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TDS AND SENATORS who refuse to remove their Yes pins in the Houses of the Oireachtas will not face any sanction.
This is despite a long-standing rule that members, staff and visitors to Leinster House are not permitted to wear emblems of a party-political nature while in the complex.
Oireachtas authorities have confirmed they will continue to request that people within the parliamentary precincts remove any pins or badges that promote a Yes vote, but a spokesperson confirmed that those who do not comply will not face any sanction.
“We have no plan to issue any sanctions,” the spokesperson said.
The Houses of the Oireachtas protocol states:
Emblems of a party-political nature should not be worn or otherwise displayed within the parliamentary precincts, an exception being made solely in respect of persons attending the Distinguished Visitors Gallery.
The issue has arisen in recent days with several TDs and Senators being asked to remove pins and badges advocating a Yes vote in the same-sex marriage referendum on Friday week.
But two Labour TDs said today that they declined a request from ushers, who are in charge of security and keeping order in Leinster House, to remove their ‘Yes’ pins.
Tánaiste Joan Burton, who wore a pin yesterday but was not asked to remove it, today backed her Labour colleagues, Emmet Stagg and John Lyons.
Meanwhile, Labour’s equality minister Áodhán Ó Riordáin – who had his own pin controversy last weekend – got his hands on this unique badge:
Independent senator David Norris has also refused to comply with requests to remove his ‘Yes’ badge. Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer said last night he would refuse to remove his pin if asked.
On Tuesday, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald was asked to remove her badge by an usher and complied.
A spokesperson for the Oireachtas said that members, staff and visitors were being asked to remove the pins and badges “on the basis that most political parties and individual Members have taken particular positions in the upcoming referendum”.
“Therefore, Oireachtas authorities do consider emblems that advocate a particular stance in the referendum party political in that sense,” they said.
But a well-placed Leinster House source said that the issue was not “exorcising the authorities here too much”.
“There hasn’t been any complaints about it. It’s more a reminder about the protocol, but it’s not something that is seen as a big issue here,” they added.
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Yeahhhh, we’re not en on the list!
Even*
…yet…
Early days yet.
We are now told of a post 21 day incubation period for the latest strain..
http://www.wnd.com/2014/10/who-ebola-out-of-control-in-west-africa/
Phew Ireland’s not on the list.
But the UK whom we share land border with is 6th in the list?
Mmmm?
Don’t you feel secure to know now that Sharter brought in his strict “All Dregs Of Society Are Welcome”
immigration policy.
Obama and democrats want an open boarders and amnesty to strengthen their political base; republicans and the U.S. chamber of commerce want open boarders for cheap Mexican labor. The American people just want a government who will put them fist as the U.S. Constitution demands and protect them. Cancelling flights flights from Ebola countries will put pressure on to close the boarder with Mexico so they would rather pretend they are doing something about it by pointless airport screenings that make little sense given the incubation period.
Were not, but I still think it’s going to get here eventually. Immigrant communities stick together, so Mohammad from Nigeria is infected and infects his girlfriend who infects her friend whos on her way to Ireland to claim asylum, that’s a perfectly plausible scenario.
We’ll probably get 1-2 cases, we might even have a case of accidental healthcare worker infection (which is why we ought to be doing drills) but we won’t have an outbreak.
I note that our two closest neighbours (France and UK) are in the top 10.
I agree. The WHO reckon there will be 10000 cases a week by Christmas. And they say it has a 70% death rate. If they are correct which we all hope they are not, that means by Christmas there will be at least 7000 people dead every week…. Scary stuff.
Ireland is in the full report on this. Despite us being close to France, despite our refugees and indirect traffic and traffic from non infected areas of Africa being factored in, they still estimated our odds at <5%
The hysteria surrounding this is comical. Its not as contagious as its made out to be, more people will die from flu this year and the spread is mainly due to poor healthcare standards, as mentioned in the article, and the washing of the dead ritual. Unless your granny died just after travelling to Liberia and you washed her naked body before burying her, you should escape unscathed.
Tell that to that Spanish nurse & Texan health care worker..
I agree. The over reaction is unbelievable. In the early stages of this outbreak I was reading up on it and found that the biggest concern of the people who are panic mongering was funding.
I love science, I don’t trust scientists
4,000 out of 7,000,000,000 people. You’d win the lottery a few times before you catch it.
This is one of the MOST contagious diseases out there and it has a 70% mortality rate. If it gets a hold somewhere it WILL kill thousands.
Diarmuid, it absolutely is not one of the most contagious diseases out there, it is not airborne, you’ve clearly bought into the hysteria without actually reading up on the facts. Ebola has been around for a LONG time and this outbreak has infected more than ALL OTHER outbreaks put together, and it is still only a tiny amount of people. The influenza virus will kill 300,000 people this winter alone, including some in Ireland. But you keep freaking over that 4,000 “highly contagious”. Lord almighty.
Nigeria, expected to be declared over Ebola in next week.
It is a contagious disease but even implementing basic rules and practices in a country with some of the largest slums on earth is enough to beat it.
Local customs need to change to beat it.
Diarmuid’s perspective seems more realistic there.
That’s unsubstantiated bollocks Diarmaid. Try backing up your claim with a single source. Literally the first link on Google for “How Contagious is Ebola” says:
“Infectious disease experts say the risk of that is low for several reasons. Ebola is hard to contract, they say, and good infection-control practices can stop its spread.
What’s more, Ebola is much less contagious than many other more common diseases. The virus, much like HIV or hepatitis, is spread through blood or bodily fluids and is not airborne.”
http://www.webmd.com/news/20140806/ebola-virus-how-contagious
I like your comment. I have been trying to do my own research but I’ve not found info like what you have, I seem to come across the same as the media is spreading. I would love to read the truth about this virus, could you possibly guide me with a link. Thank you.
There is a diff between highly infectious and highly contagious.
There is a diff between contagious and highly contagious.
Words and definitions matter.
If people would just take a deep breath, calm down, and take 1 hour to go to the CDC website and read about it or the wikipedia article on the outbreak then 2/3 of the comments and questions on these articles would never have to be made.
Take your damn tablet or iphone out when you are on the train or bus and read the cdc website or the wikipedia article on the outbreak and you’ll be well informed very quickly, stop listening to quacks and conspiracy theorists and the tabloids.
I’m on the fence here. While it hasn’t infected proportionally as many people as influenza, it is a far more lethal disease, travelling far more quickly and with a much higher mortality rate. As well as this, scientists are trying to determine the factors which have caused a disease in containment to infect healthy people. The major important factor is to remain calm while putting in place safeguards for disease control; monitoring at airports, monitoring for early warning signs, quarantining any potential victims.
The saddest thing about this, as with most global issues, is that it’s worst affecting the poorest people in the world who aren’t equipped to deal with it. There was an article in the Observer at the weekend written by a girl in an African village which has been affected. I cried reading it, the terror they live in is inhuman. It’s a genocide.
I think the “hysteria” is justified.
-SPANISH FLU killed more people than WW1. Most people have seen over a 100 programs and read tens of books about the war and almost nothing about that epidemic.
-This epidemic is predicted to grow EXPONENTIALLY. Do WE really understand what this means?
- Ebola has been around for decades so clearly a vaccine is NOT EASILY found.
-The response of the global authorities is completely INADEQUATE. Cuba has given more assistance than most counties including China, Russia etc.
-The worst continent for an epidemic to start is Africa. Such extreme poverty and inadequate facilities makes AFRICA a VIRUS BREEDING GROUND.
-Modern air travel combined with human stupidity/hubris means it is guaranteed to travel FAST. Flying infected patients is CRAZY.
- IMO there is something very SUSPICIOUS about the behaviour of the authorities. Just how are so many medical staff getting inflected and dying when the virus “can only spread by bodily fluids”?
- there is clearly a major KNOWLEDGE GAP Eg they don’t know if pets can carry the virus etc.
-Our government goes on air giving reassurances that there are no direct flights to Africa!…”so we are safe”. London to Dublin is one of the busiest travel routes in the world making it a human corridor and therefore a VIRUS CORRIDOR.
-In point of fact there are direct flights to Africa (Morocco etc) and we have many communities of Native Africans from the affected areas ( Nigeria).
Your working yourself in to a panic attack.
African countries have managed and dealt with Ebola before, Senagal and NIGERIA have had cases and gotten past it this time.
The countries where it is growing exponentially are ones where there is no TRUST in medicine or hospitals, very few doctors, local customs which help the disease thrive and a broken down state.
Your getting off on the FEAR for you own pleasure or punishment.
A vaccine was never developed because out breaks were rare and small and it just wasn’t worth it when only hundreds die every 20 years
.
ZMAPP is a new vaccine that has been used to quite a degree of success.
It hasn’t traveled that fast in 8 months.
DRAMA!
What’s scaring the scientists the most is, as the guy who discovered it recently said, it’s not following the pattern of the previous 25 outbreaks. It usually follows a very predictable liner pattern and contact tracing is really easy. In past cases it’s hit isolated villages not really cities, and was thus easy to contain. This time it’s hopping all over the map with no predictable pattern.
That’s reason to worry if you’re in subsaharan Africa, but not for the rest of us.
:@Kev to your points…
-The Spanish flu was highly contagious and easy to spread, ebola while being highly infectious is not highly contagious.
-The NIH in the US has said if the US govt had given it the funding it asked for they’d have a vaccine by now, the barriers to a vaccine or treatment are not as much the disease as resources dedicated to treatment. and as Sean said several promising drugs are on the horizon.
-Flying in infected patients is not crazy it’s logical. The people going out there to help treat innocent victims are the best of what humanity has to offer. remember many of the people infected are babies and children, if we don’t send people out there to at least help them die without pain a lot of innocent kids will die in agony, nobody could want that, and if the people doing that heroic work are being infected we owe them every chance at saving their lives. You can’t infect people on a plane anyway.
-It is spreading to healthcare workers because of innocent breaches in protocol, look at the other posts on this article I made you can see how easy it can happen, this is why in the west they usually wear full PP suits instead of just gloves and goggles.
-We do know if pets can become infected, they can.
-Sure London to Dublin is busy…so where are all the infected people? We’ve not had one yet? where are they hiding?
-People are splitting hairs with the Morroco stuff, do you know how far Morrocoo is from the affected region? When we say africa we mean subsaharan Africa and the affected region, Morocco has no infected people and is thousands of miles away from an infected country.
Isn’t the biggest concern is that it could mutate into something far worse? Hence the panic to bring it under control?
That’s probably what they are planning.
When it it exceeds its worst expectations that’s when they will come out with the vaccine and microchip.
It seems that is is a very large leap for it to become airborne.
The fear is that in countries like Liberia etc where there is massive distrust of doctors and hospitals and modern medicine that people will not listen to them and be wiped out.
There is a slum belt from West Africa to the far east with a billion people in it.
It could take a long time to eradicate if it spreads across that.
That said, there is plenty of evidence and an example where even slums can isolate this.
I saw a documentary called Outbreak about a scientist called Dustin Hoffman who was fighting to contain an outbreak of a new airborn strain of Ebola. Fortunately, on that occasion it was contained, but it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.
Next time, if there isn’t a genius renegade scientist on hand to stand up those god damn beurocrats and military conspirators, then god help us all.
Like the walking dead lol.
My guess is it will mutate into some sort of new stealth tax.
For F***s sake Frank, you are just a troll coz your comments are so ridiculously stupid they couldn’t be intentional.
It’s been around for over 40 years and it hasn’t mutated yet…what’s taking it so long?
Now that ebola has reached the United states and Europe, media types are working round the clock to come up with a hashtag slogan to contain the disease
It’s makes sense that if you are in a west African country and you think you are infected that you would hop on a plane to a country with proper healthcare facilities to I prove your chances of survival. Cases are going to spread. Improving care in west Africa is the first step . Giving people and those who look after them a real fighting chance . After that you just need to ensure you are prepared for when cases do land here.
Why hasn’t that happened in the 8 months since this started?
Even if it does happen, it will be quickly isolated.
If they can organize a response and beat it in Nigeria, then they can do it anywhere.
Zmapp probably is your answer as to why it will happen now more . Although there isn’t any left at the moment anywhere in the world but it us in production , just takes time to make apparently. I agree completely about containment and Nigeria is a good example which is why we do need to Improve treatment and containment in Africa then you won’t have desperate people making plane trips in the hope of better treatment . I don’t subscribe to the night are scenario painted by some on here. It can can could be well contained here and one of the best ways to stop the spread is to Improve healthcare and containment is the affected African countries.
Dream on….I don’t share you optimism.
Company Fined for Illegally Dumping Aborted Babies Given Ebola Waste Disposal DOT Contract.
The dots are connecting in US Corruption.
Not alone that, they also supplied aborted babies as fuel to Oregon power stations.
http://www.naturalnews.com/047256_Ebola_disposal_Stericycle_aborted_babies.html#
Coming directly from the global ministry of scaremongering.
For goodness sake Frank. That’s lazier than usual.
Also, stop reading Fox News. It’s not good for you. The only people who watch it are right wing extremists. You’re confusing everyone.
Madagascar has closed its ports.
Seanie ….senior scientists are comparing Ebola to Aids. AIDS…DRAMA?
Ryan ….thank you for your reasoned response.
-I think the inability of modern hospitals to contain the virus among their medical staff with the best that Western Medicine has to offer proves the virus is SERIOUSLY CONTAGIOUS. They are blaming the nurses for “breaking protocol”. I smell a COVER UP, forgive the pun.
-Whether flying known infected staff does test our best hospitals procedures and staff and raises the profile of the epidemic which in i suppose could be argued is a good thing. So far its clear the virus is winning. I still believe its CRAZY. A professional compassionate person who wishes to help would forego the possible benefits of flying back for the benefit of humanity.
-The point about Morocco is that these land borders are difficult to control. Eg to travel from Nigeria by land or air to Morocco. So Lets stop pretending we have a natural barrier with no direct flights etc.
- if pets etc can spread the virus its pretty serious. A dog cannot tell us its feeling ill. And we still dont even know for sure the Incubation period for humans!
Neal…I think links to the mainstream media are good. Someone mentioned this story linked below …i think its shows the human side to the story we are debating and well worth reading
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/11/bintu-sannoh-ebola-sierra-leone-eyewitness
My reason for posting here is to inform and be informed.Not to Alarm.
If we won’t tackle ebola in Africa we will have epidemy here.
http://www.sgoal.org/Send-more-aid-and-personnel-to-Western-Africa-to-tackle-the-Ebola
This seems to have turned into just a competition to see who can post the most or least reassuring link.
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