Northern Ireland Thread

It's very sad to hear all this. I'm sure the ROI and Donegal will be locked up soon again. I just wish we could have been on the same page since March. It makes sense on the island to do things at the same time. Living on the border with my family on both sides of it isn't easy. Should have locked the entire thing up for month with no air travel. That would have helped for Christmas. Think we all knew January was going to be bleak.
 
balaks said:
You are wrong, I can assure you there is utter panic in the local health trusts at the moment. The next few weeks are going to be utterly horrendous. Something has to be done or many people will die here. They will die in their homes or in the carpark outside the hospital because there will be no beds.
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I think it's more than fair to ask the questions about how we've found ourselves in this situation. It's been a complete shambles from start to finish.
Whilst the virus is undoubtedly the cause of the current breakdown in our health service, it's been on the rocks long before this. Not the fault of frontline medics and health workers, it's shockingly poor management and decision making over many years. I'm so fecking pissed off about it.
This has been said many times before, but everyone could see this coming.
Those Nightingale Hospitals were a rip roaring success .... Anyone got any facts and figures for the NI setup? Costs/Benefits etc??
 
thebelfastboy said:
I think it's more than fair to ask the questions about how we've found ourselves in this situation. It's been a complete shambles from start to finish.
Whilst the virus is undoubtedly the cause of the current breakdown in our health service, it's been on the rocks long before this. Not the fault of frontline medics and health workers, it's shockingly poor management and decision making over many years. I'm so fecking pissed off about it.
This has been said many times before, but everyone could see this coming.
Those Nightingale Hospitals were a rip roaring success .... Anyone got any facts and figures for the NI setup? Costs/Benefits etc??
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I think that is a different issue - but one that you are right to bring up. The health service in NI has been completely underfunded and understaffed for years mainly because of the incompetence of our local politicians due to them making health a political football. It is a disgrace and this is what we are left with - a service not fit for purpose, huge numbers of posts not filled due to lack of people getting trained each year - that and a big percentage leaving for other parts of the UK where they get paid better and with much better conditions.

The Nightingale hospitals will get plenty of patients through in the coming weeks simply because the hospitals are now at full capacity,
 
Swann and the UUP can feck off as well. His lies about free parking for nurses still pisses off my partners entire ward 7 days per week. Free parking for a tiny handful while most continue to pay a fiver per day for the privilege of risking their own health while helping the public. Made a great press release though.
 
Tiber said:
Swann and the UUP can feck off as well. His lies about free parking for nurses still pisses off my partners entire ward 7 days per week. Free parking for a tiny handful while most continue to pay a fiver per day for the privilege of risking their own health while helping the public. Made a great press release though.
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Yeah thats a total bollocks. Imagine charging fecking nurses and doctors just to park their cars to get to work. It's a fecking disgrace - especially when you consider that nurses, etc. (band 5/6) workers have essentially had a pay cut over the past 12 years.
 
thebelfastboy said:
I think it's more than fair to ask the questions about how we've found ourselves in this situation. It's been a complete shambles from start to finish.
Whilst the virus is undoubtedly the cause of the current breakdown in our health service, it's been on the rocks long before this. Not the fault of frontline medics and health workers, it's shockingly poor management and decision making over many years. I'm so fecking pissed off about it.
This has been said many times before, but everyone could see this coming.
Those Nightingale Hospitals were a rip roaring success .... Anyone got any facts and figures for the NI setup? Costs/Benefits etc??
Click to expand...
Its the half measures that killed Northern Ireland. The no compromise politics that bled into dealing with a pandemic meaning us v them and we wont even try to make concessions until the last minute bullshit.
I say that but this is 99 percent DUP. Imagine trying to fight a virus that kills the elderly and sick and using a veto to shout down scientific advice unless mass stays open. A place where elderly and sick congregate anyway.
A fecking funeral 6 months ago is the go to excuse for every Covid feck up Arlene and co inflict on NI. its infuriating. NO, NO ITS THE FUNERAL THAT MADE EVERYONE STOP COMPLING. NOT THE DUP POLITICIANS CALLING THE PANDEMIC A HOAX AND LOCKDOWNS WERE A FRAUD..
Edit just read DUP Weir has gone behind Swanns back over closing schools so another half assed lockdown it is. Unbelievable
 
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cyberman said:
Its the half measures that killed Northern Ireland. The no compromise politics that bled into dealing with a pandemic meaning us v them and we wont even try to make concessions until the last minute bullshit.
I say that but this is 99 percent DUP. Imagine trying to fight a virus that kills the elderly and sick and using a veto to shout down scientific advice unless mass stays open. A place where elderly and sick congregate anyway.
A fecking funeral 6 months ago is the go to excuse for every Covid feck up Arlene and co inflict on NI. its infuriating. NO, NO ITS THE FUNERAL THAT MADE EVERYONE STOP COMPLING. NOT THE DUP POLITICIANS CALLING THE PANDEMIC A HOAX AND LOCKDOWNS WERE A FRAUD..
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Yes as ever the majority of the blame lies with the DUP - though the sinners didnt help with that funeral bollocks either - the fact they are keeping the fecking churches open just says everything that is wrong about this place. The likes of Sammy Wilson, Paisley Jr, Gregory Campbell and Edwin Poots need to feck away off and leave us all alone.
 
I didn’t realise they were keeping churches open again. What a backwards bunch of cnuts we have running our country.
 
Eire Red United said:
What is the point locking down if schools are still open?
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If you look at the effect of the first lockdown and its impact on the R rate, maybe they think they don't "need" to close schools or churches? In March they got the R rate down from ~3 to 0.7, and we're not quite as bad off this time so don't need to impose all of those restrictions. From their latest evidence they think at worst we're at an R rate of 1.8, so I guess if you run the numbers it might say you can reduce things by half as much as we did in March while still crushing the virus?

The biggest flaw with that is it seems pretty clear from this "circuit breaker" that people aren't prepared to go all in like they were in March, so the effects of each individual restriction is diluted.

Even if you accept the premise that things will work as they did in March, wouldn't reducing the spread more sharply and quickly still be in everyone's best interests? Sure, maybe we don't "need" to close schools or churches, but if they're going to be reviewing this after 4 weeks, wouldn't it increase our chances of being in a good enough position by that point?

Their argument for schools at this point seems to boil down to "schools are an escape for children in difficult homes, we can't cut off that lifeline". I'll admit this is a bit of a blind spot for me. Do we really have that many children in that precarious a situation? If it was a big chunk then maybe I would understand the priorities, but I never thought the situation was that grave.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55393560

Nobody really gives a shit about Hugo Boss and Zalando I'm sure, but they are just an example. There's going to be a shitload more companies ill prepared for trade with NI from 1st Jan and possibly considering whether its worth doing business there at all.

They need more time apparently. There has been more than enough time to prepare for this, the current guidance has been out there for the best part of a year. There seems to have been an unwillingness to accept however that it would actually go through like this, that a customs border would go up cutting off NI from the rest of the UK.
 
Support for the DUP at 19% according to a poll by LucidTalk.

Are we going to see a SF FM soon?
 
He was a dissident republican , also ex british army, probably shot due to an internal feud That's bad enough then we have crowds of masked UVF men wandering through East Belfast related to an internal feud amongst them. We are in the midst of a pandemic and these gangsters are still at it on both sides
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-55916415
 
poleglass red said:
He was a dissident republican , also ex british army, probably shot due to an internal feud That's bad enough then we have crowds of masked UVF men wandering through East Belfast related to an internal feud amongst them. We are in the midst of a pandemic and these gangsters are still at it on both sides
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-55916415
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Utter scum. Of course we also have politicians stirring the shit up in the midst of it as per.
 
Im sure the PSNI could have handled things a lot differently on the Lower Ormeau road today.

Especially since a few days ago a masked gang was rampant in east Belfast and they did precisely zero.
 
Rooney24 said:
Im sure the PSNI could have handled things a lot differently on the Lower Ormeau road today.

Especially since a few days ago a masked gang was rampant in east Belfast and they did precisely zero.
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If it had been the other side running about with masks on making threats they’d have been lifted, police would have had the land rovers out and rightly so. Absolute scum of the highest order who will do the square root of feck all.

Haven’t actually seen what went on on Ormeau Ro today, just seen MON tweet so won’t comment.
 
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