pressplay4;the welcome issue

Connaught-Ulster Regional Session 2014

a note from the editors

Naomi Foale (UK)

Dear reader,Welcome to EYP Ireland's Connaught- Ulster RegionalSession of 2014 andwelcome to the firstissue of pressplay fromthe Media Team! The journalists have been working extremely hard to puta fantastic issue togetherfor what should be afantastic session.We're going to keep this short and sweet, and let you get straight into the work - afterall, it's all down to your amazing journalists; we justput it all together and make it look nice!Catch you on the flip side,Anthony & James

Anthony M

cKee (UK)

James D

e Burca (IE)

Lisa Smith

(IE) Anna Kosova (FR)

Naomi Foale (UK)

Oisín O Sull

ivan (IE)

Eileen De Sousa (IE)

Hugh

Whe

lan (

IE)

Katarzyna Kessler (PL) Jack Sarge

nt (IE)

Conor Dunne

(IE)

Aoife Watson (IE)

come meet the team

Some fun factsIn total, the team have travelled approximately 3736km to get to the sessionThe letter 'A' is the most common letter in everyone's namesOn average, during the session they will sleep roughly 7.4 hours in total. They will consume an average total of 1840mg of caffiene to combat this

Dear reader,Welcome to EYP Ireland's Connaught- Ulster RegionalSession of 2014 andwelcome to the firstissue of pressplay fromthe Media Team! The journalists have been working extremely hard to puta fantastic issue togetherfor what should be afantastic session.We're going to keep this short and sweet, and let you get straight into the work - afterall, it's all down to your amazing journalists; we justput it all together and make it look nice!Catch you on the flip side,Anthony & James

"Sport brings together millions of people, regardless of their sex, colour, gender, age, nationality or religion, and has thus the potential to play an important role in creating an inclusive society."-Morten Kjaerum, EU Agency for Fundemental Rights (FRA)

Sport has a huge cultural and economic impact within and outside the EU. Sport can break down barriers and reduce ethno-religious tensions, but it can also elevate them.We only need look to the recent Euro qualifier, Serbia V Albania, where a drone carrying a nationalist flag was lowered on to the pitch, resulting in chaos and violence. If anything, it is a reflec-tion of the complexities and challenges facing the Balkan region today.The reality of racism in sport is all too clear and daunting, both on a broader societal level, as well as down to certain key per-sonalities that seem to get away relatively scott free. The "Luis Suárez-s" of sport are never too far out of sight.The sports industry is currently worth over €294bn to the Euro-pean economy. From ticket sales and advertising, broadcasting rights to merchandising , surely it is in everyone's best interest to promote a fair, equal and open sporting environment.The real question here is how can we successfully work with stakeholders and governing bodies in sport, as well as the po-litical institutions of the European Union to tackle problems of racism and ethnic discrimination in sport. Is regulating sport part of the EUs mandate? Or should political institutions leave these issues to the governing bodies of each sport? Where should the responsibility lie and who should have the right to take action in these cases?

cult 2Eileen De Sousa (IE) investigates

how fair sport really can be

2005 began as a really great year for the popular band U2; they made €217m during this year. All was going well for Bono and his band because their country of origin, Ireland, didn't impose taxes on artists' wealth...un-til later on in 2005, when the law changed. Suddenly, the world saw Bono, known as a fighter for the can-cellation of the debt of the poorest countries, transferring the management of the band's earnings to the Dutch company, Promogroup. This company has already advised The Rolling Stones how best to use the tax laws of the Netherlands Antilles, reducing their taxes to just 1.6% of their earnings for over 20 years. This story is just an example among many others on how wealthy people and big companies today use tax havens. To begin with this controversial subject, it is important to understand it. A tax haven is a country that offers foreign individuals and busi-nesses little or no tax liability in a politically and economically stable environment. Tax havens also provide little or no financial information to foreign tax authorities. Individuals and businesses that do not reside a tax haven can take advantage of these coun-tries' tax regimes to avoid paying taxes in their home countries. We can distinguish three types of tax havens: low tax haven for individuals, low tax haven for companies and low tax haven for both individuals and companies. For example, in Monaco there is a low tax on individuals but the rate of corporation tax still over 33%.The tax havens are classified in three lists by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the black list includes states that do not cooperate, the grey list with states who have promised to comply with the new rules however have not followed through, and finally the white list for states whose rules are "consistent with international standards of the OECD." Presently, there are no more states in the black list, 34 states on the grey list, and all remaining countries are in white list. In addition, the European Union estimates a loss of €2000 per EU citizen every year due to tax fraud.We can conclude that clearly, something has to change.

econ 1

Bono might want to end poverty,

but he doesn't want to end

evading tax. Anna Kosova (FR)

looks into tax fraud

envi

The European Union has binding legislation to ensure the union meets its ambitious climate and energy targets for 2020. It set out an aim of reducing carbon emissions from the 90s by an astounding 20% by 2020. That percentage has been raised to 30% by 2020. But now the EU is strug-gling to meet these goals and time is ticking. The EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is the EU's key tool for cutting industrial greenhouse emissions. The EU ETS is a sys-tem that caps emission allowances for industrial power-plants and factories. It is both a practical and cost-effective way of re-ducing carbon emissions, but not enough it seems.Since it has been introduced it has beenaltered slightly and improved to asingle EU cap on emission allowances in the place of the previous national cap. Although this system had made massive advancements on the reduction of carbon emissions, it has its limits and will not meet the 20-20 goals that have been set out. One of the flaws that have been highlighted on the EU ETS is that it does not deal with housing, agriculture, waste and transport emissions. A budget of €960bn has been granted to the new initiatives that are being established to improve the sit-uation. New legislation to raise the share of energy consump-tion produced by renewable energy have been introduced. Daily household necessities such as kettles and cookers and to become 20% more energy efficient. Also vehicle emissions are to be re-duced with new more eco-friendly technology. Although all these efforts are being made to reduce carbon emis-sions they do not seem to be sufficient. Both the developed and developing worlds are making huge efforts to reduce their emis-sion but their attempts do not appear to be enough. The 20-20 goals are clear, but so is the room left for improvement. More efficient systems and policies are need to be implemented and quickly, but the question is - what else can be done?

Lisa Smith (IE) explains how time

is running out for Europe on

environmental change

agriHas the CAP reached its shelf life?

Aoife Watson (IE) gets to grips

with one of the EU's most

(in)famous policiesThe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), is one of the most important and controversial institutions of the European Union. Its main objectives are to increase productivity and improve agricultural technology, ensure those living in rural and agricultural communities enjoy a fair standard of living, guarantee the availability of goods at a fair market price for European consumers, and stabi-lize the agricultural markets.These aims were established in The Treaty of Rome, which set up the Common Market. In 1960, The European Commission pro-posed the CAP, and in 1962 it was was fully implemented. One major reason for the creation CAP was the huge food shortages that Europe faced in the decades during and after WWII.It is extremely unlikely that the EU will re-experience food short-ages in the near future. Currently, the EU produces up to five times more food than it requires per annum. In the 1980s, there was a food surplus crisis throughout the EU, as international commodity prices had decreased significantly. To solve this prob-lem, farmers' produce were bought and exported with the help of subsidies, stored, or disposed of within the EU, to a huge finan-cial cost.CAP had both advantages and disadvantages. The Single Payment Scheme (SPS) pays farmers per hectare of agricultural land they possess. This SPS allowed farmers to tailor their produce to fit market demand. However, this means that smaller farms receive less than larger holdings. Approximately 20% of all the farmers in the EU receive 80%%of the funding earmarked for the SPS. In 2013, the CAP reform was finalised, after two years of talks. Milk quotas are to end in 2015, with the sugar quota to follow. All entitlements under the SPS will disappear from the end of 2014, replaced with the Basic Payment Scheme, which will alter the value of the payment in accordance with the national average. This allows farmers with less land to benefit more from the scheme. Under the reform, the CAP will be monitored and evaluated every four years. The CAP's importance is not to be underestimated. It is allocated a significant amount of the entire EU budget every year, and it guarantees the EU's food supply. Does the CAP reform go far enough? Was it even necessary? These are important questions that must be answered when considering the CAP.

femmWe've gone far, but not far enough.

Hugh Whelan (IE) gets to the

bottom of gender equality in the

workplace

Equality is defined as %the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities%. The EU has come a long way in the past 50 years to tackle the challenge of achieving gender equality in the workplace by introducing various measures - chief among these was the implemen-tation of the EU Equal Pay Directive, which requires that men and women receive equal pay for work of equal value. EU legislation also guarantees that women cannot be dis-missed on the grounds of pregnancy. However, the EU has still not fully achieved equality in the work-place across all Member States. There are pan-European issues such as the pay gap in the OSHA 2011 report it was stated that "there has been hardly any change in the overall gender pay gap since 2003, and women continue to receive lower wages (on average 16% less than men)." This is despite the fact that women across the EU on average are more academically qualified. This begs the question - what can the EU do to finally solve this ever-present issue? According to the same OSHA 2011 report, women are more likely than men to suffer from discrimination in the workplace. This may relate to gender, age, ethnic background, disability and sex-ual orientation. Even though we have come so far, we still find that incidents of violence and harassment are commonplace with-in the workplace even today, particularly in service sectors. Some Member States have put in place policies to address these prob-lems, however they still remain at a European level.A worrying result of the 2011 report was that, "reporting and support procedures are still lacking. Additionally, reports on vi-olence vary considerably between Member States% this may be linked to a lack of awareness."% Women being harassed in the workplace do not have adequate services in place to report the issue and in some cases cannot report it at all. European-wide re-porting procedures and systems need to be established, so that women suffering in silence will finally get a voice.

If ever I have mentioned Galway to someone, the response has been along the lines of "Oh it's real-ly pretty there!" Indeed, Google Images paints a picture of seaside bliss, which will likely in reality very much depend on how the weather treats us. Although a day at the beach may not be on the agenda in November, a stroll for as long as the cold weather permits and as many visits as time allows around the medieval attractions are certainly on the list.But there is more to Galway than just the build-ings and the scenery that I want to experience. I want to know what it is that makes it Ireland's "most Irish city": to discover what gives the Rois-in Dubh pub its character and the food that fuels the place and its people. My research tells me that live music is standard in pubs and that I will be surrounded by the highest concentration of na-tive Irish speakers, or Gaeligeoirí. The unpredicta-ble weather will certainly provide an adventure in itself; perhaps finding shelter to avoid the worst of it will lead to the discovery of a gem.So if you see a stranded Scot holding a map the wrong way around and paying more attention to the architecture than direction, show me where I can discover the real Galway.

galway callingDoes Galway have the x-factor? Naomi Foale (UK) sees what the City of Tribesmen has to offer.

Marty McFly connotations aside, time travel is a very real phenomenon. On a technical note, we're travelling through time now. Seconds and minutes have elapsed since you started reading the media team's articles (thanks by the way).

It must be noted that time is relative, it can slow down, based on factors such as your speed, and can be affected by the mass of objects. Global Positioning Systems gain an additional third of a billionth of a second daily due to their distance from the Earth's mass. More impressively is Sagittarius A at centre of our galaxy, a black hole where the mass of approximately four million suns exist at a single, infinitely dense point, defined by NASA as a singu-larity. If you were to go into orbit around this point, you'd experience time at approximately half the speed it is on Earth, essentially if you were in orbit for ten years (earth time) you'd only experience five. So ladies and gentle-men, time travel into the future is effectively possible.

Time travel into the past however is a concept heavily dis-puted, and not at all friendly to word counts for articles. So instead of boring you with the technicalities, I'll end this article on a quite cool note. The universe is infinitely vast, hundreds of thousands of light years wide. Crucial-ly though, when you study this light from earth you are essentially glimpsing back into time. A good example of this is when scientists study the cosmic background radia-tion of the universe, they stare back into light emanating from billions of years ago. This may not be time travel as imagined, but it is time travel in reality.

tick, tock...Jack Sargent (IE) takes us on a journey through time and space...about time and space.

libeShould we stop the press to

reconsider? Conor Dunne (IE)

explores issues in the

media

Media today plays an incredibly large role in the protec-tion of human rights. It can expose human rights viola-tions and offer an arena for different voices to be heard in public discourse. Not without reason, media have been called the %"fourth estate",%an essential addition to the powers of the executive, the body and the judiciary.However, the strength of the media can also be misused to the extent that the function of democracy is threatened. Some media outlets have turned into propaganda megaphones for those in power. Others have been used to hurl abuse at minorities and other vulnerable groups of people. It also appears that media unnecessarily and unfairly abuse the privacy and integrity of day-to-day people carelessly in the name of sensationalism. A prime example of this can be seen with the fairly recent phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, it is understood that pressures may spur a culture of illegal and unethical activity in the newsroom. Without a doubt, this serves no one, least of all shareholders and readers. But what can be done? It's clear that freedom of expression is not without restriction. The European Convention on Human Rights says that restrictions may be necessary in the interest of national security and public safety. However, exceptions from the rule on everyone%s right to freedom of expression must be arbitrary by law be necessary in a democracy. It has been suggested that the media community should be encouraged to develop a system of effective self-regu-lation based on an agreed code of ethics. Most codes of conduct for journalists are aspirational and a statement of commitment from journalists to be responsible and accountable. In this way they provide protection for media owners and journalists from criticism and legal action.Accurate guidelines and training are also needed to illustrate how ethical journalism works in practice. In this way journalists are able to avoid hate speech, sexual stereotyping, or discrimina-tion in reporting on minorities and have standards to follow when identifying and resolving conflicts of interest. Correct training by employers in the media sector and an implementation of strict guidelines as mentioned above could finally one day put an end to the invasion and exploitation of personal and private informa-tion. But until a true solution is found, the true freedom of the press will remain questionable.

Fiscal Stability treaty is an agreement between 25 out of 28 EU states. It seeks to strengthen budget cooperation and improve fiscal discipline within the EU. The key elements of the treaty are a balanced budget rule that requires countries to maintain a balanced budget, and requirement that government debt should be kept be-low 60% of GDP, all of which is regulated through means of enforcement, such as financial sanctions. The treaty also gives the European Commission more power, as its recommendations for countries running excessive budget deficits are, in general, binding.Before the Fiscal Stability Treaty, EU fiscal discipline was based on the Stability and Growth Pact introduced in late 1990s. Simi-lar to the Fiscal treaty, it included monitoring fiscal discipline of EU member states and enforcing sanctions on those who didn't meet the requirements % maximum of budget deficit of 3%% GDP and government debt of 60%% of GDP. Eurozone crisis revealed how miserably the Pact failed to enforce fiscal discipline. Until 2007, Spain was the only country that followed the rules set by the Pact, while for instance Greece spent excessively and manip-ulated statistics to hide it.The financial crisis of 2007-08 had a significant impact on EU economy. Investment shrank as European commercial banks suf-fered losses and decreased lending. As a result, recession hit Eurozone, tax revenues of European countries fell, making their debt less sustainable. The differences between competitiveness of Eurozone states became evident.Europe is slowly recovering from recession, but critics point out that it still doesn't have a comprehensive growth plan. The atmos-phere of uncertainty, with high unemployment, low growth, in-stability in Ukraine and the threat of Ebola, doesn't help rebuild economic optimism. Cutting spending to reduce debt in countries like Greece or Spain led to increasing unemployment and deterio-rating standard of life. Experts, including those of IMF (Interna-tional Monetary Fund) suggest that only combining strengthen-ing fiscal discipline with increased government spending, e.g. on infrastructure projects can help Europe restore economic growth.

econ 2Katarzy

na Kessler (PL) gives us an

overview of the Fiscal Stability T

reaty

Freedom of movement is the most cherished right of EU citizenship: for 56% of European citizens, free movement is the most positive achievement of the European Union. Freedom of movement between EU countries has brought about many important cultural changes in Europe, argu-ably for the better. However over the last few years we have seen a large increase in STIs and unplanned preg-nancies for the most part in eastern and central Europe. This has mainly been attributed to the freedom of move-ment policies of the EU.Migration movements in Europe have increased in volume. Dur-ing 2012, 1.7 million people previously residing in one of the EU Member States migrated to another Member State. The most common reason people have for migration is seeking economic improvement. Therefore, economic migrants are usu-ally young and fit when they arrive in a new country and at an age when sexual activity is frequent. On this basis, one would anticipate that the sexual health of economic migrants would have been highlighted as one of their major health issues but it has not. Migrants are not necessarily disadvantaged in all areas of sexual health. However, migrants in Europe may carry STIs which cre-ates additional problems in the areas and countries to which they migrate. It is difficult to quantify this as research on the sexual behaviour of the general populations of central and eastern Eu-rope is sparse because they have less STI screening opportunities than in western European countries, which may impact on STI re-ports, especially on infections that are often asymptomatic.According to a study undertaken by both the Wolfson Research Institute, and Hull and East Riding Sexual Health Partnership in the UK, young people (aged 16 to 20) are aware of the need to use contraception, and knowledgeable about its availability. However, they often do not think about using it, especially where sex is unplanned. Alcohol and being %in the moment% are key factors which diminish the likelihood of contraceptive use. It is evident that the EU must solve this taking intoaccount the different attitudes, facilities and education programmes available in different countries.

cult 1STIs as the 'silent pandemic' spreading

across Europe: Oisín O Sullivan (IE)

assesses the situation from a

migration perspective

Historically, a man has brought home the bread whilst his wife has cared for their abode and children. However, as gender equality and attitudes towards relationships have changed, there has been a rise in the number of fam-ilies with two parents working and single parent house-holds: in Britain, there was a 4%%% increase between 2011 and 2012. Whereas the traditional setup saw one parent take the role of caregiver and the other act as breadwin-ner, a single parent is forced to struggle striking a bal-ance between the two whilst a two-parent household is often faced with a mother or father making a compromise resulting in the loss of some income. The fact is that the changing face of families has led to the creation of two main problems % managing finance and childcare. To raise a child, a source of income is a necessity. However, single parents may struggle to find a job as some employers see them as unreliable due to their responsibilities as a sole carer or, particularly among young mothers, they may lack a full educa-tion. Without employment, society loses the talent and economic contribution of these parents. What%s more, the longer a single parent stays unemployed to care for children, the harder it is for them to find a job.Even once a job has been found, a single parent will have great-er difficulties resolving childcare issues due to its expense and the lack of support of a partner to share the burden. This is re-flected by the fact that only 47.9%%% of employed single mothers work full-time in the EU. Families with more than one child often find their salaries smaller than the cost of childcare % a problem shared among all parents. This results in one parent often leaving their job, which comes at the cost of career progression and their salary.Often the role of men and their desire to care for their children is ignored. Single fathers represent 1.2%%% of EU households with children, but there is a lack of awareness and research regarding these families. In addition to this, the inflexibility of maternity and paternity leave mean that a father can often not care for his child without costing him his job. EMPL are tasked with solving these two problems, which share common ground and boil down to the main issue: managing to build a family whilst also building a career.

emplNaomi Foale (U

K) tries to find the

balance between fa

mily life and work, in

a changing

society

When we discuss expanding the reach of the EU to con-nect with more citizens for the mutual benefit of both the Union as a whole, it is worthwhile noting that EU efforts to promote participatory democracy are still a relatively new phenomenon, in light of the fact that the European Citizens% Initiative (ECI) was launched on the 1st of April 2012.Still in its infancy, it is due for its first assessment before the European Commission in 2015. This parliamentary review will dis-cuss its legitimacy and any possible adaptations believed to ad-vance its success. Thus it is entirely plausible for the ECI to be amended and indeed expanded, in response to the feedback the EC will receive from a multitude of entities% such as civil soci-eties, stakeholders and more importantly you and I, politically active EU citizens.At the time of writing, the ECI is currently processing twenty proposals, two of which have already been passed. These two proposals in particular have passed the required thresholds of one million signatures, with the ECI in general attracting more than five million signatures.In context, it must be remembered that the level of disillusion-ment and low turnout rates are not inert, and are prone to fluc-tuations either way. These dual problems are often driven by a litany of social, cultural and political issues, and are products of domestic member state politics and attitudes.While it may seem obvious, if more people participate in an ac-tive democracy, especially within the younger age demographics, those elected will better mirror the society in which we live, and ideally we want to live in, instead of returning a series of candidates whose views may be toxic to those considered the norm in society. This is not only a short term injection of legitimacy into the EU, but within the long-term inhibits Euroscepticism which more often than not, at its roots is an unfounded and unsubstantiated narrative aimed to exploit the lack of clarity surrounding the EU for express personal gain.

afcoAs postivity for the European project

falters, Jack Sargent (IE) scrutinises

the EU's attempts to reconnect with

voters

on this day

1694 - Voltaire (France) was born. A French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, he held controversial secular views and wrote numerous poems and books, Candide% being the most famous example His views helped spur the American Revolution. Happy birthday Vol-taire!Famous quote: %"Common sense is not so common."% % something we all think sometimes in GA!

1920 - Irish War of Independence: In Dublin, 31 people were killed in what became known as "Bloody Sun day". This included 14 British informants, 14 Irish ci vilians and three 3 Republican Army prisoners. The day began with Michael Collins's% famous %squad% killing 14 British agents in Dublin. As a retaliation attack, later that day British Forces raided a GAA match in Croke Park, and Black & Tans murdered 14 civilians. Overall Bloody Sunday was considered a great success for Collins as not many casualties were suffered and support for IRA increased across the country and abroad as a result of the Croke Park shootings."FUN"% FACT: In the 1996 film %'Michael Collins', during the GAA match we see an armoured vehicle with a machine gun turret shooting at players and spectators during the Croke Park Massacre in Dublin. In reality the Black and Tans only used trucks and rifles.

2014 - EYP Ireland Connaught/Ulster Regional Session be-gins, presided by Edward O'Carroll!

Need a blast from the past? Hugh Whelan (IE) provides you with some historical pieces of trivia.

the final word: what next?

1694 - Voltaire (France) was born. A French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher, he held controversial secular views and wrote numerous poems and books, Candide% being the most famous example His views helped spur the American Revolution. Happy birthday Vol-taire!Famous quote: %"Common sense is not so common."% % something we all think sometimes in GA!

1920 - Irish War of Independence: In Dublin, 31 people were killed in what became known as "Bloody Sun day". This included 14 British informants, 14 Irish ci vilians and three 3 Republican Army prisoners. The day began with Michael Collins's% famous %squad% killing 14 British agents in Dublin. As a retaliation attack, later that day British Forces raided a GAA match in Croke Park, and Black & Tans murdered 14 civilians. Overall Bloody Sunday was considered a great success for Collins as not many casualties were suffered and support for IRA increased across the country and abroad as a result of the Croke Park shootings."FUN"% FACT: In the 1996 film %'Michael Collins', during the GAA match we see an armoured vehicle with a machine gun turret shooting at players and spectators during the Croke Park Massacre in Dublin. In reality the Black and Tans only used trucks and rifles.

2014 - EYP Ireland Connaught/Ulster Regional Session be-gins, presided by Edward O'Carroll!

the final word: what next?Eileen De Sousa (IE) provides some

comforting words before you begin your EYP journey.

I know what you%re thinking. Like the majority of first time EYP-ers, you%re probably looking down at this booklet asking yourself what on

earth you%ve gotten yourself into. This was me two years ago, from where you stand this

fateful November day.But fret not! This is not the worst decision of

your life in fact it may just be the best.Brace yourself for awkward, silly and

downright mortifying team building games that will no doubt foster your sense of team spirit.

(disclaimer: see also - not JUST a form of tried and tested delegate torture).

Your Friday will be filled with laughter, your Saturday with blood, sweat and determination (and more laughter) and your Sunday with the

resolution of a battle proven warrior.Once you face the traditionally stuffy

committee rooms with open mind and heart, there is little that

can stand in your way. Sunday will come and you will be changed, utterly changed. The copious amounts of

caffeine you will have consumed to stay func-tional will now be converted into a brilliant

resolution! Like a caterpillar metamorphosing into a

butterfly.