News from around the 32 counties of Ireland

While the population of Carlow increased by 8.3% (slightly higher than the 8.1% increase for Ireland as a whole), it is the fourth smallest county in Ireland by population size.

In a reversal of the situation in 2006, nationally there are now more females than males in Ireland, with 981 males for every 1,000 females. However, in Carlow we like to do things differently: here, males still outnumber females, with 1,010 males per 1,000 females.The number of vacant dwellings in the county totaled 3,272 with a vacancy rate of 14.0%.
(Source: The Carlow Nationalist)

Cavan

The Minister for Health has apologized to the family of a Ballinmore girl Meadbh McGivern, over confusion that prevented her from flying to a leading London hospital for a liver transplant at the weekend. Minister James Reilly has asked the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to investigate how emergency transport was not made available to fly the 14-year-old to the King's College Hospital, and to make recommendations to ensure it never happens again.

Meadhbh's father Joe McGivern told The Anglo-Celt last Tuesday that he had a brief discussion with Minister Reilly on the phone and some of the minister's staff were in contact with him subequently about the how the inquiry will proceed. The family have been invited to give their input into that inquiry.

"The minister said he would make sure this would not happen again and measures would be put in place to ensure that," said Mr Givern.

He revealed that Meadhbh was still distraught and can't believe she was so close to receiving the essential operation, only to have her hopes cruelly dashed.

"You have to forget these things and move forward, but they are hard to forget", said Joe.

He revealed that the Transplant Team from Kings College Hospital in London rang last Monday and they were talking to his wife Assumpta. "They said the young healthy liver was just the perfect match - but now at least it has been successfully transplanted into another person and they are currently doing well - at least their misfortune has been corrected by ours".

"I have no doubt that HIQA will get to the bottom of the matter - there are a lot of questions there to be answered", said Joe McGivney.

He said the Coast Guard or the Air Corps were not to blame.

"They offered the jet - they said we'll pick them up in Sligo and bring them to London - we will have them there by 1am - and somebody turned around and said no - one thing I will find out is, who that person was".
(Source: The Anglo Celt)

Clare

The Department of Education and Skills has been paying an estimated €1,800 a week to transport two West Clare teenagers with special needs by taxi to a school in Ennis because of the lack of a suitable educational facility in their locality.

Isabelle Sequin, 14, who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and epilepsy, up to the recent end of term had been completing a round trip of 130km three days a week, while her twin sister, Clara attended St Joseph’s Community College, Kilkee.

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Nster.com