How are Irish households coping with their mortgage repayments? Information from the SILC Survey

This paper uses information contained within the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) to examine the ability of Irish households to sustain their mortgage repayments. We calculate mortgage repayment to income (MRTI) ratios for a representative sample of Irish households and examine the distribution of this ratio. In particular, we stratify information on marital, work and educational status along with household composition according to this MRTI. We also examine the distribution of information on household mortgages such as the source, the interest rate paid, the age and tenure, and the monthly repayment of the mortgage according to the same ratio. Finally, the distributional implications for the MRTI of a significant unemployment and interest rate shock are also examined.

Changing Participation Rates in the Euro Area. The Case of the Celtic Tiger

This paper examines the evolution of participation rates in the Euro area, focussing, in particular, on one of the more dynamic Euro area labour markets - that of Ireland’s.

How Are Irish Households Coping with their Mortgage Repayments? Information from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions

This paper uses information contained within the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) to examine the ability of Irish households to sustain their mortgage repayments. We calculate mortgage repayment to income (MRTI) ratios for a representative sample of Irish households and examine the distribution of this ratio across the sample. In particular, we stratify information on marital, work and educational status along with household composition according to this MRTI. We also examine the distribution of information on household mortgages such as the source, the interest rate paid, the age and tenure, and the monthly repayment of the mortgage according to the same ratio. Finally, the distributional implications for the MRTI of a significant unemployment and interest rate shock are also examined.

BUDGET PERSPECTIVES 2015, PAPER 1. Consumption and the Housing Market: An Irish Perspective. June 2014

The recent financial crisis highlighted the strong linkages between the Irish housing market, real economic activity and key fiscal considerations. Over the period 1995 to 2007, while house prices were increasing rapidly on a persistent basis, key economic aggregates such as consumption and income registered strong growth. In the period since then, the decline in the fortunes of the housing sector have also been mirrored in economy-wide developments. Across countries, empirical estimates testify to the importance of the housing market to wider economic activity; however, this relationship is likely to be particularly strong in an Irish context. In this paper, drawing on recent research conducted at a micro-economic level, we highlight the importance of the housing market for key economic decisions such as consumption and deleveraging. Our results suggest that mortgaged Irish households exhibit a relatively large wealth effect out of housing when compared with other countries. Furthermore, in examining the implications of the significant increase in Irish household debt levels, our analysis also suggests that those households which can deleverage do so, and that the decision to reduce debt levels has negative implications for household consumption

In-season yield prediction using VARIwise

In-season yield prediction supports improved agronomic management and planning for crop sales and insurance contracts. Yield is currently often estimated using rules of thumb and manual boll counts. Data analytics approaches have been developed using site- and season specific multispectral satellite imagery-based correlations that require significant datasets for wider scale transferability. An alternative approach is to forecast yield using known soil-plant-atmosphere interactions in crop production models and calibrated using available field data. USQ has developed software ‘VARIwise’ to provide yield prediction throughout the season combining these models with: (i) plant parameters extracted from UAV imagery using image analysis; (ii) online soil and weather data; and (iii) on-farm management information. In the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons, VARIwise was evaluated at one cotton site in Goondiwindi and 16 sites in Griffith. Management zones in the field monitored using the UAV were identified from vegetation index surveys, yield maps or satellite images. Phantom 4 UAV imagery was collected monthly at each site between January and picking for calibrating the crop model. The sites had varying levels of fruit removal, hail damage and heat stress. In the 2017/18 Griffith trial, the percentage yield prediction errors were 10.2% in January, 6.0% in February, 2.5% in March, and 0.5% at picking, and in the 2018/19 Griffith trial the errors were 18.8% in January, 4.9% in February, 9.5% in March, and 10.1% at picking. In the 2018/19 Goondiwindi trial, the yield prediction percentage errors were 8.7% in February, 5.9% in March, 7.1% in April and 2.6% in May. The prediction errors at Griffith were higher in the 2018/19 season than the 2017/18 season because the sites experienced hail and heat stress that are not currently represented within the VARIwise crop model. The yield predictor will be evaluated in 2019/20 to improve performance under insect and hail damage

Determining finite strain: how far have we progressed?

One of the main aims in the field of structural geology is the identification and quantification of deformation or strain. This pursuit has occupied geologists since the 1800s, but has evolved dramatically since those early studies. The quantification of strain in sedimentary lithologies was initially restricted to lithologies of known initial shape, such as fossils or reduction spots. In 1967, Ramsay presented a series of methods and calculations, which allowed populations of clasts to be used as strain markers. These methods acted as a foundation for modern strain analysis, and have influenced thousands of studies. This review highlights the significance of Ramsay's contribution to modern strain analysis. We outline the advances in the field over the 50 years since publication of Folding and Fracturing of Rocks, review the existing limitations of strain analysis methods and look to future developments

Scater: pre-processing, quality control, normalization and visualization of single-cell RNA-seq data in R.

MOTIVATION: Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is increasingly used to study gene expression at the level of individual cells. However, preparing raw sequence data for further analysis is not a straightforward process. Biases, artifacts and other sources of unwanted variation are present in the data, requiring substantial time and effort to be spent on pre-processing, quality control (QC) and normalization. RESULTS: We have developed the R/Bioconductor package scater to facilitate rigorous pre-processing, quality control, normalization and visualization of scRNA-seq data. The package provides a convenient, flexible workflow to process raw sequencing reads into a high-quality expression dataset ready for downstream analysis. scater provides a rich suite of plotting tools for single-cell data and a flexible data structure that is compatible with existing tools and can be used as infrastructure for future software development. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: The open-source code, along with installation instructions, vignettes and case studies, is available through Bioconductor at http://bioconductor.org/packages/scater . CONTACT: [email protected]. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Conflicting expectations in transforming government service processes: the story of e-payment for social welfare in Ireland

Despite its clear potential and attractiveness as a solution to a broad range of societal problems, E-Government has not been adopted to levels predicted in early 2000 literature. Whilst case studies of punctual development of E-Government initiatives abound, few countries have progressed to high levels of maturity in the systematic use of ICT in the relationship between government and citizens. At the same time, the current period brings challenges in terms of access to public services and costs of delivering these services which make the large scale use of ICT by governments more attractive than ever, if not even a necessity. This paper presents a detailed case study of a specific E-Government initiative in Ireland in the area of E-payments for G2C, in the social welfare area. Locating the current initiative in its historical context, it analyses the varied motivations and conflicting requirements of the numerous stakeholders and discusses the constraints that bear on the potential scenarios that could be followed at this point in time