Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Children playing at the urban beach at the IFSC in 2008. Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland

HSE: Older people, children and manual workers risk 'serious harm' in heatwave

Along with the Department of Health, they have issued a number of tips to keep people cool and safe during the good weather.

THE HSE and Department of Health have advised people to take care of themselves during the heatwave so that everyone can enjoy the good weather safely.

In a statement, they said that hot spell deaths in people aged 75 and over rise by up to 60 per cent more than would normally be expected.

Other groups particularly at rick of serious harm are young children, those with serious mental health problems, people with heart, respiratory and serious health problems, and those with mobility problems. People who misuse alcohol or take illicit drugs are also at significant risk during a heatwave.

The HSE said people who are physically active, like manual workers and athletes should take particular care in the higher temperatures.

To keep you cool and safe, here are some of their tips:

  • Stay out of the sun during the hottest hours, apply sunscreen with UVA protection and wear a hat and light, loose-fitting clothes.
  • Avoid extreme physical exertion or at least keep activities like gardening and sport for cooler parts of the day.
  • Drink plenty of cold drinks, avoiding excess alcohol or caffeine, and eat cold foods like salads and fruit.
  • Take a cool shower and if you’re out in the sun, sprinkle water over your skin or clothing to keep cool.
  • Keep windows exposed to the sun closed during the day and close curtains but open windows at night when the temperature has dropped.
  • Electric fans can help but only if the temperature is below 35C.
  • Keep an eye on isolated, elderly, ill or very young people to make sure they are staying cool, and ensure babies, children and elderly people are not left alone in stationary cars.
  • Many prescriptions can reduce your tolerance to heat so keep taking them but take extra care to stay cool.
  • If you feel dizzy, short of breath, confused or start vomiting, take immediate action to cool down but do not take asprin or paracetamol. If symptoms persist, seek medical attention.
  • Remember, heat stroke can kill and it can develop very rapidly so if you suspect someone has it, call 999 immediately.

Read: Met Éireann has issued a weather warning in Ireland…>
In pictures: Your time in the glorious sunshine…>

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
18 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dáithí O Raghailaigh
    Favourite Dáithí O Raghailaigh
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 3:40 PM

    No surprise there , some of the school busses are older than the drivers.

    207
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
    Favourite Fiona Fitzgerald
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:02 PM

    It sounds like things haven’t changed. I have fond memories of a school tour to Tipperary, where the roof leaked all the way, and it didn’t stop raining until we got back to Dublin.

    54
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
    Favourite Fiona Fitzgerald
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:04 PM

    To be fair, it didn’t leak on the driver, only on his passengers!

    43
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
    Favourite Fiona Fitzgerald
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:42 PM

    @Cormac O’Neill: Delta are sound. How could that even happen? Not enough air changes? Anyway I don’t know how the Rock of Cashel hasn’t been washed away by now.

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave Deering
    Favourite Dave Deering
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 3:46 PM

    The rsa class a blown bulb as a major fault. Most of the buses would be perfectly safe

    And the headline is very misleading. It’s not half the buses on the road. It’s half the ones stopped.

    144
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Greg Blake
    Favourite Greg Blake
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:00 PM

    @Dave Deering: there are a lot of dodgy looking buses in service, but you’re right, the headline is disgraceful scaremongering journalism. They are the percentage of targeted checks. Only operators they are suspicious about. Why do I get the feeling somebody wants to squeeze out small operators and sell the franchises to an international player.

    111
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Ryan
    Favourite John Ryan
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:12 PM

    @Dave Deering: Ah sure most of them are safe ? That’s grand so…

    12
    See 5 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jeremy Hurley
    Favourite Jeremy Hurley
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:27 PM

    @Greg Blake: i havent seen a dodgy looking bus in years, any chance you might throw up a photo of one you recently came across.

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chemical Brothers
    Favourite Chemical Brothers
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:00 PM

    @Greg Blake: Jasus Shakey remember the army busses in the 1990s Castlebar to Baldonnel with a blown exhaust. What a racket & fumes entering the bus cos 1 of the floor panels had vibrated loose so there was a 2x3ft hole in the centre isle & if you fell in you got mangled on the drive shaft & fooked onto the passing tarmac.

    Then there was 50 of us push starting another hand me down on Stephens Green while the poor copper outside the Dept of Justice looked on in disbelief.

    Or drive shafts falling from the Bedford 4×4 with the back full of apprentices booting along the Naas Dual Carriageway. Wouldn’t a pole vaulting Bedford be great craic.

    Ah those were the days, nothing like a state preaching health & safey on the one hand while they kill their own personnel on the other.

    Hypocrisy 101

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute sixmile
    Favourite sixmile
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 8:20 PM

    @Jeremy Hurley:

    try getting the shannon limerick bus, just saying.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Greg Blake
    Favourite Greg Blake
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 8:48 PM

    @Jeremy Hurley: I’ll leave that to your own observations, keep an eye out for the new fad in Chinese buses in the hard shoulder, you’ll know them by the missing trim pieces

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Greg Blake
    Favourite Greg Blake
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 8:52 PM

    @Chemical Brothers: you’re right G, if you want to see the highest offenders in all duty of care issues. Look no further than Eire inc.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave Smyth
    Favourite Dave Smyth
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:29 PM

    This is only to be expected when everything is about profit.

    Outsourcing anything and everything is the persistent policy of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

    It costs more and It’s risky but, sure it’s grand as long as capitalism is the be all and end all.

    We all keep paying for it, electing the tulips and then moaning.

    Very odd behaviour

    53
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Shakka1244
    Favourite Shakka1244
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:47 PM

    @Dave Smyth: Paddy loves money more than lives

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Patrick McHugh
    Favourite Patrick McHugh
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 3:44 PM

    I remember back in the day of the yellow buses we could take an access door off from the floor on the walkway and look at the road as we were moving.The buses were falling apart back then, seats in bits, no lights. The bus driver “Doug” who we had for years always stinking of drink. He would loose his marbles when we acted up. Good old Bus Eireann. Doesn’t surprise me. Privatize Bus Eireann and be done with it. It’s bleeding money.

    44
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Vocal Outrage
    Favourite Vocal Outrage
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:07 PM

    @Patrick McHugh: the inspections included the private operators, so I’m unsure how privatisation will improve safety?

    53
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute neuromancer
    Favourite neuromancer
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 3:53 PM

    Funny that there is no NCT for buses.

    40
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave Byrne
    Favourite Dave Byrne
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:00 PM

    @neuromancer: They get what’s known as a DOE/CVRT done every year regardless of the age of the vehicle.

    85
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute neuromancer
    Favourite neuromancer
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:20 PM

    @Dave Byrne: so how are still driving around as unroadworthy? Is the test easy to pass. NCT isn’t so easy, and so bus testing should be even more stringent.

    9
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dave Byrne
    Favourite Dave Byrne
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:58 PM

    @neuromancer: The test is once a year like anything it could break or not work after the test,My back ground is in Aviation & Transport and I’ve often had a bulb or fuse blow while out on the road.
    The thing is that when doing the checks it was fine same can happen to an aircraft. Something could happen enroute and depending on the nature of the fault the crew can safety continue the journey after doing the MEL check list.

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kevin
    Favourite Kevin
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 3:56 PM

    So if they are unsafe to drive the drivers should refuse to drive them and then what happens ??

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Warren Doyle
    Favourite Warren Doyle
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 4:12 PM

    @Kevin: the driver gets fired and someone else gets told drive or follow the other guy

    60
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dougal67
    Favourite Dougal67
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:55 PM

    @Warren Doyle: Yes too true, if u say no your a trouble maker and on you go, still the right thing to do of course? But think that’s a thing of the past bus drivers dying breed shite money and lot of work and responsibilities for said shite money, you’d find it hard to get a good driver now Dublin bus been hiring for years it seems and air coach always looking for drivers at €10.50 and hour??? €11-50 aldi stacking shelves no cpc crap no 50kids whinging in your ear??

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dizzy
    Favourite Dizzy
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 7:08 PM

    I drove for Bus Eireann for a long number of years, I can assure you safety is a huge concern with this company. All driver are put through an advanced driving test, Garda vetted also,some drivers may forget this training but the majority don’t. Most of the drivers take their job very seriously and must do a walk round check before taking their bus out on the public roads.
    IE walk round check means checking lights indicators brakes wipers/washers. If a bus isn’t road worthy it won’t be take out, until the fault is fixed.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Fergus
    Favourite John Fergus
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 7:29 PM

    Over-regulation has gone mad.
    The RSA is trying to justify its own existence, buses are already subject to DOE examinations on all vehicles periodically. Private operators working on school contracts are required to have all the necessary Garda clearance/medical documentation.
    It’s little wonder why so many smaller operators are walking away from the business. The most interesting part of their article is the last line.
    “It was also revealed that the RSA had refused to share its ‘risk index’ for pinpointing the highest-risk operators in the country as the Authority had no ‘legal basis’ for doing so.”
    They publish reports demanding more resources but are very selective with the evidence they provide. How very Irish.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Drive for show & putt for dough
    Favourite Drive for show & putt for dough
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:50 PM

    FG love doing everything on cheap now a days and will invest in nothing, closing the post offices as well, but at the same time giving the bonds holders and apple anything they want !!

    17
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chemical Brothers
    Favourite Chemical Brothers
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:04 PM

    @Drive for show & putt for dough: We don’t need dedicated stamp shops any more.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Drive for show & putt for dough
    Favourite Drive for show & putt for dough
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:17 PM

    @Chemical Brothers: we don’t need to pay unsecured bond holders but we do !!

    15
    See 5 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chemical Brothers
    Favourite Chemical Brothers
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:33 PM

    @Drive for show & putt for dough: No comparison…many post offices are not viable with or without bond holders. They provide little service that can’t be provided by other shops in the locality or online.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
    Favourite Fiona Fitzgerald
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:46 PM

    Right. When are we going to be able to buy stamps in shops as easily as topping up a Leap Card, though?

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Drive for show & putt for dough
    Favourite Drive for show & putt for dough
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 7:41 PM

    @Chemical Brothers: Public transport is also lose making, based on your logic that’s not viable either. It’s the principal of going after services that really are just chicken feed in terms on money, but at the same time we don’t accept the EU ruling on apple having to pay billions and pay billion to the unsecured bond billions who have no legal right to being paid.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Drive for show & putt for dough
    Favourite Drive for show & putt for dough
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 7:44 PM

    @Drive for show & putt for dough: ”in terms of money”

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Greg Blake
    Favourite Greg Blake
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 10:02 PM

    @Chemical Brothers: in their current mode. But they have huge potential with the right management in place (which they don’t seem to have right now). They have a network and a public interface any service business would kill for, they just have no imagination … stamps and dole cashing, c’mon. They should keep the government services function, but also be multi ticket agents and local access points for banks and credit unions etc. Instead of trying to compete in areas where their lack of flexibility holds them back, they should cultivate their B2B opportunities.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tom Sawyer 9
    Favourite Tom Sawyer 9
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:54 PM

    It’s all ok everyone no need to panic your house prices are still rising. Don’t worry about your kids!

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pj Browne
    Favourite Pj Browne
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:44 PM

    And why were they not taken off the road straight away like if a truck was deemed unsafe

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Finn Faulkner
    Favourite Finn Faulkner
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:31 PM

    Rattling, noisy, with deafening tyre roar and engine whine. Not to mention the filthy seats, windows and touchable surfaces. Some buses drive as though their suspension is broken. Very uncomfortable.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gavin R
    Favourite Gavin R
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:23 PM

    All you have to do is go to any school around the country and look at the sh!t that carries kids to and from the schools.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Gerard Heery
    Favourite Gerard Heery
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 5:56 PM

    Nct is only for the little guys

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dougal67
    Favourite Dougal67
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 6:57 PM

    @Gerard Heery: Doe and cvrt every year irrespective of age of bus, plus sporadic checks roadside as said in article?

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ronan Sexton
    Favourite Ronan Sexton
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 7:01 PM

    @Gerard Heery: Buses undergo a more extensive annual test called the crvt. The amount of idiots posting uneducated comments on every topic on these threads is astounding and should lead to being cut off from the internet from spreading stupidity.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute purple rain
    Favourite purple rain
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 10:03 PM

    It’s Ireland get the consultants in first.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Damien McGrath
    Favourite Damien McGrath
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 9:07 PM

    This is a joke and they harass people with lorries on the road.RSA not doing their job??buses and taxis should have tachographs and public sector vehicles and drivers should have to abide by same rules as everyone else!!

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dougal67
    Favourite Dougal67
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 9:14 PM

    @Damien McGrath: Buses do have tachos, What r u on about? , agreed with taxis and vans drivers for that matter? I know van drivers who do 13/14 hour days one after another regularly

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tomas
    Favourite Tomas
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 10:56 PM

    You would want to check school transport contractors buses…some over 20 years old,,this is bus eireann way of avoiding resposibility..wheel chair taxis etc, all going under the radar…

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dougal67
    Favourite Dougal67
    Report
    Sep 10th 2018, 12:45 PM

    @Tomas: Wrong you can’t use a bus older than 20 years on a school run!

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Byron D
    Favourite Byron D
    Report
    Sep 9th 2018, 10:45 PM

    Hensheds

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Rob
    Favourite Rob
    Report
    Sep 10th 2018, 8:25 AM

    Is there an NCT for buses?

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dougal67
    Favourite Dougal67
    Report
    Sep 10th 2018, 12:46 PM

    @Rob: doe and cvrt every year.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Hyland
    Favourite Stephen Hyland
    Report
    Sep 10th 2018, 12:14 AM

    No first use checks?

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds