Martina Devlin

Independentie

Sunday, 7 June 2020 | 9.8°C Dublin

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

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Independentie

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Martina Devlin

People power: People at a Black Lives Matter protest rally outside the US Embassy in Dublin. Photo: Damien Storan.

Martina Devlin Opinion Shameful direct provision conditions should keep our leaders off high horse on racism

Racism can be overt - like a knee on another human being's neck. Or insidious - like corralling people with few choices in life into shoddy, ill-equipped direct provision centres and shrugging off complaints with words to the effect that nobody forced them to come here.

Talks: Anne Costello, Nursing Homes Ireland director, and Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, attend a committee meeting on the Covid-19 response at Leinster House in Dublin.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Martina Devlin Opinion Let's use this time to recalibrate how we care for our elderly - and help them stay at home

Let's talk about elder care. At home rather than in a home is where most people want to be - no disrespect to residential settings, where decent staff do their best.

Masked up: A man takes a picture of the window display at a Dublin bridal boutique. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

Martina Devlin Opinion In this age of equality, blatant inequality has left women more open to fall-out from virus

Women are not more clever, imaginative, constructive, hardworking or vibrant than men. Nor are they less so. Women are not more needy, idle, helpless, shrill or vulnerable than men. Nor are they less so.

Time to deliver: A postman walks past a Dublin mural inspired by the HSE ‘Hold Firm’ campaign. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

Martina Devlin Opinion Dithering politicians have kept us in limbo for 100 days - we can't let this happen again

There's a Zen proverb which advises: 'When walking, walk. When eating, eat.' It means we should concentrate on the activity we're engaged in currently.

Testing times: Leaving Cert has been cancelled for this year and replaced with ‘calculated grades’.

Martina Devlin Opinion Why abandoning the Leaving Cert is the wrong decision at the wrong time

Granted, it's flip-flop weather, but does the Education Minister really have to embrace flip-flopping with such enthusiasm that he applies it to policy- making?

Gesture: Hearts are being knitted for people in palliative care – coronavirus patients are deprived of human touch and love from their relatives. Photo: Amber Cantwell/PA Wire

Martina Devlin Opinion Our country is tight-knit - but stresses of lockdown could see social fabric fray

How precarious the present feels, even as the parameters of our world are about to be extended by a few kilometres. Whether the exclusion zone is 5km or 2km, our reality remains shrunken.

Members of the public pass a mural in Portobello, Dublin during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic in Ireland.
Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Martina Devlin Opinion Intensive caring and good dose of common sense will deliver a superior design for life

Once upon a time, we presumed intensive care was something which only happened in hospitals - now we know intensive caring can exist on a broader scale: community-wide, city-wide and country-wide.

The truth is our inattention turned these homes into a forgotten frontline

Martina Devlin Opinion How our neglect turned nursing homes into forgotten frontline of a Covid-19 war

An afterthought. A postscript. A scramble to play catch-up. And hundreds of people have died - some of whose deaths must have been preventable.

Testing times: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Health Minister Simon Harris and Cillian de Gascun, director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory, duing a visit. Photo: Aidan Crawley/EPA-EFE Pool

Martina Devlin Opinion Covid-19 wave hasn't hit yet but frontline testing could get us ahead of the curve

There is much we don't yet know about Covid-19. But there are some things we do know which could be used as part of the containment drive. Number one, we know it's highly contagious. Number two, we know people in frontline healthcare are more exposed to the virus than others in the population - among those who've contracted it, one in four is a health worker.

Message of hope: A quote from Seamus Heaney is chalked on a gate near Martina Devlin’s home.

Martina Devlin Opinion We all seek out hope but it's important to remember that lockdown is not forever

Abraham Lincoln borrowed a nugget of wisdom from medieval Persian poetry for a speech delivered six years before his assassination.