Election Diary 27.05.09
My Fianna Failler stood me up. Aparantly the weather was too bad and the European Hurling championchips were on and people don’t like being canvassed when there is a game on the box, so I hope to get an alternative date with them in the coming days. Whilst returning from what was to be my meeting point with them, I did spy this set up outside the Regional Maternity Hospital on the Ennis Road. My question is this – Is it legal to use the crash barriers on a busy junction for hanging election posters?
Limerick County Council held it’s final meeting before the local elections. The time was spent honouring the seven councillors who are saying an adieu to political life. Full story in the Leader.
Running in the Adare constituency, the blog of independent Seamus Sheahan
Unedited press statements received during Wednesday are below the fold. The weekend papers are out today, so tomorrow’s Diary will be faily substantial.
Independent (Europe) Received 1337 hrs
Independent MEP for Munster Kathy Sinnott took time out this week from her hectic election campaign to gather signatures for the campaign against the downgrading of local Munster hospitals.
Joe Burke from West Cork is leading a convoy of tractors pulling hospital beds from Bantry to Dublin in an effort to fight plans to downgrade Bantry Hospital. The convoy is stopping in towns and villages along the way to collect signatures in support of the campaign. Kathy Sinnott, a member of the Public Health Committee in the European Parliament, met up with Joe and his team in Clonakilty on Sunday and stopped to help him gather signatures in Cork on Monday.
Speaking from her constituency, Mrs. Sinnott said “I support fully Joe Burke in his fight against the downgrading of Bantry Hospital. The downgrading of Irish hospitals has been a gradual process since the mid 1980s to the detriment of patients. In 1981, there were more than 5 beds per 1000 people and now there are less than 3 beds per 1000 people. This halving of the amount of beds is causing hardship for many people.”
Last night, Mrs. Sinnott once more promoted the issue at a public meeting with The Campaign for Real Public Health on the downgrading of the South Infirmary and the Mercy Hospital. The meeting took place in the Shandon Court Hotel, Cork, a hotel which was formerly the North Infirmary.
Deputy Sinnott, at the meeting, called for “Unity among all the hospitals and a continuation of full services in hospitals in Cahir, Clonmel, Cashel, Bantry, St. Patrick’s Hospital in Waterford and other hospitals in Munster.”
Continued Kathy Sinnott, “It makes no sense at all to cut vital hospital services and to close or downgrade local hospitals, putting patients’ lives at risk. When people are ill, they need medical help which is near to them. I will study and make a proper response to the report on acute services in the HSE South when it is officially published on the 9th June. I will continue to fight for our local hospitals to have more beds and investment so that people’s health needs can be met. Closing local hospitals and overcrowding others add delays, stress, expense and can in some cases even cost lives.”
The report on acute services in the HSE South will recommend all acute services in Cork and Kerry be transferred away from Cork’s South Infirmary and Mercy University, as well as Tralee, Bantry and Mallow hospitals to a regional centre of excellence at Cork University Hospital (CUH), something which Mrs. Sinnott strongly opposes.
Republican Sinn Féin (Local) Received 1727 hrs
A number of Limerick families are living in conditions akin to the third world where rats run amok as children play in an area blighted by dumped refuse, a local community activist said today.
Sean O’Neill from Quinn’s Cottages in Prospect said that the condition of nearby Clarina Park in Ballinacurra Weston is
appalling with families forced to live side by side with what can only be called an open rat infested dump.
In this day and age there can be no excuse for such conditions where rats run around while young children play in the area, said the RSF candidate for Limerick City Council.
When children walk over the dumped rubbish rats run from it and parents are terrified that the young boys and girls will be bitten by the rodents.
This danger of disease must be tacked without delay and the whole place cleared and razed to the ground.
One resident is living between two derelict houses that are over run with rats and now the rodents are eating holes in
his floorboards and invading his home.
The whole place in Clarina Park is akin to the black hole Of Calcutta and typical of conditions that I have seen on
Charity trips to Kenya.
The area is fast becoming a sort of third world ghetto and it is time that the local authority took heed of the concerns
of the people living there and eliminated the danger from the disease carrying rodents.