Unlocking Ireland - thread uimhir a seacht!

[LifeInAHamsterWheel]

A shiny new thread for us all to talk pure shite whilst we wait for lockdown to end

Tommy from Love/Hate @CliffsofMohair

Well done to Prof Deirdre Murphy for speaking out against the master of the Coombe. The board are trying to silence her , she wrote a letter pointing out there were students on duty waiting to be vaccinated when some consultanas brought vaccines home to their families. Abs now she's being accused of damaging the reputation of the Coombe by speaking out .

@Carriemac I agree re Deirdre Murphy.
I hate that whistleblowers are so often the ones who suffer.
To paraphrase - Bad things happen because good people say/do nothing.

One of my brothers lives in Eoghan Murphy's constituency. No sign of him unless there's a whiff of an election.
I hate those co living buildings he was pushing.
It should be an interesting byelection. Lots of " big names" going forward probably.

I despair of the government that allows big international companies with favourable conditions buy up apartment buildings to rent out at the expense of individual buyers or local landlords.
Surely they should govern "by the people FOR the people ?

Awful re the revelations about Bóthar
I was constantly getting mail from them asking for donations.

Couldn't agree more @halfpasteleven talk about the best of a bad lot...

DS soccer training was strictly drop & go, but we're walking distance so just booted him out the door and then sat down to dinner!!

Return to winter here today, the wind is howling down my chimney and it's dull and wet. Feck sake this time last year we had a heatwave!!

LadyEloise I am a bit flattened by the Bóthar admission this morning.
I grew up locally to them (though dont know them personally).
They were perceived as a "local" charity that was well-meaning. Am I imagining that they were very big on denouncing what happened in the CRC re "top-ups" to high level staff from charity contributions. The two-facedness of it.
(as an aside, I think it was you LE who recommended the DrippingGold fake tan- got it in Dunnes to top up a shop for a voucher. Good recommendation Thx)

Yep it was me re Dripping Gold.
I'm useless at fake tan and this is the one that I least mess up.

I think it was a whistleblower who alerted the Bóthar chairman.

I think the Irish are less inclined to whistleblow because of our history- being ruled by foreign masters.
Keep your head down, your nose out of it and hopefully you'll be grand.
"If Johnny up the road is on the fiddle tis no business of mine"

I am gutted by the bother scandal as well, it always seems like such a good charity.

My daughter works for the hse, but usually in a 'charity'... I really don't understand how this model of care still exists. She applies to work, the 'charity ' does all the he stuff, it is separate to the hse panel, the hse pays the charity to provide an office, and pay her salary. In one place half the kids were there because their parents had vhi.
The public fundraise. So hse, charity, health insurance all paying. Lots of scope for creative accounting.
I support a tiny overseas charity, and scrutinise the annual report!

It's so hard to know which charities are fully legit isn't it, makes you wary of giving to any of them

That's the worst of it, isn't it? The abuse of people's trust.
I mean, if the man was struggling for money, generous people would help him out.
But, instead, they took money under the guise of helping people who live in the kind of poverty that my parents experienced growing up in Ireland.

Once, you've broken that trust, people are wary of giving to perfectly good charities across the board.

So many people worked really hard fundraising for Console, ray Darcy spoke about how he was taken in fundraising , I assume he has an agent who would have noticed.
So many services that should be provided by state agencies are outsourced in a strange web.

What happened with console?

Is the dripping gold tan by Sosu/Suzanne Jackson? I think there's some in my bathroom unopened but I'm in bed and too lazy to check.
I'm also in bed with a hot water bottle. In April. Unheard of but it's colder tonight than it has been in a long time..

Google console...it was paying for a lavish lifestyle of the married couple who ran it. Meanwhile the therapists were really badly paid.

So sad and awful stealing from a charity.

Happy news re Helen Mc Entee, Minister for Justice had a baby boy, RTE are reporting. She made history - the first Irish government minister to give birth while in office.

Oh lovely. He must be a little early, she was still working yesterday. Congratulations to Helen

Great photo of her a couple of days ago.
I'm sure she misses her dad just now, with her wee boy.
And I hope she can contribute to helping families along the way, incredible there was no right to leave for her!

I'd lost this thread for a while, 9 pages to catch up! It's been hailing here in Dublin, and raining. I hope it picks up. DD has a dance class at 4pm, I think her ballet teacher will implode if they have to resort to zoom today.

On the charities topic, I strongly believe that we shouldn't have a quarter of the charities that we do have. That a lot of charities (domestic) are providing public services that should be funded through an efficient public funding system. That's my little utopian dream - along with a functioning health and education system.

I have a Concern donation card but when I found out about the huge salaries they were getting it totally put me off.

I was very surprised Arlene stepped down.

There are a lot of duplicated services, and overlapping services. I'd like to see everything provided according to need, and get rid of the ridiculous court cases...if a baby has a birth injury, provide what is needed in terms of care with no added stress and no massive legal fees.
Dream on!

My DH was involved ( from the Uk) in some of those birth Injury cases and was told they always try ensure some compensation is paid ( cases that wouldn't win in the Uk ) as the state provided help is so poor . I hope that's no longer the case .

I see we have our very own Line of Duty going on in Munster.

@JaneJeffer Thank goodness it has been discovered.
We better be careful that we write nothing on here that could lead a trial to collapse. *
*

I just put Great British Menu on and the pronunciation of Phelim is doing my head in. Feel 'em!

Some good news re the restrictions lifting in may and June..
I think indoor dining was one of the main things NEPHET were concerned about at Christmas so it makes sense to have outdoor dining at the moment..
But if we go to stay in a hotel for the June bank holiday is breakfast in the room?! Dinner? Outside somewhere I guess! Let's all hope for good weather!
(We are not going to a hotel in June bye- I'm just musing on possibilities)