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Gavan Reilly

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May 11

Interesting opening at Oir Health Committee. Rhona Mahony tells members that once shares were handed over by nuns, religious involvement in Vincent’s ended, and constitutions of St Vincent’s Holdings (new owner) and SVHG (group operating company) are secular.

This is the latter:

The preamble of this constitution - which was only updated on April 22 - still mentions Mary Aikenhead and the goal of fulfilling her mission… it’s that specific clause which sets the tone for legal critiques about possible influences. Is secularism in the eye of the beholder?

(Personally I think the core of the mistrust about the NMH is that many simply think the concept of the Sisters of Charity creating a totally secular charity, and then handing it permanent complete ownership and control of a lucrative business, is too good to be true.)

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Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

May 10

Mary Lou McDonald uses Leaders' Questions asking Taoiseach and Tánaiste to "get around the table" with St Vincent's Healthcare Group and convince them to gift the NMH land to the State.

Taoiseach indirectly, in calling for 'honesty', says this would "delay it another few years"

@VirginMediaNews

It is being "dishonest" of McDonald to suggest that a 300-year lease with a nominal rent of a tenner a year does not amount to ownership, the Taoiseach says @VirginMediaNews

You know damn well it's the truth, but there are other battles being fought here," the Taoiseach says, accusing opposition of exploiting the process

McDonald insists "the crux of the issue is that the land has not been gifted"

Read 8 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

Feb 16

A thing most people don’t understand or realise about the Dáil is how the rules are almost designed to get governments out of a rut, helping them keep their own backbenchers happy - and neuter any opposition motion in the process.

Here’s how.

🧵

Firstly, some ground rules.

When the Dáil is debating actual laws, or transacting any business required by law, obviously its votes are binding.

But, increasingly, a fair amount of the Dáil’s time is spent debating not laws, but *motions* - and opposition motions at that.

These motions are debated in slots called ‘private members’ business’ - not because they’re debated in private, but to distinguish them from government (‘public’) business.

Currently there are three PMB slots in the Dáil schedule most weeks.

PMB motions are non-binding.

Read 22 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

Feb 15

Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil begins with Mary Lou McDonald reading some of the 1,000+ replies received to an online call for stories about the cost of living. “The house is on fire, Taoiseach, and people can’t wait seven months for a fire brigade that might not come.”

The Taoiseach in reply says the Government has brought forward concrete and substantial measures to address the cost of living, but SF's proposals are without substance. Also says the problems are global in source

Then the word "batshit" makes its debut into the Dáil lexicon thanks to Labour's Alan Kelly, raising last Sunday's Business Post scoop, and explicitly asks if the Government will meet its official targets for recruitment

Read 7 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

Jan 24

@VirginMediaNews

Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yuri Filatov, says the story about naval drills off Cork “is in fact a non-story - it is in fact hugely overblown” and part of Russia’s routine naval exercises and training.

“No threat is intended, no problem is expected,” he says. @VirginMediaNews

Ambassador says the concern is an attempt to play up the (non-existent, he says) threat posed by Russia on Europe’s east. “There are no plans to attract Ukraine or anywhere else.”

Filatov goes on to say Russia is entitled to defend itself given prospective NATO expansion into Ukraine would put St Petersburg or Moscow within five minutes’ flying time of NATO air strikes - hence Russia’s desire for binding guarantees that NATO not expand any further east.

Read 5 tweets

Gavan Reilly

@gavreilly

Dec 18, 2021

@VirginMediaNews

🦠 #COVID19ireland
7333 cases reported today

🏥 Hospital: 410 (481 last week)
ICU: 107 (111)

📈 5d avg: 4645 (4377)
📈 7d avg: 4654 (4284)

📆 14d incidence: 1314/100k (1319)

💉 Vaccination:
½: 3879503 (92.8% of 12+)
✅: 3820450 (91.4%)
➕: 1462167 (35%)
@VirginMediaNews

That’s Ireland’s third-highest daily case number of the pandemic. The raw numbers of swabs being taken are not published over the weekend so we can’t, until Monday, tell if it is (yet) reflected by an underlying trend in actual swabbing.

Tony Holohan: “We can expect to see a large number of cases over the next short period of time.”

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