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Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

27 Jan

Marc MacSharry tells FF PP the border with Northern Ireland should be closed, and wants Ireland to approach Russia seeking to buy its Sputnik vaccine for COVID-19.

“If the Ku Klux Klan is selling a vaccine, we should buy it,” he says.

ℹ️ Marc MacSharry apologises:

💬 “As someone who conversationally uses extreme analogies at times, those who know me know precisely where I am coming from. However the reference to that organisation was wrong and I unequivocally withdrew it and apologised to all present…” (1/3)

“… and wish to do the same to all who learned of this grievous error through media leaks from the meeting. There is no excuse for the use of such an analogy …” (2/3)

Read 4 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

27 Jan

Leaders' Questions: Mary Lou McDonald criticises yesterday's travel measures. "It is not a system of mandatory quarantine, it is in fact one of voluntary self-isolation." Says household isolation may mean people sharing accommodation with others who had not travelled

💬 Taoiseach: "There will be no half-measures from me, as Taoiseach, or from Government in ensuring a prolonged suppression of this virus. We will do whatever it takes to keep the numbers down, once we get the numbers down. And we are achieving that."

Taoiseach with a warning to lobbyists and his own backbenchers: 'I don't really want people coming tome again after the 5th of March pleading for one sector or another… we've simply had too much of that'

Read 7 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

26 Jan

Anyway welcome back to our continuing coverage of 2020+1.

Here we go. Taoiseach says lockdown is working but hospitals remain under too much pressure, need to bring numbers down further.

The emergence of new variants represents a dangerous and new development, to which we cannot give any space

Taoiseach: "The message for the next six weeks is very simple. Stay at home. Do not travel, Do not make any journeys outside of your 5km unless you absolutely have to."

Read 27 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

12 Jan

The stories from Bessborough are devastating.

One: “I was screaming with the pain, three days screaming with the pain and all you got was, ‘Oh you should have thought about this nine months ago.’ ‘You have got to suffer for your sins and you have got to put up with it.’ And the more you screamed the more she abused you.”

Another: The midwife “wouldn't give any painkilling. She was cutting the girls down below and just would tell them this is your punishment for what you have done and you are never doing this again.”

Read 12 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

12 Jan

Taoiseach singles out the finding that mother and baby homes had significantly higher mortality rates than broader society

He also singles out Catherine Corless for the work she did on researching the burial records of Tuam which prompted this State inquiry