Another Donie Blog Wednesday

A Failed plan? 

Fewer than 3% of public servants are leaving - Howlin declares

       

As few as 3 per cent of public servants are leaving before changes to pension and retirement arrangements come into effect tomorrow, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said.

Therefore, he added, it would be unduly alarmist to categorise the exit as a “wave’’. There had been much notice and a lot of strategic planning had been ongoing.

“I cannot guarantee that there will not be a glitch because it will be the area in which we least expected a problem to arise,’’ Mr Howlin said.“However, I do expect managers at local level to address problems as they arise and to solve them.”

Mr Howlin said the latest information across the public service indicated that 7,464 people had applied to retire in the first two months of this year. The sectoral breakdown was: health, 2,567; education, 2,058; Civil Service, 1,236; local authority, 931; defence, 362; Garda, 310.

Transition teams had been put in place in each of the sectors to deal with the specific short-term challenges which were arising.

Sinn Féin spokeswoman Mary Lou McDonald said there was no evidence of the type of detailed, robust planning that Mr Howlin claimed had been under way for some time. “There comes a point at which one cannot do more with less.’’

Mr Howlin said it was a falsehood to claim that, after reducing the full quantum, one must add everyone back again. “We have been involved in planning this process for each sector for months.’’

As an example, said Mr Howlin, Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn had laid out his plans in the House months ago.

Fianna Fáil spokesman Seán Fleming said it had emerged earlier on radio that circulars had been sent to nursing unions suggesting a change from a 12-hour to a six-hour shift.

“If that is emerging in the 24 hours prior to people retiring, how can the Minister possibly expect proper arrangements to be put in place?’’

Mr Howlin said that some nursing grades were not subject to the moratorium and they could be replaced immediately.

Some €16 million was available to the HSE to fill critical grades, he said, adding that all consultant posts were outside the embargo and could be filled.

‘Che Guevara’ memorial in Galway plan riles Declan Ganley

 Monument 

Libertas founder Declan Ganley has described plans to erect a memorial celebrating Galway city’s links with Argentinian guerrilla fighter Che Guevara as a “monument to a mass murderer” .

Mr Ganley said that “significant concerns” about the plan had been raised with him by members of the US business community during a trip there last week and that he feared it would “cast a shadow” on Galway’s international reputation.

Warning that it would “damage investment”, he said “we would not build a monument in Galway to Stalin, or to Pol Pot, or to Idi Amin, or to Oliver Cromwell”.

“Che Guevara was just as violent, just as brutal, and just as insane as any of them. We would never dream of honouring them, and we should not dream of honouring him, either,” Mr Ganley said in a statement yesterday.

Mr Ganley claimed that the proposal was “nothing more than the pet project of a small number of extremists in the Labour Party”.

“If the people of Galway knew the truth about this man, they would never allow it to be built,” he said.

“Che Guevara is responsible for the deaths of an untold number of people in his brutal quest for power in South America. Alongside Fidel Castro, he instituted a regime in Cuba from which people have been fleeing for decades. He worked to deny people the right to vote, the right to own property, and the right to freedom of religion. He persecuted Catholics with a psychotic zeal.”

Galway city Labour Party councillor Billy Cameron, a member of the Cuba Support Group, said the proposal had the full support of the city council and was currently before a public arts subcommittee. Funding is to be provided by the Cuban and Argentinian embassies.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna’s grandmother, Ana Lynch y Ortiz, was descended from one of the Lynch family of Galway who emigrated to Argentina in the mid-18th century. Guevara referred to his grandmother’s Irish roots during a stopover in Shannon in 1965.

Mr Cameron confirmed that he had received a number of emails from the United States “bordering on the abusive” in the past week since an opinion piece was published on the proposal in a daily newspaper. “One would question who Mr Ganley’s US contacts are, and [whether] they have connections with members of the US business community based in Miami, Florida,” he said.

“I won’t get into a mud-slinging match with Mr Ganley, but he is obviously being fed information from the extreme right.”

He questioned whether Mr Ganley was aware of human rights violations involving US support, including the celebrated case of six-year-old Elián González and the impact of the prolonged economic embargo on the island.

Mr Ganley said the memorial will be taken as “a grievous insult by the millions of Cubans forced into exile around the world”.

‘Referendum on Ireland’s new EU fiscal policy' soon 

Announced today as opposition parties welcome the proposal 

 I will fix it Boss 

OPPOSITION PARTIES HAVE WELCOMED THE GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO HOLD A REFERENDUM ON THE EU’S NEW FISCAL TREATY.

The treaty which imposes strict budget rules on all member states, will be put to a vote in Ireland – after the attorney general advised that a referendum was necessary.

Tonight a Government spokesman’s confirmed the referendum will be held on its own and not bundled together with polls on Children’s Rights or the abolition of the Seanad.

The Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin says the governemnts decision to hold a referendum is the right one:

“We will be supporting a yes vote on the referendum; the ratification of the treaty. We regret that there hasn’t really been a comprehensive engagement with either the Dáil or indeed the people on the treaty itself”.

‘Wild west scenes’ as Slash-hook attack causes terrifying scenes at Ballinrobe Confirmation

  

Wild scenes of violence disrupted a Confirmation service in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe, this afternoon (Tuesday). Around a dozen men entered the church carrying slash hooks and chased down a man who was attending the Mass.

 

Over 90 local children were in the church at the time of the terrifying incident, which took place shortly after 1.30pm, just after Communion.

 

Onlookers said that the man fled into the porch of the church where a wooden table was broken over his back by one of the attackers. However, armed Gardaí were on the scene within minutes and eventually managed to defuse the situation.
No serious injuries have been reported.

 

The incident is believed to be part of an ongoing feud between two families in the area. 
Over 600 people were attending the church for the service, as children from the local national schools of St Joseph’s, Cloonliffen, Roxboro and Cregduff, along with a number of secondary school children, were making their Confirmation. Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, was the chief celebrant of the Mass. 

 

Gardaí arrested one man at the scene, and he is due to appear before a special sitting of a local district court this week. 
A Garda spokesperson said that the matter was still under investigation. He admitted that the situation was ‘volatile’ for a time, but reported that a number of gardaí, who were on patrol locally, brought the situation under control.

 

Many of the church-goers who witnessed the attack were shocked by the scenes.
“To see this happen before your eyes is unbelievable,” A witness said. “The lack of respect shown was incredible … To think that such an attack would take place on the day of a Confirmation, a special day for so many children and their families. These people had no regard for human safety …

 

A lot of people are very upset and shocked about what happened. I never saw the likes of this in Ballinrobe,”