Letters to the Editor: Traumas from lockdown still linger
An inquiry into how Ireland responded to the covi-19 pandemic is due in the coming weeks.
Regarding the forthcoming covid inquiry: I lost my beautiful mom in March 2020. She was admitted to hospital with non-covid symptoms and her family were not allowed see her. She never got covid, but cancer took her from us.
We spent two months due to government lockdown not being able to see her. She died three days after diagnosis; only then were we allowed see our dying mom.
I still can’t come to terms with the fact she was on the phone begging me to come see her. I think she knew herself that she was dying, but it took eight weeks alone for her diagnosis. I was her carer and the love we had for her was unreal, but due to the strict guidelines we were left out in the cold with just a phone call until she was too weak to speak.
I will never forget the sight that was before me as the priest anointed her, dressed in full PPE, and was just allowed hold her hand. This is a story many people will tell, but it was inhumane treatment of a beautiful mother.
The hospital was outstanding, but the lockdown was too severe and we will never understand those two months she spent without her family.
Was it worth it or right due to covid? I don’t think anyone should suffer alone at the end of their days, but that was the order of the day.
Adopted people are still facing an uphill battle to get any information in the very secretive world of adoption in Ireland.
The Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 was seen as a milestone in allowing adopted people to know who they are from a position where absolutely no information was given to adoptees.
However, the same year the act was brought out, the government enacted the Electoral Reform Act blocking anyone from accessing the electoral role other than political parties. This is a hell of a coincidence to say the least. What they gave with the one hand, they took with the other in doing what they can to give out minimum information and restrict its usage as much as possible.
We still have strong forces in this country which oppose adopted people ever knowing anything. This country is so secretive about giving out any information that the 1926 Census, which goes back to the Free State days, is not due to be released until 2027. Never mind any census since the 1937 Constitution was enacted.
The huge backlog in people trying to get access to their records under the Birth Information and Tracing Act has many adopted people still on hold.
Even where adoptees get their records, files may be incomplete with missing crucial documents, especially from the natural mother’s side of the adoption process.
It looks like it will take some time indeed before adopted people are fully emancipated, instead of being smothered in secrecy and downright lies in some cases to suit those with small minds.
A local Australian TV station, Channel 9, has posted a photo of a senator, MP Georgie Purcell, in an article relating to her party but they have stuffed up with the senator’s altered photo, removing part of her clothes and expanding her breasts.
Does its Photoshop have an automatic “sexist” button? Its media response that it was an accidental change when resizing the photo sounds like a lie as any resizing would be proportional not specific and any cropping is to the size of the photo, not the clothes.
It is not clear who is the stupid one here, the software or the TV channel for thinking people will believe it.
If this is what AI is doing, we don’t have to fear too much.
When it looks like, sounds like, feels like, and even smells like genocide, it’s genocide. The shameful first excuse of this Irish Government that it was concentrating on gaining a ceasefire was disgusting.
It’s second (even more cowardly) excuse that it could not sign up to South Africa’s action until after the initial judgment of the International Court of Justice, was shown to be what it is a disgusting bare-faced lie by its now-thoroughly degenerate, cowardly and Judas third excuse that it will take several months to examine South Africa’s action before it can support it.
What is plain to see is that this Irish Government is gutless, has lost its moral compass and has shamefully abandoned the Palestinian people in their hour of need.
It is now shamelessly dancing on a pinhead under the boot of the US dollar. Padraig Pearse and Ireland’s founding fathers must be turning in their graves at the stench of cowardice of this Irish Government.
All right-thinking Irish persons should march on Dublin Castle and Leinster House and forcefully demand that Ireland be a signature to South Africa’s ICJ action immediately. That it should have done so from the outset is now beyond any question.
Currently, there is speculation about Roy Keane and prospects of job as Irish soccer manager.
Yes, Keano is a big supporter of the Irish Guide Dogs, but not suitable for the Irish soccer team!
Like Katie McCabe arguing with Vera Pauw during an international game, we had Roy Keane walking off the pitch in Saipan. Remember, Vera Pauw got us to a World Cup event, whereas, Roy Keane is a little bit erratic, moody, and seems a little bit spoilt.
Last week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts that could amount to genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, yet every day since, dozens of Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli bombardment, supported by the US and its allies.
Unlike the Holocaust, the war crimes being committed in Gaza are being broadcast daily into our homes. In its attempts to distract attention from the ICJ interim ruling, Israel announced that 12 UN Relief and Works Agency staff members were involved in the October 7 attack.
This would amount to just 0.04% of the UNRWA’s 30,000 workforce, and more than 150 UNRWA staff have been killed by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
The governments of the following countries have paused or suspended their funding of UNRWA: the US, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Japan, France, Switzerland, and Austria, ignoring their humanitarian obligations, knowing that this shortage of funding will likely cost the lives of thousands of Palestinians.
It’s almost as if the Soviet and allied forces that came to the gates of the Nazi death camps decided not to open the gates, and left the remaining Holocaust survivors to die. International laws are being ignored and abused in a blatant manner by the most powerful Western states and their allies all of whom claim to be democratic human rights protectors.
