@Unconvertible Rebel: Ah stop, I agree our public health service was under performing but nobody could have imagine a health emergency of these proportions.

@Unconvertible Rebel: no country in the world has been able to cope with it

@Unconvertible Rebel: a ridiculous comment. You can’t run a health service for a pandemic that might happen every hundred years. It’s not feasible and definitely not necessary.

@Unconvertible Rebel: oh ,just go away please -I am sick and tired of the same old BS being trotted out here every day – If you have nothing positive to say just keep quiet .

@Unconvertible Rebel: There’s no hospital system in the world that would have the capicity we’ll need in the coming weeks. By the way, our health system has been unslder resourced for much longer than 9 years, not sure where you’re getting that time frame from!

@Unconvertible Rebel: my sentiments exactly, as much as they appear to be doing all they can, there has been fundamental problems that have gone unsolved in the HSE for years which has then caused this enormous pressure on the service. I wonder statistically speaking if you contract serious complications with covid-19 in which areas of the country are you most likely to die, such as it is with heart attacks etc due to lack of services and resources? Morbid but true.

@Unconvertible Rebel: Look if you’re going to use this epidemic to score political points the *least* you could do is actually expand on the topic in some kind of meaningful or useful way.

For example, as a country we are in the Top 10 worldwide in terms of spending per capita on health. As such we don’t have a spending (ie political) issue, we have a management (ie civil-service) issue. So the reality is it doesn’t really matter who gets elected in terms of our health service since our civil service is entrenched in their position like it’s the Somme and the year is 1916.

And if you ask a politician what they think they can do about this they will just stare at you as if you just asked them to fly. So not only does the actual problem get almost no recognition, it’s further compounded by the fact that our health service is treated like a political football come election time. Unless we solve these structural blockers actual reform is borderline impossible. You might as well be trying to learn how to fly.

@Breda Kelly: Ablab alamas Canadian eh?

@Tony Lyons: much like the Who and its Chinese masters you seem to overlook Taiwan

@Unconvertible Rebel: Sit down in a dark room you fool.

@Breda Kelly: me ass doing a great job

@Unconvertible Rebel: clown

@Breda Kelly: another North-South polist among us. Shameful.

@Breda Kelly: I’m don’t seem to be buying into this government doing a great job.. the government are simple taking orders from the health professionals. And why is Leo Varadkar posing for photos. Seems every opportunity is a photo shoot for them..

@Unconvertible Rebel: Sinn Fein troll. You are doing more damage to the party with your rubbish on herd than their elected members singing IRA songs drunk in bars.

@Paul O’Sullivan: oh look, another brand new faceless twitter account calling anyone who isnt singing leos praises SF trolls.

the spin unit is back

@Breda Kelly: per percentage of population, the UK are faring both better and worse than us in Ireland, so it’s a fairly uninformed argument that they are faring much worse than us. Better In UK: 0.0449% as of population who are infected as to Ireland’s 0.0714%. However, deaths in UK 0.00354% compared to Ireland’s 0.00176%. Median age in Ireland is 36.5years while in the UK it is 40years, so you should statistically see more deaths there than here as a % of population. What I’d love to compare are the number of beds and ICU beds, ventilators and testing kits

@John O Brien: the sign of a good leader is listening to the experts. Look at the 2 countries either side of us!

@Irene Mc Hugh: Irene it would be very boring here if people cannot say what they want. Be more open minded to a variety of comments & opinions. Adds variety.
If u can’t take it deactivate your account.

@Declan Edward: you haven’t taken into account that we had tested I’ve twice as many per head on the positive numbers

@johnny onion eye: didn’t take it into account! We’re pretty much on the same playing field so. I did expect UKs numbers to be much worse considering that 83% live in urban areas compared to Ireland’s 63%.

@Breda Kelly: delays in carrying out testing and test results government claim shortage of supply yes other countries dont have same problems.

Yes doing amazing job alright

@Unconvertible Rebel: shut up with your pander you can see the whole world is suffering. Please stop with wrongful propaganda. God bless

@Maria: Dustin would look good in comparison to those two as apes

@Declan Edward: I’m sorry Declan but you can’t draw meaningful comparisons with the U.K. in terms of the numbers of infected. They aren’t testing serious numbers of people. Proportionately, Ireland is testing far more people. The U.K. stats are internationally accepted as unreliable. Moreover, where deaths occur outside of the hospital environment due to Covid they are not included in the U.K. figures at the moment as I understand it.

@John O Brien: Another person who thinks, conveniently, that the Govt are taking orders from civil servants. The legal of ignorance amongst a cohort of certain Journal commentators about how democratic Government works is illuminating. The Govt takes advice from civil and public servants. Advice. All key decisions are taken by Government and nobody else. They are them accountable for those decisions. The Govt don’t follow “orders” from the unelected. They are not SF for goodness sake.

@John Devaney: Yeah, I used to live it when they beat the snot out of us when they ran the schools. But sure at least they were spotless schools

@Colette Kearns: maybe you should run the health service so?. We can all complain. Unfortunately the HSE isn’t a quick fix. Increase in funding has been allocated in the last few budgets, but it is once of those areas that every country find it hard to run effectively.

@John Devaney: no. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. My grandmothers used to say that you only go into hospital to die. Nuns or no nuns, we didn’t have a wonderful health system. There was a very recent modern push to reform it, by which I mean shake off the abusive practices that other countries had successfully reformed from 1964 onwards. You were far too young to realise how many women were literally crippled by an outdated system; nor how many men died before their time. Oh, and the clean smell of antiseptic was applied by enslaved pregnant women, conned into believing they deserved to work for a pittance, while their children were being starved in orphanages. Stop sniffing the air and support the health service staff working in this century.

@John Devaney: in the 1970s DOBwas bearly out of short pants

@John Devaney: Was that when you were out pulling women? Looking back is great, the good times ehhh…. except medicine has moved on quite a bit, costs a fortune and we can treat way more illnesses…..

@Steve O’Reilly: BS very few developed countries in Europe have a similar shambles of a health service as ours.

@John Devaney: that’s a common misconception. Hospitals nowadays are just as clean. Its the superbugs you can’t see due to decades of over prescribing which are the problem in controlling infections.

@John Devaney: leave them where they are. That was the time where u would be two weeks in hospital if u were having your appendix out.

@Colette Kearns: Very true. Its what happens when you initiative something to Death. The money can spread over far far too much and not enough Butter. Scale back protect the core services.

@brian reid: no fear he wont go near her.

@Paul O’Sullivan: maybe she would just to let him see what he is missing