County Sligo still has no abortion services two years on from the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment to the Constitution . Sligo-based pro choice group SARRA say that hat women , girls and pregnant people in Co. Sligo have been let down by the HSE, which is responsible for making abortion services available through the local health services. SARRA has launched this public petition to the HSE calling on it to announce a date for the provision of locally accessible abortion services through the public health system in Co. Sligo, with prompt follow-through on its responsibilities. The group say they have made extensive enquiries with health service structures locally and nationally and still have not been given any details of a date or plan to provide publicly accessible services in Sligo University Hospital or through local GPs. A spokesperson for SARRA, Peigin Doyle, said: “At present, women , girls and pregnant people in Sligo have to travel a round trip of up to 100 km, to Donegal or Roscommon, to access a GP who will give them the medical care they need. These women need to make an initial visit to a doctor followed by another visit three days later and will possibly need to make another visit for a scan if required. That journey may have to be made three times within a short period, often under great stress. This is an unfair and unrealistic burden to place on Sligo women,girls and pregnant people especially those who live in rural areas without public transport services or who cannot afford a car or time to travel. This is not what people in Sligo, or nationally, voted for. Women, girls and pregnant people in Co. Sligo deserve – and need – better than this, and they need it now. “We appeal to local GPs to respond to the needs of women in Sligo by providing the full range of reproductive health services and joining the HSE MyOptions system. We urge the HSE to train and support medical professionals in providing an accessible service at community level and establish the necessary services in Sligo University Hospital.” SARRA can be found on Facebook/Sligo Action for Reproductive Rights Access and twitter @SARRASligo and on their webpage https://northwestactivistsireland.com/sligo-action-for-reproductive-rights-access/ The My Options phone line is open from 9am-9pm Monday to Friday and 10am-2pm on Saturdays on 1800 828 010 (00 353 1 6877044 if calling from Northern Ireland). The online address is www.myoptions.ie

In Ireland up to 1,000 children a year are being forced to stay at home because they cannot get a school place. Overwhelmingly, it is children with special educational needs (SEN) - often those with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - who are worst hit. Every child and young person with special educational, health and care needs to have the extra support and interventions which will help the child or young person to achieve what they want to in their life. We propose a viable solution for this, an Education, Health & Care (EHC) plan to be the legal and statutory right for every child or young person in Ireland, whose special educational needs require more help than would normally be provided in a mainstream education setting (a college, school, nursery). Annual review of the plan The plan will be reviewed at least once a year. At the end of the review the local authority may make changes to the plan, end it or leave it unchanged. How long will the plan last? The plan will remain in place until your child leaves education or the local council decides that your child no longer needs the plan to help them in their education. If you move to another local council the plan will be transferred. How will the benefits of the EHCp be reinforced? A specialist Tribunal will be in place (which is essentially a no costs jurisdiction) where parents and young persons can challenge the contents of a plan If provision in a plan is not provided, the Local Council (who maintain all such documents) can be challenged by way of Judicial Review or a referral to the Local Government Ombudsman. Once a petition has been published, it will be open to signatures for six months. * At 10,000 signatures, the government will formally respond. * At 100,000 signatures, the request will be considered by the Petitions Committee for debate in Dail. PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION AND SUPPORT EVERY CHILD AND YOUNG PERSON IN IRELAND TO HAVE THE LEGAL AND STATUTORY RIGHT TO AN EDUCATIONAL, HEALTH AND CARE PLAN.

We, the undersigned, note: - The tenants of St Helen’s Court are threatened with eviction by a vulture fund - The current Notice to Quit is the fourth attempt in 3 years by vulture funds to evict these tenants - The current vulture fund and the one that previously owned the apartments are exploiting various loop holes in the residential tenancies legislation to bully and harass these tenants - The harassment is working and, so far, ten tenants have left the complex and found tenancies elsewhere - The remaining ten tenants are resisting the attempt to evict them and expect a hearing in the Residential Tenancies Board in the coming weeks We call on the Minister - To intervene in this situation and ensure Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council buy the apartments to provide affordable homes for these tenants. - Amend the current legislation to remove the loopholes that are currently being exploited by unscrupulous landlords and vulture funds. - Initiate legislation to outlaw all economic evictions.

Along with the listings of animal cruelty above, industrial factory factory farming is a major contributor to water and air pollution as well as deforestation. ... This can contaminate local water supplies, reach neighboring populations physically and in a sensorial capacity, and emit harmful gasses. Likewise, livestock release methane gas during their digestion process which accounts for and directly contributes to climate change.

The Earth's temperature is permanently increasing and 700,000 Species are extinct, the Oceans are Polluted, BUT there is no responsible action taken by the Governments and Multinational Industries.

These sheep were apparently left for 4 days in a flooded field with nothing to eat, no shelter and unable to even lie down and rest as they awaited slaughter at Kepak Athleague in Roscommon. One of them died as a result of severe neglect. It is their right not to be killed. They have already suffered enough. Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary will offer them a home for life at our vegan sanctuary where they will be cared for and where their rights will be respected. Please encourage media to cover their story and encourage Kepak to let them go to our sanctuary.

Today a great kindness was done by concerned citizens who rescued sheep that had been brought to Kepak Slaughterhouse Athleague for slaughter on Friday but left in dire conditions without food or shelter in rain and flooding. Having contacted both Kepac Slaughterhouse and the Department of Agriculture who didn't take any action to help these vulnerable animals and seeing that one of the sheep had already died in these horrendous conditions, these brave people put themselves at risk and went out in a Kayak to bring the 9 waterlogged sheep to safety and drier land. The sheep had to be guided to safety by following the Kayak which took immense effort on the part of the rescuers and the sheep must have been so terrified. Now Kepak insist they are coming to take them for slaughter having had zero interest in meeting their welfare needs when requested. Please share this post widely and bring to light the shocking practices of these corporates whose only interest is profit... Please let these individuals have a chance at life with the kind people who brought them to safety... The option of sanctuary is just a share away for these souls!!! Please tag the media and all animal rights groups in your posts 💚

Representatives of the South Westmeath Hospice Committee along with elected representatives in Longford Westmeath met with the HSE on the 28th August. The HSE put forward proposals that include the following: 1. To close the current South Westmeath Hospice building at the end 2019 2. To provide two palliative care beds in St. Vincent’s Care Centre 3. To provide, based on need, up to four beds in a new facility in Clonbrusk, Athlone, if the HSE deem there to be a need. The HSE told the Committee and elected representatives that the rationale for this proposal is around the cost of beds in the hospice. The HSE also stated that there is a difficulty with recruitment of nursing staff for the current facility. The HSE is proposing to build a new 50 bed unit at Clonbrusk, Athlone. The Committee is at a loss to understand the stance taken by the HSE and how they can propose proceeding with a fifty bed unit in the future when they can’t, by their own statement, currently staff a 28 bed one. The South Westmeath Hospice Committee is devastated and shocked at these proposals. First and foremost, we reject all of them in their entirety and we will fight tooth and nail to preserve the facility and services that we currently have. We have informed the HSE that we will use every means at our disposal to safeguard the service and the interests of the people of South Westmeath. As a significant stakeholder in the provision of resources for palliative care we have expressed our disappointment at the lack of consultation with regard to their proposals and indeed the late stage of engagement with the South Westmeath Hospice Committee and the elected representatives of Longford Westmeath, both of whom represent the community who use and benefit from the care and support provided at the current hospice facility. The outcome from the meeting is that the HSE has agreed to shelve the proposals and have given a commitment that they will engage with the South Westmeath Hospice Committee and the elected representatives with regard to the future of our hospice. The South Westmeath Hospice Committee believes that our frustrations will be shared by the people of South Westmeath, its environs and our supporters in general. The Committee asks that people refer to our Facebook page for up-to-date factual information as this situation develops and unfolds. The Committee may need to call on the public to support us in whatever campaign is required to ensure the best possible services for our patients, their families and the community in general is maintained. The Committee of the South Westmeath Hospice assure the public of our commitment, accountability and integrity in all consultation and engagement on this issue.

My name is Laura Angela I’m the chairwoman for Justice for all women & children this year I accepted a Irish Traveller pride award in intersectionality in which was presented by the amazing Catherine cordless. It’s so important as my mother is a survivor of a abusive industrial school. While there she was abused over who she and her mother was and was made to hate her ethnicity and faced very traumatic experiences of abuse. Her mother Angelina was sent to a laundry for 27 years and was renamed Angela. While there she was recommended a hysterectomy by the doctors. Instead the order used her up until her dying day and ignored the doctors recommendations for over a decade after it was made. My nan died of ovarian cancer if given the treatment she needed she could be here to tell you her story. Instead she lays in a mass grave in cork with 72 other women in which I have been visiting since being a small child. Angelina had three daughters. Her eldest daughter Margaret was 14 when she was out into Sunday wells Magdalene laundry run by the good shepherds in cork. When she left she left for Liverpool. She returned to cork to find her mother and headed straight to St. Vincent’s the laundry her mum was in. She was told that she should leave and never come back. She returned to liverpool and that coming Christmas committed suicide on a day for family, Christmas Day. Angelina’s youngest daughter Bridget was adopted. For 5 years my nan was refusing to sign adoption papers for Bridget while in the laundry. It was only when they used my mum Mary who was in the industrial school and said if she signed the papers she would be given visits by Mary who was in the industrial school and was made to fear her mother. Knowing that not many got the opportunity to even see their children again she took the deal and signed the papers. From there from the age of seven onwards my mum mary was made to visit her mum in the Magdalene laundry but it wasn’t the first time she would have entered those doors. In the 1960s a commission called the commission of itinerancy was taking place. Traveller children was being taken from their family’s and put into industrial schools. The women & children was taken and forced to work in institutions while the aim was to isolate the men on the camps in attempt to eradicate the whole population. Figures called the “cruelty men”” would attend camps on the side of the road and conduct inspections. My nan was in Tuam when my nan took to the side of the road with her latter and travelled to Middleton. A cruelty man approached the site and did a inspection. Although in reports all her children was deemed well nourished and cared for, my Nan had been labelled a “itinerant” she lied regarding being married as her children was illegitimate. But she was put into a county home and was found to be lying. She then escaped the county home with my mum Mary aged two and half. She was brought back by Garda and in the reports she states she was trying to get back to her family in Tuam which mentioned the name Patrick ward within. They didn’t tend to write down the fathers name but because of her attempted escape it gave us some direction as then through DNA and research we found out my mums grandfather (the father to my mum dad) was called a Patrick ward. But from there my mum and her mother was sent to the laundry while they waited for the child’s placement, a nun remembers the night my mum mary was ripped from Angelina in the Magdalene laundry and she was bundled in the car in the car park of it. My mum has been through the Ryan report, mcayleese report and is now facing the mother and baby home commission. During the Ryan report they was just looking at the abuse within the industrial schools so although my mothers statement spoke of her being brought up to the laundry and her mother. This was excluded this as they was claiming at the time these institutions was private. During the mcayleese report they just acknowledged the living working residents and didn’t even provide a minutes silence on the night to the dead my mum sat in the Dàil heartbroken. This meant that child residents/ visitors and their dead mothers was excluded from gaining justice. After the 2013 apology to just the living working residents. We applied to cork council for the exhumation of my nan. We was sent a response letter in 2014 stating the requirements of we would need to bare all costs and we would also need the sisters of charity permission. We have wrote many letters. Had a solicitor write letters and they have never responded in regards to providing of their permission. I have written a book in regards to my mother’s and nan story called The Tinker Menace; The diary of an Irish Traveller which gives a detailed account of our journey and which in detail also lays bare the cover up around the institutions and the effects it had on my family. I am starting this petition to show the order and government how much public support is behind the removal process of my nan and to force them to both take action as they are both responsible. It really means a lot to move my nan and rebury her in a dignified site in which isn’t associated with all the traumatic feelings that arise for my mum when she attends the mass grave. I personally feel due to the fact their was another Magdalene mass grave at another site in which they opened as they sold the land and found more bodies without death certificates - no Garda investigation was put in place they simply put death certificates in place. I think they fear history repeating itself. Please sign and share our petition as far as possible together let’s give the freedom my nan always deserved finally back and some form of justice. Thank you all, for more information regarding the campaign please visit our page: https://www.facebook.com/Justice4AllWomenAndChildren/

Mike Pence presides over a cruel and inhuman system of detention at the US - Mexico border. He's also anti LGBTQIA+ rights and he supports conversion therapy for gay and bisexual people. As a country, we have a duty to say no to treating him as an official guest, as his politics flies in the face of everything we stand for. We certainly shouldn't roll out the red carpet for him to visit.

The rise of racism in Dublin is something we are all very worried about. Last week, we saw Nazi salutes on Barrow street, and now we're seeing immigration officers operating out of Dublin Regional Homelessness Executive offices to target migrants experiencing homelessness. Dublin should be a welcoming city, that stands up to racism in all its forms; from the far right organising on our streets, to the National Government using their powers to target migrants in need of housing. Declaring Dublin a Sanctuary City could be the first step in making sure Ireland is a welcoming country that rejects racism in all its forms.

As a fellow human, please support this petition to allow people of Kashmir to be heard and justice served