Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Falling Apart

This past week has seen our Emergency Services in the spotlight as N.I.A.S has come under fire for generally being a bit shitty.

Unison, the biggest (and most conceited) union for the service said their members voted unanimously 'no confidence' in the NIAS board.  

They released a statement yesterday and while they raise several very valid points (not enough staff, cancelled leave, delays in hospitals and insufficient rest periods), there were a couple of things that stood out for me. Directly from the Unison Briefing:

UNISON currently represents approximately 750 ambulance staff across Northern Ireland.  UNISON Shop Stewards and staff representatives from across the province voted unanimously that they no longer had confidence in the NIAS Trust Board

So they didn't actually poll their members..not the best no confidence vote out there.

UNISON is confident that the Northern Ireland public holds their ambulance staff in the highest regard. Not just for the work they do presently, but for the sacrifice, loyalty and dedication they demonstrated throughout “the Troubles”.  The public will recognize these comments for what they were, an attempt to blame the shortcomings of management on the staff

You know when American right wing news stations refer to 9/11 as a way to get public sympathy? It's kind of horrifying really, to use memories of a national tragedy that (or in the case of our little island, tragedies) to soften up the public.  This is what Unison did here, they 9/11'd us with this press release.

Yesterday some guy from Unison (who from what i could gather isn't actually ambulance service personnel as he didn't seem to know much about it) and the Chief Exec of NIAS were on the radio with locally famous/hated hate monger & stirrer of pots, Steven Nolan.  Neither of them came out of it well.

So what will happen to our precious service? Hopefully it will be ok. I've no doubt that the public, as i do, support the staff who clearly do a difficult job.  NIAS managers have made some regrettable comments in the media but the responses we've been hearing from the staff are beginning to sound equally as petty.  Lets hope the situation is sorted soon before someone suffers the consequences of this collective clusterfuck. 

Deceased Israeli President's Plaque Removed

The blue Plaque for former Israeli President Chaim Herzog has been taken down off the home where he was born in Cliftonpark Avenue.

The property has been attacked several times in recent weeks as...retaliation over Israeli actions in Gaza? I guess. I mean Chaim Herzog is totally to blame for current violence, obviously.  Leaving office in 1993 and just flat out dying in '97 clearly show he had something to hide and committed terrible crimes in office (he didn't do anything too awful, but one or two less than admirable events of note).

With levels of antisemitism in Belfast reaching alarmingly new highs, this sort of behavior is just what we need to help smooth things over with our rapidly dwindling Jewish community.

Find out more in our upcoming piece - Belfast: A City For All

Palestine/Irael Manage Three Days Without Killing Each Other

Palestine & Israel managed a whole three days without murdering civilians this week before finally breaking their ceasefire at 6am (UK time) this morning.

Hamas kicked off the shit by firing at least 30 rockets into Israel injuring one civilian and a soldier.

Israel then hit back with rockets, tank bombardment and gun boats.

Both sides are pretty much just blowing the shit out of each other at the moment however in the past month, 1700 Palestinians (1300 civillians) and 67 Israelis (3 civillians) have lost their lives.

It's worth nearly 2000 lives for something that won't be settled any time soon.  If world history has taught us anything, it's that violence is the solution to more or less every problem.

Happy August! Stormont Rings In The New Month With £78M Budget Cuts

Stormont Announces Budget Cuts

Education & Learning, Social Development and Justice are to be the hardest hit in the newest round of budget cuts that are in place because the DUP and the Shinners can't agree on welfare reforms in place across the water.  

Health & Education are unaffected by the budget but here are the effects the cuts will have:

Education and Learning:

Decrease in the availability of courses to acquire skills for further advancement in employment

Decreased funding for R&D throughout the province

Employment rights to be cut - Doing away with the whole 'racial discrimination' thing and just employing your brother.

Social Development:

No further social housing to be built - fuck people, let them just live on the streets. If they can't find a job, it's not our problem...and with the cuts to Education and Learning, finding a job will be even harder now.

Pensions - With the lack of housing, a lot of people will probably die a lot younger anyway so the shortfall in pensions will even itself out.

No more parks - we might continue renaming our old parks after terrorists but other than that...eh, kids can play on the roads.

Justice:

Cuts to legal aid - if people can't afford to represent themselves, that's not our problem. They should get a better job (see Education & Learning)

Thankfully though, they've found £1,000,000 to save the aquarium so it's not all bad news.