To be clear the treaty is called The Stability Treaty although some people refer to it as The Fiscal Treaty. The full title of the treaty is as follows

“TREATY ON STABILITY, COORDINATION AND GOVERNANCE IN THE ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION”

The following are some links to the various organisations supporting a yes vote and providing information on the Stability Treaty Referendum  

 The Full Treaty Document :

The Referendum Commission

The Government’s “Stability Treaty” guide

The Dublin Chamber of Commerce, represents the interests of all businesses in the Greater Dublin Area. The Stability Treaty….. explained in 90 seconds

Chambers Ireland, With 60 member chambers representing over 13,000 businesses throughout the island of Ireland

IBEC, Irish Business and Employers Organisation

The Irish farmers Association

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association

The Institute of International and European Affairs

Fine Gael

The Labour Party

Fianna Fail  Leadres Speech only, no further information

RTE, Referendum 2012:

The Euro Crisis: The ‘Fiscal Compact’ and Fiscal Policy
Written by Pat McArdle.

The European Council
Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance signed

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Electronic Recycling provide WEEE waste management services that recover over 90% of the constituent materials for reuse as raw materials and all material is processed within the EU

Experts at managing all kinds of
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Super secure shredding of hard drives and other data media
IF IT’S NOT SHREDDED, IT’S NOT SECURE

Organisations need to be extremely careful when disposing of IT equipment that contains sensitive data. There are many reports of computers, with their hard drives intact, being found in open markets in Ireland and the third world, worldwide on eBay and other online auction sites, there is also a ready market for all types of used data tapes in these markets. Deleting files or even reformatting a hard drive does not remove the information, as this can be restored using readily available software. Even overwriting  does not erase the information, with forensic software available to read drives down to many multiple levels of overwrite

There is a specific responsibility on ICT Data Controllers when disposing of any equipment or storage media containing personal information and problems associated with data security for end of life equipment can be eliminated by using reputable IT recycling companies, who can provide certified data destruction services as part of their asset management and equipment recycling processes.

Regularly we see reports about lost or stolen laptops that highlight poor corporate security practices and privacy protection in organisations. Especially organisations that allow home-based employees to download sensitive company and client data to their personal computers.

In a recent investigation, several second-hand computer hard drives were bought on eBay’s Irish website which contained sensitive information, including hundreds of customer Bank, Laser and Credit-Card account details, car registration information, staff PPS numbers, internal corporate information and e-mail details. In most cases, the owners had not even bothered to erase the drives and from the kind of information found, it was obvious that they belonged to people who worked from home or brought files home to work on.

Basic forensics programs can retrieve data even when owners believe that they have erased the hard drives. Many home PC owners are unaware that safely erasing drives involves more than just reformatting or erasing the drive using inbuilt tools provided on home PCs.

Larger organisations often use an industrial-strength erasing tool before PCs or drives are sold on and even this may not be enough to completely destroy all the information contained on a hard drive. The only way to absolutely guarantee the secure removal of the information stored on any form of data media is by complete destruction and the most effective form of destruction is by shredding, which is the method used by Electronic Recycling

Apart from an organisation’s responsibilities under the Data Protection Act, there is also a continuing responsibility  for IT equipment disposal under the Waste Management Act 1996(amended 2001) until it has been proven that it has been disposed of properly. If the cannibalised remains of an organisation’s equipment are disposed of illegally, it is the organisation that is responsible

When replacing or disposing of end of life IT equipment, organisations and managers responsible for data security, need to ask their new equipment vendor, waste service provider or facilities manager, what exactly happens to their equipment once it leaves their control.

It is not good enough that managers say they have implemented security requirements such as laptop encryption, equipment disposal or data destruction procedures, someone needs to verify that the procedures have been followed.

Electronic Recycling provide a range of services which address all of the above issues on behalf of our clients and when we say it has been destroyed……….. It has been destroyed

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Electronic Recycling provide WEEE waste management services that recover over 90% of the constituent materials for reuse as raw materials and all material is processed within the EU

Experts at managing all kinds of
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Super secure shredding of hard drives and other data media
IF IT’S NOT SHREDDED, IT’S NOT SECURE
 

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In a letter to Bryan Palmer, the school principal Mr Gerry Clekin commented

“Dear Brian
Many thanks for the 5 Dell laptops you kindly donated to the school yesterday. When it comes to educational funding and we often rely on the generosity of parents and businesses for some of the extras, particularly in ICT.

Our existing stock of computers have come to us through various means.  At least 50% have no warranty on them and for the most part we need to service them ourselves. To this end we have found your company a very useful source for replacement parts.  Darragh has been a great help to us and I hope that will continue for the foreseeable future.

Once again I thank you on behalf of the whole school.
Yours Sincerely
Gerry Clerkin
Principal”

Computers for Irish Schools, (CFIS) is an initiative of Electronic Recycling and the purpose of the program is to re-route IT equipment, which is not quite ready for the recycling bin, to needy schools in Ireland.

There is no cost to the schools, Electronic Recycling carries the cost of preparing the equipment and delivering it to the selected school. The equipment is takenback when it becomes obsolete, closing the recycling circle, again at no cost to the school.

For companies, the normal recycling charges apply and any equipment, which is not donated to schools, is recycled to the highest standards by Electronic Recycling in the normal way

The CFIS program combines guaranteed data security and recycling to the highest standards using the best available technology, combined with an opportunity for business to enhance the IT capabilities of our school children

Getting involved means your IT equipment can make a difference to your local school. In a perfect world it would be possible to provide every student with individual access to a computer but in the current economic climate, this is realistically very difficult. Computers for Irish Schools can go some way to improve the situation.

For more information and to find out how some of your obsolete IT equipment can benefit Schools in Ireland, log on to www.cfis.ie

DUBLIN CITY Council has again agreed to extend the deadline for US waste company Covanta to fulfil its contract to build the proposed Poolbeg incinerator.  Covanta sought the six months extension to allow them time to raise funding for the €350 million project

After an earlier deadline of February 29th passed, council management said yesterday that the latest and “final” extension was to allow “regulatory issues” to be finalised and “the need for Covanta to have funding in place” by August 31st.

The Irish waste management Industry (IWMA) has slammed the decision to extend the contract deadline again, the fourth extension of the original deadline, which expired in September 2010

The contract commits Dublin City Council to supply 320,000 tonnes of waste to the facility annually or pay a penalty for non-delivery.

With waste levels declining and recycling rates increasing there is a serious question mark over the amount of waste that would be available to feed the facility and as the four Greater Dublin Area local councils no longer control  waste produced in the region, they are not in a position to guarantee any feedstock to the facility

This leaves the taxpayer exposed to massive penalties for the lifetime of this project if it goes ahead as planned, the IWMA said.

“Today’s announcement is an exercise in buying time, but instead of keeping this project on life support, common sense should prevail. The Poolbeg incinerator, at the size planned, is a ‘Celtic Tiger’ project – it is too large for the Dublin Region waste market and, if built at the proposed scale, will cost the taxpayer millions every year in penalties and charges, will undermine the progress made in recycling (confirmed in the EPA figures) and will lead to significant job losses in the waste sector,” said Jim Kells, Chairperson of the IWMA.

“The Poolbeg incinerator is unique in having a guarantee from taxpayers that either waste – or money – will be sent to the operator. But for as long as this debacle has been ongoing, nobody has been able to explain why one waste facility should be underwritten by the taxpayer, giving it a competitive advantage over all other facilities in the State.

“Incineration is part of the modern waste management hierarchy – but what is needed now is a smaller Poolbeg facility, one that is appropriately sized to the Dublin Region waste needs and one that competes on a level playing field without a taxpayer guarantee,” he added.

Last month,  Indaver Ireland offered to take over the Poolbeg project from Covanta, scaling it down from 600,000 to 400,000 tonnes per annum capacity, building the facility from their own resources with no ongoing burden on the taxpayer. A spokesman for Indaver said there had been “no discussions between us and the council” on this offer, except for a letter  saying it was “not in a position to engage in discussions with you at this time”.

It is understood there have been no talks between Covanta and Indaver about the latter’s offer to take over the project.

The 700MHz ARM chip runs at about the speed of a 300MHz Pentium II with a graphics unit that can play full 1080p HD movies and run 3D games pretty well. 

There are USB ports to handle a standard Mouse and keyboard and it can be plugged into either a modern HDMI Screen or an old style analogue TV with an Ethernet port for internet connection The unit is powered by a standard mobile phone charger and uses a very low 3.5w of power

The Linux operating system includes a version of entry-level computer language program “Scratch” (originally developed at MIT)  and is designed to get children into programming, a bit like BBC Micro and Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum in the 1980s.  (For those old enough to remember those early days of personal computing)

Despite its tiny size and the fact that it has been designed to help teach school children programming skills, the Raspberry Pi is a fully-fledged computer, and can handle most traditional computing tasks including word processing etc.

While initially the unit is being launched in the developed world, the ability to bring sub €30 computers to schoolchildren in the developing world will be one of the most welcome developments in global education.

Not only will we be able to provide all school children access to computers, it will do away with the excuse of donating old computers to Africa as a cover for dumping electronic waste in the third world, I have written more than once on this issue in this blog

Robert Mullins demonstrates the Pi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BbufUp_HNs&feature=relmfu

More information on at Element14

“Leaders lead, and the City and County of San Francisco have demonstrated that the status quo where the majority of electronic waste is routinely dumped in developing countries or our local landfills is just not acceptable anymore,” said Jim Puckett, Executive Director of BAN. “To shrink our toxic footprint and our carbon footprint, to ensure our children’s future, we are going to need more leaders in all public and private institutions to make the kind of  bold move that San Francisco just made.”

San Francisco joins the e-Stewards Enterprise program current members including Wells Fargo, Nestle, Bloomberg News, Capital One, Samsung, Bank of America, Alcoa Aluminum and LG. They also join King County, the seat of Seattle and Bellevue in Washington State, Santa Clara County and the City of San Jose, home to Silicon Valley. 

“The technology tools we use in our everyday lives too often end up in the environment as a major source of toxic pollution. Our city’s primary focus when it comes to electronics is on reuse,” says Melanie Nutter, Director of San Francisco’s Department of Environment. “But when we do need to recycle, we are committed to doing it responsibly.” 

E-waste is the world’s fastest growing pollution problem. According to Time Magazine, Americans throw out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers every day. Approximately 80% of electronic waste currently delivered to recyclers is actually exported to developing countries. Improperly disposed of, the lead, mercury and other toxic materials inside e-waste poisons workers and pollute communities.

The non-profit BAN created the world’s most rigorous standard for electronics recycling, called the “e-Stewards Standard for Responsible Recycling and Reuse of Electronic Equipment.” The e-Stewards Standard protects against e-waste dumping in landfills, processing by prisoners, and the export of hazardous e-waste to developing countries. It also ensures worker protection and strict rules for the security of private data stored in electronics. It is the only e-waste standard to include all these protections. More than 70 environmental groups worldwide have endorsed the e-Stewards Standard. 

As an e-Stewards Enterprise, San Francisco commits to using, wherever possible, recyclers that are annually audited and certified to the e-Stewards Standard. The complete list of e-Stewards Enterprises and recyclers certified to the e-Stewards Standard is available at www.e-stewards.org.

About e-Stewards® Certification
The e-Stewards® Initiative is a market-based solution to help individuals and organizations identify and promote those electronics recyclers that ensure that used electronics are managed with the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility. e-Stewards Certified Recyclers are audited and certified to ensure highest levels of responsibility and e-Stewards Enterprises are major corporations, municipalities or institutions that agree to make best efforts to make use of e-Stewards Certified Recyclers. For more information about the e-Stewards Initiative visit: www.e-Stewards.org

 About the Basel Action Network
Founded in 1997, the Basel Action Network is a 501(c)3 charitable organization of the United States, based in Seattle, Wash. BAN is one of the world’s foremost advocates for environmental justice and sustainable production. Our programs in electronic waste and green ship recycling are the leading forces to turn global industries away from cheap and dangerous disposal methods to socially and environmentally just alternatives that are practical and also minimize business risk and liability.  We campaign to prevent the export of toxic waste to developing countries, promote a toxics-free future by advancing green design and responsible consumption, and advocate for the right to a pollution-free environment for everyone. For more information, visit: www.ban.org

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Electronic Recycling provide E-waste management services that recover over 90% of the constituent materials for reuse as raw materials and all material is processed within the EU

Experts at managing all kinds of E-Waste
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Super secure shredding of hard drives and other data media
IF IT’S NOT SHREDDED, IT’S NOT SECURE
See how we shred hard drives

The most recent donations were

Tyrellstown Educate Together National School received 10 PCs with flat screen monitors. In thanking CFIS for the computers, School Principal Mr. Maurice Hurley commented, “They could not have come at a better time”

St Bridgid’s Boys School, Killester received 10 PCs with flat screen monitors, expressing her gratitude for the donation, School Principal Nuala Cullen  described the donation as a “wonderful opportunity for our school”

St Brigid’s Girls National School also received 10 PCs with flat screen Monitors

St Pauls College, Raheny received 5 laptops which were donated to the program by SanDisk  Sandisk are part of the Siemens Group

With the CFIS program, equipment which is deemed suitable for donation is tested and all existing data is securely removed from hard drives. In a situation where the donor company has requested destruction of their hard drives for security reasons, the hard drive is replaced with a compatible used component. The Computers are loaded with Open System software and if required, school specific software is loaded so that the unit is ready to use on arrival at the school

Donated equipment  will be taken back from the schools when it becomes obsolete or too old to maintain and recycled by Electronic Recycling. This ensures that all equipment is disposed of in an environmental friendly manner with no obligation or costs to the schools

Not all old computers are suitable for reuse. An example of this would be a company doing a refit of twenty PCs may have one or two units that are newer purchases due to expansion or breakdown replacement. All the equipment is collected by Electronic Recycling, the suitable equipment is given to CFIS and the rest processed through the normal recycling process.

There  has been a huge amount of comment in the new media recently about the shortage of suitably qualified people to fill certain vacancies in the HiTech sector.  Extending the useful life of IT equipment and placing more computers into classrooms, gives Irish students more opportunities to learn about computers and new technology, which will allow them to develop the skills needed to exploit the growing opportunities presented by a knowledge-based economy

Electronic Recycling are delighted to facilitate the Computers for Schools program, if you would like to get involved log on to www.cfis.ie or give Bryan Palmer a call on 01 864 0806

There have been volumes written on this issue, mainly about how to hold on to the twenty percent while dealing with the problems of the eighty percent.

If you are into a business to business environment with lots of repeat customers, there is a very interesting way to capitalise on this situation and generate more revenue by focusing on the bottom end of your customer list for a while.

We will assume that you have some CRM system to allow you to identify the worst performing customers under the headings, sales, speed of payment, cost of collecting your money and profitability etc.

After categorising  your customers  by the above criteria, start at the bottom and pick the last five customers and ask yourself, “If I didn’t have these customers tomorrow, what difference would it make to the business?” normally the answer would be “absolutely none” and in many cases, better than none because the cost of servicing these customers is probably higher than the revenue they generate.

Now you need to communicate with them, setting out all of the positive reasons why they use your product or service and at the same time advising them that in order to maintain this level of service you must increase your pricing by X percent (the amount you need to bring them into profitability). You can be quite assertive here because you are prepared to you lose them, without being silly of course.

One of two things will happen, they refuse to pay anything extra and take their business elsewhere and you increase your profits because they were loss making anyway or, as generally happens, they agree to the increase, because they know your product or service is still good value for money and in any case, changing supplier has its own costs as well, so now they are a profit centre. 

An interesting thing has now happened, your bottom five customers have now moved up the ladder and there are another five customers in the relegation zone so, you do the exercise all over again and because you have already gained five profit making companies, you can afford to be even more assertive in your decision on how much extra you need, to move these five out of the relegation zone.  etc. etc. etc.  By the time you have gone through your full customer list, you should have increased your revenues for no extra cost and you will have had some good contact and feedback from your client base.

I was in this situation some years ago, we carried out this exercise and I think we only lost two customers from a list of about 100 and increased our overall revenues by 5% . The increase we applied was 10% but because we had a number of blue chip clients who were on timed contracts with pricing reviews built in, and we were also happy with most of the customers in the 20% bracket, the overall average was 5%. Still a pretty good result

One other interesting result will be that, the ones who leave you have to go to your competition, a double whammy for you, reduction in loses servicing unprofitable customers who have now been transferred and become a problem to your competitors.

Brendan Palmer ©
MBA, BA Law

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Electronic Recycling provide WEEE waste management services that recover over 90% of the constituent materials for reuse as raw materials and all material is processed within the EU

Experts at managing all kinds of
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Super secure shredding of hard drives and other data media
IF IT’S NOT SHREDDED, IT’S NOT SECURE
See how we shred hard drives

Ronan’s message also included the following extract from a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, at the University of Kansas on March 18, 1968 (43 years ago).

“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile ……”

To add a little more context the above quote the full paragraph from the speech is as follows

“And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year.  But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction – purpose and dignity – that afflicts us all.  Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America (Ireland) by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America (Ireland) except why we are proud that we are Americans (Irish) .”

The above would not be too much off the mark if given today at any of our Irish universities, I added in the bracketed words for effect.

The full speech is available on the “JFK presidential Library and Museum web site” and is well worth a read.

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Electronic Recycling provide WEEE waste management services that recover over 90% of the constituent materials for reuse as raw materials and all material is processed within the EU

Experts at managing all kinds of
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
Super secure shredding of hard drives and other data media
IF IT’S NOT SHREDDED, IT’S NOT SECURE
See how we shred hard drives