 Look that you're looking for. No, I really don't care. It's tough enough to... Oh, you do. Now, you do. We do care. Do you know? Do you put conditioner on? Of course I do, yeah. Do you? Yes. Do you do it? I do, yeah. Do you not get very itchy? It's the hair, only hair that I have, so I pretend... You make it the most of it? I pretend it's on the top of my head. Do you know sometimes... Yeah. Is this it? It's comfort hair. You can grow it and you can pull it back. I try that it doesn't read. It doesn't work. Grow it, Ankelo. All right, well done to you, Leigh. Leigh had to tackle a bit of technical demons this morning, so to get a show out at all, I think he did really well. Right, it is a little after nine, whilst we resolved some of those issues, but they're all done and dusted now, so let's get a news update from Donald. Kavanaugh, good morning, Donald. Thank you, Greg. Good morning. Letter Kenny is about to see an unprecedented level of building and regeneration work. Local councillors are set to hold a workshop to discuss how they can secure and repurpose derelict buildings in the town with compulsory purchase orders to follow where appropriate. The council has been invited to apply for monies under the third round of the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund. Councillor Michael McBride says that means significant investment is in the offing. I think, you know, over the next couple of years, we're going to see a lot of these projects starting to move, and I would say, you know, in the next seven or eight years, you'll see a massive change in Letter Kenny, like from the church lane, the market square, right, and to Lower Main Street. I think it's all positive for the town in Letter Kenny. I said on there, on the magnet, the best news I've had as a councillor, to be honest about it, since I came in here 12 or 13 years ago. The Social Protection Minister, Heather Humphries, says Deputy Pierce Doherty's dull motion on a spring bonus and cost of living support was nothing more than a political stunt. It was tabled by the Sinn Fein finance spokesperson last night, whom it claims the coalition is out of touch and has failed to tackle the crisis. Minister Humphries said no political party or person has a monopoly on compassion. She told that all this government has done more than any of its predecessors. However, Deputy Doherty told that all that every analysis published in recent weeks and months shows the situation now is more bleak than ever, and he said those on lower incomes are disproportionately affected. Those on lower incomes, they spend a greater proportion of their income on essentials such as energy and on food, and those essentials have seen the steepest rise in costs over the past year and more, and they're pushing households to the brink. Minister, workers and families have stretched and have managed their income to the last cent, but there comes a point for every single family where there's nothing left to cut, and that's what we're seeing today in many families right across the state, an increase in hardship and financial difficulties and in poverty. The recommendation of a report to reject universal basic income by the Commission on Taxation and Welfare has been described as fundamentally flawed. Social Justice Ireland says the analysis underpinning the recommendation contains serious errors around taxation, its cost of funding and its impact on poverty and income distribution. And the Midlands-Northwest MEP has warned that the region is falling behind economically when EU regional funding was calculated for the period from 2021 to 2027. The region was classed in the middle with a below-average GDP, but Finnegauil's Colin Markey says it's now lacking even further behind. He says other local authorities need to follow the example of Donegal County Council and dedicated staff to identify and secure more EU funding. He says it's the only way the region will catch up with the rest of the country. The Green Deal, the Digital Europe, Erasmus, Peace Plus, there's multiples of different programs that are there. If the like of the County Councils had a person, an expert at knowing where the funding was number one and supporting groups and indeed the Council itself at putting applications forward, that would make a significant difference. Mostly dry weather with spells of hazy sunshine developing for a time this morning, however, this afternoon, a spell of rain will begin to wedge into the region. Top temperatures today 9 to 11 degrees Celsius in moderate to fresh south-west winds. That's Island Radio News back with news in full at 10 o'clock. Morning. The usual, please. Go, Aisling. Thanks. Just what I need. Perfect. See you tomorrow. When customers shop at independent businesses like mine, they get more and give more because what they spend here multiplies and helps the local economy, with a ripple effect that benefits me, but also helps. Me. Me. Me. And my independent business too. Visa. Where you shop, matters. And now, it's time for the talk of the Northwest, The 9 to Noon Show with Greg Hughes on Island Radio. Okay, good morning. It's five minutes past nine on this Wednesday, the 15th of February, 2023. You're very welcome along to another edition of The 9 to Noon Show. Great to have you on board. Hopefully we'll keep you informed and entertained over the next three hours. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you so much for being here. The show is lined up, but we want you to have your say on various matters. As you're already doing, thank you so much indeed. And just a reminder for you folks too, and thankfully so many of you do, that listen to the repeat overnight. Maybe you're on night shifts. Some people don't sleep so well. We really appreciate you listening. It's probably what, about five or six minutes past one at the moment, maybe a bit earlier. But anyway, you can still get involved in the show the same as people who listen live do. If you're listening live, give us a call at 860-25000 and we'll pick up your texts in the morning. If you're listening live, of course, we'll get them right now. And if you're listening live, give us a call on 07491-25000. And just to remind you, of course, you have the option to watch the show on our social media, Highland Radio, Ireland on YouTube, the Facebook channels and on our website. Right. Let's look at the front of the newspaper this morning. We'll start with the Finn Valley voice, Seamus Neely, former chief executive says, the how to bring a united Ireland into being is more important than the what is or what it is. He was speaking as a panellist at the Donegal People's Assembly in a Pat Ballard Arts Theatre in Ballard Buffet on Monday evening. I'm thinking more about the how rather than the what. I think the how is about listening to communities trying to figure out where communities have already agreed they want to go to and to capture that. I'm more in the paper today on that. On to the Donegal Post this morning. More Guardian were needed on the streets of Donegal Town and its environs. That was the call from local Councillor Tom Conaghan when he addressed the issue at yesterday's meeting of the Donegal Municipal District. He tables his motion calling for additional policing resources for the town to assist out with speed limits and other traffic enforcement matters. He also tabled a question that asked for the installation of additional CCTV and an increased guard of presence to act as a deterrent to antisocial behaviour such as an incident they had during the last weekend of January. Councillor Conaghan said his motion was more precautionary than anything else but he felt it necessary to raise his concerns just in case something more serious happened down the road. The Innish Times. Objections lodged against major current owner sporting development. It's the headlines in the Innish Times there. Objections have been lodged against plans by current owner FC for a major sporting development on the outskirts of the town which is part of a three million plan to develop new facilities for the area. The club has applied to Donegal County Council to build a new two-storey clubhouse and sports hall to include changing and sharing facilities a function room and indoor training pitch at Carrickifolden. The plans also include three outdoor pitches a main grass pitch, a grass training pitch and a 3G pitch and a walking track. On to the nationals now and it's that time of the year where we find out where the government's going for St Patrick's Day listen I can see the benefit of this you know getting out and about and spreading the message that we're open for business or that we're ready to do trade and all that type of stuff but especially as we're going to read a little later on that they're looking to ban diesel and petrol cars I don't think it's a false equivalence it's just a case of it feels again like we're being told this is how we have to live our lives this is what you have to do but instead of zoom meetings or some other mechanism we've got pretty much the biggest crop of ministers flying out abroad for St Patrick's Day what's your views on this I don't want to look at it narrow-mindedly maybe we I should look at the bigger picture 08 660 25,000 is the WhatsApp and text number or call 07491 25,000 right well every cabinet minister is jetting abroad this year for what the government is calling its biggest ever St Patrick's Day trade mission unlike previous years when one or more ministers remained at home during the festive festival period all senior ministers will be flying around the world to celebrate Ireland's national day in a statement announcing the annual international jet setting international jet setting sorry I've missed where I was reading here because there's some noise coming out of my ear the international jet setting the government said the St Patrick's Day program would be celebrating 100 years of Ireland in the world Tshakliov Radkar is travelling to Washington DC while Tonastar Miho Martins flying to New York and Boston and Green Party leader Aiman Ryan well he's going to Singapore and China and we know he's not cycling Minister Charlie McConnelogue he's heading off to the far flung island of New Zealand though with everything that's going on in there at the moment they're probably more occupied with other things but as I say it would take me too long to list where everybody's going the world is going to be covered but as I say you know part of me instantly feels like sort of believing that you know do as we say not as we do but then again as I say I also am aware that some of these trade missions deliver big time for some of the industry such as farming Tesco Club Card is the power to lower prices for Pancake Tuesday The leadership of the left group in the European Parliament is to seek answers from Arlen South and McWallis after he claimed to have three wine bars in Dublin though none are on the official register of his financial interests Mr Wallis made the comment in a social media video which was posted and he said I have three wine bars in Dublin and I only sell Italian wine and I import all the products from Italy. Ownership of wine bars was not declared on the declaration of financial interest that MEPs are obliged to make under the Parliamentary Code of Conduct which was submitted as Mr Wallis took up his position in 2019 so he made those comments on a social media video posted by he's described as a hard right Italian MEP let's go to the Irish Daily Mail now and back to that story I was saying how sometimes it can feel that we're having to make all the changes but maybe those who decide what changes we have to make don't make them themselves motorists won't be able to buy any new petrol in diesel vehicles within 12 years and we'll have to switch to using expensive biofuels in old vehicles that EU has ruled. The vote in the European Parliament which was welcomed by Green Party leader and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan means a phasing out of internal combustion engine vehicles and eventually that all new motors on the market in the EU from 2035 should be zero emission vehicles so that's me not hybrids are out of the equation as well but some leading figures in the motor industry in Ireland believe the targets are a bit ambitious and a stretch Chief Executive of Fuels for Ireland Keith McParton questioned how commercially viable this move will be and logistically it just seems difficult as to how it will be implemented I mean you know will say for instance people working in the farming industry I'll take it tractors aren't interested are involved in the seas of cars but people who have to draw stuff four by fours I do know Ford and Tesla and a few other companies are starting to introduce vehicles which are good for towing I know some other electric vehicles are but you know I'm talking about heavy stuff over a distance and I've yet to see anything that can do that and I do follow that stuff really quite closely but we shall see what do you think Irish Daily Star this morning a celebrity is facing up to five years in jail if he's convicted after he was charged with three sex offences against a child the man who's in his late 30s 39s in fact was arrested and charged by specialist Garty yesterday morning four appearing in front of Judge John Brennan at Dublin District Court later in the day the man who cannot be named for legal reasons is charged with three cans of defilement of a child under the age of 17 now he's widely named on Reddit on Twitter and most people might be able to work it out but his legal team asked for his name to be withheld that has actually happened but those who know the person behind this and some letters from lawyers and what have you posted here in between some allegations and today we'll be waiting eagerly to find out how this all plays out I think also too if there is a legal obligation not to mention this person the alleged victim needs to get justice if that is how the court finds and I think naming people might feel good for the person that's doing it but has to be aware that this could be used as a defence this could be how could we get a fair trial when the person has been named contrary to a direction from the court and so on and so forth so I think anyone who is naming individuals like this it's not just this case it's other cases just be aware that you might feel that you're doing it to support the alleged victim but what in fact you are doing potentially is offering a defence to the alleged perpetrator one incident allegedly occurred on December 14th, 2010 another on a date unknown between August 2010 and before January 23rd, 2011 while the third charge was on an unknown date in 2010 evidence was given by a detective from the guard's divisional protection services unit from Kevin Street station of arrest and caution the team of specially trained officers investigate allegations of sex crimes in the South Dublin area the court was told the accused made no reply when the charges were put to him right ok let's go to the son now and a Labour deputy says many of his peers are using drugs alright ok although he doesn't do them himself I'll be honest I don't know anyone I think I have a recently sized friend group I don't know anyone that does drugs do you I really genuinely don't I'm not being cute here but this Labour deputy knows many of his peers are using drugs but maybe I'm living in some sort of a sheltered reality but I'm really genuinely I'm thinking here don't know anyone that does drugs Dublin TD Adenall Reardon said it's not just those from deprived backgrounds as all parts of society take illegal substances talking about the agenda for a new citizens assembly to examine Ireland's policies on drugs he said it's quite clear that people in all walks of life and all income brackets take drugs the difference is that people from certain income brackets or certain areas of the country or certain disadvantaged areas are the ones that end up in court so they're going to have this assembly to discuss what to do about discriminalising drugs legalising drugs we heard from an expert yesterday who has his reservations he says he deals with the physical and mental impact health impacts of people who use just cannabis and I say just cannabis because that's how it's seen alright and he says he's going to see much much more of it if they opt to decriminalise or legalise drugs and finally in the Irish Daily Mirror this is the story we were talking about yesterday in which that a town in England has seen amateur sleuths, amateur detectives TikTok detectives to descend down on this town following the disappearance of Nicola Bully well detectives searching for Nicola Bully are looking into who had permits to fish the river when she vanished near its banks the mum of 2 45 disappeared during a dog walk along the river we're on a wire on January 27th and police think she may have fallen in yesterday it emerged angling clubs have been approached about who was ticketed to be on the river around that time it follows claims two men were seen acting strangely the day before and morning Nicola vanished at St Michael's on-wire they were described as wearing dark clothing hoods or hats while also carrying fishing rods which I mean that's what it looks like you know I don't know how you act suspiciously in that situation you creep around the bank so as not to startle fish and all as well I don't know what's going on there but hopefully for the family's sake a resolution is reached very very soon right okay I'm going to remind you one more time of these numbers because there's a lot in there that you might want to comment on and we want your views so if you have any questions or questions feel free to email me at 86625,000 or call Caroline on all seven four nine one twenty five thousand feel free to drop some message on Facebook or YouTube as well because they're all in front of me right now okay I'll be back with you after a quick break Mr Blue Sky Mr Blue Sky The Lotto Jackpot is an estimated the national lottery it could be you hear that that's the sound of you saving when you drive an electric vehicle you're helping save our beautiful planet and you're saving yourself not having to pay ever-increasing fuel prices find out more about what you could save at faster evcharge.com save today and tomorrow this project has been supported by the European Union's Interreg 5a Program Ladies get in shape this year at Fitness Express Canal Road, Lederkenny with their personalised fitness and weight loss programmes Fitness Express Lederkenny 9109 Travel Zero okay you're very welcome back to the programme on to it we welcome Kathy now hi Kathy good morning to you good morning Greg and thanks very much for joining us by the way because I think you're doing a very important thing here in helping other parents and guardians and grandparents and carers to keep an eye out on these things but unfortunately it's off the back of an experience that your granddaughter had can you tell us what happened Kathy okay well I didn't know until I got a picture from my son as to what had actually happened my granddaughter she's only 13 and she got involved in a challenge that's on tiktok and she got very severely badly burned now I knew nothing about the challenge and a lot of people that I've spoke to since knew nothing about this particular challenge but the repercussions for her have been quite serious so she's been looked after at the moment I suppose she's attending the hospital every second day to get the wound changed the bandage changed on the wound now I'm looking at her little hand here and it seems but it's burnt is it yeah yeah she was badly burned now it's just her hand is all blisters you know now the skin's not broke so and I don't know what will happen when the blisters actually burst you know so she may not have any long term effects from it though should be in pain at the moment you know so is it we don't want to encourage anyone to do it but do you know what the challenge entailed can we explain that so people can keep an eye out for it oh absolutely I knew nothing about it till I went down and looked and tiktok myself actually it's very very simple ok people are encouraged to spray sanitizer on their hands and shed light to it oh no right ok yeah and the problem is is the sanitary and and a mat or a lighter or the hub in every house as well right so this is problematic for sure yeah yeah so now on the tiktok challenge you know they only pay they only spend a little bit on the palm of their hand and it goes on at light and then it goes out immediately but something went wrong for my granddaughter that the fire didn't go out and the problem is is you think I think is there's different sanitizers there's some with higher alcohol levels some with lower alcohol levels others that are more sticky and rub in and sort of leave a moisturization on your hands others that almost dry instantly and you know it's gonna be gonna have a different reaction dependent on which product you use I'm sure absolutely yeah yeah and you know because I was asking her what went wrong and she doesn't actually know what went wrong except she got she got quite badly burnt you know so and I said anybody I spoke to was not aware of this particular challenge and now their parents didn't want her parents didn't want me to actually speak out but I thought this is too serious I thought you know it's too the repercussions is too great now my little one she also has long hair her hair could have gone on fire the house could have gone on fire you know so it could have been much much worse than it actually is yeah for sure and I think and I can understand I can understand Kathy while why people might be reluctant to speak out but you're doing a great thing and I'll tell you why because people will be able to be to speak to the young people and say by the way we've heard about this video on tiktok or wherever make sure that you don't do it and I think you're doing a great service today. Yeah well can I tell you about my ignorance on that Greg I had I had three of my grand daughters with me at the weekend and they were flicking lighters and I never paid any heat because there's a lighter there so that's normal enough to flick it but they were actually playing with this whole idea with me you know and I got such a shock afterwards I said because I was ignorant on my behalf but you know I didn't ask them what they were doing or you know and never occurred to me that they would be doing anything other than flick a lighter you know so and there's a part of me I was so glad it didn't happen whether it were with me because I remember too right back at the start when everyone started using hand sanitizer there were I don't think it happened very often but there were stories going around of people say in church light and candles and their hands you know they had sanitizer on their hands now I don't know if that ever really happened but I would say it was probably born from those type of stories but this is the latest challenge and I think we all have to keep an eye out here now because I remember there was that other challenge I don't know if you remember it but it spread differently I won't describe how it is in case it happens but it involved one child pushing on another totally passed out right and it used to come in cycles I don't know if you remember that and it used to spread around in schools but you could probably see it was going on you maybe heard the whispers and what have you also adults don't really know how these challenges are spreading on the likes of tiktok and that's why it's important I think we're aware there was other challenges where you were challenged Kathy to go missing you know to see how long you could go missing and there was a whole state of teenagers going missing and then turning up and causing great stress and anxiety so this is another one of those Kathy and fingers crossed you we granddaughters hand now fully fully recovers but an awful shock for everyone absolutely absolutely and again just I think for me it's just that ignorance that I have not been aware you know but it's really it's switched me on in a different way than I've ever been switched on you know I've heard so many negative things about tiktok but could never well as most stuff that I look at a tiktok would be very very different or they never ever was aware of this element see this is this is the thing about tiktok and this is the amazing thing about it but also the problem with it in that very very quickly if you're on it it will tailor the feed to what you like and if you sort of get bored or something it recognizes that and will start giving you different things so for me it might be clips about stand-up comedy or cars or electric cars or stuff I'm interested in but for my son it could be completely different it could be Andrew Tate it could be these these challenges you know and it's all directed to them completely different so I'd be and you are Kathy completely unaware of what they're viewing we're not all looking at the same stuff absolutely yeah yeah and I see them now it's been very very vulnerable you know to these challenges and peer pressure as well you know that they would actually you know egg each other on I mean that we did things when we were young but nothing like what the young are doing today you know yeah but what when you when you when you sort of if I asked you when you were 10 Kathy what do you want to be right you would probably say a nurse or a non-even or or a scientist no but you know what I mean you would you know but now you ask a lot of young people what they want to do they want to be YouTube famous they want to be a YouTuber they want to be TikTok famous how many views they get in the video means way more to them I can't really there's no technology I can put across from when I was 10 but it means everything it's like celebrity to them and they will do that you know they might go against their better judgment to try and achieve that and that's where they can be exploited by these types of trends and that's what's worrying Kathy and that's why we have to stay in the ball I suppose absolutely you know and so for me it's about alerting other parents and grandparents just to the type of challenges or if they do see their young click in a lighter or with a match you know to think differently than oh because that was me they're just like a lighter and never thought anything more about it you know so and it is the vulnerability of our youth you know and I suppose yeah we just need to switch on a little bit more to what they're actually doing Hey Kathy you described it as vulnerability of the youth it's kind of a vulnerability of us older people as well because absolutely yeah absolutely absolutely shock is what I was left with for I would say two days you know that happened on Sunday evening you know so I was left with shock you know and I'm speaking to the little one I'm sort of more of these you know and just again it's like not getting out you know it's like accepting accepting that vulnerability and the fact that she was just experimenting you know yeah and you can't warn people you know until you see something you know that's why I put up the picture on my Facebook page because if I just said to people it's just a burn but you know when you actually see it's significant and there's a lot of blisters there on our wee hand as well but she'll bounce back really really quickly from that don't you know because she's so healthy so I was in touch with a burn healer as well so that will help with the pain Cathy obviously a very caring grandmother so fair play and well done because you're going to alert other people to the same danger so you did a good job today thank you Greg thank you very much indeed Thanks very much okay I call it says it must be one of the older bottles of sanitizer because I believe they've took the alcohol out of it now I'm not really sure but I think a lot of us I think a lot of us have quite a few bottles of the old sanitizer lying around anyway apparently they took the alcohol out of it because people were drinking it I don't know never heard of that either but again I'm starting to think I'm incredibly naive all together Councillor Michael McClafty was on to say fair play to Cathy for speaking out hopefully it'll save a child and it this behaviour in the bud also having the bottles in your car all day especially in the heat he says is very dangerous okay right let us go to a couple of your comments here I haven't heard tell of this one the caller wants to know when did it come in that a speed van could do you for no tax really this is quite worrying is that such a thing right speed vans apparently according to this listener and it must be through their experience was done for no tax by a camera in the speed van is that the truth oh wait I'm not saying it's not the truth but you know what I mean it's hard to believe 08 660 25,000 WhatsApps and texts to that number or give us a call on 07 491 25,000 the 9 till noon show with letter Kenny credit union do you need to switch your current account or loan we are now offering my cu current account and debit mastercard bringing full banking features and competitive rates with your loans connect hearing is open for free hearing tests our audiologist is available Monday to Friday for wax removal services at a letter Kenny clinic in the courtyard shopping centre we also offer a home visit for those who are unable to visit us our hearing is a social sense are you finding hearing more of a challenge call Ursula today on 07 491 13296 to make an appointment good hearing helps us to connect to our family friends and loved ones connect hearing connecting you to life guess what what larkins of new mills are offering an early bird special for only 695 Monday to Friday from 12pm to 4pm a full menu is available 7 days per week along with daily lunch specials and any time to larkins of new mills or 407 491 to double 697 and at our family look after yours sick of missing out on the exciting bits with national broadband Ireland's high-speed fiber broadband network being delivered to over 560,000 premises around the country everyone can enjoy the biggest sporting events films and TV with no glitches and no freezing never miss another kick find out more at nbi.i nbi building a limitless Ireland supported by the government of Ireland okay you're very welcome back to the 9 till noon show and we're joined in studio now by canceller park mccarvey how does that sound park can you pull forward just for me a little bit there good man so you took over on Monday how big a day was Monday for you right sorry one second everything try that yep we're good big day Greg every button has been pressed on this part we're actually finally now back to normal okay so big day yeah big day great day and Monday everything went well very proud day for me and my family and Ian as well to be able to hand over the suit to me how long has this sort of potentially been in the offering like when was it first discussed I mean I don't mean asking for private info but do you know how long have been considering whether or not this might be for you well there was never no pressure on me Greg Ian came to me about about two years ago when he said I would have been interested in it and I said I would I'll definitely think about it and thought about it and when the time came he came to me and I decided you know it was the right time I'm 34 years of age and I see the problems that face people on a daily basis and just like to hit the ground and see how you go on because it's some would say it's a thankless enough task you know in that you become a lightning rod for you know people's complaints and what have you and then you also have to balance the role with family life and your working life you know so it's it's something I have to give good consideration to I think yeah definitely but it's something that I've thought about and I think it's going to fit in well and I'm dealing with people on a daily basis and meeting people in the area I'm in and thankfully I think it's going to work out well Now you'll serve obviously in the Nadekeli Milford Municipal District I mean other I think we're all probably aware of the problems in terms of housing and health and roads and infrastructure and investment and are you across all of those issues is the things that are particularly important to you yeah well definitely like everything that you've mentioned there is things that day-to-day problems there's problems with and every day there's a different problem so things like the housing and I know there's a very shortage of housing at the minute but hopefully in the time to come that this will be sorted out so Now listen sorry to get into straight into a tough question part but you know that's kind of my job here it's not long now until the next election right so you've got a you're well known I'm sure by a lot of people but you know there's a bit of work to be done there presuming you're going to stand for election in the next election of course is that as an independent or you leave in your options open in terms of maybe joining a political party maybe you yourself feel that you're aligned to a particular party or that you could get more done as part of a political party No definitely not I think I'm going to stick as an independent and be able to stand on my own two feet and speak for myself and support the people as an independent going forward one of the biggest issues of course we've kind of mentioned it here is the issue of defective concrete this is something that you know all about yeah definitely I'm affected myself my own house has it and I see the frustration that that's put that the people has I see the frustration that people has going through exactly and it's firsthand and make action group and all them people we probably wouldn't be at the stage we are without their support and my support is with them as well 100% and it needs a lot of work I mean even the complexities of it I don't know how any normal person in inverted commas is supposed to navigate you know what I mean we can talk about the headlines in terms of you know people they're being shortfall and delays and all that type of stuff but even just the technical nature of it it's not really customer friendly it's almost as if it's designed to be hard to navigate it's definitely dragged out it's dragging its heels and I think everybody's just at the end of their tellers and I think that a communication to the people wouldn't go on us and a bit more support for people going forward obviously you're stepping into the shoes well you're your own man by the way but you know it's just the way we speak but you are replacing you know a legend of politics you know and someone who's got very strong views on you know quite a number of things are you similar in character or are you just your own way of going on I will definitely I would be in similarity in the problems that he things that he fought for would be things that I would be keen to support and and a legend as you said he's had a hard work this past 18 years and the commitment he gave to the people was none other than the best and I hope to continue that commitment to the people because you would have an insight in speaking to him a lot of the work that's expected of a counsellor that goes on yes I mean your phone really needs to be on all the time if you don't answer a call or you decide I'm having this weekend off but people need you very quickly and especially with social media now you're like well that part guy doesn't answer his phone do you know what I mean like it's tough isn't it it's a tough one to take and I don't think we in the general population might be fully aware of that the demands on you the calls that you're receiving all the time and sometimes you're down to do and you're down to do you don't yeah well that's true but my phone's always on and I'm there for the help of people who needs it and every day is a great and your people's problems will be my learning and the next person comes I hope to be able to help them out yeah good stuff you haven't attended a full council meeting yet there was a special meeting on Monday and the MD meeting on Tuesday yesterday so how did you find the MD meeting my sat on official and the public gallery and a couple of previous meetings and I think the knowledge that you learn at them as something else as well you know it's something that you're carrying with you and hopefully at each meeting that I can learn and you know yeah I'm sure it's a lot as you say every day is a learning day will you be tapping into Ian's expertise or are you just going to play this for all alone not with them Ian's expertise is well good to be offered whether you want to be offered and he's greatly appreciated because I'm lucky to have him around and the knowledge he has or something else I'd like to congratulate on becoming a counsellor a very proud day for his family and friends huge congratulations from column Sandy London I wish you all the best in the new role and best of luck Mark McGinley and Jenny and Cara Gard congratulations power good luck for your future as a counsellor Trisha Deaney in Salt Pansworth Mullen so good to hear a young man taking up the challenge for his county the best of luck in a very thankless job Brian and Men's shed would like to wish Park all the best going forward and look forward to welcome him to visit us here at the Men's shed some nice messages coming in for you the support of them the support I've got Greg over the past couple of days has been remarkable and I'd just like to thank everybody for my fellow counsellors as well that said lovely words in the chamber and all the messages received cards and thanks very much it's greatly appreciated I'll ask you where you think this might all go for you like do you have real strong political ambitions even maybe beyond the counsellor is it a case of just getting there seeing what you can get done or what's the story I'd just like to hit the ground runner now and learn as much as I can for the next 15 months or the most such something that's new to me it's a new you know but I can't say that the future is going to at TD or anything like that I'd just like to support my local people and that's something I'd like to do going forward as I say I respect all the counsellors because it's not a job I personally would you know like well I think it's a tough job but I presume it's very rewarding as well at the same time but listen we wish you the best of luck in the next 15, 14, 15 months and then we'll chat to you of course over that period of time and then as we head into the local elections the end of next year I think isn't all right listen thanks very much the best of luck to you big old shoes to fill in former counsellor Ian McGarvey's The Ninth All-New Show is brought to you by Letter Kenny Credit Union offering low-rate car loans with fast approval apply online at letterkennycu.ie or in office today for over 20 years Carzone has been the trusted name in Ireland's motoring marketplace bringing one million car buyers and sellers together every month and now buying or selling a car has never been easier on Carzone with expert tools and advice download the Carzone app or check out Carzone.ie Carzone, Ireland's trusted motoring marketplace I've lost my car keys lost my car once in a multi-story lost my patience my hair lost that a while back but this week I found things I thought had gone forever the crackle of needle on vinyl leaves crunching I found them all at SpecsAvers I got free hearing aids with PRSI and now those sounds are back so's my jar de vivre still can't find those keys though book a free hearing test today terms and conditions apply see our website for details I've just had the Eclipse Cinema's experience wow they truly have taken a night at the movies to a whole new level amazing recliner chairs directors lounge VIP rooms pizza and hot food served to your seat have a glass of wine and enjoy the film on the big screen try it for yourself at Eclipse Cinema's Bundorn and Lifford Sturban where the stars shine brighter by the way the pizzas are amazing you can book your seat anytime at EclipseCinemas.ie don't just take off, take it easy mostly dry weather and spells of hazy sunshine developing for a time this morning however during the afternoon a spell of rain will begin to edge into Atlantic counties extending nationwide later this evening, highest temperatures of 9 to 11 degrees in moderate to fresh south west winds I think a bit of drier weather though is on the way right okay best look to park a few people already messaging in will you be attending the protest on the 21st as a counsellor he is indeed okay counsellor Donal Mandy Kelly's the mayor of the letter Kenny Milford municipal district he joins us on the program now good morning to you Donal good morning Greg and good morning to all your listeners there good to have you on right you're disappointed I mean there's a big roads announcement announced a project funding announcement yesterday you're disappointed at some elements that are absent in your view and I just want to watch them all the best great time to be there you don't want them and I know and I know connections well is my full support making sure that go forward get a sports to suppose as he said himself get a sports school day yesterday there and be and you know we baptism of fire baptism of fire I've had a lot of fire but you're good to experience that your first day as well I can say on my first day I was I experienced the same so it was good to get a little side but lesson Greg back to what you what you asked me there yeah lesson Greg I suppose yesterday I want to welcome the announcement of funding that was allocated throughout the M.D. there's a substantial amount of foreign roads and bridges and I suppose before I do start to get on to it Greg I would do I want to welcome that 25,000 has been allocated to Mineroy bridge to get the ball rolling lessons those bridges you know I have been lobbying about for the last to suppose probably 20 months trying to get the safety concerns of the general public at rest and a concern to have myself and lesson with that said Greg although I just step in the right direction that was given and I suppose that's what I'm frustrated about you know when you say that are you disappointed in the council in that maybe the council pitched too low rather than sort of disappointed in the department that allocated this money yeah well Greg I'll be quite honest I'm disappointed in the council yes you know I was told last year that this bridge would get funded after lobby and hard to have it funded and when the allocation was enacted I went through the list and Mineroy wasn't mentioned in it so I then pushed and lobbied and got the bridge priorities number one for this for 2022 I'm done to this year and I was given a commitment that an application would be put forward for the full amount of funding ahead of the specific grants allocations which was announced yesterday to address the safety concerns have the bridge widened and have a duty constructed because to be quite honest the bridge isn't dire state and you know I was made aware then Greg has voted on the final hour if you like that application that was put forward that our own I can't say I'm not going to start naming departments but I'll just say that our own council didn't put the allocation through for the full amount of funding that was supposed to be requested and then to just find out then yesterday morning when I went through the allocations that all was funded were to Mineroy was $25,000 and as I say Greg as much as the $25,000 is welcomed it's not going to address the issues and the concerns of the allocations out there and the people that use this road daily and that's something that will be you know what went wrong then well Greg I suppose to go back to the start when I first brought this issue up I was I had Minister McCormick on the bridge I had a road supervisor a road executive and more recently I had a director of roads out looking at it and we're all the same opinion that this need to be addressed but I was led to believe at the time that a design was done up for this bridge and it was a matter of securing the funding for it so as I say no funding came last year so with the priorities number one this year we've had directors in a row at our January meeting that all nice was dotted and pieces crossed and that an application was put forward for the fall following to have this bridge reconstructed and widened and the response I got that was the council was happy with that application put forward and that the secure the funding that the design there was a design in place then I was told there wasn't a design in place but then when I dug deeper I was told there actually was a design in place but when the inspector came down from the department of transport that he had requested that the design in place wasn't adequate or wasn't good enough and now if that was the case Greg that's well and good but I was kept in the dark and that wasn't until I dug deeper into this which is certainly not good enough for me and that's the reason that I have requested now as well to see the inspector's report because I want to see first hand what he put down because it was quite honest Greg I can't see how the inspector would pass this bridge as being safe because you know the side of the bridge there's it looks like it's about to give way on one side if the truth be told to the point where they've stuck cones and barriers in there now I'm looking at an older picture here whether or not that's changed since I don't know a lot of different types of traffic heavy goods traffic on this bridge as well do you fear it's going to collapse? what is your principal concern with it? I do fear that because I've got a traffic counter set up on that bridge last year and the volume of heavy traffic reduced on this road it's unbelievable and you know the bridge itself if you like it's an old type bridge that's been there for I don't know in many years long before my time but it's a concrete slab bridge on the top where the traffic was down the traffic and the steel is actually exposed underneath and you can see it rusted and you know that's just my fear and I mean my fear truly is that a first bridge collapses that's why I've been lobbying so hard to have the fund secured for this and have it for the rest because I hope it doesn't come to that because at the end of the day Greg this was the main artery and to the north 250 and to Funtown down low, Durbury Glemte, Stardra and I mean a first bridge would collapse there's only two routes around to get in to by Leitha Kinner heading for Derry or Oma or Dublin that direction which you'll have to go number one over La Barra which definitely is not capable of taking lorries because it's an arrow road another alternative is heading around by your own country they're going to go all town and Gilly Beigdex going to go all town and back on the Leitha Kinner and that's something I don't want to see happening and that's why I've asked for a detailed report I've asked for another safety assessment to be carried out in this bridge as well and for the party come back and be put in front of Michelle and elected members because I'm eager to have a safety report to be carried out to see what comes back really and what is kind of frustrating is 75,000 was applied by the council 25,000 were given I think you wanted that to be more in the region of 400,000 or perhaps a third of that would have been given which would have been a significant improvement we'll watch with interest to see if there's anything that's disappointing there was a lot of good stuff in that which you've recognised as well but right okay there's a lot of good stuff going on there there's Funtown for instance there an active travel of 415,000 and again there too and this recent announcement there's a 115,000 allocated and that's a very welcomed announcement on the Funtown and it's great to see it and the day Greg this is a main artery and this bridge collapses what's the point in spending over half a million plus on Funtown when we're only able to secure 25,000 of the main bridge to get onto it and that's the first date in part I know after lobbying about this again since the announcement came out an engineer is set to be back on Funtown this morning at the bridge on the road to Jacob to knuckle down to see what this is but Greg my role as an elected member as you represent the people to the best of my ability and that has taken their concern to the table and that is something I have done in the last 20 months in this bridge and I believe that it's the role of Dunningall County Council to act on what I bring to the table and on this instance I don't think that's the case and that's what I'm first dated about and that does continue much longer because of the stretch that I see that's going to cause mayhem and the people I like Greg, I'm going to keep portion on this to ask you a more fun part because I do believe that's not the part of it Councillor Kelly just the same question being put to you as others are you attending the protest or if it's a protest or demonstration or meeting down in Dublin on the 21st isn't it unfortunately Greg as you know I'm the Mayor of the Kenny Mulford Municipal District and my schedule is very heavy at the moment and very strongly booked up I've actually seen engagements on that date as well Greg so I'm not going to be fat to attend but I wish all well that I was going up the road and one other question too on the four lanes I don't want to throw this one on you but how many traffic crossings do you see on the whole store road when everyone when everyone thought the central barrier was from one end to another do you know how many crossings there are from between the two roundabouts pedestrian crossings Greg, you've got me there but as far as I mind it's three I can't be 100% sure but we can check into that and on the four lanes I reached an update there on the next couple of weeks ago they are finally hitting their targets and listen let's hope it continues to do so it is well on their way there at the moment and I know I was very critical of the four lanes there because it was too slow I'm not going to go back to my word it was too slow but after we did apply pressure on it listen the contact is there have up their game and they have that updated to say that they're confident that they're meeting the time frame now but it's something I won't keep an eye on my information is a little different but you are the person in contact with them so we'll leave it at that Councillor Donald Mandikelli thank you thanks Greg take care of yourself alright thanks very much indeed alright thanks to Councillor Kelly for pushing the bridge issue meaning Roy along with the obvious structural issues this bridge is too narrow and is another accident waiting to happen as traffic on either side don't know who should yield to especially if meeting a larger vehicle well I always go down the line of the man with the road holds the load if you know what I mean or the man with the load holds the road or the man or woman with the load holds the road I wouldn't be taking them on that bridge but I do understand what you're saying it should be made clear or more clear perhaps for those who may not be fully aware was wondering to many listeners use three phone lines and what's their views my air bill is so expensive I want to change to use three phone lines your phone bill shouldn't be expensive there's lots of competition out there in the market by the way and you can I don't know what you're paying currently but if it's anything over 35 euro you're being fleeced because there are much cheaper options in and around the 35 40 euro it's ironic that Minister Ryan's flying to Singapore I wonder what's his carbon footprint will be the problem with these junkets is that these people never submit any report on what benefit the trip achieved it's too easy to say we met with some big business leaders with a view to achieving investment in Ireland just like school there should be immediate analysis of the benefits of these trips well listen there was heavy scrutiny rightly so of say for instance the Donegal County Council's trips abroad now in fairness to them they changed the policies in recent years where a full report is made available of who met, who were and for why so certainly at a local level you can get that information now it seems far fewer people travel from local authorities than it did in the past I'm not sure if that comes from that minister's office or any other minister's office but we'll certainly have a look at it when the time comes stay where you are a quick break for the news and obituary notices at Shannan airport we know what makes a dream holiday it's not just a huge choice of destinations like Chicago, Paris, Paris, London, London, London, London, London, London, London, London, London, London, Paris, Newcastle, Naples, Barcelona and Porto, it's the unique features that make getting through our airport a dream. 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This may affect your credit rating, which may limit your ability to access credit in the future. Credit unions in the Republic of Ireland are 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 Irish 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. Air online and on the Highland Radio app. This is Highland Radio News. Good morning, it's Donna Marie Doherty with the news at 10 o'clock. The motion, good morning, it's Donna Marie Doherty bringing you the 10 o'clock news. A Dunny Gall grandmother is appealing to young people to be wary of TikTok challenges after her granddaughter's hand was left severely burned. After attempting the hand sanitizer challenge, Kathy O'Connor's 13-year-old granddaughter needs to go to hospital every second day in order to get her third degree burns dressed on her hand. Kathy says she's trying to raise awareness among parents and young people about the potential dangers these challenges can have. My granddaughter, she's only 13, and she got involved in a challenge that's on TikTok and she got very severely badly burned. Now I knew nothing about the challenge and a lot of people that I've spoke to since knew nothing about this particular challenge. People are encouraged to spray sanitizer on their hands and shed light to it. But something went wrong for my granddaughter that the fire didn't go out. The mayor of Letter Kenny Milford Municipal District says he's highly disappointed at the lack of adequate funding for the Mineroy Bridge and this week's regional roads allocation. Councillor Donald Mandi Kelly says he was surprised to hear the council had applied for 75,000 euro when he believes 400,000 euro should have been applied for. He says surprise turned to anger when the bridge was just allocated 25,000 euro. Councillor Kelly says he was told there was no design in place but was then told there may have been a design that was subsequently not accepted by an inspector. He told members and officials that he wants to see the inspector's report and is calling for immediate safety of review of the bridge. I fear for the people that's using this road daily that this bridge is not safe and that's why I've asked now for a safety audit to be carried out in this bridge and to be presented in front of myself and the members and listen if the safety order comes back and determines that the bridge is stable and it's adequate well we'll have to look at it again and see how we seek funding but I do firmly believe that that safety audit and assessment will come back that this bridge needs workers and matter of urgency. The social protection minister Heather Holmfries says Deputy Pair Stardee's dull motion on a spring bonus and cost of living supports was nothing more than a political stunt. It was tabled by Sinn Fein's finance spokesperson amid claims the coalition is out of touch and has failed to tackle the crisis. Minister Holmfries says no political party or person has a monopoly on compassion. She told the dull government recognizes the real challenges people are facing and has acted. To listen to the deputy's opposite you swear that we hadn't done a tap and that we've sat on our hands for the last two years and done nothing to help. The reality is since this government was formed it has more than any government in the history of the state put in place billions of euro in measures to protect and support our people. However Deputy Dardee told the dull that every analysis published in recent weeks and months shows that the situation is now more bleak than it ever has been and those in lower incomes are disproportionately affected. Those in lower incomes that spend a greater proportion of their income on essentials such as energy and on food and those essentials have seen the steepest rise in costs over the past year and more and they're pushing households to the brink. Minister workers and families have stretched and they've managed their income to the last cent but there comes a point for every single family where there's nothing left to cut and that's what we're seeing today in many families right across the state an increase in hardship and financial difficulties and in poverty. And now for where they're mostly dry with spells of busy sunshine developing for a time this morning. However during the afternoon a spell of rain will begin to edge into the region with highest temperatures of 9 to 11 degrees in moderate fresh southwest winds. That's all for now back again with more headlines at 11 o'clock. There you are. The originals is for this Wednesday morning the 15th of February. The death has occurred of Mary Doherty, Neyma Ginty, Karik McGraw, Balibah Faye. Remains reposing at her residence. Funal from there tomorrow morning at half past ten for Rukwio Mass in St Mary's Church, Sesha O'Neill at 11 o'clock followed by interment in the adjoining churchyard. The Rukwio Mass will be streamed live via the parish YouTube channel. To nations in lieu of flowers if desired to the Donegal Hospice directly or care of any family member. And the death has occurred of Frederick David Russell, Kevin Upper, Kelly Gordon. Funeral leaving his late residence this afternoon at quarter past one for service of Thanksgiving in Strunaller Presbyterian Church at two o'clock with burial afterwards in the Church of Ireland Churchyard Strunaller. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu if desired to the Donegal Downs Syndrome Association directly or care of any family member. The house is private to family and close friends only please at the request of the deceased. For more details including any family health guidelines for wigs and funerals please go to highlandradio.com. Now you're very welcome back to the program and apologies just for some slight technical difficulties there. We've overcome all now so I hope you do understand but when a computer goes to put there's not an awful lot you can do but we do appreciate your patience and we do apologize. Okay let us see we have loads coming up over the next couple of hours. Please stay with us. I'll wait 660, 25,000. You WhatsApp's in text to that number. We'll give us a call in 07491 25,000. The caller says I'm a sheep farmer. Our sheep are two euro a kilo less than lamb in France. We get 660 they get 880. The French government look after their farmers more than our government. Our market is now being flooded with New Zealand lamb and surprise, surprise where's our minister for agriculture going? Charlie McConnelogue off to New Zealand for St Patrick's Day. He's off to bring more ruin to Irish farmers not to mention the environmental impact this has. I'm sure if he wanted to say it on the program he might argue something different. We were talking yesterday about the negative impact cannabis smoking is having on an awful lot of young people's lives here in Donegal. A caller says I've been a heavy cannabis smoker for over 16 years and it turned me into something I wasn't. I had more anger issues and I turned nasty on family and friends. I pushed everyone that cared for me away. It was all fun and games at the start, but it's grown into a serious addiction. I hope you get that you are seeking the help and getting the help that you need. Greg, is there anything more important for our cancers to be at rather than being at the micro protest? Come on and show some support and solidarity with the people who need the support. Councillor Donald Mandi Kelly needs to prioritise his engagements as the defective concrete block crisis unfolds and causes more and more devastation, devastating consequences on a daily basis. The voice of Donegal needs to be represented by our local representatives to ensure equality with those living in Dublin. We all have our commitments and engagements but must put our shoulder to the wheel to minimise the devastation and trauma caused by the biggest crisis of our time. What engagement is more important than that to Councillor Kelly. Now, I don't know if he's going into schools or opening something or whatever it might be on those days. He says he's got three engagements but he says he offers his best wishes to all going up. For some, that's not going to be enough. For others, they might understand, but that's not for me to determine. That's up to you, the listener. Hi, Greg. What's the big iron things coming down on the left side of the carnage? The carnage way, that's... I don't think they meant to say that. The carriageway in Leicicani can explain what they are. It's shuttering really. It's to stop the bank giving way into the river. It's a temporary solution. The long term solution is similar but obviously more refined and prettier to look at, is my understanding. But at the moment, they are shoring up that side of the road until such time as the permanent replacement goes in. What about the road that the council did leaving Dunlop to Fintan? If you meet a lorry, you'd never get around it. It's a mess. Okay. Hi there. Just to make people aware, my daughter did that TikTok trend but used perfume instead of sanitizer. Anything alcohol-based can work. Now we're not giving people ideas here and that's not the motivation of the texture but apparently they must be in these videos telling people to go and find anything with alcohol and which will include maybe alcohol itself, you know, brandy or something as well. So don't just focus on sanitizer. The trend will encourage people to put anything alcohol-based on their hand and light it so they could have the same negative impacts that we had from that we heard there from that listener a little later on or a little earlier on. Okay, let us take a break. Good luck if you're playing the bingo numbers today. Hopefully fingers crossed now everything works well. Here we go. There you are at the counter in your local shop to pay for a coffee and a bun, a little midweek treat and why not? Only to look up and see the display of scratch cards and you think, why not treat yourself to an all-cash scratch card too? A win really would be the icing on the cake. With millions in cash prizes to be won instantly, the next time you're in store, ask for any all-cash scratch card. The National Lottery. It could be you. It's time for NCBI bingo on Highland Radio. It's Wednesday the 15th of February. You're playing on the blue sheet. The reference number is as 13. It's game number seven. The numbers are 72, 29, 63, 68, 8, 57, 40, 37, 18 and finally, 20. Phone your claim to 9104833 before 8 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 HighlandRidio.com. General Insurance is limited. Trading as Hickey Clark and Lankin is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. The Chirconnell Blackface Sheep Readers Association 11th annual female show and sale will take place this Friday 17th at Milford Mart. Please note the change of venue. The show is at four with the sale at 7.30pm. 37 in-lam yos and 16 dry-hugged yos, Perth and Lanark type with online bidding available on the LSL app. That's this Friday at Milford Mart. The 9 till noon show with Letter Kenny Credit Union, now offering mortgages from 40,000 to 600,000 euro with no hidden fees or transaction charges. Letter Kenny Credit Union 9102127. Okay, now a new farming group blocks to form, but it claims without the influence of other farm organisations. Liam McLaughlin is a Donegal farmer. He joins us now. Liam, thanks very much for taking the call. Hello Greg, how's it going? Things are going good, right. Okay, why do we need another farming organisation? We do have quite a few. Well, first off Greg, it's not about another farming organisation. This is actually a meeting that's set up for farmers. And basically, it's a fact-finding mission from farmers, you know what I mean? And most farmers across the country in the feedback we're getting do not feed representatives at the moment, neither by TDs or organisations or anything else. You know, we're basically seem to be hung out to dry at the moment. You see, you see more forestation coming away. They're looking for 80% more forestry and rewetting and maybe a reduction in the national sector here and things like that. You know, there's a lot of bad things coming away and a lot of farmers had concerns. I run a group there called Ireland's Farm Discussion Group. There's over 10,000 on it at the moment. And the idea was just put to the group and basically, the messages started coming in and the feedback and the phone calls. So we decided to run with this meeting, but we didn't agree to a group or anything else. So we're just going to see what comes out of this meeting and seems to be great feedback at the moment, getting calls from all over the country as far as Cork works for it over who else in relation to it. Now I think IFA yesterday, exactly along the lines of what you were saying, we're talking about the targets. They talked about an uprising effectively in rural Ireland. So they're taking a heartline on this. So they're the exact same issues that you identified. So is there a mistrust or a distrust with the IFA and the word with you and others? Listen, Greg, I'm not going to say any groups running the gap. We've got the problem in Ireland at the moment is we have too many groups and we haven't enough support for any one of them to have any real impact. And we don't seem to have any groups working together. And we have a kind of divide created at the moment among farmers, you know what I mean? So this idea now is basically no groups, bring the farmers into a room. Everybody's a farmer. Nobody's a member of this group, that group, the ungroup. And we're hoping that farmers themselves can come together and come up with some new fresh thinking, new ideas, you know what I mean? It's a new approach to it. Yeah. But even though you don't call it an association, an organization or a group, when you get a large amount of people into the same room and they come up with a series of bullet points, there comes a point in an organized where you have to progress that, you know, or else you don't assume you don't want to talk in shop. That is right. Well, we're open to ideas, but I'll say one thing, Greg, and that is that after the suggestion of a group, and we decide to put a group together, it'll be, it'll be a military run operation, and there will be no profiteering or anything like that out of it. There'll be no bike salaries. I would, if I was to suggest anything, I would suggest a nonprofit organization for farmers. Yeah. And basically, you know, there is possibilities. There's options. There's hundreds of options, like you can go onto the line of purchase groups. You can get savings on products. There's all sorts of possibilities, but basically, we're going to leave it to the farmers and we're going to take whatever feedback we get from that room. And there's quite a group of us, like there's a lot of good people behind it and a lot of friends that I have down around south and all around the country. And we will then decide whether we go south with another meeting or come up north here with a meeting. And that is basically the plan. Yeah. I've heard concerns from farmers, I've talked to them on a regular basis and everyone has different views. But one thing I hear quite often is that there's a sense that maybe the smaller farmer is being sacrificed here, that there might be a consolidation that whatever farming that continues in this country might be done by a small group and to hell with the rest. Is that part of a problem that you see? Do you see that as a potential issue down the line as we see this reform? I think the small farmer as a kind of an easy target at the moment, but listen, there's things coming the small farmers way. But if you're a large farmer, don't be thinking there's nothing coming your way because there is, you know what I mean? When they're targeting a small low-input farmer, like you know what I mean? And the small farmer is doing very little pollutant and then you have the larger farms and I have nothing against larger farms, you know what I mean? Now, when they're targeting the likes of the average farm across Ireland, they're definitely going to target the larger farms later on and they're going to be more easily targeted whenever there's less of them. And what's interesting about this? The larger farmer needs to remember that the smaller farmer is supplying the stock to them. Like, you know, it's the small farmers around the country with six, eight, 12 cows, things like that are supplying the beef men with finishing stock, you know, and basically farmers are kind of like, we're a gear, we're a gear on a machine, you know what I mean? Like we're supplying stock on up to the larger farmers and the finishing units and things like that. And one can't really work without the other, you know? Yeah. And it's an interesting premise going into this meeting because very clearly, and it's been put very nicely as well too, but it's a, it's pretty direct. We respectfully ask no input from current farming organizations or groups. So this is people with no affiliation. And we have one organization on there standing up preaching or, you know what I mean? Like, there's going to be people against them and it causes unrest in the room, you know what I mean? Like, and we want this to be a calm kind of a meeting, you know what I mean? Like, and just to keep a good atmosphere in the thing. And we believe this is the only way to do it. Like, and that's not, if you're a member of other organizations, you're welcome to come, but don't come preaching their policies to us like, you know, because this is all about farmers and just farmers, dating with farmers, you know, to see, to see if there is anything can be come up with. Yeah, but I also get the impression from you, Liam, that you don't want this to be a talking shop, that from it you want to come up with proposals, solutions, ideas, whatever way you've mentioned some of them, bulk buying or even maybe, you know, protests or targeted protests or what have you. I mean, I presume it's all on the table. As I say, I'm basically going on myself into that room, and I have no plan, but I intend to come out. I intend to come out, either with a plan or no plan, and, you know, we'll go down there and we'll run the meeting as best we can. There's some very good people behind it, good speakers and everything else. And if this is a success, if it's a success, I'll come up the road happy enough and we'll take the next step. And if it's not a success, I'll come up the road happy enough. And I say, we have tried. Yeah, but do you want to be too interested in hearing people complaining then if the members of other farming groups, if they seem happy enough or the way things are going. The meeting is in Athlone. It's in the Athlone Springs Hotel Sunday, the 19th of February at 2 p.m. All sectors are welcome. That's the message, is it? And there's a contact number here, which I can read out if people want to find a pen and paper. Yeah, that's my own contact. Right, okay. As I say, I'm just the person put out in front because we have a Facebook group there and there's $10,000 and it was a kind of suggested that it was the idea platform to get it out there. You know what I mean? Reach is also like all different types of people, of course. All right. Okay, well, listen, we look forward to hearing what comes from the meeting, I think, because I think there's going to be people that are motivated to travel to Athlone are going to have their opinions and they're going to have their concerns and they're going to have their plans of action. So it'll be interesting, an interesting one to chair anyway, whoever has that role as well. All right, safe journey down and we'll see what comes from it. Thanks for your time. Listen, thanks very much, Greg. All right, good luck to you. Liam McLaughlin there, who's a Donegal sheep farmer and let's just say the few bulletin points here, a call for change is here, farmers want their voices heard. We respectfully ask for no input from current farming organizations or groups, let's stand together for change. Together we can make a change. The Facebook group, I think Liam mentioned it, need 10,000 members already. It'll be interesting to see the turnout at the Athlone Springs Hotel on Sunday the 19th of February at 2pm. And they say it's organized by farmers for farmers. Last week's here to the ground said how there were over 65,000 lambs imported from Northern Ireland and England. Farming groups are same as politicians, not much use they believe. That's what they said, not me. Had a farmer's field with headlines today that large stores are announcing that they'll be selling less meat into the future. Well, that's it, isn't it? Right. Some warnings here and I posted two on my Facebook page and just to get it out there. So people understand what's going on and people are well intended. There's a lot of groups being accessed and people are putting up fake posts of missing persons. And I have a serious problem with that in that people are sharing them in goodwill. And then when the likes of me who I would make sure I get proper sources for the information, put up a missing persons, they might be less inclined to share it. And that's a nightmare because we all work together to get people home or dogs, you know, a dog has been found in Balibah Faye. And there's a picture of a dog bleeding. And people share instantly. But what happens there is about a day or two later, the original person who posted the appeal who's a scammer, they changed that post, they edit the post so it's pushing a diet to a dodgy link where people are exploited for their money or Bitcoin or dodgy financial advice. So just be aware if you are and I'm not preaching, I'm trying to help here. If you are in these buying sell groups, it seems particularly, please double check it's actually missing person or that, you know, there's a lot of giveaways in it. If it's a real dog or not, or a cat or whatever it might be because when you share it, right, your friends trust you. And about a day or two later or sometimes an hour or so later, that post is changed into a scam post, right. And it's on someone else's timeline from you, they trust you, they click the link, they lose money. So a lot of scams going around. We had a contact from a listener here. And they say as follows, I don't know where to turn. I befriended a woman online. And after some time, she asked for money, which I gave her. It was to buy a plane ticket to come and see me. There was always a reason the flight wasn't booked. And then she would need more money. She would always provide me with the flight details into Dublin. On Thursday, I sent her money. And again, on Friday, I sent her money. I've now sent her the best part of 10,000 euro. Her flight's due in this morning. And now she sent me a message at 6am to say she wasn't coming to me. Again, we exchanged a few message ending with her saying to me goodbye forever. I'm so hurt and I'm so upset. Now I feel totally ashamed that I've been scammed. Please don't feel that emotion. It's not your fault. At night, we had long conversation, exchanged photos. I just find it so hard to accept that I've been conned. I had genuine feelings for her. Is there any way I can recoup this money? I sent it all via MoneyGram. I have receipts for it. I'm devastated by it all. Now I just don't want it to happen to anyone else. Maybe she really is on this flight and is about to con someone else out of a lot of money. But she's not, I'm afraid, listener. She's not on the flight. And she's not a woman either, probably. There are factories effectively set up in far flung countries and not so far flung countries either where teams of people pretend to be a man or a woman. And they do seek out lonely hearts to try and exploit them. They've got loads of pictures. They make sure they've got pictures to cover everything. So what are you doing today? Oh, I'm in the park. Or can I have a picture? Yeah, there's a picture of me in a park. You know what I mean? They know what's going on and it's very easy to get conned by these people. So don't feel ashamed. Feel proud in that you're maybe stopping someone else falling for this. They say all the right things. They know what to say. There's a textbook for it. And as they say, they make sure they've got pictures to cover every eventuality. So even if you start getting suspicious and want to catch them out, they have a picture to prove what they're saying is the truth. This person's lost 10,000 euro. The money was extorted from them, of course, but they did send it willingly via Moneygram. So I'm not sure what recourse they have in that regard. But just that's a real person living in your area, who's lost 10,000 euro. And they and not only that too, which is really sad, they've a broken heart. They've a broken heart because they had real strong feelings for this person. And we're looking to see them and the person doesn't exist. Probably a fellow could be anything could be a woman pretending to be a fellow vice versa, who's to say. And unfortunately, around Valentine's Day, we see more of these. That's why I'm bringing it to your attention now, because, you know, there's a lot of couples stuff that's put up on social media and people can feel extra lonely. And then they can feel we're very simple as human beings, you know, we're not hard to work out or to kid. People can feel more vulnerable and at the moment, because they want someone in their lives. That was a gentleman there that was extorted, but 70% of romance fraud victims are women. Please don't share personal details online. Do not share or receive money online. Investment fraud linked to romance fraud is part of it as well. So there's loads and loads of case studies. If you've been a victim of that, share the details with us and we can share it with others and make sure it may not happen to them. But to that listener, you'll knock at the money back, I don't think, but please don't be shamed. You followed your heart, but next time follow your head. Next evolution and hybrid driving, e-power uses a petrol engine to charge the electric motor, which always drives the wheels. So you can enjoy all the benefits of electric driving without ever having to plug in. And it's exclusive to Nissan. Book a test drive in the new Nissan Kashkai with e-power today. A unique electrifying experience now unplugged. Greener choices are the key to a sustainable future. That's why Energia will give you a cashback for any excess energy you produce from solar panels at home with our great value microgeneration tariff. Because the choices we all make today will change how we live tomorrow. OK, pretty much anything can happen on the 9 till noon show and today we've got just we've just got a polar bear in studio with us. Where are they? There they are. Hello polar bear. I don't think you can speak. I can't speak bear anyway. But it's great to have you in studio with us. Sheamus Campbell with Special Olympics Olsters with us as well. Good morning Sheamus. Morning Greg. Does our guest bear have a name? This is Bear Chills Greg. Bear Chills. Yeah, all the way down from the North Pole. I see what you did there. OK, right. We're inviting people to get freezing for a reason because Special Olympics is hosting their annual polar plunge in Rathmullen this Saturday the 18th of February at 3pm. Tell us all about it Sheamus. Yeah, well this is our sixth polar plunge in Rathmullen. I started back in 2015 and then obviously the pandemic put us on stall for a couple of years. So we run our polar plunge. It's our second biggest fundraiser in the year after our collection day in April. We have our polar plunge at about 10 different venues around the country. The polar plunge in Rathmullen has been the biggest and the best one in the country for a number of years and we're hoping that this year we're going to get the people who are done it all out again and show their appreciation for all that to do with Special Olympics. If you like bears, especially active bears, I suggest you get on to our Facebook page or our YouTube channel and you'll see bear chills in all their glory. I wonder why it's always so well supported up here Sheamus. Well, I have a fair idea but I want to hear it from you. Yes, community Greg. You know, the other polar plunge are fantastic as well but just you know what it was when we went to Rathmullen way back in 2015. We were just embraced. They just wanted us to be a part of their calendar every year. You know the way forward, the community group up in Rathmullen and they do so many brilliant things and they say, you know, this just fits here and please come and please stay. And we do every year when we call our first meeting, they are just, everybody's on board and just the whole community feel to all the people of Rathmullen, not only on the land but on the sea, all the people that we need on the sea as well. And they just, there's a grit jail there and it just seems to work and the generosity of the people. You know, we get big business groups like, you know, from different companies come along and with loads of staff and schools and you know, big, big groups of people coming along and the generosity is incredible. And I was there for one of them. There's a great sense of fun. Isn't there? I mean, you know, and a bit of competition there and a bit of crack and you know what I mean? It's a really nice thing to be involved in. Absolutely. And the last time around, we even had an initiative called toss the boss, where you could take along the manager of your factory or your school principal or whoever and throw them in off the end of the pier. And just to let people know it's not the pier, it's the pontoon that pulls up along the side of the slip. So don't be worry and it's very safe, you know, and it seems a much more natural thing to jump in off a pier and get out as quick as you can that rather than running in off a beach, which seems quite very unnatural to me anyway, you know. And it's great, you know. There's any good option and people love it. And we have a huge, we have a huge population of sea swimmers all year round, sea swimmers as well and sports people who after training will go in and cool the legs down. It happens all year round. So a lot of people are acclimatised already or accustomed to it. We'll talk about how the mechanisms of it in a moment, but I want to I want to emphasise or you to emphasise what people are supporting. It's Special Olympics Ireland. And what work does Special Olympics Ireland do? Yeah, well, you know, Special Olympics is sports, competition and training for people with learning disability, all around Ireland, all around the world. It's a worldwide organisation. We have, and Dunnegal alone, we have eight community clubs scattered all the way from Inneshawn down to Ballishan and over to Killy Beggs back around into Burtonport. And everywhere in between, we have schools, little angels, schoolies again. We have day services. And anywhere that people with learning disabilities want to join up their club, they, in various different sports, this year, one of our guests on the day will be a very special Special Olympian, Vicki McGill from Letter Kenne here. And Vicki is actually going to Germany in June to represent Ireland at the World Games in basketball. And she's a member of North West Special Olympics Club here in Letter Kenne. And she's the only Dunnegal representative this year on Team Ireland. We have a smaller team going this year to a World Games, but back since ever since the year 2000, we have had an athlete from Dunnegal to part in world and international games. So, you know, we've a great tradition of having athletes on Team Ireland and we're looking forward to that. So, it's about sport in the community for people with learning disability. And that's what people will be supporting, Greg. 8,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities across over 200 clubs all over Ireland are supported. A great work ongoing all of the time. And I think maybe the Olympics, then, is the sort of the pinnacle of that. But at all different levels, there's activities ongoing. You mentioned one special guest. Who is your second? Yeah, our second special guest is Katie McIntyre. And Katie is a local to Rathmullen. And someone that Bear Childs here knows very, very well. And Katie represented Dunnegal at the Rosa Tully last year. Yeah, and done so well. And she's just great. She just, like everybody in Rathmullen, she just gives everything. She throws herself in and gets stuck in. So, Katie's going to be there on the day along with Vicki. And there will be our special guest. All right. And of course, Bear Childs will be there. Bear Childs will be there. You better believe it. I wouldn't like Bear Childs to get wet, though, because the fur might take quite so, although, well used to the cold. Yeah, and anything can happen in Rathmullen, Greg. You wouldn't know. Right, so, it's Saturday, the 18th of February at 3pm. Now, I think this is the type of thing that it's lovely to say you were involved in. Do you know what I mean? Like, if someone says, what did you, Saturday? Oh, we did the plunge for Special Olympics. You know, I think it's a lovely string to the bow to have and to bring the family up as well. Registration costs 15 euro. Plungeers are encouraged to raise an additional 25 euros. So, in other words, come up with a total of 50. You pay the 15, few year relations, at least another 25. And people will do far more than that. But look at, I know people, I would pay, happily pay a tenner to see them go through this. Right? Absolutely. That's part of the motivation, isn't it? Barist chills would probably pay twice that if they could find their wallet. Plungeers who raise an additional 25 euro, so it would be a 50 total, receive a complimentary polar plunge t-shirt. So, no one can ever deny that they ever took the plunge because of the t-shirt to prove it. Isn't that right, Seamus? That's for sure. And you know, just what you mentioned as well is if somebody had to go and do a jump in on their own, you know, it's not half as much fun as taking somebody along with you because you encourage each other and you prompt and, you know, you egg your mate on. And sometimes it does take that wee bit of a push for it to be alongside somebody to jump in. But how long to crack is the person that doesn't really want to do it? Absolutely, this way, yeah. You know, it's like karaoke. I'm not interested in seeing someone who can sing. I want to see someone murder a song, do you know what I mean? It's the same with this. I don't want someone who, you know, I'll get more fun watching someone who doesn't want to go in to it. That's for sure. That's for sure. There's all different types. All right. So people just turn up on the dates at three p.m. and it's a registration on the... Yeah, registration. You can register online on the www.speciallybix.com or you can, what a lot of people do is they rock up on the day and they register. But, you know, to help us, if you can register beforehand and give us an idea how many are coming along, and that would be great. One of the big things this year, and we've had it now for a few plunges, we've been in contact with the Irish Navy. And the Irish Navy are bringing one of their Navy vessels, the L.E. George Bernard Shaw, the same vessel was in in 2019. And they will be opening it up to the public. So it will be at the end of the year. Brilliant for young ones as well. That's not just young ones, but it's such a buzz. It's brilliant. We did the tour. Even just going up the gangplank isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even up the walkway, that's just, it's a special thing. And they will be, they'll be opening up for tours of the vessel from one to five. And, you know, we're so thankful to the Army and to the Navy, and for the Navy to come in. And this is a date in their calendar every year as well. You know, so we're so thankful to all those different groups. So if anybody wants, you know, to locally to be able to get on board a Navy vessel and be shown around is a huge opportunity. Okay, so that is the Special Olympics Polar Plunge. It's the annual Polar Plunge. It's in Rhythmal. And this Saturday, the 18th of February at 3pm, it's going to be lots and lots of fun. You're going to be freezing for a reason. And I think nowadays, too, lots of people have these, because we love beer jumping and stuff, have these warmers that you can stick on straight away afterwards. Lots of people have them now. As I say, lots of good fun. I'm sure there'll be hot drinks around the place as well. Registration, just 15 Euro if you can, because it helps with numbers and maybe they can relax a bit as well. Register in advance. Give us the URL again there, Seamus. Yeah, so www.specialipicsforge slash Polar Plunge Rhythmal. And we'll link that on our social media as well. Registration is 15 Euro. You're encouraged to get sponsorship to raise an additional 25 Euro or whatever you can beyond that would be fantastic. And if you hit that 25 Euro mark, you get a complimentary Polar Plunge t-shirt. But most importantly, you're supporting Special Olympics Ireland, which provides sporting opportunities for nearly 8,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities across over 200 clubs all over Ireland. And you can do no better for your community than to support this event, I think. And whether it's not an excuse really, you know? It's pretty chilly. Although it's not quite as chilly. This time of year, it might be at other times. Yeah, although funny, we've been told that the waters are colder in February than they are in December. We were meant to go in December, Greg. But then with Chrysler and all that happened, we said, you know what, we'll push it back. And so, but the water is colder in February, but it'll be alright. So you're going to be extra freezing for a reason. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right, Bear chills. Thank you. You've done fantastic there. Not quite sure what you were trying to say, but I think most of it was, would you speed up, Seamus? It's while warm in here because, of course, Polar Bears. Polar Bears would be more used to colder climates. It's quite warm in here, Seamus. I feel like dragging this out just to stay along Bear. Bear is sweating for a reason. I'll be 15 euro, please. Right, OK. We'll be back with, thanks, Seamus. Thanks, Bear. God bless you. We'll be back with more on the Nine Till Noon Show after we take this break. The Nine Till Noon Show with Letter Kenny Credit Union. Now offering mortgages from 40,000 to 600,000 euro with no hidden fees or transaction charges. Letter Kenny Credit Union 9102127. Super Value makes saving money as easy as one, two, three. 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Ireland West Airport, don't just take off, take it easy. All right, mostly dry weather and spells of haze is sunshine developing for a time this morning. However, during the afternoon a spell of rain will begin to edge into Atlantic Counties, extending nationwide data this evening, highest temperatures of 9 to 11 degrees, in moderate to fresh southwest winds, which is good news. If you're looking to generate energy via wind and in fairness, there's been quite a lot of Ireland's energy needs provided through wind as of late. Noel Kunif is CEO of Wind Energy Ireland. Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, Greg. Thanks very much for having me. It's good to have you on the show. Right, I'm just going to get one thing out of the way early on for my own knowledge here. Because the opening line here is more wind farms could mean lower energy bills. Now, I was under the impression that the kilowatt rate for wind energy was linked, was guaranteed at a much higher rate than it costs to generate it. So how would more wind farms, when there is a locked in price received for a kilowatt of wind energy, how could more wind farms mean lower energy bills? Sure. So it goes to how the electricity market works in Ireland. So how it works is there's a wholesale market where the people that produce energy, be it wind farms or gas generators or coal generators, they sell their power into a wholesale market. And then that's bought by the suppliers, the likes of Electric Ireland or Energy or electricity, who then sell it to consumers around Ireland. What Wind Energy does is by having wind there, it pushes the most expensive fossil fuel off the system. So it pushes the coal generators, it pushes the most expensive gas off the system. And it brings down that wholesale price, which then feeds into the electricity bills. To give you an example, in December, during the days when we had the most wind energy on the system, the average price was around 192 Euro in the wholesale market. But on the days when we had the least amount of wind energy, the average price was about 326. Yes. But these energy companies, and we'll get to the positives and all, this is not going to be sort of a gotcha on this. That's not my motivation, but I want us all to understand it. That being said, we are seeing electricity prices, wholesale electricity prices lower than there were before. Even the invasion in Ukraine yet, we're being told by energy providers that they've hedged and they've bought and advanced. And there's a myriad of reasons that it might be 18 months before the consumer sees any reduction. So when we see an industry treat us like that, it's very hard then to sort of take the positivity that you're trying to give, because it doesn't seem to chime with our reality. Do you get me, Noel? As I say, I'm only just trying to express the feelings that are out there. I'm not having to go with you or the sector, because I know there's a lot of bad press out there and you have to try and counteract that. But I'm just, my listeners, that's what they're going to be feeling here. This fella's talking nonsense, because we're not looking at any reductions in our electricity for a long time to come. And I can completely appreciate that, because homes and businesses have been challenged around the country over the last 12 months. And that change that we've seen in our electricity prices is because of our reliance on imported fossil fuels. Ireland spends about a million euro an hour on imported fossil fuels to give you an idea of the scale that we're talking about here. In terms of the lag time that you've spoken about, that is true. We saw prices climb from probably about October 2021 prior to the war in the Ukraine in terms of international gas prices that started to increase months in advance of that happening. And then there was a lag time in terms of how that then hit people's bills. So there was a lag time on the way up, but unfortunately, there's a lag time on the way back just purely because of the power that we're paying for today was actually bought months ago. Yeah, because you talk about the savings in December, I think it was two billion, was it in a month or over? Right, but that two billion goes into record profits for these companies. If they could find a way to sort of say, right, we've saved some money here, we can discount your power and give us a little bit of hope, maybe stop people struggling to pay their bills. It might be easier for you then to sort of relate your message if it felt fairer. Because I know you talked about the slight lag in prices going up, but they went up an awful lot quicker than they're going to come down. And there's just a distrust of the whole, there's just a whole distrust. Now, it's probably unfair in a lot of areas, Noel, but that distrust is there and something drastically, I mean, even here the government talking about windfall taxes, they recognise what's going on. And I think that trust is something that the electricity supply companies are going to have to build up with consumers over the next few months and explain maybe why that lag time is happening. The two billion euro that you referred to, Greg, just to put that into context, that two billion euro was actually the saving that Irish consumers made last year over the course of the entire year because we had wind energy. So the way to think about that is if we didn't have wind energy in Ireland, we would have had to pay an extra two billion euro on gas to produce power and to pay for carbon credits. But I would buy that if I trusted the power companies, but I don't. So that message has lost a little bit on me. But I understand it and you've had an opportunity to say it. Now, we are in a, it is really quite remarkable when you look at it now it can go up and down and up and down. But, you know, there is a remarkable amount of our energy that is generated through wind. Yes. So last year, 34% of Ireland's electricity came from wind energy. So one time in three when people use their, their ovens, their TVs, their laptops last year, it was because of wind power. So we're one of the best performing countries on the entire planet when it comes to onshore wind energy contributing to our electricity demand. And as I mentioned, that helps to push down the wholesale prices and bills would be even worse if we did not have that wind energy is the way to think about it. The goal that we have now as a country is to try and get from a third of our electricity being renewable today to 80% of our electricity being renewable by 2030. So that means that we're going to need to roll out some more onshore wind firms. We're going to need to start solar generation. It's something that we haven't done historically in Ireland. And we've been one of the slowest countries in Europe in that respect. We've also been one of the slowest countries when it comes to offshore wind energy. So that's a huge economic opportunity for Ireland that other countries with coastlines around Europe have really taken advantage of in the last decade. And we're only coming to the market now with our first offshore wind firms one off the West Coast, one five off the East Coast that will be going in for planning permission this year. Now, new research shows four out of five people here support wind farms. But again, that is a factual situation but doesn't tell the full story because of course if you are in the centre of Leicester County or Dublin or Cork or Kerry or if you're in a valley, you know, or, you know, you might go, yeah, wow, okay, it's cheaper electricity, bring on the wind farms. But I would imagine then the people that are opposed to these are those that feel they have to live around them. And I was saying Donagall because we've got an awful lot of wind farms here, it might not be four out of five. So would you recognise the fact that certainly in counties like Donagall, that maybe we've reached our limit in terms of onshore, in terms of onshore wind generation. And we need to look elsewhere for that and then maybe focus more on solar and offshore. So Donagall has been an incredible success story for onshore wind energy. I think as a county, there's a lot to be proud of in terms of not just powering your own county but powering much of Ireland over the last 10, 20 years. Some of the earliest wind farms were built in Donagall in the 1990s and early 2000s. I think when it comes to the future for Donagall, it's going to be, there will likely be more onshore wind farms, but certainly there's going to be offshore wind farms in solar, both on the West Coast and in other parts of the country as well. When it comes to trying to tackle the problem that we have here, which is a combined issue of climate change and trying to decarbonise the country and trying to become energy independent to wean ourselves off those imported fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis, we really need to throw everything at it. So we need more onshore wind energy, we need more solar energy and particularly we need offshore wind energy as well. So we can't do it without a combination of everything. In terms of the poll that you referenced, on a national level four out of five people are supportive of wind energy. And then again, on a national level, only one in 20 are opposed to it. When it gets down to that rural area, when the question is asked, would you like to have a wind farm beside your home? Three in five people are supportive of it and it's still just one in 10 that are opposed. So generally speaking, people are in favour of wind energy because, as you mentioned, people recognise that it is saving Ireland money in a time of a cost of living crisis. Yeah, of course, it's a good time to ask that question. But as I say here in Donegal as well, you know, if we're going it from an environmental point of view, we're seeing bogs being torn up for for for wind farms, you know, an awful lot of the wind farms here are built on peat. So we're putting pouring concrete in there. Do you know what I mean? Whatever we do going forward, we have to make sure we do it right because people are astute now. They know what's what and you can talk about how much it costs to create a kilowatt, but you also have to explain the environmental impact of putting them up in the first place. And I think that's perhaps maybe where messaging could have been improved over the decades, and we might be in a different space now. Agreed. I think it's something that we've worked a lot on in the last few years. It's something that we need to continue getting better at is talking to people and communicating much earlier in a project's life cycle and trying to get the input from communities in the areas because nobody knows the area as well as the people that are living in it. And there's a lot of information that people can provide to try and change how wind energy should be developed. It would be very unusual nowadays for a project to start its life, engage with communities and for things not to change. So turbines to be dropped, the size of turbines to be changed, or the location of turbines to be moved. That's happening right across the country in many sites now. So I completely agree with you. We need to continue to get better at how we go about developing wind energy, how we communicate with communities, and particularly how we bring the kind of combined problems to biodiversity and energy crisis, climate crisis together. People in this part of the world have fought tooth and nail through the planning system to register objections. You say things were improved and we hope that's the case. But then when people hear that you guys are calling for maybe planning to be streamlined or changed, your alarm bells are going to start ringing. But that being said, there are major projects and we talked about one last week that get caught up in the planning process and they're effectively frozen. They don't go anywhere. So what is Wind Energy Ireland calling for in terms of planning processes for wind farms? And does this apply offshore and onshore? It would. And just to be very clear, we're not talking about limiting people's opportunities to try and provide objections to projects. Everyone has that right. What we're really calling for is the speed of the overall process to be sped up one way or the other in terms of the decision. So there is a statutory timeframe at the moment to make a decision on a renewable energy project, a wind energy project, a solar firm of 18 weeks. And in reality, the decision timelines on average are taking closer to 18 months. So that's a long length of time of complete uncertainty, both for the communities and the local area, but also for the developers. And if we can streamline that process, resource up the important planning bodies like on board planola, like the National Parks and Wildlife Service to engage on the environmental aspect of things. If they have the right people and the right expertise, then we can get through these projects in terms of their applications much faster. We're not saying that the decision should be more, yes, we're saying that the decision should be faster one way or the other so that people have certainty. And then we can move on with developing a project or move on with looking at other projects and other areas if they're not going to work out. Of course, Greg asked that man what they used to de-ice these wind farms. I think that might be referencing some images that were circulating from an ordered country, maybe Sweden, helicopters spraying blades. I don't know what they were spraying them with. I don't think we need to do that here. I'm not sure that's happening here. I can't imagine it's happening here. And that's not to, I'm not an apologist for the industry, but I just don't think it's happening here. Secondly, well, yeah, it seems a lot of companies are ditching, not ditching it, but they're saying, right now we need to rely on fossil fuels other countries. You know what I mean? We've seen China, Germany, other places sort of go right. And even here, we need to keep the coal fires burning. Why is that happening? Because people will look at that and go that it's right. People start to catch on now that this wind energy is not, it's not all it's cracked up to be. How do you counter that? No, I don't think that's what's happening. That's the perception, you know? Sure. Germany's situation is that they were incredibly reliant on imported, imported gas. Almost 100% reliant on imported gas. Exactly. And they've had to really adapt very fast. So they're looking at other ways that they can get their energy. For Ireland, we were also exposed to Russian gas, particularly when it comes to the price. So that's again what caused the cost of living crisis. It caused this bike and energy bills. Ireland has an incredible opportunity here. We have one of the best wind resources on the planet. A lot of people don't realize this, but when you look at offshore wind energy, we are one of the largest countries in Europe when you take into account the sea area that we have. The sea area for Ireland is about seven times the size of our land area. So I often say that we've won the largest areas in Europe, but seven, eight foot is underwater, unfortunately. But the good news on that side is that we can also get a huge amount of power from the ocean. And that power can help to not just make us energy independent, allow us to set our own prices for electricity, decarbonize the grid, but then it opens up an opportunity to become an exporter to Europe as well. We can actually, instead of becoming a being sore land and fossil fuel imports, which we are at the moment paying a million euro an hour for fossil fuel. We don't have time to get to sell that energy. Exactly. We don't have time to get into it now. But I also know there are fishers who are have seen the plans for where these offshore wind turbines might go and they are in in and around current fishing grounds and they have their concerns. We've teased that out in the past. We don't have time to do that now. Noel, I hope you feel you got a fair crack of the whip. We appreciate your time this morning. Take care of yourself. Noel Kniff, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland. Apply online via our app or in office today. 2023 is already turning out to be an electric year for Hyundai. Why? Because Hyundai is the best selling electric car brand in January 2023. And the IONIQ 5 is now officially Ireland's best selling electric car. Make 2023 the year you make the change to fully electric driving. Your local dealer is Diverse Hyundai Canal Road Letter County. Call name 1-22-600. Ishka Aaron is the new name for Irish water. A new name and a continued focus on delivering clean, safe and reliable national public drinking water and wastewater services for Ireland. For any questions about service issues or to report an issue with drinking water or wastewater in your area, Ishka Aaron can be contacted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call us on 1800 278 278 or visit water.ie. 61017. Membership of Inishon Credit Union is open to anyone who lives or works in the Inishon Peninsula. Loans are subject to approval, terms and conditions apply. Inishon Credit Union is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. With 231 well underway, are you calling in for a look? Sure call in for a cup of tea or a coffee and let our sales executives show you the options available in our new Nissan range. With an unbeatable range of vehicles, there's only one garage to visit for your next purchase and that's iMotors. Visit us in letter Kenny or Malin or visit iMotors.ie. Wet and Wild is 20 years in business and would like to thank and reward our loyal customers with a massive 20% of absolutely every product purchased in store during the month of February. Choose from our massive in-store stock of quality outdoor clothing, footwear equipment and accessories and 20% discount of all prices will be applied at the tell. The county's number one talk show, the 9 till noon show on Highland radio. All right it is 11 o'clock it's time for a news update this Wednesday morning and let's say good morning now to Donald Kavanaugh. Thank you Greg good morning it's understood Nicholas Sturgeon is set to announce her resignation as Scotland's first minister. She has been in the post for eight years and is seen as a figurehead for Scottish independence pushing for another referendum. The SNP leader is due to give a news conference very shortly. A Donegal grandmother is appealing to young people to be wary of TikTok challenges after her granddaughter's hand was severely burned after attempting the hand sanitizer challenge. The 13 year old now needs to go to hospital every second day in order to get third degree burns on her hand treated. The mayor of letter Kenny Milford municipal district says he's highly disappointed at the lack of adequate funding for Mineroy bridge in this week's regional roads allocation. Counselor Donald Mandi Kelly says he was surprised to hear the council had applied for 75 000 euro when he believes it should have received 400 000. He says that surprise turned to anger when the bridge was allocated just 25 000 euro. Counselor Kelly told members and officials he wants to see the inspector's report and is calling for an immediate safety review of the bridge. A planning and design company has been appointed to prepare a town center first plan for Milford. The process will commence with a first stage of public consultation that opens tomorrow with the launch of the project's website milfordtowncenterfirst.com. The consultation closes on Thursday March 9th. An open dropping event will take place on this day week Wednesday February 22nd. A Midlands Northwest MEP says any deal on the Northern Ireland protocol must also resolve the democratic deficit in the Brexit accords. Sinn Fein's Chris McManus says both the British government and EU have been optimistic in recent weeks at potential movement toward a new solution. However he says given the fact that EU laws will impact on Northern Ireland a mechanism must be found through which people there can have a say on what's enacted. And Donegal sheep farmers say they don't feel represented. Speaking on today's 9 till noon show one of them Liam McLaughlin said representative groups do not work together or receive enough support to make an impact on the lives of farmers. And we're back with news headlines again at 12 noon. All right Donald thank you very much indeed for that. Are you in the process of moving to a new bank? Maybe you already have. Well if you pay insurance or a pension policy by direct debit just be sure to change your bank details so your policy continues uninterrupted. It's easy just contact your insurer, pension provider or broker today. For more information visit understandinginsurance.ie forward slash bank exit brought to you by insurance Ireland. Okay we were discussing scams a little earlier on and we had that email from a listener who was scammed out of 10 000 euro broken hearted as well. It was what's called a romance scam. And to help us get the message out even further on more of these scams we're joined by Father Colm O'Daherty from St Patrick's Church in Lifford. Good morning to you Father. Thanks for taking the time of your busy morning to chat to us. Good morning Greg. Good morning. Now you are relating this because is it you or your parishioners or both that have been targeted in this email scam? One of the parishioners was contacted by the scam yesterday. I was only aware of a tea time and somebody else had contacted me this day. They were suspicious of a scam that had come into them. So my name was being used and the thing was to do with gift cards would appear to be for me but I don't send out gift cards and I would never ask people over the internet to make money or give money to me or to any cause. I would be announced at the church so if there was going to be one so it's just so difficult for people to sometimes you know this is how scammers work sometimes because I am the priest in the parish. People think it's it is me when fact it's not so you have to be very careful. Yeah this is actually really this is really actually even more worrying in a way than others because they've they've gone they have the knowledge of and have gone to the bother to identify you as a trustworthy pillar of the community but also they seem to have been able to ascertain the contact details of people that are connected you to you by way of being parishioners so the Guardian have a job to do here because this could be someone with local knowledge as well as it could be an international organization. It has been reported it has been reported to the Guardian and I think they are aware that there seems to be a concerted effort by scammers in the Donegal area to and I'm very sorry to hear about that story that you've been there there on with that person lost so much money. There is definitely something that needs to be this is a new form of crime that has really become very very prevalent not just here in Donegal of course but everywhere but unfortunately we've been hit with this thing. Okay so the message is is that ignore any emails that purport to be from Father Colomal Daugherty and I would imagine any other parish priest where they're looking for things you want to double check because it seems it would be unusual wouldn't it Father for the local parish priest to be making contact like this seeking gift cards or what have you. That's correct absolutely this would not be this is not official at all and I just would ask for it to be very careful if they're very concerned with anything if they send out an email concerning business with the parish that they would contact me first to check it is Bonafity but never be asking for money on an email absolutely not. Okay listen thanks for your time this morning to help us get that message I appreciate it for the tech care and God bless you Father Colomal Daugherty there so please ignore any contacts from him via email seeking seeking gifts or gift cards and it's particularly unusual because someone had to obviously identify Father Colomal as someone in the area but also how then did they manage to get hold of parishioners emails so that they might trust where that information were coming from it's concerning that right okay some of your comments here is it true that electric companies are claiming 100 renewable energy usage when they are not should they be sanctioned for these false claims there was one company that was claiming that its electricity was 100% renewable and they are being investigated for it so that's exactly what is happening there so you are correct you are correct but some actions being taken in that regard were being told what is what are the changes has wind farms made in relation to having turbines on bog land and causes damage such as mean bog wind energy is developer driven for investors enterprise to satisfy shareholders another here people rant year after year about politicians going abroad for St Patrick's Day it appears this year they think we're capable of looking after ourselves as they are all off it costs 2300 cent shamrocks to America for something realistically after the photo op and it's thrown into the trash can but their argument is made that it's access to the White House that no other country has that's the argument that's made they want to say though have we now all become so immune to this behavior that we no longer care instead of this government listening to its people and its thoughts it's doubled down and gone full tilt okay I wonder can Sheila Campbell CEO of Heart Children hear me are you there Sheila good morning how are you good and it's good to have you with us because our wellness Wednesday is our conversation now with Sheila Campbell we're talking about global congenital heart disease awareness month so talk to us a little bit about it Sheila okay so maybe I'll bring it right back to the beginning Greg and just explain what congenital heart disease is because possibly many of your listeners won't be aware of that so congenital means present at birth and congenital heart disease is a condition that arises because when a mother is pregnant her baby's heart does not develop properly during pregnancy and so that can result in like poor structure and problems with the valves and it's you know important to mention that it's an irreparable condition there are some mild forms of the disease such as holds of the heart which are repairable and generally you know are you know things that are able to be fixed and then the child can get on with the rest of their life but the more complex forms are irreparable and will need constant surgeries throughout the child's life yeah and you talk about some that are repairable now that's advances in medicine there are people I'm sure listening who've lost children with a hole in the heart some time ago when the technology or the people weren't there the knowledge wasn't there to address that as it is almost like a matter of course now yeah there's been huge advances and that means you know that's really impacted on the survival rates of children into adulthood so 90% of all children born with congenital heart disease now survive into adulthood and so yes all those advances are happening you know as we speak and so into the future that figure will continue to rise now obviously when when a child is born there there are initial initial checks and perhaps it's not you know obvious from the beginning that there is a congenital heart condition is that the case I mean is it how often is it not picked up until later in the child's life that can happen but again we're speaking about medical advances and because of advances in scanning technology 70% of all babies now are picked up at the 20-week scan so there may be mums listening to you or you know expectant mums listening here today who might already have had a diagnosis and are fully knowing that their child will be born with congenital heart disease that's positive because it gives them time to prepare and the medical team to prepare and but then there's another 30% obviously who are receiving the news at birth and so it could be that the diagnosis is given a couple of days after birth or they you know they might be able to recognize the signs a lot of babies might have a blue colorization sinosis because of lack of lack of oxygen in the blood and that's obviously something they pick up straight away but in other cases it can be it can be a couple of days it can be a couple of months and sometimes it can be a couple of years it can go undetected yeah and there are obviously there are then other heart conditions that may become more apparent later in life that might not be classed as congenital heart disease is that fair enough I mean you know there can be conditions or there can be people who die suddenly you know and it can be actually put down to undiagnosed congenital heart disease later in life and so yeah and I mean I think that the important thing is to say is that obviously you know these children and their families are living with a lifelong condition and with that comes a lot of stress and anxiety these children are facing can be facing you know multiple surgeries throughout their life and that has the impact of trauma and for everybody in the family the you know post-traumatic stress disorder can be an issue as well so what heart children do and what we're here to do and support you know I would always say that the care that the children are receiving in Cromland is fantastic and there's huge funding because there's a structure called the All Island Network so after the Good Friday Agreement there was a multi jurisdiction put in place where by all children from Northern Ireland are actually operated on in Dublin so there's a lot of funding and a lot of you know attention goes into the service in the Children's Heart Centre in Cromland to make it a world-class centre which it is however you know when they leave hospital that's when sometimes the issues can arise a couple of weeks after the immediate care is over and mum and dad are feeling you know the effects of the stress of the situation and obviously their children as well and the other siblings in the family I mean so it's a you know the effects can be felt by the whole family of having a child with with CHD. Yeah and we'll talk about that a little bit more by way of this conference that's common but I want to mention obviously as you mentioned there you know the majority of these cases are identified at the 20-week scan and that 90% of children born with the condition now survive into adulthood but it five to six hundred babies per year are born in Ireland with the most common form of congenital heart disease so there are a lot of people and thankfully alive today that are affected by this conversation and then of course their families obviously as well. Yeah I mean there's 19,000 people in this country living with congenital heart disease and I guess you know a lot of people will know the word heart disease but the congenital part makes it a completely different you know diagnosis and the understanding you know that people would have around heart disease is totally different for congenital heart disease it is obviously something that's you know it can be random there's no there's no definitive understanding of how any one child would develop the condition so you know there can be a genetic link but also it can be a completely random happen chance within a family unit and so you know it is something that the whole family is living with when it occurs. And I suppose too you do live with it and I wonder Arthur how common is it that parents and guardians out there maybe don't recognize the emotional stress on a younger person with this you know people we always talk about how brave young people are and they are don't get me wrong I'm not questioning that for a moment but maybe they're putting the the sunny side out so to speak do we need if we have a child affected by CHD in our life do we need to make sure we know they're okay and they're not suffering mentally in silence. Yes absolutely we do I think it's hugely important I think you know one of our most used services the family support service and that's the service of a clinical psychologist and for many young people you know I think when they're getting into the teenage years you know all the things in the rites of passage that teenagers do that you know having relationships socializing all these things are questionable for when you you know possibly have a congenital heart disease and all of that and possibly you know making yourself be different most teenagers want to be the same you know they all want to be the same as everybody else and sometimes having a condition like this will mark you out as being a little bit different and you know sometimes what they do need is just somebody to talk to I suppose and unburden themselves too and that's what they're able to do through the clinical support that we offer psychological support service. Talk to me about the the conference that's coming up on Saturday. Yeah so as I mentioned you know there's fantastic care in the pediatric service in the Children's Heart Centre in Cromland but that care ends when the child is 16 and they transition to the adult CHD centre in the matter hospital so they go from the very protective bubble of being in a children's hospital where you know they've grown up knowing all the clinicians and the staff to you know arriving into the matter hospital which is a general hospital you know with the great unwashed of the public and you know it's it's a big change over it's at a time in their life when there's many issues and what we're trying to do at the conference is to address some of the practical issues that they need to understand about making the move. They're also now taking over the care of their own condition so mum and dad are no longer attending the appointments with them they need to understand the terminology and they need to be able to take and adjust the advice that they're given and really take control of their own health and manage their own health so it's to you know in part that that's important it's something that they need to attend to and also it's to give them coping mechanisms to understand that you know there is help out there and there are ways and means and other people who they can turn to for help and support. The conference takes place in the Chartered Accountants House Peer Street Dublin 2 as I said on Saturday runs from 10 a.m. to 2 30 p.m. Is it broadcast I mean as you can imagine traveling from from from the northwest either a very very early start or a very expensive hotel stay on Friday night is this in any way sort of semi remote as well or is it a complete in-person conference? It's a complete in-person conference because we really felt the benefit of being able to get the young people together into one room where they could get the benefit of seeing you know 50 or 60 people at the same age that they are you know with the same condition that I don't think it would have the same impact if they were watching online and the same for their parents so we have two different streams of programs for parents and for adolescents so we really felt that the benefit would be had if people were there in person. That said our keynote speaker is Dr Lisa Morton who is a canceing psychologist who's written a book about improving standards in CHD care and just coping mechanisms for adults and we will be recording her session and that will be available for people to view following the conference if anybody's not able to make it. If anybody wants to inquire about attending they can just email info at heartchildren.ie or if they're interested in watching the video link when we have it also maybe send us an email and we'll arrange to get it to them. Okay thank you very much for your time this morning I really appreciate it Sheila Campbell there CEO of Heart Children and I understand that you know Dublin is the centres of excellence and all of that but I just wonder if a 10 a.m start on a Saturday is going to exclude people here in Donegal but it's I'm sure it's by accident rather than design but anyway hopefully there was some information in there that you found useful I call it says it took me 43 years to find my congenital heart condition so don't give up if you know something isn't right keep on it which is good advice generally speaking about your health I think often people are discharged or here's something with GP or whatever and it doesn't you know there's something else going on here you know I don't I don't but then they go right you know what it's good news I'm just going to listen to it trust yourself trust yourself you're normally right uh a caller says my son recently bought a car and was doing some work to it it was up for NCT so it took it for him while driving to Donegal town under the speed limit I'm at a speed van and after a few days I got a letter to say it was fine 60 euro for no tax does anyone know can a speed van do this can I appeal this as the car is not ready for the road yet this is interesting this is the second contact we've had from a listener who was done for no tax uh by a speed van now obviously you know the laws the law and all that kind of stuff but I find myself driving well maybe it would know but I found myself driving with no tax disc because those are delaying the tax disc but I presume the system would be updated as they was taxed but if you get a new car if you're waiting on the if you're waiting on the logbook as it used to be called you know you could be driving legally with no tax I think um and people are getting fines in the post from a speed van this is a I can't believe we haven't been informed of this if it's the case I've no doubt now two listeners saying the same thing how do you appeal it does that mean you have to go into court an appeal or can you do it by post it sounds like it's it sounds like a court appearance to me because you're going to contest it because you know you will take the car to get nctd and that has to be tested is that a is that a legitimate excuse any more information on static cameras sending out well they're not sending them out but identifying cars that aren't taxed and and then of course uh letters being sent out two listeners so far have been done in that regard all right okay small farming businesses is on the way out just like our small fishing industry operations it's all about big enterprise and investors well the the the fishing industry in the farming industry are pushing back they're not going to accept it they perhaps see that that's the direction of traffic and they're saying hold on you a moment here we're not going to accept that and we feel that organizations that represent us aren't making that point strongly enough i presume um so that's why that means taking place on our phone i call us as all our tds and ministers away for st patrick's day but burty her and staying at home to keep an eye on our finances good man burty in safe hands uh did any listeners see the spot yesterday between a finnegale government minister and opposition td accused the minister of smirking while he was making his point i watch rockers tv and smirking from the government side especially finnegale in my opinion is visible as some form of upmanship i wonder are they advised to act like this nothing surprises me anymore but listen okay i get where you're coming from here but i try and be fair you the government politician might feel that maybe the opposition uh politician is playing you know political football or something the smirk might not necessarily be to trivialize the issue in question it might be as if to say come on here you know what would you do different if you were over on my side or something but yep i get you you need to be aware that the camera's on you all the time on our way home from reticanny yesterday i too noticed a lot of rolled side rubbish within minutes an open back lorry passed us with a load of wooden pallets wrapped in cling wrap and it was shedding with the force of the wind while in transit i saw a chunk of it fly off and flew away into the backflow of the lorry it made me say to myself this is only adding to the problem i guess not blaming any one person it's a collective problem all right fedama thank you for that why can't cancel people when filling in potholes etc grab a black bag and collect uh nearby rubbish what about people on unemployment on employment schemes like this is i understand where you're coming from right but we are expecting people are dumping stuff out of the car because they can't be bothered right there is an argument about the cost of disposal i get that but come here you know they're doing it because they don't care let's be truthful so rather than sort of target them we pay people who are are on back to work schemes or whatever money to go and pick up their rubbish i'm not sure that you know that's not fixing the problem uh call us as vaping inside is becoming a problem now i hate the thought of inhaling the residue from this back to rubbish here perhaps if signage was reduced that would be a place to start many of these offer hotels bars restaurants and other tourism businesses some far from the immediate area of operations in regards it's tough our business i don't mind those signs and to know what you're on about and i think signage into that a kenny one time was flagged as a negative in an eyeball survey um but i don't know it's a tough all it's a tough all business out there at the moment i wouldn't begrudge someone a sign but anyway that's just me you uh it me feeling that doesn't mean you're wrong you're right because that's what you feel less signs and you'd think the place would look prettier for me it's it's an okay sacrifice but we're all different and all different views my surgery is now charging 20 euro for blood tests to medical card holders can they do this k yes they can dependant on what they're for and i hope i'm getting this right in my memory k if they're for diagnostics right so if you are saying right i've got this problem and the doctor goes right okay well this might show up in your bloods they should be free if i understand it correctly if you're saying look can you check my bloods um just for routine checking my bloods then that is not free as far as i'm aware if i if i remember correctly blood tests for a diagnostics of a spit spit i think it has to be of a certain level of something as well it does have to be a chronic illness as well i'll have to double check k but not all blood tests are covered by the medical card so unfortunately no good news for you in relation to that i want to mention again that uh electric any hospital campaign meeting is taking place tomorrow night uh in dylan's hotel at 7 30 p.m the the tagline is if you care please be there there i'll read a little bit of it here uh following on from last month successful national day of action at that kind of university hospital campaign organizers are inviting all concerned individuals who signed up and those who have an interest in becoming involved come along to the groups next meeting it's a dylan's hotel as i mentioned tomorrow night 7 30 all a welcome on the night especially reps of staff and patients and public representatives to help plan the next steps for the hospital uh campaign okay quick break next guest on the way we're heading to maville the nine till noon show with letter kenny credit union do you need to switch your current account or loan we are now offering mycu current account and debit mastercard bringing full banking features and competitive rate switcher loans are you in the process of moving to a new bank maybe you already have well if you pay insurance or a pension policy by direct debit just be sure to change your bank details so your policy continues uninterrupted it's easy just contact your insurer pension provider or broker today for more information visit understanding insurance dot ie forward slash bank exit brought to you by insurance ireland i've just had the eclipsed cinemas experience wow they truly have taken a night at the movies to a whole new level amazing recliner chairs directors lounge vip rooms pizza and hot food served to your seat have a glass of wine and enjoy the film on the big screen try it for yourself at eclipsed cinemas bundorn and lyford stirban where the stars shine brighter by the way the pizzas are amazing you can book your seat anytime at eclipsed cinemas dot ie don't just do okay in your career do great at all state don't settle soar don't procrastinate innovate don't do mediocre do magnificent at all state great work great life great people for great opportunities await search all state ni careers today national broadband ireland is delivering high speed fiber broadband under the national broadband plan to homes schools and businesses across rural ireland we're laying the groundwork for a network that will cover 96 percent of ireland's landmass delivering enough fiber cable to wrap around the entire world almost four times to find out when you can get connected simply check your aircode at nbi dot ie nbi building a limitless ireland supported by the government of ireland okay so over the last day or two we've been talking about illegal dumping and then by coincidence someone um text in a little earlier today talking about signs and how signs are uh blight some are okay the legit others are illegal but it seems to be a problem recognized in morville and ifa gillen is secretary of morville tidy towns and joins us now hi ifa good morning to you hello greg um thanks for having me on and thank you to your listeners no it's our pleasure right okay so obviously we wouldn't be talking about it if there was a sense that uh illegal signage is a problem around morville ifa that's correct greg and it's not just um mobile it's all over the county some of your listeners may not be aware but donnie gall county council they actually have a policy on authorised self-advertisement signs and obviously it applies to mobile in the whole of donnie gall so we just really want to highlight that and it was actually highlighted by the tidy town adjudicators in the last report so we're really appealing to businesses and residents just in and around the town to help us with decluttering as such of these advertising signs now obviously and i mentioned just before the break there you know it's a tough time for business many might be struggling and this might just be the competitive edge they need to keep the lights on and to keep local people employed are those also the types of signs are we talking about or are we talking about old tattie signs that are no longer relevant you're right and we we know it is a tough time for business so it would be great if businesses could look maybe at alternative ways to advertise so from social media and newspapers and sure even on highland radio you know instead of these signs but we're not referring to the permitted signs so donnie gall county council does have a permit kind of policy in place where if you do want to advertise you can go down that road these are more the you know you see them along the lampposts and they're bolted up and and things like that coming into the town it's those signs that we're referring to and you're right some of them are getting really tabby looking others you know maybe they might not even be in business anymore so that's the kind of things that we're trying to address and really trying to reach out to businesses and and the community as a whole to support us on this yeah well i don't uh i never understood why we uh into into towns like maville letter kenny donnie gall town wherever it might be where the council have an actual maybe a nice digital sign a one sign that can be shared space or can be there you know that the businesses can avail of and then really crack down on the signpost signs but then it levels the playing field you see because if i run a i don't want to pick it i'm gonna say a random business say i have a bakery right i don't think there's multiple bakeries in maville so say i have a bakery and you've a bakery for and we've both got two signs up really we're both going to need to take the signs down aren't we because if i take mine down and you don't you get a competitive advantage so this requires a buy-in i think from from all business but i would love to see a logical alternative put in place maybe some sort of a digital digital sign that it rotates on you know something that's pretty but in but in a visual spot do you know in other words let's say we've got a problem we need a solution but also try and think outside the box a little bit you're right greg and actually in most towns and villages jord island there's fantastic information sites for tourists and they offer these advertising in like one central location so that's something to really look into you know the part of social media you know your regular newspapers all of that we definitely want to encourage businesses to look outside the box and one time in particular and every time that we really look up to is malin who you know they're famous for their tidy town competition results they have a very strict policy on these advertising signs so we want to kind of follow suit but at the same time respect that businesses need to advertise and look at alternative ways that you can do that in the local community because i do understand what you talk about when you talk about you know social media highland radio newspapers websites i get that but particularly i think coming into the summer there's a passing casual trade you know what i mean and it's it's that's when you sort of pay your bills for the winter in many cases so that does i just really do feel the needs to be all scientific are you asking at this point ifa for businesses to hear you and do this voluntarily rather than sort of saying right counter cancel you need to crack down on this is are you sort of visit a softly softly approach initially yes we'd like to educate and engage with local businesses and residents help us keep the place looking well and so what we're asking is if they could remove any of the legal signage that is already in place and then refrain from adding any new ones but as you said earlier looking at alternatives so from you know them central advertising locations within the town to maybe like the post office to the local stores things like that where we get a good influx of of people and looking at you know doing things in alternative way in a more equal friendly way as well okay well i mean as you identified it's narrow margins when it comes to tidy towns adjudication and you know there's incredible competition right right across the county and the country and it's these little deductions that really i suppose if you're involved in the tidy towns you can feel like you're banging your head off a brick wall so i presume that's that's the motivation here it is but it's not just for scoring points on the tidy towns report you know ultimately we want the place to look and well we want tourists to come back so we see that there are multiple benefits to the local community and making the place to look well so this is just one element that we're looking at and i would like to thank the local community and local businesses for their ongoing support in this regard and just a a shout out we have recommenced our weekly letter picks and gardening in general tidying of the town so we're always looking for volunteers as well even it's just keeping outside your own business or your own house tidy it does go a long way greg a for fun have you noticed any trends in in littering is it worsened at all because in other parts of the county we've been discussing over the last wee while people seem to be more inclined to dump illegally any trends like that in and around the beautiful maville yeah one issue and we're really going to focus on it as well this year is the amount of dog mass along our beautiful shorefront so we've often been you know we've heard from tourists that the front shore the green is the gem of maville but we've really appealed to dog walkers you know not everybody i'm not tearing everybody with the same same brush i have four dogs myself but if everybody could just be responsible and clean up after their dogs that's one of the main issues that we're having right now you do get the odd flight tipping issue as well and and over the green you know we do our saturday cleanups every morning but if we could all just pull together and concentrate in those kind of hot spots that would be the main one yeah and i'm glad you recognize that i think it's a very small percentage of irresponsible dog owners um and and you know it's a it's a tough false space to own a dog at the moment because you know everywhere you turn there's bad stories about dogs but it's a minority a very small minority but a couple of dogs over the course of a week walking every night can put a lot of poo uh and you know along the way so if you listen keep up the great work you and the crew at maville tidy towns we appreciate your time this morning thank you very much great thank you so much have a lovely wednesday all right let's see for there uh she's right just look at signs for a festival that runs in the summer they've been up since last year how come these are ignored and as i said the event is only on in the summer i don't know but it's just a severe lack of enforcement i'm sure everyone's up to their ears uh but i mean this a lot of stuff could be resolved just with a few letters a bit of enforcement people out and about in the streets uh while i agree with them we have to be fair to businesses especially new businesses trying to get established they need these signs and i hope you understand that i recognize that as well and try to put that point of view across not only in that interview but also in a following on from a previous text it's a tough time to make business and not every business has the resources to advertise either all right you know what like my air fryers uh some people say ninja are the best lots of people say ninja are the best they are incredibly incredibly popular how would you like to win a cracking ninja air fryer it's a big one too they're a great way to cook uh saves putting the oven on you can do anything in them as well whatever you want to do you can do uh and you cook in less time brilliant stuff i'm a big fan of them as i've said before we've teamed up with urwin expert electrical i've dealt with them before a lovely company um for this fantastic giveaway we're giving one lucky winner the chance to win the much sought after ninja 9.5 litre food air fryer you need the big litreage you know because it's no point getting a small one trying to feed the whole house on it so this is a big eats 9.5 liters all you have to do you have to do nothing except head on over to instagram uh our instagram page is highland radio donagall and you follow a couple of simple steps which are for you on instagram uh winner will be announced on wednesday the 15th of january over on the instagram channel so get on over to instagram at highland radio donagall um and the steps there as to how you can win that ninja 9.5 food air fryer uh kiran you're you're a healthy enough aren't you do you use an air fryer yet i've been banned from speaking about them have you yeah because apparently i'm too enthusiastic well the ban has been lifted for this morning so lifted when all of a sudden katey got an air fryer right she thinks it's the best thing ever but it was me told her and then there's other people i'm extremely curious so i'll just have to satisfy my curiosity and probably buy one well to save you a fortune save you a fortune cook quicker healthy food no fat all drips away all right anyway win one the ninja air fryer it's the uh much sought after 9.5 liter food air fryer all you have to do is head over to the instagram page at highland radio donagall follow the steps there and the winner will be announced on wednesday the 15th that's today later to take shawn what time is the caroline what time's the air fryer been given away at it's this evening is it three four five this evening right you don't have long you've only got four hours to get on to instagram and uh get involved in that competition right going to take a break and then as you may have guessed we're going to be back with business matters with kirno donal watch the show live now on youtube facebook and at highland radio dot com the night till noon show is brought to you by letter kenny credit union offering low-rate car 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p.m a full menu is available seven days per week along with daily lunch specials call in any time to larkins of new mills or 4074 91 two double six 97 and at our family look after yours business matters in association with atu donny 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 business matters podcast live for you right now on our website highland radio dot com or on spotify ride tunes uh it's presenter kyrno donnell in studio with us now good morning kyrn thanks so much for joining us again great good to see you how was your week very good excellent okay very good and yours fine fine you know yourself dragging the devil by the tail yes isn't that what you say like running down the clock right okay uh let's get some news a new workshop series has been launched yes yesterday morning greg over 40 micro businesses and sold traders from around dunnegal started the first of three workshops and that is to help them better understand their finances with a wild-willing accountant online dot e ceo the risafini so they're undertaking the course with dunnegal etb's further education and training service in partnership with dunnegal women and business network so good to see local agencies collaborating there for the local businesses great yeah for sure um progress being made on a new innovation innovation center yeah a big news story early in the week great contracts for the design and development of the letter kennay 2040 strategic urban regeneration site which will include the new alpha innovation center and beta business center were signed yesterday so these centers which will be funded by the border enterprise development fund administered by enterprise erland are expected to play a key role in attracting and stimulating investment and employment so these centers are going to be both great on lands between pierce road and port road i think it's behind where the old esp offices were having a clue what you're talking about as far as i know um i and i don't mean that facetiously across from the theater up on the left what pubs it close to now i'm only joking i'm only joking i know i do know where you're on a boat with the pulse the pulse probably the nearest top of the left and there and there hey come here i like this talk about st patrick's day he's parade because he thinks we're heading into the spring and the longer evenings and the brighter mornings a timely reminder of the season sometimes when you start talking about christmas in october and you go oh come on it's nice to talk about st patrick's day very much yeah just a shout out uh greg from lyricini chamber to community groups schools bands companies and businesses who businesses who would like to be part of this year's parade to get in touch with the chamber and they can do so by emailing info at lyricini chamber dot com or telephone zero seven four nine one two four eight double six for an application for it's a great thing to get involved in a great thing for groups and schools and bands but it's a it's a great way for businesses and companies and i hope they realise it's such to put their wears out there on show and uh you know a bit of innovation there as well it can give you the wee competitive edge you know i i i hope people still see it for for that yeah it's a bit old school right yeah but i'll tell you one thing it's effective yeah if a big audience is most uh out of sight out of mind or unsight then mind is probably the case when it comes to the the parade and the floats and etc i wonder are they still allowed to throw sweets from because i i would say health and safety you know you could you don't want to get a you don't want to get a a an orange chocolate in the eyeball the the the place them in your hands are both the one that you can just don't get the switch Greg health and safety gone mad anyway this is going to be a great day as it always is and uh there's the fantastic parades right across the region which we'll be highlighting of course as we edge ever closer uh national award for a local uh photographer this is uh steve toy i've worked with steve right and i'm only saying this because you know we're a local community aren't we we're local people and uh steve was a pleasure to work with so i'm delighted uh to see uh steve being recognized yeah well he's been rewarded for his good work Greg as you say uh steve has been named Irish wedding photographer wasn't a wedding now okay for uh at the 2023 Irish wedding awards so the awards recognized exceptional specialists and suppliers that go above and beyond to ensure the uniqueness of every wedding and steve as you say as a well-known photographer and graphic designer and owner of logo pics yeah and to say i have no personal relationship with steve and i'm sure there's loads of other front i know there's loads of other front photographers but once i'd worked he'd worked with us uh just to recognize that okay oh this is a toughy now um and i don't really know if the i don't really know if the government have figured out what they're going to do about the hospitality fat rate but listen those in the industry aren't happy about it yeah uh t-shirt lee of wracker has indicated that a decision on the hospitality that rate is likely to be made by cabinet leader this week so the nine percent fat rate for industry is due to expire at the end of the month Greg and industry locally has expressed concerns about the negative impact a return to a 13 half percent that rate could have on what do you do about that though because you know obviously there was we know what the gouging that goes on right down the country you know if there's a concert planned or organized or a football match or a boxing match prices go through the roof and it's not just the last one or two rooms it's across the board um now it doesn't happen i don't think as much here in the northwest there's still good good value to be had but you look at the industry and what it does to its customers with those government supports if i were making that shout or that call i would say right okay we need to put something else in maybe that doesn't reward people for their bad behavior but also does support businesses that are genuinely you know just trying to keep the head above water and and to support local employment i think they need to come up with a different way thinking about it uh curious to say i really don't want some of these businesses down the country particularly to be rewarded for what they do to the public yeah i suppose that's one way of looking at it greg the other way of looking at it is uh the likes of paul divver there from the sandhouse who's the the the bloody god spoke expression for the the the federation uh every hotel federations um they see it as um a possible sort of hammer blow to uh an industry they're still recovering get that i get that so what the what the right or wrong is i don't know the fact that they're sort of still sort of push it down the road even if the supports were profit linked right so if you are a Dublin hotel and i you know there's some some none of all added don't get me wrong but if you're a a hotel or a businesses a business that for no good reasons charge an eight-year-old point or you know uh 15 euro for a sandwich and a bottle of water or if you're uh tripling your prices just because a football match happens to be on you know if they looked at it and said they have all the accounts all all the lodgings are made every year they they targeted the supports or the deductions based on good business practice you know don't reward it's like in business or in a company if you reward the people that are bad equally to those that are good well then those that are good lose interest and go somewhere else and i just think they could look at this in a different way whereby they are supporting the businesses that are just trying to cover like you say but not rewarding those that are shafting us at every opportunity kiran but it's above our pay grade but i would just like to see something a little bit different what do you think listeners i'll wait six 60 25 000 we're both very sympathetic sympathetic kiran to local businesses we get that but you know i think we know yeah i suppose the other thing Greg is how much of that increase has been passed on to the cost work when it's an effect anyway and then is that the reason that people and businesses in the south they will say look it's too much and this we're going to lose people but if it's across the board they're going to have to pay it anyway so it's hopefully it'll work out for the industry as well yeah now i recognize that food and drink i don't believe this applies to and i didn't reference food and drink yeah i'm on about as part of an overall business in areas where there argument would be that it's all encompassing yeah if it's a fixed wedding or a dinner dance or a pint or a night out or a function that's that's going to be affecting the price regardless all right okay right let's that's the news thanks very much for that as always kiran let's get on to the contents of this week's business matters who's you guys yeah i'm joined by the founder of donagall natural soap company and glinty's isabel sangha as we began making soap for family and friends her company in 2010 she's always searching for new ingredients to use and promote in her product range which currently stands at 35 a graduate of aeronautical engineering she also holds a master's degree in bioengineering and during our conversation i asked as a bell when did she decide to make a business through her soap making my husband's an accountant so when i you know started to think about possibly wanting to go into shops he said is about you have to do your market research so he you know i put i put a couple of samples together i packaged them you know it had a bow around it and the the and i went off to shops actually just around letter kenny um and i also looked at what was on the market um was there other irish products where was my niche so there really wasn't a huge amount of irish handmade soap then this was back in 2010 did that make up your mind to go further then yeah well the feedback from the the shops and the pharmacists and the healthy shops that i went into was yes definitely you know a niche for this product and they would have definitely taken it on so that really made me go away and feel confident and you know i also asked questions about packaging size of the bar price point i got really valuable information from that research so it was very valuable all right fascinating conversation by the sands of it kieran yeah isabel uh she started uh as i said then through here making soap you stop clicking the pan making soap for uh her for her family and friends and uh decided back into it at the end to give the business a go she started small and she scaled up the business um in terms of what the time she's able to manage to give the business she has four children and they're getting a wee bit older now and you know she's taking it on stages so um very interesting yeah a really attractive business and product because a lot of people want that yeah uh with different skin sensitivities and what have you but also sourcing irish ingredients leaning on her her degrees and stuff and very much as opposed to supporting local as well so a lot of her products contain a lot of locally sourced ingredients and she's also a member of the dunagall designer makers and uh i suppose being her her own boss she's got the flexibility of being able to give time to the business and still be able to give time for family brilliant the full interview with isabel is available to download now or stream from our website highland radio dot com or Spotify or iTunes and also uh popular on a sunday evening kieran on the radio yeah after six o'clock news greg on sunday evening and if anyone wants to get in touch with you uh drop an email businessmatters at highlandradio dot com all right kieran listen thanks as always look forward already to seeing you uh next wednesday we really appreciate your time this morning come on greg business matters in association with atu dunagalls 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 918 6600 or email gary dot mcgill at atu.ie all right uh you welcome back after that very short promo there the traffic wardens in towns uh they have them handing out fines for no tax as well yep i think everyone knows about that i think everybody knows about that uh it's this the fact that some people are claiming the speed vans are are tagging them again we've had no official confirmation and it possibly could be that the car was parked somewhere and it was a traffic warden or other uh but i think if traffic vans are actually uh doing this night be good to know officially uh are they sure they didn't get booked somewhere when the car was parked that's the alternative you see that's why i am suspecting that maybe i don't know how it would work good morning greg i just wish to say thanks to the hsc scally place out patient staff friday afternoon last i attended for an appointment uh from donna at reception and nurse my experience was positive uh three perhaps four clinics going on at the same time so the waiting area had a constant change of patients in it as doctors passed by the waiting area appeared to me that although uh in some cases their first language was in english their friendly smile and acknowledgement to each of us waiting was quite noticeable and for me made my visit more pleasant than expected thanks kathleen so nice to pass that on kathleen and we are always more than happy by the way to shine a positive light where uh yous want it shown as well uh a caller says there's a lot of foreign beef being used in ireland at the moment restaurants and shops selling beef should be stating where the beef is coming from there are some who sell it purporting that it is irish beef when it is not uh whereas the traceability for this there should be regular checks on this and there does not appear to be but how do you know it's foreign beef being sold under the guise of irish beef uh some companies i think you know the likes of mcdonald's make a big play and a selling point that they use irish beef i've seen signs in other restaurants that say it's irish beef it's a big charge to say though that some are misselling their beef um like how would you know that do you work within the industry let us know oh wait six sixty twenty five thousand can the trees that are overgrown on the approach road from green castle to maville that are blocking out the view of the foil also uh be cut down i think they're saying or trimmed also cutting out people using the top path on the green the trees are badly overgrown cheers okay um that's in the maville area maybe that's something the tidytowns or a local counselor might take up apparently trees blocking the view of the foil and also interfering with a path caller has been trying for six months to get a street light at a zebra crossing in manakanningham fixed he's been in constant contact with the countercounselor keep assuring him that it will be fixed but it's still not fixed i wonder is that a ti i problem maybe if it's on a main route it could be transport infrastructure island that you need to get on to may i suggest respectfully uh query re a query read the roundabout at letter kind of shopping centre which is uh which is the correct lane when you're coming from the old alde side over to pierce road no one seems to know there should be uh and crossing over each other all the time it's very confusing and will cause an accident right okay my understanding is i'm not sure it's different for this lane but if your turn off if you're exiting the roundabout before as the clock strikes 12 i.e directly in front of you then you use the left lane so my understanding would be the right lane would be for going up the town or coming back the way past the um shop that you mentioned and the left lane would be for the shopping centre at the uh dairy road let's call it that and then the pierce road i think you referenced it yeah so i would say the left lane now unless it's signed otherwise i don't know i don't really use that road that much in that way but my understanding was unless it's signed otherwise that if it's 12 o'clock or before you use the left lane if it's 12 o'clock or after unless otherwise indicated it's the right lane i think there's some n15s or n14s written on the road i have no clue man i didn't build them am i supposed to know which one is which anyway correct me if i'm wrong 08 6 60 25 000 look at that's where we have to leave it for another day unfortunately but the good news is we're back with you tomorrow morning at nine o'clock for me greg hughes and caroline oar who researched and produced the program we shall chat to you tomorrow morning at nine stay tuned job residents coming up around the northwest uh just after the news headline