Martin Wall writes in today's Irish Times that the Government says it’s spending more than ever on disability providers, while the sector says it’s not enough. The paper reports that the chairs of 26 voluntary disability service providers have written to HSE chief exec Bernard Gloster to say their ability to deliver existing services and meet the needs in their communities were under threat. 

Meanwhile, a teenage campaigner, Cara Darmody, is to begin a 50-hour protest outside Dáil Éireann today over the Government’s failure to deliver assessments of needs (AON) on time. 

Donegal media has news on the ballot of school secretaries, which commences today, and some more coverage from last week's conferences.

Elsewhere, The Journal carried a response last week to Denis O'Brien's rant against remote work by Dr Catherine Conlon. a public health doctor, who concludes:

"Denis O’Brien’s comments reflect an outdated industrial mantra that was designed to count, standardise and extract. But thankfully, people have changed. People want lives that are more nuanced. Lives where people are recognised as individuals with time to create and imagine. To put their children to bed and pick them up from school, and sit down together in the evening. To live in harmony with their communities and the Earth that created them. 

"A hybrid mix of working at home and in the office allows that to happen. Sitting in an office five days a week, clogging up the roads with traffic and bad air or following a one-to-two-hour commute does not. The old ways taught us how to work, but not how to live well. Time to embrace a new world of work that enhances productivity within the confines of health and wellbeing."

Zen

Your Zen this morning is inspired by the conclusion of the Andor series. Or, as I sometimes call it, Star Wars for Grown-Ups. Tony Gilroy's series is an accomplished feat of storytelling, drawing inspiration from history to make the allegorical descent into autocratic terror, and the power of resistance, a story for our times.

Have a lovely week.

Niall Shanahan