Minister for Agriculture attends 81-person golf event in breach of health guidelines

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Kind of archaic that people think that there is some sort of secret circle going on here, just because you get a few golfers in a room. People lusting for blood because they whipped out the good wine on a Wednesday night in Connemara. Heaven forbid. Gangs of commies rubbing their knees because they caught a few fat Paddy's having a "shindig", tut tut tut.

When the dust settles there will be another outrage next week, last week it was a Z celebrity from Wicklow wearing a camouflaged t-shirt.

I thought it was telling that there were hundreds of thousands of businessmen and Irish millionaires not in the room, how dare they the bastards? etc etc.

Rubbing shoulders my eye, storm in a tea-cup, a phucking disgrace blah phucking blah. Big Phil didn't lose a wink over that, I hear Mick Lowry is still on the floor in fits, his stomach is aching he laughed so hard. Denis O'Brien sent Daz a bottle of cognac as a commiseration, nice of him. McManus opened a 38 year old Irish and spat ice in it, he does that sometimes.

Seemingly the dot com lads are too millennial and boring so don't get any invos, too woke to be corrupted, how bland. More likely to get ecstatic over a fire work display in Kuala Lumpur or a conspiracy over a Covid Vaccine.

Looking forward to the next outrage. No doubt the minister for education will be snapped buying clothes without a face mask or shaking hands with a headmistress from Kildare ( in a pub eating pizza , probably in Leixlip ).

Who paid for the dinner, green fees and hotels?

Field east wrote: »

No quarrel with that, but what about the rest of them.. some farm leaders in the past at least, political pundits ( eg Eoin Harris) either would not go on some TV / radio shows or were not invited on to take part because of no guarantee of fair treatment, agenda could not be controlled, etc.

You are free to mention them. Knock yourself out.

El Weirdo wrote: »

No one's convincing me that Martin, Varadkar and the rest of the government didn't know that this event was taking place before Thursday night when the story broke.

Surely an email or something went around to every member of the Oireachtas informing them of social events. Like it does in every company in the world.

Lets not forget either that both Michael Martin and Leo Varadkar have no less than six special advisers each on salaries of 90k up to 180k. Thats on top of their Dail secretarys and constituency secretarys. So to say that they did not have previous knowledge of this gold shindig is complete scutter, they literally have an army of very well paid PR merchants to tell them everything that it going on.

Of course we would have the answer to what Martin knew and when he knew it if Catriona Perry had actually asked the question of Michael Martin in his RTE interview yesterday evening. But she didn't, her priority seemed to be to give him as soft an interview as possible, it was pathetic.

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MayoAreMagic wrote: »

It was spread across 2 rooms though. These rules are only after being written. It is feasible that they could have believed that that was within the rules. There is a lot of that kind of thing going on with pubs etc. It isnt clearcut and I think that soneone could have attended under the belief that they were within the rules

I don’t see how a “partition “ separating the tables makes it two rooms?
Would they have accommodated a wedding of 300 by partitioning every group of 50 people?said partition removed for speeches it seems....

statesaver wrote: »

Folks seem to be more angry about this than the treatment of the elderly in nursing homes during the height of Covid.

And just in case anybody is unfamiliar with the treatment of the elderly in nursing homes during the height of Covid.

On February 28th NHI (Nursing Homes Ireland) emailed Department of Health "I note the HSE has confirmed in the media there is 'adequate stock'. This is not the case for our member nursing homes, who require stocks of PPE. We require confirmation of procedures in place to provide nursing homes with stocks of PPE". This was the first of almost daily emails from NHI to DofH.

DofH responded "We are following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer and NPHET and will follow-up with them regarding your query."

Tony Holohan "We wanted to have the country move in step with the advice, and have people follow the advice as we issued it. We didn't want to see a measure like restricting visitation to nursing homes - which is cutting people off from their loved ones - being introduced any earlier [than necessary]."

What Dr Holohan was talking about was advice given by Nursing Homes Ireland. On Friday 6 March, NHI issued a statement saying "visiting restrictions are now in place in nursing homes nationwide. No non-essential visiting, children, or groups will be allowed". In the wake of the NHI decision, NPHET released another statement. In it Dr Holohan said: "We ask that no organisation, school or health service provider acts unilaterally. We need to respond to the threat of Covid-19 in unison, following the advice of Public Health." In short, the NPHET view was, there was no need for visiting restrictions ... yet.

In an attempt to assuage fears, on the 6th March, HSE South sent a "letter of assurance" to local nursing homes. "We wish to stress that any patient discharged from CUH will have undergone a full risk assessment and full medical assessment and will be deemed low risk and suitable for discharge into the community," the letter read. This didn't mean that all patients were being tested before being transferred, but they were being assessed.

The NPHET view that visiting restrictions for nursing homes were not yet required remained unchanged over that weekend. Through the following Monday the advice on nursing home visiting restrictions stayed the same. It didn't change after a meeting at 2pm on the Tuesday, 10 March. The NPHET minutes from that day say "unilateral/widespread restriction of visiting to nursing homes, hospitals and healthcare facilities is not required at this time". Yet 36 hours later, the NPHET advice would be to stop nursing home visits, and the Taoiseach was addressing the nation live on TV - visiting restrictions were to be place in nursing homes from the morning of 13 March - the next day.

According to data based on testing at the time, three weeks on from the restrictions being implemented, 40 clusters had emerged in nursing homes.

Back to March 10th, the HSE issued guidance to hospitals and nursing homes, telling them the steps to take when moving people between the two. Specifically, on the transfer of patients with symptoms who were contacts of a confirmed case, but had not been tested themselves, it said: "Transfers to RCF (Residential Care Facilities) should proceed provided that the resident has had a sample reported as not-detected."

On March 30th new guidance was issued. "All transfers or admissions with current fever or symptoms of acute respiratory tract infection should be accommodated in their own room with bathing and toilet facilities and encouraged to stay in their own room and avoid contact with other residents. If not already done they should ask their doctor for advice on testing for Covid-19. Subsequent management is determined by the outcome of the assessment." "Although accepting admission or transfer of residents poses a risk of introducing Covid-19 to a [Residential Care Facility], this is considered a necessary risk in the context of maintaining access to a critical service and the risk can be mitigated by rigorously following this guidance."

Figures provided by NHI indicate around 1,000 people were transferred into nursing homes from acute hospitals during February and March.

"No information was provided with regard to accessing PPE equipment which is a critical requirement to support nursing homes." NHI CEO Tadhg Daly wrote again to the Department of Health on 13 March. "Nursing homes are reporting they're being inundated with calls from hospitals/HSE facilities enquiring about capacity to facilitate discharges/transfers".

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), the State body which inspects and regulates nursing homes, was growing concerned. It also contacted departmental officials on 13 March, with a list of HSE-run homes it considered "at risk". HIQA says the correspondence received "an acknowledgement" on the same day.

On Monday 16th March, the Government published the National Action Plan on Covid-19. The 50-page document set a course for a "multi-agency public health-led" response to the coronavirus pandemic. It set the course for how State bodies would try to manage the crisis. The only specific mention of nursing homes in the document is in the part about acute services. The plan was to "on an ongoing basis, accelerate appropriate discharge of patients [from acute services] to appropriate facilities, or with homecare support".

NHI was still writing to the Department of Health in the meantime. "There is a critical issue with challenges of securing PPE for the nursing home sector", Tadhg Daly had written on 15 March. "Members are reporting that suppliers are not in a position to supply as they state they are supplying all such products exclusively to the HSE at this time." The health authorities were struggling to get enough PPE for their own staff and hospitals. At the same time, nursing homes were trying to buy PPE for their workers, and finding all of it had been bought up by the HSE.

By St Patrick’s Day, the HSE was undertaking a massive recruitment campaign to shore up the health system for the surge, while Nursing Homes Ireland was running a recruitment drive of its own, trying to get staff to replace people who are unavailable, sick, or in some cases, going to work for the HSE.

"We're very appreciative of your round-the-clock availability", NHI CEO Tadhg Daly wrote to senior managers in the Department of Health and HSE on 18 March, but, he said, the situation had grown especially urgent "in the past 24/48 hours". Requesting an immediate conference call, he said "the provision of PPE, oxygen and other required supplies is challenging to say the least, with many nursing homes exhausting their stock. An increasing number of nursing homes residents and staff are awaiting testing. Delays occurring can present cataclysmic consequences."

On March 18th, the NPHET Subgroup on Vulnerable People had been discussing nursing homes. The testing backlog was discussed, with the supply of reagents being highlighted as a significant problem when it came to getting results to tens of thousands of people. At the subgroup, it was decided there was a need to examine issues "arising in the (nursing home) sector". And "to develop proposed measures, including temporary financial support to respond to those issues, where necessary". A 'short-life working group' was set up. It would meet for the first time the following day.

The members of the new short-life working group came from the Department of Health, HSE, National Treatment Purchase Fund and HIQA, all of which are government bodies. When they heard about the working group, Nursing Homes Ireland wanted to be on it. Tadhg Daly wanted to know why he wasn't invited, by this point he was requesting an urgent meeting with Minister for Health Simon Harris about the crisis.

Tadhg Daly had begun writing directly to Minister Harris also by now, asking for emergency help for nursing homes, PPE, and a 50% increase in the State funding provided per person under the Fair Deal scheme. The next day, he wrote to officials about staffing problems. "As you are aware there are significant recruitment challenges in the sector. Members are reporting applications now withdrawn." He attached correspondence given to him from one nursing home, sent in by potential hire: "Due to developments with the government yesterday… It does not make sense for us financially, I have to put my family first in this situation." The staffing issue was now putting homes "at grave risk", Daly wrote on 25 March. Officials from the Department of Health responded almost immediately, saying colleagues in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection were looking at the issue.

The NPHET nursing homes working group was having its third and final meeting by now, and examining a submission from Nursing Homes Ireland, detailing all their concerns about the sector. These now ranged from staffing to oxygen supply. On 26 March, the working group completed its work, and prepared to report upwards within NPHET.

On Sunday 29 March, a meeting was lined up between Nursing Homes Ireland, senior health officials, and the minister, to be held in the Department of Health. It took place at 2.30pm on the Monday. By then the first batch of PPE was on the way from China. "Fifteen years worth" of equipment had been ordered by the HSE. 24 clusters had been identified in nursing homes. A month later there was 219.

31st March, NPHET met, and considered a paper from its subgroup on vulnerable people. The minutes say: "It was agreed that the growing number of clusters of Covid-19 infections in nursing homes and residential healthcare settings ... requires an immediate and targeted focus on implementation of specific and enhanced public health measures for long term residential care centres."The HSE was asked to deploy "an integrated outbreak crisis management response across all long term residential care settings". On 4th April, the minister publicly announced a €72m support scheme for nursing homes.

Deleted User wrote: »

I'd be quite happy to see them all fired, also whoever facilitated the event, but this idea that everyone should say feck the covid restrictions is just childish.
Whatever measures we took over the last few months should have been based on information, judgment and common sense. Not because a politician told us to do it.
It seems many people went too far sticking to the letter of the restrictions and they feel foolish now.

At least they are still alive. In the circumstances given , it made MUCH more sense to be ‘over foolish’ than ‘ under foolish’. Do you not think so. We are now in a much better position as to what to do and not do to avoid the virus

The Examiner, Aoife-Grace Moore & Co. did a great job. But, I saw that this meeting was in fact first highlighted on Radio na Gaeltachta on Tuesday, one day before the event itself and before it got any coverage in our English language media.