Eggs thrown at Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s car in Milford Donegal
The windscreen of a car carrying Taoiseach Enda Kenny is spattered with an egg thrown by a protester from the group pictured right on Mr Kenny’s arrival at Loreto Community College in Milford, Co Donegal, yesterday afternoon. Another egg, thrown as he left an hour later, missed the car.
An Taoiseach Enda Kenny had eggs thrown at his car when he visited a school in Co Donegal yesterday.
The Fine Gael leader was met by a group of more than 60 anti-austerity protesters outside Loreto Community College in Milford.
Mr Kenny was visiting the school to present €150,000 worth of computers to pupils who won them in a national competition.
One of the eggs struck Mr Kenny’s car as he arrived at the school. Another was thrown at his car but missed as he left an hour later.
The incident was condemned by staff at the school, but no official comment was made.
One staff member said it was “disgraceful” that the Donegal Action Against Austerity had chosen to protest outside a school on what should have been a day of celebration.
However, the leader of the protest group, Micheal Mc Giolla Easpaig, defended the decision to carry out the protest. He said: “It was our duty to be here, and it is our duty to tell Enda Kenny that the people of Donegal will not be silenced.
“Mr Kenny is pushing through cuts and it will be the young people of this country who will end up paying for them for generations to come,” he said.
Despite the protests, most of the noise was made by several hundred pupils, who gave Mr Kenny a warm welcome. All first-year pupils at the school will now get laptop computers after an entry by 5th year pupil Shaun Sweeney won the SmartClass competition, organised by Intel, the Education Company of Ireland and Steljes.
Nobody was arrested in relation to the egg-throwing and the Garda refused to comment on the matter.
Earlier, Mr Kenny had refused to meet the protesters, saying Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar and Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald had met the group recently. “I couldn’t meet them today because of the schedule and I’m sorry I couldn’t but they have met two Ministers and there may be a chance to meet these people in the future,” he said.
Donegal austerity group say visiting Taoiseach “is running scared” from them?
The campaigning group Donegal Action Against Austerity accused Taoiseach Enda Kenny, TD, of “running scared”
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After receiving no response to their request to meet with him during his Donegal visit yesterday (Monday).
The group had a list of issues to raise with the taoiseach, including the future of Letterkenny General Hospital, the reduction in ancillary healthcare services around the county, Donegal’s high rate of unemployment and problems of family debt and fuel costs.
“We have a real concern about the future of our local health services, and the slow death of the health infrastructure of this county,” said Betty Holmes of Donegal Action for Cancer Care (DACC), a member of Donegal Action Against Austerity (DAAA).
She said that at a public meeting in Buncrana on Thursday on the European Fiscal Compact Treaty, Pat Cox referred to the country as “being in intensive care, the sick patient of the EU.
“It was a strange comparison,” she said. “Donegal is the ‘sick patient’ in this country, and we are being denied the medicine to cure our ills.”
Mrs. Holmes said DACC had considered the meeting with the taoiseach to be vital. “We have had great difficulty over the last year in getting answers to our questions and concerns at national level, both from the government and department of health,” she said.
She said the group had been led to believe on Thursday night that a meeting with the taoiseach was a possibility. But there was no further word from Joe McHugh, Fine Gael TD, who had been asked to arrange the meeting.
Ryan Stewart of Donegal Action Against Austerity said it was “extremely disappointing that the taoiseach would ignore the concerns of ordinary people in Donegal”, and added, “The only time the government seem to show their faces in Donegal, is to gain some political capital.”
He said, “It’s no surprise, given the push for the ‘yes’ vote in the upcoming referendum, that important issues are pushed to the side once again. This is an agenda to impose further cuts and austerity on to ordinary people, to pay for the sins of the elite.”
“We hope people will see through this photo-op, where leading politicians take the people of Donegal for fools,” Mr. Stewart said.
38 jobs axed at Largo Foods in Co Donegal
38 full time equivalent jobs are to be lost at the Largo Foods plant in Gweedore, Co Donegal Largo Foods to lay off 38 people in Co Donegal
The company, which produces snacks such as Tayto and Hunky Dorys crisps is automating its packing operation in Donegal.
Managing director Raymond Coyle said the move, which involves a €3.7m investment in research and development and machinery, is part of a wider plan to ensure the future of the plant.
The HSE re-hired staff who retired prior to new pension law changes
Some 40 health service personnel who retired before pension changes came into effect at the end of February have been rehired by the Health Service Executive.
The HSE said it was not its policy to take back staff who had retired but that this may be necessary in exceptional circumstances on a short-term basis to meet critical service needs. Nearly 20 of those rehired were nurses, while 11 were hospital consultants.
In the HSE’s Dublin North East region, one administrator who had retired was rehired for a six-month period to deal with a “critical risk issue”.
In a letter to Labour TD Gerald Nash in response to a parliamentary question, the HSE said that three hospital consultants had been re-engaged in the west to meet critical frontline service needs as had seven nursing staff.
It said in the Dublin/Mid-Leinster region one consultant was acting as his own locum until June to allow time for the recruitment of a successor. It said one director of nursing had been rehired as “there are no appropriate candidates internally in the hospital to ensure continuity of service”.
The HSE said two anaesthetists and one gastroenterologist in the region had been taken back on as they had “developed a range of unique skills not readily available through locum or agency”.
The HSE said in Dublin/North East eight nurses, one administrator and one specialist radiographer had been rehired. In the South the HSE said among those rehired was a senior orthoptist.
The HSE said an assistant director of nursing had been taken back until the end of May to assist with the orderly closure of a home and to look after the welfare of residents during the move. It said one medical officer had been rehired to satisfy Hiqa requirements to ensure residents in a community hospital were reviewed regularly.
The HSE also said a consultant gastroenterologist, a consultant nephrologist and a consultant general surgeon had been rehired for 16½ hours per week.
People snoring heavily ‘can raise their chance of cancer risk by 500%’
Being a heavy snorer can increase a persons risk of cancer five-fold, according to recent research.
Snoring and other types of ‘sleep disordered breathing’, as it is known, can deprive the body of enough oxygen for hours at a time.
Scientists now believe having low blood oxygen levels can trigger the development of cancerous tumours, by promoting the growth of the vessels that feed them.
They say in future doctors could help people fight the disease by stopping them snoring.
Researchers in the US looked at cancer rates in more than 1,500 people, in a study of sleep problems that has been going for 22 years.
They found those with severe sleep disordered breathing (SDB) were 4.8 times more likely to develop cancer than those who had no such problems.
Those with moderate SDB were at double the risk, while those with only a slight problem had a 10 per cent increased chance, according to the group, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
By far the most common type of sleep disordered breathing problem is obstructive sleep apnoea.
In this, the airway frequently collapses during the breathing cycle, leaving the sleeper struggling for breath. Typically this produces snoring and repeated forced waking.
Sleep apnoea is already known to be associated with other health problems including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.
As being overweight can cause cancer, it could simply have been the case that snoring had no active role in promoting cancer, and was simply a proxy for obesity.
However, the researchers took into account whether participants were a healthy weight or not, as well as a range of other confounding factors, such as age, sex, and smoking status.
The link between SDB and cancer held true even after these were adjusted for. In fact, the association was stronger for those of a healthy weight than the obese.
The researchers concluded this meant that sleep disordered breathing could itself raise the risk of cancer, rather than just being a general sign of poor health.
Laboratory studies have also shown that intermittent hypoxia – or low oxygen levels – promotes tumour growth in mice with skin cancer. Lack of oxygen stimulates the generation of blood vessels that nourish tumours, a process known as angiogenesis.
Dr Javier Nieto, who led the study, said: “The consistency of the evidence from the animal experiments and this new epidemiologic evidence in humans is highly compelling.”
Laboratory and animal studies “suggest that intermittent hypoxia promotes angiogenesis and tumour growth”.
He continued: “Ours is the first study to show an association between SDB and an elevated risk of cancer mortality in a population-based sample.”
He said further research was needed to prove the link beyond doubt, but said if the relationship was firmy established, “the diagnosis and treatment of SDB in patients with cancer might be indicated to prolong survival”.
The results were presented on Sunday at the annual conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Francisco. They will also be published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
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