Work & Life Issue No 10

work & life THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS

ISSUE 10 • SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

THE BIG SPLASH Ireland’s beaches and waterways get set for summer fun

ALSO INSIDE

PLUS

TIME TO TACKLE TOP PAY WHEN CARING FOR FAMILY TAKES OVER YOUNG LIVES YOUR CHANCE TO CHOOSE FAIR HOTELS WE SPEAK TO NEW IMPACT LEADERS IRELAND’S CIVIL DEFENCE KEEPING YOU SAFE

NEW IMPACT PRESIDENT SPEAKS. GET THAT JOB. SUMMER FASHION. SLEEP TIGHT. FEELGOOD FOOD. GROW YOUR VEG. INDY MOVIES. NIALL CROWLEY INTERVIEW. DANCE MUSIC. IRELAND’S BOXING CHAMPS. YOUR LETTERS. GAELTACHT WINNERS. LOTS OF COMPS AND QUIZZES!

www.impact.ie

In this issue

work &life – Summer/Autumn 2010 COVER FEATURES

REGULARS

MORE REGULARS

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4

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AT THE MOVIES

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EQUALITY ATTACK

BANK IT LIKE BECKHAM BERNARD HARBOR asks if it’s time we considered formal limits on top incomes.

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TOUGH LOVE

We talk to Kerry man KEVIN O’MALLEY, just elected as IMPACT’s new president.

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NIALL SHANAHAN discovers it’s hard work being a young carer.

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IMPACT PEOPLE

YOUR LETTERS

We talk to Niall Crowley about his new book on how the system smashed Ireland’s independent equality service.

Bemused by the banks?

Confused on Croke Park? Get some new insights from IMPACT members.

NEW TEAM TAKES REINS

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YOUR CAREER

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HELL OR HIGH WATER

FASHION TRISH O’MAHONY on the delicate challenge of dressing for the Irish summer.

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ARE WE HUMANS? RAYMOND CONNOLLY takes a terrifying look at the relationship between music and dancing.

ISOBEL BUTLER on making your job application stand out from the crowd.

We speak to IMPACT’s new general secretary SHAY CODY and his deputy KEVIN CALLINAN.

Independent filmmakers are still turning out some gems says MORGAN O’BRIEN.

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SLEEP TIGHT

BOXING CLEVER It’s another golden era for Irish boxing. KEVIN NOLAN reports.

Whether you’re lost on a mountain or cut off by the floods, Ireland’s civil defence service is at hand to help.

MARTINA O’LEARY finds out how they do it.

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NEWS

CHOOSE FAIR HOTELS A new campaign offers fairer choices for ethical consumers.

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THE BIG SPLASH You’re never far away from some sort of water sport or leisure activity. MARTINA O’LEARY dips into some of the options.

KAREN WARD is putting insomnia to bed.

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FOOD You don’t need a Nobel prize to start enjoying feelgood food says MARGARET HANNIGAN.

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GREEN FINGERS Late bloomers and delicious veg from JIMI BLAKE.

Win Win Win…

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CROKE PARK DEAL NEW OFFICERS ELECTED ICTU’S ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVE PUBLIC SERVICES COMMUNITY JOBS CRISIS IMPACT SUPPORTS FAIR HOTELS PRIVATE SECTOR PAY PORTIUNCULA HOSPITAL GAZA SUPPORT

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Put pen to paper and win €50.

Win a copy of Niall Crowley’s new book.

Enter our prize quiz and win €50.

Tell us what you think and win €100.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 1

That was then…

THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS

work&life

Don’t get carried away

THE SUN is streaming through the office window as this issue of WORK & LIFE goes to press and people are actually complaining about the heat. But by the time you read this, we’ll probably be watching the hailstones batter the glass. When it comes to the Irish summer weather, we know better than to get carried away.

Work & Life is produced by IMPACT trade union’s Communications Unit and edited by Bernard Harbor.

It’s the same with union business. When we published the last magazine, our IMPACT negotiators were still holed up in Croke Park trying to hammer out an agreement. Now we have a deal. But, as our new leadership team SHAY CODY and KEVIN CALLINAN say in their interview on page 12, the hard work starts now. We also have an interview with incoming IMPACT president KEVIN O’MALLEY.

Contact IMPACT at: Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1.

Phone: 01-817-1500.

Email: rnolan@impact.ie.

Also on the pay theme, BERNARD HARBOR, writes that soaring executive pay has been a big part of the problem when it comes to our economic woes. He asks if it’s time to start capping top peoples’ pay. At the other end of the scale, we outline a new campaign to win fair pay and working conditions for hotel workers – including your chance to make a difference when you book that holiday or break. And NIALL SHANAHAN looks at the tough daily struggles of Ireland’s small army of young carers.

In our public service feature, MARTINA O’LEARY looks at the important contribution of Ireland’s civil defence officers. She also surveys some of the water-based pastimes and holidays you can enjoy in Ireland this summer (check out the great photos from former IMPACT official Emer O’Shea, including the one on the front cover).

There’s advice from ISOBEL BUTLER on putting your CV together. Equally vital, TRISH O’MAHONY has some tips on dressing well for the volatile summer weather. KAREN WARD knows how to get a good night’s kip, while MARGARET HANNIGAN takes to the kitchen to cook up some wonderful feelgood food.

Front cover: Sligo surfer.

Photo by Emer O’Shea.

Designed by: O’Brien Design & Print Management.

Phone: 01-864-1920.

Email: nikiobrien@eircom.net.

Printed by Boylan Print Group.

Advertising sales: Frank Bambrick.

Phone: 01-453-4011.

IMPACT trade union IMPACT is Ireland’s fastest growing trade union with over 65,000 members in the public services and elsewhere.

We represent staff in the health services, local authorities, education, the civil service, the community sector, aviation, telecommunications and commercial and non-commercial semi-state organisations.

Find out more about IMPACT on

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www.impact.ie

Live 8, a set of ten simultaneous concerts, takes place across the globe on 2nd July 2005 to coincide with the G8 summit.

It’s part of the Make Poverty History campaign.

Caffeine hit – or miss?

IT MIGHT be all you’ve got to turn to when you arrive in the office but it’s useless. A new study by scientists from Germany and Britain has concluded that coffee doesn’t give you an alertness lift in the morning, or any other time for that matter.

Whether it’s hardcore espresso or a light latte (the milky drink for people who don’t like coffee) your daily caffeine intake will not pick you up, get you going, or even string you out.

The study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology (and you thought Work & Life was a mouthful) found that occasional coffee drinkers get no alertness boost after taking a cup in the morning, while die-hard addicts simply regain their normal levels of alertness following their overnight deprivation.

That’s not to say you can’t get addicted. Because your body can become more tolerant to caffeine, you can find yourself hooked on coffee. That’s why you might have suffered withdrawal symptoms, including lethargy or inability to focus.

Could the boffins’ conclusion that office life won’t go better with coffee herald a fitting end to the cappuccino culture that kept the Celtic Tiger roaring? If so it would be bad news for the coffee business. On average, each of us swills 3.5 kilogrammes of coffee beans each year, placing us 37th in the global coffee-consumption league table.

Ten years ago tea was our brew of choice. Back then, Ireland had the highest per capita tea consumption in the world at 3.2 kilogrammes a year, an average of four cups every day. But that declined as the coffee started flowing.

In the Starbucks era, coffee has truly become the global beverage of choice. But at least we can distinguish ourselves with our uniquely Irish Irish coffee.

Unless otherwise stated, the views contained in Work & Life do not necessarily reflect the policy of IMPACT trade union.

Work & Life is printed on environmentally friendly paper, certified by the European Eco Label. This magazine is 100% recycable.

On the cultural front, MORGAN O’BRIEN checks out the independent movie scene while RAYMOND CONNOLLY gets his dancing shoes on. Mind your toes!

Enjoy this issue of WORK & LIFE – and what’s left of the summer.

5 years ago

STRANGE WORLD

Work & Life Magazine is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. In addition to defending the freedom of the press, this scheme offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman. ie or www.presscouncil.ie.

All suppliers to Work & Life recognise ICTU-affiliated trade unions.

Reputedly invented to help travellers keep warm while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it’s guaranteed to ensure that coffee keeps its place in Irish hearts, regardless of whether it peps you up or not. Don’t be drinking it at work, though.

The 2012 Olympics are awarded to London on 6th July. The following day four suicide bombers detonate explosions on the London transport network killing 56 and injuring over 700.

The Provisional IRA officially ends its armed campaign on 28th July. Next day Limerick woman Dolores McNamara wins the €115 million Euro Millions jackpot – Europe’s largest ever lottery prize.

20 years ago

Nelson Mandela addresses a joint session of the houses of the Oireachtas on 2nd July 1990.

The Three Tenors sing together for the first time on 7th July, in Rome, the night before soccer’s 1990 World Cup final.

Millions worldwide watch Pavarotti’s performance of Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s opera Turandot.

West Germany beat Argentina 1–0 to win the 1990 World Cup on 8th July after Ireland bow out in the quarter finals following defeat to Italy.

Brian Keenan is released after 1,574 days of Beirut captivity on 24th August.

50 years ago

Harper Lee publishes her critically acclaimed novel To Kill A Mockingbird on 11th July 1960. Later that month, the Woolworth’s counter in Greensboro, North Carolina serves its first black customer after five months of pickets and sit-ins.

100 years ago

Dan Spring, Gaelic footballer, union official, Irish Labour Party TD and father of future Labour leader Dick Spring, is born on 1st July 1910.

African-American boxer Jack Johnson defeats American boxer James J Jeffries in a heavyweight tie on 4th July, sparking race riots across the USA. Cities across America ban the film of the bout after at least ten people are killed in the racial violence that followed the fight.

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members

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IMPACT people

Tall. Dark. But certainly no stranger “If you thought about things you’d never start. When you’re in it you just want to get to the finish.”

Who would you love a pint with?

Che Guevara. It’s that Cuban connection again. For people of my age Che and Castro are real icons. For all his faults, Cuba is still a very important project. I met people from South America who believe people are entitled to a great education and health system without dependency on the USA. Apart from the fact that his great-grand father was Irish - Lynches from Clare.

How would you describe yourself?

Tall, dark and handsome, clean shaven with a good sense of humour.

Forthright with strong opinions. The rest is probably unprintable in a family magazine.

I have a large music collection, but my favourite is Cuban. My favourite movies are the The Blues Brothers and When Brendan Met Trudy. And anything by Woody Allen or The Marx Brothers.

What teams do you support?

Kerry football and hurling. Munster rugby. Ireland and Arsenal soccer. I became an Arsenal supporter by default, as my younger lad supported them. It was as easy to go along with him.

What’s the best match you’ve ever been to?

One of the best was the Irish play-off in Paris last November. Even though it was really disappointing, with the Thierry Henry handball, it was a great night.

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What would you like to be remembered for?

Leaving things better than I found them.

Interview by Martina O’Leary.

Cuba has an incredible health system. People’s life expectancy is very high, it is a real model for ourselves They train doctors for the whole of South America. For a country dealing with restrictions it shows how resourceful they are.

What’s the best place you’ve visited?

I love Cuba, but I’ve had great times in Nepal and at the World Cup in Japan 2006. I tend to tie my travel plans in with my sport. Probably the best holiday was Macedonia where we went to see an Irish qualifier. It was a real surprise, fantastic and gorgeous.

I hail from Killarney and live in Tralee in the most beautiful part of the world overlooking Dingle bay. I can see Brandon to Kerry head, and the three bays. Of all the places I have travelled it is the most glorious.

What’s your favourite meal?

Fish. Crab claws or monkfish.

What’s your favourite book?

Anything by Michael Connelly or Henning Mankell.

What item can you not leave home without?

My laptop and camera.

What animal are you like?

A bear. Cuddly but strong.

Who inspires you?

Homer Simpson. He survives the disaster that he is. You can take great comfort in that.

What inspires you when the going gets tough?

The challenge. My whole philosophy is to get on with it. If you thought about things, you’d never start. When you’re in it you just want to get to the finish.

Photo: Conor Healy Photography

What are your interests?

I’m into lots of things. Music, travel, sport, movies, photography, railways and Gaeilge. When I gave my acceptance speech as IMPACT president in May, I gave it in Gaeilge. I’m a lover of Irish, I fully accept that 95% of people aren’t, but it is an essential part of what we do. It saddens me that we don’t use it and a lot don’t like it. It’s an awful failure.

Have you any annoying habits?

I’m inclined to be impatient.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received Try to leave everything in a better state than you found it. It’s another philosophy of mine, it needn’t be a huge improvement but it would be a great place if we all did something small. Even down to taking home your rubbish from the beach on a Sunday.

KEVIN O’MALLEY has just been elected as IMPACT’s new president for the next two years.

We find out what makes the Kerry man tick.

Tell me about working in Killarney Town Council I work as an administrative officer and deputy town clerk. Killarney is Ireland’s premier tourist destination. It has a static population of 14,000 and is funded accordingly. But in the summer that can rise to 35 or 40,000 which puts a great strain on the local authority. But we have a great team of staff, both indoor and outdoor, and we have won a number of prestigious awards in the past few years. The job has great variety and it’s never less than interesting.

Why did you want to become IMPACT President?

This is really a defining moment in trade unionism. We’re in a space we never envisaged and it will affect our members, their working conditions and how public services will be provided in this country. I’ve been involved for a long time but, as president, I can make a new contribution. Particularly now with IMPACT‘s new general secretary. It’s a great opportunity.

What are your pet hates?

Negativity. Mean people. I can’t stand tight people.

How did you get involved in IMPACT? I went to a branch meeting many years ago and haven’t got home yet.

What’s the best thing about being involved in the union?

The satisfaction of making a difference, meeting committed people and making great friends. Not to mention the wonderful social life. Oh and I nearly forgot the hard work.

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members

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Executive pay

Bank it like Beckham The richest 1% of Ireland’s population own 20% of the nation’s wealth.

As new studies show the damaging effect of inequality on our society and economy, BERNARD HARBOR asks if it’s time we considered formal limits on top incomes.

WHEN CATHAL Magee was announced as the new HSE boss last May, the media made much of the fact that, at €322,000 a year, his salary would be almost a hundred grand more than the Government planned.

It’s big bucks. No argument. The kind of inflated salary that drives ordinary public servants up the wall as they struggle to pay the mortgage and feed the kids after the imposition of pay cuts and levies.

But, while some reports compared Mr Magee’s new income with that of his predecessor Brendan Drumm, very few felt inclined to juxtapose it with his salary of €860,000 a year in his old job as Eircom boss.

Meanwhile this world view is entirely in keeping with the “have you taken a pay cut” media theme of 2009, which was almost exclusively directed at senior public servants, politicians and union leaders. Only at the height of the banking debacle did the occasional senior financier come under the cosh.

Meanwhile, the huge salaries, bonuses, pension pots and perks that go to the highest paid private sector executives attract scant media analysis, although they are celebrated each year in the obscene Sunday Times ‘rich list.’

In the last couple of years, the entire debate about pay – including top people’s salaries – has focussed on the public service. This helps maintain the media maxim that all public servants are overpaid. But it also conveniently takes the focus off the fat-cat bankers, financiers and speculators whose antics wrecked the economy, and whose salaries and perks continue to wind us up.

For years we’ve been told that if you u

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Executive pay want to incentivise the poor you should cut their benefits – a view that’s back, big time, since the last budget – but that million-plus bonuses are the only way of attracting, retaining and incentivising top talent among the working rich.

As with 9/11, the ‘nothing will ever be the same again’ analysis of the banking collapse didn’t stand the test of time. In 2009, taxpayers – many of whom had suffered pay cuts – coughed up €3.5 billion to keep AIB afloat. In the same year, its senior directors gave themselves €3.6 million in pay and perks.

And, as I wrote this, another €2 billion of our cash was being earmarked for Anglo Irish bank, bringing the total to over €14 billion. Yet earlier this year Anglo gave pay increases to staff on the grounds that they had taken on extra responsibilities.

Filthy rich Until recently the ‘common sense’ view, even on the centre-left, was that inequality isn’t a problem so long as incomes are rising across the board.

Peter Mandelson, one of the main architects of New Labour, was famously “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.” His even more populist buddy Tony Blair trumped Mandy with: “It’s not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money.”

But inequality does matter. And it’s not just a question of begrudgery or even pure irritation that those who caused the current recession seem to be immune from its effects.

Increasingly, centre-left economists are arguing that the wide pay inequalities typified by top executives are bad for society as a whole – and are among the main causes of our economic woes.

In a paper published last December, the UK’s New Economics Foundation argued that a minimum wage is not enough. You have to tackle pay inequality as well.

A Bit Rich: Calculating the real value to society of different professions found that some of the most highly paid professions (top bankers, advertising executives and tax accountants) are of less use to society than many low paid jobs like child care, hospital cleaning and waste recycling. “Financial incentives are very powerful and we tend to shower them on some of the professions that are the most socially and environmentally costly. This promotes undesirable behaviour while positive activities are discouraged,” they argued.

More poor Meanwhile, in their international bestseller The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have argued that almost everything – from life expectancy to mental illness, violence and literacy – is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but by how equal it is. A bigger gap between rich and poor is bad for everyone in a society.

It’s a view echoed by the Irish think-tank TASC, whose HEAP

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chart graphically exposes Irish income inequality. The richest 1% of our population have assets of €100 billion and own 20% of the nation’s wealth. Meanwhile 5% of the population are living in consistent poverty and over 16% are at risk of becoming poor. And according to these 2007, top of the boom, figures 20% of children lived in relative poverty.

Arguing for a minimum income floor of 60% of national median income, TASC says addressing excessive executive pay and bonuses must be part of the solution. “Preventing excessively high incomes and concentrations of wealth at the top is as important as pulling up the incomes at the bottom,” it says.

Meanwhile, while minimum rates are under attack from Government and business, pay at the high end of the Irish scale continues to increase. Although some have foregone bonuses, average pay for top executives has risen from €610,000 to €612,000 a year.

It’s hard to understand why this isn’t higher up the political agenda when a 2009 TASC survey found that over 70% of Irish people were concerned about wealth inequality and 85% wanted the Government to tackle it. Its forthcoming 2010 survey isn’t expected to show any less appetite for change.

Maximum wage?

Nearly seven years ago, New Economics Foundation policy director Andrew Simms began making the case of a maximum wage as a means of tackling inequality from the top as well as the bottom. Simms dismisses the rationale that high executive pay delivers high performance. “Highly paid chief executives excel, first and foremost, in being highly paid. It is what establishes their status, so it becomes the focus of their drive and creativity. A pay ceiling would free directors to use their skills more in the long-term interests of companies than in manoeuvring for their own short-term gain,” he says.

Simms also argues it would be good for social cohesion.

“Above subsistence levels, what undermines our sense of wellbeing most is not our absolute income levels, but how big the gaps are between us and our peers. Allowing the superrich to live apart from society is as damaging in its own way as the exclusion of the poorest.”

He points to examples like the Japanese companies that voluntarily impose pay ratios limiting the gap between those at the top and bottom, and US basketball teams who divide their total remuneration package equally between players.

And he suggests that organisations could levy a marginal 100% tax rate on executives above a certain level, with the money going to charity.

The last point brings us to the question of taxation. Because many of the difficulties associated with a maximum wage (how much? how to enforce?) would be avoided by the simpler approach of making taxes on income and wealth more progressive. After all, the last budget took €760 million from social welfare recipients and imposed an average 7% pay cut on public servants. But just €73 million was asked of millionaires l

Young carers

Young hearts run free The lives of ireland’s 28,000 young carerswere highlighted during this year’s carers’ week. NIALL SHANAHAN looks at the experience of two young people and how caring affects their lives.

These workers have no recourse to industrial action, and successive budgets have only made modest improvements to their circumstances. This caring workforce, which is larger than the entire staff of the HSE, saves the state billions of euro every year.

These people are family carers, providing care to a loved one with an illness or disability on an ongoing basis. There are over 160,000 family carers in Ireland engaged in this challenging role. The experience is often marked by social isolation, financial struggles and health difficulties, including stress.

But most carers are quick to tell you that, despite these and other challenges, the caring experience is defined by love and personal satisfaction at bringing comfort and care to a loved one.

Among this huge army of caring people there are also young carers, aged 18 years or younger. The latest census put the figure of young carers at around 4,500. But in May this year a Carers Association conference heard from Nottingham University Professor Saul Becker that the number could be closer to 28,000.

who takes on a supportive role to the main carer. A young carer may carry out domestic tasks or provide general or intimate or emotional care.

Because of the disruption to education and social development, and the early experience of highly demanding adult responsibilities, there is clearly a need for high quality supports for the thousands of young carers in Ireland.

A new study by the Child and Family Research Centre in NUI Galway, which was commissioned under the Towards 2016 agreement, found that 73% of young carers surveyed began caring before the age of nine and that 34% of young carers researched are primary carers.

The Study on young carers in the Irish population, which was launched at the May conference also found that 61% provide intimate care, including bathing. It said young carers are forced into premature adult roles which has developmental implications.

Conor Hughes, a young carer from Balbriggan, County Dublin, helps to care for his two younger siblings. u

A young carer is a child or young person who provides direct personal care or

Young carer of the year 2009 Maria Maher (right), Ballincollig, County Cork, with her mother Mary.

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members

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Photo: Courtesy of The Carers Association.

THERE IS a huge unpaid workforce in Ireland providing free care on a 24-7 basis, 365 days a year. For this work there are no breaks, no annual leave entitlements, no pension and no perks.

Young carers be made slightly easier. But the challenge goes on. Conor Hughes sums it all up. “I think that anybody who cares for a loved one, whether they are young or old, must feel the physical and emotional stress that it can bring. However they must also feel the great sense of love and personal satisfaction that comes with knowing that you have made that person’s life a little easier. To me that’s what caring is about.” l

“I help my Mam provide care for my sister Christina who is 15. When she was ten she suffered a stroke, which has left her wheelchair-bound and partly paralysed. I also help with the care of my little brother Odhran who is four and has autism.

“When people hear the term ‘young carer’ they are often puzzled as to what exactly it means. In my case I am supporting my mother in caring for my two siblings but in some cases young carers are the primary providers of care in the home,” he says.

As time moved on the main challenge was missing out on school and classes. “While my school was supportive and aware of my family situation, my caring role still placed me at a disadvantage with my education. While I never missed exams I did miss time during the year.” His social life was also affected. “Odhran, my younger brother, will only stay with me or my mother. I am restricted in going out and taking part in social activities like other people of my age. I did take up rugby for a short time but it clashed with hospital appointments and so I couldn’t keep it up.”

Safe place Lack of sleep when Odhran was younger was also common.

Conor’s mother Angela explains: “Conor is Odhran’s safe place.

He is his hero, his protector, not just his big brother. Odhran has a special bedtime routine and Conor is always there to settle him in. This can take 30 minutes or a couple of hours.”

Conor says financial pressures have always been a factor as both Christina and Odhran require a lot of medication and hospitalisation. “For my Mam this has always been difficult to manage with limited financial support for caring. Things like school trips abroad were just not possible.”

Conor is now attending college and says that life has changed a little. “I still live at home and travel in and out to college every day. I don’t think I could have considered a college outside of Dublin as the commuting would have been too much. I have a part-time job on Friday evenings now for five hours but couldn’t work any more than this as Odhran needs his big brother at home at nighttime, if my mam is out. I still take my sister Christina shopping which is not my favourite hobby. But she certainly enjoys it and that’s what counts,” he says.

Maria Maher has been caring for her mother Mary since she was 12 years old. Mary had an accident at the family home in Ballincollig, County Cork, on Maria’s last day in primary school. “Mam broke two bones in a couple of different places and there were complications afterwards with a blood clot and the way the bones healed. Mam was told she would have mobility problems. So she was going to need help.”

Maria explains that her older siblings were starting college, and she was able to help her mother because she had more free time. “School was only walking distance away, and the

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“While my school was supportive and aware of my family situation, my caring role still placed me at a disadvantage with my education. While I never missed exams I did miss time during the year” Conor Hughes, a young carer from Balbriggan, County Dublin, shares his thoughts on the young carers experience with Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews at the carers conference last May in Croke Park.

routine at home changed as I was going into secondary school, so everything was different, it was just part of all the other changes happening.”

She never really thought of herself as a carer, “I just think it’s something you would automatically do, to help at home and whatever. I still have a social life and all of that.”

Maria won the Young Carer of the Year Award in 2009. “I didn’t know anything about the awards until Mam said we were going along to this event. But meeting other young carers there really opened my mind, I hadn’t met anyone else who was a young carer before then. It made me realise just how many people there are out there all over the country doing this.”

Maria has just completed her first year in University College Cork where she is studying food science. Happily she passed all her exams and is looking forward to another three years of studies.

She’s critical of what she sees as minimal support from the state. “The government just isn’t really doing that much for carers. We’re lucky in that we live in a well populated area and I have my Dad and older siblings here too, so there’s plenty of support. There isn’t the same sense of isolation that a person might feel in a more rural area,” she says.

“There is a serious lack of awareness around young carers and the unique issues they face in providing varying levels of care, usually to parents or siblings, in their childhood,” says Enda Egan, CEO of The Carers Association. “With no supports currently in place for young carers, we are asking Government u

Photo: Mark Stedman, Photocall Ireland.

Have you recently become a carer?

Conor recalls that the immediate aftermath of his sister’s illness was a particularly difficult time. He was 13 years old. “The issues that stand out for me are firstly the disbelief and sadness of my sister’s sudden illness. The initial coming to terms with this and the stress that it caused for the family were immense. The lack of information and emotional support at that time for both my mother and myself sticks in my mind,” he says.

to implement cost-effective measures to help them in their caring role such as a dedicated young carer’s website with information and forums.”

Web-based information and forums, dedicated to the needs of young carers, have been established very successfully in Britain and provide much needed links to information and peer-to-peer support for young people. The Irish study strongly indicates that there is a hunger for a similar network among young carers in Ireland.

Conor Hughes agrees, “I would like somebody to talk to who is in a similar situation to me either in person or through a chat room. Also, better information and financial support for young carers and to attend support group meetings with other young carers who can relate to my issues.”

The hardest part of the individual carer’s experience is that sense of social isolation. Carers meeting each other at support group meetings are struck by how other people are experiencing the same struggle as themselves. The shared experience is a huge boost to carers, and it makes sense for young carers to be able to the same.

IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone says it’s now time to provide the right kind of supports. “It is an absolute necessity that the transformation of public services makes a difference to the lives of carers. Now that the Croke Park agreement has been ratified, there is no time to waste. We need to be able to coordinate the broad range of services and supports that carers need, deliver them quickly, efficiently, and in a way that means that carers aren’t dragged from pillar to post trying to coordinate those supports themselves. For far too long that is what they have been forced to do,” he says.

If you or someone you know has recently taken on the care of a loved one who needs full time caring, there are a number of support organisations offering practical advice and assistance.

The Carers Association Ireland’s national voluntary organisation for and of family carers in the home. The Association was established in 1987 to lobby and advocate on behalf of carers.

The Carers Association has 16 resource centres and two service projects from which it delivers a wide range of services to carers throughout Ireland. Members are also kept up to date on services, community activities, training courses and events.

Visit www.carersireland.com or call The Carers Association on freefone 1800-240-724 for advice, support and details about becoming a member of the association.

Care Alliance Ireland Care Alliance Ireland is the national network of voluntary organisations supporting family carers. “We aim to support organisations in their direct work of supporting family carers all over Ireland. We also provide information, education and training, regarding the needs of family carers; we carry out research relating to family carers, and promote inter agency collaboration.”

Contact info@carealliance.ie or call 01-874-7776.

Census 2011 – Question 22 In the 2006 Census 160,917 people identified themselves as “providing regular unpaid personal help.” This figure is very likely to be an under-representation.

The EU has asked all member states to hold a census in 2011.

In Census 2011 the answer to ‘Question 22’ about unpaid help will change and people will be asked to state the number of hours per week that they provide “regular unpaid help.” For the first time, the census facilitates young carers to be identified as “providing unpaid help.”

We will have more information on the campaign to promote awareness of ‘Question 22’ in future editions of Work & Life and the IMPACT ebulletin. l

If this can be achieved, the challenge of being a carer should

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members

11

New IMPACT leadership Photo: Conor Healy

The end of social partnership and a new deal with public service employers means the union will have to do things differently in future, according to new general secretary SHAY CODY and his deputy KEVIN CALLINAN. Work & Life caught up with the new team as they prepared for the challenge.

For all its benefits, Callinan says the years of social partnership before 2009 meant unions came to be seen as part of the establishment, particularly among younger people. “We need to re-emphasise the importance of union membership and participation. I want to ensure that we are speaking directly to secondary school students and college undergraduates in ways that relate to their experiences and hopes,” he says.

But when Shay Cody was ratified as the new general secretary at the recent IMPACT conference, with Kevin Callinan as his deputy, few eyes strayed from the union’s debate about pay cuts, the so-called ‘pension levy’ and the new Croke Park deal.

The new deputy general secretary started his IMPACT career as an activist in Dublin Corporation before being hired as an organiser in the Dublin health sector. He then moved on to work in the civil service before leading the union’s Health and Welfare division for 12 years.

So it was a relatively quiet handover after 18 months of attacks on IMPACT members, pay cuts, ballots, negotiations, demonstrations and industrial action, which culminated in IMPACT members backing the Croke Park deal by 77% to 23% in a national ballot.

Callinan says the Croke Park debate has been good for the union. “By and large, those who voted for and against the deal have similar concerns,” he says.

Perhaps this means things will calm down on the campaign front now that the new agreement has been ratified.

“Not at all,” says Shay. “Croke Park is a framework and it’s going to take a huge amount of work to operate the agreement and ensure that staff and services are protected as budgets continue to fall. We’ve been absolutely clear to the Government and to individual public service employers that this agreement will not work under that amount of strain without ongoing engagement with staff and their unions.”

“It’s going to take a lot of effort to prove that the union can achieve the positive outcomes we’ve sought through Croke Park and other campaigns. Not just for people who use public services, but for our members who deliver them,” he says.

Both men recognise that building trade union strength and organisation – in the public and private sectors – is crucial to this. Part of Kevin Callinan’s new role as deputy general secretary will be to develop the union’s recruitment and internal organisational initiatives.

“The economic crisis has left workers, particularly public servants, taking the hit for the crimes and mistakes of others.

IMPACT and other unions have taken a knock, but not the fatal blow that our critics on the right would have liked. The task now is to rebuild our organisation and make it more relevant and effective,” he argues.

IN NORMAL times, the changing of the guard at the top of Ireland’s biggest and most influential public service union, not to mention the retirement of long-standing former general secretary Peter McLoone, would probably have got more public attention.

Callinan says the debate around Croke Park has been good for the union. “By and large, those who voted for and against the deal have similar concerns. Many doubt management’s commitment to change and, above all, to protecting and involving staff in the change process.

Strong union

Workers who have refused to join the union are also in his sights. “A lot of public servants, particularly in the professions, got access to good salaries and career structures because of the work of this union over 15 years. They can’t assume that these advantages, which aren’t open to every IMPACT member, will be sustained by employers if the union is not strong enough to ensure that they do. That means they need to be in the union.”

DYNAMIC: Shay Cody (left) was confirmed as IMPACT’s new general secretary at the union’s May conference. Kevin Callinan (right) is his deputy.

Moving closer Both men are huge admirers of outgoing general secretary Peter McLoone and his 15-year stewardship of the union.

Shay wants to build on McLoone’s leadership, which saw the

New team ready for tough times Shay has spent the last 15 years as IMPACT’s deputy general secretary and as leader of the Services and Enterprises division, where he was at the coalface negotiating radical changes as private companies and commercial semi-state organisations like Aer Lingus and Eircom struggled to stay competitive in global markets.

“In many ways Croke Park is similar to what we’ve been trying to achieve for years in parts of the private sector where we’ve worked to protect jobs and incomes by agreeing changes that 12

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

improve productivity. That’s what I understand by the cliché ‘more with less’. And we’ve stitched in principles like priority for the lower paid and restoration of lost income. It won’t be easy or painless in the public service, but it’s not totally uncharted territory either,” he says.

In his acceptance speech at the recent IMPACT conference, Cody was very clear that his first priority was to restore incomes and protect jobs in all sectors. He also stressed the need to campaign with other ICTU unions to get real action on

tackling the unemployment crisis, which demands a fundamentally different approach to economic recovery.

union more than double in size and establish itself as the leading voice of public service workers.

“The Irish Government’s approach, of deflating wages to the exclusion of virtually any other policy instrument as the preferred route to recovery, is a virtually unique policy choice.

It seems that they want to remake the world that existed before the crash with all its inequities and imperfections. In contrast, we want to build a society that is fairer, more equal and safer,” he said.

He says McLoone was a masterful negotiator of national agreements, but also credits him with leading the union into a new approach after the Government walked away from social partnership last year. “Take our hugely successful workplace meetings last summer. We made direct contact with over 10,000 members. There’s never been a communications exercise like it in the union. ➤ WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 13

New IMPACT leadership “Compare this to the old models of centralising debate at the level of executives and senior staff, or relying on poorly-attended evening branch meetings to connect with members. They won’t work anymore and I think we’ll be seeing much more direct contact with members to find out what they are experiencing and thinking, and to explain what the union is doing and why,” says Shay.

Servants, one of the unions that merged to form IMPACT. A pensions expert, he also negotiated for members in local government and the civil service before his long stint in the Services and Enterprises division. He’s upbeat about the union, describing it as strong and influential “admired by most, feared by some and recognised by all within the trade union movement, among our employers and in the political system.”

“Up to 2009, our industrial relations system had been very centralised. The old system bought huge benefits to our people.

But the new situation demands that we spend more time out among members and with our branches. And it gives us the space to do it,” says Cody.

Kevin believes campaigning on social and economic issues will also be central to reshaping the union for the times we live in. “Unions tended to become too passive as campaigners because social partnership agreements were seen as the main, even the only, means of dealing with social and economic issues. It also suited Governments to have us associated with their policies, however much we disagreed.

In his acceptance speech he stressed that IMPACT was not beholden either to employers or governments. The union was “free to criticise policies like the madness of decentralisation, or run a campaign of successful mobilisation as we are doing in defence of Portiuncula hospital. We are free to develop policy like a single-tier health system, properly funded local government and a thriving community and voluntary sector.”

“That has to change, particularly in the context of Croke Park.

Real value in the public service is about quality improvement, not just cost reduction,” he says.

But he sees no contradiction between this independent campaigning role and a willingness and ability to conclude agreements “with both our friends and our opponents” when it’s in the interests of members’ pay, jobs, pensions and working conditions.

Upbeat Shay agrees. He also thinks circumstances mean industrial relations business will have to be done differently over the coming months and years. “Up to 2009, our industrial relations system had been very centralised. Things were dealt with through social partnership machinery, involving ICTU and Government, which is now absent. The old system bought huge benefits to our people, but the new situation demands that we spend more time out among members and with our branches. And it gives us the space to do it,” he says.

The new general secretary started his union career as a researcher in the Union of Professional and Technical Civil

The outcome of the Croke Park negotiations, debate and ballots had confirmed the significant role played by IMPACT in leading and shaping solutions to the most complex problems.

“Despite the challenges that surround us, we stand in good stead for the future. We can prepare for our third decade with confidence,” he says.

Priority number one for both Shay and Kevin is to make the Croke Park deal work for public services and the people who use and deliver them. And that includes implementing the reforms that could see the start of the restoration of public service incomes ●

GAELTACHT

Scholarship Awards 2010 OVER 260 IMPACT members applied for a grant towards their child’s trip to the Gaeltacht this summer and a draw was held by IMPACT’s membership services committee. These are the lucky 90 members who have each received a scholarship award of €150.

Aileen Whelan (Cork), Ailsing Gillen (Donegal), Angela Gavin (Mayo), Ann Marie O’Mahony (Tipperary South), Anne Donnelly (Special Needs Assistants), Assumpta Kelly (Meath), Barry Kirwan (IAESA), Bláithín Uí Ruairc (VEC), Bridie Gallagher (Mayo), Carol Ann Delany (Tipperary North), Caroline Lynch (Sligo), Carolyn Gormley (State Enterprise No.1), Catherine Scully (State Enterprise No.1), Christine Maguire (Mayo), Christine Walsh (Dublin City), Christopher Thomas (Property Registration), Claire Smith (Donegal), Clare Dillane (Clare), Clíona O’Brien (Forensic Science), Corinne O’Hare (Dublin South HSE), Deirdre Hassett (Limerick), Deirdre McNiven (Longford), Eilish Mc Kenna (Monaghan), Elaine Scanlon (Dublin South HSE), Eleanor Crowley (Cork), Ellen Kiernan (Longford), Fergal Smyth (Institutes of Technology), Fiona Busher (Wexford), Fionuala Ronan (Cork), Fran McLoughlin (Municipal Employees), Frances Maher (Longford), Gerard Keaney (Agriculture No. 1), Gerard Walsh (Sligo), Hal McGuckin (Legal Officers), Helen Doheny (Kilkenny), Helen McCrarren (Monaghan), Helen O’Shea (Kerry), Hugh Gillespie (Agriculture No.1), Hugh O’Donnell (Galway), Irene Goulden (Sligo), Ita Murphy (Westmeath), Jacqueline Costigan (Laois), Jacqueline Floyd (Donegal), Jane Daly (Institutes of Technology), Jane O’Connor (Cork), Jane Power (Wexford), Jean McGirr (Donegal), Joan Keane (Galway), Joe Tobin (Louth), 14

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Kathrina O’Grady (Limerick), Lily Ann Stackpoole (Limerick), Lily Clarke (Dublin South HSE), Linda Kelly (Dublin North HSE), Macartan Mohan (Monaghan), Mairead Cullivan (South Dublin), Margaret Collins (Waterford), Margaret Giffney (Dublin North HSE), Maria Allen (Sligo), Marie Lynch (National Education Welfare Board), (Marion Keating) IAESA, Mark Smith (Dublin North HSE), Mary Hughes (Kilkenny), Mary Goode (Westmeath), Mary McDermott (Teagasc General), Mary Ryan (Dublin Hospitals), Michael Friel (Agriculture No.1 ), Michael O’Dwyer (Communications), Noel Smith (Coillte), Nora Norton (Kilkenny), Patricia Fanning (Special Needs Assistants), Patricia McGinnity (Probation & Welfare), Patrick Beirne (Municipal Employees), Rachel Douglas (Dublin South HSE), Rose Doolin (Laois), Rose McManus (Meath), Rosemary Quinn (Louth), Sandra Rogers (Special Needs Assistants), Seamus Cleary (Tipperary South), Sharon Hanlon (VEC), Siobhan Burke (Dublin Hospitals), Susan Deery (Monaghan), Susan Nichols (Wicklow), Suzanne O’Sullivan (Kerry), Tim Drea (Professional Agriculture Inspectors), Valerie Bradley (Donegal), Valerie O’Brien (VEC), Valerie O’Neill (Ordnance Survey), Veronica Gavigan (Westmeath), William Morris (Roscommon), William Toomes (Offaly).

Photo: Leon Farrell Photocall Ireland

Public service Gxxxxx

Come hell or high water Members of the civil defence evacuating people from their homes in Sallins, County Kildare, after the area was badly flooded last year.

Whether you’re lost on a mountain or cut off by the floods, Ireland’s civil defence service is at hand to help. MARTINA O’LEARY found out how they do it.

MENTION THE civil defence to people of a certain age and images of Captain Mainwaring and Dads’ Army spring to mind. But it’s not like that at all.

Delivered through local authorities, casualty, rescue, auxiliary fire, radiation monitoring, welfare and communications are all part of the service.

Whether you’re at your local community event or a major festival, you’re guaranteed that civil defence officers, and the 6,000 volunteers they train and coordinate, will be there to keep a watchful eye on your welfare.

It doesn’t happen by accident. Local authority civil defence officers oversee planning, organisation and volunteer recruitment and act as the essential link between volunteers,

the community, local authorities and the national civil defence organisation.

“We don’t have a normal working week. If you have volunteers out, you need to be with them. During the flood relief effort in 2009, almost 12,000 man-hours were worked by volunteers in 13 counties over a 17-day period,” says Leitrim civil defence officer Brian Sweeney.

“We evacuated people from homes and nursing homes. We transported, fed and accommodated evacuees. We pumped water from flooded buildings, filled and deployed sandbags, towed stranded vehicles, and took people to shops, clinics and doctors. And we were involved in traffic control and the manning of control centres,” he says.

Risk Risk assessment is just as important, but less high-profile.

Every county undertakes an assessment, and the civil defence officer uses this to plan budgets and appropriate training.

“Different counties encounter different problems. Leitrim’s greatest threats involve water so we constantly invest in training and equipment to affectively operate around water.

Other counties specialise in areas such as heights rescue or missing person searches,” says IMPACT member Brian. u

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members 15

“We have a very close working relationship with volunteers. You need to when you‘re ringing them at two o’clock on a Sunday morning to get them out of bed,” says Brian Sweeney, Leitrim civil defence officer.

“It’s important to make the distinction between the civil defence, which is a second line emergency service, and the first-line emergency services like the fire brigade, Gardaí and ambulance services. We have good working relationships with all of these services locally.”

Training is coordinated locally and through the national Civil Defence Board to ensure that volunteers have the necessary skills to carry out their life-saving jobs. There’s a range of courses, including cardiac first response and occupational first aid, emergency first responder, fire fighting and boating techniques which, with the help of volunteer instructors, is delivered weekly.

Nationally, the Civil Defence Board organises training at its college in Benamore, County Tipperary, which covers first aid, radiation monitoring, radio communications and welfare provision.

Photo: Eunan Sweeney

Public service

Missing Both paid officers and unpaid volunteers can be called out in missing persons cases, including high profile cases like the search for Robert Houlihan and Anne Corcoran. “This can be quite traumatic and counselling services are available to all civil defence personnel involved in a major incident. It is important in these cases that families get closure,” says Brian.

The longest search he was involved in took 15 days over the Christmas period. “For something like this the civil defence officer relies heavily on volunteer officers and leaders, specifically trained in search techniques. And there’s a great level of inter-county co-operation. If Leitrim is involved in a search over an extended period we can call on neighbouring counties for equipment and volunteers,” he says.

“Almost 12,000 man-hours were worked by volunteers in 13 counties during the 2009 flood relief effort.”

“We have a very close working relationship with volunteers.

You need to when you are ringing them at two o’clock on a Sunday morning to get them out of bed,” says Brian.

Working closely with county managers, the officers are regularly called upon to organise a civil defence response to various incidents throughout the year. “During the big freeze last winter, civil defence volunteers worked over 7,600 manhours in 14 counties. They transported public health nurses to do their calls in isolated areas, transported patients and nurses to hospitals and home support workers to their clients.

“They delivered meals on wheels, distributed water, food and medicines, and made water stations available to householders. And they rescued people from abandoned vehicles, manned control centres, assisted the army, and provided humanitarian aid to people in mountainous areas.”

Are you feeling safer now?

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Voluntarism has increased during the recession, but what do the volunteers get out of this unpaid work? “Knowing that they’ve helped a friend and the local community. That’s the key satisfaction for volunteers. The civil defence depends on volunteers and we are so grateful for their time and service,” according to Brian.

Value It’s a tough job, with its good and bad days. As Brian puts it: “It’s gratifying to see a voluntary organisation provide services with exceptional value for money. You get great satisfaction working with volunteers in your own community and seeing first hand the contribution the civil defence as an organisaiton can make.”

Definitely no need to panic here, Captain Mainwaring. We can be safe in the knowledge that civil defence officers are there to lend a hand whenever it’s needed l

Thanks a mil ion! “ ” IMPACT’s Central Executive Committee wants to say a big ‘Thank You’ to all the union’s members, branches and activists who participated in the recent ballot on the Croke Park public service agreement – and in the campaign of protests and industrial action in 2009 and 2010.

This has been a difficult couple of years for IMPACT members in the public service and elsewhere and everyone who participated in the debate and the ballot – including those who supported the deal and those who did not – made an important contribution to keeping the union strong and better able to protect its members.

It hasn’t been easy to achieve this agreement, which would not have happened without your participation in IMPACT’s protests, lobbying and industrial action over the last 18 months.

The months and years ahead will be equally challenging for the union and the members we represent. But IMPACT is determined to use the new agreement in the interests of public services, the people who depend on them, and the IMPACT members who deliver them.

Thanks again.

e t a d o t p u p Kee

ut azine. B g a m s i ve th hich to recei e-bulletins, w the d e l t i t n re e thly und mbers a detailed mon elopments aro e m T C and IMPA lso get more portant dev paigns m a m i a n c e a h n c t o i l u yo n al r un news o nd othe ays include k agreement a k that s r n i a l P e e h k t o Cr the click s. .ie and '. Then follow t c a p m i activitie cess ww. go to w ns and web ac p u n g i lleti To s for e-bu . p u n g i ns ‘s structio n i e l p sim

www.impact.ie

Your say

Sttatrer Le 5 0 €

Risks, rewards and consequences

BACK IN my childhood, black and white movies portrayed banks as dull kinds of places. The bank manager was a stern and conservative figure, and borrowing money was a serious business.

And yet the banks represent capitalism.

The “winner takes all” philosophy? Take the risks and reap the rewards or consequence? Except we are the ones reaping the consequences.

In my youth, banks were considered a safe place to get a job and bank shares were considered gilt-edge: Safe, but small dividends.

I guess I am still scratching my head. I just don’t get it!

By the turn of this century, all this had changed. Credit had become cheap.

Banks and credit card companies solicited clients. Bank shares soared. The local bank manager counted the shares in his pension fund and planned for early retirement.

People borrowed for all the things that they wanted now – cars, holidays, houses – and why not when they could meet the repayments?

I began to scratch my head around 2005 when a spectacular number of housing estates started to appear throughout Longford, Leitrim and Roscommon. Who would buy these houses? Where were the people to buy them? Where were the jobs to support repayments?

Obviously I wasn’t too bright. If the banks were prepared to lend to these developers to build houses, then they must know something that I didn’t.

I was prepared to be found average, mundane, non-visionary, so I was quite taken aback when common sense prevailed and my questions proved legitimate. Now we have ghost towns and the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). We have to wear a hair shirt for the next ten years to pay for the mistakes and greed of the banks.

Carol Doolan Dublin North HSE Branch

which wouldn’t prove beneficial to any of our members. It would only cause weeks, if not months, of hardship and stress.

The bigger picture shows us that there is no other country in the world that has worked out a deal with the unions, even though the recession is on a global scale.

This again shows the strength of the union movement in Ireland.

Thomas Murtagh Municipal Employees branch

Unions still strong I WORK in the Municipal Employees’ branch of IMPACT and we service Dublin City council general operative grades. As I write there are ballot papers on the way to our 2,000-plus members on the Croke Park proposals.

write, hone... r e v e You n ou never p letter y st rest. he be

for t r the s €50 nd €30 fo the y a p a ut & Life issue think abo Work ed each u o y e h t v s publi know wha ssues we’ i t, s Let u ine or the think of i ything z n o a t a g e n It is a journey into the unma om so er ed. C your view and pap r e v known, but the clarifio c n t w e o p p n k ur ee i cations from the Labour let us Get out yo orget to k f !

Relations Commission have at all And don’t y. , a d o helped our members in t hor t. & Life and s Work in 1. e , n these uncertain times. It has nic a l l o b t, Du isin N now got to the stage where to Ro ey’s Cour t.ie. e t i r n c W er the members have to put up impa CT N d IMPA il rnolan@ signe or shut up, at the battle cries blish y u r ema a p O m y l e for strikes are now at an ebb.

We on Work & Lif size. r s. ter fo letter This agreement is the only offer ur let o y t i ed on the go and there are no other alternatives except strikes, If passed, the deal will determine our conditions of employment for the next four years.

PS

Work & Life Work & Life is the magazine for members of IMPACT trade union. It is posted on our website and IMPACT members can have it mailed to them by contacting Work & Life at IMPACT, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1 or by emailing rnolan@impact.ie. Or call Roisin Nolan on 01-817-1544.

IMPACT also produces a monthly e-bulletin with more detailed information about the union’s activities and campaigns, and developments in your workplace. Sign up via the website on www.impact.ie.

IMPACT is Ireland’s largest public sector union with members in health, local government, the civil service, education, the community sector, semi-state organisations, aviation and telecommunications.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 19

FairGxxxxx hotels

Fair play to you

Photo: Fair Hotels

AS THE Irish summer dares to look a bit more like actual summer, and as people choose a holiday in Ireland, NIALL SHANAHAN looks at how a new campaign offers a fairer choice for the ethical consumer.

Enjoying a quiet moment ahead of a busy season; workers at the Best Western Pery’s Hotel, Limerick, one of the hotels that have joined the Fair Hotels campaign.

THE RISE of the ethical consumer began with the advent of ‘fair trade’ produce, enabling consumers to purchase luxury products like coffee, tea and chocolate from suppliers that ensured that the workers at the beginning of the supply chain got a fair wage.

The idea has been a huge success globally. Now something similar is happening in Irish hotels, as Irish people have become more concerned about how and where they spend their money in a recession. Fair Hotels, supporting and promoting quality jobs in the hotel industry, was launched in May by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

The campaign is based on the principle that hotels that treat staff fairly should be supported by consumers who care about workers’ rights. The campaign introduces a new ethical choice for consumers on its booking website www.fairhotels.ie.

Forty-five hotels across Ireland have already signed up to the campaign which will encourage trade unions and their members to use fair hotels for family holidays and breaks, conferences and meetings.

The Fair Hotels project is coordinated by Siptu official Ethel Buckley. A few minutes in Ethel’s company reveals her absolute passion for the campaign, and she makes the case for Fair Hotels with equal parts logic and infectious enthusiasm.

holidaymakers for whom a guaranteed ethical choice would be highly attractive, especially when they saw how the numbers stacked up from domestic and international trade union supporters,” she says.

Ethel says that more hotels will be added to the list in the future, once there is full recognition of collective bargaining rights for the staff of those hotels.

The hotel industry in Ireland is one of the worst offenders when it comes to contravening workers rights. A 2009 inspection by the National Employment Rights Authority caught 73% of Irish hotels flouting labour laws. The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) is one of the voices lobbying hard for a cut to the national minimum wage.

Ethel says that the newest challenge facing the industry is coming from hotels that have wound up in the hands of NAMA, with many aggressively undercutting room rates. “It has made life difficult for lots of hotels, so Fair Hotels is crucial to the task of leveling the playing pitch for those hotels that respect and value their workers,” she says.

Ethel explains that union conferences play a crucial role in all of this too. “Over the next three years unions will hold 61 major delegate conferences, involving over 17,600 delegates and about 45,000 ‘bed nights’, which will stand to benefit the hotel industry throughout the country,” she says.

“The campaign will use the combined support and purchasing power of 850,000 union members in Ireland and 30 million workers overseas alongside the institutional purchasing power of 50 Irish trade unions and 32 non-government organisations to benefit hotel workers, fair hoteliers and ethical consumers,” she says.

So the next time you see a ‘rock bottom’ hotel deal, it’s worth remembering who is being forced to pay the real price for a ‘bargain’. Fair Hotels is changing the game, and with the support of guests who will champion the initiative, the industry will have to follow their lead.

“Within hours of launching the campaign we had hotels contacting us to see how they could jump onto the Fair Hotels brand. They immediately grasped that there are a lot of

A full list of participating hotels, and an easy-to-use online booking system, is available on the Fair Hotels website. Visit www.fairhotels.ie.l

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members 21

Your career Use a clear, simple layout and format and a legible font. You can put headings and subheadings in bold to stand out and break up the prose, allowing the reader to zone in on key points. And subdivide the CV, starting with personal details. Include your name at the top, followed by address, date of birth, and contact details.

Operation application

It’s best to include an opening statement. This requires two or three sentences that clearly outline who you are and what your relevant competencies are. Something like: “Jennifer Kelly has over 12 years work experience in the field of xxx and has been involved in leading a team of 14 people on three major national projects providing service to over 4,000 people.”

It’s an employment jungle out there right now.

But ISOBEL BUTLER has advice on how to make your CV stand out in the crowd.

COMPETITION FOR jobs is fierce in today’s world and we’ve all heard tales of hundreds of applications for one position.

Getting onto the shortlist can be the most difficult part of any application process. So, getting your application noticed is the first step towards success.

All HR professionals, and others involved in short-listing applicants, have stories to tell about excellent CVs not being selected because of the poor quality of the covering letter.

Typical problems with covering letters include poor spelling and bad grammar or getting the name of the job, company or person who has advertised the job wrong. Mistakes that show you don’t understand what the job is about or what the organisation does don’t help either.

And bold, coloured fonts, underlining and other inappropriate or ‘crazy’ formats – Pick ME I’m the missing person on your team!!!! – will certainly get you noticed, but for all the wrong reasons.

Better letters Cover letters are a concise way of communicating your value to the organisation. A well written letter can demonstrate your attention to detail and that you have anticipated the organisation’s needs and how you meet them.

Always tailor the letter to the job you are applying for, marketing yourself to the potential employer. Don’t simply state the obvious: “I enclose a CV for the advertised job.” You need to hook the reader and grab their attention.

Highlight your strengths, achievements and background to show your potential employer why you should be interviewed.

“A background of ten years in office management and a proven record of obtaining results as a senior office administrator managing a team of 14 are key elements in qualifying me for consideration as part of your team,” is the sort of thing that can impress.

Pull out a couple of your main achievements and bullet point them in the letter. Use the language and terminology of the job advertisement. In the example below the applicant highlights her achievements in the field of lifelong learning because this was mentioned as being a key part of the advertised role.

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SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

You should avoid generic statements like “I am hard working.”

Demonstrate that you have these qualities by drawing on examples from your work life.

“During my 15-year career in training and development in four large organisations, I have handled many challenging and interesting projects.

One of the most rewarding tasks of my career has been setting up a training programme that facilitated 800 line managers to obtain an accredited qualification.

The organisational experience I obtained in this role and my belief in and passion for life-long learning has led me to submit this application for head of training and development.”

If you have just left education or have very limited work experience you should put your education before your employment. Otherwise employment history should precede education.

Present it in reverse chronological order, with your most recent position covered first and in the most detail.

Include references. One of them should be your current or most recent employer.

Job application forms

Finally, keep it brief. Only one well-spaced page in a legible font using paragraphs and bullet points to break up the text.

BE NOTICED Your CV

1.

Construct or adapt your CV to reflect the competencies or attributes which make you suitable for the role you are seeking. Use simple, clear language and stick to the point. The potential employer needs to be able to see at a glance whether or not you have what they want. It’s more likely that you’ll fail to get short listed if they have to wade through the CV to find this information.

Two pages are sufficient. Again, use bullet points to present information clearly, avoiding overly long blocks of information. Include enough for the potential employer to want to interview you but not so much that they become bored or overwhelmed. ➤

You don’t need to send a CV if the advert says you must complete a job application form. If there’s an application form the employer has designed it to ensure that they gather the relevant infor mation to make short listing decisions.

Tailor your cover letter, CV and application to the job.

2. Be clear and succinct. Keep it simple.

3. Use a legible font size. Ten is too small.

4. If it’s an application form, make a couple of copies and practice completing it.

5. Check grammar and spelling.

6. Have someone else check grammar and spelling.

7. Ask a friend to read the finished product. Does it make sense? Is anything missing?

8. Proofread again. And again!

Photo: dreamstime.com

9. Keep a copy. It’ll help you prepare if you get an interview.

10. Be assertive. Sell yourself and make this employer want to interview you.

That means you must answer directly and in detail the questions posed, even though you may not see their relevance. Remember, you aren’t simply filling in a form. You’re selling yourself.

All the tips mentioned above are also applicable to the application form ●

Isobel Butler is an independent organisational psychologist who works with people on a wide range of workplace issues including conflict management, dealing with change and solving problems. If there are specific issues you’d like her to tackle in these articles send them in via the editor, Work & Life magazine, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1 or info@impact.ie.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 23

Looking good Photos: PRshots.com

IT’S SUMMERTIME and the dressing is easy, the shops are brimming and the sales are on. Or they’re about to be at least.

Bearing in mind the vagaries of an Irish summer and the potential for four seasons in a day, it could be time to invest in a few key staples if you haven’t already. Because you need to look your best regardless of the weather.

Being prepared is the key. And layering is an essential ingredient to dressing for Irish weather.

1

Merits of the maxi

Summertime and the dressing is easy

Come hail or high thunder, it’s time to turn a precarious Irish summer to your fashion advantage says TRISH O’MAHONY. 24

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

Zara is always a safe bet for slim fitting trousers and this season they offer skinny green cargo pants, gorgeous for €25. Wear with your tunic dress, slouchy vest or skinny tee shirt. Roll up last year’s jeans and trousers, team with heels or flats, and hope the sun will shine.

If you haven’t invested in gladiator sandals yet, now is the time. Avoid the flat flats.

Go for the slightly wedged style for comfort and fashion 3 combined. The best quality are Hush Puppies, in leather with silver or bronze finish for €40 or Marks and Spencer’s 4 at €35.00.

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7 6 5

If antique China rose images do it for you, French Connection have a halter neck style.

Check Penney’s and Monsoon. Team with cropped style cardis and jackets and wear with a long necklace for a funky finish.

Open toe or closed, high or low, strapless or not, clogs are this season’s must-have footwear.

You’re not convinced about the merits of the maxi? Maybe your legs are your best asset? Marks and Spencer have an adorable knee length floral corset dress, which would be perfect teamed with sandals or boots, depending on the weather. Price €29.50.

Leggings might be considered a cop-out with your too short dress. But don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. They won’t break the bank either. H&M have good quality three-quarter and full length reduced to €10.00 in a variety of colours.

Jackets and cardis are becoming more cropped by the year, but no less versatile for it. Take your pick from leather – as soft as butter – faded denim or cotton depending on your budget and personal preference. Team with maxi dresses, short strappy floral dresses, oversized white shirts or a slouchy vest and rolled up trousers. You’ll be on trend and dressed for any weather. An added advantage – they’re going to be around for a while.

Cropped Crombie €189, Ladybird Brooch €29, Fitzjohn Sweater €59, Fitzjohn Slim trouser €110, Fitzjohn Brogue €169 all by Hobbs

If there’s a sudden drop in temperature there’s no shortage of trouser styles to compensate. Slouchy, harem styles are still on trend. Playsuits or jumpsuits are versatile, just add or subtract layers depending on the burn index.

Open toe or closed, high or low, strapless or not, clogs are this seas2 on’s must-have footwear.

Wear with knee high socks if you’re under 20.

In fact, wear with socks if you want to regardless of age. Marks and Spencer’s have white and brown colour choices, with heels you can walk in, and prices starting at €39.50.

There’s no escaping it, dresses are everywhere.

Just pick your favourite style. Maxi dresses are a good choice for unreliable Irish summer days, giving you the added advantage of a break from the fake tan.

They are also very forgiving, and ultraflattering.

Wear with flat metallic gladiator style sandals during the day or for a relaxed evening look, or wear clogs if you want to add height and achieve the quirky Alexa Chung look. You’ll be spoilt for choice around the town.

Legs eleven

If you intend investing in leather, House of Fraser have a pale pink pleated version, by Pied a Terre, with serious wow factor for €110. Or suss out Brown Thomas now that the sale sign is up. Marks and Spencer’s, Zara and Karen Millen continue to carry a good selection.

Accessorise

Consider your accessories as more than just finishing touches.

Bags, unlike the shrinking jacket, are big and getting bigger.

But at least they’re useful for carrying your extra layers, and the like.

Check Topshop for the latest and coolest in schoolgirl satchels.

Go for tan ‘leather,’ a good copycat of the Alexa, by Mulberry.

Prepare to pay around €85.

If you’re buying a hat, make it a trilby or panama. You’ll be making a fashion statement and keeping your hair frizz free at the same time. Straw or fabric; either is effective.

Accessorize has the best selection. You’ll like straw Blue Belle Ditsy Band Trilby at €29. Urban Outfitters have very good vintage copycats and Harlequins of Castle Market Street, Dublin 2, is good if you want the real deal.

Come hail or high thunder, it’s time to turn a precarious Irish summer to your advantage! ● 1. Floral Corset Dress, Marks & Spencer €29.50. 2. China Rose Bustier, French Connection €45. 3. Tan Oversized Hobo Bag, House of Fraser €119. 4. Hush Puppies Calvi Bronze €40. 5. Straw Blue Belle Ditsy Band Trilby, Accessorize €29. 6. Beth Necklace, Hobbs €49. 7. Brown Strappy Clog, Marks & Spencer €39.50. 8. Pale Pink Pleat Detail Cropped Jacket, House of Fraser €110.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 25

Be good to yourself Gxxxxx

Failing between the sheets?

1. Establish a simple routine. Prepare for bed an hour beforehand by starting to wind down your day. It’s not a good idea to watch the 11 o’clock news as this can keep your brain too active and prevent sound sleep.

Finding it difficult to get a good night’s sleep? Waking up exhausted? Holistic therapist KAREN WARD says you can put insomnia to bed.

2. A camomile or a ‘sleepytime’ herbal tea is a good drink before bedtime inducing natural calming effects. Coffee, tea (including green tea) and fizzy drinks (even diet ones) are not as they contain caffeine, which will perk you up and disrupt your natural sleep patterns.

3. A good hot bath or shower with lavender essential oil is a terrific way to ease into a good nocturnal habit.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION is a much-used and effective form of torture.

You’ll understand why if you’re one of those who struggle through the days on inadequate sleep.

4. Playing relaxing music is a clever adult version of a lullaby, which works very well for many of us.

A surprising number of people suffer from insomnia, inability to go to sleep, tossing and turning all night while unable to rest.

5. Watching TV in the bedroom is a bad idea. Also avoid phones, mobiles, computers, laptops, and DVD players as their electromagnetism affects sleep patterns, especially for light sleepers.

So let’s lay to rest a few myths and talk about some tried and tested methods of setting the scene for a good night’s rest and an energetic day.

6. If you’ve ever done yoga or meditation you’ll know the benefits of breathing techniques to induce slumber. If you haven’t learnt these methods try good old deep breathing and counting sheep. It really works.

First, the amount of sleep we need varies throughout our life.

Babies need a lot of sleep spaced throughout the day and night, often waking every four hours or so for food and stimulation.

7. If you’ve major worries or stress try visualisation. Pick a really peaceful beautiful scene in nature, perhaps from a holiday, to gently distract yourself to sleep. Alternatively, imagine the problem floating away in the clouds with special helpers (friends, family, celebrities, whoever) giving you sound advice.

Stretch As children we need a good eight-hour stretch to allow our bodies and minds to grow and absorb all the new experiences we are having each day in school and at play.

Teenagers, classically, seem to spend inordinate amounts of time wanting to lie on in the morning as hormones rage around their bodies. But once puberty is over, we should settle into an adult sleep pattern averaging 7-8 hours sleep a night. I am generalising as some people can survive very well on less.

Photo: Dreamstime.com

You know you’ve had enough sleep if you can work a full day and then have enough energy for family, friends and fun. If you are constantly tired, irritable and cranky then, subject to your stress levels, you’re probably not getting enough sleep.

“Teenagers want to lie on in the morning as hormones rage around their bodies.”

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Time for bed Gxxxxx

Some of us are capable of storing sleep, so that a good lie on at the weekend can make up for lack of sleep during the week. This is often vital if you have a baby or small children. The old rule ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ is a really good tip. I know a couple who pay a babysitter to come in to allow them a couple of hour’s uninterrupted quality sleep.

As we get older we need less sleep or, rather, a nap during the day can mean we need less at night. I had a client who asked me to help with her problem of waking at 5am every morning. I discovered that she was going to bed at 10pm which meant she was getting seven hours sleep every night – more than enough for a 50 year old. u

Body check It’s easy to forget that we all have different bodies and, therefore, different body clocks. Some of us are night owls and need time to wake up gradually. Others are morning larks and need to sleep early in order to maintain a good nocturnal routine.

Exercise is classic way to tire ourselves physically and prepare for a good night’s sleep. Often we have a lot of pent up energy that needs to be released before we can rest.

If you have twitching legs at night then make sure you get enough calcium (almonds, good dairy products), magnesium (green leafy vegetables) and potassium (bananas) in your diet or take a supplement from your local health food store.

Eating before bed is not a good habit as you are confusing your body into trying to digest food when it is time to shut down and rest. The food will lie on your stomach partially digested giving you a heavy feeling in the morning and a groggy head if drink has been involved l

8. If you still can’t sleep get up slowly and go to another room. Do some mundane task like tidying a cupboard until you feel sleepy. It’s important not to activate your brain too much so pick a boring job.

9. Don’t tell yourself you won’t be able to sleep. In fact, try repeating a soothing, positive sentence over and over again: “I am drifting off to a good, restful sleep.”

10. If you go to the toilet in the middle of the night try not to switch on lights as they will wake you up.

11. Snorers should be turned over on their side. Check whether certain foods or alcohol are affecting them. If necessary, move into another room or wear earplugs.

12. Finally, a fabulous way to bring on great sleep is to make love with your partner at bedtime. l Holistic therapist Karen Ward, from RTE’s Health Squad and BBC’s The Last Resort’ is the author of bestselling book ‘Change a Little to Change a Lot’ available now in all good book shops. www.karenwardholistictherapist.com

Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members 27

Travel and trips Photo: Emer O’Shea

Come in, the water’s lovely Staying in Ireland this summer?

MARTINA O’LEARY suggests you take to the waters.

I SPENT a very pleasant Friday evening with a group of friends on a barge on Dublin’s Royal Canal recently. The conversation went from cruising to fishing to waterside walks.

It got me thinking. On an island the size of Ireland, you’re never far away from some sort of water sport or leisure activity. I’m not a water baby.

But during my research, I realised a lot of my friends and family enjoy the big blue.

My dad has always been a keen river angler, fishing for trout along the banks of the Dodder during the open season.

The Irish coastline, river and lake system lends itself to whatever type of fishing catches your fancy: coarse, sea, pike, trout or salmon. The Central and Regional Fisheries Board, www.fishinginireland.info, has loads of tips on

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where to go, whether you like competing, going solo or fishing with a club.

Or how about dipping into sit-on-top kayak angling. You get exactly what it says on the tin as you sit on the kayak and, er, fish. The site www.kayak-angling-ireland.org makes it sound pretty amazing.

Younger members of my clan have gone kayaking with the scouts, and my eldest is booked in for a morning’s kayaking on a Dublin canal with the local community summer project this July. It’s be some time before she hits the Atlantic for some sea or white water kayaking – but it’s available if you want to try in Galway, Connemara Bay, Lough Corrib, Skibbereen, or Valentia Island. Google kayaking or canoeing in Ireland if you fancy dipping in.

The secret is out according to www.discoverireland.ie. Ireland is one of the world’s top surfing destinations for amateurs and professionals alike.

Surf’s up The best surfing is between September and May when the swells are plentiful.

That said, my brother in law spent the June bank holiday surfing in Bundoran with a gang of 20. Ranging from beginners to fairly handy surfers, they were happy with the surf and delighted with the après-surf.

Don’t let the image of young perfectly sculptured beautiful people battling huge waves put you off. There’s plenty of room for all ages and fitness levels from beginners to the keen enthusiasts. But be prepared for the cold water of the Atlantic and Irish Sea. The Irish Surfing Association – www.isasurf.ie – recommends counties Antrim, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Kerry, Mayo, Sligo and Waterford to catch the surf.

They also have a list of surfing schools.

Cruise control Sailing and yachting remain really popular and it needn’t be an elitist activity.

All over the Irish coast people are out on their boards, from Kinsale and Baltimore in County Cork to Galway Bay, and Howth or Dun-Laoghaire.

If you’re feeling less energetic, cruising on Irish waters could be just the thing for families or a gang of friends.

Athlone and the Shannon region are fantastic places to start, but there’s such a huge choice. Explore the canal system and the river Barrow from Vicarstown, County Laois or head north for Carlingford.

Don’t let the image of young perfectly sculptured beautiful people battling huge waves put you off. There’s plenty of room for all ages and fitness levels.

Marine life When in was in Florida I was lucky enough to encounter a school of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. It was spectacular and an amazing feeling.

Fancy seeing whales or dolphins in Irish waters? Back in the 1990s our coastal waters became Europe’s first whale and dolphin sanctuary and up to 24 species have been sighted off the Irish coast.

I liked the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group website, www.iwdg.ie. Their dedication to the conservation and understanding of whales, dolphins and porpoises in Irish waters stands out and there are plenty of opportunities to see one of nature’s beauties.

The south of Ireland, particularly the Cork-Kerry region, is definitely the place to spot the humpback and other whale species. If like me, you're not too comfortable immersed in water, this still gives you that wonderful feeling of being at one with nature. Definitely on my next-to-try list.

In the swim I’m more the walking type. A huge amount of work has gone into the Royal Canal walkways around Dublin.

The one near my home has new walk-

ways, with security cameras and loudspeakers so that Big Brother can tell any offenders to behave themselves.

The canal system really is one of Dublin's best hidden secrets and there are also plenty of beaches, lakes, rivers and canal banks to walk this summer.

And let’s not pass up a good old swim.

The Mullaghroe beach near Belmullet, County Mayo looks beautiful, as do the large list of blue flag beaches in Donegal and the Cork-Kerry region. On a sunny day on Inchydoney beach in West Cork you could be anywhere in the world.

Even if the sun fails to shine, once the kids have bucket, spade and rain gear, you’re sorted. Kids love spending hours searching rock pools for crabs and other sea creatures, or just playing in the sand. You will find a list of beaches at www.myguideireland.com/irelandsblue-flag-beaches.

From relaxing on the beach to sailing, windsurfing or fishing, there are so many options. Just Google your interest or contact the relevant tourist office – run by public servants to boot. But whatever you do, keep safe near water.

It’s beautiful and fun, but it can be fatal if you’re careless. Over 160 people drown in Ireland each year. Check our www.iws.ie for the safety drill ●

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 29

Lamb patties with chickpea and spinach salad

Photos: dreamstime.com

From the kitchen

Feelgood food

What your eat can affect your mood says MARGARET HANNIGAN who gives some healthy eating tips.

Feelgood food tips 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 30

Eat the rainbow, as many differently coloured foods as you can each day.

Avoid caffeine, which hammers the adrenal glands.

Vitamins B (found in meat, eggs, and dairy foods) and C (found in fruit and vegetables) support the adrenal glands, and also assist in the absorption of iron and maintenance of a healthy nervous system.

If you don’t like eating nuts, a valuable source of vitamin E and zinc, try nut butters. Peanut, almond and cashew are all available.

If you’re not a huge fish eater, you can get omega 3 oils from walnuts.

You can add them to carrot cake and brownies.

Drink at least 1.5 litres of plain water daily. It’s a daily detox.

Get calcium from seeds, soya, nuts, oats, sardines, salmon, figs, parsley, alfalfa, cheese in all its manifestations, yogurts, and milk.

Vitamin D is made by the body from sunlight (here’s hoping) and is also found in oily fish and eggs.

If you’re trying to cut down on salt, try using a squeeze of lemon juice as flavouring. Or home made salsa for a bit of bite in your flavours.

Blueberries are very popular these days. Put a handful into buns, or add to a carrot cake or Madeira mix. Or just put some on top of your porridge.

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

ISN’T IT interesting how most of us don’t need any encouragement to snack on junk food, but feel it’s an achievement of almost Nobel-Award standard if we eat spinach once a week? Even though we feel better when we eat more fruit and veg.

generate cortisol, you’re caught in a double-whammy. Cortisol and insulin also encourage your body to store more visceral fat (that’s fat around your major organs) increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

You need to drink more water. It’s the ultimate super food. It helps you feel full, and helps your liver to flush out the waste – including fat! And it’s free from the tap, though it’s advisable to filter it before drinking.

But where are the foods I hear you ask? The ones that are going to make me feel good? Every year, a new super food is discovered – blueberries, soya beans, goji berries, kale, seaweed, the list is endless. The truth is, apart from anything processed and larded with chemicals, and anything from a fast-food outlet, it’s all feelgood food. Granted, it needs to be fresh and properly cooked, and it appeases our greed if it’s been ethically produced. But in its natural state, there’s no such thing as bad food. It’s what we choose to do with it that’ s bad, but you know that don’t you? Your body certainly does.

In any event, here’s a recipe that ticks all the virtuous boxes, and is very tasty to boot. And if you’re still anxious, it’s all in the top ten tips ●

It’s partly because, back when our ancestors were dodging dinosaurs and sabretoothed tigers, cooked food meant extra energy and a leg-up on survival. So it’s not lack of willpower that trips us up but rather an outdated survival mode that keeps us hardwired for fatty, sugary, salty foods.

Ingredients: Serves 4 ●

1tbsp olive oil

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1 garlic clove

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1tsp cumin seeds

First a few science notes. Not to state the blindingly obvious or anything, but what you eat can affect your mood because it affects the chemistry of your body, which affects your emotions. Cravings are often triggered by a drop in one of the key neurotransmitters, serotonin, which needs its friend tryptophan, to get it to key parts of the brain.

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1.5 tsp ground coriander

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500g minced lamb

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75g white breadcrumbs

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6 spring onions, finely chopped

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1tbsp chopped mint leaves

For example, serotonin is found in turkey, but needs to piggy-back on a complex carbohydrate like whole-wheat bread to do its job. It’s worth bearing in mind that many of the current anti-depressants in our pharmacies are serotonin boosters, so it’s powerful stuff. Letting yourself get too hungry before eating can cause a serotonin dip, and you can find yourself elbow-deep in sweet-wrappers before you know where you are. So eat at regular intervals.

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50g sesame seeds, lightly toasted

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1x400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

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100g baby spinach

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100g radishes, thinly sliced

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150g Greek yogurt

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1tbsp tahini

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Some mint leaves to dress

Trying to talk your inner caveman out of a burger and into a fruit smoothie is no mean feat, as most of us will know by now. But for those of us interested in trying life beyond the cave, there are more evolved ways to approach food.

You need to make sure you get enough sleep. Why? Well, scientific studies have linked a lack of sleep, that’s less than seven hours a night, to weight gain. Sleep deprivation results in lower levels of the hormone leptin, which is one of the messengers that tells us we’re full, and higher levels of grhelin, which signals hunger – a combination that can cause appetites to increase by as much as 24%. Tiredness will also increase your need for carbohydrates. Go for complex carbs like brown rice, or porridge oats, and add some protein to prolong energy. And catch up on your sleep!

You also need to manage your stress levels. Prolonged stress gets the body pumping out high doses of hormones like cortisol, that over time can prompt overeating. Cortisol, and it’s best friend insulin, will also lead you to high-fat, sugary, comfort foods, which will tend to make you overweight and, as fat cells also ➤

It’s Rosé time IF IT’S summer it has to be Rosé. Try De Vito 2007 Grenache Rose, made under the watchful eye of renowned winemaker Geoff Merrill in South Australia, in partnership with the De Vito family. Strawberry and cherry fruit flavours, and a rose-pink colour, crisp, full flavour – summer in a glass!

Currently €7.49 in Tesco.

Rockpool Marlborough Pinot Grigio. Crisp, fruity, zesty taste, with a classic straw colour. This is gorgeous. Perfect with fish and some spicier dishes, or any sunny evening, when it’s time to take the edge off the day. €9.99, O’Briens Wines.

Reserve des Tuguets 2007 Madiran, from Gascony, France.

This is a fabulous blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Tannat grapes, which are new to me. Deep crimson red, and full blackberry and blackcurrant flavours. It will warm the cockles of your heart. €7.99, Tesco.

You may notice a Tesco theme here! That’s because they have tremendous value and a huge variety at the moment. Check it out.

Preheat oven to 200C/ 180C fan/400F Gas 6. Heat the oil in a pan, and gently fry the cumin seeds and chopped garlic. Stir in coriander after 30 seconds.

Transfer to a bowl, add the mince, mint, breadcrumbs and half the spring onions, and season well with salt and pepper.

Shape into 12 patties and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes or until needed. Before cooking, roll each patty in the sesame seeds until covered, and bake on a tray in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

To make the salad, combine the chickpeas, radishes, spinach and spring onions in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the yogurt, tahini and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper, and dress the salad with it. Serve with the warm patties.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 31

Green fingers

Late bloomers

The vegetable garden

If you don’t grow late blooming perennials, it’s like leaving a musical before the finale according to JIMI BLAKE.

GROWING YOUR own veg is the current trend in these difficult times. Our resident gardener JIMI BLAKE gives some tips to give you a great supply of greens through early winter and next spring.

Now is the time to sow spring onions or scallion as I still call them. Sown now, they should crop in all but the hardest of winters. Sow thickly to make up for losses.

Photo: Dreamstime.com

Swiss chard is an incredibly useful vegetable, with the bonus that it crops nearly all winter. It is an easy vegetable to grow with delicious nutritious leaves and broad stems. These can be lightly steamed and served with butter and are fantastic in stir-fries.

Although Swiss chard can be sown any time from February, a July or August sowing should give you leaves for harvesting all through the winter except in the very worst of the weather. I sow seeds in individual modules and plant out when 5cm (2”) tall. Harvest as needed by cutting individual leaves. As well as the plain green varieties with white stems, coloured forms are also available.

Ruby chard has dark red stems and reddish veins, while rainbow chard is a colourful mixture of reds, amber and yellow – which definitely brings a splash of colour to the winter garden. In the worst of the winter weather, I cover mine with a mini tunnel.

You could have a go at either planting winter lettuce plants now or sowing some seeds. You will need a cloche for the worst of the snow and cold snaps. Hopefully these

This plant could, I suppose, be considered common as muck; however to me it’s a plant no garden should be without. It’s easy to grow, seeds freely around the garden and contrasts beautifully with basically any plant. This is one of the plants I use like a river through my borders as it is relatively seethrough and provides a useful link between the midsummer and early winter garden.

leaves will be ready for picking in February.

My favourite winter salad vegetable is rocket which would grow all winter for me when I lived in the tropics of Dublin. Lamb’s lettuce, also called corn salad, has a gentle flavour and soft texture which makes it invaluable in winter salads. Winter purslane with its delicious juicy leaves is a winter salad you should never be without as it seeds all around the garden. Theses seeds will be available in the garden centres so don’t delay sowing them l

longest-flowering geraniums and doesn’t need cutting back during its flowering season. Like ‘Jolly Bee’ it flowers from early summer into winter. Feed these plants lots of wellrotted farmyard manure and they will reward you with a sea of flowers. Purple magenta flowers are above greenish-yellow leaves. Both these geraniums are good to use as repetition plants along the front of a border because of their longevity.

If clients tell me they have a boring shrubby border, I often recommend them to plant Verbena bonariensis - it will provide a much-needed new lease of life. Be careful not to give it to much shade as the verbena plant has very few leaves and relies on the sun reaching its green stems for growth. When it finishes flowering, leave seed heads on for a few months if you want it to seed.

Actaea Buy Japanese onion sets and garlic to plant at the end of September.

Draw soil around the stems (‘earthing up’) of brussels sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli to give support from windy weather.

Cut down fruited canes of summer fruiting raspberries and tie in the new ones.

Spring greens are simply immature cabbage. These can still be sown in August or buy them in your garden centre.

They should be able to be cut at the end of February and, if left until April/May, will produce a solid head (heart).

Remember cabbage is a good source of vitamin C. When I see any sign of blight on my potatoes, I cut away all the stalks to prevent the blight getting down into the potatoes themselves. I don’t believe in using any sprays when growing vegetables and by digging them up now they might be smaller but it’s better than losing them to blight. I would advise digging up the potatoes; I left mine in the ground for a few weeks last year and the slugs destroyed them. Store in a dark, cool place until you need them l

Actaea which used to be called Cimicifugas are statuesque stalwart perennials of great quality, and great presence.

Although up to 2m tall when flowering, it can be grown near the edge of a path since its handsome foliage is at a low level, leaving the spires of sweetly scented white flowers to score without competition.

I love the purple leaved forms such as Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’ which contrast beautifully with its white flowers and a tall elegant grass like Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’. I always had a problem growing Actaea in dry Dublin gardens, but since my move to damp Wicklow they are thriving. I suggest giving them a good mulch of garden compost, as the roots tend to be at the soil surface and can dry out easily.

Geranium ‘Jolly Bee’ Geranium ‘Jolly Bee’ is the last perennial to finish flowering in my garden in November. Why bother with lazy geraniums such as ‘Johnston’s Blue’ which flowers for a few days when the hard working ‘Jolly Bee’ flowers from early summer until winter?

Photos: Dreamstime.com

MAKE A note of this year’s successes and failures, so that you remember which varieties to re-order and which to avoid.

Also, when you’re doing this, make a map of where the various vegetables were grown this year so you can rotate next year.

Believe me, you think you will remember next spring, but you won’t.

Verbena bonariensis

It has large, bright blue, saucer-shaped flowers with a white eye. It forms a large mound smothered in flowers and looking wonderful weaving in and out at the front of the mixed border. This geranium is very similar to ‘Rozanne’, if not identical.

Geranium ‘Anne Thompson’ My other prize geranium is Geranium ‘Anne Thompson’ and again is one of the

Blooming lovely.

And not forgetting . . .

There are so many other fantastic late bloomers for sunny borders such as the Sedums which attract the bees and butterflies. I Find Sedum ‘Joyce Henderson’ the best plant in the garden for attracting bumble bees. Then there is the array of yellow and orange daisies from the blinding colour of Rudbeckia to the beautiful soft yellow of Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’.

The Eupatoriums are another good reliable late bloomer and offer lots of late pollen for bees. I like to use the ordinary Eupatorium purpureum with Miscanthus grasses.

All these late bloomers are the perfect partner for ornamental grasses. Remember the show can go well into autumn, no matter what size your garden is.

Sow the seeds the same day you collect them and they will germinate the following spring. You can also divide in spring every three years when growth is starting. This year I am combining my blue poppies with primulas which flower at the same time and grow in the same conditions l

...

Gardening course Tuesday morning beginners level 1 gardening course with Jimi Black 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th September and 5th, 12th October at Hunting Brook Gardens .

Bees knees.

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At the movies

An independent air

MORGAN O’BRIEN looks at the landscape of cinema production and distribution, which is constantly evolving to reveal new layers of creativity. The development of independent cinema, which in its most authentic form refers to films produced external to the studio system, is a particular case in point.

Coppola and Martin Scorsese. These figures would form the vanguard of the new Hollywood, which witnessed unprecedented filmmaker creativity and control that saw mainstream films suffused with subversive themes and content.

However, as Peter Biskind observes in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls a period that began with the independently made countercultural touchstone Easy Rider, starring the late Dennis Hopper, and climaxed with Star Wars and Jaws, which provided the template for the future dominance of commercially driven cinema.

Accordingly, over the last couple of decades, the term independent cinema or ‘indie film’ has been largely shorn of its original meaning and impulse. The term is now more readily associated with

Lord of the Rings, while Robert Rodriguez cut his teeth with the cut price El Mariachi, and arguably Kevin Smith’s best moments can be found in his selffinanced debut Clerks.

Currently gaining attention is James Nguyen’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror, about which perhaps the only positive assessment may be that it represents genuine independent filmmaking. Nguyen self-financed the $10,000 budget from savings and maxed out credit cards, and, after being rejected entry to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, he set up his own screenings at the festival anyway.

Despite of, or perhaps because of, appalling acting and impoverished production values the film has fast gained cult status. Its unashamed and inept rethread of Hitchcock’s The Birds, Birdemic embodies the sort of gormless charm, in the tradition of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space, which is celebrated as being so bad it’s good.

However, alongside the maladroit offerings of filmmakers such as Nyguyen, there continue to be more worthwhile films produced within meagre budgets. Shane Carruth’s cerebral time travel drama Primer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2004, seems all the more remarkable when one considers it was made for just $7,000.

Increasingly the internet is proving a particularly potent resource that independent filmmakers can har ness for the production and distribution of films. Fan films, such as the impressive The Hunt for Gollum, are being disseminated online, while the website vimeo provides a forum for young filmmakers to show their work.

INDEPENDENT CINEMA has emerged in many forms. In the early 1920s, United Artists operated as a means for filmmakers to wrest back creative control from studio heads. While in the 1960s the availability of cheap camera equip34

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ment saw a booming output of B-movies, schlock horror flicks, and art house cinema.

Liberated from the stringent Hays production code, independent filmmakers were able to push the boundaries of acceptability with B-movies offering

audiences films of wildly varying quality and a heady mix of sex and violence.

Horror and exploitation were genres that flourished in this climate, with films like Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eraserhead, and Pink Flamingos becoming standard bearers of independent cinema.

It was legendary B-movie maestro Roger Corman who gave starts to Francis Ford ➤

a genre aesthetic rather than the specifics of its production or financing.

Most major studios have established their own indie imprints, while other independent production companies operate closely with large studios to fund and produce films.

However, beneath this mainstream there persists a subterranean flow of amateurs and enthusiasts toiling in the margins to pursue their own particular cinematic vision. This arena continues to be a proofing ground for aspirant filmmakers. For example, Peter Jackson made his initial mark with the cheapo gorefest Bad Taste before moving on to

As an arena where independent producers can drum up creative and financial support, the internet is encouraging the emergence of participatory cinema amongst a film community. One such ongoing production is Finnish science-fiction film Iron Sky, which features Nazis escaping to the moon in 1945 and returning to attack the Earth in 2018 – now what could be a better investment than that?

While you can go online to request a screening of Birdemic in your hometown, if that doesn’t work out the coming months brings a mixed bag of alternative enter tainment ●

Summer screenings MORGAN O’BRIEN takes a look at what’s on the big screen over the summer months.

Step Up 3 (August 6th) Third instalment of the wildly successfully Step Up series, which if you are not aware of means you’re probably out of touch with ‘yoof culture’ and their apparent love of breaking into spontaneous bouts of dance.

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (August 13th) Comic book adaptation directed by Edgar Wright, featuring Michael Cera as a young man, who must battle his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes, which will hopefully deliver on its promising trailer.

The Expendables (August 20th) Sylvester Stallone directs this knowing homage to 80s and 90s action movies.

Stallone stars alongside a collection of veteran action heroes including: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Dolph Lundgren.

The Girl Who Played With Fire (August 27th) The second adaptation, after The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, of Stieg Larsson’s hugely popular “Millennium Trilogy” series of novels.

The Other Guys (September 3rd) Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg star as a pair of apparently incompatible New York cops in this knockabout buddy-comedy. Not an original concept but Ferrell is usually good for a laugh or two.

Tamara Drewe (September 10th) Stephen Frears directs Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper in this adaptation of Poly Simmond’s comic strip, which is itself a modern day take on Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 35

From the author

Book reviews

Brought to heel Photo: Conor Healy

out into the public domain. And there was a real personal fear that I’d be lost without the job that had taken up so much of my time and energy for nearly 10 years. The hardest thing was telling the committed, hardworking staff, who were incredibly supportive,” he says.

The real 1970s STRANGE DAYS INDEED – THE GOLDEN AGE OF PARANOIA

by Francis Wheen (Fourth Estate, £8.99 in the UK).

book is in fact a very scholarly, in-depth examination of an era during which society in the Western world changed forever. Having said that, it is written in a conversational and witty style, which makes it easy to absorb the vast amount of information which it contains.

By Kathryn Smith

A fiery tale

Crowley says the affair badly damaged equality rights in Ireland. But he detects the promise of a new direction because trade unions and non-governmental organisations were galvanised by the affair and are newly ready to campaign together against discrimination.

THE BOOK OF FIRES

by Jane Borodale (Harper Press, £7.99 in the UK).

“After a long campaign to get good equality legislation in place people took their eye off the ball.”

“It’s a low point, but it could also be a turning point. After a long campaign to get good equality legislation in place, people took their eye off the ball and moved onto other things.

But the space will open up again,” he says.

A civil engineer by trade, the former Simon Community volunteer and Pavee Point chief executive says the Equality Authority was targeted by elements at the top of the public service who couldn’t accept that one public service body should be challenging others when they flouted the rights of their workers or customers.

Bernard Harbor spoke to former equality chief NIALL CROWLEY about his new book on how the system smashed Ireland’s independent equality service.

IT’S SHORT and it’s modest. But Empty Promises might turn out to be the most important book to be published in Ireland this year.

Former Equality Authority chief executive Niall Crowley’s account of how the Government brought his organisation to heel, by destroying its independence and almost halving its budget, is a cautionary tale of how powerful business and political forces can combine to undermine precious individual rights and fragile progressive policies.

Most of us are familiar with the story of how Crowley and a number of Equality Authority board members, including IMPACT official Louise O’Donnell, resigned in protest at the Government’s attack. Crowley’s decision to resign on principle, without a package or a job to go to, was unusual if not unique in Irish public life.

“I had lots of conflicting emotions. It felt like a significant defeat because the organisation was being dismantled before our eyes. There was frustration that I couldn’t get the story

But it was part of a broader attack on equality rights, rooted in the Celtic Tiger business and political culture. “One of our first cases was against Ryanair. But it was a time when the Ryanair culture – anything goes and there should be no restraints on business – was taking a strong hold. Meanwhile, the Authority was saying that there are some minimal standards that must be maintained. It was powerfully counter cultural in this regard,” he says.

Unbowed, Crowley continues to work on equality issues, doing work for the European Commission and the European Anti Poverty Network among others. But his account of how a progressive organisation – even a State-sponsored one – can successfully come under sustained attack contains lessons for everyone interested in individual rights and equal opportunities.

Empty Promises: Bringing the Equality Authority to Heel is available from AA Farmer Books priced €14.99 ●

Equal right to win We have five copies of Niall Crowley’s Empty Promises to give away. To be in with a chance of winning, answer the question below and send your entry to Roisin Nolan, Empty Promises competition, IMPACT, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1. Entries must reach us by Friday 17th September 2010.

Who wrote Empty Promises?

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ONE OF the great things about being an avid reader is that learning never ends. While many books trod the same wellworn path, there are some that will bring the reader a whole new understanding or experience. This book, set in 1752 has pyrotechnics, or the art of fire-work making, at its heart MENTION THE 1970’s to anyone and the immediate mental image is probably one of long hair, bell-bottom trousers, Ford Cor tina’s and Abba. All sounds quite harmless but the reality is that the world was in great danger with unstable leadership in both the US (Nixon) and the UK (Heath).

Not only that, but the 1960’s had heralded a new permissive society. Many people believed that there was an underground, subversive movement planning to put civilisation in the hands of long-haired, pot-smoking Trotskyites. Mr Suburbanite Commuter felt ridiculed and threatened. In the US, soldiers returning home after many years in Asia, far from being treated as heroes, were often despised. Even the pie-baking, worshipping wives they had left behind were now self-absorbed, independent women who had their own stuff to be getting on with.

This book focuses much on the UK and indeed the man in the street there had much to worry about. Massive strikes such as the miner’s strike could literally bring everything to a halt and power stoppages were a common occurrence. The economy collapsed and in addition, IRA bombs regularly caused devastation to ordinary civilians.

The blurbs on the cover would suggest that this book is a jolly romp through an earlier decade, but this is misleading. This

Agnes Trussel is a seventeen-year-old living a harsh life in a rural village in Sussex. When she discovers she is pregnant, to avoid causing scandal to her family, she runs away to London.

Alone in London, she answers a notice for employment and is taken on in the home of John Blacklock, a firework maker.

Agnes has an intelligent, inquiring mind and becomes Blacklock’s assistant. Blacklock, a lonely widower absorbed in his work, treats Agnes as an equal, constantly teaching her the art of fire and gradually giving her more responsibility. Agnes, though is harbouring two secrets; one being her pregnancy which she knows will mean leaving her new found home as soon as it becomes known.

This is an interesting and absorbing read. The unrelenting hardship of rural life in the eighteenth century is clearly depicted, and equally tangible is the horror of the filthy, overcrowded London streets. The hangings at Tyburn and the callous justice handed out for the most meagre of crimes, also form part of the back-drop. Anxiety builds throughout the book as Agnes’s pregnancy develops and the ending is as unpredictable as the rest of the story. Highly recommended, to anyone who enjoys an historical setting to a story.

By Kathryn Smith continued on page 38 ➤ WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 37

More book reviews

Juggling act BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS: THE IMPOSSIBLE ART OF BEING FEMALE

by Tania Kindersley & Sarah Vine (Harper Collins, £9.99 in the UK).

New deal

Short with a twist

WHAT? I hear you say.

Impossible? Surely not.

Didn’t that 1970s feminism business sort it all out, you know, able to vote, and buy your own drink now, I hear you say. Have babies, run companies, be a sex kitten, and breast feed, repaint the bathroom, and cook a three course meal for six all at the same time, and why not?

I mean, you’ve got it all I hear you say, What’s all this namby-pamby touchy-feely “impossible” silliness about?

Well, Tania and Sarah feel that the daily life of your average gal is a tricky business, or to put it another way, “For the record, we would like to say that having it all is not what it’s cracked up to be.” That’s not to say that this is a book full of complaints, or any kind of whining or whingeing – oh dear me no, our Tania and Sarah are made of stronger stuff than that!

No, this is a book that aims to be the literary equivalent of the conversations that women have every day of the week, about all the things women talk about, talk around, and are sometimes too fretful to mention at all. Why are they scared I hear you say? Why, in case anyone realises they’re not perfect of course!

Now just to be clear, this is not a self-help book. You won’t find a ten point plan to lose 30lbs in 30 Days, or a sat-nav map to the g-spot, or a chapter on how to find the one. What you will find are really down-to-earth, intelligent discussions about topics like love, food, dressing and shopping, grief, and my own personal favourite, philosophy of life, self-esteem, and the whole damn thing which are designed to foster self-understanding.

You might get some gentle advice, or useful suggestions, but it’s nothing that a good friend wouldn’t say, because this is a book that genuinely likes you, and doesn’t think you need to lose weight and get your teeth whitened in order to be taken seriously. So buy it, befriend it, and read it regularly.

SHORT STORIES are like snippets of overheard conversation, in that they ignite, rather than satisfy, curiosity. They are a glimpse rather than a considered gaze, a punch-line rather than an exploration. There is usually a twist, a sharp retort of a metaphorical pistol being fired, a sudden shift in perception – otherwise, why would we read them?

Gentlemen’s Relish is Patrick Gales’s second collection of short stories, and his first since the publication of his novel, Notes on an Exhibition, which became a Richard and Judy Book Club best-seller.While Notes on an Exhibition is about the convoluted family life of a bi-polar artist living in Cornwall, and is far from a light-hearted read, these stories reveal a dark, waspish side to the author that’s generally missing from his novels. Be not afraid gentle reader, it’s not John Connolly-gruesome-dark, or Stephen King-freaky-weird dark, but it might give you a shiver on a sunny day, or make you switch on that extra light in the hall.

Murder, lust, hate, revenge, and things that slide past in the night all feature here, as do loneliness, betrayal, and spite. In Hushed Casket, a mild-mannered gay couple on honeymoon are terrorised by a lusty demon released from, of all things, an antique tea caddy, while in Making Hay a grandmother (perhaps a sister of our own Granny O’Grimm?) terrorises her young visitors with tales of blood sacrifices down on the family farm.

In Cookery a man wreaks incremental revenge on his father, starting with the hiring of a flamboyantly camp male nurse, and culminating in a very special supper. There is a quirky look at the Liddell sisters on an afternoon out, before they became the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, in The Fourth of July, 1862 and a somewhat puzzling look in The Lesson at the life of a prison-governer’s wife.

Generally, the stories reflect lives lived away from centre stage, at an obtuse angel to the mainstream. Gale explores the perception of power, or its lack, in relationships and situations, and places his characters in contexts where love or its absence can never be predicted. In keeping with the reality of his own life, which is lived on a farm at Land’s End, with his civil partner, rural activities, outdoor life, and the gay male experience are all woven through the narratives, seasoned with wit and insight, and shaped by the instincts of a natural storyteller.

Oh and the backwards-in-high-heels thing? It’s Ginger Rogers, doing the exact same dance moves as Fred Astaire, only backwards! And yes, it is a metaphor as well, and no, I never really thought about it either.

Oh, and just because I know you really, really want to know, gentleman’s relish is a type of anchovy paste which was invented in 1828 by John Osborn. It apparently has a strong, salty, slightly fishy taste, and is served on toast, or melted onto baked potatoes or scrambled eggs. Make of that what you will.

By Margaret Hannigan

By Margaret Hannigan

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PUBLIC SERVICE unions have voted to ratify the Croke Park public service agreement by a margin of almost two-thirds. IMPACT members voted to accept the deal by a margin of 77% to 23% in a national ballot of the members concerned. The turnout was 57%.

The agreement commits the Government not to cut public service pay again, and to begin the process of reversing recent pay cuts as savings flow from the substantial reforms set out in the deal. It also contains a Government commitment to avoid compulsory redundancies, plus important safeguards on pensions and outsourcing.

Photo: Conor Healy.

GENTLEMAN’S RELISH

by Patrick Gale (Fourth Estate, £7.99 in the UK).

Croke Park deal done

Outgoing IMPACT general secretary Peter McLoone, who was the lead negotiator for the unions, said ICTU’s Public Services Committee would now take immediate steps to begin the implementation of the agreement in ways that “deliver for public services and the people who use, deliver and pay for them.”

The ICTU committee demanded early agreement on the composition of the Implementation Body, which will drive modernisation and deal with any disagreements over the implementation and interpretation of the deal. It will also verify the outcomes of the reform programme, which will be crucial to triggering the restoration of pay.

Jim Fay, Geraldine O’Brien and Thomas Cowman count the votes from IMPACT’s FGE branch.

Unions are also seeing the rapid establishment of local procedures for trade union involvement in the implementation of aspects of the modernisation agreement.

McLoone also repeated his call for the Government to ensure that senior public service managers implemented the deal quickly and fairly. “There has been a lot of talk on all sides about transformation. It’s now time to start quickly delivering that transformation for each of the three key stakeholders: public service users, taxpayers, and the people who work to deliver public services.

“This is the beginning of a process that will be closely watched by members of those constituencies, many of whom have yet to be convinced of our capacity to deliver transformation that allays their fears and meets their needs,” he said.

McLoone said that, even among workers who voted to accept the deal, many remained sceptical about management’s ability to deliver better public services and abide by the staff protections stitched into the deal.

In a letter to IMPACT branches, incoming general secretary Shay Cody said the clarifications the union gained from the Labour Relations Commission had solidified support for the agreement.

Particularly important was the confirmation that management did not have unlimited powers to impose changed working practices, and that unions would be involved in the reform process.

“The deal does not give management powers to unilaterally interpret the agreement and procedures for the resolution of any disputes that arise between management and staff have to be established,” he said.

Most of the unions that voted against the deal have said they will abide by the overall two-thirds decision of the public service unions.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 39

Union business

Union business

ICTU outlines economic alternative

Community jobs crisis looms

SHORT CUTS

fare recipients. Public service workers were also targeted with two pay cuts within a year and the minimum wage is now under attack from business lobbyists and Government.

UP TO 5,000 jobs are at risk in the community and voluntary sector even though demand for services is soaring because of the recession. That’s the gloomy conclusion of a report by consultant Brian Harvey, which was commissioned by IMPACT’s Boards and Voluntary Agencies branch.

Pay pledge

Meanwhile, billions of Euro are being poured into a banking ‘black hole’ while many of the senior bank executives responsible for the recession “continue to behave like characters from the last days of the Ancien Regime.” Meanwhile ordinary bank staff, who bear no responsibility for the crisis, are facing pay cuts and redundancies.

The jobs threat hanging over almost 10% of the sector’s workforce is a “cautious and conservative” figure according to Harvey, who says jobs are disappearing despite pay reductions and the introduction of short time working in some organisations.

“Alone among the world’s developed nations, Ireland has adopted deflationary polices to tackle the crisis. Alone among the developed world, our Government believes that cutting peoples’ incomes will somehow create jobs and end the recession.”

The document reiterates ICTU’s call for a ‘social solidarity pact’ to secure agreement on a recovery plan that spreads the burden fairly and equally across society and focuses on stimulating economic activity and growth.

Shifting the Burden says official figures prove Government policy isn’t working as tax revenue plummets and unemployment soars. “Far from stimulating growth, cuts are having exactly the opposite effect. They are squeezing life out of an already depressed economy.”

There is a link to Shifting the Burden on www.impact.ie.

There are over 6,000 voluntary and community organisations in Ireland, employing over 53,000 people. The estimated value of the sector to the economy is €6.5 billion, while state funding totals around €1.9 billion.

The result of the last two budgets, which loaded the costs of the recession onto social welfare recipients, pensioners and workers, could be to “turn Ireland into an economic wasteland for years,” it says.

Recovery

New officers elected AMONGST THE important business at IMPACT’s conference in May was the election of the union’s president and other officers. Kevin O’Malley of the Kerry branch was elected president for the next two years.

Four vice presidents were elected: Francie Byrne (Municipal Employees’ branch), Margaret Coughlan (Wicklow Health branch), Joe May (IALPA branch) and James Monaghan (Laois branch).

Photo: Dylan Vaughan.

The publication says that “the 2010 budget took just €73 million from millionaires but over €760 million from social wel-

Recovery needs public services ECONOMIC RECOVERY must be based on investment in people and innovation if we are to avoid relying on a bloated and over-paid financial sector again.

That’s according to renowned British journalist and economist Will Hutton, who spoke at an ICTU-sponsored Dublin lecture in May. Hutton said public services – especially education, research, regulation and public procurement – must be at the heart of the government initiatives required to build lasting economic and social security.

The former Observer editor called for an “innovation ecosystem,” which could encourage genuine entrepreneurs, improve spending and outcomes in education and research, direct public procurement to support innovation, upskill workers, build consumer confidence though good regulation, and create an appropriate financial system.

He also called for a “new bargain at work” and a modern system of social security based on a ‘flexicurity’ model of generous short-term unemployment 40

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benefit and high-quality retraining - linked to an early return to employment.

“Working class men and women would “have to take more risk” as the lifetime of firms becomes shorter and company wind-ups become the norm. “We need institutions to mitigate risk as we become the authors of our own lives in a riskier world,” he said.

Alice Hennessy (Limerick branch) was re-elected as honorary secretary, Tom Murray (Dublin City branch) was elected honorary treasurer and Catherine Keogh (Fingal branch) was elected honorary equal opportunities officer.

Profile of Kevin O’Malley – page 4.

He warned that excessive financial sector pay was at the root of current global economic problems.

Describing a “stunning and unsustainable” rise in the Irish banking sector, Hutton said banks were still capable of bankrupting the country if there was another economic downturn.

While NAMA was “fundamentally necessary” to shrink the banking sector, Hut-

ton also called for pan-European financial legislation, control of hedge funds and private equity, and a European monetary fund to make the Euro work.

He was pessimistic about the prospects of growth in the Euro zone in the immediate years ahead, saying too many large countries were prioritising debt reduction, which collectively could create a huge global recession.

IMPACT’S RECENT conference unanimously pledged to continue to fight pay cuts in private companies and the commercial semi-state sector. And delegates condemned employers’ body IBEC for unilaterally withdrawing from the Towards 2016 deal in the private sector. Outgoing IMPACT president John Power said the assault on private and commercial semistate sector incomes were “sometimes just naked opportunism as some managements seek to use the crisis to drive down pay in successful and profitable enterprises.”

Conference call Photo: Dylan Vaughan.

THE GOVERNMENT’S strategy of loading the cost of economic collapse onto the less well off is unfair and won’t work. That’s according to a new publication on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ (ICTU) alternative to Government economic policy.

The report was commissioned to examine the disproportionate effect of budget cuts on the sector, which provides a wide range of services to Ireland’s most vulnerable people and communities.

The threat to jobs and services also featured prominently at the union’s recent conference, where delegates backed a motion calling on the union to resist compulsory job losses. Una O’Connor of the Boards and Agencies branch said the cuts were “nothing less than a betrayal of everything that we have achieved.”

Rights

Labour backs Portiuncula

Phyllis Lowth from the Local Enterprise branch enjoying the sunshine at IMPACT’s biennial conference held in Kilkenny in May.

LABOUR PARTY leader Eamon Gilmore has told Ballinasloe Hospital Action Committee he will work to ensure A&E and other services are maintained in Portiuncula Hospital. The pledge came after a meeting with the group, which is led by IMPACT official Padraig Mulligan. The union is seeking commitments on the filling of a range of vacant posts at the hospital, which staff believe is being downgraded as part of HSE plans to concentrate resources in Galway.

Coillte cash

Unions support fair hotels SIPTU’S FAIR hotels campaign, which was launched in May, is calling on consumers to support hotels that treat their staff fairly and recognise trade unions. So far 45 hotels have signed up and IMPACT is encouraging its members to use these hotels – and others that join the campaign in future – when booking holidays, breaks, conferences and meetings.

Peter Gaynor of Fair Trade Mark Ireland has backed the initiative saying it offered consumers an ethical choice in the marketplace. “You are not just changing the rules, you are changing the game,” he said.

SIPTU’s Jack O’Connor said the campaign will use the combined purchasing power of 850,000 workers in Ireland and 12 million workers overseas, and that of 50 trade unions and 32 non-government organisations, to encourage hotels to support workers’ rights.

Unions generate a lot of business for the hotel trade and they plan to use their purchasing power to build the campaign. Over the next three years unions will hold over 60 major conferences involving over 17,600 delegates and about 45,000 bed nights.

Speaking at the campaign launch hotel worker Bernadette Casey said: “The next time you see a rock-bottom hotel deal, ask yourself who is ultimately paying the price.”

See www.fairhotels.ie for a full list of participating hotels and an online booking system.

IMPACT HAS won an important Labour Court case after Coillte management tried to unilaterally cut entitlements to subsistence payments. The Court ruled that the company couldn’t unilaterally breach agreements and said staff should now get the payments retrospectively.

Gaza support IMPACT WAS among the many trade unions that strongly condemned the June Israeli commando attack on the flotilla taking humanitarian aid to Gaza. General secretary Peter McLoone called on the Government to withdraw its support for Israeli membership of the OECD and support an immediate suspension of the EU trade agreement with Israel. The union supported the national demonstration called by the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign on 5th June.

Contact Trade Union Friends of Palestine at tufp@dublin.ie.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 41

Get on the right terms

Play it loud

Are we human?

Or are we doing the Birdie Song routine?

RAYMOND CONNOLLY reckons Darwin would have had something to say about our behaviour on the dance floor.

I RECENTLY had the pleasure of attending the IMPACT conference dinner as a guest. Not being familiar with many people in the room, it was a good opportunity for a spot of people watching.

There are few better arenas for this activity than the dance floor of a wedding celebration or, indeed, a conference dinner. There is, after all, a deeply complex relationship between music and dance.

In my younger days I observed dancing with contempt. Playing air guitar or doing the pogo was acceptable, but all other forms of dance were naff and strictly to be entertained only in the pursuit of integration with the opposite sex.

But over the years, I became utterly convinced that dancing means many different things to different people.

And who can forget 1981’s Birdie Song by the Tweets, which sold over 1.6 million copies in Britain alone? The Swiss name of the original inspiration for the song was Der Entenanz or The Duck Dance.

Yodelling and duck dancing, now there’s a combination with potential.

But the dance itself was introduced to the USA in 1981 by the Heilbronn Band from Germany.

Wouldn’t you just know that the Germans had a hand – or, indeed, a wing – in this?

While the USA was reeling from the overly provocative contortions of youngsters doing The Twist, all across Britain people were, um, tapping their feet.

Pointers and turkeys

Photo: dreamstime.com

Watch the predominantly male reaction to a popular song during the ‘dance on the way to the dance floor’ phase.

It will generally involve a lot of pointing towards the ceiling. The predominantly female reaction, on the other hand, resembles the actions of a group of demented turkeys clucking their way up the dance floor.

This isn’t altogether surprising considering that the history of dance has consistently revealed the human obsession with imitating chickens and various other forms of wildlife.

The great James Brown had the panache to make imitating chickens look cool with his ‘funky chicken’ routine which extended beyond mere clucking. Generally, however, it isn’t recommended.

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Monkey men The British, on the other hand, seemed obsessed with imitating monkeys. It’s only a pity that Darwin’s genius came too early to encompass the 1975 dance craze which swept through Britain on foot of the Goodies’ smash hit The Funky Gibbon. “Ooh, ooh, ooh the Funky Gibbon.” What would the Royal Society have made of it?

Mind you, the British contribution to the dance craze wasn’t always so risqué. In early 1963 The Shadows eased to No.1 with Foot Tapper and, yes folks, it does exactly what it says on the tin. So while the USA was still reeling from the overly provocative contortions of youngsters doing The Twist, all across Britain people were, um, tapping their feet. ➤

Darwin’s genius came too early to encompass the 1975 dance craze which swept through Britain on foot of the Goodies’ smash hit The Funky Gibbon.

But the evolution of British dance hadn’t finished yet.

The year following this foot tapping frenzy, Mark Berry, alias Bez, was born. Bez could be loosely described as a dancer. He could also be described as a human head shop.

In his book Freaky Dancin he writes of an incident in 1986 when he fell off stage and cut his forehead in the middle of a Happy Mondays set. “The doc tells me to take it easy and put my feet up. I thought I’m not f****n havin’ that and I got some of (guitarist) Moose’s acid dripped in the cut and ran back out with me shakers. F****n raz.”

Pop pickers Baz’s freaky dancing antics are an artistic planet away from the Top of the Pops dancers who brought the first dance interpretation into our sitting rooms every Thursday evening. I don’t remember the GoJo’s but do remember Pan’s People and their literal interpretations of everything from Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Get Down to the Sex Pistols’ Somethin’ Else.

Rumour has it that Pan herself went to pot and the dance troupe was replaced in the late 1970s by Legs and Co. The name was chosen by Top of the Pops viewers following a competition promoted by Ed Stewart. Slight regression on the evolutionary scale there, methinks.

Twist Early 1960s dance routine. Early symptoms include lumbago and tendonitis of the knees.

Hucklebuck Showband routine. Wriggle like a snake, waddle like a duck. Sounds like a walk home from the pub.

Rock the Boat Silly people sit on floor pretending to row a boat. There’ll always be one who goes from side to side as the others go back to front. Avoid that individual at the bar. (I’ll bet Bono used to do that in his younger days.)

Pogo All male dance involving repeatedly jumping up and down. Similar to an England centre forward.

Tango

And, as TV became much more permissive in the early 1980s, Legs and Co found themselves up against it when dance group Hot Gossip appeared on Thames Television’s Kenny Everett show. Too hot for the BBC, suffice to say the show had enough about it to entice our local gang of 15-year-old boys to suspend the football match on the green for half an hour.

Argentinean twosome arrangement. Can be interpreted in Ireland as Government policy on the use of sun beds for the under 18s.

Not that football and dance are strangers to each other. Goal celebrations nowadays commonly feature dance routines and one can see potential for the likes of Peter Crouch doubling up as the fifth member of Kraftwerk. Although, playing with Spurs, he’d likely fit in better with Chas ‘n’ Dave.

Time Warp

Despite my reticence to embrace dance as an act, one of my favourite comedy moments is the little 1937 dance routine performed by the greatest of them all, Laurel and Hardy, to the tune of At the Ball, That’s All in the film Way out West. And as the great Eric Morecambe once said: “If it’s good enough for Laurel and Hardy, it’s good enough for me.” ●

Autumn 2010 Soduko Solutions (From page 48.)

7 2 1 3 8 9 4 5 6

8 6 4 7 5 2 9 1 3

9 3 5 6 1 4 2 7 8

3 8 6 2 9 1 7 4 5

2 4 7 5 3 8 6 9 1

Solution easy

1 5 9 4 6 7 8 3 2

4 1 2 8 7 3 5 6 9

5 7 3 9 2 6 1 8 4

6 9 8 1 4 5 3 2 7

4 8 3 2 7 6 9 5 1

6 9 5 1 8 3 2 4 7

2 1 7 5 9 4 8 3 6

1 4 2 6 5 9 7 8 3

3 6 8 7 1 2 4 9 5

5 7 9 3 4 8 1 6 2

Solution difficult

8 3 6 4 2 1 5 7 9

9 5 1 8 6 7 3 2 4

7 2 4 9 3 5 6 1 8

Silly people indulge in the next best thing to rock the boat…

La Bamba …and then continue by pretending to be a carriage on a train.

Chubby Checker doing the twist.

Summer 2010 Crossword Solutions See page 48 for the competition winners from Issue 9.

ACROSS: 1. Queen 5. Scent 8. Estonia 9. Agree 10. Lager 14.Tarry 17. Asset 20.

Free 21. Tofu 22. Mean 23. Stratagem 24. Studs 27. Gross 30. Alcohol 32. Vital 33.

Outdo 35. Sieve 36. Marks. DOWN: 1. Quart 2. Error 3. Needy 4. Gobi 5. Salsa 6.

Edges 7. Tarot 12. Schematic 13. Stopwatch 15. Appoint 16. Refused 18. Stammer 19. Engages 24. Saves 25. Untie 26. Salve 27. Gloom 28. Outer 29. Slots 31. Oath.

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 43

Sport World Cup? Enough already!

As the Irish return triumphant from the European boxing championships in Moscow, KEVIN NOLAN takes a look at how the nation boxes well above its weight on the international scene.

The Fighting Irish in the person of Billy Walsh. Current head coach Walsh was Irish team captain in 1991 when Griffin climbed highest on the podium.

The Irish squad of nine boxers returned from this summer’s European Championships in Moscow with a haul of one gold, one silver, and three bronze medals and finished second place of the 42 nations in action, just behind Russia.

One of the strengths of Irish boxing is that the country’s deep and successful traditions are passed from one generation to the next while, at the same time, introducing overseas expertise.

That incredible placing by the boys in green confirms, if confirmation were needed, that this is a golden age for Irish amateur pugilists. It also puts them in confident stead ahead of next year’s qualifiers for the 2012 London Olympics.

When it comes to boxing, unlike in most international sports, we punch well above our weight.

Golden

Photos: sportsfile.com

Twenty-three-year-old Paddy Barnes was our golden boy returning from Moscow as the light flyweight champion.

The Belfast-based Holy Family clubman joined an elite and illustrious list of boxers who have claimed gold in European Championships, adding his name to a list that includes Jimmy Ingle (1939), Paddy Dowdall (1939), Gearóid O Colmain (1947), Maxi McCullagh (1949), and Paul Griffin (1991).

Ireland’s previous gold in a European Championship came almost two full decades ago when Paul Griffin beat all comers to be crowned featherweight champion in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1991. Griffin surrendered his title at the next Championships when an eye injury forced him out at semi-final stage, but he claimed bronze.

There’s a connection between the Irish team of 1991 and the class of 2010 44 SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

Two hours after Barnes’ success, Darren O’Neill entered the ring at the Ice Palace for the middleweight final.

Kilkenny hurling’s loss has been Irish boxing’s gain. O’Neill won Dr Croke Cup medals with the famed hurling academy of St Kieran’s College in 2003 and 2004 as well as lining out with the black and amber at minor level.

Phenomenon The Paulstown clubman is something of a phenomenon.

In addition to his commitments with the High Performance boxing squad he teaches full-time in Holy Trinity national school in Donaghmede, Dublin.

To complete the medal haul for Ireland, Kenny Egan, Eric Donovan and Tyrone McCullagh all captured bronze medals.

Nineteen-year-old McCullagh’s chances of victory in his semi-final against English champion Ian Weaver were seriously diminished after he suffered a broken bone in his left hand during their opening round.

To put the achievements of this Irish team into perspective, many seasoned boxing analysts believe that the standard at the Europeans was on a par with what can be expected when London 2012 comes around.

Of course, at London the Irish challenge will include Katie Taylor. Katie remains on target for a spectacular London 2012 despite having her incredible winning streak of 42 bouts u

Boxing clever; Ireland’s talented young pugilists, clockwise from left: Paddy Barnes, Andy Lee puts down his opponent, a victorious Darren O’Neill, Katie Taylor in action and Ireland coach Billy Walsh.

in succession brought to a halt in March at the semi-final stage of the Usti nad Labem Gran Prix in the Czech Republic.

In the same month Thomas Hardwick, a young boxer from Coolock in Dublin, won the New York Golden Gloves Novice Heavyweight title at Madison Square Garden.

Photo: gettyimages

THEY SAY there are two certainties in life: Death and taxes.

But let’s make that three: Death, taxes and Irish amateur boxers claiming medals at the highest level.

Soccer atheists of the world unite. NIALL SHANAHAN feels your pain.

Clash In the professional ranks the progress of Limerick man Andy Lee continues to be closely monitored as he continues his dream of capturing the world middleweight belt. He has made a sound comeback since suffering his only defeat, a seventh round stoppage by Brian Vera in 2008, with five straight victories.

Many argued that he and his promoters were taking a bit of a gamble when they lined up Mamadou Thiam at Limerick’s University Arena in May. The Paris-based Senegalese has stopped all but three of his 46 victims.

But the 38-year-old former European light-middleweight champion is not the force he once was and wilted under the pressure of Lee’s punching.

Lee and reigning European middleweight title holder, Londoner Darren Barker, have been eyeing each other up from a distance for a long time now.

It looks like the talking will stop soon and they will come face-toface in the ring this year. A clash not to miss l

WHO CAN forget Pavarotti’s soaring rendition of Nessun Dorma as part of the Three Tenors concert on the eve of the World Cup final in 1990? It immortalised the event, the singer and the song. And it was far more memorable than the West Germany and Argentina match that followed.

Of course, we remember that contest more for Ireland’s journey through the competition which ended in heartbreak when Salvatore ‘Totò’ Schillaci put us one-nil down in the quarter finals in Rome. A nation wept as another chanteuse, Edith Piaf, sang Non, je ne regrette rien over RTE’s edited highlights of Jack’s army in action.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the country for months afterwards when either song was played.

But as a football atheist, it’s telling that I can remember the songs better than the players’ names, the score lines, or anything else that permits entry to a water-cooler conversation about the so-called beautiful game.

It is the lingua franca among men, the glue that holds them together. If it wasn’t for football they’d probably go to war.

Those of you who share my antipathy for the sight of 22 millionaires chasing a leather ball will understand that our indifference to the offside rule, the four-four-two formation or the significance of being drawn against Lichtenstein in the qualifiers is socially crippling.

But you can’t escape it. We live in a society shaped by its seasons and measured by the distance between world cup competitions. There’s no escape and moaners like me are asked to kindly shut up, because they “can’t hear what Dunphy is saying about the skittishness of the FIFA-supplied balls.”

One more piece of bad news. There is no memorable song this year. Just the ugly drone of the Vuvuzela l Work & Life: The Magazine for IMPACT Members

45

S UD OKU

Win Win Win

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HOW TO PLAY: Fill in the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the digits 1-9. There is no maths involved. You solve it with reasoning and logic.

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YOU COULD add €50 to your wallet or purse by answering five easy questions and sending your entry, name and address to Roisin Nolan, Work & Life prize quiz, IMPACT, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1.

Send your entry by Friday 17th September 2010. We’ll send €50 to the first completed entry pulled from the hat.* You’ll find the answers in this issue of Work & Life.

1. The richest 1% own how much of Ireland’s wealth?

A. 20% B. Far too much C. Both of the above 2. Who resigned from the Equality Authority along with Niall Crowley?

A. Louise O’Donnell B. John Waters C. Kevin Myers 3. How much coffee does the average Irish person drink?

A. 3.5 kg worth of coffee beans a year B. A double espresso, two cappuccinos and a latte C. Enough to get them through the day 4. In the 1990s Ireland’s coastal waters became A. The dirtiest in Europe B. Europe’s first whale and dolphin sanctuary C. Deserted as we all holidayed in Europe 5.

A. B. C.

A ‘fair hotel’ must sign up to Collective bargaining rights for staff Cheaper cocktails Two treatments for the price of one

The small print* You must be a paid-up IMPACT member to win.

Only one entry per person (multiple entries will not be considered). Entries must reach us by Friday 17th September 2010. The editor’s decision is final.

That’s it!

46

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010

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Your view

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ACROSS 1. This 19th century Irish patriot belonged to one of the seven septs of Laois (5) 5. Ancient Greek letter of animal tails (5) 8. This bright green jewel is sometimes used in reference to Ireland (7) 9. Lithuanian river (5) 10. Lament (5) 11. The mean (7) 14. _____ O’Gara, Irish rugby hero (5) 17. Mountain ash (5) 20. Larry Cunningham sang the praises of this lovely Connacht county (7) 21. The got of war in ancient Roman mythology; the forth planet in order of distance from the sun (4) 22. Tuscan island on which Napoleon was imprisoned, 1814-1815 (4) 23. Brass wind instruments of the trumpet family (9) 24. The Oak leaf county (5) 28. A busy insect (3) 30. The world’s highest mountain (7) 32. Poisonous African snake (5) 33. Italian poet, author of The Divine Comedy (5) 34. Malice (7) 35. Smirch, blot (5) 36. Homely tales (5) DOWN 1. Recluse, solitary person (5) 2. Citrus fruit (5) 3. 19th century French historian and philosopher (5) 4. This astute rabbit was the central figure in the Uncle Remus tales (4) 5. Viper (5) 6. Insectivorous mouse - like animal (5) 7. Dress elegantly (5) 12. Discharge (4) 13. One who examines and certifies accounts (7)

Simply complete this short survey and send it to Roisin Nolan, Work & Life survey, IMPACT, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1. You can also send your views by email to rnolan@impact.ie.

And don’t forget, we’re also giving prizes for letters published in the next issue.

See page 19.

Difficult

win

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WE HOPE you enjoyed this issue of Work & Life, the magazine for IMPACT members. We want to hear your views, and we’re offering a €100 prize to one lucky winner who completes this questionnaire.

We’ll send €100 to the first completed entry pulled from a hat.*

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PRIZE CROSSWORD 1

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1. What did you think of the articles in the autumn 2010 issue of Work & Life ?

Excellent

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Bad

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Comments ________________________________________ __________________________________________________

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2. What did you think of the layout, style and pictures in the autumn 2010 issue of Work & Life?

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Crossword composed by Maureen Harkin 15. _____ Wilde, Irish playwright (5) 16. Dara O Cinneide and DJ Carey ranked highly amongst these sporting heros (3,4) 18. Strangest (6) 19. The _______ Nights, old oriental tales (7) 24. Father and son 19th century French novelists bore this surname (5) 25. Cuban dance once popular in Irish ballrooms (5) 26. Desire something deeply (5) 27. Tale or yarn (5) 28. The ill-fated girl in Charles Kickham’s song lived beside this river (5) 29. Lock of hair (5) 31. Food item; the founder of the Irish Christian Brothers (4)

1 __________________________________________________

The winners from competitions in the spring issue were:

Crossword: Graham O’Brien, Wicklow health branch.

Quiz: Ailish Kerry, Mayo.

Survey: Seamus Kenny, Limerick.

Lots more competitions to enter in this issue!

3 __________________________________________________ 5. What subjects would you like to see in future issues of Work & Life ?

1 __________________________________________________ 2 __________________________________________________ 3 __________________________________________________ 6. What did you think of the balance between union news and other articles?

The balance is about right

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I want less union news

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7. Any other comments? ______________________________

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Comments ________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ 3. What were your favourite three articles?

Win €50 by completing the crossword and sending your entry, name and address to Roisin Nolan, Work & Life crossword, IMPACT, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1, by Friday 17th September 2010.

We’ll send €50 to the first correct entry pulled from a hat.

Winners!

4. What were your least favourite articles?

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The survey

Name ________________________________________________ Address ______________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

1 __________________________________________________

Email ________________________________________________

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Phone ________________________________________________

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IMPACT branch ______________________________________

The small print* You must be a paid-up IMPACT member to win. Only one entry per person (multiple entries will not be considered).

Entries must reach us by Friday 17th September 2010. The editor’s decision is final. That’s it!

WORK & LIFE: THE MAGAZINE FOR IMPACT MEMBERS 47

Commercial membership services

I

MPACT has facilitated the provision of a number of national membership services and discount schemes on behalf of its members. These include Additional Voluntary Contribution Schemes (Pensions), Life Assurance, Salary Protection in the case of illness and Car, House and Travel Insurance Schemes. A number of local discount schemes are also negotiated by local branches.

The Union uses the size and composition of its membership base and, where possible, competition between the various service providers, to seek the best possible deals for the widest possible sections of our membership. It is probable that the majority of members will get better value from these schemes than if they sought the same service individually. However, this will not be true in all cases and there will be occasions where individual members may, because of their specific circumstances, be able to get better value elsewhere. It is not possible always to ensure that all schemes will be accessible equally to all members and the scheme underwriters will not depart totally from their normal actuarial or risk assessment procedures and rules.

IMPACT does not make any claims as to the quality or reliability of any of these products/services and while advising members of the availability of the National Membership Services and Discount Schemes does not endorse or recommend any particular product or service. IMPACT's role is that of facilitator to ensure that such schemes are available to its members. All contracts are directly between the product/service provider and the individual member. IMPACT is not in any way a party to these contracts and will not accept any responsibility or liability arising from any act or omission on the part of the product or service provider. Neither IMPACT nor any member of its staff receives any fees or commissions or other rewards from these product or service providers arising from such schemes.

While IMPACT does occasionally provide such product/service providers with limited information regarding IMPACT branch and/or workplace representatives for the purpose of advertising such schemes, the Union does not make any personal data relating to individual Union members available to them for any purpose.

The Union requires that product/service providers agree to ensure that all such schemes comply with all lawful requirements including the Equal Status Act 2000.

Advertisements for agreed membership services will have an

FACILITATED

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Some of the companies providing agreed membership services may offer other products or services (that are not as a result of any agreement or arrangement with IMPACT) directly to IMPACT members.

The Union has no role whatsoever in relation to such products or services. Likewise, other product or service providers may make offers directly to IMPACT members through advertisements in the Union newspaper or otherwise. These do not arise as a result of agreements or arrangements with IMPACT and the Union does not ask members to consider availing of such products/services and accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any such offers.

The product/service providers with which IMPACT has agreed the provision of membership services and/or discount schemes are as follows: Brassington & Co. Ltd.

Cornmarket Group Financial Services Ltd.

Travel Insurance – all Divisions.

Car Insurance – all Divisions.

Salary Protection and Life Assurance –

Local Government and Health Divisions only.

Group Insurance Services (GIS)

Marsh Financial Services Ltd.

Car Insurance – all Divisions.

AVC Schemes – all Divisions excluding Municipal Employees.

House Insurance – all Divisions.

Salary Protection and Life Assurance – Civil Service and Services & Enterprises Divisions only.

December 2004

DISCLAIMER (Approved by CEC 10th December 2004) 48

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2010