 And Noah was busy. He's good. Yeah. But Noah had a big weekend. He had a big day yesterday. And Weeley was there as well. Claire and Honorary Gards were there. It was nice to meet all of them and different families. And all the Gards of Chicano was great. There's some lovely pictures on Lee's Facebook, isn't it? Yeah. And Gards of Chicano, Donny Gaw as well, their Facebook page. But it was just nice. You know, we were always meaning to try and get there. But yesterday was the perfect time. And you know, it was nice that people came out as well. It was lovely. Brilliant. I feel it's slightly uncomfortable. It was nice to each other. But you know, it was just a nice weekend. I went a lovely big cake as well. Oh, lovely. Thanks to the lady who made the cake. You know who you are. And then there was a rocky road to me. Because it was gluten free, right? And see, before I left the house this morning, I got myself a big one. Is there much of my loads in a rocky road? No, but no. This was extra nice. OK, lovely. Excellent. That was for breakfast. Yeah. Before I left the house. Good man. I loved it. I'd say so. That's sweet, isn't it? Oh, it's lovely, aye. OK. No wonder you're so busy, particularly this morning. All right, Lee. Well, it is minute past nine. Let's get a news update. And it's over to Michaela Clark. Thanks, Greg. Good morning. As clean-up operations continue in East Donegal, following flash floods at the weekend, Donegal County Council is being urged to take a more proactive approach to reoccurring flooding in the area. Refo and Castle Finn were severely impacted by heavy rain on Saturday, with convoy and Killy Gordon also affected. Councillor Patrick McGowan says one major flood relief schemes are in the works. Regular maintenance should not be ignored. He says there needs to be more joint-up thinking. We need to work together, the community, the farmers and the council. We need to apply for money. And we also need to use our local money, maybe a bit more wisely. And the way we put on drains and storm drains and sometimes the streams, well, there's no water. There's a lot to be done here. And a lot of heads need to be banged together in my opinion. Well, Donegal County Council has sought support from national government for residents and businesses affected by the flooding. The local authority has confirmed that it has notified the national directorate for fire and emergency management of the flooding in relation to potential assistance from the Department of Social Protection and Enterprise Trade and Employment. Kehirlock of Donegal County Council, Councillor Martin Harley, hopes support for those impacted will be forthcoming. I visited both Refo and Castle Finn yesterday evening and talked with some residents and some of the business people that were affected by it and, you know, pointing out to them that hopefully we'll be back with something to them this evening. It only happened so quick. No matter how quick services get there, it'll be very hard to save some of the businesses because it just happened very suddenly. The Department of Foreign Affairs is urging people not to travel to parts of Greece affected by wildfires. Thousands have been evacuated to safety from the islands of Rhodes and Corfu. The Irish travel agents association says most Irish tourists currently in Rhodes are staying in northern resorts and are largely unaffected. There's urgent calls for safety measures to be installed on a letter Kenny Road used regularly by children due to cars travelling at a phenomenal speed on it. Donegal County Council has agreed to carry out an assessment of the Rhan Road. Councillor Jeremy McGill says parents have raised concerns over an increase in traffic on the route. I've been contacted by a number of parents in the area who have children who are friends with children across the way from another estate when they're crossing this busy road. As we know, the Rhan Road's become very busy in recent times because of the traffic ingestion in the towns. Finally, for weather, cloudy this morning, but staying largely dry. A few isolated shards will develop later this morning or afternoon in a fresh and northerly breeze, highest temperatures of 14 to 16 degrees. That's all from Highland Radio. News for now. We'll be back with news again at 10 o'clock. Until then, good morning. Sometimes it's all about chilling out. At Curries, our experts will deliver and install your new fridge freezer for half price. And we'll take away your old appliances for free. Get the Beco Pro Harvest Fresh American-style fridge freezer for only €8.99. And save €50 on the Bosch Series 4 fridge freezer now just €7.99. And you can chill out. Curries experts deliver and install your new fridge freezer with €500 and over for half price. Shop in store or online at curries.ie. Tisley's Apply, see website for details. Hello, good morning. It is four minutes past nine on this Monday, the 24th of July, 2023. And you're very welcome along to another edition and another week of the Nine Till Noon Show. How are you keeping it up? I do hope you are all well indeed. I know some people are, well, waking up for the second day to the devastation of the floods which struck East Donegal again. We had, effectively, much of July's rain falling in four hours on Saturday evening. Were you affected by that? Have you a comment to make on it? 086-6025,000. That's the WhatsApp and text number. Severe flooding too. Across the border, feel free to have your say 0035-386-6025,000. Just feeling for those businesses, not able to open up this morning, people going down the stairs or across the hall to their home which is once again flooded. If you want to share your story, feel free to give us a call too on 074-9125-000. 074-9125-000. Just a torrential downpour which, for the most part, was forecast. It's not like it came completely out of the blue. We have been hitting the past whereby there was no indication that we were going to get prolonged period of rain, but we did know. Now, I'm not in the know to say, watch out everyone, this could create flooding. I presume we have professionals that would have that information if it were relevant, but we'll try to get to the bottom of that as well. As I say, you can email the program as well which I haven't said. Comments at highlandradio.com. Later on in the program as well, our Monday focus is on the issue of smart meters. The role light is happening. So maybe you have questions as it relates to them. I mean, obviously we can cover, if you don't want them, what do you do? Or it's going to be slightly more difficult to get an answer to a question as to you didn't want one-on-one was fitted. But certainly in terms of how they operate, your concerns in terms of the cost, anything to do with smart meters. We just thought maybe it's time to have a refresher Q&A on that. So if you've got any queues, get in touch with us on the same numbers. We'll try and get those questions answered for you. Brendan Devaney will join this, of course. As he always does on a Monday, we'll run through the weekend's sporting action, the GE action, of course. That's the focus. Did you enjoy the hurling game yesterday? What a second half performance. So that was, it really was just otherworldly. It's like, I was going to say, it's what's the opposite to subhuman, superhuman. Just really, really quite remarkable display. But anyway, there's that and then there's local action too, which we'll reflect on. So that's all coming up and plenty more. Besides, we'll have news on a very important, defective concrete block meeting, which is taking place tonight as well. Right, the Donegal News this morning. As heavy rain battered down across the county on Saturday evening, many homes and businesses had or held their breath and braced for what they feared was history repeating itself. Castlefin, Rafoe and the surrounding area yet again felt the brunt of the unforgiving showers. In Rafoe alone, it was reported that close to 80 millimetres of rain fell on Saturday night, which equates to a typical month's worth of rainfall. Coal Centre, where one of the many businesses in the town affected by the flash flooding, they shared how it was frustrating and shocking for history to repeat itself and to see what Rafoe was still not able to defend itself against floods. The Frams Report, isn't it? The Frams Report finished in 2017. That's six years ago. I'm not sure if any element of that has been implemented in the area. If it has, it hasn't really worked very well. But we knew this is an area of the county that's vulnerable to flooding. As I say, that report highlighted it, and I presume some suggestions as to how it would be addressed. They referenced quite rightly the amount of rainfall. I think it was 62 millilitres or millimetres, sorry, that fell between four and eight on Saturday. And the average rainfall for a July, you would expect, is around about 90. Really quite remarkable. The Derry News this morning, Mayor's Office overspends two years in a row. The Mayor's Office of Derry City and Sturban District Council has overspent its allocated annual budget for the second year in a row. Derry News can reveal the budget is set at €91,200 per year, the highest amount out of the 11 councils across the north. The overspend was made public at a meeting of the Council's Governance and Strategic Planning Committee in June. It was outlined in a document titled Derry City and Sturban District Council year-end 31st March 2023, Financial Outrun Summary. More details in the paper today. The Irish Times this morning, a different extreme of weather. Almost 19,000 people have been helped to safety from wildfires in the Greek island of Rhodes as part of Greece's largest emergency evacuation. The Department of Foreign Affairs has warned against travelling to areas in Greece after affected by wildfires. Yesterday evening, there were reports of a further fire in Corfu with authorities also ordering the evacuation of five small settlements there. Tourists are now scrambling to get out of Rhodes, with some still in their swimsuits sheltered in schools and hotel conference spaces. Airlines struggling to organise return flight special measures are being put in place for those who left identification documents behind when fleeing to safety, but who now want to travel home. Maybe you or someone close to you was affected by that. We'd also be very keen to speak to you of course. 086625,000 is the WhatsApp number. Interesting development in the world of mortgages. This is in the Irish Independent. Credit unions are planning to capture a huge swathe of the mortgage market at Nogimix National Mortgage Brand, which has been a long time coming. I would have thought this is something they could have done a long time ago. Well, the member-owned leaders, or sorry, lenders, are looking at setting up a centralised mortgage company with the aim of getting to a point of issuing one in ten of all mortgages in the market. Such a centralised service company would allow the sector to have common mortgage rates of centralised underwriting facility marketing. This could see the sector issuing one billion worth of mortgages over the next seven years. It is proposed mortgages would become a core offering of the sector. The plans are outlined in a proposal document marked confidential. Put to credit unions at a meeting in Athlone last Monday. But it's course, obviously it's been leaked and there is the information. The Irish Daily Mail this morning, an independent Dublin city councillor has dismissed the justice minister's claim that Dublin is safe and said some parts of the city were worse than the wire. That's a programme some time ago about crime in Baltimore in the United States. Well, Mannix Flynn, who is also the vice-chair of Dublin City Council's policing committee said this problem has been gathering for years and the only response by this government has been fake guard station openings and fake promises. Certain areas of the centre are worse than the wire, the TV crime drama. Violence is endemic. There are no consequences to that violence and the people are abandoned. For citizens, policing does not exist in the city even. The Guardian will tell you that there is no evidence on the streets that the agencies or the agencies that the agencies of the state are prepared to battle pure criminality. No protests in these areas, funny enough. Commenting on the increasing dilapidated state of parts of central Dublin under the stewardship of Dublin City Council's Chief Owen Keegan. Mr Flynn said this has created an atmosphere of fear and foreboding and the response of the state is to encourage legalised public street drunkardness with on-street seating outside pubs but obviously people are also publicly dealing drugs and other brandishing knives and you speak to people in Dublin who have lived there for quite some time. They believe it's not safe but the Justice Minister believes it is as does the Paschal Dono who I believe also said he believed that Dublin is safe. Funny enough the Justice Minister though in saying so was walking through the streets flanked by a number of guardies so of course in that situation you would feel safe. I do wonder and I wouldn't want her to would she feel safe on her own walking those same streets perhaps not. On to the Irish Daily Star now and the HSC was miles off the targets it set for emergency departments covering the length of time patients spent in A&E the number on trolleys delays in treating over 75s and slow handover of patients from ambulances in a board strategic scorecard unscheduled care was given a rating of just one out of five with significant concerns targets were again not going to be met this year. According to the figures which were shared with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly in April a daily target of 236 patients on trolleys in A&Es had been set for 2023 but the actual figure was 352 in January and 326 in February another target of having 97% of patients gone from the ED within 24 hours was also missed the record show instead in January 53% of patients sorry that's very hard to read that because it's 5.3% of patients were at least a day in A&E while in February that number had fallen only slightly to 5% of patients and then again I know some people listening I know some people personally they are those that those targets were missed for. On to the Irish Daily Mirror Twitter owner Elon Musk plans to replace the social media sites iconic bird logo with an X as soon as today the blue emblem known as Larry the bird has been Twitter's emblem since its creation in 2006 yesterday Musk tweeted and soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually all the birds it's it's if you've got enough X logo is posted tonight will make it go live worldwide tomorrow eventually Musk posted a video of an X being the bird he was tweeting all through Saturday night I did notice almost as if he was out at the same time it'll be interesting to see if he follows through with all of the stuff that he was saying it's not much interest to anyone unless you use Twitter though I'd imagine and on to the Sun finally RTE's two stations could be split like BBC and Channel 4 with ads on one and not the other SESA senator the Irish broadcaster is presently funded with income from the 160 euro license fee and advertising in the UK the BBC is primarily funded by the license fee payer however Channel 4 does not receive any public money and is backed entirely by its own commercial activities Finafall senator Malcolm Byrne a familiar voice and face from those committee meetings he's a member of the Erachtas media committee that has been grilling Ryan Toberty an RTE executive says that a similar model could work here too the Irish Sun there are a few examples of these models around the world and goes on to list them there right okay that's a run through the newspapers this morning just a reminder for you before we take a quick break 08 660 25000 that's a whatsapp and text number or give us a call on 07 4 911 25000 no no no no no no Sanguilat with hits all the way there. That's all there is left for like ESP Network's Pankai toad slash smart meter. We love summer at Duns Stores. Save on the aisle when you mix and match any two for four euro across tasty sandwich fillers, deli meats and salads. Including picnic favourites like classic falafel and fruity couscous. And take things up a level with a range of sauces, dressings and chutneys from just one euro fifty. Then save again at the till with our five of 25 grocery vouchers. Duns Stores, always better value. Terms and conditions apply if you can be used on X-Insta grocery shop of twenty five euro or more. Michael Hennies' summer sale has just gotten bigger and better. Don't miss out on amazing offers with up to fifty percent now off fashion, kids, home, jewelry and cosmetics. Shop our summer sale in store at Michael Hennies' department store Ballybuffet or online at MichaelHennies.com. Highland radio time checks with Expressway. Travel Route 32 from Letty Kennedy Dublin when you book online and travel for less. Expressway, bringing you the time, Art. OK, the time is 18 minutes past nine. Now, as I mentioned earlier on, it was a horrendous weekend, particularly Saturday for many people living in the Raffaulcastlefin and Sarans as heavy rain fell on Saturday. Causing extensive flooding. Roads looked like rivers, quite literally. The center of Raffaul had water gushing down side streets and washing through the diamond. If you didn't see any of that footage, we are going to be running some of it here for those of us, those of you watching the stream. Dale joins us now in the program. Dale, thanks so much for taking the call. I do appreciate it. Morning, Greg. Thanks. I'm all right. Now, was your parents affected by this primarily? Wasn't it, Dale? What did they go through? It was, well, again, with the heavy rainfall, Greg, we kind of knew that it's going to be a repeat of history again in Raffaul. And the parents' house, the water came through the front door, down and through the sub-room under the kitchen and out the back door, resulting in a run-out into the backyard as well, which was totally destroyed with trenches, a foot-and-a-half deep concrete broke the rain's power line, down to a back shed, as I am bare. The rear shed, where I do a bit of screwing about the chargers and stuff of my own. Crewers, equipment. You have welders, diagnostic equipment, and a charred self was actually flooded in the damage as well around the whole flooding. This is not like we didn't know this could happen. You know, with the extensive rainfall. I mean, we knew this was a potential issue, particularly in Raffaul. Yeah, Greg, this is happening, I'm 36 years of age, and this has been happening in Raffaul where I was born. And nothing, nothing has been done by any of the local authorities, councils, nothing that have sent out this Raffaul relief survey and the thing that I was sort of looking at in the meetings and all that sort of watching stuff there and all that kind of stuff, and nothing has came off it. I mean, even the emergency response who came, and I have to say they came, and the council came, there were pies, people, local community, everybody came together. But again, we didn't even have sample things like sandbags. They all came. And when they came was when the water was going down. Our exact repeat of the last time that the flooding happened here in Raffaul, the exact same, speaking to a few councillors that came around, and again, spoke all, we'll try and see what has happened. And we all know why it's happened. I mean, the drainage system and all the new houses, all the new developments, like all our homes that has been made, and the drainage system cannot keep a bowl of cold and water. I mean, if you're running two-foot drainage pipes and they have three-foot round pipe and you're running 60 of them in there, common sense, it doesn't take you to go to college or an engineering degree to tell you that. It's not going to work. As you say, you've seen this many times before, Dale. How would this rank in terms of severity and damage compared to what you've seen before? The biggest problem here in this time period was the last time I got flooded, the same damage, a massive flow of water came. The last time, I think, it might have been a couple of inches higher at the front of the house. But this time, it was for the length of time that it was there. There are thousands of tons of water coming down, I should say, more or less coming in, the house running down, it's just Boston. I mean, roads and everything up in Ngori. I mean, there's families here and they're walking about today and yesterday, just they're not knowing what they're going to be. I mean, the cost of living at the minute between groceries and bottles. And now they've got wooden floors, kitchen units, skirting boards, I mean, go out and buy them today and see what kind of ball they have on top of that. I mean, people think that the flooding and the water damage and everything is bad enough. But the mental strain that this was going to put in families on relationships, on just the cost of living, I mean, there's somebody has to help. Some responsibility or something. I mean, that last year, or the last year, the last thing that's happened, we had councillors around here promising, right when we set up an emergency place that we can have sandbags, something that local authorities and volunteers can get on and follow all the sandbags and put them out. I mean, when the fire service landed here, we were all standing. I mean, there's nothing you can do about the water, but we didn't have any sand. And this is the same. I mean, it can't cost them that much if the council couldn't put a load of sand somewhere and have sandbags sitting dry. Obviously, I know we can't have sandbags. You can't have them pre-packed, yeah, of course. No, they rot. But you can have a central space where there are dry bags and where there is sand, because there was desperation. People put in that post and what have you. We need sandbags, it's an emergency. People were fighting to try and save their properties. Greg, when this happened, I mean, it was that bad that the town was closed, the roads were blocked. You weren't allowed on or out of the town, and it was like a scene of Armageddon in the town with blue flashing lights and amber flashing lights, you know, and you had, you know, in the middle of the town here, it's an older community, and they're sitting there getting their pension every week trying to pay their bills and they're looking at their carpets and their old chairs that, you know, sent the mental stuff, getting washed away in water. Never mind the sewers overflowing, you know. And I appreciate people calling, the councillor is calling around, talking about what they're going to do, but talking isn't going to be enough to you know, the damages last time cost me nearly 10,000 euros. And there's one thing that I can't guarantee that this isn't going to happen again, there's one thing I will guarantee. There'll be no insurance man driving around the day throwing out money to people. No, it's early days yet. I mean, do you know if you're covered by insurance this time, Dale and your family? No, I have to make it, you know, it's a vague area here in Rapport. I mean, the last time I went to get insurance, they made it and stated it very obviously clear that they've come back a few years that you weren't insured for flooding in Rapport, not, no way, they're not taking that risk. But they'll ensure me if I play interest in the mirror for the house. Yeah, I'll get you. So I didn't know whether to take that gamble or not. You know, insurance companies take premiums or everybody, and then when you're here, they're obvious stuff like a flood of water. I mean, that could happen anybody. There's, they're not willing to take that risk. You know, it's complete madness. But you know, the councillors here and everything else now saying what they're going to do and we'll get a report on why this has happened. We all know why it's happened. We don't need a report. We need an emergency backup system here in Rapport. I mean, there was a red warning for rain here in the area of Rapport. And there was still no emergency response or no emergency setup until it was too late. If this was down the country, all that they're doing, they're doubling the whole, Ireland would have been shut down and they've got a lot of sand from a beach and had a sudden, so people could shovel stuff in. But again, it's done it all in these weed-backed towns. I mean, the businesses are low and we're full. Everybody kicking together and sweeping all out. They have to open to keep themselves going. They have to clean up. They have to repair whatever they have just to get themselves open again. I mean, there's no, where's all the support? There need to be somebody coming now to the town. And I'm not talking about in the weeks. I mean, today, they need to get up off their chairs and out of their offices and up and through Rapport and speak to the local people. Speak not to the people who think they know what they're talking about. Go and grab a look at the farmers who've been farming the land for 60 or 70 years. Know where the flow of water comes and goes. Go and get the sand, the organising bags, organising. It gives heavy rain again for them the next week. I mean, the mentality for some of these pension people that's sitting in their houses in the Irish area, do you think they're going to sleep right? No. And I'll talk to them. Do you know? Yeah. Right, Dale. Now, go ahead. It's just a massive problem that needs to be addressed and there's always a noise made, always. And as I say, I'm just another person who's making a noise about the flooding and the damages and everything else. And to give you just a guide, my foot, my shed level is seven foot above where the barn runs. Wow, OK. And my shed was flooded with two foot of water. That's nine foot. It had to, right. Now, that's the level that we're working with. It's not just a run of water people's houses and that it's destroying the local roads. Obviously, we had the Fram's report in 2017 looking into flood mitigation in Raffaul. That's all maybe medium long term. Are you aware of any measures that were taken in the short term to try and make sure drains were big enough to make sure there's proper drain maintenance? And of course we don't. Greg, they haven't been a shovel put on the ground. They haven't been a shovel put on the ground as far as it goes for drains or nothing. Fair play again. Glenard planted all out, arrived at night, suck on drains, blow on drains, blah, blah, blah. But when the water was here, that's when people's homes are flooded. They need to start acting before the damage is done. Did you look at the weather forecast before the flooding and think, right, we could. Oh, we had, we had sandbags at the door before the water started to run. But I had, I had six, six sandbags here in the shade because this happens. I mean, this isn't, this isn't a freak thing. This isn't, you know, I had sandbags. No, it wasn't enough, but we put them in our front door. But I mean, the pressure, the value of the water coming across the road, hitting a house on the door, that's my parents' house where they're living. I mean, a lorry load of sand up in front of that door wouldn't stop it. But the filler people, like we knew we were a bit, so we started to carry sandbags on down there, right, we went on down to all our locals. And, you know, you're, it's a, it's a row of, of pension age. People down there were carrying sandbags, and they're standing with brushes. I mean, it's, it's heartbreaking. And it's the fear and not being able to feel secure in their own homes. Do you listen? Oh, of course. But you know, Greg, I do want to say this and I know I'm going on about it. No, no, it's fine. This is great, great point. You'll have a pile of counsellors. You will have a pile of counsellors now coming on, saying what they're going to do and we're going to look at this. Come on the month time again and see what them counsellors have done. I'll talk about it. And I'll take the phone call in the month time again and I'll go round and anybody that wants to say, well, he done this for me, I'll note it down. The counsellors are talking about doing this. We done this, we'll do this. Nothing has ever, ever been done in our home. And I challenge any of the councilmen that want to come out and meet me, I can show them the devastation in my yard and me shade and everything that he, and anybody wants to see it, I'm here. Like I've talked time off work, thank God. They were very lenient to do what had happened. So I'm doing money the day from my work. I'll be doing what the stuff I've lost to me shade. I'll be doing the damages and getting rid of all the stuff that is ruined. You know, it's just an ongoing circle. And then by the end of the week, God knows it could all happen again. All right, listen. Sorry you're going through this again. Sorry for your, what your parents are going through. We appreciate you speaking with us and very strong words and I can't, we will speak to counsellors. They themselves, I presume the argument will be that they can make representations, but it's not they themselves that can go out and do this work. They can plead with the executive to do it. But anyway, as I say, I'm not here to, we'll speak to counsellors and get that viewpoint as well. Rachel Leeper of Rachel Leeper Hair and Makeup based on the diamond in Riffau, which was a, it was full tide effectively is what it looked like over a Saturday. Rachel, what kind of damage has this done to your property, your business? Well, on Saturday, my work and I went home. As I went to go get my child from the babysitter and I was going home to my house and the roads was shocking. So I kind of thought, oh dear, the house that I'm living in, was my grandfather's house, I thought, oh dear, this will be disaster because it's always floods sometimes but never like this. We went to the house, my child was literally on the ground squilling the water, was as high as the radiators, we couldn't, everything was destroyed, like everything. So we ran parents and stuff, everybody came and we were there about an hour and I got a phone call and they say that the salon in Riffau was flooded. So my uncle had to actually take me in on the tractor because obviously the roads was all busted banks, we couldn't get across, you'd ruin your car. So we went in and my thank goodness, like it's bad enough, like I leave new floors, new skirting and new carpets and stuff like that, but there's a lot of businesses that has really, really been badly affected like because of it. And I do feel really sorry for them, as you say, like the older people in their houses and all that. It's just really bad. The council needs to address the problem of the water situation because it's just not good enough, like. And you got the double hit, the house and the work, right? Yes, the house, like literally we have, we have lost everything from, like everything, we don't have anything at all. Everything was destroyed because it was all contaminated water. So that was, that's a really bad blow. And like we're literally sitting here in my auntie's house and I blow a bed on the floor. Oh my God. Rachel, how do you rebuild from this? You've got the cost of- Oh, I don't actually know because like for money, why use to use, you know, the price of everything at the moment and it's just, I don't know where you go. Well, there have been some calls for national support to come in and support people like yourself. I really hope those calls are followed through on, but you've got enough to be dealing with running a business in difficult circumstances, you know, family as well. And now you're having to deal with getting your house back into a livable state and your business up and running. But as we heard from Dale, you could do all that this week and we don't know what's going to happen next weekend. Joe, you know, that's awful. Like it's just such a, I don't know how you even did. All right. Listen, Rachel, let us know when you're back up and running so we can give you a plug so people know as well. I know you can use social media and word of mouth, but if it's of any help, let us know and we'll let everybody else know as well, okay? Is there anything else you wanted to add, Rachel? Thank you. Okay, no, you're happy enough. Okay, take care of yourself. Councillor Patrick McGowan, sorry to hold you. I just wanted to get the voice of those affected and we'll hear more voices shortly. This is just horrendous and we'll get to the wise, but in terms of supports for these people, is there any movement in terms of a fund, a national fund, anything that can be drawn down on to help these people to rebuild their businesses and their homes? Yeah, well, the director of servers, Gary Martin, was issuing a statement yesterday as you tell the council in the public statement. They have obviously informed the various departments and they've also put up information today about private houses, you know, about supports that have been there from the Department of Social Protection and also for businesses and the different supports that have become a department of enterprise and trade and that's all of that information. They've not been there live, but someone's up there before, but that's the information we've been out there when we had flooding on Tarsley and Anish on and other places. So the council has sent an email out to say that they will be addressing that today, making the public and doing statements and all and just and to making the different bodies, relative bodies, nationally aware of the, okay, it's covered in media, but let me know to extent with the trouble and you know, as households here, as a part of these major projects, as I say, Rafaul, Lifford, Castle Fund, Balabafé, they're obviously, they've taken too long but then some of these were localised floodings that were really the responsibility of Donagall kind of council, well known issues. You had Lawrence McMamalyn on there earlier in the year. The road is completely washed away up at Leneley, Dumfergis, and the council lead built the road to Dum absolutely nothing to work with farmers and by the end of the day, and the light and the strike begin up there. So let me ask you, just directly. But why just talking directly to some of the concerns we've heard, why has nothing been done? What is the problem? Because the, we know we... For the three of you, sorry. There's a major scheme ongoing, the flood release came in Rafaul, Lifford, Castle Fund, Balabafé, Snorri and recently Donagall Town and other ones are added on. Because you're dealing with the rivers and waterways, you have every department that can be from Europe down, all having a say, and I have to end up going to Swanton Boat and all that. So make one single mistake or leave something out, it'll be like a pie pass, it'll be stopped and you'll have to go back to the start. That's very slow, but unfairness. The minister, Boxham Ord, when he was down here six years ago, and minister Sonsat said, if there was a specific issue out of the major projects here that needed to be addressed straight away, providing they were planned and studied, that they wouldn't look at that. And like you're talking about the centre here, Castle Fund, somewhere that's not to do with embankments in Castle Fund, for example, that there needs to be designed and fast-track and that work could be done. So there is a certain scope there, the need to get on with it, plus the need, is that definitely an area? Who's they though, Patrick? Who is they? Well, let's look at some of the projects in Donagall, Lifford and Rafaul have been done on the Office of Public Works. Some of the other projects, Castle Fund, Balabafé and Snorri and others across the county, have been done with the council under the Office of Public Works. Everything goes on the Office of Public Works. Yeah, but these are all, listen, and I spoke about the Donagall town works and we're gonna do new ways of doing things that have never been done before and all that's fine, right? But Rafaul and Castle Fund and areas around them have been devastated over this weekend. That means nothing to these people. They want to know what's going to be done this week. The local problems are known in terms of, drainage blocked or not able to take the amount of water, bigger drains, localized places where sand is stored in a dry place with dry sandbags, stuff that can be done now, long-term plans that might not, I think when I asked about the Donagall town flood mitigation, which was the last one we talked about, there was no timeframe for it. There was no, well, we can't, how long is a piece of string? These people need words now that talk of today, tomorrow, this week, not the promise of, you know, major, major flood mitigation works over the course of multiple years. So what can be done in the short term to say, right, we have got your back. Rachel's paying her rates. She's paying the water charges. She's got no business today. She would be within her rights to withhold her rates and say, and the amount she spends on water and say, well, what's the council doing for me? So outside of mentioning the OPW, this, that and then, what can be done to protect the people, the homeowners and businesses right now of Rafaul and Castle Flynn? If the answer is nothing, Patrick, we'll just say that that's fine. So we all know. If the answer is nothing, say it. Never nothing. Some of these issues, and not every flood in the same town has caused the exact same reason. As I tell you, there was a month's rain dropped on the day and so on. And a lot of the gullies probably wouldn't take it. But a lot of these, as that man said earlier, there's a lot of localized people there, do know there are certain black spots that if they were tackled. And some of that, the council, the kind of council senior management and the council can apply year to year for small remediation works to do, to alleviate flooding. They've won the story. They give an engineer's report and go to the government. And they have been getting, I think the low cost accidents across all, they do get money every year, but there's obviously things in the fall in particular in Castle Flynn. And the ministers did say there's a specific issue within the town they can apply to it. Why it's taking so long? Everything now is the same. It's consultants upon consultants. But I do know, and it's called them out very clearly, we have an area manager here. She needs to be working with her management and we need to demand them action. The councillors will do that. And yes, the councillors will be back because they are the messengers. They go out to public like the postman that they hear what the people say and they go back to them. And they are quite frustrated. And I know all of the councillors on this area, this time, the last time was on a show and we just have to do that. I just can't help a feel that if this was flood water that was affecting the council officers in Lifford, that there'd be diggers on the ground tomorrow or the day after. You know, like I'm not saying that's the case, but it'd be like, oh, you can't have the, there are council officers in Lifford flooded. Yet the people have, and listen, I'm not saying it's your fault, but people need to hear that the people of Ruffo and Castle Finn feel neglected, left behind. Like of all you say, why, can you answer why there is not a central area that has sand and sandbags? We know this is going to happen, whereby they don't have to go on Facebook, please, we're desperate. Anyone can you deliver sandbags to Castle Finn? Why do we not have those types of facilities in these areas at the least? That's the one thing we could do that doesn't require any ministerial sign-off. So why don't we do things like that? Yeah, and these things, and you'd be well aware of it, and your colleagues attend council meetings, and they do come up, and it's not always the one thing, they do come up, the council has given promises, we have these standby pumps, which is a big issue for some areas, and Lifford and sandbags, but again, it's like the salt, salt, and at one third time, the stuff has moved away, somebody takes away, it's not to be placed on that, and there just seems to be a lack of emergency, but it's down to each area manager to manage, that's where they're at, and they don't have to be an engineer. I know a lot of our local council workers on the ground, and firemen, and local engineers are very frustrated that they're not getting it, and calling it out here, and I've said it, you know, they're not planning for the short term stuff for them, people are talking about this morning, there's not a lot, a lot of people can do about some of this major stuff, it's going to take times to plan, but you're out of 100% correct, this was not well-attackled, it was last month, people rang the ferry to get themselves, councillors were ringing, all the emergency, and numbers texting, and doing that, and then the sandbags, but only for the community themselves, that it had been a lot, lot more damaged, community did a lot more than the council, unfortunately. I hold people in a lot of respect, but you know, like I also, in terms of communicating what was going on, you know, I would, me and I presume others were trying their best to get information out there on Saturday, to try and inform the public of what roads were open, what roads were closed, where was that information coming from, from the local authority? Like it shouldn't be down to each side, me. It was coming from the public, it was coming to councillors, and from councillors back, staff were contacting us, people were trying to put it up in social media, we were contacting senior managers in the council, and we were using the same emergency numbers that were blocked out, but no, it's just simply, it's been another test, and it's failed, it's simply, you have to call us, pay the spade, the council has failed again, not to be able to react quick enough, and some of these issues could have been sorted without having to wait on these major schemes, that I would be hands up there, that as a criticism, the council has to take and they need to do a lot, lot more. Yeah, well we need to see action and plans and what can be done, anything, even if it doesn't work. To be seen, to be trying to, I mean, I think there was drains were being dug on Saturday night to try and divert water, I've seen Councillor Frank Marbury sent in a release, drains were being dug to try and divert water, why was that happening after the fact? Why are those emergency drains or whatever it might be, not already in place, already in place to divert water? You know, what we can't forget in all of this is that this is not roads and buildings, this is people and older people in many cases whose lives have been disrupted beyond recognition, at least in the short term, living in fear. These are people that we can't let this happen to again, or we have to at least try and to limit it into the future until such time as these major works happen. But they kind of get houses. I've gone round, yeah, well, I look like everybody else. I've gone round this morning, with the Minister of Child and Connolly, he rang me yesterday about it. He said he won't go round, and I said, look, you won't see the flood now, but you can at least talk to some of the people, Kelly Gordon, Castle Fun, and gone over to Ruffol there. And I have said some of this stuff lies at the door of the council, not necessarily with your colleagues in Dublin, and you need, as the Minister as well, the call of spade, spade, and kick back the same as we are doing. And, you know, the government ministers are getting criticized, but sometimes they can't come down and reach for a shovel themselves within the flood. And they do expect a bit more from management. We've talked about emergency plans for years. Counts, 10 years ago, I asked them to work close away farmers. Three years ago, Councillor Lee and Blaney put a motion on, that's work with the farmers and local people, sort out some of the local range, work together, give pipes and stuff, and it's still only been on half-hearted. Right, well, we'll put a call in for the Minister to see if he can give us any, or if he's available to give us any insight into what reaction there will be from a government level to address these issues, or what funds that might be available. Hopefully, you might be privy to that information. But for now, Councillor, I appreciate it, because I know you're on to a meeting as well. So apologies if we delay to get there. You know yourself it's an important issue. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. More important, yep, thank you. Alright, Councillor McGowan, thanks very much indeed for that. Right, we'll have to take a very quick break. Please, Louise and also Kieran, please hold for a moment. We'll be back very shortly. Watch the show live now on YouTube, Facebook, and at highlandradio.com. And that for the day keeps the doctor away. Yes, but a joyful apple keeps the sadness away. Crunchy, juicy with a hint of acidity. Get some joya in your favourite store. 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Get ready for the summer and save 20% off your favourite kids, Azix trainers. Look the part, play the part. In-store and online. Click and collect on bmcsports.ie. OK, we're continuing our coverage of the devastating floods which struck Raffaul, Castlefin and Sarans. Louise O'Lachlan, Louise, sorry for holding you so long. I do appreciate your time this morning. No, you're fine. Right, your house was flooded on Saturday evening. Unfortunately, this is a regular occurrence for you in that property. How bad was it? Absolutely devastating, to be honest. Do you know what I'm only dealing with after mass now today because I was gone from before death, so I was actually out of the house when I found it. Not too fast, are you? Yeah, I'm acting like that. Unbelievable. I could have cried coming on the door, like air rings destroyed, the contaminated water. Like me and the kids couldn't stay here, like we had to stay in my friend's house, but probably won't be able to stay tonight either. And so bad, I've lost my wife and shame, my tumble dryer, all the floors have to be left off. I backed up to see my house for situated, I was right beside the boarding bus and float to town. Like only last February, like I was listening, the councillor in the ground saying about the council trying their best, only last year, February of last year, they were up and digging, but it didn't solve anything. That actually made things worse. See, I don't understand even something like an early warning system being in place. Like you hear that all the time, something that says, right, we could have an event, even if we could then organise sandbagging or what have you. But anyway, that's not going to help you today, so I'm sorry, because that's just like gaslighting you too much with you. I came back from February last year, like I'd contacted the council and asked for sandbags, they didn't appear. Like nobody came at all with sandbags. This is your fourth time being flooded. How bad is this compared to the previous times? This is the worst night, I have to say. This is the worst night of grocery. The water was that bad, it was bursting on my back door. I think my house cannot save the rest, because it's backed up against the wall, just at the back yard. But then I got the worst of it then, because it had nowhere to go. So your floors are gone, your carpets are gone, the house stinks, because this is contaminated water, your white goods and anything on the floor is gone. What... How do you start with...? Get lost for shoes. That's the wee things, really, that matter to the kids. How do you start rebuilding from this, Louise? That's what I... I don't know, I actually had nowhere to go this morning and I was like, who do you ring? Nobody's saying, post you, do you know what I am? Who do you ring? What do you do? What help is out there? Do you know what I am? And I was so lost this morning and I had to go see the respond houses. They're not council. So there was no emergency out of our house number that I could ring even when I came back yesterday evening. So I had to wait to have it this morning. And I was like, what do I do? I need these humidifiers. I mean, you know, I am so lost. Where do you get them? Yeah, I know exactly what you're on about. Where do I get them? Where do I start? Like, what do I do? I don't know. Louise, you were going to say something about your daughter's there. Sorry, then I asked a question. Sorry, no, do you know what? It's not even... It's the intact on the kids. My both... My kids are on the spectrum. So, like, to be so disruptive in that kind of manner, do you know what I mean? Like, they're routine. Everything, like, my wee boy was so nervous, David. And their clothes were gone. Like, their clothes were sitting on laundry baskets. And stuff like that, they're completely destroyed. That's the way things... Nobody thinks of them. And then where's the health today? I'm still standing here in the mess. Yeah, I mean, yeah, because we should have, at this point, I would have thought we have in place a team on the ground that signposts and deals with issues. Like, why aren't we now... Why is there not an emergency response team in place to direct you to what supports are available locally, to discuss whether or not you need alternative accommodation, like, you know, like a hotel or whatever it might be. Or, you know, there's nothing there for you. You are there standing there going, well, where do I... Do I even pick these socks and shoes up off the floor? What's the point? Where do I start? What? Yeah. The point, exactly. That's the small things that you don't realise on the impact on us. Yes, they can clean up the mess. Yes, they can have less floors. But when you have the kids, then, on mind, and you're thinking, do you know, like, almost all, like, out of place, and you don't know where you've gone, like, say, I know where my friend's house, do you know what I mean? That's them kind of things, and then there's still no health. Yeah, OK. I don't know what to say, Louise, other than I'm really sorry that you're having to go through this. And I know exactly, I think, I do. I can't put myself in your shoes, but, like, where do you start? Where do you go? You've no guidance, no help. I mean, obviously, you've got friends and families, as you've mentioned, that will support you, but in terms of, you know, where is the emergency response team on the ground, saying, well, what can we do for you today? This is where you can get dehumidifiers. This is where you can access some line of funding. You know, it's just... There's nothing. No directions on the council, because when I was off away on my weekend, it seemed like I was ringing the council, and I had begged them to bring them up sandbags. They didn't appear. Right, OK. And then I got to the stage that the water was too ferocious. They advised me then to ring the firewrecks themselves. So I had to ring them a moment before I stemmed from Bunkrana. And they rang me on the way, but the centre and the other businesses needed the assistance, and then, sure, the kids were left with their dad standing in the middle of flood, you know, flood water, dirty water. All right, Louise, I wish I could say something to help, but I can't. Thanks for sharing the story with us. Hopefully you, speaking out, does kick something into action that we don't need anyone standing around looking in puddles. We need action here now, you know what I mean? That's what we need. All right, Louise, best wishes to you and the family, all right? And on your 40th birthday weekend, I'm so sorry. No, I'm fine. All right, take care. Thank you. Bye-bye. Kieran, hopefully Kieran of Kieran's Butchers. I know he's a really busy Kieran, and I appreciate you holding there. You took a hit on Saturday. Thankfully, they were able to get the shop open this morning. How bad was it for you, guys? It was just terrible. I thought it was great. I was coming down the back opening there from the whole morning of the ring, you know. I was up to your waist nearly coming down. Yeah. And we were in the back of the shop there, but we were very lucky. We got the sandbags down in time, you know, when we escaped the boat. Not too badly. Yeah. But our buzzes now was very, very badly affected. And Kieran, you've learned then from history, and we're able to react quickly. Yeah. I presume the Kieran's Butchers and Rafal's been flooded before. Oh, on Teen Titans, I had the lady that's there. Now, she's eight years of age. She'd love him with that for 60 years. Like, she'd love the shop there, you know. But the work that the previous owner done there before, you know, he dug a big, like a culvert the whole way down and diverted it on out. If we hadn't done that now, we'd be completely washed away, you know. Because I took one of the firemen up and showed them the big pipe that comes out to the car park there with birdies and he couldn't get over the flow of water that comes out there, you know. But it's just, it's completely unreal. All right. Okay. But you're back open today anyway. We're back open now, yeah, and this morning there, we're open right now. We've got a thanks to it now. But the road's badly damaged in front of you, isn't it? Oh, the whole entrance there into the back of the shop is completely washed away. The whole barn left it up, you know, the slabs and everything, all of it up along there. They'd run over on the deal then, you see. The road and everything. All right. Okay. You know. Something needs to be done, Kieran. Oh, it needs to be done in some time now, you had it all. What do we need to be done? Things need to be sorted out right and quick now. By the time it comes in the app are in now, heavy rain, cheer, your hearts and your lives. Yeah. All right, Kieran, listen. You know. Good to see that you were able to get in situ quickly. All right, thanks very much indeed, Kieran of Kieran's Butchers and Rufo, which is open for business today. I think we're going to have to come back. I'm not going to be able to get through everyone. So we're going to have to come back to some of this. Hopefully, Lawrence, if you could please hold and come back to us after 10, Lawrence, we'll hang up. I'll come back to you because I know I spoke to you the last time and I would like another chat with you. Just some further political reaction first before the news at 10. Because as we mentioned, it wasn't just Rufo, Castle Finn also hit by devastating floods and anyone watching on the live stream here can see the devastation of the water just in the middle of the town there. Councillor Gary Doherty, why are we back here again? Sort of trying to make sure we learn lessons. We should have these lessons learned at this point. Absolutely, Greg. And I think the people on the ground, the people that are directly affected by this, they have no lessons whatsoever to learn because they know exactly what's going to happen. And everybody who's watching the rain all day on Saturday, particularly around six or seven o'clock and when they started the sea roads that were turning into rivers coming down off the hills, I think everybody locally here knew exactly what was going to happen. So I think lessons that need to be learned, I think we need to be changing how we approach this going forward. And that's something that I'm demanding of both the council and the department. Well, what needs to be done? Because, Councillor, I mean, obviously, this isn't a political issue. You're also an elected representative. You've also dealt with this in the past and you're also in your seat whilst it seems nothing is being done. So, and I'm not saying that, we heard that from callers earlier on. So what can you, as a group of councillors, do to try and make sure this doesn't happen again? Or do people at least have some level of support and defence when it does happen? Yeah, so I think there's three very specific action points that we can do straight away, Greg. Number one is to fast track any elements of the larger flood relief schemes that can be done in the short term rather than waiting for the planning permissions for the detailed design and construction phases needed for the bigger schemes. So, for example, in Castle Fun, that means that the larger flood scheme which involves constructing big embankments at the river, there's a separate phase of that scheme which involves piping a new culvert across the road at McLean's restaurant there. That can be done on the short term. There's no need to wait for the rest of the scheme for that to be done. And I'm asking both the council and the department to fast track that, which would solve that one problem. Secondly, we need, need, need to have a stock of sand and sandbags ready to use and to be ready there at various locations. Why did you and your fellow councillors not make sure that that bank of sand and dried bags was not already in the areas where we know there's going to be flooding? Like, why are you making that call today? But why wasn't it done after the last flooding event? That call was made before, Greg, absolutely. Why was it not there on Saturday night? Only the council can answer that and we're going to meet at 11 o'clock and I intend to find out the answer to that because it's simply not good enough, both myself and the other councillors that were representing this MD. We're an area that is repeatedly affected by flooding. We have asked these questions and we had asked that these supplies would be put in place. Now, when people then, even council staff, went on Saturday night to get the bags, they found that the warden bit off and that whatever was there was already out. So that's not good enough. All right, okay. So now there needs to be a stockpile in each town rather than sending people to Lifford or Balboffay. We need a stockpile here now in Castle Fun. They need a stockpile in Riffle. We need a stockpile in Lifford. And just finally, Greg. Briefly, please. We need the departments now to come in with financial support for these people because they're businesses and homes, some of whom are not insured for flooding because they've already been flooded before. They need financial assistance. And we're going to follow that up after 10. Thank you very much indeed for that, Councillor Gary Doherty. Okay, the news is going to be just two minutes late, as you can imagine, things run over given the importance of the story we're covering this morning. So back after the news and obituary notices. The new Volkswagen ID Buzz, fully electric, fully connected, full of new ideas, an icon of a new era. The all-electric ID Buzz combines comfort, sustainable mobility and fun wherever you take it, available now with 0% PCP finance from just 259 per month for July 2023 registration only. Book a test drive today with Connelly's Volkswagen Letter Kenny or see connellys.ie. Terms and conditions apply. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland and a subject to lending criteria. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Visit connellys.ie for further information. Armaculla jewelers in Letter Kenny are synonymous with fine jewelry, quality watches and giftware. With stores at Main Street Letter Kenny and the Letter Kenny Shopping Centre are online at armaculla.com. You can choose from their quality product range and a relaxed atmosphere and their sales staff will be happy to help you make the right choice, whatever the occasion. Armaculla jewelers, making moments magical for generations. Do you want the very best for your pet? At Gary's Pet World Letter Kenny, we offer fantastic value on all your pet foods, accessories, grooming and pet care products. We cater for cats, dogs, rabbits, birds and fish and open seven days per week at Letter Kenny Retail Park or you can browse and buy 24 seven at petworld.ie and we will deliver to your home. Treat your pet with a visit to Gary's Pet World. It's what they deserve. The eighth annual Letter Kenny busking festival is on Saturday the 29th of July with musicians and singers performing all along the Main Street from 1.30 to 3. It's an afternoon of great street entertainment. That's the Letter Kenny busking festival on Saturday the 29th of July. Come along and join in the fun. The Letter Kenny busking festival on Facebook for more details. Live on air online and on the Highland Radio app. This is Highland Radio News. Good morning, I'm Michaela Clark with the news at 10 o'clock. Residents and businesses in East Unigall are continuing cleanups today after much devastation was caused by flash flooding in the area on Saturday. Heavy rain resulted in flooding in Rafoe, Castlefin, Killy Gordon and Convoy. The ground floor of Deals parents' home in Rafoe was destroyed. He told the 9 to 9 show this morning that despite promises being made after the time was last flooded, the response from authorities remains gravely inadequate. The mental strain that this was going to put families and relationships on just the cost of living. I mean, there's somebody has to help. Some responsible, they were something. I mean, the last thing that's happened, we had councillors around here promising, right, we'll only set up an emergency place that we can have sandbags, something that local authorities and volunteers can get on and haul all the sandbags and put them out. When the fire service landed here, we were all standing. I mean, there's nothing you can do about the water, but we didn't have any sand. Well, there were full councillors who said those living in the town continue to live under the threat of flooding each year. A flood relief scheme for Rafoe has been commissioned, but works have yet to commence. Councillor Frank McBrady says the current drainage system in the town simply can't sustain such heavy rainfall. When these flash floods comes from the back of the hulls of Rafoe, the water comes down to such a force into the town that there's nowhere to store this water, to allow the drainage network to drain away gradually, which would dramatically reduce the threat of flooding within the town itself. And until they do that, this problem will always be there every summer, in particular when you get the heavy rains like such as we had on Saturday night. Well, Donegal County Council has sought support from national government for the residents and businesses affected. The local authority has confirmed that it has notified the national directorate for fire and emergency management of the flooding in relation to potential assistance from the Department of Social Protection and Enterprise Trade and Employment. Keherlock of Donegal County Council, Councillor Martin Harley, hopes there will be an announcement later today. I visited both Rafoe and Kessler on the yesterday evening and talked with some residents and some of the business people that were affected by it and, you know, pointing out to them that hopefully we'd be back with someone to them this evening. It only happened so quick. No matter how quick services get there, it'll be very hard to save some of the businesses because it just happened very suddenly. Multiple people remain in a serious condition in hospital following a crash between Terman and Kilma Crennan on Saturday. Guardi and emergency services attended the scene of the serious two-vehicle collision at around 3 p.m. Both drivers and passengers, all females, and aged in their teens, 20s, 40s and 60s were brought to Lettercanny University Hospital. Investigations are ongoing. Allowing pharmacists to prescribe certain medications could ease pressure on GPs. The Irish Pharmacy Union is welcoming the Minister of Health's proposal to expand the role of pharmacists in Ireland. Minister Stephen Donleys announced the formation of an expert tax force to explore the issue with the report due in October. Anne-Marie Horne, Executive Committee member of the IPU, says the move would benefit the public. It could help deliver revolution, patient care and community pharmacy setting and help significantly shorten GP waiting times. Could it be things like minor ailments? So these are generally conditions that are minor in nature and can be reasonably diagnosed in the pharmacy setting and managed by medication supplied directly by pharmacists. There's urgent calls for safety measures to be installed on a Lettercanny Road used regularly by children due to cars travelling at a phenomenal speed on it. Donegal County Council has agreed to carry out an assessment of the wrong road. Councilor Jeremy Monagill says parents have raised concerns over an increase in traffic on the route. I've been contacted by a number of parents in the area who have children who are friends with children across the way from another estate and they're crossing this busy road. As we know, the round roads become very busy in recent times because of the traffic ingestion in the towns. Whether night or night, today, but staying largely dry, there will be a few isolated showers developing this morning or afternoon in a fresh, northerly breeze. Highest temperatures of 14 to 16 degrees. That's all from Highland Radio News for now. We'll be back with an update again at 11 o'clock. Until then, good morning. The obituary notice is for this Monday morning, July 24. The death has taken place of Marie Hickey, Nick Campbell, Strand Road Bomb Bag, originally of Carrick Macross County, Monaghan. Removal from the Eternal Light Chapel rest at Mountaintop Lettercanny this afternoon at 3 o'clock, going to Rorty's funeral home at Derry Bag. Her remains will be reposed at the funeral home from 4 o'clock until 8 o'clock today and tomorrow, rosary nightly at 8 o'clock. Funeral mass on Wednesday at 12 noon in St Mary's Church Derry Bag. Her interment and the interment of her son David's ashes will take place in Mahregalne Cemetery after the funeral mass. The funeral mass can be viewed live on Carrick Macross County Funeral Director's Facebook page. Family flowers only please. Donations in loot to the Donegal Hospice. The death has taken place of Mildred Nesbit, Tardrum Green Castle. Mildred's remains are reposing at Liam Collins' funeral premises where you're welcome to pay your respects today from 4 o'clock until 6 o'clock. Funeral service will take place tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock in the Movil Presbyterian Church Glen Crow, followed by burial in the family plot at Sinfinean's Church of Ireland drum-aware Green Castle. Family flowers only. Donations if desired to the High Support Unit St Colm Kill Village Climani, Kerv Ann Doherty. The death has occurred of John Joe McGonigal, three Westview Terrace Siamills, reposing at the family home. Funeral from the family home tomorrow afternoon at half past one for recreation mass at 2 o'clock in Sint Regis Church Siamills, interment afterwards in the adjoining church yard. The mass can be viewed via the parish webcam. Family flowers only please. Donations in loot if desired to the Foreign Hospice, Kerv Ann Doherty family member. Family time please from 10 o'clock tonight and before the funeral tomorrow. The death has occurred of Brigid Heron, 30 Glendale Drive at Letter Kenney and formerly of Brineck Glen Swilley, reposing at her daughter Noreen and son-in-law Noel McDevitt's residence, cabra to date from 11 o'clock until 10 o'clock. Funeral mass at 11 o'clock to more morning in Sink Columbus Church at Glen Swilley. The mass can be viewed live on churchservices.tv. Burial afterwards in Kilfeek Cemetery in the family plot. Family time before the funeral tomorrow please. Family flowers only. The death has occurred of Alice Callan, Crossroads Killigordon, reposing at the family home, rosary tonight at 9 o'clock. Funeral from the family home to more morning at half past 10 for recreation mass at 11 o'clock in St. Patrick's Church Crossroads. Interment afterwards in the adjoining church yard. The recreation mass will be streamed live via the parish YouTube channel. Donations in loot if desired to the Donegal Hospice care of any family member. Family time please from 10 o'clock tonight and before the funeral tomorrow. The death has taken place of John McMeneman, Dillard Ford Avenue Coventry, England, formerly of Alf de Gort, Crossroads Killigordon. Mass of the resurrection will be offered for the repose of John's soul in St. Patrick's Church Crossroads Killigordon on Wednesday at 12 noon, followed by service of committal at Lakelands Crematorium Cavern at four o'clock. Family flowers only donations in lay of desire to Anne Cran Oak Autism Centre, St. Patrick's National School, Lurgy Brack at Kerf Sweeney Funeral Directors County Mayo. Donations box also at the church. Mass will be streamed live on the St. Patrick's Church Crossroads at Killigordon YouTube page. The death has occurred of Bobby Bradley Calais. Bobby's remains will be reposing at his son Martin's home, Kildrum Upper Calais. Funeral from there this morning at 20 past 10, going to the Church of the Immaculate Conception Calais for recreation mass at 11 o'clock, followed by interment in Newton-Conningham Cemetery. And the death has occurred of Sinead O'Keehan, 22 Main Street Drum Queen, reposing at the family home, 22 Main Street Drum Queen. Funeral from the family home this afternoon at half past one for recreation mass at 2 o'clock in St. Patrick's Church Longfield Drum Queen interment afterwards in the adjoining church yard. Family flowers only plays donations of desire to Macmillan cancer care, care of Jharnath O'Keehan, 22 Main Street Drum Queen, or Oma Auction Mart. Family time, please, before the funeral today. For more details, including any family health guidelines for wigs and funerals, please go to HynanRadial.com. Electric picnic tickets are sold out. Or are they? Every week in Aldi, be in with a chance to win your weekly shop and electric picnic tickets. Just spend 25 euro or more in Aldi. Take a photo of your receipt and upload it to aldi.ie.com. Imagine one moment you're strolling through Aldi, the next you're singing your heart out, so pitch up in Aldi to win big. Aldi, every day amazing. 18 plus only ends August 20th. Excludes alcohol, prizes and forties and seas at aldi.ie.com. All right, later on in the show, we'll be answering any questions you might have as it relates to smart meters many, many have been rolled at. Now, but maybe you still harbour some concerns or want a better understanding of what it means. What's the advantage? What's the disadvantage? So we have someone on a little later on who, in fairness, now is a supporter of them, but we'll still try and get your questions answered as best as we can. I'm tilted here on the camera. Right, OK, we were on to the council and they say the council has been contacted with the, or been in contact with the national directorate for fire and emergency management today, advising of the flooding incidents in the RFO, Castle Finn, convoy in Kiligordon area last night. I would appreciate if you could cover this piece. OK, we did. A council spokesperson, though, is currently not available until later today. They will be because there is a council meeting on. And if you don't mind, and I said this on social media and I wouldn't mind doing so on the airwaves as well, we do know that our retained firefighters are, and they're not just firefighters, our retained firefighters are in the process at the moment of trying to get a fair deal. So that they can keep doing what they're doing in terms of protecting people and what have you. And they would have got the calls, the pagers, the phones would have went off on Saturday and straight into their units to go and assist in the public. And that's what they're all about, too. So just keeping that in my mind over the weekend as they face their own challenges, but still are there to help the public out in their time of need. This is in relation to potential assistance available from the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Enterprise Trade Employment to assist, respectively, householders and businesses affected by this flooding event. And they may be eligible for assistance under a number of schemes. The road's emergency number is 074917228. OK, why isn't the flooding news heard on wider media channels? We truly are the forgotten county country. I did see it on the BBC News, BBC Northern Ireland in fairness. I didn't watch RTE, so I didn't see it over the weekend, nor the other one, Virgin. So I don't know what level of contact they had. I know I was contacted by a couple of people on RTE because I was trying to get the message out in social media. And what happens is all of a sudden you become interesting because they want to use your information. So I didn't reply because I was too busy, but I don't know if they had. If they got anyone on the ground, eventually, but I wasn't available to do that work for them. Very surprised. Councillors hadn't that problem sorted in RFO. It's even happening a lot where planning is got, but water is flowing out onto roads causing flooding. Great making rules, but nothing at all enforced. Hi, Greg. There is no emergency protocol or prevention work in RFO and wider areas. Flooding is a fact of life now. The roads have been in a disastrous state for years. The drains are collapsing under the roads. For example, this summer, a dangerous hole drain opened up under the entrance to Montgarie Close. This summer, the local authorities said it was the responsibility of the estate to fix ridiculous. This is no action. There's no action from the authorities why the town is collapsing. Says Lisa. Thanks, Lisa, for your text. Yeah, I just don't understand why we don't have. Now, yellow, there was a yellow warning in place just to be absolutely clear and fair. There was a yellow weather warning in place for Saturday. And the weather models and all that language that you're familiar with showed that there would be a certain amount of rainfall. Then something changed and a red warning was issued but too late on, but not like not so late that something couldn't have been done. The rain at its level wasn't forecast, as I say, until very late because and I've spoke to people independent of Metairin as well. In fact, Eleanor Riley from Carl or Weather, he doesn't have skin in the game, right? So I asked him, actually, do you know what the best thing to do is to read my communications? Because, as I say, I think this kind of information is important to and perhaps important to be fair. So I asked Alan was this level of rainfall forecast and he said no was way out, so it wasn't forecast. And the rain scene in Ruffo was red level. The yellow warning was issued very late in the day. The weather models didn't show that much rain until close to it, but still a very late warning was issued. And then he went on to say that adoption is an issue. He says, I keep trying to raise. We talk so much about cutting emissions, but so little on preparing for floods and extreme weather. And indeed, that's something maybe we could speak to Alan or Riley about, because that is important if we spent as half the time that we talk about trying to prevent these things as to how we deal with them. I think that would be beneficial as well, wouldn't it? But we are going to be seeing these events. We need emergency protocols in place, lines of communications that kick in. A caller says, they're doing a greenway from Castle Fin to Lifford costing seven million should be spent on upgrading our towns like this for 60 years. As I went to school, Sandy Road was flooded. The countries are washed with money. Pardon the pun. I really understand where you're coming from, but there is nothing with the right intention. There's nothing to stop that greenway from Castle Fin to Lifford being built and also flood prevention, proper flood preventions or at least interim flood preventions being put in place in the towns and areas that we're talking of now. But I do understand exactly what you're saying and I'm not in any way disregarding what you're saying. A caller says, rather than plan for sandbags, it's essential to improve drains, road flood defenses and maintenance. I agree 100%, but my point is, is that people have called for they were doing on social media. Please, anyone, can you get sandbags to Castle Fin? You have to understand that people are, their houses are about to get, you know, full of water with poo in it, right? And businesses know that if this water gets in, we're not opening for two weeks. So you can imagine, if you're not in that area, you close your eyes, you can imagine what that must feel like. So they're panicking. And they're saying, putting on social media, has anyone got any sandbag? They shouldn't have to do that. There should be a central area in these places that has a pile of sand. And you know what? If it has to be replaced every six weeks, well, then so be it. A pile of sand that is there with dry bags. You know, it can't be beyond us. I see piles of chips and stuff on the side of the road for where ice forms. And it's there from one end of the year to the next. Now, I mean, obviously sand would have to be covered, but there aren't people going around stealing this stuff. There's no excuse in my view. And it's not really for me to say, is it? I don't know. Yes, it is. There's no excuses there for sand and sandbags not to be put in place in the case of an emergency. I get where you're coming from. Yes, we need essential work to improve drains and what have you, but people also need, excuse me, also need emergency. If I'm wrong and if you're from those areas, please let me know. Patrick McGowan, like the rest of them chatting, a load of BS, the council not fit for purpose. All the county managers, all they, not the county managers, all the council talks about is property tax. Two more before we take a break here. Hi, Greg, Ruffo is totally neglected. I'm not from Ruffo, but I went to Ruffo during the winter months when there was bad ice and snow, when there was not one bit of grit from Kilruss Junction to Ruffo. It doesn't surprise me that this has happened in Ruffo. Where is the councillors this morning? I heard Patrick McGowan, but where's Martin Harley and the rest? All they're good for is talking, well, Frank McBurteys on the news, speaking to the news team. And also, I think I heard, I think I heard Martin Harley. Just because you're not on this programme doesn't mean you're not talking about it either to be fair. So we're trying to get different voices. So the newsroom was speaking to Councillor McBurtey, Martin Harley. We spoke to Councillor Doherty and Councillor McGowan. It's just who's available at what times, by the way. So in fairness, just because a councillor is not on this programme, it doesn't mean that they're not worried about it because they've spoken to the newsroom too and those interviews are available during the news bulletins now. But we're trying to not double up on voices all over the place. That makes sense. Listen to that funeral councillor talking, reflooding is just all talk. I'm sure he means well, but I've got to mention the present funeral housing minister and I hate he's dealing with the concrete block crisis and the housing crisis in general. These people have failed Donegal for many years. That's the view of one listener there. OK, we're going to continue our coverage of that. As I say, plenty more to come on the show as well. Stay right where you are and please, it's not too late. If you want to talk about that issue or anything else, take out your phone. I understand some of you would be too upset this morning to talk and that is fine, but maybe talking might help. 08 660 25,000 is the WhatsApp and text number 07491 25,000 if you wish to speak to Caroline and Neve on the calls on the lines as well there too. The county's number one talk show, the 9 till noon show on Highland Radio. It's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio. It's Monday, July 24th. You're playing on a green colour sheet. The reference number is S6. It's game number 30. The numbers are... 03 before 8pm tonight, leave in your name, contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book. Get all your NCBI radio bingo information at highlandvideo.com. Did you know that new tertiary degree programmes are now available through Dunnegal E.T.B. in conjunction with Atlantic Technological University? These unique degree programmes allow students to remain in their local region while studying for a degree. If you're interested in getting a degree in business, lab science, sustainable engineering technologies or general nursing, apply today. CAO points aren't required for this opportunity to explore university education in a flexible learning environment. For more information on how to apply, visit atu.ie forward slash tertiary degrees. Looking for a flexible, affordable home improvement loan for your dream kitchen, bedroom or bathroom? At BNS Credit Union, we are here to help. Renovate loans from 5,000 to 70,000 euros. Visit our website at bnscu.ie or free phone 1-800-290-390 where our dedicated and experienced loans team are delighted to help you. Loans are subject to approval, terms and conditions apply. BNS Credit Union Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. All men's wedding suits packages are now 20% off. Just book your wedding suits before August 31st and get a whopping 20% off. Don't stand still. Evolve. Let it get any retail park. Terms and conditions apply. Right, just to let you know by the way, if I could just get it open here, that if you are in the initial area, there is a boil water notice. I just want to read it out here. Following consultation with the health service executive, Ischka Aron Irish Water and Donegal County Council have issued a boil water notice to protect the health of approximately 8,900 consumers supplied by the Inner Shown West Public Water Supply and Car and Donner Mixed Public Water Supply due to operational issues at the water treatment plan. This is something we're following up by the way. The notice impacts all areas supplied by the Inner Shown West Public Water Supply and Car and Donner Mixed Public Water Supply including Car and Donner, Gleneely, Malin, Clonmani, Bali-Liffen, Urus and Glene McKee public group water schemes and surrounding areas. So this is really quite significant. A boil water notice for all of those areas, 8,900 consumers supplied by that. That's properties by the way. That's not individuals. And that was released on the 23rd. I didn't get that, but as I say, I'm just trying to relate this information. We'll try and get someone on from Ischka Aron. So Brian's quoted in that press release, no one's available to talk about 9,000 properties. No one's available from, I better watch what I say, but 9,000 consumers are affected by a boil water notice and there is no one available to talk about that to try and get the message out. That is, as far as I'm concerned, absolutely remarkable. Right, okay. Lawrence, good morning to you. Good morning, Greg, how are you? I wish I wasn't speaking to you again in the nicest possible way, Lawrence, because you have been affected by flooding again. Talk to us about your experience over the weekend. Yeah, well, on Saturday, you know, I'd have been threatening the floods all evening, all day really, and but the neighbors and fairness to them and they're only for them again, I would have been flooded. I had a couple, two sandbags at the door but I was trying to keep the water away and then the neighbors, they got alerted to it and they come and put up barriers outside at the road and there's one drain just directly across the road for me and that's the first time I've saw it now over flooding and coming out and coming across the road and trying to get onto my doorway and then the rest of the water went down the road. So obviously there's more volume of water coming and there's particular drain and the pipe across the road is not able to take the water away. So we had a visit this morning from Charlie B. Cornelow, Minister for Agriculture and Patrick McGowan came about a half hit this morning, looked at the situation and just said something would have to be done and I think they're gonna have a meeting with some of the senior people, maybe engineers and the Nogall County Council and take it from there. But on Saturday night then we, from five o'clock on to midnight, neighbors, they were out on the road just doing what they could and we're all in fear then that because of the forecast, more heavy rain from 11 o'clock on Saturday night until five o'clock in the morning, Sunday morning and nobody could get any sleep. 11 o'clock in fear just. So something will have to be done about this flooding just. Yeah. It's according to often now. And you're living in fear every time you look at the weather forecast. 11 o'clock in fear, yeah, every time it's forecast heavy rain again now for Wednesday and the buyers are out here and we can't even lift them to take them in because you don't know and just sometimes the heavy rain comes without warning and that's what happened on Saturday evening. The last hour, the flood on the drain passed me here going up and down sort of all evening and then the last heavy shower that was, I'm not sure what time, five o'clock, six o'clock maybe, that just overflowed the drain across the road from me and out and down the road. And again, empty some of the neighbors that have been flooded before. When did you think, Lawrence, when did you think it was clear that it was possible that this water was gonna break out and flood? Like what stage of the day was, did you look at it and go right, I'm in bother here? Yeah. Well, just maybe before the last big heavy shower because I've been watching the flood rise in this particular drain and I knew it couldn't take very much more that it would have to be out across the road and the garden across the road from me it overflowed just and there's a fence and it dropped the stones away from the posts and everything and I just covered the road and people, you couldn't walk on the road against the water, it would have been nearly a foot high and that was just the full breadth of the road running down and then up above me the part of the road that was washed away before it started to come down then and we had to put out more sandbags, we only had two sandbags and neighbors had to follow gravel and stuff onto bags of their own and fairness to all the neighbors, the same neighbors that helped the last time, they were all there even from early on in the afternoon looking to see what the situation was going to be like later on in the evening. That's my point, you see Lawrence, what I don't understand again, I'm sorry to lay with the point is why we don't have an early warning system, like early in the afternoon, locals who know the area were concerned enough to say, right, if there's much more rainfalls, we're in bother here. At that point, if there were sand and bags available locally, people could start making the best fist they could to try and protect their property and what have you, but that's not there. I don't understand why we have continuous flooding events and we're not even doing the basics to try and protect property because look at the amount of money this is going to cost now to people but even if the state helps, it's going to cost tens and tens and tens of thousands of euro. Some sand and some bags could help to reduce that. I just don't, I don't know, I find it quite frustrating Lawrence to talk about it because I think the stuff we could be doing that we're simply not doing and it's the likes of you and our earlier callers that have to pick up the pieces and that is very, very difficult for me to bite my tongue on. Yeah, I was trying to point out to Charlie McConnel this morning and Patrick McGowan where I could see a solution but it's no, find the money but then seemingly they have enough money to do some of these jobs but they're not getting around to doing them just and in order to alleviate this drain across from me here they can put in extra pipes further up the road that will like alleviate the water situation and I don't know why they're not doing it so my first letter to Donegal County Council was in 2011 and I've been sorted ever since and the road has been ripped up and I just don't know where it's going to end up. All right Lawrence, lesson, sorry for not getting to you before 10, thanks for taking the call. No, that's fine Greg and I want to thank all the neighbours just over the airway again that came to help and some of my neighbours not able to sleep at night and they self-included, no I've got a dose out of it because I was out on Saturday night, so can we're up to 12 o'clock and it's not good enough at this stage. Me and you can't keep talking about the good community spirit that helps you and you going through flooding and the impact it's having on you, I love talking to you, don't get me wrong Lawrence, but I'd like to talk to you about something else, this is getting all too regular now. Yeah, something a bit more positive. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, but listen, thank you Lawrence, I hope you don't get a bad dose out of this now, but thank you very much for joining us, I do appreciate it. That's fine, thank you Greg, good morning. Good morning to you too. Fair play to you and fair play to Lawrence's neighbours again and it's like Grand Hog Day, digging them out there. Right, Leonard is of hair by Leonard in Raffault. Leonard, how are you? No, that line, there's a wild crack on that one. I'm fine, thank you very much Greg. Is there any chance you could hang up and we'll try and reconnect, there's an awful, it sounds like you're on a motorbike Leonard, I'll come back to your table, hang up there, you will call you right back, sorry about that, there's a blah blah blah blah, that's line two in case you wanna pick another one. So we'll take a very quick break actually whilst we line up. If you still wanna get involved in the conversation, please await 60, 25,000. Watch the show live now on YouTube, Facebook and at highlandradio.com. Join Norman Boland for the launch of his new album, A Country Singer, Singing Country Songs, on Thursday the 27th of July at the Mount Derrigal Hotel letter Kenny. Joined by special guests, Mick Flavin, Louise Morrissey, Sean Coddy and more. It's a night not to be missed. Get your tickets at the door or from hotel reception. Door's open at 7 p.m. Most people say that Donegal is the coolest place on the planet, but up here we know that sometimes it can be the coldest. Charles Boone and Son's Ballet Buffet is the one stop shop for all your heating needs. We have a huge range of multi-fuel and wood pellet stoves and ranges, spare parts for all major stove and range brands, plumbing and bathroom wear, all at exceptional prices. So visit our showrooms where our friendly and experienced team will be ready to help you. Charles Boone and Son's Ballet Buffet and the Stove Store.ie, where you can always do a good deal better. We're sorry to inform you of yet another delay. No, not the train this time. It's John. He's delayed getting his eyes tested. If he's accidentally sat in your lap, knocked over your suitcase or kissed you instead of his wife, we can only apologize. John has now been informed that eye tests and glasses from the 69 Euro range of spec savers are free with PRSI or medical card. So there's no need to delay booking an appointment. Find out more at specsavers.ie. John, can you get off my lap? Thinking of changing your floors? Why not see what Florid Letter Kenny has to offer? Florid have a large selection of solid, semi-solid and laminate click vinyl wood flooring together with a fantastic choice of parquet, herringbone flooring, all at incredible value. Don't delay. Call Florid today on 087-161-7008. Want to live a more sustainable lifestyle? But not too sure how to start. Join me, Donna-Marie Doherty, every Tuesday at half past 12 for its hours to protect to learn all the tips and tricks. Ours to Protect is funded by Commission Le Mans with a television licence fee and with a partnership between Highland Radio and the independent broadcasters of Ireland. Check out ours to protect.ie for more info. Right, okay. We have Leonard back with us, Leonard. Good morning. Hello, Leonard. No, we don't have Leonard. Okay, sorry, we just put Leonard through my bad. Okay. A caller says, until rivers are dredged and water can flow in them, flooding will be a problem. My understanding is, when I say my understanding, sorry, I was informed by a couple of people that said that there are rivers in that area that used to be dredged relatively regularly but are no longer dredged. Why do these flood prevention schemes take so long to complete in Moncranne? We've been told it will take seven years but the council was able to fix Swan's Park in a few years, living in fear since flooding in 2017. No flood insurance. I presume it's planning and all the hoops that one has to jump through. Swan Park was in the case of restoring that to its former glory, which perhaps wouldn't require any additional planning. I don't know. That would be my suspicion. Leonard, sorry, are you there now? I am indeed Greg. Listen, thank you so much for joining us again, Leonard. You're of hair by Leonard in Riffau. What was your experience at the weekend? Well, Greg, on Saturday night, I did, you know, the first reports were on social media. I was at home, I finished the day's work and it was later on. And I'd seen the pictures that were emerging. And it was like, you know, it's like something used to be on television. You don't actually believe it's the place that you work and, you know, it's near where you live. You know, it was, it was surreal, to be quite honest, being a river flowing down past where you work. So, on read. In terms of the damage, whilst you didn't get a ton of damage by water, obviously, the mess and smell it leaves behind, is that how you've been impacted in your business? That's correct. That's exactly it. The damage, yes, there was damage, but it was minimal compared to before. But the mud, the smell, the fact is that I'm a self-employed person and, you know, it's crucial that the salons open so that I can conduct my business and look after my clients. The reality is, it's a mess, it's a smell. I was sent all day yesterday. I'm up here today. I'll be here tomorrow and I'm trying. They may be trying to get open before the end of the week. I don't know them. The floor might have to come up. You know, it's unpleasant. I know, don't get me wrong, it could be a lot worse. You know, there's always people that have been impacted much worse than what we have been. And, you know, I'm grateful that it wasn't as bad as it was. But that being said, and I appreciate you being so thoughtful of others, but Leonard, as you say, you're self-employed. This is your only source of income. You are potentially out of business for the week. You know, hopefully you'll get open. And again, just like we said earlier on, when you do get open, let us know. And I'll give it a plug as well, Leonard, just to be fair, because I don't want to play. What I would like to do, Greg, I'd like to thank the people of Riffle and especially my neighbour here, William Hyman, that came in. I mean, I wouldn't have known where to start. The place was an absolute mess. I felt like crying, and, you know, it's like an ancient mud. And, but, you know, when you have good neighbours that come in with their buckets and their mops, and they, you know, and they start pushing everything away and you start to get a glimmer, it gives you a wee bit of hope. And I was very, have a lot of gratitude for my good neighbours and the people of Riffle. And that's, you know, all being well. Has anyone contacted you in terms of, you know, where you can, you know, if equipment can be given to you, maybe, you know, dehumidifiers or humidifiers, whatever is required to dry it out? Any lines of support from government or local authority? Did anyone check to see or call around with a clipboard to assess what the situation is? Like, have you had any support in that regard? No, well, nobody offered any equipment, but we did have the minister, Charlie McCall, and we were here earlier on. He was very sympathetic, and he did say that if there was any material or any help that I needed, that his offices were open for that. And I was grateful for that, but no, I'm trying to operate here as best I can myself. You know, I, you look, I don't, I'm a resilient person, and I'm used to sort of trying to get things up, and I don't like asking, you know, people for anything, really. But I have to say that people have been good. And as I say, the fact that some India have been here and put a spotlight on, it's a reoccurring thing. And I know that the council have been doing their best and have been doing remedial work on the drink infrastructure, and that has helped an awful lot, you know, since the last bad blood, but the reality is it wasn't suffice, it wasn't suffice. And it's reoccurred, and it has reoccurred, and there needs to be some, you know, I'm not an engineer, but it wouldn't take a rocket science if you know there needs to be a strategic plan or something that will someone will sit down and look and see, look, this is happening. And it will keep on happening until a real serious approach is taken to it. OK, thanks very much for your time, Leonard. And I hope you get open ASAP. Leonard of Hare by Leonard in Rafa. A caller is based in Karn Donna and says that they got a boil water notice over the weekend. Once no, if we can get someone on from the council to explain what's in the water and why it has to be boiled before drinking again, unfortunately. We, Irish Water or the council, no one is available to explain what's going on with the water, when it why it has to be boiled, what's in the water, what happens if you drink the water? Not everyone's going to hear that there is a bowl. In fact, I'm going to go over it again because it's just so important that people understand what's going on. I don't want to over amplify it, but I don't want anyone drinking water that should not be drank. So let me just go back here to get the details. OK, so the boil water notice affects almost 9,000 consumers and 9,000 properties supplied by the Inner Shown West public water supply and Karn Donna mixed public water supply due to operational issues at the treatment plant. Don't know what that means. So the notice impacts all areas supplied by those two areas I mentioned, those two supplies I mentioned, they are Karn Donna mixed water supply, including Karn Donna Glenie, Malin, Clonmani, Ballelif and Urus and Glenn McKee, the public water, public group water schemes and surrounding areas. Iska Aaron has, I don't know why they just don't make someone available to come on and speak about it. It's a really long press release. Vulnerable customers who have registered with Iska Aaron will receive direct communication on this boil water notice and a reminder that the water is safe to consume once boiled and cooled. Water must be boiled for drinking, drinks made with water, preparation of salads and similar foods, brushing of teeth. You're not allowed to brush your teeth with this water. Making of ice, discard ice cubes in fridges and freezers and filtered waters and fridges, make ice from cooled, boiled water. Really significant, affecting 9,000 people and as I say, it'd be very useful I think if someone from the council or preferably Iska Aaron, Irish water made themselves available to help us try and get the message out there so no one's impacted by this. Anything to say on that? 08 660 25,000 WhatsApps and texts or call 07 491 25,000. All right, back shortly. Begs and partners are a specialist local plumbing, heating and bathroom supplier. Established in Belfast 1960, we now have 12 branches and are known for quality, value and reliability. Our latest branch in Springtown Drive, Bunkrana Road Dury includes a beautiful bathroom showroom as well as a fully stocked plumbing and heating trade sales counter. Delivery service available. See Begs and partners.com. Bank of Ireland Trading, out of Buck of Ireland Finance is regular by the Central Buck of Ireland. Your specialty is quality tiles, bathroom suites and wooden floors. Who is the best range of tiles in Donegall? Crawford Tays. The best wood flooring? Crawford Tays. The best bathroom suites? Craw... Crawford Tays. Five-day bathroom refits? Crawford Tays. And who's been tampering with my questions? That'd be me. Crawford Tiles, Castle Finn. That'd be them. 07 491 43942. Eating out later, Sister Sierra's mouth-watering menu is packed with tempting dishes and all-time favourites. Whether it's a special occasion or a private function, their party options and buffet choices have got you covered. Book now on 91-222-38. Sister Sierra's serving food you love until 9pm every day. OK, we've literally hundreds of messages that you've sent in. Thank you so much for it. We'll get through just about as many as we can over the course of this morning. But we want to talk about an important information evening that takes place tonight. The 24th, it's at 7pm in Angrenan Hotel, Burt. And it is on the defective concrete blocks scheme. We're joined on the programme now by Lisa Holne, who is chair of MAG. Good morning to you. Thanks for joining us, Lisa. Hi, Greg. Thanks for having me on. Now, in terms of what's going to be discussed tonight, do we have enough information about the scheme and how it might work and who it might work for to be able to answer a lot of questions that might be posed at this meeting this evening? Or will a lot of the answers be well, we're going to have to wait and see? I think it really depends on where people are at with regard to whether in the scheme or just, you know, whether they've applied or not. We've been getting inquiries recently with people just, you know, feeling just a bit overwhelmed, quite frankly, and just almost not knowing where to start. I mean, there's been a lot of information put out recently, but it's in big document form. So we've got ministerial guidelines, 80 plus pages. We've got FAQs, that's another 50 pages. We've got regulations, which are not an easy read at the best of times, 122 pages. So what we've tried to do with this meeting is really distill down the very essential elements with regard to the scheme and present it to people in a very digestible format. So we're not going to go into the nitty gritty of every type of scenario that could exist, but we'll try and give people a really good insight into how the scheme works, what the roles of the different authorities are, who you'll get communication of, you know, it's sort of the essential element. So hopefully that will give people a good insight. We've also been trying to liaise with some of the key authorities to try and get where the latest information is on all this. And you're quite right, Greg. There may be some areas that we just can't answer questions on because quite frankly, that information at the moment just does not seem to be available. So we're doing our best. Sorry, Lee. So a fundamental one is whether or not you progress at all in this scheme and retain your own foundations. There's still no decision on that. We don't know when that might be forthcoming or what that might be, but we heard from the CEO of Donegal County Council who can only express his opinion. And I don't want to misquote him or paraphrase him incorrectly, but it was along the lines of, look, if you can change your foundations, if it were me, that's what I would do. So on a fundamental like that, there's a big choice for people to make. Do I progress and hopefully move forward in this scheme and retain my foundations? I don't know how many people have money that would have money to do that themselves. Do you know what I mean? And I'm sorry, I don't want to be a problem maker or cause a Lisa, but that's just the first thing comes into my head. Do you know what I mean? On a fundamental here. Yeah, it's a really valid question, Greg. It is absolutely fundamental. And I was speaking at the housing committee just over a week ago and we laid out in very, very plain terms all the concerns we have with regard to how the scheme stands at the moment. I mean, I don't want to get people the impression that because we're putting an information evening together that this is somehow an endorsement of the scheme as it stands, it's certainly not because we certainly have very serious concerns and we are pushing and pressing all the time to challenge the way the scheme is at the moment. But in the same breath, we're still getting inquiries from people in terms of how does this work? So I think at the moment, information is key so that people can get a comprehensive view of the reality of the situation. And there are some really tough questions. I know that like speaking to homeowners directly, they are taking different routes forward. Some are saying, I'm going to try and strip my foundations out. Others are talking to builders with regard to maybe raft foundations. Others are talking, you know, like this, there's various kind of practical things that homeowners are trying to do. It may not be the absolute perfect solution, but we've got homeowners who, quite frankly, they're backs against the wall and they almost have to try and find a way forward. It's really unsatisfactory. It's really frustrating because the government should be taking a far more precautionary approach to this and helping the homeowners to do that. Yeah, it's just, and this is not a Lisa Hohn or Mag thing. It's just, here we are again in a situation whereby if you've got a few quid or access to it, if you're young and you've got a few quid in the bank or whatever, yeah, you might get your house back because you'll be able to dig into the savings or take a loan that you can manage. It's not ideal, but if you're older, if you've got no access to finance, if you've had to skip mortgage payments because you're renting somewhere as well, if you're a single parent with children with special needs and I'm actually quoting people that have contacted me. This is, it's almost heartbreaking here and I was talking about a scheme that's progressing for some because, and this is not a criticism of those that can move in the scheme. And I really hope people know me well enough to understand that, but it's almost gaslight and for, I would argue perhaps the majority that look at this and go, I can't do anything on this at all. Do you get where I'm coming from, Lisa? I know you get it by the way, I do know you get it. Yeah, I mean, Greg, you're exactly voicing the most serious concerns that we have and we have voicing concerns and pressured government in every way possible to address this, but this is a lack of due diligence on the behalf of government. They have made a very conscious decision that the supports will not be in place for those people who need assistance because maybe they're in a vulnerable situation, maybe they're in a complex situation, maybe they don't have the finances available. It is very, very unsatisfactory. It is, we do not endorse the scheme as it stands at the moment because it's potentially leaving behind those who are the more vulnerable in our society. At that meeting you addressed a senior civil servant, a senior government representative says it was the view of the cabinet and the government that this is a 100% redress scheme. You would have seen the clip, you were there, you heard it live. Is that the case? Because that was what was put officially on the record. We believe, i.e. the cabinet and government that this is a 100% redress scheme. I think that's a fair and honest question. Do you believe that it is? It's absolutely not, Greg. It's absolutely not. And we know it's not in terms of the quotes that homeowner's getting. Fundamentally, it leaves out stuff. So by the sheer fact that it omits things, it cannot be 100% redress. So it omits that we've talked about foundations, they're not included. It also omits other structures. It excludes people who are affected by this issue. It cannot be a 100% redress scheme. The way the government describes the 100% regress is they have a big bracket behind it. It's always like, it's 100% accept, and then x, y, z, da, da, da, da, da. Anybody can say anything's 100%. If they have a big bracket behind it, which has all the exclusions and emissions. It's 100% redress for about 70% of the costs. If you wanted to play with words, I'm just picking figures out of my head, but not you, if YAH wanted to pick. It really depends on people's circumstances. And I do understand for some, listen, it's like, right, we can't live like this anymore. We have to progress. We can scrimp and save or borrow or whatever it might be to move this forward. So there are, and we have to recognize that, and those people shouldn't feel it anyway. I don't know what emotions they might feel. That's okay. Everyone has to sort of do what they can do for themselves. So I think even if you feel you can't move forward in the scheme, get into this meeting tonight and ask those questions and tease it out as well. I think it's an important meeting for everybody's different situations. We want to have, I think what people need is like a dialogue. I'm aware that a lot of information has been put out in very sort of large documents. And I think that what people want is maybe more of a dialogue. And that's what we're really offering tonight. Come along, we'll explain to people, if you're not familiar with the scheme and you're just thinking, will I engage? Well, I want to engage, what will I do? And I think a lot of people are in that space at the moment. We'll hopefully give that clarity and information. And then all these issues, yeah, absolutely. We can give people our take on where we're at with all those. And we just, I think the best job we can do at the moment now is inform people to the reality of the scheme. And fundamentally, it is going to be the people's own personal decision on how they handle that and whether they're able to handle that. I mean, we are not going to take our foot off the gas in terms of pressuring government. But unfortunately, the reality is right now, is this scheme is the only way forward. If people need or want to move forward, this is what it is at the moment. It's not what we wanted. It's not what people need. Something much better was needed. But unfortunately, that's where it is right now. And we are getting these requests for information. So we're doing our best to kind of fill those gaps in terms of people seeking that information and just giving the heads up and speak to people as clearly as we possibly can to lay it all out in front of them. If someone were to say that this sounds like maybe you're trying to sell this scheme on behalf of the government or you're endorsing this scheme by even holding such a meeting, if someone were to say that to you, what would you say back to them? No, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, we're not endorsing. This is not to endorse the scheme. This is a response to try and support homeowners because we're getting inquiries by people who just don't know what to do. There are maybe there's levels of confusion. There's a lot of information out there. There's hearsay. What we're trying to do is just give people a very clear version of how the scheme works and how we see the situation right now. And we'll give them a very succinct presentation to try and give them a good idea of how that works. And then hopefully have a sort of dialogue question. One other question. All I need, like I'll pretend I'm a homeowner here. I might well be, I don't know. All I'm, so one of the questions is like, right, okay. So we've seen the money that's being announced, but also I'm reading reports that the cost of a new build has gone through the roof. The cost of materials has gone through the roof. The cost of getting someone on site has gone through the roof. How even if I were to start down the road to this scheme, there's a huge gap between what has been announced now and what it can end up costing me. What if I lock into a contract with a contractor and the scheme isn't adapted to sort of take the extra costs into consideration? It could be a 50% scheme for some. Like a question like that, is there a simple answer to it? There's no simple answer to it, unfortunately, Greg. I mean, I would be, you know, the reality is that homeowners are gonna, if they want and need to try and move forward using the scheme, they're gonna obviously have to work alongside with their building professionals and see whether they actually can get a realistic way forward. I can't promise people that this is gonna work for everybody and I certainly am not endorsing it in the way it stands at the moment and that is precisely one of the issues because there are fundamental financial issues. I mean, we have great issue that the minister did not amend the cap. You know, there was no recognition whatsoever with regard to construction inflation in a cap that was set way back in November, 2021. They're talking about amending things maybe down the road, but people need to have the answers now and it's really not good enough, but it's a balance between trying not to ignore still this need for information from homeowners and unfortunately, every case is almost like an individual scenario. Can I ask roughly what percentage of homeowners do you think could achieve 100% redress, honestly, in your opinion? Because firstly, you have to have a house that's worth significantly less than the cap to begin with. Then you have, you know, we haven't really talked about the sliding scale that can kick in. I mean, what percentage of people that MAG represents do you believe could actually achieve 100% redress? I won't hold you to it. It's what you feel in your heart, I'm asking. I think because of the way it's structured already with regard to the emissions and exclusions, to my mind, it's not this 100% redress. Yeah, but for what percentage of the people affected, might it be 100% redress? Is the answer is none, isn't it? Is it? The answer is none. It's really, really hard to put a figure on it, Greg, because it's only now. Is it more than none, do you think? Like, do you think some people can get 100% redress? I think it's unlikely that from the homeowners that I'm talking to in terms of them sharing their build costs with me versus what they're entitled to on the grant, versus what they actually know they're gonna have to pay, there is a shortfall between the two. Finally. And I've come across anybody right now, sorry, Greg, that actually has all that cost met by this scheme, some are closer than others. So far it's none. So far in terms of people you've engaged with it's none. And that's fine, I just was curious, because you're chatting to a lot of people, very finally, any possibility this meeting could be streamed for people tonight? I'm not sure, Greg. But if someone tech savvy can, maybe they can, all right. Listen, Lisa, I'll remind people after the news, and let us know if it is and we'll share the links. I'll remind people after the news about what's going on tonight. Lisa, thanks for your time, very much appreciated. I hope you know that, okay, take care. Right, we are late for the news. I'm just late. All morning, my apologies for that, okay. We are going to take a break, as I say, for the news now. It is a minute past 11. And with the latest news headlines, it's good morning now to Makayla Clark. Hi, Makayla. Thanks, Greg. Good morning. Donegal County Council says it will be pressing for the two OPW flood relief schemes in Rufoam Castlefin to be advanced as quick as possible. 84 millimetres of rainfall in Donegal on Saturday, resulting in flash flooding in Rufoam Castlefin Convoy Anstronauler. The council has confirmed that 10 commercial premises and eight domestic properties were flooded according to fire service reports. That figure is expected to rise. Well, the council has sought support also from national government for residents and businesses affected. The local authority has confirmed that it has notified the national directorate for fire and emergency management of the flooding in relation to potential assistance from the Department of Social Protection and Enterprise Trade and Employment. An announcement is expected later today. A Rufo Council says people in the town live under the threat of flooding every year. A flood relief scheme for Rufo has been commissioned. However, construction is not expected to commence until late 2024. Council Frank McBrashley says the current drainage system in the town simply can't deal with the level of rain that fell over the weekend. Meanwhile, the ground floor of Dale's parents' home in Rufo was destroyed by flooding. He told the 9 to 9 show today that despite promises being made after previous flooding in the town, the response from authorities remains gravely inadequate. Multiple people remain in a serious condition in hospital following a crash between Termin and Kilmachrenin on Saturday. Guardi and emergency services attended the scene of the serious two-vehicle collision at around 3 p.m. Both drivers and passengers, all females, and aged in their teens, 20s, 40s and 60s, were brought to Letter Kenney University Hospital. Guardi's investigations are continuing. Irish people are being urged not to travel to parts of Greece affected by wildfires. Many holidaying on the islands of Corfu, Avia and Rhodes have had to be evacuated. The Irish Travel Agents Association says northern resorts in Rhodes are largely unaffected. An allowing pharmacist to prescribe certain medications could ease pressure on GPs. The Irish Pharmacy Union is welcoming the Minister of Health's proposal to expand the role of pharmacist in Ireland. Minister Stephen Donnellies announced an expert task force to explore the issue with a report due in October. Those are the latest headlines. We'll be back with an update again at 12 noon. Makayla, thank you very much indeed. Coming up in the next hour, we will be answering your smart meter questions. Have you any questions as it relates to smart meters? Get them into us right now. 086, 60, 25,000. Brendan Devaney is going to be joining us, telling us what's coming up on tonight's DL debate. There's much more besides that as well, of course. I'll be right where you are. Back in a couple of minutes after this break. Big Band Country Nights continue at Loogs of Cranford this Tuesday with Declan Ernie and his band. Another Big Band Country Night this Tuesday with Declan Ernie at Loogs of Cranford, where you will also find music in the wee bar on Saturdays at all time dancing on Sundays. Do you need a little extra help staying in your home? At Bluebird Care, we offer a wide variety of cue mark-approved personalised home care services across Donegal. And our fully trained and committed staff will always meet your care needs with kindness, compassion and dignity. To get your personal home care assessment plan, visit bluebirdcare.ie or call our care team today on 07491 29562 and bring care home. At Hickey, Clark and Langan Insurance Brokers they compare quotes from all the leading insurers so you get a great price. Home, motor and van, farm, quality home, travel and liability insurance, they quote them all. So if the worst happens, you're covered. For a competitive insurance quote today called Hickey, Clark and Langan on 9-1-2-6-8 or pop into their office at Bally McCool Letter Kenny. Hickey, Clark and Langan General Insurance is limited. Trading as Hickey, Clark and Langan is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Attention all local businesses and advertisers. Are you ready to take your brand to new heights? Introducing Highland Radio's digital packages. Your one stop solution for maximum exposure. Picture this. Stunning high quality videos showcasing your products or services reaching thousands of potential customers on Highland Radio's popular social media channels. Not only that, your brand can shine on highlandradio.com with our web advertising. We've got the audience, reach and expertise to help your brand grow. Dominate the digital landscape with Highland Radio's expert team by your side. Call us on 07-4-9-1-2-5-3-2-2 or email advertising at highlandradio.com for more information. Okay, just to remind you that that meeting, the defective concrete block scheme, Information Evening is tonight at 7pm on Greenham Hotel Burt and Lisa said that they're going to try and get it streamed. That's gonna be a tough ask at this late notice, but they're gonna try off the back of a couple of queries we had into the show. Right, okay. Brendan Daveney, presenter of the DL Debate is on with us. Brendan Daveney, presenter of the DL Debate is on with us, Brendan. Good morning to you. How are you keeping? Good morning. Good, good yourself. Good to see you. Right, okay. This week's DL Debate, firstly, what did you make of the hurling yesterday? Yeah, listen, powerful. Just thinking who's gonna stop us? A limerick machine, you know? It's absolutely phenomenal. 21 points in the second half. You look at them on their four-in-the-road teams. I remember Kilkenny actually when they were stopped doing the five and there was teams really having to cut to them. I know Tipperary did earlier in the championship, but you're just looking at this limerick team. The physicality of them, you know, the skill is undoubted in their ability, but some of them guys, you know, the height and the strength that they have, it just seems like, and it wouldn't mind them asking a couple of their best players. The second half was super human stuff, wasn't it? I mean, it was like, how are humans capable of this, this kind of physicality, skill and accuracy? Yeah, to match that kind of size and power with that quickness of skill. It's just, it's just, it's ominous, I think, for everybody else going on the next season, because Kilkenny, I think, in the semi-fair, they look like... All right, that signal's not fantastic. We'll just wait till it settles down a little bit, and it will. If you want a quick word on the sport, 08, 660, 25,000, right, Brent? Sorry, you just cut off there, but you're back with us. It's going to be an interesting conversation. Sorry, Greg, I'm in here to worry. I'm not in my usual spot time, I apologise. No, that's a gridotan you have. I could recognise that, all right. Come here, an interesting conversation too with Brendan Kilcoin about Donegal's search for a new manager. You know, we're hearing lots of people that people would like in that position, ruling themselves out. Are we getting anyone ruling themselves in? Yeah, there's been a couple of names put forward, Greg, at this point. And there's Luck and Nick. There's going to be a group set up a committee of ex-players, a few from 92 and 2012, and they are going to go and look into the possibilities, Greg. You know, taking on board a couple of nominations, but also searching out people that would be interested in the job. So I think that's the best way it needs to be handled. Greg, give it to this group. Let them oversee it and let them get the right people or peoples for the job. It seems if we want all Ireland, Donegal All Ireland winners involved in this, we're going to have to go back to 92. Yeah, well, listen, the names that mentioned, I've had a few talks to people in the background that set up the group. So the people that's coming in, Greg, are very experienced and they'd be well-gotten with loads of connections around the area. Listen, I was very happy to hear the names that are involved. So I think we need to just let them go and get the right people for the job, as I said. Live Stories returns tonight. You've got Pachy Bonner in studio with you. I'm not sure how many interviews he's done, where the principal focus is his GEA background. Yeah, well, I think Pachy's such a hero, Greg, that we can talk to him, but I don't think, can we? You know, the nostalgia there is just unbelievable. Of course, yeah, I want to have a chat about growing up in a bit of GEA because, listen, we are a GEA show, but at the end of the day, I think most people in Donegal like a bit of soccer as well and certainly when it comes to Pachy Bonner, anything we talk about is going to be great. Just looking, just small things, Greg, about his early days. You know, he was over in Leicester on a trial before Celtic. His pathway in his life could have been so, so different, but as it turns out, it didn't happen for him that he was on a trial. He was only 17 then doing his leaving, but he ended up coming to Celtic. He had family over there, the huge Irish connections there. He was able to stay with family initially and just as trajectory then through Celtic. You know, the brilliance of, you know, four league titles and cups in that, and then of course Ireland, Germany, you know, Thailand 90, USA 94 was just, I mean, it was phenomenal timing. Being a young fella growing up then, Greg, but met him a few times. You know, very, very nice man and everybody's really down the earth, so it's brilliant. They kind of just cruise through his life and predict his early days out west and a bit of GA played and then, as I say, the career that he had. Yeah, and you won't make the same mistake that I make and leave out any of the local clubs that he played for because it gets people's back up. Right, so the show, Yeah, the show's live at 7 p.m. news tonight. Podcast then feeds a listen at your leisure with your out for a walk, whatever, on HighlandRadio.com and the DL Debate is brought to you in association with Sarah's Kitchen at Sister Sarah's Leonard Kenny. Brent, anything else you want to add? Yeah, just very quickly, I have a great reference point, the one and only Keir Nadonno, of course, the man of many talents that contributes to the radio. Of course, he has a book, Donegal Legends, where he took 10 Donegal Sporting Heroes and read up about their achievements. I suppose icons of the county and Paki Borders and that so Keir Nadonno made my life very easy research of Paki Borders. Thank you, Keir. All right, good stuff. Well done. Nice to spread the love. Take care, Brent. Brendan Deveney there, DL Debate live at 7 p.m. tonight and then you can podcast it when you want to. Okay, we just got a reference there to Keir Nadonno. What link is he coming in on just to make sure he's not there at the moment then? Let me see, how can you replace foundations when you have a penny to your name? Well, see, that's it. With the flooding over the weekend is there any guidelines or regulations for farmers for their drainage systems? Let's not forget generations ago, we had a Donegal Town based office that had all the joined up thinking to deal with issues like that but we don't have that anymore and then it's like, well, that department or that organization and this talk and we don't move any further. Just back to sport, sorry, wouldn't bet against this limerick team becoming the first ever canty winning five holding titles in a row will be some achievement considering they won just once 1973 in the 78 years prior to this golden generation making the breakthrough in 2018 indeed. Who would bet against it? Not me, not with my money anyway. I'd bet with someone else's money but I certainly would bet with my own. Thanks for all the communications. Keep them coming. We will have much more over the course of this hour. Right, you heard a reference there from Brendan to Kieran O'Donnell by Co-instance. We're welcome on to the show now. Kieran O'Donnell, presenter of Highland Radio's Business Matters podcast. Kieran, thanks for joining us. Good morning, Greg. Making Brendan Devaney's job handy. He's just reading the chapter on Pecky Bono at the weekend there. Glad to help the old colleague as usual. Yeah, exactly right. Okay, we're talking business now. Big news, the other kind of shopping centre has been sold for €74 million. What's the background to this exchange, Kieran? Yeah, as you say, €74 million. It was part of a lengthy process, Greg. The shopping centre is part owned by the Hexicon portfolio, and there were six shopping centres built by Hardcore Developments, and Hardcore Developments is owned by Bunkran developer Pat DiHardy. In history, the asking price was £100 million, and according to reports, a lengthy process ensued, but the bottom line is it was sold for £74, as you said. The other shopping centres are located in Dublin, Galway, Lees, Limerick and Dundalk. Right, and what was the process after sale? Apollo Global Management were involved in this process? Yeah, it was widely reported for the last number of months. Obviously, the asking price had a fall of it, so the local angle here is obviously a local developer built the shopping centre and is part of a six shopping centre group that has been sold now in its entirety. Alright, now, what does this mean in terms of the future? These are obviously attractive because they're going to be a big concern, so really from a consumer's perspective, not an awful lot should change, I'd imagine. I don't think so, Greg, I suppose. When Carrie rang this morning, we were talking about it, going back to the start of the Lerikini shopping centre. Construction got on the way in the early 80s, and it opened in 1985. It was the start of the first of its kind in Lerikini and Donegal, so it was turning point, I suppose, and making Lerikini a much more attractive place to come in terms of retail. In terms of employment at that stage, you would have had to unify the hospital I made. Lerikini Regional College was still a relatively small college at that stage as well, Greg. So it was the start of a whole new change. Lerikini went from a two-way traditional traffic thoroughfare to one way, and it was a reason for people to come into Lerikini. It was also a reason for people not to come into the heart of the town, and that was a major milestone, or turning point as well, in the whole retail area. Lerikini courtyard shopping centre was opened about 10 years later, Greg, and that brought people back under Lerikini's main street, and then we had the construction of the Lerikini retail park in two phases in the early 2000s and the mid-2000s bringing large well-known anchor tenants. Going back to the start of 38 years ago now, since the Shabboset was opened, a long time ago, it was Qansworth and Pennis at that stage with the two main anchor tenants, Greg, and then Qansworth obviously changed to Tesco, and both stores underwent huge expansions. Pennis was doubled in size, I think, in 2004. So, obviously, big reasons for people to come to Lerikini and even talking to tellers, isn't it? One of the reasons that a lot of people come to Lerikini is for brands like Pennis to come and do their shop on there. Fascinating stuff, alright, okay. We'll see how things pan out. Kieran, as always, thank you for your time, enjoy the rest of your day. See you later, Greg. I see you, Wednesday, Kieran, good man. Alright, back with more shortly. Live country music with Derek Ryan at the Highlands Hotel Glanties on Friday, July 28th. Tickets are 20 Euro and available from ticketsstop.ie or by phoning the Highlands Hotel reception. That's Derek Ryan at the Highlands Hotel Glanties Friday, July 28th. Why leave all the magic moments or great scenes you've captured on your phone, sitting there or in the cloud when you can have them printed at McGee's Chemist? Using the McGee's app or one of the in-store kiosks, you can upload your photos from your phone, Facebook or Instagram and have them printed instantly within an hour or in by 10 and ready by 5. See McGee's.ie for more details. Hold your memories in your hand with McGee's Chemist, Letter Kenny. Kelly Steiner and Nedra Kenny proudly introduce its newest member of the team, a family-friendly robotic waiter. It's the only one of its kind in the North West, there to help staff serve customers and with a packed menu to pick from all week from early to late, there's always a lot of fun and fun to enjoy. Kelly Steiner and Nedra Kenny proudly introduce its newest member of the team, a family-friendly robotic waiter. It's the only one of its kind in the North West, there to help staff serve customers and with a packed menu to pick from all week from early to late, there's loads to do. If you'd like to see this robotic waiter in action, just pop into Kelly's award-winning diner today at Mountaintop, Letter Kenny. Highland Radio time checks with Expressway. Travel Route 32 from Letter Kenny to Dublin when you book online and travel for less. We're going to be talking about smart meters. Carmel O'Connor is ESB Network Smart Metering Project Manager and joins us on the program now. Good morning to you, Carmel. Good morning. Thank you so much for joining us. Right, so a lot of progress seems to have been made since we last spoke. How many smart meters have been installed so far across the country? I suppose what is the 100% mark? So that would be for what we call MCCO-1 customer. So that would be a customer who's on a 24-hour register just has one unit kind of billing. And the aim for us is to get to about 2 million meters by the end of next year. And to get to that from September of this year, we're going to start exchanging day-night meters. So anybody who has an MCCO-2 and has a day-night tariff, we're going to be doing a like-for-like exchange of those meters. And we're also going to start exchanging for people who have say night storage heating. So yeah, the aim is by the end of 2024 we should have 2 million meters. And how many meters are out there sort of in residential, I wonder? There's a total of about 2.4 million meters out there. But I would say that 400,000 that we're probably not going to get to until about 25, 26 kind of more oddball niche ones. But for the vast majority of customers, like we have 75% of the MCCO-1. So that's somebody who's on just a 24-hour registered meter. 75% of those meters have already been exchanged. So yeah, we reckon by the end of 2024 we'll have 80, 85% of all meters replaced with a smart meter. So we're really, really pleased with the progress. Yeah, smart meters became one of those items that attracted the attention of certain individuals of a certain mindset. A lot of information was put out there. And we have a lot of those questions to use a few of those questions we covered. They're simple enough questions for you to answer. But my point I was getting too sorry is we have people that are nervous of them. And we'll talk about whether or they should or should not be. But a question that's going to come in is do I have to get a smart meter? I'm a little bit weary about it for whatever reason. How do I sort of not get a smart meter if I don't want to? I know that's counterintuitive to the work that you do, Carmel, but is a question that is going to come in and has come in? Can you out? Yeah, you're right. It's completely counterintuitive because from my perspective, the smart measures are doing nothing but good. There's very, very little difference between your normal digital measure and a smart meter, except that the smart measure kind of basically sends a text every couple of hours with the more up-to-date reading. But yeah, if somebody really wants to say no to a smart meter and some people, a small percentage have said no, you just drop us an email, send us a letter, phone the call center and say you don't want a smart meter. But I would personally, like you're right, it's my role but it's not just my job. I actually had got a smart meter before I even went into the smart measuring program. I just happened to be on a list because I didn't see the benefits far outweigh any negativities. I don't see the negativities myself. I know I have seen some posters with, and I know what you're saying, but it's misinformation. There's been a poster saying no to a smart meter because of higher bills. One of the things that we're really trying to let people know is that the smart meter exchanges are a like-for-like exchange. So all it means is that we will take actual readings off of the meter every two months. You do not have to change unless you want to. Some of the suppliers allow a customer to get their interval data so that's their every half hour but they don't have to change the tariff that they're on. It's still the 24 hour tariff but it allows a customer to get information and some of them give energy insights into how you could save electricity or what tariff would suit you better. And then to be networks has a customer portal so if a customer chooses to go on to a smart, doesn't choose for a smart meter tariff but they can create an account, they can link their MPRN number and they can see their interval data. Just them, it's a graph or a downloadable file so that you can actually see when am I using my electricity most. Is there a way that I could change the way I use my electricity to save myself money if I go on to a new tariff? One of the things that we've seen is now there's a lot more electric vehicle owners now opting to get looking for a smart meter and then opting because I think there's about four different suppliers that offer a super cheap night rate for charging their vehicle so we're seeing more and more EV owners looking for a smart meter. It's very important and I mean user responsible for the network it's very important that people actually look at the options that are there. Some of those nighttime saver options you're paying a higher unit rate during the day then you might be already so people have to scrutinise that and find out what's best for them to maybe they don't change at all but just because it's cheaper at night make sure you look at the day rate as well and see how you use your electricity and how you may or may not benefit. You might have also... That's why the customer portal where a customer before they ever go near their supplier they can download, we have a HDF and you can play around with seeing your usage, seeing what the different tariffs are and if you know how to use a spreadsheet at all you stick in your different tariffs and then you can decide on exactly what you say. If it doesn't suit stay with what you're on and if it does suit look around at the different options from different suppliers and go with the one where you can actually save money. I possibly could get the door of my meter box open I haven't tried to and I don't have the triangular key. I may or may not have a smart meter but I don't know if I got the notification or not. That's not a ESP problem, that's a me problem. Is there any way without me opening that box that I can determine whether or not I have a smart meter? Yes, you should know by your bill. If you've got a bill with your supplier, the supplier will have what we call an ORM number is usually on it so it will tell you if it's an ORM 106 or an ORM 107 it's a smart meter otherwise it's not. Some of the suppliers also will let you know whether you have a smart meter because they need to know so that will determine when they offer you different smart tariffs if they have them. You might have seen the signs as well let's say that smart meters give off more radiation, they've been linked to 5G though I'm sitting here now with a 5G phone in my pocket probably too close to where it should be but anyway be that as it may. Becoming more redundant as 5G becomes more a stocky way. A smart meter does not work on 5G. The last majority of our smart meters work on 2G and some of them if the 2G is poor the newer meters will also work on what's called MBIOT which is a form of 4G but they're not 5G now I'm not saying there's anything right or wrong with 5G but the meters are not. Now but what about they give off a lot of radiation? Not true again if somebody wants to have a look at all of the facts there on the ESB Networks website but they do not like they have to comply to a certain World Health Organization standards the measures that we purchase absolutely adhere to all those standards but even independent testing that we've got the emissions from them are tiny like they're as you say your phone lots of other equipment in your house would have way more information so it's again from my perspective it's one of the bits of misinformation that are out there about a smart meter. Alright now we'll get to the more practical questions in a moment but just whilst we get run through these ones this is useful, I presume you can see the benefit in it but anyway I went out to read my meter and I discovered my smart meter had been replaced to a smart meter without my permission for whatever reason they want it removed and the old system returned can you retrofit once the smart meter has gone and I presume that it's in there It's in, like we have a customer journey that we follow which was agreed with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities so we send out an initial letter that gives a customer I'd say well first of all you would have heard the ads so there's advertising goes out on local radio stations in local paper saying smart meters are coming to your area then we specifically send out a letter to each customer that gives about 8 to 12 weeks notice then a second letter goes out that gives another 6 to 8 weeks notice from the deployment contractor and if the meter is in an outdoor meter box if the customer has not come back and said we don't want a smart meter and because it's such a straightforward change over like a deployment contractor is usually there max of about 45 minutes without supply is less than 30 minutes so if it's an outdoor meter cabinet and we have access we can go in because don't forget like it's an ESB network piece of equipment and in a lot of cases the meters can be very old and they're due to be changed anyway for accuracy because the smart meters as well as obviously giving you the register reads the day night peak register reads and your interval data they're also helping us by giving us more information if there's over under voltage and that information comes back to ESB networks and it's helping us to do the low voltage planning in locations around the country because that information is really good but if there's nobody there and it's an outdoor meter cabinet because it's our equipment and nobody has said don't change the meter we can exchange the meter and once we follow the customer journey. Yeah I presume I presume karma to some extent resistance is futile I imagine having one of the old boxes in a couple of years would be like having the old TV aerial on your roof expecting up to pick up channels when it's been switched off effectively you know there is going to come a point is to not whereby these are not serviceable or won't be serviced and eventually regardless of what people regardless what people say or want they will all be smart meters. I think you're right I think less and less companies are manufacturing the old style digital meters and definitely nobody that I'm aware of is out there manufacturing those old rotating disc meters you would probably have seen the old rotating disc meters some people say refer to them as analog meters so they're like 30 40 50 years old so they're definitely not made anymore and I agree like how less and less companies make non-smart mobile phones it's that sort of idea so eventually I would imagine the only meters that will be supplied by measuring companies will be smart do you have any idea of how many of the 1.3 smart meters installed how many people have opted for smart meter plans as I say I know there's a network and then about 14% about 14% of customers have gone for smart services or smart tariff out there so I know it sounds it sounds low but I think in most cases Irish people like to have it in for a while they like to see what their usage is and they want it in for that full year so that they can kind of see when they're using it when their peak is when there isn't but we are again seeing a lot more people now are going out and getting solar panels and those customers like we have a four month window agreed with CRU from the time somebody sends in an NC6 form to ESB networks to say they have solar panels look for us to get the meter in but customers once they get their solar panels they want that smart meter in so that if they're exporting to the network that they can get paid so we would have a lot of customers now who are looking for smart meters because they want to get paid for any export that they have Amri wants to know can a person ask where to place the smart meter outside or does it have to be placed beside the meter box that they have to replace the one that was there or is there any discretion yeah the program that we're doing is a like for like replacement so where we're using the installers it's wherever the meter was we take it out and we put the new meter in there is an option if you ring ESB networks directly that you want if you wanted to pay for the meter to be moved so if you had an indoor meter box and you wanted to move it outdoors unfortunately that's a separate like that would be a network technician would be doing that work and it's a job that you have to pay for to move it a caller says they put a smart meter in my house a year ago and asked if I want it activated but I never replied I'm not sure if it's activated already or do I have to do this myself okay I'm not quite sure what that means I know I'll tell you now a smart meter when it goes in it takes it has what we call a 30-day proving period so that's where it's connecting to the network and we make sure that it connects so in some cases there's there might be really really poor connectivity and the meter won't connect in which case a meter reader would still need to come you can still get your day night peak tariff because you can get the three registered reads but after 30 days we know whether the meter is is connecting never it's connecting every day and that means then a customer can go and they can look for maybe a half hour lease time of use tariff so that would be like maybe somebody who has an article that wants a cheap rate or wants a free Saturday or a free Sunday with their supplier and that's really it but once the meter has connected we automatically pull the reads every two months so I'm not quite sure what that means by activated I'd say it could be just that misinterpretation of what we mean by that Or it could be a company that says you're now on a smart meter do you want to move to this plan but listen you answered it there I have a smart meter do we still need to send in meter readings to my electricity company I continue to get emails from them thanks does that happen automatically or does it vary from company to company I wonder I think it varies from company to company once we have once if you if your bill sometimes a bill will say the CTF number what we call it's coms technically feasible if that's a one and you're we have to send a meter reader well then I would say you probably do have to do that but that's in less than 2% of homes 98% 96 to 98% of the homes that we have a smart meter in we're able to pull that register read but I think we do it to monthly because the the SLA with the suppliers that we have is every two months I know some suppliers bill monthly and that could be why they're still using the looking for a read or could be just their systems haven't changed because they're not used to having the the automatic reads yet and they're still asking customers to send in their reads. This is off the back of a couple of questions I've kind of merged them together effectively at the moment getting your meter changes free does there come a point where someone has an analog meter and maybe it breaks down or whatever and they have to switch to a smart meter or they're no longer being serviced it does a couple point where it's going to cost people to switch to a smart meter. I don't think so and you're right if there's a fault exchange it depends I think on when somebody goes out like if it was an old meter but I have a feeling we're not we're not charging if a smart meter goes in instead of say an analog or an old digital meter I don't think we're charging but I don't know off the top of my head I'm kind of guessing there but the plan is that if somebody is changing as part of our program and like I say our program is going to go on for another couple of years it'll be going on into 2026 for those last few odd-bally ones not the normal kind of 24-hour register day night register ones it will definitely we'll be picking them up and we'll be exchanging them for free so I know that some customers initially might have said look I don't want a smart meter and they've said they didn't want it and then they go and they get solar panels or they talk to friends or neighbors who have actually experienced you know the free Saturday they're saving money and they go oh wait a minute I want I want to change my mind I want to get that smart measure they can just contact us and it goes on the exchange list and there's no cost a caller says I received no letter of notification from the ESB but came home to my outside box being changed when do they plan to charge for fitting of the meters sorry that's two different ones so you've answered the fitting one the first one sorry we do get a lot of contact from people and I know you talked about a customer experience well we get a lot of notification this person's not necessarily saying they want it out or whatever but there does seem to be quite a lot of people that find themselves with a smart meter having never been notified or they feel they were never notified of I'm wondering is it just a feeling because what I would say is if any it's to date any customers that have said that they didn't get any letters our systems are showing that they got the two letters and now unless there's something has gone wrong with the post or maybe it got lost and you know yourself junk mail and things like that but like I can't think of anybody where we had not sent any letters where a meter has been exchanged can you ask Carmel when people with dual meters night storage can get a smart meter currently we can't yeah so come September we have the the new meter that we have purchased it's called a Sagemcom meter it's from a company in France and that new meter has allowed us to set that meter up as a day night meter so we are going to do what we call like for like exchanges so that we'll take out the old day night meter we'll put in the new day night meter and it'll work the exact same and again like I said earlier the customer can then decide whether they want to stay on a day night tariff or whether they want to go onto one of the interval tariffs or a day night peak tariff depending on whether it'll save them money so that's your normal day night there's another type of day night meter where a customer has night storage meters and what they have is they have two meters they have a meter that only records for their night storage heating and then they have another meter so we have also we will in September we will also be starting exchanging the night storage heating meters where no night storage heating has been used in over a year a lot of customers maybe had night storage heating two years ago ten years ago they upgraded their heating systems they took out the night the old night storage heating and then didn't want to pay to get the second meter removed so we're going to be starting into those in September and we're looking at the rest of them how we're going to do that for early next year so I would say hold on another couple of months and you're going to start seeing your day night meters exchanged as well. Alright two part question do I have to pay for a smart mate you've answered that already no otherwise an out of state company doing this work I don't know who's doing it but presumably no no we have obviously depending on the location ESB network technicians are doing some of them but as you can imagine like trying to change two million meters over five six years with all of the other work that's going on new connections work there just aren't enough people within ESB networks to do that so we have a company called TLI who are based out of Cork we have a company that was it's called Cersei they're based out of Dublin and MD are based out of Monaghan not sure where the out of state came from well you know yourself this is why these kinds of interviews are useful I installed solar PV solar panels myself can I still sell my electricity back to the grid yes yeah if you have if you have a smart meter it has to be measured I think a customer with a day night meter it's deemed until we get the new meters in but once you have a smart meter it records all of the export to the network and then your supplier gets that information and they can then pay based on the export value that's gone to the supplier from your smart meter I know you might not agree with them Carmel but this is their will and they would feel they're right they want to say they've a sign up on their they've a sign up on where the old meter is saying I do not want a smart meter would that be respected is that that's okay that's okay let me see if I change if I change to a smart meter will I lose my night rate no now again this is like what some customers had said that they wanted to go they have a day night meter and they wanted to go to a day night peak rate so in the old one where we didn't have the like for like exchange if you got a new smart meter you had to go day night peak but from September we have a new smart day night meter so nothing will change you'll get your new smart meter with all of the information you can look at your interval data but you do not have to change tariff and that's the point with any smart meter exchange a customer does not change their tariff unless they opt to do so you know like with broadband they come in and they roll out the network and then everyone gets offered broadband at the same time the smart meter rollout isn't necessarily like that is it and it's a question it's more based on customer profile than location well it started obviously we started small we started in five planner groups back back when we started back in 2019 we're now in all of our 34 planner groups across the country so I think we're in Johnny Gall would be covered by letter Kenny planner group and Kili Beggs planner group so I think we started there early last year so we're all over the country but we did start in pockets and so I'd say Longford was actually the last planner group that we went into so we're only in Longford since February of this year so that we would be last out of Longford if you know what I mean because we're going through alright just a couple more here I have a smart I have a smart prepay power do I still have to get an ESB one I think that's okay yeah yes is the answer right so if you have a lifestyle prepayment measure that means you have a meter on the customer side of the interface so we still have a meter on record which is behind behind kind of the customer interface so whether your lifestyle pay as you go or not we will still want to exchange the meter for a smart meter for all of the reasons that I mentioned earlier because it could give good network information as well and will help us in the future for planning if we have poor voltage somewhere it'll highlight that to us as well. Is there any place or portal that people can get further information if they have particular concerns this listener says nine months ago I sent a letter asking for information on the smart meter I'm an older person I can't do anything digital so I decided to not get it I wanted the information on paper I posted twice asking the ESB for this in return I got a piece of paper with little to non information it was really just a flyer no personal letter addressing my six questions I'm still left confused with regards to smart meters so is there any portal or any sort of right like everything is on the ESB networks website and so if anybody logs on to ESB networks website there's a whole smart cut page you go page we have this gentleman so that's what I was going to say but anybody who writes into us I'm surprised because I get a lot of letters and if we get a list of questions from somebody who like we do provide the answers back in letter format so I'm kind of surprised so look if you want to send me that customer's details separately I'll check it out because we have we do get like we get handwritten letters we get type letters and we do respond to every letter that we get so okay sorry about that sorry no I understand we do try I don't know what this means smart meter old meter has a 45 amp fuse the new meter has a 32 amp fuse is there any significance to that calm I don't I'm not sure I like all pieces of equipment would have their own internal fuse bit like your your plug that would have a fuse but sometimes I have heard people trying to maintain that there's an issue with the with again that misinformation but don't forget every every home has a cut out with the fuse that protects that protects the house and I'm really not aware of the difference between fuses in the meter but and very finally just while we're clearing a few things up caramel you know there is people I get that people have a concern that this means that big brother is more power that they can switch off your power with the flick of a switch with these new smart meters but I'm not saying that happens or doesn't happen yeah but there's no extra capabilities is there that that companies have that they didn't have before does smart meters offer any what I will say to you is we are working on a switch that will not be available before the end of next year for smart pay as you go so if a customer wants to opt for a pay as you go option we're working on that and I think one of the reasons that CRU would like to see that in the commission for regulation of utilities is because it will give customers more freedom to look and shop around for you know better value if they want to go for a pay as you go product but at no point will switching will always be on the basis of the rules that are there and again the data we mined every piece of data that we get as if it was personal data and I do believe the data will help us make a better network out there for customers because it will highlight even before a customer has to ring in with a complaint that they have poor voltage in some way shape or form so I genuinely am not just saying this because obviously it's my job at the minute but I really do think that smart meters are going to be a game changer because they will give all that extra information to a customer that will allow them pick and choose when they want to use their electricity but I think you said it earlier like if a customer chooses to do nothing they don't change the way they use their electricity they don't change their tariff they stay with their supplier nothing will change except that we will be able to pull actual reads and a customer will always have an actual bill and there will be no under and over billing and catch up bills that will be a thing of the past but I think they will have a lot more control particularly if a customer has solar panels they will be able to get paid for their export but they will be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to change the way they use their electricity and save a bit of money OK, thanks for your time this morning that's Kalmalo Conner, ESB Network Smart Metering Project Manager obviously a strong advocate of smart meters maybe you had your concerns or has your views changed have you strengthened are you more inclined to get one or did everything that you thought was it just confirmed and you'll never get one 08 660 25000 whatsapp and text let us know what you think watch the show live now on YouTube, Facebook and at highlandradio.com a public interest message from Dunnegal County Council Householders and building owners in areas susceptible to wildfires are advised to cut back or remove any vegetation or other combustible material in the vicinity of their house building or oil tank to prevent wildfires damaging or destroying their property cleared areas should be maintained free of vegetation and water and clean water and clean water should be maintained free of vegetation 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Greg, tell you to save electricity but the smart meter tariff hours are terrible. I'm a carer and I have to make dinner at certain times and wash clothes during the day. We'll just stay where you are. Don't go on the night tariffs. I personally wouldn't because I don't have a car to plug in. And also, I'm not putting on the dishwasher or the washing machine or the dryer or anything at night because I wouldn't sleep. So I can't see how I might benefit from cheaper electricity at night. So that would be my feelings. Management need to get the act together and stop wasting taxpayers' money. Gullies never cleaned or manholes waste money fixing roads before that's fixed and other. Is the Glenn Gad water affected? I'm not really quite sure if that was on the list. I'll have to re-look at the list. The council of politicians can't stop nature? No, but that's like saying don't use an umbrella because you can't stop nature, but you can. You can stop the rain falling on your head. And if you build proper drainage system and have wide gullies and wide waste pipes and what have you, you can direct nature away from people's homes and businesses. Of course, you can't stop nature, but you can protect yourself from it. I live in McBride Street in Ruffo here. We were flooded on Saturday evening. The street was like a raging river. A few premises were badly hit. What I'm angry about is not one councillor, except for Frank with Bertie, appear to have a look around. Council have not even sent out anyone to unblock drains or clean up in any way, says that listener. There is no mention of architects or engineers who will have more of an idea of what the implications are for people who take up the new scheme. What are their views? Well, we're hoping this will get say still some test cases of this is a house of this size and in that area and so on and so forth and see if we can start answering those types of questions for people. I live on an estate at the end of Ruffo heading up towards Montgomery Hill. My house and the adjoining house are beside the swill burn. When I came home on Saturday evening at 6.30pm there was only a trickle of water running down the road, but just after seven, the swill burst. I've been here 14 years the worst I've seen. The last time was February 21. I was lucky I didn't get any water in the house but my neighbour wasn't. There's a small wall in the back between our houses and the water backed up there and went in her back door. The water flowing past our homes was strong enough to pull a full bag of coal from the front of my neighbour's house and sent it down the road. The council were out just after eight and it was after eleven when they got the water slowed down. There was a lot of sandbags and I think if people in the town did we could be better prepared. If this happened in the middle of the night when people were in bed asleep the damage in our homes could be worse. Indeed you see again just something as simple. Can you get anything simpler than filling a bag with some sand so that you can put it at your back door but people don't have that local access. I hope that's something that is done ASAP. Why do these flood prevention schemes are prone to flooding? It happens all over especially low-lying areas but certain places that weren't prone to flooding are now prone to flooding. It can be for a number of reasons. It can be a change in how the rain falls. We know statistically for whatever reason and we can argue the toss over it for forever and a day but statistically over the last 30 years we have 8% more rain than we had 30 years ago. That is a significant drop that's almost a 10% fall in rain increase. That doesn't mean over the course of the year that can be in a single month across a month across a day but we do now have for one reason or another 7-8% more rainfall. I don't know why that is but I do know how it is some people might say it's for this reason or that reason. There's no doubt in my mind that the climate is changing. There are places that were never flooded before that were flooded or get flooded and also there are works that can happen further upstream in inverted commas that can cause flooding downstream where flooding didn't exist before. There's lots of variables. Just drove through Ruffo and I see Minister Charlie McConnell talking to people on the street. Lovely, that's great. How often do people take it upon themselves to clean a manhole and clean a drain for when the big spill of rain comes? I don't know what the maintenance program is but it doesn't happen. This has been happening for years. They say we are due a mini-ice age before this happens. They say the weather will go up and down. It would appear that's on its way. What is the ESB doing to keep power when they're encouraging everyone into the power grid which can't take the capacity it already has? Last one before we have to bid you adieu. The council has failed Ruffo in a major way. The water and sewage system hasn't been updated in years and any work was done by Councillor McBurty. The damage at the weekend would have been worse had he not done his work out of his own pocket. Multiple examples of building continues but no infrastructure is looked at, they say. Actually, we do have time for a couple more. The bridge in Ruffo collapsed and traffic had to be redirected but most of this was done out of the goodness and hard work of the local council work people and locals in the area. Have these people, these poor people who were flooded or have the insurance company stop covering these areas? Well, we heard from one, he has insurance if a plane hits the roof but not if it's flooded. That's the suspicion people can't get flood protection insurance any longer because of past flooding history. Well, listen, we're going to return to that as much as we have to over time and until we find out such time as something as simple as a pile of sand and bags are located in these areas which with us await 60, 25,000 you can text at any time, we can pick them up maybe you're listening to the podcast or our replay overnight, you can still text in we'll carry those messages on the next live broadcast which is tomorrow morning at