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Updated 11.16
THE MAYOR OF Boyle, Co Roscommon has defended comments on Facebook in which she called her constituents spineless, two-faced and short-sighted.
Sinn Féin councillor Jane Suffin wrote the posts after being disappointed when “only ten” people from Boyle attended a protest over the closure of Roscommon Hospital’s emergency department. She wrote: “Have you ever known Boyle any different, giving out like f**k while drinking tea in there kitchen’s (sic) and full to the gills on a high stool,” the Belfast Telegraph reports.
Another post suggests that she will set up a stall selling:
back bones,balls, tablets for two facedness,and glasses that allow you to see futher than the end of your nose,we will also have cushions for when your sat on your arses giving out [...] SO THERE IS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE IN BOYLE
In an earlier post, Ms Suffin wrote angrily: “POWER TO THE PEOPLE my ARSE, WHERE WERE THE PEOPLE sat on there arses”. She told RTÉ’s John Murray Show yesterday that she had been “very angry at the time” after two protests. “The first protest only about 50 people turned out,” she said. “The second there was a good turnout but only ten people from Boyle.”
Ms Suffin told TheJournal.ie that she was “standing by the comments 100 per cent. The language alright as a bit much, but at the time it was frustration and anger at the people of Boyle.”
Explaining that she hoped the comments would be a “wake-up call” to the area, she said: “If you knew the people of Boyle – they’re the best people in the world, but every kick that comes they take it. As town councillors, there’s only so much you can do.” Ms Suffin continued:
The publicity this has got over the last two days, I’d have done this six months ago. People are telling me fair play to you. Even elderly people are saying this might be the wake up call they needed. We have another protest planned for August 13 over the hospital, and I’m hoping this gets people up and gets them out.
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Typical Sinn Féin behaviour… But in fairness she has a point about people bitching and moaning about a problem and then not doing anything about it…
Maybe she was the one that was short sighted in facebooking her opinions…some valid points though, people love nothin better than to be given out shite whilst doin nothin.
Erm, maybe not everyone in Boyle agrees with her political views. Did she consider that?
One would think that the provision of adequate health care services in a region should transcend mere political opinion though.
Good message, wrong forum I suspect.
@Gus
No doubt everyone wants better health services. The political opinion comes in when you talk about how best to serve the people of Boyle or any other region, in particular how the health services should be organised. Many people don’t think that a fragmented health service, where there is not enough of a critical mass for proper health expertise, is a good thing.
I think this article should be required reading for those who believe that reducing services at a particular hospital is always and everywhere a bad thing:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/we-must-be-honest-about-what-our-hospitals-can-do-2823597.html
@Ronan
I was going more for what @Fiachra typed below.
BTW Loughlinstown was always shite for queues at A & E, out-patients, XRay and others. I spent a lot of my football playing youth there! It did, or rather the staff there, literally saved a friend’s life not too long ago, who took on the way back from Wexford. He wouldn’t have made it to Vincent’s.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that the overwhelming sentiment of locals was that the service should be retained, yet they were prepared to let others take the lead on protecting same.
Wrong forum, right message.
Classy Sinn Féin diplomacy strikes again. I understand her frustration with these absentee whingers, since we all know a few, but I doubt that the reality check she delivered will endear herself any further to them.
We’ve always been under the impression that everyone in Roscommon was up in arms about the hospital. Just goes to show that we shouldn’t let those who shout the loudest have the strongest say. Maybe there’s a silent majority who accept the change. It’s just like Shell to Sea down in Corrib, more loud Shinners who think they represent the whole area when in fact most locals recognise that the pipe provides wealth and jobs for the area!
However, there’s an even more important point here,
WHY DOES BOYLE HAVE A MAYOR???
Eh, probably because it has a legally defined town council and the elected leader of town councils are given the title of “Mayor”……
Especially considering Boyle is a far distance from Roscommon these are the people that would benefit from the downgrading so maybe there were only a few who agreed with her, maybe she needs to find out what people in her constituency really want
I don’t agree with her views whatsoever, but she has a good general point here. If you’re going to spend all your time whining about a problem, and you don’t do anything about it, you shouldn’t be surprised when nobody cares about it.
I like her :)
Yeah whilst she does have valid points it was hardly the best way to convey her message…it was the type of facebook status you’d see people post @ 4am on a Saturday on their way home with an abra. Don’t drink and Facebook!!
She may as well have been talking about the whole lot of us. Me included.
We are all great at whinging but when it comes to a spot of protesting we have better things do be doing. Why can’t we stand up an be counted like the French?
Seriously, if she was anyone but Sinn Féin, I be giving her my vote for President.
That’s what Ireland needs in a President. She should run for the Dáil next time round, she’d be a lot more useful to Roscommon than ‘Ming’er Flanagan.
She really needs to change her job title on Facebook though.
How do you feel the people of Boyle benefit from a hospital downgrade ?
@Clive – Not sure I understand your question, although I was a little vague perhaps.
I meant she calls the Irish on our favourite pastime of sitting on our rear ends and complaining instead of get up and doing something about things we have problems with. I think a President who takes action rather than sitting and complaining is someone we’d benefit from.
Of course, as she is not running for President, I mentioned that she should instead run for the Dáil as she’d probably do a lot more for the people of Roscommon than Flanagan appears to have so far. She’d at least be a louder voice for them than he is.
As for the hospital downgrade, to be honest, I didn’t follow it closely enough to have any personal opinion on the matter, but it seems the people in Boyle were full of nothing but complaints about it, yet when it actually came time to stand out and protest, none of them showed.
As a publicly elected official who probably got an earful from the people of Boyle day after day about it, I think she was absolutely right to call them on their inaction. I’d have done the same thing, but in truth I wouldn’t have had the guts to go all out at it like she did.
I hope that answers your question, sorry for the vagueness.
this is what this country needs polititions who will speak their minds and not be electioneering 24/7
True, but I’m sure the majority in Boyle would disagree with the hospital closure.
Well, when things like that go so badly wrong, you have to ask yourself, “how well was the protest organised”. I mean, most rent-a-crowds are bigger than ten. That a side, she is right about people, but she may want to look at how she organized protests.
If Sinn Fein councillors believe their role is bullying constituents into protesting against cuts, perhaps it’s just as well their party aren’t in government.
How many SF councillors were leading the charge against cuts North of the border where they’re in power?
hilarious stuff
I
She was thinking out loud I think…
She has a point.. Don’t wait until the facilities are gone and then accuse local politicians of trying to do nothing.. It’s the people of Boyles loss…
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