Cateracts can effect anyone but they mostly effect elderly people. A cloud grows over the eye making it difficult to see. It only gets worst and the only treatment is surgery. But the good news is that the 20-30min surgery is very effective and the pateints sight is returning to them only days after the procedure. The surgery is 95% successful. This surgery was routinely performed on out pateints in district hospitals in the 1960s but in recent decades fewer consultants in the public system are available to perform the procedure and so people are left on waiting lists for 5-6 years. You can avail of the cross border scheme. This involves being accessed by your GP and referred to the HSE cateract waiting list, then making arrangements with a clinic abroad that offers this surgery under the cross border scheme, book an appointment with their consultant on the day before the procedure, arranging your travel and accommodation and paying in advance the full amount, approx €2500 per eye, then actually going abroad, some require you have someone accompany you, have the surgery and get paper work completed by consultant and finally sending off same to HSE for about 90% reimbursment 9-10 weeks later. Then repeat the whole thing if you need treatment on a second eye. This is no way to treat our older people, specially when they are at their most vulnerable. By the HSE employing more eye consultants the waiting list for cateract removal can be reduced and eliminated and a local, efficient and humane service restored.

An Post were amazing during the pandemic and really showed how they could improve the lives of the more vulnerable in our community. They offered free postage for Packets up to 2KG to Nursing Homes. This enabled carepack.ie to leverage the humanity all across Ireland to get 13,000 Gifts to residents in 2020 and 20,000 to residents in 2021. The Service halted in March 2022 , but we would love to see it back again , please !

quantum proliferation ,young kids hurtling dangerously around on roads and pavement ,deadly accident potential if trend continues particularly in dark winter months

Methane emissions from animals is a well-known issue. Cows alone are responsible for about 40% of those planet-warming gases globally — mainly through their burps. UC Davis scientist Ermias Kebreab is something of a cow whisperer who has spent two decades studying the greenhouse gas contributions of hoofed animals. "If you tell me how much your animal is consuming, I can tell you pretty closely to the actual emissions using mathematical models," he said. "Most of the gas is formed in their stomach, so in their guts, particularly in the first chamber. And so they belch it out." He and other scientists have developed special diets and genetic predictions that could help reduce the methane formed in cow stomachs. Now, New Zealand could become the first country to tax its way to fewer "four-legged" emissions. There were 7.3 million cattle, 5.5 million sheep, 1.6 million pigs and almost 16.5 million poultry on Irish farms in 2020, while the average farm size has increased by 0.7 hectares (or 2.2 per cent) in 2020.

Babies cannot safely get the vitamin D they need from the sun and they need vitamin D because: -between 0 to 12 months babies grow very quickly and have a greater need for vitamin D to form strong bones. -Research shows that vitamin D plays an important role in helping the immune system. It may help prevent diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, MS (multiple sclerosis) and some forms of cancer. -African, Afro-Caribbean, Middle-Eastern or Indian parents are more likely to have babies with low levels of vitamin D.

Pre cancerous cells can develop at any time. 5 years between tests is too long leaving many people in Ireland vulnerable

In our cities and rural areas

I am finding it impossible to get to the truth the coroner has even said no to an inquest

"If these deaths had happened in a children's home I think there would have been an investigation a long time ago, but because it's the elderly it just seems to be pushed to the side" Hundreds of care home residents died across Northern Ireland during the first wave of the pandemic. Each of them was valuable, and are grieved by their loved ones. The Department for Health's report in 2020 did not accept there was a link between these deaths and the discharge of patients from hospitals without Covid testing.

The way assessments are planned to be held in Irish Universities is a health and wellbeing crisis of the utmost urgency which requires immediate action. This is an emergency situation which will have severely detrimental effects on the wellbeing of all members of our College communities.

This affects every single person in this country from the cradle to the grave as a matter of urgency.

The current model of vaccine production controlled by a handfull of pharmaceutical companies will be unable to meet global needs until 2024. In the presence of ongoing high level of viral transmission we are likely to see viral variants emerge which will be immune to vaccines currently in use. In the words of Dr Mike Ryan WHO- 'nobody is safe until everybody is safe'