We are failing the women and children in the community. Currently we have a population of 218,018 and no domestic violence refuge. The shortage of emergency accommodation for people affected by domestic violence is an issue that is getting progressively worse. Domestic violence spikes significantly during the festive season which is exacerbated by the pressures brought about by Covid-19 and the housing crisis. The provision for domestic violence in our area is comprehensively under developed. There are 144 refuge spaces available nationwide yet Dublin alone needs 143 refuge spaces, and Ireland needs almost 500. There are only 31 spaces, in 4 refuges, to service the entire Dublin area. 68% of the calls Women's Aid made to refuges are being turned away due to there being no room left. The nearest refuge for Rathdown is in Bray, this means that many people may have to travel for over an hour on public transport to be turned away. This huge lack of essential support services results in: • Unmet requests for refuge everyday; • Accommodation problems and homelessness; • People trapped in abusive relationships; • Increasing likelihood of people returning to violent and abusive homes; • Fear of reporting the abuse due to the lack of emergency accommodation available; The government is failing women and children. The most vulnerable people in our society are being failed on every level and government inaction continues to silence them. This is a national issue - there are currently 9 counties without a refuge. Please sign this petition, and please support the work of Carlow Women's Refuge Campaign too: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/carlow-needs-a-women-s-refuge

Your plan to beat Covid19 depends on the public taking antigen tests but they are expensive for many people.

During the first Covid 19 outbreak in 2020, 23 residents in Dealgan House Nursing Home died tragically and under harrowing circumstances as a result of contracting COVID-19. This represents one of the highest incidence rates of COVID in nursing homes in Ireland at that time. The RCSI hospital group took over operational control of Dealgan House during this period. Dealgan House is the only nursing home in Ireland where this happened. We have, over the last nearly 2 years, worked tirelessly as a collective of families to find out the circumstances surrounding the deaths of our loved ones. Our objective is to ensure safeguards, regulations and other measures are put in place to prevent the devastating events that unfolded in Dealgan House taking place again. We met with Minister Stephen Donnelly on 28th October 2020 and we put our questions to him and highlighted the importance of such an inquiry. We asked Minister Donnelly when he would respond to our call for a public inquiry into the deaths at Dealgan House. He said his response would be issued 'in weeks, not months.' Over one year later we have had no reply and no substantive reply to continued emails to the minister's office. We have a myriad of outstanding queries and concerns that Dealgan House management and government officials have yet to clarify and respond to. For all of those who care about the safeguarding of the most vulnerable members of our society can we ask you to sign our petition asking for Minister Donnelly to set up an independent public inquiry into the deaths at Dealgan House. We need a mechanism where people are compelled to tell the truth about what occurred, to clarify inconsistencies and to provide learnings for the State in relation to how we care for older people in residential settings. Thank you.

Operation Transformation is a weight loss TV show in Ireland that has been on our screens every year since 2008. Every year, 5 volunteers are recruited and endure a strict weight loss plan including a restrictive diet and intense exercise programme for 8 weeks.  The goal of the show is to lose weight, yet there is no research to prove that the weight loss intervention advocated by OT is effective in the long-term. There has been no participant follow up study to date. Furthermore, Operation Transformation perpetuates weight stigma in Ireland and contributes to the ongoing discrimination of people in bigger bodies across our country. The Irish public deserve to know if the OT programme will result in long-term weight loss and improved health markers. The research clearly concludes that dieting does not result in long-term weight loss for the vast majority of people. The Irish public deserve to not feel stigmatized or shamed on the basis of our weight. The health of our nation is at great risk with this advice of restrictive dieting. Weight is not a behaviour. This programme sends the inaccurate message that weight determines our health. @intuitive.eating.ireland & @binge.eating.dietitian are initiating this petition.

It is in every Irish citizens interest to protect our Healthcare Workers and the people they care for, one day it might be you who needs to be cared for! This petition is not only for Healthcare workers but for every single person who lives in Ireland. We Need every one of you. This is a movement in itself. If we get enough signatures we could help to improve the quality of life not just for the healthcare workers but also for the vulnerable people they care for. We need the people of Ireland behind us and we need the minister for health and the government to listen to us and take us seriously because we will not stop, we will never give up until this catastrophe is fixed. We need your support now!! We need better working conditions for all healthcare workers so that we can provide the best quality of care for the people we care for!!

Toilets are an important public amenity which serve our most basic bodily functions. Access to public toilets isn't just a matter of convenience, it's a matter of dignity and social equality. Mayo's beaches are visited and used all year round, by a wide variety of people, engaged in a multitude of activities, and in all types of weather. People do not stop using the beaches during the Winter. In fact, for many people, the quieter Winter months are a more enjoyable time to visit the beach than during the peak Summer period. Why, then, does Mayo County Council deny access to public toilets at our beaches for half the year? In early October the toilets are locked up, the public bins are removed, and beach users are left without these basic facilities until the following April or May. For some people, access to a public toilet is simply about convenience - it's not necessarily a deal-breaker - but for many more people, a public toilet can be a determining factor in whether they visit a public amenity such as a beach. Women, disabled people, older people, people with children, and many others in our society are unfairly impacted by a lack of public toilets. Where these facilities exist, such as at our beaches, they should be accessible all year round. To be frank, the people least affected by the lack of public toilets are non-disabled men, who can pretty much pee wherever they like (and who don't have a menstrual cycle). For everyone else, if there's no public toilet available, there's a calculation to be made: How long can I spend in this place before I'll need to pee? Can I visit at all? Should I risk my dignity, and potentially my personal safety, by squatting somewhere out-of-the-way just to pee? By denying these facilities for half the year, Mayo County Council is effectively closing the beaches to a broad section of our society, and this is not equitable or acceptable. We call on Mayo County Council to immediately reopen the public toilets at all our beaches, and to keep these essential facilities open all year round.

Children deserve both parents to be with them when they are at their most vulnerable. Parents have an important role in the recovery of a sick child in hospital. It's an exhausting role with monitoring and comforting the child 24/7. It's extremely difficult to do single handedly. Simple tasks like a parent needing to go to the bathroom or find food aren't possible when only one parent can be with the child at any one time. A sick child is scared and doesnt want a parent to leave for a second or may only sleep on the parent. Parents are filling a role as carers in the hospital and they deserve and are entitled to support of their partners/childs other parent to help in this extremely distressing time. Hospital experiences even when surgical outcome is a success are extremely traumatic on both parents and the child. I can't even imagine how parents are dealing with bad news while on their own. On October 22nd Ireland is basically reopening. You can go clubbing again but 2 vaccinated parents of a sick child can't be with the child together. Please can you help us raise this issue for the sake of all those sick children and parents of sick children. If you have any experiences you would like to share to help others understand, please do.

We need your support: Please sign the petition below! Finding it hard to sleep at night with light glare from street lighting coming into your bedroom? The County Council are going to be upgrading the current street lights in Cloughjordan village and will soon consult with the local community on the type of new lighting arrangements to install. This is your chance to have the kind of lighting you really want installed in your village. We aim to submit a letter to the County Council on behalf of people in the local community, to request that the Council: - Install lights with a warm (Amber) colour temperature with an upper limit of (no more than) 2700 kelvin. - Install light shields or hooded lights with more focused lighting, (thereby improving security by reducing glare through targeted lighting and reducing the impact of light pollution). Why are we making the above request? There is an opportunity here for Cloughjordan village to get smart, modern, high standard, well-designed lighting installed that reduces glare into our houses and bedrooms and yet still keeps our streets safe at night. The right kind of well-designed lighting can help reduce light pollution, helping to protect our health and that of the environment. The upper brightness limit we are asking for will be similar to the existing brightness level of the current sodium lighting on the main street but will have a softer effect as the new lighting will be LED, where 2700 kelvin is on the warmer scale of lighting. Also, if the lights are shielded, as we are requesting, the light is targeted to the ground where it is needed, and doesn’t get wasted in glare. This has been shown to improve security by eliminating the excessive glare that often ‘blinds’ people looking into overly bright street lighting. The truth is that better design equals better and safer lighting. Why be concerned about light pollution? Light pollution is Harmful for our health: Current scientific studies suggest that artificial light at night negatively affects human health by increasing our risks for sleep disorders, depression, diabetes and more. It is proven that artificial lights directly interrupt our circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles that are part of the body’s internal clock, running in the background to carry out essential functions whilst we sleep: the sleep-wake cycle. Some of these processes include brain wave patterns, hormone production, cell regulation, and other biologic activities. Disruption of the circadian clock is known to have a significant correlation to several medical disorders in humans including depression, insomnia, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Light pollution is harmful to nature: Plants and Animals depend on earth’s daily light and dark cycle to govern life-sustaining behaviours. For hundreds of millions of years, the web of life on earth has been dependent on day and night, light and dark. Research shows that artificial light at night has adverse and even deadly effects on many species. Researchers have already identified harmful impacts on a huge array of species including bats, insects, plants, fish, turtles, marine corals and even primates. Overlighting wastes energy we can’t afford to waste: It is estimated that at least 20% of light is wasted by unshielded and/or poorly aimed outdoor lighting which is about 3 billion euros per years’ worth of energy lost in sky glow. As much as 50% of outdoor lighting globally is wasted, which increases greenhouse gas emissions, contributes to climate change, and renders us all energy-dependent. To offset all that carbon dioxide, we’d have to plant about 875 million trees annually!

This is a patient led campaign for radical change to the structure, resourcing and delivery of healthcare in Ireland. We are all patients, this effects everyone of us in this country. Our health system is broken, it is no longer holding itself together. Hospital waiting lists have almost hit 1million. There are 700 (1/5) consultant vacancies unfilled in Ireland. There are many reasons for this situation: the current contract for consultants, procedures being cancelled, investment required for additional bed capacity across hospitals. GP patient lists are full. 30% of GPs (over 1000 GPs) will retire in the next 2 to 3 years. There is no strategy for replacing them. Tens of thousands of citizens already do not have access to a GP. This is putting strain on emergency departments, out of hours services and most importantly not giving people the level of care & continuity of care they require. Emergency departments & hospitals are writing to GPs to advise they do not have capacity to take referrals. These patients bounce back to GPs to manage their illness while they wait. Patients with private healthcare have some access to private out of hours and ED clinics which provide limited services if your insurance covers what you need. Ultimately as more GPs retire these private services will also become strained. The band aids of OOHS , ED & private clinics are not a replacement for Primary care services. They do not provide the continuity of care that patients are best served by. We are all affected by this healthcare crisis. We need to come together as one voice to support an all party initiative: Sláintecare. This will transform healthcare in Ireland and benefit generations to come. I urge you to support, share, discuss, engage with this campaign. Thank you, Patientrevolution.ie

No Irish child should leave school without being able to cook for themselves. Otherwise, we are undeniably, failing in our duty of care to our young people. When you teach someone how to cook, you give them a gift that will forever enhance their lives. Our food choices affect our energy, vitality, ability to concentrate. Food affects our mental and physical health and is at the heart of the fight to tackle the climate crisis.

This Medically Supervised Injection Facility (MSIF) has the potential to save lives from overdose and connect vulnerable and marginalised people to vital treatment and social services. Multiple studies across the world have demonstrated the life-saving benefits of MSIFs. Moreover, through connecting at-risk people to social services and reducing drug litter, these facilities benefit the whole community. Establishing safe injection centres are also a more efficient use of public money, given the high treatment cost of disease linked to unsafe needle-sharing. A green light for this facility in Cork would be a vital step towards a more health-led approach to addiction, in recognition of the value of the lives lost annually through overdose.

In every public toilet, we can avail of free toilet roll, hand soap and hand towels - what makes period products any different? We firmly believe that any toilet that requires toilet roll, requires period products in exactly the same way. For too long our menstrual needs have been sidelined, and for too long we have been conditioned to use toilet roll as a temporary measure when we take our periods unexpectedly outside the home. In fact, 98% of those we surveyed have had to use toilet paper and expressed feelings of discomfort, worry and anxiety as a result of this risky alternative. Period poverty is prevalent throughout N Ireland. We have seen an exponential increase throughout the pandemic and lockdown, receiving three times the demand for our period packs. The provision of free period products in all toilets will help alleviate the growing issue of period poverty and will also help meet the needs of all those who menstruate when their periods are unpredictable. No more being caught out and no more period poverty. Everyone deserves to have a dignified period. We are calling on the NI Executive to lock the provision of free period products into legislation so that every toilet, in every public and privately owned building, has free pads and tampons for everyone. Just. Like. Toilet. Roll. Let's follow in Scotland's lead! Let's make N Ireland completely period positive! #MenstruationMatters