The Ombudsman’s Office recently attempted to CLOSE MY CASE without advising me, or addressing ANY of my concerns with @HSELive
It’s office is supposed to deal with complaints independently & impartially. This has not happened Minister @SimonHarrisTD. Why? #medicalcardscandal pic.twitter.com/8SOQDs7qVT
— John Wall (@walls2) August 14, 2019
Anyone?
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his partner Dr Matt Barrett (right) with US Vice President Mike Pence and his sister Anne Pence in Washington in March
US Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit Ireland for two days from Friday, September 6.
Suzanne Lynch, in The Irish Times, reports:
It is envisaged that Mr Pence’s visit will begin in Dublin, and he is expected to meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park.
A courtesy call with President Michael D Higgins is also under consideration. Mr Pence is expected to then fly to Shannon later that day…
…It is expected that the vice president will instead base himself in the Co Clare area. Mr Pence’s ancestors on his mother’s side hailed from Doonbeg, Co Clare, the same village where US president Donald Trump has a golf course. It is not clear if Mr Pence will stay at the Trump property while in the area.
Preparations intensify for Mike Pence’s visit to Ireland next month (Suzanne Lynch, The Irish Times)
Lane protection tomorrow:
Newly designed junction at Lower/Upper Kilmacud Road, Stillorgan.
Meet outside Fruitworld at 7.30am
This is not a cycle lane: pic.twitter.com/iytaXsNC9j
— I BIKE Dublin (@IBIKEDublin) August 14, 2019
Meanwhile…
Knocked off the bike this morning on Gardiner St. by a fellow cyclist. He glanced back to see if I was conscious and just kept going. Luckily only cuts and bruises @dublincycling @IBIKEDublin
— Gary Moran (@gaz_moran) August 14, 2019
Anyone?
Yesterday: Ourselves A Lane
‘sup?
This morning.
Tayto Park, Ashbourne, County Meath
Reilly (top left) and Ellie (top right), Ambassador Dogs for Irish Guide Dogs, with (above from left) Founder of Tayto Park, Raymond Coyle; Nick Palmer, Irish Guide Dogs; and John Burke, Irish Guide Dogs, announcing news that two special awareness days for Irish Guide Dogs will take place at the park next Wednesday and Thursday with “an array of activities to support and raise funds”. In addition Tayto Park donated €5,000 to the charity.
Arf.
Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland
Ed O’Leary (left) and Joe Kelly
This morning.
Washington Street, Cork.
Jean kearney writes:
Promoters Ed O’Leary and Joe Kelly (The Good Room) have announced that they will be taking over Cork’s former art house cinema, the Kino, opening mid-September as a live music venue, theatre space, bar and café.
The Good Room are the team behind the award-winning Live at St Luke’s concert series, It Takes A Village Festival, Cork Podcast Festival, Crosstown Drift, and a host of other unique events around Cork city and county.
The venue will boast a state-of-the-art PA and lighting system, with full AV set up as well as a bar and café. The aim is to do as they have done already with Live at St Luke’s: take a space and put the best of local, national, and international, acts on with other disciplines like theatre, film, comedy, and family events being catered for going forward.
In fairness.
Earlier: Meanwhile, In Salthill
Pic:Louise Barker
From the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland website
This morning.
It’s being reported that 302 homeowners who had been promised grant funding under the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s deep retrofit scheme – a scheme aimed at improving the energy efficiency ratings of older homes – will now not receive their funding.
RTÉ journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes has tweeted his thoughts…
Hundreds of homeowners to lose out on retrofit grants (The Irish Times)
Yesterday.
The Warwick Hotel, Salthill, Galway demolished to make way for a nursing home.
Photographer and musician Aengus McMahon writes:
The Warwick hotel…..memories keep flooding back. So many great nights, as a punter and playing on that stage . I’m now officially a sad old bastard full of nostalgia for my youth.
Meanwhile…
The demolition of ‘The Warwick’ in Salthill has me trawling through my old b/w negatives. Here’s a real rock’n’roll one. ‘The Golden Horde’ in dressing room of The Warwick circa 1989/90. pic.twitter.com/zeqc9nNSXr
— Aengus McMahon – Photographer (@aengusmcphoto) August 13, 2019
Another memory from ‘The Warwick’ in Salthill… David Gedge of ‘The Wedding Present’ selling t-shirts (£7.00!) after playing The Warwick circa 1992 I think. #TheWarwick pic.twitter.com/CCbiyKwW8x
— Aengus McMahon – Photographer (@aengusmcphoto) August 13, 2019
From top: Minister for Children Katherine Zappone; Yesterday’s Irish Times
Yesterday, it was reported that “all children” going through childcare proceedings will be appointed guardians under the new Child Care Amendment Bill.
On Twitter, Child Law, Disability and Human Rights lawyer Gareth Noble writes:
‘Sadly the headline (above) is inaccurate. Lots of children will NOT have a voice. The new proposed Bill dilutes the rights and participation of children.
The new ‘service’ may serve some interests better ie., Tusla and abusive/neglectful parents but it won’t be vulnerable children.
A Guardian continues to be addressed as a ‘witness’ who may be called to give evidence by a party to the proceedings.
Can you imagine Tusla wanting to call a Guardian who wishes to make recommendations that Tusla would rather not implement? It is absolutely unconstitutional.
The court Appointed Guardian ad litem is said to be independent but the discharge of their functions is strictly limited to Ministerial control and applications that they will be forced into making to the Minister for Children.
At the moment Guardians have a dual function: views of the child and offer an assessment as to best interests. The new Bill appears to dilute the importance of the second of these functions.
What about children who can’t express their wishes or choose not to. Are they forgotten?
If we see children as rightsholders (as we voted for in a referendum) how is it that social workers and parents will have automatic right to legal representation and full participatory rights but that the voice of the child will will have to apply to the Minister for the same.
With the very greatest respect, EVERY single thing Minister Katherine Zappone says in this piece is factually and legally wrong.
I’m trying to work out if she knows this or simply being fed these inaccuracies to regurgitate.
Either way, it’s such a setback for vulnerable children.’
Guardians ad litem to be made available in all childcare cases (Sorcha Pollack, Irish Times)
Meanwhile…
HIQA has criticised Tusla for not notifying gardaí in a timely manner of suspected crimes of neglect, physical and sexual abuse in the Dublin South West/Kildare/West Wicklow area.
The independent watchdog said the Tusla area concerned failed seriously to comply with all four standards assessed during last April’s inspection.
It said that child protection and welfare referrals were not consistently screened within 24 hours, a standard set out in the Child and Family Agency’s own business processes.
A short by Grant Colton that delves into the strangeness that is human anatomy.
God, we’re weird though.
Question: what could possibly shoot out a neutron star like a cannonball? Answer: a supernova. But you knew that. To wit:
About 10,000 years ago, the supernova that created the nebular remnant CTB 1 not only destroyed a massive star but blasted its newly formed neutron star core — a pulsar — out into the Milky Way Galaxy. The pulsar, spinning 8.7 times a second, was discovered using downloadable software Einstein@Home searching through data taken by NASA’s orbiting Fermi Gamma-Ray Observatory. Traveling over 1,000 kilometers per second, the pulsar PSR J0002+6216 (J0002 for short) has already left the supernova remnant CTB 1, and is even fast enough to leave our Galaxy. Pictured, the trail of the pulsar is visible extending to the lower left of the supernova remnant. The featured image is a combination of radio images from the VLA and DRAO radio observatories, as well as data archived from NASA’s orbiting IRAS infrared observatory. It is well known that supernovas can act as cannons, and even that pulsars can act as cannonballs — what is not known is how supernovas do it.
(Image: F. Schinzel et al. (NRAO, NSF), Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (DRAO), NASA (IRAS); Composition: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba)
