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PROPOSALS TO INCLUDE productive assets in the assessment of third-level maintenance grants have been roundly opposed by farming and youth groups today.
The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) said that any move to include productive assets, such as farmland, in assessments would show “a complete bias against farmers and other self-employed”.
IFA President, John Bryan said the farming community would not accept changes to assessment procedure that would result in children from low-income families being refused grants: “The Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, is in no doubt about IFA’s position on this issue. At a meeting with the Minister earlier this year, we made it clear that productive assets, such as farmland, are required by self-employed businesses to generate income and are not a measure of additional ability to pay. This means that farmland and other productive assets cannot form any part of a fair means assessment,” he said.
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association also came out in opposition to such proposals – and called on all TDs to do the same. ICSA president, Gabriel Gimartin, welcomed the fact that a number of deputies voiced their opposition to such changes, noting that the ICSA has been “actively lobbying against any such move since the possibility was first mooted.”
Gilmartin said: “The really critical issue is that most farms actually generate very low levels of income. Perhaps that explains why such farm families are very keen to get their children to go to third level in the expectation that the farm cannot provide a decent living. The evidence is clear that almost all cattle and sheep farms do not support an income anywhere near the cut-off for third level grants.”
Meanwhile, Macra na Feirme National President, Alan Jagoe, also rejected the proposals to include assets in assessment – saying that any such move would be “incredibly short-sighted”.
“The fact is that the average full-time farmer will not be in a position to send their child to college without the assistance of an educational grant,” Jagoe said.
“Irish farming operates on a rather unique business model that centres around the family farmland is not readily comparable to other business sectors that commonly use other structures such as companies. Farmers could be viewed as a soft target for introducing means testing of assets. Many farm families while asset rich are income poor… 2009 proved to be a prime example with average incomes well below the average industrial wage.”
Dont think there customers are around long enough to get 3 strickes !
Strikes *
* don’t
* their
three strikes and YOU’RE…..
Going to UPC
Isn’t it amazing that we actually NEED a Data Protection Commissioner anymore? Especially after the Property Tax fiasco, when the Government of Ireland ignored its own data laws? And people got in a tizzy about the US spying on people? Is it any different?
I think the headline should read ‘Three Downloads and We’re Going on Strike’. Eircom employees are finding it hard work keeping up with user activity these days
their broadband speed is so s**t that everyones switching to upc the speed is great ,now what film will i download and watch tonight :)
Would love them to give me a strike ,you just sue them for liable .In order to prove their case, they would have to break the data protection laws.simple .Remember they are accusing people of breaking the law .
Supreme Court disagrees with you
Er, have you read even the headline of the article? It’s a ruling of the Supreme Court so you are talking nonsense.
no it doesn’t ,a pub can refuse you service but” wearing white socks” and being accused of a crime is the difference .
Small print in your broadband contract disagrees with you.
Small print can not remove anyone’s right’s ,So does it say” we can accuse you of a crime and you have no right of redress ” if it did thats a criminal act!
You have a point, snooping on us, ehh?
@Jeff: They would be in breach of DP laws if they shared the info with the record companies. The DP laws and breaches of privacy do not apply when disclosing evidence in court.
First music hub and now this…….shite day to be an eircom customer.
Thankfully I’m not.
I implemented my own one-strike policy on crappy ISPs. As soon as my Eircom contract allowed it, I closed my account and moved to UPC
They should really worry more about appeasing their customer, than record labels
Hidemyass.com!
I left eircom years ago, with UPC now And can’t fault them, imagine WiMAX issue warnings and then throttle service, end result is Customers leaving in their droves, good luck eircom, your going to need it
Wimax is just awful. Never ever ever touch them with barge pole.
Upc seem by far to be the best but where I live I have to use 3 broadband. Still 100 times better tgen Wimax
Check out the ratemyisp website, you can see what most people are saying about imagine, horrendous company
Agreed, would never ever use wimax again. Terrible speeds (dependent on where you are but we had line of sight with the mast, and still got an average 0.5mbps on a 7mbps line), terrible customer service. Convinced they lied about us going over their cap. Sent threatening letters for their box weeks after I’d returned it!
Was with Wimax for a while – racked up over 140 phone calls to them over their disgusting service.
Eircom coming tomorrow to replace them.
Good riddance to Wimax.
This is what I did with imagine, I told them if they went ahead with their throttling of my service I would Leave them first chance I got, customer service more or less laughed at me telling me I couldn’t leave as I was under 12 month contract, I said ok, then 18mths later when UPC became available on my street I got it, I rang in imagine to cancel WiMAX, they apologised for their treatment of me, offered me free service for a period of time to keep me, TO LATE, I told them to switch me off, then within 12 hours they wanted to take back their external box on my house, I arranged to give them access on a date and time I knew I wouldn’t be home, van came out, they called me to say they couldn’t get access and asked if i was I home, I told them sorry I’m working, I was called into work short notice, I rescheduled access 6 more times before they got the box back, one day for every day they throttled my service, van had to come to my home 7 times before they got the box back, so in the end it cost them More than me to throttle me, I’ve since convinced several neighbours to not sign up for WiMAX, they didn’t, so ultimately it was very costly to treat me badly, I advise anyone to do the same
illegal to download music
but can still access childp0rn ,
talk about arse about face
You can?? That’s naughty tut tut
You’d be mad to stick with eircom for broadband services, the last time i used eircom for internet was about 10 years ago dialing up to 1892 150 150 to connect, they robbed people back then and they still rob customers now!
Eircom now offer 6months free to customers, i wouldnt even be tempted knowing they block websites and monitor what you download… ive heard UPC was also forced by the courts to start blocks tpb
Blocking domains like thepiratebay.se isnt going to make any difference, people will just use a proxy list such as piratebayproxylist.com, if all them domains dont work, others will change DNS settings away from eircoms.
Its a cat and mouse game, Service providers should never interfere and block access to websites.
UPC were ordered but have yet to comply.
After reaching a negotiated settlement with ISP Eircom to deal with illicit file-sharing, the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) took ISP UPC to court after it refused to implement a similar scheme. IRMA wanted UPC to disconnect persistent pirates, UPC insisted there was no legal basis for doing so… it will be intresting to see if UPC keep fightin or will they give in and comply.
Byyys you are out of sync. UPC and all other ISPs involved in that case will block Piratebay in a few days after the music industry won their court case. The block will be largely inconsequential for most users, but the music industry is a little challenged by anything Internet-related so they seem to dim to realise.
And I’ve been busy downloading the wire, breaking bad and game of thrones until they do!
@Joerg I think Byyys might be referring to IRMA’s request for UPC to implement the three strike policy and not the recent request to block TPB. I believe UPC have 30 days (which must be soon enough).
I got 1 strike for downloading one direction album for daughter eircom said it would be on file for 12 months i asked could they change it to porn the shame of it.
hahahaha
Sounds like a great way of getting out of a contract with them without having to pay the cancellation fee :D
I would sincerely love to change providers, but unfortunately Eircom is all I have. Rural connection. Meh !!
If you are stuck, I’ve heard BTguard is a great service.
http://lifehacker.com/5863380/how-to-completely-anonymize-your-bittorrent-traffic-with-btguard
I’ve had eircom for the last 3 years or so.. . And I have to say I’ve not had one problem with it. I constantly download. . . Have a few gadgets x box sky demand and two laptops on it. I have pretty good speeds on it too. . I know there is people out there who don’t like it. . But I’d rather have no t’Internet then have imagine or upc
It still won’t mean that musicians get paid the royalties they’ve been due and promised for five or ten years or more. Record companies will drink any benefits if any at lunch. It won’t force downloaders to buy music either. The figures record companies bandy about as lost profits are based on illegal downloads, where it’s taken as fact that people would have had to buy them. Total fantasy. As for Eircom and their policy, anyone who knows how to do it without them knowing will still do it. Just a wee bit of research will tell you how to get Crystal Swing’s latest album without getting caught.
ireland is quite leniant on downloading compared to Germany for example….we got an 800 euro fine for dowloading one film and then had to hire a solicitor for 300 to respond to it…one strike here and you’re broke! luckily have figured out alternatives to downloading :)
And Eircom wonder why its going down the tube…whats the point in having the Net if i cant Download what i want…the internet Was created as a free and open space to share…then the lazy corporations came and couldnt innovate their budiness models….Eircom in luiquidation in the next 5 years
This is ridiculous next they will be monitoring or calls and text if this is not already being done where are the privacy laws I’m not downloading illegal content but the thought that my usage is watched is alarming this justice system needs to stop bowing to big firms just to please them. If this is the way its going why not put cameras in every household to watch for illegal activity. Joke……
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