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A THREE-YEAR-OLD BOY has died after being attacked by a dog in Essex in England.
Essex Police released a statement today saying they are investigating the death.
Dexter Neal, from Ronald Road in Halstead, sustained injuries after being bitten by a dog in a property at around 5.40pm yesterday. He died in hospital later that evening.
Police said a 29-year-old woman from Halstead was arrested for “allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control, injuring a person”.
She has since been released on police bail, pending further enquiries, until 19 October.
The dog, an American bulldog, has been seized by police and placed in kennels.
Family liaison officers have been deployed to support the family.
‘So sad’
Shirley Diver, mayor of Halstead, told BBC News local people are in shock.
It’s dreadful news, it really is. I’ve had dogs all my life and I don’t think you can ever trust a dog 100% with any child.
“It’s so sad. I feel so sadly for the family who are involved. Words can’t express how it affects anybody. The whole town is in shock.”
- with reporting by Órla Ryan
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He is absolutely spot on!
Whooos inda hooouuse
Stop whining Brendan. You’re part of the media establishment whose role is to protect the status quo that makes Ireland an inhumane place for the majority working class to enrich the elite few.
Good God Wally. You must have huge shoulders to carry a chip that big !
No. Just a good radar for nauseating hypocrisy. O Connor and his ilk have cheerled as our social support structures including disability services were ransacked to ensure the wealthy and powerful paid no price for their failed gambles. He’s part of the ideological infrastructure which crushes the welfare of the majority to protect the interests of capitalist elite such as his boss Denis O Brien.
Wally – I really don’t think what you are saying is correct.
Check out his articles in the Sindo Donal.
Wally is correct, his views in the Sindo reflect that of a very much right wing thinking person! Wally has a reason to hate him as they are political opposites… There’s a time and place though!
Wally as a parent of an amazing boy with down syndrome who has to fight to get access to essential services I find your comment offensive and typical of a person who wants to ignore the plight of the vulnerable and focus on the populist issues
Wally by name. Wally by nature
Whatever about his media “personality” (he was pushing property in 07′) and anything I have read of his being S****, that was a very heart felt piece and he raised an important topic all too forgotten.
@Wally, You really do have an incredibly warped view on reality. Brendan is talking about support services for disabled people in Ireland and you are doing your usual party trick of talking through your hoop.
Great to see someone in his position point out the uncomfortable truths. Speech and language and occupational therapy and other services like that are treated as a luxury service in this country. It is a necessity and should be available to all ages, all backgrounds as often as it is required
Sure is great. Fergus Finlay is another one who can turn it on when needs be as his own child has down syndrome I believe. hough not a fan of Finlay’s politics, it’s important to have good spokespeople like O’ Connor and him.
O’ Connor is a bit of a strange one in that he played the anti-intellectual very well when hosting his talk show.
He’s a bright guy and should play to his strengths more often. He absolutely nailed it when he said “cranks like UNa MUllaly have too much power”. Never a truer word spoken and he also nailed it when he said the Irish media is a sack of shit where the only conservative views expressed in media are those of religious loons.
I don’t have a problem with anything he said in that interview, if pushed I’d go further and ask what exactly is a disability and how the State defines one. We’ve established that they’re neglecting children in this regard but there are also disabled adults in the country, quite a lot, They also need assessment and access to a variety of services, both of which can be difficult to obtain.
I understand O’Connor is a representative for families with downs syndrome children and, as such, he is in a position to speak from the heart and with a degree of knowledge on the subject. He makes no apology for the fact that he is financially in a position that most are not and is therefor able to secure many of the services for his daughter that the majority in this country cannot. It’s for that majority he speaks, and I admire him.
As for what political party the man likes or doesn’t like, so what? He’s no different to the rest of us and just as entitled to his opinion, even if it’s wrong. Seriously though, I never heard him mention Fine Gael, when Tubbs pushed him he hummed and hawed for a few seconds and eventually replied that Simon Coveney was growing on him. At a later stage he said he felt we’d waited long enough for this government and they should be given a chance, we should get behind them. He also used the phrase that they should ‘just grow a pair and just govern the country.’ Not unreasonable.
His ‘effin dole’ remark was made to illustrate the statistics that country is comfortable sitting back and, despite the legalities of the issue. Access to disability services is available to 1/8 of disabled kids in Dublin and to 1/3 of disabled kids in the country. He felt if those figures were applied to those on the dole, if they were told in Dublin you have a 1/8 chance of getting the dole but in the country it would be 1/3 there would be effin’ war. He’s right, there would be.
@Daisy I don’t think I’d express it quite so eloquently, but… what you said.
Disabilities don’t end at 18. Many of the special needs children parents are caring for at home and struggling with services are adult children. Some are adult children with elderly parents.
Let’s face it our track record with children in Ireland has a lot to be desired. Brendan’s interview was excellent and very informative.
Domicilary care allowence stops at 16 in other words the day after the child is cured !! ie no financial support.
But then they can apply for disability allowance in their own right.
Yes 188 per week same as the dole.
100% right
On the one hand he wants extra funds for kids with disabilities and on the other he’s a big fan of fianna gael. He says that Simon Coveney is great stuff, does he realise that he’s off to the bilderburg club with various captains of industry to discuss how to take even more of our money from us.
Aoife…well said.
Peter. I’ve disliked this o Connor character for a while, he can’t stand anyone that disagrees with his right wing views and now that he’s found himself with a situation that he didn’t expect to happen he sees the reality of the impacts of his views realised. It wouldn’t compute with him though and there’s plenty of issues that need addressing in society as well as kids with disabilities but his politics want the wealthy to get wealthier and everyone else can just make do.
The headline could have read ‘Well known wealthy broadcaster and journalist looks for cash handout from the State’ because that’s what I heard.
Not one word about Poor people who can’t afford to pay for some help. He does pay for some help seemingly but he’d like it to be free.
His admiration for FG is in stark contrast to the record of FG in Govt with regard to services for vulnerable people but for those who can pay then FG have done a great job.
His whole persona is rife with contradictions.
@Aoife, His analogy with the ‘dole’ not being paid to people causing ‘effing’ war is so wide of the mark in making his case that his motive for being so inaccurate has to be questioned.
Why is he comparing a casual worker with a family who finds his labour not required for a period by his employer and needing cash to feed his family with a speech and language coaching for a child of a wealthy family.
His comments are just too ill considered to be taken seriously.
Gerry yes I don’t get that. In fact I may rewatch the episode to see if I can glean anything else from it.
That’s a load of rubbish.
I’ve got to agree with him families who care for people with disabilities and the people with disabilities are treated terribly by the state. When a person is diagnosed with a different disability a care plan should be immediately put in place with the services made available! The system as it stands is extremely adversarial where every service has to be fought for tooth and nail with no guarantee that the service is available after approval!
The contrast between Tubridy and O’Connor was so blatant last night. O’Connor spoke with passion and conviction, while Tubridy looked disinterested at times, gave a few obligatory head nods and tut tuts but was more concerned that Brendan ‘wrap it up’ when he was pushed for time. Why? So he could rush on to the furniture restoration segment?!!
We need more impassioned debate and discussion of this ilk. Not outdated furniture restoration items and the indulgence of less than mediocre ‘comedians’.
Hold on! A majority seems to agree the situation is disastrous in many areas. Yet a majority voted to have the same parties in power. ..
No they didn’t, no party even got a majority this tims round.
Can someone explain why my license fee is used to have one RTE employee talk to another RTE employee?
The real world calls that lunch time in the canteen.
Most parents of children with special needs are so busy grappling with the day to day challenges they face and trying to advocate for their own child in a system that’s stacked against them that they don’t have time to raise awareness of the lack of services and waiting lists. It’s one battle after another .
Brendan has a high profile and as a consequence he is able to raise awareness. Fair play to him for doing it – we need all the help we can get.
As a parent of a child with autism we faced the prospect of travelling every Saturday from north Donegal to Armagh ( 2 hrs one way ) for private occupational therapy as all of the O T s in the public system were on maternity leave and we faced an 11 month waiting list . Luckily a private O T set up in Letterkenny. She has literally saved our lives. Imagine facing a waiting list of 11, 18, 23 months and watching your very distressed child shut down a bit more every day. It’s the worst feeling and no parent should have to face it . There are thousands of families facing more serious challenges than us around the country and their stories all go unheard. Brendan brings it into the public domain in a compassionate and real way and for that I thank him.
While I don’t disagree with him for one second, Irish society needs a reality check. This is what you get when you prioritise tax cuts over investment in public services. We are all great for finding faults with services, and identifying the million and one services that should do better, yet when there is even the suggestion of a tax increase in Ireland the place goes nuts. We can’t have it both ways and it’s about time we developed a grown up attitude to the need for higher taxes. Either that or we accept crap services and stop complaining.
Dearmaid. I think it all boils down to the bank bailout and the interest paid on our debts etc. It’s like a millstone around our necks and because of that any extra taxes taken in by the exchequer simply don’t cover the needs of the nation. We should have told them to take a hike instead. I think it’s going to be like this for a long long time till it eases off and by that I mean 40 years or so, it’s the proverbial elephant in the room.
While again, I mostly agree with you, the reality is irrespective of bank debt etc, we simply are expecting too much for the level of tax we pay. We are a small society and the level of investment required for top quality services is going to be more per head of capita than more densely populated countries; that’s just reality. The problem in Ireland is that unlike progressive Scandinavian nations etc, we want all the services, but have an aversion to funding those services through adequate taxation. As a society we need to grow up a small bit and stop resisting tax increases and decide what kind of society it is we really want.
I see your argument, but the banking debt can’t be airbrushed away. The level of interest paid on it would be enough to build a children’s hospital in every county in Ireland, it’s big money, our money. Look at the populations of these Scandinavian countries, they’re not actually to dissimilar to ours, but I think the difference here is that as a country we haven’t really matured in the last one hundred years since independence, we haven’t got the same levels of confidence in ourselves that others have. When the crap hits the fan here we leave rather than sort it out. I remember Willie o dee saying on prime time at the start of the crash all those years ago that people could just emigrate, he said it kind of in a jokey fashion but I’ve always remembered that comment as being representitive of our attitude to life.
Don’t get me wrong, the bank debt thrust upon our shoulders is nothing short of criminal, however, on the Scandinavian point, they have populations etc like our own yes, but unlike us they pay alot higher tax rates. They do this happily though, as they see the tangible benefits of it throughout their daily lives. Here, everyone from the man or woman on the breadline, ironically right up to Brendan’s boss Denis, get a kick out of avoiding tax. Look at Michael Lowry, a convicted tax cheat, and he topping the poll in Tipp for decades; we do not have a right to complain about lack of services when that’s how we carry on!
I think people would happily pay higher taxes here if it meant we received the same benefits from them. A man I know is married to a Swedish woman and she was explaining the difference between our tax and theirs. They pay over 50% in direct taxes but that is it! They don’t pay road tax, they don’t pay for the doctor, dentist, hospital, prescriptions etc. Education is free and it includes school books, school lunches and school buses to take children to and from school. Childcare is heavily subsidised so there isn’t a massive burden on parents. The money leftover to Swedish citizens after tax is theirs to spend without having to worry about other eventualities. I would happily pay more tax if we had a system like theirs. But let’s be honest, we wouldn’t have half of that and we would still be ripped off paying for necessities like dental work and childcare.
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you, but by your own admission they pay higher income tax. I wasn’t aware they paid no road tax, but I know their VAT is 25%, more again than our 23%. The reality is that their free services come from their larger tax contributions. That being said, they don’t elect tax cheats, or fellas with tweed hats who want to legalise drink driving and jepordise an entire nations progress for the sake of a the filling of their own potholes. So while yes, they pay more and get more, they also expect more and vote with a conscience, unlike us.
You’re absolutely right! I suppose what I’m saying (and I believe you’re saying) is that I wouldn’t trust this government to use any additional taxes to benefit the people. Swedish people seem to be willing to pay even more tax and that’s obviously becsuse they know that they will ultimately benefit from it.
Yes, but who elects the people that manage our taxes? We can blame politicians all we want, but we are the people that have made Fianna Fail the most popular party again, a mere 8 years after they wrecked the place. Tipperary people are the ones happy to elect tax cheats and politicians implicated in bribery and corruption scandals time after time. Kerry people are the ones who elect fellas who claim God controls the weather and put wider society behind a shovel of tar mac on their back roads. Ultimately the blame lies with us. We are a long way off recognising that in my opinion.
The I entangle consequence of voting for right of centre political parties is policies which favours the rich and privileged and which don’t support or assist the disadvantaged. The approach is to make the rich even richer and to make the disadvantaged even more disadvantaged. O’Connor called for support for the Government.,in doing so, he supports its policies. O’Connor attempts to have it both ways.
Or maybe he’s a realist who understands you can’t have it both ways? I’d vote left if we had options. Do we, Fiona? We are pretty left in that we have one of the best social welfare systems in the world.
Something I’ll add to that that is playing on my mind all week. As I’m now over 35, and so my wife and I are being ‘loaded’ if we didn’t take out health insurance this year…as far from the universal health insurance promised, we now have a ‘pay your way if you can and be damned if you can’t’ system – or two tier as is commonly used terminology.
To cut it short, my wife and I took out health insurance, VHI, last year for the first time. It’s costing us 1100 a year which we can now afford (but certainly couldn’t for about 5 years post-crash). About 2 months ago, my 4 year old girl was told she had to have her tonsils, adenoids out, and a hearing stint of some kind added in too.
We were one of these ‘in limbo’ families that earned too much to qualify for a med car, and struggled with the additional 1100 a year on top of a doubling of rent in the last 3 years.
So, she saw the GP 2 months ago, got a referral to the consultant 3 weeks later, and is going for her op in 2 weeks time. My GP told me, had we been on a med card, it would have been a year and a half. It’s outrageous that people on med cards. 40% of the population, have to wait for their own CHILDREN. to be treated. It turned my stomach.
Here’s the additional sickener. As my wife is now finishing maternity on our 2nd child, she rang the consultant in question and asked his secretary ….’if there was any chance we could have the op done before I finished maternity so I could be there while she’s recovering rather than at work I’d greatly appreciate it’….letter came through the door yesterday….operation next weeks. Now, imagine trying that on a med card.
everything about this system is so wrong.
That €1100 per year you are paying has served your family well. That’s €20 per week that you haven’t drank, smoked, gambled or spent on other non essentials. I salute you as an example to everyone with your personal responsibility.
Brendan O Connor is spot on. Early intervention does not happen in Ireland unless families can afford it. The new inclusion programme due to start this September for children with special needs on the ecce scheme is welcome but no use unless more supports, therapist’s and interventions occur. For children like Mary, diagnosed at birth those interventions should occur then. For children who come into the “system ” later their interventions should also happen immediately. We need more parents like Brendan O Connor to continually highlight and keep in the media attention the lack of services and supports for young children with special needs.
They dont vote.
Reminds of Brendan Gleeson’s impassioned speech (Late Late also I think)on the scandal of patients on trolleys…Nothing much changed there. People power managed to get the water charges scrapped..just a thought
The massive hypocrisy with Brendan O’Connor is that he writes and is employed by a rag which cheerleads the party that made these cuts,his paymaster DO’B diverted funds from children with disabilities to pay for a pyramid scheme which cost the State hundreds of millions.
Our first child was born with Cystic Fibrosis 39 yrs ago and we had to and we did fight, threaten,beg,belittle ourselves,shout,cry and roar for every single thing she needed. Her dignity was never respected by the system until she underwent a double lung transplant for which we are beyond grateful. Now she is supported like the wonderful woman she is. Rock on Brendan every word you said on the late late is very true…God bless Mary and you all.
The health service really needs reviewing.
Currently in limerick general hospital. It’s like the apocalypse bed everywhere in the A&E. I’ve never seen it so bad it’s like something out of a movie but worse because it’s real. Families everywhere tears and kids / adults alike stuffed every corner.
Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture if our politicians in Leinster House decided to donate to one of the many local charities 50% of the salary that they received for the 70+days “pre government formation”
” Yes friends, Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class” James Connolly Quote.
Apparently Enda will tell you that the country is recovering. It maybe but not for the most vulnerable of our citizens.
I worked in the Disability sector in Ireland for nearly 15 years and I have family members with disabilities. Ireland is far from perfect in its provision of services, but I now work in Australia in the Disability sector and in comparison Ireland is 40 years ahead. At least disabilities is discussed in the media, it is part of the daily conversation and in fairness you would have to have been living under a rock for the last 20 years to not know that people with disabilities are part of the community. In Australia disabilities is still a dirty word, a population ostracized by the larger community. I for one am happier to have people continue to discuss disabilities in mainstream media. It will help to raise awareness
Hi, I would be very interested in hearing from you On disability in Australia. Australia is a country I lived in when I had no children. I now have 2 and my eldest has Down Syndrome. It’s a country I would consider moving to but I have been concerned with regard to inclusion for my son. I would really like to hear more on disability in Australia now that you are working there and have experience within the disability sector.
Brendan O’Connor has written some brilliant articles about his daughter. They moved me to tears, to be honest.
I cannot support him enough.
He is absolutely right, health services including speech and language, occupational therapy,physiotherapy, wheelchair services even play provision should not be seen as a luxury item for disabled children or adults with learning disabilities, because disabled children do actually grow up!
There needs to be a framework of assessment that leads into service provision which includes education, health and social care. But these assessments should not fall into the trap of creating paper children/adults they need to have tangible outcomes for children and their parents who will be lifelong parent carers.
Ireland should be leaders in this field. It takes more money to create report after report of what is not happening rather than sorting it out.
Include parents in the development of everything and it will absolutely work. I know because I have been part of creating something here in London. it’s not utopia here but it can be done. http://www.fulloflifekc.com
He’s correct that the State is failing children with disabilities and has a history of doing so.
However, he also said we should get behind this Government.
A Government which is led by one of the two parties to have ruled this state and is propped up by the other. The two parties with the most responsibility for our inability to provide for our most vulnerable.
Pay your bills people, we don’t need to be allocating money to fix water & sewage infrastructure from resources that could be put into disabilities.
Are you suggesting they break the law and have an abortion.
Where did that come from
It was mindfulirish making a comment about people choosing to have disabled kids.
@Aoife I read Miriam’s comment from a different point of view. I have 2 children with special needs. Disability services have been cut to the bone. Pro-life campaigners will protest in their thousands to protect the life of the unborn child. I have organised and taken part in protests regarding the cuts to disability services and we were lucky to get a hundred people to turn out and support us. The point is that when the child is born with disability no one want’s to know. No one is suggesting that children with disabilities should be aborted. What would make a huge difference would be if those thousands of pro-life supports actually got out on the streets and supported the rights of those children born with disabilities. Unless it arrives at your door, no one wants to know.
Too true. If this country is so pro-life then it has to put money and services where it’s mouth is.
Brenda ‘knob’ O’Connor would not give two hoots about this subject if he didn’t have a child with disabilities.
Too true if this country is that pro-life then it has to put money and services where it’s mouth is
You don’t know how lucky you are. My friends have left the USA to go home because they get more State help back in Ireland than you would in the USA. You get absolutely nothing here. Furthermore, people go bankrupt and get help filing for bankruptcy by the hospitals because they can’t pay their medical bills because you can’t buy insurance for anyone with disabilities or pre-existing conditions. Even though Obama care brought in an act that mandates coverage for president existing conditions, actually trying to buy it is impossible. Sucks!
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