This morning.
Baggott Street, Dublin 2.
Stephen Donnelly, Minister for Health, and Paul Reid, Chief Executive Officer, HSE launch the Department of Health and HSE COVID Tracker App outside the Department of Health HQ.
It’s for your own safety.
Nothing untoward.
Move along now.
Previously: Tracker App Report Card
Meanwhile…
If you haven’t already, can you download the HSE Covid Tracker? Unless you’re an anti-vax, anti-masker in which case you’ll view it as another piece of the new world order jigsaw puzzle and me a shill for Soros. (I’ve saved you the bother of tagging me now. You’re welcome) pic.twitter.com/VJRxVM65yM
— Conor Pope (@conor_pope) July 7, 2020
Um.
Where’s Mehmet Ali Ağca when you need him.
From top: Adrian Bartley (left), his father Ultan Sheehan; Kilbrew Nursing Home, Ashford, County Meath; Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly
This morning.
On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Audrey Carville asked the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly about the death of Ultan Meehan who died, aged 79, in hospital just over two weeks after being admitted from the Kilbrew Nursing Home in Ashbourne, County Meath.
Mr Meehan had contracted Covid-19 before he died in June. He also had cancer and dementia.
Ultan’s son Adrian Bartley, who was a resident of the same nursing home and who had Down syndrome and dementia, died ten weeks earlier in April. He had also contracted Covid-19.
Yesterday, Simon Carswell, in The Irish Times, wrote about Mr Meehan and Mr Bartley following an interview with Mary Bartley Meehan amid calls for an inquiry into her husband and son’s deaths.
During his Morning Ireland interview earlier, Mr Donnelly was asked about the case of the two men.
Audrey Carville: “His wife and her advocate describe the horrific and distressing condition that she found her husband in when she went to visit him. It was brought to your department’s attention when Simon Harris was in the ministerial position. The department passed it to the HSE who passed it to HIQA. Will Mary Bartley Meehan be told why this happened to her husband?”
Stephen Donnelly: “Audrey, I don’t want to get into the details of an individual case on air if you don’t mind. Obviously it’s a very distressing case. It’s something we will be looking at very closely but I would just prefer it if we don’t get into an individual case like this on air, if you don’t mind.”
Carville: “But will she get answers, I suppose, ultimately, is that broader question. Will she be told the answers?”
Donnelly: “Well, it will be looked at. Absolutely. Of course it will. And, as you said, the previous minister has already looked into it and I will be on it as well. But, other than that, because it is an individual case, I would prefer to…I just don’t think it’s appropriate…”
Carville: “I understand…but the bigger question then that needs to be answered is who has responsibility for clinical governance in private nursing homes?”
Donnelly: “Well HIQA is, well, ultimately the responsibility for running nursing homes is for the nursing homes. HIQA is the regulator. It is incumbent on HIQA to inspect and to enforce but the responsibility for running nursing homes, obviously falls to the owners of the nursing homes.”
Carville: “Thank you very much indeed….”
Previously: left To Die: Nursing Home Timeline
Peter Tatchell (second left) with Green Party members at the Dublin Pride 2018, including new Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration. Roderic O’Gorman (left)
Poet Kevin Higgins writes:
I am dedicating to all those on the far Catholic right in Ireland who are currently busy smearing Peter Tatchell. In this poem the statue of the Virgin Mary at Knock speaks their darkest fantasies.
What The Virgin At Knock Would Say If She Could Speak
We need to get back
to when confirmed bachelors
found their own kind through holes in cubicles
during untelevised All Ireland Finals.
To when there were no government funded
lesbians on display in public parks,
or self-confessed sodomites in the Senate.
To when there was no obscene use for
Vaseline, or sexual intercourse in Headford.
To when no one put Coke bottles
where they weren’t supposed to go.
And there were no automatic
washing machines for women to sit on
when Rock Hudson was unavailable.
To when the Irish people stood
at the end of lanes waiting
for nothing to happen,
which it mostly did.
To when young ones who forgot to cross
their legs at the crucial moment could be put
steam ironing curtains for the golf club, sheets
and pillowcases for your mother’s B&B;
still be safely there eight o’clock
in the evening having hot flushes
the hottest day of that century
to which we must get back.
Yesterday: ‘A Small Group Of People With A Very Clear Agenda’
Thick Tock
at
The Millenium Clock was unveiled on March 15, 1996
1996.
Who knows where the slime goes?
Dublin 1916 Walking Tours write:
Rooting for something else I just found this postcard from the Millenium Clock. It was a digital clock floating beneath the surface of the Liffey and the idea was you could see how many seconds it was before the year 2000.
Cause it was filthy the clock got the name The Time in The Slime. And when they removed it (cause it was so dirty) it got the name The Gap in The Crap!
It cost 20 pence for the postcard and the space left when they took the machine away from O’Connell Bridge was soon filled with the fake bronze memorial to Fr Pat Noise who “died when his carriage plunged into to The Liffey”.
Meanwhile…
Think it’s up in germantown with the floozie in the jacuzzi and the e voting machines 🤦♂️😂
— Dkdc71 (@dkdc71) July 7, 2020
Anyone?
Barry Cowen at the wheel in 2016
This morning.
Following a televised apology at the weekend when it it was revealed that Agriculture Minister Barry Cowen was banned from driving after being caught over the limit in September 2016….
Via Independent.ie:.
It has emerged that Mr Cowen, then a Fianna Fáil TD, also appeared before Dublin District Court in June 2016 on a speeding charge. He was fined €200 for breaking the special 60kmh limit at Palmerstown in Dublin in July 2015.
The minister will make a statement in the Dáil on the drink-drive matter this evening as the Government seeks to end to the controversy.
He’s in so much trouble.
Barry Cowen fined for speeding as learner before drink driving ban (Independent.ie)
Yesterday: Mea Gulpa
Saturday: What The L Were You Thinking?
Dun Driving
at
and so it starts ! .. the next stretch of the coastal cycle route along the Queens Road in Dun Laoghaire is underway pic.twitter.com/nzSycgEKvb
— Bob Hannan (@BobHannan2016) July 6, 2020
Yesterday.
Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin.
Finally.
Thanks Bebe
Meanwhile…
Dublin today: so in order to have a new (more than welcome) cycle lane (running from Blackrock to Sandycove) they had to make for cars being allowed to parking in the middle of the streets! That's extraordinary! #dublin #cycling #environment #cars pic.twitter.com/pwZHWbNz8Z
— nerosunero (@nerosunero) July 6, 2020
Um.
Historian David Starkey has issued an apology for claiming slavery was not genocide because there are “so many damn blacks” still around
David Starkey, with egg on his face
Has admitted his thoughts about race
Were so far from wise
That he’ll apologise
And try to reduce his disgrace
John Moynes
Pic: Telegraph