Committees of the Oireachtas are back, but why can't Irish politicians ask a good question?
Pat Leahy and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:
Committees of the Oireachtas
are indeed back, but rigor and insight seem to be missing in some of the questions posed by politicians during
RTÉ's appearance
in front of the Oireachtas media committee on Wednesday.
Independent TDs Barry Heneghan and Gillian Toole
, who support the Government, put a dent in the Coalition's majority by voting in favour of a Sinn Féin Bill in support of Palestine.
Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams
was awarded €100,000 after a jury found he was defamed by a 2016 BBC TV programme and related article that falsely accused him of sanctioning the murder of a British agent.
And is it time to disband
Children's Health Ireland
? Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll-MacNeill is considering subsuming the statutory body into the HSE following
several controversies
during its six years in existence.
Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:
The tight
Polish presidential race
, looming
climate fines
, the rise of
the campervan
, and the wonderful
Cáit O'Riordan
.
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Only the introduction of Tina's maiden name could stir a response from ‘monster' Richard Satchwell
'My name is Sarah Howard. I am Tina Dingivan's niece.' Richard Satchwell , the man about to be sentenced to life for Tina's murder, moved his head up, ever so slightly, when her name was spoken. Throughout the trial, the woman he killed, his wife, was referred to as Tina Satchwell. His name. Sarah finished reading her victim impact statement. READ MORE If it made any impact, he certainly didn't show it. He never once looked at her. But she made sure to look at him as she passed by the dock, an expression of disgust on her face. Next up. 'My name is Lorraine Howard. I am Tina Dingivan's sister.' Again, just a tiny movement of the head at the mention of that name. Lorraine finished reading her victim impact statement. Satchwell, motionless, eyes cast down, ignored her too. It was only the pointed use of Tina's family name which seemed to stir some flickers of awareness. Lorraine Howard said Richard Satchwell 'stole' precious time she would have had with her sister, Tina (pictured). Photograph: Irish Examiner Both women called him out for the cruel, manipulative 'monster' he really is. They described how he continued to torture them with public outpourings of his love for his 'missing' wife after he killed her and hid the body. They told him how his need to have 'ultimate control' over Tina led to her violent death and a lifetime of pain for her grieving family. Sarah and Lorraine may as well have been talking to the wall. Minutes later, Satchwell's lawyer would confirm to the court that he intends to appeal his conviction. He believes he didn't murder Tina. A jury of his peers agreed unanimously that he did. He couldn't control them. And what Tina's sister and niece did from the witness stand in court number six on Wednesday was something he can never control either – they gave her back her name, the one she had before she met him, reintroducing the woman they knew before his malign influence infested her life. He believes he didn't murder his wife, Tina Satchwell. She belonged to him. He loves her. But, as the court case revealed, and her sister and niece confirmed, he couldn't allow a life for Tina Dingivan. When her maiden name was so deliberately introduced – no mention of his, it was a simple, but very powerful gesture by her family. Richard Satchwell holding a photo of his missing wife Tina at their home in Youghal, Co Cork. Photograph: Irish Examiner And perhaps, with those slight flickers of recognition, Richard Satchwell knows that too. There was little surprise in court when Judge Paul McDermott was told that the English-born, Cork-based lorry driver intends to fight on. He thinks he should not have been found guilty of murdering his wife and dumping her body in a chest freezer before entombing her in a concrete grave under the stairs in their home and then contacting her niece to offer her the empty freezer. Always thinking of others. Gardaí and Fr Bill Bermingham after human remains are found following the search of Richatd and Tina Satchwell's home in Youghal, Co Cork. Photograph: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision 'To think I could have taken that into my family home and used it. I mean, what kind of person can do that?' said Sarah, in disbelief. But the theatrically loving husband believes he should not be sent down for life because 'he never intended to kill her', said defence counsel Brendan Grehan, acting under instruction from his client. Furthermore, counsel said, Satchwell wanted it to be known that 'despite anything that was said in this trial, Tina was a lovely person'. You could hear people catch their breath in the back rows, where Tina's family and friends were seated. Satchwell's self-centred delusion still had the capacity to surprise after a five week trial. 'It's not right,' a woman in the public gallery loudly whispered as the court rose and the prisoner quickly exited, head down, looking at nobody. Despite feeling so strongly about the nature of his conviction, and being so keen to underline how he wanted people to know that 'Tina was a lovely person' (after lying about her being violent towards him and running off with their life's savings), he made no reaction when his barrister delivered his message for him. But despite all which was said during the trial, Richard wanted to seem nice in public about the 'lovely' woman he murdered. Self-serving until the very end. The details of the case have been well aired. It's the stuff of true crime TV potboilers. But the callous nature of Satchwell's cover-up and his co-option of Tina's grieving family into his sickening narrative of a heartbroken husband desperate for the return of his missing wife was laid bare by the emotional testimony of Sarah and Lorraine. Mary Collins, the mother of Tina Dingivin. Photograph: Collins Courts As Tina's mother Mary Collins listened from the body of the court, Lorraine said Satchwell 'stole' the precious time she would have had with her sister, time he also stole from others 'even before he murdered her by isolating and alienating her from her many friends when she was alive'. How could anyone who claimed to love his wife so much do what he did? 'I feel no sentence could ever be enough for the monster who took Tina from us.' What does a monster look like? A monster looks like a nondescript bespectacled little man in a rumpled over-sized blue and white striped shirt which hangs out over his navy trousers. He silently sits with his stubbled jaw resting on his fist, body angled away from the public and the witness box, head down. When told to stand for sentencing, he sticks his hands in his pockets and looks vacantly into the distance. Cowardly, controlling Richard Satchwell murdered his wife. Tina Dingivan's name lives on.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Influence of heatwave and cold snaps on spread of disease likely underestimated, says study
The influence of heatwaves fuelled by climate change and cold snaps on the spread of diseases is likely to have been underestimated using current prediction methods, Irish scientists have found. Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have shown differences in heatwaves – such as how much hotter they are than normal temperatures and how long they last – 'can increase or decrease disease burden by up to 13 times, when it comes to parasites infecting humans'. Their discovery coincides with climate change and related extreme weather events impacting across the planet and predicted to get worse. 'Given the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves in particular, it's crucial to understand how these events will affect the spread of disease,' said postgraduate researcher at TCD School of Natural Sciences, Niamh McCartan, lead author of a study published in PLOS Climate on Wednesday. READ MORE [ Commitment to climate action hard to find in Government Opens in new window ] While scientists have a relatively good idea of how temperature impacts some viruses and disease-causing pathogens and parasites, they know much less about the effects of sudden heatwaves or cold snaps, or how influential variation in duration of these events are, she said. 'Climate change is also causing mosquito species that carry diseases like dengue, Zika, and malaria to be increasingly found in parts of southern and central Europe, including Italy and France, areas that were previously too cool to support them,' she said . 'While Ireland has so far been less affected, the findings of our study highlight the urgent need to understand how warming and extreme weather events can alter disease dynamics more broadly.' They worked with the water flea and a tiny 'microsporidian pathogen' that are used widely to predict environmentally transmitted diseases. 'This approach gave us 64 unique heatwaves for comparison.' A recently published study reported '58 per cent of human pathogenic diseases have been aggravated by climate change, with temperature changes impacting host susceptibility due to altering biological properties such as how our immune systems function, as well as our behaviour', Ms McCartan said. Overly simplified models 'may miss critical complexities', she said. 'Future disease-specific models must account for fluctuating and extreme temperatures, not just averages.' Other research has suggested almost 70 per cent of Covid-19 cases in the summer of 2022 could have been avoided if there had not been heatwaves around that time. 'Imagine the difference that a better understanding of how heatwaves alter disease dynamics could have made to countless people,' she said.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Death row survivor Sonia ‘Sunny' Jacobs found ‘tranquility' in Connemara before death in house fire
Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs and her husband Peter Pringle lived out their lives in a place of breathtaking beauty and isolation. Each morning when they opened their curtains they had views of the blue-tinged Twelve Pins mountain range , rocky bogland and Lough Glenicmurrin. The 1970s-era bungalow where Ms Jacobs (76) and her caretaker Kevin Kelly (31) died in a house fire in the early hours of Tuesday morning is down a rough boreen. The area is now closed off with Garda tape. It seems scarcely believable that a woman who overcame so much in her life would succumb to the tragedy of a house fire along with a young man who had his whole life ahead of him. READ MORE [ Woman who died in Connemara house fire named as former US death row inmate Sunny Jacobs Opens in new window ] Sonny Jacobs pictured at the Cuirt International Festival of Literature in 2007. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy. Ms Jacobs spent five years on death row in Florida and 16 years in prison for a murder she did not commit. While she was in prison, her parents, who were looking after her two children, were killed in a plane crash. She was released in 1992. Six years later, at a meeting organised by Amnesty International in Galway, she met Peter Pringle. He had also been on death row in Ireland for the murder of gardaí John Morley and Henry Byrne in July 1980. He too was exonerated having spent 14 years in jail. They moved twice in Connemara before settling in Glenicmurrin at the end of a row of about a dozen houses. The nearest town, Costelloe, is 15 minutes drive away. Despite their isolation, they regularly received visitors mostly in connection with the Sunny Centre, which she set up with Mr Pringle to campaign against the death penalty worldwide. Mr Pringle died in December 2023 and Ms Jacobs's beloved dog, Barney, died a short time after that. Postman Michael Leainde got to know the couple better than most. 'People are really shocked and it is only now they are coming to grips with what happened,' he said. 'She was very witty. I'd be talking to her every second day. If I said something and she didn't think it was right, she would say, 'Michael, you were wrong about that'. She was a great woman and we had great chats,' he said. Postman Michael Leainde got to know the couple better than most. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy He thought she and her husband found a happiness in the landscape of Connemara that had denied to them for so long in their lives. 'If you look around you, you have peace and tranquillity. When you get a little bit older in age, you want to have some peace in life. They really appreciated what they had here,' she said. Mr Leainde, who is also a local councillor, spoke to her last Thursday and said she was in great form. She had spoken to her son recently via video call, he recalled. A neighbour, Michael Walsh, said he knew her husband Mr Pringle very well and he would call in occasionally. They were a happy couple who moved to the location in their final years to the house their final location locally having rented an adjacent house for many years. She was a 'nice woman. We all felt sorry for her for all the years she spent in prison', he said. Ruairí McKiernan, a former member of the Council of State, a body that advises the president of Ireland, first met Ms Jacobs 18 years ago and they became good friends. Despite being 76, she worked until the end of her life talking, podcasting and advocating for the Sunny Foundation in the United States, he said in an online tribute. 'She never stopped giving, and, in all of this, she kept gratitude at the heart of her practice. Always grateful for beauty, for animals, for nature, for friendship, for life,' he said.
