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EVERYONE AROUND THE country is being urged to take part in a national initiative to honour all the sick, those who have lost their lives, frontline staff and healthcare workers.
On Easter Saturday at 9pm, the Shine Your Light call invites the country to shine a light – be it a light or candle – in the window to pay tribute to those “keeping us going through these dark times”.
A light will be shone on public buildings, Irish embassies, and peacekeeping posts all around the world, with the images being shared with the public across all of the RTÉ platforms.
Everyone, especially children, are invited to get involved and to create their own way of shining a light from their homes.
Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan today launched a range of specific measures to support the artistic and cultural life during the Covid-19 emergency, urging young and old to get involved.
“We can all use the resources of arts and culture to get creative, to have fun with creativity and to learn a new creative skill. I am confident that arts, culture and creativity will play an important role in bringing healing to the nation as we emerge from this unprecedented challenge,” she said.
The following initiatives are now being rolled out to get people creative at home:
Artist supports
The minister also announced a number of measures to support Ireland’s artistic community.
A new €1 million scheme will support Irish and Irish-based professional artists to create new writing, new music, visual art, painting photography and sculpture.
In addition, a partnership with RTE and others, will bring a broad range of cultural, heritage and language content from archives and new sources which will include input from bodies such as Druid and Other Voices.
Working with Facebook Ireland, Culture Ireland is operating an online initiative which will see a new grant scheme called Ireland Performs for Facebook Live.
RTÉ will be airing a short film each day, in partnership with Screen Ireland, while TG4 will partner with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for a reimagined Fleadh Ceoil.
The Abbey’s Dear Ireland project will see 50 writers producing monologues to be performed by 50 actors in April.
The Arts Council is also finalising a special fund to enable Irish and Irish-based professional artists to provide access for the public to new and original art during the period of Covid-19 isolation.
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Doesn’t say much for their preparedness: surely this should have been done in preparation for a possible second wave (since we could all see it was happening throughout Europe)
@Spartacus Ireland: The problem is that they probably weren’t given the budge to hire people over the summer and leave them sitting around waiting for the work to begin. Interviewing 500 people and hiring that many is a huge achievement in such a short piece of time. It’s the same with extra ICU beds and the staff required to man them; they wouldn’t get the budget unless absolutely necessary. And it suits the government that people blame the HSE instead of chronic underfunding.
@Lisa Saputo: some good points you make. But people can be interviewed and provisionally offered the position should the need arise.
@John Doyle: Yes, it’s called a panel as far as I know
@Spartacus Ireland: yep
@Spartacus Ireland: true but we have also known every winter for the past 20 years that our old sick and most vulnerable would be stacked in corridors on trolleys– the same HSE called that a crisis too but still never managed to solve year after year – I’m not sure why people think their incompetence in administration has suddenly gone away beacuse it hasn’t
@Lisa Saputo: it’s possibly underfunded in this case but the HSE has one of the biggest budgets per capita in Europe. I’m not a solving Government, our current Taoiseach set it up, but as an organisation it needs a complete overhaul. As somebody else they could have done panel interviewing or even hired some. Having other specialists still re deployed 7 months later is insanity.
@Lisa Saputo: or the problem is that the HSE isn’t fit for purpose, no matter how much money you throw at it. There are long standing inherent work practices that make it incapable of picking up the pace in the event of a crisis. In the last two months I’ve experienced both public and private health care systems and while everyone in the public system is well intentioned and committed there is no comparison in efficiency with the private service in getting through numbers.
Day 1 daughter in contact with (unknown) covid patient. Day 6 made aware that contact had tested positive and so she went into isolation. Day 7 called and asked to be tested and was told to wait for contact tracing. Day 8 called again (now symptomatic) and was given test date for day 9. Day 9 test taken. Day 11 positive result. Day 12 now and no contact tracing calls to her from 3 positive cases in house share and none to find her contacts either.
Many many more staff needed or simply what’s the point? My daughter is frantically calling people she knows she was in contact with (not many thank god) but they are being told to wait for contact tracing by the HSE instead of being given tests as a matter of urgency.
@Miss T: that’s awful
@Miss T: HSE showing it is urgently in need of reform.
Funny how this is news presented as a positive move. 8 months late the headline should read.
@John Doyle: Contact tracing is another public service that the HSE cant deliver. Outsource it. FAST.
When you are waiting for test it should be part of process. A simply web page with test ID, name contacts, contact methods , restaurants, pubs etc If negative discard if positive then automate what you can. Phone calling is time intensive.
@Albert Brennerman: An app maybe?
It amazes me that we have 9000 in our defence forces and only a unit of 120 have been asked to carry out contact tracing and not all are doing it.
Some medics are carry out testing and taken into account people over seas and admin staff we still have probably 5000 in a position to carry out contact tracing if they were asked and trained I’d imagine a large number of them would be very capable of doing this job .
@Michael Mcloughlin: The army were involved.
@Michael J Flynn: yes I know a unit of 120 my ex unit at that was it
@Michael J Flynn: I did say there was a unit of 120 asked to do it in Cork and Dublin but not all are because it was voluntary and I know this because it’s my ex unit .
A mass asymptomatic testing programme is needed for students, over 80% of people tested in the uk showed no symptoms at all and could be silently spreading it (article in the Guardian today)
@SaveTheTrees: You’ve misread that situation. 80 odd percent of people feel no effect of this virus. Surely that says we’ve massively overblown this whole thing? This isn’t news in rest of Europe the way it is here. We’ve lost our bleeding minds. People shouting for level 5 knowing deaths (and probably cases too) are down 97 percent on the peak. Come off it.
@Monster Munch: If the cases continue to rise then the death rate will too. We’re already seeing it creep back into nursing homes. We have seen an increase in hospital admissions and we currently have 33 icu beds available. A high percentage of our population is obese or have underlying conditions not to mention the elderly so you may be willing to roll the dice – but I’m not – not with my life or the lives of others.
We should be trying to get our hands on the Regeneron drug. Seems to work!
These 65 should have been recruited in March or April!!
Do the 500 community swabbers have nursing, medical or paramedical qualifications? The current advert is looking for people with a full or applied LC.
@Annette McGuckin: Where is the advert? Searching isn’t bring me much luck
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