An abundance of patience needed for Covid updates
THE phrase of the past week must surely be ‘an abundance of caution’ due to the frequency of its use by under-pressure politicians and Department of Health officials as they wrestled with the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine ‘blood clotting’ woes.
One of these weeks I’m hoping to observe an abundance of common sense being demonstrated, especially by the political cohort involved with rescuing us from this pestilence.
May I remind them that none of us has an abundance of time at our disposal at this point in the pandemic and as Marianne Williamson, an American author and political activist put it, ‘the key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts’.
Michael Gannon, Kilkenny city.
Reap what you sow
THE content of your front-page article last Sunday (Mos, Apr. 11) –100 Disability Staff Got Jabs Before Clients – was, of course, right and proper.
Admin staff posing as frontline workers to jump the vaccine queue is indeed disgraceful.
That being said, consider all the healthy people in our country who favour lockdown even though they know the detrimental and often devastating effects it has on those with chronic illnesses.
And consider all the older people that favour lockdown, and are thus prepared to wreck the childhoods of those around them, and, at a minimum, deprive them of the opportunities that they themselves had in their own youth.
So we have the healthy exploiting the sick, and the old exploiting the young. Should we really be surprised or shocked to hear of the able-bodied exploiting the disabled?
The actions of the admin staff at Sunbeam House Services are consistent with the society that we’ve chosen to become.
John Friel, Kincasslagh, Co. Donegal.
Passport backlog
THE Passport Office is effectively closed for passports online – except for emergency passports – since last December.
When it does eventually open, when we get to Level 4 lockdown, it will probably take eight weeks to clear the online passport backlog, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs stated this week. Yet not one public servant is on the Covid-19 payment despite not issuing or renewing passports for months.
Another example of we are all in this together?
Denis Dennehy, Dublin.
All-round winner!
HUGE congratulations to wonder woman Rachael Blackmore on her remarkable victory in the Aintree Grand National and plaudits also to the Irish Mail on Sunday (Mos, Apr. 11) for providing its readers with a fourpage spread to mark the historymaking triumph by the Tipperary woman.
Ms Blackmore’s brilliance in the saddle is matched by her modesty about all she has achieved. Praise is also due to trainer Henry de Bromhead who set records over the last few weeks and, like his jockey, is very unassuming about his success.
An interesting and useful inclusion in the MoS’s coverage of the latest instalment of the world’s most famous steeplechase was the full list of the female riders who took part since the first, Charlotte Brew, in 1977.
After her stunning successes at Cheltenham and Aintree, Rachael Blackmore is now a household name on both sides of the Irish Sea. While most media organs have lauded her big wins, some, including a prominent women’s magazine, have sadly chosen to ignore her feats.
That wrong needs to be righted.
Liz Lawless, Navan, Co. Meath. Making history
UNTIL this year’s Grand National, no woman had ever won the celebrated Aintree race, it had always been a horse, but thanks to the prowess of Rachael Blackmore, history was made as she become the first female jockey to join the list of triumphal winners.
Well done Rachael – you rein (excuse the pun) supreme.
Vincent O’Connell, New Ross, Co. Wexford.
Unquestionably poor
IT was amusing to observe RTÉ TV’s new quiz show, Home Advantage, included in the Pick Of The Day listing and being awarded four of five stars. After tuning in to the first offering, I thought the programme was quite poor.
Our national broadcaster hasn’t had many quizzes over the last few years and the latest attempt leaves a lot to be desired.
Willie Wilson, Waterford city.
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