Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore to meet representatives of Magdalene laundry survivors
A Magdalene support group has said that most of the women who worked in the laundries will be unable to meet with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste as they cannot be publicly identified.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore this morning said both he and Taoiseach Enda Kenny would meet representatives of the Magdalene survivors next week.
Mr Gilmore said they intended to have a “direct discussion” with the women about what their needs are and about how the Government should respond to the report into State involvement in the Magdalene Laundries. However, Dr Katherine O’Donnell of Justice for Magdalenes said many of the woman still operated under a “level of stigma, silence and shame”, especially in the absence of a Government apology.
She said the generosity and kindness of Mr Kenny and Mr Gilmore was not in doubt.
What was needed, she said, was an apology that acknowledged the woman had been done wrong and the State had failed them.
Dr O’Donnell said there was a number of interesting parliamentary questions facing the Taoiseach, about whether he heard any formal or informal legal advice before he responded to Martin McAleese’s report in the Dáil chamber.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Gilmore said: “These women have suffered. What they endured was wrong, what happened in this country over those decades was appalling and this Government has heard these women.”
Mr Gilmore said he would go back to his Cabinet colleagues after the meeting and they would decide on the response.
“We are going to do the right thing,” he said.
Mr Gilmore said someone from his department would be in touch with the women today.
Asked why no apology was forthcoming in the Dáil, Mr Gilmore said the Government took the decision to publish the report immediately and the time needed to consider a response was not there.
He said the Taoiseach had already said “sorry” and added that they would communicate that directly with the women at the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Strasbourg-based human rights organisation the Council of Europe has called on the Government to issue a State apology to the victims of the Magdalene laundry regime.
Nils Muižnieks issued a statement via Twitter saying: “Women victims of forced labor in Magdalene laundries in Ireland & their descendants deserve State apologies and restorative measures.”
The role of the Commissioner is an independent, non-judicial institution of the Council of Europe, which is charged with promoting awareness of, and respect for, human rights in the 47 member States.
Clare Daly Independent TD ‘under drink-driving limit’
Considering making a second complaint against Gardaí
Independent TD Clare Daly is considering making a second complaint to the Garda watchdog about her arrest on suspicion of drink-driving.
The former Socialist Party politician has been cleared of any wrongdoing after a urine test came back showing she was significantly under the legal alcohol limit at the time.
Clare Daly has said she is more determined than ever to pursue her campaign on quashed penalty points following the confirmation today she was well under the legal limit for alcohol when stopped by gardaí last month.
She also linked the leaking to the media of her arrest to allegations she and three other Dáil Deputies have made public that senior gardaí have cancelled penalty points for relatives, colleagues and other prominent people.
She told The Irish Times she wrote to the Garda Ombudsman last week to make a formal complaint about the leaking. The Ombudsman’s office said yesterday it had launched an investigation under S28 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005.
Ms Daly, a Deputy for Dublin North was arrested by gardaí on suspicion of drunk driving last month after taking an illegal right turn in Kilmainham in Dublin. Her arrest was extensively leaked to the media from within the Garda Síochána the following morning.
Today she said she had received the official result of the test on the urine sample provided by her to gardaÍ and the result was 45 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine, a third below the allowable limit 67 milligrammes.
She accused those who leaked the information as having an agenda and linked it to the fact that she and three other TDs have made public the assertions of Garda whisteblowers that thousands of penalty points were cancelled for invalid reasons.
“I believe that this was a deliberate attempt to discredit a left-wing TD who has raised issues of malpractice within the Garda Síochána. This information could only have come from within the Gardaí,” she said.
In regard to the investigation, she said: “This is a very serious issue. Every citizen is entitled to their good name and to have their privacy respected.”
She told The Irish Times that she had strongly believed she was below the limit but would have been undeterred from continuing with the campaign, irrespective of the outcome.
Ms Daly was arrested by gardaí in Kilmainham on Monday, January 28th when returning from a two-hour meeting with a family on the southside of the city. She said she had accepted a hot whiskey from the family as she had a cold.
Unfamiliar with the area, she took an illegal right turn when trying to get onto the South Circular Road and was stopped by gardaí.
“I was breathalysed but the equipment did not register a reading. I was arrested and handcuffed on the side of the road. I objected to being handcuffed and stated that I would willingly go to the Garda station. I was told by the arresting Garda that this was procedure.”
She was also placed in a cell on her own at one stage. A garda had also asked her to come back when sober.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said he was aware of Ms Daly’s complaint to the watchdog, which he believed would be thoroughly investigated by the body.
When questioned if gardaí are permitted to handcuff suspected drink-drivers and put them in cells as procedure, Mr Callinan said: “Well of course if a prisoner is violent and you have to deal with that prisoner, you’ve got to restrain him or her in any fashion.
“I’m not talking about this particular case now, but obviously gardaí need to protect themselves as well and they have a duty of care to one another and the people around them.
“So yes, there are very clear guidelines in which people can be suppressed and handcuffed.”
Growth of cancer in Ireland ‘unprecedented’
Dr Susan O’Reilly at the launch of Daffodil Day in Dublin. The Irish Cancer Society hopes to raise EUR3.4 million this year to support cancer services.
Ireland is facing an “unprecedented” growth in cancer cases as a result of an ageing population and “lifestyle habits”, the head of the State’s cancer prevention programme has warned.
Improved survival rates also means there are more patients to treat for the disease, according to Dr Susan O’Reilly, director of the National Cancer Control Programme.
Dr O’Reilly was speaking today at the launch of the Irish Cancer Society’s annual Daffodil Day for 2013, which takes place on Friday, March 22nd. The society hopes to raise €3.4 million from the event to fund cancer information services.
The money raised is used to improve the lives of cancer patients by providing them with information to empower them to make informed decisions about their treatment, according to the society.
More than 200,000 people used the information service last year. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the charity.
The number of people with cancer is set to rise from 26,000 in 2010 to 55,000 in 2030, she said. Irish survival statistics were “mediocre” until 2006 but have improved since then as a result of improved services.
Lifestyle issues such as activity, diet, smoking and alcohol account for 30 per cent of cancers, while inherited factors are responsible for less than 5 per cent, she pointed out. There was, consequently, an urgent need for people to address lifestyle issues to reduce their risk.
Half of all smokers will die from a smoking-related disease, she pointed out, while smokers enjoy 10 fewer years of healthy life than the rest of the population.
“The Government needs to stop being afraid of losing money through cigarette smuggling. They should raise taxes,” she said.
There was no reason why cancer survival rates could not be increased by a further 10 per cent through successful implementation of well organised systems, she said. For breast cancer, a 90 per cent survival rate after five years was now possible.
Aldi finds horse-meat in meals
Two ready meal ranges sold by Aldi have been found to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat, the supermarket chain confirmed tonight.
The company said it felt “angry and let down” by its French supplier Comigel, which also produced the contaminated Findus beef lasagnes.
Tests on Today’s Special frozen beef lasagne and Today’s Special frozen spaghetti bolognese found they contained between 30 per cent and 100 per cent horse meat, Aldi said.
The announcement comes after the Food Safety Authority of Ireland confirmed Findus beef lasagne products, also made by Comigel and identified in the UK as containing up to 100 per cent horse meat, have been on sale in Ireland.
The product is being tested in Britain to see if it contains a type of horse medicine that is banned from entering the food chain.
Findus recalled the lasagne from sale in Britain on Wednesday after its French supplier of convenience foods Comigel said its products did not conform to specification.
Tesco withdrew its frozen Everyday Value spaghetti bolognese because it was produced at the same site as the Findus beef lasagne.
In a statement today, the FSAI said it was in contact with Findus since last night to establish which retailers had been supplied the product. It said Tesco withdrew the affected product from Irish shelves on Wednesday, but did not notify the FSAI. It said it is contacting the retail trade today to ensure this product is withdrawn from sale.
“The FSAI is advising Irish consumers to check if they have purchased this product and if they have, not to eat it, but to return it to the point of purchase,” the authority said.
FSAI chief executive Prof Alan Reilly said it is unknown if these products pose a food safety risk, as tests have not been undertaken in the UK to establish if the veterinary medicine phenylbutazone is present in the product. “It is our understanding that Findus is testing the products for the presence of phenylbutazone. Phenylbutazone is a commonly used medicine in horses and horses treated with it are not allowed to enter the food chain,” he said. “Our advice to consumers at this point, is not to consume this product, but to dispose of it or return it to their retailer.”
Consumers who have queries regarding the affected product can contact the FSAI advice line on 1890 336677 Monday to Friday 9am-5pm.
Meanwhile, Findus Sweden said today it has recalled 20,000 packets of frozen “beef lasagne” after tests showed they contained horsemeat. It said had purchased frozen lasagnes from a Comigel factory in Luxembourg. “The results from an analysis of the lasagne which we bought has come back positive for horsemeat,” Henrik Nyberg, a director at Findus Sweden “Our lab has shown that the lasagne may contain between 60 to 100 per cent horsemeat.”
British Labour Party MP Tom Watson claimed today Findus’s beef lasagne may have been contaminated with horsemeat since last summer. Mr Watson said he had obtained a letter from the company to retailers warning that a French-based supplier told it on February 2nd that raw materials delivered to it since August 1st last year were “likely to be non-conform and consequently the labelling on finished products is incorrect”.
The letter, which Mr Watson said was sent to retailers on Monday, added: “The supplier has asked us to withdraw the raw material batches.”
The UK Food Standards Agency has given food makers a week to test all their beef products. The agency also said it involved the police in the UK and Europe as evidence of horse meat in burgers and lasagne “points to either gross negligence or deliberate contamination in the food chain”, according to a statement on its website today.
A Findus spokesman added that the firm “do not believe this is a food safety issue” but that anyone who had bought 320g, 360g or 500g Findus beef lasagne packs could call its customer care line on 0800 132584 for advice and a refund.
Tragedy for dinosaurs, opportunity for us mammals
New research pinpoints how the torch passed from one dominant creature on Earth to another, from the brutish dinosaur to the crafty mammal.
Two studies published Thursday in the journal Science better explain the Earth-shaking consequences of a catastrophic cosmic collision 66 million years ago when a comet or asteroid smashed into the Gulf of Mexico.
The crash seemed to end the reign of the dinosaurs. And it gave way to the age of mammals that probably started with a cute squirrel-like critter and eventually led to us, the researchers report.
“I think it’s fair to say, without the dinosaurs having gone extinct, we would not be here,” said Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, who led the research on the dinosaurs and cosmic crash. The dinosaurs’ disappearance “essentially releases the little timid mammals to become the big guys.”
Renne demonstrated how the timing of the cosmic crash exquisitely matches the disappearance of the slow-footed dinosaurs of Jurassic Park fame. His findings provide more evidence for the theory that an extraterrestrial crash was most responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs.
Scientists have long thought that there were 200,000 years between the big crash and the end of the dinosaurs, but Renne’s more detailed examination of fossils and soil at Hell Creek in northeast Montana puts the two events within 32,000 years of each other. That strengthens the case for the space crash as the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and killed off the dinosaurs, said Renne.
He said other environmental factors, such as a changing climate from volcanic eruptions, also had made life harder for the dinosaurs, but that the big final dagger was the giant collision that caused a now-filled crater more than 100 miles wide at Chicxulub, on the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.
“The asteroid really rang the bell of the planet,” said Smithsonian Natural History Museum Director Kirk Johnson, who wasn’t part of either study, but praised them both. Together they showed how that one event “had a profound impact on the nature of organisms that live on this planet.”
Dinosaurs are a distinct grouping of species, some of which evolved into birds. Scientists don’t know how long it took for the large non-avian kinds like Tyrannosaurus Rex to die off.
The second study painstakingly details the family tree of the most predominant type of mammal, those that give birth after a long gestation period. The researchers propose that the first such mammal was a shrewish critter slightly bigger than a mouse with a nasty set of teeth. And it first popped in the world a little more than 65 million years ago — just after that cosmic crash.
When an asteroid or comet hits Earth and kills off the dinosaurs, it’s both a tragedy and an opportunity, said Maureen O’Leary of Stony Brook University and lead author of the mammal study: “In some sense, we are a product of that opportunity.”
O’Leary’s team looked at 4,541 different characteristics of mammals still around and extinct and traced their DNA and their physical features back until it seemed there was a common — and hypothetical — ancestor.
“This isn’t something that is just a guess; this is something that is a result of the analysis,” O’Leary said. “This thing had a long furry tail. It had a white underbelly and it had brown eyes.”
It was smaller than a rat, but bigger than a mouse and likely ate insects.
That first mammal evolved over the years into all sorts of different types, eventually including bats, whales, elephants and primates like us.
“Boy, did a lot happen in about 200,000 years,” said study co-author Michael Novacek, curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Unlike the slow-witted dinosaurs, which weren’t known for their ability to adapt, mammals in general are more intelligent and can adapt well, O’Leary said.
Scientists examining ancient plants had already estimated that just before the dinosaurs died off world temperatures plunged by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, causing a loss of many species. Then when the asteroid or comet hit, material spewed into Earth’s atmosphere causing temperatures to spike, before dropping again.
Princeton University scientist Gerta Keller, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the impact theory, said the new work still doesn’t resolve her doubts. She notes it only looks at soil in Montana.
Renne said there are no impact records anywhere else that are different from what he found in Montana.
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