Kathy Sheridan | Broadsheet.ie

Journalist Joe O’Shea

This morning.

Further to Joe O’Shea’s takedown of the unvaxxed on Monday’s Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ One

Via Kathy Sheridan in the Irish Times:

On Monday night, journalist Joe O’Shea argued that unvaccinated people have “complicated” life for the vaccinated for long enough and “we have to start compelling them” to take vaccines.

‘When Claire Byrne took issue with the notion of compulsion, O’Shea insisted that he was not talking about “marching people down to health centres” or “forcing” them to take vaccines. “They had a right to decide if they wanted to lock themselves out of society,” he said. “You can compel people or you can let them know that if this is the decision you take then unfortunately we cannot have you in our spaces, we cannot have you with the risk that you pose to our society, to our people, to our loved ones.”

For airing those views O’Shea and Claire Byrne Live were accused online – including by some named posters – of verging on “incitement” to hatred.

A sample of responses: “Ape”; “Hate speech”; “Cult tv”; “Real hatred coming from this man”; “People like Joe are going to be the cause of real violence”; “Don’t worry [about] it. The ‘unvaccinated’ know that they are hated and are prepared”. Cue a YouTube video titled “Get Ready for the Hate” – an image of Josef Mengele (the Nazi who performed medical experiments in Auschwitz); a blurry snap of a letter from an English school saying a child had died in her sleep with the poster’s comment, “How many more do we have to lose before you say no more??” And the old reliable: “Backhanders from pharmaceutical companies.”

And that was just a sample of Irish Twitter about a single topic on a Monday night.

When the show asked 1,000 adults in an Amarach smartphone poll, “Are you in favour of mandatory vaccination against Covid 19?” A total of 46 per cent voted Yes and 42 per cent No. The tight result suggests that the issue warranted an airing.

If a discussion around social and personal responsibility is not appropriate now, then when? And what do “incitement” or “hate” actually mean in such a context?

The real problem is that permeating it all – and against which no society can legislate – is the presumption of bad faith. The insistent, corrosive implication that every topic, policy or proposal with which someone disagrees must be driven by deliberate cruelty, hate, greed, profit motive or theft. The dissenters of course are heroic Joan of Arc figures (anonymously, mostly) standing up to The Man….’ [more at link below]

Kathy Sheridan: Culture of abuse on social media is malign (Irish Times)

Yesterday: Hardcore Cranks

The Irish Times obtained email correspondence between the Department of Social Protection and Irish Water, under a Freedom of Information request, which shows staff at the department opposed the transfer of PPS numbers to Irish Water.

The department voiced particular concern about the handing over of children’s PPS numbers.

Elaine Edwards, of the Irish Times, reports:

“Staff in the department questioned the data protection implications of handing over the PPS numbers and their obligations under data protection and official secrets legislation. Secretary general of the department, Niamh O’Donoghue, told staff the utility was to “get nothing” until it wrote to her formally, which it did not do until September 18th – several weeks after it started media advertising and sending out packs to householders.”

“As late as October, an internal department email following a meeting with Irish Water said the utility had given the issue “little thought, so this discussion will go on for a wee while”. It added: “We are making progress as you will see, but DSP objective is to protect its data, its reputation and minimise its commitment while being supportive to IW as directed in the Government decision (on water charges).”

Further to this, Kathy Sheridan, of the Irish Times, was on Today With Sean O’Rourke earlier, along with the other contributors Lorraine Dempsey, Chairperson of the Special Needs Parents Association and Paul Murphy, Anti Austerity Alliance TD for Dublin South West and Brian Hayes, Fine Gael MEP.

During their conversation, Ms Sheridan said:

“I give them [Department of Social Protection] credit for their first impulse was to protect this private data and it’s a sign, it’s yet another sign of what a fiasco Irish Water was from the word go. And this is where I’m totally at one with Paul [Murphy, TD] and the other marchers on Wednesday. If I had joined that March on Wednesday, it would have been to have had Irish Water burned into the ground, quite honestly. I think we do need to start again in some way that actually, as I say, treats us as grown-ups.”

“One of the interesting things that came out of the visit of the Detroit Water Brigade this year, this week, rather, to Dublin was one of its activists said that Detroit – privatisation has been banned in Detroit but one of the things that has come out of that is that half of the city’s department’s revenue, water revenue, goes to pay interest to private bondholders. And that’s something again, I didn’t know this could happen. And that’s because I’m peculiarly innumerate, I suppose, but apart from that, I think, Paul, this is where we need to be….”

All talk over each other and move on to talk about Áras Attracta.

Listen back in full here.

Social Protection staff opposed Irish Water bid for PPS numbers (Elaine Edwards, Irish Times)

Meanwhile, Irish Water protesters continue to protest in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7 this morning…