Letters to the Editor: Being a carer in a power outage
An 'Irish Examiner' reader tells of how her family went four days without electricity and without her son being on his breathing equipment, as the back-up battery only lasts three hours.
Picture: Jonathan McCambridge/PA Wire
Regarding ‘CF patient spent extra week in hospital while waiting for power to be restored’ (Niamh Griffin, Irish Examiner, February 2).
We are not ones for complaining, as we are grateful that our young fellow is with us now.
Our son has very complex ailments.
Apart from him having an intellectual disability, he has suffered since covid with pneumonia every few months and then with complications relating to other organs.
He needs electricity for all his equipment.
He needs water all the time for hygiene purposes relating to all the equipment being sanitised and himself being washed down regularly.
Unfortunately, even though we tried really hard to keep our son out of hospital, it was no surprise when he was rushed into hospital just as the water was due back on.
We went four days without electricity and without him being on his breathing equipment, as the back-up battery only lasts three hours.
Our son ended up with sepsis, which was caused from a kidney issue, and his carbon dioxide numbers had risen.
He was recovering really well, but the hospital was hesitant about sending him home as the water was still on and off intermittently.
He did come home in the end as the private scheme that we are with did ensure our line for water kept going once they realised the urgency of it.
We are on the vulnerable list for electricity, but not once have we been classed as priority, as every time it comes back on at the same time as everyone else.
What was more upsetting is that we are in a stressful position anyway looking after our boy in normal circumstances, trying to keep him well.
So when you are up against the services that you rely on to keep our boy well, your stress levels are often overwhelming.
Being a carer for a child with so many complex needs can be so difficult some days.
Don’t get me wrong, you also get many joyful days when they are well, and to wake up every morning with a smile and laughs — this always outweighs the tough days.
Ireland is increasingly being pressurised to further integrate itself into the Nato alliance — the only multinational military alliance in the world and, arguably, the most warlike in history. The USA and its allies have been continuously at war since Nato’s foundation in 1949 — “our forever wars”, in the words of Joe Biden.
Despite claiming to be a defence alliance, Nato invasions are invariably conducted against Global South countries far removed from alliance members’ borders.
The prevailing military strategy pursued by Nato, its members, and de facto members (such as Israel) is one of intensive high-altitude bombing and long-range artillery and missile strikes.
This may go on for weeks or months (as in Iraq) or even years (as in Gaza), resulting in extremely high civilian casualties and relatively low fatalities suffered by the invading ground troops.
Ireland is currently being told it is too small to protect its air and waterways and, therefore, needs to be part of an international military alliance.
But Nato specialises only in bombing.
As a defensive or offensive fighting force, it is useless.
Nato eventually loses all its wars, most recently in Afghanistan after it had engaged in almost 20 years of intensive bombing — including use of the so-called massive Oordnance air blast or ‘mother of all bombs’ — against this undeveloped country.
The US was forced to beat a humiliating retreat before a collection of poorly-armed local fighters, who had no air force, navy, or even heavy artillery. (The other Nato forces had already cut and run, starting with Britain’s combat troops in October 2014).
International law and a rules-based order are regarded as essential for the security of small nations like Ireland — as well as for the survival of the planet.
Nato, however, does not respect international law.
In the midst of the Western-supported bombing campaign of Gaza, the International Court of Justice, the highest court on the planet, declared Israel’s occupation of Palestine to be illegal and ordered its immediate withdrawal.
The court also decided that country is operating an apartheid system — a crime against humanity.
It declared as plausible that it is also committing genocide, the ‘crime of crimes’. The International Criminal Court (a lower court) has invoked the fourth Geneva Convention mandating warring parties to protect civilians in times of conflict, specifically ruling out mass starvation as a weapon of war.
Nato members ignored all these orders and continued their military, economic, and diplomatic assistance to Israel.
Why on earth should Ireland — with its proud international reputation— consider joining such an unholy alliance?
Trumpet is well named, and a contradiction in any terms.
He passes decrees against immigrants to the US and expels them en mass to wherever they allegedly came from, but orders Jordan and Egypt to accept nearly 2m immigrant Palestinians displaced by US 2,000 blast bombs rained down on Gaza, turning it into one big pile of rubble, one big grave, so he/the US/ Israel can build “a beautiful place” there.
England’s Cromwell oppressed Ireland from 1649, the plantations followed, and the natives were banished “to hell or to Connacht”.
But just as 500+ years of wars and oppression have not succeeded in expelling the Irish from Ireland, carpet bombing Gaza hasn’t expelled Hamas or the Palestinians from Palestine.
Neither has Palestine — no matter what utter rubbish The Donald Trumpets — and our Saint Micheál should say so to him on March 17.
With Donald Trump coming to power in the US, future prospects of Britain’s foreign and domestic politics have become almost unpredictable.
Open support for Kamala Harris and criticism of Trump was a fatal mistake of the Starmer administration.
Now, dialogue with Washington is unlikely to be easy for London.
Thus, a close associate of Trump, businessman Elon Musk, has already launched a broad information campaign criticising Starmer.
Given the already weak support of the current British government from its population, the kingdom’s internal problems and a series of government resignations in recent years, it is unlikely that the Labour Party will be able to stay in power for long.
At the same time, London’s frankly deplorable political positions in the region are a good opportunity to give impetus to the issue of Irish unification.
The ‘Mr Trade Tariffs’ who came to power in the US will make the problem of foreign trade — which London will hardly be able to effectively solve after Brexit — the most acute.
On the other hand, Ireland, remaining in the EU, might become a doorway for its northern neighbour to the largest single market in the world, which will be Dublin’s main trump card in the next four years.
It is now extremely important not to miss the moment and play the cards we have in our hands correctly, especially given the growing support for unification on both sides of the border.
Schools are experiencing ongoing challenges when it comes to finding teachers to fill permanent and fixed-term posts.
It’s difficult to procure substitute teachers, and this is a major cause of concern.
This year our young teachers are paying €1,000 for renting a room.
If they were teaching in, say, Clare or Tipperary, they would be paying €450 or thereabouts a month.
So they would literally be thousands of euro a year better off just on accommodation.
Who’s going to come to Dublin and pay €1,000 a month for a room? That’s two weeks’ work gone.
Then you have all the other costs of living in a city.
If a school is lucky enough to get one of these fantastic new teachers, one will find that at the end of the first year, some of these teachers will come to the school principal and say: “Can I put your name down on my reference as I am now off to Dubai?”
Some of these teachers will choose to go down the country to teach.
Many will struggle on two days’ work a week because there just isn’t a population down there.
By living at home, they are financially more likely to struggle too.
It’s been reported that there’s quite a number of young qualified teachers working as special needs assistants, just to get a job in order to get their foot in the door of a school.
The Government must now prioritise the care and nurture of our teachers.
