Ireland has a chequered history in terms of mental health and as Ireland’s first public psychiatric hospital, St Brendan’s in Grangegorman, says goodbye to its final patient, it marks the end of an era for mental health care in Ireland.
The hospital itself is being redeveloped as a DIT Campus and a new state of the art facility, the Phoenix Care Center, will replace it on the campus.
For almost two centuries the hospital has housed the mentally ill and holds a rich archive of the road taken by this country in caring for its patients.
Pat was joined by Dr. Margo Wrigley, Consultant Psychiatrist Mater Hospital and Executive Clinical Director for Mental Health Services HSE Dublin North City including the new ‘The Phoenix Care Centre’ in Grangegorman, and by Dr Brendan D. Kelly is Consultant Psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry Department of Adult Psychiatry, University College Dublin and Mater Hospital.
Well, it has emerged that 40,000 (around 1 in 7) public servants face a cut in their basic wage under the new Croke Park II deal but despite earlier reports, there will be no compulsory redundancies.
It was Shay Cody, Chairman of The Public Services committee of ICTU who last night confirmed that no compulsory redundancies appeared in the final agreement and he joined Pat as did Tony Foley from the school of business at DCU.
Ed Romanoff’s 2012 self-titled debut is a gritty masterwork of melancholic and atmospheric Americana. The album evokes the solo work of Mark Knopfler, the swampy mysticism of New Orleans, and the kind of redemption you find at the end of an introspective night with a good bottle of whiskey. He has been touring around and were delighted to welcome him with Mia Sunshine Bloomfield on cello.
Postmortems are to be carried out today on the bodies of a man and woman found dead in a B&B in Carlow yesterday, having both suffered gunshot wounds to the head.
Gardai have not yet formally identified the couple, but details about their last known movements are gradually being pieced together this morning.
For the latest on the investigation, Pat was joined by Barry Duggan of The Irish Independent.
