Covid & vaccines

In Covid news, the number of deaths from Covid-19 is expected to surge, while pressure on hospitals escalates, while the RSA has warned of a growing waiting list for driving tests.

The Business Post led yesterday with news about the use of private hospitals and vaccine roll out, quoting Fórsa on its front page. Fórsa responded to a query from journalist Michael Brennan on Friday, and the union is quoted further on page 2 of that news item here and here about the potential redeployment of HSCP staff to vaccination duties.

For the sake of completeness, missing from Brennan's report is the union's advice that "There remains a shortfall of staff in these (HSCP) categories, for which recruitment is ongoing. They play an important role in delivery of existing clinical and therapeutic services, so there is probably a limit to the extent to which they could be redeployed to the vaccination effort, as there is significant demand for their non-Covid services."

Education

As you're no doubt aware there was a lot of coverage last week following the Government's announcement that it would keep SEN classes and schools open along with a three day week for Leaving Cert students. Fórsa was among those raising concerns about the plans, advising while it would be possible to provide SEN services, more planning was essential. We were highlighting how this might be done as long ago as the end of December, and seeking a pause in the plans to facilitate more discussion.

The Government's subsequent decision to abandon the plans drew considerable attention, and it made for a couple of busy news days for the Education division. Andy Pike spoke to RTE's Emma O'Kelly in this report on Friday's SixOne news bulletin, and he joined AsIAm CEO Adam Harris on Newstalk on Friday afternoon to discuss the fallout. The minister is to meet with representative groups this week. 

Tech unions & the world

Elsewhere, in yesterday's Business Post Aaron Rogan reported on the 200 workers in Google’s parent company who've announced the establishment of the Alphabet Workers Union, following years of informal protests at the tech behemoth. Rogan says it's part of a global trend towards unionisation. It's behind a paywall here but if you drop me a line I can send you the full text.

Like everyone else I was captivated by last week's events in Washington DC, and have been drawn in by the abundance of analysis doing the rounds since. I recommend this long read from the New York Times, The American Abyss by Timothy Snyder, looking at last week's developments and placing them both in context of US history and the future of US democracy. Marion McKeone's always excellent US coverage in the Business Post is linked in the image above, and this morning's news is that the Democrats are preparing to impeach.

Closer to home, last week's announcement of the appointment of Robert Watt as secretary general of the Department of Health has drawn quite a bit of commentary too.

Meanwhile, Matt's presentation about the upcoming ballot for the new Building Momentum public service pay agreement, to Fórsa’s Consultative Council webinar meeting on Friday, is available to view here. 

Zen

Yesterday marked five years since David Bowie left us. So the most appropriate tune I guess is this one.

Have a good week, stay safe. Do something nice.