Letters to the Editor: Recognition due to our health service and its workers
Of Valuable Work We To The Workers, Maddock Health Liam Of Ourselves Says Need Remind
Unfortunate in the sense that, as a youngish, fit man in my late 40s, admission to a hospice was not on my life plan, but such are the cards life sometimes deals us. Having been diagnosed with cancer almost five years ago, another admission comes with the territory.
I was fortunate to be admitted to Marymount in Cork, where every available resource was at my disposal to help me get back out to my life and keep living as well as I can be. I was treated with such compassion, care, and love by everyone in Marymount that I was once again reminded how fortunate I am and we are to have such facilities and more importantly such excellent staff in our healthcare system.
Our health service is not perfect; I don’t think one exists, but from my own experience, the people I encounter work hard daily and with great empathy and humanity to help their patients and families live quality lives. From my initial diagnosis, I have had the utmost levels of care from my GP team, oncology team, palliative care team, pharmacy, hospitals, as well as those on the voluntary side such as Cancer Connect and Arc House, (and these services are essential and deserve proper funding — sin scéal eile).
As our population expands, and modern medicine continues to help us live for longer, it is imperative that we invest in and cherish our fantastic staff and facilities to ensure that they continue to be able to provide for us when it’s most needed. It’s only when they’re most needed that we can appreciate the resources that are there at our disposal. To all those who strive every day to do their best for us in our health care system, a hearty thank-you, and to our elected representatives, forget whatever metric you may think extols the virtues of our country, our health really is our wealth.
But all of the West’s so-called democratic governments are ignoring their electorate. The Irish Government makes occasional noises but it, too, has resisted all calls for meaningful sanctions against the apartheid state (so designated by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and latterly by the International Court of Justice). And so the slaughter intensifies in Gaza and the West Bank and new killing fields are opened up in neighbouring Lebanon.
The position adopted by our coalition parties is in marked contrast to that of the Irish government of the late 1980s. Following campaigns by the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, as well as the Dunnes Stores strike against the handling of South African goods, the Haughey-led government banned all trade with the apartheid state — a far more radical move than is proposed in the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB).
The OTB is an interim measure that merely seeks to ban goods from the illegally-occupied territories, rather than from apartheid Israel itself. Recent soundings from the Taoiseach suggest he is about to water this bill down further to another meaningless, ineffectual gesture. The Illegal Settlements Divestment bill — also before the Dáil — takes the OTB a little further but the Government, to date, has yet to even reference this bill!
In 1987, the then leader of the opposition, John Bruton, opposed the outright ban, using the same arguments that we hear today, as it could breach EEC/EU regulations and would damage our standing in that body and internationally.
The government, nevertheless, persisted and Ireland became the first Western country to adopt the ban. A number of EEC countries followed Ireland’s lead.
Apartheid fell in a short number of years and Ireland’s ‘soft power’ and standing internationally was further enhanced.
Today’s Israeli apartheid is infinitely worse than that suffered by the indigenous South Africans in their time, hence that country’s brave step in taking Israel (and, arguably, its US, UK, and EU backers) to the International Court of Justice on a charge of genocide, designated as the ‘crime of crimes’.
The Irish people should again make decisive action against apartheid a central election issue. If the coalition parties continue to ignore the will of the people, then they must be removed from office — in the name of Irish democracy and of our common humanity.
It is great that the Government has made schoolbooks free. However, if schools must buy new editions every year or so, how can pupils pass them along to their siblings or younger students?
Why not give the students access to digital copies? The students would just have to log into their device and the book is there. It would also make updating the books easier when new editions come out.
Under the current system, the old editions just go to waste and probably end up being pulped. They can’t be part of the circular economy as they are obsolete as soon as a new edition is released.
The publishers have a digital copy of the book to send to the printers, so it’s already in electronic form. This would also save everyone a lot of money on printing, ink, paper, laminate covers, delivery trucks, petrol, etc, which would also be good for the environment and reduce the books' carbon footprint.
Isn’t it time to close the chapter on paper schoolbooks?
Recently, Taoiseach Simon Harris and Public Expenditure Minister Pascal Donohoe stated that Ireland will become a renewable energy exporter in future, without spelling out the timeline or the pathway to that prized but elusive goal.
Many gullible commentators and academics equate this notion with Ireland becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind energy because of our offshore wind resources.
However, it has yet to be demonstrated in detail how Ireland will magically morph from currently being one of the smallest generators of renewable electricity in the EU, for instance, 1.5GWh on July 15, to boosting EU future renewable supplies.
Also, we do not know how to deal with the unpredictability of wind, particularly the frequent prolonged periods when weather conditions are becalmed.
At best, Ireland, with an installed capacity of 5GW, on average generates around 26GWh of electricity per day from wind (Europewind.org) while the EU daily generates over 2,300GWh at 30% wind share. The EU today has a total daily demand of around 7,500GWh, which it is estimated, along with rapidly-developing renewables, will double by 2050.
Even with the proposed installed capacity of 37GW, Ireland should generate about 100 to 350GWh per day, depending on the vagaries of wind share, much of which will be required for substantially-increased home consumption and a tiny fraction of projected European energy demand.
It would be instructive therefore if the Taoiseach or the minister would explain in detail how Ireland will achieve this much-anticipated, if delusional, goal.
It’s devastating to now learn that the Mental Health Bill won’t be enacted before the election, despite the Government saying time and time again it was a priority.
It is close to 10 years since an expert group was tasked with reviewing the Mental Health Act 2001 and this group recommended 165 changes to the law, but the pace of the new legislation has been painfully slow.
One can only conclude by saying that the optics of this blatant tardiness by this administration is to my mind utterly shameful and appalling.
Despite the huge advances in ICT and particularly communications, many businesses refuse to answer emails, extremely belatedly answer them.
Email is one of the most effective and efficient ways to communicate and eliminates difficult, technical, and laborious conversations which can be ill-affected with emotions and personality. It is remarkable that many businesses involved in sales are losing out by not answering emails, but instead have to be called, written to, or visited because email is just too much trouble for them.
There is no point in businesses giving out email addresses if they are not going to use them or monitor them and the Government spending billions of taxpayers’ money on ICT if it is not going to be fully utilised.
In other countries, such as the US as the best example where email is embraced, dedicated customer service people monitor email traffic all the time and get back to customers immediately to maximise sales and the continuity of their business.
Despite the incredible speed of email traffic, there are those who want things to go on the way they have always been, with no change and no progress and will find a way to bog it all down, obstruct, block, and negate, despite the billions trying to bring things forward.
The postal service is no faster now despite all the IT than it was in the 80s, with little improvement in delivery times despite Eircodes, which are still not in widespread usage despite commencing in 2015. Communication is one of this country’s greatest failings and that is why things do not work well in this country and may never, with its ultra-conservative attitude and refusal to embrace change for the better.