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 Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen Taoiseach Brian Cowen will continue to lead the Irish Government into its dying days after surviving a plot to oust him prior to the forthcoming General Election, in about three months, possibly March 25.
Rebel Foreign Affairs Minister, Micheál Martin, who led the revolt against the embattled Fianna Fail leader, will now quit his Cabinet post following his failed and badly thought out, leadership challenge.
Following a three-hour meeting, Mr Cowen survived in the secret ballot as expected and accepted the resignation of his Foreign Affairs Minister. Mr Cowen stated:”It sends a very strong confirmation that there are consequences to the decision and the stand that he took.”
The Taoiseach said he did not expect any further resignations from his Cabinet, although some backbenchers and one junior minister did demand change. Chief Whip, John Curran refused to divulge detail the Taoiseach’s margin of victory, following the secret ballot. Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s 30 minutes speech to his colleagues was reported as being “fiery and a passionate display with little new” as he implored TDs to unite behind the final decision.
John Gormley, leader of the Greens is expected to meet the Taoiseach tomorrow to discuss a timetable for the Finance Bill, other outstanding legislation and of course the general election.
Thurles native and Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin, who had her eye on the leadership post if is had become available, did not disclose how she voted in the motion of confidence in the Taoiseach at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting, although it is widely believed she told him he should stand down, when previously they met in their ‘one to one’ recent interview.
 Thurles Ambulance Base Tenders are being sought for the construction of two new Emergency services bases to be built in Co Tipperary:
Lot 1 : Will entail the construction of a single storey ambulance base adjacent to the Community Hospital of the Assumption, at Leugh Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary and another in Nenagh.
Detail plans were approved by Thurles Town Council to the Health Service Executive and will include covered ambulance parking bays, staff car park and a dedicated entrance/exit.
Lot 2: Will entail the construction of an ambulance base, covered ambulance parking bays, staff car park and alterations to an existing entrance / exit entrance on the grounds of the existing HSE premises (Derg Centre) at Gortlandroe, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.
Detailed plans were approved by Nenagh Town Council to the Health Service Executive for this construction and an appropriate tender has now been published.
Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority: MW-01/11 and the deadline for requests to participate is 3rd February 2011.
 PJ Hough. Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Programme Management Next time you open your Microsoft Office, on your PC or Laptop, here in Co Tipperary or elsewhere, know that a Tipperary native is playing a significant role in the future shaping of the device you are about to use.
PJ Hough, a 47 year old Borrisokane Co.Tipperary native (Lived close to President Barack Obama’s ancestral home) is the Corporate Vice President of Programme Management for the Microsoft Office Group at the Seattle software giant’s HQ.
Following the Microsoft Office 2010 launch in June last year, Microsoft estimated there were about one billion copies, including pirated versions, of the companies state of the art software installed globally.
Microsoft’s profits have grown considerably, with an estimated €4 billion accounting for just the last financial quarter and with Hough at the helm since 1994.
Hough was attending the Borrisokane Vocational School in the 1980s, during a time when unemployment levels in Ireland were edging towards 15 per cent. Hough recalls: “There was an Apple 2 computer in the Vocational school in Borrisokane at the time, but none of the teachers had been trained how to use it and I remember saving pocket money to go to Eason’s in Limerick to buy a book on how to programme it.”
Now with an interest in computers, Hough signed up to a Bachelor degree, followed by a Masters in Computer Applications at, what is now known as, Dublin City University (DCU) and graduated in 1986. After college he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation in Galway, where he stayed for the next eight years, involved in a variety of engineering and consulting roles.
Close to 30 years old, Hough applied for a Donnelly Visa, to gain access to the United States and on being successful, he applied to join Microsoft, in Redmond in Washington State in 1994.
Hough focused primarily on Office programmability and Microsoft Access where, after seven years in program management, he went on to join the Microsoft Office product planning team, based here in Ireland.
In 2003, Hough returned to Redmond to lead the Windows SharePoint Services team, where he was the group program manager, three years later he joined the Office Shared team in 2006.
A regular visitor to Ireland, Mr Hough currently lives in North Bend, Washington, with his wife and daughter.
 Archbishop Thomas Collins Archbishop of Toronto, His Grace, Thomas Christopher Collins, a senior Vatican investigator into clerical child sex abuse scandals in Ireland, yesterday spoke of Pope Benedict XVI full determination to ensure that such evil does not happen again.
Archbishop Collins has been chosen and instructed by Pope Benedict XVI to conduct an inquiry into the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and to submit a report on his findings to the Pontiff by this Easter.
Archbishop Collins warned the large congregation in The Cathedral of The Assumption, Thurles, Co Tipperary, that even one priest gone wrong caused immense harm, and that throughout the world priests had done unspeakable evil, sometimes at church events.
Speaking at a penitential service, Archbishop Collins stated that a practical way in which the Catholic Church could show its concern was by doing all that we can to learn from this experience of evil, and so to try to ensure that it never happens again.
The Archbishop further added : “The evil of sexual abuse of the young is all the more devastating when the perpetrators are priests. We cannot escape the horror of this, by pointing out that the great majority of priests do serve faithfully and with all integrity and compassion.
But even one priest gone wrong causes immense harm, and throughout the world priests have done unspeakable evil, sometimes within the very sacramental setting, which, should above all environments, be most sacred and safe. But it is the sacred responsibility of us all, but most especially of the authorities in the church, to do what we can to prevent such evil, and to deal with it effectively whenever it is found. The crimes themselves, and the failure of some church authorities to respond adequately to them, are both great scandals. We recognise the courage of the victims and their families who came forward and shone the cleansing light of truth on their suffering.”
Over the next few days Archbishop Collins will hold confidential meetings with abuse victims, and he has already held private discussions with some 20 priests from the Archdiocese.
Archbishop Thomas Collins was born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1947 and is the tenth and current Archbishop of Toronto, having previously served as Bishop of Saint Paul in Alberta from1997–1999 and Archbishop of Edmonton from1999–2006. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from St. Jerome College, Waterloo in 1969, and was ordained to the Diaconate on 14 May, 1972.
In 1973, he received a Master of Arts in English from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Theology from St. Peter’s Seminary, London. He furthered his studies in Rome at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, from where he obtained a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture in 1978. Archbishop Collins later in the same year served as a lecturer in English at King’s College and in Scripture at St. Peter’s Seminary, where he became Spiritual Director and Associate Professor of Scripture.
 What benefits birds, also benefits humans, as those of our readers here in Thurles and Co Tipperary, who supplemented their garden’s birds’ diet, during the recent unprecedented harsh weather, can attest. By feeding the birds in your area, there is an automatically important knock-on effect for the flower lover and organic gardener, as birds will quickly get used to searching for food in your garden and will simultaneously search for pests such as greenfly, caterpillars and snails, all the year round.
By the way this video was captured on the new Flip Video Camera. Latter fits into the palm of your hand, easily fits in your jeans pocket while letting you record high quality HD footage with the greatest of ease. The rectangular shaped camera is the size of a standard mobile phone and can captures 2 hours of HD video at a time, so is ideal for the local football match, the confirmation or the children’s birthday party. On the Flip Video camera front is a zoom lens and microphone, while the back contains a 1.5 inch viewing screen, plus four directional arrows, a delete and a play button. A USB plug flips out from its side allowing you to connect it directly to a computer or laptop USB port, without the hassle of attaching messy cables, thus allowing you to play your captured content immediately without rendering. As you can see from this video, this tiny camera delivers a remarkably high quality picture on a device that any unskilled individual can use. I find it especially good in situations like observing nature, as with the aid of a tripod, it allows me to get up close and personal without being intrusive. (This extraordinary HD Video Camera is also very affordable, at around €170 .)
After the glut of each years Summer and Autumn fruits have passed and when insects are diminishing, winter is most certainly the correct time to feed our local bird population, but when should we stop?
With regard to this question, there are possibly two schools of thought. Some says you should stop gradually, once winter is over and more natural foods become available. Other state that stopping suddenly increases stress to birds, when they are already under pressure both defending territories and building their nests. There is possibly some truth in both schools of thinking, but it is true that allowing blue tits to feed their very their young babies on peanuts is likely to cause their deaths, as very young Blue Tits can’t digest the nuts fed by their parents. You could however, switch to other foods during the period, perhaps hanging up a meat bone, left over from your main meal, which offers to the birds a high protein food. There will be plenty of natural food available in your garden in Summer, with greenfly, caterpillars and snails, of all sizes, in much abundance.
The different species of our birds life have different feeding habits. Hanging food is ideal for sparrows and members of the Tit family, using a peanut or seed dispenser as shown in this video attached.
Continue reading What Benefits Birds Can Benefit Humans
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