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LAST UPDATE | 25 Jan 2019
US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has announced that a deal has been reached to end a partial government shutdown that has been ongoing since December.
Trump said he would sign a short-term spending bill that would reopen the government until 15 February.
Announcing the bill outside the White House, he said that government employees who have been affected by the 35-day shutdown would receive back-pay for the time they have not been in work.
The government has been shut down for a record five weeks over a bitter row over funding for a US-Mexico border wall.
“The walls we are building are not medieval walls. They are smart walls designed to meet the needs of front-line border agents and are operationally effective,” he said.
US lawmakers and the White House were under intense pressure to resolve the impasse, as hundreds of thousands of federal workers headed into a second month without paychecks, and the political stalemate began to disrupt some of the nation’s busiest airports.
While staunchly defending his wall project – which he claims is needed to keep out criminals and drug traffickers – Trump made no announcement regarding his demand for $5.7 billion to fund the barrier, a key promise made to his right-wing supporters.
Instead, he said a “bipartisan conference committee” of lawmakers from the Republican-held Senate and Democrat-controlled House would set to work on the question of border security, with the issue of wall financing at the top of their agenda.
“Over the next 21 days, I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith,” said the president – who went on to threaten a new shutdown three weeks from now should Congress refuse to approve the funds.
“We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” he said.
If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government either shuts down on February 15th again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.
Tribute to federal workers
Trump has spoken for weeks about using his presidential authority to declare an emergency on the US border with Mexico in order to fund the controversial project without congressional approval.
After two competing bills to end the partial shutdown failed in the Senate yesterday, lawmakers were urgently scrambling for a fix that would get federal employees back on the job.
Normally paid every two weeks, 800,000 workers missed a second straight paycheck Friday, a situation that has reached a crisis point for thousands of American families.
The urgency was underscored as flight delays rippled across parts of the eastern US due to staffing shortages in airports where employees, including air traffic controllers, have been ordered to work without pay.
Trump – whose administration has been accused of being deaf to the shutdown’s impact – paid tribute to those affected.
“I want to thank all of the incredible federal workers and their amazing families who have shown such extraordinary devotion in the face of this recent hardship,” he said.
The president went on to reassert that many federal workers had backed him over the shutdown.
“In many cases you encouraged me to keep going because you care so much about all our country and about its border security,” he said.
- © AFP 2019, with reporting from Stephen McDermott.
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It was agreed in a meeting between the HSE and IMO, why didn’t the IMO tell their members?
I will wait for the IMO to come out and explain all this
Ridiculous that GPs can reinstate medical cards. They are hardly objective when treating their own patients and this approach results in the old system of he who shouts the loudest getting a medical card. Or as happened in FF’s time, you simply wrote to a TD to get a medical card.
2 million medical cards in the country. Onwards and upwards from here – let’s make it 3 million !
well done FG/LAB…you have even managed to make GPs look stupid – that’s not a good idea because they are not !
Please Sean just wait, the truth will out.
Great to see that Michael Healy Rae got his degree in medicine …. and he wearing the cap and all …humility on a grand scale !
I call BS, I work for a GP, we certainly have never heard of it….. But I could give lists of cases where people who really need and deserve medical cards are still bein messed about by PCRS…. So Varadkar now resorts to lies, one word comes to mind…. Disgusting…. The whole lot of them should be ashamed of the human cost of austerity forced into our most vulnerable. How many more people will consider suicide like that poor young guy in Galway? It’s really distressing listening to people who are already ill become hopeless in the face of the incompetent stonewalling of the HSE….
Cathy. My GP described this possibility to me last year. If he knew about it, I’m sure that your employer was also told about it.
There are stats on GPs using their reinstatment power…so clearly some GPs did get it. A chat with 50 GPs along the lines of ‘did you read such a letter in 2011-2012?’ does not go anywhere near a representative number of GPs in ireland (rep. about only 2% of them). So obvious some GPs did receive and read the letter…the lack of the latter being the most likely cause of confusion in this case.
My practice staff can confirm that not only could they not reinstate a card once it had expired, but when they telephoned the PCRS they were told that the patient would have to complete another application form regardless of their personal circumstances
We were promised it but it never happened. Another false dawn.
So not 1 gp actually read the agreement? Highly unlikely
Sorry, I can categorically state it was never said to our GP, do you not think that we would have used it for patients with cancer? Or an autistic child? It would have been used if it was policy….
Also, they are giving more discretionary powers to local HSE offices…. That’s the way it used to be done, ridiculous to wrap it up as a ‘new’ measure, it’s nothing of the sort!!!!
You’d swear they were gearing up for an election or something with all these ‘new’ anouncements.
Would GP’s have the same criterias as HSE and people would have to send their GP all the personal info re income and other data to be read? And if unfair dismissal of the card whom should one ask for a revision?
Is there any end to this government’s stupidity, even there “supposedly good news stories” are full of glaring holes and not properly thought out.
get’s broken down in the translation from German to English ….
Michael This does not hold true in the waiting room. Here we all wait and join the queue. If you ring to make an appointment you are given a time but when you get to the clinic you give your name at reception and you join the queue. It does not matter whether you are a private or Medical Card patient. Only Medical emergencies get priority and thankfully that is a rare enough occurrence. But otherwise you wait ….. and wait.
Plonkers!!
That’s given GPs a open check book – hey buddy come 1000 times a year
We are not paid per visit so that argument doesn’t hold up. I can state categorically that it is not possible to reinstate a medical card. I use the HSEs system and it doesn’t have this functionality. No circular came re this. Why would I spend previous time writing begging letters to the HSE if I could just reinstate cards with one click ?????
Point of information. GPs are paid an annual fee for looking after each patient regardless of the number of consultations. We don’t get paid per visit or house call during surgery hours. 2012 OECD data forecasted to 2014 after 2013 FEMPI will show us amongst the lowest earning GPs in the OECD as a proportion of average income. HSE administration amongst the highest earning.
These comments represent all regular GPs inhabiting planet earth. HSE comments must be referring to virtual GPs in satellite clinics.
My mother who is 83 and has very bad Dementia, has had her medical card removed. The forms to reinstate it would stop a qualified accountant in his tracks.
Surely to God Gov. knew this and if not why not. Imagine announcing something already in place whole Gov. should hang their heads in shame. How come Drs that knew about it didn’t say a word when parents came on radio/tv to appeal for help for seriously ill children.
Shame can be spread around on this one.
Do you actually believe government media releases. When were they ever fair or honest regarding GPs? I must commend their ability to produce black propaganda in order to distract attention away from reality.
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