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A PUBLIC ACCESS defibrillator in Mallow in Cork was the subject of vandalism last week, for the second time in six months.
The incident happened on the night of St Patrick’s Day last Saturday in the town.
Speaking to Patricia Messenger on C103′s Cork Today show, Willie Walsh of Mallow Search and Rescue described it as a “complete act of reckless vandalism” and that there had been a great deal of public outrage over it.
He described the incident: “Well there were a group of young people passing, and four of them had passed on.
One guy decided in his wisdom that he’d run back and drive his fist in through the glass on the defibrillator’s case. He didn’t do it just once but twice.
Walsh said that CCTV had captured the incident clearly, unlike the previous incident before Christmas.
“We’ve received quite a number of texts and calls with some valuable information,” he said.
He said that it won’t cost a lot to fix the unit, but that it was the “principle of the whole thing”.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. This is a public safety device. It’s a very valuable piece of equipment when people are in need of it… There’s complete outrage over it and rightly so.
Walsh added that the matter was being dealt with by gardaí, and the presenter told him she hoped it’s the last time she spoke to him about a vandalised defibrillator.
Legislation put forward last year by Dr Keith Swanick, Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson in Seanad Éireann, proposed introducing a new offence in relation to the theft or damage of life saving equipment such as defibrillators and lifebuoys.
Swanwick said: “If people know that a custodial sentence of up to five years, or indeed a fine of up to €50,000 could arise on foot of stealing a lifebuoy or damaging a defibrillator, they might think twice.
“This legislation that I am drafting is designed to allow the Oireachtas send a strong signal that there can be no tolerance for damaging life saving equipment. Severe financial penalties as well as custodial sentencing options will be contained in the bill.”
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It’s time to tax the super rich.
@James Joseph: it’s time to tax vulture funds and not raising welfare a fiver a week and cutting the Xmas bonus would save a billion a year! They don’t want to collect more from the lpt due to an imminent election. When the shit hits the fan again and the analysis starts , fg won’t have been found to be a prudent set of hands , believe me !
Enda lied. Leo made it worse & Harris hasn’t a clue. FG don’t care about ordinary citizens suffering this way – they only care about themselves & their wealthy influencers. Never wasting a vote on that rotten party again.
@Setrakian: unfortunately it won’t matter who you vote in . government departments are run by long term civil servants with no accountability. Harris is just a public face of the system.until we get accountability it just goes on and on
Great week for the government. Over 10000 on trolleys and 10000 homeless. Should give themselves a raise
@Shaun Gallagher: don’t give the parasites ideas.
@Shaun Gallagher: they just did in October. Another 900 a year.1%.
@Shaun Gallagher: homelessness is a worldwide problem, there is 16000 homeless in NI under SF watch
@Patrick O Connell: So Parrick you are happy with the amount of people who have no home to call their own? There should be no one homeless in this Country if we had a Government that would put Ireland first.
Gotten to the stage where I’d happily vote to bar all serving TD’s and ministers from holding private health insurance.
Let them experience having to use the public health service is the only way to get things sorted.
@Mill Lane: that’s an inspired idea! Won’t happen though the piggies at the trough wouldn’t allow it!
If there was ever a major rail or aviation crash the system would crash. God help us all. Senior management are not up to running the HSE and the Dept of Health are at war with each other wasting money.
@Martin Sinnott: If you had an accident and woke up in one of our hospitals, you would think that there had been some sort of natural disaster such is the scale of the issue. It’s complete carnage. People everywhere. Fair play to the nurses and staff that work in those conditions
@Martin Sinnott: get rid of the gormless failure Simon Harris, finish your studies Simon and let a competent adult take over…
@Gus Sheridan: But who? And could anyone honestly make a difference at this point? Just take the recent situation with the mortuary in Waterford, there’s a written history of that going back to at least 2004 when State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy had written about her concerns regarding it. In 2017 a body had to be taken to another hospital as there was no room in Waterford, it’s this history of poor conditions that drove Prof Rob Landers to write and complain about the mortuary in University Hospital Waterford. Yet the Taoiseach could find no evidence to support it. Did he look?
No dignity for patients, no peace of mind for relatives but at least people can google what’s wrong with them on their high speed broadband or take great comfort knowing that the tax payer is shelling out billions to build a children’s hospital for consultants to make their fortune in the private clinics.
The public & hospital staff know it’s ‘unacceptable overcrowding…’ but where is the URGENCY from Government to adequately tackle the emergency?Plus over 700,000 people on hospital waiting lists,this is unacceptable also….but where is the URGENCY to adequately tackle this?There seems to be a sence of tolerance from Government re ‘unacceptable’ hospital overcrowding,massive hospital waiting lists etc otherwise these ‘unacceptable’conditions wouldn’t be allowed continue year after year!
Don’t worry soon they will all have broadband to stem the boredom.
10,000 in the corridors and at least another 10,000 on the streets , ahhh sure it’s a great wee country , Fu(kin 1st world country on its way back to 3rd world
@Karllye kripton: on its way back?…….
Vote fine gael, fair play to everyone. I’m alright John.
You voted for them so what do you expect !!!!.
Almost 70 years of complacency and you still vote for them.
Before you whinge “who else is there” , how do you know unless you try.
FFFG were democratically elected and this is what you get.
Nothing will ever change until both parties are removed.
But realistically we all know they’ll be in power for a long time to come
Dont worry about it Simon and Leo have appropriated MINIMUM €12 million to fund abortion “services”. You voted for it. Now reap the consequences
@Ismise Máire: whst has this to do with abortion ? This is the result of bad managment and greedy managers.
Shocking. Wouldn’t happen in the private sector because management would be fired and not have public service protection
Ireland, A ship of fools or Banana Republic, take your pick.
I was one of those people..went into hospital in severe pain did not see a doctor fr 12HRS..LIKE A FIELD HOSPITAL..
I’d wager that out of those 10,000 people that were on trolly’s how many were actually serious enough to warrant the need of a bed and how many could have been dealt by out of hours doc.
I saw one night I had to present to ED as I thought I was having a heart attack. There was a mother her kid had a high temp the mother started getting shouty so a nurse came out and asked did you present to caredoc first the mother replied no and was told she’ll be dealt with in rotation. There was a man and woman with a child who vomiting. The point been if people used caredoc for the minor ailments then the figure wouldn’t be 10,000 another thing a fee of €50 should be threatened for cases deemed not warranting specialist care like turning up with a cold or cough or vomiting.
Is it patients or is it patient days. Neither is good but knowing this confirms absolutely as I recall this being an issue before.
have your say