It’s quite extraordinary, when you put it all in one place, how incompetent the Irish Government has been in relation to the management of the threat Coronavirus poses to nursing homes. At the time of writing, there are around 214 so-called “clusters” of cases in Irish nursing homes, out of 268 nursing homes in total. […]
There are few people braver, and more deserving of our thanks as a nation, than those who are getting up every morning, and going to work in Ireland’s hospitals, where they are at genuine risk of contracting a life threatening illness, and dying, in the course of trying to save the lives of others. Should […]
One of the more inspiring things about moments like the present national crisis is watching the way people from all parts of society are willing to work together to solve big problems. For example, in the past few days, doctors and nurses across the country have been making it known that the biggest problem they […]
An incisive observation from Robert Burke on the twitter machine, here: https://twitter.com/robertburke84/status/1242750630592229376 He’s both right that the Irish Government has done a complete one hundred and eighty degree u-turn on testing in the space of seven days, and that the rest of the media seems unwilling to question it. More on the latter point in […]
It is now readily acknowledged that China, through a series of unprecedented and restrictive public health and quarantine measures ‘bought the world some time’ in the global fight against Covid-19. Most of those actions would not have been possible in western democracies, relying as they did for their implementation on the authoritarian nature of the […]
The bravery of Sinn Fein Senator Maire Devine shouldn’t be under-estimated here. She could easily have simply self-isolated with her family and watched the crisis evolve around her. Nobody’s going to blame anybody who just stays at home, watches Netflix, and does their part by social distancing. That is, after all, the whole point of […]
Aontú has joined doctors in calling for people who attended the Cheltenham racing festival this week to be tested for the Coronavirus at the airport. Dr Melissa Corbally, the Assistant Professor of Nursing at Dublin City University says that it would be “prudent and responsive if all passengers returning from Cheltenham related flights were tested […]
If you’re on social media, and you want to keep abreast of the news from the health service, it’s a very good idea to be following the Sunday Business Post’s health correspondent, Susan Mitchell, who can generally be trusted to provide you with the stark, blunt, news free of spin. Last night, she shared this […]
Here at Gript, we generally do our best to defend capitalism as, well, the least-worst way to organise a society. As in so many other areas of life, though, the people you defend don’t always make it easy. Here’s Jeremy Warner, writing in that (usually very fine) journal of British Conservatism, The Daily Telegraph: “Using […]
This morning, the Taoiseach and his Government announced a national shutdown of Schools and other public places for an initial period of two weeks, along with a nationwide programme of social distancing. It was the right call. But it’s worth asking: How long could this shutdown actually last? Does the Government have some benchmarks for […]
There are days, watching the Irish Government’s response to Coronavirus, where you start to feel relatively confident in it for a while. Then something like this happens: Department of Health has said that general visiting restrictions that some hospitals & nursing homes have introduced, should be lifted. The National Public Health Emergency Team has not […]
It’s very easy to write about how the Irish Government is bungling the Coronavirus crisis (for it is, now, a crisis) by not moving quickly enough to restrict public gatherings and enforce strict containment measures, and to list the many ways in which it is failing to do so. Primarily, it’s easy to write because […]