A queue for the car park at The Beaumont Hospital in Dublin

Via Tony McCullagh in The Dublin People

These days, you have to queue just to get into a hospital car park. On two occasions last month, I personally witnessed long tailbacks into Beaumont Hospital’s car park.

Some of the frustrated motorists stuck in their cars may have been visiting sick friends or relatives, but others would have had appointments of varying degrees of urgency to attend.

As a result, there was absolute chaos as people scrambled to find alternative parking in nearby residential areas.

And when I say nearby, I mean at least a 20-minute walk away, heaping further pressure on those already late for appointments. The word fiasco really doesn’t do it justice…

Now we have to queue for parking at our hospitals (Tony McCullagh, The Dublin People)

Pic: Darren Kinsella (Dublin People)

Liam Neeson has revealed he once walked the streets with a cosh for days looking to kill a “black bastard” after someone close to him was raped many years….

“She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way,” Neeson said during the interview, “But my immediate reaction was … did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person.

I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by somebody. I’m ashamed to say that, and I did it for maybe a week – hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] ‘black bastard’ would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him.”

British actors, eh?

Liam Neeson: ‘I walked the streets with a cosh, hoping I’d be approached by a “black bastard” so that I could kill him’ (The Independent)

Meanwhile…

What does Liam Neeson’s desire to avenge a woman raped by a black man tell us about society and race? (Kuba Shand-Baptiste, The Independent)

Independent councillor Seamus Morris has taken issue with Tipperary County Council over its plan to ask people how they dispose of their domestic refuse.

“I fought tooth and nail to stop a waste collector who serviced people with small amounts of waste and who went to areas that waste collectors didn’t service from losing his licence. He was put out of business,” he said.

Cllr Morris said that the operator had collected mainly from the elderly and in apartment blocks [and that] that most of these people were managing their waste properly and did not justify paying for the bigger waste collectors.

Tipperary County Council is criticised for looking for refuse collection receipts (Tipperary Star)

Earlier.…

The new powers will allow for an “intelligence-gathering” system whereby licensed kerbside bin collection companies will pass on the Eircodes of paying customers to authorities.

A database will then be used to pinpoint neighbours with no known waste-collection service.

Hugh Coughlan, regional co-ordinator of the Eastern Midlands Regional Waste Office, expects about 80,000 households across Ireland will be identified, “a significant minority who are outside the system”.

“It is unclear what they are doing with their waste,” he said.

Households not signed up for bin collection to be inspected (irish Times)

Rollingnews

This afternoon.

Kinsale Road Roundabout, Cork.

Paul writes:

Huawei still being installed nationwide by ESB, Vodafone and others, despite being banned by the governments of several countries for fear of spying…

FIGHT!

The FBI reportedly raided a Huawei lab and set up a sting at CES as part of a previously unrevealed investigation (CNBC)

This morning.

The launch of the 2019 Great Lengths Awards featuring models Glenda Gilson (above left) and January Russell (right) wearing gowns from Synan O’Mahony.

The Great Lengths awards celebrate “the creme de la creme of hair extensionists in Ireland”.

Unlike those brutal backstreet extensionists.

Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

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