 No, no, no one around here would know that noise anyway. No, that was that was tricky. No one changes it. They all just leave it sitting empty. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have to load that machine in the morning, you know. I can print two pages. It's not a routine come up with that idea. Are they lazy in the afternoon, are they? But anyway, I'm delighted on a serious note for Annette. The lovely amount of money I had in Intakrismos into the weekend. Hi, yeah. And Easter holidays are coming up and it'd be nice for everybody involved. And mum's way up to school to let them all know. So that'll be a bit of excitement at school, won't it? Have you any have you any ideas for Secret Sound for tomorrow? No, no, no, I tell me now gone. Well, that wouldn't ruin it. See, because then they would know the answer for that stocky. OK, good luck. He's lost the plot now because he's lost his money. All right, it's nine o'clock time for news update. Good morning, Emma Ryan. Thanks, Greg. Good morning. Workshops are finally complete on a new main water supply in South Anishoan after outages played local residents for years. The final section of the new water supply in Mahurabeg and Inch Island has recently been completed by Irish Water. Issues with the water supply had been ongoing for years and Councillor Jack Murray says residents will now finally have a dependable water supply that other areas take for granted. This is a great day. Finally, the last section of the new main at supply in Mahurabeg and Inch has been completed. And I look forward to a consistent water supply supply in that area. Your listeners on Highland Radio will be well aware of how regularly these bursts have occurred and how the people of that area have been plagued by a consistent water supply. But thankfully, we've got to this point. There's calls for immediate action to extend car park spaces at Letterkinny University Hospital. The Zelda Healthcare Group has acknowledged that there's an ongoing issue with the lack of car park spaces for patients, visitors, and staff at the hospital and has committed to raise it with hospital manager Sean Murphy this week. However, councillor Ciaran Brogan believes more of an effort needs to be made. He says there's an adequate amount of open space available to expand the car park. This has been an ongoing issue for a long time around Letterkinny Hospital. And then somebody actually brought to my attention recently the amount of, I suppose, open space and grass that's there around the car park in the short term that some of that could be reduced. And I think this is something that should be looked at as a matter of urgency. It's been a huge issue for a long time now. And I think we need to try and alleviate that because the pressure off the hospital parking has been, I suppose, put on to a lot of the residents around the different states around the area as well and beyond. A Finn Valley-based councillor says it's not acceptable that the National Broadband Plan will not be fully rolled out in Donegal until the end of 2025. Briefing members at a meeting this week, National Broadband Ireland executives said they were slightly ahead of schedule with work practically complete around Letterkinny and Chrysler, the next area to be done. However, councillor Patrick McGown says that's not fast enough, and it's time for Donegal's Aractus members to be more vocal in the dial. As a member of the band, we had had a presentation from a consultant. We asked him to have an overview of the National Broadband here in Ireland to roll out and immediately come back and said Donegal was very far back. It seemed to be that the counties were not only ahead of us, but they're actually even edging forward and forward ahead like me, think of there. But I think we need Aractus members to start speaking up more. Two weather now, mostly dry today, apart from the odd light shower. There'll be long spells of wind, autumn, sunshine, and just partial build-up of cloud during the afternoon. Temperatures will range from around 14 to 16 degrees. That's all for now. We'll be back with a news update again at 10 o'clock, but until then, good morning. Think you know Disney Plus, think again. This is not a drill, this is happening. We've got ripping action like original series, The Old Man. This is not something to underestimate. Epic drama like the all-new season of Grey's Anatomy and iconic exclusives like the brand new season of The Kardashians. Did you know about this? Disney Plus is all this and more. Oh, no. Yes. Thought you knew Disney Plus, think again. All this plus more streaming this autumn. 18 plus subscription required, season C's apply. Would you like to win a Hyundai Kona car? Well, that's the first prize in the St. Yunan's GA Club development draw who are sponsors of this week's 9 till noon show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at St. Yunan's GA draw.com or any club member. Watch the show live now on YouTube, Facebook and at HighlandRadio.com. And now it's time for the talk of the Northwest, the 9 till noon show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. Good morning to you all. It is four minutes past nine. It's another Thursday. This one, it's the 29th of September, 2022. It's almost the end of the month heading into October. How are you keeping? I do hope you're well. This bright and fresh or tunnel morning. The lines are open for you right now to get involved in the conversations we've got lined up for you. Quite interesting and informative. I hope you'll agree. Also, if you want to raise your own issues, your own topics, tell us a story. Positive as well, by the way, we love that stuff. 08, 660, 25,000. Maybe you've encountered a great act of kindness over the last week. Meanwhile, you've got some positive news to pass on to us. Get in touch. The phone number for you, I think, did I mention that? It's 0749125,000. Your emails come on to us via comments at highlandradio.com. Or if you choose to watch the show, feel free to comment there. Good morning to Charlie McGinley. He's first in with his comment this morning. Good morning, all he says. Well, good morning to you, Charlie. Right, it is a Thursday morning. So there's tons of papers out, as always. Locals and nationals. We'll start with the Chicano Tribuna proposal to include Donagol's Sligo and Leetrum. One regional model before Christmas is viewed as a downgrade for the county's three divisions with the possible loss of senior officers. This is under the headline, God of Change is a Bad for Donagol. The issue was aired in Lifford last week during a meeting of the County Joint Police and Committee. Former Sergeant James Trurte, who's a member of the committee, told his colleagues that the proposals are a gravely detrimental step and communities across Donagol would suffer the severe negative consequences of such a decision. The Donagol Democrat black hole, and it's not a space story. The Northwest has been described as a black hole and its health care services liken to the North Pole and melting faster. Meeting of the Regional Health Forum West this week heard several concerns regarding the provision of some health care services in the area. The meeting heard that the Day Hospital and the current Donagol hospital is no longer suitable for the provision of a day hospital service. There are currently no respite places available in the entire Inichon Peninsula, while concerns have been raised about the level of diabetes treatments at letter Kenny University Hospital and Sligo University Hospital. There's more from Chris McNulty inside that paper on that story as well. The Dairy People Donagol News. Donagol is among several counties that have been deemed by the EU, or sorry, demoted by the EU. The EU Commission decision to downgrade the Northwest to a lagged region, or lagging region, has been described as disappointing by the head of letter Kenny University. The reclassification is due to the West and Northwest becoming significantly less well off relative to the European average over recent years. The region, which includes Donagol leach from Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, Monahan, and Mayo was demoted from more developed to a region in transition in 2019. It's now been relegated further. The only region in the state to be classified as lagging in a stark assessment, the European Commission said, the West and Northwest was facing a number of challenges, including lower productivity and educational attainment, as well as a weaker skills base and business environment. So these are, you know, quite significant. This is not like that tidy town stuff, not the tidy town stuff, the eyeball stuff. This is reasonably significant because, you know, major companies would look at this in terms of locating business there because they would perhaps trust this information as it relates to the quality of education in the area in terms of investment and other areas. So it is not insignificant that. Hopefully it's the government that needs to take note of that. The Dairy News, unarmed Dairy man Patrick Duffy was shot up to 14 times in the back and side by an undercover British army unit on November 24th, 1978. Mr. Duffy was shot at two Maureen Avenue in the city where what's believed to have been SAS members dressed in civilian clothes who secreted themselves in the attic of the house before the killing. That's the background to the headline, fresh inquest hearing for Patrick Duffy. A fresh inquest into the killing of Mr. Duffy in 78 is one of 10 inquests earmarked for a hearing in 2023. The fresh inquest was directed by the Attorney General, Mr. John Larkin QC on March 22nd, 2019. On to the nationals now. Let's start with the Irish independent. And Leo Veradkar has hinted to his party there may be changes to the concrete levy after a backlash from coalition TDs. The Tonnister told the Finnegale Parliamentary Party yesterday that legislation would be needed for the 10% levy and therefore further consideration will be given to it. Well, we know how much consideration they gave to a multi-million year scheme. How much consideration might they give to this levy? Well, the Finnegale leader said the government needed to find funds to repair defective apartments along with the micro redress scheme, but said the levy had to be legislated for and it's important we get it right. He was speaking to concerns raised by Backbench TDs, Joe Carey, Brendan Griffin, Alan Farrell, Alan Dillon and Michael Creed at the meeting. It comes as several coalition TDs had called for the new levy on concrete blocks to fund the micro redress scheme to be revisited or postponed. And, you know, the problem with this, and I said it as soon as we heard this happened, it seems to me a very strange thing to do to introduce a levy during a housing crisis. We have a crisis here, no one, but there's so many people need homes. You're making it more expensive to build homes. You're messing with costings for projects that may be already priced and ready to start. And also, for what? It looks good. It looks like you're doing something. It looks like, you know, we are making the industry pay for their failings, but in reality, you're not really. You're just increasing the cost of building a house. You're increasing the cost of repairing a defective concrete home. Doesn't make any sense to me. But anyway, finance minister Pascal Dono, who announced that 10% levy on concrete blocks, pouring concrete and other concrete products in the budget. The levy is due to take effect from next April. Estimated to raise $80 million a year to help fund the redress scheme for people whose homes were built with defective blocks and the levy's likely to be in place for several years given estimates that the scheme could cost the state as much as $4 billion by the time remedial works are completed. And you know, you just get a sense that it's just gonna become a permanent tax like the levies on your insurance and electricity elsewhere. Organisations representing builders estimated the levy could add one and a half grand to 3,000 to the cost of a new home. But you know, if you've got a lot of concrete to pour for a driveway or retaining walls, I presume that goes up. Five TDs from Finafall too, from FinaGale and one independent yesterday questioned the levy. Wideo D said the issue should be looked at again giving the housing crisis. I could see where the minister is coming from, he said. There is a temptation to claw back some of the enormous amounts being spent on mica. There's not a moment spent being spent on mica. It hasn't happened yet. He said, but on the other hand, it conflicts with government policy-making housing affordable. It will be passed on to consumers, of course it will. Right, okay, so that's the take on that nationally at this point. They're not worried about homeowners as such really are they seems to worry about builders and developers. And I suppose you have to worry about them because they are effectively those who are gonna provide this housing. But it'd be nice to hear them concerned maybe for people living in defective concrete block homes who would face bigger rebuild costs rather than the poor old developers and contractors. Right, the Irish Times, that story as well is covered on the front of that paper. There's grown criticism on government-backed benches of the levy announced in the budget on the sale of concrete products in order to help pay for the cost of fixing homes affected by mica though. We know it's just not mica now. It's much broader than that. There's big bother over in Britain as we've been mentioning over the last few days. The Bank of Ireland has had to intervene. Such was the fallout from this and it's only had some sort of a limited effect. Well, the Bank of England was forced into an emergency move yesterday to commit to buying 65 billion of the UK government's debt. This is their long-term debt. It's in an effort to stop the fallout from British Prime Minister Liz Tross's mini-budget turning into a full-blown economic crisis. Market turmoil since the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwanteng announced the debt-funding giveaway budget get debt-funded giveaway budget last Friday had seen the UK's borrowing costs soar in a sell-off of the pound. It also prompted the International Monetary Fund and leading debt rating agencies Moody in recent days to criticise the plan. Shared in the most exposed Irish-listed companies in the UK economy including Bank of Ireland and food manufacturer Greencore have also fallen sharply since Mr Kwanteng announced the blueprint to cost 45 billion of taxes over five years and spend an estimated 60 billion over the next six months alone subsidising energy bills for households and businesses. Ms Tross has promised to freeze bills for two years and it kind of feeds into the Irish argument though Sinn Féin say theirs is costed. They don't know how much it's going to cost because they don't know what's gonna happen to energy markets. But the cost of their borrowing did come down a little but the pound fell again this morning. It's really cheap if you wanna buy something in Britain. Now it's the time but God help anyone in Britain heading on holidays to America or even to the EU because their beloved pound won't go very far for them. On to the Irish Daily Mail now and 10 men of courage as they're described have begun training to be priests in Ireland and have been praised by a bishop for going against the cultural norm. This is one more than the nine who began clerical studies last year bringing the total number of training or a total number training for Irish diocese to 56. Are you one of those out there? I wonder maybe you are training to become a priest. Do you want to tell us your story? Why you're doing it? What you hope to achieve? What brought you there? If you do get in touch with us we'd be very happy to speak to you. Well, the students are undertaking their introductory program in the Redemption Matter Seminary Dundalk, the Royal English College in Valladolid in Spain and the Royal Scots College in Salamanca, Spain. Chair of the Bishops' Council for Vocation Bishop Alfonso Colinane said the men have gone forward for training for priesthood in Manuth. They're to be applauded. They are certainly going against the cultural norm. God is still caring and there are men of courage who are answering him. The number is small, isn't it? When you consider how many are retiring and the need that's out there. Okay, the Farmers Journal, they, as you can imagine, have gone all out on the budget. Some of the headlines, 30,000 acres places up for grabs, 28 million for new suckler scheme, 46 million vat rebate cut, 40% rebate on electricity costs increase, 10% concrete levy to affect farm buildings, 90,000 Euro Tams ceiling for solar panels. So they've got 18 on pages of coverage of that story. Okay, now, I don't want to bring a tear to your eye. So be strong. This is the Irish Daily Star here. The Dall is a cold house for politicians, despite all the hot air around the budget as the Octos authorities are refusing to put up the heat. Management in Lancaster House say the heating will stay off despite complaints the 275 year old building is cold. Management say they are showing leadership in the parliament buildings as part of the national effort to reduce consumption. The heat is normally turned on from October 1st, but can be switched off before that if necessary. However, this year, the houses of the Octos say they will lead by example and keep the heat off until the special date. In a letter to all TD senators and staff, management explains their decision. We've had several inquiries about heating at the Lancaster House complex. The heating is traditionally turned on on the 1st of October each year in view of the government climate action targets, the energy crisis and the national effort to reduce energy consumption and also to offset increases energy costs. The heat will not be turned on until next Monday at the earliest. Okay, well, you know what? At the same time, I'm being a bit facetious here, but if they were roasting in 24, 25 degrees we'd be critical of them as well. But they've had complaints it's too cold but they're staying strong. The Irish Daily Mirror and our American citizens are being warned to get out of Russia as Western leaders face a massive escalation by Vladimir Putin. They fear the president is preparing for a strike inside Ukraine or an attack against Western interests such as maritime communication cables. Now, this is quite important because, you know, let's just say, and I'm not saying this is the one that they might target, but they know where our communication cable is because it's right about where off the Southwest Coast that they were doing their military exercises. I mean, listen, whoever was responsible for the attack on the Nordic pipeline, okay? When were their explosives attached to that? It seems it has been, it was damaged by explosions. I'm not saying that the Russians are responsible but that has been sabotaged. Who is to say if Russia were inclined and it were they who were behind it? Who is to say that whilst they were engaging in their military exercises off the West Coast that maybe they had a little look at that communications pipeline, it's really, really important, you know, to have a devastating impact on all of us if it were to be damaged. And that is the kind of activity that perhaps maybe could be justified from their perspective. Well, the US Embassy in Moscow was told all citizens to leave Russia immediately by any means necessary and warned Putin will not respect dual nationality. The rough years dual nationals could be drafted into the war in Ukraine. Officials said Russia may refuse to acknowledge US nationals dual citizenship, deny access to consular assistance, prevent their departure and conscript to dual nationals for military service. Putin intends to land grab four contested regions following his shampoos in Eastern Ukraine but is running out of military options. And, you know, we talked about this and analyzed this on this show, he's in a corner here, right? And there's not an awful lot he can do. He's not advancing. He's being pushed back by the NATO backed Ukrainian forces. Once he declares these areas that were the subject of these, once that was subject of these referendum, he will pass in his parliament a decree which will declare them as Russian soil. And then we have this scenario where Western weapons would be targeting Russian soil. And that triggers articles within the Russian constitution which would allow, say, for instance, battlefield nukes to be used anywhere in Ukraine. And who's to say what the loss of life may be? He could target a city. I mean, the Americans did it in Hiroshima. So, you know, these bombs have been dropped in the past. I'm not comparing the scale of them or the size of them, by the way, but what's his alternative? Where's the off-ramp to use that old phrase that's knocking around? And also, too, this picture of some of the soldiers that have been conscripted. And they're not young, they're older guys. So things, he's getting desperate. Lastly, we'll be talking about this until later on in the program. Most children would not tell their parents if they were being bullied. It's been revealed. Does this surprise you? Do you sort of have a space whereby you could have this conversation with your young one that they might feel they could come to say, look at, you know, they might come down from the bedroom and say, someone said this to me about online or I posted this TikTok video and people are saying this, that and the other about me because everyone who posts a TikTok video is gonna have to expect some negativity. Like, do you feel that your young people can have that conversation with you? 60% of our children think they can't. Research from Children's Charity Bernardo show 53% of children have been cyber-bullied at some point. So that's half of them. And 60% of half of them feel that they can't talk to us about it. So we're gonna be talking about that in a little bit more detail. If you have any questions on that issue, by the way, or maybe even you want some advice as to how they have the conversation. There's no shame in that game, by the way. We're here to help each other. But we don't want to think, do we, that half of our children have been bullied online and six out of 10 of those that have been bullied feel that they can't speak to us about it. None of us would like to feel that, would we? Right, so that's part of our content for later. We're gonna be talking about that. Right, let's take a break back with our first guests in a moment. The Newspapers, our courtesy of Kelly Sentra, mountaintop, letter Kenny. The County's number one talk show, The Ninetal Noon Show on Highland Radio. The Ninetal Noon Show with Saint-Union's GA Club Development Draw. 40,000 Euro in prizes. First prize, a Hyundai Kona car, plus nine other grit prizes. Tickets now available online at SaintUnion'sgadraw.com or any club member. There's only one thing as good as a TUI holiday and that's looking forward to one. So get next summer sorted and secure your TUI holiday today. Choose beach lakes and cruise breaks across a wide range of destinations, including Mexico, direct from Dublin, plus all your favorites like holiday villages, splash world resorts and our own TUI blue hotels. Secure now with thousands of free child places and a low booking deposit of 25 Euro per person. That's next summer's holiday sorted. TUI, live happy, season C's apply. I can't stop thinking about them. I keep rereading their all texts. Brian, Brian, this has gotta stop. 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Okay, now you're welcome back to the program. We welcome on to it now, Keelynn Hilley, who's a current student union VP for welfare. And we're also joined by Anna Rose Travers, who's at the same university, Manuth University, she's an alumni and former VP for student life. Good morning, both of you. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, Greg. Delighted to be here. Good stuff. Keelynn, can you outline what the issue is here for students? I can indeed. So, speaking on behalf of Manuth Students Union, students en masse are angered at the termination of an incoming student center, which has been promised since 2015, and students have been paying for through a levy since 2015. And the price of that is only incremented from 112 to 150 cents, and students are communicating their mass disappointment at the university for terminating that because they had been promised it since 2015. Yeah, and how much is the levy and how often is it paid? Is it annually, monthly? It is indeed paid annually before the year starts, alongside obviously student contribution charge. Yeah, so students over the last seven years, well, it wouldn't be necessarily over the last seven years, but would have contributed hundreds of euro towards this project and would have been doing so perhaps willingly, even though they perhaps think they shouldn't have to, for what was to come? So, what about this promised student center? What's happened to it? It's seemingly perhaps due to mismanagement. It hasn't been developed, and the students and alumni are just disappointed as a result, angered even en masse, and they're communicating that quite vocally, but the student center just hasn't been delivered. An alumni and students are just deeply disappointed. We as an executive have dissented against the termination of the student center from all possible angles, but it's only the university can communicate why it's not there. Yeah, well, we'll put our answer for them. Yeah, no, we'll put our inquiries into why. Anna Rose Travers, what is the sort of real world impact this has on students then? The lack of this facility? Well, the students had voted for this back in 2015. They kind of made, I suppose, a selfless decision there, knowing that they would never see the fruition of the student levy, and so they decided, okay, let's do this for the benefit of students to come. So it's just very disappointing that seven years down the line, that project still hasn't been delivered. None of the levy project that that fund was earmarked for have been delivered, yet, you know, different academic buildings can be prioritized and get up. And it's just very disappointing that the university, you know, the student numbers are increasing rapidly year on year, and it's just not fit for purpose anymore. There's nowhere for students to sit. We're seeing all over Twitter, I'm sure it's the same on campus healing that there's students, there's nowhere to park, there's nowhere to sit and eat your lunch. And I just think it's a very basic thing to be able to, you know, know once you get to university, you're gonna have somewhere to at least sit between your lectures. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things going on here. Firstly, as you say, former students thought they were leaving something for those to follow them. There's a bit of democracy in this as well, of course, because this is what students vote for, and you voted for on the presumption, the fair presumption that it would be delivered. But that referendum has been chalked out because this is a unilateral decision that people were informed of by email. Yeah, absolutely, it's, you know, the only people that can introduce a student levy are the students and they did that by referendum and for it to be chalked out by the university governing authority who, you know, there's only, there's four student representatives on that, one of which seat hasn't been filled yet. So it's just, you know, that's not a democratic decision. And for them to further then say that, you know, we'll try our best in like increasing student space, getting a pause and stuff, that's not what the levy was for. That's what your student contribution chart should be for. That is not what this levy was e-marked for and they can't just change, you know, that's not democratic. So where is the money, Anna Rose, where's the money? That's what we're all wondering because, you know, like millions of euros were spent, sorry, that's the assumption, but a lot of money has been sensed to date on, you know, the designing of this building on the ground works on the architecture. So who's putting the bill for that now? Are we all just expected to sit down and roll over and say, okay, that was our money that we dished out for years and that's just going nowhere or, you know, the university make a massive surplus every year, are they gonna, you know, put that money back in the student's pot? Or like they need to communicate this, they can't communicate it in the middle of an email, just, you know, boasting about new student services that they're going to introduce while just saying, oh, by the way, we've canceled your project. And Keeland, do you feel this project has become more than just the project itself that it's sort of become the issue that is highlighting how students generally maybe feel they're being treated or the level of respect. There is for them at Maneuth University. Indeed, actually great. It's become a symbol of neglect, I think, for students because a lack of accommodation, a lack of access to space, it's all rooted, I think, in neoliberal policies that the university tends to prioritize and by proxy, just the complete neglect of students because a denial of anywhere to exist on campus is inevitably going to be a denial of education for students. Yeah, and it's not unique, obviously, to this one institution because we know nationally, like, you know, a lot of students feel generally they're on their own. You know, I mean, obviously there are some advances that have been made in the budget and all that type of stuff, but just in terms of the respect for them in terms of accommodation, transport, we've been speaking about to students from Inner Shown this week. No consideration to provide, you know, regular affordable transport for them to go to Lettacan University to go to the ATU. You know, it's something they have to fight and campaign for in some drop. You see, the thing that worries me, too, about a lot of these issues, it's those then that miss out on their education but don't necessarily have a voice, you know, and their families and what that might feel. I mean, is there just a lack of respect for students then? Seemingly no communication from universities, just they tend to be quite risk averse, which comes at the denial of students' rights inevitably. Most, I can actually testify that about 85% of our campus is now commuters and there's very little services available for the adsorbative prices that commuters would potentially pay for gas. And also very few transport links for students, especially in somewhat of a semi-urbanized rural area like Manif, caught in the crossfire of, to be frank, neglect towards students. Yeah, Anna Rose Travers, are things getting worse rather than better than for students? Yeah, I think there seems to be this kind of old like stereotype that students just go to college, to party, that they're dished out money, that they're front and centre, that is not the case. That might be a very, very few, but you can't speak on behalf of the whole student population. You know, we've been students of a protest for the last 10 years of the abolishment of the student contribution fee. You know, we welcomed the reduction in the budget, but that was the perfect opportunity to start reducing it from year on year, and then the backtracking, it's a once-off payment. You know, there's nothing on a student accommodation there. You have, you know, for Manus example, there's, what, 1,300 around their beds for students on campus. But there's 15,000 students, you know, if I'm coming from Donegal, I'm going to UCC now. There's absolutely no hope of me getting accommodation there, and there's absolutely no way you can commute that distance. It's just, there's just, students seem to be left behind year on year, and it's only when we start coming out and building in our hundreds of thousands that the government seem to listen to us, but we're such a large, you know, cohort of young people these days. Yeah, of course. And it is important that young people get organized and get voting when they can in the elections, and I'll broaden it out a little bit, Kieran, but you know, you can see why the establishment parties, say for instance, don't want to extend voting rights to 16 and 17 year olds, because you can imagine between they and the 18, 19, 20 year olds plus that are at university, if they started to organize and started to vote, it would really shake up the establishment. They deserve a dissenting voice, and frankly, they're also left in the crossfire too. The amount of emails as a welfare officer that I would get from students that don't have access to accommodation and feel incredibly hopeless from Cork. What are they doing, Kieran, because obviously we had recent stories of a student in their car. We've had that locally here as well. What are students doing when they don't have accommodation so far from home? Oftentimes they're commuting up to four hours. We actually did a survey, and I find that 14% of the commuters in that survey were traveling up to three hours as they testified. Is that like an hour and a half each way, or three hours out, three hours back? That's an hour and a half each way. Right, and that's if you're lucky enough to have links to get you into university on time as well, of course. Not to mention the cost. That's exactly that, indeed. Yes, Sam and Rose. Yeah, I'm in that boat right now. Sure, as I said, I've graduated from an U.S., but I'm in UCC now, and I'm living in Tralee, so I'm commuting three hours one way. How often are you doing that? It's only two days a week, because it's a master's course, but I'm lucky that I don't mind that. At least there's a train, you know what I mean? But for the likes of people that are trying to attend, you know, A to U Donegal, you know, depends where you're from. There's little hope of you getting there unless you have, you know, somebody else supposed to carpool with or something like that. Yeah, but it's counterintuitive, because then what happens is, is you can't attract the students that you might want to attract because they simply can't avail of your university because they can't get to and from it. And Rose, do you mind me asking what you're studying? I'm studying HR management. Oh, very good. And you, Keenan, what are you studying at the moment? Formerly, I was studying. I was doing an MA in Anthropology, actually, after I got my BA. But I may also testify, I was in a similar book to Anna last year for a period of a month before I could find accommodation and late slip. I would travel once a week from Donegal down to Kildare, and then I would coach there for four days, and then I would return back home. But then, so there was a month period of doing that. And I imagine, which was exhausting and impossible. And I fear for the students that are doing anything similar, I was looking at- I mean, because, you know, we can rely on the goodwill of others, but there's no security in it. It's not a very nice feeling sometimes, either, having to do that. All right. Listen, thanks for the insight. I really appreciate it, Keenan. It's been lovely speaking to you. Have a great day. You too. All right, take care. And you, Anna Rose-Travers, have a lovely day too. And thanks for helping us understand this a bit better. Thank you. All right, take care of yourself. Okay, thank you. That's the plight of... It's not the plight as such. It's the insight from two Donegal students as to what's going on at MU, but also an insight into what it feels like in terms of commuting and how students feel that they are being treated. Would you like to win a Hyundai Kona car? Well, that's the first prize in the St. Yulian's GA Club Development Draw, who are sponsors of this week's Nine Til Nun Show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at St. Yulian's GA Draw.com or any club member. Text or WhatsApp your view to Greg on 086-60-25000. Mixed budget for farming. In this week's Irish Farmers Journal, find out how the budget will affect your farm income for more his Paul Mooney. New 90 euro per cow's suckler scheme, new supports for slurry tanks and rollover of fodder and tillage schemes, but shot new concrete levee, 20,000 farmers locked out of new environmental scheme, and tax rebate reduction to cost farmers almost 50 million euro. Don't miss our expert budget analysis. 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Call 01685-224 or see paulclaffytours.com and don't miss the holiday of a lifetime. For a real taste of Donegal, try some new-seasoned potatoes from John Edwards and Sons from Elton. Donegal's finest potatoes, grown and packed in Remelton by John Edwards and Sons. To celebrate National Potato Day, watch out for packs at special prices and shops throughout Donegal this week. I call it says, Russia didn't blow up the Nordic gas pipeline. All they had to do if they wanted to stop the gas flowing was to switch off the top or the tap. If you want to know who done it, just look to see who gains from it. It wouldn't be America liquefied gas by any chance. Well, I never claimed they did. In fact, I don't know. And sometimes when I don't know, I tend to keep my mouth shut to be honest with you. Greg mentioned the communications cable off the South Coast. I'd be more concerned about the cable going through the foil out into the Atlantic. That's used by Britain and NATO to monitor submarine movements. Another principle in my kid's school is retiring. All kids have been asked to contribute to a retiring present for him. Is this acceptable in today's climate? Well, let's throw it out there to our listeners. What do you think? The principle in my children's schools retiring and the children have been asked to contribute to a retirement presence. Did they, is their figure being given a wonder? But anyway, it's a voluntary contribution. Another one, what do you think? Is that acceptable to put? Does it put parents or some parents, perhaps even the most parents in an awkward position? What do you think, 08, 660, 25,000? 08, 660, 25,000, right, okay. Justin Malloy is director of the Western Midlands and Northern Regions of the Construction Industry Federation. He joins us now. Good morning to you, Justin. Thanks for taking the call. Oh, sorry, Justin, I have the wrong fader up. I beg your pardon. Justin, good morning to you. How are you, Greg? I'm good, I'm good. Right, okay. So from the industry's perspective, what is your view of this 10% levy on blocks, poured concrete and other concrete products? Well, I suppose if their concern is going to be inflation, like Greg, we've had massive increases in material construction over the last 12 months. They've gone up, you know, on average about 17% or over 17%, we've still gone up about 66% and Tim, we're gone up 46%. And concrete products have already got up 10% this month already with another 10% expected next January to be followed now by the levy in April with another 10%. So this is all just going to add to costs. And it's probably the biggest challenge for the industry at the moment is construction materials inflation. I don't suppose we can sort of rely on the industry to do the right thing collectively and absorb this levy then? Well, you know, in the reality, they wouldn't be able to absorb it. A lot of contractors quite simply wouldn't be able to absorb it. I suppose like any project, if you're tendering for any particular project, then you have to calculate the material costs, the labor costs and the prelims and your profit and overheads. And that's how you work it out. And they won't really be able to absorb it, you know, they just have to enforce it and pass it on to the client. And it's not just, you know, it impacts everybody, it's not just house building, but it's schools, hospitals, it's farm buildings, it's people building one-off houses in the countryside. So they're all going to be impacted by it. And this is at a time when we're trying to do our best to control materials inflation. Well, what do you think this is then? I mean, I can, I mean, at the end of the day, there's not an awful lot of money currently being spent on the defective concrete scheme. There isn't much being spent at the moment as it's stalled. And also, I mean, obviously this is some of this has been earmarked for the pyrite issue as well. So like, do you think this is maybe a PR stunt by the government or would you be prepared to go that far? Because really in effect, it's not big money for 2023, but it looks like, you know, the government is being seen to hit the industry in the pocket, but of course we know it's the public that's been hit in the pocket. So what do you, what's your assessment of this move then by the finance minister? I don't honestly know to be perfectly answer grade because there wasn't really any consultation with the industry about it. And if there was, you know, we could have highlighted these issues. Like if it came in to say precast country products or whatever it was for precast country products, 80% of the precast in this country gets exported. So that to just make them less competitive, you know, against their overseas counterparts. So that's going to be counterproductive. So I'm not too sure what the logic was behind it. And also there's a bit of confusing logic for me because according to the government or at least reps of the government, the likes of foundations, which I presume is poured concrete aren't a problem. Now, homeowners will tell you a very different story. It's actually blocks. So would you see it more palatable than if this was a level only on blocks, which fundamentally according to the government to the problem here? Well, I suppose if we just take out a number of elements of ours, you know, it would be less inflation, right? Or it would still add to inflation. And it's still going to be unfortunately passed down to the client. But, you know, I think there's no question. Obviously the people who have mic issues and prior issues have to be addressed and their homes have to be rectified. But even for those people when they are getting the homes rectified, you know, if there's a levy on these products, they'll indirectly be paying that as well. So it's just an inflationary, it just adds to materials inflation, construction inflation as a time when the industry, you know, at least needs it where, you know, outside of the larger urban centers, there's not a huge amount of house building going on because it just doesn't, the figures don't add up. And it's only uncertain, you know, peripheral areas that is beginning to, you know, where you can actually build a house, sell it, somebody can afford to buy it. And it's financially viable to do so. But, you know, you could be pushing again, every bit of inflation, the materials are labor inflation, you know, there's pressure on labor as well. Of course, and ironically too as well, probably the only houses that we're gonna see properly repaired, i.e. demolished and rebuilt are going to be council houses because there's not much else happening in the private sector and it is then the state that is levying itself. But you would, I presume, agree Justin that elements of the industry were responsible for this and should be, to some extent, held accountable to it. If not the levy, what do you think of fair contribution to this mess that some within the industry, as I say, created? What do you think a fair contribution from the industry would be then? Well, see, it's a difficult one for the government and a shout-out without it is, how do you address it? Because really there's both the horse bolted, unfortunately, a lot of these companies, people who are responsible for this are gone. But levying into the future, people into the future to pay for the sense of the past isn't really necessarily, I'd say, the right way about it. I think the government needs to sit down with industry to get such an understanding of the suppliers and the wider industry insurance, the banks, everybody who's involved, you're directly involved with the consumer, how can we come up with something that is a bit more equitable than this is a bit, it's just a bit knee-jerk reaction, I think. Yeah, and I mean, there's ongoing investigation as to what is the cause, what elements of concrete and all that technical stuff. You'd have thought at least that would be concluded maybe before coming up with some sort of a scheme, but it just seems bizarre to me, Justin, in a housing crisis when we need more houses built to be introducing a levy at this time, maybe things might look different in two or three years when money is actually being spent to be clawed back. It just seems a really peculiar thing to do at this time because it's a slap in the face to, as you would know, I hope, defective concrete block owners because they also are going to be, this levy is gonna impact on the money available to them to rebuild their homes if that ever begins to happen. It just is a peculiar time for this to happen. Are you encouraged at all that Leo Varadkar has suggested that this will require legislative approval? They'll have to be pre-ledged, presumably. They didn't do it for the mica scheme, but they might do it for this and that maybe it might be refined or even scrapped in the long run. Well, I'd hope that they'd sit down, as I said, sit down with industry, and you know, the wider industry and then for the directly or indirectly involved and sit down and come down and say, well, how can we, if we're not happy with this, how can we go for something that's a little bit more equitable? And I think that would make more sense because I mean, this levy, as I say, it's not people just when they think about housing, but it's not just housing. It's gonna, as I said, it's schools, it's all public buildings, private buildings, offices, farm, but you know, farmers doing snotty jets and silage pits and whatnot. People doing their one-off housing, trying to build their house out of the country there. And then here's another addition. And I said, and particularly in the quarry and country sector where there has been an awful lot of increase, so there's 10% in September, another one coming in January. Now you're gonna have another one in April. This is all just added to inflation. Where it's feasible, do you imagine maybe people might start sourcing their concrete products in Northern Ireland, for example? Well, I suppose it's like the other way around, is wherever they source the product, be it the Republic of Northern Ireland or anywhere else, that it's most important that the product is certified and it's fit for purpose. That's, I think, the most important thing. And that could be, you know, major oversight of that. That inquiries and aggregating, really makes people and suppliers are in compliance with whatever the appropriate regulations are and that product is being manufactured to the appropriate standards. And that, you know, aggregates are being inspected after blast, so that, you know, to determine the element of mic or a pyrate or whatever. Is that happening now in the Republic? Do you believe that there is proper oversight now on the production of these products? Well, to be perfectly honest, Greg, I'm not an expert in that side, it was, I don't know if that's true. Your members are using this stuff to build our houses. Justin, I would hope they would have some indication. Yeah, well, they would have, they would look for certification from the suppliers. Which they do themselves. Well, I think that they have to get third-party certification, like the NSEI or BSI or QSRNC, one of these bodies, to ensure that they have procedures in place. But, you know, obviously we recommend to our members and have been recommended to members who ever you buy a product of, no matter what the material is, that it is in compliance with whatever the appropriate building regulation is, it's time and there's some independent third-party certification, pardon me, to suggest that. And that, you know, you periodically test materials, but we do have a kind of, you know, and we need- Just out of interest then, Justin. We'll take body service to test materials. Out of interest, Justin, if you don't think it's a fair question, that's fine. It's not controversial. But if you were building a house in South Leech or wherever it is, would you be happy if your house was built with product sourced from Donnelly Gaul, or would you, if you had a choice, source them from Gaulway, for example? I suppose the answer to that would be, I would source it from the person I'm most confident that had a quality control system in place and it was here into the regulations. So off the top of your head, would you favor Gaulway or Donnelly Gaul, for example, if you were building your own house? Well, I suppose, you know, you would say, just at the face of it, I'm not aware of any Mike in Gaulway, and I am the more aware of Mike in Donnelly Gaulway. So you'd have a distrust of the product sourced from Gaulway. Everything else beneath, you would take it from Gaulway. Okay, and very, very finally, some of these projects are priced well out in advance, so I'd imagine this doesn't kick in till April. Are people going to be getting calls from their contractor, or whomever it might be? Do you think saying, look at, we're going to have to review the cut, or even maybe significant projects like schools and what have you that you mentioned? Do you think people are going to be getting phone calls saying, look, we're going to have to add such and such on to the price of this project now, even though we've given you quote, because of this new levy, that's a reality, isn't it? Well, I say every surveyor out there, you know, who's tender for projects, you know, you might have tender for a project, you know, last week, and it might happen for another six months and it might go on for 18 months. So that means in reality, I'm going to be absorbing this 10% on these materials for 18 months, if I, you know, so you really have to go back to your client and say, look, you know, if you can, if you haven't, if you've entered a fixed price contract, unfortunately your hands are tight, but if you haven't, you might have to go back to the client and say, look, we'll have to renegotiate because this is just another, you know, this is something that came out of the blue, this is something we couldn't have envisaged or put a risk assessment on. And now this is just coming out of the blue. So, and then we don't have the detail over either, Greg, we don't exactly know how long is this, it's coming in today, but how long is it going to be there for? And it says, you know, we're flowing concrete, which I assume they mean ready mixed concrete blocks. And it said other concrete products, but what do they mean by that? They mean precast concrete products. And also, you know, the scheme could cost a minimum of 4 billion at 80 million per year, you know, even if that went up to 100 grand. Yeah, exactly. All right, listen, Justin, thanks for your time. Whilst they discuss this and that all, maybe it'll all become clear, they'll have to satisfy the backbenchers. They're not happy about it. All right, Justin Malloyt, director of the Western Midlands and Northern regions of the Construction Industry Federation. Thanks for your time this morning. The Ninetown News show with St Yunan's GA Club Development Draw. 40,000 Euro in prizes. First prize, a Hyundai Kona car, plus nine other grit prizes. Tickets now available online at styunansgadraw.com or any club member. Hi, Marty Freel here. Hope you can join me this and every Friday night from eight to 10 p.m. with Rock and Hits on Highland Radio. In association with Arena 7 Letter Kenny, book a kid's party at Laser Quest Arena 7, combine it with bowling and great food for a day to remember. For packages and bookings, visit arena7.ie. Brian McCormick, Sports and Leisure Main Street Letter Kenny. Track suit bottoms for men from all your favorite brands. Adidas Nike, Under Armour. Adidas Tiro 21 Training Pants, tight on the leg with zip pockets. Adidas Intrada Pants, classic style from only 30 Euro. Nike T-Ampo Training Pants with classic zip pockets, only 40 Euro. Look the part, play the part. In-store or online, click and collect on bmcsports.ie. Are you completing your UCAS application? Calfrey offers degree courses in food, agriculture, equine and horticulture. Come along to Calfrey's October Open Days. Talk to students, meet staff and explore the practical facilities at Northern Ireland's specialist Agri Food and Land Based College. Book now to attend an open day at Greenmount Campus and Esquilin Campus and Lockery Campus. Register online at cafre.ac.uk or visit Discover Calfrey on Facebook. Armaculla Jewelers in Letter Kenny are synonymous with fine jewelry, quality watches and gift wear. With stores at Main Street Letter Kenny and the Letter Kenny Shopping Centre or online at armaculla.com. You can choose from their quality product range in a relaxed atmosphere and their sales staff will be happy to help you make the right choice, whatever the occasion. Armaculla Jewelers, making moments magical for generations. On this week's Business Matters, I'll be joined by a well-being coach and founder of the One Good Hour in Letter Kenny, Mary Bradley. So join me, Cure and Ronald, for Business Matters on Sunday evening after the six o'clock news. The Business Matters podcast is also available to download at idlevideo.com. Business Matters in association with the Faculty of Business at ATU Donegal. Looking for a career in financial services? Consider the Level 9 MA in Governance and IT in financial services. Take the next step in your career and contact the exec ed coordinator on 9186206 or email execedexeced at atu.ie today. I find it kind of interesting, at least all things being equal, the director of the Western Midlands and Northern Region of the Construction Industry Federation of Ireland, if he were building his own house and had the choice, he would source his concrete products from outside Donegal. I don't know what that tells us. The government has made it even more expensive for mica houses to be fixed, typical, yeah, indeed. CSI price per square meter to rebuild should automatically increase by 10 now, 10% but will it? Answers on the postcard. And read the budget, I'm just an ordinary citizen but cannot take it why the 10% level on concrete was introduced so every supplier is now paying for someone else's wrongdoing. The mind boggles. All right, okay, listen, the last item ran on a little bit so I have one more break to take before 10. Stay with us, coming up after the news and obituary notices, we've got more interesting stuff for you to get involved with. Would you like to win a Hyundai corner car? Well, that's the first prize in the St Yunan's GA Club Development Draw, who are sponsors of this week's Nine Til Nun Show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at stunansgadraw.com or any club member. At Bryson Recycling, we love to recycle. We accept a wide range of items at our six recycling centers across County Donegal, located in Dunlowe, Letterkenny, Strenarder, Milford, Lahi and Cairndona, only four Euro per car load of recycling with an extensive free area and with contactless car payments now available at all our sites, it's even easier to recycle the right way. Check out BrysonRecycling.org for more details. We wish you a... It may be too early for Christmas carols but it's never too early to start the Christmas shopping. Save hundreds, possibly thousands of Euro shopping online with base hub dairy. We provide a full virtual address mailbox service for all your Christmas parcels and posts. Save hundreds, possibly thousands of customs charges this Christmas with base hub dairy. Call 04871 87 807 077 for more details. Timber! From the smallest shrub to the largest tree in an awkward place, Dunlowe Tree Services provide a complete range of tree surgery services, whether you need to remove a dangerous tree or some nuisance branches. Dunlowe Tree Services have the experience and expertise to carry out tree surgery to the highest of professional standards. Call 083 005 939 Dunlowe Tree Services Donegal. No job is too small, no tree is too tall. If you're in business and you need to accept car payments, Anpost offer the best value in car payment solutions, saving Irish businesses on average 25% on current costs. It's fast and easy to set up or switch. Your money hits your account the next day. Call Anpost on 1-800-300-150 or email carpayments at anpost.ie and start accepting car payments today. October the 5th is Tire Safety Day. The Irish Tire Industry Association, RSA and Dungardishia Corner will be roadside, advising motorists to stay safe with regular tire checks. Dangerous tires have cost too many lives on Irish roads and if found driving with defective tires, you could be liable for a fine and up to four penalty points. Always get expert and accurate tire safety advice from any member of ITIA who will check your tires for free. Don't chance it, check it. Visit itia.ie to find your nearest registered member. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first Joe Dolan Bondorn Music Festival, a spectacular Christmas party night at the Alina Marms Hotel on Friday, December the 16th with the sensational Joe Dolan Show, Remembering Joe featuring five vocalists with the Dolan family and the original Joe Dolan band, cabaret, dinner and accommodation if required. Now booking at the Alina Marms are online at showtours.ie. Revive the 90s in Bondorn on December the 16th at the Alina Ham. Live on air online and on the Highland Radio app. This is Highland Radio News. Good morning, it's 10 o'clock, Donald Kavana at the Highland Radio News desk. The central bank has fined Bank of Ireland 100.5 million euro for breaches affecting tracker mortgage customers. The fine's been issued in respect of 15,900 tracker mortgage accounts impacted between August 2004 and June 2022. Bank of Ireland has admitted in full to 81 separate regulatory breaches. It's the largest fine imposed to date by the central bank. A laptop owned by a man working for a TD has been seized by Gardie. The man accused of viewing child abuse material hasn't been arrested to date but the allegation is being investigated. The Irish Independent Reports and two Lancaster House committees were asked to waive parliamentary privilege in order for Gardie to access the Orocos issued laptop. The person in question works for a TD who is not accused of any wrongdoing. There were significant failings in how Gardie handled emergency calls according to a report to be published later. It was commissioned by the policing authority. After thousands of calls weren't dealt with properly in 2019 and 2020, Gardie the commissioner Drew Harris will discuss the report with the policing authority this afternoon. John Mooney from The Sunday Times says it's identified evidence of both excellent and poor service. Gardie headquarters will be very keen to put this matter behind them. The Gardie commissioner has already apologized for what happened and what had taken place. However, the policing authority, I understand, really wants to get to the bottom of this issue into what were the actual effects on the public as a result of this and have people being held to account for that. Works are finally complete on a new main water supply in South Inneshawn after outages plagued local residents for years. The final section of the new water main supplying Mahirabeg and Inch Island have been completed by Irish Water. Issues with the water supply had been ongoing for years. A petition had been set up to urge Irish Water to carry out the essential works. Councillor Jack Murray says residents will now finally have the sort of dependable water supply that other areas take for granted. This is a great day. Finally, the last section of the new main at supply in Mahirabeg and Inch has been completed. I look forward to a consistent water supply in that area. Your listeners on Highland Radio will be well aware of how regularly these bursts have occurred and how the people in that area have been plagued by a consistent water supply. But thankfully, we've got to this point. The major tourism campaign has been launched in Great Britain to promote Donegal and Derry, the nine-week campaign with the tagline Two Unique Places. One amazing holiday will reach at least 6.8 million people with digital ads in London. Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Shane Clarke is tourism Ireland's director of corporate services and the policy. He says the campaign is intended to showcase what's on offer right across the Northwest. One of the things we identified was the opportunity to create a hub experiences. And really that was about trying to give compelling reason to people to venture beyond Dublin or Belfast. But in order to do that, you needed to create these kind of hub experiences within a kind of a two-hour time frame of around Derry. You know, you have so much to see and engage in. And that's why the primary aim of this campaign is about promoting Donegal and Derry as the kind of one location. Donegal students who had been contributing towards the development of a student center at Menuth University have been left outraged after the project was suddenly withdrawn. A 150 euro student levy was brought in seven years ago to build a student center, to be home to the student's union and provide a hub for student activities. However, NUIM Menuth has confirmed in an email to students that the project is not proceeding, citing technical issues and escalating costs. Students are now left wondering what will happen the money? Anna Rose Travers is a former student union vice president for student life at Menuth and earlier. She spoke to Greg on the 9th London Show. The students had voted for this back in 2015. They were, they kind of made, I suppose, a selfless decision there, knowing that they would never see the fruition of, you know, the student levy. And so they decided, OK, you know, let's do this for, you know, for the benefit of students to come. The only people that can introduce a student levy are the students, and they did that by referendum. And for it to be chucked out by the University Governing Authority, that's not a democratic decision. Weather forecasts mostly dry today apart from the odd light shower, long spells of autumn sunshine and just a partial buildup in cloud in the afternoon. After a rather chilly start, it'll become around about 14 to 16 degrees this afternoon. Moderate northwest breezes dry at first night, but outbreaks of rain will spread from the west around midnight. Heavy falls expected with the potential for some localized flooding. The rain accompanied by strengthening southerly winds, lowest temperatures early of 6 to 10 degrees Celsius, will become somewhat milder later on. Wet and windy tomorrow morning with outbreaks of rain, some squally downpours and a possibility of localized flooding. The rain clearing to sunny spells and showers in the afternoon, top temperatures 13 to 16 degrees Celsius in strong and gusty southerly winds, is appearing westerly by tomorrow afternoon. And that's Island Radio News. We're back with news headlines again at 11 o'clock. Good morning. Obitri notices for Thursday morning, September 29th. The death has occurred of Morris Manus Sweeney, of Sheep Haven College Farm Road, Letter Kinney and formerly Fulcara. Reposing at his late residence from 12 noon until 9 p.m. today and tomorrow with Rosary each night at 9 p.m. Funeral from there on Saturday, going to St. Unan's Cathedral for 11 a.m. Red Graham Mass, which can be viewed online by using www.churchservices.tv. Interim and afterwards in Cornwall Cemetery. Family time, please, on the morning of the funeral. The death has taken place of Tony Harkin, Balin Law, Drumfries. Tony's remains are reposing at his late residence. Funeral Cortage leaving from there at 10.15 a.m. on Saturday morning, travelling to St. Mary's Church Cockhill for 11 a.m. Red Graham Mass with burial in the adjoining cemetery. House private from 10 p.m. to 11 a.m. and on the morning of the funeral, please. Family flowers only please. The death has taken place of Patti O'Donnell, Drum Niske, Balli Malil, Letter Kenny. Remains will repose at his home from 11 a.m. today. Red Graham Mass tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. in St. Mary's Church Remelton with burial afterwards in Tully Cemetery. Funeral Mass can be viewed on churchservices.tv. Family flowers only, donations if desired to Donegal Hospice, care of any family member. The death has occurred of Francis Russell, Dun Glebe, New Mills. Remains are reposing at her home. Removal from there at 6.30 p.m. this evening to arrive at Cornwall Parish Church for 7 p.m. to repose overnight. Funeral service tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. with burial afterwards in Gortley Cemetery. House is strictly private please at the request of the deceased. Family flowers only, donations if desired to the Donegal Hospice, care of any family member or Con McDeod, funeral director. The death has taken place of Rose Ashpool, Ney Kennedy, 53 Holly Hill Road, Strabane, and formerly of 36 Patrick Street, Strabane. Remains are reposing at her home from 12 noon today. Funeral from there tomorrow morning at 9.20 a.m. for Requiem Mass in the Sacred Heart Church Dairy Road, Strabane, at 10 a.m. Donations in lieu of flowers please to the British Heart Foundation, Care of Quigley Funeral Directors. The Requiem Mass can be viewed live on churchservices.tv. For more details, including any family health guidelines for wicks and funerals, please go to highlandradio.com. Leader of Chint Fein, Mary Lou Macdonald. Mary Lou Macdonald. Who is Mary Lou Macdonald? Mary Lou! She's the name on everyone's lips. But how much do we really know about Mary Lou Macdonald? The Sunday Independent is giving readers an exclusive look into Shane Ross's new biography of the Chint Fein leader. Read the exclusive extracts in the Sunday Independent on October 2nd and on independent.ie. Up close and independent. All right, let's get to some of your comments coming in so far this morning. Hi, Greg, one of the most galling features of the budget was a minister who was after receiving an increase of 6,000 euro, totting about increasing social welfare, another 15 or 20 euro. Well, you see, that's the problem. The lack of understanding, maybe, of what life is like out here. My daughter is a law student in Maneuth. She rents a room in a house. The room has a double bed. The landlord has just rented out one side of the bed to another girl for 25 euro per night. No consultation with my daughter. We can do nothing except to give up her education. To give up her education. It's an absolute disgrace the way our young people are being exploited. All these things are the direct result of political decisions. So this person who's a listener, their daughter, rents a room in a house in Dublin. It's got a double bed. The landlord has just rented out half of her bed to another person. So just to clarify, so we're absolutely clear here, listener, if you're still listening, go back to me. Are you saying that the landlord is effectively saying that if she wants to retain this accommodation, that she has to share a bed with a stranger if it happens to be a stranger? Because that is, well, it's dangerous to begin with. It's remarkable. Is that the way it is? It is the way it is. Sorry, this listener has said the way it is. I'm not questioning that. But is that where we're at now is really where I'm getting at. So of course you would have to give it up. But is that like sort of not like constructive eviction, really? It feels like that to me. I mean, is there a rental tenancy board not got to say in this? There's no protection for people. This has also been come out of the blue after the term has started as well. Any other stories like that? That is actually despicable. I'm going to talk about that one on different platforms as well a little later on. How would it be if our students worked in their own country for a few years before taking off with the new qualifications, partially funded by the taxpayer? I think that it's a scandal what is happening with accommodation in this country of our shame on our government policy makers and our greedy landlords. Well, we've put that to those affected. We've heard that view before as it relates to nurses. And we had a really interesting interview with a student nurse on this show previously. And they said they would have been very much of the view that when they wanted to stay here after the qualifications, but now they feel that they have to leave because the conditions to work in this country is so poor at the moment. And the pay compared to other places is so poor that they will look for other options and that they, for the most part, actually fund their education themselves. So they don't feel there would be necessarily the payback required. It's not like they've sailed through college or university for free off the back of the state that they pay most of the fees themselves. So I mean, I would have been maybe more open to that view in the past, but now when you speak to people and how much it costs them and what they're being asked to do when they, you know, unpaid, like they're, for instance, here's part of the maybe they're already paying it back as part of their education, say, for instance, with nurses, they have to work effectively for free doing the work for which they're qualified for at the moment, they work for free effectively. It's not for free, but they don't get any assistance with transport or anything like that there. Is that not already paying back to the state? You know, so my view has changed a little bit on that. I was never, I was never hard and fast in my view on that because I'm always learning. I feel I'm always learning, but I'm starting to think, well, you know, why should they have to work here? A callist as Leo Veradkar said, he couldn't understand why someone wasn't held responsible for building homes with too much mica and less cement. He seems to be always talking after the fact. Right, okay. Greg, the levy makes perfect sense. The mica scheme has to be paid for somehow. It doesn't just appear from nowhere. How do you or others think it should be raised? Well, borrowing, for example, that's how we fix other problems. We can borrow it, pay through general taxation, spread the load a little bit so that it's not just focused on first-time buyers, those looking to repair their homes, you know, infrastructural development, spread it out. The amount of money that's being chucked around the place at the moment on an annual basis through general taxation, I'm sure we could absorb this scandal. That's one way, but the opposition parties to Sinn Féin and others do favor a levy, so maybe I'm an outlier in that regard. What's the correct information about Queen's head sterling notes after Friday? Is it all notes that are out of commission after Friday or only the paper ones? None of them are out of commission. It's a transition. I'll read the note here, but presumably, sterling notes, actually I'll read the facts rather than me speculating. Sterling notes are changing tomorrow, however, it is a transition for paper notes to polymere notes. Paper notes cannot be accepted for payment from the 30th of September onwards, however, they can be exchanged in a bank. These notes will still have Queen Elizabeth II on them as they were designed and printed before her death. Notes with King Charles will come into circulation around mid-2024. So they're trying to get rid of paper notes and to keep the plastic ones, that's what the change is. I did notice some businesses were refusing the paper notes recently so that doesn't surprise me, but listen, notes naturally, the new notes with her head on them will naturally go out of circulation and they'll be replaced by the ones with another. Imagine picking a person who's a billionaire and then sticking his head on your money. It's crazy to me, but anyway. Now that school books are going to be free and the taxpayer will bear the cost, watch this space as school books prices soar in the near future. You wouldn't to be surprised, would you? Hi, Greg, I'm in Letter Kenny Hospital and have to thank everyone. I've met nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters and ambulance drivers. It is amazing how hard the work can still manage to be so kind to us, okay? Happy to pass that on. Greg, now's the time to take back Letter Kenny car park and let the hospital take over the car park and use the funds for the hospital. It's crazy the way it is now and the hospital's struggling to survive. Well, the hospital is very well funded, by the way. It's not struggling. That hospital is not short in cash and the hospital has been given plenty of funds to recruit, the problem is recruitment and retention. There's no shortage of money being pumped into Letter Kenny University Hospital. You could always have more, but that's not the issue. It's not on its knees. Right, okay, we are going to take a break. We're going to listen to the bingo numbers. Good luck, by the way, if you're playing today, it's jackpot day. We have a special interesting bingo promo, which we're going to be telling you about tomorrow. So if you're a regular bingo fan or maybe it's something that you want to take up into the future, you'll want to tune in tomorrow for a myriad of reasons, but to hear about this promotion we have going. But here's the numbers for today. Good luck, hopefully you're marking them off when you win. It's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio. It's 30, the 29th of September. Jackpot day, you're playing for the jackpot prize of 10,800 euro on the paint sheet. The reference number is S14, it's game number 39. The jackpot number is 38. This number can come out in any position from the next 10 numbers drawn and now here are your daily numbers. 16, 37. 1, 77, 89, 79, 32, 84, 20, and finally, 27. Phone your claim to 9104833 before 8 tonight. Leave in your name, contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book and we'll call you back the next working day. Get all your NCBI Bingo information at HighlandRadio.com. The 9 till noon show with St. Unan's GA Club Development Draw, 40,000 euro in prizes, first prize, a Hyundai Kona car, plus nine other great prizes. Tickets now available online at St. Unan's GA Draw.com or any club member. If you have magic moments or great memories sitting on your phone or in the cloud, have them printed at McGee's Chemist in Latter County. Get larger, seven by five prints for the same price as six by fours. 35mm and film from disposable cameras also printed and digitalized. Use the in-store kiosks, download the McGee's PhotoPrints app or visit McGee's.ie for photos printed instantly within an hour or in by 10 and ready by five. Hold your memories in your hand with McGee's Chemist, Letter Kenny. Are you frequently asking others to speak slowly, clearly and loudly? It's listening to the TV or radio becoming harder. If your hearing is affecting your everyday life, Connect Hearing are here to help. Our clinics in Letter Kenny and Dunlowe are open Monday to Friday where you can avail of our hearing test, wax removal and repair services. Take that first step to better hearing. Call us today on 07491-13296. Connect Hearing, connecting you to life. At Ulster Bank, we are closing and from the 8th of October, all customers whose accounts have passed the six-month closure notice period will no longer be able to use their accounts. For our customers receiving social welfare payments like pensions, child benefit, carers or disability allowances, make sure your payments remain uninterrupted by switching your account now. Switch online in any branch or call our customer service team on 0818-210-260. Call costs may vary and calls from mobiles may not be free. Ulster Bank Ireland DAC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. For a real taste of Donegal, try some new season potatoes from John Edwards and Sons Remelton. Donegal's finest potatoes, grown and packed in Remelton by John Edwards and Sons. To celebrate National Potato Day, watch out for packs at special prices in shops throughout Donegal this week. Mixed budget for farming. In this week's Irish Farmers Journal, find out how the budget will affect your farm income for more, is Paul Mooney. New 90 euro per cow subtler scheme, new supports for slurry tanks and rollover of fodder and tillage schemes, but shot new concrete levee, 20,000 farmers locked out of new environmental scheme and tax rebate reduction to cost farmers almost 50 million euro. Don't miss our expert budget analysis only inside this week's Irish Farmers Journal. You can't afford to miss it. The Donegal Suffolk sheep ridder, show and sale will take place this Friday, 30th of September at Refoumard. The show is at six with a sale at 7.30. Ram Lam, Sherline Rams and select females available with online bidding via the MartBid app. Okay, we welcome on to the program now, Fina Full Senator Robbie Gallagher. Good morning, Robbie. Thanks for taking the time out this morning. Good morning, Greg. And thank you for having you up me on. Yep, no problem. Now you've secured a commitment to expand the student leap card discount for all over 16s attending third level institutions. So talk to this seems like a significant advancement here. So what does this mean? Well, early in the year, Greg, the government as a cost of living measure introduced a scheme whereby those attending college, those between the ages of 19 to 23 would be able to get a 50% reduction on the fare traveling to colleges. And we know quite a lot from Donegal will travel to Galway and Dublin. And it was a good enough scheme. I had a couple of issues with it. One of the issues I had was in relation to the age, because as you'd be well aware and as your listeners would know, many students would sit or even sit at 17 and 18 years of age and would be planning going to college or doing a traineeship or whatever or apprenticeship. And unfortunately, the way the scheme was constructed initially, they were locked out of the scheme. And I funny, I was up in Donegal the weekend and I met a lot of people who mentioned this to me and I was aware of it prior to this as well. So I raised it with the minister some time back and then I asked him to come into the chamber on Tuesday last of this week. And I mentioned to him that it would be important that this scheme would be extended to 16, 17 and 18 year olds so that they too could reveal it. Because traveling on a bus from Donegal to Galway or Donegal to Limerick or Dublin is very expensive, Greg, as you know. And I was delighted that the minister came forward and said that they had decided in the department that they were now going to extend the scheme to include that cohort from 16, 17 and 18 upwards who are going to third level college. So it's a welcome development, it's good news. Right, I mean, even this week alone, Senator, we were talking to students traveling from Ineshawn in North Donegal to Letrakenny on a scheduled service, not specific for attending the ATU in Letrakenny. And they were facing, you know, huge costs. There's other issues with the service which we'll not get into right now, but one of them was cost. So you saying going forward that all students, if they travel by bus, be public, private or whatever, will be able to avail of the student leap card discount going forward? Yes, that's my understanding, Greg. Initially it was taken in for public service, which transport, which would be mainly in Dublin and big cities. Unfortunately, in places like Donegal, that's not much of much benefit. But now I would like to compliment the service, first of all, being provided by many private operators and only father in Donegal. A lot of people will be left in the house, so to speak. So they, a lot of operators, private operators, thankfully, in Donegal and elsewhere have now signed up for this. So that I was speaking to one family at the weekend who had one child who was 19, who was able to avail of it, that was going to college in Galway. And they have another child just turned 18. And unfortunately, they were locked out of that service. So one child, the eldest one, was getting a 50% reduction on the fare, whereas the younger one, 18 years of age, was not. But thankfully, I'm welcome. So the change really then, the change really then is the extension of the age to drop it from 16 to 23. That's the significant commitment you've received. Absolutely, yes, yes. Okay, right. Because we'll have to investigate this further then, because presumably private operators then have to sign up to this so that they can receive the subvention from government to offset the losses. So it's really down to whether or not private operators subscribe to this, whether or not they pass on these savings to students, then is that correct? That's correct. I understand there's about 30 private operators throughout the length and breadth of country that have signed up. And a number of them, the unknown ones in Donegal have signed up as well, right? So that's positive, and I thank them for it. And I suppose the concern they would have is that the department would make sure that the private operators get their money very simply so that they're not carrying the cost of this. So that's important. And the minister did say that he would ensure that that would happen. The, that was welcome use, but there's another issue as well, Greg, that your listeners will be well aware of is that traditionally, particularly in the border counties, but not exclusively. So quite a number of people from the South would go to college in the North, that being belt fast or dairy or whatever. And unfortunately, the scheme, as it's presently constructed and designed, locks those individuals out as well. Now, I mentioned this to the minister as well in the chamber on Tuesday, and he did say, and he gave me a commitment that he would go back to the NTA with the view to having a conversation with them about trying to extend it to include that cohort of people as well. So we'll have to see what happens there, hopefully in the coming weeks. Yeah, also it would be nice to see this discount for students, for the student fees obviously. Many students with their families living, working and paying their taxes in Donegal to Dublin, their students aren't going to be available, able to avail of this reduction in student fees if they're based in Dairy or belt fast. Maybe you might also raise that issue whilst you're on the conversation. Absolutely, don't worry about that. And rest assured, Greg, I will do that, yes. Okay, well, that belt means something. I don't know if it means it's dinnertime. Yeah, are you not too cold down there, Senator? The papers are worried today about you being too cold and the heat not going on. Is it all right? Well, Greg, coming from Donegal, we're a hardy lot and we'll be able to stick the new heat up here for the next year. Stick a jumper on, not the heating. All right, take care of yourself. Thanks very much. Thanks, Greg, take care. Okay, that was, thank you very much, Robbie. That was Senator Robbie Gallagher there. Does this apply to you, have you seen the saving? 08, 660, 25,000, 08, 660, 25,000 or call 07491-25,000, 07491-25,000? I'm reading the right numbers, aren't I? Yeah, I do. I'll pop my head. Right, okay. A caller says, I'm in the squeezed Midland for the first time ever. Most of the budget was positive. However, the government announced things in the budget just to get positive headlines, but with no substance. Example, free GP access, when it's getting difficult to get an appointment or getting on the patient's list. IVF treatment assistance sounds good, but no small print available to outline what hoops couples would need to jump through. Yeah, and to be honest with you, I instantly flagged, not trying to be negative, but I instantly flagged the issue with great, having hundreds of thousands of more people able to get free GP care, but can you get an appointment? That also can be a problem. Would you like to win a Hyundai Kona car? Well, that's the first prize in the St Yunan's GA Club Development Draw, who are sponsors of this week's Nine Til Noon show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at stunansgadraw.com or any club member. Charlie McLafferty, funeral directors, serving letter Kenny and the surrounding areas for over 100 years. Charlie McLafferty, funeral directors, let our family take care of your family and guide you through a difficult time. From golfing getaways to gourmet homestays, we all have different ideas on what we'd love to do when we retire, but one thing we can all agree on is that we'd love to pay less tax. At Bank of Ireland, we're all about your financial well-being. A pension is a great way to make your retirement lifestyle achievable while also reducing your tax bill. Now's the time to fund your future. Look a phone or virtual meeting today at bankofarland.com forward slash pensions. Bank of Ireland, begin. Revenue limits, terms and conditions apply. Bank of Ireland is a tied agent of New Ireland Assurance Company, PLC, trading as Bank of Ireland Life for life assurance and pensions business. Members of Bank of Ireland Group, Bank of Ireland Trading as Bank of Ireland Insurance Investments is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. SIFTEC are running a number of accredited programmes this autumn, including basic scaffolding, electro and butt fusion welding, roadworks, plant and machinery, confined spaces, water hygiene for utilities, UK construction cards and more. Funding available on all these programmes, teas and seas apply. For all your safety and training needs, visit SIFTEC.ie. Ready for flu season? It could be really busy, so it's best to be prepared. Help protect yourself and the people around you by booking your winter flu vaccination appointment as soon as possible. Book in with our trusted, experienced team at 88 Boots Pharmacies nationwide. Book in store or online at boots.ie slash flu and give yourself the best protection against flu. Boots with you for life. Eligibility criteria apply, charges may apply, subject to availability. This week at Home Store and more, you'll find every scary thing you need to turn your home into a haunted house because all our Halloween is all half-price, like our spooky range of Halloween characters, including ghouls, ghosts and wacky witches. You can choose from our super scary selection of devilish decorations or create an eerie atmosphere with our Halloween lights and more. But hurry, because when our half-price Halloween is gone, it's gone. Home Store and more, a happy haunted Halloween home. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first Joe Dolan Bondoren Music Festival, a spectacular Christmas party night at the Allianham Arms Hotel on Friday, December the 16th, with a sensational Joe Dolan show, Remembering Joe, featuring five vocalists with the Dolan family and the original Joe Dolan band. Cabaret, dinner and accommodation if required. Now booking at the Allianham Arms or online at showtours.ie. Revive the 90s in Bondoren on December the 16th at the Allianham. Okay, let's get to some more of your comments here as we progress throughout this morning. I was in court this week and watched 90 houses repossessed. I went there as an experience as I've stopped paying the mortgage on my second house as I'd only bought it as an investment, but it has a mica. Is there anyone who talks to the banks about our plight? I cannot afford even with supports to rebuild this house. So we had to make a decision to let it go. Can you imagine how heartbreaking that must have been? I'm one of those people who got the COVID bonus, which was announced in January 19th, still hasn't been paid. Good luck to those in the budget waiting on payments. Indeed, I don't know what the holdup is there. They've hired a third party company to try and sort that out, but still some haven't been paid. All right, let's go to now one of Ireland's hottest new music acts. It's Bradley Marshall. Bradley, good morning to you. How are you keeping? I'm all good, man. Thank you. How are you? I'm good. Are you enjoying that title? One of Ireland's hottest new acts. How does that feel? That sounds nice. I'll have that. Can we tell us about your background in music, Bradley? Because it's sort of like the new wave of doing things. It's happened organically, hasn't it? You've built up a sort of a fan base, as I say, organically, really. Talk to me about your journey so far. Yeah, man. So, you know, it all kind of started as a kid. You know, just the kid who loves music and stuff like that, writing songs. And, you know, I kind of never... So, I kind of had to start at school times. How I really started was, you know, I got into things in school, music and sang that way and stuff. But I always liked writing songs, so what I did was I just started posting on social media, which I think is just so important for any new artist nowadays to do. And, yeah, just from there, man, I just kept singing and doing covers and putting on my originals. And social media just does it itself, man. It just grows and grows and grows. So, yeah, man, just grateful for all that. And now that you have that tool, you know, you can do it yourself, you know what I mean? You're not relying in the past, you know, sending demos here, there and everywhere. You can bring your established audience to a record company or not even now. A lot of people producing their own music. It's very doable, isn't it? 100% man, 100%. And that's one of the great things when you actually get yourself out there and still all these opportunities just start to arise. So, yeah. When did you sort of... How soon into it did you kind of... Or could you pick a moment, Bradley, when you thought that, you know, something's happening here. You know, I'm connecting with people here. Something might come up from this. It was kind of like... A lot of people would comment on my videos and say, like, oh, your voice hits me in different ways and, you know, helps me through this. And when people were saying to me, like, you know, people with anxiety and stuff like that were saying, like, your voice helps me through this, I was thinking, it's so crazy how, like, one voice can do that much for somebody. So, that's when I kind of realised when a lot of people were saying that to me, I was like, I mean, if I can help people and do this, then I'm doing something right and I'm going to keep continuing to do it. And, yeah, that's just... I mean, it's such an unreal feeling that your own voice can do so much for some people. And that's when I realised I've got to do this and I've got to keep doing it. Brilliant. But with that, then, maybe you might sort of feel there's a bit of responsibility comes with that. Did you sort of feel a bit of pressure there, Bradley, that you were touching people on a level maybe you weren't initially expecting? Yeah, man, it's kind of like... It kind of hits you, like, whoa, you know, you don't really expect... You just expect people to hear it and say, oh, he's good and blah, blah, blah, blah, but people actually, you know... With me anyway, a lot of my people that love my music really get into it and, like, I feel like now I have a responsibility to just help them put a smile on their faces and help them through their hard times. And that's what I kind of do to my music. I make sure that it's relatable. Obviously, it's personal to me, but I make sure that it's relatable to everyone else, too. Yeah. Now, obviously, then, you know, when you're an artist, you know, you want to speak to your people and they've given you the positive feedback, right? But then there's the peers within music and you've worked on your first single with the likes of Ryan Mack and Rob Grace in co-writing, but also to have the likes of Jimmy Rainsford have pictured this to come on board. That's sort of like a thumbs up from the professionals, too, isn't it? Yeah, man, yeah. So, like, that's kind of crazy for me because, you know, like, the likes of Jimmy Rainsford and, you know, Ryan Hennessy from Picture This and, you know, Ryan Mack, Rob Grace, these are all really, really good artists, especially the Lads from Picture This because they're established in Ireland. You know, they've done things like Five Nights and Three Arena, so like, to work with them and for them to believe in me is like, wow, like, this must mean something. Yeah, Bradley, sadly, I don't know if we can, Irish artists, even the best of them can rely necessarily on radio play to become big. And that's just a sad, sad situation, right? So what's your pathway, do you think, to sort of, you know, really hit the big time? Because I think a lot of people look at, and maybe not as much now, but maybe look at talent shows and go, well, that's where you can instantly get, you know, a platform immediately. But outside of that, like, I think even for the best of Irish artists, it's a struggle to get established and to grow in Ireland and then make the step, maybe, over to Britain. And who's to say where else your career might take you? It is, man. It's kind of sad to go in Ireland the way it is really, really hard for new Irish to get on the radio and stuff like that. And it really is hard. And I hope things change and start, like, you know, a bit more support happens in the future and stuff like that. And things like this are great for new Irish like me, you know? Because you get out there and you get people to know you and stuff. But for me, personally, I really, really drive and put a lot of work into, like, TikTok. The reason why I say that is because you can put a video up today in Ireland and it can hit Germany, it can hit France, it can hit Poland, you know? I don't want to sound like... It's all right if you drop it as long as it's a mistake and I'm going to mess it. Come here. See, this is the point I've tried. I don't want to sound like a scratch record for people that listen to this show regularly, Bradley. But you see, radio... Thankfully, we're doing great here. But radio is struggling to survive in certain markets, right? And that is because they're behind it now. They're behind artists like you who are able to get their art out on the likes of TikTok and others. And meet a massive audience. They should be trying to sort of ride on your coattails and other famous artists' coattails when that time comes. Do you know what I'm on about? Rather than go, oh, we need more supports, what's happening, not as many people listen to radio. That's because they're going on to TikTok or Spotify or wherever because that's where they can hear you. Not on your 2 FM or iRadio. I'm not criticising them and hopefully they are giving you airplay. But you know what I mean? They need to get behind people like you. 100%, man. I think it does really need to change because we need it, man. We need that support. And I think we need to be better at just supporting our own. We need to help people grow in this country and stuff like that. So yeah, it really does need to change, man. But hopefully it does, man. Yeah, all right. Come here. Listen, Hurts the most. The single was released on September 15th. How did that feel? That felt great, man. That really felt great because there was something with this song that I just knew it would kind of go off in a way, you know? And thankfully it has on the latest Spotify and stuff. And I just... Relatable lyrics, man. That's the most important thing I feel, you know? And I think Hurts the most is about, you know, just feeling not good enough for somebody. And I'm sure everybody, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people have felt not good enough for some people in certain situations, you know? So I just kind of thought that that would really relate to people. But I felt so good using that song, man. And people feel maybe they're not good enough for themselves as well. That's good lyrics appeal to all people in different situations. I've said it before in this show. Right, we're going to encourage people to go and listen to the studio version of this Hurts the most because that's where they'll get the full impact or hop onto TikTok and follow you there. But you're going to give us a bit of a live version of this. And we're conscious that it's over Zoom and it's not a fair reflection of your talents. But you're going to be a good sport and do some of it for us. All your role of it is up to you. Yeah, of course, man. Yeah, I'll do a little bit of that. Yeah, take it away when if you're ready. Thank you, man. I miss your face in the morning. I miss those midnight drives. We'd be talking for hours saying what was on our minds. We had so much in common. We had too many fights. I was always the problem and stood up for it this time. Tell me now if we could work. Because if you're going to leave me, please don't do it slow. And don't leave me bleeding, lying on the floor. And I know what it is, but you got to live because you're not and I'm not even close. And that's what hurts the most. It's been a week since we spoke last and it's starting to hurt. I don't know where your head's at, but it's orange. Is there somebody better, gives you more than I could? Well done, Bradley. That's lovely. It's a lovely sound, even compromised over Zoom. I hope that sounds all right. It sounds really good. Ironically, you could have two people in the one relationship feeling that it's good to talk it out. Bradley, if you allow yourself to dream, if you close your eyes at night and think, this could be something I want to do or achieve, do you have one recurring thing that you want to see happen for yourself? I wouldn't even say record label and stuff like that because I don't believe that nowadays you need stuff like that. One thing I would say is just for me to like, I've always been busy myself playing big shows in the UK, you know, kind of Londonerys and Tree Arena is always my biggest dream in Ireland because I can just imagine how it feels being on that stage in my hometown and stuff in Dublin. So yeah, Tree Arena, man, to sell that out one day would top it off for me. I can retire down and just sit back. Well, you know what dreams happen and why can't they happen to you? Obviously, that's a really powerful ballad. What are you going to do for a follow-up single? Are you going to stick with the ballads and sort of try and hone so that your audience in that regard, something a bit more up-tempo? Do you know what you're going to do next? Yeah, man, so I'm going to show people that I can mix it up and I can do a lot of things. So the last single was going to be a bit more opiate. This one's kind of slower. So obviously now it's coming into November, December time. So I'm going to look at writing a little new Christmas song maybe and see what happens. And then January, we're just going to do whatever, man. Just keep releasing songs. Keep enjoying it because that's the whole thing. You don't work a day if you enjoy your job. You don't work a day in your life, do you? That's a fact, man. You have to enjoy the journey. All right, take care of yourself, Bradley. I wish you nothing but success and good stuff. I hope you headline the three arena. Thank you, man. Or you could take up MMA maybe and head up to headline the three arena in the octagon. Maybe I don't know. It was a backup plan. What do you think? Why not, man? I don't know why not. All right, take care of yourself, Bradley. Well done. Thank you, boss. All right, good, man. Bye-bye, take care. All right, that is Bradley Marshall there. Potential to be won for the future. No doubt about it. The nine-tonnean show with St Yunan's GA Club Development Draw, 40,000-year-old prizes, first prize a Hyundai Kona car, plus nine other grit prizes. Tickets now available online at styunansgadraw.com or any club member. Go full-leadal and put a smile on your family's faces with four burgers for less than a five-er. Go deluxe Irish Angus beef burgers just 247. Tomato ketchup a sweet 62 cent. Quality mozzarella just 49 cent. Burger buns for 89 cent. And juicy cherry tomatoes only 49 cent. Go on, shop without compromise. Go full-leadal today. Dunlowe and Neve Colombo will face off on Saturday for the Donegal Intermediate Championship title and a place in next year's senior competition. There will be full-match commentary here in Highland and online at highlandradio.com from the 2.30 start at O'Donnell Park in Letterkenny. Highland's coverage from the Donegal Intermediate Championship final is an association with the Waterfront Hotel Dunlowe. Delighted to be shortlisted in the following categories, Coastal Escape of the Year, Intimate Wedding Venue of the Year and Four Star Hotel of the Year and the Irish Hotel Awards. Mixed budget for farming. In this week's Irish Farmers Journal, find out how the budget will affect your farm income for more, is Paul Mooney. New 90 Euro Pocows Suclur scheme, new supports for slurry tanks and rollover of fodder and tillage schemes, but shot new concrete levee, 20,000 farmers locked out of new environmental scheme and tax rebate reduction to cost farmers almost 50 million Euro. Don't miss our expert budget analysis. Only inside this week's Irish Farmers Journal. You cannot afford to miss it. The future of public transport is bright with the transport for Ireland network growing and improving throughout the country. Increased demand for bus travel has led to many exciting new professional bus driver vacancies across a wide range of bus companies. Driving a bus for a living can offer long-term jobs to ability and contributes towards a greener, more sustainable community. It's time to explore a role in bus driving that moves you and others. Visit transportforireland.ie to find out more. We wish you a... It may be too early for Christmas carols, but it's never too early to start the Christmas shopping. Save hundreds, possibly thousands of Euro shopping online with Bishobderry. We provide a full virtual address mailbox service for all your Christmas parcels and posts. Save hundreds, possibly thousands on customs charges this Christmas with Bishobderry. Call 04871 878077 for more details. If you're starting a new business in 2022, call into Bisprint today and get sorted. Logo design, invoice books, business cards and all your printing needs. Call Bisprint at Port Road, Lerakeni on 9177 945 or visit bisprint.ie. Chagisk will hold a tillage meeting on Thursday, the 29th of September at 8pm in Angren and Hotelbert. Topics include crop research, planning for 2023 and acres. Chagisk speakers include Ewan Mullins, head of Chagisk Crop Research and Shea Feelin, Chagisk Crop Specialist and all are welcome. All right, so I didn't make it clear. A number of you messaged in asking what Bradley Marshall's new track is called. It's called Hurt the Most Now. An extension of GP Visit Cards was announced in budget this week, budget 2023 and as many of you out there have pointed out, it can be difficult. In some instances, it varies from practice to practice to see a GP and people feel that maybe this might make it even more difficult, but from a GP's perspective, let's go to Dr. Maria May, who's a GP in Mount Charles. How are you getting on, doctor? Thanks for joining us this morning. Hello, yep, thank you. Right, so on the face of it, this seems like a brilliant idea, better, maybe more affordable access to GPs for more people, but from a GP's perspective, what does it mean to you? Yeah, and in principle, it is a great idea and a very welcome idea, the idea of having free primary care access for people is a very good one. It does come with problems and the problem that I suppose I find most with it is like it is a very welcome, there is this problem for people who don't have a medical turret and they also don't have health insurance, but they're also not having a lot of money to pay for expense tests. And I think that this will help those people be able to come and see us for, it is expensive, we acknowledge that, to see yourself sometimes if you need repeated visits. So it does open that up for people and that is good. We can come back to what pressure that might put on surgery. But I think the main problem is when we have done what we can or the problems are not what we can deal with, the onward referral, there's huge problems with that. And increasingly, we are just seeing that there's nearly no point. Like I asked people, that's part of the letter I had written to the Times, do you have any health insurance? I hate having to ask that question, but it nearly is kind of essential at this point. Does it's an indictment on the public health system really having to ask the question so frequently? Yeah, and it is just because there's no point in me sitting with somebody ahead of me and saying, yeah, you need to see, for example, in the interior and orthopedic specialist for that. That's great, I'll refer you, see you later. And I know, follow well, that that list could be four years. That's not good on my, how can I sort of think that that's my job done? It's not, you know, and we need to try and address this. Also, to our presumed then, you would find yourself being requested to or offering to write letters, but I just wonder what impact they have every GP in the country sending letters to consultants and, you know, there's only so many ways you can sort of try and impress on them, the importance of a patient being seen, isn't there really? I'm not sure how effective they are at all at all now at this point. Yeah, and sometimes it's just more letters to read and more things to get back it up. Now, in fairness, like a lot of the work we do and increasingly, like I'm sure my colleagues would agree with this, bring a lot of time on the phone trying to impress, you know, to make a follow-up phone call about something you're away, but concerned about or that really needs dealing with. And in a lot of cases, there will be a lot of goodwill referring to you from, you know, the, you know, the tertiary care to try and, you know, pick people out of this way unless you really need it. So there's a lot of that goes on, but that's very time-consuming when you could be seeing more people. There's a huge amount of time involved in that. And also the people in tertiary care, and, you know, for example, the hospital or colleagues there unless any in the department, they're operating under very, very intense conditions. Like, you know, you can have nothing but respect for them, but it's an extremely difficult job to do. Yes. And when you refer to someone to use the example of ENT and we talk of four-year waiting lists, I mean, is it really a waiting list? Is it not just sort of the an abyss to sort of keep people, you know, you know what I'm on about? Like, is it really? Oh, right. So in four years, I'm going to be seeing... We refer to these as waiting lists, but are they? It's almost like just a black hole that maybe those in Great Disney get plucked out of. Yeah, and then that is. And I often would say, you know, this is my own personally. I might say to people that it's not really a function-service stage, and that's why I wouldn't say my job is done there anymore. And that is where the problem is. And I think that if we might have seen kind of more access to us, it's good. But the problems are much bigger. And I think I would have preferred to say, for example, money spent on other things and other big things. There are people with muscles still, maybe joints pain, waiting to see, maybe waiting on joints replaced. But if they had better access, it says, you know, we do have some issues, but again, they're under a lot of pressure. The lists are very long, but having some more... Most of the things that people could do even in the meantime, just investing in the services, no point in having loads of people have access to a service, but the service isn't. You also, also in your letter, you talked about various referrals. You, someone comes into you with breathlessness. Now, we would never discourage anyone, of course, from going to the GP, but only this week. We were last Sunday, I believe it was Long Health Day. And in the lead-up to that, we spoke to some specialists and they were saying, you know, your breathlessness, don't put it down to something else, go and get it checked. If someone comes to you to do that, right, and you go, right, okay, there's something here beyond what I can do in this building, and you refer them, it's routinely, is it that they could face a two-year wait for a stress test? Yeah, those kinds of waits are kind of the norm. Now, we manage around it, and that's obviously the benefit to common to us, is that we, like our skill set is in determining what's what, in terms of this huge amount of symptoms that people have may present, kind of, to us. But you can pick out who really needs, kind of, what. But the problem is, the person who needs something done quite soon, but not today, not needing to go over to Letter County and talk up the emergency department there. But again, you know, like I don't want you to wait with maybe, you know, something that could be a heart attack in a couple of months' time, but we could have avoided that if you were able to access these tests. That's the big problem. Now, what often you end up doing, depending on what you feel the level of risk is, is that you might have the same feeling. I'm really sorry, but there is no better way for me to do this, and I'm also sorry to have my colleagues in the emergency department, but to get the care, you need to go in there. At least we know there's nothing very urgent, and that you might be able to be then put a little bit fast-tracked onto that list. But me just referring them routinely, I'd be as well not to, like I would feel that there's not much kind of service available there. And similarly for HIPPs and things, that would be another one. I could see someone so HIPP, the x-ray is done, that's the part that works well for us here in this kind of part of the country. Get a quick enough x-ray. Bad o-way, bad pain, you know, bad osteoarthritis needs to be seen. I know that now, but the person needs to wait maybe, nearly the best part maybe of two years to see an orthopedic quality. I would know quite a few people who've had HIPP replacements, and none of them have done it publicly. It's either been private or using some of the cross-border initiatives. I don't, you know... No, and they're a poor substitute, I think, for, you know, they're a substitute and they obviously have a place, but it can't be at the expense of properly resourcing and working on our own public health system here. What does it do to the morale then of someone like yourself, Maria, in the business of trying to look after your people? It's a personal thing, because you're in the community and it's people of the community, but, you know, every day having to relate this, that it becomes sort of almost like a joke, albeit not funny, about having to ask about private insurance. Like, what does it do to someone like, you know, you, when you probably feel you can do as much as you can, but you're part of a system that is failing people, so it must take it out of you. It's really what I'm asking. I know, like it is, and it can be quite emotionally exhausting to be here, you know, sometimes in certain days, and there is a lot of this type of stuff going on, and you're doing your best to kind of keep people a bit buoyed up, but, you know, a bit positive about that. We can get a lot of it off our chest in the kitchen, having a cup of tea. My colleague here is also my husband, Owen. We have a fair few heated discussions about all this ourselves. We do what we can, but sometimes then, you might get very worked up about it, write a little letter to the times. You feel a bit helpless, but I suppose increasingly we feel we do need to really take on our role as advocates for our patients as well, and be heard, because I do think that particularly as GPs, we're well-placed. I've worked in a lot of hospitals before, you know, I've become a GP. You get a lot of experience, and you know how things work. You know, I've worked in the emergency departments in Edward Kenney, short-stint, don't know how helpful I was, but I've been there, I see the pressure, but I know what I'm sending people to work in the various, you know, different specialities there. And I remember thinking, especially there of Edward Kenney, our local hospital, a great place for us really bringing people the level of pressure to, and just the enormity of the tasks it had. Well, we heard from Dr. Kenmore Peter recently. We heard from Dr. Kenmore Peter recently on this programme. He says, you know, he didn't paint a very pretty picture, despite all the best efforts that people end up being treated like numbers, because the system is only allowing that. From your perspective, and your experience, Maria, what is the solution here? Is it more consultants? Is it more money? Is it more theatre time? You know, I mean, or is it a basket case? Like, what, if you could do one thing from your experience that you think could maybe loosen this bottleneck, what might it be? I think for us, for me and my now, current position as a GV, it's better access to the likes of even just Allied Health and imaging for us, because we can do a lot of stuff. We're limited sometimes, and sometimes people take a somewhat dim view of what we can do or not, but a lot of the time we're limited, because the type of medicine we practice now, we need tests, we need further investigations. It's not always just good enough to just hear the story, it could be us, we need more confirmation, better access to diagnostics for us, I think would be a very good and helpful thing. And for routine enough things, like, for example, stress test, get the groundwork done, then see a specialist, everything's done, what that type of thing. Maria, in the last minute, I don't have all the answers. I understand that, but in the last minute, Maria, is the picture any better in referring people to mental health services? That's a very difficult area, again, and I think, like, there's no point in me saying much other than I think there's a lot of lacking of services there, and we would find ourselves doing as much as we can to support people, ourselves, and, you know, but when it goes a bit beyond that, again, waiting time for long and access to, just for example, counseling and stuff, people might wait weeks, months, months, usually, and it's very thin on the ground, and we hear a lot from others about that, and yes, I tend to paint a very pretty picture of that, either, I'm afraid. Okay, Dr. Maria Moy, GP and Mount Charles, thank you very much for your time this morning, I appreciate it greatly. Thanks for having me, all right. Take care, bye-bye, all right, thank you. And just as it relates to the mental health services and what's happening across this region, across this country too, you know, obviously, I would be informed of trends from people in certain areas of the system, so to speak, and there seems to be a particular problem, one which we're going to try and do a particular focus on of people, self-harming, attempted, and sadly, suicides, so it's definitely, I think it's a grown problem, I've been told it is by people I trust and know, and it's something we're gonna try and focus on and try and see if we can do something to raise awareness of it or to help even, perhaps. The Ninetal Noon Show on Highland Radio. All right, it's just after 11 o'clock, let's get a news update and say good morning, Emma Ryan. Thanks, Greg, good morning. Businesses across Donegal have begun receiving revised rate valuation packs from Donegal County Council this week with one councillor saying he believes the vast majority of them will see their rent bill increase. Councillor Michael McLaughlin says this is the first new valuation programme for 10 years and coming at a time of increased pressure for businesses, he fears some may be forced to close because of the potential increases. A laptop owned by a man working for a TD has been seized by Gardie. The man accused of viewing child abuse material hasn't been arrested to date, but the allegation is being investigated. The person in question worked for a TD who is not accused of any wrongdoing. Donegal students who had been contributing towards the development of a student centre at Manoof University have begun being left outraged after the project was suddenly withdrawn. A 150-year-old student levy was brought in seven years ago to build a student centre to be home to the student union and a hub for student activities. However, the university has since confirmed in an email to students that the project is not proceeding, citing technical issues and escalating costs. Students have now been left wondering what will happen to their money. The central bank has fined Bank of Ireland 100 million euro for breaches affecting track or mortgage customers. The fine has been issued in respect of 15,900 track or mortgage accounts impacted between August 2004 and June 2022. Bank of Ireland has admitted in fall to 81 separate regulatory breach breaches. Works are finally complete on a new water main supply in South Anishown after outages plagued local residents for years. The final section of the new water main supply in Mahirabeg and Inchiland has recently been completed by Irish Water. Issue with the water supply had been ongoing for years and a petition had been set up to urge Irish Water to carry out the essential works. And finally, there were significant feelings in how Garda handled emergency calls according to a report to be published today. It was commissioned by the policing authority after thousands of calls weren't dealt with property in 2019 and 2020. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris will discuss the report with the policing authority this afternoon. That's all for now. We'll be back with an update again at 12 noon. But until then, good morning. Thank you very much indeed. Emma Ryan, right? Paul is joining us for the last gardening item of the season. Can you believe it? It is almost over for winter. He'll be back with us in spring, of course, but it's monumental. It's monumentous. Okay, but anyway, if you've got any questions heading into autumn and winter for Paul, our gardener from Balakdur Garden Center, get in touch with us right now, 08-660-25000, your WhatsApps and texts to that number, or give us a call on 074-9125-1000. Thank you for all your contacts today, as always. And I will repeat myself, but I apologize for that. Might be an age thing. Hi, Greg Waterhoff in Rock Hill. All morning disgraceful. We were not informed and we have a business. Could not get any answers from anywhere on this. So let's hop on to, we'll hop onto Twitter here and we'll search hashtag, I, Donegal. See if they put anything on the Twitter. I don't know why they just do it. Very few people in this country actually use Twitter, you know. Let's see what they're reporting. As part of the National Leakage Reduction Program, mains repairs may cause supply disruptions to Rosnalla crossroads and surrounds from one to four on Friday, sorry, on the 5th of October and the 6th of October. So that's if you're in the South Donegal area. That's not it. Let me see, Castle Finn. There's a National Leak Reduction Works going on there. Mains repairs cause supply disruptions to Turmin and surrounds from 9 a.m. until midday on the 3rd of October. Okay, no, that's not it. Yes, here we are. This was an hour ago. For those affected by repairs to a burst water main, it may affect supply to Bonomy, Rohan, Conwall, Foxhall, Rockhill road, Rockhill road, Letter Canyon surrounds, works will now be completed at 4 p.m. this afternoon. Okay, so that's all I can get for you. So it's repairs to a burst water main affecting the supply in that area. It was supposed to be off till 10 p.m. tonight, but they've been able to bring that forward. So to that listener in the Rockhill area, your water should begin to return from 4 p.m. So hopefully that's an answer for you. The 9th Loon Show, delivering answers to your queries. I'm not making light of it, but it's sad that you have to, I'm happy to help, but anyway, the water should start coming back on from four. Let us take this break. Would you like to win a Hyundai Kona card? Well, that's the first prize in the St. Unions GA Club Development Draw, who are sponsors of this week's 9 till Loon Show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at stunionsgadraw.com or any club member. If you need advice on what's best for coughs or colds or what's best for sore throats or flu, just ask at your local Brennan's pharmacy. If you need advice on the best vitamins and tonics or put a pep in your step, just ask at your local Brennan's pharmacy. Whether it's about back aches, headaches or tummy aches, your Brennan's pharmacy team can help. If you need advice from someone you trust, we're here for you at your local Brennan's pharmacy, Moncranha, Tlamani and Creaselaw. Don't sleep in and miss the very latest beds and mattress offers from DFIbeds.ie, Ireland's leading online bed and mattress retailer. You'll get a comfy Irish made mattress and headboard from an amazing 229 euro. Check out the full range at DFIbeds.ie Delivery free and guaranteed to you within seven working days. DFI beds, sleep well, live well. The new TFI Young Adult Leap Card is for 19 to 23 year olds, offering a 50% discount on transport for Ireland fares and now also includes many commercial bus operators too. Students who are in full-time education and are over 23 can also avail of these savings with a TFI Student Leap Card. So save 50% on fares with a Young Adult or Student Leap Card across the Transport for Ireland Network and participating commercial bus operators. See Leap Card.ie for details and to order yours today. Attention all farmers, Innisjohn Cooperative Society present a beef and sheep information night at the Innisjohn Gateway Hotel on Thursday the 29th of September at 7.30 p.m. Experts on the night from Innisjohn Co-op, Chagosk, Irish Country Meats and Board Beer followed by refreshments. That's this Thursday, a beef and sheep information evening at the Innisjohn Gateway Hotel on Cranagh. At Volkswagen commercial vehicles, the wait is over. Production is back. Now your plans can really begin. Whether that's scaling your business or smartening your service offering with HP Finance from 3.9%, purchase contributions of up to 3,000 euro and service plans from 12.99 per month, don't wait. Secure your next Caddy Cargo, Transporter 6.1 or crafter at your local Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles dealer or visit VolkswagenVans.ie. Be ready to really deliver. Offers for business customers only. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland and subject to lending criteria. Choose the conditions applied. Call in to Connelly's Volkswagen Letter Kenny today or visit connellys.ie to book a test drive. All right, Paul McLaughlin Gardener at Balak Dirt Garden Centre. How are you getting on, Paul? Good to have you in. Thank you. Right, we're just sort of talking off air there now. You know, as one seasonal door closes, another opens and then you're looking to the next one opening. It's on the go all the time, isn't it? Sort of maybe parking summer of 2022 now and looking towards winter and spring and summer of 2023, is that it? Yeah, pretty much. We've actually just, in the last week, we've started planting on next year's plants. So we're generally working with nine months ahead. So the hedging plants now we're actually planting on this week. Should be right even made next year. Yeah. And presumably that's quite power-intensive too, is it? Yes. You wouldn't think, you know, when you talk about energy costs and all that type of stuff, garden centres, a one's gonna feel the pinch in the winter too. Pretty much you have a lot of stuff running on par and we actually, we make our own power tunnels so we have steel-bent machines and they're running three-phase. So it is definitely, you can feel it, if you can feel the increases all the time. Yeah, exactly. It's supposed to go to pretty much everything involves just going up. Of course, yeah. But, and the night and Christmas as well, presumably. Yes, absolutely. The boys were away yesterday picking Christmas trees so that whole season's coming around again just. And you were telling me off there, there are some cantees that are big into the growing of Christmas trees. Very much. Like, so Wicklow and Wexford down there seems to be the main sort of, almost under Carlow, that sort of area seems to be the major producers of Christmas trees in Ireland. Yeah. Is it like picking puppies? Like, you know, we'll have number five, six, two and four. Pretty much. What we do is we actually go down there with just tags with us, with our own color tags. Walk through the forest and tag each one and then come at the start of December the guys go through and cut our load. Yeah, excellent, that's brilliant. And just in relation to that, what's the growth of a Christmas tree, the growth cycle? Yeah, it depends on the variety of Christmas trees. So actually your traditional old lodgeful pine's kind of gone out of fashion. Is that because it sheds somewhat, sure. But all right, it's just good. It's not got the same sort of color. Yeah. It sort of has sort of a peeler green. I know the one, yeah. You're chatting them five to six years. Nordman fur, you're chatting nine to ten. And noble fur was the sort of blue colored one almost. You'd be chatting 11 to 12. Wow. So the real business model there, isn't there in keeping the production line going? Absolutely. I need a lot of land. A lot of land. And huge investment on the basis that you plant them and it's going to be like 10 years before you see your money back. Yeah, for sure. So there's a lot of money tied up in it. All right, okay. Come here. If I have patchy grass at this time of year, do I have to wait until next year to get it sorted? Pretty much until you see the good results probably, you won't see the good results next year, but you should be working on. You could do the work now. Do the work now, exactly. It's not too late to sow seed. So it's not so what you would do there in the patchy but as get a machine like a scarifier or something, go and give it a rough, give it a rough and up and so on. But don't expect immediate results. This is, you're going to start seed the fruit so you work next spring. Pretty much you will get, it will green up now for the winter. Right. But you'll not see real thick grass until the spring time. Spring growth comes on it. So you'll see some things happening. Absolutely. But it's a good idea to get it started now. Yeah. It's not less work to be done in the spring. So for those of us who might, you know, I think some people who are lucky enough to have some bit of grass in front of the house maybe the moss has died off for the summer and it might start creeping back in again over the winter. Is that likely what can happen to people and what could they be doing maybe to prevent it in advance? It's about drainage, isn't it? Drainage is a good help. All right. And actually moss is when he's sort of vicious cycle sort of thing in terms of the more moss you have the more tends to congregate on you. So if you had an opportunity now you could actually scarify it and get some of the moss out of it and it'll just leave less. It sort of opens it up. It doesn't create that sort of damp humid area and it gives it a bit of breathing. Yes, exactly. It keeps it breathing so much. If you do that now, you should have less bother next year. I've got black spots on my apples, Paul. This year again, I had them last year. What can I do this winter to prevent it from happening? You get a product called a winter wash. It's, they used to be sort of based on tar oil but they've actually moved to the more sort of environmentally friendly stuff now. It's more based on vegetable oil. But what happens there is a lot of the actual viruses and bugs and that over winter on the three and this wash actually kills off anything over the winter so it doesn't come back next year. And it's also a good idea to keep sort of good hygiene practices in force in the sense that as your leaves fall off your apple trees now actually rake them up and remove them. Because a lot of times that sort of puts the disease into the ground which then comes back up onto three. So sort of good hygiene practices is good for sort of preventing next year's problems. Can you leave strawberry plants out through the winter or do they need to be housed? No, you can leave them out through the winter or out there. And now it's actually a good time if you have strawberry plants the way they put out runners at the minute. Now it's a good time to multiply your stock. You can actually just, if you Google it there it's very easy to layer them and to create more plants from the plant. Okay, when do you cut back hydrangeas? Cut back hydrangeas, this is one of these ones creates problems. Is this like whether to leave the polytunnel door open or not open? Because that's what me and my mother are giving this. All right, normally I would say cut them back now and have the flowers die off on them. There'll be flowers to leave them. What would your mother say? I'm not interested in what you think. My mother says leave the flowers on them even because they look quite decorative over the winter. Right. I had flowers and she regs it prevents the frost from getting down to the plant. Whereas I think honestly it's the sort of... Your mom's been growing hydrangeas for so much longer than you, Paul. That's the problem. Yes, exactly, longer than I've been alive. Many winters. So, I don't know, it's a matter of choice but for me I'd be cutting them off sort of once they're finished with flowers. All right, so maybe the professional attitude from Paul is not questioning your mother's professionalism is to cut them back now but there'd be a traditional view out there that leaving them on can offer some protection for the winter. Exactly, leave a lot of them in March or something. Okay, right, interesting. I think people can make up their own minds there. It's good that we get both sides of it. Right, okay, so our spring balls going in the ground right about now. If you fancy daffodils, tulips, allumes. Allumes are usually in fashion at the minute so they are, they're actually lovely plants and if you actually ever watch the Irelanders on TV they're always a fair fall alley. But they are lovely, you get a lot back from them. They're later than they are in daffodils that you have longer periods so they come out in Maytime or so. But they are actually, they're worth the wait. And we were talking about in the lawn. You know, you want to rake it up, get rid of that, get rid of that moss to breathe. But for our beds, you want to be tidying up your beds now and put on a layer of mulch which is kind of seemingly the opposite of what we'd be doing to our lawn. So what's the benefit and the logic behind that? I suppose the benefit and the logic there is it's creating, it's covering the ground so it's made of organic material for most parts of the bark of that. So it's obviously putting more nutrients down onto it and it's also for anything that could be the root to be a wee bit frost, frost-prone, that's actually just creating sort of an insulated layer. So what is mulch then in terms of grass? Cause you will see some lawn mowers that have a mulcher, right? But a regular lawn mower, if it is a regular thing, what is in your bag? Is that mulch? Pretty much a mulch in lawn mower works in a sort of slightly different principle and it sort of cuts the grass a bit finer. No way the grass just goes up into the bag. It chops it up and sort of distributes it. And if you're using a mulch in lawn mower generally you see people now with a wee robot lawn mowers they're mulching mowers like, but they actually so you need to be doing it very often. So you don't collect mulch then, right? No, you don't collect the grass off of the top. So where would you get the mulch then for your beds? Generally you can buy it in most sort of Yard and Centre's hardware places and it'll be bark mulch, more people would be using for that there or you can sort of get composted waste as well. Is it controversial about when to trim back your roses? No, roses. Okay, we've got some family agreement on this one then. There are fairly strong rules. Generally you would trim them back now, sort of one of their finished flowers in October, November and but you give them their final trim then it would march. Yeah. But otherwise it's for everybody. Okay, and we're still in that space whereby I think at this stage, your summer flowers can be replaced by your winter ones if that's your will. I mean, you might get the old hardy one holding on, but. Yeah. Now pretty much they're sort of in their last throws of it at this stage. So they are. So now is the time to sort of think of a change and over. Yeah, because they start to exceed air frost and stuff but not maybe more in the Midlands than here but we're in that space now, aren't we? Yeah, and there's supposed to be a storm coming tomorrow so it'll pretty give them a rough pattern, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I get you. Right, we've talked about removing the leaves and do it as you go because it's much more manageable, isn't it? Yes, and especially if you're making leaf mold, actually, which is sort of a compass you can make out of your leaves. If you generally add to the pile of graduate rather than one big lump, they tend to break down a lot quicker. And whilst you're doing that, feed the lawn too. Yes, now is a good time for a winter feed. All right, okay. So it would be something not too nitrogen based. Yeah, would you ask Paul, do you have to plant pansies every year? Or have them in a window box? Yes, you do. They'd be classes annuals, so they're only gonna do for the ones. What's a perennial? A perennial's a plant comes back every year. It comes up, it dies back and then comes back again next year. Whereas an annual's just a water cycle. Is a daffodil an annual? No, a daffodil'd be a kind of a perennial. So it would be. So in the sense that it comes back every year, it is a perennial. Yeah, okay. But in relation to that question, I don't wanna confuse the answer. Your pansies won't come back. Your pansies won't come back. If you have certain types of pansies, we'll actually drop seed. And different pansies will come up in the same place next year. Kind of hit and miss with that though, was it? That's very hit and miss. And it won't be the same pansy. Right, now, veg patch, if you wanna get one going. Yes. Now's a good time? Now's a good time for certain things. Perfect time for putting in garlic and you get to actually frost hardy onions there. You put in them at this time here. And actually, if you get them into next month, you can put in peas and beans. We'll actually do well and you'll have a good early harvest. What about spacing? Like, what are you planting? When you plant garlic, is it garlic seeds, is it? And generally people would use what's known as sets. It's like the cloves of garlic, just like you would cook with. All right, so I have some of them. I took some of them out of my fridge yesterday and it was green growing at the end of them. They're ready to go there. Pretty much. The only problem is, you used to be able to go down to the shop and buy garlic and stick it in the ground and it would grow happily enough. It's not so much happened these days because a lot of the garlic's imported. And those garlic would be stood at a different climate. It's gone from speed inner China or something. But you put it in a pot in your windows and you wouldn't know what would come up. No, no, I put it in a pot the other way, so it should be fine. In terms of garlic, where is it growing? It's underground, is it? Yeah, it starts underground, then comes up almost like an onion or a leek. And it's the cloves below the ground with the actual green parts of it. Brilliant, and they kind of cluster it, don't they? Your cloves will turn into the bulb. So, each of them there. And the little plastic mesh, I presume that comes from the shop, that doesn't naturally grow in the ground. No. So, hardy onions. So, how do we know the variety of onions, the hardy one versus one that's less... Generally the ones available are not for sale at the moment, would be the hardy ones. But if you check the packet, it'll normally actually be the varieties of the Japanese name, the hardy ones. Right, okay. So, the garlic and your onions can go in now. Peas and beans, maybe wait till what? Something like that? Yeah, wait until the month almost until October. Yeah, okay. Right, okay. What can you do about rabbit seeding your plants in the garden? Rabbit seeding your plants, probably fencing is one option, is generally the best. And the other thing for keeping away is cayenne pepper works quite well, because rabbits tend to sniff about as they go. So, if you put down cayenne pepper noise, they tend to go somewhere else. Or, another thing is human hair, is go to the barber, get a bag of human hair and scattered about. They don't like that either. I have Hyde Ranger's cut back very strong a year ago. No blooms, but so high. Do I have to wait until October to cut them down a bit? Thank you. No would be the answer there in the sense that if there's no flowers on it, you can turn them away at it. But, if you've cut it back quite hard last year, I wouldn't cut it back as hard this year, because it shouldn't eat it and just you'd risk cutting off the flowers again for next year. Is it too late to put fertilizer on a lawn? No, you get fertilizer geared towards the... Good time. Slow release, you kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So knock on your local gardens and they'll have options for this time of year. All right. I have a polytunnel and I've successfully grown all types of fruit and veg during spring and summer. This year, I feel more confident and I'd love to do all year round growing. What can I grow throughout the winter in my tunnel? So they're doing well, they've grown all sorts of fruits and what have you, so. Yeah, pretty much once again, your onions, that sort of thing will do well, garlic will do well inside your tunnel and lettuce and scallions this time of year. But fruit-wise, that... Fruit-wise, it's hard to get a fruit that's sort of traditionally for fruit trees harvest time now, so you're not going to get anything that's going to produce over. Yeah, okay, right. A deer is coming to my garden and eating my roses. Is there anything that would deter them? Mokai and pepper? Pretty much none. I don't know if cayenne pepper would work as well with the deers now. Once again, the human hair is supposed to work quite well with the deers because they smell humans and they're not wild about it. And the other thing is you get actually a product you can buy in garden centers called grazers. It's more or less, it's like based on essential oils. He's got that about and that actually keeps them away as well, there I go. Why don't my daffodils flower? I get lots of leaves and new little bulbs on the side, but no flowers. Two possible problems there. Number one would be that you're not letting them die back enough after the flower. You actually have to leave the sort of leaves there for about four weeks afterwards. Let them die back naturally. If you cut them off, it's depriving the plant of the energy to flower again next year. It's a cycle. We've talked about that before, haven't we? That's its natural food, isn't it? It's a natural process. A bulb is generally like a weed battery almost. It gets charged up by the sun. Yeah, and then the power's on for next year. So you may be cutting them off too early. Otherwise, they may have actually become clumped and where they are. They may be divided too much. You may have to actually dig up weed and see if they're all packed too tightly together. You may have to divide them out and separate them. All right, not sure if the same answer covers this apple-related question, but I have an apple tree growing for seven years. This year, the apples are small, spotted, and splitting. Is there treatment for it, or do I need to dig the tree out? Hopefully, you wouldn't have to be that drastic about it now, but generally, you're wondering why it should help a lot. So it should sort of end in sort of diseases for the spot and that should sort of clear it up a bit. And splitting apples, sometimes it can be actually, what's the word, these periods of drought would do that. That's actually a period of drought, the growth stops, and then after it gets a lot of water in one go, it'll actually grow on and bust. So pretty much if you see a period of drought for your apple tree, just throw weed out the water. All right, interesting. Can I still plant some peas, sugar, snap peas, and runner beans indoors for outside growing, or is it too late in the season? They'll actually are peas and that, they actually will be happy enough to actually just plant the seeds outside, like I say, maybe until next month or so. But rather than start them and nourish it this time of year, they can sort of become soft and sort of their tender replants, then put them out can be a bit of a shock too. Whereas if you start them outside, they're gonna grow in a party from the start. So I would start them outside rather than inside. Ask your man, what's the story on carrots? I sowed carrots twice this year. First lot refused to germinate, second lot came up and something ate them. I was talking to other growers who have had similar problems. Your man's the wrong boy to be asking, because I have tried to grow carrots on many's of location without any success. How many cows are they? Carrots, I find carrots nearly impossible to grow outside. Just don't work out for me for some reason. So they don't. They don't germinate? Don't germinate, pretty much. Or germinate and just sit there at that point. But the reckon, I was reading up on it and actually the reckon, soak the seeds. Most seeds you just put onto the ground, bring carrots and soak them for a while and actually wake them up a bit before you set them up. But I mean, obviously we're used to seeing orange carrots in the shop, but I mean, they're refined to look like that because that's what bulgur bunny used to eat. Yes. Are the different brands then of carrots that look different that might be easier? Pretty much. You get rainbow carrots there, which are actually carrots you sow in and they come out and are just sort of orange, green, purple, those whites even. They're actually, you can buy them at the wee market on a Saturday and then you can buy them out there. But apparently they are quite easy to grow. They're great for kids just because they look weird, they'll eat them more. Yeah, exactly. We did a piece on the program then that's long ago about the use of insecticides. The council using an awful lot of it, still seemingly spending hundreds of thousands of euros over the last while. From what I can determine, I don't know why they're spraying it. I don't see any signs warning of it in any way. But it seems the public are, you know, the public are getting far more switched on to the dangers of using some of these products, maybe behind local authorities around the country. Yes. Just the last few years with a pollinator plant have come out and that sort of thing, people are becoming much more aware of the dangerous pesticides and that sort of thing. So it is a good idea to reduce where possible. Like in certain sort of agriculture, things is probably not, like we haven't got to the point where we can completely get rid of them, but definitely reduce as much as possible and sort of be more aware of choices. Any chance my lavender would recover if I cut it to the base? I forgot to trim it last year and now I have a lot of woody stems. Help! Yes. Lavender reacts well to being trimmed in the wintertime. Generally, it comes up fresh then. So if it's very woody now, I would maybe not cut it to the base completely but go sort of halfway towards where you want to be tried at that and maybe then be a bit more severe next year. But I would take it in stages rather than cut it off and round it. My lettuce keeps getting ate. I've slug repellent down, but it's not making the difference. Maybe it's not slugs eaten it. Funny lettuce, I would say it'd be most likely to be slugs eaten it. So it would be, the only good thing is now the stage slugs are getting less active. So there should be less of them about to the cold or weather. But if you sort of natural ways you can do, if you leave out grapefruit skins, though I should go for them rather than your lettuce. Greg, they ate all my curly kale and radishes and then pulled them completely out. I thought it was cats until a neighbour caught the little brown rob, sorry, the little robins in the act, doing the same thing to her flowers that comes in from Mary. So robins are going after curly kale and radishes. What next? Right, I don't know, they're getting ready. So they are generally someone like that there. It's not actually the robins, it's not the fruits, the vegetables they're after. It's probably actually the insects around them. So it is probably the best answer there would be actually if you leave out food for them. They might eat something else. Your flowers are the plants. Leave your stuff alone. Your plants are the plates, not the food. Pretty much. Food is on the plates, right. What can I do with old compost? Is it useful for anything? Old compost, yes. You can spread it in the garden. Actually, if you keep it in a compost pile for a while to make sure all the weeds in that side of it and then just spread it like we were chatting earlier, putting mulch around your shrubs and stuff, we touch that. What do you think about the wildflower seed bombs? I tried to plant a few but never took off. I since have seen that they can disturb your garden's ecosystem. There's been a bit of controversy last week while around sort of seed the wildflower seed. Wildflower seed is very fashionable. Is this the wildflower seed that you gave me? Yes. Now you're saying it's controversial? No, see some. I spread it everywhere, Paul. So what, does it work? I can't see the dirt anymore. Right, well, that's the start. There's a lot of ferny type stuff in there, is that? A certain amount of that would be coming out of it. The problem with wildflowers is that it's very hard to tell what's a weed and what's not, because chances are most of the wildflowers are weeds of sorts. I don't think this area where I spread this would have had the coverage it has. Sometimes for wildflowers that's better actually. Oh no, I'm delighted for me, because as I explained to you, I had to clear some old sallies and all that kind of stuff and the bank was bare. I just wanted not to see it and throw in the wildflower seeds. Like it's quite luxurious. It's very green, very rich green in a lot of ferns. As you say, it's probably hard to tell what's ice-fold. But hopefully come the springtime now, it'll actually flower up body-goat and should be perfect. But if the ground's too fair-tailed, stuff like grass beats it and sort of your more native weeds is gonna beat it. Like your ragwort or that, which isn't what you want. Which is perfect for me, because mine was just a stripped back. Yeah, exactly. But the bank wasn't okay, and it's gonna thrive above the... Yeah, it should fly on more than them there. All right, we have a gravel driveway and a low brick wall separating us from our neighbors. We would like to plant bulbs next or near to the wall, but there is very little topsoil available. It's mainly gravel. Is this possible or could we plant something else? It's a fairly open situation with lots of sun. Yeah, funny, bulbs actually would do reasonably well. And what you wanna do is dig out as big a hose, as practical almost, and put it on. But bulbs like good drainage, and that's the gravel, and that would actually be working on their benefit. And cause most of the energy's in the bulb. It's actually does with little enough. Yeah, but nature's amazing and terrible all at the same time, because at the back of the rear of my house too, I'd taken a fence down and wanted to put some gravel on it, but I'd put the plastic top hole in down under the gravel. But sure, look at the weeds will grow anywhere. There's no soil whatsoever. And the entire gravel is full of weeds, and there's no soil. Now I know that's not, it doesn't reference the callers question there, but it's rockable. I know absolutely. There's a given you see down the lens. Like what are they attached to when growing on? You see down the lens are grown concrete and everything, like in cracks and concrete. Now it's amazing where weeds can actually grow. Like it's growing on top of the plastic in between the stones. At least the plastic makes it easy to remove. Well, yeah, well, I'll let winter do that. Greg, can you ask Paul, what can I do with bugs eating my spinach from underneath the soil in my planter? A good question. Obviously, spinach is a crop you can't, on spinach that I wouldn't be using any sort of chemical sort of treatment because you're actually obviously going to be eating the crop quite soon. Let's see what could you use? Basically, you use probably there would be actually a garlic spray. Yeah. It's actually boiled up a clove of garlic or a bulb of garlic. And actually then use the cold water to spray on your spinach. And that should actually what it got. That should make the spinach not nice for the bugs. So hopefully that will keep them away. I had apple tree last year, this year nothing. Sorry, I had apple. I had good apples off my tree last year. This year nothing. I see white fly under the leaves. Are they the same as green fly? Can I do anything? Yes, they would because it's the green fly. All right, that's funny. It's been a terrible year for a white fly, especially in beach and stuff. If any purple plant, it's going to be good to destroy the white fly this year. But apples generally haven't performed as well this year as they did last year. It must have been just the weather conditions for the flower. Okay. That's time for two more for this year. What causes the garlic to get seeds up the stalk? Sounds painful. Yes, what do you call it? That's what's known as bolting is actually what has probably happened there is actually dry weather. And the garlic thinks it's in trouble or whatever, so it's natural cycle is to reproduce, so it throws out the seeds. So the garlic will still be usable, but it won't store that well. So basically cut off the seeds off the stalks. Then it'll grow on for another three weeks a month and then dig it, but you have to use it immediately rather than try to store it. Okay, my peonies. Peonies, yes. Peonies were purer this year, leaves of black spots. Do you know why, Paul? Black spots only got there. It's just a fungal infection, probably similar to the black spot in roses. And you get sort of fungal treatments that would actually help. All right, that's it, Paul. Thank you very much for all your help over the course of the year. We'll probably be touching base with you with specific things that might come in over the course of the winter, but when do we, is it March, February? Usually in March, around the end of March, we kick off again. Seems like a long time and yet in no time at all, we'll be sitting here going, well, how was your winter? It won't be long coming around. It doesn't be long coming around. We'll have our, we'll have dressed up as skeletons, then we'll have had our Christmas trees open. You know what I mean? There's some Patrick's Day outfit. Exactly, exactly. All right, listen, thanks, Paul, for all your help. Thank you very much. We will be touching base with you, of course, over the winter when different things come in from our listeners. But for now, Paul McLaughlin, gardener at Balakdur Garden Centre, and thanks to the Garden Centre too for letting you wait to chat to us. Have a good day and see you soon. All right, back after these. The Nine Till Noons show with St Yunan's GA Club Development Draw. 40,000 Euro in prizes. First prize, a Hyundai Kona Kyaar, plus nine other grit prizes. Tickets now available online at St Yunan's GA Draw.com or any club member. Leader of Shinfane, Mary Lou MacDonald. Mary Lou MacDonald. Who is Mary Lou MacDonald? Mary Lou! She's the name on everyone's lips. But how much do we really know about Mary Lou MacDonald? The Sunday Independent is giving readers an exclusive look into Shane Ross's new biography of the Shinfane leader. Read the exclusive extracts in the Sunday Independent on October 2nd and on independent.ie. Up Close and Independent. Your cat probably loves all the typical cat activities, heading out for a drive, getting their nails done and walking the red carpet. 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Now, a survey's shown that half of our children have experienced bullying online. And of that, 50% of our children, it's 53%, 6 out of 10 of them don't feel they can speak to us. Kleena Purdyu is training executive of the online safety program with Bernardo's. And it's for worrying reasons. That's an awful lot of children that are really effectively probably sitting in the bedrooms trying to deal with this on their own, Kleena. Yeah, and so, and they're training executives instead of the online safety program. So we do online safety workshops in schools, kind of across the country. We spoke to 23,000 children last year. But that's kind of what we're hearing. So we hear from schools that cyber bullying is a really big issue. It's happening at home, but then it kind of comes into the school classroom. And that's why we're asked to come in to kind of do workshops with them. But then on top of that, to kind of inform our workshops, we did this special kind of focus group with children and young people. So there was 340 people, more or less interviewed. And we asked more specific questions about cyber bullying to kind of learn from them and like, what's going on? Like, what does it mean to you? Where is it happening? What do you think that can prevent it? We had a survey too, and that's kind of where a lot of the stats came from. So yeah, what was worrying is 60% would say that they would never tell their parents if they were bullied online. And actually what was a bit sad was only 5% would actually tell. And the messaging or the reasons behind it that they were kind of telling us was that they're afraid. They're afraid of their parents' reaction. They're afraid their phone will be taken off them. Their device will be taken off them. They're afraid that they're not meant to be on TikTok in the first place. Let's create a picture then and think of it from a young person's perspective. You know, you're whatever age you are. I don't wanna be judged in that regard, but you post TikTok videos and you post them publicly. And I think parents really need to check their young ones' TikToks and see what video's actually been saved, favorited, because that can be particularly worrying for me as to what it might be. Algorithms can be. So a young one is on TikTok. They get a lot of positive remarks and they get a bit of shade, right? So someone's saying, you're looking very fat or you can't dance or whatever it is. That's gonna affect them on a level. Now, they would go, well, if I say this to Dad, he's gonna say, get off that bloody app, right? And then they don't have access to that when all their friends do. And they don't then get sort of maybe that affirmation that they're looking for as well either. So I would say that's probably one realistic situation while a young person doesn't wanna go to mom or dad or their caregiver and say, oh, someone called me fat or whatever it might be on this app, because what would our instinctive thing get off that thing? It's a toxic, horrible place. So you're not gonna say it, are you? So how do we overcome that? Yeah, that's a talent. But that's kind of why we do our parent workshops because it's really about having ongoing dialogue with your child because if you kind of have regular check-ins with your children about what they're doing online or kind of scenario-based questions like, what would you do if somebody said something to you online or what would you do if that? You're kind of having those kind of check-in moments with your children. And that's kind of what we do in our workshops. We kind of give you those kind of conversation starters. The hope is that the child will know what will happen if they do go to the parent. So the parent won't chat with them, won't take away their phone, won't say it's not that it's your fault, but just kind of say, oh, like why was that happening? You must be doing something wrong. There's that kind of fear of that reaction too. Because sometimes, you know, with cyber bullying, children may not be 100% innocent because it's not always kind of black and white as in you get a mean message, the child sends a mean message back and then, but then it gets too far. And then they don't know what to say. And then they're afraid of going to the parents because, yeah, they wrote something mean back too. And they can't see the de-escalation so they just don't say it. Yeah, they don't, they're in too deep basically. And they don't know kind of how to stop with themselves but they're afraid of telling parents because they're afraid of making it worse. They're afraid of the parents shouting at them or taking away their phone or, you know, as you said, kind of getting off TikTok in the first place. So the main thing we would say to parents is just kind of having those regular check-ins, having a family agreement so that the boundaries are set in place early. So even if young is five, six, seven, so that they're aware of what would happen online, you know, if things go wrong, it's like the main thing is put your phone down or put your device down, come to me and we'll sort it out together. And the main thing for parents is kind of take that breath and count to 10 and just kind of, I know underneath, you might be going crazy isn't like, how dare somebody be mean to my child like that? But just that's why they're not coming to you because they don't want to. And we have to remember, don't we? Telling a young person, not being dramatic or whatever, but telling them that they can no longer access their favorite app like TikTok, for example, would be the same as someone coming to the adult and saying, you can no longer go to the pub or you have to sell your car. You can no longer use your phone as in parents you know, finding hard to be what I have the phone to. Exactly, exactly. But you know, what I'm trying to get at is the impact. You'd be ripping their social life from them. You'd be ripping maybe what they might see as independence from them. So that reaction is not ever going to work, is it? And then we have to look at ourselves as well, clean it and wonder is our ignorance or bliss what we don't know, it doesn't matter. If we don't hear everything, everything must be okay. And we probably push that out into the world as well. And our young people are very intuitive and they probably pick that up. Yeah, so that's kind of the main point of our workshops is yeah, it's kind of reminding parents that you are in charge and you are having a device is not a right, it's a privilege. So it's up to you as parents to kind of give those devices to your children but also bearing in mind the internet is not designed for children. So it's up to you as parents to have an understanding or an awareness at least because it is hard to know everything but just what is it that your child is doing? What kind of games they're on but also taking it a positive interest because we take a positive approach to online safety because as you were saying, Greg it's not about blocking or banning because if you have that negative speech the child is never going to come to you but if you kind of are allowing them on Minecraft to say, listen, how does that work? Will you sit down with me? Can I play with you? And as you're playing, how do you block? How do you report and what would you do if a stranger tried to talk to you? Those type of things but you're taking that positive approach meaning that you're engaged as a parent they will come to you hopefully if there is an issue but the fear has kind of taken away from it. Yeah. I mean, we would never allow a young person or most of us may not allow a young person to go into a massive shopping centre in the middle of a city in some far-flung country and engage with strangers walking from one to the next dancing in front of another. You know what I mean? But that is what we do. That's what we permit when we allow them on because apps, whatever about Minecraft and some of the gaming platforms like PlayStation, Xbox they're actually reasonably quite good in terms of language blocking and stuff. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't mean that we don't need controls. We don't. It doesn't mean that we should ignore that but it is basically, I think you've said it, like the likes of TikTok and other apps they are by design unsafe. They are unsafe because our child using TikTok will have a sexualized comment at them. They will be, someone will send a message with ill intentions to them. That is, it's going to happen. Well, for most social media, that's the way that it works is that you may get unwanted contact from strangers but it's the same with Roblox as well as in you can talk to strangers online. So a lot of the main messages, it doesn't always matter what the app is. The messages are always the same. So as in do not give personal information away online always trying to be kind. That's the main thing in our workshops is the thing before you post because, you know if you say a mean comment to somebody face to face obviously that's not great but if it's online it stays there forever and then other people get involved and that's what I think a lot of primary schools are kind of dealing with is in like the friendship groups is in they want to stand up for their friend and they write something mean as well and then it just kind of escalates and so our main thing would be kind of to take it offline to kind of talk face to face just to make sure that it wasn't sent as a joke it like that the intention was, you know to understand what that was because sometimes people can get very offended online when maybe that wasn't always the purpose of that. But as you're saying about social media you know the age restrictions is 13 so it is, you know, there for a reason but obviously from our focus groups we're aware that a lot of people are on. Yeah but I don't wanna be judgey either trying to avoid that because I know what it's like to all my friends have a phone all my friends are on this and all my friends and it's on and on and on and on and on and eventually we might concede but really should we be taking the path of more resistance and actually as much as not allowing young people on the likes of TikTok. Let's not forget TikTok is fundamentally a dancing. It's fundamentally a dancing. It can be but also it is an area where a lot of people are pushing their only fans sites. Oh yeah, yeah. And what have you, you know a lot of only fans users will use it for that and for other motivations to push their websites they popularize the dances and then we can have younger people trying to emulate these people, right? Okay, so do we have to be strict and say, look you have to be over 13 as tough as that is? That's hard to do when, you know obviously you can just lie about your age. So the main thing what we would say in our workshops is to try and delay the age in which you get a phone for the first place. So, you know, and if you are a lot of people get it for security reasons they're walking back from school or whatever just get that brick phone so that it doesn't allow you to kind of have the smart technologies on it. But the main thing will be just to keep checking with your children because yeah you can try and avoid for them to be on these social media but there is a lot of Pester Power but just the main thing is if they are on it you know at 12 or whatever it is that they know how to block, they know how to report they are private. What about monitoring though because should really a nine, 10, 11, 12 year old boy or girl be doing stuff or conversing on a handheld device that they don't want their parents to know about? Do you know what I mean? Do we have to monitor more heavily? Can it, should a 11 year old have secrets if you know what I mean that they might hide all of a sudden, you know? No, I wouldn't say it. And in our workshops it is about that family agreement so obviously it depends on the family and you know age obviously is just a number. You know a 15 year old may not be mature and an 11 year old may be more mature but at the same time you are the parent and they are still a child and the internet is not designed for children. So you know the family room could depend based on your family but just you know we've heard that there's no, you know no devices in bedrooms, no devices after half seven you know once every week or once every few days the parent gets to have the phone to have a look to kind of see what it is that they might be downloading kind of the message is making sure that they're okay. But yeah as in that is an appropriate amount especially when they're still in primary school as in it's your job as a parent to make sure that they're safe but also that you're helping them because that's the thing is in like sometimes they just don't know what to say back and you don't always have to give them the words but just even those scenario based questions what would you do? Because what this has happened quite a lot is that they're excluded from WhatsApp groups so they see you know somebody like on social media post about a cinema trip that they weren't invited to because they're aware that they're not on that WhatsApp group and that can be hard to take. Yeah exactly I probably slightly over focused on the online safety from you know adults exploiting children perspective or even other children exploiting children but of course it is the comments as well and what the comments mean and even maybe not ill intended the impact it can have on someone and how we feel the young people can just relate something that probably seems trivial compared to some of the stuff I've been trying to highlight with you Kleena. Because yeah that would be the everyday occurrences in like you know your best friend say something and then you take it up the wrong way and then the next day in school and nobody's talking to each other and but it's just you know talking to them about you know friendship and sometimes you know you're really good friends and then you kind of fall out with people as well and that is a normal part of childhood but just specifically about messaging online it's the thing before you post it's the old fine to be kind because very often it can be kind of passive aggressive remarks or kind of sarcastic remarks but you know at the start it's just a joke but then if it's over and over again it can kind of hurt after a while. Of course of course Kleena if you any resources at Barnardo's for parents to check out as part of this convo we're having here. Yes we do. So we have parent webinars and they're free so anybody in Ireland can attend them so the next one is the 12th of October at half past seven there's another one on the 25th of October so if you just go to our website which is barnardos.ie for slash OSP the online safety program you'll see the next kind of dates up there and that's kind of just for you it's only 45 minutes of your time it's a webinar so you don't have to use your camera but it basically just gives you an awareness of kind of more websites that you can kind of look at but specifically the conversation starters that you can actually go off and kind of talk to your child about what they might be experiencing. And there's some really good ads running at the moment on British TV about what children say and what it can mean in terms of wanting to speak to an adult I'd love to see some of the stuff here. Kleena thanks for your time this morning have a great day. You too thank you. All right Kleena proud of you there training executive of the online safety program with Barnardo's. Do you like to win a Hyundai Kona car? Well that's the first prize in the St. Unions GA Club Development Draw who are sponsors of this week's nine till noon show. There's nine other great prizes and tickets are now available online at stunionsgadraw.com or any club member. Mixed budget for farming in this week's Irish farmers journal find out how the budget will affect your farm income for more his Paul Mooney. New 90 euro per cow's subtler scheme new supports for slurry tanks and roll over a fodder and tillage schemes but shot new concrete levy 20,000 farmers locked out of new environmental scheme and tax rebate reduction to cost farmers almost 50 million euro. Don't miss our expert budget analysis only inside this week's Irish farmers journal you can't afford to miss it. Are you worried about trees on your property? 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Visit radiocenterarlin.ie to see what radio can do for your product or brand. To find out more about advertising on Highland call 911-253-222 or visit highlandradio.com. Hello everybody, it's me, Tommy Tiernan. I'm playing the Mount Arigul Hotel on Saturday, the 1st of October with me brand new stand-up comedy show, Tom Fulery. Tickets are 35 quid from Ticketmaster.ie. Don't you dare miss it. There's a lot to consider when buying a used car. So consider this. The Audi Approved Plus range gives you unrivaled reassurance, a 12 month warranty and roadside assistance, age and mileage verification, all original Audi parts for repairs and replacements. And that's all after our rigorous 110 point check, Audi Approved Plus, living progress in every detail. Contact your Audi dealer and choose your used car today. OK, so Rosina Gallagher from Guido decided to go over to New York for a little while to work. And that was almost four decades ago, 36, 37 years ago. And now Rosina is a committee member and former director of the Donegal Association in New York. And joins us now to talk about a real milestone in terms of celebration. They are celebrating the Donegal Association in New York. 125 years. It's their anniversary on October 5th. Rosina joins us now. Good morning to you. Good morning. I am doing good on hopefully the line in cruise. Yes, can you hear me OK, Rosina? Yeah, it's just breaking a little bit. Right, OK, well, bear with me. What we'll do is we'll go audio only, just in case in case that helps things. Hopefully you can hear me a little bit clearer now, Rosina. Talk to me about these celebrations in October. OK, talk to me about these celebrations in October 15th. Well Donegal Association, like most of the counties here have an association made up of, you know, the diaspora from their respective counties. And the Art County is in existence for like 100. Well, actually, we lost a year with the COVID. So it's actually 126. So we're still trying to celebrate our 125th. So 125 years. We're having a dance. We usually have it in March, but it was like everything. It was put back because of the COVID. So we're having it in October this year for the first time. And we're all getting very excited about it. Yeah, it's an amazing milestone to reach and indeed surpass if the truth be told. Who are your guests for this event in Queens Village? OK, well, we've gone outside Donegal this year. We've done it a couple of times, but we have Pachy Bonner, the infamous goalkeeper for Glasgow Celtic in the Republic of Ireland. He's they're all arriving next week. And then we have one of our locals here. And he's the fire department chief battalion for the Bronx 17 Eddie Bowles. His mother is actually from Donegal and his father is from Slego. And they were very excited for him too. He's very big in the organizations here like philanthropy fundraising. And he's a close connection with the fire department and Larry Kenny's been over back a few times with his team. And we're very proud to have him as one of our honorees, along with Pachy. Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible for many to fly over. People might be there and people listening to us. The diaspora, it's going to be a great night, isn't it? Tickets, a hundred and twenty year old tables of ten available. A cocktail hour, dinner and dancing, music by rumour hazard. Black tie optional, which is always good to raffles and everything. It's going to be a great night's fun, I think, Kerozina. Isn't it a great celebration of Donegal? Well, definitely, yeah. And we've had great support from the Donegal County Council. And as you know, they travel out here every March to support this association. And it's always wonderful to have them in light of the fact you have people that, you know, don't travel home to have their support coming out. So being very supportive of this dance and we have the director of economic development, Gary Martin, we have the Kaharla coming out to support us, which is absolutely wonderful. And all the prizes that have been secured by local Donegal establishments, again, in support of all our work out here. We have air lingers to have secured round trip lights directed on the wall. We have Harry's points who've offered two nights B&B, Lois Cotel two nights, Donegal Airport Enterprise car rental, one week car hire. And then also invest Donegal voucher for shopping online for all Donegal products. So it's absolutely wonderful. We're actually very, very delighted, you know. Rosina, have a fantastic night. I'd love to speak to you again when we have more time, but I just wanted to recognize this event taking place and enjoy it. And lovely to speak to you. Thank you so very much indeed. Okay, chat to you tomorrow. We kick things off with the Friday panel and we've an awful lot to get through. Have a great Thursday. The nine till noon show with St. Juniors GA Club Development Draw. 40,000 your own prizes.