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The Kilkenny Observer Friday 04 March 2022
kilkennyobserver.ie
News Opinion
The Fact Of The Matter PAUL HOPKINS
Under the stairs is no longer my safe haven When I was but a boy my brother and I would often hide under the stairs in our modest terraced house, setting up a make-shift camp and pretending we were Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday stowed away on some far-flung island. Much to the alarm of my mother for our bolthole housed the gas meter – into which daily my mother fed endless coins – and she feared we would be rendered unconscious by inhaling any escaping fumes. My hideaway island often had a faint whiff of gas but it was not unpleasant, serving only as a reminder of our annual holidays with my mother’s sister in Liverpool, where she lived in a small council house by the gas yard wall. That childhood retreat, though, was to take on a more sinister role. For, as the Sixties rolled out, the leaders of the two most powerful nations, America’s John F Kennedy
and the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev, found themselves at loggerheads at a specific and scary point in history. In 1959, a leftwing revolution in Cuba had ended with a government under Fidel Castro. The regime quickly severed formerly strong ties with the US by expropriating US economic assets and developing close links with the Soviet Union. Given Cuba’s geographical proximity to the US, in March 1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the CIA to plan for the invasion of Cuba and overthrow the Castro regime. Following his election in November 1960, President Kennedy learned of the plan, concluded that Castro was a Soviet client posing a threat to Latin America and, after consultations with his advisors, gave his consent for the clandestine invasion to proceed. After two days, US special forces were defeated by the
Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. Embarrassed, Kennedy decided to have another shot. US intelligence reports, however, indicated there were expanded arms shipments from the Soviet Union to Cuba. For some months there was growing concern the weapons included ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. While the world held its breath, a leaflet from the Department of Defence was popped into every Irish letterbox, informing us what to do in the event of a nuclear war. Crude drawings depicted what such a terrifying event could do to the human body: there were some tablets we must take, iodine I recall; we were to never go outside, ever, and we had to find a safe room in the house and wait until the authorities gave the all-clear. My father, in his wisdom, decided that under the stairs would be the safest place should
the nuclear button be pushed. I just wondered how the heck two grown-ups and three children would fit in there, not to mention our beloved family dog Mutt. In the end, Kennedy pulled us back from the brink by abandoning his planned second invasion. Now, a lifetime on, our old assumptions are rattled again by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In addressing the West, he has warned that exceptional action by NATO allies would result in dire action by him. His hand ever steady on the nuclear trigger, the Russian leader has warned the rest of the world that any attempt to interfere with his action will lead to “consequences they have never seen”. Here’s the facts: Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons with a 6,257-strong fleet which include 527 intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. ICBMs can get up to a top speed of four miles a second in about 10 minutes after launch, meaning the weapons could potentially reach the rest of us mere mortals in almost no time.
Consent for the clandestine invasion to proceed...
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The sudden mania for speaking of nuclear warfare, among men with unrestricted power, is the closest – North Korea aside – humankind has come to the kind of scenario that had that leaflet popping into the home of my boyhood. The view of some is that the West has squandered the glad confident morning of its victory back in 1989-91, what with NATO’S continuous encroachment. At time of writing, Ukraine seems a foregone conclusion, sadly. Will Putin stop there or advance further? Will sanctions work? And then there is the oligarchy’s cyber warfare, if the nukes do not finish us off in the meantime. Alas, I’m no longer holding my breath. I’m too darn old for that. And, besides, I know enough now to know that hiding under the stairs would no longer provide a safe bolthole. For any of us, if Putin loses his grip...
Government must do more to tackle hospital waiting lists BY: DEPUTY KATHLEEN FUNCHION SINN FEIN TD FOR KILKENNY CARLOW SINN Féin TD for Carlow Kilkenny Kathleen Funchion has criticised the Minister for Health’s Waiting List Action Plan as a wish list of repackaged measures that will not address the fundamental problems that are causing long hospital waiting lists, which is particularly affecting many in Carlow and Kilkenny. She said that every Minister for Health has promised to cut wait times, but have never brought forward the fundamental reforms needed to make these targets realistic, deliverable, and permanent. Teachta Funchion said that while all additional funding and measures to tackle waiting lists and cut
wait times are welcome, we need a step change in investment and workforce planning to meet the capacity needs of the public health service. She called on the Government to back up the waiting list plan with a proactive, joined up workforce development strategy to train, recruit, and retain more doctors, nurses, and allied health and social care professionals. The Sinn Féin spokesperson for Children was particularly critical of the Government’s record on the outrageous wait lists for children. Teachta Funchion said: “The Minister for Health’s Waiting List Action Plan will not fix our broken health service. It does not address the fundamental problems which are causing hospital waiting lists for people across Carlow and Kilkenny. “I am particularly concerned that not enough
emphasis is placed on children’s health care, we have all seen children in extreme pain expected to wait interminable periods of time for life changing surgery. “We have had promises before from every Minister for Health to cut wait times, but the Government have never brought forward the fundamental reforms to make these targets realistic and deliverable. “The Action Plan is a wish list of repackaged measures. Permanently cutting wait times need a serious workforce plan to train, recruit, and retain more doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals. “There is no new funding, particularly capital funding, to increase capacity in the public system – not terms of more beds and expanding wards, additional theatres, diagnostic equipment, or eHealth and ICT modernisation. “There is no workforce plan. We cannot recruit
and retain the staff we need – we need to train more healthcare professionals and there needs to be a joined up plan across Government, training bodies, and universities to meet health service staffing need. “The Department of Health and the HSE are working in a silo, and there is not a joined up approach across Government to train and attract the necessary workers to safely and properly staff the Health Service. “And there has been slow progress of Regional Health Areas, which should be the drivers of reform and accountable for cutting wait times and delivering major projects. “Without a step change in investment, reform, and workforce planning, the fundamentals for cutting wait times are not there. “This Government does not have the appetite or vision to fix our broken health service.”
