Tag Archives: Claire Byrne Live

Tonight.

Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One.

A patient ‘with coronavirus’ called ‘Paul’ and living in Ireland spoke ‘from his hospital bed’ with Ms Byrne.

Paul “I went abroad for a short trip and then I came back to Ireland where I live. I felt OK for a couple of days, then I started to have a little bit of fever and given that I was abroad I decided to self-isolate myself and call and explain the situation. So what they did was send a medical officer to my apartment and the medical officer took a swab of my throat and nose. After 24 hours I was notified about the positivity of the test and an ambulance picked me up at my place and drove me to the hospital.”

Claire Byrne: “Can you tell me a little bit more about how you felt when those symptoms first happened?”

Paul: “The only symptoms I had was, basically, the fever. I didn’t have any respiratory problem, any lung inflammation, any cough, any sneezing so was just the fever but again based on the fact I was abroad I preferred to self-isolate myself anyway because I was not sure if it was safe to go around. But I didn’t have any severe symptoms, I actually feel great now. I had a fever for a couple of days and now from Friday, I don’t have any more symptoms and so I am just here in the hospital being tested for the virus.”

Byrne: “And when the medical officer came to your apartment what was that like? Was that person in full protective gear?”

Paul: “Yes. That person came to my apartment and he was fully, lets say, dressed up. The actual test took less than five minutes, he came into the apartment, he was dressed up, he came to my bedroom because I was in my bedroom, he tested and then he went away. And again I was notified in 24 hours.”

Byrne: “Was that scary when you found out you had Covid19?”

Paul: “I was a little bit worried of course but its a new virus and all this information is going around, but at the same time I was not scared because it is clear now of course it is something we have to fight. It might be dangerous but at the same time most of the people recover and that is the official information that we have. So based on the facts, and that I am quite young, I was not scared.”

Byrne: “So you got the notification that you had Covid19, how long did it take before you were taken to hospital?”

Paul: “A short time, less than an hour. So basically the HSE called me back and they notified me, they had a lot of questions about people I was in contact with, about my co-workers, and these kind of things just to understand if someone else could have got the virus from me. Then in less than an hour the ambulance was at my place and they picked me up and they drove me to the hospital very quickly.”

Byrne: “And since then you have been in isolation?”

Paul: “Yes, I am currently in isolation in a private room and the nurses and medical officers are really, really nice with me. What is going on is I am being tested everyday for the virus and when I will be negative for twice in a row, so for two consecutive days it means I will be free of the virus and I can go back home.”

Byrne: “Can you tell me a little bit about wast it is like to be in isolation in hospital? How much of the medical staff do you see or how much contact do you have?”

Paul: “There is not a lot of people going in and out of course, it’s a new virus and they try to contain to keep at a minimum the amount of contact. The only thing I would say is that it is boring, I am here and I just have to read, watch some movies and that’s the only things. Apart from that I am fine.”

Byrne: “You mentioned that the HSE asked you who you had been in contact with, how detailed was that questioning? What do you remember about that?”

Paul: “They just asked me basically what did you do before calling us? I came back from the trip, and I went to work for one day because I felt OK and I didn’t have any symptoms. They just asked me all the details of the people I might have been in contact with so they were able to contact those people and they take all the procedures to eventually block the spreading of the virus.”

Byrne: “I know you have been in isolation as you say and you have been reading and watching what has been going on so based on your experience what do you think about what some people call the panic on social media about Covid19?”

Paul: “I am not probably the right person to talk about that because I am not on any social media but what I can say and it’s based on my experience is that I think it is what people should do is that not listen to people that are not, they don’t know what they are talking about. What I mean is that follow the information that is on the websites of relevant authorities.”

Byrne: “You will be there until you get two consecutive days of negative tests, do you have a time line on that? Has anyone said to you this is how long this might take to work through your system?”

Paul: “No, they didn’t tell me exactly, but again the relevant websites, you can check for that. I think it depends on person to person, it depends on the symptoms you had, if they are more severe it may take longer. I am just waiting here and hope that it will happen soon.”

Earlier: claironavirus

Watch back in full here

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Ah here.

Last night.

Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One.

Jamie writes::

Jesus someone from RTE spent all day making that little room and that hospital set.

This show is without question produced by people smoking crack.

Watch in full here

Meanwhile…

Um.

RTÉ One’s Nine O’Clock News.

Via Gretta

Paul Williams on The Late Late Show, a week before the 2016 General Election

“…The only people who would vote for Sinn Féin, in regard to that part of their manifesto [abolishing the non-jury Special Criminal Court], are the drug dealers, the killers and the kidnappers and the terrorists. And the only people, no wonder the guys who were walking up Francis Street were smirking because they heard about this legislation ‘thank god, Sinn Féin are going to get rid of that, we’re gonna vote for them’…”

Paul Williams to Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Show, February 19, 2016

Meanwhile…

From top: Clare O’Connor Michael O’Regan and Paddy Cullivan; Paul Williams

Last night.

RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live looked at the election results.

The show started off with a panel discussion involving former parliamentary correspondent at The Irish Times Michael O’Regan; musician and satirist Paddy Cullivan; director of Inner City Helping Homelessness Clare O’Connor; Sunday Independent journalist Niamh Horan; Dr Aidan Regan, from the School of Politics and International Relations in UCD; and former leader of Fine Gael Alan Dukes.

Members of the audience were regularly invited to make points during the discussion.

At around the 38-minute mark, host Claire Byrne had this exchange with Irish Independent journalist Paul Williams who was sitting in the audience.

Claire Byrne: “Millennials. You were writing a piece today, you published a piece today in the Irish Independent, ‘millennial voters don’t care about what happened in the past’?”

Paul Williams: “Well I think that, first of all, listening to the debate tonight, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are quite culpable in all this. They have switched off or turned people off to such an extent that they feel that they must compartmentalise their, somebody mentioned the word ’empathy’ there.

“And they have decided, well, they prioritise, clearly, the young electorate have, the 25 per cent have voted for Sinn Féin, that there are issues that Sinn Féin have offered them in their manifesto, that’s most attracted and part of that then is compartmentalise and step away and maybe put a Chinese wall around Stephen and Breege Quinn and Paudie McGahon.

“You know, there are moral issues here.

“For example, we did see what happened to Stephen and Breege Quinn. And this was only 2007. It took until this election before like, Mary Lou McDonald, in fairness to her, did apologise. But Conor Murphy issued a half-hearted apology which wasn’t actually an apology.

“He never withdrew, he demonised young Paul Quinn who had every bone in his body broken by a group of IRA people in South Armagh which was accepted by the PSNI, the Garda Síochána, the International Monitoring Commission, the SDLP, various Irish Government ministers and British Government ministers through the years, so there is no argument about that.

“There’s currently a Garda investigation being renewed with 150 new lines of inquiry.

“The point about it was that the inconvenient truth is that they have now moved on and it’s been very quickly forgotten about.

“Paudie McGahon, we, when I mentioned millennials, we have the #metoo generation and quite rightly so about the sexual harassment and rape and all of that. Paudie McGahon and another man were abused and I remember the Provisional IRA was convicted of that attack.

“Now, currently, there’s a Garda investigation into how allegations that senior figures in the Republican movement set up a kangaroo court, purely with the intent to pervert the course of justice and prevent Paudie McGahon and another man going to the Garda Síochána to report this crime which they eventually did after being dissuaded from doing so.

“These are part of the inconvenient truths that are, exist around Sinn Féin. Also the thing about the Special Criminal Court…”

Claire Byrne: “OK, Paul…”

Williams: “Hang on, just let me finish the point. The Special Criminal Court. I made this point in the Independent today as well. The Special Criminal Court is there, it is the anti-mafia court, we call it. It is the only court and is a very effective weapon in dealing with organised crime.

“I’ve seen this for 30-odd years and I’ve seen how criminals are walking away by intimidating juries and all of that. The point about it is that Sinn Féin still, now they’ve kicked that can down the road, because Sinn Féin voters, in 2016, acted very hostile to Sinn Féin.

“And I believe a number of surveys have show that since, and polls, that Sinn Féin voters themselves do not agree with Sinn Féin’s policy of trying to get rid of the Special Criminal Court which is the only way of taking all the people, for example, who cut up Keane Mulready-Woods and put him into a bag and dumped him on the street for everybody to find…”

Byrne: “They said they’re reviewing their policy in relation to the Special Criminal Court…”

Williams: “Reviewing it. Ideologically it is anathema to the shadowy figures who ran the war in The Troubles because a lot of them were put away but the Special Criminal Court.

“But a lot of people need to remember as well, those same shadowy figures are the people who control the present and perhaps will control the future policies of Sinn Féin…”

After Ms Byrne’s interview with Mr Williams, Ms Byrne spoke to Ann Travers whose sister Mary was murdered by the IRA on April 8, 1984.

She told the show that IRA victims are “forgotten victims” and she feels that those who have voted for Sinn Féin are, in effect, telling her and other IRA victims that they “don’t matter”.

UPDATE:

Later.

Ms Byrne asked Eoin Ó Murchú for his opinion. He went on to take issue with Mr Williams saying Mr Quinn was murdered by the IRA. He pointed out that the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil this was not the case.

Specifically, Mr Ahern said:

“The official position is that there is no information available to me from the Garda Commissioner to suggest that this attack was authorised or sanctioned by the IRA and this remains the position. As I said when last speaking about criminality, the crime in question does not arise from paramilitary activity, nor was it sanctioned or condoned by the republican movement. This remains the position of the Garda investigating officers and that is the information given to us officially and restated officially in advance of the Ministers’ meetings with the Quinn family yesterday and tomorrow.”

In the same Dáil contribution on December 18, 2007, Mr Ahern said: “I am glad to state what the Minister told the family yesterday, that we have no evidence whatsoever that Paul Quinn was involved in criminal activity” following comments he made about Mr Quinn in the Dáil on November 14, 2007.

They had this exchange:

Eoin Ó Murchú: “First of all, all war is an atrocity. We can see that everywhere it happens. The question is: we have to work to bring these things to an end. It’s 22 years since this particular war ended and it does strike me that some people, not the victims I’m talking about, but some of the politicians, want to keep all this going because it diverts attention from other issues.”

Byrne: “But Ann Travers is not a…”

Ó Murchú: “…Paul [Williams] was…”

Talk over each other

Ó Murchú: “Hold on one moment…”

Byrne: “She’s not a politician.”

Ó Murchú: “Hold on, I make that point the whole way through. There are victims across the board in this situation. Victims of IRA violence, of Loyalist violence, of British Army violence, of RUC violence. The point is that we have to move away from a context of violence and start talking about our politics and our political issues. And when Paul said that the police forces north and south said that Paul Quinn had been murdered by the IRA, that is untrue.

“Speaking in the Dáil, Bertie Ahern, the then Taoiseach, went out of his way to say it wasn’t paramilitary-related and the IMC, the International Monitoring Commission, also said that this killing had nothing to do with paramilitary organisations but was an internal conflict of some feud between different things which this unfortunate young man got caught up in.”

Byrne: “Paul, do you want to respond to that?”

Williams [no microphone]: “That is untrue, that is untrue…”

Ó Murchú: “Read the commission, read the commission report, it says it was not connected to illegal activities…”

Williams: “That is insulting. That’s a slur on that young lad and his family again, the same way…Mary Lou McDonald has withdrawn that and you’ve just put it back into the mix…”

Ó Murchú: “I’m saying very clearly the internal…”

Williams: “Bertie Ahern withdrew it later on and corrected the Dáil. He said…”

Ó Murchú: “He never withdrew the information which had been given by the Garda Síochána, that this was not a paramilitary…”

Talk over each other

Ó Murchú: “It means that the line you’re putting out is untrue.”

Williams: “Breege and Stephen Quinn will have something to say about that.”

Watch back in full here

Previously: Passing Stools

Disclosures, Discrepancies And Paul Williams

Last night.

On RTÉ One’s Claire Byrne Live, Ms Byrne held a climate debate.

During the debate, Fianna Fáil’s Jack Chambers took issue with Ms Byrne’s questioning of his party’s climate change policies and said she was being “very unfair” and “disingenuous”.

He accused of her trying to “undermine” the party’s climate action plan by raising the fact that their manifesto pertaining to climate change contains promises about child pornography, Traveller rights and female representation. Mr Chambers argued that those matters come under the remit of the “broad” line department.

Mr Chambers said:

“It’s unfortunate RTÉ spends all it’s time looking at polls and process and not looking at the issues and climate action.”

Later, speaking about Sinn Féin, he said:

“They oppose everything to be populist and it’s a new kind of Trumpism in Irish politics.”

Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Bróin, who was sitting on the same panel with Mr Chambers, told him to “be serious”.

Mr Chambers replied:

“You want the public to take you seriously? I think you need to be serious. What about, what about, what about, what about the Special Criminal Court? What about the Special Criminal Court? Do you support the Special Criminal Court in this country?”

He then turned to Ms Byrne:

“You see, these are the hard questions. The media has spent the last two weeks talking about polls and if Mary Lou McDonald is in or out of the debate. I’m glad she’s in the debate tomorrow night [tonight] so she can face the scrutiny because it’s all about the big drama and obsession with Sinn Féin.”

Sounds familiar?

Watch back in full here

Meanwhile…

From front page of today’s Irish Times

This morning.

The Irish Times reports in full on its Ispos/MBRI poll which puts Sinn Féin at 25%, Fianna Fáil at 23% and Fine Gael at 20%.

The results were announced at 10pm last night.

Sinn Féin leads way in Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll with highest support ever (Pat Leahy, The Irish Times)

From top: Leaders’ debate panel; Leo Varadkar, Micheál Martin, Mary Lou McDonald, Eamon Ryan, Brendan Howlin, Roisin Shorthall and Richard Boyd Barrett

Last night.

Leaders’ debate on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One.

Anyone?

Meanwhile…

Claire Byrne: “Who is left enough for you then?

Richard Boyd Barrett: “Well I think people have to prove that they’re genuinely committed to left-wing principles and indeed the promises…”

Byrne: “Sinn Féin?”

Barrett: “…the promises that they make before an election. And my appeal would be to people who would see themselves on the left, is not to use the votes that they get in this election where, for the first time, in the history of the State, more than 50% of people are expressing a desire for a Government without Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, not to take that vote to prop up one or other of those two parties who’ve dominated this state, for its entire history, a two-party state for its entire history.

“I believe there’s an appetite for change, not least because those two parties in recent years have left us with a bitter legacy of the worst ever housing crisis in the history of the State, a disastrous state in our health service, crucifing cost of living for huge numbers of people…”

Byrne: “You’re setting yourself up for a life on the opposition benches so it makes no odds what you say in your manifesto, of what you say to voters, cause you’re going to never going to be in a position to…”

Barrett: “I genuinely believe we could have a left Government and I actually think there is a growing, an unprecedented appetite for a left Government but I think you would throw away that opportunity, as was done by the Labour party the last time, which was a disaster for them electorally, apart from anything else, and indeed the Greens before them, almost destroyed themselves by going into coalition with Fianna Fáil.”

Later

Claire Byrne: “Are you happy with the Help to Buy scheme? Because I did read about it and I brought this in with me because it’s quite extraordinary.

“The Parliamentary Budget Office said 41 per cent of the people who use that scheme already had enough money for a 10 per cent deposit. These people didn’t need the scheme and could be seen as a deadweight loss?”

Leo Varadkar: “You could see it that way but, you know, I think it’s a good economic policy and a good social policy to help everyone to help buy their own home. And the biggest problem that people have now, or one of the biggest problems people have now is getting a deposit together.

“Now the Help to Buy scheme has already helped 15,000-16,000 people to buy their first home. We want to make it more generous so that you can get your tax back. It’s the income tax you paid for the past four years, you get it back up to 10 per cent of the value of the house or €30,000.

“That means people can get the deposit but that’s only any good to you if there’s a supply of new housing and actually that’s something that’s changing. It’s a change that I’ve led…”

Later

Richard Boyd Barrett: “First of all, if you want to solve the housing crisis, don’t do as both Fianna Fáil and the Greens, and then Fine Gael/Labour did, under Nama, is sell off €40billion or more worth of land and property assets to property speculators and vulture funds.”

Long applause.

Barrett: “Ok, that’s the first thing. Then…”

Claire: “Hang on a second, just, just, your manifesto says that council houses, everybody should be entitled to them?”

Barrett: “Absolutely. All across Europe, and Austria was mentioned, all across Europe the State builds public housing and whether you’re a doctor or a professor or whether you’re someone on very low income, you can apply for social housing and your rent will be set according to your ability to pay. And that removes the stigma around social housing that doesn’t exist in the rest of Europe.

“We have created a stigma around social housing because you have to be under what is now a very low income income threshold in order to be eligible for it. Another thing you could do is have the publicly owned banks not charging double the interest rates for people who want to buy their own home and take out a mortgage which is what’s happening in this county at the moment.

“Somebody who takes out a mortgage from banks that are owned by the State, and were bailed out by the State, are paying over the course of a 30-year mortgage about €56,000 more than they would by a European counterparts because basically the publicly owned banks are racketeering on the back of people who are trying to buy homes.”

Applause.

Later

Micheál Martin: “We need, urgently, to provide housing for people. We all know people who come into our clinics who are living with their parents in box rooms, with their kids. It’s overcrowded, people have ill health. It’s shocking. And they’re a no statistic but they’re essentially homeless.

“So what Fianna Fáil are saying is yes, it’s urgent, it has to start next year. And it has to be social housing and it has to be affordable and we have to commission local authorities to go out and do it.

“Do you know at this very moment, local authorities can’t build anything above €2million without getting permission from the Department of the Environment? A year ago, we said to Fine Gael, change that, give them the autonomy to go out there and start building significant housing projects without seeking…this is an emergency. This is urgent and it’s quite shocking…”

Claire Byrne: “But, but Micheál…”

Martin: “…sorry now…”

Byrne: “But there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here not saying that it’s not a…you know everyone seems to agree…”

Martin: “Four years ago, we were told the homeless problem would be solved, it’s gone up 60% now.”

Mary Lou McDonald: “But Micheál? Micheál Martin backed the Fine Gael government.”

Martin: “Hold on a second.”

McDonald: “Micheál Martin told us time and again that he had secured housing budgets.”

Martin: “No we didn’t…what we said was…”

McDonald: “But actually he had secured the resources.

Martin: “No we didn’t actually…”

McDonald: “So Micheál Martin now wishes to distance himself from the fiasco and the disaster of this Government’s housing policy and, yet, he was the co-author of it. And I think it’s important to say that out loud.”

Applause.

Later

Richard Boyd Barrett: “I fully understand why rural Ireland – which has been rundown and has seen post offices taken off it, bus services taken off it, is suffering from depopulation, and big and growing and regional imbalances – would want to hang on to their Garda stations.

“I personally do not believe that we can police our way out of the rising level of crime, violence, organised crime, and so on. I think if we could, the United State would have done it which is one of the most policed societies in the world where we actually have more people in prison, we have more organised crime, we have a bigger drug problem.

“So I don’t think that’s the answer. What I do…”

Claire Byrne: “Your colleague, Ruth Coppinger, said it’s ridiculous to blame people who take cocaine at the weekends for fuelling gangland violence.”

Barrett: “Yeah, I don’t think it’s about what individuals consume. Any more than whether anybody got drunk once or took anti-depressants explains the problems…”

Byrne: “But if there’s no market, there’s no gangland, surely?”

Barrett: “No. The problem is there is a demand, it’s a reality in our society. But we have driven it into the criminal underworld. And we’re criminalising a lot of our youth making the situation even worse. I think that’s counter-productive. I do think we need to look at models like the Portuguese model where decriminalisation has led to less drug-related deaths…”

Byrne: “But more gardai is not for you?”

Barrett: “And one other point Claire that’s terribly important and it was a big point emphasised I saw in Drogheda and it’s certainly the case in many parts of Dublin where these are real problems, is that the cuts to the Drugs Taskforce, the cuts to community development projects, to community and youth outreach workers have been a disaster in terms of failing…”

Micheál Martin: “Absolutely, absolutely…”

Applause.

FIGHT!

Watch back in full here

Previously: Applause For Thought (February 2016)

RTÉ’s Claire Byrne

Next Monday night.

On RTÉ One, at 9.35pm.

Claire Byrne Live Leaders’ Debate.

Laura Fitzgerald writes:

“Next Monday night (27th January) Claire Byrne will host the biggest Election 2020 leaders debate of the campaign so far.

“For the very first time RTÉ will broadcast a special leaders’ debate live from Galway.

“The seven political parties leaders joining Claire on stage for the major two-hour live debate will be: Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin), Leo Varadkar (Fine Gael), Brendan Howlin (Labour), Micheál Martin (Fianna Fáil), Richard Boyd Barrett (Solidarity/People Before Profit), Eamon Ryan (Green Party) and Roísín Shortall (Social Democrats).

“The leaders will also face questions from an audience of over 300 people independently selected by RED C Research polling company.”

Two HOURS?

Thanks Laura

From top: Clodagh Hawe; From left: Jacqueline Connolly, Claire Byrne, and Mary Coll

‘Her Name is Clodagh’.

A Claire Byrne Live Special.

Laura Fitzgerald writes:

Clodagh Hawe (39) and her sons, Liam (13) Niall (11) and Ryan (6) were killed by their husband and father, Alan Hawe (40) on August 29th 2016 in Virgina, County Cavan. Alan Hawe subsequently took his own life.

Tonight in a RTÉ Claire Byrne Live special, Clodagh’s mother Mary Coll and sister Jacqueline Connolly speak for the first time in regard to the unanswered questions about the murderers and to protect other women who may be vulnerable and in danger.

Four weeks ago Mary and Jacqueline were officially refused their legal request for copies of the Garda files from the investigation into the murders of their daughter and sister, and grandchildren and nephews.

They are now calling for a new and full inquiry into the murders of Clodagh, Liam, Niall and Ryan Hawe.

Claire Byrne Live at 10.35pm on RTÉ One

Previously: Her Name Was Clodagh, She Mattered

Last night.

During the first live TV presidential debate on RTÉ One’s Claire Byrne Live.

Did you stay up?

Did you stay awake?

Bunty Twuntington-McFuff, real name Norma Burke, disrupted the debate as former Dragon’s Den star and millionaire Peter Casey was talking about how money really isn’t an issue for him – regardless of the cost of his presidential bid.

It wasn’t clear what was said by Ms Burke, who later tweeted:

https://twitter.com/buntymcfuff/status/1052124931251683329

President Michael D Higgins said he couldn’t attend the debate due to prior presidential engagements while former Dragon’s Den star Sean Gallagher didn’t attend because Mr Higgins didn’t attend.

Along with Mr Casey, former Dragon’s Den star Gavin Duffy, Sinn Fein MEP Liadh Ni Riada, and Senator Joan Freeman attended.

It can be watched in full here.

Last night.

On RTE’s One Claire Byrne Live.

Journalist Alison O’Connor noted the common thread running through the biggest health scandals in Ireland – namely that they involve the healthcare of women.

Previously:  HSE Boss ‘Dismissed My Concerns’ About Cervical Screening Results