Tag Archives: Press Conference

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Health Simon Harris at a press conference at Government Buildings this evening

This evening.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Health Simon Harris are holding a press conference at Government Buildings to speak about the new public private partnership with private healthcare providers in response to Covid-19.

During the press conference, Hugh O’Connell, of the Irish Independent, asked Mr Varadkar if he could indicate when Ireland might “start to return to normality”.

Mr Varadkar said he didn’t know.

The question follows Dr Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer for England, saying yesterday that normal life will not likely resume in the UK for at least six months.

In his response, Mr Varadkar said:

“To be honest with you, we don’t know for sure. You know, this is a new virus and you can only be so much of an expert on a virus that’s only been known to the world for three or four months and some of the estimations and assumptions we might have had two or three weeks ago are different now and they may be different again in two or three weeks again.

“What is going to happen this evening is Philip Nolan, who’s heading up our group on modelling, is going to speak at the press conference tonight with the chief medical officer [Tony Holohan] and the idea is that every week or so the model will be updated and that will be shared with the public because we want to be as transparent as possible.

“But in being transparent we need people to understand that by putting information out there, and we want to put all the information out there, it may turn out to be incorrect and you’ll just have to bear with us on that in many ways or it may change over time.

“Certainly what the UK is talking about and I think what a lot of people around the world are talking about now is that there will come a point after the epidemic is peaked and the number of new cases starts falling, when we will start to ease the restrictions and then we’ll have to see what happens so we won’t be in a situation whereby I suddenly go on TV and make an address to the nation and say everything is going back to the way it was on the 11th of March.

“That’s probably not what’s going to happen. What is likely to happen is that the number of new cases will continue to rise, we’ll reach a peak, hopefully that will be in a few weeks’ time and not in a few months’ time.

“The number of new cases will start to fall and will reach the point where we can start to ease some of the restrictions and then see what happens, whether the number of cases starts to rise again or not.”

Nucleocapsid?

Meanwhile…

Later, Jennifer Bray, of The Irish Times, asked Mr Harris about the shipments of personal protective equipment (PPE) that Ireland has ordered from China.

Ms Bray asked if Ireland has any “guarantees” about the quality of the items, in light of the Netherlands recalling hundreds of thousands of masks that it received from China.

This morning, China’s Ambassador to Ireland He Xiangdong told RTÉ’s Rachael English that China would do its best.

Mr Harris said:

“In relation to the quality of the PPE coming into the country, Paul Reid [CEO of the HSE], the head of the HSE, has publicly said that any PPE purchased by the HSE needs to meet World Health Organisation standards and also will be checked on arrival.

“So it’s a job that the HSE needs to do, they’ve a duty of care to their staff and we obviously need to ensure that any PPE distributed throughout the health service meets the WHO standards and they certainly said that’s absolutely their intention and view in relation to the equipment they bought.”

Earlier: “I Think That We Will Try Our Best”

 

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This morning.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris held his first press conference at Garda HQ in Phoenix Park where he outlined his vision for the gardai.

During the press conference, Mr Harris told RTÉ’s Crime Correspondent Paul Reynolds that he wouldn’t be afraid to speak truth to power.

This will end well.

Meanwhile…

Yesterday: A Minute Past Midnight

Pics: Cate McCurry and Leah Farrell/Rollingnews

In the past hour.

At the Buswells Hotel, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

A press conference is held to call for a public inquiry into the Garda investigation into the Jobstown protest.

At the conference, the names of close to 100 TDs, Senators and academics who support this action are listed on a statement.

Via Niall Ó Donnghaile

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Fine Gael TD and Minister for Employment and Small Business Pat Breen, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Fine Gael TD and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor and Independent TD John Halligan

This morning.

At the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs 2017 – in which the Government aims to “support the creation by business, in all sectors and regions, of an additional 45,000 jobs”.

Sarah Bardon tweetz:

Action Plan for Jobs – 1 hour of speeches and we are told no questions from press.

Oh.

Previously: ‘Put In Something About Jobs, Enterprise And Innovation’

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This afternoon.

An Garda Síochána hold a press conference appealing to the public for any new information about the 1986 disappearance of Philip Cairns.

More as they get it.

Meanwhile…

Earlier: Cast A Paul Over The Story

Previously: Philip Cairns And A Trail Of Disinformation

Pic: Michael O’Toole

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uIx_7srVj0

Variety reports…

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos was thrown out of a Donald Trump event [last night] when he tried to ask the GOP presidential candidate a question.

Ramos, who accused Trump on CNN on [Monday night] of “spreading hate” over his controversial remarks on immigration, was immediately removed by security from the early evening press conference in Dubuque, Iowa.

Donald Trump Kicks Univision Anchor Out of Event (Variety)

Related: Donald Trump Has No Idea How To Fix Immigration, So He’ll Hire ‘Great People’ Who Know How (Huffington Post)

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You may recall a recent press conference that was held by the new anti-immigration party, Identity Ireland, at Dublin’s Buswells Hotel.

The launch was disrupted by protesters who accused Identity Ireland of choosing July 22 to launch the party, in order to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Anders Breivik’s massacre of 77 people in Norway.

Mark Malone videoed a large portion of the press conference.

He writes:

“At a recent press launch of the right wing Identity Ireland the discussion meandered from bizarre understandings of how wealth is created; pondering of selling paper airplanes to Chinese state; white supremacist mantras on Irish ethnicity complete with fabricated immigration and demographic statistics; an unintended unveiling of internal fights between Peter O’Loughlin and Paul Ryder for party leadership; and finally how Identity Ireland members cope seeing the “thought processes of family and friends” thinking they are racist.”

“Internal party discipline is non-existent with members shouting over each other when asked questions they don’t like, to the extent that journalists present have to keep reminding O’Loughlin and Ryder how to run a press conference.”

Previously: Do UKIP In The NIP?

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, comedian and writer Frankie Boyle writes:

“Of course, these poor migrants are being used as a distraction by a media and political class (I now use this term instead of government, because the government and opposition seem to be in consensus) that know Calais is an insignificant element of illegal immigration, and suspect that many of the refugees have a good claim to asylum. It’s silly season and they want to spin out a story that is essentially about aggressive hitch-hiking until the bread and circuses of the new football season and The Great British Bake Off get into their stride.”

“That’s not to say it isn’t hellish for the people living it. We invade their countries and justify it by saying that our way of life is better, then boggle at the idea they might think living here is great. We pay no attention to how our actions in other countries have precipitated this situation. There has to be something wrong with a world where the best employment option for a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t being a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, but crossing the Mediterranean on a punctured lilo, only to spend days dangling under a lorry so that he can end up selling lollipops in a nightclub toilet. Our indifference is staggering. For a lot of these people, their best chance of survival may be to dress up as a leopard and hope to get Twitter onside.”

David Cameron used ‘swarm’ instead of ‘plague’ in case it implied that God had sent the migrants (Frankie Boyle, The Guardian)

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From left: Thomae Kakouli; Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan; UCD’s Dr Julien Mercille (!); Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger and Eamon Dunphy

Earlier today.

At Buswell’s Hotel on Molesworth Street, Dublin.

The Greek Solidarity Committee (GCS) held a press conference to explain why it is staging a demonstration in Dublin tomorrow calling on people in Ireland to stand with Greece ahead of their referendum.

Some snippets…

More as we get it.

Earlier: ‘We Are A Proud People…Like The Irish’

Thanks Ronan Burtenshaw