 May sometime. I think second week of May, third week of May. Do you like it? What? Uh, yeah. I watch it. Yes. I admit to watching it, but, um... Is that like it used to be where they used to have all the, this, the countries and the inside of a newspaper and everyone wrote down as they went? It used to be quite an event. It's not like that anymore, is it? It's not like that anymore. My mother, God bless her. She's, you know, the same speech every year. I'm never watching the Eurovision again. That's a fix. Never watching it again, but she's always there, from the center. And she was right, too. Morning, Mum. All right, uh, that is it for Rory for now. He's back with you tomorrow morning. It's time now for the news in a minute past nine. Good morning, Donald Kavanaugh. Thank you, Greg. Good morning. Fifty new jobs are being created at the Colab facility on the Letterkenny IT campus over the next 18 months. ZincWorks, a telecoms and financial services research and development company, has announced the establishment of a software engineering hub. The project is supported by IDA Ireland. It'll provide software development services, including 5G network consulting. Michelle Conahan is IDA regional manager for the Northwest. She says this is particularly important given that this is the week that Letterkenny IT prepares the transition into full technological university status. The new technological university is such an addition for the region. For the first time, we're going to have eight university times across the Northwest. And I think that will really add to the attractiveness of the region. And on a lovely Dunigal day, isn't it a great announcement to be having, especially in that week in the run-up? President Vladimir Zelensky has acknowledged Ukraine may have to concede territory to Russia ahead of peace talks between the two countries. President Zelensky says he wants to make a deal with Moscow over Donbas, which has been partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. 2.32 million euro has been announced in funding for housing adaptation grants for older people and people with a disability in Dunigal. Grants of up to 30,000 euro are available to assist disabled people, carry out necessary works to make their house more suitable. Grants of up to 8,000 euro are available to assist older people to make repairs. Up to 6,000 is available from mobility aids. The allocation is up almost 566,000 euro on last year's figure. The HSC received over 5 million euro in car parking charges at public hospitals last year, according to freedom of information files. The average cost was 244,000 euro per hospital. The figures covered 21 statutory hospital car parks across the country. No figures are available for letter Kenny or Slago. By far the highest was the 1.25 million euro gathered in Cork University Hospital followed by 657,000 in Galway. Moment hospital consultant Bill Tormey says these charges should be reduced. The car parking should be a seasonal car parking arrangement and it should be a lot cheaper because people have to spend an absolute fortune to abolish them entirely with the result in people free-loading on hospital car parks in good sites. So I think there should be some charge, but the charge should be moderate and I think the way it is at the moment is basically a rip-off. At Donegal, Deputy says the proposed electronic travel authorization system for non-Irish EU citizens in Northern Ireland is unworkable. Deputy Thomas Pringle says while the British government are saying there will be no hard border or border checks, he doesn't see how this system could operate without them. The British have said that they're not going to require checking over them if you only have to publish them out online, but surely if you have to fill out a form online, then they will have to have some form of actually checking that people are complying with it. And the only way that they can do that is by having police on the border and by controlling the access to the border. So I don't see how they can do go about that. And I imagine that they haven't implemented this system just expecting to be a complete white elephant and to everybody to ignore it. Annie Lingering, Mr Fogwell, clear leaving a dry morning with good sunny spells this afternoon and into this evening, a few showers will break out in highest temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees Celsius, light easterly or variable breezes. And that's how the Australian News were back with news again at 10 o'clock. Got my qualifications, a few years of experience under my belt, but what now? I feel like there should be more, a next step, advancement, a new challenge. From aircraft technicians and engineers to fitters, carpenters, medical professionals and chefs, the Irish Defence Forces now have exciting and rewarding opportunities for anyone looking to move their career to the next level. So if you want to experience a life less ordinary, visit military.ie now to find out more. The Nine Till Noon Show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota. Test drive Toyota's incredible self-charging hybrid range at our showroom, Port Road, Letter Kenny. And now it's time for the talk of the Northwest, the Nine Till Noon Show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. And a very good morning to you. It's another Monday morning, the 28th of March, five past nine. And it's the Nine Till Noon Show. I do hope you're well and stay with us. A busy show is always coming up for you. You can watch the program if you want to as well, by the way, it's on our website, highlandradio.com, or our social media sites, Highland Radio Island on YouTube or Facebook pages, Highland Radio or Highland Radio News and Sport. And we'll remind you how you can get involved. Very, very shortly, we want your views and your comments. But first, let's look at the front of the newspaper, starting with the very people Donningham News this Monday morning. Elective procedures at Leicester University Hospital are being postponed due to a lack of beds as up to 10 wards are impacted by COVID-19 and high numbers of people attending the emergency department. The HSE informed the Donningham News of the decision stressing that urgent time sensitive cases are being prioritized and patients affected will be contacted directly if the procedure is being postponed. And that's the story out of Letter Kenney University Hospital, but speaking to different people over the weekend who attended or tried to attend different hospitals across the country. It's a familiar story. How are hospitals functioning as emergency hospitals at the moment, even in the cases of emergency? People with broken limbs wait in 12, in some cases, 16, 18 hours before they are seen too properly. By the way, I know they'll be triaged and what have you, but I mean, before they're actually, you know, have a cast on or whatever it might be. And as I say, you know, that's right across the hospital network it would see. Maybe you've got an experience of that that you wish to share. 0860-25000 is the WhatsApp number. You can text that number too. If you prefer to call and talk to Caroline 07491-25000. The Derry News tells us a local cinema is to roll out the red carpet for the premiere of the first episode of the eagerly-awaited third and final series of the hit television comedy series, Derry Girls. Stars of the hugely successful show will attend the 6.30 p.m. screening being hosted by Northern Ireland Screen and Channel 4 at the Omniplex on Strand Road on Thursday, April 7th. The screening will be followed by an after-party in the Guild Hall. That's sort of marking, I suppose, its contribution. The Irish Independent this morning, Celtic Tiger has prices rising now 100 euro a day. Has prices are increasing by Celtic Tiger levels of almost 300, sorry, 100 euro a day as the market shows no sign of slowing down. The Q1 Irish Independent REA Average Has Price Survey has found that average has prices rose by 3.16% nationally in the first three months of the year, matching the 1% a month increase experience during the boom. Almost 60% of all purchasers were first-time buyers. A figure which rose to 76% in Dublin as people with mortgage approval tried to get on the property ladder. Two other property price surveys released by DAF.ie and MyHome.ie also show a continued property market squeeze with rising asking prices nationwide. So let's look inside to see what the story is here locally in the Northwest. And the average has price in Donegal is its lowest. The prices have increased by 3.9% but the average property in Donegal is 132,500 euro. That's below litrum by the way at 149,500 euro. Sligo 172,500 euro. County Waterford, not County Waterford, sorry, but Waterford City 265,000 euro. They're up 6%, just to give you an idea of what's happening elsewhere. The average has price in Dublin, 481,250. So prices in Dublin going up just 2%. Some of the highest increases in Mayo and Galway, very popular down there, 8.2% increase in cost and 8.7% respectively. But Donegal, as I say, we seem to have. I can't see any area with lower average house prices. 132,500 euro and that's an increase of 3.9%. But still from a very low base, I think we can all agree there. The Irish Times tells us that Kiev warns of push to break up Ukraine. Ukraine's intelligence chief has warned that Russia is planning to split the country into along Korean lines. As President Volodymyr Zelinsky urged NATO to share its weapons rather than let them gather dust. His plea came after a speech by US President Joe Biden in Warsaw that Russia's Volodymyr Putin cannot remain in power. His apparent off-the-cuff remark infuriated Moscow and has caused irritation elsewhere in Europe. He then had to step back from it, walk back from it and it might have been a slip. It's one way of saying it and getting it out there and then if you do the walk back on it, the information has been related. You've got your point out there or it could have just been a slip of the tongue. He didn't intend to say it either way. It plays arguably well from the West side and inverted commas, but in Russia too can play either way either. You know, some might say, oh, and this is what the West thinks. You know, we need to get Putin out. And others might say, you know, Putin was right all the time. They're trying to destroy Russia. So this is the way things are nowadays. A fact depends on how you want to look at them. On to the Irish Daily Mail now. What do you think about this? A minimum 20-year sentence for all murderers? I think most people might have thought, well, surely that's the case already, but we know clearly it's not. Maybe it should be minimum sentences whilst they are taking out the eraser and the tip-ex and the pen. They could change a few things as it relates to how long people get behind bars for certain crimes. But murderers face a minimum of 20 years in jail under new powers. Justice Minister Helen McInty is considering giving to judges. Swinging new sentencing measures are also being planned for domestic abuse and those who groom children for crime. On to the Justice Plan published today by Minister McInty. Judges are to be given the power to ensure murderers serve at least 20 years. She said, I believe in a criminal justice system where the sentence matches the crime and I will bring forward proposals to reform the law in relation to life sentences. And as I mentioned, there she is also looking at other areas of crime. The Irish Sun today, a COVID expert, has warned people to wear a mask because it's COVID soup out there. Now, obviously there's different people with different views. Lots of people just getting on with it now. Enough is enough. They might feel that maybe they've had COVID. Maybe they aren't too worried about the consequences of it and just want things to move forward. There are also a lot of people out there who continue to wear a mask where they feel it appropriate and they believe that mask wearing should be mandated again, given the high incidence of COVID and the impact it clearly is indisputably having on our hospitals. But I think the latter group are less likely to talk about it now because they feel they might be shut down and also a lot of people might want to wear a mask in a public setting, but because so few are, they might feel that, you know, they will stand out. But anyway, Professor Kleeney Kelly said there is a high number of people battling the virus in the community and she said that antigen testing has led to case numbers being vastly under-reported. The consultant in infectious diseases said we are not doing anything about our indoor spaces. People have stopped wearing masks from what I can see. We can expect further spread. We're lucky the current variant is much milder and most people are vaccinated so getting very severely, so not getting very severely unwell, but there is a lot of virus around. And I think any of you out there know the situation. Many, many people who never had it before, of course, like getting it now, many people getting it for the second time. Really tragic case set from down the country as highlighted in most of the papers today. We'll read from the Daily Star. Shane Murphy, he was well known in pitch and pot circles. He was a champion in that sport. He died trying to protect his older father from a frenzied knife attack. And as Gardie continued to quiz a suspect for the killing last night, he's appearing in court today. Sources revealed that his father, Wishi, who's 75, was lucky to survive the brutal knife attack that saw him stabbed up to 12 times. Shane, who's 27, suffered injuries to the throat and chest in the shocking attack at the family home in rural County Cork on Saturday morning. He died at the scene. Sources last night revealed he was trying to protect his father from the vicious onslaught when he suffered the injuries that cost him his life. He was trying to protect his father from the knife, as source said last night. And as I say, there's a person before the courts in relation to that awful crime. Or later this morning, Donagall retained their Division I status yesterday. On the back of the mail, it tells us not such a good fortune for Dublin, though they were relegated. And we read that Desi Farrell put a brave face on Dublin's relegation from Division I after a last gasp defeat to Monaghan and Clonus. It was an awful day for Lester football and five of the six sides relegated coming from the province. Dublin, Kildare, Offley, Wicklow and Leish. It marks another milestone on the recent six in a row. All-Ireland champion Suddenfall from Grace. Obviously, it's just very disappointing, Farrell said. We did well to get back into it at the death. It's a very disappointment. It's a very disappointing, but we just have to get on with it at this stage. It was a squeaky bomb time to quote Alex Ferguson for times with Donagall. Because obviously we didn't know what the permutations were necessarily in other places. We had a big lead against our, relatively big, obviously a missed penalty, very tight towards the end. And then over the line, what do you think of what took place yesterday? What are your hopes for the championship in the next, what is it, four weeks? 08, 60, 25,000 if you want to comment on anything. Brendan Deveney is joining us later. If you have a question for him on what's going on, let us know. Get in touch. Right, so our first gas coming up on the program in just a couple of minutes. On the night of April 3rd, we'll all come together to fill out our census forms. And the information you provide will help show where essential services are needed in every part of the country. So on Sunday, April 3rd, be a part of Ireland's future. Be counted. Visit census.ie to find out more. Let's call Iceland. My name is Mike Denvering Concert with guests, Philomena Begley, Ray Linem and Brendan Shine at the Millennium Forum Dairy on Saturday, April 23rd. Tickets at the Theatre Box Office. That's Mike Denvering Concert at the Millennium Forum with Philomena Begley, Ray Linem and Brendan Shine on Saturday, April 23rd. If I learned one thing in the last year, it's that falling into debt can happen to anyone. Luckily, I heard about the ISI, the Insolvency Service of Ireland. Their professional advisors can help you restructure or even write off your debt. The first thing they said to me was every debt problem has a solution. I can still feel the relief. So if you're worried, visit their website backontrack.ie or free text Get Help to 50015. The ISI Together will get you back on track. This is an initiative of the Government of Ireland. Most business ideas start with a dream, a desire to do things differently. A lot of business ideas end there too. If you have an idea you want to turn into a reality, Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers program can help. Together with your local Institutes of Technology and Technological Universities, it provides support and funding for early-stage entrepreneurs to help with everything from testing your idea to implementing your business plan. Applications for your region are now open. Visit newfrontiers.ie. Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers. Turn dreaming into doing. Supported by the Government of Ireland. A celebrate one lucky customer will win 1,000 euro of home-eating oil. Simply call into the store during March and you will be entered into the draw. Head value will open Monday to Saturday 10am till 6pm Sunday 12 till 5pm. With fantastic offers across both stores. Head value, your one stop shop for all your animal needs. OK, we're going to talk safety on the roads now. This time our focus is going to be in the mountain top area of Letter Kenny. We're joined on the programme by independent councillor Michael McBride. Thanks for joining us. Good morning to you. Good morning Greg. OK, so tell us the problem as far as you're aware as it relates to safety between the mountain top to the Illisterine Road. Well, most of Greg at the road I used quite a bit myself and I had noticed you know over the last number of months you know, there were a lot of people there trying to turn right down in Ballardair you know, there's a right hand turn on there to a number of houses and I just kind of noticed that a lot of people were traffic backing up and people nearly on top of the car in front of them having to kind of swear them towards the the new cycle way there. So just so we're clear this is the road from the mountain top Dan towards the Illisterine you say, when you talk about turning right are you on about having to cross the two lanes of traffic coming up in the other direction is that what you're talking about? That's correct there the people that are ahead of the mountain top towards Elliston and having to turn right there and you know I was also looking at that and I thought to myself you know, there should be a right hand turn lane there because it is extremely dangerous and funny then one of the residents at Leves down there came to me and said that they had a couple of close-shaves with cars almost running into the back of the mountain square at the last minute you know to get between themselves and the barrier and one day I was travelling on myself and I saw a motorbike overtaken you know a road traffic where there was somebody in the front going to turn right and just like myself it would be a lot safer you know if there was a turn lane put down there and for some reason I was like it doesn't seem to want to put turn lanes on the national routes but you know I think there's not room there to do it I think there's a similar issue coming down I think there's a similar issue coming down Largie Brack as well if you wish to turn right you know halfway down it there's a right hand turn there but is a right hand turn safe if you've got effectively a slow and a fast lane coming up the way if you know what I mean it's a road in Mario whereby it feels safe I'm on about me as a driver where it feels safe crossing there well I don't think it's ideal obviously when you're crossing two lanes but I think it would be much safer Greg to be sitting on the box you know like on a turn lane rather than to be sitting on a lane of moving traffic to turn get across two lanes and have boxes on the road there and I think they work very well and I don't see any reason why a box couldn't be put there on that lane and down the mountain top with the rooms there for it I think it would be you know I think it would be a good situation it would be safer for the rest of the people that are using the road and you know especially there when you get people that's not used to that road as well you don't travel on it when we have a lot of tourists across two lanes of traffic so I just think myself you know it would help the situation Have you raised this with the TAI yet? I haven't raised it with them yet because I'm with them there's a motion now to our next municipal meeting and that'll be forwarded on then to the TAI I would assume that the other councillors will agree with me and we'll get it passed through the municipal meeting and it'll be forwarded on then to the TAI it seems to be very difficult to get the TAI to put on these turn lanes so I'm not going to try and give anybody false hope but at the same time if you don't ask the question you won't ever get an answer on it or get anything done so I'll just have to see what way things go but I will be putting the pressure on them and asking them to do it once the motion is passed and forwarded I'll ask them serious questions about it and about the safety of the residents and it's not just stay where you are it's not just residents it's also businesses and Paul McLaughlin of Balloch Dirt Garden Centre is on with us as well Paul I mean obviously you and if you're heading from the letter Kenny direction and customers heading to your business face the same dash across two lanes of traffic going at different speeds too which I always find that complicates judgment even more so Paul what do you think would you favour a box there for a safer right hand turn I wonder Hi Greg, yeah we've actually been campaigning there since I think 2006 was the first time we read about the TAI about a right turn lane and so far obviously we have gotten up and so far that would include for ourselves the pub above us and for the residents below us That would be the whole way down the hill that you're talking are you? Pretty much well in an ideal world I would see reducing speed in the road and actually putting a middle lane obviously it might be the most popular choice but I think to be honest last year I personally rang an ambulance twice for accidents in that road and I don't realise doing it again basically so I think that's the most sensible option Yeah and I don't use that road that regularly more so now than I would have in the past though how long has it been in its current you know I mean you know it's a long fast road with two climbing lanes one lane going in other direction how long has it been like that? Yeah as far as I know the bit past started between McAfrey's pub in the school there was I think it was 2006 it was complete as it was and at the time like I say we campaigned for about a right turn lane at that point but it was as fell in deaf years and even to do with about two years ago they reduced temporarily the speed at the school just for school times particularly at that stage the residents gathered about maybe 3000 signatures for a view of reducing the speed Yeah and I think also there was a petition to it wasn't there for a drop off lane for turning left to Ilistrin school Yes it was actually last week there was actually the issue was raised again in the Trikanal tribute actually on Friday I was channeled school principal down there and he said absolutely it'd be behind any sort of attempt to reduce the speed or any additional safety measures It sounds like that whole stretch then needs a relook then to address all of the issues that we're talking about Absolutely I would strongly welcome any sort of review of safety issues on the road What is the wording of your motion Michael if you worded it yet I mean do you think maybe I don't know how far down that the problems go but you know does that whole stretch need to be looked at to make it maybe slow traffic down you know take into consideration the concerns of the 300 odd who signed the petition as it relates to the school the businesses you know the residents that live on that road maybe the whole thing needs to be looked at not just one turning box To be honest with you Greg I haven't penciled the motion yet but at the same time I'll be taking it on board with Paul and the residents there are saying and I'll be fully in support of having a full review often I think that'll probably be a good enough way to do it I've always felt myself at a roundabout down at Don's of Alaston a big roundabout there would have been a good job you know for a distance traffic speed going down the mountain top for a turn off there for the ballet arrow and all that you know for the school coming out of Alaston that's something that I think should be revisited again as well there's no reason why we can't just ask for a complete review honestly probably a sensible enough thing to do and I mean at the end of the day Paul no one knows better the situation than those that use the road every day between the teachers and parents at the school the businesses like your own and those that live in the area I mean these are the people in a democracy that should be listened to whereas the TEI I don't know if it's too going too far to say the law unto themselves but it'd be nice if they would take into consideration the local knowledge a bit more I think absolutely let's blame anybody who uses the road that there are problems with it and the TEI always come back and say well we have to operate within our guidelines and we can't sort of slow things in a national primary route yet if you actually look I don't know if you're familiar with sort of between Emmieville and Mullin there's wee school there it's called Corner Creek or something like that but with the views of that it's like it's a school sort of on a national primary route and there is actually speed limits around the school it's also worth remembering that in a lot of cases is the TEI the government that build these roads next to the schools you know so they have a responsibility to ensure that they're not worsening I'm not sure if that was the situation in illustrating maybe either if you might know but in a lot of cases you know the schools were there and these roads will put past them it's up to whoever built the roads or designed the roads to ensure that you know safety isn't compromised or things don't worsen it's not just here it seems to be in a lot of places yeah it seems to be in a lot of places like around the bus but obviously schools have a huge amount of traffic and especially in mornings and afternoons like so it's like it should be planned to be seen that there will be traffic and there will be people accessing into the school during the day and stuff so it should be accommodated and as you say Paul what we're trying to avoid is you having to call or anyone else having to call an ambulance again yes absolutely now because I know one accident last year required a gentleman hospitalised and stuff together it's just not nice to see alright listen thanks thanks for that I appreciate your time this morning councillor McBride when is that next meeting that will be on the last Tuesday as I can stop them off I don't have the dick right no problem alright listen alright we'll follow we'll follow that up thanks for your time this morning by the way a caller says I'd also like to highlight the danger when exiting Phillips Medici is especially turning right so it's not just that thank you very much for that Michael I appreciate it's 08 660 25000 if you've an issue you wish to raise call 07 491 25000 07 491 21976 or visit century cinemas.ie Highland Radio wants to send you on the holiday of a lifetime plus five grand spending money get your ticket now at highlandradio.com answer the question and start packing draw takes place April 14th on the nine-toned show start planning your ultimate getaway only on Highland Radio I could look if you're entering that competition hop on the website highlandradio.com an emailer said I'd like to appreciate you raising the above my current NCT test expires at the beginning of May 2022 I applied online today for a new test hoping to get a booking for mid-April the earliest available test is on the 6th of July 2022 so what am I supposed to do do I drive around with an old test and park up for two months I think the situation is absolutely ridiculous I don't know maybe book a bit earlier but hindsight is 2020 I think if you were to ring the NCT they might be a little bit more flexible with you and might be able to try and secure your a date before your NCT expires it doesn't make an awful lot of sense does it I think even if we were notified to say that you better apply for your test because there's a backlog or whatever it might be I don't know but that is a problem but I think if you ring the NCT they might be able to accommodate you there now Paul Madden is CEO of ZincWorks and joins us on the program now good morning to you Paul I'm doing well a great day for you a great day for the company and for 50 odd people 50 new jobs to be created in the co-lab facility on the letter Kenny IT campus over the next 18 months tell us about ZincWorks ZincWorks is a software services company that we focus primarily in research and development in 5G and telecommunications we've been on the go for four years now we've grown to 180 people and are looking to expand by placing an office in letter Kenny and 50 jobs over the next 18 months are you confident the people are out there with the right skill sets to match these opportunities yeah we do we like letter Kenny a lot we've hired a number of people over the last couple of months from letter Kenny it's clear to us that the talent pool is there tell us a bit more about if you don't mind what you actually do in terms of research and development what kind of stuff are you doing it is in mobile communications technology we would work with some of the bigger companies in the world in terms of developing 5G networks and developing enhancements to those networks that are rolled out by operators around the world we also have our own product portfolio and we have a research and development team working on that and that's in 5G private networks alright okay now what kind of qualifications would the prospective candidates require and I don't know it's early days yet but I mean just to give you an idea of the work that's available so primarily it's software developers and they typically have a skill set around DevOps or Java programming engineers we've had a discussion with the IT in letter Kenny and no that's a super institute as well with part of the reason we've located in letter Kenny and engineers that have experienced the telecommunication yeah and when you are looking to develop or expand your business into an area I'm just trying to get a sense of like I know you've touched on it but in a bit more detail why you would choose letter Kenny well so there's a couple of things we've seen over the last couple of years with COVID this idea of remote work can become more of a reality we don't believe in 100% remote work but we do believe in a hybrid model where people can spend some of the time at home and some of the time at the office what we didn't want to do was have people working in letter Kenny and asking them to travel to it alone a couple of days a week where we have our head office that's too far a journey so we've developed a strategy which is bring the office to our people and this is the first step on that hopefully where we would put an office where we have people working for us or where people want to live indeed and trying to attract people into that then with the intent that they would spend a couple of days in the office and a couple of days working from home you must be very pleased with the growth of the company over such a relatively short period of time yeah it's been fantastic as a company we try and have everything around the people who work for us that's what makes us a company and we work really hard and that ties into this strategy we're placing an office in letter Kenny because we believe it's our people who want an office in letter Kenny okay well listen I presume when the time is right jobs will be advertised if they haven't been already yeah all they had to be gone up today and we'd be starting a media campaign in terms of and a recruitment efforts yeah all right listen continued success great to hear some good news thanks Paul thanks very much take care of yourself that is Paul Madden CEO of ZincWorks they're creating 50 new jobs at the co-lab facility on the letter Kenny IT campus over the next 18 months check out their website for more details recent times report that reveals Ireland has the second most lax COVID restrictions in the world out of 185 nations and only behind Mongolia what are the excuses this time when is this little cowboy cabbage patch of a country going to shake off centuries of fecklessness another quiet word with itself I don't know what you mean by that hi Greg just heard you read average house prices in Donegal around 150,000 friend of mine a building an average has quoted 420,000 something doesn't add up different prices and then I was looking at because the I don't have it to hand but it was like 130 odd thousand the average house price they had listed in the independent today in Donegal but I see in the daft average list prices in Donegal it's 187,000 518 up 21% year on year ahead of Sligo on 176,937 and well ahead as well on 165,000 almost read that to find out where that discrepancy lies between what the independent is saying is the average has price here versus the daft survey right Ronan lines of that will be joining us and maybe he can help right so we've been talking about the situation where people are almost feeling like criminals going into the post office and then we heard from the post office postmasters union that they're being asked to do things and they're not getting paid for it but it's making their life more difficult and customers aren't too happy amongst them is Kira Hi Kira sorry Kira how are you getting on now this morning doing good doing good okay right tell us your experience so Greg from time to time I'd visit my local post office just to get some sterling I have a couple of kids in college in Northern Ireland and you know from time to time just to give them some cash you know to keep them going week to week and went to post office last week and was asked to fill in a slip of paper with my name, my address and my postcode and my date of birth so I was completely taken aback why they needed this information I was absolutely horrified because I was only getting a hundred pounds sterling which isn't a huge amount of money maybe if I had been you know looking for ten thousand sterling or something you would say well yes with poor transparency reasons or you know we have to keep an eye on money laundering or something yeah something like that and it just concerned me and then also I kind of I was taken aback and then I was you know thinking about it afterwards and I was thinking even from a privacy perspective I just was very uncomfortable with giving that level of information to somebody and it was literally on a little slip of paper it's not as if it was going into a computer that I could see in front of me but I just was really really uncomfortable about it and when I asked the individual at the counter they indicated this is what we've been asked to do it's coming from the central bank and you know it really put me off and I would really think twice not about going back You've raised a couple of interesting points here right because firstly are all these slips of paper being put into an envelope and posted off to the central bank the fact that it's on a slip of paper seems a strange way of doing it but secondly you know between your name your address your postcode and your date of birth in the wrong hands the wrong people could do an awful lot of bad work with that information as well I mean did you get any assurances as to what happens to this slip of paper when it's handed over No I didn't and I've actually sent an email to their privacy office you know looking for some clarity on it because my first question was like legally why are they collecting this information you know what's the legal basis for it and from a GDPR perspective then you know there's all sorts of rules around you know collecting that type of data and how it's protected and you know how it's processed and etc etc Who has access to it what happens to it what happens to that strip of paper if it's imported into a computer at a later date who's doing that what happens to the strip of paper is it just put in the bin is it shredded you know I mean as I say it's the combination of information that's on that slip of paper that is a particular concern for me I'm not a particularly private person but you know between your date to birth you're actually would address your name you don't your numbers not on it is it not that that matters but also why is there not like anything over a grand or something I mean who is going to be laundering cash from criminal activity a hundred year at a time or 50 year old at a time it doesn't make any sense to me I was questioning then is it is it a ploy to you know stop people using their post offices you know because the post office don't charge commission and that's one of the reasons why I use it whereas if you go to the bank they charge you commission and all sorts of charges or is it a mechanism to have us use you know maybe one of their other services for an exchange card currency card etc I would just be interested to know what is the reason why you know why they're doing this and in 2022 is our solution to something like this pen and paper as well even if you had a card that you could tap or something it might feel less you know less intrusive but yeah it doesn't make it doesn't seem it doesn't seem a very efficient way of doing it writing stuff out and hand over a slip of paper absolutely not you know and then I'll be the other question is will we use my information for something else for marketing purposes and things like that so it just leaves you know an avalanche question and I have written down posts but I'm still awaiting a response so but I know it's not the fault of the individuals in the post office they're just trying to do their job but I think it's way too effective and did it look like a templated piece of paper that you wrote your details on it wasn't just the you weren't signing up to anything there was no you know small print or consent or anything like that no boxes or nothing to tick no nothing would it put you off going back to the post office I mean you talked about obviously we're all trying to save as much money as we can there's fewer fees there would it stop you going back again absolutely it definitely would and maybe that's the whole maybe that's the reason why it's not that I go every week but you know maybe this is just something newly introduced it is yeah it is relatively new and of course I was on the program last week here and you know Postmasters Union aren't happy about this because they're being asked to do this and they're not getting paid to do it it's extra work for them so they're not happy about it the customer's not happy about it and we're struggling to get answers as to who it's actually for and you raised some really important privacy questions obviously you know who has access to this slip of paper where does it go are you being signed up for you know a mailing list you know there's lots and lots of questions and I think we deserve answers to yeah all right we'll make further inquiries to see what the crack is and stay tuned we'll see what comes from it thanks for raising it with us this morning no problem thank you guys 08 660 25000 if you wish to comment on that issue or you've got any insight to it or any experience that you want to share with offers on a wide range of passenger and commercial vehicles tune in this Tuesday to the community garden information on air after 10 am on the 9 till noon show with Greg Hughes in association with Northwest Alarms your one stop shop for domestic and commercial security in Donegal new this week in home store and more all towels are half price but better hurry because when all our half price towels are gone they're gone also all Pyrex is still half price but when all our half price Pyrex is gone it's definitely gone order online before 2pm for next day delivery or drop by your local home store and more and don't forget to check out our summer range of garden furniture, barbecues solar lights and much more home store and more a happy home forward emphasis international based in Mallonhead are actively recruiting for customer service advisors both permanent remote working and hybrid opportunities available experience and contact centers or insurance services is desirable but not essential as full training is provided fully funded financial services qualifications delivering attractive career path opportunities are available please visit their website www.forwardemphasis.ie or apply via their careers page innovate don't do mediocre do magnificent not all-state great work great life great people where great opportunities await search all-state NI careers today so mist and fog will clear with most places this morning but may linger near eastern coast which is a bit of a mess but we'll be back with more details in a few minutes we'll be back we'll be back we'll be back we'll be back we'll be back we'll be back may linger near eastern coast which is east of the north across our region here in the north west it'll be a dry morning with good sunny spells during the afternoon evening a few showers so we'll break out temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees right I was contacted on social media twitter primarily by a number of people upset at the cutting back of trees particularly this time of year but anyway these are mature trees in remelton we've gotten on to the council about this by the way it's not the first time we've done this story because what they do to these trees is quite stark they end up looking butchered really and I'm sure it's not like that I'm not trying to be emotive but I mean to the naked eye they're there and everything's been cut off them the short branches topped off and just the trunk effectively left there that's the look of it that's what people in remelton are seeing as I say we've done this before it was in the Balabafe area Estrenora area a couple of years ago and I think at the time the not excuse but the reason given was the fact that it was a maintenance issue but anyway we'll get to a response from the council but I want to speak first to Angus Kennedy of Nature North West good morning to Angus good morning Greg how are you I am good right okay so say we've been down this road before you've seen the images or maybe even in person what they've done to the trees in remelton explain what's happened to us from your perspective yeah it's not that far from where I live actually okay yeah they've taken out the four big trees there and they've taken out two of them I think it is and then they've they've severely cut back to others and they were horse jasmine trees and they said they were at least a hundred years old I don't know about it and I accurate age on them but I say they were at least that and they made for quite a dramatic scene as you came into remelton people would be familiar with that road and those big trees in the right and right opposite the church however they were showing sign of disease and it was probably about six years ago that I first noticed things called bracket fungus bracket fungus are kind of like discs that seem to stick out protrude out from the bark of the tree and they're the fruiting body of some kind of fungus that's attacking your tree and you see them quite a lot of it they're quite naturally occurring things but they're assigned that the trees are weakening and they were showing that sign unfortunately so they're dying are they so yeah well yeah absolutely they were under attack it now trees like that can live for a very long time so what they've done is I think they've done their very best to try and conserve a couple of them at least and they haven't them taken them down altogether but there were the very first one it lost a couple of big limbs over the last couple storms or last couple winters and it isn't actually occurring thing unfortunately so in other words if these were in the middle of a field somewhere you wouldn't bat an eyelid but because they are in a public space because we've seen bits of them fall off in storms an assessment is made and this is the the it's shocking to look at but this is the course of action that's required yeah I think unfortunately now what could have perhaps been done was if they were tested in earlier periods in earlier time they maybe wouldn't have had to cut them back so harshly they wouldn't have had to take a couple of them down altogether these these kind of trees and these kind of older specimens and we've a huge amount of older trees in certainly in that kind of central and east part of Donegal we're very lucky with a lot of the lovely mature trees but an awful lot of them have been planted during the last 100 200 years and it is something that they do need to be managed because we tend to wait until it's too late a limb comes down somebody gets to scare and then we we heard big cries that we want to take down the whole lot which is an awful tragedy because there are hard kind of things. So if we're not doing already are you suggesting an annual or every other year audit of these types of trees and these types of areas so that if they do show sign of fungal infection or whatever it might be that we can be we can get in there early and try and save them rather than wait until such a time whereby the only course of action is to chop them Yeah absolutely absolutely and now that's a huge ask for the council to do but it is something that I think there should be more effort and more focus put on but also from community groups themselves and from out in tidy town I know have been looking at and identifying some of the some of the marvelous beech trees that they have in the town but some of those are coming quite old and some are just coming to their natural their natural age but if you can save them and get them in time you can stop stop having to demolish them all together because as they're listeners that we're calling in or telling it it's dramatic because we get used to they're just such a huge part of the landscape these things and these mighty big trees and then to have to cut them down much of them all together is a very dramatic Why not remove them all together why would we sort of leave the trunk and the bottom the branches that they might grow back or what quite often they can grow back so you'll sometimes see some of those bigger trees they can be thinned to allow the wind to come through them and because once they get once they get old and certainly they like to say beech trees they've reasonably shallow roots now not so much for those horse chestnut but the beech trees the reason the shallow roots at the ground gets very wet with an awful lot of rain they can come down and climate change of course we know is our rainfall and our intensity of storms are increasing we're seeing it and feeling it now ourselves we don't need the science I think the more to tell us that but if we can manage those trees and thin them a little bit for the wind to get through them we won't lose quite as many and the same for the likes of the horse chestnut trees but they do need to be managed and they're on roadside This fungus is it always a threat to the horse chestnut or is this something that's emerged recently or what's the story there it's interesting there's a few different things that have come recently I think it was 2009 is the first of the it's a strange name bleeding canker disease it affects the bark of horse chestnut trees and they tend to kind of weep so hence it gets that funny name and it's another fungus attack but there's quite a few diseases that attack those kind of trees but that first came into Ireland I think it was 2009 and we had Ash Dai back first came into Ireland 2012 and it's just it's part of our globalization where we're tended to move around more we're tended to move materials around more and with them quite often comes various bugs which might be carrying diseases what one of the most famous for that is the Dutch Elm disease in the 1980s it was huge numbers of the massive graceful That's a big story at the time too wasn't it it was a mainstream story then It was massive I remember I grew up in Dublin and I remember they're taking me along the canal and driving along the canal and showing me all the trees that they were going to take down and it was a huge vista it was changing that whole scene along the canal and they planted those trees on the edge of the canal amazingly to use them as raw materials 150 odd years ago because Elm was good for that kind of thing but it's something we do need to be aware of and it's something we should be all looking at in our own communities and how can we replace these trees because a lot of trees are very old they're going to come to their natural age people are going to do their best to conserve them as much as they can but we need to start thinking of replacing them because it takes a long time to Yeah for sure We need to have the full site that whoever had the full site a couple hundred years ago in terms of in terms of when you can cut trees down Are you familiar with that legislation Angus because when a story like this comes up people say well you can't cut trees down but I was looking through the legislation and if I'm reading it correctly there's almost more reasons that you can cut trees down at this time of year or fell them or whatever there's more reasons that permit you to do it than don't Is there anything that needs to be looked at there do you think? The biggest thing is that you can't just go removing the tree by just taking a notion if it's in danger to your property or if it's a certain distance to your property if it's very close to your property yes they can be done but time of year is huge and we've all been enjoying hopefully enjoying the good weather and listening to the birdsong but not just the birdsong we can see so much activity from nature it's all really kicking off and there's a reason we're not allowed to cut the hedges from the first of March to September and there's a reason we're not allowed to go near the trees as well unless of course they're going to be in danger We have all sort of got ahead of ourselves we've got the barbecues out, sun hats out sunscreen out, out at the beach all that there and we're going to get colder weather later this week it's only March hopefully more good weather to come has nature jumped the gun a little bit you talked about how nature has sprung to life, is it a bit early for them guys as well with some colder weather being predicted? It's early all right for sure the bumblebees if anybody's been under some of our willow trees and willow trees the sally bush that people don't even really notice most of the time but this time of year they jump out because they have fluffy yellow flowers on them, they're full of pollen and the bees that have been hibernating all winter they're now feeding on those the big bumblebees and the big queens that you'll see in each one of those queens as long as they've enough willow trees or dandelions or whatever they'll have a colony of two, three hundred bees this year which will pollinate our crops and pollinate our wildlife they always come out at this time of year and they're very tough they'll be able to whip down a bit of cold weather however I saw some butterflies over the last few days and with a couple of species of butterflies that hibernate amazingly, we don't really think of butterflies doing that but they over winter and once they come out once they warm up and start getting going they like the weather to be a little warmer so they might struggle all right and the likes of the bats have been out already and they might struggle all right hopefully the cold doesn't last long Would you be inclined to suggest people maybe delay the first cut of the lawn for a few weeks does that help in you know nature? Yeah and you hear this phrase now going around no mow till May so what that is about is if you leave your lawn even just for a couple of weeks you'll see the little white clovers come up in particular and you'll see the buttercups and all the rest and they're very pretty in their own way but they are large food for all those bees and lots of other insects as well which are in trouble it's a terribly simple thing to do sometimes people feel the idea of leaving the whole lawn much or then leave a section of it and you hear that message more and more now but it's vitally important I am because nature needs our help I'm sure we'll hear more about that when you join John on Around the Northwest in the future thanks Angus, Kennedy there of Nature and Northwest so the council says the trees in question were assessed by a local tree surgeon who established that these trees were in a very poor condition with disease and rot it was recommended for public safety reasons to seek prices from qualified tree contractors to safely fell and dispose of trees crown reductions and replacement of semi mature trees Donegal County Council sought prices for tree services in January 22 and appointed a contractor on February 2nd the contractor was met on site where it was stressed that work should start immediately unfortunately due to the damage caused by the subsequent storms during this time all tree services were overwhelmed and works were delayed in Remelton until the 21st of March in consideration of the public safety risk the road office decided to proceed with the works in the understanding that any trees that had evidence of nesting would not be touched until later in the year so hopefully it's not the answer is not going to satisfy everyone but that is the answer to that change in the tree landscape in Remelton all right stay where you are loads come up coming up on the program after the news at 10 and the bituary notices the 19 inch show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota Port Road letter Kenny the stock is of a wide range of used passenger and commercial vehicles Gleave Gallery Open Art Competition is back after two years artists wishing to submit for this year's Gleave Gallery Open Art Competition should bring their artworks to the Gleave Gallery Church Hill letter Kenny this weekend the 2nd and 3rd of April between 12 and 5 p.m artists can submit up to four artworks and the entry fee is 4 euro per piece the exhibition will open on Good Friday the 15th of April at 4 p.m and all are welcome to attend the exhibition will run until Sunday the 24th of April admission to the exhibition is free pictures must be framed and ready to hang if selected further details are on the Gleave House & Gallery Facebook page are you troubled with painful varicose veins? restore your confidence with vein treatment at Kingsbridge Private Hospital letter Kenny our vascular consultants offer assessment advice and options in the latest treatments available may goodbye to varicose veins and hello to healthy legs with appointments available why not book your consultation today visit Kingsbridge Private Hospital.ie to find out more because life matters are you involved in a digital project in your town or community? would you like to share in a 100,000 euro prize fund? the Dotie Digital Town Awards shine a light on the achievements of local towns for digital projects in health education tourism and community visit the dotie digital town awards visit we are dotie terms and conditions apply there's more furniture than ever on display at McGinley's furniture in letter Kenny with extra floor space there's more suites, beds, dining room and occasional furniture also more rugs, mirrors and lamps all available for immediate delivery if you'd like to make a beautiful addition to your home there's more furniture than ever to choose from at McGinley's furniture on the Joe Boner Link Road letter Kenny and at McGinley's furniture.com that's the DL Debate after 7pm news this Monday on Highland Radio and podcasted on highlandradio.com the DL Debate with sister Sarah's letter Kenny serving food you'll love till 9pm daily in Sarah's Kitchen live on air online and on the Highland Radio app this is Highland Radio News good morning it's 10 o'clock Donald Kavana at the news desk 50 new jobs are to be created at the Colab facility on the letter Kenny IT campus over the next 18 months zinc works at telecoms and financial services research and development company with an Irish base in Athlon has announced the establishment of a software engineering hub the project is supported by IDA Ireland it'll provide software development services including 5G Network Consulting Michelle Conahan the IDA regional manager for the Northwest says this is a particularly important announcement in the week that letter Kenny IT is preparing to transition into full technological university status the new technological university is such an addition for the region for the first time we're going to have eight university times across the northwest and I think that will really add to the attractiveness of the region and on a lovely Dunigold day isn't it a great announcement to be having especially in that week in the run up the HSC received over 5 million euro in car parking charges at public hospitals last year according to information files the average was 244,000 euro per hospital the figures cover 21 statutory hospital car parks no figures are available for letter Kenny or Slago by far the highest figure received was 1.2 million euro paid at cork university hospital followed by 657,000 in Galway university hospital Beaumont hospital consultant Bill Tormey says these charges should be reduced the car parking should be a seasonal car parking arrangement and it should be a lot cheaper because people have to spend an absolute fortune to abolish them entirely with results in people freeloading on hospital car parks in good sites so I think there should be some charge but the charge should be moderate and I think the way it is at the moment is basically a rip-off in Ukraine president Vladimir Zelensky has acknowledged they may have to concede some territory to Russia ahead of peace talks between the two countries he said he wants to make a deal with Moscow over Donbas which has been partly controlled by Russian backed separatists since 2014 2.32 million euro has been announced in funding for housing adaptation grants for older people and people with a disability in Donegal any percent of the money is coming from government with matching funds from Donegal county council grants of up to 30,000 euro are available to assist disabled people carry out necessary works to make a house more suitable for their needs while grants of up to 30,000 are available to assist older people make repairs up to 6,000 is available for mobility aids 2 new housing reports show house prices continued to rise in the first quarter of the year particularly outside Dublin the publications from my home and daft.ie have also warned the number of units available on their sites reached new lows in 2022 my home's report shows a 12% rise year on year in national median asking prices according to daft.ie prices in Donegal were 32% higher in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year where the rise was 3% the average price of a house in Donegal is now 188,000 euro that's 65% above the lowest point and economist Roland Lyons says it's areas like Donegal where the highest increases are being seen if you look now compared to a year ago there's a big urban rural split prices in rural parts of the country are up by a lot more in percentage terms than they are in the cities but the signals over the last 3-6 months are if anything it's as bad everywhere as it is anywhere if that makes sense and it's down to a lack of supply ultimately Guardian warning business premises in Donegal which stock large amounts of cigarettes that the last number of days has seen a number of break-ins in such premises across the country particularly in western counties Crime Prevention Officer in Donegal Sergeant Paul Wallace says there is clearly a well informed and well prepared organised crime gang operating and he says when this has happened in the past Donegal has invariably been targeted he's urging such businesses to be aware of the danger and to review their security we have a number of people who roll sales cigarettes and tobacco products in the counties so it's just to give them the heads up on it Whether forecast might air and tell us any lingering mist and fog will clear leaving a dry morning with good sunny spells this afternoon and evening we will see a few showers, highest temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees celsius in light easterly or variable breezes. Well that's how the media news we're back with news headlines again at 11 o'clock, good morning The Abitur notices for this Monday morning the 28th of March The death has taken place of Michael Sharkey, Shrohan Falkhara, removal from eternal light chapel of rest, mountaintop Letter Kenny this afternoon at 3 o'clock going to his late residence Wake is private to family, close friends and neighbours please with Rosary Knightley at 8 p.m Funeral mass in Christ the King Church, Gortha Hork on Wednesday afternoon at 1 o'clock with burial afterwards in the adjacent cemetery Funeral mass can be viewed live on the Gortha Hork parish webcam or on Kieran Rorty funeral directors Facebook page The death has taken place of William John McCrae 19 Carrigan's Road, Newton Stuart His remains are reposing at his son Gordon's residence 14 Carrigan's Road, Newton Stuart Funeral service at Gordon's home tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock followed by interment in Droit graveyard The death has taken place of Toulmarie Carandana His remains are reposing at his late residence funeral arrangements will be confirmed later The death has taken place of Kevin Quinn Grange Inch Island His remains will repose at his sister Margaret's residence at Grange Inch Island from 5 o'clock this evening Removal on Wednesday morning at quarter past 10 to our Lady of Lure Church, Inch for Requiem Mass at 11 o'clock Interment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery House private please to family and friends only Family time please from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. Family flowers only donations in Louis Desard to the Donegal Hospice care of any family member or Murphy funeral director The death has occurred of Elizabeth Bessie McLaughlin Cleaner Balli McGahn Bunkranna Her remains are reposing at her late residence Removal on Wednesday morning at 10 past 10 for 11 o'clock Requiem Mass in St. Mary's Church Cock Hill with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery Funeral Mass can be viewed live on churchservices.tv The death has taken place of Barbara Doherty, Bobby Westtown Mallon Head Funeral from her home this afternoon at half past 1 to star of the Seachurch Mallon Head for Requiem Mass at 2 o'clock House and funeral are strictly private to family only please The death has taken place of Mary Carey, Carol Begg Lechemi Cardona Mary's remains are reposing at Collins funeral home Cull Daff Removal and Wake for immediate family only please Requiem Mass for Mary will take place at 11 o'clock tomorrow in St. Columbus Church Balna Cray with interment afterwards in Balna Cray Cemetery to the Alzheimer's Society via Annie Family Member The death has taken place of Bridie McGoggan or her clay Mallon Bridie's remains are reposing at her residence Funeral Mass this morning at 11 o'clock in St. Patrick's Church followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery and the death has occurred of David Gibson, Killy very Newton Cunningham David's remains are reposing at his daughter's residence at 13 Donary Gardens Craigon Derry funeral from there this morning for Mass in All Saints Church Newton Cunningham followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery funeral mass can be viewed on newtonkillaparish.com for more details including any family health guidelines for wakes and funerals please go to highlandradio.com It's not just a sewing machine for Maya it's a chance to give her family a better life it's not just a way to make a living it's a chance to give her daughter an education like thousands of mothers Maya lives in fear of what the future holds for her little girl and it's not just this lent your love can make all the difference visit truchre.org or call 1800 408 408 truchre until love conquers fear okay you're welcome back to the program Greg I went to my bank last week to get a few Bob Sterling and it has to come out of your account if you do not have a count you can't walk into a bank and buy Sterling that's been like the that case for a long time because I think about two or three years ago we were doing that story and it was as it relates to tourists coming in and that set up complicating things for tourists so that's been around a while it seems Greg talking about these trees who cuts the trees on your land where they've grown so high they're almost hitting overhead cables is it ESB the countercanceller is the owners on the landowner anyone out there know what the situation is if you have trees on your property and they are beginning to sort of encroach on the ESB power lines whose responsibility is it to cut them back I know someone out there has been through that I'm sure and they're able to help us with that you are covered by your sort of road worthiness this is the NCT by the way if you can show a guard an email showing that you've applied for an NCT even though it is several months beyond the due date it's not necessary to stop driving just because there is a backlog on another point I was in a similar position where I couldn't book a test online for two months when I rang the NCT HQ I got a test at my local centre two weeks later the staff are very helpful and that's what I was suggesting if you ring the NCT staff they can accommodate it if there's a necessity I know what you're saying about an email that you've booked your test I just don't know if that's official you could come across a particular guard for instance who I think probably could do you for not having an NCT even if you had a letter that it was booked as I say you might be lucky they might go okay fair enough I don't know I wouldn't want to roll the dice on that one but thank you very much for your email and I know a lot of people do that as well by the way back to your post office in our post office they ask you the question and they fill it in so the people in the queue behind you hear all your information that's one of my bug bears that is and you do see it in some businesses whereby you have to divulge private information you know and what you're talking about is it within earshot especially if there's a microphone in the glass between you and they great did you know that on post will change your euros to sterling but they will not change sterling back to euros okay that's quite remarkable and although I went into the bank with two plastic bags of loose change to change into notes about 50 euro I had to lodge it into my account before they'd give me the cash because of money laundering regulations nonsensical I mean this is bureaucracy gone mad it certainly feels like it doesn't it really enjoyed the match yesterday this is the donagall game the atmosphere was amazing so good getting back to all things we enjoyed plenty of entertainment on the pitch and off the pitch also football at its best yeah indeed it really from an early stage seemingly listening to ashen's commentary kicked off into a cracking match from the get go it had all the twists and turns you'd expect and then obviously it's good to get the the result just look at the census form the personal questions on it no one should fill out these questions well that is anonymous and that's the system and that's to our benefit you know I wouldn't be listening to people discouraging you from filling it out firstly you could end up getting fined and secondly it's completely anonymous and this is the information that's used to determine whether a nursing home was provided in an area as it relates to schools policing and other areas you know I mean I know we're all up on edge about everything that's been going on but the census form is literally just a census form there's not a conspiracy everywhere a caller says I'm not saying you believe that to be a conspiracy by the way but there are lots of people out there that are trying to discourage people from filling it out and they won't be there to pick up the pieces when someone calls around and says why didn't you fill it out I recently went to the post office to get a post order for 52 euro and I got some the same line of questioning I don't mind having to do it if I was asking for over a thousand but for 52 euro it's ridiculous I think so yeah why is it for small amounts I think yeah a thousand does anyone know why the water has been turned off on an intermittent basis on weekdays up to 6 p.m. in the Clanglas Boncran area for the past year wow it's been going on for a year someone out there surely to know the answer to that will make our inquiries as well and finally just before we take the bingo numbers in relation to Will Smith hitting Chris Rock at the Oscars why is this type of violence accepted he should have immediately lost his Oscar for his behaviour yeah indeed but also I'm not in any way condoning the actions okay because firstly there's a lot of people and it's not the big blockbusters the spider man's and the Batman's and all those films aren't even considered this is pretentious nonsense I think a lot of it anyway but it's very important for small independent filmmakers maybe films to get a spotlight that don't normally get as many bombs on seats that will get a lift from the Oscars and in his act Will Smith he's stolen all the headlines everybody's talking about him that being said this crack of you know humour at the expense of somebody else which Chris Rock was responsible for that's boring that's old fashioned you know if you're a comedian get up on stage and make people laugh do you really have to insult people or insult their appearance and if you think of maybe you know younger people who had the same condition as Will Smith's wife and I'm referring to is that because her name escapes me at the moment I know she's a person in her own right you know you might be going into school today and getting the same G.I. Jane jokes I mean grow up you're a comedian come up with different jokes you know I'm not woke by the way and alter this that and the other but I know there's young ones that might have a similar condition or maybe going through treatment or maybe they are in a certain way by choice and they're going to get the same nasty sort of schoolyard kind of jokes that and inverted comments that Chris Rock came out with directed towards Will Smith's wife who apologize her name escapes me at the moment but it will come to me that doesn't condone the action either but listen let's have the conversation about if that is that really the type of humour that's truly entertaining I don't know just before the bingo by the way I want to let you know that you have an opportunity to win the holiday of a lifetime with us here at Highland Radio we're running competition that if you have the money and you like to buy tickets for things it could be for you the tickets are one euro for ten euro sorry one ticket for ten euro six for fifty or ten for eighty if you want to gift them okay so the more you buy the cheaper it becomes and what is up for grabs well it's a ten thousand euro voucher for a holiday of a lifetime or a series of holidays you know maybe you want to go back and forward from Alba Farah ten times well you can do that with your ten grand travel voucher and you also win fifteen thousand sorry you also win five thousand in spending money which makes it a fifteen thousand euro prize in total it's an association with Atlantic travel and you know yourself you can make up your mind as to where you might go if you win to do so all you have to do is buy a ticket we've already given away a wonderful holiday for two to Turkey the big prize is going to be drawn in just a short couple of weeks away the thirteenth of April so get on our website highlandradio.com and buy your tickets if you want to and being with the chance of winning one of you listening or entering will win that great prize okay more great prizes available for you now and you're supporting the National Council for the Blind of Ireland in playing it's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio it's Monday the 28th of March we're playing on the green sheet the reference number is S1 it's game number 13 the numbers are 9 75 37 51 30 78 48 14 68 and finally 38 phone your claim to 910 for 833 before it's next leave your name contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book and we'll call you back the next working day get all your NCBI Bingo information at highland radio.com the 9 till noon show with Kelly's Toyota Port Road letter Kenny where you can care for your Toyota with a two-year service pack from 299 euro long com has an exclusive beauty gift waiting just for you at McGee's Pharmacy simply purchase two long com products want to be skincare and receive your free six piece gift containing a full size to make comfort toner a choice of either hydrogen or absolute day and night travel size 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you time and money plus download the app today and you'll receive a 10 off 30 welcome voucher Dunne stores always better value terms and conditions apply welcome voucher can be used on the grocery shop of 30 euro or more at value Bali buffet has just got bigger yes we've opened store number two at Samarish Robonkrama and to celebrate one lucky customer will win 1000 euro of home eating oil simply call into the store during March and you will be entered into the draw at value or open Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. till 6 p.m. Sunday 10 a.m. till 5 p.m. with fantastic offers across both stores head value your one stop shop for all your animal needs okay coming up on the program a little later on Brendan Daveney will be reflecting on the weekend sport plugging his podcast but we're going to exploit that to find out what he thinks of all the action at the weekend alright we had the message in from a listener does anyone know why the water has been turned off on an intermittent basis on week days up to 6 p.m. in Klanglas Bunkranat for the last year thankfully councillor Rena Donahue was listening to that comment and Rena do you have an answer to that question for us yeah Greg that is a private group scheme and there's many private group schemes around the country and the pumps there need upgrading the pumps need to be upgraded and the pump hose and I'm told at this dawn there won't be full supply now I have spoken to one of the trustees and I have explained that now what needs to happen is that they meet with the the users on the scheme and discuss the problem there is money I've spoken to the county council last year the money is there and available for doing this so that that needs to be done the trustees need to talk to the residents and they need to get a resolution go back to the council and the money is there for them there is money set aside every year for that type of thing so there's no reason why that should be happening that can be sorted fairly quickly so those with the responsibility get in touch with the council the money's there and presumably then it comes down to as quick as they can get someone on site to fix the job yeah that's right do you know how many people are affected by it Rena maybe about 15 houses okay it's not insignificant but your water not knowing when you have water supply and it being off during the day it's a huge inconvenience in this day and age people can't put on dishwashers washing machines it's really inconvenient so the bulls in the trustees court is that what you're saying they need to talk to the residents and they need to talk to the county council I have already spoken to the county council early last year and the money is there so the pubs need to be upgraded okay simple as that right okay we'll chase that up thank you very much Rena appreciate you inform us of that alright take care bye bye sorry it's an actual e-mailer hi Greg why did Arland Lobby so very hard to successfully win a seat on the UN Security Council if all Arland ever intended to do was to sit on their hands while previously singing to the rafters about what a tremendous accomplishment it was to secure the UN seat and now Arland is nowhere to be found when it comes to securing a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine indeed but I just feel that we have rolled in behind the party the European party line though and I said it weeks ago I don't understand why we aren't using our unique position you could say to influence Cork University Hospital hospital took in 1.25 million Euro in car parking charges last year I mean that's a business in and of itself isn't it according to freedom of information files it's the highest amount collected at a HSE hospital in 2021 the total across 21 public hospitals was over 5.1 million so I mean that's quite a lot isn't it one consultant at Bowman Hospital Bill Tormey described the charges as a ripoff who could disagree 1.25 million euro I mean you'd want to know what that money was being used for we'll try and get the figures for the hospital locally to see how much it is in the past it's not been one of the highest but as I say we'll dig out those figures if the news team haven't already and bring them to you in other news the government is to pay 1 euro for every 3 euro a worker puts into their pension on to new plans the Irish independent reports today the proposals for enrollment system auto enrollment will go before cabinet this week it would see anyone earning above 20,000 euro a year automatically signed up to pension contributions employers will have to match what employees put in but expected to be done on a gradual basis so what do you think about that would you opt out is it the kick up the bomb maybe some of us need you know often we think we can't afford something but maybe you know if we're compelled in a certain direction we can find away what do you think 086 60 25,000 that's your whatsapp whatsapp and text number or give us a call on 074 9 125,000 okay very shortly on the program we're going to be joined by economist at Trinity College Ronan Lyons is the author to of the draft sorry it's the daft dot a report on house prices of lots of questions as it relates to this of course you know seems to be a discrepancy between not discrepancy but different figures and in different reports but we're going to find out exactly what the situation is from a daft dot i.e. perspective the headlines from that report has prices rose by 2.4% on average during the first three months of 2022 the average listed price nationwide in the first quarter of 2022 was 299 299,000 up 8.4% in the same period in 2021 increases remain small in urban areas compared to rural areas although the gap is narrowing and I hope now we might be able to say good morning to Ronan Lyons Ronan can you hear me okay Good morning thanks for having me on it's good to have you with us now you might just explain something to me if you don't mind and I'm not asking you to comment on or critique anyone else's information but I just couldn't help but notice in the independent the average has price in Donegal 132,500 but much higher in the daft dot i.e. index 50,000 odd in a difference 187 I believe it was I have the figures here in front of me somewhere why would there be such a big difference between the two figures coming out this morning Ronan Yeah I suspect that's just about the properties that they're looking at so in our report the figure that you have there is an average across all the different property types so from one bed apartments all the way through to five bed detached and bungles I think the Irish independent one is just the three bed I'm not sure if it's three bed semi-detached or I think it's a three bed home and that figure would be roughly in line with what we're seeing and there's a snapshot that we have in the report and it has three bed semi-detached in particular and the average for Donegal is about 125,000 euro and there's a lot of bigger houses in this part of the world as well so I think maybe doing it across the board particularly from a Donegal perspective might be more reflective of the reality and that's to say neither you or I are criticising that the model the independent use I'm just saying by the way you know Yeah no exactly each has a slightly different method and they all add something and what's nice about a three bed semi-detached you know exactly what you're looking at in different parts of exactly what you're looking at when you see a figure for the overall average as you say for someone like Donegal and there is a snapshot table in the report that gives one to five beds by county and you can see say for a five bed and Donegal the average value at the moment is 235,000 and for you know for many people in Donegal one of the attractions is that they get to live somewhere bigger than they would if they were living somewhere else so sometimes the having the variety of stats helps Right so in terms of I think your survey Roland is asking prices but presumably those prices are being achieved Yeah and in fact we have some supplementary analysis that will be coming out next week that looks at the matching the properties that are listed with the ultimate transactions and I don't want to give away the goodies but basically the results of that will be as you say on average the typical property sales were slightly above a couple of percentage points above its original listed price so that's why we are comfortable using listed prices because they're so current and at the moment the market is a little bit hot actually prices are above rather than below the listed price Yeah so often in the past we would have talked about house prices increasing Roland in Donegal and it was always you know from a low base where in terms of house value where do we sit now compared to the rest of the country Well by and large if you look at that overall all in average that we were just talking about 187,000 or so in the first quarter this year that's still within what you might call the best value five locations which are all sort of concentrated in the same part of the country and the cheapest county in Ireland is Litrum where average prices are 165,000 euro at the moment and between Litrum and Donegal in terms of the average price are Roscommon and Sligo and then around the same price point as Donegal are Mayo and Cavern. They're all sort of Donegal, Mayo and Cavern are all about 190,000 and what's interesting is that if you look at all there are six counties that I've named there and the seven I guess is Longford which is a round about the same but all of those counties have seen some of the biggest increases in prices over the last 12 to 18 months and I think that you can't pretend that that's not Covid, it's definitely Covid having an impact on where people are looking to buy their home. So that is what that really was the next question so we don't especially I suppose when you compare to urban areas there's more demand is there, it's not like in other words we don't have houses available, there's more demand people are looking to either return to or move to the likes of Donegal with remote work options that might be there, is that what's driving these increases? Exactly and there's strong demand and there's pretty tight supply as well so that Donegal increase year on year it's 187,000 euro now it was only about 150,000 a year ago so it's an increase of 33,000 euro in a year which is a much bigger increase than we're seeing elsewhere and that does tell us something about the supply demand imbalance if you want to put it that way to put a different type of number on it one way of looking at things is to see how many properties are available online to buy at any particular point in time and if you look at 2019 pre-COVID on average across Connacht Ulster there would have been about 18 or 1900 properties available to buy at any particular point in time that number now is below 600 so yes new supply has come on stream but demand has just been so much stronger that that number has just gone further and further down especially over the last 18 months and we'll fill out the census forms on April 3 it'll probably show again maybe 10 to 13,000 vacant houses in Donegal is that because the fact that maybe many of them are holiday homes or people are renting out second properties throughout BNB or whatever it might be they're preferring to hold on to their homes rather than free them up for them not free them up for the market but offer them on the market is that a factor? yes and in fairness to the people in the census office that they do especially in the last census because it's such an issue over the last few years they are asking why if a property is empty they'll ask their neighbors what's happening in the property next door is it a holiday home and they'll try and find out and in a place like Donegal a lot of the empty properties that will be empty on census now it will be empty because they're holiday homes it'll vary within the county obviously some bits are more holiday homes than others what we don't really have in this country and unfortunately given the situation we find ourselves in we don't have what you might call not quite sure already but maybe door ready properties that we can just move into that's not really the situation in cities we have older properties that will require quite a bit of work to get back into usage and often they're quite small in terms of cities and towns the older homes are smaller than people want now so we should get some indication whether it's dereliction versus you know just choice whether it's and obviously people are making comparisons between house prices now right and just before really the the recession our house what we're seeing at the moment is it linked to the economy generally is it any indicator as to you know maybe a recession is on the way or does this stand separate from it and we're only making that comparison because of you know that's when it happened does that make sense I mean it's a natural thing and you know I myself I'm looking at the different markets and I'm saying where are prices now compared to the peak in 2007 and in some places for example in Waterford or Limerick City prices are now within 10% of the peak at the Celtic Tiger in Donegal just for reference there are about 30% below the 2007 peak but the circumstances are different there's a worry you know that we might just be fighting the last war that what happened in the early mid-2000s was a credit bubble and that pushed up prices way above their fundamental value at a time when lots of new supply was getting added on so if you think of it of supply and real demand fighting it out and then credit just came along and pushed up prices now we have no additional supply or very little additional supply over the last 10 years and lots of extra demand over the last 10 years so in other words it was cash availability that was the that saw the drove prices in 2007 and now it's supply versus demand maybe more so exactly and maybe the easiest way of seeing that is rents were actually falling in the early 2000s while prices were rising because housing was reasonably abundant rents have been rising even more than sell prices so it's quite a different proposition this time around okay and very finely Ron I'm sure you're on great demand this morning is it a worry that is the most expensive Dublin or what does it matter and what's the situation there I mean Dublin in particular and the cities in general are amongst our most expensive market and Dublin is the most expensive market in the country and it has its own markets within it really what the issue there in some ways Covid has come as a bit of relief in being able to take some of the demand and spread it to elsewhere I suppose I would worry a little bit about complacency that a politician that's great we don't need new housing in the cities because people would just live across all the constituencies of Ireland look at the next election but that's not really the way it's going to work we still need homes built in the cities as well as homes built elsewhere yeah okay listen interesting as always Ron and thank you very much for your time we look forward to that additional information coming out next week that's Ron and Lion's economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the report with daft.ie so to explain the 132,000 price being listed in the Irish Independent is for your average three bed whilst the daft.ie which is up around the 187,000 mark that is across the board all houses you know from one beds to ten bed mansions and averaging it out The Nine to the Moon Shop brought to you by Kelly's Toyota a test drive Toyota's incredible self-charging hybrid range at our showroom Port Road letter Kenny HPV cervical screening is free to all women age 25 to 65 it's the best way to reduce your risk of developing cervical cancer in the future women over 50 are less likely to attend screening but you're still at risk so it's important to attend your appointment when you're invited to check you're on the register visit hse.ie or free phone 1-800-4545 55 from the HSE this summer holidays are go with 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can book it now at DiscoverNorthernIreland.com travel advice and guidelines apply visit NIDirect.gov.uk and check ahead with providers alright we've got some live music coming up for you before 11 but delighted to welcome and studio now our next guest who is not going to sing unfortunately for us Rosa Glacken from the North West Regional sorry the North West Regional President of St Vincent de Paul Rosa how are you keeping this nurse it's great to see you again right I mean obviously what we're talking about and we're all feeling the pressures the squeeze you know discretionary spending you know food versus fuel but you're right there at the cold face have you seen a worsening in people's situation Rosa absolutely as you say it's food or fuel I think one of the most important things that people forget is Donegal has a huge rural community who are dependent on cars to get either to their place of work in some cases to bring children to school to do their food shopping get to banks post offices they have to have a car and of course the cost of the fuel rising day by day yeah and of course like you could go to get your NCT done they could come back and say look there's a a fold here it could be three or four hundred euro to repair you know spring or shock so whatever it might be people haven't decided to put the car off the road because they simply could not afford that one off big bill to get around yeah we're having people coming with all sorts of problems like that Greg and we do our best to help in all situations but I have heard of people where they have put fuel in the car and hadn't enough you know to bring children to school where they missed a day or two and I think that's tragic all together are the alternative as you say to cut back on the food and then you worry about the nourishment for the family the quality of food exactly yes and you know we are getting calls from people many people now huge increase in the number of calls completely stressed as they should be or would be with this rising cost in the cost of living and also with bills coming in you know electricity we all know the energy bills are rising also and even though there is a subsidy in place for the moment bills still have to be paid and they're rising all the time and this rising cost is casting a big net isn't it? the lowest of incomes but it's those maybe on greater incomes but maybe with more children or college going children or you know that we're literally just scraping away and every increase drags them down further yes it's throwing the household budget out the window really because as you say it's leaving people with very stark choices and causing enormous stress just as it relates to the transport side of things I mean as you mentioned many of us live in rural Donegal and we're being priced out of the cars through taxation or through increases but there's no alternatives there's no alternatives for the hospital visit there's no alternatives to go to a local office or to shop and quite interestingly I think you've used this as an opportunity to say look we need to look at rural transport what's going on here absolutely it's something I've always been talking about we're very very poorly served in rural areas and as I say people have to travel such a distance for the basics and you mentioned hospitals there many times we get calls from to go to Galway or Dublin quite often their appointments are very early in the morning so they have to go the night before and somebody with them and stay in accommodation and you know this is a huge stress in a family where there might be a serious illness so again we're very sympathetic in these situations and in terms of your resources to support people Rosa I mean the general population continued to be generous do they completely the Irish people are amazingly generous in Donegal in particular and don't forget we have our shops which is a major source of income for us and people continue to support our shops both with goods and their custom and we're delighted about that as well so the message we're getting out Greg is that we're here we're ready to help we're very anxious to help people and asking people to make that first call which is not an easy one and we're also delighted we're back face to face able to visit people again and form those friendships that we have done before yeah and we've talked about this before and it goes in cycles and we're back talking about people who may never in the past have felt that they would ever need to reach out to the likes of St Vincent de Paul for assistance to say correct there's no you know there's no shame in it there's no weakness in it this is what this organisation is for and when you get back on your feet well then you can maybe contribute and help others isn't it that's what what it's all about and it's confidential that's the big word that we would use everything is confidential and we treat people with dignity and respect and when you say about people getting back on their feet can I just also mention we're in the middle of a recruitment campaign we're driving a big campaign to recruit new members so we're very anxious that people you know who may have time now for one reason or another may like to become a member of a local conference or maybe like to volunteer in one of our shops or help out in our housing or even if they haven't the time for that maybe to help with our church gate collection but we're very anxious and as I said earlier rural areas in particular we're very lone members particularly since the pandemic where maybe older members feel they're no longer able to do that work so we'll appeal to people if they feel they have that time and feel that they could contribute their time we would be delighted to hear from them Excellent and as I said before you know we don't all have money to help other people but you can help other people with your time and that's very useful too Rosa what kind of assistance can you offer to people through St Vincent de Paul? Well it's always what we have done Greg is food and fuel so from the fuel point of view we might get cold delivered in some cases heating oil but that's you know very iffy at the moment with the cost and vouchers for their local stores so people can go and buy their own groceries and so on and as I say assistance maybe with somebody travelling with serious illness and as always with education we do help students and support students because rents are rising and so on and their costs are pretty significant also So the message ringing out today again as well too as well as for volunteers for St Vincent de Paul and to support St Vincent de Paul is to our elected representatives we need to make rural transport improvement an absolute priority this is the difference between I'm not going to say life and death it could be as stark as that but being able to live and get around and not being able to do that Rosa That is a serious consideration I've always said that and in smaller villages now post offices have closed guard the stations people have to travel so as you say we do need that infrastructure that have been sorely neglected in that field If people want to support St Vincent de Paul if the church goers if they see some collecting give us generously as you can there support the shops which you say is very important either donating or purchasing stuff from there I presume they can go to your website if they want to contribute as well Go into the website yes directly or if they wish drop something into the local shop elected representatives can try and ease the burden as I say fuel versus food let's get proper rural transport and give us the option who maybe want to cut down our carbon footprint as well it's not always a financial decision everything is moving in that direction that's what we should be doing Rosa anything you want to add before we wrap things up Again to thank people for their support but also to encourage anybody sitting at home stressed and worried to make that call to us So a lot of work for you Rosa Well our volunteers are very busy but they're very generous with their time and commitment Listen thanks for your time this morning and your ongoing commitment as well I really appreciate it Rosa Glacken there 08 660 25000 your whatsapp and text to that number give us a call at 07 491 25000 All right stay with us more on the way with over 45 years of experience trust us to help you on your electric journey if you're starting a new business in 2022 call into bizprint today and get sorted logo design, invoice books, business cards and all your printing needs call bizprint at 4 pro letter Kenny on 911 7995 or visit bizprint.ie this year in homestore and more we've more for your garden than ever before we have a great range of garden furniture fat on corner sets, dinner sets, gazebos and much more with barbecues, gas, charcoal or smoker all 33% off be warm and cozy with our selection of outdoor heating also 33% off and enjoy those longer evenings with our range of solar lights and garden decor visit us in store or shop online at homestoreandmore.ie make your garden your sanctuary homestore and more, a happy home Mike Denver in concert with guests Phil Emina Begley, Ray Lineham and Brendan Shine at the Millennium Forum Dairy on Saturday April 23rd tickets at the theater box office that's Mike Denver in concert at the Millennium Forum with Phil Emina Begley, Ray Lineham and Brendan Shine on Saturday April 23rd lingering sunsets in Spain captivating coastlines in Croatia dinner overlooking Lake Como it's time to stop dreaming and start doing let us guide you to your dream destination just show up, suitcase in hand and we'll take care of everything flights, accommodation, excursions expert local guides and all that planning secure your spot now on a guided group tour with deposits from 100 euro see traveldepartment.com I've shown and operated for over 25 years travel department, let's see more on this airport, you're flying OK, let's look at the weather then a dry morning with good sunny spells a few showers might break out in the afternoon and evening temperatures 13 to 16 degrees coolest along well the further east you go in light easterly or variable breezes, you're very welcome back to the program of course, I want to welcome into studio now Cormac Freel, good morning to you Cormac thanks for joining us Hello Greg, nice to be here your wife Kelly were recently down at a late late show performance and you were moved by so moved by it that you've decided to, you know, perform a song write a song, you wrote the song did you that's right, tell us about that experience it was the night Charlie Byrd was on that's right, it was back in December and yeah so Kelly, my wife managed to get his tickets for the late late and yeah listening it was a great night Charlie Byrd was a guest and listen I suppose anybody who's seen it that night I think was moved by I think the really the vulnerability that he showed you know I suppose when somebody's gone through something as difficult as that it must be so hard to actually speak out to the whole nation about the struggles you're going through and I think the fact that he was so you know his empathy for other people was really the thing that had hit home I think for people you know the fact that he's gone through such a struggle but he still was advocating for other people who are and a lot of the time something like that there what were you doing it's understandable too because everyone has to make their own choices you know you shut up sharp you like your door you sort of deal with it with your family but he used the opportunity to speak publicly and I would say for everyone were surprised at how it impacted so many people at the same time it was unbelievable you know climbs and walks being organized all over the country it really resonated with people didn't it? Exactly you know it just reverberated out after the interview was shared online and I suppose I think it showed a depth as well to the man that you know we would have known from as a newscaster and journalist you know he I think one thing that really hit me as well so aside from obviously everyone knows he's a modern neuron diagnosis and it was very obvious from his voice that it was already having an impact on his function and it's a deteriorating condition so you know that was impactful enough but then the other layer to it was the fact that there was a man in the audience that he well the man actually credited Charlie with saving his life you know from and that was through this guy when he was a young man bumped into Charlie by coincidence at a hotel in Dublin and Charlie was at work but he took some time out of his day to speak to this guy and he realized pretty quickly this man was in a dark place and he spoke to him and spent some time with him and that man now credits Charlie Byrd with actually stopping him from going through with whatever he was trying to do. Which has an amazing impact to have on people so you have how long have you been singing songwriting? Yeah so I suppose I've always played music but it's mostly being actually in the background so I've been a drummer and a few cover bands since I was a teenager and it's only more recent years I've started I suppose looking more inwards and doing a little bit of songwriting and it's not something I've actually done very publicly so a lot of people who know me don't know me in this light but it's something I suppose I have a bank of songwriting But in a way do you think I'm not sure when it started when you're stepping out from behind the drum kids and putting yourself out there a bit more with your songwriting because it's really quite personal in some way did you get some inspiration for what Charlie Byrd was doing you talked earlier on about the fact that he's putting himself out there in a way you're doing that too and obviously in a completely different scale and it's through a lot but you take some encouragement from that that's the type of impact he has in all areas of life I think Of course like if somebody can and can go out publicly with that from such a tough place I think there's a lot of us who have talents and have passions but we don't actually show them to the world and something we keep and look maybe that suits some people I feel like when I have this I suppose I use songwriting as well as a way of processing things and that was what this initially was a few days after we were at the late late and everything else I just penned a few words and it wasn't initially a song it was just I suppose me more trying to come to an understanding of what I had seen and heard and then I suppose later turned into a song and I suppose that was a real natural way that it progressed then I suppose it was only really a couple of weeks ago when Kelly convinced me to actually record it and she said listen the walks are coming up on the 2nd of April so many people in the country are getting behind this you need to put this out and actually at least get it to Charlie Bird himself and I was delighted to be able to do that to actually send it through to Charlie last week and then he subsequently replied with a lovely email thanking for the song and he was so grateful for it you know and as much as emotion can be in an email it was in an email and you got the endorsement from the person that inspired you to write the song so what's the song called you're going to play it for us now are you yes it's called Every Bird every bird it's called Early Bird every bird okay right take it away then so this is Cole McFriel and his song Early Bird written after he saw first hand Charlie Bird's interview on the Late Late Show whenever you're ready what can you say when everyone knows his voice what can you say when fate removes choice love one another and take care of the ill speak to your stranger if they aren't fulfilled keep moving forward as you reach for the sky and know every bird needs to fly the higher the mountain the more strength you gain the mark that is left on all that remains one step at a time to the top of the hill one step back in time one memory one thrill when you're standing on top of all you've created looking back pieces vacated carved out forever is your place in their hearts even if you're not present you're never apart love one another and take care of the ill speak to a stranger if they aren't fulfilled keep moving forward as you reach for the sky and know needs to fly and know needs to fly shoulder to shoulder man, woman and child our thoughts and prayers all compiled free free honesty and an open door a message to the nation that strikes to the core love one another and take care of the ill speak to a stranger if they aren't fulfilled keep moving forward as you reach for the sky and know needs to fly needs to fly I suppose there's loads of them happening there's at least 20 in Donegal and many more all around the country and if you log on to climbwithcharley.ie there you can find there's a map of the whole country and all the walks are taking place there and you can find details of them you can also donate so listen people are raising money all over the country for two charities the Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association and Pieda House so listen it would be great if people can take part on Saturday, find a local walk and if they could play some donation as well that would be fantastic well done Comerc, you did great Comerc for you there, thank you very much indeed appreciate it okay you are tuned to the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio another hour to come on the programme stay right where you are it's time for a news update and it's over too and good morning to Donald Kavanaugh thank you great good morning, 15 new jobs are to be created in the Colab facility on the letter Kenny it's over the next 18 months Zinc Works, an Athlone based telecommunications and financial services company is establishing a software engineering hub supported by IDA the regional manager of IDA Northwest says it's particularly important announcement in the week that letter Kenny IT is preparing to transition into full technological university status 2.32 million has been confirmed in funding for housing adaptation grants for older people and people with disabilities in Donegal, 80% of the money coming from with matching funding from Donegal County Council it's an increase of €566,000 on last year's figure the HSE got over €5 million in car parking charges at public hospitals last year according to freedom of information files the average was €244,000 per hospital 21 hospital car parks are covered in the figures no figures are available for the hospitals in letter Kenny or Sligo the largest amount received in any one hospital was €1.25 million in Cork followed by €657,000 in Galway the average price of house in Donegal is now €188,000 according to daft.ie that's 65% above its lowest point in the first quarter of the year between January and the end of March prices in the county were 22% higher than they were a year previously in 2021 the rise over the same period the year before was 3% regarding warning business premises in Donegal which would stock large amounts of cigarettes that the last number of days has seen a number of break-ins in such premises across the country particularly in western counties Crime Prevention Officer Sergeant Paul Wallace says there is clearly a well-informed and prepared organized gang operating and when this has happened in the past Donegal has been targeted he is urging such businesses to be aware of the danger and to review their security and we're back with news headlines again OK Donegal, thank you very much indeed we're back with more on the program after the break the 9 to the Moon Show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota Test Drive Toyota's incredible self-charging hybrid range at our showroom Port Road, Letter Kenny and welcome bonus switch today Electric Ireland we are brighter together estimated annual bill 2019 euro electricity and gas discounted unit rate including stone charge, PSO, levy and carbon tax 24 month contract, T's and C's apply see electricarland.ie Wet and Wild is your one stop shop for outdoor clothing, footwear and equipment to enjoy the Donegal Outdoors and adventure travel abroad Wet and Wild stock all the leading outdoor brands of rainwear, waterproof footwear sandals, tents, gullar boxes flasks, insect repellents swimwear, marino socks and sunglasses and our fully stocked for the summer season right now in the darkest times we can struggle to find the brightness but during darkness into light every person has the power to be a light against the dark every alarm set every step taken every sunrise shared helps support those impacted by suicide vital funds for PIETA's life saving work so please join PIETA and Electric Ireland for darkness into light on Saturday May 7th sign up now at darknessintolight.ie because everyone who runs walks and watches the sunrise shows we're brighter together proudly supported by Electric Ireland Donegal Hearing Clinic now open up your short letter Kenny and Bunkranna now offering state of the art rechargeable hearing aids free with your PRSA also pain free micro suction wax removal services call 07491 double 8470 or donegalhearingclinic.ie life sounds brilliant with Donegal Hearing Clinic mom why did I call it Scottish cheese it's cottage cheese honey and I'm not sure do dogs in other countries speak different languages yeah I think so when will we get there we'll fix the car first but there's someone coming to help us is it the man from Geneva not Geneva he's from Aviva oh there's the van now for car insurance with breakdown rescue it takes Aviva visit Aviva.ie to save 15% acceptance criteria terms and conditions apply minimum premium of 310 euro 15% discount applies to new policies bought online see Aviva.ie for details welcome back to the 90 noon show here on Highland Radio and we're previewing another show here in Highland Radio which is the DL debate available for you to podcast a little later on but also for you to listen after the 7 o'clock news and lots to talk about yesterday Survival Sunday it was being labelled as Donegal Survived Brendan your assessment of how they survived the way we look at the league it was called Survival Sunday was anybody won in the league and it tells you a lot about our Allianz league particularly the top flight everybody wants to be in it I don't really think that many teams are worried about it exactly so Survival Sunday was coming right down the wire in the last year five teams could get on their league final and five teams could be relegated which just shows you the type nature of it so what happened yesterday in terms of how the teams lined out right because you know we're looking forward to the championship and as excited as we got about the league you know the championship is the championship Armagh gonna face Donegal in the championship so in terms of how the teams lined out and the approach to that game how did the both managers go into that game like were they trying to not give too much away in the championship was it all about winning that game tell us Armagh couldn't Armagh could afford to rest like they were safe and they didn't want to be in a league final so it was a very strange position for them and I think it's a funny thing you can't really put the handbrake on too much because you know it's all about up up up and if you drop it at any stage you can create a funny mentality that said Armagh rested three of their better players just they were named in the program and they didn't start which told everybody in the ground that they wanted to I suppose give Donegal a game maybe not necessarily won it but not get in the league final but you know still they're playing in four weeks time and they wanted to put up a bit of a game because when they put on those players they really went that Donegal pushed up on the kick out and then the game was there to be won Armagh should have stole it at the end they had two guilt edge chances to hit the winner I was very surprised at that now because it could have catapulted them on their final in two weeks time with Kerry and I just couldn't see how the mindset would be but there was a huge Armagh crowd there unbelievable okay he's in there it was packed so I think the crowd was affecting that we've seen a row after that the passion kind of came through in the players they started to kick in the gear and they had Donegal in the rack I'm surprised we ended up winning the game was the missed penalty at all crucial in that because as I say you saw it I was listing the game seemed to turn from that perspective yeah it did and even at that point you wouldn't have thought that we still had a three point cushion I think at that stage and it would have maybe three or four would have put us in their position we definitely would have won the match everybody musted you didn't think that much about it although then that's a third penalty in a row we've musted you know two from Michael one from McBurdy against Mayo at the start of the season of course the famous one against Tarone last year which you know penalties have by and large been converted mainly at the minute so that's probably something that's a bit of an issue going into it you're going to tell Michael he's not taking penalties because I'm not no listen then Michael we trust you know listen they obviously a night feed player in nets and I think if Michael put it the way he normally does it would have been over and out but no I think he'll get that right I mean he was unlucky against Tarone he hit the post but that the game that hints in that but Arma seemed to get a bit of belief from that Greg and then they had a goal chance right after which we really would have put us on the back foot wide a lot of questions to be asked now Arma did show their hand in many ways and how they're playing and how their players are operating so did we change did Dona goal change sorry first and second half or did Alma very few I think what two or three wides in the first half almost scoring for fun second half the wide started to creep in obviously you say Arma changed their approach to the game brought on you know the stars to the tip so like which Dona goal is going into the championship if you know what I mean like should we have been able to adapt a little bit more in the second half for example because Arma obviously can mid game can switch it up do we have that capability we have a way of a full team there you know we had a few players missing yesterday you know vital players around the mid feeling that now Langen was back with Brandon the same and it was no coincidence he was involved in that one and scored then because certain players in our team dictate a lot of stuff that we do particularly Michael and Patrick and Langen yesterday that's huge you know so the players if we have a full squad back Greg is going to be vital for us because we need those extra couple of players around the middle particularly the likes of Keely McGonagall's been doing well for us and Thompson as well the likes of Yash and Gal if we could get them back Jimmy Brennan's only coming back from injury all them are going to have to be at their best to beat the Sarma team because they've been flying in the league and they showed yesterday when they put it up to us that they squeezed up their kick out we were struggling and there was a couple of aspects of the game particularly on the kick out we were we were looked at panicked and they kind of had our number which is that short kick out we had some patterns brilliant at it but when they squeezed up we had to go long when we went long there was extra our mad numbers here we need to sort that out the other big thing we need to sort out is defenders being in forward positions and our forwards being in behind them you know we've really got our positions badly mixed up with the minute you know and our top players our flair players likes of Padre Mogan's and Ryan McEusenies seem to be back behind our defensive times and then our quarterbacks and our halfbacks are up the pitch and when they get into a certain position the players are drifting out of position or is that tactical? I suppose because the nature of the game players are back and forward but we seem to have then our defensive players in right up and corner forward now times and when they get it then our mad boys are almost backing off them that means covering an awful lot of grass over the course of a full match too we've got the likes of as I say Mogan and McEunim coming back taking the ball off pattern so they're in that very first phase so when it gets up to where they need to be we end up with a defender or a halfback into the move which is something we need to sort out radically because we have good players our issues and our defence we need to keep our defenders back and release our talented boys forward so with players coming back into the only goal with Armagh showing what they have when they put the team out it's going to be another maybe high scoring tight game in four weeks who's going into that game as favourites? I want to talk about that what is the consequences of that you talk about how everyone people maybe had an eye on the championship like there could be players suspended off the back of that I mean for all we've talked about for all the build up for all the trying this, that and the other in leagues for all of looking to try and get players back for the championship if this game is damaged from a spectator's point of view players getting suspended or punished in whatever way it might be for that route at the end of the game it's crazy you know the atmosphere yesterday and I think just McGeanys, Mandra always with the teams he's coached you're not going to push us about and when you have a situation you're not going to push us or enforce us and then Dunny got to respond to that or vice versa, whoever started it Greg you're in, they have funny scenario and then everybody comes all in now it's the kind of scene the GAA are mad keen to stamp out and they've been very forceful around people joining melees or getting stuck in because as a city there's a couple of players in our team that really orchestrate a lot that we do if we're a Muslim one or two of them it's a vantage in our vice versa so it remains to be seen what action will be taken what are the significance of the likes of a lot of you know, Leinster clubs slip down a division I'm not sure how that was approached on the Sunday game, I don't know if you watched that I don't watch it but I was hearing back that you know you're embedded at that stage well it's not that, it's just you know what I would like to see in this country, Brandon, is to actually not be about the personalities of the pundits trying to wind up the audience crapping all over Ulster football just for the crack focusing on the handbags rather than the actual game distraction, crap, trying to get some traction, trying to be controversial because I know they're sent out there to say right, what are we going to row about today we need to wind up so I'm not even engaging that, I'd prefer to listen to someone like yourself or your guests or you actually know the game, you've played it recently and you talk about what happened on the pitch so that's why, also I was in bed you've probably got a big seven inch plasma on there, you're right what age are you, I thought you were into your tech plasma, come on anyway so did you watch it last night and how was the I'm a bit like that and I don't mean straight up I don't really listen too much to the pundit, I like to get an idea I mean, fascinating game, it's a high score I mean Monhans 313, WM 1118 and then Mayo 220 Kildare 18 and even the carry through match, big, big score, ours was the lowest of those games so there's a lot going on in those matches which is probably positive looking at the game going forward with scores in it but as for Sunday games, I'm more lucky to get the highlights of it just to see what's happening they're reacting to it, I'm not that worried you want to see the images, you're not too interested in the waffle I'll just wake up and make no mind, but as you said see the guys that were talk to there the likes of Aaron Kiernan coming on to show Mark McHugh in that yesterday there's much more of a real talk you know Alan Foley it's more of a real talk and you're right, I would get that with Sunday game, there is a bit of an element of particularly with the likes of Pat Splannin guys with spark and things up and of course they kicked Broly out because he was saying they were giving him notes to say they were telling him the basis of what to say and he wouldn't have that, well that's his reason he said that's where he worked I think it should be about the players, the managers the performance, the pundits should be I mean obviously it has to be somewhat entertaining, but they should not be the show and we're still seeing that too with the live games and people want to tune into it, I know some people do but it's not actually, I want to see a breakdown and analysis, I want people to sort of say what's happening on the pitch in different zones not just sort of antagonistic if you look at soccer, there's so many highlight shows or versions of it that the Sunday games can just only one and it's going to be unchecked in terms of there hasn't been a rival show yet right, okay, well listen, there'll be no waffle from Mark McHugh Aaron Kearn you mentioned Alan Foley's on the show but it's not just about the football at the weekend there's an awful lot to get through on the deal debate this week, yeah we're going to round up everything in the league as I say Alan after the match yesterday he was doing his stuff, getting ready for his democrat output so I underviewed him there and the same as Mark McHugh, just after the game, so I'm going to speak to Aaron Kearn in this evening and feedback from Mickey McCann as well Donegal coming up just short by a point against Slago in the hurling league semi-final but that's fine too because the Vison 2B has been somewhere that Donegal haven't been able to mix it and stay in quite often than now they're very much stabilised, I mean that is a big jump up there again I think Mickey himself is happy to be in 2B I think you can go up too quick as you say get stability and be confident in your placing a start league and then look to move forward the fall can be very quick and then you're in against a completely different class of counties again and see with hurling in particular they're just as skillful speedy side that you're right you need to build up football sometimes you can contain teams you can see lesser teams contain teams you can't do that in hurling that's why I think Mickey's happy now to be stabilised and solid in 2B and looking forward to the championship 2B or not 2B that's the question we're back to punching duty so the deal debate Brandon's up working on it now it'll be available as a podcast later it's broadcast then after the 7pm news this evening so whether you want to listen and it's scheduled or if you're out for a walk or a run this evening while the weather's good you can listen to that as well the guests are Brandon of course Mark, well he's not a guest he's a presenter Mark McHugh, Aaron Kearn and also Alan Foley who's to say what else might turn up listen Brandon well done thanks very much as always alright take care of yourself as a presenter of the DL Debate there was a bit of argy-bargy at the end of the DLG game yesterday it was nothing too serious but probably not a great example for we Johnny and Mary who'd have been at the game or watching on TV I'd say a fair few players and both managers could be a bit nervous now about any action if any that might be taken by the Paris our mom might be more nervous as they already had a brawl with Turon back in February anything to that Brandon before I let you go yeah certainly I was at that game actually a game once it kicked off it was Turon got the four sent off and was a big hamper to them in the next match they were missing those guys so yeah there is a bit of form there it's an Ulster thing there's needle there Greg and it comes back to not taking a step back but if you're on the Don and Gold panel now you want to play the best on my team though you don't want to see players suspended for that game do you? or do you? is it about getting... is it about... If the like of Big O'Neill who came on just about he is some player I mean he hits the ball over from 40 or 45 yards most players would do it from about 20 he's just got something about him so I wouldn't mind now if he had to miss the game obviously listen good stuff alright we'll be back with more after the break Extra Special Medium Cabery Cream Eggs, Buttons, Kit Kat and Smarties Eggs just 165 each that's 3 for under 5 euro Large Cabery Twirl, Whisper and Maltesers Eggs just 3.99 each and treat the kids with Easter Egg on favorites from just 79 cent Visit Aldi or click and collect so on your marks Egg Set Go! Plus 5 grand spending money! Are you worried about trees on your property? Northwest Forestry Services Balibuffet are fully insured over 40 years experience in dangerous tree removal, tree felling, surgery and stump grinding for peace of mind call Northwest Forest Services Balibuffet for no obligation quotation on 9132033 On the night of April 3rd we'll all come together to fill out our census forms and the information you provide will help show where essential services are needed in every part of the country so on Sunday April 3rd be a part of Ireland's future, be counted Visit census.ie to find out more Take It To The Limit is a celebration of the Eagles by Johnny Brady Simon Casey, Nigel Connell and The Sheeran Family You can hear Take It To The Limit for one night only at the Millennium Forum Dairy on April 14th That's Johnny Brady, Simon Casey Nigel Connell and The Sheeran Family Band as they perform Take It To The Limit a celebration of the Eagles of Easter Sunday April 14th Tickets are £28 now on sale and the theatre box office are online from millenniumforum.co.uk OK you're very welcome back to the 9 till noon show now our Monday focus is on a new legal information clinic we'll bring you new information about a legal information clinic we are joined in studio now by two guests first of all Mary Maguire manager of the centre good morning to you thank you for joining us good morning Greg thank you for having me up this morning it's good to have you with us sorry and Dr Brona Hevron law lecturer at LYIT good morning to you doctor thank you for joining us again delighted to be here Greg thanks OK right tell us about this new legal it is a new public legal information clinic it's opening at the Donegal Women's Centre do you want to set it up for us first Mary yeah sure last year I think there was a funding call for a community funding call coming from the department of children equality disability integration and youth and it was focusing on the LGBT community and I think throughout our work with the LGBT community we saw there was a gap in information in access to legal information and just there had been a lot of changes and how we were going to address the gaps in information sharing information giving we collaborated with the law department in the LYIT and submitted our funding and we were absolutely delighted to receive over 62,000 we were one of the fourth highest in the country so it's a massive project we're delighted it's coming to Donegal and it's being showcased I suppose the work that you know that we can do the street legal clinic can provide to anybody who identifies with the LGBT community yeah Brona can you tell us what gaps might be there what areas say for instance that members of the LGBT I plus community you know what information gaps that they can fill with engaging with this initiative I suppose the first thing is to be clear that even that question is not clear in the sense that what we want to do is get them to tell us where the gaps in knowledge are legal rights can be really complex both through ignorance of them and then accessibility to them so it's really opening the door a lot of their rights and information are the same as other groups but they don't appreciate that so it's really trying to I suppose the objective of this is to customize the information that's shared that it's very much directed towards their interests and needs that they identify so there's something Mary that people might feel well that's not relevant to me or that's not about me so even if it is it's a case of however maybe have an insight however one might come to have that feeling it's about saying well no actually the law's there for all of us and that's exactly it Greg the law is there for everyone and LGBT rights are human rights also and to get the conversation going it's to empower the LGBT community to have their voice to gain the knowledge to realize that maybe some of this information is for them it might be on issues they haven't thought about it might be on things that they haven't come up about yet and that's the beauty of having a group is that they will inform each other and we will be informed as well so it's really a collaborative approach and it's not a one size fits all and that's the beauty of how we've set it up so that it is for everyone and everyone is individual and has their own experience is this also going to have the effect of you know because it can be a very difficult time in the rural part of this country at the best of times but especially if you're going through your old journey who you are you feel different well part of this too maybe eliminate if there is a sense of them and us in that like that it's all us the first phase of our program is legal literacy so it's going to be about the law generally and their access to it then we hope to look at things that are particularly they feel are very pertinent to them and we'll allow them to drive that conversation so there will be bespoke sessions then on those areas but I suppose the key part of this Greg is the methodology we're going to use which is called street law it's not about us going in and telling them this is the law it's about an interactive methodology where we work with them to effectively organically surface those issues that are most relevant to them in their day-to-day and we'll address those then we will customize the remaining workshops to address those it's about empowering them but giving them that voice and its information a bit of ownership too of it because it's yeah absolutely yeah I mean it's actually quite an interesting project beyond the legal advice isn't it because it gives people a voice and a platform and to create something that is tatered and relevant I mean it would be great for everybody absolutely and you used where their advice it's not even going to be that specific it's very much information and as Mary said we're hoping to create a community so that then they can use each other effectively their own knowledge will be broadened and they'll know how to access the law and how to use those bits that are most relevant to them you know they can do the fine tuning in terms of turning it into advice ours is to give them to open the doors you know show them that the laws it is is there for them and there will be gaps in the law and then that'll give them those hopefully the skills the citizenship to advocate more for what they recognize as their needs okay so the legal information clinic tell us Mary who it's not like how people engage with it how it's how it's being established and all that was often in its different stages yeah well I suppose that today is the start of the recruitment process so first of all we need the participants so I think we're appealing to anybody who is themselves identifies themselves as members of the community or they have a family member or a friend and they see that this is actually a good step for them that they can contact the project coordinator and I'll give out the details shortly and then it'll be getting the group together and you know like Ronas says then you know it'll be the roll out then of the of the clinics and there'll be a mixture of face to face they'll be interactive they'll be online and it'll be driven by the group and whatever they want so a lot of work has gone in and there will also alongside that we will have a counselor available from Donegal Women's Center to meet with each of the participants just to offer that extra support because we are aware that there are other issues that could come up you know there can be triggers within a group issues can come up and can be very personal and they you know be still suffering from it and so we will be providing a counselor to offer that support alongside with us I think they know they're engaging with an understanding process here this is about not adding to anyone's situations too now I know it's for those 17 plus but I'm just thinking maybe someone might be a parent or a guardian of a 14, 15, 16 year old that might go well there's a few things that we wouldn't mind getting some clarity on in terms of the legal elements of things is this you know it is prescriptive in that it is for 17 plus isn't yeah at the moment I think is to keep the safety and the confidentiality of the the group that we made a conscious decision just for now you know this is the first of its kind that we're aware of that we would make it specifically to those who identify with the community and there's nothing to stop us from you know developing this even further down the line suppose we're aware that you know it's going to go as quite a rural community and chances are there are a lot of older members of the community who will never have had this opportunity to look at law to come together as a group and we are looking possibly to develop a group of older members of the community so that they have you know peer support it is interesting because I have spoken to that community a few times some on air and off air and they do kind of feel left behind yeah that's you know everything is about a next generation yet there's gaps there and that's really one of the really driving forces of the project when we were putting it together was to tap into the older members of the community who may have all of their lives remained you know the sexuality their orientation has remained completely confidential to themselves and we want to give them the opportunity to link in with others and to empower them just that they have a voice in their own community as well and that was one of the reasons because the issues pertaining to that age group will be very different to the issues you know for the younger group so we thought it was just important for now to keep them separate yeah more generally speaking Bruno maybe it's not more generally speaking though you know is the law equal to all of us though you know what I mean and I know that's a wider question and we don't really have time to get into it now but you know I mean obviously from time to time in different areas we would speak to people the law doesn't seem equal to them well the bottom line is equality is the law is the starting proposition and you're quite right though quite often it isn't equal and I'd say access is probably one of the biggest barriers and this is one of the primary purposes of this is to take down one of those barriers and at least by giving information about the law then they'll number one become more aware of it but they will become advocates for those gaps if there are gaps in the law and part of my ignorance when you talk about access like why would access be different a member of the LGTBI plus community and a person who is not a member of that community who doesn't identify it as where is the access difficulty there just if you take it very simply should like family law as a general term some of them may not recognise or appreciate that they come within the legal definition of a family you know so it's just as I say it could be very simple and to be fair in terms of who it's available to I mean Mary's right this is our first iteration so we're addressing where the gap is where the area parent gap is right now we would hope in two ways to make this sustainable we'll have graduates if you want to call it of this programme who will share it with others and that will generate more information through peer mentoring we also hope to develop some asynchronous digital resources which would be made available to the likes of parents of potential members of this community as well and I suppose Greg as well just to make it really really clear there's no entry requirements like the prerequisite for this is only a desire to know whether the area they're eligible you know because that's sadly one of the barriers as well is that people think well that isn't quite for me I know you don't want people to say well that is it for me it's not for me there are ideas that you will engage and then we'll see if you're asking that question it probably is for you if you're not sure whether it's for you then it might well be for you the very least engage and see if it is absolutely exactly it sounds to me quite exciting obviously it's addressing a serious issue too but it's kind of like you don't know where this I mean if you grant if you plant an acorn you have a strong assumption an oak might grow I think isn't it you don't know what necessarily this might fully truly grow into or how it might which is exciting isn't it? Yeah it is it's exciting and thrilling and terrifying all at the one time and that's the beauty of it you know this is about starting the conversation it is about giving people who may not have a voice or an equal voice giving them you know the voice going forward and seeing where it brings us seeing where it goes I'm really excited it's coming to Donega God and to the Northwest and we've been given the opportunity to do this kind of work and then to see where it goes from there you know we're not going to direct it we don't really have these interviews very difficult because I fully get it but when you're calling for consultation or engagement the last thing you want to do is say something that might deter someone from getting involved so I do a few of these interviews over the year and I get it but it's just to try and get the point across but to encourage people would not discourage anyone come along and see if it's for you and if it's not for you that's okay it might be for somebody else that you know but it's a great opportunity you know so and it won't be offered anywhere else in the country at the moment so come along right so come along where though and when because this information wasn't furnished yeah that's okay yeah we're still finding most of the details I think well sorry in terms of initially all you want people to do is register their interest because you want to create a safe and confidential space they register their interest simply by confirming that they're 18 plus that they 17 sorry 17 plus as in you have to be 18 so I get it so from 18 up exactly and if it's going to go up on social media from Wednesday on the Donegal Women's Centre all of their various pages but we also have an email address and a phone number if you want me to call those out we have a project coordinator Rona and she's contactable on 089 4365143 or you can email at lgbtprojectatdonegalwomencenter.ie and all of those details will be confirmed and effectively Greg what we will do then is is circulate the information about the program to those people so register and go you know this is something like I'd be interested to find out more register your interest then in a time in the future when things are the ducks are more in a row at that point you know what I mean then it'll drop into the ring box yeah we will start in the beginning of April so it's ready to go in the beginning of April and as I say it'll be very much you come with the desire to learn more about your own position and what you know entitlements you might have anything you want to add Mary? no just we would really encourage people we have set up so many safety protection pieces around it it's going to be fun it's going to be interactive positive experience we will learn as much as what the participants will learn from this we are open to that we've kept it as non-directive as we possibly can because it's so new where this is going to lead to but we hope big things and we just really can't wait to get going a lot of preparation has gone into it we're just really excited to get going so we would just encourage everybody that might be interested look we're all going to be nervous come along that that's okay we recognize you're going to be a part of something absolutely and that's probably the most exciting is going to be part of something new a shift in the county a shift within the communities involved and hopefully that will trigger a template for the rest of the country absolutely with information comes understanding even if you're not sure as you say go out there and get the information make your decisions then information is really important legal information can be scarier than it actually is so use the opportunity to find yourself googling it you find yourself googling and you google and you'll get four answers then you have to find out which one is relevant to you between Australia and the United States nothing wrong with Australians except the laws apply to if you're in Australia I get to you I don't think even the most sensitive Australians would be bothered by that statement so don't worry about that Dr Brona Hevrin it's all going it's all going and Mary McGuire manager at Donegal Women's Centre very funny I don't want to do anything negative at all of course but you know it's a broad community right it's kind of interesting it's the Donegal Women's Centre that is platforming this does that make sense do you consider that well I think we've been working with the LGBT community for so long I'm not suggesting otherwise by the way we're in a position of trust I think we're well established within the community and we have we work very much from an interagency and intercommunity model of practice and yeah it's the next logical step and we've been an ally for so many years that it was time to do something positive alright I'm interested to see how this pans out I think everyone is we're looking forward to ourselves it's been we will retain that info there and the number and the email address as well so people can ring us they know our numbers off the top of the head I think and we'll be able to pass that on but for now thank you very much Dr Brona Hevron law lecturer at LYAT Mary McGuire manager at Donegal Women's Centre thanks for joining us to talk about a new public legal information clinic which is opening at the Donegal Women's Centre contact us if you want that information which is also available as well of course from the Donegal Women's Centre directly 4th Road Letter Kenny explore our wide range of virtual tools at kellystoyota.com at Centra we're at the heart of the community so we go to great lengths to help you live your best life fresh bread finest meals fantastic offers all the good feels not to mention a fabulous wide range of our own brand favorites and as for our license we've been to the full corners of the world so you can enjoy the best wines and beers locally at Centra we've got everything you need Centra live every day enjoy galsensibly there are so many ways to enjoy fresh Irish hake for every day or weekend meals like mouth watering baked hake with a herb dressing or delicious hake risotto with basil Irish hake is high in protein and low in fat so it's always a healthy nutritious option and it's landed fresh every day so you're supporting local fishermen too ask for Irish hake at your local supermarket or fishmonger and for great recipe ideas visit boardbia.ie forward slash fish hello there this is Daniel O'Donnell here and I'm delighted to be able to tell you that we're coming back to the Millennium Forum in Derry for a couple of concerts we're going to be there on Wednesday August 31st and Thursday September 1st both these shows are going to be taped for American television so I hope you can join us see you then that's the Millennium Forum August 31st and September 1st ok you are very welcome back to the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio we're into the last 20 minutes of the program hopefully you're able to enjoy the way hopefully you had a fantastic weekend by the way and if you're a mother hopefully you were spoiled absolutely rotten right ok Michael Letty writer and blocker I simply could not wait until Friday to talk to you about the Oscars how are you keeping you Greg yes it's good to see you a few days earlier in the week it's always good to see you so yeah the Oscars that's the pleasantries out the way let's focus on the winners before maybe we'll talk about the distractions it was a big event for streaming the industry can't pretend streaming does not create and platform films that can be Oscar winners anymore it's all well and dusted now absolutely yeah it legitimizes I think if that's the word and if that was needed it legitimizes the streaming option for film makers and it kind of you know definitely it's another award for the big award that puts that clearly on the board clearly on the map yeah if you're streaming film such as Coda you're legitimately an Oscar contender and I was delighted to see Coda win I loved it I thought it was the best of the films I had seen I had seen most of the Oscar contenders I thought Power of the Dog would get it because it seemed more Oscar friendly but no the voters went for Coda and deservedly so and it's an Apple movie which is the point of the whole thing and it also got a Best Supporting Actor award again the fact that it isn't a traditional cinema film doesn't matter in the slightest yeah I'm trying to find the Oscar winners but unfortunately I can't well I will do I can but I can't because it's all about Will Smith it's all about Will Smith so basically do you want to chat about that now yeah go on and then we'll go back to that we'll go back then of course yeah so basically Chris Rock was giving out was introducing the best documentary documentary even Oscar there's never enough hours in documentary I think I'm trying to bring more in thanks for getting me behind me on that so he was he gave out a couple of jokes as he does and in fairness they were pretty lame Javier Verte was one target and then of course he goes to Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith she is very publicly dealing with alapacea at the moment her loss condition and she's been quite public about that and he made a reference to the film G.I. Jane that's Demi Moore was in that was it it was a big controversy at the time because Demi Moore shaved her head so obviously the tabloids were all over that of course so at the moment through no fault of her own Jada Pinkett Smith is sporting a very similar look Chris Rock made a joke and it got a pretty negative response in the room because it's not a great joke and kind of you're punching down ironically punching but you're punching down when somebody is dealing with some sort of illness it's not usually good fodder for comedy but in any case he made the joke and was a bit of a grown Will Smith's initially seemed to chuckle Jada Pinkett Smith she definitely rolled her eyes and see that on camera she was not impressed Chris Rock was continuing and at that point Will Smith marched on the stage with great purpose and delivered a resounding slap across the face of Chris Rock unbelievable like to watch it in replay I've seen it a couple times on social media and then he left the stage there was a continuation of the altercation get my wife's name out of your mouth yes using some language that's quite colourful Will Smith Medicare he didn't want that kind of talk now you see okay well this is when we get to unpack it but yeah Chris Rock then continued he was stunned for a couple of seconds but very professionally he kept going which he got to admire and he moved on as best as you could imagine See I'm torn all over the place by this because as I said earlier I think commenting on people's appearance is I think it's punching down as you mentioned punching down big time I think for whatever reason for medical reasons or for fashion choice people with short hair now girls maybe will get the G.I. Jane schoolyard insult but we're telling them we're saying don't call people's name and you've got this happening if this is what it takes to stop that kind of crappy roasting or whatever you might call it but in no way can condone what Will Smith did so it's a moral dilemma I don't know what way to come down on it yeah there's a lot to unpack because there are so many hot takes this morning on social media and there's a couple of articles out there already lengthy articles on Scythe Like The Guardian and it is difficult because first of all you're absolutely correct it's a terrible joke and it's not a target that's appropriate it never is so comedians picking on somebody for these reasons it's nothing to stand up or be proud about but Will Smith's response is it a response wherein he's defending his wife or is it a response where he's just defending his own bruised ego because you go unpack different because they have been there are a lot of jokes as well but we talked earlier on I think you might have mentioned it on Friday or some Friday they'll blur into one you mentioned about how the fact that you know this is not about whether Spider-Man was the best film of the year, whether Batman was the best film of the year or Audience Favorites do you know what I mean it's a load of people with the nose and the air sort of going ho fine right but it does platform films that might not ordinarily get a big audience that they might go right you got mentioned at the Oscars or you got selected on your one and it drives a bit of traffic to them he's done them a terrible service because it's a short window it's one evening and maybe the next day of coverage of these films but he swallowed up all of that coverage so in doing what he did yes he made a stand but an awful lot of independent companies smaller actors they're going to miss out on their time in the spotlight the short time in the spotlight the documentary the actual winner of the actual documentary then you know that gets completely swallowed up like this happened within a couple of minutes of the slap and again it's doing a disservice it's unprofessional and his speech which I've watched in its entirety is rambling it's sort of a justification of his actions and it's very much a self important very grandiose speech in talking about the pressure that he's under and what he's being called upon by God so he's a victim then well yes exactly and that would certainly that doesn't help either I'm reminded by Twitter of Ricky Gervais a couple of years ago and he has a lovely piece when he was doing the Oscars about and it's again a paraphrase because of whatever content language but it's just you're an actor get up say thanks thank you get off the stage nobody is expecting anything more of you well some people might use that opportunity to to support an issue or something and I get that but I understand where everyone's coming from on this a chorus says and I've heard it a few times this was a setup between Smith and Rock this is Hollywood now I know people always trying to think there's no gain for Will Smith in this there is no gain for Chris Rock in this and there's no there might be a gain for the Oscars maybe because they may be they're more relevant to people aren't talking about things like diversity or whatever it might be or other important issues maybe but there is nothing for anyone positive in this either I don't think I don't think so either I think there's it's a PR nightmare I think for Will Smith at the moment I don't think it's going to do long-term damage but nonetheless to his career but nonetheless it is a bit of a PR nightmare I can't see the benefit you're absolutely right you're coming on it analytically I completely agree I can't see why they would concoct this or think for a moment you'll be a positive thing it's not and it's not a good image for a leading black actor in modern America to resort to violence to resolve things if this was concocted then there's some there's a lot of people really should be rethinking their positions if they're telling Will Smith to do this because it is it's it's not a good look a few people pointing out that Smith originally laughed and then at this violent burst but listen we can't speak to the space he was in it could be a laugh of embarrassment maybe he didn't hear I don't know yeah I agree with you I wouldn't read too much into that either personally I appreciate the text very much by the way yeah no I agree with that as well I saw that you can't know in the moment second you know there's that moment where you like you've been there Greg I've been there something was hot and you're like one two three like what wait what what did I just hear so being polite you can smile rock wasn't being particularly funny his previous couple of gags were not great I cringe and I watch some of Saturday Night Live you know and the American humor you know that is a sweeping statement don't get me wrong and I think people know I don't mean or it's just it's just a lot of it's tone deaf and not funny well done to Smith he didn't hit him hard enough that's one point of view and you know what in terms of as I say Marley I can't look would never condone that type of stuff either off there or on air by the way I'm not trying to be cute here but I can't tolerate that type of bullying picking on people for their appearance another call says it's sand staged by Chris Rock and Will Smith to get publicity for their waning asses they're both action men this is staged for sure again I get it and listen you could be a hundred percent right because you can hear by some of the jokes that they these actors try and come up with to give an award and it's cringe it's like you think oh my god that's bad so maybe they contrived it and didn't like why did he slap him with it why do you slap him with an hand for yes you know I mean so like I'm not dishing that but if they did that theory but if they did do this my word they need as you say wasn't it they need new advisors bad judgment yeah it just seems like it's not having the intended effect I mean let's you go back to Oscar Wilde's famous quote about you know publicity is publicity is also in the back of the city if they're talking about just so I don't know but I mean winning the Oscar for best actor none you know you know pretty much not that I'm sure it's a lot as well as a great performance best picture Coda you think that deserved to be in ahead of Belfast I know you didn't like Belfast but yeah I see Belfast did pick up for screenplay yeah well I'm going to hand them in order oh sorry yeah I'll never keep track otherwise very happy very happy West Side Story Ariana Debosi actress in a sport and role international film feature drive my car documentary The Queen of Basketball documentary feature Summer of Soul animated film feature Encanto adapted screenplay Coda again original screenplay Belfast which you reference don't look I was in there too I didn't see Belfast I would like to have seen because you know there was a bit on the Late Late Show recently where I think it was Mary Robinson was talking about the crisis that we are in at the moment and Ryan told me to brush it over you know okay that's okay okay but now we're going on to this and it was literally right you could have inserted that into don't look up it's exactly what that film was talking about she was talking about apocalyptic scenario for our children and it was yes well we get that on to our next item let's you can win this do you know what I mean absolutely Will Smith as you mentioned King Richard he's a winner there actors it was a good performance it's overshadowed now but that's a good film and a good performance I look forward to seeing that Jessica Chastain eyes of Tammy Faye actress Nalini Rowe director a power of the dog Jane Campion producer of design Dune I think Vanoula like Dune they also want cinematography then we get into costume design Cruella and and it goes live action short film so was there there was a I thought there was an audience vote no was there not some sort of an audience favorite or something that was supposed to be introduced this year my attention you could be a hundred percent right it's not on my list here I didn't notice it this morning so another caller says any publicity is good publicity and although you can tell the way rock moved when the timing was there okay well listen you know maybe there's a bigger picture here I don't know as I say I'm not dismissing it as a theory it just seems so logical but you know we are dealing with Hollywood celebrities yeah I'm not convinced no I just it seems yeah I just I haven't watched it now I just it seems too real and just too stupid Jack Jackson's boob falling out during the Superbowl yes that is a publicity sound you know yeah yeah all right listen see you Friday thanks very much for joining us today and we'll chew through it a bit more lovely stuff Michael Leady there it is the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio we are about to take a quick break and then we'll be back to say goodbye don't go away anywhere though the 9 till noon show brought to you by Kenny's Toyota Port Road letter Kenny with offers on a wide range of passenger and commercial vehicles for a huge selection of furniture all in one showroom pulling to grow furnishings in never Kenny sofas, beds, wardrobes tables and chairs also a range of carpet, vinyl, rugs and laminated flooring if it's time for a change it's time for a visit to grow furnishings growth deliver throughout Donegal, Derry and Trone the inspired at grow furnishings kill toy road letter Kenny with the brighter days it's only natural to think about freshening up the paint work in our homes bringing color and vibrancy to our living spaces but the important thing isn't just the colors we choose it's the paint Fleetwood use the highest quality ingredients for a richer color and smoother finish that lets you wipe away the marks of everyday life and it's Irish made designed to work with the ever changing Irish light would one range of paints transform your home Fleetwood would naturally also looking for registered general nurses for day and night time 12 hour shifts contact Bluebird care on 07491 29562 or visit bluebirdcare.a and bring care home Pet Value Bully Buffet has just got bigger, yes we've opened store number 2 at St Mary's Row Bunkerama and to celebrate one lucky customer will win 1000 euro of home heating oil simply call into the store during March and you will be ordered into the draw Pet Value are open Monday to Saturday 10am till 6pm Sunday 12-5 with fantastic offers across both stores Pet Value, your one stop shop for all your animal needs Highland Radio weather updates with Ireland West Airport thinking of a sun holiday with the family you can now fly to Barcelona three times weekly this summer with Ryanair and enjoy some of Europe's best family campsites Ireland West Airport, you're flying OK, let's have a look at the weather forecast it's actually not going to be a bad day today you know, it's going to continue for a little while but I'll bring you something more specific now, mist and fog is clearing at this stage, a dry morning which is over during the afternoon and evening though it will stay with haze's sunshine a few showers will break out, temperatures 13-16 degrees tonight any lingering showers will die out early in the night becoming dry with clear spells, temperatures 1-5 degrees OK and tomorrow mist and fog will again clear away during the morning but patches may linger good sunshine will develop for most but there will be some scattered showers as well temperatures dropping a little bit 11-14 degrees but you know what this is like a bonus little stormer it's still, not April yet it's still the end of March very impressed with Cormac and his empathy and compassion and what a brilliant song should be the anthem for the climb that comes in from Monica which I thought was we've got a lot of nice comments as it relates to Cormac Greg such a lovely song it's like some of Lemon Cohen's songs you can hear every word and although it's so beautiful well done such beautiful lyrics well done to Cormac and Kelly as well for supporting him Caroline Orr produced the show we're back with you tomorrow morning at 9 stay tuned John Breslin's coming up around the North West have a great day the 19-inch hour brought to you by Kelly's time thanks for watching