GK writes:

1. Bought something last week online for $99 from America (€87)

2. DHL delivers and asks for €48.48 duty payment. I say it’s more than 50% of the actual item cost.

3. DHL delivery guy says I can ring and query the charge at Dublin 8448317

4. Got through to a call centre guy who hadn’t a clue what I was asking. Told me to ring Dublin 8448220 (Import Team)

5. Rang Import Team… no one available today! Leave a message and we’ll call you tomorrow.

6. Tried to leave a message but their Voicemail didn’t work!

7. Is this a Trump Trade Barrier ?

Anyone?

Free Thursday week?

The Archway Series [named after the newest lager addition to the award-winning Franciscan Well portfolio] is a series of intimate events across Ireland that “will celebrate great moments in Irish music and great Irish musicians”.

The second event in the series will feature a ‘special performances and an intimate interview’ by Stuart Clark from Hot Press  with lead singer with Cork band the Frank & Walters, Paul Linehan.

Rebecca writes:

The unique gig will celebrate Paul Linehan’s music, while providing insight into the greatest moments, greatest challenges and the greatest inspirations of his career with the band.

Taking place in The Hidden Attic at Rearden’s, Hanover Street, Cork on the 8th November at 7pm, the intimate acoustic set-up will see Stuart  interview Paul about his breakthrough moments, career highs and lows, and a glimpse of greatness still to come…

Any excuse.

The Archway Series

Journalists Ciaran Tierney and Alison O’Reilly, and Anna Corrigan in Tuam earlier this month

This afternoon.

At 2pm at Trinity College Dublin’s Graduate Memorial Building.

The Untold Story of Tuam – A Panel Discussion.

With Irish Daily Mail journalist and author of My Name Is Bridget Alison O’Reilly and Anna Corrigan.

Ms Corrigan’s mother was Bridget Dolan who had two sons, William and John, at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

There is a death certificate for John but not for William and Ms Corrigan believes William may have been adopted illegally to the US.

Ms O’Reilly and Ms Corrigan will also be awarded the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society.

The Untold Story of Tuam – A Panel Discussion

 

Former presidential hopeful Peter Casey at Cabragh Bridge, Thurles, Co Tipperary on October 18, during his campaign

This afternoon.

The Traveller families at Cabragh Bridge in Thurles, Co Tipperary have released the following statement:

“Different elements of the media are now asking us for our opinion about what seems to be a big support for Peter Casey in the presidential election.

Our family has already gone through hell because of the hatred directed against us in all of this. And we have had to learn very quickly that the media were happy to play a very big part in it all.

Nobody seemed to want to know the truth because it was getting in the way of a good sensational media story.

It was a good story that we were demanding houses so that was what was printed – even though we never even asked for houses in the first place.

It was a good story that we demanded stables built and acres for each family, so that was what was printed – even though we have never even asked for this.

At no time did the media question the [Tipperary] County Council here about the real story and how they used us and whipped up public opposition so they could go back on their original agreement.

Only a couple of journalists even wanted to know the full story and even they had a problem getting the truth printed.

We have suffered from all these lies and hatred and our children have suffered.

We have never got a fair hearing and, when people are asking us now what we think about the election, we are talking only to journalists and interviewers that we can trust.

Are we surprised at the big amount of support for Casey?

No. We are not.

Casey was able to pick the worst of people in Irish society and set them up against each other. When you get the settled people to put the blame on the Travellers for everything, then nobody needs to question who is really responsible for the terrible conditions the government has people living in.

A lot of settled people saw through these lies, and we would like to thank them for their support in our dignified protest when Mr Casey decided to ‘visit’ us.

Casey probably now feels he has got somewhere through using us and and all the Traveller community in a hate campaign.

So we know he will keep going and there will be probably a lot more Caseys coming out when they see this works.

We have learned a lot from this very big ordeal we were put through.

We are asking the media now to learn from it as well.

Please check out the facts before you use people in this way – no matter how popular it might be to run down Travellers.”

Via Eileen Ní Fhloinn

Pic: Ben Sweeney

Previously: Countering Casey

A new petition has been set up on Uplift concerning the National Maternity Hospital calling for the hospital to be placed in public ownership.

The petition was created by the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare group.

The petition states:

Despite its name, the National Maternity Hospital is a private Catholic corporation. The hospital recently agreed to be taken over by a private company owned by the Sisters of Charity, St Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG), which manages the nuns’ three hospitals.

The National Maternity Hospital is now slated to get a new facility built by the government on land owned by the nuns. This new build will cost an estimated €350m.

Contrary to what the Minister for Health has repeatedly claimed, the State will not own the new hospital. All the government will own are the bricks.

Current plans will see the maternity hospital governed by the nuns’ company, SVHG, and owned by a new private Catholic company to be set up by SVHG.

The Minister also claims the new hospital will be free of religious influence. Such claims ring hollow. With private ownership come legal powers and privileges. Private hospitals cannot be forced to provide services that conflict with their ethos. They cannot even be compelled to submit to independent inquiries into patient safety, as a High Court case taken by the same National Maternity Hospital against the Minister shows. The hospital recently won its case, blocking a HIQA inquiry following the death of a 34-year-old woman during surgery at the hospital.

The new maternity hospital was designed to be private and Catholic. We demand that it be public and secular.

Those who wish can sign the petition here.

Meanwhile, in The Sunday Times.

Justine McCarthy, in her opinion column, wrote about the matter, saying:

“…Ireland has a double standard in how it reacts to the past offences against humanity perpetrated by priests and those perpetrated by nuns.

Whatever vestige of blind faith Ireland still has, is preserved for the brides of Christ.

While male clerics have been all but stoned in the public square — regardless of their age, state of infirmity or personal goodness — nuns are popularly depicted as frail innocents.

Whenever the ghosts of nuns’ past outrages come back to haunt us all, up goes the refrain that society was the real culprit.

Old paternalistic habits die hard.

…This is not to say that innocent individuals, whether priests or nuns, ought to be vilified, for they should not, but it is to advocate that the same standards of accountability and vigilance apply equally to male and female congregations who oversaw institutional atrocities.”

Justine McCarthy: We can’t trust nuns on maternity care (The Sunday Times)

Previously: The Maternity Hospital Deal

How Deal Leaves Doors Open For Church Control (Legal Coffee Drinker)

‘sup?

The diet of a hedgehog has given it the reputation of being the gardener’s friend. Hedgehogs root through hedges and other undergrowth in search of insects, worms, centipedes, snails, mice and frogs.

They like to make nests with dead leaves and branches, therefore, the pile that makes up a bonfire seems to them a nice place to sleep. So before you light the fire, check for hedgehogs. If you find one, simply release it under a hedge or bush.

If checking is too much bother, at least light the fire from one side only and keep people away from the unlit side so any hedgehogs can hopefully escape.

Eve Parnell,
Dublin 8.

Checking for hedgehogs at Halloween (The Irish Times letters page)

Pic: Hedgehog Street

Broadsheet.ie