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LEO VARADKAR headed out to Kildare yesterday to assess the damage from Storm Ophelia, but a new storm is brewing over the pensions and the anomaly that exists for some 13,000 people who are suffering inequities in their pensions.
Yesterday, Leo Varadkar ruled out supporting Fianna Fáil’s pensions motions:
Today, a new row is brewing between the two parties, with a war of word over the airwaves.
‘I found myself shouting at the radio’: War of words between Doherty and O’Dea on pension motion>
Michael McGrath is asking the Taoiseach about the work that is going on to reconnect homes to the grid and restore power. He says there are still thousands, some elderly people, without power.
He asks what crews are coming over from abroad.
McGrath said he wants the government to clarify the insurance issues and make sure people know that acts of God do not rule out insurance cover. He says the consumer protection website has not been updated. Leo Varadkar says many remain without power – but says assistance is coming in from France and Northern Ireland.
He says after Storm Darwin it took up to eight days to restore power to some people.
The Taoiseach says those at risk of of losing water has reduced by 80%. More than half have been restored.
McGrath says he did not address his insurance question. He said people need reassurances about their rights. He wants them to engage with the insurance industry to ensure that they are dealt with fairly.
He says the government need to make sure that the insurance industry are not going to be used as cover to increase premiums.
Varadkar says he will give that commitment that they will follow up with the industry. He encouraged people to read their policy, as he said every policy is different. He also recommends that people get in touch with their provider as soon as possible.
Gerry Adams is up now and he accuses the Taoiseach of misleading the Dáil speaking about the Sinn Féin’s Budget.
Do we believe you or do you believe Fianna Fáil? he asks.
He says yesterday, the Taoiseach says FF did not raise the issue of the pensions issue with the government.
“These are senior citizens as get up as early as you,” he tells the Taoiseach.
Martin has put down a motion that they blocked last December (SF put one down on the issue last Christmas).
Adams says the Budget negotiations didn’t fix the problem and says Martin has no done a u-turn.
You are very likely to lose the vote, he tells Varadkar, and asks him if the confidence and supply is in jeopardy.
“You are the great misleader in Irish politics,” he tells Adams. He says he has read the health Budget by Sinn Fein, and says it doesn’t add up. He asks anyone that is independent to do the same.
He says pensions are complicated and says it is not as straight forward as people make out. Varadkar says the SF Budget only looks to reverse the 2012 changes which he claims will still not give people a full pension.
He says Minister Regina Doherty will publish her review document today on pensions.
“Well Taoiseach the core of this is to reverse the 2012 cut. Do you accept the 2012 cut is unjust? Do you accept that,” asks Adams.
There is a bit of uproar when Adams says: “€30 is a bottle of wine, or some such…” The chamber erupts into laughter.
Varadkar says that it is clear when Adams speaks it shows his lack of knowledge on the issue,maintaining that the reversal of the 2012 cut will not restore those to a full pension.
He says it is “not surprising he thinks a bottle costs €30″.
“I know the deputy likes to travel first class when he can find someone to pay for it. It is some bottle of wine that costs €30,” he adds.
The Taoiseach now acknowledges that the pensions issue was raised by Fianna Fáil during Budget negotiations, but says the increase across the board was prioritised.
Brendan Howlin is not speaking about the tracker mortgage scandal, which he says can only be described as “malpractice”.
He says the slow movement by the Central Bank is not good enough.
Howlin says people have been “ripped off to the tune of thousands of euro”.
He wants the Taoiseach to write to the Central Bank to ask them to publish the names of the banks that face further investigations.
He also wants a definitive timeline on when it will all be sorted out.
The government believes the behaviour of the banks is “scandalous” and accuses the banks of “dragging their feet” which has a human cost and is impacting on people’s mental health.
He said it his view that people should have had there trackers restored and be compensated by now.
“The government has lost patience,” he tells the Dáil. As a result, the Finance Minister Pascal Donohoe is calling in the heads of the banks on Monday and Tuesday to “admonish” them on their conduct throughout this scandal.
He questioned why the Central Bank was acting so slow and says he has urged them to move more quickly. He says the Finance Minister will be contacting the Central Bank to convey that message.
If the government is not satisfied, it will take further action in the form of fines or sanctions, he says.
He urged them to fix it and fix it quickly, and said all lenders must commence redress by the end of the calendar year.
“I cant speak on behalf of Central Bank, but what they have told him is that they want to give the two lenders more time to get their act together. They are expecting a reply by the end of October, and if it is not satisfactory, their names will be published,” he said, referring to the two lenders which were criticised in the Central Bank report yesterday.
He says redress should be underway by the end of the year, but he agrees that a clear timeline is needed.
You can read more of TheJournal.ie’s coverage of the tracker mortgage scandal here.
Catherine Connolly asks about a sub committee on domestic violence. He says he takes a different view on Cabinet sub committees. She said he hasn’t explained how he could spend €5 million on spin, but not on a follow up to the Savi report.
He says the government takes domestic violence very seriously and is determined to tackle it. Legislation underway to address it, he says.
In terms of comms unit in his department, he maintains it is cost neutral and says his department has actually had its budget reduced.
Good communications can save lives he says, pointing to an article in the Irish Independent which shows the benefit of his new Strategic Communications Unit.
Ebola, Isis beheadings, planes going missing or being shot down, hundreds of lives being lost for countless of underhand reasons both in this country and overseas. I think I’ll build an ark
All steaming from the spineless chickensh*t sitting in the Oval Office.
Blaming Obama for Ebola?!
No everything other than Ebola. Worst President in History. At least Bush had some cojones.
You said everything. You lied, just like Obama!
Seriously Darryl, Bush has balls??? Tiny little shrew balls maybe, at a stretch….
Balls? I have balls! Now watch this drive.
Sean
It will contravene EU health & safety regulations, never be allowed.
I think I might book a ticket on your ark, Sean!
2 of everything. Except of course the political species
Guide to Treating and Preventing Ebola…
http://www.arhf.nl/docs/Amma4Africa_Ebola_Manual_Aug_2014_en.pdf
Maybe if he had been treated the FIRST time he presented at the hospital with symptoms he may have had a better chance.
RIP.
And obviously RIP to the thousands of African citizens who have met their fate with this terrible disease…. lest anyone think i am concerned only with westerners.
I doubt anyone cares what Mary Carey cares about.
Jesse Jackson would turn up to the opening of an envelope
You mean African American envelopes
Start restriction air travel between infected countries and European countries only way to controll the situation ! You don’t need to be in government to realise what the best solutions are
Ireland has no air travel to or from Africa. The recent epidemiological studies show France has a 75% chance of Ebola spreading there, UK 50%, Ireland it’s 5% because of that lack of indirect flights. The US has already started exit and entry screenings by ICE border guards.
We can’t terminate air travel or sea travel to the countries because their economies would collapse without trade and aid, followed my political collapse, and the virus spreading exponentially. Stopping casual travels with non-essential business is just a band aid really. There are 600 people from Africa flying into the UK every day and most of that is NOT casual stuff it’s business, trade or aid related. Even shutting off nonessential travel there is still thousands of people moving back and forth.
The best way to be ready is to have entry and exit screening and have proper protocols in place for hospitals and isolation, and we have already got that set up. We’ve had a National Pandemic Plan for years, we have stockpiles of adult and pediatric preparations of all the antivirual drugs and stockpiles of protective suits.
Locking down an entire country is not possible.Look at the US border with Mexico for example.Do you honestly think that this guy wouldnt have gone to a neighboring country and caught a flight from there.Short of stopping all flights from Africa landing it’s not possible.The best that can be done is to try and detect it at the airport.
Ryan,that actually makes it worse. Because if someone is coming to Ireland from West Africa they have to take at least two flights and come in contact with a lot of people. Someone in an earlier article said it’s relatively easy to retrace the steps of someone who is infectious, but this assumes that the person has perfect recall of all those he/she has met over the past number of days and that they have no reason to hide details of their journey.
This is the link to an article I read in the Guardian today. It’s worth reading in its entirety:
http:// http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak
“Peter Piot was a researcher at a lab in Antwerp when a pilot brought him a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had fallen mysteriously ill in Zaire
‘In 1976 I discovered Ebola – now I fear an unimaginable tragedy’
‘In large cities – particularly in chaotic slums – it is virtually impossible to find those who had contact with patients, no matter how great the effort. That is why I am so worried about Nigeria as well. The country is home to mega-cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt, and if the Ebola virus lodges there and begins to spread, it would be an unimaginable catastrophe.’ ”
I agree with you Ryan that we should have rigorous screening of people coming in to the country, and not just those whose point of origin in West Africa.
Apologies for the length of this comment.
I’m not saying we should not take major precautions. I actually wish the govt would let the emergency managers do more, I’d terminate all travel to and from the region indirectly to Ireland, since it would leave no real footprint on them economically for us cos were so small, I’d ask the HSE and OEP to come up with an Ebola specific pandemic plan, I’d distribute the protective gear from the warehouses to the hospital basements so it’s ready to hand.
It’s easy to retrace someones steps through contact tracing if you know what major waypoints they’ve hit, they might not remember every single person they touched against but if you know they were at the airport you can run through the CCTV, its harder with pandemic flu but with Ebola they have to exchange body fluids and you do remember who you did that with, if someone bleeds or pukes on you you will remember it.
I’m not trying to say it’s not a threat, it’s a MAJOR threat, I’m just trying to keep the threat in proportion. The odds are 5percent of it getting here, that is TINY. People who shared a lift with the Spanish nurse were panicking in Spain, people in the UK were canceling school visits by a guest speaker from Africa because they were Afraid she might infect their kids, the hysteria is getting really out of hand and someone needs to be keeping the threat in proportion to counter all the people posting hype and conspiracy theories.
Hi Ryan. I’d hazard a guess that way more then 600 people from Africa fly into the UK every day. Maybe you meant 6000? There are several flights a day from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, on at least 3 airlines (BA, SAA, Virgin)….there is a daily flight from Harare, and Windhoek and more than one a day from Nairobi and Mombasa…regular flights from most countries every day…most of these long haul flights….I know that Ebola isn’t present in any of the places I mentioned but just felt it necessary to correct the 600 number. Thanks
Hi again Ryan…whereas Ireland would be in a very good position to treat any Ebola patient in isolation it isnt true that we have stockpiles of adult and pediatric preparations of all the antivirual drugs, one antiviral drug absent from the stockpile is a drug specific to Ebola. Thanks for your comments.
Hi Daniel – Just to correct you, mayybe you didn’t know that there are already restrictions in place which are working……most airlines that had flewn to the affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone) stopped flying months ago…eg British Airways which extended the flight ban and cancelled all flights/bookings up to January 2015. …..in addition all departing (and arriving) passengers are screened at all airports in the countries affected (for the flights that still operate) …. also this is screening is happening in neighbouring countries where there is no infection (eg Accra, Abidjan)….The Ivory Coast closed it’s borders and closed all air and sea links with affected countries.
God help us when this hits Ireland.
Yeah. VPN in from home. Nobody needs to visit me, don’t even ring me. Texting could be dangerous too!! Whatsapp me ok?
Time to start buy your P100 compatible face masks before the panic.
It’s probably not going to hit Ireland Peter, the odds of it getting here are 5%. 80percent of the infections in Africa are a result of death rituals that are not practiced in the west, the other 20percent is the poor hospital set up and lack of proper containment protocols and finally the belief in conspiracy theories that WHO are spreading ebola or it’s not real, you have things like people breaking into quarantined hospitals and looting bloody sheets, no wonder it’s spreading so fast ffsake.
People need to stop listening to quacks and conspiracy theorists and start focusing on objective facts. It’s not airborne, it is hard to spread, and this outbreak has a lower fatality rate than previous ones, and were working on 4 separate vaccines.
People think but we can’t handle the Winter Vomiting Bus how could we handle this, the Norovirus is airborne and aerosolized, it can live on a flip-up bin top for hours and be whooshed into the air from a toilet flush then breathed in, Ebola does not work like that. Outside a human hosts body fluids it dies very quickly, it does not sit on surfaces or float in the air and while it’s theoretically possible to get it from saliva the concentration is not v high and your odds of surviving and inversly proportionate to how many virus particles you take in.
It’s quite simple, if you see sick Africans who are running a major fever and bleeding from the eyes, mouth or broken skin, call for help, short of that you have nothing to worry about.
What about the incubation period, when there are no symptoms, Ryan?
Someone infected with Ebola who is not showing symptoms is not contagious, the first symptoms are a burning fever (above 38.6′C), muscle pain, headaches and sore throat.
These are also the symptoms of many other conditions so the only way Ebola should be considered is if they have been in one of the hot zones (which now includes Spain and the US just to be on the safe side) within the last 21 days.
Ryan
15 year old refugee from liberia quarantined since monday in salzburg…his whole family died from it in liberia….that’s less than 2 hours drive from me.
If he made it over surely there are more in Europe but just not found yet…
God only knows if someone was to take a boat to Ireland and be sick with ebola….vomit in the bathrooms on the toilet for example…how do they trace anyone who has used the same toilets as this person. That person is hardly going to leave a note saying watch out I puked and have ebola.
Checking ports in Ireland is too late…they may have already had contact with Irish people en route and infected them.
Stats mean nothing….it only takes one case to prove them wrong. People need to be prepared and not take the attitude…it will never reach us we are ok.
Russia is making antiviral drug to treat Ebola.
Russia is beginning the production of an antiviral drug it has approved for the treatment of Ebola, a news report said, while a senior World Health Organization official urged stronger international efforts to contain the virus outbreak in West Africa.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-making-antiviral-drug-to-treat-ebola/507286.html
# You better be nice to Valdimir Putin.
Why is Vlad not part of your big conspiracy theory then ? Like to get your villains clear in my head
Frank only believes in western villains.
Valdimir Putin Is certainly on the defensive in this day and age and his patients is very quickly running out with the West’s dirty lies, cheating and warmongering.
The West may criticize Putin on his prompt decision to annex Crimea, but if one digs a little deeper one can see a justification for this. NATO’s made a promise not to advance eastwards going back to the break up of the Berlin Wall, NATO has broken this promise and is now sh**ting on Russia’s doorstep. .
Russia is also wide awake to the fact that the West has been arming Jihad terrorists to the teeth right across the middle east in its effort to destabilize and overthrow governments. Libya, Iraq, and now Syria an Ally of Russia. We can already see the US and its allies futile attempt to attack these so terrorists who are also fighting the same cause (Joke in itself)
Barack Obama is pushing the limit too far and its only a matter of time before Russia will take so much.
If you like the east and detest the west so much Frank then why don’t to move there?
Ablitive
Not a chance in hell that a simple antiviral developed by the Russians for the treatment of influenza and simply a molecular twist on Relenza or Tamiflu is going to do anything against Ebola.
These drugs belong to a class known as neuraminidase inhibitors and are used in the treatment of both Influenza A and B.
I think you will find that this is a Russian boast that was influenced by that other favourite Russian drug called vodka!
David Ronan. What would be the point of moving to Iran or Russia if the Psychopaths in Western powers intend on bombing them to oblivion..
Richard Rodgers, Wait and see what the West comes up with, a damned if you do and damned if you don’t vaccine and may be a microchip implant to finish it off.
The Ebola Vaccine is here. Consult your doctor and get vaccinated today!
What’s ironic in all this is it was actually the Russians who had a real (not a conspiracy theory fantasy) bioweapons programme with BioPrePerat in the 60s-90s they made everything in weaponized form, Smallpox, Botulism, Anthrax the works.
Ryan Carroll .. The tables have turned 180°, its the West that are now playing about with biological weapons. Its all about population control for its rising empire.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm was written as a satire against the corrupt elite of Soviet communism.
The book could now be applied to the West.
Fox News are gonna have a field day with this. At least the Daily Show will be entertaining.
And any other mainstream US cable news station.
Fox asked the CDC administrator yesterday why we don’t just shut down and isolate the affected countries by closing their borders…he actually had to pause for a few seconds in amazement at the stupidity of that question before going on to explain how without open borders no food or medicine is coming in winch would = total anarchy and the virus spreading way more.
No need to shut the African borders just stop all US bound flights from Western Africa, seems like common sense to me. What fox host said this might I ask or did you just pick it up second hand?
Megan Kelly . If you stop all US bound flights from west Africa you also stop doctors, trade missions and businessmen without whom the countries would not function.
If you only stop casual travel that’s only a tiny % of the problem anyway
This guy lied about being in close contact with victims at an airport health screening.He is at least in someway to blame for what happened to him.
Allegedly.
No allegedly about it. Coming from West Africa he would have been asked if he had visited or stayed in an area where there had been cases of Ebola. Do you think they would have just waived him through if he had said yes ?
Its not that I’ve no sympathy, nobody DESERVES the ebola death, nobody DESERVES to have their organs liquify…but I don’t have A LOT of sympaty He lied during his exit screening saying he had not been in contact with ebola patients when he had, and his casual lies put the entire North American continent in danger.
He played with fire and got burned for it. If he had told the CDC/WHO people at the exit screening that he’d been in contact with EBola infected directly (he’d helped transport his landlords infected daughter to hospital) they would have done blood tests on him, found the virus and begun treatment much earlier, he might have got into one of the trials and survived.
So sick of the authorities they had the chance to contain this while it was in Africa they should have put those countries on lockdown nobody in nobody out they shouldnt have brought infected patients out and treated them there its not rocket science just common sense.
Putting entire countries on lock down is not only far from common sense, it’s not really possible.
Yes it is possible they has restricted travel to war torn countries before.
Ebola, not covered under Obamacare.
It seems that Ireland is in love with Obama. Why?
We are perhaps the only country in Europe with a shrine dedicated to him.
Because he is the messiah of course. Given to us to heal the masses and part the rising sea…..I hope you sense the sarcasm in my tone.
Nobody’s in love with him, we just don’t believe in either reactionary right wing nutcases who are so far to the right that Obama looks like the radical left, or conspiracy theorists who think he is a cartoon villain.
By “reactionary” you mean someone who actually reacts, takes action? Sounds like exactly what we need now. The Middle East is in far worse condition now than it was the day Bush left office.
No I mean people so far off the fringe that Obama who is a centrist at best (by Europes standards he’s very conservative) looks like a raving lefty. The middle east is in this condition as a DIRECT result of decisions Geroge Bush made in 2003-2007 period, disbanding the Iraqi armed forces and dumping thousands of weapons trained p___D off men onto the streets, invading without a post-war plan and with less than half the troops the military told him they needed.
This is all on him and history will recognize that.
Obama might be a bad president but Bush will definitely take the prize as the worst president in US history, his deregulation (and Clintons) caused the biggest crash since the great depression, his foreign policy has destabilized the entire middle east, and he destroyed the bill of rights creating a big brother state that is now out of control
And why are people voting down a genuine enquiry?
People are still flying out infected countries now an Australian nurse I been tested for Ebola will people ever learn to stay away from infected countries ,
Guide to Treating and Preventing Ebola… must get some of these…
http://www.arhf.nl/docs/Amma4Africa_Ebola_Manual_Aug_2014_en.pdf
have your say