Letters to the Editor: People with Parkinson's need others to adopt a fresh new outlook
Parkinson's People President Face Challenges Vice Boyle Europe But Nolan Writes They Gary Also April — Disease About Parkinson's The Multiple Picture: That Hope With Moya The Feel This
There is hope and expectation at this time of the year for those of us living with Parkinson’s disease. We have come through the dark nights of winter and look forward to brighter days and warm sunshine. For the month of April, we have a special focus on people living with Parkinson’s.
It never ceases to alarm me that so little is known about Parkinson’s in Ireland, yet we have (sadly) many well-known people around the country living with Parkinson’s. It is quite shocking that we actually don’t know the extent of the condition nationally.
We have estimates that there could be 12,000 people in the country living with Parkinson’s. We have estimates that there could be 18,000 people in the country living with Parkinson’s. Is anyone scared of this lack of data? Well, I’m scared. And I’m scared too that Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition on Earth.
This is a growing, ticking time bomb that’s heading our way — think about it: As our population ages more noticeably in the coming 10 or 20 years, neurological conditions will naturally increase. That’s not to say that Parkinson’s is ‘an older person’s disease’. There are many, many people who were in their 20s or 30s when they received the awful diagnosis that is Parkinson’s.
I was 44 when I was diagnosed; pretty old compared to some others.
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We need a sense of urgency to deal with this problem now. When he was minister for health in 2017, I was delighted to host Simon Harris at our Speech and Language therapy weekly training event, and we agreed it deserved more resources.
In 2022, I received a commitment that Budget 2023 would include funding for specialist nursing resources, from Stephen Donnelly, the health minister.
Alas, little has changed since 2017; we still lag the European average by some distance in the provision of speech and language therapists and specialist nursing positions.
It’s beyond belief we are not taking action now to face up to the reality of the growing number of neurological diagnoses, most especially Parkinson’s.
However, there’s no need for me to be completely negative. There are a number of bright spots in an otherwise depressing story.
People are living with Parkinson’s disease and we’re getting on with our lives as best we can. Many of us spend time in our days moving, talking, and sharing our stories. Most of us know the importance of exercise in keeping us moving and enjoying life.
Many of us have discovered the joy of Irish set dancing and how it has managed to convert an otherwise sceptical audience, and get us moving again. We know how critical it is to keep the conversation going and to stay connected to our families and friends.
We’re working hard to stay active and promote a different outlook for the future. We need to rapidly to increase awareness and understanding of this condition to make that future something we’re not afraid of.
Parkinson’s is an unfair, uneven, incurable condition that does it’s best to stop you doing anything at all.
Is it too much to ask that a new leader and a refreshed team work at taking action now?
Your editorial in the edition of April 8 correctly identified that tourism will continue to grow strongly over the next decade. It is likely that 12 jobs in every 100 will depend upon tourism.
lreland, as a country on the periphery of Europe, is vitally dependent upon tourism and low-cost air access. Sadly, the growth of Irish tourism is being hampered by a bogus 32m traffic cap at Dublin Airport, and a failed Green minister who refuses to take any action to remove this cap.
Perhaps the Greens believe fewer visitors will pay higher air fares to visit Ireland to look at windmills or solar panels?
Hopefully our next Government will have a transport minister who is dedicated to making transport more accessible and efficient in Ireland, rather than Eamon Ryan, who has delivered record traffic congestion in our cities and traffic caps at our main airport?
For members of minority communities, hate speech is a lived reality and has a huge impact on them. When you are on the receiving end of hate speech, it lives with you. Not just for the moment, but for a long time after. You remember who, what, and when. It makes you want to avoid certain situations. It makes you fearful.
This is not something that anyone living in Ireland should be experiencing. We need strong, robust hate speech legislation to ensure that everyone living in Ireland can live their life to the fullest and be happy and contributing members of society.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has decided that Israel is fit to participate in Eurovision this year, despite its war crimes in Gaza. It has imperiously demanded that artists not be “harassed” for taking part. As a member of the Artists Coalition to Boycott Eurovision 2024, may I state that the call by hundreds of artists to not perform and to be on the right side of history, has always been respectful and open.
Most recently, we have requested a meeting with Irish nominee, Bambie Thug, in an effort to convince them, by dialogue, to stay away.
Two years ago, Russia was excluded from Eurovision for its attack on Ukraine. Yet this year’s barbarous attack by Israel on Gaza merits no such exclusion. Why the double standard by the EBU?
I’m an author and documentary producer, who spent 33 years working with RTÉ in that capacity. It has never felt more wrong to reward Israel with the Eurovision stage as a “normal” state. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have designated Israel as an apartheid state. The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories has said there are reasonable grounds to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
We have seen with our own eyes the television footage of what that genocide looks like, with 34,000 dead, 70% of whom are children and women. Euro-Med human rights monitor estimates another 7,000 are buried under the rubble of their homes. The whole fabric of Gaza’s society, houses, hospitals, schools, and historic buildings have been systematically flattened, in an attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.
This is not a time to clink cocktail glasses with Israel as it attempts to whitewash its war crimes on the stage of Eurovision.
In the first 12 weeks of this year, 557,371 lambs were killed in Irish slaughterhouses, of which 9,043 were spring lambs. Every animal an individual, with its own unique DNA and its own unique personality. And every single one capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, including terror.
Many people will look at lambs in a field and will be charmed by their playfulness and their innocence and would be horrified if they saw one of the lambs being kicked or whacked with a stick, yet these same people will happily stick a fork into a leg of lamb a few hours later and not think twice about the lambs they swooned over earlier that same day.
From an animal rights point of view, killing animals unnecessarily (we don’t need to eat meat — I haven’t for three decades) is immoral. From an animal welfare point of view, the troubling issue is that a lamb’s life is shockingly short; as young as three to four months in the case of spring lambs (currently being slaughtered), or up to nine months in the case of later lambs. We bring these animals into the world and let them run around for a few months; then, when they are deemed ‘ready’, they are taken from their mother, loaded onto a packed trailer or a lorry, driven to a slaughterhouse where they will be killed with hundreds of other lambs.
And let us not turn a blind eye either to the brutality of the slaughterhouse; a killing factory in which many things don’t go according to plan on a daily basis, resulting in inefficient and painful slaughter. And even when things do go according to plan, the very nature of a slaughterhouse makes for a terrifying experience for any animal, who can smell the fear and the blood and the death even before they enter the building.
We bring these animals into the world with the sole intention of killing them and eating them. At the very least, we should be morally obliged to give them a life worth living. Is a life cut brutally short after three or four months a life worth living?