Two Injured In Dungarvan Stabbing Incident

Two people, were brought to University Hospital Waterford in the early hours of the morning to be treated for non-life threatening Injuries following a stabbing incident in Dungarvan.

The Emergency services were called to the scene in the Thompson Lane area off the town, an area between the towns Main Street and the Quay.

The scene of the incident was examined and investigations are on-going.

One person has been arrested by Gardai and was brought to Dungarvan Garda Station for questioning.

Gardaí are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.

Gardai in Dungarvan have appealed for anyone with information to contact them in Dungarvan on 058 48600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or at any Garda Station.

€15,000 of Public Money on Entertainment

Independent TD for Waterford John Halligan is one of five TD’s that form the Independent Alliance Group in Dáil Éireann spent more than €15,000 of public money on entertainment in 2016 it has been announced.

The Independent Alliance is chaired by Senator Feargal Quinn was founded in January 2015 by five Independent TDs Michael Fitzmaurice, Tom Fleming, John Halligan, Finian McGrath and Shane Ross.

Sean Canney, John Halligan, Finian McGrath, Kevin (Boxer) Moran and Shane Ross are the current TD’s in the group.

The figure of €15,000 is contained in the latest report for the Standards in Public Office Commission on public spending for 2016.

The report states that the majority of the spending was on events for TD’s staff and on catering for events in their constituencies.

The report also shows that Independent TD’s spent over €63,000 last year getting specialist and technical advice to help them in parliamentary work.

None of the political parties in the Oireachtas are reported as spending on entertainment. Parties in the Oireachtas are funded under different rules when it comes to spending on entertainment.

The report states that over €8 Million was spent by politicians and political parties of public funds in 2016.

Relic of Indian Saint to Visit Waterford

A relic of Saint (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta is to visit Waterford.

The Knights of Columbanus recently received the relic from the Sisters of Charity and it is currently touring Ireland and will visit the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Waterford City on Thursday July 20, arriving at 7-30pm and will leave for a visit to the Cathedral in Enniscorthy on Saturday July 22 at 4pm, arriving at the Co Wexford venue at 7-30pm that same evening.

The relic, a muslin cloth bearing the blood of Saint Teresa encased in a cross has been touring Ireland since June 8, starting at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh, and has since made its way down the West Coast of Ireland into Munster taking in parts of Leinster before arriving in Waterford.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje in Macedonia on August 26 1910, she was the youngest child of Nikolle and Dranafile Bojaxhiu. Her father, who was involved in Albanian-community politics in Macedonia, died in 1919 when she was eight years old. She left home in 1928 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Rathfarnham in Dublin where she learned to speak English with the view of becoming a missionary.

In 1929 she moved to India where she began to work with the poor and the needy. After she arrived she began her novitiate where she learnt Bengali  and taught in a nearby school near her convent. She took her first religious vows in May 1931, and chose to be named after Therese de Lisieux

She took her solemn vows in May 1937 while she was a teacher at a Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta. She served there for nearly twenty years.

Although she enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948. She founded a school in Motijhil, Kolkata, before she began tending to the poor and hungry. At the beginning of 1949 Teresa was joined in her effort by a group of young women, and she laid the foundation for a new religious community helping the "poorest among the poor".

In October 1950, Teresa received Vatican permission to form the diocesan congregation which would become the Missionaries of Charity which she founded in 1959 and quickly became throughout the world as Mother Teresa. Just over sixty years later her order had over 4,500 Religious Sisters working in 133 Countries across the world.

In 1979, Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace". She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet for laureates, asking that its $192,000 cost be given to the poor in India.

In March 1997 Teresa resigned as head of the Missionaries of Charity, and she died on 5 months later at the age of 87 and was canonised by Pope Francis in Rome in September 2016, becoming Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

According to a biography, during her early years Teresa was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and by the age of 12, she was convinced that she should commit herself to religious life.

By 1997 the 13-member Calcutta congregation had grown to more than 4,000 sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centres worldwide, caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine.

Hundreds March For Cardiac Care in the South East

Hundreds of people from across the South East have protested outside the gates of Leinster House over what they claim are inadequate cardiac facilities in the south east, and have called for improved facilities at University Hospital Waterford.

Many people in the South East region have called for 24/7 cardiac care at the hospital but to date, both the Government and the HSE have failed to respond.

The Unit at University Hospital Waterford is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm and those that suffer a heart attack outside of these hours is transferred to Cork University Hospital or to Hospital’s in Dublin.

Two weeks ago, Thomas Power, a County Waterford man got a heart attack on a Sunday and was being transferred to CUH in an ambulance, died on route outside Dungarvan despite best efforts to revive him.

Campaigners have said that if facilities were available in Waterford he would have survived.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said at Leaders Questions in the Dáil today that  the sister of Mr Power spoke to a number of politicians today and gave a heart-rending account of the devastation his death had caused.

Mr Martin said a report in 2012, which was accepted by the HSE, had recommended a second cath laboratory for Waterford University Hospital but it never happened.

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed his sympathy to the family of Mr Power but said he could not comment on individual cases.

The Taoiseach who has Dungarvan connesctions pointed out that additional hours had been provided to the cath lab and that extra money had been invested by the HSE. A tender had also been issued by the executive for a mobile cath lab for the area.

 

Hundreds of people staged a vigil outside University Hospital Waterford on recently calling for 24-hour cardiac care for the region.

Health Minister Simon Harris said last month that he is open to a further review on the issue of cath labs in the South East.

“I commissioned an independent clinical review in relation to the cath lab situation in Waterford the minister said.

“I followed the recommendations in full, in terms of the allocation of additional resources, and I’m now putting in place a mobile cath lab.

“As Minister, I’ll always stand by clinical recommendations. I am open, though, after the improvements that Professor Herity has made, of taking course to have a further review on the issue,” he said.