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Nursing & Midwifery Posts Left Vacant At Tipperary University Hospital.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, some 50 nursing and midwifery posts are currently being left unfilled at Tipperary University Hospital, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.

Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Industrial Relations Officer, Mr Liam Conway speaking today, ahead of a cross-trade union protest at Tipperary University Hospital, stated that the situation was currently completely unacceptable, and solely brought about, due to the limited caps the HSE have placed on recruitment, leaving staffing unsafe at both the hospitals emergency department and at ward level.

Mr Conway was adamant that the suppression of key front-line nursing and midwifery posts at Tipperary University Hospital, Clonmel, were leading to an increased risk to both patients and staff alike.

Mr Conway added that nursing posts in stroke care; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); neurology and colorectal specialisms are being left vacant; critical areas are understaffed and unsafe, while standards outlined in the Government’s own Safe Staffing Framework was leading to poorer patient outcomes, longer hospital stays and a heightened risk of mortality.

“The front-line healthcare workers and the people of County Tipperary deserve better”, Mr Conway concluded.

Citizenship Ceremonies At Convention Centre, Dublin, Today.

  • 3,600 new Irish citizens will attend at Citizenship Ceremonies in the Convention Centre, Dublin.

3,600 new Irish citizens will be granted Irish citizenship in three ceremonies all taking place today, Monday September 16th, at the Convention Centre in Dublin.
The Ceremonies will see applicants from 143 countries around the world, who are residing across 32 counties on the island of Ireland, being conferred as Irish citizens.

This follows 14 such ceremonies held so far this year, with a total of 11,417 people attending and being conferred with Irish Citizenship.
The Presiding Officer at the ceremonies is retired Justice Mr Paddy McMahon, who will administer the “Declaration of Fidelity” to the Irish Nation and Loyalty to the Irish State.

The Citizenship Division have introduced significant changes to speed up the applications process for applicants, including the introduction of an online digital application, online payments, and eVetting.

Over the last 2 years the Citizenship Division has gone from processing around 12,000 applications a year, to processing over 20,000 applications in 2023. Already in 2024 nearly 16,000 decisions have been made in the first half of this year.

Last year, the Citizenship Division more than doubled the number of ceremonies available to applicants, with 15 held over the course of the year. This was a significant increase on 6 Citizenship Ceremonies held in 2022.

Including today, September 16th, the total number of Ceremonies held so far this year is 17, surpassing the number of ceremonies hosted in 2023. Further Ceremonies are being planned for later in the year.

New Irish citizens will undertake to faithfully observe the laws of the Irish State and to respect its democratic values.
These new Irish citizens are contributing to a diverse and inclusive workforce, bringing a range of skills and talents that enhance the overall capabilities of the labour market and the Irish economy.

Rural Town Barbers Ahead Of Their Time.

Thurles Poet & Author Tom Ryan Reflects.

Some people are traditionalists; happier with the way they were than the way the world is currently going.

This thought yo-yoed around my brain recently when my partner decided to visit relatives in Dublin. Things usually happen when we visit in-laws. Herself introduced me to a large shopping centre where I was informed, I would get a good haircut, and as quick as you could count the hairs on a bald man’s head, I was whisked through the hands of three pretty young ladies, for a wash, a cut and a blow-dry.

Things were different in Co. Tipperary. Here in the small rural town of Thurles the barbers are real barber, not just hairstylists. Barbers are an institution and a way of life. They knew every hair of our heads since the day we were baptised and indeed in many cases the heads of our fathers and their fathers before them. For generations every head had come under his scrutiny, and customers admired the slick way he sharpened his cut throat razor on the leather, before administering to bearded ones.

Men over a certain age will recall days, when he handed us a few pence with which to buy bulls-eyes or Cleeves Toffee. While waiting to be clipped by my hairdresser I nostalgically ponder the little short-trousered garsun, up high on the barber’s throne, being comforted by the kind cutter.

Whether his regular customer normally wore a ‘Crew Cut’, an ‘Afro’ or ‘Steps’; the local barber was fully familiar. The barber was anxious to please his first tiny customer and so ensure a head for life, who would, henceforth, call in on the Friday before First Holy Communion, on market days, Confirmation days, before a match in Semple Stadium or the day before that family wedding.

If a customer was forced to take the boat to Holyhead, to begin work with Mac Alpine’s Fusiliers, he would receive comfort and be referred to many acquaintances of the barber to be found in Britain. It would not be for the want of a decent cut, that the exile would fail in his mission across the water.
Our barbers were an integral part of our lives. They knew everything about us.
For dates he would have us “cut up to kill”, so that we would rise head and shoulders above any opposition and indeed, out-glamourise them.

Rural barbers are independent souls who bow down to nobody. Their word is gospel on everything from hurling to cattle prices. They were an authority on the state of the nation, and made more sense than many a politician. They were advisors to married men whose wives did not understand why hubby spent most of his week-end watching men in knickers beating a piece of leather around a field with an ash plant.

Long before the arrival of marriage guidance counsellors, you had that wise head in the barber shop advising in a manner to do justice to any professional psychologist. The short-back-and-sides expert is a brilliant conversationalist. One would expect that his real calling was in imparting and receiving knowledge on everything from attire worn for Golf club dinners to IFA dinner dances. His shop was always a male preserve, where men could talk macho and discuss serious matters, such as horse racing, poker, cattle, GAA and other codology. The barber provides enlightenment and entertainment. Men were among equals, and always chairing the proceedings, often only by silent agreement, was to be found the barber.
Indeed, if he had run for elected office, he would have headed the poll and would have been elected on the first count. He was always ‘well-in’ with all who mattered and that was everybody.

I heard of a hurling selector who went to a barber’s shop regularly seeking advice on whether or not to include a certain forward on a senior team. He had bowed to the wisdom of his barber and the same forward rifled home four goals on his first outing.

At election time the barber was often courted by politicians anxious to get feed-back on the way people were thinking, and was willing to pay the price of a ‘short-back-and sides’ in order to find out the state of party play.
Did you ever see a political candidate with a sloppy hairstyle? You didn’t, unless he was a born loser who wouldn’t be selected even for the council elections on the planet Mars.

All secrets come out in a barber’s shop, and the man holding the scissors was the trusted confidant of all. He was no respecter of status, whether you came in to him in wellingtons after the fair or in a cassock from the Cathedral; you were all the one head of hair to him.
The wise barber knew it was your hair, and what lay beneath it didn’t matter. His shop was a classless state. If you hadn’t the cash for the cut, he’d tell you to drop back on Children’s Allowance day, Pension day, or whenever you had it.

The barber wasn’t a Capitalist, rather a Socialist, who cared about every hair on your head. He had from an early stage observed that the greatest unexplored territory on earth lies under a cap. He was conscious of his duty to the heads of all in the State and discharged same duty with great diligence and distinction.

Should the day ever dawn that the barber is replaced by some sort of ‘whizzier‘ that looks after hair, but overlooks the head that wears it, then we are in for some really quare times.

Recruitment Campaign For Irish Prison Service Opens.

A recruitment campaign to recruit prison officers for the Irish Prison Service has opened today.
The 2024 recruitment campaign offers applicants the opportunity to embark on a rewarding career within the Irish Prison Service, and to make a positive, lasting impact on society.

The Public Appointments Service, on behalf of the Irish Prison Service, is running this year’s competition, and the Prison Service intends to recruit more than 250 prison officers this year.

The Irish Prison Service invites applications from suitably qualified persons who wish to be considered for inclusion on a panel from which vacancies for Recruit Prison Officer may be filled.

The Irish Prison Service is responsible for the provision of safe, secure and humane custody for those people committed to prison by the Courts. Political responsibility for the Prison System in Ireland is entrusted to the Minister for Justice.

The Irish Prison Service operates as an executive agency within the Department of Justice. It is headed by a Director General supported by a number of Directors. The Service is a key component in our country’s criminal justice system ensuring safer community life and employs approximately 3,500 personnel.

The Irish Prison Service are committed to a policy of equal opportunity and encourage applications under all nine grounds of the Employment Equality Act.

The last recruitment competition was held in 2023 and welcomed more than 1800 applicants. The 2024 Recruit Prison Officer Competition will remain open until September 26th 2024, closing at 3:00pm.

Information on the competition and how to apply can be found on the Public Appointments Service website at Public Jobs.

River Suir Thurles In Unacceptable State – Continued.

The video which demonstrated the deplorable and completely unacceptable state of the first 50 metres of the river Suir south of Barry’s Bridge, in the very centre of our declining town of Thurles, was further supported by comments on social media. All comments indicated the disappointment felt by residents with regards to council officials and elected councillors and the degrading of Thurles.
Ms Sharon Scully (Thurles District Administrator) was, (as is usual with Thurles.Info), made aware of our dissatisfaction.

We will of course be forwarding an email to Ms Scully again later tonight, seeking further assistance with regards to the next 100 metres of this town’s valued river Suir.

Pic (1) Despite two days with no rain, evidence of ground water continuously flowing from under the Leisure Centre. Note the plastic papers ready to exit, come the next downpour to push open the heavy drain lid.
Pic (2, 3, 4) Supermarket Trolley’s which have remained in the River Suir for months.

What we would like is that Ms Scully would contact three of the local Supermarkets, latter backing unto the river Suir, asking that they remove their shopping trolleys from the water.

I know that Ms Scully will be anxious to observe this area herself, (after all seeing is believing), and so there are two other issues she might help us with, which are as follows:-

(1). Take a walk on now retired Mr S. Hanifin’s tarmac path from the ‘Swinging Gates’, on Emmet Street and examine the crater close to the now deceased Chestnut tree stump, same waiting for some pedestrian to fall into. (Yet another day out in Dirty Dublin, emerging for Tipperary Co. Council to visit the High Court, may still await.)

Pic (left) Giant crater on riverside walk near Emmet Street ‘Swinging Gates’.
Pic (right) – Some unknown liquid flowing into the river Suir from behind the future useless and yet unfunded ‘Thurles Inner Relief Road’
.

(2). What is flowing into the river Suir from a drain at the area where the inner relief road will be built. (Look, it’s possible that it was someone just brushing their teeth). Sure you know the area that I am talking about, didn’t TD Mr Jackie Cahill get the money from government to buy and update this area way back in 2021, or was he joking. [See video HERE quickly, before someone teaches him how to remove it.]