 Next, it's Greg Hughes. Is he justified? Is he ancient? Yes, he's certainly ancient. Who can tell? Who can tell? Listen, thanks, Rory. See you tomorrow. It's the 9-to-Lune show. It is time for a news update and it's a good morning to Michaela Clark. Thanks, Greg. Good morning. The Education Minister admits the reopening of schools will not be without challenge. Schools are to reopen tomorrow, as planned, following a meeting between Teaching Union and the Department of Education. It's despite concerns from the ASTI that some schools could be missing up to 50% of their staff due to COVID-related absences. Education Minister Norma Foley says different schools will face different challenges. There is a very clear, I suppose, hierarchy of priority in terms of students in terms of, you know, a particular provision being made for special schools and special classes and younger children who cannot engage in, say, the remote teaching and learning and obviously a second level, for example, students. Schools will operate at their absolute maximum capacity. Meanwhile, Neffred is to consider a reduction in the isolation period for close contacts when it meets tomorrow. Coalition leaders are seeking a recommendation due to Omicron's impact on services and industry, with many businesses dealing with staffing shortages. This year is also impacting the health system, with hospitals being urged to redeploy staff and prioritize urgent care. Well, there's been a slight drop in the number of infectious cases of COVID-19 at Letter Kenney University Hospital. Yesterday, the hospital was dealing with the highest number of patients with COVID-19 in the country at 59. Every latest figure shows that has decreased to 56. A clinical counselor says he will be urging the authority to liaise with the HSE and others to assess how the fire service in the county can assist the ambulance service. Yesterday, Deputy Podger McLaughlin said he'd been told by the National Ambulance Service that it would welcome back up from fire service personnel, particularly in cases of cardiac issues. In November, Councillor Michael McLaughlin asked the council to explore such an option, but officials pointed out that service is not resourced to provide medical backup and to do so could compromise its core functions. Councillor McLaughlin has confirmed he'll be raising the issue again, saying the council, HSE and government should work together to address the issue of resources. Whether or not it will be a mostly dry day with some sunny spells, but there will be a few isolated showers, highest temperatures to day off 3 to 6 degrees. That's all from Highland Radio. News for now will be back with news again at 10 o'clock. If your child is aged 5 to 11, you could now register for their free COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 usually causes mild to moderate illness in this age group, but it can cause more severe illness. All vaccines used in Ireland are tested before they're approved by the European Medicines Agency. To find out more or to register, go to hse.ie or call HSE live on 1800 700 700 from the HSE. And now it's time for the talk of the Northwest, the 9th and new show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. And it is a very good morning to you, four minutes past nine on this Wednesday, the 5th of January 2022. I do hope you're well, and I hope we can enjoy your company for the next three hours on the show. We've got a busy one lined up for you, lots of different types of topics for us to discuss. And we want your views and your suggestions as to what you want to talk about, an issue you wish to raise. How do you do so? Well, you can call Caroline right now and 0749125,000. 0749125,000, your WhatsApps and texts as always to that familiar number too. Now 086625,000 email, if that's your thing, comments at highlandradio.com. And a very good morning to you as you join us to watch us on our social media. We're on YouTube, Highland Radio Ireland, or on Facebook, Highland Radio, or Highland Radio News and Sport, where you can leave your comments there or interact with us there and we can pick those up too. Let's look at the newspapers for this Wednesday morning and we'll start with the Donegal post with Irish gaining full status as an official language of the European Union this week. This will give many Donegal people a perfect opportunity to gain employment throughout the many inner sanctums of Brussels in the months and years ahead. Former Donegal MEP, Pat the Colt Gallagher, who was a great promoter of the Irish language, while a member of the European Parliament told the Donegal post, I very much welcome the official EU recognition of the Irish language. Though that official recognition was there for a couple of years, but I believe it was us that sought a derogation of it, which means it only came into the force, into force at the start of this year. The initial times this morning a developer was pressured, was pressuring Donegal County Council to increase the agreed asking price for five microaffected houses in any shown. You can read more about that inside and on the front of that paper. The Irish independent at the end is in sight for restrictions or restrictive close contact rules for people who have had booster vaccines after the National Public Health Emergency team was told to review the measures. The government's instructions is hoping to follow the example of the US, where the Centre for Disease Control recommended ending the need for close contacts who are boosted and showing no symptoms to isolate as long as they wear a mask in public. Those rules contrast sharply to here where close contacts are required to isolate for five days even if they have no symptoms and are fully vaccinated. They were also asked to do three antigen tests during this period. Those who have not received a booster are required to isolate for 10 days and do five antigen tests if you can get them. Easing or abolishing the need for close contacts to restrict movements will reduce pressure on businesses and frontline services where staff shortages have become a major issue. Nefert is to meet tomorrow to examine the government's request to change the isolation rules which they come up with public health advice and we seem to when I say we sorry I should say the government follow that to the letter of the law but when it can sort of start interfering with the day-to-day workings of the country the government say hall on you now you're going to have to have a look at that because we need more people out and about but it probably be welcomed by most people. The Irish Times this morning and we'll be speaking more about this to a former senior guarder in the traffic corps just one in four people brought to court for driving while using the mobile phones are being convicted. New data shows that between 2018 and 2020 more than 50,000 such cases were listed in the district court but conviction rates ranged from 14 percent in Sligo and Meath to 36 percent in County Wicklow. The average across 83 district courts in 26 counties was just under 25 percent. We'll try and get to the bottom of that a little later on in the program. The Irish Daily Mail tells us that the government has stood firm in its decision to reopen schools this week but principals have warned that whole classes may have to be sent home as soon as they reopen. Public health officials insisted yesterday that there is no rational to delay a rationale to delay the reopening even though the Omicron wave has yet to peak in another 21,302 COVID-19 cases were reported last night and I think we all know that that figure is just at this stage almost plucked out of the sky. It's much greater than that people simply can't get tests. Ireland now has the highest COVID incidence rate in the EU with the Chief Medical Officer warning that it was inevitable that children would pick up COVID-19 from a household contact in the common days and weeks with the positivity rate among those tested now soaring to a staggering 57 percent. Well I wouldn't find that staggering. I mean if you are only testing people or for the most part only testing people with positive antigen tests, wouldn't it be staggering if that figure wasn't as high as 57 percent? You throw in there GP referrals and another routine testing that would bring the percentage down but if we weren't seeing a high positivity rate when testing only those for the most part with a positive antigen test that would be staggering to me but anyway that's their slant on it in the front of that paper. On to the tabloids now and the Irish Daily Star tells us that an off-license operator in the north has said he expects to cash in as minimum unit alcohol pricing is now in effect on the other side of the border. The controversial measure sees Ireland become one of only a small number of countries worldwide to introduce a floor price for the cost of alcohol drinks. Shamious McNamee, the director of the first and last off-license in Jonesburg in County Armagh said the change in pricing is set to benefit his business. Over time he would like it to be brought into Northern Ireland as well he said everyone will be on the one playing field regarding health service and abuse of alcohol. Mr McNamee said although it was clear from the spoke person that we spoke to yesterday from the alcohol action forum or Ireland that this measure is not actually to address the abuse of alcohol those that are addicted to it. We are in a position he said where we can benefit from minimum pricing that has been brought into the South. The only thing that will go against me is exchange rate when people get a chance in a couple of months time when they get over Christmas I would expect to see a big influx of Southern trade. On to the Irish Sun now and the ongoing controversy surrounding Britain's Prince Andrew. He's attempting to weasel his way out of his bombshell sex assault lawsuit on at least four technicalities a court heard yesterday. The Royal's attack dog attorney Andrew Bretler was unleashed in a hearing against the Duke's accuser Virginia Robert Guthrie but Mr Bretler was met with skepticism at almost every turn as he made his arguments with Judge Lewis Kaplan telling him at one point that's not a dog that's going to haunt here. Mr Bretler argued that a newly disclosed 400,000 euro secret agreement between Ms Guthrie and the late financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 released the Royal from any legal action and he said the settlement had resulted in a similar lawsuit from Andrew's accuser being dismissed. Judge Kaplan said last night that he would rule on the future of the lawsuit pretty soon but he seemed to give all indications that he's not going to accept those arguments. This $500,000 settlement does not insulate Andrew. Finally in the Irish Mirror almost 350 million euro worth of old Irish pounds has yet to be changed into euro two decades after the currency adopted the new after the country adopted the new currency. So get your hands down the back of those old couches. There could be 350 odd million euro down there. The households first began grappling with the novel coins and bank notes on January 1st 2002. The dual circulation period when both the Irish pound and the euro had legal tender status ended just five weeks later. Many people at the time scrambled to gather up all their old ponds and bring them to the bank for conversion into the newly minted national currency. The good news is the central bank of Ireland continues to exchange old pound bank notes and coins with no deadline for converting old tender. So do you have any of these old notes? Well they're worth 346 million euro that's how much of it is lying around the place. So someone's sitting on a fortune somewhere aren't they? Whereas all this money that's an awful lot of cash and coinage. I've turned the place upside down absolutely none of it left. Right we're going to be getting some reaction from the teachers unions to the determination the government and the Department of Education have in reopening schools tomorrow but we want your views. Yours are the people we are the people that are most directly affected by this as well as teachers of course. Are you welcoming this decision? Is it something you're concerned about? Is it the right thing to do? Do we have to just crack on with things? 08 660 25000 WhatsApps and texts or give us a call on 07 491 25000. The best place to get a new bed or mattress at a great price is rest ex-beds letter Kenny. The massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show. The newspapers are courtesy of Kelly Centra mountaintop letter Kenny. Want to accelerate the growth of your new business? Entrepreneurs in Derry city and Straban district council areas can now apply for a new startup accelerator program. Eligible participants can avail of free professional support access to incubation facilities and business grants. The program is open to businesses who are currently on or have recently completed the go for it program. To apply contact your local enterprise office enterprise northwest or Straban enterprise agency. This project is funded by the UK government through the UK community renewal scheme. Have you seen that grand shoes bunkrana have their sale on? Yeah I love grand shoes. They're the best for comfortable shoes, amazing service, great value and better still. Grants are local and family run. Grand shoes bunkrana sale now on. The rest ex-beds and furniture winter sale is now in full swing at our letter Kenny store supplying only the finest quality luxurious irish made beds and mattresses with genuine savings throughout our range. We look forward to seeing you at the rest ex-beds and furniture winter sale. Highland radio time checks brought to you by letter Kenny shopping centre the centre of shopping in Dunney all free parking and shopping all under one roof. Letter Kenny shopping centre bringing you the time at the time sir 9 14 the education minister admits the reopening of schools will not be without challenge to say the least. Schools are to reopen tomorrow was planned following a meeting between teachers unions and the Department of Education which I believe was actually held over zoom. I wonder was that for public health reasons? Well anyway it's despite concerns from the STI that some schools could be missing up to 50% of their staff due to COVID related absences. Education Minister Norma Foley says different schools will face different challenges. Well the Assistant General Secretary of the TUI is Joanne Irwin and Joanne joins us on the program now. Joanne thank you very much. I suppose you know the mood music going into that meeting was that schools were going to open by hook or by crook to borrow a turn of phrase from a previous discussion in a previous lockdown. Yeah I mean I think and fairness I think all of the stakeholders who were there know the priority would be that the schools would open. I think it's going to be very very challenging. I think tomorrow we're going to find a lot of schools that do not have teachers and do not have students for one reason or another. I suppose yesterday's meeting just to say it didn't deal with a lot of the operational issues that we had hoped that it would deal with. So there are further meetings this morning and this afternoon and we are expecting by four o'clock this afternoon a very detailed document just in relation to the whole area of antigen tests, PCR tests, face masks and all of that. We don't have that level of detail yet. So yesterday was really the decision that schools were going to open whatever open will look like tomorrow but it will go ahead and with an open tomorrow. And before we get into sort of the technical side of things well first and foremost it's hard to believe that we're so far into this and yet we are still in a situation whereby I think primarily principals will be finding out information you know just a few short hours before reopening. I mean we knew pretty much I would say probably early second week in December that opening early January was going to be a great challenge. Why are we again doing this at the very last minute? I 100 degree and I think it's been the history of this pandemic that everything has been decided last minute. Now I accept that the change the public health and the the transmissibility of the disease and the numbers is changing on a daily basis but we all knew in December that we were going to have this challenge tomorrow and yet you're absolutely right. I mean there are schools today that are going to be trying they will only find out maybe at five or six o'clock this evening what teachers they have tomorrow. They will then try and get substitute teachers. They will then if they can't get substitute teachers will have to make a decision of who's in and who's not in and it is all very last minute. We have been arguing about this and we have been discussing it with the department even like over Christmas and over New Year but there seems to be the delay well the witness see witness see what public health say what public health say and then yesterday public health made the decision that it was I don't want to use the word safe because nowhere safe but they saw that there was no additional reason why schools should not reopen tomorrow. Yeah and I think I mean there probably is a logic to that in that and I think if you read between the lines and maybe you don't have to from the CMO they're all going to get it. Be it at home or at school they're all going to get it anyway that that's I mean I don't even know if that's a cynical sort of read on the comments but that's what I was reading. Well certainly now I mean even in the last few days members that have contacted us I mean everybody now really has a family member who has it which never was the case before you knew somebody who knew somebody who may have it now there are families that are completely locked out over Christmas and families who chose who made the decision not too mixed because they wanted schools to reopen those who have been protecting themselves and their families over Christmas and are very very apprehensive. We have members who contact us yesterday very concerned they're medically vulnerable themselves they love with family members who are medically vulnerable they haven't left their homes over Christmas for fear but I mean the figures we're getting on a daily basis on a personal view isn't half of what's out there because I was one of those people who was sitting at midnight trying to get a PCR test in Letter County for four days in a row before I could get one and then we also had members who for example had the single shot vaccine who had to wait really until last week to get the booster because they were in the age category of 18 to 39 so they're definitely as apprehensive or members are apprehensive but I have to say there are also members who are contacting us with very polarized views there are some who absolutely want to go back not under any measures they obviously want the mitigation measures and there are those who don't want to go back. Well it's obviously going to feed into your general perception of what we're living here if it doesn't matter whether you're a teacher or a doctor or a journalist or whatever it is is if you think right enough is enough let's crack on with this we have to live our lives well that's going to be your opinion regardless of what your you know your job is but just in relation to your views on the education minister though you know she leans very much on public health you know I know one of the big talking points yesterday was as it relates to mask wearing you know the type of masks and again you know our answer will be continually will public health say currently and they've said it over and over again that the current masks that children are wearing are adequate and you know they will look at it again but the same answer is going to come back you know do you do you think that education minister should listen more to unions and less to public health you know do you think that she should digress or divert or whatever the word is from the public health advice if it's coming very strongly from student from teachers unions well I think first and foremost we all have to listen to the public health advice and the public health advice yesterday in relation to the to the mask is that the masks that we're currently wearing are sufficient but that's not what we're hearing internationally I mean schools in Canada for example have now said everybody must wear the n95 or the ffp2 whatever they're called the higher standard of masks and I think if there's that level of concern among the school community among staff and among teachers okay maybe not for medical reasons she should make the decision but she should certainly make the decision to alleviate the concerns and fears of her staff of which there are up to 100,000 going back to school tomorrow so you know you can base decisions on medical health advice or you can go beyond it there's no harm in going beyond it we would obviously be saying don't do less than the medical health advice but I think you know if if she really wants to ensure that staff are more comfortable which is probably not even the right word to say to go back tomorrow she should make that decision what what's what could be sent out at four o'clock today as it relates to antigen testing is it antigen testing going into school or is that how you might handle suspected cases within the schools like what are the unions looking for as it relates to antigen testing well I mean just to give you an example I mean in northern Ireland and I know because I family who work in schools in the north they are they're giving antigen tests they're giving a box of antigen tests every monday and they must do two tests that week and I think that's a safe and a fair way of doing it and they're monitoring every day you know if you work and and I have family work in this area as well with the children with with additional needs or special needs my sister has to take an antigen test every day to ensure that she's safe to go in to what so you believe students should be taking say two antigen tests per week I don't see any reason why we shouldn't so the difficulty that we have is that we've been told by the the by the department of Wales where that the supply is really really difficult and I know that that was really you know that's the elephant in the room here I think they have enough for about 350 the government can send out about 350 000 antigen tests a week but they have no certainty over supply towards the end of january so I don't really think there's enough antigen tests in this country through the government through the retailers to sort of satisfy that request unfortunately and and even if you go on to the hse website to book if you're close contact to booked an antigen test I mean I went on just just to check it and I was told you know the website is down come back at eight o'clock tomorrow I've never in my life heard of a website going down at eight o'clock in the evening you know in this day and age so I think that's going to be a problem now certainly the view from public health is that you know this will peak you know in the next week or so and maybe come February we might need as many but I think every measure that we can put in place should be put in place now yeah stay with us if you don't mind juan because it's not going to be some principles we'll probably have a full cohort of staff tomorrow others could be down you know 50 we don't know it it's going to vary from school to school we'll come back to juan in a moment I want to say good morning though first to John Hiren whose principal at st. Bernadette's special school in letter Kenny John are you welcoming this decision from the education minister it's hard to know Greg I suppose we all want to see the children back in school it's the best place for them and it's the best place for teachers because we had a father of remote learning last year and it wasn't fun you know it was very hard and everyone especially the students and especially our students with additional needs so I welcome the fact that we are open and Greg and the children will be in front of us tomorrow morning because that's that's where we want them to be and that's where the teachers want them to be I suppose the problem the problem is Greg that there's going to be a lot of teachers and a lot of parents that are going to be very anxious about it you know and that's that's the problem in terms of the practicalities of open John I don't know how many staff you have but are you hoping all will be able to return tomorrow yeah well we have we have 11 teachers Greg and we have 17 SNA and a few other you know secretaries and a few things like that caretaker so so far we're we're looking very good Greg thankfully now but you know as you answer it's earlier in your piece like that could change it anytime today for two or three teachers could contact me or SNA to say that there are close contact or the symptoms and next thing you're russian trying to get subs and as I said the card I'm just going to forward to mom Greg uh there's a whatsapp group and then you go all for subs for principles that you know to put up on the whatsapp group that they're looking for a sub and that group just the messages started pinging on Monday evening when uh when uh principals started putting up looking for a teacher for Thursday and Friday and next week because of course obviously they may have already committed or they could themselves be isolating yeah well obviously they had teachers contact them at that stage from Monday night onwards and something great that what's that group has just been the messages has just been flying in and it's the same schools still looking for jobs you know some of the big schools around there are really looking for three and four jobs for Thursday and Friday the education minister said that's you know students uh student teachers will be made available uh that's not much use for us up here I'd imagine well it's not much great because I had a couple of uh students some of them with me in suburnus before Christmas and they were excellent and uh I got on to one of them just to see what her situation was for Thursday and Friday and next Monday you know next week if I needed them because I thought you know she already will need someone somewhere and she came back to me to say that she was to do her placement in Dublin after Christmas and she's been told by uh the colleagues in Dublin that she has to go to her school in Dublin where she was to do placement and be available to sub on that school so that's you know I think that's a wee bit of players but she's best use it for the schools in Dunningall because you know she's a she's a local gear farm there at Kenny but she's obviously doing her teacher training both here in Dublin and now she has to go back to Dublin so she's not much good to the schools around there at Kenny but so John in a nutshell from your perspective um it's it's things are looking okay for tomorrow and fingers crossed there is always going to be uncertainty we simply don't know we just have to we don't know great because I said if I got two messages today from two teachers they couldn't come in tomorrow like I know from that WhatsApp group and my own list of subs that they're they're all booked up so where do I get two subs tomorrow morning and you know our children as I said to you before Greg on the show a few times like our children come from all over to make all the buses most of them are on buses before eight o'clock in the morning come to the other Kenny for nine so you know I can't pick up the phone and start ringing around parents yeah and tell them to keep their children home that they're children are going to come to school tomorrow and whether I have a teacher for them or not in their classroom I don't know it could be just left up to you know and other teachers supervising two classes and they have to need in that class which are brilliant in our school having to you know take on the mantle of caring for them children fortunately do brilliantly but you know there might be a teacher in front of them children that's the reality John do you feel you're getting enough support from the Department of Education on this not really great I don't think so like I heard Norma Foley there I think a morning Ireland just this morning saying that you know that the priority of you know that there should be a kind of a scale for you know special schools and classes with ASD units and additional needs they should be getting a different priority but like you know where is that like you know there's no one saying that you know subs that are available should be you know should be going into special schools first and ASD units you know and special classes rather than just going into mainstream classes it sounds good but when you actually work in the sector and when it has to be applied actually really it's it's just words words exactly great it's just words you know there's nothing behind it I got that impression myself as well to be honest with you yeah and I think there comes a point where presenters are going to have to stop cutting interviews short if there aren't actually answers being given and have a bit of respect for the listeners because yeah okay John listen the best of luck thanks Greg I can't believe we're saying about luck and something like this but you know what I mean I mean with the very best of intentions thanks John as always John Haren principle of st Bernadette special school letter Kenny so Joanna when from your members perspective who calls the shots you know like who decides whether a class is not called in or sent home or or whatever because again listening to the same interview same interview that John listened to this morning the question was simply not answered and it was asked three times and there was no answer from the education minister that I could hear yeah and look certainly from one of you and post-prime you know maybe somewhat different in primary but I mean schools are the employers not the department of education and schools have a legal obligation under the law under health and safety legislation to provide a duty of care to their staff and students so we have got a commitment that schools at post primary level we'll get the we'll have the professional judgment on a daily basis to decide based on what teachers are out or what number of teachers are out who's in and who's not in and who's not in now it's it's not really straightforward to say we want to exam classes in because that may not necessarily be the teachers that you have in so I mean it's it's very very difficult time ahead for for principals for boards of management for ETBs because they're going to have to make decisions and and support each other in making those decisions I mean are we not at the point now John this is tough for all of us you know this is tough for Highland radio here you know obviously there's going to be staff who can't make it in it's tough for bars and restaurants that happen to close the because they can't have the staff you know it's going to be tough and and you guys in education are going to have to do what the rest of us are going to have to do and we're going to have to just find a way to get through hopefully this particular wave and in through the spring and hopefully on to better times it's just the way it is yeah look I agree fully with what what you had said and and fairness to schools since the pandemic started that's what they've been doing on a daily basis muddling through the problem we had though was before Christmas if a school did send home a class or a year group or whatever it may be they were being contacted with the Department of Education say open up again you don't have the authority to do that that has now gone are you sure well it's gone for post primary I'm not sure what no it's just again going back to that normal foley interview she did she had an opportunity to make that really clear that these would be autonomous decisions and she said well it will be done in I think you can paraphrase to say it'll be done in relation it'll be done in in sort of consultation with a Department of Education official that's the impression I got from what she said yeah and I think that is the case in primary where they will have to contact the inspectorate now obviously schools will have to go through a number of steps they won't just decide okay I have five teachers out I'm going to send a year group home they will have to try and source substitute teachers but even if we forget about COVID for a second which has been very hard to do for the last two years if it for whatever reason be it weather or be it whatever there are five six seven eight teachers out a school can't open on health and safety grounds you cannot leave students unsupervised or inspected so schools and boards need to come back to the legislation irrespective of what the department say all right but it'll be at least four o'clock before principles before principles get sight of these operational guidelines yeah one thing that I can confirm that we did get yesterday was there was it was muted a lot I suppose and then the media was the place where we heard it that teachers and school staff would be would receive a delegation to the COVID leave measures same as what's happening in healthcare it's been confirmed that that won't happen so whatever measures are in place across the sector and in post primary we will have the the tracking tracing the contact tracing they won't I think in primary but we will have it in post primary level but look it's an uncertain time members are absolutely concerned and we are relying on the employers here to ensure the health and safety of everyone thank you very much as always uh Joanne Irwin there who is assistant general secretary of the teachers union of Ireland we're going to be speaking to parents representatives and representatives from students after we take this break so please stay with us the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest expires letter kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show homeland fuel offers keeping you warm for less 40 kg premium doubles or easy flame coal 1699 buy 10 get one free one kg fire logs for for five euro 12 pack wood briquettes buy two for 10 euro shop in store or online at homeland.ie McElhaney's biggest ever winter sale is now on with offers like never seen before in your favorite designer brands but better hurry when they're gone they're gone with up to 50% off in our women's men's kids jewelry home and footwear departments loss enjoy a great sterling exchange for one pound by your one euro 20 so go get what's yours at McElhaney's ballet buffet or McElhaney's.com at cherrymore kitchens and bedrooms we are now operating out of one new state-of-the-art showroom in dunning all town and we invite you to visit our new 5000 square foot dunning all town showroom to discover the latest eye-catching designs remember at cherrymore you're dealing directly with a manufacturer which means high quality kitchens at factory prices start planning your dream kitchen or bedroom by calling cherry more on zero seven four nine seven two five eight double two cherry more 25 years delivering value quality and service all over Ireland. Sheridan security now introducing zero wire smart alarm systems zero wire zero mess and a real peace of mind with a simple press of a button your alarm can be set or on set or download the free app and control it from your phone call us today on zero seven four nine one two six zero two five and get your alarm from two hundred and ninety nine euro stay local stay safe and protect what you value most with Sheridan security systems. Okay so Jill Holtz is founder of parentsandbrands.com and joins us on the program now thanks for taking the call this morning Jill. Morning Greg. Right now you have been in touch with parents your organisation have been in touch with parents and surveying them as to what they want as it relates and I think you know as I said to an earlier guest there before you joined us you know I think a lot of people's opinions whether they're parents guardians or in fact teachers what they want to see happen kind of depends on their attitude to the pandemic to some extent are you getting that feeling. Yes we do research every month with parents and so over the Christmas period we asked them where they were at with the topic of schools going back and it's definitely been a hot topic because you know yourself in pre-pandemic it's a juggle between work and school so parents really came back and said they do want schools to reopen that was kind of the overwhelming. Seventy percent which is not insignificant yeah. No 40 percent of them were sort of blanket yes I want them to reopen so the further 30 percent were saying well I have reservations but I feel they should and it was only just under a quarter that said no they didn't think they should reopen at this point and I mean I suppose that the ones who are saying to reopen are still saying so under caution and kind of the main concerns they have top of the list of safety and the kids not yet being vaccinated but really beyond that it comes down to things like that they struggled with the whole homeschooling before you know parents really had a hard time with that and mental health issues the importance of education the importance of routine for kids they felt that they've had just two years of disruption and really it was interesting that only 13 percent of parents that we surveyed which was just over 400 parents by the way they only 13 percent said oh it's time we learn to live with this life has to go on effectively yeah a lot of mixed feelings really and I think an important proportion of of those and and maybe you know maybe they do get a voice I'm not sure is 20 percent one in one in five isn't it nervous or scared you know so that's that's tough on that group of parents because they're sending their most precious things out and and they're they're nervous and scared about them or themselves or or those living with them you know I mean maybe the likes of the government or whatever or the schools need to issue some advice or help and support to them or reassurance to them yes and I think you know that that really came across and some of the quotes that we had which were were saying things like yes kids need their education but I'm really nervous about my son I'm very very anxious about sending them to school but then they've missed so much schooling and I think their mental health has suffered so they again just really came across strongly as mixed feelings on parents they want schools to reopen they want that routine in education for the children but they're very nervous overall yeah all right listen thanks for that and very interesting indeed Jill halts there who is from parents and brand that conducted that survey the key findings as we just mentioned there 70 percent of parents want their children back at school that's across all schools that's seven out of ten there's a mixture in there with you know right just get on with it and others only if things feel safe 21 percent would prefer to wait until their child is vaccinated huge uptake it I believe anyway in people registering parents registering there are young ones the very young ones for a vaccine but anyway parents feel education and routine are important and are reluctant to see this upset and one of the key point many parents report being nervous or scared and would like to see the numbers fall before they feel comfortable but you could be always on that the brink of something along those lines though couldn't you right Emer Neville is president of the Irish second level students union and you know Emer again and we've had this conversation with reps from students in the past be it about exams or be it about reopening or closures or whatever it might be and we're talking about years again and not two years I don't know how much consultation was had with students on any of this decision making perhaps you can inform us how much do you believe students have been consulted in this process well we believe that students weren't consulted on this at all and we were met we met with stakeholders last night but rather than having a consultation we were briefed on the plan to reopen schools which was very disappointing because students weren't able to voice their opinions really and on the schools reopening but just ask questions and this comes as quite a surprise to us and other stakeholders because there was and has always been a very productive and close relationship between the wider pool of stakeholders with the department in recent months as a response to the challenges that the pandemic has brought to education but unfortunately there was just no consultation on this decision right so you're just told you have to wear a mask you're told you have to get on a 100% packed bus you're told that you have to sit in the classroom with windows open and I'm not saying any of those things are right or wrong that's not the commentary I'm just saying you're just told that's the way it is get on with it yeah it's what public health public health have recommended the schools can reopen but that's not how students feel at all and it's not how a lot of teachers feel and other people in the school community as we've seen a lot of stakeholders actually have the same stance and that's the phased return to school not an immediate return to school so how would that from an irish second level student union perspective how would have a phased return to school looked like and we're talking post primary here presumably yeah so we were advocating for a phased return starting from monday january 10th and this would prioritize in-person tuition for exam year students and students with special educational needs and so they would return first on monday as i'm following them all of the year groups would return in a phased approach so five years second years ty first year however you know however way you could put it and there are multiple different ways it could have been done but that's i suppose the great part of it and i suppose maybe they're concerned it will delay the peak and and that's all part of of what we're doing here i mean like i just find it ironic that we have conversations at least once or twice a year about you know should 16 year olds get the vote you know and voting on elections and stuff and yet we don't even consult with them or get their views whether we like them or not or whether they're sort of taken on board or not you know often these decisions have to be made in the round but i think we we should at least show particularly second level students some respect and speak to them in advance of decision making yeah absolutely especially when an issue is completely really only going to affect them you know and students and teachers and all of those working in the school communities this issue affects their lives of those around them as well and i'd make a decision without consulting them it's very very rash but what are the students concerns emir because thankfully you know the one safe and grace from this pandemic and it's not exclusive of course is that you know young people generally don't get very sick from it i i i think there's a consensus there in that regard um so what would why are your union members sort of against a full return of to school at this time what are their what are your you and your fellow students concerns it's really the question well so the first part is that students don't feel safe going to school they don't feel that the adequate measures are in place to protect them and because you know they might get sick from from the virus but they could bring that virus home and seriously um seriously ill family members could get sick anyone with underlying conditions or even just to say a parent and we don't know how the virus will affect those people and it could put their lives at risk as well so while only the students will be in school it does affect the wider community as well and giving such a quick return and with so little regard to how the stakeholders in the actual building feel all right okay well the decision has been made and you said that you were effectively told about it last night we've made this decision this is what you're going to have to you're going to have to comply with yeah there was um it was our understanding that there was going to be a consultation but that was not the case it was a briefing on the matter and again and we were very disappointed as were other stakeholders and we're hoping to remedy this now and we're calling for a meeting between all stakeholders in education that is open and solution oriented and to minimize disruption that has been put on learning and teaching and we're calling for a phased return to school in there yeah it must be a bit frustrating you know when um it's generally accepted good ventilation is one of the biggest uh one of the biggest um and purifying of air is one of the biggest advantages we can have against this virus and and you know you hear the likes of of the education minister and others saying you know there are mitigation uh there are mitigation that's in place in classrooms and students are safe and yet there aren't hyper filters really and there are maybe you know one co2 monitor per two or three classrooms like user in there you know actually what's going on and then you hear this other conversation happening as if that's the reality it must be very frustrating it is very frustrating and students are worried and they're concerned because they know that there are not adequate measures in place in schools and they've lost their trust in the schools um to a place where they do not feel protected all right listen emir thanks for your time this morning i appreciate that's emir neville who's president of the irish second level students union okay so it's over to you now uh to have your say if you wish 08 660 25 000 your whatsapps and texts or give us a call on 07491 25 000 is 2022 the year you need to change your mattress rest expires letter kenny the massive january sale is now on sponsors of today's show make a murphy sports and leisure has everything you need to gear up for the j a season this year get your hands in the brand new dunigold j home jersey available in men's ladies and kids or gear up the whole family for pre season and match days with the new harlem range of sweaters leggings and snuds at michael murphy sports dot e the two we live happy sale is here with thousands of free child places this summer splashing sorted savings of up to 250 euro per booking plus low booking deposits and the two we holiday promise for a complete peace of mind here we come so relax and get booking two we live happy offer teas and sees apply from the smallest shrub to the largest tree in an awkward place donnelly tree services provide a complete range of tree surgery services whether you need to remove a dangerous tree or some nuisance branches donnelly tree services have the experience and expertise to carry out tree surgery to the highest of professional standards call 08 3 005 939 donnelly tree services dunigold no job is too small no tree is too tall now as we mentioned earlier one in four people who appear in court nationwide for using their mobile phone while driving are being convicted so three out of four aren't new data seen by the Irish time shows a quarter of convictions out of 15,000 such cases between 2018 and 2020 rates range from as low as 14% in County Sligo to 36% in County Wicklow now Michael Harrison is a former inspector enrolled in road policing in Donnelly Gold Michael Harrison he joins us on the program now Michael thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us this morning I appreciate it morning Greg happy new year to you happy new year to you and Michael right so I I don't understand how this could be I thought once you get to court something like this case closed fair cop bang on the coughs clearly it's not the case no well we do live in in a country great that has a constitution that which allows you to challenge evidence that's brought that's brought against you by the police force or the state and like on a personal level that is a very very good thing I wouldn't like to live in in any jurisdiction where you where it would accept the word of a of any police force so you know without challenging it but roads roads road traffic legislation is the most challenged legislation on our books I was in the car yesterday and I was listening to a politician talking about the new average speed cameras on the M7 and he said that it's not rocket science and I remember saying to me that my god it is rocket science rocket science was easier if you were to ask a legislature in the Department of Transport would he change places with a rocket scientist I'm sure he would because it is very very difficult legislation to get completely right and the fact that 25 percent of people are getting off on on road traffic it's not bad there's there's several reasons why it could happen but it's well what what is that I mean listen the cat's out of the bag we're not giving anyone ideas I don't think but because they're they're legal teams are working on the behalf but what kind of defences are being put forward then that means we have a conviction rate so so low of just what is it just a quarter convicted well it could be anything there was this it was there's an article on the internet for those published by in the log is that back in 2019 and the figures are much the same and the reasons offered then were that the that it could be the guard might might fail to appear in court the could be procedure alert the guard might be given his evidence he might give the wrong right registration number of the vehicle you know the guard has to be literally a walk in dictionary when he's given his evidence in court and this is very very difficult mistakes can be made it might be the wrong person might be prosecuted the there's so many different reasons that we will be here all day talking about them so does this all come back again to our occasional conversations and I'm sure that the ones you have more regularly when we talk about the road traffic bill or act that it needs an overhaul really it needs complete from top to bottom looked at yeah that's the that is something that was I think it was the one of the ministers I can't I can't think of his name but it was mentioned and quite a number of years ago that the world's road traffic legislation that needed complete overhaul there has been so many amendments on top of amendments with particularly with the guards over a drink driving legislation and the road traffic it just needs completely okay let's start from scratch again I don't know whether they were working on it they said they were going to start working on it it that it was going to take a number of years but it certainly does need an overall it needs to be simplified it needs to be made easier we've had 133 people died on our roads last year but that's 133 families that have been affected by that and that's that's the reality of but you know we talk about often why the message isn't getting through you know as it relates to road safety and what have you do you think maybe something that seems like a sieve this legislation this that seems like a sieve does that undermine do you think the the safety message could that be one of the reasons why you know we hear from frustration from the Guardi from those in road safety that the message just doesn't seem to be getting through yeah one we discussed about how we could reduce the road safety before christmas Greg and I said to you that at the time that roads that roads police and at the time it always has this place it is kind of the bedrock of of saving people's lives on this road and if that has been eroded by measures where measures where people can get off from prosecutions in court certainly that that will affect the morale of the people who were prosecuting because they will say well what's the point of me doing this if they're just going to walk into court and get off and it it it it does need as I said it does need something to be addressed because it is the bedrock of saving people's lives on this country and I suppose as things stand we are going to be having these conversations annually depending on which set of figures a newspaper or we ourselves happen to focus on this is not going to change because the the atmosphere in which we you know we are we are found to have done this and then convicted of doing so that's not changing so presumably nothing changes until everything changes no there's nothing but people are going to continue you know to challenge road traffic legislation there if they it is one of these pieces like they would sooner like murder convictions or murder cases drug possession and drugs cases they like they're not have to far more impact on people on an individual than a road traffic prosecution but but for some reason rather road traffic legislation is challenged and it does make it is the only thing that can make people think it is the main thing which can make make people think about driving safely is this fear of prosecution and if that is undermined here in Ireland it it it's not good it's something that needs to be addressed really and truly and do you get any sense of an appetite for that and I don't mean from the likes of yourself who speak from a very informed position or the likes of say Susan Gray with the Park Group and and others I mean obviously they but I mean do you think there's any political or legal appetite to actually overhaul this the way it might need to be done oh I don't think so I honestly don't think there is it's it's it's a can of worms it's it's it's a loose loose situation for any politician no politician wants to be associated with legislation that you know that is going to make people's lives a mystery like we had there are a number of TDs that challenge that ask questions and all air and but they're all for the main part they're all independent TDs you had Tommy Broome in the last stall he he he was constantly knocking on the door of the minister for transport the minister for justice but it's it's no politician wants to you know wants to be associated with and all that stuff that he would have revealed you know I mean it made the news maybe you know page three or four but in reality if we were serious about road safety that would be so scandalous that the government would have to do something about it oh yeah they some of the some of the details were so right seriously this is this how we operate you know from a risk management point of view you know if somebody was to was to show you a risk in a company and they were saying listen they you're doing this work but 25% of the time you're not being successful in doing this well automatically you you would address that risk and and try to mitigate it to stop what's happening but back in 2019 this conversation was being had at this time in the year but in in an article in the log is that's and Tommy Broome at that time was referring to figures from 2017 to 2018 so nothing has changed because you know the the the department they will they will weather the storm they get over and say okay we discuss it again next year yeah a caller says I travel 35 to 45,000 miles a year around Ireland for my job prior to lockdown and since it ended I've never been stopped at a checkpoint this is the biggest problem in Ireland but that I mean at the end of the day we're talking about people that were seen by Guardi or stopped by Guardi that actually ended up contesting what was said going to court and only a quarter of them finding themselves being convicted so I mean maybe our listener has a point you know you don't see an awful lot of checkpoints around I think anyone who's on the road might agree with that but that's not the point and this one this is these are people that have been at least suspected of of doing wrong have been brought before the court but three out of four of them get off you know that that's the truth and the again for you know going back to my earlier point of you know the type of country we live in it is very very good that you can challenge the evidence that's been taken against you by but where it is kind of on all fours like road traffic legislation like a scientific piece of equipment I said that you're drunk the observation of a guard has shown that you that you were using your mobile phone at the time I cannot see you know why these pieces of legislation speeding detection why it needs to be challenged in you know just to the level of extent that it is challenged in superior reports all right listen thank you very much indeed for that that was former inspector Michael Harrison and of course you know a lot of people would say well you know we have to have that protection that we can't have decisions being made or or being handed out based purely on based purely on what another person sees all them although they're a guard you know I'm not a big fan of extra laws or anything by the way but just have to tease things out there with inspector former inspector Harrison now hi Greg I'm thinking of traveling from northern Ireland to the UK Britain for a weekend in April but I'm not vaccinated you know if you need to be vaccinated and can you get the PCR test you pay for before you leave on on either side thank you I don't think there is any need traveling within whether one might like it or not the UK which you would be doing from northern Ireland England say for example of Scotland I don't think there is any and I'm open to correction on this from anywhere I don't think you need to provide any evidence because you're in the one area for the purpose of that conversation so if you're traveling from northern Ireland to Britain I don't think you need any proof of anything but as I say the airlines might seek you know maybe you're going by boat I don't know tell us how you're looking to go over there and I can dig a little bit further and try and find out for you hi Greg the only reason there are so many teachers office because they're getting their full pay and it's the same across the board thank you another have not seen a postman in the last few days so asked my friend as he's a postman he said they're only delivering scanned parcels as so many are at sick so god help anyone waiting on a letter for or a hospital appointment I wouldn't take that as across the board by the way that's one person what they've heard and their experience just in case there are people waiting in important letter and I think that that's the reason we don't I don't know what we will do is we'll put a call into on post and find out if that's the case and how widespread now I'm not questioning a listener for a moment but they've heard it from another person and we just would need to we would need to clarify further I work in retail and I'm sick of listening to these pampered teachers were all down staff I think that was kind of the final point I made to Joanne but they said they say our shop never closed once we all had to accept doing more than double our workload because other staff are not only will half the teachers be out so will students I'd like to see a little more willingness to manage and a little less complaining from the pampered cohort right keep your calls and comments coming into us of course it's 08 660 25,000 08 660 25,000 or give us a call in 07 491 25,000 it is the 90 noon show lots coming up with the program including a conversation with Sean Murphy the general manager of letter Kenny University Hospital I'll find out for you exactly what the situation is there at least I will endeavor to do so so stay tuned coming up now it's Michaela with the news and a bit where you notice this after the short break the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest expeds letter Kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show Milford tiles and wood flooring Milford retail park January sale is now on get 15% off everything in store 15% off tiles bathware wood flooring attesives and grout yes you heard right 15% off everything in store for two weeks only Milford tiles and wood flooring 08 3 09 10707 get 5% of VHI first care plans and unlock a wide range of health care services when you buy online and start your policy between November 25th 2021 and March 31st 2022 search VHI 5% to join today terms and conditions apply VHI health care DAC trading as VHI health care is regulated by the central bank of Ireland hello grace where are you heading down to meet to measure fireplaces increase law made to measure fireplaces didn't you just buy a fireplace there yeah but i'm going now to pick my kitchen work top create the kitchen and living room of your dreams at mid to measure fireplaces and granite work tops they've been in business for over 40 years so for help choosing granite or quartz for your work top fireplace or stove visit the mid to measure showroom at casual creasel or see mtmfireplaces.com or on facebook a public interest message from dunny gall county council attention farmers dunny gall county council would like to remind farmers of the importance of good agricultural practice in protecting water courses over the wet winter period make sure soiled water from yards roadways or the poaching of land doesn't enter waters and try to keep out wintered stock from entering streams and rivers fix any broken gutters and downpipes to keep clean roof water off dirty yards locate supplementary feeding points at least 20 meters from waters and not on beer rock we all need to play our part in making dunny gall a clean environment which is good for all dunny gall county council protecting the environment live on air online and on the highland radio app this is highland radio news good morning i'm akilah clark with the news at 10 o'clock one school in dunny gall is already without seven teachers before it reopens tomorrow due to the impact of COVID-19 absences in schools across the county and nationwide are expected to increase drastically by the end of the week education minister admits the reopening of schools will not be without challenge but has given the go-ahead for them to reopen following a meeting between teaching unions and the department of education yesterday further talks are to take place today to outline operational guidelines juan erwin assistant general secretary of the tui told the line to ninshow that the majority of teachers are apprehensive about returning to work tomorrow we have members you can't access yesterday very concerned they're they're medically vulnerable themselves they live with family members who are medically vulnerable they haven't left their homes over christmas for fear that i mean the figures we're getting on a daily basis on a personal view isn't half of what's out there because i was one of those people who was sitting at midnight trying to get a pcr test in letter county for four days in a row members are apprehensive but i have to say there are also members you're contacting us with very polarized views there are some who absolutely want to go back and there are those who don't want to go back john harn principle of sim bernadette special school in letter kenny mean once says they are dealing with an ever-evolving situation we have 11 teachers and we have 17 s and a and a few other secretaries and a few things like that caretaker so so far we're looking very good thankfully now but that could change at any time today for two or three teachers could contact me or s and a to say that there are close contact or the symptoms and next thing you're russian trying to get subs and there's a whatsapp group and then you go out for subs that group just the messages started pinging on one of the events irish nurses and midwives organization is calling for elective procedures and hospitals to be cancelled for the entire month hsc ceo paul reid has told hospitals to prioritize urgent and covet 19 care for the next fortnight and to scale back elective procedures it's due to the pressure on the health system because of the omicron variant 884 people are in hospital with covert 19 and 90 are in icu letter kenny university hospital is currently dealing with 56 infectious cases ianimo general secretary phil knee hay says elective procedures must be delayed this is not going to be gone in two weeks we believe that all of the elective work must be curtailed until the end of january to give our healthcare work for some chance of dealing with what they're facing in a safe manner safe for them but also safe for those that they're trying to provide some level of good care too a dunningall councillor says he will be urging the authority to liaise with the hsc and others to assess how the fire service in the county can assist the ambulance service yesterday deputy podre mcgloughlin said he'd been told by the national ambulance service that it would welcome back up back up from the fire service personnel particularly in cases of cardiac issues in november councillor michael mcgloughlin asked the council to explore such an option but officials pointed out that the service is not resourced to provide medical backup and to do so could compromise its core functions councillor mcgloughlin has confirmed he will be raising the issue again saying the council hsc and government should work together to address the issue of resources and fairness although the reply got was less than positive they did leave room for talking about it again welcome very much what deputy padre mcgloughlin's achieved there at the moment now we're getting a positive response to self at least from the ambulance crew itself this is going to have to go back to the council now again trying to get resources and so on and then there's something that i will be looking to bring back to the table now again as soon as possible community groups in dunningall are being invited to apply for grants under the latest community's activities fund announced this week by the department of rural and community affairs the money which will be allocated to groups in disadvantaged areas can cover either capital expenditure or running costs donal kavna has more minister heather humphries launched the fund this week with a national allocation of nine million euro it's intended to support community and voluntary groups in disadvantaged areas with small grants of up to 1500 euro available for running costs such as utilities and insurance and large grants of up to 10 000 euro available to carry out necessary repairs and improvements to facilities or to purchase new equipment councillor knee of kennedy chairs dunningall local community development committee she's encouraging all community and voluntary groups in the county to apply saying the committee acknowledges the difficulties the groups have faced in meeting their running expenses throughout the covet 19 pandemic the closing date for the receipt of applications to the scheme is 3 p.m on thursday 24th of february with more details and links to the application form available on our website highlandradio.com whether night it will be a mostly dry day with some sunny spells but there will be a few isolated showers with highest temperatures today of three to six degrees that's all from highland radio news for now we'll be back with an update again at 11 o'clock until then good morning the obituary notice is for this wednesday morning january the fifth the death has taken place of james brezlin carrick mcquigley red castle james's remains will repose at the home of his son james and daughter in latina carrick mcquigley from three o'clock this afternoon funeral mass will take place on friday afternoon at two o'clock in st clumbus church strung followed by burial in near droning graveyard funeral mass can be viewed live on mc and media the death has taken place of mooring magroty sinfinian's park mobile mooring's remains will repose at the home of her daughter grogna in bally nally mobile family time pleased on 10 p.m until 12 noon with family only on the morning of the funeral place mooring's funeral mass will take place on friday morning at 11 o'clock in sympires the 10th church mobile followed by burial in bally brack graveyard funeral mass can be viewed live on the parish webcam donations in leah flowers place to the genegal hospice that care of any family member the death has taken place of mary boil nade dory art connell art draw and formerly alton a gapelle art draw remains reposing at chauvin's funeral home sanfield today from 12 until two o'clock followed by removal to her late residence in art connell traveling via the wood road mean tinnadee alton a gapelle and killie begs road to repose overnight funeral from there tomorrow morning at half past 11 to the church of the holy family art draw for 12 noon funeral mass with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery family flowers only placed donations in leah desire to charlie bennett memorial fund care of sheamus chauvin and son's funeral directors the death has occurred of teresa krilley nae quinn five a haloha road a kileter castle derrick recreation mass will be celebrated on saturday morning at 11 o'clock in sympathrex church ahyarn retirement afterwards in the adjoining church yard the mass can be viewed via the parish webcam the house is private to the immediate family and close friends the death has taken place of sheamus dawdy dobs 25 castle park bonk rana removal from his residence on friday afternoon at 20 past one going to sytmarish church cock hill for two o'clock recreation mass formed by burial in the adjoining cemetery the house is private to family and friends only please funeral service can be viewed online at church services dot tv family flowers only please donations of desire to cash on the core care of any family member the tragic death has occurred of darah connan leap garrow our more island his remains are reposing at his late residence which is strictly private to family close friends and school friends please funeral will take place on friday in synchronic church our more island at 11 o'clock for by burial in the adjoining graveyard the death has taken place of donal basal shill's cargottaskin dairy bag his remains are reposing at his late residence rosary tonight at 8 o'clock with house private afterwards house private to family neighbors and close friends funeral mass in sytmarish church dairy bag two more morning at 11 o'clock with burial afterwards in maharajan cemetery the funeral mass can be viewed live on cure nordy funeral director facebook page the death has taken place of james o donal middle door bomb bag his remains are reposing at his late residence rosary tonight at 8 o'clock house private after rosary until 11 a m house private to family neighbors and close friends funeral mass in sytmarish church dairy bag two more afternoon at 2 o'clock with burial afterwards in maharajan cemetery the funeral mass can be viewed live on cure nordy funeral director facebook page family flowers only donations and lead to the dunigal hospice care of any family member or cure nordy funeral director the death has occurred of shawn mcgaldrick ardo donal letter kenny and formerly of mullin neary killy gordon his remains are reposing at his late home wake private at the request of the deceased funeral mass two more morning at 11 o'clock in sytmarish church crossroads with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery funeral mass can be viewed on the sytmarish crossroads facebook page family flowers only donations if desired to the dunigal hospice care of any family member the death has occurred of norman o'hair 52 blue cedar bali buffet funeral leaving his late residence this morning and half past 10 for requiem mass at 11 o'clock in the church of mary mclidstern orler internment afterwards in drumbo cemetery requiem mass will be streamed live via the parish webcam donations and lay of flowers if so desired to the rehab unit letter kenny university hospital care of any family member funeral private to family and friends only please the death has taken place of william pinkerton gordon glebe refoe funeral service in his late home at half past one this afternoon with burial afterwards in strunorder church of arland graveyard family flowers only please donations only to the friends of letter kenny university hospital care of any family member or william key funeral director the death has taken place of annie mary annie galleher nae duffy 341 3d caledonia road gorbls glasgow formally of glenn road anagry and letter kenny requiem mass today a blessed john dunes scottish church ballatier street gorbls glasgow interment in the lynn cemetery glasgow family flowers only please donations and lay of flowers if so desired to the prince and princess of will's hospice bella houston glasgow care of desmond maguire funeral directors or any family member and the death has occurred of james mcshie mara melin donno his remains are opposing at sympatrix church minna cross funeral mass this morning at 11 o'clock with interment afterwards in maharis cemetery for more details including any family health guidelines for wigs and funerals please go to highland radio dot com if your child is aged five to 11 you could now register for their free covet 19 vaccine covet 19 usually causes mild to moderate illness in this age group but it can cause more severe illness all vaccines used in ireland are tested before they're approved by the european medicines agency to find out more or to register go to hsc dot ie or call hsc live on 1800 700 700 from the hsc and you're very welcome back to the nine till noon show here on highland radio with me greg hughes on this wednesday the fifth of january do hope you're all well uh some of your comments coming in this morning why should my child go back to school tomorrow with 21 000 cases of coven when for the last 10 days of school before the christmas break with just 5000 cases they only had 40 of their classes due to teachers being absent it's obviously going to be much worse tomorrow another caller says very nervous about my wee woman going back to school tomorrow and she won't be getting any vaccines uh another if it wasn't safe for nomophily to meet in person with teaching unions but open up all schools they say hi greg just wondering if others didn't get their property tax bills as i think they have to be paid in january i'm not sure what the timeline on all that is it's hard to remember everything i did know at one point but unfortunately it's gone uh we'll try and find out or some of our listeners will help us with that maybe hi greg arlands facebook is now called the meta metaverse got a notification this morning yeah i think it's um i think uh what it is is that uh the the company itself is called the metaverse isn't it or meta and uh facebook is part of that uh but yeah will you be walking around your house living in an alternative reality with your headset on uh who's to say i never left the house at christmas to say safe because i knew this virus was rampant and i was needed in my job in the hospital yet i watched colleagues party everywhere and now they're complaining about payment for having to isolate anyone who winningly participated in party events over christmas should not be given pay well if if the rules didn't permit that that's fine but you know people were and the t-shock himself was looking forward to having three families over to his house four families all together perfectly legal uh people were able to go out and socialize up until eight o'clock or be it up until eight o'clock um perfectly legal uh so how could you then dock people or punish people for living their lives set to the rule of the land uh that would be unfair i'd imagine a caller is sick and tired of teachers complaining everyone else is to get up in the morning and go to work no questions asked because we won't get paid if we don't teachers should do their same there is it a difference though you know like and i think people who have an issue with teachers this is like you know throwing petrol on the fire so to speak but if we just step back a little bit you know and and try and think without our preconceived notions and imagine a lot of work what i'm doing here i'm sitting in a room on my own and if i go outside the room you know there's what you know there's a group of people but not a you know it's easy to have your own space in a in a school environment for a teacher okay and and teachers are just humans so some are gonna think this is all a load of cards wallop some are gonna be ultra nervous some are gonna have sick people around them some of them are gonna be sick themselves they could have hypertension they could be a little overweight whatever it might be they are in a room with 29 30 other human beings who likely have it at least some of them very likely to have it you know we know that's a fact right so i think as i say if we put a put to one side maybe preconceived notions i think you know it would if teachers unions didn't speak out and express that concern that some of these teachers might have would they be really earning the money that they get from the teachers for it you know it is a different environment to a lot of us have to work in and i'm full of praise for everyone that's worked in retail and all that kind of stuff but there are some areas of work that there is there there is a greater risk and and maybe well not maybe but you would imagine in a room a small room with you know 30 odd people in it that that would be perhaps a workspace that somebody who's already courses might be more nervous to work in you know i'm just trying to understand how they might feel about it because that's what we have to try and do try and understand what each other are feeling to some point and be a bit more empathetic that's what i'm trying to do i'm not saying anyone else should by the way it's not my job to tell people how to think or what to do radio last coming up in the program as i mentioned but not before we find out if you're going to win the bingo here's wednesday's numbers it's time for ncbi bingo on highland radio it's wednesday the fifth of january you're playing on a blue coloured sheet the reference number is s3 it's game number one the numbers are 33 76 57 90 the number seven 34 47 48 the number two and 77 phone your claim to 91 0 48 double three before 8 p.m. tonight leave on your name contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book get all your ncbi radio bingo information at highland radio dot com the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is restyx beds letter kenny the massive january sale is now on sponsors of today's show loganair's biggest ever sale has landed we're taking off 15 from a whopping two million seats for 2022 and you can book and travel with confidence with our flex protect cover and fly safe protocols plan ahead and get the best fairs today at loganair.co.uk sale ends the 11th of january travel from the 10th of january subject to availability t-sensee supply loganair we make it personal live electricity wires are always near and coming close to them can be dangerous so always ask yourself are you sure it's safe look out for electricity wires above and below you if in doubt call us on 1800 372 999 it might just save your life ESP networks stay safe and stay clear of electricity wires it's the right price tiles and wood flooring half price sale get up to 50 percent of everything in store all kitchen and bathroom tiles all wood flooring all bathware all cladding everything's reduced it's our biggest ever sale the right price tiles and wood flooring half price january sale stores nationwide sale now on highland radio time checks brought to you by letter kenny shopping center the center of shopping in dunny all free parking and shopping all under one roof letter kenny shopping center bringing you the time at the time is 19 minutes past 10 you're very welcome back to the nine till noon show here on your highland radio we're joined on the line by glenty's native johnny ward who's a space product manager uh with the real thrash space systems engineering it's great to have you on the program john thanks for joining us hi great thanks for having me right now on christmas day a very significant thing happened in terms of our learning of space and we're talking about deep space here um what was launched yeah so on christmas day uh from french guiana a nasa european space agency telescope called the james web space telescope was launched um it's a kind of considered the the next generation hubble telescope um it's a flagship nasa mission that's been in development for about 30 years it cost the 10 billion dollars uh so that launch was um very very important it was launched by the european space agency and uh has been sent on its way to uh location about 1.5 million kilometers from the earth where it's gonna yeah i was going to say what's its mission you're about to go on to that yeah it's um basically going to study the universe so it's going to look back in time as such to when the first galaxies were formed um it's also going to look for exoplanets so planets that are orbiting around other stars so so not planets within our own solar system although it will do that too so it's kind of going to do a lot of stuff basically some of the images it was sending back the video bit glitchy around launch time is that anything to be concerned about no so um the one thing i that i wanted to to discuss was about real truth so the company i worked for in dublin it's a small startup that um was tasked with putting the video cameras on the rocket that launched i did not know i'll be honest with you i did not know that so my first thing would not have been my first question no no and actually that's a good video okay it's a good point because um so when the video was was looking at the james webspace telescope as it was um let's say sent away from the launcher uh yeah there was some gray frames and things like that now that's actually not an issue with the video system itself on the launcher so what has to happen is you know you have camera systems and you collect the the images then you have to transmit that information down from the rocket to the earth you do that through uh you know radio radio transmission uh what happened there essentially was it's very difficult to to keep the quality of the images you collected with a a radio dish actually in kenya at the time and then you collect it in kenya and you have to pipe it all the way over to south america and then it gets displayed however there's been recent video where they've cleaned all that up now and so if you go to the european space agency website or even if you follow the real trip twitter account you'll see these like much much more cleaner image now where they've managed to correct all those issues right so tell us more about how uh real try ended up you know being involved in such a you know a monumentous mission yeah so this is a i think a lot of people don't maybe realize that ireland has a space industry and so there's actually several companies in ireland that produce products for use in a space environment uh and how real try got involved with the james webspace telescope mission was through a relationship with the european space agency so ireland contributes a budget to the european space agency it's about 20 million euro every year should clarify the european space agency is not the european union it's a transnational body of multiple countries spain germany uk finland etc everyone kind of puts their money in together and collaborates on building technology for space either for science scientific purposes or for um for you know earth observation etc and what happens though is as ireland contributes the money has to come back to ireland in the form of geo return contracts so real trip saw that there was an opportunity to to produce a camera system for the arian five rocket which never had a camera system before but we knew that for the james webspace telescope launch you know it's a 10 billion dollar telescope you're going to want to see what it looked like as you let it off the rocket so that's how we won the contract right now we um i haven't seen this yet but there is a sort of like i don't know almost you know like in the old days the the cameraman used to put the the the sheet over his head to to to stave off the light i'm not sure if that's quite what this tennis court size sale that's been erected that has been successfully um dispatched now that's there that's in place are your cameras still able to sort of capture that kind of stuff no so our cameras were just on the rocket so unfortunately did you stick to go pros on their big rocket i wish you know it would have been much much simpler but no there the cameras we had to produce they have to be extremely uh rugged because you can imagine a launcher it's basically a controlled explosion that just fires stuff into orbit so it has to be able to survive a lot of vibration has to be able to survive shock and by shock what i mean is when parts of the rocket have to get discarded because the engine is used up it's fuel they actually have small pyro bolts so little explosives that go off to just make sure things follow parts your camera has to be able to survive that shock once you're up in space there's no air so it has to be able to handle that it's in a vacuum and that the temperatures will much much higher so it can go up to hundreds of degrees down to negative hundreds of degrees and also you have radiation so you've cosmic ray particles so very high energy particles that can hit your camera that can damage electronics so although you can use a go pro it's probably higher risk um so we had to do a lot of testing which was done in ireland actually and it's a bit of a joke but it's a very serious thing and our space exploration you know and it's a lot of money and people can have that debate as well but we uh we use things in an everyday basis that you know were developed because of you know sending things or people out to space so through this process uh you know are we learning stuff maybe even real for it is as it relates to you know the applications for cameras on the ground you know what we might be able to capture in different environments or you know even if it is camera stabilizing technology you know is that how we see developments on earth by pushing ourselves in trying to sort of achieve the impossible in space yeah that's that's exactly it so um there's kind of a multiple thing here I know people are going to say oh sure why why aren't you spending that money on on other causes etc the first thing is it's not a vast amount of money in the context of the Irish budget but the second thing is that money comes back pays for salaries pays for engineers and scientists in Ireland keeps them here and those people can actually develop the skills of how to work at the cutting edge where you're really really working in a very difficult environment and then those people take those skills and move into other other fields um in terms of then applications on earth absolutely if you didn't have a space industry you would not have uh when you open your phone and you go to google maps it tells you where you are that's not magic that is done because of global positioning systems which are satellites in space which have to get up there through launcher um the European Union have done their own called Galileo which gives us our own strategic advantage and so that's just one example where space frying pans yeah exactly teflon uh you know you can do all sorts of stuff and even with astronauts um you know uh how they operate in space and how you monitor their their vitals and stuff has applications on ground um so with the with the guards of cameras absolutely and in fact one of the next things we're going to look at is using artificial intelligence which is a great buzzword to see can you spot problems on the rocket but that could absolutely be used on for example a train on the ground if you can look at it and and have an intelligent camera that can spot that something's come apart that can let people know much sooner than a human might be um that there's an issue so I'll be one I'm going to ask you a question that I won't understand the answer to but anyway I do that quite regularly in terms of you know how many megapixels of these cameras how how big are they actually in their form you know uh before you attach them to this rocket yeah so um this is if these are high definition cameras um they're because they're um have to survive all that tough environment they're quite heavy so they're actually about a kilogram not that weight I'd say they're about probably slightly larger um than an iPhone in terms of footprint but they're about maybe five to ten centimeters high hopefully their battery lasts longer well actually the the the thing about that is we have a we actually have to fly up a battery with them a big battery because not only are there cameras there's the system that takes all that data and translates it into radio frequency and then sends that down through antennas so the battery pack itself is about 10 kilos but that's because you need to run it for for several hours while you watch the satellite drift away right and how long and maybe you touched this already but it's fascinating how long are they with these cameras primarily for the launch and the early stages of this or the continuing operation and if so what will we learn from them or are is it so we can see what's going on or is it a diagnostic tool or what what happens now in the lifespan of these cameras yeah so um the they're purely for engineering and diagnostics as you correctly said they're on the upper stage of the rocket now I should say that the rocket once it goes up it comes back down and it comes back down and burns up in the atmosphere actually so you'll see now in America SpaceX has actually developed the technology that its rockets can come back and land which is a very very a game changer in the context of space exploration and industry but our cameras have burned up in the upper atmosphere that's so it's a good business model but it's not very effective but it also goes to show and it it's interesting because in my head the rocket and the cameras and the telescope were all part of the same thing forever but of course not they're right the cameras were attached to the rocket which gets the satellite into the into space and then and then they part okay you can look at the rocket like it's like an Arctic truck yeah it just brought the product up it sent it on its way and then it came back to earth right now have you in terms of the work of this uh this telescope itself have you taken an interest in that do you have an interest in space what it might capture or were you more about getting it up there and then moving on to the next project my background is actually in astrophysics so um I did a degree in phd in astrophysics so I studied a lot of astrophysical phenomena so for me of course it's interesting I actually left academia though to move into engineering you know my father's an engineer my brother's an engineer so in a way I was a bit of a black sheep in the family by doing physics so I've kind of come back into the fold now and I'm more interested in the engineering the bear pressure was just too much yeah too much too awkward at Christmas um but the the James Webb Space Telescope it's an incredible piece of technology and as you mentioned that a sun shield that that folds out to the size of a tennis court that's to keep that instrument at basically near absolute zero so that it's sensitive to the light from the distant universe um and it will reveal some incredible things about our history as a species living on the earth in a universe I know that sounds very grandiose but um it's I think it's a very important mission to give us more understanding by where we come from what's our place in the universe yes and and it's all the first success was weeding our way up through Elon Musk's satellites that's the that is a difficult uh a difficult course uh to navigate and it's quite remarkable in that regard there are people now in Ireland getting their broadband from his network of satellites that's exactly and that's another another great application that we haven't talked about is telecommunication so internet from space and I think it's very important but it's happening now like it's it's 99 quid a month or something but people now you know people know familiar with Elon Musk is a an interesting character but people now in Ireland are because they can't get it from air or Vodafone are getting their broadband service sometimes it's on sometimes it's off but they put more satellites up from his what is it x something or other space x yeah so what is what's real-time space systems engineering working on next um John yeah so um you obviously the video system the viki as it's called we're going to put that on the next generation of the arian group which is the european uh launcher company on the arian six we're also working on a an exoplanet hunter uh called Plato it's a european space agency mission so we're building a system that's going to control the the temperature of the telescopes that's a really fascinating experiment because it's going to look for planets that may contain potentially alien life uh out in the galaxy um we're also involved in we do need to find another planet to destroy because we've earned it almost done the job on this one so we are going to have to put well yeah it's it's not the optimal it's going to take a long time to get there i think we should probably focus on making this one work as well but uh you know we're also heavily involved in in that in fact and we're working on systems that are going to look down at the earth uh and help understand agriculture the the weather climate change etc just in relation to testing right you know i mean obviously you talked about a such a unique uh a unique situation as in terms of vibration, heat, radiation, how do you test on on do you how do you create an environment on earth or perhaps you do it in space i don't know how do you create an environment on earth that will sort of you know you can test those boundaries because they're so unique almost to a specific series of events i.e blasting into space yeah and you're you're spot on it's not trivial and actually one thing that happened uh during COVID was that we developed uh the capabilities to run space simulation stuff on the island of Ireland which would not have existed before because what was typical here is that you do the standard thing oh we'll go to the UK we'll go to France we'll go to Germany and that's all well and good and we partially did that for testing this system until COVID came and we couldn't travel so what do we do we ended up having to come up with systems here in Ireland and there's a company in bio in dcu who actually built a thermal vacuum chamber so that's a steel box or steel cylinder excuse me that will pump out all the air so it's just like space it has a heating and cooling element in it so you can heat and cool things to kind of simulate what the sun is like on your components so we managed to test their system and that then actually in a great example i would say of all island cooperation in neary county down there's a facility called resonate testing limited they have a vibration table so it's literally a thing that shakes your system it's usually done in automotives and military applications but it does the job to pretend it's a rocket launch and also during that they developed a shock system now this is sounds ridiculous but what they did was they took three sledgehammers they welded the heads together and they dropped this with a lever arm onto a big metal plate our camera was you know about maybe half a meter away from that sledgehammer i know it's more scientific but i can just imagine two fellas down there going it's not going to be much worse than that when you see it live you you think that exactly it is a very violent looking event but and it sounds kind of silly but that's actually very very technical in terms of you have to measure the shock the vibration how it goes into your system to make sure that it mimics the rocket uh in in the real life and so we now in ireland on the island of ireland can do from from first principles all the way through tests and can do an entire space system and that's something we couldn't do it's amazing before the pandemic it's amazing if we're challenged it's amazing what we can do especially in ireland yeah yeah okay um and then you have to suppose someone has to set the parameters to say well you know this is actually i was joking a wee bit this is actually you know what we can expect um finally like you know until it's actually happening you know you don't know it's going to work so how nervous is that how big a deal is that for the likes of yourself and realtor and and then of course obviously how euphoric then is it when it's like we did it guys you know girls and boys we did it yeah no it's it was um extremely nerve wracking i have to be honest uh you know you have to understand we developed that system from concept to delivery within under two years which in the space industry is kind of unheard of like we really worked hard and it was a core team we're only about 10 people and so for a startup to be able to go to these big european companies and say look we think this system's going to work trust us uh and then actually see it on the day on christmas day i watched it with my dad and glenthys um to be able to watch the thing deploy and to see our visuals and then to see those visuals getting shared around the world you know on cnn on bbc uh you know in irish media uh it's you know it makes you extremely proud and and really so it's it's it's a brilliant achievement to be part of something and it's it's history then you see you can never be taken away absolutely it was iconic footage and and the thing about it is that's a small irish company there's many office the irish space industry is going to grow and grow and grow and you know partially what i want people to understand is that uh we do have a space industry here it's something that does generate employment and and it's um something worth investing in and and i think that's just one example that that's because of an irish company those images are spread around the world brilliant stuff and just very finely because i'll be thinking about it afterwards the the obviously the initial bit of blocking and what have you um it was recorded was it recorded on the rocket and then downloaded or um do we have software on the ground that that can interpret those images and and create a you know a better quality video how does that side of it work so it was actually it was broadcast essentially live from the rocket and and the the images on the ground were captured live and essentially they're ready to go as as they're received and as i say the dropped frames the dropped images you saw was it was just a small problem with the ground station getting the information to create but they were all there ironically the internet on the on the earth was probably the problem there but they were all there on the ground it was just then a case of picking out the dodgy frames and and there it was okay yeah that was just interested in that and i say might as well ask rather than um listen it's brilliant stuff it's it's fantastic that's a a glentes man a donagore man so heavily involved uh in this project in realtor space systems engineering and that we are and another that's a point you've wanted to make a couple of times and it's important one that we have an industry here a space industry here and we are making a difference and it's something we should be should be proud of yeah absolutely listen thanks for your time i appreciate it great it's been a wonderful chatting to you thanks a million all right take care of yourself that's uh glentes man john e ward space product manager with realtor space systems engineering check out the brimocormics winter sale in store or click on bmcsports.ie if you're concerned about safe grocery shopping right now what could be safer than doing it from the comfort of your own home with click and collect a kelly centra in it or kenny you simply download the centra app order your shopping and then pull into the car park to collect at a time that suits or phone in your order on 91 double two zero two six for no fuss no contact shopping a kelly centra mountaintop litter kenny at smith stale side our range of high energy beef diets will give you increased daily live weight gain and quicker finishing times talk to our sales team at smith stale site about our range of beef feeds on 0749171300 okay you're very welcome back to the nine till noon show now my voice sound lower is it my ears i'm problem with my sinuses at the moment and my ears just aren't working like they should call us say she got a pcr test in the north with results back in 24 hours can this test be used to apply for the covid illness payment um i don't know i we should try they're accepting antigen tests so if they're accepting an antigen test i can imagine i can't imagine they wouldn't accept a pcr test um now repairs repairs to a burst water main may cause supply disruptions to green castle village carousel transfer shove and surrounding areas works are scheduled to take place until 4 p.m today we recommend we don't irish water do that you will add two to three two to three hours after the estimated restoration time for your supply to fully return and you're asked to take note of the following reference number and entered into the search bar should you wish to return for an update well it's don 00042506 and you're being advised that road traffic issues are also likely due to this water notice right let's take a piece of music there were a couple of shows uh well there was a documentary over isn't a documentary it's a program anyway feature program on daniel o donnell obviously uh he had his late late show celebrating his 60th birthday and uh also the bbc as we previewed on this show before christmas the bbc and rt aired a show about him uh excellent show i thought it was an excellent show because it um showed for those who wouldn't be aware many of us are uh sort of the impact he's had and the type of person he is and it was good to see um his video la de dar down at the la de dar getting this uh getting a mention because it was uh it lifted the spirits of a lot of people in december here's the song the for which the video was made for that is daniel o donnell down at the la de dar uh coming up after 11 we're going to be talking about fitness you know it's the start of the new year and maybe you want to improve things for yourself well we're going to be bringing you some advice as a relation in relation to that as part of wellness wednesday so if you have any questions you know about um getting fit or what you could be doing what you should be doing uh any dietary questions anything like that there we'll try and get some answers for you you contact caroline on 07491 25 000 even if you don't want to do it now because you know i think if you do things at the right at the start of the year there are there's a school of thought out there that it's not the best time to do things because there's so much pressure then and it's dark and it's cold so maybe it's something you plan on doing when the quare stretch in the evenings is even quare uh in february or march or into april but whatever it might be if you have any questions about health and fitness or your health and fitness or what you could do to improve it uh then getting in touch with us right now your whatsapp and text 086625 000 if you're watching us across our facebook pages our youtube page uh make sure uh to comment there if you want to as well and hit subscribe if you don't mind it's good it helps us uh and if you're watching us anyway you might as well if you're on youtube highland radio island if you hit the subscribe button it's that useful and you can also hit the bell and be notified when we go live it's not just this program and you're going to see more and more video content through uh 2022 here on highland radio it's the counties we are the county's biggest media outlet across radio uh across uh the internet and uh also in terms of streaming uh video online uh so you might as well be part of that hit subscribe hit the bell and you'll be notified on either facebook or youtube when we go live right uh we're going to be talking about the reopening of schools again getting an inside track on it from uh a school after these is 2022 the year you need to change your mattress rest expects letter kenny the massive january sale is now on sponsors of today's show a cherry more kitchens and bedrooms dunig all town their sale is now on new 2022 collections now in stock with great offers across all ranges see and store for details book a design consultation today on 074 97258 22 or see cherry more dot ie cherry more excellence in manufacturing since 1996 homeland fuel offers keeping you warm for less 20 k g super therm by five bags get one bag of hardwood logs free 10 k g wood pellets by 10 get one free board namona briquettes by 3 for 16 euro shop in store or online at homeland dot ie forward emphasis international based in malinhead are actively recruiting for customer service advisors with both permanent remote working and hybrid opportunities available experience and contact centers or insurance services is desirable but not essential as full training is provided fully funded financial services qualifications delivering attractive career path opportunities are available please visit their website www.forwardemphasis.ie or apply via their careers page do you currently have vacancies that need urgently filled have you tried various ways to find new staff but didn't succeed let highland radio help you source and fill your current vacancies in the most cost effective way simply sign up to our new job spot and we will tell our listeners about your vacancies both on air and online every monday wednesday and friday during our prime time shows we will broadcast the latest job opportunities across the northwest and in the county's dairy and tarot and all job listings will be available online at highland radio dot com for more information contact the advertising team on zero seven four nine one two five three double two or email advertising at highland radio dot com highland radio we're here for you okay now we are speaking to a deputy principal of a local school good morning to you thanks for joining us on the program today I appreciate it greatly thank you Greg right now what's the reality as we had towards opening in your lived experiences we had to watch the reopening of schools tomorrow okay this is how the land lies with us Greg and I speak on behalf of my fellow colleagues and I'm quite sure the extended paternity of primary teachers I'm coming from the primary school and now we have no desire to be closed and I want that stated very clearly to all the parent bodies right there we have no desire to go back to online teaching that is not what we want to do nobody particularly enjoyed it and we all saw the value that online face-to-face tuition has for children for social interaction and at school so that let that point be made now we very much want to be back but the reality on the ground as it was prior to Christmas is that we are not going back to what the government would like to put a spin on is safe environment we in the ground know that the environment is not as they call it safe yes we have carbon filters in the school or carbon monitors monitors in the school which tell us to keep the windows open all the way which we do and quite frequently throughout the winter you have 28 plus children sitting in the courts plus the teacher and we've done that but before you move on though like would it filters not be a better solution to that because I think anyone you know teachers are us and we are teachers you know what I mean teachers aren't some alien race that don't have empathy for children what have you um you know proper ventilation and the windows closed that would be better that would be proper mitigation surely well grants have been made available for um the purchase of HEPA filters which principles have to source and buy over Christmas period and they will now that's the next phase is that those be put in place which ultimately would have been the right move from the very beginning um but you might remember around about Halloween a decision was made by the government kind of ease the restrictions around the opening of night clubs and contact tracing was removed from schools at that time why I will never understand because what happened and we knew it would happen where they said at the time and and then you can continue point they said at the time that we're doing you know so so many tests every single day and they're coming back at about like you know two or three percent positive it's a waste of resources would be better off you know uh targeting this in other areas because cases aren't spreading in schools children are catching it home bringing it into school it's not spreading in schools and all these tests are coming back negative that's right that's what they say now this is what we say on the ground because we left it quiet before Christmas in the screens and you can see and it was evident that cases began to spiral particularly throughout toward the end mid-November right through and up to Christmas and the reality on the ground was that transmission was happening in the schools as children passed the virus from one to the other despite our greatest efforts not only that but staff also contracted the virus it doesn't choose um and we knew that you know like we know that like and they can keep saying it wasn't happening and it's not happening but we knew that like you know and it felt it felt so patronizing and frustrating because i'm a parent i know people who are teachers uh i know what's happening i'm not silly none of us are silly uh it was it was spreading in school because one child had it on monday and then four or five other children and maybe a teacher had it by friday that we knew what what was happening absolutely greg i'm going to speak just briefly from the personal point i actually contracted covid myself a few weeks before christmas i'm fully vaccinated the whole lot and it was no ordinary flu for me and like i really had concerns about the youngsters who are in my care like i would speak from our school community perspective we really look after them and we love the children in our care with a great parent community and i do want to put that out there today who were incredibly supportive and we are really grateful of that but on the ground it was exhausting i mean this is a very long and protracted period and yes i know healthcare workers have been absolutely to the fore and on the front line but we were still well down the vaccination list and we were dealing with the largest unvaccinated cohort in the country remember you know that that has to be we went back in there last year and we were afraid there's a notion out there that we are superhuman we are not we have children we are cares of elderly people in our own homes you know some teachers have children with special needs we had all the same valid concerns as everybody else and i just feel that our department and the government that notion that students are safe environments i just found it insulting it agreed to me and i thought from my fellow colleagues who have been piling on relentlessly and it is exhausting our school principals spend so much time on phone calls paperwork sorting subs and we go back in tomorrow with quite a few of our staff members often covid related what does that mean how do you plug the gaps there and if that's not a good way of putting it well this is initially this is you know when when we went back in last year we were unvaccinated remember at that point and the remit was that if staff members or class teacher became ill that the sport team those teachers and special ed and the sport teachers went in and filled the gaps so where where pods were kept very strictly and classes there was no mixing we had to fill those gaps and it will continue to be the same you know which in one way i suppose is it's a solution when you cannot find a sub but it's not ideal either it's not ideal you see i think i think from what you're saying is that you know we know we what's best for our children we know what's best for us to i went star crazy at home for two weeks you know i need to go to work so did many yeah you know children you know if you used to if you're used to it sitting home again it could drive you a wee bit star crazy yeah but i think if teachers felt more understood or if the conversation was real you know we're actually having making these decisions in the reality that we all know rather than that the schools getting all the supports that they need their safe environment you know principles aren't contact tracing you know if we were having a real conversation i think maybe teachers might feel less aggrieved absolutely it's the negativity that came with this and and the lack of support i can tell you that last year pretty so many of the services were unavailable to us because well they weren't they weren't doing face to face counseling sessions or let's say speech and language sessions or OT sessions teachers were plugging those gaps and it was tough going we did it it wasn't easy but a lot of the departments and bodies we tried to make contact with were unavailable to us and that is still the case like i know that before christmas several times trying to get advice from public health authorities etc there was no one at the end of the line Greg you know and we were left adrift and left to our own devices and that needs to be acknowledged and that needs to be said i also think that under the department of education there are so many smaller departments quangles we call them that are related to them kind of under this umbrella of the department and so many of them were not actually operational during that period of time why can't those people be seconded out to schools to help us in some crisis what is the issue like surely to god there's a there's a case there for people being redeployed yeah to help screwed in this current crisis listen um i think it's sorry 30 seconds and then i'll have to take a break for the news if you want to say just before we go okay i just want you to know you've been heard like you know and i hope um that that is some comfort um and i mean thank you i appreciate that Greg i appreciate it sincerely and i want to really welcome the children back tomorrow with open hearts we really do care about them parent body also and thank them for their support to date but i would like an acknowledgement by the way that meeting that was held yesterday i hear it was heard on it was heard and carried out online well you have to be safe you have to be safe yes of course the irony of that alone so thank you i did reference that earlier indeed it was it was like when you were being sent back into schools previously and the door was sitting in the convention center because it wasn't safe for tds to be on top of each other all right it's all noted and what have you listened thanks very much indeed jordan appreciated greatly news is upon the way the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest expeds letter kenny the massive january sale is now on sponsors of today's show milford tiles and wood flooring milford retail park january sale is now on 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our expertise okay i think we've all made a commitment to try and you know new year new year for 2022 maybe going to do that through fitness we're going to bring you some advice to help you along the way get in touch with us let us know what questions we can answer for you but it's 11 o'clock so let's get a news update and cross over to the newsroom say good morning to mikaela clock thanks gray good morning the green party leader says we may be close to the peak of the current wave of COVID-19 the cabinet is meeting today to discuss the high case numbers but isn't planning to bring in more restrictions meanwhile the public expenditure minister says he hopes naffid will allow the isolation rules for close contacts to be relaxed they currently have to stay at home for five days even if they've had a booster and don't have COVID symptoms it's led to staff shortages at many businesses with calls for the guidance to be eased well a number of skills in dunny goll are already without a high number of teachers before they reopen tomorrow due to the impact of the virus absences in schools across the county and nationwide are expected to increase drastically by the end of this week education minister admits the reopening of schools will not be without challenges but has given the go-ahead for them to reopen virus nurses and midwives organization is calling for elective procedures in hospitals to be cancelled for the entire month hsc ceo paul reid has told hospitals to prioritize urgent and COVID-19 care for the next fortnight and to scale back elective procedures letter candy university hospital remains the second most overcrowded hospital in the country 39 people are waiting on a bed at the hospital according to the iron the most trolley watch report that's up three from yesterday a dunny goll concert says he will be urging the authority to liaise with the hsc and others to assess how the fire service in the county can assist the ambulance service yesterday deputy podger mcgloughlin said he'd been told by the national ambulance service that it would welcome backup from fire service personnel particularly in cases of cardiac issues and conviction rates for using a mobile phone while driving are as low as 14% in some parts of the country new data seen by the irish times shows between 2018 and 2020 25% of people who were brought to court nationally were convicted those are the latest headlines we'll be back with an update again at 12 noon thank you very much mikaela right now we're joined on the program by ifa mcgill hunter owner of ifa mcgill personal training at the mountaintop in desert how are you getting on oh baby happy new year it's good to see you again and a very happy new year to you um listen we're talking about it because a lot of us are trying to maybe you know start 2022 as we mean to go on but is is it wise to sort of pick specific dates or times of the year and trying to change everything is that a good strategy well anytime it's never too day to get started but yeah it's hoping to push you out to april okay carry on no but this tends to be the time of year that people get the new year's resolutions ready to ready to rock and it's not a bad thing to start but i would recommend especially members here or anybody really that you don't just go for january to set further targets um believe or not i always use it easter believe it or not from here on in because um really between now and easter from this week alone there's 14 weeks to go so for many targets to keep people on track i would say if you reward yourself say once a month so you've got three rewards three many targets between now and then and it's between 12 and 14 weeks is a real realistic time frame for real solid results not a four-week hill for leather manic stuff and then give up so before we get into that like um what is the breakdown between sort of diet and physical activity do you know what i mean in terms of what you might want to achieve you can't really do one way or other can you if you want to not just maybe maybe it's about losing weight but it's not always about weight maybe it's about gaining weight but whichever it is what is the sort of balance between you know physical exertion or training versus you know what you consume in terms of achieving results yeah assuming in relation to weight loss it definitely goes hand in hand like you said like I appreciate not everybody's goals as weight loss related no for mental health benefits or we gain or whatever it is but really um it really is a mixture of healthy eating balance nutrition and uh physical activity um in your physical activity that can be simple simple things like parking at the far side of the car park I'm walking up a bit further taking the stairs um you put your nutrition you can often say people remark that they can train say seven days a week and I'm not getting anywhere will nobody train seven days a week you might train seven hours in the week or seven days you know your nutrition has to go in hand and say with that uh balance nutrition some of the things like open your water intake um introducing some good carbohydrates proteins what's a carbohydrate what's a carbohydrate so say your what's if your breakfast for example you can have your porridge yes your whole meat like your brown breads your passes are fine your rice are fine your potatoes are fine they can get a lot of bad press um especially this time of year you'll hear a lot of different um diet plans and what not but basically the simplest advice I give anybody for weight loss and as far as nutrition goes the sorted create a calorie deficit no matter where it comes from and to be honest after the christmas rush I mean people tend to have the snacks and the treats and from early december to cut them out alone in january you're going to have that deficit that you over and over the month um but the as I said you'll hear all these plans now and advice of different weight loss programs and what not but they'll always have a calorie deficit out of somewhere so if you know low fat diet you know calorie deficit there can you know carbohydrate diet there's your deficit there so I recommend balance across them all I wouldn't assume and you have no um allergies and things yeah I would balance across all food groups cut nothing out and if anyone's going to make major changes like it's always good to talk to your GP anyway because other person might know you best so that's the caveat right from the beginning and I think people understand that so in turn how you eat okay and as I say we'll get on to more productive stuff but the simple stuff that maybe we skim over at times and people don't uh sort of know where to start so skipping breakfast is not advisable some of us might do that our first meal might be at lunchtime and we think right that's one meal down we're doing well today is it important to have a healthy breakfast you know it is I really recommend breakfast is near the most important meal of the day because it's such for the rest of your day breakfast about seven or half seven right I'm starving at about 10 o'clock but if I don't have breakfast I've no problem lasting out to lunchtime yeah that's funny the way the body works like that but you'll tend to overeat then at lunchtime portion sizes right yes you're right okay would you stop watching me eating but just it's routine you know you hear it a lot and people often remark that they cannot eat breakfast in the morning and that's okay it doesn't have to be the minute to get out of bed but it can be within the hour or the hour and a half so um so we'd have a breakfast a porridge or wheat or something like that presumably and then you know what what might you eat then as the you know throughout the course of the day what would be a good would you have something mid-morning what would be a good lunch is there anything you should have mid-afternoon what's like an example of a good evening meal but again it's supposed to depend on the person but I for across the board people could work it into their own schedules but on average if there's have a meal or snack on something every four hours to tell him over so that you don't have the lows the the sugar lows and you keep everything nice and balanced so if you have say your carbohydrate breakfast which say likes your porridge or protein like scrambled eggs um say turkey rushers or something to that effect with the protein that you can have say a piece of fruit in the yogurt mid-morning yeah see if I had turkey rushers and scrambled egg I would eat that every morning no problem it's the thought of you know cooking it yeah you know and say if you have your fruit if you're running short of time say your fruit and maybe your natural yogurt in the morning and have means to to cook those things mid-morning yeah you know it's just not going on empty as a key eating regularly okay so so for for lunch then you know what what's a reasonable lunch see if you're working and you're to say you've taken a packed lunch with you so you set options with that somebody at home when they're able to cook but assuming you're taking a packed lunch say you're going to work I would say a whole meal wrap you can fill it with much protein say chicken and ham and they have that side of the edge with it to tie you over again you can have some fruit with that um they if again say if you have the means to to cook yeah now um just in terms of some people might have the larger meal at lunch time and a lighter meal in the evening basically that doesn't really matter does it Eva no do you know what to be fair I think as long as you get your your meals in you're not skipping meals like on that like some people say to me sure I've been told not to eat past six in the evening I wouldn't agree with that either I mean everybody's shift work and your day runs definitely um myself I tend to eat on my working day well this is my first day back after maternity well done how's it going when me and me and the heavier meat around lunch time yeah because I'm more active than that in the evening for classes and things though I'll eat a bit later than in the evening yes whatever work for you yeah and then in terms of your evening meals what are good uh what are good meals because you know or could you start off even with smaller portions or do you really want to make sure you're eating the right types of food for weight loss smaller portions are a great way to go even a smaller plate and fill it up sometimes it can be psychological if you have a full plate of food I have I have two sets one's a smaller plate and the other's a larger plate and you put the same food in both and you feel like you're you know you're spoiling yourself on the smaller plate and you feel like you're starving yourself on the bigger plate it's astonishing and that was slowly introduced into our lives the bigger table plates going back generations the plates were far smaller so yeah definitely is a thing definitely and if you say that and what the plate did you feel in your heart done by you'll sometimes go back for seconds and you'll be satisfied with small plates believe it or not I would try to get anybody to try it just to see how it affects it logically can be but as far as portion size of school I would all or what to have on your plate I would always recommend say a portion of protein fats and carbohydrate at every meal so that's spuds veg and chicken is that is that yep and I would nearly for section of your plate so the larger section of say your protein say your chicken and your veg and a smaller portion of your potatoes or your rice yeah the delicious but I wouldn't cut out anything with your hips yeah right okay now um in terms of uh say for instance okay um spaghetti bolognese is nice okay spaghetti bolognese is nice but you can get the the the jar of it and you can pour in but it's the most simplest thing to make yourself ten of tomatoes and bits and bobs right is it better does it make any difference is it better to use your own ingredients and make a bolognese than to tip in a jar of bolognese sauce I know it's a very specific example and there are are loads of others but does that kind of thing make a difference if you know the ingredients and what's in it absolutely because that was a good example for your bolognese because a jar of bolognese alone is a load of the sugar where if you make your own you've almost half that and more wow so and it's and it's not I don't add any sugar to my bolognese you're not add it's whatever is in the the the ingredients then yeah and it's just vegetables really I mean you're making it with your your ten tomatoes your your garlic your herbs that's it your food that's it like it's a real real healthy me to be honest if you need your lean mince and okay now the challenge um the challenge we have often is where do I bloody start you know what I mean like and if I start on monday why haven't I lost four or five pounds on friday or maybe actually someone might lose four or five pounds on friday but nothing happens the following friday and they go what's the point in all of this so how do we get you know what do we set targets do we not set targets how do we do that sort of mental side of it so that we stick with it if but first of all absolutely do it for yourself for nobody else set your own I would absolutely set targets as well that you need something to keep you accountable is it wait is it how you feel is it how your clothes fit what what works a mixture of everything it really is but as far as the when scales go I would park them you can use them as a tool to aid your your success but I wouldn't put your hopes and dreams into them a real real motivated aid I find helps people has taken progress photographs and go by your clothes see how your clothes but you're built as a few notches in and so on the photograph your progress photos I say if you take those once a month you can physically see your shape change and assuming you're doing your exercise and you're eating well but um I would say realistic sort of achievable goals don't vow to train seven days a week or avoid your favorite food it's not maintainable you know slow and steady and as I say between now and Easter 14 weeks away it's a real good sensible time frame to make real results and keep them maintaining it's okay it's not just four weeks of madness now in January yeah so it's taking things slowly having something that's achievable as you said right at the beginning set not set a target or whatever but look towards Easter it's a long way away if you make some changes you will see some changes over that period of time and break it down into blocks between now and then so every four weeks aim for a target meet it and then reward yourself for doing that um you know I would say aim for a little better not not perfection just a little better and fundamentally do we over focus on it's hugely important how we look and how we feel about ourselves but this is also about prolonging life this is about taking pressure off joints this is about uh you know when you hit maybe into your 70s and 80s if you're not already there to be able to enjoy a better quality of life you know I think sometimes it's so important how we feel in the now yes of course but we also don't we need to look at really what what we're trying to achieve in terms of our standard of life for as long as we possibly can drag out of it yeah that's it just for health and general like we also say you know your your cardio fitness keep keeping everything ticking and you know it's just simple things right back to say even consuming your water you know you keep it hydrated you're keeping your digestion i'm asking for a friend if you put a wee bit of in the water is it still water it's just came in on text yeah it's fine it's fine i would tend to go the sugar free option but it's no hand you're getting through it then that's my question if it's okay that's my question that's all right then uh but these genuine you're coming in on text now uh could you ask if buying a new triplet is a good idea or getting all the fruit and veg via a smoothies better i've heard different reports on this uh about breaking it down and all that kind of stuff what's your view sifa but you know i have a new triplet myself i do use it i like it i like it for more than say the breakfast options if you're busy and you don't have time throw it in the new triplet and away you go evidence does say it's better to eat your your fruit whole uh so the sugars are too quickly released but then you can choose your lower sugar fruits for your smoothies and things you know but i would go i like a new triplet to be fair uh listen i went at it lost two stone but when they went back to their daily life so presumably this is surrounded about lockdown they put on three stones so they ended up a stone heavier than they started they're trying to get themselves into a routine again but they want your help i would yeah and that's common but i'm not judging the listener anything but sometimes with the drastic move like that it can be really almost long crash day or it's all or nothing and then everything goes to the wayside everything stops it's the only show in town so if you stop it the reverse happens like that my word i'm steady saying and hearing the gem is consistency consistency is key that it's something you can long term keep up and maintain that it's not a stop start it's not rush for a two stone weight loss and then give up consistency yeah all right now in terms of you know exercise because you know people have you know the couch to 5k which i'm sure is a brilliant thing but it's kind of it kind of suggests though that anyone can get up off a couch and and you know next thing it's 5k but there's a big gap between those two things so you mentioned earlier on parking the car a little bit further away taking the stairs instead but in terms of something more structured you know like where if it all depends on your ability levels of course but you know like how much do you need to say start walking and when do you need to start picking up the pace and so on recommendations everybody should walk almost about every day you know walking everybody well most people can do and but as far as goals and targets go if you want to increase your fitness levels i would find something you enjoy you know you can some people prefer to do things on their own go for a walk stick on a pair of headphones some people like it as a more social thing and like here now they're kind of alone there's lots of options from you like have likes the park runs you've got couch to 5k is going you've got different facilities and gyms and leisure centers with a broad range of classes there's something for everybody and if you come to a gym and you try the class and you don't like it it doesn't mean you won't like everything that's available to people so try something that you find something that you that you like and it's it's it's i mean obviously we're gonna say it right but i think i i think it would probably be something that might work for you if you engage with someone like yourself that can assess the situation that can give you realistic goals that can give you some idea about nutrition you know that is a i think that's a big leap forward compared to not having that information Eva that's it it can be a step it's a good sort of step in the ladder to help people achieve achieve their goals um for the likes of myself it's say somebody who just has never been to the gym before i ensure how to complete say particular exercises like a push-up or a sit-up correctly you know it can be reassuring people can be afraid of hurting themselves as well and occurring COVID times and there's no sign of going away either hopefully yeah well hopefully hopefully you know we've sort of got the options of one-to-one training or small group training smaller classes and then larger classes socially distancing and everything but something where you can feel comfortable with okay of getting the ball rolling right okay people can contact you and and there's loads of great people out there working in in health and fitness and there's lots of groups as you've mentioned as well there's options all over it's just a case of us taking that step Eva congratulations on your return to work sorry to be the face that you have to look at when you're trying to sort everything else out but listen we really appreciate your time and thank you very much for it i appreciate it greatly thanks very much great thanks for having me bye bye take care of yourself okay that is uh Eva McGill Haunter owner of Eva McGill personal training at the mountaintop in letter Kenny if you want to speak to Eva if you like what she had to say but as I say you know there's lots of people out there working in this area and uh you know I think it's something if we can we all want to maybe have a look at right okay we're going to be speak to the general manager of under Kenning University Hospital shortly is 2022 the year you need to change your mattress rest expires letter Kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show don't be without your favorite brand toiletries cosmetics and fragrances with McGee's chemist where you can click and collect or have them delivered to your door email your list no matter how big or small to cosmetics at McGee's dot ie or send a text to the dedicated order line see McGee's dot ie or facebook for more details don't be without your everyday essentials with McGee's chemist main street letter Kenny and McGee's dot ie where the best costs less forward emphasis international based in Mallonhead are actively recruiting for customer service advisors with both permanent remote working and hybrid opportunities available experience and contact centers or insurance services is desirable but not essential as full training is provided fully funded financial services qualifications delivering attractive career path opportunities are available please visit their website www.forwardemphasis dot ie or apply via their careers page thinking of changing your car in 2022 think Nissa thinking of upgrading and enjoying new technology think Kia looking for value for the very best in after sales think iMotors your number one Nissan and Kia dealer in Donegal via a range of vehicles please visit iMotors.ie Highland radio time checks brought to you by letter Kenny shopping center the center of shopping in Donegal free parking and shopping all under one roof letter Kenny shopping center bringing you the time at now the time was also the time is 11 22 you're very welcome back to the 9 till noon show here on Highland radio we welcome on to it the general manager of letter Kenny University hospital Sean Murphy and a very happy new year to you Sean and all of your staff thanks for joining us today thank you very much Greg. Right now there was a slight drop in the numbers of infectious cases i believe they are on site at letter Kenny University Hospital yesterday but we were at the day before top of that table unfortunately what is the situation as it relates to cases on site today. Okay so we've got 61p COVID and with the numbers attending the emergency department both COVID and non-COVID and the pressures on our beds and the impact in terms of staff that aren't available to work where we've been under significant pressure really since Christmas so since Stevens Day onwards we've been working under very severe pressure and this week is we're really feeling it at the moment. As much as you can how many people are presenting at the hospital sick with COVID how many are being tested coming to the hospital and found to have COVID or how many have caught COVID whilst in the hospital. As I said I don't expect you to have specific figures but I know our listeners will be very interested in a sense of what's driving this massive increase. Okay so there's several factors that are driving the increase so if I park COVID for a moment we would have spoken back in November where I would have highlighted the fact that this year we've seen much higher numbers of patients attending the emergency department generally compared with even pre-COVID in 2019 and that pattern hasn't changed there's a lot of very old people in our community that need medical care and medical attention. That's now been exacerbated by the fact that there's a lot of patients becoming ill with COVID and as I said before the fact that we need to stream the patients between COVID and non-COVID streams makes the assessment and treatment of patients all the more complicated because we're having to work two parallel systems side by side. I put it in context as about a third of the patients or maybe a 40 percent of the patients that have presented hospital in the last 24 hours and that's been pretty much standard pattern are COVID or respiratory symptomatic that are potentially COVID. And again a number of those patients either come in with positive COVID tests or either PCR tests or antigen tests and again as we admit them we are kind of confirming that they are. So how many of that 60 roughly though are sick in the hospital with COVID? Like because of COVID? The majority of them are but I couldn't give an exact figure. I understand that and that's perfectly fine Sean. It's just I'll be asked that question off here and it's just useful whilst you were on to ask whilst you were on air. So people with the amount of COVID that's in the community people are reacting to the COVID becoming ill and the presenting for the hospital. They are and in many cases they will have you know underlying conditions as well which are being significantly exacerbated. I mean after this call I'm meeting with some work clinicians and again we'll be looking at more detail in terms of those patients but essentially obviously as we're under significant pressure at the moment we've been looking the patients around the hospital need to be in the hospital and there are undergoing active treatment and you know there are quite a number of sick patients here. Okay and we wish them a full and speedy recovery because some of their family could be listened to them now and that's I want to make sure I'm sensitive to it Sean I know you are but you know what I mean these are our people are our people are of our community. So in 5 in ICU we haven't been at that figure for quite some time. Now when we start talking about ICU is that ICU and then of course there would be high you know there'd be others that would be high dependency those so there are some quite a number of people actually really quite sick. Sick there are and you're absolutely right Greg we haven't been at that figure for quite some time particularly with COVID patients in ICU and that's a concern for us at the moment it's certainly a concern for my team and myself as we look into the week ahead because that number should increase it's going to put us under significant pressure and as you're aware we took the decision last week to restrict the number of our services because as I've already said we were under pressure since Christmas and we could see where the pattern was going the teams were going to get more challenging for us and we needed to be able to redeploy staff for those that needed that emergency care. So again we have restricted quite a number of our services and we might talk about that in a few minutes but we've tried to keep those services that we can keep running operational we may have to redeploy further staff to ICU and that could cause a necessity more restrictions in the coming days but what I would say one thing I would say at this point is we have in some cases we didn't book patients in for this week because we knew the pressures would be under in some cases we've had to contact patients we'll have to reschedule them and I would say that if you have an appointment and haven't heard from the hospital please turn up for it if you have heard from the hospital and we've had to reschedule you I'm deferring your appointment or admission I apologize we are doing this in the best interests have been in to provide the service we can. I would ask two things first of all a lot of people are ringing in to ask have their appointment cancelled etc that's putting extra pressure on the staff that are here so we will contact patients that we are having to reschedule or defer. If you don't get contacted by the hospital you turn up if you are if it's being postponed or has to be rescheduled you will be contacted by the hospital. We will be contacting them absolutely. This might help just in terms of avoiding the phone calls how far out from a procedure might someone be contacted to say it's been cancelled because maybe people aren't hearing something three days out and they're going on I better check and that could be causing some of the problems. Okay so at the moment we are we've already contacted everybody for this week okay and we will be making a decision again today and contacting people tomorrow and respective next week. Right just one question as it relates to the yeah go ahead go ahead. Yeah no I was going to say great so just two sort of qualifications or qualifications I put there it is an evolving situation right so we may end up having to give every try to get people as much notice as possible as you said we're very very sensitive to the fact that people make a lot of arrangements to attend hospital appointments and we don't want to be doing this at the last minute. On the other hand we don't want to be counselling and then unnecessarily if it's avoidable so it is an evolving situation and we're assessing on a daily basis. When I say if you have an appointment please turn up I would ask one thing if you have any symptoms if you have any COVID symptoms if you feel unwell please don't attend the the appointment please contact the number on your appointment letter and let us know and we will reschedule and particularly I give a number for the outpatient department for those because most of the patients that will be coming in at the moment will be coming in for outpatient appointments and then again if you have symptoms we're asking you please don't push other patients or staff at risk of transferring COVID so ring 0749123555. Now when we talk about treat number five yeah and we'll retain that number we'll retain that number here Sean because people know our number just off by heart. Now just I just want to clarify as much as is possible we heard confirmation of an outbreak at Latter-Canary University Hospital can you give us a sense of please as it relates to say the 60 patients with COVID at the moment how many of those were acquired on site when we talk of an outbreak and we saw a very rapid we've seen like eight cases a day 12 new cases a day eight new cases a day seven new cases a day are they coming in from outside how many of those are being how many of those people are catching COVID in the hospital. The vast majority of patients that are on that are COVID on in the hospital at the moment are coming in with COVID. There is a small proportion that will live will have caught COVID in the hospital and even there sometimes it's difficult to be absolutely certain in terms of whether or not they've they could have got it the day before they'd come into hospital. They came in it was not detected on the initial admission or whether they picked up from a visitor and that's why we've actually restricted business in at the moment. So the but there are some patients no it's okay there are some some patients that have been contacted patients with COVID in the hospital and have subsequently tested positive. Can you give us an idea and we talk it's very important that we're local and these are local people but again it might help with the public generally speaking of the patients that you're seeing over the last couple of weeks you know is there a profile of the patients this is across all age groups so you're seeing cases in particular demographics like are you able to having spoken to those that are working the wards and yourself of course to get a sense of of who is getting sick with COVID at the moment? Unfortunately it's difficult to say or not difficult to say it's unfortunately it is across all age demographics and we've seen more children that are COVID positive than we would have in the past. There's quite a lot of people in the sort of middle age and sort of under 40s 50s and elderly patients but you know we would have talked before for instance about it being particularly an issue of risk for the elderly. I would say that's not the pattern we're seeing at the moment we're seeing across the spectrum from the 20s right through to the 80s plus. Are you seeing any pattern in terms of the stay in hospital being any shorter with Omicron being prevalent at the moment? Not as distinct a pattern as I would have hoped to have seen to be on the switch and again a lot of these patients are in over the last week or so some patients are doing well and we're able to discharge them but there's a lot of patients that are staying in at the moment and as we've already talked and we talk about the ICU numbers we talk about the fact that patients are basically we now have three COVID wards in the hospital. We haven't been in that situation since the height of the second wave. At what point do you have to make decisions about those in ICU and you know I mean there's been a rapid increase in cases in Sligo as well they went from four five or six they're up in the 20 region now they've got no one in ICU as far as I'm aware at the moment and other hospitals in CL to hospital group like are we at a point or is it always ongoing where you have to say you know that maybe we need to transfer patients? Oh at this point with the numbers we have in ICU every in every case where we require another admission we will be assessing the options of either transfer out or extend and bring other stuff in to open up extra capacity and bring other stuff even if they bring another stuff in it's not like just sitting at home waiting to be called in we're taking them out of other areas and we would see other services then Now let's talk about staff because you know it's the perfect storm and the word perfect seems inappropriate but I think it's a well used phrase in that you are seeing this surge in cases but obviously your staff are of the community and there's an awful lot of COVID in the community so there's going to be an awful lot of stuff out for having COVID being close contact or for other issues or or maybe they're particularly vulnerable at this point how many staff are you down? We're down just under 300 staff and that's out of a workforce of 2230 so it's about 13 percent of our staff are out and as you said in a number of categories so some are staff they're cocooning because they've they themselves have got health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable and they're cocooning some of the staff many of the staff are positive and others are either symptomatic or close contacts and they're waiting for the all clear to be able to return to work because obviously like we asked patients not to attend if they're symptomatic this we also need to make sure we're not bringing stuff in if they are symptomatic and that's putting it under very significant pressure and putting existing staff under very significant pressure. You have a high vaccination rate amongst your staff and we have a very high vaccination rate and we have a high vaccination rate amongst the general population it's at least 80-85 percent. We might as well have honest conversations here are you disappointed that we are still seeing so many people becoming ill enough to require treatment even with the level of vaccination we have out there and my understanding is is okay and you might not have the figures to hand that many of these ill people are vaccinated. Many of them are that's true. Is it disappointing? The majority them are and yes it is disappointing obviously we would have hoped that we would have seen less requirement for hospital admissions so the fact that we're under the pressures we're at the moment is disappointing and I suppose I would you know repeat something I would have said to you before Christmas when I asked people to you know even for those that were fully vaccinated and I was saying you know please be mindful that you know there is still a risk of contracting COVID please if I you know follow public health advice and take sensible precautions and you know I would re-emphasize that it can continually at the moment what we need to do is take the measures that we can to stop further. Actually it's not a silver bullet so it's going to take other stuff as well I mean that's I think pretty much clear so in terms of visiting what is the situation I know you talked about it a little earlier but I want to make sure that you get everything out that's yeah yeah no no that's fine so again and you know you spoke Gregor that started this interview about being sympathetic and understand the public and the I think that was a well-made point couldn't agree with you more we are all very very conscious it's a difficult time for the patients it's a difficult time for our staff it's also a very difficult time for families we have stopped all visiting as of yesterday in the hospital and that was on the basis that we had we had evidence of where there was transmission resulting from visiting and again it's not something we take we do lightly and we understand how important having visitors is the recovery of patients but we stopped visiting except in very very exceptional circumstances. Now we're talking the end of life. The patients are extremely ill and we look to facilitate but I again I would ask people to please understand and you know make contact by phone or with the patients rather than visiting we really need to stop the spread of COVID within the hospital and within the community. You see the difficult thing we have Sean and I won't hold you longer than a minute and a half is is that really you are probably aren't seeing the Christmas Day, St. Stephen's Day, New Year's Eve Day transmissions at this point like what do you what do you think the next two weeks looks like? And Caroline asked me that before and then it's a bit of crystal ball gazing but at this stage I've and the team here we are assuming that things will get worse before they get better we we don't see and the numbers easing up I think we are going to be as we've already been under pressure for the last week without pressure is going to increase. We are on a daily basis and literally on a daily basis Greg reassessing the services we can provide we'll redeploying staff to support the critical care and emergency care areas keep our beds open and again I've already alluded to it I don't I can't say definitively but my feeling is that we're more likely to see further restrictions in service at the moment as they will run around patients and our ambulatory gynecology service our ambulatory urology service and most of our and most but not all of our endoscopy service I can't I would expect that we may see further restrictions in those services over the next week if the numbers continue. What is the overall patient population of the hospital I mean 60 with Covid roughly how many more would be? There would be just under 280 other patients in the endoscopy that includes maternity and pediatrics and oncology patients etc. All right listen I hope we touched on everything there as much as we could in the time that we have Shawn. Again for the couple things first of all I'd just like to repeat my apologies to staff if we've had to reschedule them and ask people the public to bear with us our emergency department is under very significant pressure patients who attend will be seen based on clinical need less secured patients less use patients will have experience lengthy waiting times and we apologize and ask people to bear with us and please bear with the staff they are doing their best and it's not their fault that the waiting times are as long as they are I'd like to acknowledge our staff all through the Christmas I mean we talk about Christmas in New Year so many of our staff come in done extra shifts and kept this hospital running 24-7 and just acknowledge the work that it's been done. Have you had to invoke the derogation watch? Sorry? Do you have to use the derogation watch? We have done very limited derogation and in very exceptional circumstances largely because again we're looking to avoid anything that will increase the risk. Listen I ran over a bit I appreciate your time Shawn okay take care of yourself Shawn manager Shawn manager Shawn Murphy General Manager of Vatican University Hospital I mean you know we can talk about 28,000 cases a million cases and all that kind of stuff but that is the the key information it's quite it's quite depressing my thoughts with those who are sick and hopefully they all get out and get better but that's the reality everything else is numbers you know but that's our that's us that's fellow members of our community that's that are in hospital sick and you heard there it's mixed it's right across the age groups a lot of the people in there are vaccinated I don't know if they're boosted or not I don't know if Shawn knows if they are or not but that's the reality so hopefully this pass is very very quickly and hopefully those people get well very quickly because every single one of those has another seven eight or nine or ten or maybe more people worried about the masking of the okay they know this goes in waves they're wondering okay they're good today but could be the tomorrow the day their oxygen levels drop you know yourself okay so these are real people that's the real that's the real face of of what we're going through at the moment and hopefully we're going to be through it and out of it as soon as is possible but that's the that is what's happening and those people are us there are people and all of their families and friends who are worried about them there are people too as well and that's the that's the important the very important situation how it affects us as it relates to to the situation that we're in if that makes sense the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest ex-beds letter Kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show getting together might take a bit more planning this year before you do remember to first think or as VP risk symptoms venue people risk what's the risk am I vaccinated or 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deal better okay i call us as i was in hospital via ed between christmas and new year and just want to say a massive thank you to the staff who were fantastic glad to be home safe after their wonderful care and i'm glad to hear that another my husband has Crohn's disease and his treatment has been cancelled for the last two weeks in a row resulting in my husband being very sick he's being directed to ed and told that there is no guarantee that his infusion will go ahead why is his health any different to that of a covid patient my husband names immediate treatment can shorn tell me when he's going to get treated i keep ringing but i keep getting phobbed off the bottom line is is though that if they don't do what they're doing um your husband could end up uh getting covid in the hospital and that could be very negative for him i presume that's part of the motivation uh but i understand exactly where you're from i'm not a spokesperson for the hsc or the hospitals um but i get you um uh another one via uh facebook here i'm 50 years young i'm crippled with pain in my knee the last three years was referred to dr thompson in june last year the pain was getting worse so i had to cut work down to two days uh two half days still bad phone to find out how long i'd wait as uh it was written urgent it was told 60 months five years so around uh the manager's office on numerous occasions and asked for a letter to say i have to wait 60 months but no they do not write those letters just wondering why we'll try and get answers to some of those questions um have you considered the the cross border you have to front load it i know you have to front load it but you sound like a candidate for it you can get it done privately pay for it and get refunded by the hsc if there's not interest in that we can do a feature on that by the way if that would help people out there waiting uh a call us as i went for a hip replacement at the beginning of december and arrived for the appointment at seven a.m in the morning having made all the arrangements with my family and friends support as i'm 80 years old only to be told that the appointment had been cancelled and since no one could accompany me i was left stranded it was very frustrating i'm really sorry genuinely really really sorry to hear that right now um the end of the program we're going to dedicate to uh mostly james donahoe a fifth year student at holy rosary college good morning to james how are you getting on i'm good now i'm going to hurry you're good to have you in the show you are a transition year student at the moment aren't you no i'm a fifth year student okay right good tell us about um this initiative of yours it's uh know your phone it's a book yeah so basically it's a smartphone guy book and it teaches people how to use a smartphone starts off the beginner aspects like the different parts of the phone and then it moves on to they can call us checks and then to more advanced aspects like joining a zoom meeting and sending an email so is it a case that this would be very good then for people who would call themselves technophobes you know they haven't used a phone yet um and you know they're probably more used to reading so they can read about how they can use the phone is that kind of the thought process here or what is it james the whole idea came from my own granny who actually got a phone last christmas and she was finding hard to use and i started writing on notes where and then when the student enterprise competition came along because that was in september we were stoked for an idea and that competition is where students around the island think we make our own businesses and we go into a competition and then it goes all the way up to our island so you have county provincial and in our island and i just took for an idea so myself there's two of us in it so there's myself james and paul manion and we come up with this idea to help as many people as it can with the smartphone now when we started off we kind of talked well the people who were buying this book are people who want to answer most smartphones but it actually has turned out that there's people who have had a smartphone for years and they saw the book and they're like whoa there's stuff in this book that you know i don't know i've never heard of and i'm thinking you know even i'm just picking up my phone here looking at it and you know there's a lot of stuff we take for granted on the side of it there's a fingerprint sensor um and there's a power button and there's a volume button now i know that but there's nothing to tell me that that's there i just know that because i use phones you know i it's presumed that i know even on a remote control for a tv you know it has the has the um the volume controls you can see with your eyes um what's a bit on a phone a lot of that really most basic stuff is not explained yeah well uh in the book itself we kind of like we we touched on the internet um making making calls making texts we kind of like the book kind of starts off with the beginner things and it kind of builds us we hope you know to more advanced things because i also made some people who wouldn't have the interest you know they just want to make a phone call a text we have likes a zoom whatsapp because i know at the moment with covid you know a lot of people can't talk to family abroad and i've got a lot of good feedback saying we can use this now we're talking to family in america and you know it's going good yeah all right and zoom is actually i think over complicated but maybe that's the i use it all the time we're doing it right now i think whatsapp or video calls via facebook or telegram simpler but zoom can be perhaps more complicated than it needs to be um and as well as that you know you talked of you talked about your own uh grandparents there you know not everyone wants to be sort of taught taught a certain way by saying now you do this now you do that they want to be empowered and say right i'll get the book i'll learn it myself i can learn it you know a lot of people want that sort of that process themselves to be gone through yeah even my own granny herself she kind of felt like she was annoying me all kinds to come with the phone was she this is merkin this is merkin yeah she was was she in no but was she annoying you i know i not really know i do and i know i know i know sorry granny i'm only joking but she felt that she was being a nuisance uh yeah yeah sort of sort of and then she has the book now so she can do herself and it's an excellent she can come to me she kind of has me whenever she needs me you know all right okay and as you say you know this is not just for an old generation it's presumably people who just use it for the basic things you know the the people that might just still use the nokia 9010 or whatever it might be that if they want to learn and to understand more about the workings of the phone this would help them as well yeah yeah like the stuff there and like the google maps app like a lot of people don't know that's available on the phone amazing google lens is is absolutely brilliant you know if you've bought something and you don't know where you can buy it from again you know like uh we i employed it for a stupid thing but it was a little toy for hudson my son uh can't get it anywhere it was one was sold in a shop but you put google lens it take the picture and it lists very similar looking images and where you can buy it you know something so simple like that there and i only discovered google lens in the last couple of years yeah yeah and it's just things like that like people don't know about and they're great benefits on the phone you know because the phone has so much benefits that people don't really know about qr code reading as well you know people find that writing very small you're pointed if there's a qr code there and it pops up and uh brings you to a website or puts the password into your phone for a wi-fi or whatever it might be lots of different things but it also can be just simply about texting what's happening and all that kind of stuff listen fair play to you it's called know your phone it's a book it's just 12 euro that's including uh postage and how do people get their hands on it if they want to james um at the moment we're taking so uh what we're doing is we're taking post orders and checks in the post and then when i received that payment then they'd have their address in that envelope and i'd send the book onto them straight away fantastic okay and what's the reaction been like so far i don't know how long it's been out hopefully it's you know interviews like this will help but yeah it's been out now about three weeks and it's kind of more locally um around goa here and we've sold 75 of them so i wasn't expecting that much at all so i can kind of order more in now at the moment that's quite impressive all right well done and it's a it's a great idea and you know this is just one idea you have as a business student anything else in the offering i mean what else could you do one for a microwave yeah or even a human or a washing machine do one for me for a washing machine i don't keep putting it on the 59 minutes all the time but i'm joking to some extent james but you this is something that you could do a series of things uh with yeah it is because we looked into the laptop option and so there and even the tablets you know there's so many different things that yeah that we can hopefully work into all right listen fair play to you well done it's you and uh are you working with a guy called paul is it yeah paul manion all right well done to the two years it's a good thing thanks very much and we have your details if people want to contact the number to order copy well done yeah thank you all right take care of yourself that was james donahoe there fifth year fifth year business student at the holy rosary college that is where we have to leave it on the show today thank you very much to all of you who took part in the prog