Ireland's reports by Daniel Doval

'No' sign on Ben Bulbe. RTE.IE  Next Friday Irish people will vote YES or NO in the abortion referendum. According to the last polls, the Repeal side is going to win, but there's now lots of undecided voters that can change the result. These days the campaign is taking place in the media and also in the streets of Ireland. In some places like in the capital city the result is nearly clear . " Like the rest of Dublin, the NO side will always be playing against the wind here” said one NO campaigner in an Irish Times report this week. Also the big lobbies or pressure groups are dealing with the people's vote. The most important of those is the catholic church. “ Christians must be pro-life when it comes to the unborn and those who are vulnerable at the end of their lives, the Eighth Amendment would be a point of no return. Proposed future legislation would permit abortion wi...

The Health Service Executive knew in 2016 about smear test errors and planned about a strategy to response for hypothetical headlines like “screening did not diagnose my cancer”. Three memos about this issue were written in 2016 and the main objective of those were create a “communications protocol” to protect the reputation of the HSE smear test program. The memos can be sum up in 4 points: Pause all the letters to the women affected; await advice of solicitors; decide on the order and volume of the letters dispatch to mitigate any potential risks and continue to prepare reactive communications response for the future media headlines that now appears in TV, radio and newspapers. Finally HSE director general Tony O’Brian resigned last Thursday after the pressure that ask him for leave. Also, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar talk in a video published in the social media about the measures that government will take including medical cards to all women and provide some practical sup...

Give me a chance to tell you a self experience fact related to today’s post. I work in a store that sells newspapers (and more things), and the last week some of the main newspapers were sold out when the normal situation is that 2 or 3 of each one remain in the store until we close. I didn’t ask my customers the reason, but all the headlines this week were related with the cervical cancer test scandal. Now 209 irish women are affected by the same problem that Vicky Phelan suffers. Last year she discovered that the exam results that she received in 2011 were wrong and now she knows that she is now suffering from terminal cancer. It is said that fear is the big enemy for everyone and that’s the feeling that a lot of irish families are having. According to and Irish Times information “More than 10.000 women have contacted a helpline established by the cervical check screening program to ask if their test would possibly be affected with the same issue." The most...

Two of the affected women by the Public Health System When it’s less than a month for the abortion referendum in Ireland, the politics and social talks about it are mixed up with upcoming news that can be nearly related with the health system problems . On Monday, a surprising information related with the health service in Ireland was known by the Irish population. A 43 years old women who was given incorrect cervical cancer test results in 2014 realized that the results that an American laboratory in Texas gave her were wrong, and now she learn that her cancer is terminal. And she’s not the only affected, now the State’s National Screening Program says that more than 200 women diagnosed with the same illness should have received earlier intervention than they actually did. On Tuesday night, the public TV channel RTE 1 cast a report in his show “Prime Time” about the case of a foster home (depending on the Public Health System) in Galway where three little girls ...

It is said that referendums are taken by the evil. One decision without middles points, YES or NO, is easy to be manipulate. The thought that the Irish population is informed by serious media with proffesional journalist is utopic. Nowadays the influence of Facebook or Twitter in the election campaigns is increasing. The suspect that fake news afected in elections like the Brexit one have push to the Mark Zuckerberg's company to create an artificial intelligence system that will be introduced by Facebook to root out foreign influence on the abortion referendum to prevent that Irish voters are beign exposed to disinformation. But this "new media" is not the only way to manipulate the voters. One basic methode is now the controversy topic in the campaign. The posters that the supporters of YES and NO are putting in the streetlights of every street of Dublin are the most visible proof of that this country is on campaign. The controversy started when it appears ...

"The state acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." This 43 words are the main conversation topic in the social and media ambient in Ireland. The abortion referendum is going to take place the 25th of May and the supporters of YES and NO are being campaining since a lot of time. Marchs across the main street of Dublin or rallies in theatres, also in the capital city are only two examples of what's been cooking in the irish society. And all of this under one rape case that had full all the newspapers covers day by day. The rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding was accused of rape a woman in June 2016 and last Saturday the veredict was not guilty. The social change that fronts the gaelic land is huge, due the influence that catholic church expands in the civil life of the irish people, con...