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National News Briefs

Self-employed lobby for welfare access

Self employed people will today lobby for greater access to social welfare when they appear before the Oireachtas Social Protection Committee.

Currently, self-employed people who lose their jobs are not entitled to unemployment benefit.

The Self Employed Alliance Group from Dundalk will today tell TDs and Senators that company owners who have gone out of business should have the same unemployment benefits as their employees.

Chairperson of the Social Protection Committee, Labour's Joanna Tuffy, says the committee will look into addressing the apparent inequality in the social welfare system.
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New jobs for Aspen, as CPM advertise 100 Christmas positions

Forty four new jobs are being created in the capital.

They will come on stream at pharmaceutical company Aspen in Citywest.

The 'high quality' positions will bring the total number of employees at the firm to 58.

Meanwhile, 100 full and part-time Christmas employees are to be recruited in the retail sector through CPM.

The positions will be available in the next couple of weeks and the bulk of them will be coming on line in the next four to six weeks.
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Over 120 distressed properties to be auctioned

The largest auction yet of distressed properties takes place in Dublin today, with 127 lots up for grabs.

October's Allsop Space auction features more than 100 properties, with 77 of them residential.

Lots include a former Sacred Heart convent in Roscrea, Co Tipperary; a duplex apartment in Donnybrook with a reserve price of €295,000 and the leftover parts of a housing estate in Mountrath, Co Laois, which will be sold off as one lot.
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James Reilly backer owns controversial primary-care site

A SUPPORTER of Health Minister James Reilly owns the site in the minister's constituency where a controversial health centre will be built.

Dr Reilly also used a property on the site as a general election campaign base, the Irish Independent has learned.

The revelation will heap further pressure on Dr Reilly to explain fully why he changed strict criteria on proposed primary care centres.

His changes -- which moved Balbriggan, in his Dublin North constituency, higher up the priority list -- caused uproar and led to the resignation of former junior minister Roisin Shortall last week.

Troubled developer Seamus Murphy -- a self-confessed Fine Gael supporter in Balbriggan -- owns the lands on which the primary care centre is set to be built.

It is currently in the process of being sold by Mr Murphy to a development company which will build the health centre.
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Bank to hire 150 Scots to chase Irish loan arrears

THE country's third-biggest lender plans to hire 200 new staff, including 150 in Scotland, to handle its spiralling Irish mortgage arrears crisis.

Ulster Bank won't say how many Irish customers are behind on their home loans but parent RBS has said that 13pc of its €19bn of Irish mortgage debt is in arrears.

The average Irish home loan is currently around €200,000 - suggesting a staggering 12,500 Ulster Bank home loan customers could be in trouble.

That means thousands of householders who borrowed from Ulster Bank, and in many more cases from its First Active subsidiary, who are behind on repayments will in future deal with the new Scottish staff as they try to get to grips with their financial plight.

For the rest of the bank's 100,000 Irish customers news that more of Ulster Bank's work is being outsourced to Scotland will be a reminder of this summer's appalling IT meltdown.
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Survivor group calls for community-based services for abusers

The government should put in place a network of community-based services around the country for people who sexually abuse children, according to abuse survivor group 1 in 4.

The group is releasing its annual report for 2011 today. They supported 933 people and 39 families last year and most of those people had been sexually abused in childhood.

However, some 28 clients were sex offenders who attended rehabilitation programmes.

Executive Director of 1 in 4, Maeve Lewis, says fewer than 5% of sex offenders will ever be convicted of their crimes.
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