 Yeah, yeah, I didn't really didn't think that one through sorry about that. Yes, I have a microphone. Sorry All right, it is tonight to do so I will on I'll have to properly process that afterwards because I was so confused technically here But I feel complimented. Yes. Yeah, you should. Okay. You really should all right. Take care. You too and mind the roads out there It is nine o'clock. It's time for a news update and we can say good morning now to Michaela Clark Thanks, Greg. Good morning. The HSE's Chief Clinical Officer says the current positivity rates are mind boggling. A quarter of all COVID-19 cases confirmed in 2021 occur between Christmas and the new year. It comes as Nafid decided not to implement new restrictions despite record case numbers as Omicron cases are causing fewer hospitalizations than previous variants. Dr. Colm Henry says there's no guarantee ICU numbers won't surge in the coming weeks. We love to tell people, tell people certainly that we can be absolutely sure these extraordinary surge in numbers won't translate through to hospitalizations and won't translate through to intensive care units while there's some positive indicators coming from South Africa about reduced severity of illness. We can't be sure yet. Well, Etter Kenney University Hospital is currently dealing with 62 infectious cases of COVID-19. That's down slightly on yesterday's figure but remains the second highest in the country. Four infectious cases are in ICU. There's some disruption on the roads in Donegal this morning due to snow falling overnight. A standard shallow snow and ice warning is in place for the entire country until 11 o'clock this morning. Donegal County Councils say the gritter was not enforced earlier this morning. Motorists are advised to drive it with caution. Caha Nolan from Ireland's Weather Channel says ice is a particular issue on the roads. With temperatures last night having dipped down to minus one, minus two degrees in some parts of the country, there certainly will be icy stretches across the roads this morning. So motorists are advised to take care and do heed the warnings. And of course, if there is any snow on the road as well, that would certainly only add to the conditions. The West Donegal Council believes the removal of an ATM in Glendies by Bank of Ireland is another example of the decimation of services in rural areas. The cash machine was removed in recent days without any prior notice. It comes following the closure of the Bank of Ireland branch in the town in recent months as part of a series of nationwide closures. Councilor Micheal Colm McGill Askbook says questions need to be answered. Glendies can be a very busy town, a lovely town to visit and a town that would depend on that ATM quite heavily like other places. But unfortunately, yet again, here we have a situation where the banking sector has just pulled completely out of rural Ireland and would have given any consideration to us at all. And what I would be asking is what is the government doing about this year? Weather night widespread windry charge will continue this morning along with the chance of isolated thunderstorms and hail, highest temperatures today of 4 to 7 degrees. That's all from Highland Radio. News for now will be back with news again at 10 o'clock. Crisp lettuce and of course, gherkins or not, the choice is always yours. It's our iconic taste, plant based. For information about McPlant, visit mcdonalds.ie slash mcplant, served after 11 a.m. subject to availability. And now it's time for the talk of the Northwest, The 9th and Noon Show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. Hello, a very good morning and you welcome along to The 9th Till Noon Show on this Friday, the 7th of January. It's three minutes past nine and I do hope you're well. And hopefully we can enjoy your company for the next three hours. Coming up after 10, we're going to be taking your legal questions for our legal expert. That's Shane Muscon. Between 11 and 12, of course, Michael and Fernando will be in with us to talk all things entertainment and to ease us into the weekend. But our next hour is dedicated to talking through some of the bigger topics of the day. We're joined on the program this morning by John McAteer. Good morning to you, John. Good morning, Greg. How are you? It's great to have you with us. Senator of the Tribunal Tribune as well. I hope you are well. Lorraine Thompson is regional director of the Donegal Youth Services. Good morning to you, Lorraine. Good morning, Greg. Happy new year. And happy new year to you. And last but not least, Paddy Rooney from Friends of Latter County University Hospital. Good morning to you, Paddy. Yeah, Greg. How are you? I'll stay with you, Paddy. A quick run around through, I suppose, on one of the issues that dominated a lot of the conversation during the week. And that was schools reopening. They opened, for the most part, I think two schools in Donegal were forced to go with the staggered option. Speaking to some from within schools, there was absentee and rate, absentee. Sorry, I can't say absenteeism because that's a very controversial word. There was students absent around about a third or plus in some cases. A lot of teachers out as well and subs out as well. But Paddy, the right decision was made, was it, to get people back to school? I would say so on balance, Greg. I mean, there's no consensus around this. Anyway, the final arbiter on this, I suppose, was the government. And, of course, the government are taking advice from Nefert and Barry B, a professional and responsible body that said it was okay to go ahead and do that. There's also been input as well, of course, from the children's ombudsman, his name passes me at the moment, but he said it was the, not alone was it the right thing to do, but it was the, it was an absolute necessity as well. He also said that, though, in the context of absolutely everything we can do being done to make schools safe and to make them, you know, a welcoming place for students. Obviously, the first part of these comments which you referenced were met, because the children are back at school, but still, where are the filters? You know, where are the other mitigating measures? Where are the masks that the teachers want and so on and so forth? Well, they're not there, Greg, that's where they are. But I suppose we can't let perfection get in the way of action or some form of progress. In an ideal world, we would have the happy filters and we would have everything else, but we don't have it. And we are now going into year three of the pandemic. And, you know, society in some shape or form is going to have to learn to live with this. There's no point thinking that come to the end of January, we want to be over this because we'll probably be a new variant. I mean, your pharmaceutical companies are already talking about developing another vaccine for starting off in September of next year. I mean, people would have a huge amount of sympathy for teachers because they were in a room with 20 to 30 other people. And I suppose there's very few professions that find themselves in that predicament. But I suppose the problem is that in 2020 there was schools were closed for the good part of about six months. Those children lost that time in school and they're never going to get it back again. And I suppose there's a risk and a balance to be weighed up here because every time that a child at their age stays at home or stays away from school, they never get that back. It's not as if they go to work through the summer holidays or whatever. They don't do that. They never get it back. And at the moment, I suppose over 90% of the population is triple vaccinated. I presume maybe I have no way of knowing, but it's 94% of 12 plus are double vaccinated and 55% of those over 12. All right. Okay. So those are very, very high numbers. And if the vaccines mean anything at all, I mean, they gave people some form of protection. I know they don't bulletproof people to 100%. And there are a small number of people who have been triple vaccinated who end up in hospital and so on and so forth. But by and large, people are in a much better position than they were this time last year, for instance. All right. Lorraine Thompson. I wonder, you know, I was listening to some of the language coming out of Scotland and other countries that, you know, post post Omicron, we are going to have to move into the endemic stage. We heard Nefit despite, you know, record figures saying no further restrictions are to be required. A lot of people get a sense that we're allowing this to some extent with some mitigation to sort of, you know, pass through the pass through the population. An awful lot of people have great concerns about that in terms of long COVID and the fact that, you know, a lot of people believe COVID is simply just a respiratory and maybe the lungs. But if you look through, you know, what the medical professionals are writing about it, particularly in the long COVID context, this is something that can attack many parts of the body for quite some time. But anyway, at first it will start off with your views on the schools reopening and maybe you can talk to where you think we're going post Omicron. Okay, I think it was a real mixed bag and obviously pre Christmas. And, you know, there's a lot of anecdotal stories of our children and young people being sent home with all of their books. And the planning kind of pre Christmas that maybe schools were. I spoke to their children were sent home with the box. Yes. So I think nearly they were setting up the stage so that if they needed to, you know, homeschool or school from home that that would be in place. And obviously they end up narrative impacts on the children and young people and their expectations of what's happening after Christmas. And I know myself having three kids here. The narrative all over Christmas was we know we're definitely not going back and watching the numbers and the numbers ramping up. And I think it's safe to say Christmas was a non event for a lot of families and people didn't get COVID and they certainly were close contacts and we're restricting their movements. So going back into normal feeling environment seemed to fly in the face of that post Christmas. But I do think the right decision was made. It's important for the children and young people to get back into schools. I understand all the fears and concerns. And as I say, you know, children and young people come back into schools, we're in extra layers in the knowledge that one was well we left open. And you know, back into my square and back into classrooms that really aren't really set up for the numbers of people to socially distance. And obviously the HEPA filters not being there are all huge concerns. So what's your feelings about students having no no consultation with students? Is that the right approach? Because even in terms of the the leaving search exams, you know, students are trying to speak but no one in a decision making position is is listening to them and they were completely ignored as it relates to a decision to return to school. Is that right or wrong? Well, I do think that, you know, from being in this situation last year and indeed the year before, for example, not to the leave insert the decision should be made very last minute. And you have a cohort of students now getting ready to set their leave insert with anticipation that they're going to be going into set a fall exam. I think that there should be decisions made around the blended approach that they had last year. I think that decision should be put on the table now so that the students know what's facing them rather than waiting until the last minute. Yes, I do think the students should be consulted with plenty of ways and opportunities that they have done in the past. And I think ultimately a lot of the students do want to get back to school. They want to get back into the classroom. You know, they're concerned there's there's there's a huge momentum now in class based assessments. You know, there's, you know, constant class tests going on for young people in secondary school, and they've kind of gotten used to that space. I would imagine it's a huge burden then for teachers, you know, to continuously mark those. But I think the school environment is totally changed now because of COVID because they never know what's ahead. So they're constantly waiting on changes. Okay, John McIntyre, I suppose I don't hear all voices, but those most opposed to going back to school from what I could hear were teachers, you know, 70% of parents were were were okay with their children. They either wanted them to go back to school or they thought it was the right thing for them to go back to school, even if they were nervous. It was teachers that seem to be expressing the greatest concerns. And then obviously people texting in saying, look, if teachers had to go on to the PUP, if they weren't actually in school, would they be quite as keen to call for, you know, staggered or delayed reopenings? Did you hear much other than teachers or many other than teachers opposed to schools reopening, John? In the media, you're going to pick up these stories. Parents were very apprehensive and very uncertain about the hope that they're going back into a better environment than what they left at Christmas time. In other words, falters should have been put in place. Can you just imagine going into school this morning to sit in your school uniform throughout a very cold miserable day and windows open? That's not the right way to go. And from that point of view, I don't think it's a fair ask of parents or students to go into those conditions at all. The numbers absent yesterday. We're doing a rough trial around somewhere between 25 and 35%. And that's going to get higher because you're not going to get into the middle of next week. We get a clear picture then. And probably the week beyond that, we see if the Christmas time acted as a circuit breaker. It probably has done so. The movement of students, buses, coaches and all of this going back into schools. Pretty poor environments. There's no way that schools are a safe environment for children. And on that issue alone, if they aren't, then they shouldn't go back in until they are made a safe environment. That being said, though, I do wonder if the modelling which predicts a peak next week, say for instance, that seems to be what an awful lot of the medical people are saying. They must be modelling that with children back at school fully. I presume if they'd staggered or delayed children going back to school, that would delay that peak. I think the Omicron is so virulent right now that there's an acceptance that they're only getting about one in three of the infectious cases. And that seems to be the same across Northern Ireland and the UK. And if that be the case, it's much more serious than they're admitting. That's quite a bit away from a peak, probably three weeks away, if that's the case, because we're heading into the worst time of year for infections, for viruses, for flu, and for chest conditions in hospitals. The hospitals are going to become probably more crowded over the coming weeks. And from that point of view, the next two to three, which is probably the best part of the month of January, is going to be very crucial for the health system. Because the reality is that for two years now, from this time two years ago, when there was the usual January rush, A&Es completely blocked off, staff have had two solid years. They've had very, very, very little respite from the crisis, and they probably have breaking point as well. But there is an element of the fact, though, that if you go to work in an acute hospital, such as Leicester University Hospital, and maybe Paddy and Lorraine have an opinion on this too, they're not designed, presumably, to run at 20, 25 or 30% capacity, or it is an emergency medicine environment, presumably. I presume that pressure. Nothing. And this is not in any way to take away from what nurses and staff are going through. Nothing is designed to run at 25% capacity. That can't work. You're getting through as best as you can through your shift in the hope that the next day will be better. Let me bring Paddy and Paddy. I mean, hospitals are designed to run at 100%, aren't they? Is that not the way it is? Well, the desirable model for hospitals is that they run at somewhere about 86 or 88% capacity so that they have the ability to deal with infrequent surges as they arrive, as they arrive. But what has happened now, of course, over the last 10 years, right across the British Isles, across the NHS and across the HSE is that hospitals are running most of the time in excess of 100%. And they were doing that before the pandemic ever came along. And that's just heaped extra upon extra. I mean, Sean Murphy was on your program, was it yesterday or the day before that? And he was talking about the daily attendances to the emergency department. Now, I'm retired for four years out of the place, but the hospital would have, would say, for instance, somewhere between 90 and 125 presentations to the ED per day. He said a couple of days ago that they were running almost every day at over 170 presentations per day. And that is huge pressure on the system. The system hasn't expanded to be able to cope with it. And then COVID on top of that, the impression I got from his comments was that, you know, the figures that you just referenced, it wasn't driven by COVID necessarily that there is a lot of people presenting generally at the ED. Is that because they can't get an appointment with their doctor? I would say it's now on impossible to get an appointment with your doctor. So what do you do if you're worried to go to the ED, don't you, Lorraine? Yes, but if anybody has any experience of going to the ED and they see the wait times, they really are prohibitive. And I know there's a whole narrative there about, well, you know, if you're complaining about the wait time, maybe you shouldn't be there. You know that maybe you should have waited and got your doctor's appointment. I don't know what's going on in terms of doctor surgeries, but certainly anybody that I've had conversations with, it's really, really difficult. I appreciate it at the minute. You know, there's lots of information coming through around staff shortages and GP practices. This has been going on pre-Omicron, though. I mean, we get it every day in this program. People simply just cannot even. Yeah, and I don't know the answer to that. I would be very interested to hear what has happened. But certainly over the last year and a half, you know, we're talking to people waiting every week or two to try, you know, to get their appointments. But curiously, you know, when you're looking for maybe vaccine appointments, you can get them right away. And it does vary in fairness. It does seem to vary from place to place. But a lot of what we're hearing is a lot of what you're saying there. John, have you any insight into why people can't get a booking in a GP? Is it because their lines are jammed with people trying to book PCR tests? What's going on? Well, first of all, I'm not actually aware of that. But I am actually aware of some anecdotal evidence of it last night is that getting bookings for PCR tests are well now impossible. The system is bogged down, it's not jammed. And no matter what your GP can do, they can't work miracles. You have to wait maybe from 48 to 64 hours or whatever it's going to be. And in the meantime, you're supposed to isolate, keep taking antigen tests. And probably it's only a matter of time we run out of those. At this time of the year, the system is going to be large jammed anyway, before you even mention COVID. And, you know, there seems to be no easier way around that. The system is not designed to cope with that kind of rush. And there's no way we're ever going to be able to cope with it because the numbers are not there. The facilities are not there. The beds are not there. And the clinicians are not there to handle it. Yeah, but Patty, from a public's perspective, you know, the hospital is saying we're extremely busy. In the first instance, contact your GP only turn up at the ED unless it's an absolute emergency, you know. And people are trying to ring their GP and they simply can't get through or they can't get any satisfaction or their concerns or what they do. They then go on to the ED. Well, yeah, you see that round and round and round we go, you see emergency departments up and down the country have always been regularly attended every day by people who have no reason to be there in the first place. And it's that target audience that's trying to get to stay away and I'm talking about people with chronic back pain that you go to the ED and absolutely nothing can be done about it because it's a regard. You need to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon and outpatients or something like that going to ED is not going to cure. You get plenty of those type of people and then you'll get people then that are coming to, you know, that they have minor cuts and so on support that they could be with their GP. If you can't get access to your GP and there is anecdotal evidence of that, all right, that there is a difficulty over the last three or four months or whatever. And just roll back one little bit to make a comment about hospitals and their capacity. Sean Murphy, I think said there's about what is the 70 patients in the hospital at the moment are COVID positive. 62 this morning, it varies, but it's just 62 this morning. Okay, now if we're talking about patients outside the ICU department, I think 60 of those there's only about two in the ICU department, but 60 patients in a general ward with COVID are not the same as 60 patients with with respiratory disease because normally they have to be kept in isolation, nurses and doctors and catering staff and everybody who's attending to them cleaning staff have to don PPE. And they're much slower to be cared for and to be treated slows down the whole process or whatever, because you don't have to go through that rigmarole with people with chronic with ordinary respiratory disease. So the number is one thing, but the complexity of it is heaping burden upon burden here. Yeah, okay. Listen, thanks for that. Patty, it's been like that for 25, 30 years as you know, it has but you don't have 65 patients in the hospital, John. The HSE and the whole administration over for years and years has been a basket guess. Like we should not be in a situation though, should we? Thereby, you know, we have so much COVID spreading in the community. We have 900 people in hospital with COVID and not all of them sick, sick because of COVID, but they have COVID in there as well. There's many in there that shouldn't be in there if we could actually discharge them. They're probably well enough to get out of hospital, but they can't because there aren't the carers or the step down facilities or whatever is available. And we have 90 people, many of them, many, many, many of them and we wish them a full and speedy recovery are in there with Delta. They're long term in ICU. I mean, if we had a properly funded and resourced health system, Patty, this wouldn't be we wouldn't be locked, not locked down. We wouldn't see the restrictions that we have now because clearly we are seeing the impacts of this virus being absolutely everywhere. And our hospital system should be able to manage those that get very sick from it. Any of you, Lorraine, what do you think of that, Lorraine? I mean, listen, I'm no expert like Patty, but the narrative every year at this time of year is the overcrowded hospital, the extensive waiting times and ED and that's pre-COVID. So, you know, from year one of COVID, we've, you know, had huge conversations in the media around extra resources going in, you know, buying up hospital beds and private hospitals. I don't know where that has gone. I don't know if that's still on the agenda, but I mean, the virus obviously has run up in the last two years, albeit the vast majority are just experiencing cold like or flu like symptoms. But I don't understand why if those things were on the table that they don't seem to be talking about now at all. And we're back to the same conversation again around the impact on the hospital, which is not where anybody wants to be. I mean, so what's the vast majority of us can say, you know, we've had our vaccines, we've had our booster, you know, we're ready to take on whatever the virus throws at us at this stage because we have our ammunition. But for the people that end up in hospital, we really should be able to say that it's fit for purpose for them. All right. We don't have the beds there. So many beds have been taken out of that system over the last 20 years and they haven't been returned. And at the end of the day, if you want to have beds, you're going to have staff. So on the merry go round all the time. If you're going to, if you're going to have beds, you're going to need extra space. But John, do you accept that we should be able to cope with the amount of people that get very sick with COVID without it leading to, you know, a societal shutdown? Look, Greg, we are one of the wealthiest and best performing economies in the whole wide world. And if that's the best we can do, there's something very, very far wrong. God help us if we're, if we're halfway down the list where we'd be. It's not about throwing money at the system which they have been doing. It's the management, it's the middle management of it. And it's, it's the, there's a whole range of issues within the whole health system ranging from how many, how many consultants you have and many procedures you're able to carry out and many people are on waiting lists. The fact is that there's one in five people in the country waiting for an appointment to see a consultant. Now, if that's not a health system that's totally dysfunctional, it's not serving the people. And that is sort of, you know, immediate care. Obviously, I get an awful lot of messages. We get a lot of, a lot of contacts here with people that are in what they would describe as, you know, chronic pain with hips or knees or something. And they're being told they're going to have to wait five years if they want to get that seen to that's going to be a very long fight. It's going to be a very long five years for many of those people. But Paddy, you know, I mean, I put the same point to you just before we take this break. Should this level of sickness be enough to shut down our hospital system and also to see lots of restrictions imposed on people's lives, we should be able to cope, shouldn't we? Well, no health system in the Western world is designed to cope with the pandemic and there's no point in dressing this up talking about beds and whatever because we're in the middle of a pandemic and it's just put an extraordinary system burden on the system. It's like we spoke earlier on about the school system and the education system. That's not set up to deal with or to be able to function normally in the middle of a pandemic either. When we talk about the health service and the problems and it's always the hospital seems to be the lightning rod here for the criticism about about how it's functioning and not function is the case maybe. Anna O'Connor, the director of operations for the HSE was interviewed in RTE this morning and she said that there's a very high proportion. She actually didn't put a number on it, but it's well in excess of 1,000 to 1,500 patients who are currently in patients in hospitals but are to all intents and purposes medically discharged. And the reason why they're in hospitals is because there is nowhere for them to go. The hospital now owns that problem. They're taking up the beds that the people that John and Lorraine are speaking about that need to be in hospital. Those patients are in that hospital. What is the hospital system going to do with those? They have them and they can't get rid of them. Those patients don't need to be there. That's always been a problem in the healthcare system. All of those things are 25, 30 years old. Every one of them you've worked in the system. I work in it. I'm hearing stuff now. I'm out of the system 30 over 30 years. I'm hearing stuff now that I was hearing 30 years ago except that was all down. We don't put enough money into it. Staff are leaving. They won't stay when they're trained and all this kind of thing and conditions are not good. We have continued to invest substantially year on year in the health service but it doesn't seem to be doing. The level of investment has not been met with the same level of delivery. We saw a recent round of hiring and a lot of the staff that were hired by the HSE are not frontline staff. They were management or in other areas of the system but we're being told that we've swollen the health service staff by such and such but it isn't nurses and consultants for the most part. It is management people that actually aren't in very important jobs. I'm sure they wouldn't be hired if they weren't but they aren't necessarily at the frontline in delivering care. Now I know it's more complex than that. How many layers of management are there within the system? How many layers of unions are there right across the system? Is that not feeding into the whole need to rationalize and to streamline the whole system? Yeah well we could do an eight part podcast on that one issue alone John. Unfortunately I don't have the time for it but it's a very important question. Right more coming up from our guests after this break. Stay tuned and stay involved. Texting and WhatsApping 0860 25000 or by calling 07491 25000. Milford Tiles and Wood Flooring Milford Retail Park. January sale is now on. Get 15% off everything in store. 15% off tiles, bathwear, wood flooring, attesives and grout. Yes you heard right. 15% off everything in store for two weeks only. Milford Tiles and Wood Flooring 0830910707. I'm really excited about going back to school this year. I want everyone in my class to stay well. If I have any symptoms or if I am advised to strict movements I know I shouldn't come to school because we all play our part in keeping everyone well. 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Central Auto Parts. Portalink Business Park. Letter Kenny. Find us on Facebook or call us on 0749127491. Highland Radio Time Checks brought to you by Letter Kenny Shopping Centre. The centre of shopping in Donegal. Free parking and shopping all under one roof. Letter Kenny Shopping Centre bringing you the time. The time is at 9.30. Now bit of controversy this week over the program operation transformation. And I said yesterday, just to be honest, it's a program I haven't seen. So I'm not really sure as to the format of it, but I have a fair idea. Body wise amongst others. Critical of it saying that it is not necessarily universally helpful. It can be triggering for people with eating disorders. And everyone's had their view in it. It's just become another one of those issues where you're either, you know, a snowflake, or you don't understand what other people are going through. And I haven't seen much agreement in terms of people's opinions. Everyone is so polarized nowadays, it seems. But Lorraine Thompson, Regional Director of the Donegal Youth Service, like, you know, programs that sort of, you know, make money off and sort of drawing listeners off the back of this type of subject matter. Is there a place within society anymore? Or, you know, if you don't like it, don't watch it and, you know, lighten up a bit. Well, I think when I heard the story first, I mean, that is an automatic reaction. Just, you know, change the channel. And when you delve away, but deeper into it, I mean, obviously here we are in January again. It's the time of year for the exercise equipment to come out for pennies to put all of their exercise gear to the front of the shop. You know, Lidl and Alde have taken all of the nice fancy luxury goods off their brochures and put on all of the vegan food, the fruit, the veg. And that's the time of year for people to say we've had enough over the Christmas, and we're going to all get back on track. And obviously the program operation transformation, you know, feeds into that and that's the time of year and that's where it's on. And it does get a lot of years. It's on the TV now, I think 15 years. But I was interested to see why Barry Ways, the charity that have, you know, called them out on the different elements of the program. Why have they chosen this program? What is it? Well, I think it got a bit of traction on social media, people criticizing it. And I think if they were seen to be sitting in their hands, on their hands, then people would say, well, what is your function? You have to have a position on this. And if their position then was, well, it's okay. Well, then it's, well, why are body wise around at all? And that's the type of society we live in now. They were probably... Body wise have said, you know, that their clients have told them that the show's triggering for them with the focus of, you know, showing people in their underwear, standing on scales, you know, being upset at, you know, where they're at in terms of their lives. But that's very triggering. And I mean, they have a very valid point, you know, if you watch the show and you are triggered by that, I mean, I think it's important to put that into the floor. But what does triggered mean? Like, you know, like, is it, is that an emotional reaction? Or is that just an opinion? And I'm not being, I'm not being dismissive, it's to better understand, like, say, for instance, you know, if I were going through a spell where I'm suffering from really, really bad anxiety, okay. And there was a program discussing, you know, how to get better for mental health. And it seemed like a really easy pathway and lovely happy endings. And I'm sitting there going, hold on, yeah, that's not my journey. That's not my experience. This is making me feel worse. You know, then we'd have to take people who are experiencing eating disorders are triggered by the show. Yeah. Yes. And, and what I think is interesting, and looking at the statistics that body wise correct, it was a massive increase in people presenting with eating disorders in 2020. So coupled with the pandemic, and the stresses of the pandemic, and the impact on people who have been eating disorders, both children, young people and adults across the spectrum, there seems to have been a huge increase. And what I think body wise have done they've been very smart as a charity. They have the spotlight on the show, but they're also using the opportunity to showcase that this is a huge issue for them, and for their clients. And, and, and also there's a little cabinet that put in there is around the government's financial input into operation transformation. And obviously they're a charity, and they get money from the government. So I think it's all tied in together. And I have to say, I mean, I think it's a very good opportunity that body wise have used to pop this into the media, because everybody's talking about it. Well, programs like this are the, you know, should they be done away with like I think if they if they I haven't seen the program again, but if they structured it whereby it was actually supportive of people, you know what I mean and it was is done in a different way. Maybe it could be seen as you know this is the best thing that's ever happened in terms of you know raising awareness and helping people. I presume it's not that it's it's mostly entertainment. Do we should programs like this still be broadcast do you believe if you get a group of people saying we find this is upsetting this triggers our emotions, or this is. I watched the show I haven't watched it in the last year but I've certainly watched it in past years. I mean there's a lot of opportunity for the wider audience to get involved. You know they put all the recipes online, you can follow along, you know with the weekly schedule. And so I think it captures the what the what the audience wants at this time of year. And I mean obviously I wouldn't be advocating anybody stand on TV and their underwear, getting upset. And what's interesting this year, apparently what they're going to do is not put them in their underwear anymore and let them be in comfy casual posts. That's good. I mean that that's a party. Are we too sensitive or are you right to have these conversations and make adjustments where need be. Well, I'll tell you one thing Greg it's going to be good for the program a budget dollar that they whenever comes off as it Wednesday or Thursday next week that there's going to be the viewers is going to increase. I think that RTE have to decide actually what this this is sort of a different slap now than what the rain said there but already have to decide actually what this program is about. Is it reality TV in the in the lines of I'm a celebrity get me out of here or love Island or something like that, or is it a genuine attempt to be like entertainment forward slash assisting people. There are many, many people who are listening to your program on this morning and you watch the TV at night that are overweight or Dean themselves to be overweight and that it's an assistance. I watch it because my wife watches it and whatever she watches I have to watch have no choice. So, so the some of it. Some of the bits about the, you know, people being weighed in their underwear and showing off their flabby bits and so on support I personally wouldn't do it I think there's no call for that. Absolutely at all. And they also sort of dig out sort of emotional issues that people literally every one of the participants have given the very false impression that everybody who's overweight has some emotional issue which is clear quite clearly not the case. And they don't get enough emphasis as well for instance on cooking and cooking foods there's a lot of programs on TV now where there's celebrity chefs are doing and you know cooking programs but the seems to be a lot of butter and cream and sugar and all the things that are purportedly bad for us. They don't do enough of that there's too much of weighing and exercising and not enough emphasis on actually assisting people out there to eat healthy and to cook healthy. Right. I mean if you watch that program. Is there enough in it for you to change your lifestyle and to follow or is it more absolutely absolutely not. I think they've lost. I think it's a bit for all the world. It reminds me a Greg about the what RT have done with the late late show since gay born and to a lesser degree since Pat Kenny has left it. They've lost their way completely. I think that program is not what it's set out to be. Quick word from you John. RT will love this because it's one of their big money spinners and to get the nation talking about in the lazy hazy days of no no no big stories over Christmas in the new year. This is this is me to their to them because it's now I think the rain said it's into his 15th season. I think it began 2008. I would rarely ever ever watch that kind of a program. Despite the fact that it probably has its good points. But I mean those people going on that show know exactly whether they're going to be dressed in their underwear with or not. They know exactly what they expect. So why in the hell would they go on to have any problems with it? You contact them. You talk to the producers. You end up in a bit of a bubble. Maybe they're said look you're doing amazing stuff. This is going to benefit so many people. Do you really believe that? I would believe that and I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I believe they probably say anything to get people to participate within reason. Realistically I mean it's a very lightweight program. It's a reality type show. I wouldn't take it that seriously. It fills the slot. It makes a lot of money. It's one of the top programs for RT and to all intents and purposes. It's a show that's running for 15 years. If people don't like it, then why are they watching it? I mean are we so trivial that we must watch something? It's been invested. The government put in 350,000 under that show. It doesn't really matter about viewership if you're pulling in that level of sponsorship. That is from a health point of view. From a health point of view. But that's the only way we can use it. Let's ask maybe the question then Lorraine, is that money well spent? Should that 300,000 Euro be targeted to actually offer more targeted and constructive help for people tackling the disease that is obesity? It's generally accepted in medicine that this is a disease. Yes and I know, I mean it's body ways that have put this into the media and that is a chart specifically around eating disorders which is linked into the mental health system. And I think part of the conversation we had before the break was around the HSE and how they manage their business. And if you went to Dell, then to how the money's for mental health is spent. And there's another, I don't know many shows within that that we could look at Greg, but I do think that there's a bigger picture here which is in relation to your mental health services. And the pandemic has impacted to that degree on children, young people and adults who have experience of eating disorders. That is the conversation that we should be having. And I would love if people who are speaking very passionately about the well-being of children now and I presume it is coming from a very important place. If they would also focus on the wider issues facing children as well. We shouldn't be taking our guidelines from a TV show of that kind, which really a lot of people would just refer to as Thaler Trash television. And I mean, that's for most people. People might be offended by you using that phrase, but anyway. No, but it is that type of show. Because look, if you have an issue with your weight and all that, who's the first one you should go to? Your doctor, not to a reality TV show. Is that not correct? Yeah, it's certainly where you're going to get better help. Listen, thank you very much for that. You're hearing the voices this morning of John McAteer, the editor of the Trichonal Tribune. Lorraine Thompson, who's regional director of Donegal Youth Services. And Paddy Rooney from Friends of Lettra Kenney University Hospital. We're going to be speaking about some disquiet amongst students at LWIT about how exams are going to be operated there. And we'll be getting the views of our panel as well on that issue. We'll take a break and then we'll be joined by a couple of guests, further guests. 2-6-2-7-6 Brian McCormick's Sports and Leisure Main Street at Erkemi. The big winter sale is now on with WIT reductions throughout the store. Selected kids clothing reduced to clear. Also added as track suits for all ages on BMC Sports.ie. Men's and women's sports clothing with discounts of up to 40% off. Check out the Brian McCormick's Winter Sale in store or click on BMC Sports.ie. 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 Bonner & Sons 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. 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We're open seven days for your convenience. Creasley Supermarket where quality and value is assured. OK, you're welcome back to the programme. Anna, good morning to you. Good morning, Greg. How are you? I'm OK. Thanks for joining us. Right, you contacted us after receiving an email from LIIT. What's happening? What's being proposed? So, Greg, as you know every year on the lead up to Christmas a lot of students from the LIIT instead of enjoying the time with their families were all getting prepared to do exams in January. And the first of January we received the following email from the college to say that following public health guidelines the institute has taken the decision to defer all scheduled in-person examinations until the end of the academic year. So that was on the first of January on New Year's Day. As you can imagine, that's relieved a lot of stress for the students. So just so we all understand the timeline the exams normally take place in January? So for the exams actually start in the 6th of January this year and they go through right into the 20 somethings of January. OK, and then when is the end of the academic year where they're being proposed to take place now? So, well, Greg, on the 6th of January we actually received an email from Student Union and, you know, we can't command Student Union enough because they are working for the student's benefit. So we received an email yesterday evening to say that we had to vote by 10 o'clock this morning. OK. We were given two options. The first option was to set the exams for the semester from September to December and May. Now, some of the May exams, you know, there's courses doing exams in May, but now they're one of the options as you do the exams in January and May and then do the May ones in May as well. So the options on the table were to either sit this semester's exams on the 17th or have both semesters one and two exams in May. Now, we start a third option of doing these remotely, but that's happening elsewhere, isn't it? No, Greg. First of all, sorry, can I take you back? Please do, yeah. Yeah, so an option one, for some of the courses, it has been six months since they sat in the classroom because a lot of these courses are out in placement. So some of us would have to continue on with placement and then go back and set an exams in May or they want us to set exams on the 17th, which is next week. It means for people to go out in placement that their placement would be postponed until February, which means you're kind of eating them then to May and by May, we're getting prepared for exams and finishing up portfolios. Now, we do know that there is five institutes and universities in the east of Ireland and the west of Ireland who have opted for remote examinations. Now, looking at the numbers from yesterday, Greg, like this last week, there's 20,000 plus COVID cases a day and yesterday there was 23,817 cases in Ireland. Now, they're looking, one of our options is to go on next week to sit in a room with maybe 50 other students to do exams. Now, I do know the colleagues would do, you know, a tier to COVID guidelines. However, you're still going into a room with 50 plus students and then some of us then are going out in placement, which means we'll be working with the elderly, working with children, working with families. You know, if that was your child... No, of course not. Do you think the majority of students want the remote option that's being offered to students in the likes of GMIT, Sligo IT, Limerick IT, et cetera? Greg, we want to finish this semester. We want to move on with our studies, but we don't want to go on to an environment where there's 20,000 cases a day to sit in a room. We want to know why are we not being given the third option for remote examination? Okay, Anna. Listen, we're going to stay on this issue, by the way, but I have to move on, Anna. I appreciate your time. I want to bring Michelle in on this as well. Michelle, do you agree with Anna is that the general consensus that a remote examination option should be on the table? Yeah, I 100% agree. And as Anna spoke, we just haven't been given any reason as to why we can't facilitate online exams. On the 22nd of December, I actually went online to double check my examination timetable and noticed that two exams were already placed online for other students. It was operations and supply chain management and quantitative risk analysis. They're trying to tell us that they cannot facilitate online exams yet could facilitate for them to why are the rest of the college being left without any exams? They're partnerships as the TUD, as the University of Technology University, their GMIT and SLEGO. They've moved on and progressed to remote exams. What's your worry about in-person exams on January 17th? Is it a public health worry as well? The biggest worry for me is if I catch COVID, I can't set my exams. Okay, and the options? I used to be fully fit, like in healthy because I know with us variant people aren't getting sick, but I'm a final year student and we don't have time to sit repeats in June as what we were proposed, what we were told before we split up for Christmas was if you get COVID, you repeat in June. We're all getting masters. We're all starting our jobs. We need our grades before that. We need to have just, we need fairness and if we get COVID, which isn't anyone's fault, we could be fitting off to fit our exams remotely, but we're just not given that opportunity. Okay, well... Can you set up the first exam and then not get to set your other two or three or four? Now I've been, I mean, I presume some of it is organised, some of it's random, but I've been inundated with messages over the last day from students that want remote exams. They're very upset with the two options that are on the table. They're very worried and anxious about this. That is generally what people are feeling, is it, Michelle? Yeah, definitely. And there's another thing, like, from being on the campus four days a week there and they're on up to Christmas and for the whole semester, you're always at a worry of COVID, the windows are open, you're worrying about CO2 levels, everything. It is extremely difficult to concentrate when the freezing temperatures outside and you're sitting in a room for my exams are three hours long. Okay. Three hours trying to write, like there's so many concerns that students are really worried about. Well, listen, we're all on this. We're going to stay on it today and I'm going to return to it on Monday. We were hoping to speak to Paul Hannigan, the president of the LYIT. He says there are ongoing meetings scheduled this morning with the Students' Union. It wouldn't be right to comment until these discussions are concluded. So hopefully, if they can do it, there might be some movement in that regard. Listen, thank you very much, Michelle. Hopefully things get sorted. It's stressful enough without any extra layers of stress. I am sure. I appreciate you're in Anna Times this morning. Perfect. Thank you so much. Paul Rooney, sorry, Paddy Rooney, friends of Letter County University Hospital. I'll start with your views on that. I mean, obviously, we've sprung this on you a little bit, but you've got a thrust to you, Lorraine and John. I've got a thrust of the concerns of the students. It would be a, if it can practically be done, why are students not being given the option to sit these exams remotely? They have their concerns and, you know, I can understand their concerns. I suppose personally, I don't have enough knowledge about the issue because I've only come upon it now over the last two minutes or whatever. I presume Paul and his academic staff in the college have taken that on advice, I suppose, on public health advice, but can actually see the predicament that the students is in as well, particularly if they require the grades to move on to their placements and so on because everything can be backed up. There's no point in commenting on it one way or the other. I just don't have enough knowledge on it, Greg. Lorraine, as I say, in my introduction to Paddy, I understand we're kind of springing these on you guys a little bit, but again, you know, maybe the conversation with students should have been happening a long time before this morning to get a resolution to this to get a sense of what they want, what they feel safe with Lorraine. Just to commend the two students there, Greg, because they are very articulate and they spoke very well and they put their kiss forward very well. So I would imagine that the student union is doing the same. I can imagine that they'll come up with an amicable solution. Again, like I said earlier, we're going to get a year three of this pandemic. You would think that decisions that needed to be made and contingency plans that needed to be made would have been put in place and not sprung on people. You know, it seemed to be the sense there with those two students, you know, the people that they knew what to expect that they could have planned accordingly. I mean, as I say, they're all very valid points. Students work, you know, a French semester towards the end of the semester's exams and assessments to kick them forward into the end of the next semester. To me, it doesn't make sense. Again, as Patty had said, the administration and the LAIT, I have found are always very good to work with. You know, and it sounds like the communications that are going on with the student union are ongoing. And I hope that a solution will be found because it's stressful enough on the students as those two students have said, you know, they're trying to get to the end of their courses and they're looking forward to their employment opportunities at the end of it. I would be confident they'll come up with something that will suit all. I think LAIT January, you know, the management January 10-2, that would be your hope too, John Mucketeer. Absolutely. And notwithstanding the fact that Paul Hannigan is still in negotiation with the students union, and probably it's not appropriate to be commenting on it, the two girls have... Yes, but it is appropriate because they want this decision made out in the open and they believe if they speak publicly, it might further their argument. I think it is now is the time to talk about it. Yeah, I'm not saying that. I didn't say that. OK, John. I would say that the information that the girls gave was suggesting that other colleges are carrying out remote online exams. That is enough to suffice, really. If other colleges are doing it, then why not the LAIT? I think that's where we need to get some clarity from the management on. And I mean, there's quite a lot of concern in the voices of both of those girls because they're reaching the very end of their training at the college. I don't understand why they should have to deal with exams or that would include a semester up to me. That, to me, wouldn't make an awful lot of sense. Obviously, there's a bit of negotiating to sort it out around that there. And they shouldn't have had to go this far down the line that it has to come into the public domain. But maybe now that it has, it has given us a clear appreciation of the issues that the students are facing probably also. Management has their own issues to resolve with very, very big numbers out there and they're also trying to cope with COVID. Between the Students' Union and Paul Hannigan, who's a very reasonable man, let's hope that they get a resolved satisfactory. John McIntyre, I always leave feeling very satisfied having spoken to you. Thank you very much for joining us. It's nice to hear that for a change. It is. And I think we've got the full hour without you having to dig at me, which was really nice. Thanks very much. But I mean, you're doing OK. Let's look forward to 2022. That Highland Radio will be still the most listened to radio in the Northwest in that time. OK, you seem to have your doubts. Thanks, John. I appreciate it. Take care of yourself. Lorraine Thompson, thank you very much as always. Lovely to speak to you and I really appreciate you coming on the program. As do I you, Paddy Rooney. Always well informed and people enjoy your commentary as well. So thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very welcome, Greg. Thank you. Take care of yourself. Have a nice day. Have a nice day yourself too. We appreciate it. Our first panel we really appreciate it. Lots of you've been texting in in the first hour. We'll get to some of those texts in a moment. Coming up after ten o'clock, Seamus Gohn will be joining us to give his opinion on legal matter of the day. But also, of course, to take your questions, get them into us. 0866025000 0866025000 give us a call 07491-25000 And then between eleven and twelve, always like to have a Phraunula and Michael back. If you've watched anything on TV or you've been to the cinema or there's a film or a TV program or anything to do with entertainment that you want to talk about, get involved in that conversation as well. We'll be back after the news and obituary notices. All kitchen and bathroom tiles. All wood flooring. All bathware. All cladding. Everything's reduced. It's our biggest ever sale. The right price tiles and wood flooring. Half price. January sale. Stores nationwide. Sale now on. Homeland Fuel offers. Keeping you warm for less. 40kg premium doubles or easy flame coal. 16.99. Buy 10. Get one free. 1kg fire logs. 4 for 5 euro. 12 pack wood briquettes. Buy 2 for 10 euro. Shop in store or online at homeland.ie. We exclusively reveal how credit unions and merchants are joining forces to offer new loans to farmers. Our market's wheeling price database breaks down full breed, weight and price in the last 12 months. Over 1,000 cattle reported stolen or missing last year. Where was hardest hit? Plus construction costs. We examine how farm building costs will change in 2022. All inside this week's Irish Farmers Journal. On sale now. Hello Grace. Where are you heading? Down to mid to measure fireplaces in Chrysler. Mid to measure fireplaces? Didn't you just buy a fireplace there? Yeah, but I'm going now to pick my kitchen work top. Create the kitchen and living room of your dreams. At mid to measure fireplaces and granite work tops. They've been in business for over 40 years. So for help choosing granite or quartz for your work top fire place or stove. Visit the mid to measure showroom at casual Chrysler or see mtmfireplaces.com or on Facebook. Live on air online and on the Highland Radio app. This is Highland Radio News. Good morning. It's 10 o'clock. Donald Kavanaugh at the news desk. The HSE's chief clinical officer says current positive rates are mind boggling. A quarter of all COVID-19 cases confirmed in 2021 occurred between Christmas and the new year. It comes as Nefit decided not to implement new restrictions, despite record case numbers as Omicron cases are causing fewer hospitalizations than previous variants. However, Dr. Colm Henry says there is no guarantee that ICU numbers won't surge in the coming weeks. We love to tell people certainly that we can be absolutely sure that these extraordinary surge in numbers won't translate through to hospitalizations and won't translate through to intensive care units. While there are some positive indicators coming from South Africa about reduced severity of illness, we can't be sure yet. The Dr. Kelly University Hospital is dealing with 62 infectious cases of COVID-19. That's down slightly on yesterday's figure. It remains the second highest in the country with four infectious cases in ICU. Nationally, 941 people are being treated in hospital with the virus. 90 of them in intensive care. Well, a former assistant general manager, Atletric University Hospital says the facility, like many others, is currently running at close to 100% capacity and was doing so before the effects of the pandemic took hold. Paul Rooney told today's 9 till noon show this effectively means the hospital cannot cope with surges in demand. The desirable model for hospitals that they run at somewhere about 86 or 88% capacity so that they have the ability to deal with infrequent surges. But what has happened now, of course, over the last 10 years, across the NHS and across the HSE is that hospitals are running most of the time in excess at 100%. And they were doing that before the pandemic ever came along and that's just heaped extra upon extra. On post says deliveries in some rural areas are being impacted by staffing shortages. The company says a spike in COVID related absences has placed a temporary strain on its resources. It says the worst impact is being felt across its mails and parcel network and some post offices are temporarily shut. It says many social welfare benefit payments are being transferred to neighbouring offices for those affected. Students at the later Kelly Institute of Technology are calling for remote exams to be introduced last week. The college announced all semester one in person exams were being postponed until a later date due to rising cases of COVID-19. Two options have since been proposed. One that students sit semester one exams in May along with other scheduled exams or on January 17th. A number of other institutions across the country have introduced remote examinations. Anna, a student at LOIT, told Grecus this morning she has serious reservations about sitting examinations next week. Yesterday there was 23,817 cases in Ireland. One of our options is to go on next week to sit in a room with maybe 50 other students to do exams now. I do know the college would do, you know, charity COVID guidelines. However, you're still going into a room with 50 plus students. Some of us then are going into placements, which means we'll be working with the elderly, working with children, working with families. Well, in a statement to Highland Radio News in the past half hour, the president of LOIT, Paul Hannigan, said there are ongoing meetings scheduled this morning with the Students' Union and it wouldn't be right to make any comment until those discussions have been concluded. A West Unigore Council believes the removal of an ATM in Lenties by Bank of Ireland is another example of the decimation of services in rural areas. The cash machine was removed in recent days without prior notice. It comes following the closure of the Bank of Ireland branch in the town in recent months as part of a series of nationwide closures. Councillor Mihael Kolemigalásbug says questions need to be answered. Lenties can be a very busy town, a lovely town to visit and a town that would depend on that ATM quite heavily like other places. But unfortunately yet again, here we have a situation where the banking sector has just pulled completely out of rural Ireland without given any consideration to us at all and what I would be asking is what is the government doing about this here? Well, in a statement Bank of Ireland says the ATM in Lenties was retained beyond the closure of the branch to coincide with the installation of a Euronet ATM on Main Street last month. The bank says the closure of the branch generally does include the decommissioning of the accompanying ATM. And today's marks 100 years since the doll voted to ratify the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It passed by 64 votes to 57 and resulted in a new Irish government taking over control from Britain. However, it also set in motion events that led to the Civil War, which began six months later. A bit of notices and the accommodations of sleet and snow will lead to some hazardous driving conditions this morning. Widespread wintry showers continuing through the morning, along with a chance of some isolated thunderstorms and hail during the afternoon. Shars will tend to die off, but sherry outbreaks of rain will develop in the west during the evening. Highest temperatures 4 to 7 degrees Celsius in moderate to fresh and gusty westerly winds. That's how the radio news were back with news headlines again at 11 o'clock. Good morning. The obituary notices for this Friday morning, January the 7th. The death has taken place of David Walker, 35, the Branch Dairy. Funer from there on Saturday at 12 o'clock for half-past 12 Requiem Mass in the Holy Family Church at Bally-Margourtie, internment afterwards in the city's cemetery. The death has taken place of John Nicholson-Rossbeg-Pordenau. His remains will be reposed at Chauvelin's Funer Homesan Field this evening from 6 until 9 o'clock, fall by Rosary. Funer from there tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock to St. Connell's Church Kill Clooney, travelling via Rossbeg and Portenau for 12 noon Requiem Mass, with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. John's Funer Mass can be viewed live on Chauvelin's Funer Home Facebook page. The death has taken place of William Duncan, formerly of Brie Mallon Head. His remains are reposing at John Anthony Doherty, Heela's Residence at the Mullins-Cardona. Funer leaving there this evening at half-past 6, going to the Church of the Sacred Heart-Cardona for Mass at 7 o'clock, then reposing overnight. Removal from there tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, going to Milton's Cemetery, County West Meath Fort internment. The death has occurred of Dennis Boehner, Los Arbol's Lordrombot-Stranoler. His remains will be reposed at his late residence from 11 o'clock this morning. Funer from there on Sunday afternoon at half-past 12 for Requiem Mass at 1 o'clock in the Church of Mary and Mark-Litts-Dranoler, fall by internment in Drumbo Cemetery. The Requiem Mass will be streamed live on ChurchServices.tv. Family flowers only, donations only off flowers, if desired, to the Irish Cancer Society, Care of McCool's Funeral Directors or any family member. The house and funeral will be private police to family, neighbours and close friends. The death has taken place of Mervyn Diver, Kilmer Crennan Road, Milford. His remains are reposing at the residence of his son Lexi and Patricia Diver, Court Milford, house private police to family, neighbours and close friends. Funeral service tomorrow afternoon at 1 o'clock in Milford Presbyterian Church, fall by burial in the Adjoining Cemetery. Funeral service can be viewed on Patrick Sweeney Funeral Directors Facebook page. Family flowers only, please, donations if desired to Milford Presbyterian Church Repair Fund or Donegal Hospice, Care of any family member or Patrick Sweeney Funeral Directors. The death has taken place of Dorothy Jean-Dott McMahan, Victoria Road, Mahara Mason. A funeral service will take place today at 12 o'clock in Mahara Mason Presbyterian Church, fall by burial in Milford Presbyterian Church, Burial Ground. Family flowers only, donations if desired to Lupus UK, the Heart Foundation or Cancer Research. For more details including any Family Health guidelines for wigs and funerals, please go to highlandradio.com. And you're very welcome back to the 9 till noon show here on Highland Radio. Right, now some of your comments here. Hi Greg, just wondering how GMIT and IT Sligo are doing remote exams but LYIT students are expected to complete in-person exams in 10 days times with cases still rising in a high number of students, they'll be in isolation and unable to attend. Exams went ahead before Christmas and a number of those students tested positive after. This is a risk to our families. We are okay because we are healthy but not everyone in our families is. Right, okay by the way we were talking about those antigen tests that were sent out. The advice was for them to be withdrawn from sale. It was mentioned on this program that Aldi had stocked them or may have stocked them. I don't see this as a problem. I don't see any retailer that stocked these in good faith only later to be found out that they were potentially producing false positives. I don't see that as a slight on any retailer. Everyone did anything knowingly and I hope that impression wasn't given as it relates to any retailer. It wasn't their fault completely, not their fault whatsoever. But Aldi didn't ever stock these or sell those particular antigen tests just to be absolutely clear. But as I say, as it relates to those that did, I don't think they did anything wrong at all. They simply just did what the right thing to do at the time and they learned after the fact that those particular tests that one particular brand needs further scrutiny and then withdraw them from sale. As I say, those things happen but more than happy to clarify that Aldi never stocked them. Please talk about the strain on leaving certain students who were off a good portion of last year and now they're back in cold classrooms, no teachers, young subs, about two years older than themselves doing nothing, just supervising them. Schools are not back, it is all pretence. Norma and the government have completely let these young people down again. A decision needs to be made on the leaving cert. It is not fair. And we were speaking to, I think, was it Casey yesterday who very clearly made that point. Acala says it's time, doctors surgeries get back to some normality and not be quizzing, not be to be quizzed by a receptionist about your health when you want to make an appointment. Another, can you ask the panel how the again Rua test kit got through to point of sale in Ireland? It's a good question and I mean obviously our panel are very well informed but that is a question for the likes of the Minister for Health, I think, and the HSC and to see what they had to say about it. Fat shaming is wrong, Greg, and that is why operation transformation thrives on. Greg, stop talking about a show you haven't seen. I'm very clear in pointing out that I hadn't seen it and the reason I haven't seen it is because I can't comment on it. So the people that are texting in comment on it. The panel who have seen it commented on it. If I didn't cover stuff on this program just because I didn't know about it or didn't see it, that wouldn't be a very good show, would it at all? So as I say, I don't comment on it because I haven't seen it. But people who have text in, it's their comments that are read out and the panel have seen it and it's their comments. I haven't commented on it because I haven't seen it. We could not handle the hospital long before this sickness. How do you answer this, indeed? Schools were closed for 15 days so it's unlikely that staff and pupils are unable to return yesterday. It's unlikely they picked up the infection within school. I think that's generally accepted. Reopening has been difficult but on balance the correct decision. It affords pupils a social routine and allows parents to stay at work, especially those on the front line and in the emergency services. Some schools have used their share of the 72 million to improve ventilation, indeed. That's a very good point. Another one in first class is away today with a vest, thermal long sleeve, t-shirt, jumper, fleece and coat and scarf hat as well. He said the rain was wetting him before Christmas from the door being open. I'm sure no one in the government or Nefert are sitting freezing in rooms. Well, maybe they should. Maybe they should. Maybe there should be some sort of a situation where politicians or people in the likes of Nefert who make these decisions and expect this of younger people, try it for a week. See how they fare because let's not forget the last time students were in schools, windows open and all that type of stuff. Our politicians were being protected by having their sittings in the convention center where they were sitting miles apart at great expense to the taxpayer. So maybe they should do what they expect others to do. Why don't we have the filters? Because the government won't spend the money. They're cheapskates who prefer to spend on money on cruel grey hand racing, says a caller. Another, we are in unprecedented times and children are freezing at school. Children would be better off catching Omicron and staying at home than catching Pneumonia and ending up in hospital. It's time principals took sensible measures. No one else works in these conditions. Thank you for that. Thank God John Wackityer is clued into how people feel about the return to school, cold classrooms, no teachers, COVID all around them. It's a disgrace. And last before we take the bingo numbers. Morning Greg, I have family teaching. Yes, they have heavy coats and hats and windows open in all weather. Lunch taken in the classroom or sat in the car. But they still want to be there, especially for exam years. This is a very important few months for teachers and their students. And if you're teaching these children for the past few years, you certainly want to do everything possible for them in the final few months. And teaching from home isn't right for final year students. This is from a family member who's teaching every day. Thank God so far. Right, okay. Good luck if you are playing the bingo today. We'll be back with Seamus Gunn joining us very shortly after the numbers and a quick break. Let's see where are the numbers? Here they are. Good luck if you're playing. It's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio. It's Friday, the 7th of January. You're playing on the yellow coloured sheet. The reference number is S5. It's game number one. The numbers are 64, 46, 68, 77, 65. 13. The number 6. 12. The number 8. And 69. Fallen your claim to 9104833 before 8pm tonight. Leave in your name, contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book. Get all your NCBI Bingo information at HighlandRadio.com. Is 2022 the year you need to change your mattress? Rest Exped's letter, Kenny. The massive January sale is now on. Sponsors of today's show. Done stores. Always better value. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome that you can be used on the grocery shop of 30 euro or more. It's final clearance time at McElhenney's biggest ever winter sale. Grab your bargain of the year with up to 70% off in our women's, men's, kids' jewellery, home and footwear departments. Plus enjoy great sterling exchange for £1 by your 1 euro 20. So go get what's yours at McElhenney's Ballet Buffet or McElhenney's.com with fast delivery and click and collect. Do you need a little extra help staying in your home? At Bluebird Care we offer a wide variety of Q-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. GiveBlood.ie know we can count on you, our community of blood donors, to give blood and to choose to be there for others in their hour of need. Blood donors from Letter Kenney and Bunbeg should attend the clinic in the Radisson Blue Hotel in Letter Kenney from Monday 10th to Thursday 13th of January. To ensure social distancing all donors need to make an appointment so call 1-800-731-137 to book your time. New donors are welcome. Visit giveblood.ie to check eligibility and clinic details because we count on you. If you're concerned about safe grocery shopping right now what could be safer than doing it from the comfort of your own home? With click and collect at Kelly Centre in Letter Kenney you simply download the centre app, order your shopping and then pull into the car park to collect at a time that suits. Or phone in your order on 911-220-26 for no-foss, no-contact shopping at Kelly Centre, Mountaintop, Letter Kenney. If your child is aged 5 to 11 you could now register for their free COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 usually causes mild to moderate illness in this age group but it can cause more severe illness. All vaccines used in Ireland are tested before they're approved by the European Medicines Agency. To find out more or to register go to hsc.ie or call hsc live on 1800-700-700 from the HSC. Okay and you're very welcome back to the 9th Loon show here on Highland Radio. Some more of your comments as we wait shameless to join us. Well done on highlighting this very unfair exam situation with LIIT and it is possible and I'm sure they will come up with a solution. But of course even whilst negotiations are going on as I mentioned earlier on it's important that people have an opportunity to have Thursday. My daughter is at college in Manuth, has a few exams online but has to go to college for her last four or postpone into next semester. Not happy to be heading into an exam room with the number of COVID cases plus having to go back to accommodation with others. What's the difference in these students in LIIT? Secondary students are sitting in packed rooms with windows open and have no options. Exams can be done in rooms at half capacity and they are safer than school children but there are options you see. And you know it is they that have the concerns. So I'm not saying they shouldn't it's what they're saying. Right okay more here. I'm a teacher myself and my son dropped out last year due to 100% online learning in LIIT. They could have been in like in secondary school students. Okay I get you that's the other side of it. Right Greg let's get straight here. Do you think the vaccinations are working? Boosters included and for once be honest and straight about this. I'm always honest and straight. I'm not an advocate for this stuff by the way. Are they working? Well I mean look at ICU. I mean they're not designed at this point to stop transmission. The design stopped people getting sick or dying in ICU. 50% of people aren't vaccinated. So it's up to you what do you think 50% of those in ICU are not vaccinated. So 56% of the country's population accounts for 50% of ICU the ICU population. Do you believe that to be a success for vaccination or not? It's up to you it's not for me to give for what I think. I've never told anyone to do anything on this program ever. We cover public health advice yes but you do what you want to do. There's a car crash this morning on the car in Glanile Road so be careful. That was at five past eight by the way so I presume that's been cleared. But it's no harm as a reminder to be careful out there on the roads. Okay I'm delighted to welcome on to the program now. Seamus Gunn of McGlachan, Gunn and Company. Letter Canyon Remelton taking your legal questions of course and discussing some legal topics of interest. Good morning to you Seamus. Thank you very much for joining us. Good morning Greg. Happy new year to you. Happy new year to you as well. First time since yeah the last yeah. Yeah I see a few of these cases are coming before the courts. Down the country anyway I think it was in Cork if I'm not mistaken but I possibly am whereby people went to court to contest the fines for being outside the 5k or whatever they might be. One judge in particular refusing legal aid and fines of 125 convictions and fines of 125 year when so-and-so forth are being dished out. Is that the start of it? Seamus are we actually starting? Well I think I suppose yes it could be the start of it. How many of them would be processed with the current backlogs even today? There's a direction now from the president of the district court curtailing further types of criminal proceedings that would be usually contested in the district court due to the present current situation with the Omricon. So that's gone to certainly slow matters up once again if there wasn't even a backlog already. And then you have obviously the high profile kickoff of the Golfgate case yesterday in Connemore and it's going to be interesting to see how that pans out in the coming days and that's been fully contested. So yes it is the start of it. Is there merit in it? I do have my doubts about all of that and we might have a discussion about that at a later date when that case has concluded. But there seems to be that there are a lot of witnesses to go through and it's going to take a number of days and a lot of taxpayers money is going to go into it as well. So we would like to get through this COVID pandemic and get on with life and there are other matters I think that are more pressing to come before the courts. Yeah indeed. You talked about the passage of time and what impact that might have on the processing of a lot of those fines. The passage of time has to some extent benefited Pat Hickey out in Brazil. What's the background to that case? I'd forgotten about it until it come back onto the headlines this week. It is interesting because most people have forgotten about it and yet if ever there was a media frenzy back in 2016 and I have to remind you now we're coming to six years and the Olympics, you know the most reported ticket touting case ever hit the headlines. Unfortunately Pat Hickey at the time was the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland and he was involved with another party which was a company, THC and there's a guy by the name of Kevin Mallon. There's also a Brazilian lady in it, a Mr. Carnieri. And them three had ever been before the courts since 2016 now 2022. Interesting development during the week but what I found fascinating about this Greg was simply this, that this decision was published on the 18th of October last. It has been now in the public domain here this week but it has been in the court record in Brazil from the 18th of October and has not been highlighted at all. Now why I'm referencing that is that when there was this frenzy about it at the time and it was wall-to-wall media, social media, TV, airwaves it was non-stop for days. It was being televised live as it developed nearly and Mr. Hickey was as was Mr. Mallon and Ms. Carnieri were taken into custody for a number of days as well. So the drop tree charges that's interesting but they've come up with that because of the passage of time and because of the penalties that they would attract they believe that there's no real merit in proceeding with them. So they call it, which is a term I never heard before that mentioned a term called extinction of punishability. So that's the reference that they're using but what is fascinating is that they've left in the heavier charges. So they've dropped charges such as the first-hand touting in other words if you or I were the person selling the ticket but they've left in the more serious one as the person charged with organizing that and that would attract a bigger penalty. They've dropped the tax evasion charge and using Olympic logos. Again, they would not attract the same type of penalty but the penalties for those that are still in which includes larceny by the way is three to eight years. Now in meantime Mr. Hickey and Mr. Mallon, Miss Carnieri are innocent. They're innocent parties and will be seen as such and the trial is yet to take place. They're innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty and they have to return perhaps to Brazil to face charges going back. It looks like it's going to be at least six years and they have to give them eight months actually now able to prepare. Yeah, exactly and that'd be interesting because there is a possibility it could be done by video but that means very serious allegations and if there were a conviction I presume they'd be expected to return for sentencing but Pat Hickey's got 410,000 euros sitting in a Brazilian account somewhere as a bond that he had to pay so obviously that's quite an incentive to engage. He will have to engage. I think that is probably impractical to be talking about having it done by video link usually where one's liberty is in jeopardy not saying that you will lose your liberty but if it is in jeopardy you have to be present in court at that time. I think every likelihood that will have to and if so to do so they're entitled to think about it in eight months notice to prepare and to make suitable arrangements but it's the passing of time as the justice delayed justice denied point there's an obligation on the courts even they'll accept this to ensure the litigation is dealt with in a timely manner now this is far from timely and you'd wonder is there the appetite there now to see these prosecutions true I just have that thought as we sort of move forward into the sixth year but at the same time it's very difficult for those accused and you must remember that that this has been hanging over them for the better part of five and a half coming on to six years so surely they would like to see it concluded but will it ever be fully prosecuted I think we're just going to have to wait and see if it isn't he's entitled obviously to his bond back. Alright listen Sheamus stay right where you are because we do have a quick outbreak today we'll return with Sheamus Gunn of McLaugh and Gunn and company letter Kenny Remelton after this break and to answer your questions our listeners about your vacancies both on air and online every Monday Wednesday and Friday during our primetime shows we will broadcast the latest job opportunities across the Northwest and into County's Derry and Taroan all job listings will be available online at HighlandRidio.com for more information contact the advertising team on 07491 253 22 or email advertising at HighlandRidio.com HighlandRidio we're here for you the Dunstores baby event is on now and we've got big savings on baby products like Jumbo plus packs of Pampers new baby or active fit nappies buy one get one free and Water Wife SpyO 12 packs now only 20 euro that's an amazing 1 euro 67 per pack plus with our 10 or 50 grocery voucher you save even more which means every trip to Dunstores means better value Dunstores always better value terms and conditions apply voucher can be used on exposer shop of 50 or more if you've got great photos sitting on your phone or in the cloud why not visit mcgeese.ie and see the range of creative options available get larger 7 by 5 prints for the same price as a standard 6 by 4s with 100 prints for just 12 euro or select from the great range of photo gifts like mouse and placemats phone covers, jigsaws and clocks click and collect or have them delivered see what you can do with your favourite photos online at mcgeese.ie half past 10 I had a car that was lifted by customs I live in Northern Ireland but my girlfriend was driving it when it was lifted it was damaged when it was being lifted they accepted they caused the damage the vrt due when it was 2000 now they're looking for 6 I have the car sold but customs are not in conversation with me on it and I keep getting fobbed off how can I move this forward if I lose the sale of the car can I make a claim against them Sheamus it's quite confusing I'll see it we'll have to tease this out a little bit more Greg but there seems to be an issue with the clearance of the car in the first instance and it being driven within the state and the question as to whether it is permanently imported without the vrt being paid on is the question that I would expect that the customs and excise are addressing so that's the point that arises and that's not entirely clear from the way it is phrased I know it's accepted it's been driven here I don't know it's been used here by somebody as a vehicle for their own personal use who is living and residing in the state and if that is the case the car should be cleared and the vrt paid on it in relation to any damage to it that's as it were a second matter and that would be give rise to potential civil claim maybe in negligence if one accepts that they were driving someone else's car and they damaged it and through some fault of their own well then in that situation certainly you might start with at least providing them with an estimate for the repairs and see where it goes but that will likely be a matter that again I would see being resisted it could be a quid pro quo where there's a set off potentially if you're trying to sort out the both claims simultaneously one being set off against the other as to the damage as against the vrt I doubt that that would fly because the vrt will be a separate department run by customs and excise so I would see them as two different cases and would have to be pursued accordingly to put a call on them I'd like to know a little bit more about the residency in relation to the clearance of the car alright we've lived in our house for four decades I bought the land and paid for it now the person I bought it off is deceased and her daughter discovered that the land is still in her mother's name now she's very good and has agreed she will transfer it to us but between solicitors and planning it's almost a year happening I'm not in great health can I do anything as it's delaying me getting my personal affairs in order well I would give the call or try to give her some reassurance on this point the fact that it is acknowledged that there is a title problem in relation to the registration of the land is very helpful it is not unusual for it to take upwards of a year to sort out either a deed of rectification or a transfer and mapping etc and then to proceed to register it with the PRA so that would not cause me an alarm what I would say to her is this the key to the question that I think and the point she makes is that she is concerned about getting her own personal affairs in order and she's quite correct to address that but that should not preclude her from including this property in her estate whenever she is making her arrangements she's quite entitled to refer to it and to bequeathed to whomsoever she wishes indeed if she didn't make any he or she make any arrangements in my opinion it would still fall into their estate and be dealt with under the succession act on intestines so there shouldn't be an issue there so I would tell her to proceed and get her personal affairs in order regardless of the fact as to whether the registration of the rectification or the transfer has come true I applied for an agricultural loan at the start of 2021 I was approved for this in February 2021 having had property valued and offered a security the loan could not be drawn down however until matters in relation to rights of way were completed by my own solicitor this process continued for over 7 months and by the end of September I informed the bank that too much time had elapsed and the loan was no longer required an estimate of fees and outlay to the value of 2,475 euro has now been notified am I responsible for the discharge of these fees and also those of my own solicitor they feel have been failed by the bank and the solicitor yeah well first of all I think that they should address it with the person who's representing them as to whether they are obligated to discharge them or not but in the round and just dealing with the points as it arises and just to try to to deal separately too with that in situations where one is getting a bank there is what's called a letter of offer and acceptance and it's signed by both parties and that's as it were the arrangement of which to proceed it's up to the borrower then to produce a marketable title acceptable to the lender including all accesses and that's the reference to easements and rights away here so when there's an investigation of title if something arises that can cause a delay hence the probably delay has occurred in this case again not terribly unusual but the point is this the bank are still prepared to give the money it's now the borrower who has decided that because of the lapse of time they no longer require it so they are no longer interested and obviously during the course of all this fees have been incurred so those fees are likely to have to be discharged by some party but it is the borrower's responsibility to have their title in order whenever they're applying for the loan so the bank will argue well if we have gone down the route of getting everything and agreeing to give you the money and it is you now that has decided not to take it up so they are arrangement you're unilaterally changing the arrangement you're not drawn down the loan so we have incurred these fees and we want you to pay them that's how it has arisen it'll be up to their own legal advice to recommend how they wish to proceed and deal with that but certainly technically speaking on title matters it's up to the borrower to have good marketable title to furnish to the bank and then what issues is a certificate of title is then drawn and the money drawn down on foot of that but that won't issue until such time as all easements, accesses rights away etc are all dealt with so that's the problem and I think it can be resolved but it's likely that a fees are incurred and that'll have to be addressed I have been having problems with my Jeep it's a 182 with the clutch I bought it brand new from a dealer down the country and it's paid off it's been in now six times and it's still not fixed and it's still in the garage they've changed everything to do with the clutch and still can't resolve this problem I'm looking about getting a refund for it because I've no faith in it anymore how much of the original price would I be entitled to a 182 Jeep with clutch problems from new what I would suggest to the caller is that they retain the services of a motor assessor engineer and to get a full report on the condition of the Jeep at present we have to bear in mind to be practical here at Bragg at the same time it is coming to four years it is coming to four years old so we're not going to get a full refund but at least then they will be well informed as to the value going forward for the purpose of the trade in and then they can build into that the problems they've been having the ongoing problems and the aggravation in relation to the clutch issue which seems to be going on for some considerable period of time and hopefully they will get an appropriate allowance on it but I would be inclined to engage the services of motor engineer because that will be independent of the retailer, the garage and even the caller themselves so they'll be putting forward a reasonable case and then build something into the hassle that they've had with the problem in relation to it they're probably best trying to deal with the garage from that originally provided I've often seen that in the past that that's the best route to go down and to try to come to a deal with it it doesn't seem like one that's really worth going into litigation on as I said the Jeep's now coming into its fourth year and even with a perfect clutch there's going to be a big knock down on the price. Yeah and it depends on how much mileage they'd have up on it, if they have say 70,000 miles on it, someone said well the clutch can't be that. Well yeah and the inference which is a really good point to make and that the inference in the question is that I think the caller said they do a lot of mileage or do a lot of driving with their work so the mileage may be heavy but it has it has a big impact on valuations. I do know that whenever you're valuing second hand cars, mileage is very relevant. Alright it'd be interesting to see how you can nominate a next of kin without a will but maybe that'll be answered through the course of this question. If a man dies leaving no will nominated a cousin as a next of kin and when he passed away the next of kin took care of his estate and he's now wondering is he entitled to the entire estate or would it have to be shared amongst his other cousins. This man did not have any children of his own only relatives he had were these cousins. Well it's wishful thinking on his part he thinks that he's entitled to the entire estate because he's noted as next of kin if there's no arrangements in place in the form of a will. It's clear from the question as it is phrased that there are next of kin our cousins it also seems to me that the party has passed away and has passed away without making any arrangements. The points that the caller is making is that this individual has been noted as next of kin that may have been for medical purposes hospital or whatever whenever you're admitted that's often the situation you have to nominate a family member or some close random or even some people might even nominate a friend it doesn't give them any standing in law afterwards and that's the critical point here what is required is a grant of representation that means a grant of administration and for one the cousins will all be equal in relation to succession so I haven't given the number but let's just say for the case say there's five of them so there'll be five shares and this individual this individual who was noted as next of kin would similarly be entitled to a fifth. They could take out a grant of representation or some of the others can and then the estate would have to be gathered in maybe if there was land property it would have to be sold and any of the assets and then after the payment of all fees and costs and funeral etc it would have to be divided equally among them in accordance with the 1965 succession act that's the law on it and that won't change and I don't ever see it changing two more in this area my mother died four years ago and we're still waiting on her will to be sorted surely if the executor fails in his duty the solicitor should take over well no actually the executor has the obligation and is charged with it the solicitor or solicitors dealing with it are charged with carrying out the instructions of the executor or executors and so the the book stops with them what I would say though and it is useful if there is an inordinate delay and there can be good just cause and reasons for delays in dealing with the states there can be assets in different parts of the world etc that have to be gathered in and collected in etc but anyway if there's an inordinate delay there's what's called the executor's year and that's a year in which to have to get matters rolling and if they don't do so then some other person who is named in the will maybe a Residue Legatee could make an application by way of citation to the probate court to have somebody else appointed to move matters on so that's the way they're looking but it's not the solicitor can't just step in and say well he'll take over or she'll take over administer in the estate that duty falls with the executor and it's up to them to give instructions but of course they're subject to they're subject to the probate court if they do not move matters on expeditiously all right please ask Seamus my aunt died and left me her property so so told someone told me sorry the solicitor told me I will get an inheritance tax bill in October I'm worried sick about it as what happens if I don't have the money to pay this bill so their aunt died left them a property solicitors advised them that they will face an inheritance tax bill due in October but they're worried sick about it because they might not actually have the assets available to match that bill I think the next question though they should ask is what's the likely level of tax that they're going to be paying they didn't indicate what the level of the inheritance is so but for the purpose of their standing as a nephew or niece or sibling brother or sister their tax threshold of present subject to correction is 32,500 so it's whenever you go above that Greg that the tax kicks in 33% so the first 32 and a half free and then it's 33% thereafter the caller hasn't indicated what level the inheritance is at but certainly if they're worried about it they should ascertain what type of tax they will be facing and as we all know taxes and preliminary tax all come in towards the end of October but what options are there I mean this person may not have even been expecting this let's just say the tax bill was 30,000 euro this has been put on them through no fault of their own yes they might have assets but what are realistic options they might have I mean will they realistic option is one they can decide to disclaim completely well right that's an option if you don't want it just disclaim it and it'll go into the estate it could go into the residue leave it for others not many people do that by the way Greg I can imagine but anyway number two is to liquidate an asset that would be in the estate in order to pay it so let's say if it's a property I think did they mention property if they did say it just inheritance well if there was a property if it's financial sorry about your pardon yes it does she did say the aunt left her property so the property then is a valuable asset and can go on the market and pay whatever price they get then they pay the tax so it's a case of you can't eat your cake and still have it well in life that's just not possible Greg very lastly I'm law yes indeed very lastly I'm renting a property from a housing organization where it was discovered two years ago that there were no firewalls brought it to the RTB where the tenant was awarded 300 euro for stress and firewall firewalls put in two years after the fact can the tenant now sue for gross negligence I would think that they've gone to the residents and tenancy board they have made a determination on it and that determination that it would have the same standing can be converted into a court order and they have made the determination at 300 euro and I think that ends the matter unless they can bring in something that they've suffered some aggravation stress etc as a result and try to go down that route with some type of common law action but I wouldn't be overly optimistic about that one all right Sheamus gone of McLaughlin gone and company now obviously I could engage with your services in letter Kenny or a Malton but let's just say I would like to find out more information online yes I think that's it and it's a very useful option don't go to Mr's.ie Gregor just keep it simple gum.ie you'll find us there I think listen every time I'm going to check just before I ask you that question to make sure it's up thanks Sheamus take care of yourself right bye bye thank you very much indeed Sheamus gone of McLaughlin gone and company right it is the 90 noon show here on Highland Radio lots coming up on the program including just after 11 o'clock we'll have Michael and Finula in chatting all things entertainment we'd love to have your involvement in that if you've been watching anything or you went to see something or whatever it might be but it's a little later than we normally do we're going to take a piece of music this is Bon Jovi right that's living on a prayer by Bon Jovi it is the 90 noon show here in Highland Radio we'll be back with more after we take this break is 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by the Central Bank of Ireland Michael Murphy sports and leisure has everything you need to gear up for the GA season this year get your hands in the brand new Donegal GA home jersey available in men's, ladies and kids gear up the whole family for pre-season and match days with the new Harlem range of sweaters, leggings and snuds at Michael Murphy sports.ie it's final clearance time at McElhaney's biggest ever winter sale grab your bargain of the year with up to 70% off in our women's, men's, kids, jewellery home and footwear departments loss and joy great sterling exchange for one pound by your one Euro 20 dollars at McElhaney's Bally Buffet or McElhaney's.com with fast delivery and click and collect Backstage Bar & Grill is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. If you are looking for a healthy option this January we have a great selection of delicious salads, sandwiches and more. We also have a tasty vegan menu call Century Complex and 0749121976 to book your table. The rest ex-beds and furniture winter sale is now in full swing at our letter Kenny store supplying only the finest quality luxurious Irish made beds and mattresses with genuine savings throughout our range we look forward to seeing you at the rest ex-beds and furniture winter sale and you're very welcome back to the Ninclenoon show now just for you sports fans out there that Donegal of course start the new year with their opening game in the Dr McKenna Cup this evening it's in Balabafe Declan Boner's side will face down and McCool Park and they'll be full match commentary with Oshin Kelly at 7.30pm you throw in on our website HighlandRadio.com I remember it's free of charge of course brilliant team of course Oshin and Martin they will bring ball by ball commentary for you from the Dr McKenna Cup Donegal starting off their new year against down throw in 7.30pm HighlandRadio.com go to HighlandRadio.com it's exclusive there and you won't miss a thing right 08 660 25000 that's the text line 08 660 25000 or call 0749 125000 I applied online to renew my passport on Tuesday morning last the passport was delivered yesterday morning is this a record less than 48 hours turn around yes and pretty good doesn't it wouldn't be complaining at that nice one okay I thought there was a huge backlog I wonder maybe you just got lucky who's to say I'm a primary teacher off school at the moment as I've been sick all of Christmas not with COVID I'm dreading returning to a freezing classroom windows open and temperatures very uncomfortable the classroom conditions do not help keep colds at bay we're all freezing and no sign of air filtration units anytime soon I agree get the politicians and ministers to come and see what these environments feel like themselves they would not last an hour yeah stand with the people go in and have one of your Eroctor's committee meetings sitting in a classroom right next door to someone with a mask on with the windows open and in some cases not being able to put on extra layers of clothing get in there and see what it's like maybe a council meeting could be held in that environment that would be interesting too wouldn't it? Re-receptionists in GP's office if they don't ask the medical questions over the phone they won't be in a job for very long there is an order sent down by the doctors to get this information people are very quick to make comments about receptionists but no one comments on the doctors who have orders now I've never heard actual criticism of receptionists what we hear in this program is and they describe receptionist as receptionist it's not there's no insult there is that they don't feel comfortable divulging their personal medical medical information to someone who is not their doctor now that doctor-patient relationship much has been made of that of course you know the bedside manner of that close relationship they understand me and a lot of GP's have traded off that and many people have been doing that for many many years 50 years perhaps in fact so I don't think it's unreasonable for people to then feel uncomfortable to be passing on this private medical history or pedic private medical situation particularly if it's something I don't know to do with the lower part of the body or something I don't think it's unreasonable for people to not be comfortable giving that information to someone's not the doctor and I don't think that's a criticism of receptionist I think it's a perfectly understandable concern that many people have some don't care they'll tell you their what's going on with them standing in the street or over a cup of coffee but some people it's very personal it's very private maybe it's even generational and I can understand and I empathize with them that they are not comfortable relating this personal private information to someone who is not their GP and in them expressing that in my view is not a criticism of receptionist it's how they feel and I respect how they feel because it is they who feel it ok it is time to take a quick break as we head towards the news at 11 stay right where you are the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest ex-beds letter Kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show payment of the local property tax for 2022 is due by Wednesday the 12th of January if you haven't yet paid or made arrangements to pay or haven't already filed your LPT return please do so now the easiest way to file and pay is online through my account Ross or the LPT portal if you select the annual debit instruction option your payment won't be debited until the 21st of March if you need help or can't go online call Revenue on 01738 626 love what you do and you'll never walk a January life says Elmester Brennan that's why our bakers make such great tasty bread from our bagel bakers to our bake house craft bakers and our be good bakers I like a more traditional baker myself says I well to see our family pan bakers still bake our famous sluice pan fresh every morning however you sluice it anything baked is better with Brennan's today's bread today Sheridan security now introducing zero wire smart alarm systems zero wire zero mess and a real peace of mind with a simple press of a button your alarm can be set or on set or download the free app and control it from your phone call us today on 074 912 6025 and get your alarm from 299 euro stay local stay safe and protect what you value most with Sheridan security systems store and go spring town dairy the north of Ireland's only temperature controlled smart access individually sized storage units store and go offers storage for personal storage house moves and renovations business storage for access stock or filing systems once signed up you can access 24 hours a day through an app on your phone gaining access through four levels of security to your most precious store and go spring town dairy on 02871 278 900 to discuss your needs and get bespoke advice or get a free quote at store and go.net a very good morning you are tuned to your number one local radio station this is Highland radio broadcasting across the region on air and across the world online and for you to watch on our social media challenge channels for Nular and Michael joining us very shortly but it's 11 o'clock it's time for a news update and it's over to Michaela Clark. Thanks Greg good morning the HSE Chief Clinical Officer says Omicron is having a huge impact on staff numbers it's estimated that as many as 15,000 HSE staff are absent due to COVID-19 every public health official says it appears Omicron isn't causing as many hospitalizations as previous variants Dr. Colin Henry says frontline staff who are close contacts but have no symptoms may be asked to return to work Well letter Kenny University hospital is dealing with 62 infectious cases that's down slightly on yesterday's figure but remains the second highest in the country for infectious cases are in ICU a former assistant general manager meanwhile at letter Kenny University hospital says the hospital like many others is currently running at close to 100% capacity and was doing so before the effects of the pandemic took hold. Had a running told Greg Hughes on today's 9 to 9 show that this effectively means the hospital cannot cope with surges in demand he said it's a particular problem when it comes to the numbers presenting in the emergency department there's been a slight fall in a number of admitted patients awaiting beds at the hospital with 30 people waiting this morning down 9 from yesterday four of them were on emergency department trolleys students of letter Kenny Institute of Technology are calling for remote exams to be introduced last week the college announced that all semester one in person exams were being postponed until later date due to rising cases of COVID-19 two options have since been proposed one is that students sit semester one exams in May along with other scheduled exams or on January the 17th LYIT President Paul Heigens says there are ongoing meetings with the student union and says it wouldn't be right to comment until such discussions conclude and MPOS says deliveries in some rural areas are being impacted by staffing shortages the company says a spike in COVID-related absences has placed a temporary strain on its resources it says the worst impact is being felt across its meals and parcels network and at some post offices with some having to temporarily shut those are the latest headlines we'll be back with an update again at 12 noon thank you Michaela COVID-19 usually causes mild to moderate illness in this age group but it can cause more severe illness all vaccines used in Ireland are tested before they're approved by the European Medicines Agency to find out more or to register go to hsc.ie or call HSC live on 1800 700 700 from the HSC OK that theme tune can mean only one thing it means it's time for the entertainment or that's entertainment which I've come to to call it but it hasn't really caught on good morning to you Michael ready writer and blogger how are you good morning happy new year to you Greg Hughes wishing you a happy healthy 22 yes fingers crossed and also a very good morning to finula rabbit hi finula how are you keeping tickety boo it's good to have both of you with us I'm going to start with don't look up did you watch it finula yes oh I did and you've watched it yes ok yes right who wants to start finula it's brilliant yeah no I I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy it now isn't it is watchable and there was a couple of laughs in it there was a couple of things in it one and you kind of wondered a little bit of what was the point of it I know they were saying it was for environmental but to be honest I'm more concerned about an asteroid at the moment because NASA just sent up a missile into outer space to knock an astronaut off its course so now I think there's definitely an asteroid coming I'm all into the conspiracy of it so asteroids passing over a million miles away from yeah they say that though no well the earth's atmosphere extends that far yeah no oh I know but I'm saying with the whole that this this thing now really I'll go down the rabbit hole now that they've actually sent up the missile to try and knock one off its course I'm like oh yeah it's totally happening there's something on the way finula it sounds knowledgeable but does she know Kate Winslet's name because that always seems to trip you up so I'm going to ask you what's going on you just asked me did I know Kate Winslet's name I'm still waiting but I'm still waiting for an answer so come on stop talking about your conspiracy theory no no but so my thing about it was I did think some of it was very good I really liked how in it the the the professor even gets so ends up getting so involved in the fame of it and the whole celebrity side of it which is very much kind of the way life sort of works at the moment now that you kind of get caught up in that type of thing I wasn't really and I did think there was an amount of truism in it as in everything about it was true in the event of anybody saying anything in the event of such a thing occurring and even like in the event of as we say if we take out the asteroid and we put in you know climate change which is what we're told that that's you know that that was the main focus of it and that is the attitude that people have well yeah of course it is and we've seen very very recently a guy who is an environmentalist went on a station in Britain it's widely circulated and he starts talking about climate change and the importance of climate change and he's challenged about but you build houses don't you and he says yes what with wood and he goes yeah he says well that's not good for the environment and then he goes well it is really because it's sustainable we can grow more trees and then he goes well you can grow more concrete you know that is the level it's not it's challenging it it's not saying actually you know what it's pretty evident what's happening in this world yeah it's actually either making light of it or you know challenging it as if it can't be true and the important thing I think about don't look up is that the only time anyone actually cared about it was when they could physically see the asteroid and there will come a point when everyone on this earth when climate change becomes more understandable for us all that they'll go oh my god why have we been doing nothing this is hurtling towards us I mean even for that alone I think the whole film was worth being made yeah but at no point did anybody say why yes they finally believed it when they saw it but at no point was there like a mass panic where people were saying why didn't anybody do anything about it there's inevitability then at that point it's inevitable and we are almost at the point of inevitability so then you would you not take the base on that movie we're already there well no because the scientists tell us see we're doing that people not about the science I'm saying take out the science of it now and talk about the people because really what this was about I thought more than the science was about the reaction as in showing you the reaction of the political you know the politicians were taking one side but even the public you know what I mean the media where did the public get their information from no I am there was a cohort of people who source their own information that says no this is serious why is no one listening they were the ones out marching on the street and then you had another going don't look up it's all an old nonsense it's exactly what we're seeing really right now as far as I'm concerned I don't disagree with you there but what I'm saying is is that in it at no point even when they saw it did anybody say you know even at the point that they saw it at no point was anybody screaming and roaring and going what should we do but we are very close to that point in terms of climate change already now that you know it's too late when everyone feels it you know at that point you have your dinner and you sit around the table and you say well no one listen here we are what can you do the anticipation of death is worse and death itself at that point everyone knows well the die has been cast it's only eight hours until this thing hits us it was so late in the day that they actually saw or I'm not spoiling it for anyone because no no I don't think that's a spoiler I don't know what do you think I really hated this movie why though I think there's two things at play here there's the message which I think is excellent and there's the movie which is a mess it's too long it goes back to the same characters we saw too much of the American president we saw too much of the tech billionaire it has certain but they are the key no because that tech billionaire was Elon Musk he was Bill Gates but we saw him and he was Jeff Epstein not Jeff Epstein good heaven allegedly she said allegedly Bezos my apologies to Mr Bezos of course but no I just thought in terms of just looking at the film and again the critics have not embraced this I'll tell you why the critics haven't embraced it because the critics are the same people who are buddies with the politicians and are buddies with the media and this falls too close to home but I'll tell you I'll tell you why the critics haven't embraced it it's not a good film it's not a good film take out the message it's not a great film none of the characters were very well fleshed out so you didn't particularly care when one of the characters suddenly went rogue you didn't particularly care with the one character that really stuck with it the whole time at no point did you feel at all for that character as a character if you take it like I fully take what you're saying is I think that you needed the American president you needed the tech billionaire because there is so many of them now in this world that are doing so many different things using them too much defeated the purpose but I just think as a general thing the movie as a movie forget about the fact of whether we're all doomed as a movie it didn't really die down for it it was a very Netflixy movie we didn't really care let's just say his character he was about to get sucked into the fair but you could do that in one scene instead of seven scenes he was bored he started off being with what's that lady Jennifer Lawrence's character he started off being shoulder to shoulder with her and as soon as he got a little bit of taste of that celebrity a little bit of that show business and we can see this right now in this country right when people are talking about Covid experts all of a sudden they're never off certain radio stations and they change it's like you know what this is over soon everything's going to be fine it's coming down the lines I was watching it and I was saying I know who that is and Jennifer Lawrence's character stuck to her guns the whole time could you not have done that this was two and a half hours could you not have done the same story better in 90 minutes or 95 minutes by only seeing the American president a couple of times only seeing Mark Ryland a couple of times and again yes you could still show DiCaprio's character getting sucked in but it's like if a guy showed up at your house in the middle of the night shouting and roaring that the house is on fire that's a good thing but if he's still roaring and shouting at you as you phone the brigade shouting at you as you get your children safely he's still roaring and shouting at you as you get your dog out of the garage there's a point where you'll be like ah mate shush it's okay we're sorted now the brigade are here stop shouting and roaring you'll be like that guy's annoying me now even though what he did was excellent he saved your house he saved your life I think it's a little bit like and it's completely different but that your comedian that you like so much what's his name Ryan Reynolds Ryan Reynolds his film where he's in a computer game I enjoyed that the whole way through because the references I enjoyed the references that went along and with this film I didn't feel it was very long I got the references that they were trying to make and what we see and as it unfolds I thought at times it actually really was quite funny and I thought it was hysterical and I didn't need characters I didn't need to invest in characters to be honest we know more than I might with a sketch on Saturday Night Live I didn't I didn't feel I had to engage with them I agree with everything you're saying there now in that I really did see the bits where they were going with it and I thought some of it was really clever some of it was very funny but I did think to put it up against them just taking it as a movie it doesn't stand on its own it didn't stand on its own as a movie and I know friends of mine that have said to me oh no I watched it now Jesus it was a bit long and I think that that can be off-putting for people as well I think I watched it in three stages if I'm honest I could never watch a movie in three stages I never could before but I've got other people in my life now that make those decisions for me one of the reasons I thought he was excellent was we only saw him twice and he was excellent both times I swear if Meryl Streep had been in this for two big scenes I would be raving about her I thought she was good in it but his character was clever and the son was brilliant you're like again you could pick about six different political types but his character was brilliant right but what also was clever really he wasn't he was just a really racist inappropriate kind of character in other words yeah we're going to send him up he's going to make the world a great exactly everyone's not quite the hero you might think they are do you know what I mean yeah of course it's the same director and writer who did vice did you guys see vice a couple of years ago did you like vice? I seem to recall liking it and I just wonder you know we've talked in the past Michael and Fanula as well but I think it might slightly predate when we were together as a threesome where films made on contemporary political characters and the critics seemed to judge them based on their political lean so a film was made and it was particularly favourable to the democrats for example you could almost see a split as to and I get a sense that with this film what you think about climate change and stuff absolutely agree but here's the thing we've talked about the critics but if you go to letterboxed which is the social media film platform again it's the same thing they're not professional critics they're not friends with these people but a lot there is it's either love it or hate it I think it's not like being talked down to or whatever I don't know I think it's such an important and live issue and something that we're living through at the moment I think that maybe people see I think that's exactly what happened we all watched it in our house and everybody knows now there's a shed load of us and those in the family that are very that are very into climate change recycling one of my siblings now is like they have bees they go out planting trees at the weekend bees go out planting trees amazing bees his honey is delicious I have to say I don't know what his bees eat but oh it's yummy they have bees and they go out planting trees and they're all about the environment and they loved it then you guess Phineola who's a little bit harsher on life and cynical about life I think it's the divide between the message and the movie I think that's what happens I think that's what happens as to whether you like it or not is a lot of people she didn't think it was too long she didn't think anything you know what I mean she accepted all of the things in it because she went in there with the message whereas I went in there kind of came out of it going well what can we do now it's coming now anyways there's nothing to do I'm not going to be honest the message was strong in it I'm not really because of the job that I do I'm not really passionate about the environment I try and do bits and bobs here but I'm not that type so it wasn't hitting me in that regard right but I think to even say for instance with the issue of Covid we're at the moment okay there's an awful lot in that so you've got scientists you know you've got the world's scientists saying one thing and then you maybe have 50,000 sort of saying another thing and because that's what people want to hear and because that's an easier message whether you fully embrace that and you will argue that to the day you die so even take climate change out of the equation the film's observations on the way the world works was very interesting a very very good very very good and it could have really been on any subject you know I didn't really get the climate change it could have been about the asteroid but it could have been about Covid you could have put lots of different things into it I don't know what are you going to give it out of 5 I have to say as a movie well that's nonplussed really 5 is taken on even it's below average for me and it's 55% on rockets not on audience oh I don't know I never look at the audience no you're smart I'd probably go around 6,6 and a half because I did enjoy elements of it I thought some of it was quite witty and I have to say I do think it was very smart in when it picked like the leader you know what I mean the type of character that they've made the leader, the sycophants that were following politicians adjust the new cycle to suit them and that's exactly what the president did in that she adjusted the new cycle to suit her completely and whatever else came from that it didn't matter obviously it was overplayed and hammed up right you could see other people doing that we've never had an immersion president going from scandal to scandal to scandal and then the point where they were making a decision how to deal with this the big business were able to influence them that right at the brink of maybe resolving it that they changed when you could have fixed it you know what actually there's an angle here the observations were really so sharp I really think they were observations but it's like anyone who's a writer will tell you this when you write a script or you write a story the second draft is the hard one it's where you have to go through it with a biro don't need that I think Adam McKay didn't do step two that's my honest and that's my problem with the film not with the message and I think the observations are razor sharp I really do but I could you could have got the same observations in a 95 minute film you really could have I just believe that it might have been tighter and I think too my attitude kind of changed a little bit when you know they obviously like Leonardo DiCaprio went on the lecturing circuit then then I'm starting to say hold on, it was a film and I got it and I can take from it but I don't need you to come now and do interviews to drive the message I don't know what I'm aware of it particularly and I know he says he's an environmentalist but he also flies all over the world of course yes and has yachts and stuff as he needs to recycle the packaging that my apples come in we are now almost within the film because that is the type of arguments that would be made to these people when they're asking me to did I recycle my cardboard conflicts box and they're flying all over the world they're private jets what about our individual we do what we can individually and then an awful lot happens collectively and if maybe you and I and all of the people that go and see Leonardo DiCaprio in films maybe if he sees that actually we're taking lead he might go you know what I need to show some leadership an example but he already seems to think that he's showing me leadership an example by flying around that's like millionaires asking us to donate to Saint Vincent de Paul which is a fantastic charity everyone should and we can but the interesting thing that comes into my mind is are you going to dig in a little bit hero is it just your time that's enough agreed yeah that's a deep conversation and I agree you do ask those questions you know I know so I'm going to give it 8 or 9 out of 10 for film because I thought it was very clever I think it was very well put together I think it was made during the pandemic which they did quite well in that regard Jennifer Lawrence had a chip on her tooth did you read this during the film and because of restrictions couldn't get to a dentist so they had to digitally add a tooth to her what was wrong with having a chip tooth they just decided they didn't want there was probably a focus group that said no that's how it will work some poor mother on work placement spent 6 months filling in her tooth in a dark group that's good to give them work and there's a scene in it too about 108 minutes in 1 hour and 8 minutes in when the camera crew are showing it off yes a famous scene which I thought wow I've spotted this as it turns out everyone did and it was sort of a they claim a tip of the cap I believe it was a mistake do you think so I think it was McKay being even I think McKay's film is too clever this is another nod to like you know what folks this is really happening kind of thing I think it was deliberate well Blanche Gormley says good morning all I totally agree with you Greg on all of what you have to say about Don't Look Up so that's the only nothing coming in you're just ignoring the rest the rest is agreeing with us the seven messages that said you know what Michael and Lula are dead on Greg's now got no time for those so before we move on then do you recommend like if someone says should I watch it Michael what do you say to them I think yeah I was recommending it to someone last night I think it's divisive and because it's so divisive you honestly don't know if you're meeting someone who hasn't seen it I can't understand how and this is not to question you by the way how you can recommend it to someone based on you believing it's a turkey because you love I love to hear what other someone else has to say I love listening to what you have to say we were doing rehearsal last night a small number of us for our play one of the lads hadn't seen it two of us had we recommended it to him and we wanted him to see it so he gets back to us next week and the other guy loved it I hated it now we got a third one and you want to hear what people say and it's great that we're talking about these things like I follow on twitter it's already too late which is a very depressing feed but it's all these scientific reports about climate change and it's well worth following it keeps you abreast of the fact that we are in a very bad shape on this planet so it's great really ostriching the whole situation but the thing is people talking about that even just talking about it is not a bad thing even if it's a bad thing and it does have people talking about it which is the main thing and people are discussing I just wish we all could people go say for instance and they're perfectly right in that our grandchildren will be paying the debt that this government or previous governments got us into it's an absolute disgrace but climate change doesn't exist now I'm not saying it's always those two views but so we can we can imagine the impact our actions are having now on future generations some of us can and I'm saying they're not the same people by the way in case people say I'm grouping them in I'm not but then at the same time you could go climate change that's for another generation to worry about but you know something I read an interesting piece a couple of years ago the line on the short of it was that people as a rule don't even think about their own death really I literally spend about my entire life thinking about it so the idea of thinking oh you have haven't you it's a torture I didn't get that email by the way but the thing is so people can't even process the idea of everything ending you know the mass extinction is happening I think I'm a bit like that I think it's the idea of it's very human I think you kind of just assume it'll sort itself out I realize it's not going to start without a lot of assistance when my logical brain comes in but when I think about like you know like an ice age type like an ice age type event which is what this is indicating that's what's going to happen like even when I was watching that even when I was watching the don't look up thing like with the asteroid and that kind of thing in the meteorite and I'm kind of like I've seen a lot of apocalyptic movies it's a bit longer it lands over here it's a bit longer to get over here but they should look at everything that will be a grand attitude it's exactly what this entire film is about there is a there's a very very passionate and I've mentioned this before but there's a very very passionate climate change grouping right probably 3% that actually will glue themselves to the road over the head of it there is maybe a probably 15, 20% who think it's all a load of nonsense the new world order and other controls they believe it and then there is 85% in the middle of which I would place you who are non plus you know what you have your recycling bin and you're doing your bin that kind of thing driving around in your hybrid car on petrol all the time I wouldn't mind buying a hybrid car but you have your recycling and you're doing your few bits and pieces like that but I don't know we shouldn't be leaving it to those bees to plant trees we should all be planted trees those little bees are tiny they're planting very tiny tiny little trees and how many legs do they stand on while they're planting because do they use forearms they're go away bees they're go away bees they should have sent Bruce Willis up at the start to sort it out a return of series of Father Brown and BBC one at 1.45pm ok thank you at least the film has stimulated more discussion on climate change and the human condition I think it's open to debate more on the human condition the climate change which I find really interesting I still think that Mark Ruffalo could have carried the de Caprio character better did you watch Stay Close what's Stay Close Stay Close is the Harlan Coban the new Harlan Coban thing it has been on BBC and it's on Netflix it's a six part I haven't actually started yet everybody's watching it I watched the first episode and failed if it's the one I'm on if it's the yes we'll think of names I know what is it Keith Winslet the guy from James Nesbets in it sorry that's how I started James Nesbets in it actually most people are big into it I'm surprised you didn't like it because the only thing I was going to say is if you liked it there is at least six Harlan Coban the same author different shows in lots of different languages on Netflix and remember we were talking about the woods back in the day about those kids going in and out of the woods they were on the summer camp and that back it was in Polish I think it was Polish there's three or four of his all of his books I think have been picked up now I've been adapted and a lot of them are foreign language adaptations no none of you has watched Emmerdale a caller says are you watching Emmerdale at the minute if so what's your thoughts no I'm not over I was addicted to Emmerdale so I had to step away if it is Emmerdale I think Emmerdale is the one with the meaner character in right and like I can't believe they get away with this it's like a 125 hour version of Misery or the hand that rocks the cradle like this woman is never off the screen she's I presume a serial killer but it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on I can't believe the dragon's so long out of this storyline I mean it could be interesting maybe but it is like the longest ever remake of Misery that was such a great film who's a celebrity in Emmerdale now I want to watch it did I say celebrity no I'm saying you said Misery so I'm assuming it's like no it's just that you know in other words does she have somebody she's had somebody held captive and she's gone around killing people and all this type of stuff but it's just going on and on and on soaps are great crack but it's just the time element for me that's my honest now I was always more into the American soaps but a good buddy of mine who's a writer has always said how carnage the street it has always been one of the best written shows on TV I'm not a fan but he said Emmerdale is the best soap on TV so even it's just so good everything about it is so good Emmerdale it's the best one on all the soaps I watched it for years and years and years and then I kind of found myself that I was I'd reached a point which was getting a little bit scary because you came in at half five and you watched Neighbours and then at six o'clock you watched Emmerdale but I held on to Emmerdale for a long time but then I found myself watching the four hour but what they do now as well it's like all the week is put together but I loved over the Christmas I walked into a room and it was on it's on every night and then what they do is they split it in two half hours and put on some crappy show in the meantime so they get the ratings so it's actually on every night now Emmerdale is anyway but I loved how at Christmas I walked into the room and my aunt was there and she's watching Emmerdale and all of a sudden one of the characters Kane is in the hospital and there's this kid in hospital and you're like oh my god is that his son is that the son that was born in the letterbox back in the 90s and you can just like alright okay I love how they bring stuff back and you're like oh yeah I remember when that kid was born in the telephone kiosk and his mother ran off and nobody knew and he get the whole thing and your aunt just trying to watch it in 2021 and you're... I've gone back to 1992 anyway let us know what you think of the moment as I say you know I don't watch it watch it watch it I do watch it but I'm not like I'm on the phone and this this mean the storyline you know she constantly talks to herself now as well you know because that's the easiest way to sort of progress the storyline she goes I am not upset with this and I'm gonna do that but anyway and you don't have to worry about social distancing on set if you just have no they've done away with that but if you talk to yourself I'm glad they've done away with that because I was crazy in the beginning they were living in the same house and they were still six feet apart there was one absolute coronation street I think where someone was knocked over right that son was knocked over in the street and the mother was you know apoplectic six feet away no reaching to each other I highly recommend 1883 the spin-off show from Yellowstone top quality yeah I'm gonna start and that's gonna be where's 1883 on it I don't know man don't look up his rubbish RT show Yellowstone probably they've picked up the spin-off they might they do and I can't find it anywhere you think it would have been picked up by one of the platforms now because it's on at least the third series on RT so it must be at least that far ahead massive massive rating success there's already one there's already one in the franchise and another one is coming it is excellent it was funny it was entertaining plus it gave such a powerful statement to make people think about media politics the climate etc 10 out of 10 let's say is that cooler don't look up absolute rubbish two hours I'll never get back I can throw in another half an hour on top of that did you not finish it it's interesting it's divisive that means it's fun you want to hear what people think that's why I will recommend it to people and then I think really though so that we going forward right in terms of the zeroes out of 10 you really need to give it a two or three out of 10 I think five is two okay maybe I was trying to I thought about going with a lower number when I posted my review on Letterbox but I thought there are things like the performances that I liked my issue was with how the film was made you know I really did like Meryl Streep I just thought there was too much I think you'd recommend a five because a five is like you're saying it's divisive but you want to know what people I want his view not what he thinks other people might think no but I'm saying if I if I was to say put a five on something I'd say yeah I have no problem recommending to you say oh no you should watch it because a five makes me think I didn't hate it but I didn't love it if I say a two I'd be like oh god no when I'm rating things yeah if I give it a three or a four it usually means it's a disaster like they didn't make it this isn't a disaster it's just like it could be so much better it's like there's so many things that you do like that with a TV program or a book or something and you're like I just don't know what I think of this and I really need somebody else yeah who's have a friend down home and needs to throw it in the letterbox and go read that and call me I've got to know what I think of it I must argue about this book I watched Gran Torino last night it's on Amazon Clint Eastwood film it's on Amazon if anyone has it's not bad it's a bit how many now I just don't know his body work is pretty damn good yeah it's a good set it's a nice film the fact that it's in any way plausible just proves how good he is you will wait I'm thinking 2008 what I always thought about that movie was that there's any plausibility whatsoever just shows how brilliant he is because like I mean the guy was agey and he was you know he looks brilliant it's amazing yeah well have you seen the mule yes he was even older then he was pushing 90 in that one and he was doing the driving and he was doing the drugs and he was having the ladies of a much younger age and that's based on a true story but he actually like pulls it off like if you don't see it they're going all of the things I've ever watched it's just terrible that you know time marches on really you know I mean I know it's inevitable and there's nothing to do about it but it is there's just that brain and that intelligence and that it could be yeah passion I know you just think that just makes me think about Betty White passing away couldn't believe it great innings though huge fantastic she was there from the beginning of television that's the thing about her career but just was one of those you just can't imagine that the kind of the world would be without no matter how old she got you can you sort of thought she'd say going to Clint is like that as well you kind of assume he's always going to be 22 year old much of the show the time has absolutely flown we're going to take a break and we'll get to more of what you've been watching after this let us know what you think about anything we've discussed about being M and L Coronation Street don't look up whatever keep in contact with us always 25,000 text the whatsapps the best place to get a new better mattress at a great price is rest ex-beds letter Kenny the massive January sale is now on sponsors of today's show Loganair's biggest ever sale has landed we're taking off 15% from a whopping 2 million seats for 2022 and you can book and travel with confidence with our flex protect cover and fly safe protocols plan ahead and get the best fairs today Loganair.co.uk sale ends the 11th of January travel from the 10th of January subject to availability T's and C's supply Loganair we make it personal thinking of changing your car in 2022 think Nissan thinking of upgrading and enjoying new technology think Kia looking for value for the very best in after sales think iMotors your number one Nissan and Kia dealer in Donegal we are a range of vehicles please visit iMotors.ie fancy something special this weekend 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choose from a range of healthy options and pre-packed meals plus many more offers in store we're open seven days for your convenience creaseless supermarket where quality and value is assured it's 1140 Emmerdale is a psychological thriller at the moment yes but it is so prolonged another quote says I agree with you about Emmerdale it's very dragged out with Mina and all these murders it's ridiculous that comes in from Maria the law will get her before February her time is about up says another text to Mina she's such a strong character I presume maybe they'll do court cases and stuff they'll try and drag the year out I love Coronation Street because we feel the soul of the actors in every storyline fantastic but there's another character on Coronation Street who's married to Kevin Webster I can't remember her name but she is never often everything seems to circle around her or has for a while but anyway it's a terrible story in Emmerdale the quicker they get to the end of it the better as I would it would put you off watching it yeah if you're not into that then there's no point in watching it did the panel watch dope stick they're on Disney plus it's excellent I've not heard a bad thing about it I really enjoyed it it kind of gives you the business side of it it gives you the human side of it the medical side of it how things kind of occurred it's more kind of a drama doc you or doc you drama or whatever the way they want to call it and yeah no I I really enjoyed it this might be slightly dramatic from a listener because they not only agree with you but they stand with you Michael I stand with Michael I agree with you Greg I agree with you Greg about 80% when it comes to film reviews but this is what passes for comedy these days don't look up her presume when Meryl Streep who I love playing the president of the United States hears there's a huge asteroid heading straight for the earth her main concern is whether to smoke in public or not not the fate of the planet or the human race now let me take you back to a previous president that was in the White Office and you wonder were they really thinking about you know what the world is globally more strange things like whether they can smoke or not a caller is disappointed that we're talking about soaps from other countries when we have one of the best soaps of all time Ross Neroon auntie G Kahara a couple of people writing that I just simply can't talk about it because I don't get to see it what's your thought on I'll be close on Netflix Andrew Nesbitt as I say I'll watch the first episode I might have to re-watch it it all seemed very you remember when I used to be quite critical of British shows yes because they were all depressing and then I watched all the ones but it was the way the stories were done you know loads of this that and the other I felt that I felt that with this one and I said I have it down to watch Katie's one since she loves it Tommy Rosney asked him loves it he must be nearly finished it now because he was trying to get it done before the apprentice starts on BBC so he was telling me about it exciting lives we all live he was telling me about it and he's loving it anybody I know this watch must love the left side the ground is on at 7 hi Greg did anyone any of you see the Stan and Ollie movie I thought it was brilliant yes you definitely loved it this is the latest one this is when they came to Europe yeah it was late in their career yeah oh I did think that was very touching very affectionate very knowledgeable I love Lardon Hardy I have the box and I watched the films all the time I was so happy with this film I thought it was a really good tribute and the casting Cougan and the guy from Step Brothers his name escapes me it's not Kate Winslet but I thought it was a great film you can't deflect you can't deflect your inability to remember name I can I just did I don't understand it either I but I thought it was a great film I did not think I've seen Kate Winslet and enough stuff I've forgotten her that often I forget loads of people's names more Ross Neroon is filmed in Ireland with great actors from Bonneville it's the best TV soap on air the whole idea of what we do here is not for people to wait and hear what we've talked about of course you know get in touch with us if you think people need to be talking about Ross Neroon or it's a great storyline or a particular actor is doing great text in during 11-12 and that's what all this is all about you know we don't we start talking points but you know we love to talk about do you remember TV3 had a soap as well there for a red rock or whatever oh yeah I started watching that that was very good it was awesome I loved that yeah it was a really history blues vibe to that and some people think Ferris City is really good don't try and dig yourself out of the not supporting our soap hole now I have more star soap the Perry is a disgrace well I have more star soaps in the past when I lived down and gone we used to go out to the set of Ross Neroon when I worked in when I worked in the local radio station we went out and we did a show like this from out there a couple of times I just thought you stood outside no no no it was out in Cairo we were in the pub for the whole day doing the show we need to look into that we get great enjoyment every night from all the goggle boxes the English and Irish and celebrity even the repeats keep us happy every night I like I find it's nice to switch on and background I don't like the celebrity one's funny enough I love it when it's normal I like it sorry when it's normal people I'm not a big fan of I can't understand goggle box at all no I don't either I don't know why but people really enjoy it friends of mine love it too watching people watch TV is I don't know I don't get it people can watch me watching TV are you going to say anything interesting constantly oh never during a program well never yeah you see you're right I would never talk during a program I constantly talk to the characters on the television that's what you have to do because you have to be one of those ones that records in horror and someone dropping a pen I can't do their call in horror but I totally sit there and go oh you twat why are you doing that I used to shout a lot at the TV during 24 I mean a lot I used to shout constantly come on Jack I used to do that the whole time fully admit it I used to get to me quick ad break we'll be right back and I might just allow you to open up a YouTube video of 24 and scream at it for 3 minutes stay right where you are this is the new Toyota Yaris Cross a new kind of SUV a new point of view new compact style new spacious feel and exclusively self charging hybrid the right choice for today get a new perspective with the Yaris Cross self charging hybrid available now at Kelly's Toyota Port Road Letter Kenny or drum by Mount Charles you'll never take a wrong turn with Toyota built for a better world homeland fuel 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Agency to find out more or to register go to hsc.ie or call hsc live on 1800 700 700 from the hsc cuny's furniture at letter kenny retail park january sale is now on you'll find everything for your home has been reduced with massive savings on suites and accessories but hurry only while stocks last call in today and treat your home with a visit to cuny's furniture for a healthy start to 2022 check out the great range of food available at Kelly centre in Etter Kenny with healthy options throughout the store there's also the green kitchen deli offering fresh nutritious food to go choose from a full menu of delicious sandwiches and salad boxes or build your own option all made on site and prepared fresh to order jump start your healthy lifestyle at green kitchen in the award-winning Kelly centre mountaintop letter cuny so good juice is an award-winning naturally homegrown juice shot based in the northwest or 100% organic juice offers a choice of three key ingredients wheat grass helping your immune system turmeric and ginger works effectively as an anti-inflammatory beetroot and ginger improves blood flow and reduces blood pressure and they're all great for boosting energy take that positive step towards a healthy life make so good just part of your daily wellness routine to order go to so good just dot com so good just start something good today okay you're very welcome back to the program fair city it's a great soap according to my aunt she wanted me to text in and remind you that fair city had a girl held captive and a serial killer before carry or emmerdale as she says fair city wins shout out to my Aunt Mary hi Aunt Mary yeah they had a girl from say hello you're dead right at marriage they had a girl trapped in a garage that's not over I get it no shit they had a girl trapped in a garage for a long time right okay I think she was a year I'll let you pick one from here because you know I mean the big talking point has been don't look up so it's not a bit wonder we talked about that and the issues and the raises but pick another thing from your that you think we should talk about well I suppose I was going to do the JFK team but that's a bit on the don't look up so I'll just go with something silly which is the being the Ricardo's so being the Ricardo's is on Amazon at the moment and Nicole Kidman and Javier Barden I think I said that right I completely went to watch this for two reasons one Aaron Sorkin is the wrote it and directed it and he did things like the West Wing and the network and stuff like that and I really enjoy his stuff some people don't like it but I really enjoy it so I said oh I'll try this and I've never seen Javier Barden in something in which he wasn't going around murdering people so I was like oh this will be interesting and actually he's awesome in it yes and he plays Ricky Ricardo who most people know was the husband of Lucille Ball and it was part of their I Love Lucy TV show he in himself was a very famous band leader and that and then and he had been an actor but after World War two he had trouble getting back into it they were married so then they started the TV program and they ended up with like one of the biggest TV production studios and I think going they had over and 60 million people watched and I love Lucy show every single week they were the most influential and CBS program in America and she was one of the most influential women probably in the world at that point to so many people newer and new of her and they have done this it's based on a week in her life in which and it's a they connected with the House Committee against non-American activities or whatever it was called which is about whether or not people were in the Communist Party or members of the Communist Party and she had been called in in order to be on to be interviewed by the House Committee she had been found not guilty but then it came out that she had actually signed a member of the Communist Party back in the 30s way before kind of was becoming a bit of a thing and it's sort of like that week it's very interestingly done because it copes with that side so you kind of have the little political side of it as well it's a lot about their relationship the relationship between a strong woman and a man and in this case with Latin leanings and that kind of thing so like he would have come from a very kind of a strong male background and and then it's also about the other people that are in it and I really enjoyed it I have to say I thought it was very well done I definitely recommended if it comes up and it's on TV if people don't have Amazon or it eventually show up in one of the others I think it was even Nicole Kidman and I actually not too bad though I mean she's a little bit some of the facial stuff that they've done I don't know whether it's prosthetics or whatever I wasn't mad about but very much kind of had you know Lucille Ball particularly the TV character had a very particular pitch in her voice and different things like that and she definitely can pull that off far better than I thought she could but I couldn't get over Javier Bardem he sings he dances he comedy everything I've never seen him not being a a cowboy or you know the way he's in all those kind of like what no country for old men and different things like that that he's in a bond and that kind of thing how much out of ten? Oh I would definitely give it an eight I really I just enjoyed it it was nice two hours of my time right it's not on the list but I mean there are going to be people that know both you and I are fans of Dexter and the finale is coming up over the weekend it's been great hasn't it it's been a great return to form great return to form in fact an improvement in some areas I think I agree better than the last four seasons of the original Dexter this week's episode was fantastic last week's episode in the woods was probably the best episode of Dexter I thought really loved it and the big thing is we were chatting about this last night at that rehearsal as well it sounds like our rehearsals are just talking about films and TV we just chatting about this the last episode of Dexter we don't know what's going to happen because we don't know if the show is coming back for a second season it has come back though because this is not a reboot or this is not a tidying up strings this is a return to form oh yeah and whether they pursue things through other members I don't know but I don't know if that would work either for hardcore fans for hardcore fans yeah but at this stage plus if they've brought it back now I mean are they not in danger of losing it again there's no need to not make a brand new series again for people who've never watched Dexter this is a fantastic program when's the next series and you have the original showrunner back from the first four seasons this season gives the impression that this guy is hungry to do these stories again and they've pushed it beyond though even I think in some areas they've pushed it beyond they've expanded in a very natural way on what the original show was you mentioned viewership figures how is it doing it's a huge hit for Showtime in America they're the network behind it so it's a huge hit for them that's why I'm leaning towards the show should and will continue in some form but again heading into the last episode this coming few days we honestly genuinely don't know which way it's going to play because they've put so many balls in the air and without any spoilers it's like I think it could return to Miami oh absolutely yeah but here's the thing in terms of what could happen next I really love this new town do you like the new town they're in good characters like not just the sheriff I love her but the guy the deputy who's actually the coach in the school really like that guy more of him and I want to see all these characters again it's really expanded Jeff sorry we didn't get anything to list that's fine it's fine Finula, Michael thank you very much indeed for joining us very welcome and thanks Mary by the way Mary Mulvaney who says she enjoys this item and we appreciate that Mary that's where we have to leave it on the pro