‘Constructive' talks take place between Minister and disability service providers, says department
Norma Foley
and service providers on problems faced by the sector have been described as 'constructive'.
The
Department of Disability
said that the meeting on Tuesday formed part of ongoing engagement. Organisations providing specialist disability services have been concerned for some time about funding for the sector.
The Irish Times reported in May
that more than two dozen bodies providing services to tens of thousands of people warned there was 'an extreme risk' to their ability to expand services or, in many cases, sustain existing operations.
[
Disability service providers warn of 'extreme risk' to operations and ability to expand
Opens in new window
]
In an unprecedented joint letter to
Health Service Executive chief Bernard Gloster
, the chairmen/women of 26 voluntary disability service providers – voluntary public service organisations and voluntary grant-aided bodies – said their ability to deliver existing services and meet the needs in their communities was under threat.
READ MORE
The letter said many organisations were facing such acute financial situations that their boards were 'concerned they may be in breach of the reckless trading provisions of the Companies Act'.
The department said on Tuesday that Ms Foley, in conjunction with the HSE, had 'had a constructive meeting with disability services organisations ... and further engagements will be arranged over the coming weeks/months.'
Taoiseach Micheál Martin
has said the issue of disability is a top priority for his Government. However, while the amount of money allocated for specialist disability services has grown by €1.6 billion since 2020, the Government has recognised that some providers are experiencing 'funding, operational and governance challenges'.
The letter sent to the HSE in May said that boards of public service disability organisations were 'having to operate in crisis mode'.
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Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
Like Katriona O'Sullivan, my childhood love of sport became a quest for weight-loss points
Katriona O'Sullivan, the Maynooth University academic and author of the bestselling memoir Poor , posted an emotional video to her Instagram recently in which she recalls a note from her second-year school report in which her PE teacher describes her as 'excellent at all sport', 'having a lot of talent' and 'capable of performing at a high level at any sport of her choosing'. She is sharing this reflection, she explains, in the context of writing about her body in her next book, Hungry. Within a year of that report card, she says, she was pregnant. After another year, she'd joined Weight Watchers, an experience which transformed her joyful experience of exercise into a commodified quest for weight-loss points, devoid of any of the pleasure – and sense of her own talent – that she used to derive from it. The specifics of O'Sullivan's personal story are her own but what she discusses here about the relationship between sport and adolescence will be recognisable to many women. The number of girls and young women who make it through puberty with their love of sports and exercise (for its own sake) intact is something that has been written about a lot recently . How many women who maintain an active participation in exercise share O'Sullivan's experience of having what was once a carefree, joyful, or even competitive endeavour become a functionalist understanding of movement as primarily for the sake of weight loss or body transformation? Whether it's the anxieties that accompany the onset of periods (worsened by the wacky obsession with compelling girls to wear white shorts and skorts on competitive teams), or the targeting of advertising and marketing that seems designed to instil in us the idea that our bodies are little but passive shells for garnering the approval or disapproval of the external world – engaging in sports and exercise in our teenage years starts to feel like a social risk. READ MORE O'Sullivan's words resonated especially for me after a week where I've had cause to reflect a lot on my relationship with sports. Last weekend, as a result of a very under-thought-out (and possibly slightly drunken) decision-making, I swam the longest distance (3.9km) on offer at the Gaelforce Great Lake swimming event on Lough Derg. Despite our creche's summer holidays and the baby-sleep-eviscerating heatwave conspiring to ensure I had almost no rest or good sleep in the days running up to the event, I put in a perfectly decent performance. There were various moments of thinking I was drowning, or believing a rescue kayak must be hovering behind me, and despite almost certainly swimming about two additional kilometres in zigzagging all over the place, I didn't get anywhere near the 1.45 time cut-off beyond which they suggested people might be removed from the water for their safety. Given the balmy conditions, this was probably an empty threat anyway. As I exited the water, a little boy put a medal over my cap-clad head, which my watching four-year-old daughter quickly snaffled for her neck. It's hard to explain the extent of the pride I felt. Having done no open water training for the swim, I am forced to conclude that this is something I might just be good at. I have passionately taken up pool swimming again since I saw Mona McSharry win her bronze in Paris last year. But when I reflect on why I left my swimming club the year I started secondary school, I remember it was about coping with being in togs at a time when I had come to regard my body as a site of big social embarrassment and shame. I know I was not alone in trading coaches to galas and goggles for long, lonely walks and compulsive bedroom sit-ups. Perhaps it is in part shared history that explains the surge of women rediscovering competitive physicality via Hyrox, the competitive fitness trend , triathlons and open-water swimming in their 30s and beyond. We are clawing back a sense of our bodies as powerful instruments with a lot left to give, in the face of a media landscape constantly telling us that our physical stock is plummeting – and that we should focus on saving ourselves with hormone health, expensive supplements and everything from naturopathy to invasive surgery. When I finished that race, I sent people post-race photographs of me and the medal thief. I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would willingly send someone photographs of myself in a swimsuit, except one in which my engagement with my body as something I do things with (instead of a thing that might look good or bad) had been swung back in the right direction. We are living through a deepening crisis about girls' exposure to online and offline messaging that is damaging to their sense of their bodies and what they are for. And so we need to make it as easy as possible for them to stay involved in activities that push back against this understanding of their bodies as objects of scrutiny they have to drag around with them. This involves giving much more space to highlighting women's achievements in sports and physical pursuits, so that young girls have some counterweight against a media landscape heaving with Kardashians, influencers and body-as-object messaging. It also involves making participation in sport varied, accessible and cheap. And it means ensuring that women's routes back into sport later in life aren't prohibitively expensive, or impossible to fit into professional or maternal lives.
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
Parents facilitating a 16-year-old's ‘prinks' is a sign of our weird relationship with alcohol
The drinks industry would have not opposed health warning labels on alcohol if they did not pose an existential threat to its profits. However, Big Alcohol lobbying so hard to get the Government to delay implementation until 2029 may have backfired. The unforeseen consequence is that more people now realise that alcohol is a class one carcinogen , in the same category as tobacco and asbestos. If your reaction to that statement was either to flinch or roll your eyes, welcome to Ireland, where our relationship with alcohol is as convoluted and as hard to uproot as bindweed. Our per capita intake may not be the worst in Europe and it is true that it is falling, but our addiction to binge drinking means that our health is still getting hammered. British travel writer and entrepreneur Dan Kieran once wrote a perceptive piece likening alcohol to a shared ritual , with an unspoken agreement that it is a good thing and part of who we are. He may as well have been taking about Ireland. READ MORE He described some people's tacit reaction to his decision to drink only on rare occasions, which amounted to, 'It's nice to see you and I'm in a good mood and there are lots of things worrying me at the moment [that] drinking allows me to forget briefly. Please don't suggest I have a dependency problem and ruin it for me.' Our relationship with alcohol starts early. A friend describes being astonished that parents she knows feel the need to facilitate their 16-year-olds' 'prinks' – pre-drinking, as in drinking alcohol at home before going out – as though access to alcopops is a human rights issue. Evidence from UK-based drinks market analyst IWSR suggests that even Gen Z, formerly seen as abstemious, are starting to consume more alcohol. IWSR sees it as positive that Gen Z are displaying 'a greater willingness to explore and maintain wider repertoires among multiple drink categories; above-average engagement with spirits; [and] a more relaxed stance on sustained moderation'. Tánaiste Simon Harris a former champion of health labels, now supports delaying introduction of health labelling for years. There may be concerns about unforeseen consequences, including pushing young people towards cocaine if alcohol use is reduced because of price increases. The cost of a gramme of cocaine is about €70, while a pint hovers somewhere between €6 and €7. [ Delay on health labelling on alcohol comes amid uncertain trading environment Opens in new window ] But it's often not one or the other. Very few people snort their first line of coke while stone cold sober. A 2019 Health Research Board study shows that alcohol was consumed in 85 per cent of first uses of cocaine. Alcohol is a gateway drug to cocaine, and taking cocaine enables people to drink more. We have such a weird relationship with alcohol that we would prefer to worry about cocaine use going up, rather than face the fact that most people's drug of choice is alcohol. Heavy-handed tactics by Big Alcohol backfired in Yukon, Canada, in 2017. Yukon, like Ireland, has high rates of binge-drinking and health-related harms like cancer. The Yukon government is directly involved in the sale of alcohol. Researchers saw tiny Yukon as an ideal location to conduct an eight-month real-world experiment on the impact of health warning labels. Bright yellow labels were affixed to alcohol in the government liquor store in Whitehorse, the capital. The experiment was axed within a month after ferocious industry pressure. Emails obtained under freedom of information showed that industry leaders claimed the assertion ''alcohol can cause cancer' is a false and misleading statement'; one called the cancer-warning label 'alarmist and misleading'. The relentless lobbying to drop the labels in Yukon only focused attention on the reasons behind the resistance. In 2018, when the legislation regarding labelling was being introduced in Ireland, some industry members compared the carcinogenic effect of alcohol to that of burnt toast. Drinkaware, which is funded by the alcohol industry, runs soulful ads featuring hip-hop artist Nealo, urging us to embrace mindful drinking. Meanwhile, the alcohol industry opposes all regulation that limits the availability, price and promotion of alcohol. [ Drinks Ireland warned Taoiseach that alcohol health labelling plans seen as 'trade barrier' by US Opens in new window ] Alcohol is responsible for four deaths every day in Ireland and causes more than 200 types of illnesses and injuries, including seven common deadly cancers, fatal liver disease, and foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. One in 13 cases of breast cancer is directly related to alcohol consumption. Worryingly, most people who are aware of the link think it is just heavy drinking that is problematic. Saving lives by challenging a culture reinforced daily by a powerful global lobby requires courage. There will never be a good time to introduce labelling. There will always be an economic crisis or a powerful lobby that will be displeased. We were on the verge of doing something as revolutionary as the smoking ban, and we chickened out. Have your say: What do you think of 16-year-olds drinking alcohol? Would you let your own teens drink at home? Tell us below
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Death Cafes: ‘It's a privilege to talk about death and dying with people, because you learn a lot about living'
'Are you interested in talking about death?' It was this small ad in a London newspaper about 12 years ago that caught Bernie Folan's attention. 'I've always been interested in the big stuff, not the small talk,' says Folan, who was brought up in London but whose family is from Connemara. 'The ad said: 'Phone this number.' And I did.' It brought her to a house in Hackney, East London, where she and five other strangers gathered at the kitchen table of a man called Jon Underwood. She didn't know it then, but she was attending the second-ever Death Cafe – Underwood was in the process of founding what has since become a global movement. His objective was to increase awareness of death, and so help people make the most of their finite lives. READ MORE Folan was intrigued. 'I said: 'I'm not really sure why I'm here, I haven't had a huge amount of death in my life,' but for some reason or other, I kind of got hooked,' she says. Soon she was hosting Death Cafes herself. Living between Yorkshire and Connemara now, she hosts a Death Cafe in Galway about every six weeks. 'I posted a 'Meet-up' yesterday, and already we have 15 people signed up. It's often oversubscribed – there is a real willingness here,' she says. With Death Cafes popping up in recent years in Dalkey, Dundalk, Belfast, Bantry, Waterford and Wicklow, there is no shortage of people who want to talk about death. Those who attend meet simply as people who are going to die – so all of us qualify. Anyone can meet to talk about death, of course, but the meeting can only use the social franchise name Death Cafe if it follows certain principles outlined by Underwood, setting out what a Death Cafe is and what it is not. In short, there is no agenda, and no set themes or guest speakers – the group directs the discussion. A Death Cafe doesn't lead people to particular products, conclusions or actions either. Bernie Folan listens to a participant during a Death Cafe meeting at the Victoria Hotel in Galway city. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy End-of-life care, eco funerals, musical choices, is there an afterlife – individual participants might end up talking about these things, but a Death Cafe is not about persuading anyone, agreeing anything or selling something. It is about growing social impact, not profit. It helps to have a good facilitator. Death Cafe organisers, or 'hosts', must be able to listen and talk about all aspects of death with equanimity, and make others feel safe and comfortable to do so too. Oh, and there must be tea and cake, that's in the principles too. Eating cake, especially with strangers, can be a comforting and social activity. This can make it easier to discuss a potentially sensitive topic. The Hook & Ladder and Jack Monday's cafes in Limerick city don't bat an eye when the Death Cafe people arrive. 'We have to give the venues a lot of credit for embracing this,' says Jennifer Moran Stritch, co-founder of Limerick Death Cafe, which will mark its 10th anniversary in November. 'Every event we've had has been a 'sell-out' crowd. It's part of the community culture in Limerick now,' she says. Attendees have included college students, octogenarians, neighbours, mother-and-daughter duos – 'We've had a couple of first dates too,' says Moran Stritch who hosts three a year including during Limerick's Halloween festival, Samhain, and in Holy Week. [ How to 'die well' in today's Ireland: It starts with living a good life Opens in new window ] 'There is laughing, and people leave feeling more connected. There is a real sense of connection, respect and lightness among people.' Moran Stritch, a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon, is a thanatologist – that's someone who has an academic interest in all aspects of death, dying and bereavement across cultures. She has taught at the Irish Hospice Foundation and as part of the Masters in Bereavement Studies at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. She is clear about what a Death Cafe is. 'It's not an educational opportunity, so it's not me lecturing people – but if you don't learn something from other people there, I'd be surprised,' she says. It's not religious either. 'We're not proselytising anything. Like, here's a way to think about death that's much better. But if you don't walk away feeling a bit spiritual, I'd be surprised,' she says. Importantly, the Death Cafe is not a therapy session or a bereavement support group. 'But if you don't walk away having been able to share what grief feels like for you, or support someone else in that, again I'd be surprised,' Moran Stritch says. There are too many stories of people who say they wish they were better prepared when a loved one dies, she adds. 'You hear: 'I wish I had talked to my mam about what she really wanted,' or 'I wish she had been willing to talk to me about what she wanted.' A participant at the Galway Death Cafe meeting at the Victoria Hotel in Galway city. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy 'Those conversations are about developing a comfort and openness with being able to talk about all aspects of life, and death is part of life. For me to be able to say I can go some way to be able to provide a space for people and myself to talk about those things, that's a real benefit to me.' Underwood had been inspired by the work of the late Swiss sociologist and anthropologist, Bernard Crettaz, says Moran Stritch. On a mission to liberate death from what he called 'tyrannical secrecy', Crettaz had held a 'Café Mortel' in Paris in 2004. 'The assembled company, for a moment, and thanks to death, is born into authenticity,' Crettaz said. Cake was important to Crettaz too. 'His thing was it has to be a celebratory food. Celebrate your one finite life, taste the sweetness of it, even while discussing the fact that you won't be here some day. Celebrate that,' says Moran Stritch. Underwood met Crettaz in 2014, and Death Cafes credit his influence. There is value in confronting death frequently, Moran Stritch believes. 'The word that comes up for me is 'microdosing'. A way to build up against an allergy is to do small, safe exposures with some frequency. You are never going to be able to grieve sufficiently ahead, you are never going to be all right with it, you are still going to grieve and feel those not-nice emotions that the death of others or our own imminent death brings up for us, but at least this can normalise it.' The Death Cafe in Galway attracts a mix of people, says Bernie Folan. One of the attendees at the Galway Death Cafe meeting at the Victoria Hotel, Galway city. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy One of the people attending the Death Cafe meeting at the Victoria Hotel in Galway. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy 'There may be people who are actively dying, they know they are dying. Well, we are all dying of course, that's what we have in common,' she says. Some are dealing with the loss of partners or parents. 'When listening to people's stories, you can see that they are living their lives and it is very instructive and it's a privilege,' she says. 'It's a privilege to talk about death and dying with people because you learn a lot about living from doing that.' Some are very fearful of death. 'There is one person who is terrified, she has a real fear of death. And I said to her, the fact that you are here is really impressive. A lot of people would run a mile from something called a Death Cafe and you are here talking to other people. That might not feel like progress, but it probably is.' A Death Cafe won't prevent or cure fear, but it can be cathartic for attendees, says Moran Stritch. 'If there are things inside me that are upsetting, or that I think I shouldn't be thinking, I can chat with other people and not feel embarrassed or ashamed or feel I'm being silly by bringing these things up,' she says. 'I'm sure there are personal benefits for me too in terms of my ability to think and feel about my own mortality, but also the deaths or potential deaths of people I'm close to.' Talking about death hasn't protected Folan from grief. 'When my father died, people asked, was it easier for you because of all the work you do on death? And I said no, you can't inoculate yourself against grief – and why would you want to? Grief is normal,' she says. 'But if we pretend that death is not going to happen, it can really disarm us.' Talking about death can instruct how we live. She refers to the work of 16th-century philosopher, Michel de Montaigne. 'He says something like, think about death for five minutes every day and then get on with your life, get on with living.' A Death Cafe meeting participant at the Victoria Hotel, Galway city. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy A participant at the Galway Death Cafe meeting at the Victoria Hotel in Galway. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy It's about understanding viscerally, as Underwood did, that time isn't forever, she says. Your life is finite, so make the most of it. 'It enables me to keep from straying too far from spending too much time doing the wrong things, from wasting time. It's really hard to get angry about waiting in a supermarket queue if you think 'I'm lucky to be alive'. Not everyone is,' she says. Patricia O'Sullivan hosts a monthly Death Cafe in the side room of the community hall in Ballydehob, Co Cork. 'There are no experts at a Death Cafe,' she says. 'We are all equal. It's simply people talking and being heard on the subject of death.' O'Sullivan arranges the tea and cake. She has lived in the area for 34 years, attending the Death Cafe events in the village for years before taking on the hosting duties herself. 'I just think it's an excellent idea. Any subject that is difficult to speak about for people, I just think, what a beautiful idea to gather and talk about it.' Ballydehob's Death Cafe attracts all ages, some regulars and some new joiners. Some will be well known to each other, but it's unlikely they have ever spoken about their feelings around death to each other before. [ The things I've learned about living from dying Opens in new window ] 'In the olden days people gathered a lot more easily, but in this day and age we have to make it happen. To be sure, it brings a closeness and a connection when you hear people's really authentic expression about something that is so important for all of us. It brings connection.' The Death Cafe enables you to hear people's experiences. It might not change how you feel about death, but listening can open new ways of thinking, she says. 'If you think about death, you also inevitably think more about life.' For her personally, the meetings have brought a sense of 'spaciousness'. 'Now, when I imagine the moment of death, rather than feeling fearful, it brings a feeling of spaciousness. Hopefully, I'll be more able to deal with it, to be in the moment. That's what I would hope for.' Jon Underwood died suddenly of an undiagnosed leukaemia in June 2017, aged just 44. His invitation to talk about death and dying over tea and cake has led to more than 20,000 Death Cafe meetings in cafes, homes, at festivals and in universities in 93 countries. His mother Sue Barsky Reid and sister Jools Barsky continue his Death Cafe work as he requested. Before the longest day of the year in June, the Ballydehob Death Cafe took place outside at the nearby graveyard of Kilcoe. The oldest legible headstone there dates back to the 1820s. Still standing inside this graveyard are the ruins of a church from the 1400s. The dead have been buried there for centuries. 'It did feel different,' O'Sullivan says. 'In the beauty of the sun, this graveyard was gorgeous.'
