Nurses are at the frontline of our Covid19 response. Despite commitments made by Robin Swann to waive car parking fees for HSC staff until March 2021, the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust have stated they will not offer free parking to nurses working for them. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/health-trusts-rake-in-30m-in-parking-fees-39663814.html

It is vital that tran* and intersex people are not subject to abuse and harassment. Twitter should be a safe and supportive platform for all to use. At present, abuse is poorly moderated, with abusive accounts running rampant. Reports are not adequately handled and in the rare occasions reports are taken seriously, banned accounts return using VPNs. Rules around restricting permissions of new accounts for a period of a month when they are first created would deter abusers. All in all, action is needed to make Twitter safe for all and to rid it of toxicity.

Students account for 20% of Ireland's population. Sending students to school in the current climate, while also considering that online learning was practiced successfully last year, is an unnecessary risk to public safety. Issues facing schools include confusion over the definition of a close contact, no guarantee of when a test result will be returned to a student, and no option for high-risk teachers to teach from home. An inadequate following of restrictions, including a lack of social distancing before and after school as well as at break times, masks not being used at break times and hand sanitizers being recalled because they were not safe are just some of the health concerns affecting schools. Finally, students are struggling massively with their mental health right now. The fear of contracting and possibly spreading Covid-19 to loved ones and high risk friends is leaving many students stressed and afraid to go to school.

45% of office printouts end up in the trash every day! The Environmental Paper Network reports that over the past 50 years, there’s been a four-fold increase in global consumption of paper. Despite the fact, that we live in the era of digitizationand have all the tools we need to make paperless offices a real thing, our love affair with paper has continued and there is no sign that this madness will end soon. But it should end now, because that's what the people want: 89% of Gen Zers said they are concerned about the planet’s health, and of this, 94% were of the view that businesses should help address urgent issues. And they are right! Climate change isn't only caused by diesel engines and coal-fired power plants. It's a challenge we all have to face together, both the industry and the people. In 2020, the year COVID-19 forced us to install digital workplaces across the globe, which are here to stay! In fact, BCG’s recent Workplace of the Future employer survey found that companies expect about 40% of their employees to follow a remote-working model in the future. That being said, it is an ideal time to rethink how many unnecessary copies of documents, customer orders, approval forms, and emails are printed each day.. (Source 1: https://www.myhubintranet.com/paper-saving-tips-12-ways/) (Source 2: https://environmentalpaper.org/) (Source 3: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/remote-work-works-so-where-do-we-go-from-here)

All citizens have the right to buy clothing. This is particularly important for children. Clothing is a basic necessity and right. Parents expecting babies are entitled and should be able to buy the clothes they need for their children. Parents have the right and should be able to buy clothing and shoes for their growing children. Parents should be able to buy coats and weather appropriate items for their children.

In August 2020 it was announced that the Department of Justice is intending to set up a Direct Provision Centre for people who have fallen victim to the commercial sex trade which is to be run by DePaul and Ruhama. Victims of the commercial sex trade in this context means people who engaged in sex work or survivors of sex trafficking. We also believe other vulnerable people who have been victimised will be moved to this centre. While we welcome an end to human trafficking survivors being housed in Direct Provision, we would like to see everyone removed from Direct Provision and housed within communities. This step being a longer-term objective means we need to express our disapproval that Ruhama be placed in a position of responsibility within any new centre. Ruhama was founded by The Sisters of Charity and The Sisters of The Good Shephard. As of August 2020, Ruhama, while claiming to be secular, still had 3 members of the Sisters of The Good Shephard order on their board and pushes extreme ideology in relation to autonomy and sex work and sex trafficking. The Sisters of the Good Shephard and the Sisters of Charities claim to have a long history with “troubled women” from the 18th century until the eventual closure of the last laundry closing in the early 2000’s Magdalene Laundries were run by orders of nuns including the Sisters of the Good Shephard who both founded Ruhama and have current positions on their board. The Sisters of Charity too ran Magdalene Laundries. Both refused to meet their victims just a year ago. The orders trafficked women into commercial and domestic slavery and trafficked their children all around the world without consent, more sadly died. By the time the last Laundry closed the orders were involved in Ruhama. The abuses and inhumanity in the Magdalene Laundries run by The Sisters of Charity and The Sisters of the Good Shephard are finally coming into light in their full horror and in spite of attempts to seal the archives, the survivors and the public continue to fight to have them accessible for those they impacted. These two orders and those like them trafficked tens of thousands of vulnerable women and children. Putting an organisation which was founded and still claims members of an order who ran a human trafficking cartel in Ireland for decades, in a place of responsibility over vulnerable victims is absolutely irresponsible and completely ignores what we have learned from our own history. We must insist that Ruhama is taken out of the list of viable options for this role. Irish people continue to suffer at the hands of the Sisters of the Good Shephard and the Sisters of Charity and while we fight to ensure those victims still have the right to access their personal information, we must also ensure that we never allow institutions to be founded which we know have lead to abuse and degradation and damage to human life. Ruhama in its capacity as an anti sex trafficking organisation has derailed the anti- human trafficking efforts by focusing so much attention on sex trafficking while not acknowledging that labour trafficking has been the largest kind of trafficking in Ireland consistently until last year. We are unaware of any anti-labour trafficking organisation currently receiving any state funding. Child trafficking is also a serious issue on the ground when working in anti-human trafficking in Ireland, yet the only dedicated anti child trafficking organisation is not regularly funded by the Department of Justice. By conflating sex work and sex trafficking as similarly victimising Ruhama have inflated sex trafficking to be the largest nationwide trafficking phenomena which our work on the ground would discredit. We also find their attitude towards sex workers as “women in prostitution” and the lack of representation of sex workers and trafficking survivors within Ruhama to be massively problematic.

At the end of last year, nurses went on strike for the first time ever for fair pay and adequate staffing for the NHS. It has been confirmed that funding was secured to reinstate their strike pay, but it has not been paid out. Nurses are at the backbone of our NHS, and at the heart of the Covid19 response. They can no longer be at the back of the queue when it comes to pay.

Issues: 1. Capacity • Since a network of 12 hospital Research Ethics Committees (REC) was established around the turn of the century, the number of health research applications has dramatically increased – without a corresponding increase in REC capacity to assess these applications. 2. Uncertainty • It is now the case that many RECs can no longer guarantee a timeline for review/approval – even where submissions are made by deadline, which creates uncertainty for trial/study planning. • Any uncertainty in the Irish health research environment makes Ireland a less attractive location for opening clinical trials and undertaking health research. • Consistency: Different RECs may respond to the same application in different ways, or place different demands on researchers. • REC efforts to standardise application forms between 2010-2015 appear to have faltered with the introduction of GDPR and the Health Research Regulations. 3. Drug vs. non-drug studies • While drug trials (interventional trials) only need approval from a single REC to open a study at any sites, non-interventional studies (translational - TM) must submit a separate application for every single site. 4. Research guidance • There is no central location where guidance can be sought on how to progress research. Clear and consistent direction on e.g. patient consent is required to navigate an evolving research environment. In summary: • Reduce the burden on researchers • Standardise ethics reviews, which are paramount for guarding patient safety • Streamline approval and guidance Note: This petition was created by Cancer Trials Ireland as one element of the organisation’s Just Ask 2020 campaign to raise public awareness of clinical trials and issues relating to clinical trials. The Just Ask 2020 campaign is supported by unrestricted grants from Pfizer Healthcare Ireland; Novartis; AbbVie; MSD; Roche; Bayer.

I don't own a house, I can't afford to buy in this area. I'm a native Irish speaker who wishes to live in the Gaeltacht. As an OAP, I cannot get a bank loan or a mortgage to enable me to buy an overpriced house in Corca Dhuibhne

In Ireland , all of the basic or advanced trainings, Cross contamination, Blood borne pathogens , Sterility, Infection control bearly gets an hour of teaching with no exam at the end. Through lack of knowledge Hepatitis A, B or C, or HIV can be contracted if the practitioner has not followed a minimum training/teaching with exams plus annual tests to ensure practices do not slip. To date, no such regulation is in place, leaving the general public exposed to a viral/bacterial infection unwittingly along with their treatment. What makes this right? Olive, a Registered Nurse and Midwife with over 30 yrs experience wants to ensure public safety, and due diligence to the industry . Please help by signing the petition below , and ensure Mr Blogs dosent enter a treatment clinic for one thing and leave with much more. Kind regards Olive

It is important for this to happen, because there are students in both Third Level and Future Education Colleges who are being looked down upon and made feel ashamed and embarrassed because of their mental health and the majority of us Students are being kicked out of their college for having a Mental Health Illness. You can't just stick a plaster over a Mental Health Illness, it's not the same as a broken arm or leg; were it it will heal in approximately 6 weeks. I think both students and teachers should be taught about Mental Health so they can understand it more and know exactly how to help someone with Mental Health; mental health isn't just an illness; it affects everyone differently and the majority of mental health goes unnoticed due to it been invisible. 1 in 5 people have Mental Illness, 5 in 5 people have Mental Health We want you Simon Harris to join us Students in stopping this Stigma of Mental Health in college, especially now in these difficult times.

The Endometriosis Association of Ireland (EAI) has quoted the waiting time for diagnosis as being up to nine years – longer than the seven-and-a-half years reported in the UK. Endometriosis affects can cause debilitating pain, heavy periods, painful sex, painful bowl and bladder movements, fatigue and infertility. The UK is finally starting to address this horrific condition and following an MP inquiry in the UK, the majority of people have shared stories of how their mental health, education and careers had been damaged by the condition. More than 10,000 people took part in the All-Party Political Group inquiry which found that 58% of people visited the GP more than 10 times before diagnosis and 53% went to A&E with symptoms before diagnosis. The majority of people also told MPs their mental health, education and careers had been damaged by the condition. About 90% said they would have liked access to psychological support but were never offered it, with 35% having a reduced income due to endometriosis. In survey of 13,500 women it found that half of them reported being addicted to painkillers and having suicidal thoughts. Due to a "gender pain gap" women's symptoms are often belittled by doctors, despite numerous visits to A&E, local GPs and specialists. Pain is notoriously hard to describe and pinpoint. But for women, the work is doubly arduous. We have to learn to advocate for ourselves and one another. But we need doctors and health professionals to meet us in the middle, believe our testimonies and help us over the line to diagnosis and treatment. With no cure for the condition and limited treatment including hormone therapy and surgery. It's time to call on the Government to establish a working group to address the long waiting times for diagnosis, treatment of the condition and the major psychological damage it has on the women who suffer from it. Endometriosis care across Ireland needs urgent improvement and diagnosis times need to be cut in half. We can't carry on like this, one in ten could means one day it could be you, your sister, girlfriend or friend suffering from this debilitating condition. *(Although endometriosis is most commonly referred to as a female disease. Endometriosis may also impact Trans/Cis Males. There are documented cases of cis men (someone who identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth) who present with endometriosis of the prostate that is typically discovered when their body is introduced to estrogenic effects. There is also population of trans men (and trans women) who face living with endometriosis everyday whose experience with the disease goes un-researched) Additional Resources: Endometriosis Association of Ireland: https://www.endometriosis.ie/?gclid=CjwKCAjw_sn8BRBrEiwAnUGJDou2wgRqMbtuQ0nzBYwM0L8x9Dy_r69srSPgkoOX4hhnEdtIT37GDxoCkyMQAvD_BwE Endometriosis care needs urgent improvement, MPs say: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54513072 Endometriosis showed me we need better ways to talk about women's pain: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/22/endometriosis-women-pain-diagnosis-report-mps?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other 'A lot of doctors fail to recognise it': Calls for government to review treatment of endometriosis': https://www.thejournal.ie/endometriosis-working-group-4840562-Oct2019/ Additional 'Endometriosis and Being a Trans Person: Beyond Gendered Reproductive Health' http://www.hormonesmatter.com/endometriosis-transgender-beyond-gendered-reproductive-health/