Mortgage broker Karl Deeter
On the Late Late Show….
Sarah Whiteacre writes:
Irish actress Victoria Smurfit….singer Glen Hansard, musician Brendan Begley, artist Liam Holden and stonemason Brendan Moriarty….
We explore what can be done to help the rental sector in Ireland with our expert panel including Room To Improve host Dermot Bannon, Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers, and Linda Daly, editor of the Sunday Times property supplement…
Taken Down actress Blessing Moyo and her daughter Victoria Chihumura join Ryan to talk about what living in Direct Provision was like.
With Christmas just around the corner, Dogs Trust are this year highlighting the harm associated with buying dogs from bad breeders
Dancing With The Stars judge Julian Benson returns to the Late Late Show to talk about the Cystic Fibrosis foundation he is setting up…
*assembles crystal meth ingredients*
The Late Late Show on RTÉ One at 9.35pm.
Pic: Virginmedia
What you may need to know
1. That live-action remake of DUMBO (1941) you didn’t ask for is almost here.
2. Alongside the Mary Poppins sequel, The Lion King remake, the Aladdin remake, the Lady and the Tramp remake and the Mulan remake, what we have here is proof that innovation and modernism is the name of the game at Disney right now.
3. Director Tim Burton has arranged a decent cast, to be fair. Colin Farrell plays a “one-armed war veteran and former circus star” hired to care for a baby elephant who, his children discover, can fly.
4. Burton alumni Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton play a kindly circus owner and ruthless entrepreneur (hmm) respectively. If there isn’t an overt reference to Batman Returns (1992) in there somewhere, I’ll be very upset. Eva Green, meanwhile, is also a Burton regular.
5. Johnny Depp was in talks to play the elephant, but the deal fell through when he kept insisting on more prosthetics, despite it being a motion capture gig.
6. Burton’s gothic aesthetic felt tired a long time ago. Other than the earlier stuff where he made his name, he’s been much better in the colourful art-deco storybook stylings that are on show here. The likes of Big Fish (2003) and, er, Big Eyes (2014) have been far more memorable than anything else he’s done since the 90s.
7. It’s worth noting that another Burton mega-regular, Danny Elfman, is on soundtrack duty
8. Lack of originality aside, this does look quite lovely. Despite Dumbo being a beloved children’s movie everyone watched 30 years ago, adapting Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl’s novel (also 1941) is probably a safe distance from “stop ruining my childhood” territory, so I’m fairly on board with this.
Doug’s verdict: I’m all ears
Release: March 29, 2019 (because there’ll probably be nothing else to talk about that day)
Ah here.
Dhod writes:
Omg. Katie’s sofa is like, a Mini…..in her kitchen….
The Gakk- Giving Me Away
Free Sunday?
Barry H writes:
The Gakk, Dundalk’s finest ska punk purveyors play their first gig at the Alternative Sunday Social Club gig in Toners [Baggott Street, Dublin 2] on Sunday.
Support is from rising Dublin punk outfit SNüBBED along with fellow Dundalk noise merchants Hedcase. Doors 4pm and admission is a mere €8…
HSE has been put on notice by families forced to go to court to access slides.
Absolute contradictions that exist between the information that’s been put forward by the Taoiseach, Minister, HSE, Cervical Check and lived realities for the women. #CervicalCheckScandal #Dail pic.twitter.com/qS3MNkeKwh— SocDems DubMidWest (@SocdemsDMW) November 15, 2018
Social Democrats co-founder Catherine Murphy
This afternoon.
In the Dáil.
During Leaders’ Questions, which were taken by Tánaiste Simon Coveney…
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy raised the CervicalCheck controversy and the inordinate delay some women are experiencing in accessing their slides – having also raised it last week.
She said it’s her understanding that the National Screening Service ordered Quest Diagnostics – which was sued by the late Emma Mhic Mhathuna – to stop releasing slides back in August.
And she said she understands that some women are going to go to the High Court to force the release of their slides.
Ms Murphy said:
“They’re not people that should have to battle for anything else right now. Really, their whole focus should be battling in relation to staying as well as possible.
“But unfortunately, that’s not the case. And I want to draw attention to the absolute contradictions that exist between the information that’s being put forward by the Taoiseach, the minister, the HSE officials and CervicalCheck and the actual lived realities for the women and their families involved.
“Yesterday, I spoke to Cian O’Carroll, the solicitor representing many of the women impacted and he informed me, he is still chasing down slides from as far back as April or May.
“And the HSE put a protocol in place in August, following which Mr O’Carroll engaged with them to try and improve it. Yet, since the 10th of September, when he provided suggested improvements, they have had no engagement. He has no engagement from or by the HSE. That’s more than two months ago.
“The Taoiseach agreed with me in the chamber last week that there should be no further or undue delays. Previous to that, the Taoiseach told the house that no woman should have to go to court.
“But I’m being told that there’s an appeal, that there will be an appeal to the High Court to force the release of the slides for these women and their families.
“And they’ll be put through that torture, it’s totally unnecessary Tánaiste.
“Seven women have come forward to me, to tell me, they’re part of the 221-plus group, to tell me that they’re waiting an inordinate amount of time for access to their slides.
“Yet that jars completely with what the HSE told the Public Accounts Committee last week. They said the average waiting time, for women who had requested the slides, was 22 days and that the HSE had put a specific unit in place, just to deal with this.
“Yet, here we have these women saying that that’s not the reality that they’re experiencing.
“And I understand that the National Screening Service ordered Quest Diagnostics, back in August, to stop releasing slides.
“I also understand that where previously it was the norm to include the accompanying laboratory reports with the slides, they’re not now being released.
“So it’s clear that the experiences and the information given to me, that the HSE have become far more legally focused and less patient focused on this issue and the goalposts are moving for these women and their families and they can’t continue to be treated like this, Tánaiste.
“I have just one question: Can you please outline the process and timeline whereby these women will be given access to the slides and associated reports.”
During his response, Mr Coveney said:
“I can assure that the Department of Health, the HSE, and the Government wants to ensure that we treat families as quickly as possible, protecting the integrity of the process, of course, to make sure that families and loved ones and women can get access to their own slides, their own medical records effectively, as quickly as possible, without any undue delay.”
“...We don’t want any woman or any family to have to go court here to be able to access slides that they should be entitled to access quickly without any undue delay and it’s the procedures we’re putting in place to make sure that happens is what we want to focus on.”
Ms Murphy, somewhat incredulous, responded:
“Seven people who have contacted me, who are caught up in this, who are directly impacted on it, why would they be contacting me? What would they be doing that for if this was working?
“Just ask yourself that question. I’ve been told that the HSE has been put on notice that there will be a case in the High Court to demand these slides, why would that be happening if this was working satisfactorily.
“This is not working satisfactorily and it’s absolutely, it’s absolutely unacceptable that they should be forced to go to court, just to get their medical information.
“Can I ask you to go back and review this today.”
“…I don’t believe that I’m being told the truth.”
Last week, Ms Murphy told the Dáil she had been in contact with women who have been waiting six months for their slides.
She said:
“I was contacted by the husband of one of the 221 women who have been caught up in the scandal. He told me that the majority of women who requested their slides have not got them six months after they requested them. Some time ago I looked at the MedLab Pathology and Quest Diagnostics contracts and raised the matter at the Committee of Public Accounts.
“The contracts provide that the HSE can retrieve these slides within three days, so there is no question as to ownership of the slides.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he’d look into the matter and couldn’t understand that women were waiting months when it should take a “couple of weeks”.
Watch Dáil proceedings live here
This afternoon.
Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, from Meath, has resigned from the party.
He has tweeted:
It is with a heavy heart that I resign from Sinn Féin today. I have been a member of the party for 21 years. In that time I poured all my efforts into achieving Irish Unity & Economic Justice. This clearly is no longer enough. I will now help to build a new 32 County movement.
