TrishS

[TrishS @Trishep]

Despicable being

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

@SimonHarrisTD has essentially had himself written out of the scoliosis inquiry.
Convenient, isnt it? When accountability comes knocking, he seems to have made sure he wont be answering the door.
What an incredibly brave individual.

[nwl @nwl88444048]

An Irish nurse who can't find a nursing job in Ireland reveals "many of us are working through agencies instead".

What "agencies" might these be? The ones closely connected to FG politicians?

Truth is, there's no money for agencies if the HSE HR department recruits directly, or recruits from Irish nursing graduate courses, whereas FG-linked agencies get €11,000 per foreign nurse recruited (with allegations the agencies are also charging illegal fees) and around €50,000 for a doctor.

[Mick Finnegan @Mick_Finnegan]

There's a real sadness on me this week, and I want to be honest about it.

The last few days have knocked me more than I thought they would. After 27 years, I heard his name said out loud in Seanad Éireann. I thought it would feel like relief. Instead it brought everything back.

I was 12 when it started. A child. And what I still can't get my head around is that people in St John Ambulance knew. They knew what he was, and they did nothing to stop him hurting us. Not when I told them in 1999. Not for years after. Nobody stood in his way. Nobody was ever held responsible.

And now the Government doesn't seem to care either. The Seanad voted for a public inquiry. Every survivor has asked for one. And still, nothing. It feels like being told, all over again, that what happened to us doesn't matter.

Leaving Ireland was the best decision I ever made. I couldn't heal in Dublin. Every street, every corner, every reminder kept me stuck in the same place. I had to get away to find out who I could be without it.

And I found it. I built a life. I'm training to be a social worker. And now I have the most precious thing in the world, my little girl.

When I look at her, I see everything I was never given as a child, safety, protection, and adults who would never look the other way. She will grow up believed. She will grow up safe. That's my promise to her.

I've spent 27 years fighting for the truth. I'll keep pushing for the inquiry we deserve, because the children who came after me deserved better, and so did we. But I'm going to spend the rest of my life looking after her.

To every survivor who's struggling this week, I see you. You were never the ones who should carry this. You're not on your own.

[Ken O’Flynn TD @kenoflynnTD]

Name the law. Give the date.

I asked Minister Helen McEntee for both in the Dáil today. I got neither.

No memo to Cabinet. No Government decision. No date. Just a note saying John Barrett was dismissed on the Garda Commissioner's recommendation.

Instead of answers, Ministers heckled and talked over me.

I am not letting this go.

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

@FineGael and @fiannafailparty are trying to put out fires from every angle.
Scoliosis families
Garda whistleblowers
Public sector strikes.
Infighting within their own parties.
Legal system not working
You can only contain so many crises for so long.

[Mick Finnegan @Mick_Finnegan]

This is every person and organisation involved in the St John Ambulance Ireland abuse case that's on the record. 39 people and 18 organisations over six decades, all around one abuser.

I disclosed in 1999. St John Ambulance didn't make a child protection referral about my complaint until 2012. It was then lost, and only found by Tusla in 2018.

The DPP declined to prosecute in five cases. When he was finally charged in 2025, he was found unfit to stand trial. A public inquiry was ruled out. The only independent review was commissioned by St John Ambulance itself, on terms it set, and could reach no conclusions about any individual.

Look at where the decision-makers sit. The DPP, the regulators and the Ministers are at the very edge. The officers I disclosed to have no link to any State body. The connections that do exist were made by survivors and a handful of TDs and Senators who raised it for us.

And this map only shows what we already know. The real picture is bigger.

Nobody has been held to account.

Please share this map. The more people see how big this is, the harder it is to ignore.

#StJohnAmbulance #Survivors #ChildProtection #Accountability #PublicInquiry

[Courts News Ireland @courtsnewsIRL]

"I hope whatever god you believe in doesn’t forgive you, because harming innocent children is simply unforgivable."

-Creche worker Leanne Flynn to Parnell Square attacker Riad Bouchaker today.

[Gillian Sherratt @GillSherratt23]

Please take a few minutes to visit https://t.co/cXpTa5pWc6 and have a read of why we are all not willing to settle for a Commission of Investigation. The Public Tribunal of Inquiry is the only acceptable form this inquiry can take.

#BackUs #JusticeForHarvey

[Gillian Sherratt @GillSherratt23]

The priorities of the health minister continuously show us where her concerns lie. Her concern does not appear to be the safety of the patients, the quality of care, or the work conditions for the vital staff. It seems to me that @CarrollJennifer is most concerned with appearances, it’s all smoke and mirrors with her. With the new children’s hospital she didn’t want it open to be able to provide care for the children who need it, no, she wanted to be able to show it off.
Similar to how with the Inquiry she ‘wanted to still be health minister’ when it is all finished.
Further shows why she is fighting it being a public tribunal as that definitely wouldn’t be good for appearances would it?

[Tony - Pod Guy - Groves @Trickstersworld]

Simon Harris has 10 Special Advisers, each being paid a minimum of €100k, and up to a maximum of €182k.
His Govt has just announced that they are scrapping the living wage their own low pay commission recommended.

You’re not angry enough.

[TrishS @Trishep]

😪💔

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

@CarrollJennifer maybe you could show the EU ministers this. Disgraceful.

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

Please visit the webpage https://t.co/cPj0beiI2o where it is set out clearly why we are calling for a Public Tribunal of Inquiry into Spina Bifida and Scoliosis care at CHI Ireland.
#JusticeForHarvey #PublicInquiryNow
#BackUs https://t.co/X5JENjWmqJ

[Ken O’Flynn TD @kenoflynnTD]

€11.5m retrofit of a Government office in Galway. No payback figure, no record of the old energy bills, no open tender.

If it's an energy saving project, show us the savings.

[nwl @nwl88444048]

Five years ago when the daring exploits of media minister Patrick O’Donovan were raised in the Dail. Back then, Patrick was a junior minister and the Independent newspaper had reported that it was Patrick who ran a ‘sting’ on his colleague Simon Harris to expose Harris as the source of Cabinet leaks to Daniel McConnell at the Examiner, especially the Katherine Zappone proposed appointment, the scoop on which won Daniel the coveted ‘journalist of the year’ award later that year.

Patrick’s sting involved telling Harris a juicy tidbit of political gossip which Patrick had become aware of. Five minutes later, Patrick received a call from Daniel McConnell asking Patrick about the gossip. And in Patrick’s book, that was good enough to determine that Harris was the source of the Cabinet leaks (aren’t such leaks illegal? – Ed).

What happened subsequently was unexpected, Leo Varadkar quit and Simon Harris became party leader and Patrick’s boss. Awkward! But then Simon Harris, exemplifying the rule ‘keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer’ promoted Patrick to the Cabinet, and re-appointed him to the Cabinet in the new government where he is permanently frustrated at being ignored.

So, for those writing off Patrick O’Donovan today as petulant. Remember, he’s sneaky as well!

[TrishS @Trishep]

#JusticeForHarvey ❤️
#PublicInquiryNow
#ResignHarris shame on you.

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

Who Labelled my Son as palliative and why isn't this being investigated? It is alleged that Children’s Health Ireland removed Harvey from its active spinal surgery waiting list after it wrongly determined he was a ‘palliative’ patient. #PublicInquiryNow

[Care Champions Ireland @CareChampions2]

University Hospital Galway has issued an apology to Co Mayo native Mary Keane after missing her brain cancer diagnosis for over a decade. Despite years of debilitating headaches and repeated hospital visits, her scans from 2012, 2013, and 2016 were tragically misread, leaving her condition to worsen unchecked. Medical experts revealed that three separate opportunities to save her were lost, ultimately robbing her of a chance at life-saving surgery and costing her at least five years of precious life. By the time the aggressive tumor on her frontal lobe was finally identified in 2023, it was far too late for doctors to operate. Though her legal case was settled in July, the devastating toll on Mary and her loved ones remains an unimaginable tragedy

#MaryKeane #UHG #Apology #HSE #BrokenSystem #FailedInCare

https://t.co/bUxiJBOqNi

[Mick Finnegan @Mick_Finnegan]

STATEMENT

Today, at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin, survivors of child sexual abuse within St John Ambulance Ireland were told that the accused will not stand trial because he has been deemed medically unfit.

I first came forward in 1999. After twenty-seven years, there will be no criminal trial.

I reported the abuse because I believed that telling the truth would lead to justice. No charges were ever brought in relation to what was done to me.

But the State did not doubt my account. My complaint was investigated by Tusla's retrospective abuse team, which found it to be founded. He appealed that finding and lost. An independent panel upheld it. The State's own child protection agency accepted what I had said. The criminal justice system never acted on it.

Other survivors later came forward, and one account became part of a much wider and deeply disturbing picture.

Files on this individual were referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions on a number of occasions. Each time, the decision was not to prosecute. Years passed. Survivors grew older. The accused grew older. Charges came only after the Shannon review, on the complaints of other survivors. Today we were told it is too late.

That this was allowed to happen is a disgrace. It did not happen by accident. It happened because, time and again, the people with the power to act chose not to.

I accept that every accused person has legal and constitutional rights, including the right to be fit to stand trial. I do not question those rights or the medical determination.

But survivors have rights too.

We have the right to ask why this process took twenty-seven years.

We have the right to ask whether opportunities to prosecute were lost.

We have the right to ask why earlier decisions not to prosecute were made, and whether they should now be examined in light of all that later emerged.

And we have the right to ask whether the State's response to historical child sexual abuse is capable of delivering justice within the lifetimes of survivors and accused persons.

Those questions do not go away because there is no trial.

For years, we were asked to trust the system. We gave statements. We relived the worst experiences of our childhoods. We answered questions and we waited. When more survivors came forward, we did it all again. The human cost has been enormous.

The Shannon review found serious and systemic failures within St John Ambulance Ireland, including awareness of risks to children and a culture that facilitated grooming. Survivors should not have to accept another institutional response that simply says the process is over.

I am calling on the Garda Commissioner and the Director of Public Prosecutions to account publicly, insofar as the law permits, for the handling of these cases, including the decisions not to prosecute.

I am also calling for an independent examination of how these complaints were handled from 1999 onwards: the Garda investigations, the prosecution decisions, the time the process took, and whether an earlier prosecution was possible. It must be carried out by someone independent of An Garda Síochána, the DPP and the Department of Justice. The institutions whose decisions are in question cannot be the ones examining them.

Survivors of historical abuse across Ireland are watching. They need to know that if they walk into a Garda station and disclose what was done to them as children, they will be listened to, their complaints will be investigated promptly and fully, and they will not spend twenty-seven years wondering whether their case will ever reach a courtroom.

When I came forward in 1999, I could not have imagined that I would still be asking the State for answers in 2026.

There will be no criminal trial.

But there must still be accountability. There must still be answers. And An Garda Síochána, the DPP and the other State institutions must not mistake the end of a prosecution for the end of their responsibility to survivors.

[Gillian Sherratt @GillSherratt23]

You cannot call a once off €500 payment a ‘cost of disability payment’. That isn’t anywhere near what is needed to meet the extra costs a lot of disabled people face.
Not only that, they have tied it to those in receipt of another long term disability payment, completely forgetting that there are many people living with a disability and all those same extra costs but are not currently entitled to any of those support payments.
Then to top it off, they’re now saying the permanent ‘cost of disability’ payment won’t be until 2028?!
How can they say we live in a rich country but yet leave so many people in poverty?

[TrishS @Trishep]

#JusticeForHarvey
#ResignHarris

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

They can never say they didn’t know
They were told. They were warned. The families spoke up.
Now we need the truth, accountability and answers. #JusticeForHarvey #PublicInquiryNow

[TrishS @Trishep]

#ResignHarris
#JusticeforHarvey

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

"Queries to Harris went unanswered" #ResignHarris

[TrishS @Trishep]

#PublicInquiryNow

[Stephen Morrison @Stephen63224725]

Raymond Bradley SC “Nothing short of a full tribunal of inquiry, with powers to compel witnesses and seize documents, will suffice.” @CarrollJennifer @SimonHarrisTD #PublicInquiryNow