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Occupational health in Ireland is an area of prime importance, and employees as well as employers are taking all necessary steps to ensure that the work life quality of human capital in Ireland does not deteriorate, while adversely affecting their output. Occupational health in Ireland, in broad terms, refers to the physical, mental and social well being of an employee at their workplace. This concept is generally given less importance that occupational safety issues due to the fact that it is much more difficult to analyze the social and mental impact on an employee as compared to the physical impact due to their working environment.
Occupational safety has been taken care by union agreements in Ireland, which have ensured that adequate safety measures have been taken by the employer to ensure a safe working environment, but occupational health issues are not yet fully implemented, which could result in deterioration in the quality of human capital in Ireland. Thus it is imperative for organizations in Ireland to und erstand the basic concept of occupational health and implement this concept to ensure maximum efficiency from the employees.
Occupational health is important due to the following broad reasons:
· Moral reasons: An employee should be mentally secure that his physical as well as psychological health is being taken care of by the employer, so that he can concentrate fully on his job.
· Economic reasons: Inadequate occupational health measures implemented by an organization could result in long term costs to that company, thus affecting its bottom line.
· Regulatory reasons: Union agreements in Ireland could pose a threat to organizations which have not fully implemented an occupational health program.
Apart from the basic components of occupational health in Ireland like flexi time, job sharing, telecommuting, an efficient payroll interface in Ireland is also an important component. A payroll interface is a comprehensive accounting solution that meets the payroll process needs of an organization. In order to retain good talent in an organization in the organization, it is important to remunerate them accordingly. A comprehensive payroll interface in Ireland would enable the HR to collect all remuneration related data at one place and upload it online so that the employee can also access it. This would create a sense of fairness in the minds of employees that they are being remunerated according to the efforts they are putting in, and would also be convenient for the organization to analyze the data and take necessary steps.
Doctors who followed a checklist developed by the World Health Organization cut the worldwide surgical death rate by almost half and reduced complications by more than one-third. Ask patient’s name, mark incision site, count sponges after surgery – those are three of the nineteen items on the checklist. Although the results of using the list are most dramatic in developing countries, Britain, Ireland, Jordon and the Philippines will use it in all operating rooms. The Joint Commission, which sets standards for most U.S. hospitals, is considering using more of the steps – which would be steps in the right direction.
According to numbers released in January 2009 by the National Center for Health Statistics, some numbers are going in the wrong direction. The number of obese Americans (people 100 pounds or more overweight) now exceeds the number of overweight Americans. Thirty-four percent are obese and 32.7 percent are overweight. Thirty-four percent means more than 72 million Americans are obese – more than double the number in 1980. Although the percent of overweight Americans remained stable, the percent of extremely obese is now 6 percent. Among other things, excess weight increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and several types of cancer – and being healthy becomes a fat chance.
In a study done at Carnegie Mellon University 150 healthy men and women were asked to record how long they slept at night and how much time they spent tossing and turning. After 2 weeks the volunteers were infected with a cold virus. Those who slept less than 7 hours nightly were 3 times more likely to get a cold. Those who tossed and turned or spent a lot of time trying to go to sleep were also much more likely to get sick. It seems the importance of sleep is a cold, hard fact.
Researchers at MIT told 82 healthy volunteers they’d be helping to determine the facts regarding the effectiveness of a new, pain-relieving drug. Each volunteer was given a placebo before and after receiving a series of electric shocks up to their pain tolerance. Half the group was told each pill cost $2.50. The other half was told each cost 10 cents. Those who thought they had gotten the more expensive drug reported significantly less pain. This study explains why patients prefer brand-name drugs to cheaper generic drugs which contain the same active compound – brand namely because they’ve been convinced by advertisements.
In 1882 he changed the name of the Home Rule League to the Irish Parliamentary Party and introduced a strict party whip and formal party structure. The Irish Parliamentary Party is generally seen as the first modern political party, the main British political parties later used the Parnellite model for their party structures. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments during the 1880s depended upon Parnell’s unified Irish bloc to form coalitions. The prospects of these alliances shocked Unionists, the Orange Order was re-established to oppose the Land League. In 1887, Parnell was accused by the British newspaper, The Times of supporting the Phoenix Park Murders, letters were published in support of these claims. However, the letters were later revealed to be forgeries, Parnell entered the House of Commons to a standing ovation from his fellow parliamentarians. Parnell was at this stage at the peak of his career, however in 1889 it was revealed that Parnell had been conducting a long term relationship with Katharine O’Shea and had fathered three of her children. Prime Minister Gladstone insisted that Parnell had to stand down from leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Parnell refused and the party was split down the middle. Deposed as leader, Parnell embarked on a political tour of Ireland to drum up popular support. His health began to rapidly deteriorate and he died on 6 October 1891, aged just forty-five. His estate in Avondale, Co. Wicklow is open to the public; the capital city has commemorated Parnell with the naming of Parnell Square, Parnell St. after him and with the erection of the Parnell Monument on O’Connell St.
Copyright (c) 2007 SharpBrains
The Aspen Health Forum just gathered an impressive group of around 250 people to discuss the most pressing issues in Health and Medical Science.
1- Global health problems require the attention of the scientific community. Richard Klausner encouraged the scientific community to focus on Global Problems: maternal mortality rates, HIV/ AIDS, clean water, cancer…
2- “Let’s get real…Ideology kills”. Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, on what it takes to stop HIV/ AIDS: “I am from Ireland, a Catholic country. And I am Catholic. But I can see how ideology kills..we need more empathy with reality, and to work with local women in those countries.” This session included a fascinating exchange where Bill Frist rose from the audience to defend the role of US aid, explaining how 60% of retroviral drugs in African countries have been funded by the American taxpayer. Which made Nobel Prize Laureate Peter Agre, also in the audience, stand up and encourage the US to really step up to the plate and devote 1% of the GDP to aid, as a number of European countries do, instead of 0.1%.
3- Where is the new “Sputnik”?: Many of the speakers had been inspired by the Sputnik and the Apollo missions to become scientists. Two Nobel Prize Laureates talked about their lives and careers trying to demystify what it takes to be a scientist and to win a Nobel Prize. Both are grateful to the taxpayers dollars that funded their research, and insist we must do a better job at explaining the scientific process to society at large. Both are proud of having attended small liberal arts colleges, and having evolved from there, fueled by their great curiosity and unpredictable, serendipitous paths, into launching new scientific and medical fields.
4- We need a true Health Care Culture: Mark Ganz summarized it best by explaining how his health provider group improved care when they redefined themselves from “we are 7,000 employees” to “we are a 3 million strong community”, moving from being a cost controller with a paternalistic attitude to a health facilitator, looking underneath symptoms to identify and deal with underlying patterns.
5- You can’t manage what you can’t measure. We heard many times how defining and measuring outcomes, so common in the private sector, is critical to ensuring a good allocation of resources in the health and scientific fields, that use so much taxpayer money. For example. NIH funding grew from $9B in 1994 to $29B in 2007, yet the results are not clear. The same happened with health care as a whole, a sector that now consumes 16% of the US GDP with health outcomes (infant mortality, patient deaths in hospitals) worse than other countries that invest far less.
6- The rising role of public-private partnerships: There are multiple initiatives launched to bridge the increasing gap between academia and industry. The Foundation for the NIH has facilitated key conversation between the FDA and pharma companies. The Gates and Clinton Foundations have launched innovative partnership models to tackle global health problems.
7- From Lifespan to Health-span. Population distribution in developed countries is shifting from a “population pyramid” to a “population rectangle”. The point of much ongoing research is not “how to spend more time on the nursing home” but how to slow down the process of aging, so we can live healthier longer.
8- Patient-advocacy groups are having an impact. We heard many examples on how small groups of motivated individuals have built large patient advocate movements that influence public policy. Michael Milken talked about the Cancer March, that helped increase NIH funding from $1.5B to 5$B. Hala Moddelmog, from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, explained how they have 1 million people engaged in promoting cancer research and prevention. Robert Klein, key advocate of the California Proposition 71 (that will provide $6B for stem cell research through long-term bonds) explained how the proposition was passed, including engaging over 80 patient-advocacy groups.
9- There’s a new emphasis on understanding “how systems work” instead of “how isolated genes make things happen on their own”: Genomics is starting to help predict susceptibility to disease and to therapies. Now, we must keep in mind the role of our experience and environment in turning some genes on or off.
10- The importance of our Lifestyle-Each of us owns our own health. 70% of heathcare costs derive from lifestyle-related diseases (such as smoking-induced cancer). We heard several calls to action for insurance companies to incentivize behavior modification to promote good lifestyle habits that improve quality of life and can delay disease symptoms, resulting in billions of dollars of cost savings.
In short, a very stimulating inaugural 3-day conference. I hope the one next year is even better.
After all these years of observing blatant corruption in our ‘body politic’, I’m still at a loss to understand how the people of Ireland are so stupid and shortsighted that they, again and again, elect the same shower of crooks that have the nerve to call themselves politicians.
On the one hand we have a Fianna Fail led government who’s sole purpose in getting elected and staying elected is to shamlessly line their own pockets at the expense of decent people who happen to think that this is a great country and blindly believe that our political crooks have the country’s interests at heart.
On the other hand we have what passes for an opposition thinking that it’s a waste of time making a fuss because most of them are about to leave politics to enjoy their nice little pension and perks and are, understandably, afraid to rock the boat.
Granted, they go through the motions of protesting about the almost daily revelations regarding the monies that were being shovelled to that ‘pisspot on the dresser’ Bertie Ahern while he was Minister for Finance.
A Minister for Finance taking thousands of pounds in suitcases and envelopes is, pure and simple, criminal activity. In fact, it’s worse than going about with a gun and robbing banks because it’s the whole population of a country that will end up paying the price…some with their lives because of a Health Service in shambles. The whole idea of having a government is to prevent the greedy bastards from cornering everything for themselves and not, as in our case, a government smoothing the path to riches for them.
As I said before many times, if we read about this scenario taking place in one of the many half-arsed countries in the poorer parts of our world, we’d have a laugh and think that the electorate/people of that country must be terribly stupid to allow crooked politicians to take over the country for their own benefit. And yet, this very same scenario has happened in Ireland with barely a whimper of protest from the people who are being screwed the most.
Banshee is an Anglicisation of the Gaelic word bean si (meaning woman of the side or woman of the fairy mounds), it is a female ancestral spirit who forewarns members of certain families about impending death. According to legend, the banshee will wail around the house the night before somebody inside is about to die. There are only certain families that are believed to have a banshee attached to them – O’Grady, O’Brien, O’Connor, O’Donnell, O’Neill and Kavanagh, although intermarriage has extended this select list. She generally appears in two different guises, either as a beautiful young woman with long, fair hair or as a hideous hag. They dress in a white or grey cloak and brush their long hair with a silver comb, there is an existing superstition in Ireland that if you see a comb you should not pick it up as it may be a lure used to spirit humans away. The sound of the banshee, a peculiarly mournful sound like the wind possessing a human tone terrifies people, there have been many instances where everybody in a house was in great health though once the wail was heard somebody would be drowned, or killed suddenly within a week. There are some locations in Ireland where it is said that the banshee resides and does not leave. One of these is Dunluce Castle on the north Co. Antrim coast, which was the great home of the ruling O’Donnell clan before they were forced to the four corners of the world during the tumultuous Flight of the Earls. According to legend, the banshee remains to lament the scattered clan.
This is the story of ‘Rosie” who had to wait seven months, because of a dire Irish Health Service, to see a consultant for bowel cancer.
This brave ladies’ real name was Susie Long and she passed away in October 2007…she really never had a chance because she didn’t have Health Insurance. She left behind two teenage children.
Below is her letter to our national broadcaster RTE…Joe Duffy’s Liveline Program.
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Dear Joe,
Today I had my 12th session of chemo. I got to talking to the partner of a man who was also getting chemo. She told me that when her partner’s GP requested a colonoscopy for him he was put on the waiting list. She then phoned the hospital and told them he had private health insurance and he was seen three days later. He had bowel cancer that was advanced, but had not broken through the bowel wall and spread to other organs. She said the tumour was the size of a fist and what made him go to the doctor (apart from her nagging) was he started to lose weight rapidly. Thank goodness they got it in time and he’s going to recover.
I then came home, flicked on the tv and got into bed. The first ad on the tv was from the government telling people that bowel cancer can kill, but not if caught in time. If Bertie Ahern or Mary Harney or Michael McDowell were within reach I would have killed them. Literally. I’m not joking.
I don’t have private health insurance. It’s a long story, so I’ll start at the beginning.
I’ve suffered from digestive complaints for years. It started out with being unable to eat in the mornings or when my stomach felt tense. I’d feel too queasy. Then I got heartburn after just about everything I ate. I lived on Rennies. Then, in 2005, I got a lot of diahrea and after a few months it became constant and blood accompanied some of my bowel movements. I went to my GP clinic in the Summer of 2005. Probably about 2 months after the blood started appearing. I look back now and feel stupid for delaying for 2 months, but I wasn’t sure if the blood was caused by piles, which my late mother suffered from. I was 39 years old and had read in books and heard a doctor say on tv that bowel cancer doesn’t affect people under 50. Anyway, my normal GP was on holiday, but I saw his colleague, and she immediately sent a letter to the local hospital requesting a sonogram and a colonoscopy. Within weeks I was called for a sonogram and was diagnosed with a gallstones. That explained the queasiness and the heartburn. I expected to soon be called for the colonoscopy. I waited through the autumn, then through the start of winter. No word on the colonoscopy and no word on when my gall bladder would be removed.
In November I started to get serious lower abdominal pain after eating. I phoned the consultants secretary and asked if I was on the waiting list. She assured me I was and would be called soon. In December I started to rapidly lose weight. This definitely wasn’t like me! I love my food, Joe. I phoned the hospital again after Christmas. Again I was told that I was still on the list and would definitely be called soon. (I later found out that that consultant had retired and they had just hired a new one). Joe, from November to the end of February I was in agony. Apart from the pain and diahrea I was tired all the time. I’d literally got out of bed to go to work at 4.30 in the afternoon. Came home around 10.30pm, ate my dinner (I couldn’t eat before work because it’d make me too sick to do my job), tidied the kitchen and went to bed again. I was miserable.
Finally, on February 28, 2006, four days after I turned 40, I was called for a colonoscopy.
I woke up in the middle of the procedure and saw on a large screen, them probing a blob on my colon. They were taking a biopsy. But I didn’t have to wait for the results. I knew what I had. Soon after I met my wonderful consultant, Dr George Nassim. What a gem he is. Friendly, compassionate and funny on top of being a great surgeon. I felt like I was in good hands. I didn’t panic for more than a few hours after I was told that I had cancer. They can do loads of things to save cancer patients these days. I was young and strong. I’d been a vegetarian since I was 16. I ate mostly healthy foods, although eating at night was a serious no no when it came to my weight. I went for walks a few times a week. I felt I could beat this.
I was booked in for surgery to remove the tumour. I was given a stoma, which means I’ll have to poop in a bag for the rest of my life. I found that really difficult to handle. More difficult than the cancer sometimes. I was in St Lukes hospital for over 50 days last year. (I had to have a second surgery due to complications) Recovery was hard, but I did it. I shared a room with two lovely women who also had cancer. They have since died. In another ward I was in I was next to another woman who had cancer. She died too. The staff at St Lukes in Kilkenny are the most kind, hardworking people I’ve ever met. In March, in between surgeries, I was sent to the Mater in Dublin and had a porto-cath put in for putting the chemo through, and a PET Scan to see if the cancer had spread. If it hadn’t, I’d live. If it had spread to other organs, I’d die. It had spread to my lungs.
I felt bad enough to go to the doctor. She did what she was supposed to do. She told them I had diahrea and blood from my rectum. But what could they do? So do lots of people. Should I have skipped the list ahead of those other people with the same symptoms? I don’t think so. Should there be a list so long that it puts people at risk of dying? No. Definitely not.
I know in my heart and soul that when I started to feel really, really bad, especially in from December to February 2006, is when the cancer broke through the wall of my bowel. Of course I can’t prove it. But I know. Because it broke through the bowel I have been given 2 to 4 years from diagnosis to live. The chemo is to prolong life, not to save it. I have 3 years, tops, to go. Despite that, I’m going to try my best to make it for 5 more til my youngest turns 18. He needs me too much now. My husband has suffered right along side of me in his own way knowing that the woman he loves will be dead soon. My 18 year old daughter has been told and has gone quiet and doesn’t want to talk about it. But I know she’s scared. I haven’t told my 13 year old son yet. He’s too young to handle it. The South East Cancer Foundation in Waterford have been very helpful and will help us when the time is right to do and say the “right” things.
I don’t blame the wonderful people who work in St Lukes in Kilkenny. They work with what they are given. St. Lukes has the best A+E unit in the country. I had to use it three times in 2006 and twice with my son (nothing serious, thankfully). What did the government do? Threaten to shut it down. They also threatened to shut down the maternity unit AFTER spending millions to improve it!! That would mean Carlow women would have to travel to already overcrowded hospitals in Dublin and Kilkenny women would have to travel to Waterford, which is grand if you live in South Kilkenny. The rest could lump it and birth at the side of the road if necessary.
Twice I had to listen to two women die next to me in hospital because there’s no place for people nearing death and their loved ones to go to die and grieve in dignity.
My time in the Mater was dreadful. I was terrified I’d pick up MRSA because it was filthy. I was put on a ward with cardiac patients, mostly men, who because of their ill health were unable aim too well when they went to the toilet. Once when I used the toilet my pajama bottoms soaked up urine up to my ankles. Even though I was still sick and weak I still tried to hover over the toilet so I wouldn’t have to touch it. I wasn’t able to hover and hold up my pajama legs at the same time. I had just given my sister-in-law two sets of pj’s to take home and wash and had nothing to change into. I rinsed them out in the grimey sink and wore them damp until she returned the next day with clean ones.There was excrement stuck to the sides of the toilet for days at a time. Water flooded the shower room, soaked my clean pjs and towel that were on the floor outside the shower and ran out into the hall. After that happened the first time I learned to take a chair in to the shower room to put my stuff on. At least I knew THAT floor got water and soap put on it regularly. The man in the bed next to me, who had suffered a triple bi-pass was served up a greasy fry for tea when he had specifically ordered fish because it was healthier. On the third day he refused to eat it when they wouldn’t give him what he had ordered and went without eating on principle. I was vegetarian and so was served cheese on crackers and cheese sandwiches (fake cheese slices on white bread) for all but two meals. They brought one of the two nicer meals when I was fasting and not allowed to eat it. My suspicion is that the catering has been privatised, although I could be wrong. The staff, apart from one really nasty nurse, were lovely.
Should I blame anyone for my hard luck? I’ve thought about it over the last year and have tried to be reasonable about it. After all, I waited to get Christmas over with before I phoned the hospital for a second time asking to be seen. But today, when I heard that a very nice man who was in the same, if not worse condition, than me when he went to his GP is going to live because he had private health insurance and I’m going to die because I didn’t, I had to bite my tongue. I’m happy he’s going to live. He deserves to live. But so do I. Then I came home and watched that ad which told people to hurry up and get checked out for bowel cancer because it will save their lives, and I fucking lost it.
I’ve finally reached the angry stage, I guess. Who am I angry at? I’ll tell you, Joe. The health service has been in the hands of Fianna Fail and the PD’s for years and all they can think to do is put resources into privatisation. They don’t have the ability to change structures in the public sector that would put more resources toward patient care. But it’s not just the politicians. I’m also angry at every single voter who voted for Fianna Fail and the PDs because they thought they’d get a few more shillings in their pockets but were too greedy and stupid to realise that that money they saved in wage taxes would be made up with stealth taxes. We all knew before the last election what their health policies were and the majority of people ignored this and voted for them anyway. Maybe they thought this would never happen to them. Or maybe because so many have private health insurance they just didn’t care because they were alright, Jack.
I never dreamed I’d get cancer, let alone die from it. But I was wrong. My message to anyone with symptoms of bowel cancer is go to your GP immediately. If you, like me, don’t have health insurance, pester them until they hate you, go to your politicians and beg them to help, go to the media, get a solicitor to threaten to sue the government and the hospital if they don’t get you in soon for a colonoscopy. Otherwise, the people who love you might lose you and you’ll not get to do all the things you planned in life.
I’m writing to you because the way this country is run leads me to believe that contacting a radio show is the only way to try to change things like this. I hope that when Ms SUV and Mr Builder goes into the voting booth, they’ll think about me, my husband and especially my children. My husband is a decent man. He works full time in a good job and I worked part-time in a job I loved that helped people, but didn’t pay well. It depended on government money to help women and children in crisis, so of course couldn’t pay me well. We know what Bertie, Michael, Micheal and Mary’s priorities are.
Despite 1 1/2 incomes we couldn’t afford VHI or Bupa. But even if we could have we wouldn’t have gotten it because we believed (and still do) that all people should get good care despite their incomes. We thought jumping queues was wrong. We’re socialists…just like Bertie. Ha Ha. Now I feel like vomiting and it’s not the chemo!
From a Cancer Patient in Kilkenny.
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It is the 3rd of August 2007 and in Ireland it still raining! Where is the nearest mental home??? I want to see the men in the white coats!
The biggest event of the Irish summer season is the Galway Races. This is where the wealth and the power in Ireland is congregated, for a full week, into the various commercial marquees, to talk and work the floor, in a classic networking emporium that suits the Irish business psyche the best. The politicians will mix with shakers and movers and every conversation will have a motive for taking place.
There is drink and food in abundance, the opportunity to meet anybody who is anybody, and deals will be done in a haze of alcohol and gambling, probably to be regretted when the implications are realized back at the office a week later.
The Galway Races are, however, still a wonderful mix of the sophisticated socialites and the rural dwellers and farmers, young and old, who are there for the craic which in this case means drink, gambling and sex, not necessarily in that order! For many people the horses are a secondary attraction, and the fillies in the bars and clubs merit more attention.
The races run for seven days now and bring massive revenues to the city of Galway and its environs. This year that income will be particularly welcome because of the recent water contamination problem that hit parts of the city and county. This has scared many potential tourists from visiting the area as well as making life very difficult for families and commercial enterprises. This problem, of course, is being blamed on local county council who had not upgraded sanitation plants in line with the massive increase in population of the area. The blame really should be directed at the government who had not allocated adequate finance to the local authorities to carry out the necessary improvements.
This brings me nicely to the gripe of the week!
Yesterday the final link in the M1 motorway from Dublin to Belfast was opened between north of Dundalk to Newry. There is now what is known as the North/South Corridor in existence. Needless to say all the politicians and assorted hangers-on were out in force at the official opening to bullshit about the wonderful opportunities this will create. These are the same politicians, from successive governments, who should have this road (and many others for that matter) built in the 1980’s when they were getting funds specifically for that purpose from the EU in Brussells . Instead, because of their mismanagement of the economy and gross incompetence, these funds were unlawfully diverted to day to day spending because of the huge current budget deficit that they, and not the people, had allowed to accumulate.
Ireland is light years behind the rest of Europe in terms of infrastructure. Last week a survey found that, per capita, the country is one of the richest in the world, ahead of America and the UK no less. Nobody, from anywhere in the world, who spent time here would realize that so called “fact”.
Our medical service is probably lesser in quality than many African countries that the Government sends money to each year to improve their health system. People go to A+E and lie sick on trolleys for days on end. There are very few regional health centres that treat cancer, for example. Thus, unfortunate people and their families travel long distances to get treatment in Dublin hospitals which are themselves under huge pressure to service the needs of the areas to which they are allocated. The system is top-loaded with administration staff on high wages thanks to the crazy benchmarking process that Bertie Ahern agreed to some years ago.
This monster that has been created will haunt the country for decades to come. In his permanent pose of trying to please all people at once, Bertie has bent over and given into greedy union demands for equalisation of pay in the public sector . Thus if the firemen get a rise, the Gardai will have to get one and so on and on. All the various public sector services are therefore linked into this benchmarking process. In return the unions promised greater productivity from their members. How laughable this is! Public service workers do not live in the real world. They are cosseted in warm wool, provided by the rest of the country’s workers, self employed and businesses paying taxes to get a service that should be provided by half their number, and half of their cost. They would not know what productivity was if it hit them in the face and then gave them a French kiss!
This giveaway by Benchmark Bertie has already cost the country 1 billion euro and that is just from Phase 1 of the process. Ireland really is a country that is living on borrowed time. Around the corner and fast approaching is a recession. Jobs are being lost left, right and centre. Why?
The answer is that we have priced ourselves out of the market because of unnecessary wage inflation. No wonder the multinationals are leaving in their droves, to East European countries and further abroad.
The good times are about to come to an end. The first people that will be hit are the ordinary workers and self employed, together with small business owners. The very last people that will feel the pinch will be the protected public sector who will continue to suck the life out of the economy to the very end. These leeches will not face reality because they do not have ability to do so. They will play their violins while the Titanic sinks!
Here is a proposal that might save the day.
The country is managed by incompetents and their minions, the public service workers. These people are not managers. So get in some hard nosed business tycoons to do the job for a price.
Pay Dermot Desmond 50 million euro to design the concept that will run the country right. When Dermot has the concept drawn up (in probably 2 weeks), get Michael O’Leary to implement it. Michael will not be cheap, but he will do the job. His cost will be probably be less than price that is paid every year for the storage of obsolete electronic voting machines. Public servants will quiver in their boots for the first time and soiled underwear could be the order of the day.
But what a great day that would be!
Seamus Maguire
lookaroundireland.com
In 2007, 6 Irish institutions of higher learning were included in the top 500 universities in the world list by Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). The country also placed 8th place in the top 500 universities per capita. Academic status, world-class research, huge campuses situated in very accommodating environment and near key cities, modern faculties and amenities, innovating and excellent teaching and the list could go on forever⦠Below are some of Irelandâs premiere universities â especially for international students who are looking for more than quality education:
Queenâs University Belfast â established by Queen Victoria in 1845, this institution prides itself with its international vision and commitment. It is a member of the Russell Group of top UK universities. One of Queenâs students was recently recognized with UK International Student of the Year Award.
National University of Ireland â is a federal university and makes up the biggest component of the countryâs university system. It comprises of 4 constituent universities (UCD, UCC, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth), 5 recognized colleges, and one college of a constituent university.
University College Cork (UCC) â founded in 1845 as Queenâs College, UCC has about 2,000 foreign students from over 80 countries. The university continues to be a leading institution in research and has more than 120 degree and professional studies.
University College Dublin (UCD) â Irelandâs biggest university with more than 1,300 faculty and 22,000 students. It has modern and lively campus community perfect for international students who want to feel home while studying in Ireland. It offers foreign students with various support services such as health care, accommodation, counseling and career assistance.
National University of Ireland, Galway â founded in 1845, it remains as one of Irelandâs leading centers of academic excellence. Currently it has more than 2,000 foreign students from about 90 countries. NUI Galway has 7 faculties â Arts, Celtic Studies, Commerce, Engineering, Law, Medicine and Health Sciences, and Science.
University of Limerick (UL) â located at the center of the 650-acre National Technological Park, UL aims to promote excellence in teaching and research. It has 4 constituent faculties â Faculty of Arts, Kemmy Business School, Faculty of Education and Health, and Humanities and Social Sciences.
Trinity College Dublin â currently ranks 53rd in Times Higher Education Supplement Global University Rankings and 13th place in Europe. It has a very rich and exceptional history with its more than 400 years of existence as one of the worldâs best universities. It has state-of-the-art libraries, IT facilities, and laboratories. Its 3 core colleges are Arts, Engineering, and Health Sciences.
Dublin City University (DCU) â is the youngest degree-awarding institution approved by the Irish government. Despite this fact, DCU boasts of its ambitious vision together with is cutting edge research, exceptional interdisciplinary studies, personalized support and attention, employments prospects, and strategically-positioned and spacious campus.
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