The Irish Mail on Sunday

McDonald’s IS putting the parents of sickkidsfi­rst

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ON the one occasion that my children have been confined to a hospital bed for days on end, I slept on a roll-out mattress beside them. Or rather, I attempted to sleep in a busy ward of sick children where nurses ministered to their young charges all through the night and parents killed the time in various pursuits from watching their iPads, running off to the nearest pub, whispering into their phones or tossing and turning in pretend sleep on the floor.

It goes without saying that had I been offered a quiet berth in the hospital’s Ronald McDonald House, I would have been there like a shot, full of gratitude.

The Department of Health or the Irish Heart Foundation can have reservatio­ns about the fast food empire exploiting the new Children’s Hospital’s parent body to enhance their brand.

But in an emergency, only the most principled parents would worry about how they might be helping promote childhood obesity by accepting hospitalit­y from the charity arm of the world’s leading manufactur­er of junk food.

The job of parenting is fraught with compromise­s.

And in a less than ideal world forsaking principles to do the best by your child by staying in the Ronald McDonald House would be worth it.

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