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THE GOVERNMENT WILL be funding ambulances and burials as part of ongoing efforts to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone.
It has been announced that additional funding of €778,000 will be made available as part of the response to the spread of the virus in the west-African nation.
The money will go towards supporting workers responding to the crisis as well as providing maintenance and fuel to the large number of ambulances and burial vehicles operating in the region.
Distribution
It is estimated that the funding will help around 5 million people across twelve districts in the country.
The action is being taken in accordance with a need identified by Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Centre.
Advice on distribution is also coming from a member of the Irish Defence Forces based in the country. This individual is a qualified paramedic and experienced in medical planning – with additional expertise in fleet management.
Speaking about the additional funding, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan, said:
This programme will improve the reach and effectiveness of the emergency vehicles and thus reduce Ebola transmission and mortality rates by ensuring that ambulances and other response vehicles are properly maintained, fuelled and decontaminated.
Outbreak
The current outbreak of Ebola has been provailant in western Africa since December of 2013. Sierra Leone has been one of the worst affected countries – having suffered 7,354 labratory confirmed cases and 2,758 deaths. Liberia and Guinea have also been badly affected.
In total the virus has killed close to 8,000 people.
Earlier this week the first confirmed case of Ebola was reported in the United Kingdom – with Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, a recent returnee from Sierre Leone, being found to have the condition.
In 2014 Ireland contributed more than €18 million to affected countries in west Africa. More than €5 million of this has gone towards treatment facilities in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Also speaking about today’s announcement, Minister for Development, Trade Promotion and North South Co-operation, Seán Sherlock, said:
As one of a small number of countries with an Embassy in Freetown, Ireland has been very active in working with local and international partners to fight the Ebola epidemic.
People are dying in this country due to a lack of a proper ambulance fleet, they can’t be maintained due to a lack of funding and yet we can afford to send money to other country’s to fuel and maintain their ambulances???
The government seem to enjoy giving money away to everyone else except their own ! .. “As long as we look good to the outside world , right guys” ?
And the money being given away is borrowed money so 18million is 18 million plus interest….
Child-line closing over Xmas due to lack of funding
Somebody somewhere is licking their lips !…..
Why does central government have to contribute to this – surely there is a European Global Fund we pay into …oh there is but it was only available to Germany after their flooding but not us funnily enough !
We need to stop giving money away until we sort out our own problems.
I hope these countries will be as generous to us when they are thriving, and we are eating out of dustbins.
Francis I can safely say that if I live to be a thousand years old that won’t happen . Most of those so called county’s will cease to exit in the next 20 years, and if we don’t have a 100 foot wall around the southern border of
Europe we are in big Trouble .
Pity Ireland won’t fund a few ambulances in South Tipperary , or better still use some of that money to pay the hard pressed IRISH nurses registration fees!!!! Now there is forward thinking!!!
Ye exactly… Cause that’s equal to the suffering caused by Ebola..
It’s a pity they couldn’t fund more ambulances in their own countries instead of giving the money away else where!!!!!!
One big hole , put them all in it , job done . We should be giving nothing to these corrupt countries when we can hardly afford to keep a childline service open here
This is getting beyond a joke now.. The amount of money our government gives away while our own people are struggling, homelessness through the roof, poverty.. Etc… This is our tax payers money and it should be allocated to how the people of Ireland where the money is going. I’m all for helping out and all but sometimes this country needs to look after their own before they can help others… How many million was given away last year to foreign aid????? In the region of 700 million.. 700 MILLION….
I have to assume your name is ironic?
When you do talk about aid, we had no problem sticking the paw out back in the early days of the EU (right up to the naughties) did we?
The EU (EEC at the time) took an awful lot more in monetary value from us through our fisheries than we ever got from them. And it continues to this day.
Ouch, that’s a lot of money gone overseas for unvouched expenses, I’m one of those people who believes that money doesn’t solve everything but know of three areas where it is the solution, bumbalance, childline and appointing a CF consultant in a fitted out hospital, 18million to west Africa in one year, the problem isn’t lack of funds its the control of it.
Yes people, are we’re so badly off in this country that we should forfeit our common humanity? I think that previous commenters sound hail and hearty and full of pompous indignation. I for one totally support our government offerinng a helping hand to those in dire straights and anyone who begrugdes this small amount of aid exposes their true inner selfish nature.
If the government giving the borrowed money could honestly say it was all going to the purpose they are sending it to( imo to look good, government are not doing this from the kindness of their heart) and they tracked where this money went (as opposed to gun lords or corrupt political parties, imo), people might be able to deal with it better. 3.78 million reported so far has gone out in aid from the Irish government. Are you aware Justin that people are dying on the streets in this country, dying on hospital trolleys in this country, killing themselves in this country because of not enough or absolutely no services in this country are there to help ourselves or the people who seriously needed it. I am not a selfish person but I do belive what the government are doing, it’s a PR stunt for the rest of the world while nearly 300 people are on trolleys in hospital corridors, while people sleep rough tonight, while someone has a heart attack in South cork and we have NO resources to get that person the medical care the Deserve….this money mentioned is an add on to 3 million reported. How much are we paying back ECB per month? As mentioned I’m not a selfish person, I raise charity money for awhile now, it’s people charity we are known for not government charity. Questions need to be raised about the governments reality when they are giving money that’s not ours to give.
Of course we need stuff here – including new ambulances, but part of our national identity is our generosity as a nation. To be Irish is to help others in need; it’s part of who we are and I’d hate to lose that.
How twee of you Martin…once our so called “national image” is maintained, then we’re fine and should endure lack of resources, facilities and services so we can be seen to be generous.
Twisted logic such as yours is just what we don’t need.
I’m all for the citizens of Ireland donating their own money to charity, but our government shouldn’t be sending money we borrowed while at the same time cutting services here.
“To be Irish is to help others in need”
Why don’t we help our own and sort out our own problems before attempting to do so abroad?
You wouldn’t go to your neighbours house and fix his roof while yours still leaking!!
You might help your neighbors Addams, if you weren’t a selfish bast@rd!
Now Adam, have a look at “neildarkmind”‘s comment, “big hole , put them all in, job done” and the 100 + green thumbers, your own “ignore your neighbors problem” and give me a better way to describe it please?
Some of these comments are disgraceful
Ebola is a massive epidemic and these people do need help with funding
The ambulances we have already in ireland as bad as our system may be ,sierra leone will never have this kind of ambulance service. They need help buring there dead. How can u even be denying these humans that? Ireland is still in debt and were still paying it off so regardless if ireland kept that money it would go nowhere good. How can u ppl be so heartless? Babys, children,whole familys were wiped out by this and u begrudge 700k?! Pathetic
That 700k is borrowed money and means people here will have medical funding etc cut. There are children in Ireland with disabilities who have medical cards removed but they don’t count?
Well said Aoife.
What people fail to recognise is that unless Ebola infection are contained and eventually effectively eliminated at source, the humanitarian and economic cost to the rest of the 2orld wil be immense.
Even disregarding the humanitarian considerations, it is simply smart to contribute to resources near the epicentre of infection.
There are very sound and practical reasons of self interest for this contribution but racism and xenophobia can blind us to the fact that all human everywhere is of equal value.
I had nearly lost hope scrolling through these comments until I read yours.
I’m just thankful that the majority on here is really the minority in Ireland given how much aid we give to oversees organisations at an individual level.
I for one am happy to see my tax going to a worthy cause.
Well done Anthony, the first to claim that objecting to our government giving our money away is down to racism. There’s always one gobshįte with a racism card.
Look after the people of Ireland first enda . Come election time I wont forget the misery your cronies heeped on the young, old, and the vulnerable and the ordinary decent hard working man woman and students trying to get by. .shame of you cults. (n missing)
Jack it was FF that landed us on this mess not FG – all they are doing is cleaning up after aheren and that other useless article clowen
Its our money. Can we note vote on whether or not these idiots should give it away?
One thing our government have a poor record for is looking after the Irish people first.
A deadly disease like Ebola has to be fought at source – making it less likely to appear in Ireland.
We can justly point to lack of investment in ambulances, the lack of an air ambulance service etc but we are not thankfully facing thousands of deaths from Ebola.
It is rightly part of Ireland’s foreign policy to help the poorest countries in the world with our funding, our soldiers and our doctors and nurses.
We should be proud of the part we play even as we struggle financially instead of making petty and ignorant comments.
We too were once such a country coping with famine, disease, oppression and war.
Don, all true and during the famine other countries and groups sought to assist Ireland, including impoverished North American Indians.
All human life everywhere is valuable, apart from the self interest, in helping to contain this infection before it spreads globally.
Yes Anthony. All too often we forget our history and our responsibilities as a nation.
Government mismanagement has meant we have had people on trolleys, lack of ambulances, people sleeping rough etc for decades. That equally needs to be addressed.
Irish ambulance services Severely underfunded and strained yet giving almost 800000 to African services! Also the shortage of graveyard space in Ireland is becoming a huge issue that isn’t getting addressed! If this government cared less about their international image and more about its image with voters here at home, it wouldn’t be half as screwed up as it is now!! Enda must not be familiar with the term charity starts at home!
So quick to give money away. We have starving people here you know, we have homeless families here you know, we have massive suicide rates here you know. Why are they never so quick to give the Irish people sums of money like this. They’re are a LOT here who need it…. You know!!!!
Judging by the low level of intellect utilised by some commenters here maybe we could start saving money obviously wasted on trying to educate troglodytes. You would despair at the ignorance displayed here this morning. If ye only had the capacity to feel shame
@Justin McNulty,
I didn’t realise looking after the people of our own country first and foremost is considered a selfish act?
I like how you respond to an opinion different to your own by calling me a “Bast@rd” and then labelling others as troglodytes. We can see who the ignorant one is here.
“No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.”
Remember that when you blindly state we should always look after our own first. By helping the most needy we ARE helping our own.
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