 be brought to justice. Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 118 was tasked from Sligo to Derry last night to aid emergency services after a person was declared missing. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service had specialist water search teams at the scene close to Craighaven Bridge. It was also attended by the PSNI and Foil Search and Rescue. The search began at around nine. Rescue 118 left the scene just before eleven. Sit-down exams shouldn't be the only way students are assessed after their time in school. Last of you is Paul Fields, the director of schools with the ETB nationally. He says it will be one of the key points made during a two-day conference of principals this week. 270 ETB principals and WP principals are meeting in Sligo to discuss changes planned for the senior cycle. Mr Fields says they don't want a terminal exam to be the only form of assessment. We're looking at it from many aspects. We're looking at it from the journey of the student in senior cycle in relation to the learning that takes place. We're also looking at it in relation to the end point, the final place when they leave in relation to the assessment that they leave with. The key point would make here would be that we don't want that terminal exam to be the only mode of assessment along the way. Dundee Gold County Council is considering a proposal that a wildlife pond be developed at the town park in Ballamacool, Letterkenny. It's been suggested by councillor Jerry McMonigal. He says there is space there which could be utilized to enhance the park's appeal and to support flora and fauna. Officials say an initial investigation will involve looking at possible sources of natural water and consideration of safety concerns. Councillor McMonigal believes money for the initial work should be available under climate change grants. He says maintenance would be largely cost-neutral. I think through climate change money and climate change adaptation grants we could get the money for the actual building of it but future maintenance of it I think the offset of not having to cut grass every week for six months of the year we could put that money towards the maintenance and the upkeep of the pond and I think it's a one-man situation for the council we're doing two good things here we're cutting down cost to the council in relation to its maintenance of the park and we're also doing something for the environment and local wildlife and the fauna and flora in the area. A public consultation on herring stock management in the northwest is to be launched. Agriculture and green minister Charlie McConaughey has launched the initiative on the back of her request from the northern regional inshore fisheries forum which is seeking access to more stocks with more peers. Minister Charlie McConaughey says inshore fishing families are the lynchpin of rural coastal communities and it's important that we continue to seek ways to improve fishing opportunities for this sector. The 2012 herring management policy sets aside 5% of the quota for vessels under 20 meters that did not have a qualifying track record for the fishery. Minister McConaughey says he is open to considering amendments to that to ensure inshore vessels have a reasonable allocation available. Stakeholders are due to be invited shortly to submit their views. Following the consultation a decision on any justified amendment to the policy on a short or long-term basis will be made. Here's another amazing Aldi offer. Our Grow with Aldi program in association with Board Bia is now in its sixth year. It offers upcoming Irish producers the opportunity to supply Aldi stores nationwide. It's great news for our customers too because they get to support local Irish suppliers and businesses. If you've got a product you want to tell the whole country about apply now and find out more at aldi.ie forward slash grow. Applications close 30th of January. Aldi every day Irish every day amazing. The county's number one talk show the 9 till noon show on Highland Radio and now it's time for the talk of the Northwest the 9 to noon show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. Hello a very good morning to you it's just about to turn five minutes past nine on this Wednesday morning the 25th of January 2023 I hope you're very well and we want you with us for the next three hours in this show throughout the day here on your number one local radio station get involved in the conversation raise your own issues pass on your own stories to 086 60 25,000 from outside the republic 0035386 60 25,000 so you can text us wherever you're listening if you want to give us a call 07491 25,000 07491 25,000 and email us to comments at HighlandRadio.com and just a shout out to loyal band of listeners that listen overnight on the replay don't forget you can also text in the show as you're listening and we can pick up your messages the next morning and include them on the program and if you want to watch this show don't forget you can go on to our YouTube channel Highland Radio Ireland you can watch through YouTube on your fire stick on your smart TV or on your phone the same applies for Facebook straight through the app or Facebook watch again it's on most TVs and your fire sticks and you can also watch on our website HighlandRadio.com right uh plenty of papers out this morning let's start with the initial independent concerns have been voiced about alarmingly high electricity bills and local social housing development with tenants at Bongkranas Rocky town worried about huge bills they've received in recent weeks the first phase of Rocky town located on the outskirts of the town centre opened in 22 and it's the first council estate to be built in in a show in more than a decade and as we heard on on this station too Councillor Jack Maury has raised the issue of huge bills there at the January meeting of the initial municipal district and you can read more on the inside and front of that paper on that story the Donegal post this morning a GoFundMe page has been set up to help a 10-year-old Donegal girl learn to walk we'll be talking about this a little later on in this hour key for Darcy's the daughter of Stuart and Norrie known from FBD car sales and services in Ballantra very respected and popular family their daughter was born with cerebral palsy which has affected her legs mainly Kiva has worked tirelessly for the last 18 months and has gone from being a full-time wheelchair user to using a walker she's always done it with a smile and never gives up reads her GoFundMe page which has collected over 23,000 of it's a 150,000 euro target and as I say we'll be talking about that a little later on in the program the Innis Times this morning Mikey campaigners have raised concerns in Europe that the redress scheme for up to 100,000 defective apartments approved by the cabinet amounts to a breach of the human rights of homeowners affected by defective concrete blocks homeowners in Donegal have been angered by the scheme approved last week which offers payments for retrospective work carried out and is uncapped though we heard from Minister Charlie McDonald who said that that provision will be applied to the defective concrete block schemes in terms of retrospective payments I believed he said campaigners though say the 2.5 billion euro scheme includes elements that they were denied after months of negotiations for revised concrete blocks redress scheme and discriminates against defective block homeowners and I'm sure as it's pointed out in the article and no one here I don't think anyone here begrudges a proper scheme for those affected primarily in Dublin it's just the sense that there's no equality there that people up here are being treated differently and as we heard from the minister the principles of the schemes are the same but at the bottom line is is one person can get their accommodation fixed completely others can't or even can't access the scheme because they don't have access to tens of thousands of euro the Finn Valley voice this morning Shirley Ann Godfrey to feature in Walking Hame Astronauter born playwrights will feature in the third episode of a three-part series Walking Hame an exploration of the 300 mile Ulster leg of the international appell a pallet chain trail pardon my ignorance there but the writing is very small on this piece of paper from the coastal town of Lawrence of Donegal John Shirley Ann Godfrey a member of the Francis Brown library festival committee who tells presenter Lily Spence the story of Francis Brown the blind posterist of Ulster that's a fascinating story in itself now it's only the text I have here small when you buy the paper it's full-sized of course the Irish independent Donna who shifts blame and bid to save his ministerial career did he save it I wonder I had every intention of watching it and then I didn't think I ended up watching tipping point or something I just couldn't take any more news public expenditure minister Pascal Donna who has sought to shift blame for his election donation controversy amid unresolved questions about the costs involved during a heated doll debate Mr. Donna who blamed businessman Michael Stone he blamed a finigale cancer in his constituency and he even blamed his own party for the debacle that has involved the government and resulted in the minister potentially breaching ethics laws Mr. Don yesterday resigned from two state boards over the controversy while Mr. Donna who said he would be partially repaying an unauthorized corporate donation Mr. Donna whose performance in the doll seems to have been enough to reassure his party colleagues and coalition partners but opposition TDs insisted there are more questions but as I say and as I said in the program yesterday if you survived yesterday without anybody blows it's not going to be in the opposition party's favor to continue to go at this because people want other issues addressed now at this point so we'll see what comes up in the doll over the next few days I imagine though that that story will ever way speaking last night T Shockley override cost it's terrible actually how predictable politics can be I hope I'm wrong but I don't hope I'm wrong we'll see if I'm wrong but anyway that's how predictable it can be speaking last night T Shockley override cost said I think at this stage a real it really boils down to whether you believe him or not and I do believe him he claimed the objective of other parties was to throw mud in the hope that it sticks but ignorance at the highest level when you hold people to account and his department holds many people to account you know I don't sometimes I don't think ignorance is a defense in and of itself you know that's where plausible deniability comes from isn't it you know if you don't know you can deny it plausibly and I'm not saying he had any prior knowledge but you know if you hold everybody else around you to the highest of standards you can be expected to be held to the same level yourself at least I think the Irish Times this morning tells us that refugees intending to seek asylum in Ireland have been told to defer any travel plans amid a severe shortage of available accommodation non really the state now plans to keep the city west hub closed to international protection applicants seeking emergency shelter for at least another four days as the migration crisis enters an extremely difficult phase the department of children and integration confirmed yesterday that adult ip applicants international protection applicants would not be accepted into the hub's emergency accommodation area instead they'll have their information taken and will be contacted if accommodation becomes available they will effectively come into the country and become homeless a senior government source said the length of closure will be longer than was previously the case and those closures lasted between three and four days beyond this time period the situation will depend on arrival numbers and the availability of accommodation and of course they want to move people on from the city west and they're moving them to various parts of the country including county Donagall also in the papers today and it is somewhat linked the irish daily mirror overcrowding conditions have been blamed as the reason for a brawl breaking out in a refugee centre garty were called to the city west cited Dublin on monday after 6 30 p.m due to two groups of men fighting three males were taken to hospital with minor injuries no arrests have been reported a movement of asylum seekers ireland co-founder lucky kambul said crowded conditions and a mix of cultures led to the fight he told rte my understanding from speaking to the people from there is that it started with a group that were throwing bottles to each other then the whole thing started and blew up like that and there's a picture in the paper but as I say you get lots of different people from different backgrounds unable to properly communicate and instances like that are almost inevitable aren't they Enoch Burke's commitment to his job at this point because he doesn't have one he's been sacked but he turned up for work yesterday even though as I say he's been sacked from that job following a disciplinary disciplinary hearing which he contests of course he was arrested taken off the property released and then went back to the school again which I really feel is quite remarkable and he's back at he's back at the school this morning his dad drove him back to school this morning again so even those that some of his most ardent supporters have noticed that some of them are commenting online that saying look enough is enough but he still he went to school today I don't know what's going to come from that with him because he is obviously trespassing if he goes on into the school grounds now but anyway the story reads today T. Schochina Burke has been arrested for alleged trespassing a man are likely to cause fear after returning to the school that has already dismissed him for his gross misconduct and I think at this point you know it's it's disruption to the entire all the students you know I know his beef was the wish of one child to be referred to one way but now at this point he's he's disrupted all of the children's school I'm not sure as I say it's going to help in terms of people supporting him I don't know we shall see I'm sure some of you out there who do or don't will text in but anyway Mr. Burke who's been involved in a long and ongoing battle in the high court following his refusal to refer to a gender transitioning student as they was dismissed from Wilson's hospital school last week in a letter to him which emerged over the weekend the student council told him his ongoing attendance at the school was causing huge disruption was affected learning and was a daily reminder to its LGBTQ plus students of the prejudice they experienced however Mr. Burke returned to the Westmead secondary school yesterday not just once but twice and as I say he's back at the school again today and he cuts a lonely figure actually standing outside of the school gates when he returned after being arrested on to the Irish Daily Sun a man appeared in court yesterday charged with the murder of an 89 year old patient in a ward in Corks Mercy University Hospital Dylan McGee of Churchfield Green Churchfield on the north side of Cork City was charged with the murder of Matthew Healy at Room 2 St. Joseph's Ward at MUH on Sunday last January 22nd Detective Garda Morris McConnell told Cork District Court that he arrested the 30-year-old at Bridewell Garda station and charged him with murder at 7.18 p.m. on Tuesday he said McGee did not reply to the charge Sergeant Pat Lyons applied to have McGee remanded to custody to court prison to appear again before the court by video link on Monday January the 30th and finally on a much lighter note huge success and they're kind of interesting too that we were speaking to those involved in the film industry here in Donegal and their hopes to create a you know a really successful setup here where people who are applying their trade across the country and across the world can return to Donegal and make films documentaries adverts whatever it might be and hopefully off the back of success with the Oscars we can achieve that because Ireland stormed towards Oscar glory yesterday with 14 nominations for the world's biggest movie awards in what's being dubbed the Irish Oscars Ireland's film industry at a record shattering year with votes across all the major categories box office hit the ban sheev in a sheeran led the green wave with nine nods including best picture in the short list announced at Dawn in Los Angeles so clearly it's doing the heavy lifting actor paul mescal an irish language film on queerly in cune also got nods giving Ireland more reasons that to celebrate nice to see common farrell nominated there as well and a few others right we might talk about that a little later on but at least we will certainly be talking about it during that's entertainment on friday and that is the papers for this morning don't forget to get involved by texting or what's up in 08 660 25 000 or you can call us in 07491 25 000 the newspapers are courtesy of kelly centra mountaintop letter kenny the 2022 seastore national off license of the year the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's tayota where you can now test drive the newest member of the iconic corolla family the corolla cross hybrid electric suv clear mobile has 99 four g population coverage so where are people going out west with four bars and all doubling outside of doubling longford waterford all the fours amazing coverage with unlimited calls texts and data from a pretty smart 1299 a month but hurry limited time offer clear mobile you clear yet 30 day contract 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local insurance is regulated by the central bank of Ireland local insurance is a tight insurance intermediary of acorn brokerage limited acorn brokerage limited trading is acorn insurance is regulated by the central bank of Ireland why don't we do this more often hiking yeah well we get really into it for about two weeks every year and then we just kind of stop sure i even bought these poles last year resolutions may only last until mid january but done stores double savers are all year round enjoy every day low prices on thousands of items then save again at the till with our 10 or 50 and five of 25 grocery vouchers shrink your bill with double savers done stores always better value terms and conditions apply voucher can be used to next qualifying grocery shop the ceo application deadline of first of february is fast approaching don't miss the opportunity to add ireland's highest ranked university to your ceo choices trinity college doubling offers over 100 undergraduate degrees 170 clubs and societies and so much more our world-class lecturers and beautiful campus in the heart of dublin city have been inspiring generations for over 400 years visit tcd.ie forward slash ceo and be inspired that's tcd.ie forward slash ceo watch the show live now on youtube facebook and at highland radio dot com okay well welcome on to the program now uh noreen darcy who is the mother of kiva who is age 10 and uh we mentioned just a little earlier on in the program um about kiva's dream to walk now if you are a person maybe of wealth or you have some spare cash and you want to do something really good uh with it to make a really big change uh to someone's life we'll keep listening uh because this is a real good opportunity for you to do just that hi noreen good morning greg how are you i am doing very good tell us about kiva noreen um okay so kiva is a 10 year old girl so she is um living in balantra in um county donny gold she goes to school in saint union's national school um she was born with cerebral palsy and i suppose it has affected her legs mainly greg um she has been a wheelchair user um all her life and about two years ago or just shy of two years ago we got the opportunity to involve her in some intensive physiotherapy programs and i suppose um we realized that there was perhaps an opportunity or missed opportunities within her progress so we started to explore that so for the last 18 months she has worked um worked very intensively if i'm being honest probably has done more exercise than any um kind of professional athletes nearly would be doing you know she's she is doing daily physiotherapy um and she has a kind of a very very strict routine and it's in turn has given her remarkable results so she has gone from in the space of 18 months she has gone from being a full-time wheelchair user to an independent well to being a walker with a walking aid um so she has blown away an awful lot of the professionals and it then it then made us start to to look at other avenues and to see what else was out there for her um so i contacted um a lot of i suppose other parents in similar situations who have children with cerebral palsy and explored what they did in order to achieve the most beneficial results for their children and one of the things that consistently showed up was a spinal surgery in america and look if i'm honest right like no no parent wants to put their child through any level of surgery it wouldn't be you know first on your list of things to do um but i suppose and i had the had the application forms and i had them for 12 months because i suppose i wanted to see as well what she was going to achieve naturally and i didn't want to be jumping into something that i felt it wasn't going to wasn't going to create a benefit to her because there's going to be you know it's going to be an invasive surgery and you had to get the balance right didn't you norine uh whether she might have to go through as to what the outcome might be of it absolutely and you have to explore everything i mean i suppose you have to work with your own services first and in the first instance we did that and you know i suppose we have been working with the hsc and um one of the things that that is now starting to come to come about with quiva is that that there is an issue with with her tone and in particular her her spastic tone is what she would class it in in cerebral palsy terms but it's like a tightness in your legs though if you ignore this tightness in your legs it will eventually lead to um long-term pain it will lead to deformities contractures and it will it will have an adverse effect on her in years to come and it will eventually stunt you know she may she may become very independent and then it she may regress as a result because the pain and the and the and the tone will only increase as she grows um now there is there is some there's some solutions to that in ireland you know you can try some oral medications you can do some you know botox injectables i mean i mean and i think i suppose we've all become so aware of of botox because it's been used so cosmetically like in the last number of years that people probably realize that you know it works great the first time and then the more you use it the less the less it works and you're also you're also feeding your body with toxins just like on an indefinite basis you know you where does it end so essentially this sdo surgery which is um and i'm by no means medically professional or trained or whatever i'm very much um i suppose self-educated on this journey but i have researched it thoroughly and essentially it involves cutting the sensory nerve fibers that come from the muscles and enter into the spinal cord and what it does is that it permanently um reduces and removes the spasticity that are in the the patients so i mean obviously the hope would be that i think it would be a reward to quiver for her efforts over the last while that she'd be able to to to to walk uh more easily but this is also really more there's a there's a long-term gain to this as well isn't there no room in terms of i mean this ensures that you're this ensures a pain-free life long-term i suppose that's the first instance i mean at the moment quiver got on her feet by using you know specialist orthotics and for those who aren't familiar with orthotics you know there there would be braces so she has on one leg she has a kind of a brace that comes to her knee and on the other leg she has a brace that comes over her knee um now she's she's at the stage now where she's almost ready to come out of that of that brace that comes over her knee and moves to the next thing but the tone now will work against her so it's like a double-edged sword you know you've you've come so far physically and then the body is going to go against you and it's just it's only the tone because she has the strength and the muscle and everything else is built up but unfortunately she won't overcome it if you don't sort the tone out now has she been has she been assessed uh in terms of the probable success of of the sdr so yeah absolutely so essentially it's a it's a very in-depth and a very invasive application so there's an awful lot of video links and um phone conferencing and all her medical records had to be sent to america um she is assessed and she a lot of children are refused um because like i said it's not a surgery that you go into lightly and i suppose you're you're not going you're not doing it for the sake doing it you're doing it only to gain results so she has been strongly recommended to have selective dorsal resultomy so she has been strongly recommended by the director of the center for cerebral palsy spasticity in saint louis children's hospital um and he has said that based on his experience and his experience has been on operating on thousands of children so he is the leading he is the leading spinal surgeon in the world i mean there is another area in germany that does sdr and he actually he would have trained both particular surgeons so um you're you are you're essentially going and i mean if you're going to put your child under a knife i mean your preferences that they have is they're doing it with experience and they're doing it with success rates and that they're not taking it on if they wouldn't see the success rates but he has said that based on the children that he has he has already done the surgeries on that he expects to see remarkable results with her and he expects that her her balance and her level of comfort will improve her transitions between postures will be easier and faster her sitting and standing will improve and that her ability to walk will become far easier and that she essentially she will have a greater quality of life and prevent that later regression that you talked of this is a this will give her hopefully a long-term relief for the rest of her life look absolutely and i mean we all take so much for granted in this world i mean and basic movement is is so under races i mean for the first time and like quid has a full-time s and a in her school somebody we couldn't do without and i have to say you know we have a very supportive community around us and it's she she has so much help but you also have the balance where you try to push the child to do their own thing so that they can i suppose they can lead an independent life and i mean this year for the first time and she's in a fourth class like she's now able to go to the bathroom independently which is a big big deal i mean it's huge yeah yeah it's massive and i mean it's quite obviously yourself incredibly determined then because as you say she's been training like an olympic athlete for the last number of months like she's earned this she's earned this shot hasn't she really has earned her spot like if i'm being honest i mean you can you can take any child to football practice i mean but if they don't want to go they don't want to go i mean she i mean we have turned our shed into a home gym she goes to regular physio like we're engaged with both private and the public services unfortunately we don't have enough services in this country to you know to provide that level of intensity to children but if if you can see that the if you can see that the results are possible then that level of intensity is needed in order to get over i mean there will come a point like we are probably we have a short time frame i mean she she most likely will go through puberty this year and with that with every growth spurt comes regression because your body is growing and your muscles are lengthening and you you know you have to then you know um keep working hard but she look she she is she is so resilient and she's so acceptance of of the but she sees the results craig so she's gone from being the child sitting in the wheelchair in school to now sitting at a chair in at a classroom table with her peers because she can get up and walk over to her over to her chair her table and her chair and not have to be wheeled in a wheelchair now i'm not i mean i don't think anyone takes the decision to to launch a gold fond me page lightly it's it's i think it's a big decision for a lot of people it's been justified though because the response has been something else hasn't it i mean already um it has and then it has been look we have we have self-funded everything to date and i suppose we have an awful lot of money um spent in the last 18 months and i mean if if money wasn't a barrier you wouldn't be you wouldn't be doing a gold fund me but unfortunately it's impossible i suppose as parents to continue to self fund i mean indefinitely and what where do you because there still is a lifetime of of maintenance and therapy that will be needed with quieva and that will be just part and parcel of of what we will work for and that'll be part of our expenses in life but this i suppose you're giving the people you're giving the white you're giving the wider community an opportunity uh in little amounts but in large numbers to make a big difference to a young 10 year old's life and it's not just for now anyone donating will will have an impact on quieva's life for the rest of her life because this surgery of course that it would be lovely that she can walk more freely and what have you but this is also about giving her a better standard of life long term and it's you know it's a lot it's a it's a nice thing for people to be able to get involved in and we just need you just need a lot of people to donate a little big donations great but a lot of people to make in a little and uh you know there's not an awful lot we can make a difference in and this is one of those i think it is and look i i have i mean myself and my husband are in business as well and i suppose i have used that corporate side of things as well and i have reached out to a lot of our suppliers and contacts and i mean there there is a huge there is huge support um you know pledged within within that area as well and i am hopeful i suppose that i am hopeful that like we as a business as well as ourselves we have sponsored and continue to sponsor different and local events throughout the years and i suppose what you're seeing in a lot of respects is a lot of a coming back and it's lovely to see that i mean i have had people ring me that um you know i've done business with down to the years and they have a pledged sponsorship this week and different things like that and the local community as well and and quieva school as well everybody has been exceptionally supportive look i have two children greg like and i i know what it's like to have a normal um typical normal child is i know what it's like to to raise a normal in inverted commas well everyone knows what you're saying exactly and i know what it's like to just drop off at football and you know drop off at swimming but this is a different this is a different type of thing and i suppose it's just it's a it's a one-off i mean it also means that she would be gone to america for four to five weeks and the surgery itself would take about four to five hours and then there's a rehabilitation period whereby you have to stay in the hospital for the for the three weeks post surgery in order to make sure that and then there's a lot of work to be done when you come home like we're not going to we're not going to disneyland there's no magic wand here you know she will need to continue to do exactly what she has been doing for the last 18 months but i'm so confident that she will because she's so she's in such a strong routine of it at the moment that it's become part of her and she knows exactly she feels and she sees journey herself i mean she's this year in school has probably been her most productive year in school from a social perspective she's more outgoing and she's growing in confidence as well and absolutely i mean i get you absolutely i mean she's not advice the time frame for this is because as you say time is of the essence or look time is of the essence and look i i would expect us to be gone um i would expect us to be going to america within the next within the next three to four months okay and the acceptance is there and that because of her age is looking in ideal world this is something we would have done five years ago but we were on a different path and we hadn't you know that we weren't at this stage but we are i think we've took the ball bowl by the horns herself a little bit with her efforts over the last 18 months so you know a lot of it is i mean a lot of people locally may have seen her in the papers last year i mean she she the school again her school were very good to her she walked into school for the first time and you know everybody made a big fuss with her and it was and it was a big deal for her i suppose you know i mean massive milestones it is it is and i suppose it it's something that you don't realize that you're going to achieve like i mean and for her as well it's just brought a whole new lease of life and i suppose look as a parent a lot of parents will resonate maybe with this or somebody maybe somebody has a child with a disability and they feel that they you know they they would love you know they can resonate with story maybe but maybe somebody works for a company and maybe the company is in the middle of setting out their their budgets but their budgets for the year in terms of fundraisings or give backs or whatever the case is you know and i mean maybe they didn't keep even that this year as opposed to maybe you know she is i suppose she's a local child um she's she's and she definitely has shown the cheerings as if that makes sense sometimes we'll uh continue to share the go from me and our socials uh so if anyone uh wants to help uh uh kweef and as i say it's not just short term this would be a short term medium term a long term gift yeah absolutely and look if you if anybody wanted to get my contact details you know i'm sure they can you can pass them on through the show and i'd be more than happy to i mean i know locally there is an awful lot of of local support of fundraisers um planned and um and you know people will be looking together spot prizes and you know bits and pieces like that so maybe you're a company the fields can contribute financially but you could you could give something towards you know something else that would make the money um you know within those local local um local things so right um is there an actual facebook page for yes so essentially the go from me page itself is called quiva spite to walk um i have recently just set up a separate facebook page as well so the people can follow her journey i mean if you have been if you're a friend or a contact of myself or my husband you probably have seen her journey on um socials over the last 18 months but for those who haven't um i'll continue to post and where you see when you see where she's come from to where she is now i mean it is phenomenal and it it definitely i mean this this would be life changing for her and um hopefully we hopefully it all comes together for us and you know become the reality but um but no listen Greg thank you very much for the airtime i really appreciate it and like i said if there is anybody who feels that they can support or wants to contact me directly and ask any more questions or anything like that um feel free to pass on my details to them and um i've been more than happy to to um put them in touch with anybody locally who's doing fundraisers if they feel they could help out in any way as well all right well done noreen best wishes to quiva and the whole family thanks for your time this morning i really appreciate it thank you very much Greg for your time take care okay there you have it so you've an opportunity if you can or you want to to help uh quiva uh to receive that life changing surgery it's known as sdr um and hopefully it will aid her in her wish to walk but also as you've heard her mom noreen point out there uh it has immediate medium long term impact in terms of uh quiva's quality of life it should be under the care of world renowned surgeon dr ts park in uh st louis children's hospital in missouri who has obviously um consulted with the family in quiva directly and feels that she's a really good candidate for this surgery okay so there you have it we'll share at the links on our socials and you can search quiva that's c o i m h e dorsey on facebook and go from me and uh we wish the family all the best we at highland radio love irish music and as part of irish music month on independent radio across ireland in partnership with hot press magazine highland radio want you to take part in our new local hero talent search if you're in a band or a solo artist your work could be featured live on highland radio in march being with a chance to win an overall 10k prize fund get your record released and have your music played on 25 independent radio stations across the country for more information on how to enter check out our website and social media pages now proudly supported by i b i hot press and the b a i sound and vision fund the night to noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota where you can care for your car with toyota relax giving you a year's warranty with your service terms and conditions apply dylan's hotel leather candy is the perfect place to celebrate special occasions dylan's exclusive function rooms cater for up to 120 guests for any occasion from corporate celebrations presentations and networking events to milestone birthdays anniversaries and retirement parties there's audiovisual equipment integrated pa systems and even a private bar dylan's hotel perfectly located near the kenny town center with a ward winning food and five star service call 911 229 double seven the two we live happy sale is here with savings of up to 250 euro per booking for each child places even in the school summer holidays plus low booking deposits from 50 euro per person with holidays to suit all budgets relax and get booking to we live happy offer teas and see supply hike our bike the camino de san diego to raise vital funds for irish community air ambulance explore this iconic trail for one week from april 23rd and help us grow and improve our emergency medic responder service in county dunigol you may never need the service yourself but your support could help make sure it's there for others sign up today and find out more by visiting community air ambulance dot ie forward slash camino thank you okay welcome back to the nine till noon show now we had quite an interesting conversation yesterday on homework the conversation comes up almost annually if not a couple of times a year but it came back into a public conversation again after president michael d higgins effectively i think he said that we need to do away with it that schoolwork should be happening in the school and then the evenings could be left to children to do other more creative things now fiona kondren is a founder of emotion matters and joins us now good morning to you fiona good morning craig how are you good thank you very much for joining us i suppose anything we do and it's the point i was trying to make yes yesterday anything we do we have to make sure it's the right decision because every action has a reaction we have to make sure that it doesn't have knock on impacts in terms of you know our children's ability as they get older and we have to make sure that whenever we're talking about their emotions or supporting of them that we do that right too what's your views on all of this fiona um i crowd to be honest i would agree with michael higgins that homework should be scrapped um you know and on a way what that they do their work in school and i suppose as a parent educator and a motion coach a social worker and someone who has worked on the ground with families and children for 27 years i base my view on the impact on the child and the impact on the parent child relationship so i am fully aware my daddy was a school teacher i'm fully aware of the benefits of homeworks in terms of consolidating learning and promoting and self learning but at what cost so what we know from research is the parent child connection is the most effective mental health intervention no one demand kind and we need to be preserving that relationship at all costs but homeworks is one of the top issues that constantly comes up for parents we refer to it as homework meltdowns so it brings with it big emotions big behaviors so we can see tears power struggles resistant resentment and why does this happen let me ask you before we get to that though is this not a case that maybe you know the kids want to do something else they want to get on the playstation the xbox so they want to go out and play football and moms and dads maybe are exhausted after a long day's work and don't really maybe have or feel they have the mental space to uh deal with their children right yeah so like say say that is the problem right maybe we need to adjust ourselves maybe the children need to adjust and and to learn a bit about life and how you can't have everything what you want and sometimes you do have to do with that little bit extra maybe we as parents have to say look at we took the kids on and we took work on you know we're gonna have to try and work a bit hard to accommodate both rather than us as a society throwing our hands up and running away for it like you couldn't have done that 50 60 years ago that's just an opposite point of view in other words are we always looking for the path of least resistance that keeps mommy and daddy perfectly happy and emotionally sound and the children but maybe life isn't like that and maybe going through this process of the rest of the kitchen table is part of development I don't know yeah well there is that school of thought and Craig as well but when we look at this within the context of child development okay children have been at school all day they're sitting for six seven hours they're coming home after school many parents think we'll get the homework done early it's out of the way for somebody do their hobbies they come back in the evening they do it children are tired they're frustrated many children are overwhelmed in the context of child development what is happening in their brain when they're dysregulated is they're in their emotional brain okay but before we get to that I want I want to go through all that but I want to pick out a few things as you go here are they tired because when I don't know what it was like when you were younger when I was younger I had to go to bed at nine o'clock right and that's it I had to go to bed at nine o'clock lights out are we now as parents allowing them to sit up to 10 or 11 o'clock and then we're allowing them in the room on their phones till maybe half 12 one o'clock they wake up exhausted go to school come home exhausted and then we have this problem do you know what I mean right well I just want to make sure that we're not ignoring what might be a root cause of some of these problems and try to come up with solutions again and I won't interrupt you again Fiona but I just wanted to pick I just think maybe sometimes that we're looking for everything to be really really easy and just life isn't well my views Craig would be as I said our children tired are they fed up are they frustrated we as parents many go out to work 95 Monday to Friday if we bring work back home with us it's maybe looked at that it impacts on family life that we don't have a work-life balance but we expect children to do this children within the context of child development have an underdeveloped brain what skills do they need to sit at school all day and do what they're told and learn and come back home in the evening and do the same they need emotional regulation they need to be able to cope with the pressure and stress that comes with that they need impulse control they need to have the capacity to make good decisions they need time management and organizational skills children have a master those skills their brain doesn't fully develop to their under late 20s and that can bring with it a lot of these issues so they sometimes when they are having to sit down and do homework they're dysregulated they go into their emotional brain they're not making good decisions they're not able to focus and concentrate their learning is offline they're chaotic and they're all over the place what does that look like then at the kitchen table they're up and down they're on their phones they're distracted they're all over the place what happens then parents have had a long day of work looking after children they become dysregulated we know you've dysregulated children and we've dysregulated parents nobody is there meeting the need of the child the child's tired fed up and whatever so that impacts then on the relationship parents then can become reactive because there's this expectation that parents oversee homework it has to be done and then there's this fear that what's this going to look like in school tomorrow if it's not done then that ends up there more a child is dysregulated they are going high a parents going higher i'll teach you this homework's getting done and then the child goes higher and before we know if we have a battle on her hands now if that is happening every night of the week we're wiring our wee children's brains up for 27 years 25 for girls then we're not wiring their brains up the way that nature intended we are raising them in the evening and an energetic thing that is full of conflict acrimony tension so for me it's really important we don't set the bar too high for children we look at children as children and not many adults we look at their behavior within the context of child development and not morality what's right and what's wrong okay then so but Fiona then right so a lot of people just late 17 18 19 year old uh will want to go to college right we send them off to college on a bus um they will we expect them to feed themselves uh we expect them to wash their own clothes for themselves that would be the dream we expect them then to go in um and study in the university or college wherever they are and then go home in the evening to the accommodation and do extra study that will be required at third level and if they want to achieve the highest they can there's no cutting corners at that level there's nowhere to hide you have to be able to do it if we what are we doing through the process that you you would describe to prepare them for that like that sounds like fantastic from 13 14 15 16 how do we get them from adb how do we get them and the adult to whether healthy happy and well adjusted and all the good stuff that you're talking about we grow them a brain that's capable of doing that that's what the science of child development tells us how do we do that through relationship and through connection so if we are coming home every evening and there's stress and tension and fights and fear and all of that stuff then our childhood experiences and environment create our mind and our mind is the life they love and adulthood so children are knocking on the adulthood doing all that good stuff that you're talking about so it's important that we're realistic we get a balance they're in school six or seven hours we look at the likes of Finland for good practice Finland are the highest ranking in the world in terms of academia outcomes for children they don't their school hours are a lot less than ours there's no standardized testing they are not sending children home with work they put a focus on cooperation and not competition and there's a relaxed informal environment and they are out doing every other country so if we're looking for the good outcomes that you're talking about for children then yes we look to the likes of Finland and how we do that we do that craig through nurturing children not about putting activities in place that is going to cause disconnection friction stress and pressure now for me children are at school six seven hours a day for 14 years there is ample opportunity there for them to develop the necessary skills that they learn because we're bringing homework home as well what about the children in school that struggle academically that are on the spectrum and that are maybe just not academic so not only are they sitting at school every day with a belief in their head I'm struggling I'm no good I'm not worthy then they're coming home and that's exasperating that we are so caught up in a society where the focus is on education and academia the performance is linked to self-worth and that creates a lot of complications for children that aren't academic that are going on the adulthood then sorry and all of that in a society that we don't teach them emotional intelligence so they're going on the adulthood lack of confidence self-esteem not feeling good in themselves they don't know how to cope with their emotions and then they reach them for all healthy ways of coping there is more to children's worth than education so do you think that when we should be when we are making these decisions you know it's in the it'll be in the gift of the Department of Education I'd imagine and they'll look at you know they'll look at learning and outcomes and scores and targets and all that kind of stuff then do you believe that we should be considering more the the the emotional impact on children and their parents as much as you know even just everything is about points even so it's about points you know and I think even when we consider whether or not to do away with homework it'll be based on some sort of a points metric or other when we should be considering people's feelings and emotions what did they use during during COVID to determine if it was safe for children to go on the school they follow the science so why would they encourage in the education board they follow the science of child development in relation to emotional and mental health when they're making these decisions as well we need to see children as children and not many adults we wouldn't expect adults who have fully developed brains to sit and work all day and bring work back home with them in the evenings let's prioritize activities like sports hobbies things that make children happy mindfulness yoga spending time with family spending time with friends so their identity and their worth doesn't become fixated on education and academia we have a lot of successful people out there in the world that struggled okay can I ask you just a few just so we don't have an awful lot of time just something outside then of education you're talking in terms of education that we don't need to we shouldn't be treating uh children like little adults does that extend beyond that does do you just do your views extend beyond that maybe in terms of how the dress maybe going out early access to social media or are your views more confined to sort of the sort of whether we treat them as children or young adults in the education sector do you have concerns across society in terms of how quickly it seems our young people are either choosing or being forced to or shoe haunt into growing up yeah well basically what i do craig as i teach big people to really understand what it is children need to help them to grow up in the best possible way they need relationship and they need connection so it's about giving children what it is that they need and seeing them within the context of child development so yes just allowing them to be children for the length of time they are and not rush them we've got a tendency as a society to force them dependence and to rush them along and just let them be children the last point i would like to make craig is that we also live in a society which is so busy we work competing demands screens tvs all of that we've become so disconnected as families with their children so let's use that time at home to connect with them in the evenings when we come back from work or looking after children in school as opposed to adding another activity under the mix that is going to cause further stress and further disconnection all right fiona listen it's been fascinating i hope to chat to you again if that's all right thank you very much for joining us this morning it's really appreciated and as i say we'll speak again hopefully in the future right thank you very much that's fiona conner and their founder of emotion matters i'm sure you can search fiona out on the internet if you want more information on the work that she does the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's tioza test drive ireland's best-selling hybrid electric range at our showroom port road letter kenny green shoes at market square letter kenny are proud to announce that they're now stocking riker footwear riker blend fashionable styles with incredible comfort striking the perfect balance between fashion and practicality all riker shoes are made using unique anti stress and anti shock technology to provide the essential support and comfort the brand is known for try any of the new season riker shoes now at green shoes market square letter kenny at esb networks we're connecting arland to a clean electric future and as part of the national smart metering program we're now installing smart electricity meters in your area your new smart meter will reduce the need for estimated bills help you to manage your electricity usage more efficiently and enable you to access smart electricity products and services we'll contact you before your meter is installed find out more at esbnetworks.ie slash smart meter winter sale at brian macormick sports now on in-store and online discounts of up to 30 percent off asex new balance brooks and hoca footwear gt2000 gel 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with more on the night till noon show after we take the news and obituary notices the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota port road letter kenny home to a wide range of toyota commercial vehicles your perfect business partner urgent news the house proud group stock disposal sale at the straband store must end this sunday all remaining clearance stock has been transferred to the store and final price cuts made with drastic reductions on furniture for every room the massive stock disposal sale at house proud abacorn square straband sale ends six p.m. sunday also at the ulma store we can all see how conflict affects energy supply and prices more than ever we need to be mindful of how we use energy by reducing your use you can save money and lessen the impact here's how only heat your home to the temperature you need use appliances efficiently and where possible outside the peak hours of four to seven p.m. consider walking cycling or public transport for short journeys drive 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can be booked by contacting the mount deregul hotel on 07 4 9 1 0 6 7 0 0 online and on the highland radio app this is highland radio news good morning it's 10 o'clock donal cavena at the news desk the thonister is said to tell the beneath officials today that those responsible for the killing of newton yonagham based private sean rooney must be brought to justice behold martin is traveling to lebanon the country in which the 23 year old was killed in an attack before christmas he'll meet with some of private rooney's colleagues and personnel of the 121st infantry battalion minister martin says it will be an opportunity for him to convey his sympathies and those of the government to private rooney's colleagues on their loss coast guard helicopter rescue 118 was tasked from sleighgoats at dairy last night to aid emergency services after a person was declared missing the northern urland fire and rescue service had specialist water teams at the scene close to craig ovenbridge they were also attended by the psni and foil search and rescue the search began at around nine last night rescue 118 left the scene just before 11 sit down exams shouldn't be the only way students are assessed after their time in school that's the view of paul fields the director of post primary schools with the education and training boards ireland he says it will be one of the key points made during a two day meeting of principals and deputy principals this week 270 senior personnel are gathering to discuss changes planned for the senior cycle mr fields says they don't want a terminal exam to be the only form of assessment and we're looking at it from many aspects we're looking at us was from the the journey of the student in senior cycle in relation to the learning that takes place we're also looking at us was in relation to the end point the final place when they leave in relation to the assessment that they leave with the key point would make here would be that we don't want that terminal exam to be the only mode of assessment along the way inok burkh has once again arrived at wilson's hospital school in west meath the teacher who was dismissed from his position last week was arrested yesterday but later released he returned to the school later in the day only to be met by the principal who closed the main gates to keep him off the premises mr burkh was suspended following a row over a request by a student to be addressed by a new name and that they them pronouns donnie goll county council is considering a proposal that wildlife pond be developed at the town park in balamakul letter kelly it's been suggested by councillor jerry mcmonigal he says there is space there which could be utilized to enhance the park's appeal as well as supporting the environment officials say an initial assessment would involve looking at possible sources of natural water and consideration of safety concerns council mcmonigal believes money for the initial work should be available under environmental funding grants and the maintenance of the pond he believes would be largely cost-neutral i think through climate change management climate change adaptation grants we could get the money for the actual building of it but future maintenance of it i think the offset of not having to cut grass every week for six months of the year we could put that money towards the maintenance and the upkeep of the pond and i think it's a one-man situation for the council we're doing two good things here we're cutting down costs to the council in relation to its maintenance of the park and we're also doing something for the environment and local wildlife and the fauna and flora in the area the initial 100 needs to be resurrected that's according to councillor johnny mcginnis who believes the potential for the route to be a huge tourist attraction is not being realised he fears and is shown we continue to be bypassed unless more of an effort is made to promote it as a destination for tourists he's been contrasting the initial 100 with the ring of kerry in the southwest which he says is still very heavily marketed both locally and nationally councillor johnny mcginnis says the initial 100 should have the same treatment we must resurrect the initial 100 it needs to stand as a standalone brand just like the ring of kerry they didn't give that up for the wide authentic way it's still known and synonymous with kerry and known throughout the world we need the initial 100 to be known in the same way a public consultation on herring stock management in the northwest is to be launched by agriculture and marine minister trolley mcconnlough he's launched the consultation on the back of a request from the northern regional inshore fisheries forum which is seeking access to more stocks with more here's mckellotlark minister trolley mcconlough says inshore fishing families are the lynchpin of rural coastal communities and it's important that we continue to seek ways to improve fishing opportunities for this sector the 2012 herring management policy sets aside five percent of the quota for vessels under 20 meters that did not have a qualifying track record for the fishery minister mcconnlough says he is open to considering amendments to that to ensure inshore vessels have a reasonable allocation available stakeholders are due to be invited shortly to submit their views following the consultation a decision on any justified amendment to the policy on a short or long term basis will be made well forecast and any light rain or drizzle this morning will clear southwards moderate southwestern winds becoming northwesterly as that rain clears sunny spells to follow for much of the day one or two showers possible in the afternoon in highest temperatures of seven or eight degrees celsius and that's how the radio news we're back with news headlines again at 11 o'clock until then from the news team have a very good morning the obituary notices for this wednesday morning the 25th of january the death has taken place of kathleen pollock naco bain 14 milview artigarvan phenol from hurlitt home on friday afternoon at half past 12 followed by a service of thanksgiving for her life at like patrick presbyterian church at one o'clock burial afterwards in the adjoining churchyard family flowers only please the death has occurred of winnie clinton lag boy tamney fanad her remains are opposing at her late residence with rosary tonight at eight o'clock requiem us at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning in st columbus church mass mount followed by burial in the adjoining graveyard family fires only please donations if desired to sin vincen de paul care of any family member or macketeer funeral directors funeral mass can be viewed live on st mary's and st columbus facebook page the death has taken place of pat rodin ballianan lincefort boncrona funeral leaving his home tomorrow morning at quarter past 11 going to star of the seed church desert tecney for requiem mass at 12 noon followed by interment in the adjoining cemetery house private at pat's request for family and close friends only please family fires only donations in louis desired to peta northwest the death has taken place of patrick mclochland carol blah glintauer carndona remains reposing at his daughter said he done his residence at no head muff removal from there this evening at five o'clock going to the church of the sacred heart carndona to repose overnight requiem mass tomorrow morning at 11 followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery the house is private please the death has taken place of bow old donnell 20 dunk held avenue dairy reposing at his home funeral from there tomorrow morning at 20 past 11 for requiem mass in st columbus church long tower at 12 noon followed by interment in the city cemetery donations in louis floris please to the foil hospice care of quickly funeral directors strobam requiem mass can be viewed live on church media dot tv and the death has taken place of robert robin mackey house strictly private please funeral service in no head presbyterian church muff this afternoon at two o'clock followed by interment in muff parish churchyard family fires only please donations in louis desired to no head presbyterian church care of mrs hillary smith ish kahine muff for more details including any family health guidelines for wakes and funerals please go to highlandvideo.com i'll never forget the first time we arrived at our beautiful lot our cozy base for the next week of fun we cycled through the fires for hours and washed down the rapids again and again everyone dad couldn't even hit the board at archery and when the ducks wouldn't stop following our boat we'd never giggled so much it really was something special and that's why we love to go back start your story today center parks ireland family forever book now at center parks dot i e it's time for ncbi bingo on highland radio it's wednesday the 25th of january you're playing on the blue sheet the reference number is s18 it's game number four the numbers are 10 three 29 57 88 12 17 59 35 and finally 28 phone your claim to nine one zero four eight double three before it tonight leave in your name contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book and we'll call you back the next working day get all your ncbi bingo information at highland radio dot com at hiky clark and langan insurance brokers they compare quotes from all the leading insurers so you get a great price home motor and van farm quality home travel and liability insurance they quote them all so if the worst happens you're covered for a competitive insurance quote today called hiky clark and langan on nine one two double six double eight or pop into their office at bali mccool letter kenny hiky clark and langan general insurance is limited trading as hiky clark and langan is regulated by the central bank of ireland are you a leave in search student or are you interested in a postgraduate degree or springboard plus funded course at u donnie gall's open evening has been rescheduled to wednesday 25th of january from four till seven p.m at the letter kenny campus with the february first ceo deadline approaching there's never been a more exciting time to join at u donnie gall found out more about the 20 new ceo programs and talk to academic and support staff about your options at u donnie gall's open evening wednesday 25th of january from four till seven p.m see you there fabric world's biggest ever winter sale is now on there's over 5000 meters of curtain and upholstery now half price or less all craft and dress fabrics reduced hand lining from one pound why not insulate your home with half price fleece interlining or avail of our fabulous euro rights at fabric world made on jerry the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota home of genuine toyota parts and accessories at port road letter kenny all right you're very welcome back to the nine to noon show thanks for your calls and comments coming in i'll get to those very very shortly um just was informed uh they're very recently as you would know there is a an ongoing review of now doc services here in canty donnie gall care doc seemingly want to make some changes but what i was told and obviously it's hard to get information but i was told is is that now doc is being asked to or choosing to or being asked to is my understanding to move out of its current premises in letter kenny and to relocate uh elsewhere and now obviously uh i'm trying to uh ascertain my information was they might be yet moving to the kilmer crannin road but um we're trying to ascertain uh why that's happening uh and is it part of the overall review or just something that was going to happen uh in any case uh but as i say it can be hard to get information right we are joined uh now on the program by author of money doctor 2023 money doctors in fact uh john low good morning john can you hear me john no john is connecting to audio there okay he'll be with us uh shortly i'm sure uh he'll be joining us just in a couple of moments if you have any questions uh for our money doctor feel free to get in touch 08 660 25 000 08 660 uh 25 000 by the way greg says a caller on a lighter note are you not going to mention that tonight is burns night the annual celebration of the life and work of uh rabbie burns the national bard of scotland burns night is celebrated by many people across canty donnie gall especially east donnie gall and ishone and across much of the rest of ulster it's always a bit of lighthearted crack at the end of january that comes in from sen in st johnson well thanks to you sen i was able to mention it i wasn't aware beforehand john low can you hear me okay no we are struggling to hear john or john struggling to hear us so uh we might have to uh find some alternative way to speak to john for the time being uh well spoken fiona a person after my own heart a great grandparent great show greco daily listener thanks for your nice comment uh and more coming in on homework homework no wonder children are confused and anxious all this discussion is so unnecessary and over complicated if parents include homework in the evening routine it would be over with and part of the child's structure uh a caller says in other parts of the world example taiwan children are in class from eight a.m and then they don't finish until six another i agree that the homework for smaller children should be small but we should still give them that it's more than just academic education there is a significant and noticeable decline in coping skills as it is for young people who are entering the workforce dealing with authority and instruction in recent years i wonder if this is as direct result of the lack of faith we have in young people's abilities and our constant need as educators and parents to take all of their autonomy away from them yeah i would have some concerns there in that um what we're doing at the moment is is not working because we're seeing record rates of we're seeing record rates of of children with mental illness and self-harm uh and then as i say you know there can be some difficulties with some of our younger people too when they go on to college and happen to fend for themselves and uh then of course um having to enter the workforce too maybe if they're over protected how well will they function in that environment so i think it has to be part of a a wider conversation as well right okay we can say good morning now to john low the money dr hi john good morning greg and happy new year to you and the listeners and same to you hard to believe you're uh on the 2023 edition of your big yellow book the big yellow book yeah the 18th edition uh and it is bigger this year because there's an extra 148 pages with a separate index um greg it's called teenagers you and your your your money and essentially this came about as a result of my son when he was 19 uh and he never failed an exam in his life and he he know he was in ucd doing bnl he went on to do uh uh masses and finest and then became a chartered accountant all the usual never failed an exam and he said dad what's an overdraft and i said there's really something wrong with with the the educational system that you can go right through college and you know school and and then you come up with a question like that so um this book is actually going to be available for free next september ebook to every single ty student in arland couldn't all uh all of them done equal and and just ran an area so about 60 000 students yeah but those buying the big book uh get access to that now is that correct yes you can the physical uh is available now and the essence is actually selling very well uh in fact i'm i'm nearly forced to have to do a reprint um it does it it does very well every year it's probably the only uh personal finance eight is that book that you can get on the market um column rappel it was a very very nice man who had a really good book and actually it would have inspired me to compete with him uh because it was um called family finance but when he sadly died about five years ago um he his family decided not to continue with the book so it died with him sadly do you find that there is more demand on your book and i think over 18 years you will have seen you we've seen ups and downs in terms of of finance and people's well-being like with things tighter now do you think people are more inclined to invest the money in your book as a way of looking after the money controlling their money and even saving money absolutely right because this is a really funny old time that we're living through increased interest rates energy crisis inflation you name it we're we're suffering this and there's a lot of families out there who are wondering where you know the next meal is going to come from let alone where the the wages are coming from and and what the book does essentially is it teaches you how to manage your money on a much better basis and this is actually a brilliant time of the year Greg to start considering doing a budget uh and just for the year once a year you need to do this in fact i i give a before you get into that though you see i think you're right okay but do you know those of us who resist changing electricity suppliers who who resist changing car insurance that were brand loyal for whatever reason or we don't hassle like and i i was more guilty of that than i am now though that we are the people less inclined to do a budget because if we can't make a phone call or go on the internet and save like my insurance quote this year might as well just be completely up frank and honestly so it was like to be was 670 was the renewal and uh it's 400 car insurance yeah 470 by shopping around we've managed to get it down to 470 euro that's a 200 saving off the bat right brilliant which is massive but two three years ago i wouldn't have and it's not because i'm loaded john i just wouldn't have believed there was a saving or i couldn't have been bothered and then i wonder if i couldn't be bothered to save myself 200 quid could i be bothered to make out a budget so we people like me and maybe even those behind me on the journey we need to get our head in in a space don't we john there's there's three words apathy lack of time and ignorance those three words are crucial actually when it comes to finances because people use them all and you know as you say you could not so much you couldn't be bothered but you've got other more important things to do and um and just you just don't get the time to do it and then the ignorance that you don't know there's sometimes that you can actually save huge sums of money i i maintain that if you spend two hours on your own finances every month you will save an absolute fortune an absolute fortune well in the first three weeks this year i've saved 500 euro between house insurance and car insurance the house insurance i had uh a completely undervalued to rebuild the house i have this notional view in my head of how much i might sell my house for if i ever sold it and that's i think what i had it insured for but your insurance is to rebuild refurn it you know put furniture back in put the tallies back in yeah i had my house grossly underinsured but i ended up insuring it for the right amount for significantly less and the same as i mentioned there with the car insurance john well you know that was actually dangerous greg uh it's under insured 100 because it's not means say say you you you had insured it for 400 000 but it was actually worth 800 000 and then your house burns down you'll only get 200 000 not 400 000 because it's it's the way they work with the insurance it's it's on a basis that you get half of what you actually insured it for and it should have been insured for 800 so that's a very dangerous thing so i would actually um applaud you for like first of all realising and then doing something about it right so john budget then what is the advantage of budgeting okay it's really important in my view to know how much does it cost you to run your life on a monthly basis because that is the essence of planning planning is all about i i'll just tell you this if you have children and you've got you're getting your 140 euros child benefit every month and from the time the child was born to the time it stops which is the 18th birthday you will have accumulated without any interest at 28 560 euro virtually no family in Ireland can afford to actually put the money away for their child for their third level education but if you could you are still 14 000 shy of sending that same child to third level because it costs about 42 000 send one child to third level so you know if you told the average family by the way your your children are going to aspire to go into third level do you know it's going to cost them 42 000 each they'd have nightmares so it is basically all about planning if you start you know maybe at that age of five or six and start planning maybe putting a hundred away a month and if you can put a hundred away a month then you then you're now starting to get into the planning kind of arena and I think that's that's why budgeting is so important because you know you have all the categories and you be truthful to yourself you put them all down and at the end of the day if your expenditure every month exceeds your income you've got three choices yeah earn more cut costs or prioritize and I wonder too John how many people who uh Ulster bank customers listening to this uh were switching banks and discovered two three four direct debits the old insurance policies for a phone that they had seven years ago whatever it might be a double payment to amazon because they tried to book something or buy something off the us store and didn't realize there were you know these examples I wonder how many people have actually had without being forced to because of switching banks have actually looked at their bank account and see what's going out how much is it per month versus what's going in something as simple as that this is what I'm saying about the two hours a month Greg you know that kind of thing will come up because what you're going to do with those two hours you're going to actually check your statement um your bank statement or go through your phone or your your laptop and see you know what transactions occurred on your account and then you say what is that payment there for and that's how you'd you'd find out but yes you're absolutely right with the kind of the loss of Ulster bank and KBC uh people have started to kind of open their eyes about uh and there's good news about Revolute yesterday where they're now getting an i-band number for Irish kind of account holders well just on that though on that the media was reporting that now you could get your wages paid into uh Revolute you always could I don't understand every every media organizer you could always get them paid into but it would not be as quick as getting them paid into an Irish i-band it was actually the direct debits that was the problem Greg because um if you have a Revolute card as I have as two million people in Ireland has um the kind of the i-band number starts with LT 44 which is Lithuania and some of the you know providers some of the direct debit providers will not accept that that was one of the problems right so the book is because I just want to make sure when I speak to you I don't do a disservice it is thick um and I presume the idea is being that any area of your finances that you have a question of or that you need some advice on uh because I always start with the basics John and maybe our listeners who've listened to me and you and and Sean in the past chat they understand the basics right uh but it's always worth reminding because I'm only starting to cop this stuff on myself and I'm sure I'm quite normal um but but it's for the starter or for those that are looking to even on me Greg yep I should come back but what I'm saying is is the book can you hear me now John can you hear me John okay I'll tell you yes I'll have you back yeah so what I was trying to say is that this starts from people from the basics down to the very first initial bit advice about budgeting but it gets much much deeper and answers an awful lot of questions John so tell us a bit more about what's in the book okay I'm a personal and solvency practitioner so those people who are still in trouble from uh you know residual historical deaths um they will still need some of those will need to kind of go and see where can they find out about personal and solvency act well my my book has a whole chapter on personal and solvency and therefore I can't take that out of the book next year because there'll be somebody who'll buy the book who wanted for that specific purpose there'll be people who won the lotto there'll be people who who uh you know have got investments that they want to know about and they want to find out you know what a pension is for instance we're on a pension time bomb for instance Greg and I'm sure you're aware of it um and then they're bringing in they were supposed to be bringing in auto enrollment at the end of this year it now apparently it's not going to happen till 2024 and it's like 20 years too late so again you know uh the book covers pensions it covers as I said the eight to z of personal finance no matter what you want you can dip in and out if I gave her and god rest him he was one of the endorsements um on the when he was alive sadly but he had a very nice endorsement which he he allowed me to to print and it was uh this is a very terrific book uh written in a very user-friendly way that you can dip in and out of and the dip in and out of is the important part because no one's going to there's only one man I know who who got it over a weekend and read it from cover to cover I think he's mad his name is Owen Harris but um I don't know why he read it from cover to cover over a weekend but he did and there's a big group of people out there too John who are uh in a in a good job middle-incomeers uh that that that are living comfortably ish they can absorb some of the rises that are there you know what I mean they're not going to uh and they're thinking right okay but how can I make sure that when I'm 65 or 67 that I have something to show for that do you know what I mean because often I think and it's very important that we talk about those who are struggling to make ends meet and we focus an awful lot on this program but as I say there is then a quite a large group of people that could that could be set themselves up for their future that are wasting money or or not doing so correctly and I think that's quite an important group of people that would have this book would appeal to as well absolutely because it's as I said it's actually back down to planning again and Greg no matter even if you have a huge surplus you can plan obviously the third level education no problem but maybe you want to retire earlier than your normal say 65 66 and you might want to retire at 50 I know several people who retire at 15 and the way they did it and they made sure that they were going to have enough money enough income remember income is your number one asset if you don't have income uh you you're going to eventually run out of savings so so that's the key part is the income uh a lot of people for instance who would be really wealthy have some really wealthy clients and and they live on the interest of their investments and a substantial and so they have to manage it though properly and even for instance I'm sure you're aware of the thing called the improved retirement funds which is an officer pension once once you retire you have the choice of either going the annuity route or the off route and the off route is still something that you need to manage even after you've retired because I'll give you one instance of a lady who came into me eight years ago she put an investment of about 212 who's an AVC she had 212 000 she then drew down 94 000 over the following eight years and that was you know between imputed distributions that's the four percent she was 65 when he hit 70 you're going to draw down five percent and then there was annual management charges that were about one and a half percent so five and a half percent was coming out of that fund every year from day one and then when she hit 70 six and a half then so that 94 000 represents why I asked her how much you think is left in your fund and she said about 130 I said no you've got 224 000 left in your fund because she managed it she put it into kind of aggressive but very successful funds and made more money than she actually was taken out what's the least you could invest that could make some material difference into the future you know say someone has five grand or 10 grand or 15 grand is that investable like you know you will get offers of where people say you know give it to us and we'll invest it in shares and we can you know there's no guarantees but we might be able to deliver this that I'm done like you know for people who have that amount of money sitting there the interest rates in banks are not worth talking about at the moment although improving like you know you talked of that lady with a nice little nest egg of 200 000 but if someone is listening with 5 10 15 20 000 can that be turned into anything yes it can but you've got to bear in mind think of Warren Buffett he's 93 in x-ray and Warren Buffett had a great one line he said the stock market which is the best asset class by the way of the more better than property better than you know deposits obviously you mentioned the gallup recently the Bank of Ireland their regular saver account went from 0.25 percent to 0.75 still as one model would say not enough for me to get out of bed but Warren Warren Buffett he said the stock market is a mechanism for transferring wells from the inpatient to the patient so if you have your 5000 or your 10 000 don't think you're going to get rich quick it's a long-term investment any kind of stock market investment minimum five years generally when you go into a stock market investment and there's a penalty for withdrawing in the first five years on a reducing basis on the fifth year it might be 1% after five years there are no penalties so you need to have a long-term or medium-term view on the investment you know don't put money into a stock market investment think that you're going to be rich next year so it's it's like and obviously if you can do it on a regular base there is a brilliant thing called stock market regular saver accounts and this is where you can say between 100 and maybe 250 a month into some of these managed funds and some of them are doing extremely well and if you put it away on a regular base in particular you know people with children who want to save for that third level education that would be the recommended fund stick to children's allowance into it is that what you're saying no I know I know I'm Joe I've been great come here listen as I say we can only scratch the surface the book's out now money doctor 2023 and this book that I have includes the students it includes the yeah okay and it's got its own index Greg as well so if you do have kind of teenage children from 13 to 19 give give the book to them maybe now and again say have a look at that but page 294 is something so simple it's the money doctor students monthly budget and it lists what they're likely to be spending on and then you multiply it by 12 and that's how much money you need a year or without something like this it would be really hard to calculate I know that sounds silly but it's the it's the basics that that sometimes we need the wee bit of assistance on John thank you so much for your time best of look with that book when it could you it's already doing well for you considering a rerun or a reprint so that's good to hear thanks John thank you very much bye bye take care nice to see you oh wait six 60 25 000 what's up syntax oh to have money to invest wouldn't it be nice lend me money I'll invest it and then if the investment to success I'll give you the money back how's that uh right okay we'll be back with more shortly watch the show live now on youtube facebook and at highland radio dot com the 9 to noon show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota with over 45 years of experience trust us to help you on your electric journey disposal sale at the Straban store must end this sunday all remaining clearance stock has been transferred to the store and final price cuts made with drastic reductions on furniture for every room the massive stock disposal sale at house proud abacorn square Straban sale ends 6 p.m. sunday also at the Ulma store the lotto jackpot is a guaranteed two million euro clear sponsor the in-store in-app or at lottery dot ii the national lottery it could be you super value makes saving money as easy as one two three one we match aldean the products you love like super value express basmati rice 250 gram 65 cent super value fragrance baby wipe 64 piece 95 cent two get thousands of special offers and three money off vouchers every week on the app super value makes saving money as easy as one two three giving your time to be a samaritan means being there for people who need someone it means making a difference to someone when it really matters our volunteers come from all walks of life and we'll be right behind you with training support and mentoring for more information about volunteering visit samaritans.org forward slash volunteer right here you're welcome back to the show a caller says well i did ask that question actually i'll have 10 000 to play with where's the best place to invest and get a good return you got an answer for that can you ask the money doctor if there's any financial institution paying interest on savings uh british that was also uh mentioned there as well it's in terms of lodging money um as an investment to earn interest seems to be uh a no go at the moment uh lots of you reacting to fiona talking about homework just before 10 fiona's so right about homework i left school early because i couldn't handle the homework it left me with confidence issues my whole life and when my own children started doing homework there was a row and a fight every single night they had homework and looking back i still feel guilty about it uh and when you look at it now uh what was it all about it's good for nothing well don't feel guilty because you did your best at that time and there's not much else you can do other than your best oh my god greg what a load of crap we all done homework years ago what are we turning our children into can't do this they can't do that etc as it affects their brain how did we survive how can they grow a brain if they are pampered like this i would have a slight concern and you know don't get me wrong i'm not heading outside to get a sally rod or anything uh i'm as soft as they come but i just worry that there's a big bad world out there it really is a big bad world out there and i don't know where do you learn or how do you learn as a young person the skills uh or the neck are supposed to survive in that if it's like well don't do homework because it's too emotionally stressful on the child and you know there there comes a pointy and it comes really early 17, 18, 19 i was i was trying to say to fiona there where they head off to college you know do they know what an overdraft is as we heard from john do they know uh how to budget do they know how to cook for themselves feed themselves talk to other people deal with someone speaking to them angrily or in the street or something you know the way things can happen uh how did the rest of us manage with homework says this listener children now as greg says don't go to bed until 11 o'clock at night no homework means more time on the phones or tablets and that's it you know as i say i understand that that like if i'm tired this morning right it's possibly because i was sitting on my phone till one o'clock last night as i wasn't right and then i'll get home and i'll be exhausted and what will i be fit for in the evening um you know like if we're saying i'll get to two tired at night well let's make sure they're going to bed at a good time first with no screen time and then if they're still tired at night go right well maybe school's too tough but if we're being a bit slack in the evenings and they go to bed when they want to and we don't know really what time they go off their phones and then they're going i don't want to do my homework at night and we're going bloody schools is it the schools or is it us i don't know as i just want to have a broad conversation right i'm not i don't have a particular view on it but i just want to open the conversation out because i feel to some extent what we're doing at the moment isn't working a caller though believes homework is a complete waste of time especially for primary school wanes the pressure of getting homework done in the evenings when both parents are working brings such stress and tension into the house homework especially for primary school children is absolutely uh ridiculous we appreciate your text there part of the problem with homework for younger children is that all the teaching methods used today have changed so much from when parents were at school and sometimes we're doing more harm than good yet indeed it's uh it's a tough one uh because they're looking for your help and you're not fit to help them right you might be aware that go away university hospital has carried out the first robotic guided coronary intervention in arland and the uk the innovative procedure combines the benefits of coronary intervention with the precision of robotics offering a range of benefits uh to patients um now we are joined by uh professor uh vessel syrief professor vessel syrief a good morning to you thank you for joining us good morning how are you i am good and for our listeners uh professor is a consultant cardiologist at gallway university hospital right and this actually was a county donnie gallman who became the first uh person to receive this new game changing robotics technology used during heart surgery so professor what was actually done and what was the role of robotics in it yeah so i think thank you for having me on the call robotic is a area that is growing quite fast outside medical health care we see the use of robotics in automobile industry you see where they bring a lot of precision reproducibility and replacing human skills and it's all about scalability we're seeing more and more use of robotics coming into medical health care we have seen it being used in procedures around urological surgeries around the kidneys and and and prostate and more lately we're seeing its application in other areas such as heart and we've been using coronary stents and placing coronary balloons and stents in in humans for a nearly 30 40 years at this stage but the robotics bring in an additional benefit there we can place these stents quite precisely into the blood vessels and help us uh accurately measure the length of the blockage so therefore you don't you don't oversize or undersize and it takes away that error out of the human eye now is the is the robot robotic element of this at the complete control of the surgeon or is there any autonomy there yeah so i think it's a little bit remote but not too far away from the patient so the operator which would be the cardiologist who sits outside the the area where the surgery surgical room is so it's a control room which is just beside it and it's covered with glass so you have complete visibility of the patient the robotic arm is where the physician is supposed to be and through this the console you can advance the wires and balloons and catheters into the coronary artery so that's that's the actual uh innovation around us and professor theoretically could this be done even more remotely you know i mean i don't know if there would be any appetite or need for it but theoretically could the surgeon be in Dublin uh whilst this operation taking place in Galway for example into the future and do you anticipate that ever happening yeah i think that's uh that's a great question because i think if you look outside the box the biggest challenge is that patients from that again you have to travel four hours to get to Galway and they have to leave 4 a.m to be here at 9 a.m and then once they get their procedures which may take 11 o'clock in the day or one o'clock and then they have to recover for two three hours and then they have to go back on the ambulance for four hours so i think it's it's quite a lot to take for the patient for the procedure and one of the key things in this is the remote access now we have to be very safe about it and we need to have the basic structures in place you mean the operating rooms and and staff that is adequately trained but the surgeons can potentially be remote in Galway and do procedures in Sligo and let a kidding however this needs more research and needs more investigation and i think we are now working with industry and science foundation Ireland to understand how can this remote uh uh possibility can be attained so i mean obviously then theoretically we could have a situation with the support team that someone in uh letter candy university hospital could be potentially operated on by like someone from yourself based in Galway how likely do you think that might be to happen uh and over what kind of a time frame because we're very early doors professor and this is not something that's going to happen next week we all accept that and i also understand that you don't have a a crystal ball because a lot of things would have to align that have to be the will as well as the way as well but i mean do you think this is something for the future and and how far down the road do you think it might be before we see something like that i think it's too early to say uh and not to be honest about it i think we have done we have heard about occasions being done in us from one hospital to other over a quite a lot of distance there was some delay of a few milliseconds before you you move the console or some some knob on the console and then it takes a couple of extra seconds before the wire and and everything moves into that patient so we have seen it happening in us already i think it it's going to need optimization you're looking at uh by the time it's ready anywhere between five to 10 years before it can be widely used i think it needs more research it needs to be very safely brought forward uh is it measurable at this point or maybe it's more opinion than than something we can back up like how will this change outcomes in terms of you know a the the robotics taking over a human element to this and there's always a capacity for human error as much as that's avoided and it's probably incredibly rare i'm sure but how much more safer do you think certain elements of this surgery being done via robot robotics is then it being done solely at the hands of a human so i i think that humans are very well trained i think i mean of course the humans is the best way to do it at the moment the operating arm that is that is being brought in to bring more precision and potentially more speed into the procedure and also reproducibility of the procedure but if you look at a bigger country like us you have centers that are very high volume so there's very high skill sets but then there will be some centers there will be low volume and the skill sets will be quite low but the the the idea is that robotic will bring an up the skill sets in low volume centers so that's the that's the whole beauty of it i think from from from in terms of being able to do it remotely i i think uh robotics has made it very very will make it very safe i i mean i i'm pretty sure about it but i think at the moment we are in the early stages of adoption and it's going to take some time to know how safe or faster and what are the real benefits we're going to we're going to have from this therapy yeah call us what happens if the internet crasher and surgical procedure well that's not an issue at the moment but presumably if we ever get to a point we would could effectively have hospitals hardwired together there's obviously always backups you can have it's not at home where about you have to switch the router off and on for 10 seconds you know i imagine if this progresses the least of our worries might be maintaining connection because there are a million solutions uh to that yeah so it's not something i'm sure we need to worry about now stay with me professor because uh brendan mclaughlin is the donnie gallman who had this operation done brendan how are you keeping how are you feeling lots about great brendan did uh were you how how did this come about that you were the chosen one did they ask you in advance uh i presume they did and what kind of reassurances did you need and how difficult was it a decision to make uh well i went down to gallway on november and i went back and you know i'm done and they told me then i needed a stunt and that the one going to do it that day they were going to take me back from the 12th of december to do it and it was a new robot thing so i just went both of them like so you didn't really have to make a decision as such no i didn't know i just had told me it was a robot and i said right i'm here not to know what i've done like i was a bit nervous then i said no i think went very well and how do you feel about being a history maker brendan the first uh the first robotic guided coronary intervention was into mr mclaughlin's chest uh don't really think too much about that one was just i don't want to get it done yeah you just take it and your sense sounds like to me brendan you've taken all in your stride all right and how are you feeling good good good good stuff that's the main thing isn't it no there's no there's no pain no nothing like brilliant okay i don't even order to talk about the finished right okay right okay nothing like all right good stuff and and it was a success for you uh do you feel better for it i do yet yeah yeah all right brendan thanks very much good man fair play to you brendan mclaughlin when do you think the next type of operation like this will be professor like is this going to be factored in going forward or was this a once-off uh and requires more analysis and investigation or what's what's the future hold professor in the more short to medium term so i think uh it's about adoption i think change is difficult to bring in any any any part of the healthcare i think we've done three cases already they were done before christmas on the next tuesday we have three more cases and then on the 7th of february which is another tuesday we have another three cases so we i think we were talked to brendan as to why he was picked i think you need to look at very particular anatomy you need to look at lesion which are very straightforward not complicated as something that can be done with the robot again you need to realize that we're all new to it and we're learning a new technology a new way of doing things so we wanted to pick patients who would be very suitable and safe for their outcome and for the staff to know that this can be done safely in our in our hospitals i think that's why people like brendan were chosen and i think we're being very selective as to who we choose based on anatomy and then patients are given the information and and me essentially from patients perspective there's nothing different it's just that it is a hybrid procedure partially done by the cardiologist partially done by the robotic arm well i mean the reality is this is going to become the norm in the future there's just no doubt about it because that's the direction of traffic what excites you most professor finally then about uh this type of technology uh robotics uh merging with you know the human skill set in medicine like is there something that you look to the future and go wow this is going to be awesome i think the the future is quite exciting i think what's exciting is that that we're at the very early stages of using robotics in in cardiac interventions i think the potential is that we'll be able to do more complicated complex cases more reliably reproducibility and i think with information that we get from these robotics as well uh outside the coronary you can look at structural heart cases you can look at other interventions for high blood pressure for heart failure so i think there is a lot of potential to improve and a lot of research and development is needed to get to that so i'm very excited in in seeing that um that we're going to have machine learning an artificial algorithm coming more and more in use in healthcare all right super stuff thank you for your time i really appreciate it that's uh professor xerife there consultant cardiologist at goa university hospital the nine-tailed main show brought to you by kelly's toyota port road letter kenny stock is of a wide range of used passenger and commercial vehicles your next move matters so why not move better start your move to permanent tsb today apply in app for our award-winning current account so don't just move bank move better apply in app today applications for explore current account in app for over 18 personal customers qualifying criteria fees and charges terms and conditions apply awarded bonkers dot ie best current account 2022 permanent tsb plc is regulated by the central bank of island shared insecurity now introducing zero wire smart alarm systems zero wire zero mess and a real peace of mind with a 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northwest forestry services belly buffet are fully insured and have over 40 years experience in dangerous tree removal tree felling surgery and stump grinding for peace of mind call northwest forest services belly buffet for no obligation quotation on 9132033 highland radio weather updates with our land west airport sala nines the Beatles you can now fly to Liverpool eight times a week with Ryanair this summer island west airport don't just take off take it easy okay dope outbreaks of light rain or drizzle early this morning clearing southwards by mid-morning with sunny spells followed for the rest of the day and perhaps one or two showers mother southwesterly winds will become northwesterly as rain clears highest temperatures of seven or eight degrees you're welcome back to the nightly noon show good morning to michael dear drissiv on mark at marie donal and rosary among those watching the show live which you can do every day by going to our youtube channel highland radio arland right okay uh as i mentioned earlier on in the show we were informed that now dock is moving from its current location uh and is being relocated and uh cancelor michael mcclafferty learned the same information and joins us now come on michael morning right okay so what is the circumstances of now docks departure from their current premises is uh is it uh go ahead sorry great no what i've learned at the moment uh this morning here and there's there's more information actually starting to come there for speak what i what i've learned this morning at the moment that staff uh were told yesterday evening they weren't actually told they got a text message uh yesterday evening uh from now dock managing or this year now dock management i that the premises has to be vacated uh and the reason for this is that the release is not being renewed and i've heard i've heard two things this morning i've heard first of all that it's been figured it's been the 34th of march i've just heard on the last number of seconds before we're going on to speak to yourself there uh another date of the third of march but either way anyway it seems to be happening in march so the situation Greg is at the minute the doctor or the gp the doctors in question and the drivers in question they are being moved relocated up to the hub across from the lewitt kenney hospital in st connell's on there they they have a place on there see when they or they're getting a place they're moving into there and then but as a consequence then they're 60 or so staff then associated with now dock and so on down there um across the ships they have no confirmation of what's happening to them so we're talking about nurses we're talking about administration we're talking about call handlers where are they going to go there's no word what's happening to them they don't know where they're going they're left they're left in the in the dark well the timing is a wee bit interesting then so because as i say in the absence of a formal response this is as care doc is uh reviewing the situation at the moment one of the fears was is that no jobs would be lost but people would be redistributed within the health service it's kind of looking like what is part of the discussion document until such time as we're here otherwise well a hundred you're 110 correct you right until we hear confirmation on the record confirmation otherwise from the hsc or no doctor whoever's going to whoever's going to stand over and until we hear that those staff don't know what's happening we don't know what's happening the county doesn't know what's happening um for example what's happening at the moment now in another county take for example louse there uh up that day i lost it all etc what's happening there there's no proper surgery to manage you go to see a gp of the day and you have two options uh depending what gps wherever the wherever they get one of the options is going into a b and b the other option is going into a hotel and there's a b and b of the day or the hotel of the day it's just a room that they booked it's not the same b and b it's not the same hotel i'm told that you go back to all the time it's just wherever the doctor gets booked at the time and he carries through the surgery and that and that's the type of situation that we possibly could be facing here in the legal as we as we're we're all away at this last while in well great of the situation of things getting moved to carlo um we seem to be very much following down the same the same trend now as the minute as the surgery and at the minute but it's going to be a central base down in gallway and it's going to be a scare doctor it's over the same thing's going to happen here i'm also uh led to believe what's going to happen here as well as care doctors and now to go ahead to dig over greg that you're going to be faced with one possibly two gps on on a night to cover the whole entire of dunny gall the whole of dunny gall one the two gps expect to cover the whole of dunny gall uh based from our phone service in carlo and as we learned as well they're going to try and try out whatever they can that means obviously science sort of whatever's wrong with you over the phone which is impossible no doubt that'll lead to soon through time a zoom call as well i imagine can envisage envisage that's going up uh eventually as well but this is not going to work and this is this this to be honest with you for better word this is this thanks this morning this is cruel it's it's on their hand it's on their meaning and it just comes in a very timely timely situation well now go up on all this has been talked about and no doubt what's going to happen here now great uh these 60 staff won't probably won't be offered to to relocate but to where double and court limerick wherever what in the health care response we need to find out if i mean let's let's face it care doc care doc's also already very heavily involved in now doc they employed the gps and all the fear is is that uh it would be a service operated out of vehicles effectively gp in a car kind of a situation people couldn't get in to see a doctor uh uh people would be sicker over the weekend have to wait to see their own gp if they get in to get an appointment so head up to the ed we need more information okay listen thanks for helping us get that out i appreciate it cancelor cancelor michael mcclaffrey i thought there was a recent meeting between hsc now doc care doc and and public representatives i'd be very interested to hear what actually was said at that meeting the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's Toyota test drive ireland's best-selling hybrid electric range at our showroom port road letter kenny from the morning routines to cozy family moments grant has been bringing comfort to homes for over 45 years with our biofuel compatible condensing boilers heat pumps and underfloor heating you can trust grant to heat your home now and into the future think heating think grant visit grant.eu us pigeon see everything when we're flapping around up here well almost everything see burning certain fuels releases invisible toxic pollutants which can trigger asthma and lead to serious illness so if you're going to light a fire in your home make sure to use low smoke fuel oh and never wing it burning rubbish choosing low smoke fuel is better for all of us let's clear the air for everyone and remember to clean chimneys and heating appliances at least once a year brought to you by the government of ireland don't know if you know alice and pat blade 40s couple of kids been together 17 years never married of course but that's not a problem until something happens and suddenly words like unmarried inheritance and substantial tax bill enter the equation you never need proper estate planning until you do that's why the experience team at macklehenny and associates are here to help find us online a call 0749175989 macklehenny and associates solicitors straggler get ready for our dras first festival of 2023 from friday the 3rd to monday the 6th of february their country and western festival kicks off with patsy kevin and shuny cramsey in concert on friday afternoon entertainment with gypsy rovers and on saturday night a lane boil and many more acts the country and western festival our dras and bridget's bank holiday weekend lots of accommodation available see our dras.ie check out these special offers at simpson supermarket letter candy there's kellox 720 gram 3 euro lion's teabags 240 back 5 euro fire letters 60 back 2 euro 50 deco cans 8 pack 4 euro bird's eye chicken dibbers 22 back 3 euro plus lots of other special offers in store while there check out baggage kitchen coffee for great food teas and coffees only 2 minutes from letter candy hospital simpson supermarket great value every day the county's number one talk show the nine till noon show on highland radio okay it's just after 11 o'clock let's get a news update and say good morning out to donald cavanaugh thanks greg good morning well as you've been hearing on the program in the past few minutes it's reported this morning that the now dock base in letter candy is to move we understand staff were informed by text message last night that in march the current premises at old town will be vacated and doctors and drivers will be based at the hub on the kilmakrennan road no clarity has been offered we understand to other employees hickwell has published reports on another five inspections carried out at designated centres for people with disabilities in donnie gall in total the centre is catered for 23 residents at the time of the inspections in october and november of last year the inspections were part of a review of all such centres in the county due to concerns about overall governance and oversight of hsc centres in light of the findings of the brandon reports some non-compliances were noted in four of the centres excuse me some non-compliances were noted in two of the centres all of those have been addressed full details are available on our website highland radio dot com the thonyshta will tell lebanese officials today that those responsible for the killing of private shon rooney must be brought to justice me hall martin is in lebanon with senior army personnel he's visiting private rooney's colleagues in the hunt and 21st battalion he's also having meetings with senior un personnel coastguard rescue helicopter 118 was tasked from slego to dairy last night to aid emergency services after a person was declared missing the northern arden fire and rescue service had specialist water teams at the scene close to craig avon bridge it was also attended by the psni and foil search and rescue the search began at nine last night rescue 118 left the scene just before 11 sit down exams shouldn't be the only way students were assessed after their time in school that's the view of paul fields he's director of schools with the education and training boards ireland he says it'll be one of the key points made during a two-day meeting of principles and deputy principles which is taking place this week in slego enok berk has once again arrived at wilson's hospital school in west meath the teacher who was dismissed from the position last week was arrested yesterday but later released he returned to the school again yesterday later in the day and has now returned again this morning donnie gold county council is considering a proposal that a wildlife pond to be developed at the town park in ballamacool letter kenny it's been suggested by councillor jerry mcmonigal he says there is space there which could be utilized to enhance the park's appeal and support flora and fauna he says money for the initial work should be available under environmental grant funding from government and the maintenance of the pond would be largely cost neutral he believes because it would cut down on the cutting of grass and the initial 100 needs to be resurrected councillor johnny mcginnis believes that the potential for the route to be a huge tourist attraction isn't being realized he fears it is shown is going to be bypassed and says the initial 100 should get the same treatment here that the ring of kerry gets in the southwest and we're back with news headlines again at 12 now okay donal thank you very much indeed I'll never forget the first time we arrived at our beautiful lot our cozy base for the next week of fun we cycled through the forest for hours and washed down the rapids again and again and again for everyone dad couldn't even hit the board at archery and when the ducks wouldn't stop following our boat we'd never giggled so much it really was something special and that's why we love to go back start your story today center parks ireland family forever book now at center parks dot ie all right to call it says read that meeting the hsc promised the tds and cancer is the sun the moon and the stars and they lapped it up waking up people a private company will not provide a better service donal all patients will pay the price for this move there's already a public private element to it but i do understand uh where you're coming from talking of seconds yesterday's announcement that the doomsday clock is only 90 seconds from armageddon uh on which is cheering news it is but i mean look at what's going on in the world it's not a bit wonder is it uh they my understanding is is the doomsday clock it's not a real clock of course uh but there are um Nobel prize winners and other academics and what have you that meet up annually um and uh they have a discussion about how far we are from complete annihilation on the planet which is not something i'd be like to be involved in um either deciding or the annihilation and they decided to advance the clock i think is it 10 seconds uh they can it can go back the way as well um but obviously they were factoring in climate change um what else were they factoring in the war in ukraine um tensions amongst superpowers right okay why are now dock having to move out of their premises in old town is it for the betterment of the service no does anyone know who the landlord is who do the hsc rent the building from seems strange that they're having to move out just as the now dock service is under threat in donningall it really is you know because we need to we people might feel that they'll go we'll look at we can't find the premises to house all the staff so we're going to have to adjust how we do things and um homework says this is snarfiel teaches time management skills and self-discipline i do think some teachers ask too much but believe a certain amount is beneficial to learning morning greg i don't think homework itself is the problem it's the amount they get my daughter regularly sits for two to three hours every night and she is not in an exam year god knows what it'll be like next year when she's doing her leaving so that is completely unacceptable two to three hours of homework a night it really is uh we was adults wouldn't accept taking two or three hours home work home with us i do recognize some do that and some of us have a kind of a approach whereby you're never really off the clock but generally speaking across the board people leave early before the junior cert or leaving effects later life people leave early before the well i left after the junior cert um so barry cowering fina fallen tv last night defending pascal donahoe finnegale minister who was caught out by the media they're all sorry when they get caught out and wish it never happens what a line is taking the people for well how would you not get caught out you'd do an audit of everyone in the door wouldn't you that's what was proposed to the government they said no we shall not do that and their name in ryan the same question was put to him and he says it would take up too much time because lots of people would have the same problems that pascal donahoe has it's funny isn't it okay right now the hsc's national screening service national immunization office and national cancer control program have joined forces to develop arlands roadmap to reach global targets for the elimination of cervical cancer we're joined on the program now as part of wellness wednesday um dr sarah fits gibbons a primary care clinical advisor with cervical check and it is to mark cervical cancer prevention week good morning to you doctor thank you very much for your time today good morning great nice to talk to you um where are we at at the moment in terms of cervical cancer and and how many people it affects so at the moment in arland roughly around 300 people per year are unfortunately diagnosed with cervical cancer and that works out as a number that is around what we call 11 for 100 000 people and what the who have identified and what we've launched this week in terms of our pathway towards it is that countries if they were to get their rates to below four for 100 000 people then they are describing that as the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem and that is really amazing to think that there is a disease of cancer that can potentially be prevented to the point where it becomes an extremely rare disease and that's what we're aiming towards with our vaccination with our screening and with our treatment well let's focus on on perhaps one of the key um tools in our armory would be vaccination by 2030 90 90 percent of girls should be fully vaccinated with hpv vaccine by 15 years of age how much do you think the controversy over covid vaccines and it's not something i'm i'm not dragging into this conversation don't get me wrong but there might be for some a toxicity with vaccines now well there's not of course that might prevent us reaching that 90 percent mark and then of course there's another conversation about young people um being encouraged to do this that or the other because to get a vaccine before the ages of 15 years of age you know the arguments that are out there doctor so how do you can they all be overcome do you believe to reach that 90 percent uh vaccination rate of girls by 2030 we know that there can be uh considerations particularly from parents around safety of any medication or vaccine that you might be giving to a young person or a child what we do know with the hpv vaccine for example is is that it has been given to you know millions of people around the world in a number of different countries and no country has identified any promise or any long-term medical side effects from the vaccine and this is incredibly important we know how safe it is and we also know how effective it is at the same time we can understand people's concerns and we are always willing to have a conversation we'll say with the parents i'm a gp myself been forced and i often have conversations with parents around all sorts of vaccines maybe when they bring their babies for their first vaccinations or even when they come themselves for their flu vaccine and we're always ready to take people's presence on board and as i say we always recognize that there can be concerns but we do know with this hpv vaccine how safe it is and also how effective it is there are a number of different cancers caused by the hpv virus and if we can make sure that as you as you mentioned the who target of having 90 percent of girls vaccinated by the age of 15 we know that we can bring down the levels of all sorts of cancers for people and obviously that has to be good news do you know where we're at in terms of um what amount of the target group we're talking about are currently vaccinated and have we seen any trends in terms of the level of vaccination over the last two or three years yes it's been great that the the levels of vaccination have been increasing so there would have been a dip in our rates around about 2015 2016 and around that time there would have been quite a bit of information and misinformation going around on social media and again as i say you know parents would be understandably concerned but thankfully what we've seen and particularly from the amazing work done by Laura Brennan and and since her unfortunate death by her family in terms of provoking sorry promoting the hpv vaccine um and we can really see those effects and as you may know we now have catch-up programs so for people whom may have missed the vaccine we'll say the first time around when they were in secondary schools so women are now able to attend to the catch-up clinics and get their vaccine the other a great bit of news is that now one dose of the vaccine is sufficient for the vast majority of people so it's exactly as effective as the the other doses would have been and so you're just coming for a think shot and then you're done so we would really strongly encourage anybody who has not yet received the vaccine so women up to the age of 25 to attend the catch-up clinic then you can find out information about that hpv.ie what role if any does the vaccination of boys with the hpv vaccine have in terms of this type of cancer in women so again hpv is a virus that can affect both boys and girls men and women and we are really lucky that since 2019 all students in first year in secondary schools the boys and girls are eligible to receive the vaccine for free so compared to what the who target is in terms of the 90 percent of girls up to the age of 15 we have that additional extra protection here in Ireland where our our boys and young men are also able to get the vaccine and that's fantastic because it means that there will be less of the virus circulating in the community and that means that there will be fewer people with persistence hpv infection which is the part of the infection that can cause problems having hpv by itself is not necessarily a problem it's when it persists there stays in the body that we know that that can cause changes which can lead to cancer also one of the targets outlined by the who is 70 percent of women to be screened using a high performance test by the age of 35 again by 45 like currently you know how many whop percentage of women are receiving a high performance test by the age of 35 in Ireland and i ask only just to see you know how far we have to go to reach these targets and with screening we're actually really lucky in that over the last number of years our screening rates have been on average between 75 and 80 percent and that can vary according to age groups so we know that people in older age groups tend to be less likely to attend to screening and we would strongly recommend everybody particularly women over the age of 50 to attend for screening but we have been really fortunate in this country that we've had a really strong response from the from the community in terms of attending for screening which is fantastic and the other target outlined 90 percent of those identified with cervical disease should receive appropriate treatment i mean you would hope it would be a hundred percent but again you know and we're all too familiar with the the awful situation so many found themselves in recent years again are we on the road to meeting that type of a target here in Ireland i wonder we absolutely are and again you at rightly pointed out that you would expect that to be a hundred percent and what we know with cervical cancer is that it is a disease which really shows up the inequities and inequalities in healthcare around the world so for some countries for them to achieve 90 percent treatment that's the target that is going to be difficult for them you see and the WHO is launching these targets they know for some countries that that is really really difficult whereas in Ireland we know that people who need to receive the treatment when they are found either through screening or through symptoms to have cancer or pre-cancerous cells we know that they're able to access healthoscopy clinics and services cancer services you know within the time frame that is recommended now obviously we've been speaking about prevention more latterly identifying it through screening and then hopefully the process of treatment but it is it's very important as much as we can to detect cervical cancer early so outside of you know prevention or screening what should people be looking out for and what what symptoms should people be looking out for and what do they do if they discover them that's a great question Greg and it is really important that people would be watchful or mindful of any symptoms that may be suggestive of cervical cancer so those would be bleeding in between periods maybe bleeding after sex and any unusual changes that a person might notice in their menstrual cycles for some people it might be pain when they're having sex any of those kinds of symptoms they don't mean that it's necessarily definitely cancer so we don't want people to be worried but we do want people to come and attend either their GP or their practice nurse and discuss the symptoms that they're having and that's really really important so even if you've had a regular screening test which we recommend for everybody to do if you have any symptoms at all that you're not sure about we always welcome those people into our GP practices we can have a chance we can work out what is the next step in terms of figuring out why you might be having those symptoms at this time and I think it's important people don't try and sort of self triage put it down to menopause or something or something else if people are having the issues you've outlined you speak to a medical professional they'll have additional questions that they can ask and they will take it from there whether to reassure you that it's one thing or to make sure it's not another exactly and sometimes people feel oh you know that's not important enough for me to attend my GP or maybe I'll wait and see what happens as GP's we love when we find out that there's nothing wrong you know that's a good news story for us and so we need you to come and tell us what your concerns are what your worries are we'll walk you take you through the process then of the test that we might need to do in order to find out a little bit more but absolutely trying not to either use Dr. Google which might brighten the daylights out of you or you know just leave time past and hope that something will go away by itself it's really important that you come and see the professionals how important is it that people go for tests when they're invited to so we know that screening works best when it's done according to the regular intervals or the regular time frame so each time that you have a screening test done you've really picked that box in terms of looking after your well-being and your own hope and so when you get the advice I know people might you know would be very busy it can be hard to fit things in but it is really important to try and keep up the date if you're not sure when your next screening test is due you can check online so if you go to serviceofcheck.ie and you can check on the registers and to see when your next screening test is due sometimes people might forget when their last one was. Screening has been extended I think to the age of 65 does it need to go beyond that? So the evidence that we have based our screening age groups on are based entirely on the international evidence that's available and we know that again if you come back to the WHO targets they mentioned they're just having two tests at the age of one before the age of 35 and one before the age of 45 so the WHO knows that simply having two tests is actually really really effective in terms of cervical cancer prevention in Ireland for most people they would be having maybe eight tests before the age of 65 and we know that that is the best protection for you and again in terms of protecting your health doing everything you can in terms of keeping yourself healthy that is the right thing to do. Okay listen thank you for your time this morning I really appreciate it doctor take care of yourself. No problem. All right that's Dr Sarah Fitzgibbons there primary care clinical advisor with cervical check and we're speaking to the doctor there as part of cervical cancer prevention week. All right okay hopefully things well I think they have greatly improved in that area but it's not many cancers that we have within our grasp the possibility to eliminate them but that seems to be the case what it doesn't seem to be that is the case with that cancer. The 9 to noon show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota where you can now test drive the newest member of the iconic Corolla family the Corolla Cross Hybrid Electric SUV. I hear you some wire needs a fix it man the name's Buzz on Academy work. No chance. 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Okay you're very welcome back to the 9th of noon show here on Highland Radio now a caller says hi the now doc service will be a massive loss to Donegal well it's not being I don't want to alarm anyone at this stage what we're trying to do is make sure that we are abreast of any changes that might happen a lot of people out there believe that the current service is good but clearly needs more resources more funding we can't say at this point that it's going or what's to replace it we've as much as we can on this program have tried to have this conversation out in front but it's hard for us to get information as well but another caller says this is another sneaky approach by the HSE to outsource services which will cost a lot more money and lies will be lost because there'll be long waiting lists depending on where each person where a person who needs care lives why don't they use one of the new health centers to house the now doc as they are empty all weekend I suppose that would make too much sense there's a state of the art one in Newtown Cunningham and it's one of many no point in building them unless they're used to the maximum the property at now doc says this caller is owned by a management company why would they want the service to leave the building seems very strange at a time when care doc we're talking about taking over the politicians were at the meeting needs come on and the truth needs to come out for the people employed by the service kept in the dark as usual if care doc take over another dark day for Donegal and our health service but unfortunately we don't know what the future care doc model if that were care doc already involved we know but what that new model might look like Greg the now doc maybe the lease is up on the building and moving to the HSE state owned building is cheaper more room parking etc yes that is certainly not impossible right apparently what has happened is we had been given no is this okay for me to read it is I think I'll come back to that because some of the information we've been given is being given to us in confidence and I just want to double check one then that's okay to read without identifying anyone because they can't speak to us publicly that's for me to read out isn't it Caroline yeah if the minister can't look after his election finances properly how in God's name can it be expected to look after the nation's finances is this a Monty Python sketch says a caller yep happy enough to go with that all right back to the now doc issue here hi Gregory the movement in the hub apparently what has happened is we had been given notice to terminate the building down here by the landlord over Christmas because there's so many issues with it so at the moment a state to try and to find somewhere else for us that's HSE estates I presume they are ideally looking for a building to house us all but in case there's a problem they're looking to maybe do the room for the doctors it'll carry on from where we are and they will look for somewhere else for the nurses and the call handlers and the admin offers the call handler sorry the call centre will be elsewhere but it's just actually finding the premises in letter Kenny to house us just the new phone systems are going on ahead in the next week also so candles lit that's where we're at okay this now really appreciates staff in services like now doc and the HSE and others as well for trusting us with their information and it's unfortunately one of the only ways we can get a lot of this information out but listen it's great to have that relationship and thank you hi Greg can you ask your listeners are they having any bother with the RTE and TV3 ours is so bad that's in the Lifford area are you on a digital did you do a re-scan of the channels it's possible maybe some of the frequencies change and you don't have your TV set to auto scan I'm just guessing here could it possibly be that anyone else having problems with RTE and TV3 now it could be an aerial issue as well we've thrown it out there we'll see what we can come up with right I want to read an email I received from one of our listeners here it's kind of long but we appreciate it that's why we invite people to email hi Greg I'm 86 years young I cannot understand how the Donegal people are not up in arms at the prospect of closing now doc and passing the jobs to a private company if I was young I would lead the pack-in protest in a country with limited employment and industry in a county with a micro problem affected affecting a huge percentage of people with a big increase in population lately now they want to cut back on medical services I hear mention of patient safety and clinical governance coming from meetings when you're 86 like me you know it's all nonsense everyone with their wits about them knows it's a cutting of financial costs surely why else would the HSE bother to change now doc and pass the service to a private company it's all about money I did my homework because a friend of mine works in now doc and is anxious about her job care doc did not perform well over Christmas if you do the statistics they had delay of callbacks of up to nine hours and a pal of mine in Carla was told the care doc service was overwhelmed and advised to call back the next day or contact their own GP this is the reality folks of care doc that never happened to me in now doc there's no way on God's earth the care doc will provide the capacity of services that now doc provides as for patient safety I'm 86 years old I mentioned I phoned in with medical issues and I was immediately speaking to a nurse and an ambulance was called on another occasion I had a bout of indigestion but an ambulance was called since I had pain in the chest there was no delay in emergency treatment that requires a hospital with now doc and there never was what's all the safety jargon about coming from meetings I think Donagall people will be at a big loss if this private reduced service is introduced and people don't won't realize the reality until after the service is gone and how it's God's name could the GPs cope with more patience if this happens I find it difficult at times trying to get attention for less serious ailments because my own GP is just too busy this is when I and everyone else needs now doc I don't understand the issues folly but I hear talk of Donagall GPs having to pay money towards the now doc service I'm not sure about that surely the HSE should pay towards this to assist the service the GPs are exhausted and under huge pressure we've so many poor and wonderful people from war torn countries living here with us adding to the numbers in GP practices Donagall has taken so many refugees percentages wise we welcome these people but let the government honor this and increase the medical service and keep now doc as it is when we're struggling the most why take away the service why give jobs to a private company and take them from our lovely girls and lads working in now doc I hear not all of now doc staff are permanent taking jobs from Donagall people to pass them to a private company it's the HSEs and the government's job to take care of its patients and its staff I urge Donagall people and our lads in the Eroctus to not allow a further blow to our forgotten county we've had enough I hope God willing if I'm alive this time next year to be able to pick up the phone and speak to my Donagall now doc service instead of some private company in Carlo all right thank you very much for that calm well worded well thought out we appreciate it um a lot of people talking about people coming in here and the increased in population is it just me or and it kind of breaks my heart but then again maybe I'm excited for young people I don't know but it just seems to me that everywhere I look now on social media there's another going away party or another image of people saying goodbye to young people at an airport um I don't recall seeing this for ages and now everywhere I look it seems to be young people um particularly I'm not saying exclusively emigrating heading off to Australia or America or Britain um as I say maybe it's a great thing maybe it's them spreading their wings and learning about life and having new life experiences but it's just hard to look at so many young people having gone away is that just me maybe it's just something I'm exposed to because of the friends group or Facebook algorithms I don't know or whatever social media it is but do you get a sense there's lots and lots of young girls and young boys young men and young women heading off maybe it's in your family um I don't know it just as a part of me it makes me feel really sad we've seen it before and I tell you what happens this is then you start seeing bars being empty locally and then you start seeing other I'm not saying this should stay here in booze I think do you understand where I'm coming from it's just another generation seems to be many of them leaving and when some of them leave then the others go well sure we might as well I don't know as I say maybe I'm amplifying it maybe it's not happening as much as it seems to me but I don't know it feels like that watch the show live now on youtube facebook and at highland radio dot com the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's Toyota where you can care for your car with Toyota relax giving you a year's warranty with your service terms and conditions apply greener choices are the key to a sustainable future that's why energia will give you cashback for any excess energy you produce from solar panels at home with our great value micro generation tariff because the choices we all make today will change how we live tomorrow oh hill 16 insurance how can I help you up the dubs ah hi I am looking for a home insurance quote right oh I'm one part of doubling the 11 I don't actually live in Dublin Roy they lease apart the dubs what I'm just looking for home insurance well you're gonna have to keep looking pal because hill 16 is doubling only get the feeling that your insurer doesn't want you at local insurance we understand your needs call today for a bespoke quote or find us online at localinsurance.ie local insurance we'll get you sorted the local insurance network DAC trading is local insurance is regulated by the central bank of Ireland local insurance is a tide insurance intermediary of acorn brokerage limited acorn brokerage limited trading is acorn insurance is regulated by the central bank of Ireland we at highland radio love irish music and we want to show our support throughout irish music month this march in partnership with hot press magazine we're asking you to support the irish musicians artists and bands who make every party every drive home and every day magic that's right to celebrate irish music month on highland radio we're asking you to support iris artists and musicians by buying irish albums irish tickets irish t-shirts and irish music merch irish musicians have shown that they are right up there with the best in the world so let's support them by buying irish proudly supported by highland radio hot press ibi and the bai sound and vision fund are you a leaving search student or are you interested in a postgraduate degree or springboard plus funded course at u donnie gall's open evening has been rescheduled to wednesday 25th of january from 4 till 7 p.m at the letter kenny campus with the february 1st ceo deadline approaching there's never been a more exciting time to join at u donnie gall found out more about the 20 new ceo programs and talk to academic and support staff about your options at u donnie gall's open evening wednesday 25th of january from 4 till 7 p.m see you there business matters in association with at u donnie gall's faculty of business if you're an owner or manager in food production business consider the new one-year level eight higher diploma in food business and product innovation it's just one three-hour lecture weekly call 911 8600 or email gary dot mcgill at atu.ie okay dog it's wednesday again can you believe karen o donnell uh presenter of business matters in with us karen good morning to you how was your week very good actually very good tell us what you did anything exciting well i got back running again the good to see there's no way so we're out dropping the roads again which is good yeah if unless you're a car driver or a pedestrian yeah well whatever how many joke i don't even know where you're running so i am actually only talking right okay so that's good no pains no aches no broken hips everything all right just blenches in the clock okay right okay this opening evening at atu donnie gall's sister rescheduled one karen correct uh the opening evening greg at atu donnie gall's letter kenny campers which was to have taken place last wednesday has been rescheduled for this evening between four and seven so to pre-register online go to donnie gall atu's facebook page i would say people even curious of that information should go along and see if there's something there that catches their interest you know people frustrated at where they're at or wherever it might be because you know the one thing and i keep saying this karen and i apologize to you and the listeners but you know the one thing about your entrepreneurs and the business people you speak to is that they made a decision at a point in their life or they rolled the dice or they took a chance or they didn't listen to what people were telling them in terms of ah you don't want to take that chance maybe all those things to an opening even like that could be the all those things and actually or or my guest this week ticks a lot of those boxes that you may send but you're right i would look on that as a sort of fact finding mission just go and take a look around you don't have to commit to anything but there may be something there that may spark something that may lead to something else because we do grind out a bit yeah you know like and our time here is precious yeah listen and the donnie gall atu it is such a wide variety and there are so many ways that you can get back into the system and there's so much help there so much professional help there you know it's it's a it's a no-brainer if you're actually feet in looking around and looking for a change all right udder ask na geltuk to support two new businesses creating jobs how was 2022 2022 for the body yeah it was really good 945 new jobs were created in the geltuk in 2022 and that is according to udderser's end of year stepping forward 2022 the report for last year showed that more than one billion euro worth of sales were achieved by udderser's support of companies and it also revealed that there are 430 people working out of the 27 g-tech hubs and with a few of those in the county at terriman and we do work come to mind what was the net job gain i wondered so it was still up was it okay from memory it was still wasn't huge but it was definitely on the plus side all right so as long as it's been maintained excellent stuff right alde is hiring yeah alde has announced that it is to create more than 360 new jobs across the country these new jobs arise due to the ongoing expansion of alde store network it currently has 155 stores across the county contrary greg with plans for an additional six this year and also alde is set to increase as minimum early rate to 13 euro and 85 cent per hour um that will give them the first the the status of becoming the first air supermarket to introduce the new living wage from february the first now my understanding is i'm not saying it's exclusive to alde but it is a company whereby you can progress this career progression um within it too so that might attract some people but as i say i'm not saying it's a standard in relation to that i just remember reading an article on those lines okay uh record profits in the pharma world i think this is probably going to be the most steady sector in arland going forward because we see tech wobbling a bit but pharma people always get sick yeah avevo the double and based uh pharmaceutical services company founded by christle man calph reel said and expects to report a record full year revenues of 50.6 million pounds for 2022 that's a 30 increase year on year the company formerly called open orphan provides clinical trials and human challenge studies to large pharma and biotech companies as part of this work avevo which has around 300 employees carries with clinical trials on humans and i think it has really come to the fore uh as a result of covid yeah okay uh some people sorry people being supported to start their own businesses yeah don't think a local enterprise will hold a start your own business program in february this program will be delivered online over his sessions and gets on the way on tuesday february the seventh each participant will be allocated up to four hours of mentoring to help develop their business plan and business idea cost of 25 euro check out their social platforms for more details all right let's go straight on to uh what's coming up on this podcast you kind of give us a wee sneak peek a little earlier in the conversation but what's coming up yeah Greg on this week's business matters i'm joined by the co-owner of dunig all bees and glenn colin kill thomas ellis thomas is a pharma carpenter and he set up the company in 2013 and ania kern became a co-owner three years ago so dunig all bees has the only wax processing facility in ireland and a product range of almost 900 items dunig all bees won the green award at the dunig all uh enterprise awards for 2022 hosted by local enterprise office dunig all in december and this clip i asked thomas about his decision to ask ania kern to become a co-owner ania started working for me two years after i started off ania joined me as co-owner there three years ago ania was working the office for me at the time and as we grow and everything under us is growing as well so ania was managing the office team and everything that was happening there and the more i looked at it i thought she's doing it anyways she was a director once she wasn't she was doing the job of it so uh i offered her to her at the time and we sat down we worked it out and she accepted so now we call on it and co-run it together how easier has that made the task for yourself much easier for for everybody and it's great like we have two different ways of looking at everything which is fantastic you know because the worst thing i we could ever had is both having the same way of looking at it all the time because we've never grown or developed from that the fact that we have such a different views on how things are done we normally find the happy medium there that what works and we drive forward with it so cune did you find out or do you know what sort of the applications for beeswax are then um look well a good day last friday there greg um the way it started out um thomas was was a a carpenter it came back from dublin um during the last recession he started making a couple of beehives for other people and the third and fourth were for himself so uh he started out he invested two thousand euro one thousand was in uh equipment one thousand was on uh online marketing and uh it was just uh snowballed over the last decade bees are astonishing uh really when you think about it because only last week we were talking to a young fellow who uh done really well at the bt young scientist uh and it was just talking about the the benefits of the bees honey you know and again if it's not polluted or uh nothing toxic toxic gets into it i think it's one of the only food groups that will never go off and then we have these uh myriad of of applications for the bees wax and then you see it in a hive uh i know the man-made hives but this this this golden nectar in the middle and then this beautiful perfectly formed wax on the outside uh and and both uh elements of that are really usable for humans the beekeeping uh culture on the way on something for resurgence greg during covid for obvious reasons people had time there's real buzz about it at the moment very good very good what but look it's a great business story it's a great success story i mean for somebody to change from what he's used to doing and uh always look on always thinking uh on the corner became the business part of three years ago as you heard him saying open the new ideas and new perspective and uh they have plans as well for a major development in the karek which he talks about as well in the podcast you're a hive of information um uh kieran i will tell you that much uh the full interview with thomas ellison it's a wide ranging interview uh is available now on highland radio or on spotify or itunes and it's on air as well isn't it yeah after news on sunday evening all right and if you'd like to get in touch with you the program that is yeah just drop me an email please greg uh usual email address business matters at highlandvideo.com all right honey thank you um that we'll be back we'll be back with more and kieran will be back with us next wednesday maybe maybe uh after half 11 and we'll be back with you after the break today business matters in association with atu donnie gall's faculty of business if you're an owner or manager in the food production business consider the new one-year level eight higher diploma in food business and product innovation it's just one three-hour lecture weekly call 911 8600 or email gary.miguel at atu.ie the nine to noon show brought to you by kelly's test drive ireland's best-selling hybrid electric range at our showroom port road letter kenny the lotto jackpot is a guaranteed two million euro play responsibly in store in app or at lottery.ie the national lottery it could be you urgent news the house proud group stock disposal sale at the stroban store must end this sunday all remaining clearance stock has been transferred to the store and final price cuts made with drastic reductions on furniture for every room the massive stock disposal sale at house proud abacorn square stroban sale ends 6 p.m sunday also at the ulma store the ceo application deadline of first of february is fast approaching don't miss the opportunity to add ireland's highest ranked university to your ceo choices trinity college dublin offers over 100 undergraduate degrees 170 clubs and societies and so much more our world class lecturers and beautiful campus in the heart of dublin city have been inspiring generations for over 400 years visit tcd.ie forward slash ceo and be inspired that's tcd.ie forward slash ceo are you tired of waiting for treatment or surgery did you know you can receive immediate treatment across the border under the new n.i. plant healthcare scheme at potentially no cost dunigall patients are still being treated with us at king's bridge private hospital northwest post-branxit the process is easy and our dedicated team will help guide you through it so why wait contact us today to find out how you can skip the waiting lists and receive treatment in northern ireland visit kingsbridgeprivatehospital.com because life matters fabric world's biggest ever winter sale is now on there's over 5000 meters of curtain and upholstery now half price or less all craft and dress fabrics reduced and lining from one pound why not insulate your home with half price fleece interlining or avail of our fabulous euro rights at fabric world may down jerry highland radio weather updates with ireland west airport discover edinburgh this summer with reiner's three times weekly service stunning architecture endless winding streets and an awe-inspiring castle island west airport and don't just take off take it easy all right our breaks of light reiner drizzle early this morning they've cleared now in a southerly direction uh with sully spells remaining followed by uh for the rest of the day um and perhaps one or two showers moderate south westerly winds uh will become north westerly as rain clears highest temperature seven or eight degrees today pleasant love out there isn't it some more of your comments here brand new state of the art medical center in bonk rana why don't they open on saturday mornings like they used to would ease now doc another high greg is there anybody out there happy with their political party and government like would they be happy to vote them in again because it seems there's nothing going right anywhere all bad news thanks the government want young people to emigrate successive irish governments have used emigration to avoid a revolution they will be looking for more visas for the us in canada soon that's one person's theory there i don't mind where the now doc allocates to so long as it provides the same enclosed car parking and access it's no joke taking someone in a wheelchair to a building that has no covered parking as it's lashing rain and you have to set up the wheelchair for them in the dark which is a something that needs to be considered when considering a location another corner says it makes sense to move now doc it's always should have been located beside the hospital where there is quicker and easiest access to eda yeah indeed i suppose we always have to make sure that when we're reacting to things we have to also consider that the change could be positive uh why does now doc have to be in lk it's not just lk there's now doc in mount charles and where's the other location of now doc caroline the there's another office in might be in a shown is there anyway there's certainly one in mount charles there's one in letter kenny and i think there might be one we think there's one in in a shown i know where the third is but i just can't pull that information out of my head um on the spot here so it's not just letter kenny uh lots of you getting involved in the homework conversation you know i think it's really i i think the government needs to listen because there's various views on it and i think the the parents and students views are the most important on this via text regarding homework can you add that a call is suggested that enhances government funding and youth workers in local community centres would be a solution during summer holidays extracurricular activities such as swimming gyms gymnastics health promotion activities that are fun and interactive and a broad range of sports or teams games and technology opportunities example coding could be offered this would provide childcare for working parents and allow schools to focus more on learning and practical learning example science visual maths exercises etc and reduce the need for homework there's absolutely needs to be fun in learning at school but sometimes things like swimming use up half a school day obviously then this means more homework uh it is a life skill learning uh to study independently so a very small amount of homework does no harm this is easier for some people than others often working parents are coming in at 6 p.m and children are tired then and it causes issues in the home some children struggle with homework if they've learning difficulties and you question if it's helping or hindering them example the maths we learned years ago very different methods now are we confusing the children uh same with sounds maybe you know I think that's that listeners rounded up there particularly in the latter part of it um a lot of the realities of uh modern life my parents only had national school education I'm in my sixth I wonder too to like you know there's more people at work and I think there's more uh households now with both parents working like we have a system here now uh I'm not sure how much it's changed but maybe it was devised when you had someone who was in the home more uh but things have changed dramatically in that regard now most cases uh and there's lots of single parent families out there of course but in two parent families um that both were out working and you know maybe things were set up when there was someone at home more often not do you know what I mean maybe on those grounds alone things need to be reviewed because that's and it's mostly primarily women I think re-entering the workforce um that is hugely positive but you have to say well if things are changing like that socially do we have to change a little bit like in Japan for example they are at a crisis now they are very very close to the country being unable to sustain itself because their population is aging their population is older and people are having less children or having them late and there's not enough young people in Japan now they're at the tip they're actually at the tipping point in Japan there's not enough young people this is what you know how you get some people that talk about how uh there's people trying to depopulate the world trust me that's nonsense because the that's already happening the world is depopulating itself and it's causing big problems in many countries but in Japan they're at a tipping point now of the economy being unable to sustain itself uh one of the factors is uh um couples are choosing to have children late or not to have children or women are working as well which is great uh but they haven't changed other structures to accommodate that and they've got an aging population uh they've got less younger people working yes younger people to provide taxes and what have you and they are a crisis point literally as a crisis point at the moment uh right okay my parents only had national school education in my in uh my 60s and as I progressed through secondary school my homework become increasingly difficult my parents had no idea how to help me as they had never learned the stuff that I was studying it was extremely frustrating for us all I will admit to calling my parents stupid bog people more than once wow okay well listen it's history repeating itself now all right maybe in your parents by your testimony your parents didn't go to secondary school they couldn't help with your secondary homework now what's happening those of us who did do secondary school have children who are learning things in a completely different way so in a way for different reasons history has uh or is repeating itself hi regarding the discussion about homework I believe homework is important because it lets me see how my kid is doing we only see the teacher once a year you see the problem I'll read on but this is where your advantage you see honestly if Aaron sat down and done his homework in front of me I couldn't tell you whether he's doing it well or not he could be right in gobbledygook and saying that's what the teacher says we have to write and I couldn't say whether he's right or wrong now you're in a different situation because you have uh why is that Caroline why is the problem it's my computer broken yes it's the computer broken it's not all right okay cancel Martin Victor with a few default choices good morning Martin good morning great computer broken I'm sick of having this conversation off air we're having it on air now I think it was me there not you I'm on a lesson Martin um right okay in a shown left behind the rest of the only goal when promoting the cantiput tourism you know it's an age old battle isn't it Martin you'll remember I presume you might have been involved in the wild atlantic way was originally not planned to go into in a shown and there was a big battle to have it included it always seems to be that donnie gall's fighting for equality but in a shown sometimes is fighting for equality within donnie gall in the northwest region yeah I think you know look Greg we always have to keep fighting for tourism because like tourism is so vitally vitally important here to any show um during those particular summer months and throughout the year but particularly in the summer we depend solely on it and lots of parts of the peninsula and I just think that and I think this has come up on a number of occasions where a lot of the tour operators come into the county and they come to donnie gall town and and to some other parts of the county and that's as far as they come and that's as far as maybe their their soul to come to and I think that you know from a donnie gall tourism point of view and from an exploring the show point of view I think there needs to be more collaborative work collaborative approach I think that you know we have explored any show and coming into us you know looking for money for doing brochures and things like that and I think that that shouldn't be happening we should have a budget here in the county that is for the county not just for a particular part of the county and I think that you know the tour operators need to we don't get enough of them coming to the show and buses we don't get enough of the big tour operators coming up here and I think that's where a lot of the businesses you know get a lot of the revenue from in the summertime I think it's something that we need to have a serious look at yeah I really think it's a strange old county isn't it when you think about it because you know in terms of newspapers the county split in terms of radio the county split for no really good reason in terms of politics sometimes it can be split um and then in terms of how we view it as how we view it in terms of promoting the county's tourism it's split do you know what I mean maybe it is time right across the board we start looking at it as the one big land mass and you know just something historically in our attitudes I think that there are divisions within the county when we go talking about certain things Martin I think Greg if you look at Kerry I think that's what has has driven Kerry to be so successful is that they sell Kerry as Kerry yeah not as Donegal or not as any shown or not as West Donegal or not as particular parts of Kerry they sell Kerry as Kerry and I think that you know that's something we need to do in Donegal we need to sell Donegal as Donegal but it needs to bring in all parts of the county and it needs to be equal to all parts of the county and revenue that's been distributed let it be through the local authority or wherever needs to be distributed as as a whole county as well and I think that's maybe what we're falling down it also be interesting to see if you know if you go into the tourism office in Bandor and or Donegal town like is there an awful lot in there we don't know I'm not asking you to have the answer to the question but you would hope there's an awful lot of information in there pointing to people in the direction of any shown as well do you know what I mean like we need to sort of start getting it right internally too I mean look we have so much to offer you know Mal and Head project is moving let it be at a snail's piss it is certainly moving you know we have Dole Fallon village out there we have you know the Wilde Packers here and and like you know you have the Maritime Museum and Greencastle you have so much to offer here and I'm sure and I think that those travel agencies that come and a lot of them do just come to Donegal town and turn and go back to Slego or go back to to Mayo or Castle Bar or Westport and that's as far as they come I think it'll be vitally vitally important that we try and sell not just any show but the whole county and I'm sure there'll be parts of East and East Donegal and West Donegal will be saying the same thing as me well I would say there's parts of East Donegal the likes of you know right you know the Twin Tans Raffault okay they might not have beaches or what have you but amazing attractions historical you know all that kind of stuff so really what we're saying I don't want to dilute your point by sort of drifting here and there we need then to establish a tourism promotional unit in Donegal for all of Donegal that treats all of the county as one treats it equally absolutely and and and sell the county as one and I just feel at the moment that that's not that's not happening and that's not working and I think for for the county to be successful and to be a real prominent tourism county to come to and we we're going to bring people from from America and all over the world to come here we need to sell the county as a whole and let's practice what we preach there's no point us always complaining that we're forgotten about in Dublin when we have parts of Donegal that feel they're forgotten about in Lyford or letter Kenny do you know what I mean let's start practicing what we preach then absolutely we need we need to deliver on that and we need to make sure that the revenue is distributed equally among all parts of the county yep I think that's a fair shout all right Councillor Martin McDermott thanks for your time today really appreciate it and thank you to all of you who uh listened to the program if you watched the show you text in called and emailed or just sat there and enjoyed it we really appreciate your being with us and we're back with you tomorrow morning at nine thank you very much to carlo and all who researched and produced the