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 Nenagh Hospital to be further downgraded The already downgraded Nenagh General Hospital here in North Tipperary could lose its intensive care unit as early as next month, the Nenagh Hospital Action Group now claims.
At the end of 2009, the Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed plans to close the ICUs at Nenagh and Ennis hospitals, stating the units would be centralised at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, as part of their reconfiguration of health services in the mid-west.
The HSE would not confirm a time frame when contacted, but action group secretary M/s Noreen Kennedy said staff at the hospital have been informed that the ICU will definitely close in March or possibly as early as February.
There are currently five intensive and coronary care beds at Nenagh hospital and six at Ennis.
Last November, construction began on a critical care unit at Dooradoyle, that will contain a 12-bed ICU, a 14-bed high-dependency unit and a 16-bed coronary care unit, among other features. The HSE expects the development to be completed by the end of this year.
M/s Kennedy said the action group is concerned about what system will be put in place after Nenagh loses its ICUand expressed concerns that Nenagh will also lose its emergency department.
The group called on opposition party candidates contesting the General Election to publicise their proposals for the future of north Tipperary’s health services and intend to lobby and question strongly all prospective candidates in the coming days.
North Tipperary supporters of Nenagh Hospital, claim that it would appear that a Gaming Casino has taken precedence over any Health Service protection for North Tipperary residents and all outgoing candidates seeking re-election, who made promises, must now pay the political price for failure.
 Tipperary native Michael Dwyer pictured with Eduardo Rozsa A Wikileaks cable reveals that a Bolivian prosecutor believed that one of the men travelling with Tipperary native Michael Dwyer, when he travelled to Bolivia in 2009 was in regular contact with a former CIA agent.
Mr Dwyer, 24, from Ballinderry in Tipperary, a construction management graduate of the Galway-Mayo institute of Technology, was shot in most controversial circumstances in Bogota on 16 April 2009. His family have since called for an International inquiry into his death.
The family have been adamant that Mr Dwyer travelled to the US and later to Bolivia to train as a bodyguard.
This confidential memo, written by John Creamer, the chargé d’affaires at the American embassy in Bolivia, reports that Marcelo Soza, a prosecutor, investigating the case, believes one of Mr Dwyer’s travelling companions, Eduardo Rozsa, was in contact with an alleged ex-CIA employee named “Belovays“.
The evidence is understood to have come from “a review of Rozsa’s computer hard drive which uncovered evidence of email communication.”
“Although this prosecutor stopped short of accusing the CIA of backing Rozsa’s mercenary group, we can expect that Bolivia officials will make that claim, regardless of the evidence,” Mr Creamer claims.
It is believed that Mr Dwyer may have met Rozsa through two men, Tibor Révész and Elod Tóásó, whom he encountered while he worked as a security guard at the Corrib gas pipeline site in Rossport, Co Mayo.
A Bolivian autopsy said that Mr Dwyer died of six gunshot wounds inflicted during a shootout with police, but Irish state pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy later fully contradicted this report, during an Irish inquest, saying there was only one fatal shot through his heart.
The coroner later directed the jury to return an open verdict.
The Bolivian prosecutor said computer files showed Rozsa was in constant contact with Belovays and kept him informed of his group’s activities and plans.
It was claimed in 2009 that there was a half hour shoot out between an elite army unit and the so-called “mercenaries” which included Mr Dwyer. However, the proprietor of the hotel where the men stayed have denied this. The men were also accused of taking refuge in the hotel after being chased by this army unit. However, press photographs show that the dead men were in their underwear. Mr Dwyer is shown in one photograph lying beside his bed. There were no guns to be seen in the photographs taken of the corpeses, nor were there any shell casings.
Mr Dwyer’s parents Caroline and Martin and siblings Ciara, Aisling and Emmett, vehemently refute claims from the Bolivian authorities that the 24-year-old was part of a terrorist plot to assassinate President Evo Morales.
This new claim appears to fully justify the families claim that Mr Dwyer may have been murdered because of association, rather than by implication, in the supposed plot to assassinate Bolivian President Evo Morales.
 Severe weather affects North Tipperary road surfaces In respect of funding for the North Tipperary National Roads Programme the Government has allocated €2,952,197 for the constituency in 2011 in comparison to €4,216,200 last year. This represents a 30% drop in funding over last years allocation.
Local Fine Gael Deputy Noel Coonan has expressed deep disappointment with North Tipperary’s allocation of funding under the National Roads Programme 2011 which is €1.2million less than last year’s amount and one of the lowest allocations given to any local authority in the country.
“We have many major national roads in the North Tipperary/South Offaly constituency including the N62 and N52 for example and these routes carry very heavy volumes of traffic on a daily basis. These same roads require regular maintenance and improvements, but I fear our roadways will be neglected again this year due to a severe drop in Government funding.This amount is simply insufficient and will create enormous pressure for North Tipperary County Council, who will be striving to maintain the same high level of maintenance and restoration on a much tighter budget. The Council is already operating on a shoe string budget as it deals with ravaged roads devastated by severe weather conditions throughout this winter.Out of all the 33 local authorities nationally, North Tipperary County Council received the fourth lowest level of funding. The only other authorities nationally to fare worse were Waterford City Council, Carlow County Council and Dublin City Council. Local Deputies have been announcing and welcoming this funding, saying numerous sections of roadways and schemes will benefit. While it is good news that the Congar/Ballyluskey realignment project for example will receive funding; the sharp drop in the level of funding cannot be ignored and is not to be welcomed. ” stated Deputy Coonan.
The Fine Gael Deputy said projects to benefit under the funding include safety improvements at Church Street, Templemore and Sheehane in Roscrea. Works will also take place on the Thurles Bypass scheme. Pavement and minor works will occur in Borrisokane, Kilkillhara, Ardcroney and Two-Mile-Borris. The Congar / Ballyluskey realignment project will also be advanced.
Deputy Coonan said that he will continue to push for the progression of these projects for the betterment of the constituency.
Sometimes I wonder if all of the money spent on education is wasted, but actions taken by students yesterday and hopefully today, have allayed those fears.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) will take a visit to Leinster House today to officially launch their ‘Your Future, Your Vote‘ campaign.
The USI “Your Future, Your Vote” aims to allow the younger generation of Ireland to decide their own future and to make the politicians aware that students are registering to vote en masse.
USI President Gary Redmond stated the analogy and logic used by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union Address: “Ireland is spending billions of euro on educating young people before sending them abroad to compete against us. There are parents every single day of the week in the airports all over the country saying goodbye to their children.”
I would have been delighted to show you a piece of video from Dail Eireann, but no material was available.
 USI are on the move
USI are encouraging all local students to register to vote, prior to the looming general election. They claim that for too long the younger generations of Irish society have been ignored, but now, it is time that politicians sat up and listened.
Young people in Ireland will shoulder years of crippling debt thanks to the mistakes of the current generation and they will not tolerate a single second more of lacklustre governance from Irish politicians.
They claim that on polling day, politicians in every corner of the country will realise that students are no longer a dormant force as thousands of young people descend on polling stations to decide the future direction of this country.
Yesterday the special tour bus took to the road and hundreds of students abandoned canteens, bars, lecture halls and libraries, in the Tipperary Institute in Thurles, in Carlow College, and in IT Carlow to registered to vote.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) is on the move, aiming to sign up 50,000 students to vote in the next fortnight and they are adamant students will have the power to influence change.
President of IT Carlow Students’ Union Kate Acheson stated yesterday: “We will not tolerate a single second more of lacklustre governance from Irish politicians. On polling day, politicians in every corner of this country will realise that students are no longer a dormant force in society.”
USI claim that they intend to meet all of the political parties in the coming days to ask them directly their future policies on college fees/ and grants.
 Chartist Demonstration Poster of 1848 We here in Ireland need to behave like the Charterist Movement of the early 1840’s, and we, unlike them, have one advantage, we have the right to vote.
With the present General Election looming, most of those who have been part of our outgoing government are fully aware that their only place in a new Dail Eireann, will be by taking over the seating arrangements, previously kept warm by the arses of our present opposition.
Fianna Fail under Micheál Martin, displaying an inherited FF arrogance, called today for a public debate, still dreaming that the party he represents are still going to have a major say in our immediate future.
Knowing they are going to remain in opposition, small political groupings like Sinn Fein, Independents and possibly the Green Party, can now spout whatever they feel their understandably angry voters want to hear. They can and will protest about everything, the Four Year Plan, Environmental policy,The IMF, Lower Paid Workers, the Universal Social Charge or reclaiming control of the Public Sector. But these protests must be seen by voters for what they are, attempts to gather votes by gombeen individuals who selfishly are seeking another term of unvouched expenses, inflated salaries, inflated pensions and most of all the sense of being powerful.
We now need a different breed of politician in Ireland and change must come quickly, because to survive as a state, with the present political system, we can no longer carry on. We have, as a nation, once again allowed ourselves to be invaded. There are two ways to conquer a country, send in an invading force of well armed troops, or the EU modern way, which is loan us vast sums of money at high interest rates which they know we cannot repay. Ireland, thanks to our gombeen politicians, has been invaded, we have been enslaved and sadly we only have ourselves, as voters, to blame.
In a democracy such as ours, change can only ever originate from the electorate. If we continue to elect our representatives, without looking beyond our own narrow views of personal self interests, we will continue to attract the gombeen politicians we truly deserve and as Irish men and women, remain the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, within Europe.
We as a nation are unable to even protest democratically in any unified way. When our elderly citizens demonstrated against losing their medical card, they did so very much alone. When our student sons and daughters marched, they did so detached, while agents of our State were allowed to discourage them, using rough justice. When our present Fianna Fail Government clung to power, long after the electorate had made it clear that they no longer had a mandate to govern, we as a nation remained deathly silent. Despite the fact that this outgoing government continued to embarrass us on the world stage, making us a laughing stock in front of our European partners, we as a nation take no action.
Ireland is a nation and our democratically elected representatives are, by accepting their elected role, charged with standing up for our citizens and our down trodden, behaving democratically, safeguarding our wealth and fairly distributing our scarce public funds responsibly.
This present Government in December last, told us that we must now pay increased taxes and endure reduced public services, because they were not minding the shop, while they themselves continued to misappropriate our funds and our loyalty in a cynical and contemptuous way for the purchase of future votes. They allowed minority Independent TD’s of minor importance, to pull their strings, to the detriment of our democracy and the well being of the people of this country as a whole. They have placed their brain washed followers in positions of importance on boards and in positions of influence to make decisions which will effect and assist ‘The Party‘.
Continue reading How To Cast Your Vote In A Dysfunctional Ireland
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