254,427 research outputs found
Determinants of Private Afforestation in the Republic of Ireland
No full textThis paper employs a panel regression analysis using county-level data to quantify the relative importance of competing forestry and agricultural policy incentives in explaining trends in private afforestation in Ireland. It concludes that an increase in the level of up front payments to planters is the most cost efficient way of increasing planting levels. The introduction of the Irish agri-environment programme REPS has contributed to a significant decline in the level of forestry planting and offset the recent increases in the level of forestry grants and premia. Several policy reforms to encourage forestry planting in Ireland are proposed, including greater integration of forestry with the REPS scheme and increasing the value of the initial payment which farmers receive.
Peat slope failure in Ireland
No full textRecent peat failures in Ireland in the autumn of 2003 at Pollatomish, County Mayo
and Derrybrien, County Galway have focused attention on such events. However, peat
failures are not a recent phenomenon with possible evidence of peat failures in Ireland
having been identified as far back as the Early Bronze Age. This paper summarises
the issues surrounding peat failures in Ireland that would be of interest to an
engineer\engineering geologist assessing this geohazard. The distribution of peat
throughout Ireland, its formation, and its typical characteristic properties are
discussed. A review of historical failures shows that there is a relationship between
run out distance and failure volume and that the majority of the failures are clustered
at slope angles between 4º and 8º. It seems that the risk of fatalities from peat slides is
relatively low. The likely casual factors attributed to peat failures are presented using
examples of failure, including the recent failures at Pollatomish and Derrybrien both
of which have been investigated by the authors. Particular attention is paid to shear
strength properties of peat and the applicability of traditional soil mechanics. Given
the uncertainties which exist about peat strength, a cautious approach to slope stability
assessment is advocated together with identification of potential causal factors to
mitigate against this geohazard.Not applicabl
Beyond the Catholic-Protestant divide : religious and ethnic diversity in the North and South of Ireland
No full textPaper presented to the IBIS conference Old structures, new beliefs: religion, community and politics in contemporary Ireland, University College Dublin, 15 May 2003.This paper explores the challenges posed by the ethnic diversification of contemporary Irish society for conventional understandings of and responses to issues of religion, community and politics. It argues that the particularities of social and institutional histories and structures in the North and South have eclipsed wider considerations of both race and ethnicity and religious identity beyond the Catholic-Protestant divide. This has, in turn, served to obscure the many dynamic changes that such diversity has catalysed both within Irish civil society generally, and within the island’s traditional religious institutions themselves. The paper discusses the promises and potentials of conceptualising religion or religious identity and the relationships between religion and ethnicity within broader cultural and political fields, and their implications for the “new” (multicultural) Ireland.Not applicableti -TS 07.07.10
Author is part of the school of Sociolog
Social capital and self-rated health in the Republic of Ireland: evidence from the European Social survey
No full textThis paper analyses the determinants of self-reported health in Ireland, conditioning self-reported health on a set of socio-economic, labour market and social capital variables. Ireland has the highest self-reported health rate in Europe, a finding backed-up by other studies. Data were derived from the 2002 and 2005 European Social survey. The full 87,915 observations from both rounds were pooled and used to estimate mean self-rated health across Europe. The Irish data were isolated, totalling 2,049 individuals for 2002 and 2,286 individuals for 2005. The 2002 data were used to analyse the determinants of subjective health state, as it had a richer array of social capital variables. The results demonstrate statistically significant effects of income on self-reported health that are robust to different statistical specifications and statistically significant though modest effects of social capital variables such as associational membership and frequency of social meeting and labour market variables such as being on a limited as opposed to permanent contract
Social Capital & Self-Rated Health in the Republic of Ireland. Evidence from the European Social Survey
No full textThis paper analyses the determinants of self-reported health in Ireland, conditioning selfreported health on a set of socio-economic, labour market and social capital variables. Ireland has the highest self-reported health rate in Europe. The results demonstrate statistically significant effects of income on self-reported health that are robust to different statistical specifications and statistically significant though modest effects of social capital variables such as associational membership and frequency of social meeting.
Composition and distribution of organic waste in Ireland : implications for land application practices
No full textPaper presented at Agricultural and biosystems engineering for a sustainable world. International Conference on Agricultural Engineering, Hersonissos, Crete, Greece, 23-25 June, 2008Questions about the economic and environmental sustainability of current waste management scenarios in Europe for various organic wastes, the policy drive at the EU, and the subsequent adoption of EU policy at national levels, has given momentum for diversion of organic wastes away from landfills and ultimately on to the land. The land has always been the receptor of choice for animal manures, but it is now becoming a popular management route for other organic wastes. Currently in Ireland, land is examined by specific sectors and regarded as a resource available uniquely to each sector. In contrast, it is reasoned in this paper that treating the diverse organic wastes potentially suited for land application as a unit waste stream and developing a detailed accounting of waste quantities and characteristics would serve as a gateway towards a consistent and holistic strategy from which a comprehensive land application strategy at national level or regional level could be developed.
The methodology used is a desk-based inventory that relied on existing secondary data in published reports. A literature based survey and quantification of organic wastes potentially suited for land application, in Ireland, was completed. The survey included a broad range of organic wastes from agricultural and non-agricultural activities - with animal manure, spent mushroom compost, biodegradable municipal waste, biosolids, sludge from onsite treatment plants, organic wastes from industrial sources the major ones. Reports from the Central Statistical Office of Ireland, study reports at the Environmental Protection Agency, Regional Waste Management Plans, Sludge Management Plans, County Waste Registries and European sources were consulted in association with codes and guidelines to determine the quantity and composition of organic wastes potentially suited for land application. Major and minor plant nutrients were used as a basis to describe the composition of the organic
wastes. Finally a GIS-based database of the organic wastes potentially suited for land application was developed and a distributional analysis was performed at different spatial scales.
Results of our analysis confirm that animal waste remains the largest source of organic waste in Ireland - as in most other European countries - and the major concern for management through land application due to the sheer volume of the waste. Between the small percentage of organic wastes of non-animal origin biosolids, sludge from industrial sources, biodegradable municipal wastes and spent mushroom compost constitute the major share. There is a spatial distribution of the organic wastes in terms of both the total quantity of organic waste and type of the organic wastes. While the volume of the non-agricultural wastes appears to be insignificant – compared to organic waste of animal origin – at a National level it constitutes a high local problem at lesser spatial scales, i.e. counties and regions. The research suggests that there is a need to a leap from the present, sector-specific approach used in managing the land application of waste to a comprehensive land application strategy that considers the total quantity and quality of waste relative to the land base suitable for receiving them.Not applicableConference websitehttp://www.ageng2008.com/Conference programme AgEng2008 at http://www.certh.gr/dat/85aaf06a/file.pdf?633675075989702252 - AV 3/8/201
Decomposing demand for public expenditure in Ireland
No full textThis paper, via the analysis of stated preferences from a nationwide representative survey of 1,100 adults, examines the determinants of preferences
for overall government expenditure and estimates a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model of demand for the three major categories of public expenditures in Ireland, namely, social welfare, education and health. Those on higher incomes are less in favour of government expenditure overall. However, and consistent with the available evidence on the utilisation and financing of the three main categories of government expenditures, decomposing the preferences demonstrates that those on higher incomes are particularly less in favour of social welfare expenditure but more in favour of spending on health and education
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