Co. Hospital faces New Year threat
December 1982
to roll in the direction of the office.
The car, which was carrying two young children who were strapped into rear safety seats, crashed into the window of the Partnership offices, sending large shards of glass flying towards where the woman would have been sitting. Seconds after the accident happened, the car’s driver (who was mother of the child passengers, who luckily escaped injury) rushed into the office in a distressed state.
She had stopped in Mallin Street to allow an older child visit the World of Wonder toy shop, and wondering what was delaying him, she left the car for a moment to go check on him.
Unfortunately, she left the handbrake off, and as she reached the toy shop, she looked around to see her car rolling down the street. to nominate candidates from the floor.
However, the front runners - according to party insiders - are Eoin Minihan from New Ross, and Ger Doyle from Bunclody, who set up a branch of the party there recently.
The decision to run two candidates is suprising, and it will certainly upset the plans of the two major parties, who had expected the PDs to run just one person.
The PDs say they have a realistic chance of Dáil seat in Wexford, and they base their claims on a special opinion poll which was commissioned by the party.
Meanwhile, Enniscorthy Urban Councillor and well-known businessman, Sam McCauley, has been appointed Director of Elections. Next week’s convention will be held in Murphy Flood’s Hotel. Wexford Co. Hospital may be faced with major disruption in the New Year if a threatened trade union dispute at the Fever Hospital in New Ross extends to other hospitals in the county.
An official of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union warned this week that pickets could be placed on the hospital if the dispute escalates.
Such action would amost certainly cause serious problems at Wexford Hospital.
A strike now seems unavoidable at the Fever Hospital in New Ross, where the South-Eastern Health Board plans to convert a staff residential unit into a fever unit for patients.
The I.T. and G.W.U. have up to thirty members living in the residential unit, some of who have been there for up to eighteen years, and they have been given just until the end of the month to move.
‘We have told them not to move. And if they are evicted, we will have to take strike action,’ said branch secretary, Tommy Carr, this week.
And, he added: ‘We are expecting a court order in the New Year. When it arrives, we will be in dispute. We are going to fight these evictions, as our members have not been offered alternative accommodation.’
Mr Carr went on to say that he could give no guarantee that the pickets would not be extended to Wexford Co. Hospital and perhaps also to other hospitals in the county.
‘If circumstances warrant it, we will extend the strike. We feel that strongly about the issue. There could certainly be pickets placed on the Co. Hospital in the New Year,’ he said.