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THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL Bank has cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points to a record low of 0.25 per cent this afternoon.
The news from the Frankfurt is a pre-Christmas boost to some 375,000 people who are on tracker mortgages that are tied to the ECB’s main interest rate for the eurozone.
The cut is the first in six months when ECB president Mario Draghi announced a similar 25 basis points cut to 0.75 per cent and today’s move marks his fifth since he took office as president in November 2011.
The cut is seen as a reaction to falling inflation and the latest forecasts that the eurozone economy will expand more slowly next year than previously expected.
The ECB’s main task is to keep the cost of living relatively unchanged meaning an ‘ideal’ inflation rate should be two per cent.
In October, inflation in the euro zone declined to an annual rate of 0.7 per cent.
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In the meantime get some barriers at the ends of Grafton St and Henry St. In all other European cities I’ve visited in the last year all pedestrian areas are blocked off with some form of barrier….
@Anne: well, that makes sense regardless of terrorism tbf.
@Anne: Sounds like FUTURE PROOFING to me I wonder why??
@Kian: no connection with migrants and the rise in crime and terrorist attacks? In Dublin we now have garda driving around with guns, I work in the hospital and they have a risk assessment of most likely major incident. Terrorism is second on the list!
@Sayitlikeitis: I’m just saying that even if terrorism wasn’t a threat, it’s a good idea to prevent accidents
@Treabhair Coulahan: rubbish
@Kian: so would you welcome balards on footpaths then? The thing is they are not there for accidents they are there for a reason. And it’s to prevent people killing others on purpose!
@Patrick Agnew: racist
@Sayitlikeitis: there are bollards on footpaths…why are you picking a fight?
@Anne: they are called ‘ Merkel Blocks’
Weren’t some of the trucks that were used in terrorist attacks hired for the day and not hijacked at all?
@Sean:
The better solution is not to welcome islam into ireland
@Martin Lintzgy: we are just getting rid of the feckin Pope and his likes…
@Martin Lintzgy: what if I told you I follow the Islamic faith myself? I’ve been here all my life and not caused much hassle
@Vincent: If saudi arabia were to let them it would ruin them. well that’s their argument and they’re sticking to it.
@Kian: If the cap doesn’t fit don’t wear it.
@Martin Lintzgy: racist and a clown.
It the lunatic driver that’s the problem not the truck. Stop letting undocumented illegals remain in European countries and deport them.
@nelly: correct me if I’m wrong but I think it was documented local-born citizens that did the deed in most cases
@Kian: that logical/reasonable answer wouldn’t be popular on here, Kian.. as many use terrorism to support their anti-immigrant/integration positions ..
@Kian: undocumented illegals=lunatics mkay
@Kian: 2nd generation.
@Kian: 2nd generation.
@Kian: off the top of my head…. Stockholm truck massacre… Not to mention the butchery in a swedish ikea store… Oh and the Stockholm suicide bomber who only blew him self up.. Though I would not want it thought i was using facts for any kind of agenda.
@Raymond Power:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#Recent_immigration_to_Sweden Hello.. the picture is a wee bit more complex than cherry-picking a few recent crimes in Sweden..
If there was a terrorist attack in Dublin city centre – how quickly do you think that the defence forces top echelon could respond? from the Curragh? they have no helicopters at their base? By the time the air corps got pilots to helis, helis to curragh, rangers on board and flew to the city, whilst soldiers were pouring out of cathal brugha and mckee and trying to secure a perimeter – it would all be well over. Ireland has made a zero attempt to invest in defence either for domestic terrorism or for national defence – its not the militarys fault, they have the worst budget and biggest lack of investment of any military in europe. we cant keep specialists in their jobs, pilots, sailors, bomb disposal, special forces, because they make more working in the private sector.
@Ros Aodha: they did a drill last year and response time was 7 minutes I think. There are military staff based in Dublin you know
@Kian: 7 minutes for armed detectives and garda armed support unit only.
Do you honestly think that there are tooled up terrorist incident trained military units sitting in a room waiting for a green light? the only unit in the defence forces trained to deal with domestic terrorism is the Army Ranger Wing. They are based in the curragh and not in the barracks in dublin. Yes there are small armed response teams in the barracks, but their primary concern is the protection of their own barracks. Anyone else would need to get to an armoury and be armed then formed up and moved to the location, that would take far more than 7 minutes and that ONLY after a call from the Gardai has come through the justice minister to the defence minister to HQ to the unit..
Rangers would take at least 40 minutes to get into the city, either from waiting for a heli to fly across from baldonnel to pick them up or by driving down the N7, even with a garda escort.
I can only imagine that the ERU, if not on standby would take a slightly shorter but similar time to form up and respond.
@Kian: 7 minutes, and they knew there was going to be a drill.
Trucks are evil and should be banned
@Conor Walsh: a good guy with a truck could stop a bad guy with a truck
@Conor Walsh: Gullible youth plus radical preacher plus Koran plus ordinary truck equals mayhem.
Give the trucks guns.
We could use barriers on the south end of the seafront promenade in Bray.
The Government will install barriers on Grafton Street after a Terrorist Attack.
Close the gate after the horse has Bolted!
Best way to stop these attacks is intelligence gathering and having the capability to respond. So long as we hide behind a not-in-the-constitution, non-existent, imaginary, fence-sitting, fake. neutrality and continue to massively under-invest in defence, (lowest spend in Europe) all the bollards in the world will not make our country a safer place and we will continue to put citizens lives in danger.
Because Dublin City is a terrible city for traffic as it doesn’t work for anyone, buses, cars, even luas its ways jammed, I think a truck ramming into people would be quite diffcult to get speed etc.
I would ban all religion in Ireland even Islam, religion is an evil the world doesnt need.
@Lisa Byrne: There’s nothing wrong with religion, it gives people hope and for many it’s a source of comfort. Yes, you or I may see it as a fairy tale but what good can come from telling people what they can and can’t put their faith in?
@Lisa Byrne: Some religions are more evil than others.
@Edward Smith: yeah. The Catholic Church tips the list.
It’s “Ploughed” not “Plowed”. We’re not in the States. Trump isn’t the boss here, there’s no cricket noises in the evening, there’s no Walmart thank God and no Uber either thankfully
“… to develop a new type of truck fitted with an impregnable security system”
According to the dictionary, impregnable means “unable to be captured or broken into”
I’m unsure if the word “impregnable” was used by The Journal or by WIT. Either way, there is no such thing as impregnable security just systems which are easier and tougher to crack. Having perfection as a goal is a noble idea but will simply not reflect reality. At best they may make it tougher to commandeer a vehicle for nefarious purposes, at worst they may leave an unbeknownst back-door for wanton exploitation.
Software security in the automobile industry has already proven itself to be quite lacking – car manufacturers are not software security experts. A rudimentary search on Google for “hacking cars” will return some concerning results.
Eemmmm…dont let them in. Prevention is better than…
Necessity IS the mother of all invention.
Satellites are constantly scanning for cats??! I have to admit i am totally confused by what this is meant to mean …
Amazing how all this new technology is going to work seamlessly. Yet I can only get broadband at my home about half the time and even at that, very erratically? We’d need to roll out existing technology first before adding new stuff into the mix. Just like building a house. The foundation must be set in place first. Basic stuff really.
AK BAR BARISM
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