 Catherine Gaffner for the latest news headlines. Good morning Catherine. Good morning Greg, Sinn Fein's health spokesperson is expressing concern about the impact the lack of reform in the health system is having on people. The business post has leaked recordings of the Department of Health's meeting with the HSC claiming its recruitment crisis could affect the opening of new hospitals. The newspaper also reveals questions were raised about the need for a supplementary budget of over half a billion euro in 2020. The Department of Health says no official of the department has given consent to be recorded while carrying out their duties and it hasn't received these alleged recordings. Sinn Fein's health spokesperson David Cullinan says senior well-paid officials in the department need to deliver for the health service. We need to keep the focus clearly on where it needs to be. The Minister for Health is responsible for driving reform and obviously we have very, very senior people both in the department and the HSC who are on huge salaries to deliver change and that's what needs to happen. We need to see the plan that the minister and these senior officials have to reduce wait times, to reduce the levels of overcrowding in our hospitals. ESB crews are continuing to carry out repair works as a significant number of Donnie Gaul homes and businesses remain without power due to Storm Franklin. Milford Ross Gear and Convoy are among the worst affected areas. A full list of closures and other updates is available on our website highlandradio.com. Ryan Tapley is from the ESB. Let our Kenny, Kelly Beggs and Sligo our crews have started mobilising since first light this morning so we'll be working on assessing the damage in the northwest and repairing and restoring supply over the course of today. The Minister for the OPW has agreed to meet with Donnie Gaul County councillors to discuss the number of planned flood relief projects in Donnie Gaul. It's after the OPW was heavily criticised in recent weeks by a number of councillors over refusing to attend meetings. Local representatives have been concerned that important projects are effectively shelved until there is proper engagement with the OPW. Minister Patrick O'Donovan was in Donnie Gaul last week on other matters but promised he would meet with councillors in due course. He said just that he wanted to talk to the chief executive first and go through those things and that he would come back as soon as he possibly can to meet with the other Kenny municipal district and to discuss those flood mitigation issues and so on. So he was very open about that and no doubt did he do that and accept the point that he wanted to get a briefing on the issues first from the chief executive. And that was the kahirla of the letter Kenny Milford municipal district councillor Jimmy Kavanaugh speaking on hopes for that meeting. Finally the government's announcing a number of new initiatives to support remote working. The government's already repurposed buildings like old train stations and cinemas into remote working hubs. A new mobile app is being launched today to allow people to book workspaces in their local hubs while a new 5 million euro fund will be available for further investment. Minister Heather Humphrey says a new information campaign is also being launched. I want people to know that whether you're in Cork or Drahade, Wicklow or Limerick there's a hub there for you and this week we will have 200 hubs available on the connected hubs network. More are joining the connected hub network all the time and we have a target of 400 by 2025 but I'm very confident we'll meet that target much, much sooner than that. Weather now. Scattered showers will gradually die out this morning and there will be a good deal of dry and bright weather in the morning and early afternoon temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees. We're back with more 10 o'clock until then. Good morning. My family needs refreshing so we're off to center parks. Re-discovering the great outdoors. Re-energizing on the zip wire over the lake. Re-charging in Aquasana Spa. Refueling at Hope's American Marine Grill. Re-connecting with each other. Center parks. Family refreshed. The Ninetal Noon Show is brought to you by Letterkenny Credit Union offering low-rate car loans with fast approval. Apply online at letterkennycu.ie or in office today. And now it's time for the talk of the Northwest. The Ninetal Noon Show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. Hello, a very good morning to you. Five minutes past nine on this day, the 21st of February 2022. I do hope you're well and you're very welcome along to another week of the Ninetal Noon Show. Let's come up with a program. We are going to be celebrating 50 years of the Dunlop Band after 11 o'clock or marking the event. Brendan Devaney will be in reflecting on the weekend sports. If you have any comments on any of the games that you watched over the weekend get them into us now. And we'll be getting the latest on Storm Franklin. That and so much more besides. So get involved with the conversation. You can WhatsApp or text 086625,000 086625,000 or call us an 07491 25,000. So a lot of us didn't get much sleep last night. Did we? Storm Franklin battered the northwest overnight with thousands of that power and some homes damaged as well. Matt Aaron had issued an orange weather warning. That's the same as the two storms last week. But I think a lot of us out there may be feeling why wasn't a stronger warning issued for last night. Matt Aaron though says that red warnings reserved for rare, severe events was last night a rare, severe wind event in your view. In terms of wind for a red status warning, mean speeds must consistently exceed 80 kilometres per hour. I don't know if that actually happened. It felt very much like it did. And gusts, there must be gusts in excess of 130 kilometres per hour. Those are the criteria for a red weather warning. The highest gust I saw off Mallon before I fell asleep eventually was 126 kilometres per hour. So on that metric, maybe it wouldn't be seen as a red wind warning. For orange, winds must be over 65 and up to 80K, which we did see kilometres per hour, gusts between 110 and 130 kilometres per hour. They were seen more consistently across the west coast and in the northwest. In its forecast centre, because we get a regional weather forecast last evening, Matt Aaron did warn of gale force winds, damaging gusts, high seas and coastal flooding for Donegal, all of which happened. But I think maybe what the problem is for those that think it could have been a more severe warning over the weekend is that perhaps because it wasn't Dublin based, etc. We didn't get the national media focusing on it strongly enough on those warnings. Or if they were I didn't see all of the media, people didn't take notice up here. So what do you think as I say, the easiest thing would be to jump in this seat and sort of go, you know, Matt Aaron this, that and the other. But I thought, you know, I'd look through the criteria a little bit and see what the story is. And that is the factual situation. But I know lots of people were messaging me overnight saying if this isn't red, I don't know what is. I think dependent on where the winds are coming from, last night we had winds onshore winds, which particularly battered the coasts and had more of an impact on coastal flooding and what have you. But anyway, that's the lay of the land. But what do you think? 086, 6025,000, 086, 6025,000 that's the WhatsApp or text number as I mentioned. Or give us a call in 07491 25,000 and have your say on that or anything else that you want to talk about this morning. The Donegal News this morning tells us that Guardi investigating the murder of a Dunlop man in 2005 are reported to be examining allegations of Guardi involvement in his death. 36 year old Sean Doffey was attacked and fatally wounded in his home at Meenacross Dunlop in the early hours of Saturday morning, January 29th of 2005. So it's not that long since we had a renewed information appeal on this programme. Well, investigators have been told the murder may be connected to the disappearance of James Corrin who was 64 from Dunlop in July 2003. This is off the back of a Sunday Times newspaper report that the intelligence suggests that Doffey had allegedly discovered that a car driven by Guardi had hit and killed Corrin and he had tried to extort favours from the officers involved which led to a confrontation. Doffey worked as a mechanic you see and had allegedly been asked to repair the damaged car that was involved in the incident. Guardi are also doing other lines of inquiry into Sean's murder. Sean had been socialising in the Strandview bar in Mahary in Friday 28th January 2005. Now, of course the focus of the story, yesterday's story was on Mr Doffey but of course there is the family of James Corrin who are very keen I'm sure to find out his whereabouts or what became of him. So there are two families involved in this and also members of the Corrin family reached out to me over the weekend keen to see all avenues relating to his disappearance being pursued but I won't reference that any further just at this time. On to the dairy news now and lecturers at the dairy campus of the University of Ulster have defended their right to strike following a number of descending student voices while student support for lecturers on the picket line of the McGee campus has largely been positive. A number of expressed dissent at having their classes cancelled, 10 selected days of industrial action have been voted on by the University's and College's Union and scheduled in advance with the final walkout to take place at the beginning of next month. Right, now the Irish Independent, if you haven't had enough of the weather first came the wind, now comes the chill. Snow and sub-zero temperatures will follow on the tale of an unprecedented third major storm in the space of a week after Dudley and Eunice, they were just regular winter days for us here in the north west weren't they Ireland is today being battered by high winds caused by storm Franklin as the third storm clears the country will be hit by sub-zero temperatures with snow and frost as the weather takes a polar turn. Met Aaron has forecast on Wednesday night rain will clear and make way for sleet and possible snow on higher ground with temperatures dropping to minus two and only reaching a potential high of plus one. Now it's interesting in that I received many messages over the weekend many to me on given the context of what about say is about four or five or six maybe six from people who are convinced and then when I say convinced I mean convinced that these latest three storms were generated by man by chemtrails and other means I didn't read get into the nitty gritty as to what the motive might be but sort of post COVID here comes the storms sort of a thing might read up on it a little bit more but as I say people out there absolutely convinced that storm Franklin was a man made event right okay the Irish Times this morning tells us that France is leading a western diplomatic drive to diffuse the explosive crisis between Moscow and Kiev after shelling intensified in eastern Ukraine and the United States said Russia appeared to be on the brink of launching a major new attack on its neighbor French president Emmanuel Macron spoke to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday as some 150,000 Russian troops and heavy weaponry maneuvered near Ukraine's northern southern and eastern borders the LC palace said the French and Russian leaders agreed on the need to push for a diplomatic solution to the current crisis and to do everything to achieve it's a Biden's agreed Putin's agreed I think diplomats meet on Thursday to thrash out the terms of that meeting but one wonders if by Thursday could it be too late because the Americans say they will not be entering that process if Russia actually does begin its full-on onslaught the Irish Daily Mail this morning the government faces an internal revolt over a raft of new taxes and levies on inflation as inflation eats into people's pockets now I think if I said to you that there's a FINA fall politician for example that's threatening to quit the party there's only we all know there's a few of them isn't there one already left Mark McSherry he pulled the trigger on his threads but another is William D he's always on the brink isn't he of going his own way well a series of excise duties and levies on fuel power and consumer items such as alcohol cigarettes and sugary drinks brought in just under six billion despite the scale of the new levies finance minister Pascal Donahue has ruled out any reduction in them hard pressed families are under intense pressure is soaring energy casts bite into their budgets and this is causing political discontent and William D is fired a shot across the boughs of party leader Michael Michael Martin with the declaration that he will quit the party turn to page six to find out why if it goes into a new coalition so unless FINA fall goes into opposition or magically wins enough votes to lead government on its own, William D is leaving yes now I don't think me or Martin is too upset about people who are sort of you know inside and outside at the same time if they leave especially in the context of a general election you know you could lose or gain seats that means it wouldn't make much difference the Irish Daily Mirror the government is to bring in a new jail sentence which will help put the leaders of Kinnehan mobs behind bars for life gang boss Daniel Kinnehan and his father Christian are based in Dubai tried to reinvent themselves as legitimate businessmen despite being the biggest smugglers of cocaine into this country they have done a reasonable job of rehabilitating themselves I think that's not in credit to them I'm saying that's what they've done Justice Minister Helen McInty said it's my intention in the forthcoming criminal justice miscellaneous provision bill to raise the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder the government is committed to ensuring Ireland is a safe and secure place for all on to the Irish son now and very sad news from the political world and for his family of course in Northern Ireland tributes have been pouring in all weekend for the DUP politician Christopher Stalford who died suddenly at the age of just 39 at the weekend the senior DUP MLA was first elected as a Belfast in 2005 before going on to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016 T-Shark, Michael Martin yesterday led tributes to the DUP politician who he said worked tirelessly to improve housing and education and from all despite people's political or other views there was an awful lot of very warm tributes to that gentleman over the weekend so hopefully that brings some comfort to his family and finally in the star today family meals at the dinner table is key to raising healthy eaters according to an expert in child nutrition pediatric dietitian Kathy Monahan says parents should ditch the fashionable baby recipe books and get back to basics with their kids family meals are the beginning of a lifetime relationship with food a healthy meal is one you'll enjoy together she said it's important to know that 90% of what children eat is in the home so ask yourselves what's happening at the kitchen table all right i understand exactly where she's coming from in an ideal world yeah fantastic but time is it's hard to get everyone to sit down at the same time with all the distractions and work that has to be done and what have you anyway we'll be back with more on the program after these the newspapers are courtesy of Kelly Centra Mountaintop letter Kenny the 90 noon show with letter Kenny credit union now offering mortgages from 40,000 to 600,000 euro with no hidden fees or transaction charges letter Kenny credit union 9102127 for reliable efficient and affordable home heating technologies including the HVO biofuel compatible vortex condensing boiler highly efficient errone heat pump and euflex underfloor heating look no further than grant to heat your home now and into the future think heating think grant visit grant.eu is your water safe to drink if your water tastes unpleasant or has a foul smell it may be a sign that something is in your water brothers tech dunigol provide a complete private well water treatment service using the best water treatment equipment to meet your needs or maybe you drill the new well and the water isn't satisfactory at brothers tech their expert team will also service existing problematic systems if you're concerned about the quality of your water call brothers tech on 287-638-7057 in harsh winter weather Watson hire have all you need to stay safe and keep warm there's great deals on coal, colour gas, firewood and heating oil with free local delivery also electric, fan, halogen and oil filled heaters see in store and the fuel store at Watsonhire.ie great offers on winter clothing and boots and for any hire items there's still the weekend hire deal of three days for the price of one Watson-fire kill toy leather cans with free parking at the door 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, ooh write price tiles and wood flooring up to 70 percent off sale is now on everything's reduced all tiles all bath wear all wood flooring write price tiles and wood flooring 70 percent off sale is leaving the station sale now on hi yoga Duncan here and bring you my classic country show to the Millennium Forum Derry on Thursday the 24th of February. I'll be joined there by my good friends Susan McCann, Tony Allen, John McNichol, Neil Lynn, Crawford Bear and Trina Allen. Tickets from the Theatre Box office and online. Highland Radio Time Checks brought to you by Letter Kenny Shopping Centre, the centre of shopping in Donegall. Free parking and shopping all under one roof. Letter Kenny Shopping Centre bringing you the time at... Good morning to you again at 19 minutes past 9. 08.60. 25,000 is the WhatsApp and text number. Greg, I live in a house which clearly has Micah, says this caller, but I'm not tested because I know I'm at the very early stages of it, but last night I had a huge reality check. I was sure the roof was about to fly off. It's been for the worst... It's been by far, sorry, the worst night of my life. I'm afraid to go outside to check the damage. That's the reality of it and I'm sorry and I hope the damage isn't too severe. Hi Greg, just something I noticed that the text message, you receive your verification code from mygov.ie from a 0044 telephone number. Do you know why this is? No. I think they outsource some of that stuff because a lot of the communications you might get as it relates to testing and other arms of the government comes from overseas numbers as well. Right, let's welcome on to the programme councillor Michael McClafferty. Can you hear me okay? Good morning to you. Yes, Greg, good morning. How's things? Good to have you with us. Right, now you are saying that something needs to be done about the amount of roaming deers in the Cree Slot, Don Fane area, in towards the Falkara area. What are you seeing? What's happening and what's the impact of it? Greg, we're having big problems at the moment down here, particularly now at this last while indeed over the last number of years as well. But where you have a lot of roaming deers crossing, running back and forth, you're driving along mostly at night time, sometimes day time as well, but more so at night time, you're driving in a direction and as a result then it's quite frequently happening then where cars are getting smashed. And we're in a situation obviously because the deers are wild, they're roaming, et cetera, there's nobody taking responsibility. There's difficulty then possibly for some people when they go to claim insurance, and some people can claim some people can for obvious reasons. For example, you may only have third party, you may not have comprehensive. So if you're third party, you smash your car. You're in an unfortunate situation then with the deers that you cannot claim for the car. You have nobody to claim off, nobody taking responsibility. And it's from that point of view there, but I suppose, I mean locally here, it has to be stated as well. Certainly the deer here is certainly expanding, getting a lot bigger. So obviously when it's getting a lot bigger, there's going to be a possibility of more car crashes. And quite a number of people have crashed their cars here in recent times, mostly in recent times and gone back a couple of years or so as well. And just we're at the situation now where something has to be done. What is the solution to this? Is it, I mean, do the numbers have to be reduced? Is it a case that, you know, we have to make it harder for them to be able to exit one side of the road, cross onto the road and onto the other? I mean, what needs to be done is it can't simply just be a case of culling them, can it? Well, there's two points to it. First of all, the exit on either side of the road is you're leading to there possibly a fence or whatever. Yes, that would be a help. But the problem is with that, who's going to deal with it? If you've just compared up, you need a fence, but maybe it's thought how to keep these guys in. So like no landowners going to do that, because again, we're back to the same thing again. They're a wild animal. There's no responsibility. It's been alluded to all right. And this may be a thing that may have to happen going forward as potential culling them, at least back to an acceptable number anyway, to be fair. Because there's two points to it here. There's also an animal welfare effort here, welfare issue here as well. You can jump in front of you, Greg, in your car or you may hit it. That's not to say your car is badly smashed or you're as cheap as badly smashed possibly, and sometimes even beyond smashed wrecked actually. But the problem is then, some of these deer, they may just get up again and run off. Obviously they're badly injured, but they will not be killed outright. So there's that side as well. I've been told as well other times when this happens, if the deer is left injured alongside the road, obviously the donor's in, you need to get an expert and then to shoot the deer or put a euthanize, whatever the case may be. I think shooting, they actually do the prepared with animal down on animal welfare. So that's the animal welfare end of it. But then you have the other side of it, then the car owner, then getting their car smashed. Obviously, there's obviously the fear as well of something more serious happening through time as well, if matters aren't dealt with. For example, if you had a stag, the big actors, they could come on three or one string, the answers could get you. There's all that. Am I being a bit naive here though, when that, you know, I mean, we pretty much have taken up any bit of land for any wild animals at this stage, you know, wolves and what have you, even if we want to, you couldn't reintroduce wolves because so much of the land has been destroyed by us. The natural habitat has, you know, Deers obviously are the animals we're talking about, wild animals. There has to be another way for us to live beside them. Maybe I've woke up this morning feeling like in love with the earth or something. I don't know what's wrong with me, but there has to be another way surely other than just taking their numbers down. Well, Greg, to be fair, I'm not saying not love beside them. We all know. I appreciate the Deers are on the other wild animal companies as everybody else. Just to the content side, they're there. The problem there for hundreds of thousands of years, generations from the market time. We all respect that. But at the same time, we need to get a situation where we can all love beside comfortably beside each other. And at the moment, it's not comfortable. It's unacceptable. It's too dangerous. As I say, many cares have been smashed. Many families have suffered because of the insurance policies and so on that they weren't able to claim for their insurance. And they had to replace the care or fix themselves through their own means. And this is an example going forward. Okay, you're right. Everybody may not agree with calling. We're not suggesting call the whole thing. We're just calling down to acceptable numbers that a few like where they are hotspots. I like to crassly hear it on Fanny and the vocabulary for everyone possibly got to work with a forestry. That is most first of all, getting an account on C as best we can see how many are there getting a census done on them. See what kind of numbers are there. That would come into hotspots at the end of it. Obviously that the parts and wireless would need to come on board here and get involved. That's the kind of thing like in a program Greg in a regular way would have to do it. We're not suggesting anything other than we are doing regular the way and doing professionally. I get to you. Stay with us. I want to bring David Dunn in. He's a deer advisor with the Wild Deer Association of Ireland. Hi David. Hello, how are you? Good morning. Good to have you with us. So what's happening here? Why are we seemingly seeing an increase in wild deer on our roads? And we've been hearing from Councillor Michael McLaughlin is concerned at the impact that has. Literally I'm metaphorically suppose on the local community motorists and what have you. Yeah, well the story with wild deer at the moment is if wild deer people don't realize why we all admire deer and they are beautiful animals but people don't realize deer have no natural predators and they're not very susceptible. They don't suffer from any illness. So if deer numbers are left alone, they can double their numbers in three years. This will impact on a load of things. This will impact on agriculture. This will impact on forestry. And this will also impact on road safety because what do you increase in the population? And the population has increased over the last few years. Even though at present there are five and a half thousand licenses issued by National Parks and Wildlife, two people to call and manage deer. And while this does impact on numbers, in some areas it's not enough. It's not enough. In terms of culling, okay, we've been in the situation whereby the population of deer has been allowed to grow to the noticeable level it is now. Because for one reason or another, presumably Covid, the flocks or whatever you might call them, the herds, what are they? I don't know. You can tell me the herds weren't being culled. But you see there's also an increase in forestry and plantation and that's given deer habitat and cover. Like there's deer now where there was never deer. We often hear that there was never deer seen in this area. And all of a sudden they're on the land and they're seen. And people have never seen them there. Their range is expanding and with the range being expanded and small pockets turning up where there's never been deer, people are seeing them more. And then there's been road traffic accidents reported in areas where they didn't even know there was deer present. And then as road users and as drivers ourselves, we have a responsibility too. A lot of it is, I can totally understand someone comes around the corner and deer jump out in front of them. There's nothing you can do. Nothing you can do. But at the end of the day, they are wild. They are free roaming, not fenced in animals. And you have to be, what we are trying to do is make drivers aware of the areas that there's a high presence of deer to actually slow down and be more cautious. There's nothing you can do if something comes out five meters ahead, right out front of you. But at the same time, there's a lot of it due to speeding. And there is signage and signage has been increased in areas where road traffic has been. We were involved in a project just outside Abilitz where we had signage put up. And since the signage put up and drivers now are more aware that there is deer and deer. Was it just that standard yellow sign? Because I think most people ignore those. Yeah, well, the yellow signs are there. But in some areas, we're recommending high-vis sign. Someone that says that this is even seasonal, something that sort of indicates that there is a, those signs, you just see them and you drive past them. What happens too, there's a lot of movement in deer, especially around the rutting period. That's when deer start to breed. And when deer start to breed, the younger animals and young stags are pushed out, but they're also on the search looking for females. So they'll be crossing and they're not as, how do you say, cautious at this time. The other things on their mind. Yeah, you have other things on their mind and determined to find and they will cross areas and will cause hazard. Is controlling the population essential? In other words, is there a solution in terms of you say that they're not fenced in or crossings, you know what I mean? Underground. I'm sure there are countries in this world that come up with other imaginative ways that allows these creatures to live and exist and repopulate and all that kind of stuff. And humans to get on with their business as well. It's a very blunt instrument, just going and shooting a little bit. There is, there is all sort of fencing. Deer fencing is one, but it can be quite expensive. And who's going to bear the cost of deer fencing? You could, everywhere where there's traffic at, you can't deer fence the whole motorway when there's a deer population in the area. It just wouldn't be economically viable. Now in some areas where it's really dense and there is motorways, the authorities have deer fenced off certain stretches of motorway to prevent road traffic accidents with deer. But where does the occasional deer crossing, which can be unfortunate for the driver involved in the RTA, would to deer? Like it wouldn't be viable. Of course, and you talked about viability. I mean, is it viable for those who shoot deer for money, for an income, the deer market, the price you might get for a dead and bunch of deer has fallen quite significantly. Has that been a problem? That has, there was commercial shooters out there and it did exist. And it also increased, when deer meat had a high value, it also increased the legal taking of these animals. And due to COVID and that market being literally obliterated, it went down from 280, 310 a kilo down to 80 cent and a euro a kilo. And for some people that wouldn't be viable. So who is responsible for the controlling of, who's responsible for controlling of the deer population? And is it a case that we're actually going to have to stop paying people then to come in and call? You see, most land in Ireland is privately owned or state owned. A vast majority of land is privately owned. So the privately owned land usually has agents. There's very few farmers or landowners or private foresters that don't have someone on the ground managing deer. If deer are impacting on someone's income, it's only natural that they're going to look for a method of control. It's like anything, if a chicken farmer had a problem with foxes, he would get an agent in to deal with that issue and that problem. Is there an overarching body responsible for this, nationally for the population of deer? In other words, we've got Councillor Michael McClafty online, who I'm going to bring back into the conversation, of course. But who is he appealing to? Who makes the decision? Wildlife and wildlife life and issues, wildlife is controlled by national parks and wildlife. Now, what national parks and wildlife do affect deer problems by the issuing of out of season permits? These permits are called Section 42s. The Section 42 allows someone who has a high density or an issue with deer, be it for a farming issue, but are dragging fences across and knocking walls, acting on grounds or else what can be an issue too if there's an outbreak of TB to issue for scientific purposes. That's to check the population for a TB issue. But I'll also state on this matter that overall, the national deer herd is in good shape, in good condition. There's low incidence of TB in our national deer herd. Charlie wants to come in on this conversation. Hi Charlie, good morning. How are you? Good stuff. What's your view on this? No, I think Greg is a very simple one once upon a time. It wasn't an issue. Now it's become quite a big issue. People are getting their calves damaged on a regular basis. It's not enough anymore for people to wash their hands like this. There has to be some type of project put in place where the deer number can be reduced to an acceptable level. Just as your learned man there has been in place, we're looking at deer, as he said himself, doubling within a three-year period, and that is not acceptable in relation to the danger they are now creating on our roads. Charlie, have you experienced interaction with a deer on the road? You've not hit one or had a near miss or anything. It's not even hitting them. I just think sometimes in the middle of the night you might hear of a one-vehicle road traffic collision, and to all intents and purposes, it might look like the driver lost control because the deer is nowhere to be seen. So we probably don't have a full knowledge of the extent of crashes caused by deer. Well, we know in our area, Greg, there's been a lot of instances with deer, and like it's a situation now, it's got to this stage now, and I'd like to congratulate Michael for coming on and opening up the debate. Debates are a great thing because out of it, out of it can come a lot of positivity for everybody, and I think it's, you know, we've got to the stage now that we need to develop a project that's going to be ongoing because really, truly, what you said, Greg, I think, you know, as the kernels of the whole thing, where, and people are getting the cash damage, but we're a very resilient people. We just go, we fix our cash and we get on with it. You do, just get on with it, don't we? Individually, that's what we do, yeah. Listen, it's been lovely having you on the show. Charlie? As a matter of fact, you definitely... Super. And you think, I think you said the OPW needs to take control of this. Well, like, I mean, that learner gentleman that was on there... David Dunn, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he seems to know his business very well. They're all I'm saying to him, specifically for us and Donny Gawls, we need a project that is going to keep the deer at a manageable level. OK, well, Councillor McLaughlin is also a learner gentleman. Maybe he was referencing you, Michael, by the way, just in case you think I think otherwise. I'll come back to you, Michael. I want to ask you a question, oh, David. This is... When we talk about controlling a herd population, it's done in a targeted way. Is it the breeders that you go after, or what way does it work? The way... You open to control numbers in high density areas. The ones you need to impact on are the females. The females is what you hit. Now, there is what we call trophy hunters out there who only go after males and antlers. They do not have a positive impact on deer numbers. You need the guys on the ground to control the females. The females need to be controlled. If you're going to... And when we hear, as an organisation, that people are giving up on the females come December because they're pregnant. Females are actually pregnant from November onwards. They are pregnant. And the time to call females is actually when they're pregnant. Not when they have dependence. So, hunters need to realise, and people that are managing deer, especially on private problems, that the way of reducing deer numbers is to legally call them during the season, which is from November till February. Stay with me if you don't mind. I want to bring Angus Kennedy, a regular guest on this radio station from Nature Northwest. Angus, good morning to you. What's your view on all of this? You woke up with some love for the earth this morning. Well, I wake up most mornings, but it's just the notion of a coal. It got the better of me this morning, but go ahead, Angus. Yeah, it does, and it can be a very emotional issue. But as Dave was saying there, there's no natural predators, and that's the thing we wiped out the wolf a long time ago. And going to your point is how do we live with these creatures, how do we live with nature, and we have impacted so much of the land. We've changed the natural order of things. I've been manipulating it so much for such a long time. I think that the National Parks are the ones with responsibility for this National Parks and Wildlife Service, but currently they're chronically underfunded, and they have been for a very long time. And there was a report published... Well, it hasn't been published, but it was a report completed reviewing the whole of National Parks and how they work just a little bit earlier this year or only a few weeks ago, but the government are sitting on it and publishing it now. They're promising to publish it fairly soon, but I would ask the councillor that you have there and anybody else to pressure your politicians, pressure your TDS, and ask the government to publish this report for the National Parks and Wildlife Service because they tragically need, or they chronically need to be funded, resourced properly, and until they are issues like this, they just can't deal with it. Angus, you'd favour a call then, even though it's not their fault, this is all our fault. Yeah, completely. Well, what I favour, not even having a call, what I favour is a scientific approach to it. Like with the... Yeah, so the appropriate government agency, which in this case is National Parks, if they had the resources, they would then be able to go and monitor and survey because we can all see the increase in numbers. Did I read somewhere at some point that it was done in different places where... I don't know what the terminology is, but it was sterilising deer. There has been sterilising programs in other parts of the country, right? Or other parts of Europe. I've never heard of that in Ireland. Is that an alternative to this? I don't know how successful it is. I think it's a very difficult thing for it to be successful. I didn't read a lot about it, but I know I read that it was a... Some might say it wouldn't be terribly humane, depending on your gender or what's happening to you, but it's unproven. I haven't heard of a successful program. It's not something you've heard of earlier, but the biggest thing they need to do is get a proper hand-latch because at the moment, all of our experience of it is anecdotal, where you need people out surveying it and they can do proper surveys. They're not the hardest thing in the world to survey, but you need the human power, you need the resources. Once they have that survey in place, well, then they can start figuring out do they actually need to do a call? When do they need to go? Where do they need to do a call? Do we just need more fencing, better fencing? Do we need to help people? If we're helping them with planting native woodlands, for instance, do we need to help fund them with appropriate deer fencing as well, that kind of thing. Interesting insight, as always. Aangus, thank you very much indeed. I'll come back to Michael and David in a moment. I just want to quickly bring Ben in on this morning. Ben, what's your view? Good morning. Yes, Ben, tell us what you think. What do you think of this topic? The only thing I think of this topic is I've worked there for 26 years. And during that time as well, me and three other guys were involved in upkeep of the deer fence in Glenby National Park. And that's why I leave the responsibility with Lucas, the Wildlife Service and Glenby National Park because after I left there in 2002, I believe there's no upkeep at all being done to that fence and I've seen being out there and you can walk through that fence anywhere at all. It doesn't exist anymore. Any home walker out there will tell you the same thing. One time there used to be stiles for people that you could cross the fence, you know, maybe down the Pison Glen or somewhere like that there. But now you can walk through the fence anywhere at all. Now that fence used to be 10 feet high at some places as well. And whenever a deer got out sometimes as well, we built what you'd call as well, deer leaps as well where they could actually, we built it up on the outside that they could actually come on again during breeding season. If they needed to come on again, what would they do during breeding season? That's a huge level of management. What kind of fence? It sounds like, given the area we're talking, a massive undertaking to have it in the first place but maintain it, Ben? Yes, it was a massive undertaking. The first time it happened in the late 1800s, the road work was as well to all because as much as the deer, she introduced the deer on there. Metal posts, right? And I mean, four before metal posts and stuff like that there. And I mean, you're talking with eight strands of wire, 10 strands of wire in some places because you needed it to be higher because it was too, like it wasn't high enough and then said, yeah, they use extra strands to keep the deer from jumping the fence. Yeah, we're escaping but the same things happened here in Glen Bay as they did as well with the mink here in Donegal as well. They just let them loose whenever they couldn't look after them. Oh, they escaped. We can't say, we have to be careful of what we say here. They could escape but we'll get it in contact and find out the alternative. Ben, just finally, fencing in itself though, would you accept that there has to be a level of calling as well as fencing? Yeah, well, you see, that was part of my job as well to know how to call in the deer. Actually, you stopped on reading them the animals. You always kept a good hair there, you know. So you go out and you spend a day spying on all these animals and then you pick the animals and you're going to take it back to the animal. Okay, listen, Ben, very interesting. Finally, from you, David, Don, deer advisor with the Wild Deer Association of Ireland. I mean, there is a lot of planning organization and thought that has to go into this. Yeah, there is. There is a lot of work going on in the background and we are involved and we have been speaking to all parties involved in this and there will be a census going on and you realize as an organization that in some areas the population has got quite high and as I said earlier in the program, most of the land in Ireland is privately owned so you need to work with landowners and private foresters, forestry companies. Queersha have a big say in it as well. They have a big say because they are the state-owned forestry group that lease out the sporting rights for deer management and other parties and this also will impact on the population. Just getting the relative bodies working together and you don't have to do that. This issue will be dealt with over time. We will do proper people coming together and tackling it. But as I can say to drivers out there, if you are aware of deer in the area slow down. OK, David, listen, thank you very much indeed. That's David Dunn there, the phone line failing us on a little bit. Councillor McClafferty, thank you very much for holding as well and listening to all of that. I mean, just one caller wants to ask are we sensationalizing the situation here? Maybe more people are hitting badgers than deer and if you hit a badger it can be really quite devastating on your vehicle but we are not talking about a badger call. Are a lot of people hitting deer or is it possible that maybe we are overstate in the extent of the problem? No, Greg, I don't believe we are overstepping anything to be honest with you. All we are doing is highlighting appropriately what is going on. If anything, it's probably it's gone beyond serious possibly at this stage in regards to just jumping back to the badger, to the best of my understanding the badgers are controlled for TV purposes. I understand that there are actively badger people in the county and on the contrary the money is so badgering badgers. There's a lot of food for thought there. So how do you want to progress this now? You know you heard calls from Angus for you to start putting the pressure on for the government to publish this report that might be very useful in this conversation is it the OPD you focus on are you hoping that the council may take a lead role on this? Where do you want this to progress from here, councillor? Well first of all, Greg and a couple of points we really appreciate times this morning getting this highlighted because I felt we needed to get at the public platform to thank you and Caroline there for organising that for letting us do that and thanks to speakers as well. All the speakers participated there because really first of all we needed to get the public to know exactly what's going on here. I know there are a great number of the public aware but the whole public is not aware. So that's what we need to do first of all obviously as you alluded to there the OPDW the National Parks and Wildlife Government possibly the councillor may come in to play here at some stage as well possibly here to get trying to get things opened up but whatever it takes for the money to get things opened up to get things to a resolution and also one thing as well here I just want to mention you well on a serious point as well in getting this matched. It would be a big help as well if somebody does end up unfortunate getting their car smashed obviously we know we're resilient here we get the car smashed we get a tow truck we tow it away we fix it or get insurance for it in case it may be possible. But we need to know the extent of the problem there has to be some sort of. If you are unfortunate going forward to at least report to your local garden station so there's a record of it there that you smash your car such in an area and you've got to work with it. That makes sense that makes sense so we can get some statistical grasp of what's going on. Listen thank you very much for your time this morning take care of yourself. Thank you very much. Take care, right? That's councillor Michael McClafferty there. We're going to be talking about the weather after these. The 90 noon show is brought to you by Letter Kenny Credit Union with monster loans available up to 60,000 euro for all occasions. Visit letterkennycu.ie Oh Amy my little one I ask myself a million questions every day. When will you give me your first smile? How much sleep do you need? How can I help you and your big brother to get along? At the HSE's MyChild.ie and in the free MyChild books you'll find the answers you need from doctors, midwives, public health nurses, dieticians and lots of other experts. MyChild.ie Expert advice for every step of pregnancy, baby and toddler health. 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When you book your celebrity cruise with Atlantic Travel and Letter Kenny not only are drinks, wi-fi and tips always included but for a limited time you'll make huge savings per room and enjoy free flights to Europe or for ends of 28th of February call Atlantic Travel on 91 26193 Here comes the airplane and there go the peace. You'll find expert advice on weaning at mychild.ie from the HSE OK, Alan O'Reilly founder of Karlo Weather a busy night last night. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Not sure how much sleep you got but I didn't get much sleep with the wind battering the side of the house. Myself, good morning to you, Alan. Good morning, Greg. Yeah, it was certainly a nice night. It was even down here and Karlo was a very nice night and I was trying to keep an eye on the stats. Yeah, the sleep hasn't been great over the last few nights. We've been busy tracking these storms and I think Franklin kind of maybe didn't get the attention that it needed, to be honest with you. Malin Head saw a ghost of 133 km an hour between 1 and 2 a.m. this morning and Finner Camp also saw a ghost of 124 km an hour with some very strong winds really right through the night and that was after all yesterday as well. Now, in terms of and we'll talk a bit more about that and weather warnings in a moment if that's OK, Alan. You know, we had two storms that passed through last week and from what we're used to you know, not an awful lot I mean, obviously if you live in a micro-affected home or whatever, I understand that it would have been very impactful but I think for the sort of general population it's not whether we're not unused to. What was different about Franklin? Was it the strength? Was it the length? Was it how quick it moved? Was it the wind direction? What made it so impactful? Yeah, I think the duration of the strength of that duration I think was the biggest thing. I mean, it was just relentless really yesterday and I think people taught because Eunice had kind of passed through quite quickly and obviously in your neck of the woods Eunice didn't really have a major impact. I think people taught, you know, this is going to end and I was trying to tell people, you know, it's only ramping up because really yesterday afternoon people were expecting it maybe to die off and I was trying to explain to people that last night was actually going to see the peak in the northwest of the winds and that's exactly what happened and then also you had those very high seas. I mean the M4 Boy out to the northwest there recorded a max wave height of 28 meters. That's a 92 foot wave, you know, so you had that coastal I suppose very high storm surge as well. So the combination I think of the duration and also the severity of it and also I think just maybe weather fatigue or weather warning fatigue as I was calling it. People had Dudley and then they had Eunice and I think maybe people taught that was it and I'm not sure maybe because it was over the weekend maybe people were more, you know, relaxing and not quite keeping up to date. I was tweeting as much as I could trying to tell people this is actually happening. This is kind of And in fairness to you, you did message myself and I was able to sort of I had access to my own social media overnight to get that out and share it that you know this is a long one and it's going to peak in the in the small hours of the morning and it was widely shared and I think people appreciated that but I do, I do get what you're saying, you know, I saw that we did get a, I did get a weather forecast from Metair and via email as they do it is localised and it did kind of warn of what was to come but I think the media needs to be a bit more consistent in its reporting of it. Do you know what I mean? I think Metair and did send out the info. I don't think they drift at home as much as you did Alan because you probably saw that no one was really talking about it like they should but I think the media has to be a level of consistency. Don't sensationalise the, the, you know, the light stuff but make sure that you have the resources there to let people know when it's going to hit hard. Yeah and I think also the fact that you know very often the media will report you know the red warnings and you know look at the biggest impact and that can also you know vary a lot across the country so I think a lot of the time people don't really look at the warnings for their own area because I certainly had a lot of people mess with me saying how do we not have warnings and I'm like well there actually is an orange warning in your area okay the wind speeds did go in excess of the orange on the coast but generally you know the orange criteria was met but the combination of the wind and the rain yesterday and then also you know you had some sleet and snow showers even at times in some areas and the fact that it went on for so long that the weather warnings don't really take into account the duration you know it doesn't really make a difference whether it's orange for three hours or orange for 12 hours it's an orange warning whereas people need to understand the difference. Do you think that we I want to say we it is met Aaron because they're charged with coming up with these decisions do you think that they need to factor in more stuff in in terms of high tides swell you know and say right okay it just peaked for a moment in the red warning category so we won't put out a red warning but do you think they need to look at it in a bit more nuanced way? Yeah the UK may office use a weather impact based system so rather than just using criteria of gusts of over 130 km an hour or 50 millimetres of rain they look at the impact and the combination of the weather and also even the timing so if you're going to have you know if you have a wind peaking at rush hour in the morning and you have rain with it well that may end up being a red criteria whereas each of those factors on their own maybe be orange or yellow so I do think the impact based system is a better system to be honest with you I think my Aaron do very well with the system they have but I do think the weather system could be improved. Yeah and we got a load of messages on Friday saying why are schools closed the weather is grand there's nothing going on so there is it's hard to get it right I just think maybe if they targeted things more locally and if the media did there but I think it might be it might work better. Alan finally the front of the papers say we've had the wind now comes to chill what are you seeing I was going to say your crystal ball but your technology is beyond the crystal ball what are you seeing for the week ahead Alan? Yeah a lot of more wind and especially in the northwest you're going to see some more strong winds really right through the week but turning very cold from Wednesday night so Thursday you probably see some sleet and snow for a time in Dundeegall and Thursday and some very strong winds again so bitterly cold wind chill that wind is going to be very annoying it's going to consist really right through the week. And I've had more messages than I was expecting from people some people claiming that this these where the systems are man-made chemtrails now you've accessed access to the signs can you confirm or deny that's the case. Oh I can deny that. Take care of yourself thank you very much indeed I really appreciate it and thanks also Alan for contacting us there towards Sunday evening to try and get a warning out there as best I could that things were going to get worse before they got better. We have loads of your messages coming in it's great to see it so busy on a Monday morning we really appreciate it if you want to watch the program by the way you can hop on to our website HighlandRadio.com you'll see the link there and you can watch the program in browser you might be particularly interested after 11 o'clock when we've got Brendan Daveney in studio and we have our guests as we discussed the Dunlop bands 50th anniversary joining us as well you might want to watch and engage that way or you can go on to our YouTube page YouTube Highland Radio Ireland or Facebook pages and we're here for all of you the majority of you on there it's great to have you with us back after the news. The 9 till noon show with Letter Kenny Credit Union Mortgage is now available with a personalized service from your local and friendly credit union email mortgage at letterkennycu.ie Should have gone to spec savers that's what the ads tell you but for some people in India it's not that simple imagine having no eye tests or glasses you couldn't work so you could lose your home I'm Lisa from spec savers and I'm proud to help the Hope Foundation provide eye care in Kolkata spec savers arrange for me and my colleagues to go there and do eye tests to date we've given out over 11,000 pairs of glasses find out how we're changing people's lives for the better at specsavers.ie The award-winning Genesis Aesthetics and Skincare Clinic adore offers the most advanced skincare treatments for men and women treating conditions such as acne, skin tags, rosacea and scarring. As a qualified aesthetic practitioner Mary Ferry offers a range of anti-aging treatments including dermal fillers, thread lifts profilo, skin boosters, microneedling and LED light therapy hair and makeup also available download the Genesis Salon app today or call 07495-32575 A public interest message from Donegal County Council Attention Farmers Donegal County Council would like to remind farmers to follow good agricultural practice for the land spreading of slurry from the 1st of February. Farmers and contractors should pay attention to the weather forecast and not apply slurry or digestate to land which is waterlogged flooded likely to flood or if rain is forecast within 48 hours. Avoid spreading within 5 meters of any drain or 25 meters from a well, spring or poor hole used for drinking water and check with the council for lands close to public water supplies. Clean water is everybody's business. Donegal County Council protecting the environment Highland Radio weather updates with Ireland West airport thinking of a sun holiday this summer with the family, flight to Alicante, Malaga, Faro, Mallorca and Milan with Ryanair. Ireland West airport, you're flying. Ok a quick look at the weather very windy this morning with strong to-go force winds and severe damaging gusts but they will quickly ease through the morning scattered showers will gradually die out and there will be a good deal of dry and bright weather in the morning and early afternoon temperatures 7 to 10 degrees as I say back after the news. Live on air online and on the Highland Radio app this is Highland Radio News Thanks Greg, good morning it's 10 o'clock I'm Catherine Gaffney. Sinn Fein's health spokesperson is expressing concern about the impact the lack of reform in the health system is having on people. The business post has leaked recordings of the Department of Health's meeting with the HSE claiming its recruitment crisis could affect the opening of new hospitals. The newspaper also reveals questions were raised about the need for a supplementary budget of over half a billion euro in 2020. The Department of Health says no official of the department has given consent to be recorded while carrying out their duties and it hasn't received these alleged recordings. Sinn Fein's health spokesperson David Cullinan says senior well paid officials in the department need to deliver for the health service. We need to keep the focus clearly on where it needs to be. The Minister for Health is responsible for driving reform and obviously we have very, very senior people both in the department and the HSE who are on huge salaries to deliver and that's what needs to happen. We need to see the plan that the Minister and these senior officials have to reduce wait times, to reduce the levels of overcrowding in our hospitals. ESB crews are working to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses following Storm Franklin. Milford Ross Gear and Convoy are among the worst affected areas. A full list of updates and closures is available on our website highlandradio.com. Ryan Tapley from the ESB says they hope to have power restored all areas tonight at the latest. We would expect someone working to have everyone back by bite this evening or by tonight but our safety message again applies for Storm Franklin if anyone is out this morning and they come across fallen network fallen trees that they reported to our emergency number 1800 3 7 2 9 9 9. Serious concern has been raised over a reported large increase in the number of deer in Donegal and the potential dangers that they pose. There are claims that several motorists have had their cars damaged as a result of deer jumping out onto the roads. It has led to calls for immediate action and the idea of a cull to be explored. Speaking on today's 9 till noon show, councillor Michael McLafferty says those who have already been impacted have had to fit the bill for repair works themselves. There's no responsibility. It's been a little too alright and maybe a thing that may have to happen going forward as potential calling them at least back to an acceptable number anyway and at the minute it's not comfortable. It's not acceptable. It's too dangerous. As I say, many cares have been smashed. Many families have suffered because of the insurance policies and so on that they weren't able to claim for their insurance and they had to replace the care or fix themselves through their own means. The foreign affairs minister says the EU must focus on preventing war in response. Simon Coveney is in Brussels today to discuss moves that could de-escalate tension in eastern Europe. The US government has advised its citizens in Moscow to have an evacuation plan as it warns Russia is preparing for a full scale assault. Minister Coveney explains the EU's aims. I think the main focus needs to be on preventing war rather than how we respond to it and the approach the European Union has been to two areas. One, intensive diplomacy and two, ensuring that there's a very strong deterrent to the invasion of Ukraine and I think that is still the strategy. And the minister for the OPW has agreed to meet with Donegal County councillors to discuss a number of planned flood relief projects in Donegal. It's after the OPW was heavily criticised in recent weeks by a number of councillors over refusing to attend meetings. Local representatives had been concerned that important projects are effectively shelled until there is proper engagement with the OPW. Minister Patrick O'Donovan was in Donegal last week on other matters but promised he would meet with councillors in due course. Cahirla of the letter Kenny MD, councillor Jimmy Kavanaugh says it's vital that that happens. He said to us that he wanted to talk to the chief executive force and go back as soon as he parts the camp to meet with the letter Kenny municipal district and to discuss flood mitigation issues and so on. He was very open about that and no doubt did he do that and accept his point that he wanted to get a briefing on the issues from the chief executive. Weather now. Scattered showers will gradually die out and there will be a good deal of dry and bright weather in the morning and early afternoon of 7 to 10 degrees. We're back with the headlines for you at 11 o'clock until then good morning. The opportunity is for this Monday morning the 21st of February. The death has taken place of Annie Gallagher, Curran, Terman. Annie's remains will repose at her late residence from 3 o'clock this afternoon. Funeral arrangements will be confirmed later. The death has taken place of Samuel Gibson, figured Ruffo. His remains are reposing at his late residence. Funeral from there tomorrow at half past one for 2 o'clock service in St. Union's Cathedral, Ruffo followed by burial in the family plot in the adjoining graveyard. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu to the Donegal Hospice care of Annie family member or Terence Matlin took funeral director. The death has occurred of Mary T. McLaughlin, Mallon Road, Cardona. Formerly of Drumnisski, Mallon Head. Her remains are reposing at her late residence. Funeral from there tomorrow morning at quarter past 10 for 11 o'clock Requiem Mass in the church of the Sacred Heart, Cardona. Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. The death has taken place of Mary Shields, Naye Scott, Ballyhoroski, Fanad. Wake for family and close friends in the family from 11 o'clock this morning. Requiem Mass in St. Mary's Church, Fanavolti tomorrow afternoon at 12 with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Mass can be viewed live on the St. Mary's Fanavolti Facebook page. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu if desired to Fanad day centre care of Annie family member or Aiman Scott funeral director. And the death has taken place of Teddy Daherty, Strand Road, Derry Begg, Guidor. His remains are opposing at his home. Funeral Mass in St. Mary's Chapel, Derry Begg at 1 o'clock this afternoon with burial afterwards in Mahara Gallon Cemetery. Funeral Mass can be viewed live on Ciaran Rorty Funeral Director's Facebook page. For more details including Annie Family Health Guidelines for Wakes and Funerals, please go to hideandredio.com. All the stories that matter across the Northwest. It's Greg Hughes on the Ninth and Noon Show on Highland Radio. And you're very welcome back to the Ninth and Noon Show. Good morning Greg. Many years ago there was a deer enclosure in Quiltchazard's Forest Park and over the years the fences broke down and the deer escaped into the forest and surrounding woods and areas and breeding every season. That comes in from Charlie. Thanks Charlie. Good to have you listening. Greg asking what about the storm that hit on Saturday night yesterday morning at 11am. It was also a rough night and a start to the day yesterday. Well that was the leading edge of storm Franklin. Say a big thank you to the ESB crews who got powered, restored in north finish own last night in very difficult conditions. Yeah, indeed I was seeing some of the restoration times now. Maybe some of that can be done remotely. A lot of it has to be done by teams on the ground. It was remarkable to see on the power check site them fixing these issues when the wind was still drifting at 120km per hour. Back to deers here. Since lamping was stopped, deer numbers have exploded. What's the damage across the county were stormy years last night and little warning. The warnings were there but they weren't broadcast as much. We did orbit and tried to use the social media last night to let people not know what was coming but in fairness and I'm sitting here defending my terror because I have to be fair and I've seen their forecasts and I've seen the warnings were there. They just weren't related maybe it was because it was the weekend. Maybe as Alan pointed to it was our third storm and people were a bit sick and tired talking about the weather. I don't know. Hi Greg John Sweeney, climatologist in Manuthas said the first storm had sped up when bombed by the jet stream and maybe same with the other. That comes in from Kevin. Good morning, Greg. Storm Franklin should have been a red warning for it's much more severe and dangerous than other storms. Yes, but on the criteria that met our news it didn't hit the red warning criteria. That's the thing. But if we looked at it, if they sort of said tides coming in at this time rain, hail, sleet direction of wind, then it probably should have been a red warning but the warning system, if you look at it it's quite, you know, specific. Morning, re-weather warning level, should it not have to take into account previous storms, trees, buildings, etc. would have been weakened. That comes in from Paul. Many thanks, Paul and many thanks to you. Yeah, definitely. That's what we're talking about here. Back to deer. All Venice and exported to France, a multi-million euro business. Asked the Councillor how many cars have been hit. This is sensationalism. Well, if the deer was worth that much there are 5,000 odd licensed deer hunters, what they be called, that are involved in the calling programme. They haven't been at it because the price of deer has gone through the floor. So I'm not sure it's as related to the finances you suggest there. I'm often, I often be down in the south-west of County Fermanagh. I regularly come across deer out in the middle of the Latone Road, which is the main road between Garrison and Belcoo, while dangerous. That comes in from Sen in St. Johnston. Sen, thanks for listening, thanks for getting involved. This caller says, I have a serious issue with mink. I live in the Rathmullen Road. Who can help me? Tell us more about it. What is the issue with mink? How is it presenting? Have you got, do you keep animals and they're worrying the animals? Please get back in touch with us and tell us the issues you're having with the mink in the Rathmullen Road area and maybe we can, maybe we can get some more detailed answers for you. Hi, Greg, there are even deer up behind Highland Radio. Never seen them there before. I come across a deer actually at Clare. Now there are deer warning signs, but I'd never seen one and I did see a deer there. I think it was last year. It was big. A caller would love to see all deer called. Okay, it's funny, you know, there seems to be an acceptance of deer culling or that people think it's okay. But strangely, right, I would say there's a lot of people listening here involved, say for instance in the fishing industry or, you know, people who fish for sport who would be of the view that the seal population is decimating or having a serious impact on fish stocks. But you mentioned culling seal and all of a sudden people go crazy about it. They don't like it. Now maybe moods have changed, but I know we've covered deer culling in the past here and there is strong resistance to it. Is it because it is their natural habitat and they are you know, they're in their I don't know, but it seems to be okay for a lot of people for us to cull deer, but people don't, other people don't seem to, this is huge generalizations but you understand hopefully the point I'm trying to make as soon as you talk about culling seals, which an awful lot of people would like to see that done, there seems to be a different reaction. Have you a few on that by the way? 08, 6, 60, 25,000 watts apps or texts, because as I say, a lot of rivers there's just simply no fishing them anymore because the seals sit at the estuary and take their pick and then go and lie in the rocks robbing their bellies and others that would say it also impacting on other areas of fishing, but it seems more of a taboo subject than deer culling or maybe I'm reading the situation wrong. Who is responsible if one of the deer damages your car? This culler's wife was driving a car it was damaged by a deer, insurance wouldn't cover it and it cost 3,000 euro to fix. Who is responsible? I don't know. This culler thinks culling is a great idea the sooner the better, deers are a torture on the road at night, Glenvay not taking responsibility if deer hit your car but don't want people shooting them. Alright, okay listen, thanks very much for that. Radio, let's talk about the bingo now because this is another week of bingo another fresh week. If you haven't played before or haven't got your book, go and get it now. You're in time, go and get your book. It's 5 euro to play, it's a euro per day, but obviously as a bit of crack, as a bit of sport, play well within your means and for fun because that's what it's all about but it's not just for fun, the fun is for you the real impact of bingo is the fact that it really helps the national cancel for the blind of Ireland they benefit greatly from you playing your bingo and the jackpot on Thursday is 9000 euro, so you could be in with a chance to win that. Daily prize winning books are purchased all over the county by the way. Here are some examples, this isn't the jackpot now these are the daily prizes, they accumulate to put the start off at 400 euro which is not to be snuffed out in the first instance but a lucky bingo book buyer got their book in old dailies in Lifford day, one of grand bingo if you don't mind. Clinton's in Tammany sold an 800 euro winning book there, mason strunaller, max books boncrana and burn foot service station all sold books that the purchaser won 400 euro on. A daily prize is 400 euro, it increases by 200 euro per day if not won, so it is constantly increasing. So I'm just reminding you if you want to get involved, I don't play it myself I don't benefit from it, so my interest is the fact that the national cancel the blind of Ireland do and I've interviewed them and I know the impact it has on them. Okie dokie back with more after the bingo numbers in a break state where you are, lots of interesting conversation for you on the way. It's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio It's Monday the 21st of February, you're playing on the green sheet, the reference number is S16 it's game number 8 the numbers are 4 61 71 82 28 41 89 74 20 and finally 1. Phone your claim to 9104833 before 8 tonight, leaving your name, contact number and the name of the shop 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 Letter Kenny Credit Union, now offering mortgages from 40,000 to 600,000 euro with no hidden fees or transaction charges. Letter Kenny Credit Union 9102127 With the onset of different variants of coronavirus, it is vital that your business, office or school has the most up-to-date air purification device. McDade's bathroom plumbing tiles introduce the Daikin air purifier. It eliminates 99.9% of coronaviruses in under 3 minutes. Ideal for residential settings, offices, classrooms and waiting rooms. Priced at 495 euros is a great investment. For more details contact McDade's bathroom plumbing tiles. We're on our phone call or email away. If you've got magic moments or great memories captured on your smartphone now is a great time to have them printed at magies.ie Simply upload your favourite photos choose your size and finish and Magies will de-carve the rest with the results delivered to your door. 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This week on the deal debate as our county footballers resume their divisive 1 campaign away to Kerry we'll get a full roundup of all the action and as our ladies footballers travel to gone west meath we'll speak with county star Kitty Herron on the game and on her work with all island club champions Kuku. Plus Irish news, GA correspondent Brenda Crossmanly on the line to round up all the weekend's GA action. All this and much more podcasted on Highlandmedia.com and just have the 7 billion news on Highland media. The deal debate with sister Sarah's letter Kenny serving food you'll love till 9pm daily in Sarah's kitchen. Welcome back to the program. I'm delighted to welcome on to it now Professor Sam Coulter-Smith who's the author of a book called Delivering the Future Reflections of a Rotunda Master. Thank you so much for joining us professor it's great to have you on board. Right so talk to me like in terms of your book and we'll talk about some of its key findings and conversations it might trigger. Does it give us a better understanding of how the HSC actually works how the hospital system works? I suppose what it does is it's a reflection it's a look back to see what we can learn from the experience of the last number of years and the health service and the oversight of the health service went through a massive transition over that period of time. We went from health boards to the HSC now we're in the midst of hospital groups and now we're talking about regionalization of health services as we go towards the health care direction. So there's been lots and lots of different steps along the road and none of them have worked particularly well and as this has happened we've gone through a boom, we've gone through a recession and then we went through a pandemic and a cyber attack there are all sorts of things that happened over the last 10 or 15 years and I suppose my book is a reflection on what's happened what we can learn from it and maybe what we can bring to the future from the past while trying to make things better. When we talk about issues with the health service currently we'll often get comments in from listeners saying you know we need to go back to the matrons on the ward the old health board like the north western health board etc do we look back with rose tinted glasses I wonder or perhaps do those people have a strong case? Yeah it's an interesting one because times change and technology changes and medicine changes there's no doubt that if you roll the clock back 30 or 40 years then we have a situation where the population is smaller we have a lot more hospitals and we probably have a lot more beds per head of population than we currently do so there's something to be said for keeping things small and keeping things tight and having governance structures over institutions that are local so that the management of an institution or a hospital knows that they're the best people to make decisions and if they have a budget that they can control then they can work within that the bigger you get and this is one of the problems with the HSE it's a beast of an organisation and once you get that big then it becomes more about controlling your budget than providing health service and I think that's one of the problems that we've gone up against. Yeah and that's been highlighted quite a lot in recent times you talk quite a bit about voluntary hospitals like could you explain to us the role of voluntary hospitals in the health service where it used to be, where it's at now what the future may hold and how you think any changes is impacting on a health service That's a huge huge question Just read me the book I suppose to understand that you've got to try and look back to see what voluntary hospitals well and what they are and why they're important I think voluntary hospitals are not a voluntary hospital it's an institution that was set up by a group of well-meaning individuals or sometimes by organisations to provide services when the state either couldn't or wouldn't or wasn't in a position to do so Now in the North West there wouldn't be that many voluntary institutions they would be more associated with Dublin there were Saverland Cork and Remark but they're not mostly around the country but they were set up to provide services they had agreements with initially the Department of Health to provide funding but not full funding they would raise 20-30% of the funds needed to run them themselves and that is the key because voluntary hospitals have that independent funding they have ownership, they have responsibility and oversight over their own finances to allow them to adapt to change to bring in new services to do things without necessarily having to go to the health board or the group or the Department of Health or the HSE in order to make a decision and the value voluntary hospitals brought to the country when it came to the Covid pandemic was massive because they were able to adapt decisions without necessarily having to go to the HSE to say can we do this and to voluntary hospitals tend to have are they more inclined to attract staff, retain staff is it a different working environment to other types of hospitals voluntary hospitals, they tend to be the bigger hospitals in the country they tend to be the centres where they are more precious they tend to be an academic centre so they tend to be in bigger hospitals and they are probably more attractive for graduates who are abroad to come back to most medical graduates go abroad for some period of time and then come back and they want to come back and practice their subspecialty within a hospital but they know they can make a difference and although not exclusively because there are some fantastic people working in the HSE hospitals around the country but I would have thought it's probably more likely that a highly qualified graduate is going to want to come and work in a voluntary hospital rather than a HSE hospital because they know they can make a difference and they can provide the services that they want to and adapt and deal with management locally A lot of people feel the hospital or the HSE is relatively to the overall staff a relatively small group of frontline staff that are excellent and would move heaven and earth for you backed up by an awful lot of and I know a lot of people don't like this phrase but clipboard holding management very little accountability sometimes people simply don't even know if they were to take six months break from work how would they even define their role to find adequate cover we've all heard stories like that there that's an awful lot of money but sometimes it feels like we're going backwards in terms of caring and making people better than going forward I mean I know again it's a bit of a scatter ball type of a question but do you give us an insight into the HSE in that context yeah I think there's no doubt that the HSE is a massive organization and there are multiple layers of bureaucracy within us that makes decision making slow and arduous and as I said the further away your governance structure gets from the clinical cold face the more likely it is to for its key performance indicators to be financial rather than clinical and that's one of the advantages of a voluntary hospital setup where the hospital is run and managed and owned by the board of the hospital are responsible for the outcomes on a day-to-day basis but also for the financial management of the hospital so yeah there is a perception I think and some reality to the fact that there are multiple layers of bureaucracy within the HSE and there's a lot of people employed within us who are not the clinical cold face that's absolute fact yes okay professor I just want now maybe you to tell us about your book and because I've sort of asked questions and I don't want to misrepresent your work either at the same time so can you tell us about the book what you feel you want to get across to the reader who might find it interesting and what kind of information, useful information contained within for them yeah it's a celebration of the retender and you know my time at the retender and looking back over the last 20-30 years to see what we can learn from that time and I've talked about all of the changes that have happened in the external environment and how we have to deal with those but it is a reflection it's a look back, it's my own view on various different events that have happened and as you know and well aware their maternity services have been in the headlines on a regular basis over the last number of years and it's a reflection of all of those issues everything from all the attention to cervical check to current issues around the pandemic and the cyber attack and it is an attempt I suppose to plot a pathway forward to how as hospitals we can work together with the health service and become trusted partners within the health service so that we can all strive together to Can that be delivered through Slauncher Care because that seems to be the only show in town pretty much cross-party support forward can you not vision or maybe it is your vision but can what you hope that could be achieved can that be achieved through Slauncher Care Well that's one of the things that I address in the book it's the what is Slauncher Care and how can it work and I do I'm fully supportive of the majority of what's in Slauncher Care but there is one big issue there and that is the volunteer hospitals and how they interact with the health service and that's a big issue which really has yet to be worked out and that's one of my problems I suppose that over the last 20-30 years there's always changes that happen but the relationship of the volunteer hospitals with the state has never really been worked out I honestly believe that people didn't really understand it and I hope the book will help to explain the road of volunteers within the health service and that's really what it's about All right and some of this conversation has gone some way to do that too I presume your book Delivering the Future Reflections of a Rotonda Master is available in all the usual places Professor All good book shops near you and they're all good thank you so very much and have a wonderful day that's Professor Sam Coulter-Smith as I mentioned his book is called Delivering the Future Reflections of a Rotonda Master Right okay back to deer there needs to be a national deer management program the state is abdicating its responsibility to these animals ring the minister and other the problem in that area is the fences are not maintained and hence the breeding is continuing the lack of good fencing allows them to access areas Ben who was involved in fixing fencing perhaps helping to make your point there as well and Greg can you please mention that there is a free webinar on this evening at 6pm with international experts on family law and retired judge Philip Marcus who'll be talking about how to prevent parental alienation in Ireland if anyone is interested in booking they can go on to alienated.ie so if you're interested in that free webinar this evening at 6pm on parental alienation if you want to register for that go into alienated.ie on the internet and you'll get the information there with nature really invigorating with a cycle ride reviving returning to our exclusive lodge relaxing together centre parks family refreshed sounds brilliant with Donegal hearing clinic product shop store and go springtown dairy the north of Ireland's only temperature control smart access individually sized storage units store and go offers storage for personal storage house moves and renovations business storage for excess stock or finding systems once signed up you can access 24 hours a day through an app on your phone gaining access through four levels of security to your most precious possessions get a free quote at store and go.net the time is now 10 34 hello we've had no water in my villa for over 12 hours now do you know if this is a widespread issue the power was out in Mulville overnight I wonder is a pump affected Irish water don't have anything on their website though their problems they're highlighting today unplanned power outage in and around sort of the Rossinala ballish Shannon area until 2 p.m. people in Copney Legony Donegal town without water again until about 8 p.m. today that's presumably down to the power outage in that area and there was a burst water main in and around the Stranola area I presume that has been repaired and there was a pump failure to affecting the golf course road Kiltoig Leib letter Kenyan surrounding areas but that was fixed yesterday evening so they have not notified also of anything as it relates to mobile but I just wonder supply affected elsewhere because of pumps failing not failing but presumably affected by the weather you think that have back up generators but anyway maybe that's not what the problem was I don't want to speak outside of my knowledge base anyone else suffering the same fate in without water so say can it just be a coincidence that there was a power outage there last night can you help this person they've lost three heifers and a calf three heifers and a calf calf sounds I'm saying it wrong I don't know why it sounds weird between Castle Finn and Ruffo though this is the important thing so if you've seen four animals it's three heifers and a calf presumably they're together between Castle Finn and Ruffo they appear to have broken out and the wind must have scared them if you've seen them or you know where they are maybe they've entered another field in that area we have the owners contact details clearly they're going to be very keen to get them back Covid stopped the hunters killing deer this past two years says a text or while another says I was listening to warnings constantly they even had a triangle with a warning sign over the map of Donegal RT were up to speed and even gave warnings for Northern Ireland on the 9pm news credit where it's due if they did I said I wasn't exposed to them so they were there that's what that caller says right Raymond Hamilton is in Strelang for a drum keen it's his birthday today happy birthday Raymond lots of love from Breeder Ricky Gary and Donna we'll be back after a piece of music from Girls Allowed okay you're very welcome back to the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio Chris on YouTube says any chance of getting Michael McNamara let me just read that again any chance of getting Michael McNamara on to the program to talk about the state of the government great honest speaker indeed he's been on this show before and I'm sure he is interestingly though I remember and I was quite surprised Michael McNamara when there was a vote to remove minister Simon Coveney from his position voted against that actually to retain minister Simon Coveney I would have thought if he was interested in you know chopping the tree down that would have been an opportunity to do so but he voted with the government in that regard which I thought was quite interesting Brian Tay please network manager with the ESB he joins us on the program now how are you getting on Brian not too bad at all I suppose because of our history of bad weather we've got quite a resilient network particularly up here in the north west but given the nature of storm Franklin it did take its toll in places what is the state of play as we speak yeah absolutely so storm Franklin really hit the north west over the course of last night so nationally 29,000 customers unfortunately without power but if you focus in on say Donegal in south Donegal there's 4,000 customers without power particularly in the valley Shannon and Donegal town sort of areas areas if you look towards north Donegal unfortunately 5,000 customers without power and that is focused I suppose in Milford Rothgear, Convoy, Bunkrana and Kilkar kind of an equal share of kind of impact across north Donegal so our crews are out setting the weather is beginning to kind of settle down so it makes it easier now for us to start and get properly into our old restoration yeah last night overnight you know there were some messages around 9, 10 o'clock as winds really picked up and your crews managed to get people back on in the early hours were they actually out were some of that were we able to do some of that remotely or were the crews actually out in those those small hours in really difficult conditions I mean it was orange but it felt like red yeah so the way we would normally do it is we'll obviously crews will go out overnight to make something safe if it's emergency we won't necessarily carry out significant fault repair work after 10pm but we'll certainly go out and make something that is an emergency or something that needs to be made safe and then we do have an element of control from our control rooms which we'd use to kind of restore supply remotely but the big repair work starts this morning with our network technicians out on the grounds from first light and I suppose it'll be a long day and we'll get significant numbers of customers back but there will be small pockets of customers that will remain out overnight just given the quantity of outages and the amount of fault repair work we have to carry out it's still not fantastic out there so thanks to your teams and thanks for that update Brian I appreciate it greatly take care of yourself Gary Martin is director of emergency services with Donegal County Council the third storm the most impactful Gary for a number of reasons good morning to you good morning Greg as a previous caller from the ESB he was saying it has been the most impactful of the three that we've had to date we had an overnight event Saturday into Sunday substantial rainfall I suppose over the Esk and Derrigan fin catchments and that causes difficulty in Sunday mornings in the south and the east of the county and then that led and then I suppose to the weather or the one related event with storm Franklin we've had a substantial number of trees down right across the county and they are being removed they have many of them have been removed at this stage and others have been removed this morning there's some road closures in parts of the county that would have been notified already the electricity outages has caused difficulty for our colleagues in the water treatment area and there are a number of areas in the county that are experienced and I suppose interruptions in water supply as a result of they don't have backup pump backup generators for those pumps do they well in many instances Greg you have a situation where the what they call it the pumps themselves are actually blocked as a result of debris being churned up there's not simply no power it's just the workload it's a combination of both it's a combination of both but the biggest impact I suppose people will see on the ground today I suppose are the blockages with the trees down and the road's been cleared we've had road service crews out I suppose overnight and this morning we've had fire service crews out as well and areas including Buncrana and Lederkenny, Ballashanen and Donegal Town as well and I suppose we're going through the cleanup operation this morning yeah I mean it's not often you know I mean whilst the first two storms weren't quite as impactful as the weekend storm they do chip away for the big boy following him behind so I'm sure there was an element of an accumulative effect there as well there was a look I mean these things tend to grind you down you know this is the third storm is it in five days or five or six days so I suppose look we even just stay on top of the emergent conditions and they've all been slightly different and their own right one was I suppose coastal one related the other I suppose was still related and then this most recent one I suppose land one related issue on the back of substantial flooding so they all bring their own challenges in their own areas but I just acknowledge and thank all of our own teams indeed all of the other emergency response services that have worked so hard over the last five or six days and respond to this constant stream of storms that we're having at the moment okay Gary thank you very much indeed for that Gary Martin director of emergency services with Donegal County Council never heard such a storm as last night hope no serious damage anywhere living Kilmer Crennan our roads okay to travel on yes the roads are okay it's with caution on the way to work today I come across I was driving with a little bit of caution lots of caution and there's a there was a tree halfway across the road and you just keep your eyes peeled and that's often if you're careful it's safe. Dear destroy crops damage fences, spread line disease and are a serious hazard I'm not sure about all of that but this is what that caller believes there are serious hazard to road traffic especially at night there are beautiful animals and poaching is barbaric long-term solutions would be to make the perimeter fence of Glen Bay Park stock proof originally introduced there by Landlord Gentry for gaming with a follow-up planned round-up program and some calling by parks thank you very much indeed for that a sad society when it cannot respect nature don't forget we put the roads there calling if necessary for a healthy herd can be accepted that's what we're talking about here no one's going up there with an AK-47 was traveling at the back of Arigal yesterday there was a herd of around 25 30 young deer wow just off the road beautiful sight but couldn't stop thinking if they would be okay come dark do not call the deer right okay I would say that was a beautiful sight there's a gadget you can buy for under your car that warns the deer the deer hear it it's a whistle that we can't hear worth getting wow never heard of that driving around with a so I presume the air traveling is what creates the whistle and I don't know that could be completely true which I'm sure it is or it could be completely bogus which I'm sure it's not it could be either though you know where I'm coming from but I trust my listener never seen a worse display by Donagot this is GA we'll hold that off and see what Brendan of anything so what did you think of the game yesterday obviously the conditions were terrible obviously you know it's the league there there is a building process going on a lot of the big team struggling Dublin now I think you know at Neve Bridge might find the chances against them not literally but you know they're just not the team that they were I suppose though when you've achieved so much how do you get yourself up for an you know how do you motivate yourself we talk often about the best team one on the day because they wanted it more the hungry team maybe that's what's happened to Dublin the hunger has gone other sport not sure Brendan of any watch you can talk about it too I'm a car versus Kellbrook a lot of people waiting for a long time for that fight it was about 18 years later than it should have been big bragging rights huge crowd in Manchester to watch it Kellbrook comes out on top he looked like a fighter fight 15 years younger than he actually is what next for him maybe Chris Eubanks junior or maybe to retire having scratched that enormous itch that was his rifle with Amir Khan the ladies were playing GA yesterday as well a lot of sport if you want to have that conversation on a Monday we can do that too you know get your views in it's not all about serious issues and news sport lots of us are interested in that if there's an appetite for it we can do more sport talk on a Monday as well if that's what you would like right okay I have to take a very short break Claire's going to be talking to us about the impact the weather has been having on her home the 9 till noon show with letter Kenny credit union mortgage is now available with a personalized service from your local and friendly credit union email mortgage at letterkennycu.ie at Tesco we're always looking for ways to make shopping easy for everyone that's why we're giving one lucky customer the chance to win a brand new Nissan cash guy to enter simply complete your first shop with click and collect on Tesco.ie by March there's never been a better time to shop online booked your free slot today Tesco every little helps terms of condition supply competition open the first time click and collect shoppers only purchase required open the Irish residents aid over 18 offer valid only until the 6th of March for full terms of conditions see Tesco.ie central auto parts really do stock everything for all makes and models of cars shocks springs wipers mats brakes need I go on and now stocking selly mix and sunny car and commercial paint central auto parts portlink road business park letterkenny find us on facebook or call us on 07 4 9 1 2 7 4 9 1 the good times are back the highly acclaimed Joe Dolan show remembering Joe is back in letterkenny for one night only and what a party it will be St. Patrick's night 30 March 17th eve of the bank holiday at the Clangry hotel the spectacular show starring brother Ben Dolan nephews Edwin and Ray nice Sandra Karen Carol plus the original Joe Dolan band will have you rocking and rolling in the aisles at the Clangry celebrate our national holiday and style tickets now available at the Clangry hotel 07 4 9 1 2 4 3 6 9 remember there's no show like a Joe show always a sellout book now at Hickey Clark and Langan insurance brokers they compare quotes from all leading insurers so you get a great price home motor and van farm holiday home travel and liability insurance they quote them all so if the worst happens you're covered for a competitive insurance quote today called Hickey Clark and Langan on 9 1 2 double 6 double 8 or pop into their office at Balli McCool letter Kenny Hickey Clark and Langan general insurance is limited trading as Hickey Clark and Langan is regulated by the central bank of Ireland Chagosk will hold a tillage seminar this Wednesday night the 23rd of February at 8 p.m. in ungreen and hotel Bert speakers are Shea Chagosk Crop Specialist Steven Rob Irish Farmers Journal and Gareth Deveney AgriCare Crop Specialist topics include winter and spring crop management outlook for tillage and Maltine Barley options for Dunigal growers all welcome okay so you know a lot of us the majority of us were worried about the storm but a lot of our houses are secure I know people lost slates and stuff I'm not for any for a moment playing that down but thousands of people it was of when storms come it's a very different experience because it's not just maybe a roof tile or guttering or a shed or a trampoline that's at risk or a wheelie bin for that matter it's actually the structure of a house and we're talking of course about houses affected by mica Claire lives in one of those and joins us now Hi Claire. Hi how are you? I'm alright can you talk to us a little bit about what when you hear of storm warnings in your home you know how it feels different for you Well the anxiety levels become very high I mean the house is now my house is a very advanced stage of deterioration so I have a lot of cracks they're everywhere really to be honest you couldn't find a space in the house now that isn't cracked but the corners in particular are really really just hanging on there huge big cracks especially around the kitchen and the utility room inside and out so I mean you're afraid you're afraid of proper structural damage To the extent presumably you leave nothing of value anywhere near the house Well I don't certainly don't leave any human near that part of the house you know that's the most valuable thing children I kept the children away I moved Darian out of his bedroom I've got two teenage boys and I slept in with Oren my husband was working this morning so I just wanted to leave him and try and see if he could try and get some sleep So why did you move one of the children out of the bedroom? Well the noise in particular in his room is just horrendous I mean the noise in every room it seemed to be coming from every direction last night I've never you know normally you know what direction the winds come from I'm sure everybody experienced that themselves but it was just it seemed to be coming from all angles so every room was noisy but in particular his room the windows are very warped in his room and I have them taped up with duct tape but it just wasn't enough last night so and keep keeping everybody away from the end of the house which is worse and I know that there's other people who have micro in their homes and they did the same thing they slept downstairs or they got everybody you know to the safer end of the house Because you're always wondering or waiting is that chimney stock going to come down or is that wall going to give way in any given day but with that wind with that extent that wind constantly pushing constantly pushing you just don't know of tonight's the night Exactly and you know the anxiety levels are there now all the time when your house reaches a certain stage you know the anxiety is always there it's never really out of your head but on a night like last night I mean last night I haven't seen the news and I'm only out of my bed because I was like everybody else didn't sleep catching up this morning I cut to you absolutely trying to catch up anyway but I mean it must be one of the worst storms we've ever had it felt like it it was the length of it it was how long it was it was the yeah and that build up to it as well was very stressful you know that oh it's going to come at one o'clock when it already for hours had seen so bad you know that sort of how can it get any worse and then to hear that it was going to go until six was like how are we going to get through and I know it feels like sort of the most obvious thing in the world to say but wouldn't you just love to get Dara O'Brien some of those civil servants you know give them the house for two weeks let them live and experience actually live and experience it would they change their views would there be more urgency would there be a better understanding I think if they were here last night or even on any night to be honest and they actually saw with their own eyes and put their hands in and pulled out the crumbling block I mean I think that they would be shocked even though they have the information it's not the same as experiencing it and living in it and you know last night like a lot of people I was on Facebook and I was on Twitter and the level of anxiety and upset and stress you know and we can't forget we can't forget either that those are real emotions and when I say we not you because you feel it but but the general the population that aren't directly affected by this that understand that those are real ongoing emotions imagine yourself having to live your life like that it doesn't ease it gets worse those not directly affected maybe the impact of those words eases do you get where I'm coming from but we should never affect forget Claire that this is ongoing even if the best scheme in the world was announced tomorrow a lot of those anxieties of living in a safe property or an unsafe property would persist Oh absolutely and I think even if we were given a hundred percent redress you know the worries and the stress will change because it won't be so much monetary but we would still have to you know clear our houses out and get rid of all those things that hold all those memories and we're still going to have to endure living wherever we're going to be living it's not going to be at home and then we're still going to have to have the stress and strains of a build you know this this isn't something that's going to be fixed and I think that a lot of people don't understand that this is this is ongoing and you know long-term stress very very damaging very damaging listen um I'll let you maybe you can grab an hour in the afternoon as well thank you very much for joining us I really appreciate it before we go Let's go ahead The song from Don't Be the Neat I know I sent you the press pack there I would like everyone to get behind us this song written by Dennis Kelly is a very very powerful song and it's going to be released tomorrow on every platform globally um and I think it's a really if we try and get this song to number one now this week before this announcement on the 28th I think we will send a very very clear and strong message to the government you know we don't want to hear a thousand reasons we don't want to hear any excuses we don't want to hear any um caps or any just just chat solutions we want to hear the right thing we want to hear and if your listeners could get behind us maybe Highland would play the song Yes I will indeed Sharon you're slightly ahead of me but I got your press pack I appreciate it and I said committed to you as a committed to you uh well you know what I said to you and I'll follow that up thank you don't care yourself okay now uh Sharon's going to be joining us but we do have to break for the news so um if Sharon doesn't mind holding do you currently have vacancies that need urgently filled have you tried various ways to find new staff but didn't succeed let Highland Radio help you source and fill your current vacancies in the most cost effective way simply sign up to our new job spot and we will tell our listeners about your vacancies both on air and online every Monday Wednesday and Friday during our prime time shows we will broadcast the latest job opportunities across the northwest and in the county's dairy and tarot all job listings will be available online at highlandradio.com for more information contact the advertising team on 07491 25322 or email advertising at highlandradio.com Highland Radio we're here for you what are you after then we need someone on the inside someone who was there someone who pulled the trigger yeah pull the trigger I can't go back there again up here I can't see those things again I won't allow it I can't allow myself you owe us young man crawling along their home streets shut down like rats shooting started no one shouted stop no one shouted stop an incident with Dave Cotter a new play by Bloody Sunday at the Baller Theatre 23rd 24th February Hi Hugo Duncan here and I'm bringing you my classic country show to the Millennium Forum Dairy on Thursday the 24th of February I'll be joined there by my good friends Susan McCann Tony Allen John McNichol Neve Lynn Crawford Bell and Trina Allen tickets from the theatre box office and online when it comes to herding up the latest news views and reviews on farming in Ireland nobody does it like the farming independent chasing down key stories trends and topics from the ever changing world of farming and I agree in Ireland so pick up the farming independent every Tuesday and get the lay of the land up close and independent Highland Radio weather updates with Ireland West Airport Ronaldo, De Bruyne, Cavani you can now see both Manchester teams in action with Ryanair's twice weekly service to Manchester Ireland West Airport OK very windy this morning with strong to gale force north-westerly winds severe or damaging gusts but they will quickly ease through the morning leaving scattered showers that will eventually die out 11 o'clock in fact a minute past 11 and it's over to Catherine Gaffney Good morning Catherine Good morning Greg the director of emergency services at Donegal County Council says that storm Franklin has had a huge impact on Donegal County inside a week the council is continuing a cleanup operation right across the county this morning following a substantial amount of fallen trees and debris meanwhile ESB crews are working to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses following the storm Milford Ross gear and convoy are among the worst affected areas the ESB says they hope to have power restored to all areas tonight at the latest shin fans health spokesperson is expressing concern about the impact the lack of reform and the health system is having on people the business post has leaked recordings of the department of health's meeting with the HSE claiming its recruitment crisis could affect the opening of new hospitals the health watchdog has published inspection reports on five facilities in Donegal a number of non-compliances have been identified in some of the centres the foreign affairs minister says the EU must focus on preventing war in Ukraine not preparing for its response Simon Coveney is in Brussels today to discuss moves that could de-escalate tension in eastern Europe serious concern has been raised over a reported large increase in the number of deer in Donegal and the potential dangers that they pose there are claims that several motorists have had their cars damaged as a result of deer jumping out onto roads and the minister for the OPW has agreed to meet with Donegal County councillors to discuss a number of planned flood relief projects for Donegal it's after the OPW was heavily criticised in recent weeks by a number of councillors over refusing to attend meetings that's it for now we're back with a further update for you at 12 noon thank you very much indeed Catherine okay Sharon sorry for holding you I appreciate you taking the time out to chat to me this morning hi Greg how are you I'm alright but how are you more importantly what's the last week I suppose particularly the last couple of days been like for you and your family in your home to be honest Greg I didn't get much sleep last night because every time I heard a gust of wind I nearly was holding my breath to see what was going to happen it's been quite scary these last few days with all these storms because like also like many other houses have mica and the storms just aren't helping because there's water coming into the houses there's moisture coming in and then with the wind then things just get a little scary and in a situation that you should never ever be in you find yourself getting used to the water coming in the use to the dampness and then everything's elevated by the wind you know your normal is a completely unacceptable situation yes it definitely is Greg my boys are out of their bedroom since January 2020 and are now sleeping in wet walls or something because the dampness coming into their room upstairs was just not healthy I couldn't keep them in the room any longer and as I say it doesn't sound right but I've got used to the dampness but now our roof has moved slightly because of the gavel wall is not able to support the weight and that's the scary part because we've by some stabs and I actually put a post up on Facebook last night and I've got a huge response to it but Greg I didn't put that post up for attention I just that was just how I was feeling last night last night I was afraid but what you're doing Sharon the reason it gets a big reaction is because you're speaking on behalf of a lot of people that feel the exact same way it must feel like you're living in a house of cards you know we all when we were younger maybe built a house of cards and you just blow it or you push one side of it and it goes over particularly with the bison slab it must feel like is there enough pressure on that gavel now that it's going to literally push this concrete house of cards over is that how it feels when you're living in it that is how it feels Greg I couldn't put it into better words I do feel we are living as you said in a house of cards and if the wind blows the right way will the house come down and the fear is that it most probably will at some point and as to how much time we have and between how do you make that call Sharon because you've moved your young ones from their bedroom you know it's not we have to remember the emotional side of this so you go to two fellas I think you said there were two boys and you say right you're moving into the old front room and then you have to explain why because if I went to my boys one of them is a man now in the front room I mean they're good lads but they wouldn't just pick up and go no problem dad I'm off there now you know so it's on a big level and it's on a micro level that you're having to make these decisions and live your life like that it must be incredibly tough and it's tough on everybody in the house it definitely is Greg and I mean the children are talking about it at school and children eight and nine and younger shouldn't even know what Micah is or shouldn't we try and not talk about it in the house in front of the children as to how scary things are about the dampness and everything we try to protect them as best we can from it but they know and they see the water coming in through the doors and they see the cracks in the wall they know and really children should feel safe in their home and everyone should feel safe in their home but we don't and I was listening to your conversation there with Claire and I would invite Daryl Breen and Micheal Martin and whoever would like to come and stay in our house for free we're not even charged they're more than welcome to come and stay in my house and live in our shoes and we face every day so you look at the weather forecast in a completely different way to others do Sharon you're wondering is this the one yep and then we're talking about snow now and when that snow and cold and damp blown into the cavities that aren't supposed to be there yeah and all the impact that has and then the blocks expand that's doing more damage is that the tipping point for that gavel bearing the weight of that floor yep and do you know Sharon and this is the point I really want to get across is the wind subsides but everything is still there your problems remain it could be anything that causes like when is it going to take a house coming down on a family to fast track all of this and I really really want to swear and I shouldn't but that BS of well it has to go through this house and then that has to happen and we're waiting on this decision from if a house goes down on a family Sharon the world's media will be in Donegal and everything will move so so quickly all of a sudden it can never move quickly enough because we can't build all these houses all at the same time but if a house comes down on a family or a young person or something all of a sudden all of the barriers that are in the way will be lost all of the civil servants that are arguably trying to frustrate the situation would all of a sudden be very very quiet do you know where I'm coming from? I'm so angry because that's what would happen and I know that's what would happen but Greg why does it have to take something like that to happen before the government act because they get embarrassed and shamed into doing something it's simple as that yeah but at what family's expense is it going to be my family? is it going to be the family across the road from me? it can't be any family they have to do it without that push yeah exactly sorry and when you get emotional Greg no Sharon listen that's okay and it's understandable and you would have to be made of stone not to be emotional because you're there and your husband or your partner know are there it's your house and you're there to protect your family out of your hands to some extent because of this awful crappy crisis yeah and even though we've weathered the storm last night we aren't sure if there has been other damage that we can't see yet and that's the scary part as well you know has our wrist moved another little bit that we just don't realise yet it's just it's just a nightmare I would just like to say Greg I got a huge response and my phone had a million messages this morning with people offering help and offering us refuge for the night and I just want to say that I really thank those people for their kind gestures but really I shouldn't need to move my family out of the house no you know for a night because of the storm no it's believed and I just think that someone needs to help all the families in that situation alright well I'm going to cut this audio out if you don't mind I don't want to tag the people that are making these decisions into it so they can hear the reality of what's going on here because they need to realise what's going on and there are so many people sharing listening to you you're the voice of them today that are saying that's exactly what it's like for us that's what we're enduring so I know it's tough for you it's emotional for you but you've done a brilliant thing in very very difficult circumstances and I just hope that very very soon people cop on and something is done for you and all the others affected by this thanks Greg take care Sharon okay alright take care Sharon's upset and emotion doesn't conclude once that phone telephone call concludes she has to live with that for the rest of this morning and evening and wake up tomorrow morning in the exact same situation and await the snow and the rain that's due right okay one more bit in the weather before we chat to Brendan Divani after this break this week on the deal debate as our county fiblers resume their divisive one campaign a way to carry we'll get a full roundup of all the action with Donegal News Dynamo Ryan Ferry and as our ladies fiblers travel to Garm West Meath we'll speak with county star Katie Herron on the game and on her work with All Ireland club champions Kylku plus Irish news GA correspondent Brendan Crosby on the line to round up all the weekend's GA action all this and much more podcasted on highlandmedia.com and just have the send me a news on Highland Media the deal debate with sister Sarah's letter can have been food you'll love till 9pm daily in Sarah's kitchen we're Danielle, Kevin and Bonnie we took the challenge and swapped to Aldi the price difference is insane like the nappies and stuff she loves all the baby food and we feel like you know we don't even need to read like say the ingredients on the back of the baby food anymore the quality is just incredible I was terrible at saving money but now I'm great we actually probably would have saved more the mid-lile doesn't exist yeah but it's so much fun Aldi the home sweet home of swap and save for further information see aldi.ie the award winning Genesis aesthetics and skincare clinic edore offers the most advanced skincare treatments for men and women treating conditions such as acne, skin tags, rosacea and scarring as a qualified as that expectation her Mary Ferry offers a range of anti-aging 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thought well Donegal is going to really come on in the second half if the weather was a factor it really didn't happen it was a bit of a I don't know what do you think you're the expert I'm the expert I'm not sure I'm a bit like yourself we're all supporters now but I think at under strength Donegal team going down there I stopped kind of worrying about the result probably Greg when I seen the team and this isn't going to Kerry and Clarny listen very few teams ever won there I mean even if we had full strength we'd still be odds against us so you're more kind of looking at how individuals are performing is it a building process at the moment or what you know the likes of Keely McGonagall, Langan, Murphy Neil McGee, Jamie Brennan all these lads are missing so the build is probably coming from the back just playing devil's advocate here does that show lack of depth in the squad then in terms of we've seen in the past when these big players are out that others step up and they're blooded or they get experience it's a huge team I think possibly if this was a home decal there you might have seen a different type of team I think conditions as well the whole thing was dire I think for us at the back the likes of Brennan McColl and Keely McGonagall and McFadden-Ferry these are the lads have to step up for us now in our defence you know you've obviously for years now Owen Ballin has been in there more an attacking type player so Paul Brennan it's a matter of us getting that defence slowly because there's no doubt going forward we can take any team on I don't think any we were going to be judged on yesterday that's it it was a wee go chance there with six points and it would have brought back the three Ryan McQ interceptor try to give it the patty but you're clutching at it even at three Kerry would have seen at home so I think for Declan Bonney I think you mark this as for points in the league you know and I suppose to you know do we ever want to get on the route of sort of like what you might see in the among soccer supporters you know where every game is amplified absolutely brutal or that's absolutely amazing that we have to remember that this is an amateur sport and we're building towards building towards the summer of the full summer of sport It's interesting to say because there was a lot of attack on Donnie Goal after the Mayo game that they coughed up this lead in Mayo and there's a lot of question marks Mayo go in and beat Martin and Clonus they go and beat Dublin well the last nine and suddenly you're looking at thinking well you know maybe we actually played pretty well I think that has to be taken into context you're right there seems to be maybe a wee bit of harsh criticism coming on for Donnie Goal straight after that they had a good victory against Clare we didn't think anything I think of this Kerry game too much particularly on their strength but the game was thrown next week of course coming down the track that will be exciting exactly and everyone will be up for that you know like the players hear this too and the thing about the GEA2s they are of the community maybe we have to be a wee bit conscious of that as well this is going on for a long time Greg the fact that players are amateur and then you're like how much does the criticism it's I think most of the time lads as well shielded from it and I think all your decent fans understand that the work is going on I was going to say go and stand at a training session you know at the first week in January and critique that because that's where the slog's put in isn't it but anyway the early morning gym sessions they drink the water in my tank but it's not as dramatic as my image of the cold outdoor you know what I mean your nice warm gym with you know tell me something good banging in the background that's alright I want to be dramatic here the gym would suit you we were in rush fitness on Friday morning I was exhausted just walking out of the building watching other people do it right okay so you've got Ryan Ferriand the Donegal game presumably I can't imagine you won't look forward to next week Katie Herron is on Donegal did alright? Yeah back to back ones for them for Playway to West Meath after victory last week so good start for them and as well Katie was involved with Kalkoo as we mentioned last week and doing the stats for them so interesting that someone from here was involved with the team and the other side of the province you know so interesting to see how all that came about so just looking to talk to her and then Brandon Cross and so on from the Irish news and just to wrap up all the Ulster teams are lording it at the minute it's looking like we've got a five Ulster teams in division one next year which would be phenomenal do you want that to transfer into titles you don't think you fancy Mayo to win the All Island this year you don't think Terrone's going to be able to retain? not putting words in your mouth are you really going for Mayo at this stage? I just get the feeling that's the that's the see this Mayo feeling is every year it never seems to go away the creditors but I wouldn't mind if it was them this year if it goes and also goes I know you've got to get that show together so I won't delay you any further that's Brendan Daveney it's a DL Debate podcast here on Highland Radio you can listen to it at your leisure as soon as it's posted later today and you can listen to it on air after the news at seven o'clock today Ryan Ferry from the Donegal news is on going through Kerry for Donegal Katie Herron is on talking about the back-to-back victories for Donegal and a roundup of all the GEA news with Brendan Croson The Ninetal Noon Show with letter Kenny Credit Union now offering myCU current account and debit mastercard bringing full banking features delivered with the same local trustworthy service of your Credit Union mega deals now on at Curries save €430 on the LG American Style Fridge Freezer now €109 get the LG 50 inch 4K TV now €699 save €260 and save €230 on the HP laptop with 512GB of storage now €649 get in store or online at curries.ie McFlaven and Aiden Quinn tickets for this show to remember are on sale now from the Canary Hotel on 9-1-24369 June 2022 August 2022 January 2023 Is that what you're hearing when inquiring about the delivery of a new vehicle? Guess what? That's not the case at iMotors Call in today and choose your new car with immediate delivery available across our full range of Nissan and Kia models. Call in today and choose your new car with immediate delivery available across our full range of Nissan and Kia models. Drive away in your new 2022 car. Call iMotors in letter Kenny and Malin on 07491 34567 This summer holidays are go with Jet2 Holidays and Atlantic Travel so go discover our amazing destinations with 22kg of baggage included Ask the experts at Atlantic Travel about your next new holiday by calling 074 912 6193 and book now with just £60 to pot it per person Jet2 Holidays Package Holidays you can trust Subjects for availability and conditions Deri Sturban Enterprise Week is back Monday 7th to Friday the 11th of March celebrating its 10th year with a host of free events and workshops designed to promote growth boost, adaptability and recovery for your business Check full programme and register DeriSturban.com forward slash Enterprise Week Highland Radio Time Checks brought to you by Letter Kenny Shopping Centre the centre of shopping in Dunney all free parking and shopping all under one roof Letter Kenny Shopping Centre bringing you the time at The time is 24 minutes past 11 we welcome on to the programme now former cancer and Noel McBride thanks for joining us Noel appreciate your time Good morning Greg Good to have you with us right Do you think there was enough focus on driving home the message as it relates to the weather maybe if Materna said it was red there'd have been more concern or what do you think? If you look at the figures the highest one speed ever recorded in Ireland was on the 16th of October 2017 that's 171 kilometres per hour at Fastnet Lighthouse in Cork Last night at 1am it was 234 kilometres per hour at Malin Head so I think it speaks for itself like you know we all we were aware of the storms last week but last night was unbelievable it was unbelievable to be honest here look I've heard you commented you could hardly sleep yourself I don't think I slept hardly last night either and many many others like me and like you but it's just you know to give people that chance to be that wee but prepared if you're given a warning if you're given a proper warning because we know the likes of the Donegal Weather Channel and Carla whether who we were speaking they were pushing it in fairness saying look this is going to get worse before it gets better overnight the way the two storms during the week were treated you know reporters in every region what's the situation there all that kind of stuff and as far as I could see at the weekend I call it did say look there was a big push at nine o'clock with a a warning triangle over at Donegal but you know this is people's safety and well-being I just wish we could do it in a different way so it's not just dependent on what day the week it is or who happens to be on the editor's desk for a national TV or radio station on any particular day yeah well look my son-in-law is an official man but at this moment in time he's in port in Denmark he was on shelter in the store on there this week now Brian was texting homeless knight Rashi my daughter to say that what he could see on the look Fishermen as you know they're both we call them experts on weather patterns and that but he was texting homeless knight to say that he never saw anything off the coast of Donegal like it in his life he looked at the weather patterns and he's brains at sea for a good number of years but you know it's just look put it to this way look we've heard of the warnings around Dublin the warnings around Cork and no disrespect to Dublin or Cork but we are no different we deserve the same we hold the same values we deserve the same warnings we deserve the same attention and Donegal as they do elsewhere in the country but last night now was frightening was frightening at times I thought the roof was going to go off home here you know and I suppose that's one part of it but look when I was holding there for a while I was listening I didn't hear all of Claire's comments but I did hear Sharon and to be honest with you Greg it was bringing a tear to my eye to listen to her you know when you think of those people and Donegal last night and indeed in other parts the western seaboard that have make in their homes perhaps if they had got the proper warning and just call it the proper warning with the storm last night they might have been a wee bit more more prepared those Sharon in particular that I heard most of her comments it couldn't bring a tear to your eye you know when those people their homes are going to fall down around them if anything had happened and you said it yourself nothing's going to be done here until something happens and you know those houses are crumbling they are the house of cards those houses could crumble around those families at any time and it's probably around you too it's all over the place it's all over the place you know that Sharon talked about the water coming into the house I was in a house in Leatherkenny where somebody rang me one day to look at you know I sell a pint I'm a painter by trade and rang me one day if I would give them some idea how to get rid of a damp problem in the house and I couldn't believe how bad it was until I went and looked at it but you know I can it brings it home to me what I've seen in Leatherkenny and Sharon was talking about how to get rid of it those people deserve and can I put it to you this way those one warnings or no one warnings we should have had the same warning on the other parts of the country during the week for no other reason to give those people those families who are living in those houses of cards at the moment a chance to prepare themselves in whatever way possible and the problem is other than prepare themselves emotionally if that's possible you can't do anything to resist these winds and these houses but I take your point Noel thank you very much indeed former cancer there Noel McBride those three heifers and a calf that were missing between Castlefin and Rafoe the caller says thanks a million Greg my cattle have been found that's a huge relief and thank you to your listeners well done to you listening I've been watching GEA for nearly 50 years never seen a worse game than yesterday I actually thought I was watching a game of basketball well we've been talking about the weather those guys are not my defending it but you wouldn't put a cat out in that weather and they were out playing football and it has to have had an impact on it but on to the mica issue my heart goes out to the mica families my house doesn't have mica but last night at home was creaking I could not stop thinking about the mica families another Greg my heart is breaking for all these families suffering for someone else's mistakes and our government has a lot to answer for this is awful another I'm crying listening to those people living in mica houses and all I have is dirty windows what can we do for them Greg mica home owners will face bigger issues after Wednesday we've had days of rain and wind Wednesdays bringing frost which will see the blocks expanding crumble families need to take extra care this week are we in similar conditions as was it the was it 2010 where an awful lot of houses degraded very quickly because of particularities of the weather I hope not but I just hope that the families know that we've had dozens and dozens of messages in solidarity with them and they aren't alone in these difficult situations Greg can we really not send we Johnny married to school because the power is off or we would have cold never killed anyone and it'll all be well wrapped up are we creating a nation of softies no we're just trying to keep people safe but I take your point another Greg it's Dara O'Brien you need to have on the radio to hear those house owners God love them everyone's thoughts were with them during these stormy nights well is I'm going to cut Sharon's comments I mentioned it to her she seemed okay with it and I'm going to tag in and on Twitter whether he runs this Twitter account or others do they need to hear the reality of what life is like for many many many people thousands of homeowners people living in these homes people living in council properties that are in the same state and other buildings two people going to farmers going out to check their agricultural shares to see if their livelihood has been blown over because the blocks is effective people checking to see if the community hall can open this week if no further damage has been done it's right across the board in different areas of live beat private homes holiday homeowners as well will be wondering if they can get down to check their properties as I say farmers public buildings it's the reality and we can't forget about it either okay right we have to take a very quick break still more to come stay where you are a bus driver had a window smashed because someone took the snowball at it it's very serious could be much more serious stay where you are you'll hear that story next do you currently have vacancies that need urgently filled have you tried various ways to find new staff but didn't succeed let highland radio help you source and fill your current vacancies in the most cost effective way simply sign up to a new job spot and we will tell our listeners about your vacancies both on air and online every Monday Wednesday and Friday during our prime time shows we will broadcast the latest job opportunities across the Northwest and into counties dairy terroin all job listings will be available online at highland radio dot com for more information contact the advertising team on 07491 253 2 or email advertising at highland radio dot com high land radio we're here for you electric Ireland customers don't need to do a thing to get Ireland's lowest standard unit rate that's nothing zip zero because they're already on it electric Ireland we're brighter together estimated annual bill 1274 euro based on 24 residential electricity credit meter standard unit rates including PSO levy and VAT published provider rates at 1st January 2022 subject to change for comparison see electric Ireland dot IE slash lowest unit rate T's and C's apply see electric Ireland dot IE century complex is the perfect family day out kids will love exploring century play there's lots of tasty options available and at century cinemas we're showing entertaining kids movies rom-coms actions adventure movies dramas and more call us on 07491 21976 or visit century cinemas dot IE relax and unwind in the newly refurbished raddison blue hotel letter kemmie where all 114 guest rooms and suites have undergone a complete luxury upgrade get back on track with a visit to the health club monthly membership deals available from only 32 euro per month drop in and visit the newly refurbished raddison blue letter kemmie today okay our next guest is Neil McLaughlin off McLaughlin coaches I live though thank you very much for joining us Neil I'm sorry it's under these circumstances but we appreciate you helping us get the word out there good morning to you and tell us what happened your son was driving one of your coaches stroke buses over the weekend just coming on down the road the next thing I don't know if it was snowballs or stones but it was a mixture both I think at the window and inside Murray come off and hit the driver on the shoulder and bounce into the back of the bus and got a massive shock a shock maybe that if it wasn't a confident drivers was on could have been much worse so was this on an open road at Neil would your son have been you know going at at a bit of pace well from the speed yeah but enough what I'm saying is it wasn't sort of at a junction like he in other words if he wasn't as confident as he was he genuinely could have lost control of this vehicle like oh yeah there was no on either side of him like you know even took a thatcher and to the middle of the road like he would have caught the snow got no thought to happen it could have ended very very badly indeed this wasn't not an isolated instance you've heard from others who had similar experiences yeah I was talking to other lorry drivers and they were in the area around the same time and it was happening as well when the bus returned from Bob they were still at it and the windows smashed quite worrying as you mentioned the inside mirror that could have struck him in the face there's a lot of things that could have happened that could have made this it's a very serious situation but even worse yeah I was very lucky no passengers anything like that was on you know that things did you're not the wrong way you know alright so he was driving the bus it was on Saturday afternoon at around 3 30 p.m. in the afternoon in the drum keen area these people were at this for quite some time because they were still at it on the way back up you're facing obviously repair costs and as as we said this could have been much much worse as bad as it was well not only that we're faced now with the bus off the road now this last three days the bus was actually to go away on jobs but she's parked in the shade here now because she's not road-worthy unbelievable alright listen Neil thanks for highlighting that with us I appreciate it no worries thank you alright take care of yourself Neil I think really the message is make sure you know what your young ones are doing that was in the drum keen area Saturday afternoon hello Greg I'd like to see the council to get land owners to cut trees and big hedges on their land and main roads and back roads because we are going to see more storms and other all deer should be cold when they're spreading TB and eating the grass and farmers Glen Bay should be responsible for the deer that's where they come from first but it's not just in that particular area by the way I know that's kind of been the focus but there are other parts of the county affected by the deer population as well right hi I woke up at one o'clock this morning sorry I woke up one morning last week and the deer were on my back street I wonder where did it escape from it probably believes it's natural habitat I'm not sure where you're listening to us from there's a tree leaning on the N13 towards dairy presumably that's out of letter Kenny that's on the N13 we've had a couple of calls on this people fearful that this tree could come down right so just be careful and presumably someone's called council as well who would call beautiful animals like deer must be some other way to control the increase well they breed like rabbits and they don't have we don't have the land or capacity for them seemingly what about all the trees and branches that are causing major problems and death unfortunately during storms and are there high could you start a conversation about dangerous old trees overhanging roads people die needlessly during and after storm thank you well listen about three or four of you have messaged in if you want to come on and talk about it or are those concerned of over these older trees and what have you and we can have that conversation we're having it now but we can have it in a more detailed way well done to our ladies a good win in Mullingar should see them into the quarter finals tough on supporters the 500 mile round trip to truly just to see our team play sideways and backwards with a gale force wind behind them in the second half and 78 points in a rear 78 points in a rears the dogs in the street know that these tactics won't have a singing about winning matches this summer that is what I do here from a lot of supporters it's you know you can have bad performances or not turn up on the day or whatever it might be the way the balls being passed left right and backwards seems to be frustrating a lot of the people I'm chatting to but maybe you know I don't know enough about it to comment too much but a lot of people out there seem to have an issue with that style of play this caller says the Donegal team looked like they met for the first time on the bus going to Kerry it didn't watch the second half they say another Greg Godlove are homeless it's such heartbreaking world people sleeping out in conditions like that last night another on sport sorry these are a wee bit jumbled up that's my fault I've never seen a worse display by Donegal in a long time they looked flat and never ran at Kerry passed the ball back continuously in the amount of turnovers yes the weather did have a bearing but Kerry dealt with it and kicked on we had no plan B not good enough that comes in from a supporter there and you know supporters are there through thick and thin and they put over a lot of money and they're entitled to have their point of view as well oh Greg I totally agree with everything you've just said why are RTDs not speaking up I don't know hi Greg I had to sleep in my sitting room last night as my chimney blocks in my attic are beginning to crumble now with Micah I had to keep the fire going all night to try and keep my brace wall dry as it got up yesterday morning to the brace being wet I dread to even think what the outside of my chimney is like if the inside's encrumbling so you know what Micah does you know how it interacts with water what impact that has you know how these chimney stacks the weight of them it just feels like it's something waiting to happen we're going to be speaking to that caller I think if not if we have time this morning if we have time if not definitely tomorrow morning these stories need to be heard keep them coming into us what's Santa's favorite color I don't know run next door and ask him you make the right choice whatever the occasion or McCullochillers making moments magical for generations with everything from pedal and electric ride-ons to go karts and scooters there's loads of fun guaranteed all year round at tinny's toys if you have a kid's birthday coming up tinny's toys can help make it special or get snow ready with a sleigh visit tinny's toys on lec road letter Kenny or shop online for express delivery at tinny's toys dot com tinny's toys with so much more than just farm toys need a new part for your Ford car or van why not call to OMS auto parts in boncran with a massive stock of Ford parts you're sure to get the part you need free next day delivery and orders over 50 euro call 074 9361924 or shop online at omsautoparts.ie if you're starting a new business in 2022 call into bizprint today and get sorted logo designed, invoice books, business cards and all your printing needs call bizprint at port road letter Kenny on 9179955 or visit bizprint.ie visit Derry and experience a world of difference just over the border see the historic walls, the waterfront and the famous chill-off licenses at Da Vinci, White House, Cullmore, Hatmore and Shantalo which for some reason is the number one attraction so visit Derry and leave with more than just memories please drink responsibly see drinkaware.ie okay let's have a look at the weather forecast as we know the winds will be easing now to give way to scattered showers they'll also die out there'll be a good deal of dry and bright weather this morning and early afternoon winds will east mostly moderate or east mostly moderate, I beg your pardon but cloud will extend from the Atlantic with outbreaks of rain and drizzle developing in temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees delighted to welcome on to the programme now Frances Boyle and Yvonne Gillespie our Monday focus is 50 years of the Dunlopan sorry the Dunlopan good morning to both of you thanks for joining us good morning Greg it's good to have you with us right okay Frances can you give us a bit of a history to the formation of the Dunlopan I should point out you're the current chairperson of it tell us about its formation well back in 1971 I suppose the thoughts came into the heads of two gentlemen Pather Quinn Pather was originally from Glenpeace and he was the ambulance driver in town at the time and John Gallagher a local musician family man worked in the Cope and they thought they would get together and harness the musical talent that was in the area and it was also a social outlet for children because back then as you know boys were playing football and girls were doing Irish dancing and this was another so I suppose added attraction upwards of 50 plus children marched on Dunlopan Street on 1972 and before 1972 was out there was a further 30 children so then the band was split A and B and then in 73 A and B got together and formed the band and then 74 there was 20 majorettes added two girls from the locality went down to St Pat's band and Brass Band in Kilkenny and learned the manoeuvres of the majorettes so all in all at the end of 1974 there was 108 members in that band and that was obviously it caught the imaginations the imagination of people that's a huge group of people wanting to get involved yes it sure was it just goes to show you there wasn't that much in local areas for children so that was a big capture it was about 108 children and adults like you know and so it's 50 years the first you reference there the first performance was on St Patrick's Day that was in 72 yes 1972 the band left the Holland alone marched up Main Street to the church at the top of the town it was that time St Peter's I'd say there's a great sense of pride and huge crowds and everything totally pride as the band there's a big connection with the band from families down through the years nearly every family in the town had somebody in the band and some families had three and four and five and six members in the band so the band was part and parceled on low we are a very proud town so our band means a lot to us yeah of course I mentioned Yvonne Gillespie the current music director with us as well you were in the band in 2005 when it won the All Island Flower what an experience that must have been yes Greg well actually in 2005 on the committee I actually joined at the end of 84 so we won the All Ireland in the Stole in 1985 that was our first All Ireland and I was also in it then for the All Ireland title in Sligo in 1991 and then came back on committee later on in 2005 we won the All Ireland and then Kenny yeah yeah so there's three titles now tell us about the make up of the band what you know in terms of instruments and the number for taking part and winning these titles Yvonne yeah well the age range was usually between age and 18 so we were a junior miscellaneous band and it was a little accordion drums to begin with and then later on the Glockenspiel was introduced we got Tom Tom drums trios or quads drums and major acts you know was that every year something was added to it so yeah that was the range in the junior band now in the senior band we wouldn't maybe have the major acts at the minute but we're doing our best what days it I might be free you're welcome fancy being a major I don't know what it is but anyway I'm only messing you might look nice in a skirt well you know I don't have very hairy legs I'm not sure if that's part of the I'm sure you would and two over the years as well firstly it's keeping something going isn't it because you know there will be lulls and interest and maybe key members will walk where there's another distraction there's the rehearsing there's the organizing and the particularly perhaps for WhatsApp groups ringing around to get everyone to turn up and get that information out and funding too you know it's much more than just that success on the day or that one particular performance Francis you can take this one it takes a lot doesn't it to keep it going keep it funded keep the outfits up to date and all that stuff well absolutely and you know we've been very fortunate in that you know we have the development fund initiative for the Donegal County Council and smaller parts of money like that helping us alone you know more so funding a lot of money is needed for the junior bands whereas the adults were kind of funding things ourselves you know there's been a lot of highlights as opposed down the years for the bands and from junior to adult and well for me Yvonne could talk about hers but Sympathic State Parade in 1974 in Dublin the band went the 108 went and Dailymount Park then in Dublin that later on that year Russia versus Ireland the late Fran Bills was chairman of the FAI at the time and between himself and Pat Norrigan we got to go up there which was a great outing all together and I suppose culminating in us marching on Fifth Avenue in 2018 as adults so most of us were in the band from 72 some of us later part of 72 and you know the pride that we felt that day was something else you know but that was mainly funded by fundraising from the local community and as I said the DFI and ourselves we co-funded it ourselves so it does take a lot of money and instruments are very very dear now so you know we're always looking for... One amazing memories to have though you know it's an all surrounding you know it all probably came from one meeting that started all of this Yvonne we talked about the brilliant turnout back in 72 73 and into 74 there's an awful lot of distractions I'm not saying there weren't distractions in the 70s but maybe there's more distractions now is it more difficult to sort of get the numbers and keep the interest alive and with all as I say it could be basketball training one night football the other night and that's just the younger ones is it more difficult now it is very difficult and unfortunately in around in around 2013 the junior band kind of disbanded at that stage and that's when we kind of took up the mantle but our hope now is to get the children back into the band and I have just recently started tin whistle lessons in the local Skullcronia in Dunlop just to generate some interest in the hope of getting a few young people in and you know trying to get the junior band back up and running as a junior band on its own so that is our intention that'll come maybe from the St Patrick's Day celebrations we're going to have this year maybe it'll spur some children on to come into us. Yeah for sure and it's almost a case of come and try it because you know if they do they'll like it it's getting them into that for that first session isn't it it's nice too isn't it that it's Dunlop band celebrating 50 years and with restrictions and what have you easing that you're able to do the celebration around about the same day 50 years on and in a relatively normal manner. Yeah absolutely it's hopefully the restrictions don't come back and well. Don't make me mute you, stay positive Francis you didn't come into studio I can just kick you out of this zoom poll. No but weather's about the only thing if we had night like last night there's no band going up the street but our plan is we're going to celebrate it one way or the other we will be celebrating we'll have mass in St. Crohn's at 12 o'clock noon and followed by a wee cup of tea and a truck down memory lane and then we will march on the street to ourselves the present band with past members and we're making an appeal to all past members committee and past members to make themselves known to us so as they can be part and parcel of the day as well. So there's an element of a reunion performance isn't there getting the band back together like many people might hopefully travel home for that Yvonne Yes we already have confirmation from about maybe 10 to 15 past members that are back on board practice on the way we have a drummer my own uncle actually on snare drum he was in the original band in 1972 so he's back on drums Marcus Quinn Marcus Martin also an original past member so we have people coming on board and we would love more people to come forward maybe and let me know And if they can't get involved in the practice sessions in St. Crohn's NS on Friday nights they can be still part of it still come along on the day and walk behind us and join in the celebrations everybody is welcome and also Brett can I just say as well every band in the area in the Rosses area every band is welcome as well to come along on the day and march with us in the streets Absolutely I know every band has their own agenda or own program on us in Patrick's morning but it would be nice if so any all the bands there's quite a number of bands in the Rosses and they're all more than welcome to join us for refreshments and to march on the street afterwards it sounds like it's going to be a really lovely day a bit of nostalgia there as well also being able to get back to celebrate St. Patrick's Day like we're well used to it sounds like it's going to be a lovely time if on we have your number here I think you've published it so if anyone wants it we can pass it on I presume if that's okay with you and as I say it's going to draw big crowds it's going to be a big appetite for this stuff this year and it's extra special because of that 50 half a century of history to reflect on and chat and reignite old friendships and get new people involved a lot of grey hairs and wrinkles I'll tell you since you're just talking about me and I wasn't even there but anyway you did mention about gathering the gathering of 2013 we were all called in for that it was a fantastic occasion and a few people thought well do you know what this is a lovely way to pass maybe for socialising and getting together and being part of something so that's where the bands go through a phase where they can't get kids and that's you know as you said earlier on but a few of us got together and then Yvonne came in to do the music so that was us all back and track again so the more the merrier and these things do go in cycles there are natural lolls in things like this but it could even be a local G80 whatever it is there does be lolls and then it comes back and we hope we're just on the brink of that now for the Dunlop band it's been lovely chatting to both of you and I think it's going to be a beautiful day on so many different levels purely just because people getting together again but also the history the reconnections and all that kind of stuff it sounds like it's going to be brilliant thank you both of you so very much for joining us I really enjoyed that thank you alright so that was Francis Boyle there and also Yvonne Gillespie Francis is the chairperson of the Dunlop band committee and Yvonne Gillespie whose number we can pass on to you is the music director if maybe you've got young people that you think they'd benefit from getting involved in something like that but particularly in the context of the 50 year celebrations if you want to sort of get the band back together if you're a former member well get in touch with us and we'll pass on that telephone number listen thank you very much a very busy Monday mornings program I hope you enjoyed it and I hope it was informative and we'll be back with you tomorrow morning at 9 stay tuned John Bresnan is coming up around the North West after