example, looking at their ingredients), can such treatments as Echinacea really harbour the abilities to cure certain ailments or at least relieve them?

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Danielson says: “NCCAM works in collaboration with National Institute of Health (NIH) and other institutes and centres to support the Botanical Research Centres’ (BRC) program. The purpose of the BRC program is to promote collaborative, integrated, interdisciplinary study of botanicals, particularly those found as ingredients in dietary supplements, and to conduct research of high potential for being translated into practical benefits for human health.”

Regardless of this claim, there’s still very little proof for similarities between prescription medicine and CAM that could show that the latter could actually help. This is particularly dispiriting when one considers the researchers’ very large We are interested in understanding budget to carry out such study. and exploring the many components An example to show of the placebo effect, like what role this, would be the studdoes expectation play, what is the ies carried out by The mind-body connection, how can it Cochrane Library, based in Denmark. They underbe harnessed to promote health and took one of the most exwell being tensive set of studies on the effects of CAM on a large range of conditions, from kidney problems to cystic fibrosis. Most remarkably, the heavily detailed study shows little evidence of beneficial CAM. The results for the majority of cases (and there are hundreds) are cited as placebo effects (in that the patient feels better purely because of their optimism) or that significant results couldn’t be found. For example, when the researchers looked at the effects of herbal medicine on women receiving chemotherapy, it was concluded that “evidence for their use for women with breast cancer has not been ascertained.” In a similar case, Cochrane point out that although the review shows “some herbal medicines lower blood sugar and relieving symptoms in patients with diabetes, the methodological quality of the clinical trials evaluating these herbs is generally poor.”

No doubt our curiosity about alternative therapies will continue to push up the level of CAM usage both at home and abroad, but the issue still stands that we are being sold products claiming to have a certain positive effect, when this hasn’t actually been scientifically proven to do be the case. The ‘effect’ is merely laid out on the box. Here lies the possible injustice in the sale and marketing of CAM and justification for its sceptics and critics.

Ireland’s Natural Resources: Documentation Of A Robbery Cash grants, tax holidays, no restrictions on repatriating profits: how the State made the exploitation of Ireland’s minerals so attractive for multinationals and how history is set to repeat itself with oil and gas. Ruaidhrí Giblin investigates.

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oward the end of 1970, a group of activists set up the Resources Study Group (RSG). The main group was composed of Trinity students ranging in disciplines from economics and law to geology. The purpose of the group was to expose the massive profiteering by two Canadian firms who had major shareholdings in four of Ireland’s most productive mines.

In 1970, mines in Ireland produced 98,200 tons of zinc. By comparison, France was producing 19,000 tons; Germany 39,000 tons; Britain was not producing any zinc from its mines. Ireland was providing 14% of the European supply of zinc and a similar figure for lead. Irish Mining – The Need For Action by the RSG. A Case Study of Exploitation (1970) recorded that 9.8 million tons of lead/zinc/copper/silver ore had been mined since 1958 with little or no return for Ireland. In that year, Ireland had: the largest underground zinc mine in Europe at Silvermines; the largest producing lead mine in Europe at Tynagh; the largest producing silver mine in Europe; one of the largest copper mines in Europe; the fifth largest mercury mine in the world, at Gortdrum; and the most profitable barytes deposit in the world. Frank Ward, writing in The Sunday Press (24-1-1971) reported that, “foreign profit in the mining industry in Ireland would be between £250 and £350 million even after an initial investment of £25 million was deducted.”

This statement by Ward, the research for which came via Oliver Donoghue of the RSG, contradicted the arguments put forward by successive, Dublin governments. The country was being told by whoever was in power that the work would be too expensive, too technical and too difficult to carry out using our own domestic capacity. Expertise, investment and capital would have to come from abroad and legislation was written to incentivise these to come. Advertisements began to appear in the international press financed by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) Ireland. One ad read “Why your next plant should be in Ireland: Complete exemption of tax on export profits for 15 years. No restrictions on repatriating profits. All the labour you need and grants to train them in special skills. Non-repayable cash grants for factory sites, buildings and machinery.” Another ad read “Ireland. Environment for Profit”. Since the opening up of Ireland to the mining companies, there has never been any intention of developing a

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native industry and keeping the wealth in Ireland.

On January 3rd 1955, the Avoca copper was given to St Patrick Copper Mines Ltd, a subsidiary of Irish Metal Mining Ltd which was, in turn, owned by International Mogul Mines of Canada. The only consideration for the lease was that Mogul repay Mianraí Teoranta the £542,966 that was spent (by the taxpayer) on exploration in that area. A royalty of 4-9%, depending on extraction rates, was the only return that Mogul would pay to Ireland. No taxes were payable for the first four years. The company brought the mine into production in 1958 and pulled out three weeks before taxes were due, four years later. By the time the Canadians pulled out, Since the opening up of Ireland having paid zero tax on to the mining companies, there profits, 3.1 million tons has never been any intention of of ore had been extracted from Avoca. developing a native industry and 1967 heralded the keeping the wealth in Ireland. sealing of the sell out when the Jack Lynch government legislated that no tax was payable on the first twenty years of mining operations begun prior to 1986. This came at a time when Tynagh, Gortdrum, Ballynoe and Silvermines were still recent discoveries. Given the projected extraction rates, these mines were given a lifetime of fifteen to twenty years, conveniently enough for the mining companies.

At the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) congress in Killarney, 1971, the Trinity students involved with the Resources Study Group proposed with almost unanimous acceptance: “That Congress condemns the sell out of almost all the natural resources of the country to foreign business firms and is prepared to actively and financially help in revealing the extent of the failure on the part of the Government to the Irish people and furthermore calls on Irish technologists, members of political parties and the general public to demand the nationalisation of all the mineral resources and processing plants.”

In their pamphlets, the group went as far as illustrating the network of inter-directorships at the top of the Irish mining corporations. Of the top ten companies who had a virtual monopoly on the industry, PJ Hughes and GT Smith, appeared on the board of five; M Pickard, SP Boland, M Gilroy and MV O’Brien appeared on the board of four and there were many other multiple directorships that showed the power and the money of the industry was concentrated in a tiny group of foreign and expatriate capitalists.

Dr Raymond Keary of National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG, formerly UCG), a specialist in continental shelf geology commented in the ‘Great Irish Oil and Gas Robbery’, “Many who might otherwise study this very informative pamphlet will

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probably be put off when they see its source [i.e.: Republicans and Leftists]. This is a pity, because in spite of the many, possibly valid, criticisms concerning the style of the booklet, and various facts and figures which could be disputed … the main message comes across loud and clear. The mineral resources of the country … are the property of the State. It is the responsibility of the State to see to it that these resources are used to the maximum advantage of its citizens.”

These words were echoed to me by Dr Roy Johnstone PhD FInstP CIEI, who played a minor role in the Resource Protection Campaign (RPC), a group that grew out of the Resource Study Group. According to Dr Johnstone, the RPC was “a broadly-based organisation of trade unionists, technologists, academics, students and others, seeking to press the Government to develop the employment potential of our mineral wealth.”. The RPC highlighted the missed potential by not having a state owned smelter. Up to the present day, Ireland exports its raw minerals to smelters in France and Norway. Processing the minerals doubles the value of the ore immediately and further processing can add 7-10 times the value. The processing stage also provides for the best employment, adding further to the hypocrisy of the legislators in Leinster House. The RPC proposed a state run mining company be given control of the world class category deposit of zinc at Navan. The capital required in bringing the mine into operation would be easily redeemed due to the size and quality of the deposit.

It was all to no avail. The RPC eventually fizzled out due to squabbles among its members. According to Dr Johnstone, “there was serious hard-left in-fighting in the RPC, between the Communist Party Ireland activists and Sinn Féin Workers Party activists, which I suspect in the end wrecked it.” Of course, the pamphlets are out of print and are very hard to find. The Great Irish Oil and Gas Robbery is undoubtedly the most enduring. It has survived in popularity due to the campaign to stop Shell from exploiting the Corrib gas field. The amount of oil and gas being talked about off the coast of Ireland at that time, indicated that our continental shelf was as proliferous as the Groningen Gas fields in the North Sea. Insiders and academics were awaiting an announcement declaring Ireland as “the new Kuwait”. To this day, such an announcement has yet to be forthcoming. Little post-colonial mentality Ireland continues to offer a bonanza of natural resource extraction to global corporations, with no royalties and a minimal corporation tax on profits to be collected only after all costs (which will of course not be audited) have been recouped.

Endnote Roy H W Johnston’s (Techne Associates: Consultants on Techno-economic, Sociotechnical, Political and Environmental Issues) website can be viewed at: http://www.iol.ie/~rjtechne/

Prioritising Research Is Jeopardising Undergrad Teaching How the universities are jeopardising undergraduate teaching in order to climb research-led league tables. Charlotte Clarke investigates.

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ver the last ten years there has been much coverage in the media and debate in academia about what’s more important – teaching undergraduate students, or climbing international league tables on the back of ‘top-drawer research’.

Former Trinity College Dublin (TCD) Student Union President, Andrew Byrne, says that universities simply do not place as much value on teaching experience when they are hiring lecturers. “Most academics have accepted the system of incentives which ignore teaching without much resistance. Academics are finding it more and more difficult to get positions in universities, and when they get their foot in the door, to get tenure, there is no incentive for an academic in such a position to rock the boat too much. This means that debate is stifled and few academics will come out in public with their [teaching] concerns”.

More and more universities appear to be promoting policies which help them climb up international league tables which are based on publication rates in certain key academic journals. In many cases these journals are US-based and some would argue are only read by those that want to write in them!

The prize for university heads wanting to reach the top is attracting big name academics that will in turn attract funding for research projects that will result in publication in these key journals. Many academics, students and parents say that teaching is no longer regarded as a value to be prized and that in some cases ‘researchers’ are hired with absolutely no commitment, and in some cases no ability, to teach. “Some young new academic recruits approach students and teaching related tasks as if they were the enemy or at best some boring task to be got done. The problem is that they are allowed to get away with it when department heads become dazzled by the prospect of big journal publications,” says Dr Jacqueline Hayden of TCD, recent winner of the Provost’s Teaching Prize there, she argues that the problem has become more acute in the last ten years.

In some cases the added problem is that academics hired purely for their research capacity will have no interest in the community they live in. Often they come from very different academic contexts where undergraduate teaching is regarded as the donkey work of the lesser or lower-valued staff. For such academics students are a problem and a waste of their valuable research time. Lecturing standards can be very poor and direct

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time with students minimal, or grudgingly given. Dr Hayden argues that, “when numbers in universities were small and access restricted, good teachers carried the poor or uninterested ones and the colleges somehow muddled through. Now the sheer size and range of students requires more and better trained lecturers but the hiring policy has become skewed in favour of academics with strong research records regardless of whether they are automatons”.

These problems have provoked many academics to ask the very fundamental question as to ‘what a university is for?’ The answer, according to many is that it is for both top quality research and top quality education for the next generation. TCD proclaims: “The College is committed to excellence in both research and teaching, to the enhancement of the learning experience of each of its students and to an inclusive College community with equality of access for all. The College will continue to disseminate its knowledge and expertise to the benefit of the City of Dublin, the country and the inMost academics have accepted the ternational community”. system of incentives which ignore It is apparent that despite teaching this mission statement, research is continually prioritised within the university.

In 2005, Mary Hanafin T.D., then Minister for Education and Science was quoted saying, “In 1965 there were 21,000 students in higher education. Now there are over 137,000 students pursuing a range of study opportunities that would have been unimaginable a generation ago”. Many of these students have come through access programmes designed to be more inclusive. The problem is that such students require more teaching, not less!

As the recession and international crisis bites hard in Ireland, numbers seeking college places are growing fast. According to the Central Applications Office, applications to enter third level college increased from 67,633 in 2009 to 71,843 in 2010. This is an increase of 4,210, or 5.6%. This statistic demonstrates how the collapse of the economy has driven citizens to increase their qualifications in an increasingly competitive job marketplace. These figures are bolstered by the addition of mature or return-to-education students who often have need of greater support than traditional students.

As a result, class sizes are growing at an unprecedented rate. TCD Student Union President, Andrew Byrne emphasises the issue. “The question is simply not being dealt with honestly by College administrators. Administrators are swelling class sizes while cutting staff budgets and pretending that this has no long-term downsides. Unfortu-

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nately, the quality of teaching is a difficult commodity to measure and assess. We can only really measure it by looking at the incentives and supports for teaching as proxy indicators”.

Class sizes and disabilities go hand in hand. With so many bodies in one classroom, those who suffer from learning difficulties are at a disadvantage. Dr Hayden makes the point that she finds herself, “teaching a first year class of more than 540 students where 10-15% of students will have some kind of learning difficulty or disability. We have a wonderful but under-resourced Disability Service which tells students that they are entitled to all kinds of services which individual departments often can’t or won’t deliver. In my experience, some colleagues don’t have any interest in non-traditional students or in reality, although they cannot admit it, don’t actually believe that dyslexia or dyspraxia is a learning problem. In some respects it is hard to blame them for such statements, they have no pedagogical training, and have more than likely been hired because they are completely focused on their own research”.

While many commentators don’t see the change, universities are changing! Not fast enough, but nonetheless they now represent a slightly broader slice of society which is ever increasing. The TCD Access Programme is testament to this. It facilitates students from non-traditional backgrounds who previously would not have considered the idea of entering TCD’s famous Front Gates never mind the Edmund Burke Lecture Theatre.

So while the profile of students changes, the teaching problem is exacerbated by the financial strain the economic collapse has put on the government. With the freeze on public service hiring, departments are struggling to fulfil current teaching requirements – a problem made worse by some research oriented staff with no interest in teaching. In addition, government policy has tended to encourage research-led university job creation in the past.

In a statement by Minister Mary Hanafin in 2005 to Seanad Éireann concerning the OECD Review of Irish Higher Education, Hanafin noted that, “The OECD report points out that international experience strongly suggests that research needs to be institutionally concentrated in order to build critical mass and develop world standards of excellence”. Furthermore, “huge strides that have been made in the provision of public funding for research and development in recent years through measures such as the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI), the establishment of the two research councils and the creation of Science Foundation Ireland”.

Research and development seems to now be at the forefront of recovering Ireland’s economy. The University of Limerick Foundation has launched a new joint venture fund with Bank of Ireland and Kernel Capital, with the aim to, “help Irish universities leverage commercial success from their transformational research ideas and intellectual property”. Due to the no-fees status of Irish universities, they are vulnerable to government

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funding tied to conditionality. For example, politically popular spending programmes might be prioritised. These popular spending programmes have been dominated by research and development. Given the squeeze on the government financially, the pressure on university heads to attract big research projects has intensified.

Andrew Byrne agrees: “Obviously there is a challenge for universities and the government to face financial realities. But I believe the Government should see teaching quality as an important outcome and deliverable for the tax-payers’ money that they invest. As the universities’ main customer, the government can really demand a re-balancing of priorities towards supporting high quality teaching - but unfortunately, even the Higher Education Authority seems to disregard teaching as an important objective”.

Recent graduate and current Teaching Assistant in TCD, Laura O’Brien, has commented that: “It is remarkable how little time the academic staff spends on teaching. Since my transition from the undergraduate to the postgraduate realm, I was shocked to discover that the academic staff spends close to 90% of their time and resources on non-teaching related commitments and only 10% on teaching commitments”.

Academics concerned about the downgrading of teaching and commitment to quality learning highlight a number of areas. These include growing class sizes, channelling of resources towards conferences, research facilities and buying or allocating the least of these scarce resources for purely teaching objectives.

Robbie Smyth, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Journalism and Media Communications at Griffith College Dublin (GCD) argues that “contemporary education practice focuses on developing the students’ skills, promoting critical thinking, problem solving and student-centred learning, but in practice day to day teaching involves crowd control, cabaret teaching and the challenge of disinterested and disenfranchised students”.

Anne Daly, who runs the radio module for journalism and media students at GCD highlights the significance of the classroom and the relationship between student and teacher. “The lecturer’s role of expert, and the student, that of passive note-taker is no longer regarded as best practice” says Daly, pointing out that many experts argue that “good teachers listen and learn from their students as part of the process of instructing”.

It is apparent that universities today are not realistically focused on this, but instead focused on developing and enhancing research led initiatives.

Dr Hayden adds that, “The scale of the problem is hard to assess. One often finds it difficult to talk openly about this issue for obvious reasons. There are many vested interests. Universities are closed communities where promotion and getting on make it difficult to stand out and call a spade a spade! Students are not fools and know when they are not getting what they deserve. In fairness to academics the problem is not helped by the secondary school Leaving Certificate boiling system which leaves many students unprepared for independent thinking. But leaving this undoubted problem aside the

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fact remains that classes are getting bigger and in some cases the quality of teaching is getting poorer”.

What is important to ask is what do the students on the ground think? Laura O’Brien admits that two separate issues must be addressed. “While I do consider it to be a serious problem within our higher education system that academic staff and the university in general are not wholly committed to its students learning and development via robust teaching practices, the area of research and publications is also of vital importance. The reality remains that better research and publications translates to higher university rankings and reputation, which can ultimately translate to better employment opportunities for its students after graduation”.

From my interviews, I believe that the situation Some colleagues don’t have any interest within universities needs in non-traditional students [and] to change. The research/ don’t actually believe that dyslexia or teaching balance must be dyspraxia is a learning problem addressed and rectified.

Both academics and students have highlighted the shortcomings and negative impact of the situation. Given the culture of complacency or acceptance that seems to have predominated within the departments, arguably intensified as a result of personal survival or ambition, the debate needs to be brought into the public realm. Currently, the debate remains within the confines of university and government department walls. Andrew Byrne argues that, “I think participants in the national debate outside of universities are to a large extent unaware of the extent to which teaching is not the primary objective of Irish universities any more.

People at large, particularly taxpayers who support Irish Universities, believe there is a value in institutions which can educate a smart, sophisticated young generation. What they don’t realise is that is not what they’re paying for. The main focus in the national debate is about how to fund third level education, the question of the internal research/ teaching balance seems largely absent from mainstream discourse”.

I hope with the publication of this investigative article that the public sphere will be informed and will generate debate.

A second proposal I would make is the reform of international university ranking methodologies. The methodologies utilised overlook the quality of undergraduate teaching, as well as the literacy and critical-thinking skills of students, as indicators of university standards. Instead, the rankings focus solely on indicators such as research, publications, reputation, and employer perception of credibility among others. These simply do not accurately represent the calibre of students that a given university produces. Hopefully, further public debate will encourage a reappraisal in the future.

Lifting the Lid on Dublin Bus Route Changes Supposed to improve services, Mary Byrne investigates the real effects of the implementation of the new ‘Dublin Bus Network Direct’.

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ince 2009 passengers of Dublin Bus have been experiencing changes to normal bus services. As part of this, thet Dublin Bus Network Direct project was first implemented in the Stillorgan area in September 2010. Dublin Bus claims that their new ‘Dublin Bus Network Direct’ schedules are of benefit to passengers.

Its implementation saw the removal of the 46A through Stillorgan village and an expanded 47 bus service. The changes were to allow for a more direct 46A service to the city centre. In an interview with Mr Coary, Centre Manager of Stillorgan Shopping Centre, this reporter found out the effects of the removal of the 46A. Mr Coary states that Network Direct was sold as an improvement and people were excited to hear that travel time to the city centre would be reduced by eight minutes.

Mr. Coary believes that few people realised that part of the improvement in the travel time meant that they were going to bypass the village. When Coary realised the 46A bus would be bypassing the centre he wrote to Dublin Bus as manager of Stillorgan Shopping Centre because, “the only real public transport system we have in the village is Dublin Bus and they were extending the 47 here but the 46a was the most frequent one.”

Coary understands that there are a significant number of customers who get the bus to the Centre especially elderly customers who have a free travel pass. It is these people who are most affected by the public transport changes within Stillorgan Village.

It was not just Stillorgan Shopping Centre who didn’t agree with the changes. There are three local schools in the area and a number of children who would get the bus now must cross over the dual-carriageway to get to school. Although traffic lights are provided, they are a couple of minutes away from the stop coming from the city centre.

Three letters were issued to Dublin Bus on behalf of Stillorgan Shopping Centre expressing concerns. Dublin Bus responded by sending back their press release. When asked would they reconsider any of their changes, Dublin Bus replied with: “All feedback and concerns raised are taken very seriously by Dublin Bus and are in the final decided changes which are then implemented in the area”. With over fifty staff members using the service Mr. Coary expressed to Dublin Bus that he was not insisting they back track on the Network Direct plans, just to supplement it with bringing the 46A back through the village.

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Staff members of Stillorgan Shopping Centre have expressed their concerns at the changes. Some have said that rather than an improvement, they have experienced a deterioration with buses driving past full. The Stillorgan Chambers of Commerce stressed their concerns and Dublin Bus said although they would consider it, they were tied into new budgets and they had to streamline the service. At the time of going to print no changes had been made.

Network Direct Whilst the route is quicker, they are was set up to create a “more efficient route”. waiting on the bus for longer, because it Maria Brennan, Dubis driving past full lin Bus Media and Communications Department, states that Ireland has one of the lowest subventions in Europe. This was cut by 9% from €83.2 million in 2009 to €75.8 million in 2010. The project is supposed to bring significant benefits to passengers after Dublin Bus projected losses of €31 million in 2009.

According to Brennan, a Cost Effectiveness Plan was drawn up to “minimise as much as possible the effect on customers and employees. Its delivery is vital to ensuring that Dublin Bus can operate on a sound financial footing through this challenging economic period.” The plan included service level adjustments to adjust for the declining passenger numbers by re-routing buses, deferment of their National Pay Award and other cost reductions which include 290 staff to be cut.

In 2006 public transport had a total expenditure outturn of €353.8m, this increased to €890.3 million in 2008, but by 2009 it was down to €614.3million. The four year National Recovery Plan has a proposed allocation of only €484.3 million for transport.

Even though Dublin Bus are stating that the changes are an improvement, Mr Coary stated that he feels the changes have a negative impact on business although it is hard to quantify. “We know it’s not a huge proportion of our customers that get the bus here but we feel there is a definite negative effect. The chemist has had customers saying they can’t come in to collect prescriptions”. Staff at the centre have responded by saying that whilst the route is quicker they are waiting on the bus for longer because it is driving past full.

Before any implementations are made, a public consultation takes place on behalf of Dublin Bus. Dublin Bus held Information Roadshows for the changes to Stillorgan village in May 2010. The implementation began in September 2010. The changes to the 46A will mean weekday frequencies of ten minutes or better and improved cross-city connections.

Ms Brennan issued a statement on behalf of Dublin Bus which showed “the improvements and changes made to services under Network Direct have been mostly well received by customers including changes made in the Stillorgan area and Dublin Bus

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remains in contact with the public throughout the process.”

Dublin Bus believes the changes will be beneficial because they include more direct routes, regular frequent services, even departure timetables, more frequent buses, increased cross city connections and a simpler network.

Ex-Minister Noel Dempsey issued a statement on the Deloitte Report on a Cost and Efficiency Review of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann in February 2009. He stated that the findings of the Deloitte report show that “the Dublin Bus network has not been realigned for a number of years and as a result has become overly complex with a significant amount of service duplication.” Mr Dempsey stated how he was “not interested in cutting bus passenger numbers or making life difficult for bus users. I want to do the direct opposite.”

Monkstown Farm Removing the 46A from Monkstown was also subjected Farm means depriving thousands of to bus cuts with the people … in an area where there is a removal of the 46A. very high proportion of elderly people This was responded to with protests and peand significant social disadvantage titions. People Before Profit Councillor, Richard Boyd Barrett, believes “taking away this vital bus service and lifeline from elderly, infirm and vulnerable people, in a mainly working class area, while at the same time pouring billions into Anglo-Irish Bank, just about typifies the stupid and twisted priorities of this government. Removing the 46A from Monkstown Farm means depriving thousands of people of a vital service which they enjoyed for decades, and doing so in an area where there is a very high proportion of elderly people and significant social disadvantage. The 63 replaces the 46A, a bus which now only comes every half hour.

The Network Direct project was undertaken in May 2009 to cater for the changes in travel patterns and demand due to the considerable population, residential and demographic changes that have occurred in Dublin, especially in recent years. Dublin Bus believes the project will also maximise the benefits provided by the significant enhancements in bus priorities across the city.

Dublin Bus used information from Census 2006 and its own data to establish current travel patterns. Dublin Bus also used the Deloitte Report which benchmarked the Dublin Bus Network against European Best Practices. A review was carried out on all aspects of Dublin Bus operations and Network Direct was set up to implement these changes.

Dublin Bus employs around 3,500 staff, it services over 200 routes throughout Dublin and has over 1,000 buses which carry around 450,000 passengers everyday.

‘Grand Paris’ Project: Misunderstood & Lacking Consultation ‘Grand Paris’ aims to consolidate into a single entity, the four departments of Paris and its suburbs. But where is the money coming from, who was consulted, and when is it starting?

Paola Khawatmi investigates.

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n 2007, the French president announced his intention to launch an international research and development consultation on “the post-Kyoto metropolis and the future of metropolitan Paris”. The ‘Grand Paris’ project, as dubbed by Nicolas Sarkozy, aims to consolidate into a single entity, the four departments of Paris and its suburbs. As a result, ten international architectural teams have worked for nine months to elaborate an urban landscaping diagnosis for the next 30 to 40 years, which includes reflection on transport, green spaces, rivers, streams, and housing. After the results of the consultation were presented in a major exhibition and received large media coverage, the media and the Government remained silent about the Access via public transport, density future of this project.

The first point to clarand location of businesses, access to ify concerns the meaning education and training, or housing and impact of the consulservices are the cause of profound tation. François Decoster, inequalities in the Paris area a member of the Architecture & Urbanism (AUC), which was one of the ten teams who worked on this project told me: “Contrary to what people think, the consultation focused on a free subject, namely, ‘the post-Kyoto metropolis and the future of metropolitan Paris’. The aim was to propose theories, visions and a new perspective on what the contemporary metropolis is at the moment and what can be its potentiality. Unfortunately, the Government and media have failed to explain this complex project, and citizens believed our proposals were concrete plans that would be applied. In fact, our work has no real impact on the future of the metropolis; we have rather provoked, initiated, and promoted what are now concrete plans for change.”

The architect added that the Government forgot to publicly acknowledge that the greater Paris area is thirty years behind other major French cities such as Nantes or Bordeaux. Access via public transport, density and location of businesses, access to education and training, or housing services are the cause of profound inequalities in the Paris area.

For example, the Parisian politicians keep focusing on the city centre and most transpor-

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tation infrastructure is organised from the centre to the peripheries, but nothing is done to link the suburbs. There is a lot of space, but despite its connections to metropolitan networks, this space is not yet accessible, it is not yet public.

In interview, Jean Macheras, the Parisian delegate of Transport Users Association (AUT) says: “The region’s public transport is at its saturation limit and is worn out. It no longer meets current needs”. Indeed, the latest transportation works took place in the 1960s for the construction of the suburb train. Since then, “little has been done to improve users’ conditions, whereas their lifestyles have changed” adds Mr Macheras.

A law on the ‘Grand Paris’ project was passed in 2010 following consultation, creating a public institution: ‘Société du Grand Paris’. This law commits the state, among other things, to fund and create a network of public transport; to build 70,000 housing units each year; and to set targets for economic growth to compete with other global cities. The law also gives ‘Société du Grand Paris’ the right to acquire, if necessary by way of expropriation, assets of any kind necessary for the creation and operation of a public transport infrastructure network.

Regarding the Government’s pledge that 70,000 houses would be built annually over the next 25 years, François Decoster explains that the creation of 30,000 units per year is a maximum, but even that objective cannot be reached unless devices such as tax exemption laws boost construction.

Currently, a dozen projects are underway to develop activities around the railway stations of Paris and its suburbs, in order to boost the economy. Territorial development contracts, created by the ‘Grand Paris’ law, help to optimize the execution times and engage the state to provide the financial means to implement these plans. But one question remains: where does the money announced for the In other words, political €35 Billion budget come from? representatives choose which When the question information to deliver and which to was raised, the government keep secret - a process of decision wanted some financial remaking without involving citizens assurance and indicated that the added value created by the construction and development of commercial activities around railway stations, would finance the transportation plan. The architect I interviewed has revealed that officials have since forgotten to announce that this plan was set aside because of the territories’ large-scale and their legal complexity which prevents the French state from establishing a fair tax procedure across all departments, in the metropolitan and suburban region. This brilliant plan

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abandoned, ‘Grand Paris’ will instead be supported by citizens’ taxes and a State loan.

Not only will citizens support this project financially, but they will also pay for a project on which they could not express themselves. Policy-makers have repeatedly excluded citizens from decisions and even when they established two ‘public’ debates, one for the project supported by the state, the other for the region’s plan, the public was not allowed to be present or to speak. In addition, citizens who seek information do not know which institution may answer his/her questions and is drowning in information, with at least five contradictory websites1.

Governance of ‘Grand Paris’ is very complex beThe question of the greater Paris cause power is decentralarea is now a central political issue ised, and the cities within not only for the capital, but also for the greater Parisian area the entire country because of the have no power over each construction of central power and other. In the near future, ‘Grand Paris’ could be a its symbolic representation it makes solution to this fragmentParis a national issue ed decision making process. But for now, according to their interests, cities try to influence the region, which also try to influence state’s final verdict. In addition, organisations such as the Paris Metropolis’ Union have an advisory role and may put pressure on decisions. The ten teams of architects who worked on the consultation are now gathered in the ‘International Workshop of Grand Paris’.

They constitute a scientific committee, which has an advisory and research function, but are not involved in the projects’ implementation. One might wonder why citizens are not kept informed of all changes, decisions that affect or influence the development of their metropolis. François Decoster, Architecture & Urbanism activist, simply responds that the technical studies, projects around stations, or debates on infrastructure and governance remain confidential because of political lobbying. In other words, political representatives choose which information to deliver and which to keep secret - a process of decision making without involving citizens. It is important to understand that the question of the greater Paris area is now a central political issue not only for the capital, but also for the entire country because of the construction of central power and its symbolic 1 http://www.metrograndparis.com/; http://www.legrandparis.net/; http://www.mon-grandparis.fr/; http://www.debatpublic-arcexpress.org/index.html; http://www.debatpublic-reseau-grandparis.org/

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representation it makes Paris a national issue.

After years of strife, the region and the state agreed on the ‘Grand Paris’ project in January 2011. By merging the ‘Arc Express’ project supported by the region with that of the ‘Grand Huit’ supported by the government, they have agreed the outline of a future metro area of over 150km’s, now called ‘Metro Grand Paris’, which is supposed to be built in ten years. Jean Macheras, of the AUT, responded to the announcement: “The agreement between the State and the Region, presented on 26th January 2011, is an important step in taking into account the needs for investment in Parisian transport.

Nevertheless, many aspects remain to be clarified, improved or added. The Transport Users Association calls for a rebalancing of funding for the existing network, while also preparing in detail a complete ring subway road in densely populated areas with high potential development”.

Others European cities are already looking to the Parisian example. If a methodology emerges from this vast enterprise, ‘Grand Paris’ could serve as an example worldwide. Therefore, citizens must be at the heart of this project, involved in the development of their future city, because there is no interest in changing a city if it is not suitable for the people who live there.

Fake Taxi Deregulation Fiasco According to the National Taxi Drivers’ Union, a large number of car owners are driving illegally. Jane Lundon investigates.

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s I stand in the cold spring air waving energetically towards a sea of yellow-lit taxis, some parked, some cruising along, I jump into the first one that pulls up, unaware that I am being picked up in a non designated taxi area and that the lovely silver BMW that is going to whisk me home may very well indeed be a fake taxi.

I jump with fright when eggs are thrown at my taxi’s window with raging force and obscenities are being roared from across the street where well-dressed colleagues stand around waiting for their fares. I ask the taxi man what’s going on. “It is because I am black and there are too many taxis and Irish taxi men are racist,” he replies. I am disgusted, the land of the friendly my eye, how could a group of grown adults be so openly rude and unfair all because a black man was driving me home? “It happens regularly,” he tells me.

A couple of evenings later I again hail down a taxi whose light is shining brightly, never noticing the taxi number on the roof or whether it corresponds to the number inside the taxi. I regaled the Dublin taxi man about the egg throwing incident. “It wasn’t cos he was black love,” he says “it was because it was a fake taxi and the fact he picked you up where he did says it all”.

He proceeded to tell me that every taxi needs to have a sign on the roof with a license number that matches the number on the identification card inside the car and that every legal taxi man has another smaller identification card and that I should always ask for a receipt. When I was getting out of the car he told me that one in four taxis were unlicensed and that there were only nine regulators, so “no wonder the industry is ruined”.

Nine regulators for the Dublin area is nothing, but my intrigue grew when he replied: “No, nine regulators for the whole country”.

According to the National Taxi Drivers’ Union (NTDU), the largest taxi drivers union in Ireland, a large number of car owners are illegally working as taxi drivers with fake roof signs attached to their cars. A number of shops that sell car parts in the Dublin region are offering roof signs for taxis for €180 and meters cost €650 depending on the make and model.

Some shops are offering taxi packages that include installation of a meter, a receipt printer and a yellow taxi sign for €850. A simple Google search supports these findings.

After delving into a number of reports and logging onto irishtaxi.org, one empathises with the legal taxi drivers and although violence and egg throwing are not the an-

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swer, it must be frustrating to be fighting a battle where no one seems to be on your side.

The cost to purchase a legal license is €6,300. They are issued by the Commission for Taxi Regulation. Taxi drivers must also hold a Small Public Service Vehicle (SPSV) licence. Seemingly there are 27,000 SPSV licenses in Ireland and 14,000 of these are in the Dublin area, whereas before deregulation in 2004, there were 3,900 taxis. A more realistic number.

Dublin city has more taxis than New York. There are about 13,000 yellow cabs operating in New York City with a population of approximately 8 million. Dublin has 14,000 taxis for a population of one million.

“The authorities will say that a roof-sign on a car doesn’t mean it’s a taxi, but that’s not what the public thinks,” according to Tommy Gorman, the NTDU’s spokesman.

“If someone puts a taxi-sign on the roof of a car, the public will hail There were only nine regulators, so them down. We have repeatedly said that taxis “no wonder the industry is ruined” and vehicle licence numbers are being cloned and used by fraudsters to operate illegally. I believe that lots of people are simply buying taxi-roof signs and driving around at night collecting fares. If you are out on a Saturday night, you will hail down anything that has a sign on the roof which says it’s a taxi. If you sit into the car and see a taxi meter and a driver’s ID, which are easily obtained on the black market, you will hire that car to take you home.”

Gorman urged the Department of Transport to regulate the sale and distribution of roof signs and taxi meters.

The impression that Kathleen Doyle [the regulator] is overlooking a very serious problem is predominant.

Vehicle-licence numbers are issued by the taxi regulator’s office in Dublin and appear on the yellow roof-signs of all cabs. Kathleen Doyle, the Commissioner for Taxi Regulation, has said she does not believe there are a significant number of fake taxis in operation. “I’m not aware of this being the huge problem that the industry is alleging. I have asked them to provide details of this but none have been forthcoming. If they give us the evidence, we will investigate and prosecute,” Doyle has claimed.

But after speaking with a number of taxi men, who all assured me they were legal licensed drivers, the impression that Kathleen Doyle is overlooking a very serious problem is predominant. John, a taxi driver for 30 years, remembers the sign scam which was uncovered nearly 25 years ago. Clone plates were being used with multiple cars.

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The plan was to use one set south of the river and one set north of the river. It was only uncovered when Gardai stopped two cars at the same time, a lucky break. But nowadays he says there are so many scams going on that it’s impossible to catch all the crooks and that deregulation in 2004 by the late Séamus Brennan, who was then Minister for Transport, “ruined everything” for the honest working taxi man.

According to Roy, one of the main spokespeople and taxi driver’s representative on Irishtaxi.org: “The late Seamus Brennan when Minister for Transport decided in his wisdom to set up the taxi regulators office and took regulation out of the hands of the Garda carriage office who were doing a good job up until then. He appointed some civil servant with no connection or idea as to how the industry It’s as easy to get a taxi sign and worked.”

Irishtaxi.org is a webmeter installed in your car as it is to site set up to allow taxi get a GPS … The government can drivers to air their opinno longer abdicate responsibility for ions, vent their frustrations, this dangerous fiasco tell the back seat gossip and inform one another of important meetings with the National Transport Authority (NTA) and various other significant organisations.

On reading some of the posts it’s easy to see how upset and disheartened these taxi drivers are by the scams and the lack of support they are getting.

One taxi man wrote: “Quick example as to how effective the nine ‘so called’ Taxi Regulator Enforcement Officers are, (and they are on over €50,000 a year), that I drove my taxi around Dublin for one year and eight months (April ’07 to Dec ’08) without any ID in the car and no one challenged me. The reason was because they were supposed to send it out and after several phone calls to them I decided I would keep driving until challenged. Thank God I am out of that thankless business”.

There is a strong feeling that it is very much “us” against “them” and because there are only nine regulators it is next to impossible for them to monitor all 26 counties sufficiently. So who is to blame? The taxi regulators’ website indicates that they are trying to help legal taxis be the best by listing the correct procedures and by offering advice to both operators and users of taxis, but the problem lies on the streets and a quick search makes you realise this: it’s as easy to get a taxi sign and meter installed in your car as it is to get a GPS. After getting in touch with the taxi regulators office, they explained to me that not only did the members of their compliance team visit locations around the country at various times of the day and night to investigate complaints and also as part of ongo-

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ing operations, but the compliance team also work closely with An Garda Síochána and other enforcement agencies to ensure maximum compliance with SPSV regulations.

And that I should also note that An Garda Síochána are themselves authorised persons in this area and so SPSV enforcement is the duty of all of An Garda Síochána as well as their compliance team.

They also informed me that: “The Authority is committed to ensuring that effective enforcement is in place to promote maximum compliance and consumer confidence. In some cases, the more extensive powers of the Gardai and their permanent local presence mean that they are better placed to follow up complaints of illegal activity”. So the Gardai should be enforcing the law and doing random inspections along with the regulators and not just waiting for complaints from other angry taxi drivers.

So what can be done about this problem and who needs to do it? How did we let the situation get this bad and why does the everyday person not know more about illegal taxis? I decided to have one final look on irishtaxi.org to see if there were any positive stories, but I was again greeted not only with stories of illegal driving but also pictures of those accused!

Although one gets the impression that the NTA and the representative bodies for the taxi drivers are working together and meeting regularly to try and solve this problem, maybe they need to change their system so the public can spot a fake taxi.

The government can no longer abdicate responsibility for this dangerous fiasco. Leo Varadkar, the Minister for Transport, needs to step up now and either give the Commission for Taxi Regulation the resources and powers to ensure a safe and legal taxi industry, or return to the pre-deregulation era and let An Garda Síochána run it.

Illegal Music Downloading: A Human Right How do we defend our human rights, encourage creativity and the sharing of cultural products while also ensuring artists get paid for their work? Suzanne Fitzpatrick investigates.

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s it morally right to source music from illegal platforms online? The dispute concerning file-sharing, the trading of computer files from one computer to another free of charge, has become one of the most heated topics of discussion and legal action of this generation. There are pro-download groups who don’t see a problem with file-sharing, such as the European political party, the Greens European Free Alliance (EFA); and there are ‘anti’ organisations such as the Featured Artist Coalition (FAC) a UK-based music artists not-for-profit lobbying group.

As the debate continues to grow many have begun to say that in fact ‘peer to peer’ (P2P) online file access is actually a human right.

Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy”. Even more relevantly, Article 27 states that “(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” and simultaneously, “(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”.

Most importantly, it states in Article 19 that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

Emma Barraclough, of Managing Intellectual Property, a company which explains and enforces legal issues such as copyright, patents and internet IPs, commented on a recent finding in the UK: A “12-person Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords [which] scrutinises draft legislation to assess whether it is in line with domestic and international human rights rules,” said that “a UK bill that could force internet service providers to block persistent illegal downloaders from the internet could breach human rights”.

Those who don’t support file-sharing (or those on the ‘anti-download’ side) see filesharing as damaging to artists themselves. The fact that music is being distributed for free costs the artist, financially and therefore in terms of real success. The Featured Art-

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ists Coalition (FAC) believes that “featured artists, those credited on recordings and who are the primary named performers, are responsible for the majority of income in the music industry. Their interests need to be represented. Digital technology has transformed how we buy and listen to music. In doing so it has radically altered the economic relationship between artists and their audience, and the business world that operates between the two.”

The ‘pro-download’ side of the argument (or those who believe file-sharing is not wrong and shouldn’t be illegal or monitored) isn’t so sympathetic toward the artists. The Greens EFA, a coalition of two political parties with 42 seats in the European Parliament say: “Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true, making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing”.

An important factor Everyone has the right to seek, in the debate concerns how media companies receive and impart information and music firms are techand ideas through any media and nologically tackling illegal regardless of frontiers (Article 19, downloading .

UN Universal Declaration of Human In Ireland, Eircom have changed their rules Rights) about downloading files over their internet service.

In early 2009, as a result of being taken to court by the four big music companies, they settled out of court and as a result enforced a ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ regulation which saw customers have their internet cut off if they were caught illegally downloading copyrighted music or films three times. The customer now receives an onscreen warning when they try and access, for example, The Pirate Bay website. If one goes to this address online, one will see the following; “ACCESS TO THIS IP ADDRESS RELATING TO THE PIRATE BAY WEBSITE HAS BEEN BLOCKED.” Why? On the 24 July 2009, an Order was made by the High Court requiring Eircom to block or otherwise disable access by its subscribers to the website thePirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs. The Court was satisfied that on the basis of the evidence presented by the record companies that the Pirate Bay website is a website that facilitates the exchange of copyrighted sound recordings without the consent of the copyright owners.”

Eircom say they recognise “the legitimate rights of the owners of copyrighted material and believes that individuals who share or download copyrighted material without

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the authorisation or the permission of the copyright owner are acting illegally.”

The internet service provider (ISP) also states that should Pirate Bay find and enforce a lawful way of sharing music, they will “vacate” the court order.

However, because they share electronic data about their customers, Eircom was accused in the media of not protecting their customers’ privacy and rights. They fought back claiming: “Eircom will not monitor customer’s activities at any stage, nor will it place any monitoring equipment or software on its network in order to facilitate this block. Eircom will not provide personal details or any information relating to customers to any third party, including the record companies.”

Eircom’s position is clear, but by the time the Access to knowledge is a music companies made fundamental right and it is essential similar demands on UPC, that ISP had developed not to mistake this for a pro-piracy a different and stronger statement … there is a need for defence concerning Irish policy makers to take access to privacy and freedom of inknowledge as a principle of justice formation laws.

In summer 2010, these and democracy major music labels opened a case at the commercial court against UPC claiming illegal downloading was costing their industry approximately €20 million per annum. The labels declined UPC’s defence that it was a “mere conduit” in the providing of file-sharing platforms, but UPC still managed to avoid having to implement policies similar to that of Eircom’s, primarily as a result of the manner in which their defence interpreted the Irish Data Protection Act. The Irish Data Protection Act 2003 says little that is specific to online file exposure and analysis. Article 8, Section 6a states, “the processing of those data or their processing for that purpose or in that manner is causing or is likely to cause substantial damage or distress to him or her or to another person.” This is what UPC used as their defence against the big four’s requests to share the IP addresses, what is essentially personal information of that customer, in order to cut their internet.

Eircom’s onscreen warning goes on to say that: “Eircom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the four major labels and is in discussions with them to develop an innovative new music service for Eircom and non-Eircom customers. This new music service is expected to launch in the next few months.” Of course, this referred to the birth of Eircom’s Music Hub. Surprisingly, at the time of writing, this was still the message on the site, regardless of the fact that the Music Hub is already up and running.

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So having facilitated the wishes of the music companies, Eircom now make money out of their new, legal, music download facility, the Music Hub. Spare a thought for those living in the West, particularly in parts of Sligo, Castlebar, Galway, Donegal and further south in parts of Limerick: Eircom is the only fixed-line ISP available. If people in these areas make a copy of music from a friend’s computer over the internet, they run the risk of having their human right “to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts” removed, the technology required in contemporary society to implement one’s freedom of “expression” withdrawn, and their human right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” taken away by a private company. One imagines the courts will have much to say in the coming years with regard to human rights, intellectual property and internet service providers.

Although firms like Eircom are creating new technology in an attempt to tackle illegal file-sharing, the Greens EFA claim that, “the media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing.

Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area, lobbying to adapt laws to criminalise sharing, turning consumers into criminals”.

I spoke to Gaelle Krikorian, author and Adviser on Intellectual Property and Access to Knowledge for the Greens EFA. Concerning the human rights aspect of file-sharing and downloading, she says that “access to knowledge is a fundamental right. And it is essential not to mistake this for a pro-piracy statement. The UN resolution adopted in 1946, the European Convention on Human Rights Article 10, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 2000 Article 12, and other charters are here to remind us of basic rights. But besides what the texts say, there is a need for policy makers to take access to knowledge as a principle of justice and democracy. The internet and the information technologies must be used to close the knowledge gaps, not be fiddled with to widening them up”.

Though her argument is strong, Greens EFA face many challenges when trying to clearly enforce and spread their views: “The challenge is for our society to adapt to the new technologies and possibilities it offers without mistaking what our priorities should be. We want cultural production to flourish, artists to live and work in good/better conditions. New economic players appear, other transform, some will disappear, the way it happens in the past during other technological revolutions. We can’t just hang on to old ways of doing business.”

On the other side, I asked FAC’s Chief Executive, Mark Kelly, about his thoughts on file-sharing being a human right: “P2P file sharing has its place in the role of promoting artists. Some artists choose to give away their music via P2P and hope to make a living by other means such as playing gigs or selling merchandise. The important distinction here is the fact that it’s their choice. When P2P is used to make money for a third party

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such as Pirate Bay and none of that money goes back to the creators of the content they exploit, that is wrong and should be discouraged.”

“Basically, where money is made, the artists and writers should be paid a fair share.

I’m not even sure if you can call music “information” but assuming you can doesn’t the rights of the creators count for anything? All rights and freedoms come with the responsibility to not infringe on the rights and freedoms of others.”

Of current UK policies attempting to tackle illegal music downloading, Kelly mentions the Digital Economy Act (DEA) implemented in June 2010 as means of regulating digital media. “Rights holders have been shy of using such laws to tackle infringement because they entail taking individual infringers to court in what can be a long, drawn out process often resulting in fines that have little chance of being paid by people who lack the funds to pay them. There have been a number of high profile cases of people being wrongly accused of copyright infringement which has reflected badly on the music industry,” he says.

“The DEA was the result of rights holder wishing to discourage copyright infringement with the threat of sanctions such as internet disconnection which may well be an infringement of human rights. One part of the DEA the FAC agrees with and would like to see implemented is the idea of blocking websites that facilitate file-sharing. The DEA has yet to become law and is fraught with difficulties, not least the human rights issues around disconnection.”

When asked what the current threats to fighting online piracy are, Kelly simply tells me that “the FAC doesn’t support such legislation because we don’t believe it to be effective”.

Of course, the Greens EFA are also promoting their own calls for changes but in a different fashion to the FAC. On the future of online download technology, Krikorian claims that “the attempts to ban it will most certainly look like a desperate and anachronistic one in ten years. A little like when Jack Valenti from the Motion Picture Association tried to stop the marketing of VCR stating during his hearing at the House of Representatives in 1982: ‘There is going to be a VCR avalanche; the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone’”.

I put the idea that file-sharing is not only damaging musicians’ careers but the whole industry of music to Krikorian. I asked her did she understand that potential musicians are losing the opportunity to have a career in music because record sales might have plummeted since the rise in illicit online downloading.

“Many, if not most artists today, struggle to be able to create and make a living out of their work. This is not due to file-sharing but it is a consequence of the way artistic creation is promoted and the status, or lack of status, that is given to artists in our societies.”

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She diligently suggests a solution: “Studies show that most people are ready to pay for music, movies, etc, as long as there are easy to access and fair commercial offers. We need to develop new models and systems to support cultural activities without opposing artists and consumers – who by the way often enough are the same persons. To defend artists today we need to open up a debate on the content of the contract they have to sign in order to be distributed, on their bargaining power facing the oligopolies of distribution, on the redistribution of revenues and what their share is of that.”

Concerning Eircom’s ‘three-strikes-and-you’reout’ policy, she says that “more and more people The proper way around piracy is seem to realise that threeinnovation not enforcement strike type of laws and other graduated response systems are impossible to implement [except in Ireland], costly and clearly not in the end serving the purpose of creation.” She cites the implementation in France of the 2009 HADOPI law (‘Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet’), also known as the Creation and Internet law, which promotes the distribution and protection of creative works on the internet, claiming it is very slow: only “70,000 first warnings were sent in 2010 and there have been no second warnings or court cases. Research on the implementation of this law indicates substantial obstacles, such as the absence of social acceptance, the needed resources and the risk to create underground activities, such as the establishment of more pirate music sites”.

However, she clearly doesn’t believe that the music industry is ‘failing’ as a result of illegal downloading.

“Studies on the economic and cultural aspects of file sharing, such as one recently commissioned by three Dutch ministries, show an increase of economic activities in cultural fields: DVD sales, live concerts, cinema takings, games software. The consumption of cultural products and services has kept increasing in the past 20 years.”

According to Krikorian, there are two debates to be had on the matter: “There are two key issues that should be at the centre of the debate. One: Sharing is an essential function of creativity, without it creative production would dry up. So there is no point in preserving at all costs a business model that not only plays no role in the production of cultural goods in the first place, but that by the rules they impose, are running it dry.”

“Two: to think about the relationship between new technologies and cultural production. The need to take the broad picture that includes all forms of goods, services, of commercial and non-commercial activities that contribute to the general economy of

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culture. Considering the music industry through the angle of file sharing is to take a very simplistic view of the situation.”

In terms of what’s being done to tackle downloading’s attack on the music industry, dozens of artists have made notable and publicised attempts to combat their work being illegally sourced and spread. For example, in 2007 UK big-timers Radiohead surprised both fans and industry folk alike when they released online, their seventh studio album, In Rainbows. They told fans they could pay as much or as little as they wanted to download the whole album. In the same year, Prince had his Planet Earth album released with the Mail on Sunday, with the copies of the CD included inside the paper, and repeated it with his latest album, 20Ten. A spokeswoman for Prince claimed “it is still possible for artists to work in an independent and innovative capacity”. This may be true, but it could also be said that albums that are given away with papers do not often demonstrate chart-topping abilities and can lead to the accusation that the artist thinks the material is simply not worth paying for but is merely releasing it out of desperation or seeking a spell of publicity.

More recently, Kaiser Chiefs released their 2011 album The Future is Medieval. The record’s release To defend artists today we need to saw fans being able to create their own Kaiser Chiefs open up a debate on the content album at createmyalbum. of the contract they have to sign kaiserchiefs.com. They can in order to be distributed, on choose ten tracks from a their bargaining power facing the selection of twenty choose the artwork all for £7.50. oligopolies of distribution Also, if one customer’s design and content set is bought by another, that customer receives £1.

In ironic contrast to the album’s title, this move could kick-start the future of music technology. The fact that the process of buying the material is so personal and wholly original has proven unbelievably attractive to fans and has been talked about in the media at large since the idea was revealed. Not only is the idea good, the execution is impressive too considering the accessible and well-designed site and simple steps to making the purchase.

Frontman Ricky Wilson aptly described the bands reasoning behind such a move in an interview with Sky News in June: “No one invests much in buying a record anymore.

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You don’t put part of yourself into it. So we had to find a way for you to have an emotional attachment to it and to invest time and energy and money into it. You can ignore what’s happening [with the music industry] or just grumble and become miserable or actually try to do something about it and that’s what we’ve done. Something has got to change ... everyone is too scared”.

On the decline of record sales in actual shops like HMV, Tower and Virgin, Kelly from the FAC agrees that “record stores have already largely disappeared from the high street, so yes I think it’s only a matter of time, five to ten years, until record stores and CDs will be reduced to a tiny niche market that no longer matters.”

He goes on to finish up by saying: “The proper way around piracy is innovation not enforcement. P2P is already becoming irrelevant with the rise of streaming services such as Spotify. Why will people want to bother carrying thousands of songs around with them when they will be able to hear anything they like wherever they are for a small monthly subscription? Virgin and BT will shortly be offering music as part of their broadband package as Eircom already do. When that becomes the norm it will be in the ISPs interest to discourage file-sharing in order to persuade customers to sign up to their music offering. How they do that remains to be seen but as long as their music offering is good enough, people will pay for it.”

Going back to Krikorian, in conclusion, she believes that the issues raised are getting urgent: “The problem is that, while breaching human rights [with the restriction of freedom to creativity and access to information], we are also loosing time and postponing the design and implementation of a consumer friendly system that could really be useful to the artist. Once we understand that these [current] laws [e.g. the ‘three-strikes’ policy] are not solutions, we will still have to look for real ways to allow creativity and the production of cultural goods.”

The future of online music file-sharing is still unclear but both pro and anti sides of the argument are fighting for new, more effective actions and developments concerning the matter. Eircom’s dubious developments only further the need for better questions and reviewed action. The sharing of information is a human right, and it should be protected while defending an artists’ right to make a living.

Neutral in Name, Not in Deed A Programme for Government commitment to end the use of Shannon by the U.S. military is simply rhetoric. Liam Kneafsey investigates.

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he newly-elected coalition government seems set to continue to allow the use of facilities at Shannon Airport by U.S. military forces despite a commitment in the Programme for Government to end this policy. Taoiseach Enda Kenny said on May 24th that he had agreed in a meeting with President Obama during his visit that, “here would be no change in respect of the US forces using Shannon Airport as a stop-off.” The Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) and the Shannonwatch peace organisation both warn that this continued violation of the Hague Convention on Neutrality brings our continued status as a neutral country into question.

The Programme for Government states: “We will enforce the prohibition on the use of Irish airspace, airports and related facilities for purposes not in line with the dictates of international law.”

The Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952 provides that no foreign military aircraft shall fly over or land in the State save on the express invitation or with the express permission of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Shannon Airport has been used for foreign military stopovers since the 1980s but opposition to its use became significantly stronger during the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.

Despite numerous requests I made to the Department of Foreign Affairs for information on how and when this policy change will be implemented, no definite response was offered for a significant period of time. Four calls were made over the space of nine days to the department. On the first two occasions I was promised a response as soon as possible but I was then told on the subsequent occasions that it was being looked at but that the department was working primarily on the upcoming state visits from the US and UK and this would delay my request.

Three emails were sent to the department with two more to the Department of Justice which, I was told, were then forwarded to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Two email requests were also made to the Labour Party but were not responded to. I called the Fine Gael Press Office for comment but was returned once more to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The same was true of correspondence I had with Minister for State, Michael Ring, who is my local Fine Gael TD in Mayo.

Eventually on May 16th after a further call to the department I received an email from the department secretary. This was more than six weeks since I had first contacted

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them. The email stated: “Ireland remains totally opposed to the practice of extraordinary rendition. This position has been reiterated on numerous occasions, both domestically and internationally.” On the issue of enforcement, the secretary said that “the Department requires an undertaking from the relevant embassy that the aircraft in question will be unarmed; will not be carrying arms, ammunition or explosives; will not engage in intelligence gathering; and is not participating in military exercises or operations. Other data sought include the type and registration number of the aircraft, its call sign, the purpose of the flight, the nature of any cargo, its destination and point of departure, and estimated times of arrival and departure.”

However, the department also said that “these were not legal obligations but policy stipulations We will enforce the prohibition on applied directly by the the use of Irish airspace, airports Minister.” This distincand related facilities for purposes tion seems at odds with not in line with the dictates of Ireland’s commitment to neutrality and our responinternational law (Programme for sibilities under internaGovernment) tional law. If there are no legal requirements for Ireland to actually search the planes and it is not the Minister’s policy to conduct such checks then how can we fulfil any of the neutrality obligations that international laws and conventions set out for us?

Additionally, one has to highlight the glaring hypocrisy where the state claims that “the aircraft in question … is not participating in military exercises or operations,” yet the aircraft is en route to Iraq or Afghanistan with hundreds of combat-ready US soldiers in uniform.

“Undertakings from the relevant embassy” are also far from the most stringent checks that could be applied. Garda searches are still not conducted on the aircraft and this department response suggests that assurances from the U.S. embassy are the only evidence that the Irish government requires that our neutrality has not been compromised. This system of undertakings and assurances confirms what the recent Wikileaks cables suggested: Ireland is not prepared to challenge the U.S. on this issue and enforce its policy of neutrality. Labour TD, Joe Costello, accepted this view on June 9th when he said that “It would be impossible to ensure that international law is observed and adhered to unless a regime of inspection for military and civil aircraft is introduced. The minimum requirement is a random inspection regime.” However his party leader has

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refused to put such a regime in place.

In response to a request for clarification from Roger Cole, the head of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) at a Labour conference prior to the party’s entry into government, foreign affairs minister, Eamon Gilmore, stated that the Programme for Government commitment “means what it says”. An “enforcement” of prohibition of the use of Irish airports has clearly not taken place. As the department’s response says, nothing more than undertakings have been requested.

Mr Cole, a Labour member, said that the Minister’s statement at the conference along with the commitment in the Programme for Government constituted a “double whammy of commitment” yet PANA could not discern any change in policy in recent weeks. “The Minister felt he had to say it when I asked him as I believe around 70% of Labour members oppose the use of Shannon,” he said, but he thought it “highly unlikely” that there would be any change.

“PANA will continue to lobby the entire parliamentary Labour Party in the coming days and weeks The 1907 Hague Convention on but enforcement is unlikeNeutrality states that a neutral ly. Our coalition partners, country cannot allow the movement Fine Gael, do not believe that Ireland should be neuof troops or supplies through its tral,” Mr Cole said. territory PANA were set up in 1996 with the aim of protecting Irish neutrality and advocating an independent foreign policy for Ireland outside of NATO and EU military structures. The continuing campaign to end the use of Shannon by U.S. forces has been the major focus of the organisation.

“Ireland cannot be considered a neutral country while it continues with these practices as they contravene the Hague Convention,” Mr Cole said. The 1907 Hague Convention on Neutrality states that a neutral country cannot allow the movement of troops or supplies through its territory. Although Ireland does not have its neutral status definitively stated in its constitution, all Irish governments have claimed neutrality as their default policy. Shannon’s use would seem to contradict these claims.

Polling carried out by Lansdowne Market Research before the 2007 general election found that 59% of the population opposed the use of Shannon Airport by the U.S. military but despite the level of opposition, no government has appeared to feel pressurised enough to change their stance. Mr Cole puts this down to the lack of attention the

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subject has been given in the media in recent years. “The corporate media supports the use of Shannon Airport and therefore they do not bother to write about the opposition towards it or the impact it has on our supposed neutrality, ” he said.

Information from the Wikileaks U.S. embassy cables from December It would be impossible to ensure 2010 suggested that then that international law is observed Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, was and adhered to unless a regime “convinced that at least of inspection for military and civil three” illegal rendition aircraft is introduced (Labour T D, flights had passed through Joe Costello) Shannon Airport. Despite this he failed to intervene, investigate or prevent these illegal kidnappings and protect victims of torture which means that Ireland was complicit in these clear violations of international law. A 2006 Council of Europe report found Ireland to be one of the countries passively colluding in ‘extraordinary renditions’ through the use of Shannon Airport by U.S. military planes involved in the practice of kidnap and torture.

An EU Parliamentary resolution passed in February 2009 criticised EU member states that had, “cooperated actively or passively with the US authorities” in respect to rendition. MEPs said that rendition victims had been flown to torture centres on U.S. military aircraft that had “often flown over EU territory and in some cases have also made stopovers in certain EU member states.” Member states, such as Ireland, involved in this activity were in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Former minister Ahern said that he had no evidence to conduct an investigation despite the EU report findings. Shannonwatch, an anti-war group dedicated to monitoring the use of Shannon by American forces, presented evidence of rendition flights to the Gardaí on March 18th this year.

Shannonwatch spokesperson, John Lannon, said that his organisation had provided the evidence in response to continued requests from Gardaí for evidence when complaints were made by the group. The evidence took the form of logs of dates and times that 20 aircraft suspected of being involved in rendition flights had passed through Shannon. “They should not be relying on people like our group to provide them with this information if they are doing their job properly. Either they were not investigating or they had the evidence and they were ignoring it. We would be very pleasantly surprised if anything is done with this evidence but at least they can’t say any longer that they don’t

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have it,” he said.

On the wider Shannon issue Lannon said that his organisation could find “absolutely no evidence of a change in policy” with regard to the inspection of U.S. military aircraft at the Airport since the coalition took office in early March. “Nothing has been done at either Government or Garda level to enforce the Programme for Government commitment,” Mr Lannon said. Shannonwatch have also requested clarification on the practical application of the Government commitment but they have also failed to receive any definitive response. Mr Lannon also described the continued high levels of US troop movement through Shannon on their way to Afghanistan and Iraq, with troop levels actually rising in February.

Mr Lannon described the Government policy as, “wriggling around PANA will continue to lobby the the Hague Convention entire parliamentary Labour Party on Neutrality. Successive in the coming days and weeks but governments have exercised a form of ‘military enforcement is unlikely neutrality’ rather than ‘active neutrality’”.

Shannonwatch and PANA both opposed the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Ireland while Shannon Airport continues to be used for these purposes and U.S. breaches of international law continue such as the imprisonment of prisoners without trial in Guantanamo Bay. “The failure of President Obama to live up to his commitments on U.S deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the continued use of Guantanamo should have precluded the Irish Government from inviting him,” Mr Lannon said. He believes that there is “no chance” of any change in government policy now that such a visit has been arranged.

PANA and Shannonwatch both believed that the visit of President Obama had represented an opportunity for the anti-war organisations, Sinn Féin and many Dáil independents to bring the Shannon issue back onto the political agenda. Roger Cole says that, “we must use this opportunity to end this international embarrassment.” However, Shannon issue was given virtually no coverage during the state visit despite its importance for Irish neutrality. Both spokespeople also pointed to the upcoming examination of Ireland’s human rights record by the UN Human Rights Council in their Universal Periodic Review. The continuing transfer of U.S. forces through Shannon, and Ireland’s culpability in rendition flights may well result in a challenging report and further embarrassment for the government.

The Astounding Case of the ‘Accidental Bomber’ Over one year on, Darren Cleary investigates the events which led to an innocent man boarding a plane with plastic explosives bound for Dublin.

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n Saturday January 2nd , 2010, Slovakian authorities planted 96g of the military explosive RDX on an unwitting passenger in a botched attempt at testing airport security at Poprad-Tatry Airport in the ski resort town of Poprad.

The passenger, Stefan Gonda, was a 49-year-old electrician originally from the Slovak Republic who had moved to Dublin where he had been working for the previous three years. The explosive material was not removed from his bag, and the man brought the material on board the plane, into Dublin airport and back home to his rented flat in Lower Dorset St., Dublin 1.

The Slovakian authorities alerted the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) three days later, Tuesday 5th January, who then told Garda of the security breach. This led to a full scale bomb alert and the evacuation of Lower Dorset St for two hours. Gonda was arrested and detained by Garda who were not informed by Slovakian officials until later that evening, that he was in fact innocent.

On January 7th the Gardaí announced that they would begin an investigation into the incident that would be headed up by Detective Chief Superintendent Martin McLaughlin. More than a year on, the results of this investigation are still unknown.

I set out in the hope of learning, what developments the Gardaí have made in their inquiries over the last year, what changes if any were made to the Slovak Airport security procedures, whether or not any such checks are carried out in Irish airports, and how dangerous the materials on board the plane were. I also endeavoured to track down Stefan Gonda, who has yet to give an account of the events that transpired between January 2nd and the raid on his home three days later.

But firstly I began by trying to contact an explosives expert to learn about the material RDX, how dangerous was this stuff, was it enough to take down a plane, and what would it take to ignite it? These were all questions I put to a spokesman for the Irish Defence Forces, Gavin Young, who’s bomb disposal team dealt with the material on the morning of January 2nd. He started by explaining exactly what the substance that was planted on Mr Gonda was. “Gardaí found 96 grams of RDX which is a nitrosamine explosive material that would be commonly used by military in combat operations world-

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wide. Commercially it is used extensively by the demolition industry because of the force of an explosion that a small amount can create,” he said.

RDX is not solely used by demolition specialists and the military, but has also found it’s way into the hands of terrorists and it is suspected that a quantity of the powerful explosive was used in the terrorists’ attack in Mumbai in 2006 in which a series of seven explosions killed at least 174 people on crowded commuter trains and stations.

Gavin Young is of no doubt that if the explosive had detonated, the consequences would have been dire. According to Young: “He was carrying a little over 96 grams of the explosive material. Without a doubt that amount of RDX would have been powerful enough to take down a plane. But when the army bomb disposal team found the explosives concealed in his luggage,” he continued, “luckily they were still in a stable state”. The plastic explosive on its own was considered stable and no detonators were discovered.

Despite the bumbling nature of the mishap, apparently the explosives posed no clear or present danger. “On their own, this type of explosive does need to be combined with other elements to make it into a bomb, but obviously this type of high grade explosive is potentially extremely dangerous. But they do need to combine with a detonator,” Young confirmed.

I tried to track down and interview Mr Gonda, the unwitting guinea pig in this security operation. The Slovakian electrician who had lived in Dublin the previous three years was returning from his Christmas holidays when the events transpired. I went to his home at Lower Dorset St, Dublin 1. I rang the various buzzers at the apartment building but was told no one by the name of Stefan had lived there. One resident gave me the contact details of the landlord and told me to get in touch with him for information about Mr Gonda, who it seemed no longer lived there.

I called the landlord, who indeed confirmed Mr Gonda moved out shortly after what had happened in January 2010. According to the landlord: “He lived there for a while, over a year anyway. He did some work down at the Dublin Electrical Wholesalers on the North Circular Road, he came to me at the start of February and gave his notice, he wasn’t on a long term lease so it wasn’t a problem. He never said why he was moving or where he was going, he didn’t have very good English”.

Despite the uncertainty of where Stefan Gonda moved to, his former landlord has no reservations about why the 49-year-old left his apartment at Lower Dorset Street.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he left because of what happened, the poor lad was innocent but he was very traumatised by what happened. I mean he would have been shaky enough as it is before all this happened. He was a very nervous fella.”

One of the neighbours I spoke to said she didn’t know exactly when he had left because the Slovakian was very quiet and often kept to himself. Yvonne Tyrrell said, “I didn’t know he had left until a new bloke moved in. Stefan was always very polite, would

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always say ‘Hello, how are you’, and if I seen him in the morning he’d always say ‘have a wonderful day’. I couldn’t believe it when the Guards raided the place”.

Another Dorset Street resident, Mary Rice, reflected on the morning of January 5th.

“They [Gardaí] banged the door down at about 10:45am. They said we had to evacuate.

But didn’t tell us why, but as soon as we got outside and seen the big green bomb van [the army bomb disposal vehicle] we knew”. All homes and businesses on Lower Dorset Street were evacuated as Garda and army technicians carefully removed the materials.

In the course of my investigation I contacted the Garda Press office to ascerWithout a doubt that amount of RDX tain if any significant dewould have been powerful enough velopments had been made to take down a plane in the case. I spoke with Sergeant Gerry Curley who was able to confirm that an investigation had been launched, led by Detective Chief Superintendent Martin McLoughlin, who, along with his team traveled to Poprad to interview relevant staff at the airport. He also confirmed that an investigation took place in Dublin to determine the role played by Irish authorities in the blunder. When I asked what Irish authorities would be/were interviewed he divulged previously unpublished details about the manner in which Slovakian Airport Security informed Dublin airport authorities of the security breech. Sergeant Curley said, “We have completed local enquiries, so I can tell you that a lot of the confusion came from the wording of the communication. And the fact that it was sent to a baggage handling company Servisair and not to the DAA.” Sergeant Curley declined to comment further, saying that enquiries were ongoing still, and that it wasn’t Garda policy to provide detailed information on the progress of ongoing investigations. He also refused to speculate on what stage the inquiry had reached and whether or not it was nearing completion. Insisting, “look, part of the reason we don’t comment on ongoing investigations is because they don’t tell us, I can say no more”.

To finish my own domestic inquiry before contacting sources in Slovakia, I called the DAA to confirm the revelation made by Sergeant Curley in the Garda press office. I spoke with DAA Director of Public Affairs, Paul O’Kane, who confirmed the sergeant’s comments: “I can confirm that Dublin Airport Authority would once again reiterate that it had no contact whatsoever from authorities in Slovakia in relation to their test of their own security systems by the use of explosives, which arrived on a flight from Poprad-Tatry Airport on Saturday January 2nd, until the morning of Tuesday, January 5th”. Mr O’Kane was emphatic in his assertion that reports to the contrary which were

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made by Slovakian authorities are completely “misguided”. The DAA Director of Public Affairs said that when they asked Slovakian authorities to produce evidence of any communications sent to the DAA before the morning of Tuesday, January 5th, they had produced telex messages that were sent to the wrong address. O’Kane continued, “None of the three addresses on the telex that was produced by Slovak authorities is a DAA address. The DAA is not in a position to comment on what information other companies may have received in relation to this matter, because it is a matter for the Garda investigation. However, it would like to once again confirm that the airport authority only became aware of this incident when Slovak authorities made contact by telephone on the morning of Tuesday, January 5th 2010” [three days after the incident].

When I asked if he felt that security at Dublin airport had been compromised he strongly refuted even the possible assertion that security at the airport could have done anymore: “absolutely not, in no way could it even be suggested that Dublin airport’s security was breeched. Security checks at all major airports are carried out prior to departure not upon arrival. On arrival, passengers typically pass through customs and immigration checks but are not subject to security checks. There was no breach whatsoever of security at Dublin Airport in relation to this incident.”

After speaking with authorities in Ireland, and trying and failing to contact Mr Gonda, I moved my investigative efforts to Slovakian authorities. After some effort and numerous phone calls to the Airport at Poprad, I eventually spoke to the Head of Security at Poprad-Tatry Airport. His name is Peter Hajovsky and he was responsible for ordering the security checks which led to the failure, and to the passenger boarding a plane with plastic explosive. He was co-operative and spoke with a command of English that made the phone interview flow naturally. He started by explaining the merits of the security check carried out on that day, and why the airport carried it out: “We were exercising new security measures, the test was a direct response to a bombing plot that happened in America on Christmas day.”

I questioned further and Hajovsky explained in detail, that the test was triggered because of the attempt on December 25th 2009 to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by using plastic explosives. 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had concealed explosives in his underwear but failed to detonate them properly, resulting in a fire aboard the aircraft. A Dutch passenger, Jasper Schuringa, tackled and restrained him as others put out the fire. Abdulmutallab was then handcuffed while the pilot safely landed the plane. In all, three people were injured: Abdulmutallab, Schuringa, and one other passenger. Upon landing in Detroit, Abdulmutallab was arrested and taken to hospital for treatment of his burns.

“They were the same beast [the explosive material used in the failed bomb plot and the one used for the test],” Hajovsky said, “so we wanted to insure our security would be

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able to detect even small traces of powdered explosive, we used eight samples. The dogs detected seven, not bad eh?” He took a moment to chuckle before continuing in the same laid back tone. “The one that got onto the plane was detected by a sniffer dog at [the] Airport but a policeman forgot to remove them or to inform his supervisor. I mean that is stupid human error. But it is an individual error, and we are happy that the system works.” I asked if any changes had been made to the airport’s security operational system since the breech and he once again laughed before answering: “Mr Mako [the forgetful policeman] he is no longer here.” When I followed up by asking if these kind of tests are still in place at the Airport, he told me, “no not anymore, because we’ve done it once we know now we can identify it [RDX]”.

But the Head of Security at Poprad-Tatry Airport would not rule out such security tests in the future. “It’s dependent on the material, we must be able to deal with what terrorists are using. We must test our security. This was an unfortunate accident, but it was better in a controlled environment by security forces, than by an extremist who longs to bomb a plane.” When I told him that representatives at Dublin airport had informed me that “no such tests were carried out” by them, he was quick to refute these claims “It [testing bomb finding] happens all over the world, it must. Maybe your airport administrator does not carry out the tests, perhaps it is your justice department that run it secretly, but it is going on, it’s a part of making airports secure to new threats.” When asked if he felt sorry about the botched security incident, Mr Hajovsky said: “We are very sorry that a valiant effort to test the security of civilian air transport turned out so badly, but you must be assured this is not what the media make it out to be. The pilot was aware of the situation and the plane and its passengers were actually in no danger as the explosives didn’t have a detonator”.

What transpired really was an incredible chain of events, that included a pilot taking a plane into the sky knowingly filled with enough explosives to down the plane; the Slovaks’ failure to tell Dublin airport or police about the incoming ordnance; and the man’s arrest days later as the news slowly filtered in dribs and drabs to Irish airport officials and the Gardaí. Events culminating eventually with the bomb squad closing in on the innocent guinea pig days later at his central Dublin home.

Over the course of my investigation I did what I had set out to do, with the exception of making contact with Stefan Gonda. Speaking with Peter Hajovsky, the Head of Security of Poprad-Tatry airport was both enlightening and worrying. I don’t know what causes more concern, the fact that he would be happy to sanction a test of this nature again, or that he honestly believes such tests are regularly taking place in airports across the world , including Dublin airport.

Recession Causes Increase in Animal Cruelty and Abandonment Animals have been another victim of the current recession.

Fiona O’Sullivan investigates.

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he recession in Ireland has hit everyone in some way or another; some people feel it more than others but it has had a negative effect on more than just people. Animals have also been impacted by the recession. Last year had the most reported cases of animal cruelty in the last few years. Some people who have been left with no other option and cannot afford to take care of their pets any longer are either surrendering their pets to animal shelters or abandoning them. This has been increasing at such an alarming rate over the past year that shelters are finding it more difficult than ever to provide for all the animals that come in, especially as most shelters are run by volunteers and depend on donations from the public and sponsors. Some stories behind abandonments are worse than others.

The Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) saw the highest number of animals that had been abandoned last year, reaching over 4,400 animals that in some way had been discarded by their owners. Despite having an increase in members of the public volunteering to help the organisation, last year the DSPCA received the highest amount of calls on record, reporting cases of animal cruelty. The DSPCA like many animal sanctuaries are struggling to make ends meet within the shelter, as donations have decreased dramatically since 2010. They are fortunate enough that some of their sponsors provide them with food stock and basic animal needs to keep Last year over 4,400 animals them going. 95% of their [were] discarded by their owners … yearly costs are covered by The number of people visiting the donations from the public.

[DSPCA] shelter’s mobile clinic is up Miriam Kerins, head by 40 per cent of education and media for the DSPCA, says that “there are no specific areas where most abandonment’s occur, however some people think in areas of high unemployment, people are more likely to abandon their dogs. This is not true. Abandonments occur across all levels of society. People may think that to leave their animals isn’t cruel,

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but it is. To leave an animal in an area with no food, shelter or water is cruel. People need to factor in that taking care of an animal for up to 14 years can cost up to €30,000.”

There is no one reason why people abandon their animals and the shelter tries to help owners who can’t afford to take care of their pets with alternative ways of taking care of them. It is also becoming a regular occurrence that pet owners attempt to surrender their pets to the DSPCA, by pretending they are good members of society and have rescued the animal and hand them into the shelter.

Miriam Kerins says that this practice is common and it becomes clear People need to factor in that taking within a matter of minutes care of an animal for up to 14 years whether the “good citizen’ can cost up to €30,000 is the actual owner or not.

“Some people come to the shelter and tell us that they have found this animal and really they haven’t found it, it’s their own dog or cat. We take animals that are sick or hurt and people need to realise that we’re not a dumping ground because they got fed up with looking after their pet. We’re not stupid, we can figure out pretty quickly whether you are the actual owner of the animal or not.’

The DSPCA has a mobile vet clinic for anyone that cannot afford private veterinary care. Since 2008 animal shelters around Ireland have had over 4,000 people come to them offering their services for volunteer work. Kerins says, “The mobile vet clinic goes around Dublin, to help people who are unable to afford to take their pet to the vet, this means the owners don’t have to give up their animals and they can still give them the care and treatment they need”.

The increase in volunteers has been due to the recession; people who have been let go from their jobs come to these shelters to help out, which has been positive for the shelters during this time of financial hardship when donations are low.

The Galway SPCA has similar findings to that of the DSPCA with a recent increase of animal abandonments or cruelty cases. Last winter they received between five and ten calls a day, all reporting cases of cruelty on horses alone, which is the highest amount of calls they have received on record. Margaret O’ Sullivan, who works in the GSPCA says, “The increase in these cases are definitely recession orientated”. She explains that many of the people who are surrendering their pets to the shelter are going back to their countries of origin, as they have lost their jobs.

Similar to Ireland, the United Kingdom has found that since 2008 there has been an increase in animal cruelty and abandonment. In 2009 they saw an increase of 25% in reports of cases of animal cruelty. That year they received around 1.25 million calls

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reporting cases of animal cruelty. The RSPCA, like the DSPCA, has a mobile clinic to help owners out with pet care when finances are not good.

Kevin Smith, a user of DSPCA services, who, like many others has been affected by the recession, cannot afford veterinary care for his rabbits. He bought chinchillas, so they could mate and sell the babies in an effort to make money in order to take care of his rabbits. One of his rabbits appears to have ear mites, but until Smith can make enough money from selling the chinchilla’s offspring, the rabbit will have to remain in this condition.

This is one of the cases where animals feel the effects of the recession just as much as people. Smith claims, “I feel bad that I can’t afford to take my pets to receive proper vet care but hopefully I’ll make some money off the new chinchilla babies so I can get them checked out”.

Although he has not abandoned his pets, it is clear that his animals are suffering neglect from lack of proper care. He continues on to explain why he is reluctant to give his animals to a shelter, “last year I had to surrender my dog, which I just couldn’t afford to take care of and it was one of the worst feelings ever, I don’t think I could do it again!”

This may not be the most obvious case of animal cruelty, but it is still regarded as cruel because having more pets than an owner is physically or emotionally able to care for results in depriving animals of health care. Cases similar to this one are common, as people don’t realise the seriousness of the need to get their pets their pets checked out regularly. If they don’t have sufficient funds to look after them properly then asking the shelters for alternative ways to care for their animals is important as they aim to Last year I had to surrender my dog, help people like Kevin which I just couldn’t afford to take Smith with cheaper methcare of and it was one of the worst ods of caring for their anifeelings ever mals, instead of dumping their pets with the shelter.

Animal cruelty cases are increasing and getting worse. This year so far the number of animals rescued by the DSPCA is showing the same trend as last year’s figures. The number of people visiting the shelters mobile clinic is up by 40 per cent, showing that 40 per cent more people cannot afford private veterinary care for their pets. It is expected that the amount of animals that will be abandoned or suffering some type of neglect from their owners this year will increase from last year’s figures. The main reason for this is the recession, as pet owners who have lost their jobs cannot afford to take care of their animals properly.

The Perfect Pokerface How ‘poker bots’ cheat online poker players. An investigation by Roman Payer.

“A

ll-In” with two aces or two kings and if “Street = ‘PreFlop’ AND Raiser > 1”.

The command is simple. The online poker robot knows exactly what it has to do if it gets these cards. There are different commands for every action. The bot plays a certain strategy and on several tables at the same time.

A poker robot is a programme that plays online poker instead of real players. The owner of the bots can earn money by just using the programme. By the terms and condition of the online poker websites, it is strictly forbidden to use programs in online poker rooms. “There exist a lot rumours about the security precautions at the major poker sites, but only a few people know exactly how bot protection works,” says one poker bot programmer who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. “One weak point of bots it that the mouse ‘flies’. A bot has an unnatural movement of the mouse,” which tells poker sites, that the user is probably cheating with a bot.

Imagine an online poker table where six players are playing against each other but one of them is secretly a computer programme, a poker robot, who knows exactly when it has to bluff or fold its cards. If the bot is really good, it will virtually impossible to beat it. The human players will constantly lose money.

There might be a lot more and even better poker bots playing in online poker rooms instead of real players. Nobody knows precisely how many bots are playing at the moment. “It is still a very small fraction of all players, but it might not always be so,” says Darse Billings, a former member of the Computer Poker Research Group at the University of Alberta and now working as a consultant for two major poker sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. In an e-mail interview, he says, that “most of the bots are poor”. He estimates that nine out of ten are losing money.

From time to time, poker players detect their opponents as bots. Through statistics, players can see how the others act with good or bad cards. Poker bots however usually behave in the same way, because most of them are based on rules. In October last year, one of the biggest poker sites, Full Tilt Poker closed between 1,200 and 1,500 accounts due to cheating with bots.

But the number of bots is still growing; one reason is these programmes are on sale on the internet. For $129, Shanky Technologies offers a one-year-license for a bot that plays Texas Hold’em. In the New York Times, the co-founder of Shanky, Brian Jetter said “Full Tilt had seized more than $50,000 of my customers’ money”. He added that

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the gaming site was forgoing at least $70,000 per month in revenue by shutting down his customers’ bots. Full Tilt closed the accounts that were suspected of playing with bots.

Full Tilt is the second-largest online poker site after PokerStars, but there are a lot of small poker sites looking for traffic on their virtual poker tables. Size and independence seem to be important factors, how poker sites deal with the growing number of bots. Jetter put it this way: “We don’t think the other poker rooms we support will make a similar financial decision.” Small poker sites are more depending on the amount of users and cannot risk to close down the accounts of their users.

Most of these bots are based on poker rules and anybody can implement a personal strategy into the bot. The support forum for Shanky’s poker bots is exclusive for members. Here, about 8,000 ‘botters’ discuss their profiles and adjust the aggressiveness of the bot or how often it bluffs.

Shanky is not the only website that provides bots for sale. Google search results for “buy poker bot” links to over ten different poker bots. But, in an interview, Michael Bowling, the team leader of the Computer Poker Research Group warned me against buying a poker bot online: “I would be sceptical of the skill-level of any bot technology for sale. If it were such a strong player, why would the authors bother selling the technology publicly.” He questioned the fast success rates claimed.

At the University of Alberta in Canada, the Computer Poker Research Group deals with poker bots for scientific reasons. Poker is a very complex game, such that very good bots require advanced artificial intelligence. In 2008, after 17 years of work, Polaris, the bot programmed by the Computer Poker Research Group won against three professional poker players. “Playing strong poker is not primarily about probability and odds,” explained team leader Michael Bowling. The poker bot he says has to handle deliberate misinformation and to make intelligent guesses based on partial knowledge. The nature of poker with its fragmentary information lets botters play predictable poker games.

“Limit”, a game with a limited pot is easier than “No Limit” and it is the same with “Heads Up”, where only two players compete against each other. Those are more calculable than ring games with six or more players on one table. Darse Billings, who designs algorithms to catch cheaters at Full Tilt, says “No Limit ring games are still pretty safe, although most bots target micro-stakes No Limit Hold’em due to its popularity”.

Twenty years ago nobody knew of the poker game Texas Hold’em. However, according to Billings, Texas Hold’em is the most popular online poker game at the moment.

Through the internet, poker has become a estimated $6 Billion-a-year boom industry.

Although the poker sites say they try to keep the game fair, it is obvious poker sites also earn money from bots. A view into the business model of online poker shows the conflict poker sites face: A poker site earns money by claiming a certain per cent of the amount of money played on the table. This fee is called rake. Human players as well as

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bots are creating rake to the poker sites. On popular poker chat forum, PokerStrategy. com, players estimate the accounts closed at Full Tilt last October generated more than $6 million in rake.

To use a bot is not illegal, but a violation of the terms and conditions of The team leader of the Computer most sites. Full Tilt’s End User License Agreement Poker Research Group warned me says explicitly that “the use against buying a poker bot online of artificial intelligence including, without limitation, ‘robots’ is strictly forbidden in connection with the Software and the Games”. The users have to “agree that Full Tilt Poker may take steps to detect and prevent the use of prohibited programs”.

But how can a poker site detect bots? For Michael Bowling at the University of Alberta, behaviour is the key to success: “Humans have certain playing habits according to the number of sessions, the length of session, the idle time and delays. Deviation from these habits could suggest a bot.” Full Tilt also examines the software programs running concurrently with the poker software on a user’s computer. Darse Billings, consultant for Full Tilt, says not all poker sites are the same. “Some sites have had dozens or even hundreds of very obvious bots, and have done nothing about it. I guess that means they either don’t have the necessary skills to detect them, or just don’t care.”

In the long run, bots are bad for the image of poker sites. They are afraid reports about bots will keep new customers away. For this investigation, I requested information about online poker from Full Tilt Poker. It took nearly one month to get an answer from them, saying “Your proposal will be forwarded to our public relations department, and you will be contacted if there is interest in your proposal.” They never replied to the original request.

For professional poker players, bots are a controversial topic. Most of them worry that if the public knows about bots, new players, who are more lucrative to play against, will stay away. Professional players earn money by playing against weaker players; most of them are new and have no poker experience. Pros call them “fish”. 90 per cent of all poker players are losing money. The key issue is whether they are losing against other players or against computer programs. As poker is based on mathematics, bots have the potential to beat human players. Darse Billings says there is an evolutionary pressure: “The weakest bots will eventually die out and be replaced by better ones”.

Fool’s Gold: Trade Your Unwanted Gold for Cash The cash for gold phenomenon has gripped the nation, but is lack of regulation hurting both the businesses and the consumer? Marc Dennehy investigates.

G

old is one of the most valuable commodities on the face of the earth. The value of gold is increasing steadily every year and there has been a staggering increase in the number of ‘cash for gold’ shops opening in Ireland. These shops work on a simple basis: they buy gold from their customers, no questions asked. In the many advertisements for such businesses, they market themselves as an outlet where you can sell your unwanted gold for cash. Almost all of them will pay out immediately.

These ‘cash for gold’ shops seem to have sporadically appeared although the trading of gold has been big business for many years, something which many jewellery shops also engage in. However, the big difference is that these ‘cash for gold’ shops operate on the sole objective of acquiring as much gold as possible, as cheaply as possible. Worryingly, there are also similar companies plying their trade online and using the postal system to acquire the gold. There are also cases of kiosks operated by employees of these companies in public areas such as hotels and shopping centres.

Athy, Co. Kildare councillor, Thomas Redmond of the Labour Party, is an outspoken critic of the ‘cash for gold’ shops. He feels that the current economic climate may be a factor driving the popularity of these shops and the service they provide.

“Certainly the recession is a factor which may coerce people to enter these shops as more of them fall into financial difficulty, but the fact that there is quick access to them and the service is easily available to its customers would suggest that they are preying on vulnerable members of the community, similar to the manner in which a pawn shop operates”.

However, Cllr Redmond was quick to point out the key difference between ‘cash for gold’ shops and pawn shops: “The main difference is that pawn shops would give you an opportunity to get your items back and would hold onto them for a period of time. These gold shops can have your gold melted down in a matter of days and there is nothing you can do about it after that,” he said.

Possible links between ‘cash for gold’ shops and crime have also become apparent, with some reports claiming that burglaries of items such as jewellery have increased in recent times. There have been cases of burglaries where the victim’s house has been ran-

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sacked and any items of jewellery and silverware have been specifically targeted during the raids.

Sinn Féin Councillor, John Brady from Bray, Co Wicklow, was able to confirm this view and he explained how there has been an increase in burglaries across Wicklow and in a lot of cases jewellery has been the target.

Councillor Brady said, “The burglars are specifically targeting the elderly and those living alone as they are considered easy prey. The problem is that these shops can be used to launder stolen jewellery. Many constituents have come up to me and said their homes had been broken into and they took nothing but their jewellery”.

While these ‘cash for gold’ shops certainly do not encourage crimes such They are preying on vulnerable as theft, they certainly are not doing enough to deter members of the community, similar would-be criminals from to the manner in which a pawn shop profiting by selling stolen operates items such as jewellery or silverware.

Due to lack of regulation, it is simply too easy for somebody to stroll in and exchange gold items for cash with no questions asked and no identification required. While some of these businesses can claim that they operate a strict ID policy, they are in no way obliged to do so by law. What this does is it presents problems to both victims of crime and legitimate businesses because there are so many shops in operation that sellers can just move on to the next shop they find and sell up.

This is also part of the problem because there are so many of these businesses in operation that it is becoming difficult to monitor the activity of each shop. One of the largest of these shops has 31 stores spread out in Ireland alone while there are many smaller outlets also trading in the country.

The cash for gold shops themselves are also potentially breaking the law as they may possibly be handling and in possession of stolen property. The penalties in regard to this crime are very clear – a person guilty of handling stolen property is liable on conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or both.

Regarding these possible links between crime and these shops, former Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern, ordered investigations into the legitimacy of these shops earlier this year. As of yet, no legislation has been introduced.

This is a problem which needs to be addressed; many countries are already taking steps to monitor how these businesses are run. Currently a bill is being pushed in

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Washington which will heavily regulate ‘cash for gold’ businesses in a bid to eliminate illegitimate dealers.

One solution which is being suggested in the bill is to require all shops to The problem is that these shops can report all purchases made be used to launder stolen jewellery by the next day and to keep detailed accounts of all transactions in order to provide an adequate level of transparency. This model could be adopted for Ireland and would certainly make it easier to catch any criminals trying to sell stolen property if it was implemented with a stringent identification policy.

Councillor Redmond reinforces this view, and he says that regulation is “key”. He was keen to stress to me that legit sellers should have no opposition towards any legislation, and that “only illegal businesses have a problem with regulation as they have something to hide”.

With this in mind, it seems only logical that legislation of this sort is introduced in order to protect both the consumers and also legitimate businesses who deal in this area.