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FOR THE FIRST time in 11 years, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference is meeting today.
The meeting is between both governments and holding it is a requirement under the Good Friday Agreement but what exactly does it do?
Here’s a quick guide.
What’s it about?
The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, let’s call it BIIC for short, is held in part recognition that the Irish government has “a special interest in Northern Ireland”.
The meeting is designed to include the Taoiseach and UK Prime Minister but, if they’re not in attendance, both governments must be represented by “appropriate ministers”.
Leo Varadkar and Theresa May are not in attendance at today’s BIIC, something that has been criticised by some including Fianna Fáil.
Leader Micheál Matin said he was “highly disappointed” that neither would be in attendance “given the scale and importance” of what’s to be discussed.
Ireland’s primary representatives at the meeting are Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan.
The UK government is being represented at the meeting by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley and the Minister for the Cabinet Office David Lidington.
Under the GFA, the meeting is supposed to be “regular and frequent” so the 11-year delay has been criticised.
Rights
BIIC is supposed to discuss a whole range of things including issues around rights and justice, but among its primary focuses is the review the operations of the Northern Ireland institutions.
At the moment, these institutions are not operating since the collapse of power-sharing 18 months ago. This is therefore likely to dominate this particular meeting.
There have been calls from some quarters, including Sinn Féin, for both governments to take a more direct role in re-establishing the NI Executive. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald TD has said that she is hopeful this meeting can secure progress.
“This is a first step in the governments acting to resolve outstanding issues,” McDonald said yesterday.
The DUP is not enthusiastic about the meeting between both governments, however, describing it as “a talking shop”.
“The British Irish Intergovernmental Conference, has no decision-making power as clearly set out in the Belfast Agreement and will focus solely on non-devolved Northern Ireland matters,” Nigel Dodds MP said ahead of the meeting.
The DUP says that both governments should focus solely on non-devolved issues, i.e. issues that are not under the control of the executive.
Of those that are under the executive’s remit, rights issues surrounding the Irish language have been central to the stalemate between the DUP and several other parties.
It’s likely that the Irish language will be discussed during the BIIC meeting and the London-based branch of Conradh na Gaeilge today presented the British government with an open letter turning them to address the issue.
Of course, the elephant in the room during this particular BIIC meeting is the shadow of Brexit and the ongoing negotiations.
In his comments ahead of the meeting, Micheál Martin criticised the plan for the talk and said there appeared to be an attempt to keep Brexit issues “off the agenda”.
Coveney is certain to be asked about Brexit repeatedly during his time in London but it is unclear whether a joint press conference will be held involving the Irish and British sides.
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Without a doubt the worst minister we are stuck with. No idea about anything outside of his views and his precious bike.
@Peter: much like the people of his constituency, who will keep him in power.
@Peter: The bike is for press conferences. I recall that during the campaign for the last election, he was asked if he owned a car. He replied that he drove a diesel.
@Earth Traveller: You’d swear using a bike precludes you from owning a car
@Earth Traveller: Keeping your old diesel is more environmentally friendly than “upgrading” to a new EV, according to Volvo anyway. https://autobuzz.my/2021/11/15/volvo-says-manufacturing-an-ev-generates-70-more-emissions-than-its-ice-counterpart/
@MikeOM: is that just manufacture? Or throughout the full life of the vehicle?
@Earth Traveller: I pass him most mornings and I see him cycling ..
@Ciaran: that was our chance to sort all this out.
@MikeOM: Be careful now Mike. Telling truthful facts on this forum is frowned upon by the leftie snowflakes that dont want anyone saying anything beyond the world view.. Its amazing that we’re encouraged to recycle everything except cars….
@MikeOM: Read the actual article. “Over the lifetime of the vehicle, an EV can reach a breakeven point, achieving a lower total carbon footprint to that of the ICE vehicle’s.”
Seeing as were talking about tolerating deaths in Ireland Eamon….let’s start with 115 homeless people last year
@Richard Day: brilliant point!
@Richard Day: So as long as we have homeless people dying we should tolerate people dying from pollution?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: Take a day off !
@Thomas O’ Donnell: passed the strip mine in Jullich near Aachen yesterday. 10 bagger machines working on the mine with a potential of 3k to 4k tones of coal an hour per machine sending it to Eschweiler power station to be consumed for Germanys industrial network. 1 power station in Germany & you think old people burning turf is going to play a role in clearing up the environment. Fair enough if they really play that kind of role give them free electricity to heat their homes and cook or lay off the cool aid.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: seriously look at putins bombs…….. pollution coming from China…….. now look at a rural home in Ireland burning turf and ask yourself about the situation again.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: Apparently
@Richard Day: I can’t believe you spent money buying a phone with all the homeless people dying
@Richard Day: How many more passed unnecessarily because of our shambolic health service. 900000+ on waiting lists. How many have passed without ever getting to see a consultant how many more will.Are these tolerable!! How long more will he and his cohorts “tolerate”a third world health service and ignore the chaos within or is that of lesser importance than his ridiculous turf war.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: how glib!
@Mickety Dee: Ignor-ant comment.
He’s fixated on these abstract excess deaths, when users of turf couldn’t give a toss for statistics. If a person dies one year before the average for their gender, because they used a turf fire (and maybe smoked in their life and enjoyed a drink and an odd fry up and were sedentary), is it still an excess death, or an enjoyable life well lived? It pains me to say it, but SF are right when they ask how many excess deaths will be caused by forced fuel poverty and cold houses cause?
@Eoin Roche: abstract? They are fairly real for those that die.
@Bri Lyons: Funnily enough, I can’t find the data he is using anywhere. In any given year, 35,000 people die in Ireland of old age, disease, accidents, suicide. However people don’t die of old age at all. They die of the failure of their bodies, through a combination of different ailments and injuries and their immune systems being overwhelmed. A “natural” death of the type that will eventually get us all, even if we lived to be 120. Most of that wear and tear is environmental. Sunshine, pathogens in the air, heat and cold stress, even gravity! And yes pollution. But, without Ryan’s data, how are we to know what other factors are contributing to these deaths? How premature actually are they? Are 1,300 deaths out of 35,000 normal deaths worth driving whole counties into fuel poverty for?
@Eoin Roche: https://irishheart.ie/news/public-unaware-of-serious-health-impacts-of-burning-smoky-fuel/
According to the EPA’s annual air quality report for 2019, air pollution caused 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland last year – up from 1,180 in 2018.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Ah OK good to see the data. So Ryan is flagging these excess deaths and not making clear that the figures include the burning of smoky solid fuels in urban areas. And yet subsistence burning of turf from local sources is going to take the hit for that. He says the Attorney General tells him that he may not separate turf from smoky coal in any national ban legislation. Is anyone asking why not? Is the AGs advice going to be tested? How can they then say that “traditional” turf use WILL in fact be exempted, but not local distribution and sales and barter between households? The whole proposition is a mess and has Ryan’s clumsy paws all over it. Again.
@Eoin Roche: The problem is mainly PM2.5s. PM2.5s are minute soot particles, small enough to enter deep into the lungs, and when in the lungs they can cause heart disease, brain haemorrhages, strokes, and lung cancer. This article explains why PM2.5s are so toxic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327965/
Essentially they cause oxidative stress, this involves the release of toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) into the blood stream which causes inflammation of blood vesicles, causing them to narrow and stiffen, and blood to thicken, the type of changes that cause heart disease and strokes.
How do we know PM2.5s are so toxic and cause deaths?
Alexeeff et al. averaged the results of 42 previous studies between 2005 and 2019 into PM2.5 air pollution.
They found a minuscule increase of just 10 microgram per m2 in PM2.5s increased the risk of fatal coronary heart disease by 23%, fatal cerebrovascular disease by 24%, strokes by 13%, and possibly heart attacks by 8%.
It is meta-Analyses like this that the EPA and the EU, combined with 90 air pollution monitoring stations across the country, to estimate the disease burden caused by PM2.5 air pollution. Today’s PM2.5 levels are 9 to 17 microgram per m2, these levels can double or more depending on weather conditions.
Is this study trustworthy?
This is a meta-analysis, a systematic review of many (42) previous, peer reviewed, medical studies published between 2005 and 2019. Since a meta-analyses do not rely on only one source of information but many, it is the most reliable form of scientific evidence:
https://scienceforwork.com/trustworthiness-scientific-evidence/
Alexeeff, S.E., Liao, N.S., Liu, X., Van Den Eeden, S.K. and Sidney, S. 2021. Long‐Term PM2.5 Exposure and Risks of Ischemic Heart Disease and Stroke Events: Review and Meta‐Analysis. Journal of the American Heart Association, 10, e016890.
Several studies in Ireland also confirmed the link between increased air pollution, and increased heart attacks and strokes:
Quintyne, I., Sheridan, A., Kenny, P. and O’Dwyer, M., 2020. Air Quality and Its Association with Cardiovascular and Respiratory Hospital Admissions in Ireland. Ir Med J, 113(6), p.92.
Byrne, C.P., Bennett, K.E., Hickey, A., Kavanagh, P., Broderick, B., O’Mahony, M. and Williams, D.J., 2020. Short-term air pollution as a risk for stroke admission: a time-series analysis. Cerebrovascular Diseases, 49(4), pp.404-411.
@Eoin Roche: “So Ryan is flagging these excess deaths and not making clear that the figures include the burning of smoky solid fuels in urban areas.”
No, we banned the burning of smoky fuels in most large urban areas, in 24 towns and cities including all of ‘Co. Dublin’ (Dublin City, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin). See Coal restricted areas on this map, it’s under Environment & Wellbeing:
@Eoin Roche: exactly, wonder do Eamon Ryan know what is used to to generate electricity at ESB moneypoint power station on the river Shannon kilrush Co Clare ?
@David Jordan: my family tree would totally contradict that rigmarole, and on top of that, you can’t burn turf it’s bad for your health, but you can smoke and drink your head off and that’s ok. Oh Jesus get down off the Cross and let me up on to it.
@Eoin Roche: you had me until you mentioned SF in the same sentence as excess deaths. They know a lot about that topic.
150 homeless deaths this year, FFG response increase home prices.
2,800 deaths due to fuel poverty, FFG response increase prices.
1,300 hundred deaths due to air pollution, FFG response increase data Center’s using mega wattage increasing generating pollution but ban turf for those who cannot harvest their own supplies.
Profit trumps all again. Citizens pay.
@M Bowe: The issue is PM2.5 soot particles which increase the rates of heart disease and stroke, the only power station in the State, that may generate this form of pollution is Moneypoint.
However, it filters the flue gases thus reducing pollution. For example, NOx emissions at Moneypoint decreased 98.8% between 1990 and 2018 with the use of selective catalytic reduction technology. So the major sources of PM2.5s are diesel vehicles and peat burning.
@M Bowe:
Where did you get all that information from? Did you make it up? Why wasn’t this not reported in the media? or from opposition TD’s?
@David Jordan: That data is from an urban environment. Burning turf in a rural setting where the vast majority of turf is burned will not cause the concentrations required to cause damage to health. Copy and paste what you like and pretend to be an expert on all things that you seem to be on here but you are wrong on this
More nanny state fear mongering. Why not make everyone where a helmet while they are driving while we are at it. Or how about needing a license to buy a kitchen knife. Just let people live their lives.
@Vestigial: Helmets for drivers isn’t a bad idea, people are always pushing it for cyclists. Car accidents are responsible for 17% of traumatic brain injuries.
@Vestigial: the way some kads drive, that would not be a bad idea!
Said it before and I’ll say it again , Varadkar and Martin are responsible for this looo….ny being unleased on us.
Fed up with the government placating to every whim of Ryan just to stay in power. I accept that change is needed to try save lives and the planet however, Ryan needs to realise that the people need to want to do these things and not have them rammed down our throats without explaining exactly what the sodding plan is. He appears to think “I said it therefore it is” just cus he may be morally correct does not mean it should be done in the manner he wants.
What a absolute di#khead
This guy is making a laughing stock of us all,and it’s really not funny anymore
This FFGG Government is a shambles, possibly worse, if that’s possible, than the FF/Green Government that was ousted in 2011. Let them all swing together at the next General Election.
He should be turfed out!!
D.O.P.E !!!!!!
Yes Éamon so let’s get the hospital waiting lists down to realistic numbers and provide enough beds, doctors and nurses to look after the people! Back to the bog with you
Anyone who votes for the Green Party is an absolute !d!ot
I been around this planet since the forties and never heard of a doctor saying some body died from turf anywhere.
Now politicians roaring and bawling about turf for endless months instead of addressing the real issues affecting peoples such as cost of living.
It’s grand to die from the lack of any health system in this country though. There is a 13 month waiting list for an ultrasound scan in the Mater Hospital. It’s just turf that you’re not allowed die from. Feel free to die on a HSE waiting list.
Our government is supposed to govern for the good of all our people. Yet, lead by the Green party they decided not to prospect for Oil, and Gas In Ireland. It appeared inevitable since 2014 that Mr. Putin would invade Ukraine. The government has never had as many highly paid advisers.
They have tunnel vision about climate change, but until the rest of the world buys into this, the only result in Ireland
will a failed economy, and our people dying from Cold.
Omg, and he gets schooled by “8 advisers “, you couldn’t really make this up.
The man is an obvious looper and needs to be sanctioned, for his own good and of course OURS
And how much more st.. idity do we have to tolerate from politicians.
3 people die every day in this country from addiction while Ryan and this shambles of a government prioritised whether we vote for a mayor or not over trying to tackle the drugs issue. So let’s start with 3 people a day because that’s what Eminem currently tolerates on that issue.
@Declan Doherty: Ryan not Eminem obviously.
Eamon Ryan and his partners “Friends of the Irish Environment “ are wasting millions of taxpayers money on legal aid purposely flooding villages and destroying communities at “Lough Funshinagh flood Crisis “
In Co Roscommon
So just ban smoking as well while he’s at it
@Michael Dikie Foran: Cheek of him. It’s a free country and if he doesn’t want or need to use turf or tobacco himself, he’s free to choose any alternatives affordable to him.
@Michael Dikie Foran: The government would never ban smoking as they make too much money form people smoking.
Box of smokes €14 approx €2.50 a pack before taxes are added on.
@Dave Byrne: how much of the Health budget is spent of treating patients with smoking related illnesses? The sale and purchase of smokes should be made as difficult as possible. The age on which someone can buy smokes should be increase by 1 or 2 years every year.
@Michael Dikie Foran: too much of a tax take from it. But those taxes are sold as trying to price people off smoking, yet they never put in this tax in a way that drives peolle to give them up…50c 2 times a year…. enough to make it look as if they are doing something but not enoughto force people off them. After all, people who smoke will always find that 50c when they need to, it is an addiction after all. And how those taxes were sold are a bit like how the carbon tax is sold as a way to price people off fossil fuels….except the rural population of the country have no EV charging network or a public transport system, that are fit for purpose, that they can use as an alternative to fossil fuels to get around.
@Joe_X: regarding smoking, hop on a cheap Ryanair flight to Spain or Portugal, buy 20 cartons @ €57/carton, fly home the following day. These are EU duty paid cigarettes for self consumption. The financial saving is €97/carton, so it makes perfect financial sense. Customs might get stroppy, but once they’re for self use, they can’t do anything about it. A few idle threats, but they have no legal right to impound them.
@Seosamh Mac Cionnaith: Would be an Idea but I finally managed to give them up after 30 years….and it wasn’t the price made me give them up either, I kept managing to find the extra 50c. Woke up a morning last December and no smokes and no time to get them before work so did without them, and one day ked to the next and so on.
No, my point is, if the Goverment were serious about people giving up smoking, instead of raising the price slowly like they are, they would chuck a €10.00 hike at once and shock people off them. But they are not serious about it, just like how with the carbon tax they’re not serious either, otherwise the alternatives would be in place properly so that everyone can have a choice and choose what the want. Fossil Fueled private transport and carbon tax or Renewables/ public transport and no carbon tax. The rural sectors do not have that choice at the moment.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: No one needs to use tobacco. And it’s not an entirely free country, lot’s of things are illegal.
@Joe_X: congratulations on packing them in. Unfortunately I’m still a work in progress. And yes, you are right, the government should ban them outright or make them completely unaffordable. But, like alcohol, the tax take is massive, and they don’t know how to cope without it. Cigarettes, alcohol, and petrol/diesel, they’re not called the old reliables for nothing.
@Seosamh Mac Cionnaith: very true. Same things hit every year at budget time, and will probably still be happening long after we are gone!
This minister and his party are deluded, miss guided and playing for the camera.
No mention of Air travel, Concrete production or Timber framed houses? Beef production, Diesel trains, Diesel Ferries and cruise liners or container vessels no, but Jimmy Mary or Joseph cant burn Turf… What next, ?A ban on Tatched cottages or Red hair and freckles maybe. A practical green party has a place on our island but this jester needs to go.
https://airquality.ie/stations
This is every monitoring station in the country. All are showing good air quality.
@The Bolt: It’s almost May, I doubt many people are still burning turf all day long at this time of year.
@Alan Byrne: https://airquality.ie/calendar?station=EPA-54&month=1&year=2022
There’s Ennis in January as an example. Still clean air.
@The Bolt: That’s Carlow, Ennis is https://airquality.ie/calendar?station=EPA-25&month=1&year=2022
Actually, Ennis seems to be the worst one in the country for January, lol
Its dangerous to breath in fumes from turf so a total ban during the worst energy crisis…but its ok not to ban smoking. Same argument!! Oh wait no tax collected on turf.
Shut all the pubs as well then.
@Jason Dawson: Healy Rae’s don’t like this.
Although this is a serious issue for people leaving in the country and rightly so its just distraction from the main issues.. the country is going to hell in a hand cart ..no new hospital ..price of that is true the roof no houses for our own people .and we could have a minster taking over the the running of the country that there is a question mark over his big nubby head…. And mehole stills has lessons to learn even tho he has been in politics for God knows how long
I used to think the Healy-Raes were the most embarrasing in the Dail, but this lad, especially considering his position is really try to steal that crown.
Oh no mr healthy is awake and wagging his finger ,that clown will live forever and have a pension the likes of never seen in the state before ,look what fffg have unleashed on us !!
Water this vegetation with diesel
Has he any proof that actual turf burning alone has killed anyone,
Did he not fly to the States recently, was that pollution free ?.
Myself and everyone I knew had turf fires growing up and we all grand Eamonn Ryan is making a mountain out of a molehill he just clueless
Still waiting to see a death certificate stating air quality as the cause…The 1300 no is a fantasy figure
Remember when we had smokey coal in Dublin , the buildings were black with the stuff, especially the central bank and Trinity.
@ChronicAnxiety: That was the leaded petrol and diesel fumes.
Is the turf club anything to do with this does anyone know?
Isn’t an awful lot of the smokey coal coming down from the north,and people are selling it,if u can save on buying your coal and it’s 5 or more euros cheaper,your going to buy it for that amount,It’s constant talk about climate change,but when people can’t afford to pay over the top to heat the house,or be able to afford petrol or diesel to go to work,the climate change is the last thing on your mind,and what Cabbage head is doing with the Greens,is making people angry,and it does the opposite,people don’t want to hear about sods of turf in Counties that are miles away from them..give us a chance to sort out the immediate problems right now.
How many people die from smoking every year? It’s irrelevant to Eamon Ryan because cigarettes bring in too much revenue to ban. He’s picking on turf and peat because it looks good in a fight against climate change.
How many more idiotic statements from this grade A mope should we endure? Tunnel vision, woeful communication, and a refusal to consider any other point of view. The media portray him as sensible and intelligent, and perhaps he is. However, he does himself no favours with his myopic perseverance with policies which are unworkable for the most part. He is not helped by his partners in government, they seem to tolerate whatever he comes up with just to cling on to power. The tail is definitely wagging the dog here. Government policies, not just green initiatives, need to be thoroughly thought through, and sustainable. As a country we are too reactionary. This is perfectly acceptable in issues like the Ukraine crisis, but the running of our country deserves more work and better policies.
We are either serious about meeting our carbon emission targets or we are not.
This is just the beginning, turf is a very dirty fuel.
He’s not going to put your grandmother in jail ………that’s what he stated on the news oh wow how rude
Come on people, turf cutting belongs to the dark ages. Get some solar panels ffs
@François Pignon: will you pay for them for people struggling to live on a pension
@François Pignon: For many the subsidies are insufficient to cover the cost of the full installations of renewable tech. Many have more pressing concerns to spend money on, especially at the moment.
@François Pignon: Let them eat cake?
@Joe_X: it’s funny actually, I was just looking at tonight’s episode of “The Price Of Everything” that I had recorded this evening and they were actually covering Energy. On it, they were covering the BER of houses and showed a house being surveyed. At the end of this particular section, the episode told us that the lady who owned the house would need €26,000 after the grants were included. The improvements surveyed for were roof insulation, external wall insulation and the associated ventilation and heating upgrades.
Now I do not have €26000 lying around to upgrade my place and if I need to take out a loan, there are plenty other things that need sorting first. And I am pretty sure that I’m not the only one in this particular boat!
Now while the program was well thought out, I did have a few issues with it, most of what they covered were urban issues, never mentioned the carbon tax, only what the government has done so far concerning the energy crisis, and never thought of going to a rural area to cover what prospects faced the people of those areas.
@François Pignon: Solar panels do not provide you with a reliable, dependable energy source. I have solar thermal. We have too much when it’s a blue sky day, when it dumps heat to the radiators into already very warm rooms. So we have to open the windows to let the heat out. And very, very little from October to April. It’s good for hot water from April to September but no way will it heat our home.
Pearse missing the point again. And throwing out the word correlation to make yourself sound smart is getting old as well. Try causation or at least understand the difference between the two.
Jesus we light a turf fire and we all die ..
A noddy awakes with more nonsense in the cabbage head
How much Coal is Used to Generate Electricity compared to Usage of Turf
What is an appropriate age to die? And can the earth support us into indefinite old age
If we want to deal with climate change and stop pollution than burning Turf must eventually come to an end.
What a complete plo@nker this lad is.
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