Search Results for 'Abuse'

Social media can be a wonderful experience. It allows those who do not have a voice to have a voice. It creates links and new communities that pave the way for new sorts of communication. It allows businesses and organisations to communicate directly with their customers and members in ways that would have been deemed impractical in the past. It also gets people using the medium of language in order to praise, to encourage, to support, to embolden people who need emboldening, to vocalise causes that might otherwise remain silent.

What dominated our news and much of our conversations during the 1970s (at least in the early years), was the deteriorating crisis in Northern Ireland. When I think of that decade I remember the initial hope that something would be settled quickly rather than letting it drag on fuelled by appallingly bad political decisions, thuggery, and deeply imbedded hatred. Seamus Heaney remarked that in the early 1970s ‘there was a promise in the air as well as fury and danger’. But in Northern Ireland any nervous sense of hopeful expectation quickly soured; as Heaney recalled: ‘Soon enough it all went rancid.’ In John Montague’s poem The Rough Field, he observes: ‘In the dark streets, firing starts.’

The Budget will drive more and more local families - already under severe pressure from the recession - into crisis, the director of services for COPE Galway, warned this week.

A Castlebar councillor has called on the government to take “real action” and change the laws on domestic violence in this country.

The tragic death of 13-year-old Erin Gallagher, from Ballybofey, Co Donegal, which was due to cyber-bullying has thrown the spotlight on how widespread this form of bullying is, and has sparked a very important debate on how such horrific abuse can be stamped out.

Schools need to look at increasing their security, a local public representative has stated this week following reports by concerned parents to him of persistent bullying and harassment on school grounds.

Social networking sites can be a “hostile environment” where bullying is rife, according to the chairman of Dáil na nÓg in Mayo.

Athlone Animal Welfare believe education is crucial to preventing animal welfare and environmental issues.

Telephone counselling service Connect, catering to survivors of institutional abuse, has recorded a 22% increase in calls during 2011, amounting to 10,384 calls.

A terminally ill man who sexually abused five of his daughters throughout their childhood will be sentenced next week.