 riding the hotel for use as temporary accommodation. Ninety tender documents have been signed to date, however the state is still seeking additional solutions such as housing families on islands. As of last week, 28,000 refugees have been placed in service accommodations since they started arriving in Ireland in early March. Approximately 25,000 hotel rooms are in use across the country. There have been calls for Loch Morn to be lowered by one meter costing around 20 million euro. Loch Morn supplies water to the Finn Valley area right down to Lifford but during the recent spell of good weather, the water level dropped significantly. Councillor Martin Harley says he believes the 20 million euro project is required to ensure the supply can cope with demand. The works that need to be done on Loch Morn by lowering the lake by a meter. I think that needs to be done immediately and we need to get the government to work with Irish Water and if the government has to give the money to Irish Water to do this work, that needs to be done immediately. The figure that meant that we were told at the time it could cost up to 20 million, if there was no water for a few months, the cost to business would be, would pirates exceed 20 million? Not to mention the disruption and to everybody and to householders so this will be 20 million well invested. To weather now, showers early today, heavy or thunderly imparts will clear and there will be sunny spells in the afternoon with scattered lighter showers, highest temperatures of 17 to 19 degrees. That's all for now. We'll be back with news again at 10 o'clock but until then, good morning. We tried to get ourselves back into gear after what was a very enjoyable long weekend. The August weekend wasn't the sunniest August weekend on record but it was certainly for many people in Donegal an action packed, wouldn't a great busking festival in Latter Kenny. We had Mary from Donegalow of course and we had many festivals in many towns right across the county and a lot of people out and about over the weekend and it's always great to see. If you want to get in touch with the program by the way, don't forget you can text us 086 60 25,000. That number is good for WhatsApp messages as well. You can also get in touch by social media. It's at Highland Radio on Twitter. It's Highland Hub on Facebook. You can call us of course 07 4 9125,000 Karleen or producing and taking your calls Donna Marie on the phones outside as well. Or you can email us at comments at highlandradio.com and as we always say, whereas we do have an agenda and we do have things lined up to do on the program, the most important thing about this program, the most important thing is your views, your perceptions, your perspectives and the issues that you want to have discussed. So if there's anything on your mind that you'd like to get out there, please do call us, make contact in any one of those ways. We'll start as we always do on a Tuesday morning with the papers and the Donegal people's press this morning. The main story called to reach out for help if you are in an abusive relationship, a Donegal woman who was raped and assaulted by a former boyfriend who's been jailed for 17 years has encouraged anyone in an abusive relationship to speak out. She needle needle from Keeley Beggs waved her right to anonymity after Dean Ward from County Wexford was jailed for 17 years for her rape in 2019, a course of control conviction in there as well. And that was the second major course of control conviction, of course, of last week. And that's a very important piece of legislation that's starting to get applied more and more. And it's good to see that that's now coming through the courts and it's now creating legal precedent and there are sentences being given on the basis of convictions for coercive control. I think that was a very important piece of legislation. Also for priests to retire from diocese, clerical change is announced by Bishop Full Details from the clerical changes announced by Bishop Almagokina inside the paper. And they'll be up on our website here in Highland video this morning as well. And a picture from the 2022 Mary from Dunlowe, Katelyn Finn, the London Mary, a native of Donegal herself, of course, being crowned Mary from Dunlowe on Sunday night and there'll be more on that, I believe, later on in the programme. Also, Bally Shannon Folk Festival, a huge success, 45th staging of popular events. And it's, as I said, great to see so much happening. Front of the Gerry Journal this morning, picture from the opening of the Klon Mani Festival with the fancy dress prize winners there on the front of the Gerry Journal. And the main story, family still seeking answers 20 years after killing. It's like you're reliving it every day. The grieving daughter of David Caldwell, who was killed by a real IRA bomb in Gerry 20 years ago this week, says her family cannot get closure until they have answers over his death. Mr. Caldwell, a former UDR soldier who'd left the regiment died after picking up a lunchbox that exploded at a territorial army base on the 1st of August, 2002. Irish Independent this morning. Main story, a plan to increase pensions and welfare in line with pay rises, a new benchmarking plan aimed at helping to insulate payments from sharp rise in the cost of living pensions and social welfare payments will be benchmarked to the average industrial wage, which mean they should rise in tandem with inflation. Officials at the Department of Social Protection are preparing plans to benchmark the pension system. I'm sure there'll be more on that in the budget, which is coming up toward the end of next month. Also on the front of the independent former First Lady of Ukraine is saddened by Higgins letter. A former First Lady of Ukraine has said a controversial letter about Russia's invasion written by Sabina Higgins, the wife of President Michael D. Higgins, fails to recognize her country's existential crisis. Ms. Higgins, Sabina Higgins had written the letter basically calling for peace talks and calling on both sides to come together to negotiate a settlement, but a lot of concern about that letter on the basis that the perception is that what the letter seems to be doing is to actually equate Russia and Ukraine and treat Russia and Ukraine as two equal participants in a conflict, both of whom have a shared responsibility to end that conflict when the argument goes. The actual truth of it is that Russia is an aggressor which has invaded Ukraine illegally and Ukraine is the victim, Russia is the aggressor, and to write a piece like that which seems to equate the two is where the real problem lies here. Front of the Irish Times this morning, again, pressure on President to clarify stance on wife's letter. Government politicians accuse Higgins of answering nothing in his statement. A spokesperson says the President is unequivocal in his condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine and that is one of those stories that is not going to go away. Also on the front of the Irish Times this morning, a story you'll have heard Emma reference in bulletins earlier this morning, emergency group planning for disruptions, planned focusing on how to supply fuel to critical sectors in worst case scenario. Now we've heard this discussed before over the past couple of weeks that if there is to be a shortage of fuel that our medicines or anything else as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and other international forces, both economic and geopolitical that there will be rationing and there will be plans to ensure that the important people do get access to supplies. Now I am not sure if that's going to come anytime soon and we have to remember that yes, there are always going to be groups and plans for the worst case scenario and by and large they rarely if ever come to fruition and hopefully that will remain the case in this instance. Also a picture of President Michael D. Higgins, Boris Johnson and Micheal Martin sitting together at the funeral of the former Ulster Unionist leader and signatory of the Good Friday Agreement, David Trimble at Harmony Hill Presbyterian Church in Lisburne yesterday and Michael D. Higgins, Boris Johnson and Micheal Martin all sitting together. That's not a picture you get to see very often. Now the story that maybe of interest to people in Donegal up to 80,000 homes left off broadband rollout maps to where Brian writes that as many as 80,000 homes could have been left off maps used by National Broadband Ireland to connect people to the new 2.9 billion rollout of fiber broadband and Donegal, one of the counties obviously that is very much dependent on getting broadband out to rural and isolated areas through this scheme. So that's an interesting one that I'm sure we'll be looking at. Front of the Irish Daily Mail this morning, again a story you'll have heard referenced by Emma on the news this morning. BNBs and hotels get 100 million euro to house refugees as state struggles to find accommodation for 50,000 refugees fleeing the Ukraine War. Hotels, guest houses and BNBs have been paid 25 million a month to accommodate refugees as long-term housing solutions are sought. The details have been obtained by the paper showing contracts in the region of 100 million and you'll have heard significant contracts for McGilligan's hotel in Letherkenny and for the Grand Central in Bondorwin as well. Now looking at the Irish Daily Mirror this morning, housing crisis dilemma, TD forced to live with parents. A TD and her sons moved back in with her parents to save for a house deposit even though she earns 87,258 euro. Kathleen Function said she had no choice after six years renting because prices were rocket English in Fenty D added I have a good job with a really good wage but it's virtually impossible if you're paying rent. That's the front of the Irish Daily Mirror. The Irish Daily Star this morning. Crimm tracked down fugitives, Mexican rave mobster who fled feud town services living it up in Cancun. Someone called Keane, cronies on the run since Keane killing there too. Cancun in Mexico where a wanted Draha de Crimm has boasted of sunbathing and boozing and there's more on the inside of the paper. They don't actually name the person they're talking about on the front but there's lots more inside obviously. And Broly to wed Biden's Irish cousin, Loretta. Joe Broly is set to tie the knot next week with US President Joe Biden's Irish cousin, Loretta Bluette. The former RTE Pundit 53 will wed the 39 year old podcast host at a hotel in Mayo. They've been dating, we're told for years and she's a cousin of Joe Biden. Now I'm not sure is she a first cousin or is she a 14th cousin, six times removed, whatever it is, I don't know, I'm sure that's on the inside of the paper as well. And the front of the Irish sun this morning, Casper the deadly ghost mob thugs secret life, Kinahan cartel fixer was nicknamed Casper because he was seen as a ghost who evaded cops but 36 year old Martin Elmer's specter of evil came to an end last week when he was jailed for over eight years for his role in two murders and one conspiracy to murder. And there is a story on the inside of the paper on how he was able to operate in the shadows. And also a question, an exclusive question we're told on the front of the sun. Why have cops not arrested Kerry? There's more on the inside of that and that's to do with them. A business woman in Kilkenny who has we're told questions to answer. And Eken Sue is the big Love Island winner. That will mean something to someone. I've no doubt. I have to confess Love Island is not really my thing and then I know approximately nothing about it. It's the Main Street News Show on Highland Radio. 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Text 086-60-25000. And you welcome back to the Ninetyl Nuncho on Highland Radio. As we said earlier, there was a lot of comment and there continues to be a lot of comment about the letter that appeared in the Irish Times last week written by Sabina Higgins, the wife of President Michael D. Higgins, calling for a negotiated peace in Ukraine. A lot of people basically saying that the letter seems to equate Ukraine and Russia and convey equal responsibility on both and that has been seen as being wrong. Now, I've joined on the line by Raymond, who wrote into us again, and Raymond takes a slightly differing view to what appears to be a broad consensus. Raymond, good morning. Good morning, sir. How's the form? I'm very well indeed. Raymond, do you believe that far from doing something wrong, Sabina Higgins has taken a courageous stand? I think she's taken a very courageous, principle stand. I mean, I'm watching this terrible war from afar here in Ireland, obviously. And it's just, do you know, there's probably somewhere in the neighborhood, leaving everybody's political views to the side, there's probably 40 to 50,000 young Russian soldiers, primarily conscripts, you know, 18, 19-year-olds that have been killed in here. And, you know, every time a Russian general has been killed and there's 15 generals roughly have been killed, you know, in this, it's like everybody's gloating over it. And, you know, you've had the eastern section of Ukraine that's basically been totally scorched earthed in here. It's been effectively destroyed in here. And it just seems like, you know, like I'm viewing this like, you know, Sabina is the wife of the president. You know, she has, I would think, a little bit of credibility. Yeah, but the sad thing here, the really sad thing here from what you're saying, and I absolutely take your point that yes, it's young Russian conscripts who are being killed, absolutely. And they are being pushed in there, but they're being pushed in there through the ambition of Putin, the ambition of Putin's generals. It is not those young Russian soldiers that are doing the invading. It's Putin and the generals and the ministers and the politicians and members of the Politburo who are ordering that invasion. But the basic point that that's being made is do you take the point that what Sabina Higgins appears to be doing is equating Russia and Ukraine and saying each has an equal responsibility for what's happening? That's a difficult question to answer. You know, like what appears to be coming out of Dublin and out of Brussels in my view is this sort of group think, you know, there's only one story to what's going on in here. I believe, and you can correct me, if it was a couple of months ago, Pope Francis down in the Vatican had made a diplomatic comment that Russia was quote, somewhat provoked in this whole war. And if you go back into history, which, you know, recent history which they don't want to talk about is that in 2014, the so-called Maiden Revolution, it was finance funded sponsored by the United States CIA and NATO. They wanted to overthrow and they successfully overthrew a democratically elected president and he was forced into exile into Russia. And during that so-called revolution, one of the things I heard, and this came from Putin, I can't verify it, was that in Odessa, on the Red Sea, a major port city, that effectively, Ukrainian, if you will, terrorists torched the building in which a group of pro-Russian activists were in there and they burned them alive and that had gotten so obviously- Raymond, I am very uncomfortable with discussing rumors and claims that we don't have any knowledge of and that we can't because it's, I would much rather discuss things that we can stand over and I take the points you're making but I'm very uncomfortable speaking about rumors that we heard that may have come from Putin but we're not sure and we can't verify them. I want to go to line two. On line two is Senator Eileen Nelon who is an active anti-war campaigner and has been for many years. Eileen, good morning. Good morning, Don. Thanks so much for having me on the show this morning. Really, I would like to open up to actually by saying that today, this day in 1944, you are 30,000 Roma people killed in the Holocaust, you know? And for me personally, I would be anti-war because I believe that it's young people, it's vulnerable people, it's people from very poor communities. That's the people that's impacted by war, if you want. Absolutely. And yesterday, I came out. Yeah, please, please keep going, Eileen, yeah? I can open support. Basically, you do believe that it's wrong for people to criticise Sabina Higgins. You believe that what Sabina Higgins did was right, an anti-war letter from the heart and that she's been unfairly criticised for it. Yeah, if we look in the ardent here, I wandered down for over 30 years in the North and less people got around the table and had discussions. You know, that war could have went down for many years afterwards. And I think that she's getting such a hard time because, you know, people, and especially I believe the men leaders of our country, are not openly talking about neutrality. We're not really having the discussion, we're blocking out the discussion because if people, and in my opinion, it's been mostly women over the last few months, if people come out and say that they're anti-war, well, they end up getting attacked online, being called pro-worship. And I don't believe that's the case. Do you accept the prevailing view coming from people that in this instance, Russia has been the aggressor and that the first point of discussion here should be that Russia should withdraw its forces, Russia should seek what is an aggressive act, and then we can maybe start talking about sitting down and discussing peace and so on? Me personally, I'm a pro-people and I believe that we should be having a conversation. You know, at this point this war has been going on six months. Young people in Ukraine are dying, young Russian soldiers are also dying as well, and I don't think, you know, I've never heard of saying you don't fight fire with fire, and I think that's exactly what we're doing in this case. And again, like, Mrs. Hegan's come out, like, now she's, and I think the amount of sex is common toaster that she didn't have in mind of her own, and I understand it went down to the website, and that's what people aren't right about, but what's really killing me is politicians calling for, for to apologize and just labelling her as the president's wife as if she don't have a mind of her own, and I wouldn't, if I were in a situation, I wouldn't apologize for calling for peace. You know, the discussion shouldn't be about, like, what's idea, and for me personally, I'm an either side, I'm pro-people, and I think that is not doing anybody any favors at the moment, and again, both sides, there's some men that's dying underneath the laws of older men in suits, if you want to make it, and the decision makers. I think in fairness, I mean, no one would ever suggest that Sabina Hegan's is anything other than a very intelligent and articulate woman who, for her whole life, has been quite articulate and quite vocal. I think, and you did put your finger on it, I think for many people, the issue isn't that Sabina Hegan's expressed her opinion, Sabina Hegan's is absolutely 100% entitled to have her own opinion. I think the problem is, and you did sort of reference it here, the problem is it was published on the official Orison Oakthorne website, and I think people are saying if that's published on the official Orison Oakthorne website, it then moves from being the personal opinion of Sabina Hegan's to being the perceived position of the presidency, because it's on the president's website, and I think that's maybe why people are sort of equating what she is saying and asking, well, is this what the president thinks as well, because it's gone on the website. I want to go back to you, Raymond, you have heard what Eileen is saying there, and it seems that both of you very much are in agreement with regards to who the real victims are here. No, I'm totally in agreement with Senator Eileen, and it's like this little lady is being condemned effectively by a lot of men in here, and there's bigger issues here, there's neutrality which the senator has mentioned in here, and that's being swept under the rug, and it's being swept under the rug by the T-shock, and I'm in a total loss, it's like, can anyone else have, it just seems like it's censorship, maybe that shouldn't have gone up on the website, but it did go up on the website, and now it seems like there's only one point of view, and it's sort of, nobody else can even, because then you're a traitor or something, or you're evil or anything. I think the problem is though, because it's gone up on the official website of the President of Ireland, because it's on the website, that gives it in many people's minds, it gives it a legitimacy, and it gives it a status, and it gives it effectively, it leaves it open to being perceived as being the position of the president, and I think there's a difference between the position of the president on one side, which is bound up in the state and is bound up in protocol, or the personal opinion of Sabina Higgins, who happens to be the president's wife, but has a mind of her own and has an absolute right to have her own opinion. Sorry, Aileen, you wanted to come in there? I actually think there's a bit of an underline issue here, as well, I think that's been waiting to just like any kind of an excuse to attack the president. I think the president, Annie's wife, has been said are brilliant leaders of our country, and again, they speak up around a homeless crisis, they speak up about many crises within our society, and I don't think we'll ever see a president like it again, but in our country, to be fair, and I just think that the government is like now, just finding something to kick the can down the road, and again, we need to be having these conversations around neutrality. Like a woman politician said to me at TV, going back about four months ago, I remember sitting down in the canteen, having a conversation, and I said, I'm pure anti-war, I said, but I'm afraid to speak about it, and her words was so am I, she said, because the level of attacks that you get being called pro-russia, when you're not pro-russia, I'm not, and again, I'm pro-people, it's the young, poor communities that's been impacted more, and again, if you even look in the Middle East, the wars have gone on there, I'm against them as well, you know, so it's not just about these two countries. Yeah, and it always is, and I remember the late Dennis Fall, a priest in County Trone, many years ago, people may remember him, and he used to always make the point about the conflict in Northern Ireland, that both on the republican and loyalist sides, it was young men that were going out and dying, and the godfathers and the generals were the ones that were sitting in back rooms and they were issuing the orders, and it's always the same in war, and sadly in war, as you said, it is the young people who are on the front line, it's the young men and women of Russia, the young men and women of Ukraine, are the ones who are by and large dying. I mean, a lot of the comments we're getting in are in agreement with both of you. Collar says, I see absolutely no harm in what she said, she is speaking as a woman and a mother, and her opinion is completely valid. There are mothers in the Ukraine that are being left without fathers, it's the same on the Russian side, we're all human beings, while Russia is in the wrong, it's hard for any mother irrespective of whether that mother is Ukrainian or Russian. Eileen, do you think this is something that maybe there needs to be a more honest discussion about in the doll, in the shanad, obviously we're on the summer recess now, but I mean, it seems there is one way this discussion always goes when it's raised in the doll, it's raised in the shanad and so on. You believe maybe we need new voices and new perspectives? Yeah, and I also believe 100% that we need a referendum as soon as possible and neutrality because a lot of people and even a lot of your listeners may actually think it's in our constitution that we have our neutral country, but genuinely we're not, you know, and if the government decided next week to join NATO, then we have, which I don't think they would, don't mean to frighten people, but stranger things have happened, you know, and again, I genuinely believe that we should know where we stand as a country because we've always been a little country that's well able and capable of sitting around cables to be able to facilitate negotiations that's going on at a bigger level around the world and we're known as a peaceful country, but now I think it's more politics, you know, and that again, if you speak out, you seem to be pro-Russia and obviously anybody in their right mind don't agree with what Russia has done to Ukraine, you know, but now it's been just going on too long and I just think it needs to end and most importantly, we as a country, we need to have open discussions and not to be afraid of those having those discussions. I want to go back to you, Raymond, a comment has come in and I'm going to put this to you out in a moment as well, but the comment says, these two people have no idea what it's like to live under a dictatorship like Russia, who is the aggressor and Putin's record in Ukraine, you are pro-war if you don't support neutrality, you show no understanding, they say, of freedom and justice. See, that's the Donald Trump point. I'll come back to you out in a moment if I may, I just want to bring Raymond in on this, Raymond. Yeah, Donald, obviously, everybody's entitled to their own opinions, you know, they're not necessarily entitled to their own facts in here. Back in February, the Irish government, who was supposed to be a neutral party, had the opportunity to step up and try to make peace before this war started. They chose not to do it and that was the time to have stopped this before it got started in here. How could they have done that? How could they have done that? They could have contacted the Ukrainians, they could have contacted the Russians in here and called for a meeting somewhere at a neutral location in here, but there wasn't even an attempt to stop this war and it's very frustrating when you see people talking out of both sides of the mountain here and it's like, as the senator said, a lot of this is unfortunately, it's political. You know, there's the powers that be in Dublin, they're still reeling from the sting of President Higgins' comment that the housing was a disaster in Ireland and they'd like to move past that and then, you know, this thing in Ukraine could go on for another year, two, three years, like nobody knows in here and it's just the, you know, I mean, how many, you know, hundreds of thousands of people do you want dead in here? And, you know, everybody's totally right in how they view, but nobody wants to have an open mind that, well, maybe we're not, you know, our opinion is not 100% correct in here. And you know, it's an interference. Do you accept, believe that, as Eileen appears to be suggesting if I read Eileen right, do you believe then that effectively the government are going to use this and push this as a smoke screen to try and gloss over the homelessness comments of before and in a way try to engineer a controversy out of this in order if I can be blunt to put the president back in his box? Well, I mean, they're exactly doing that. I mean, I don't, you're a newsman. I'm not a newsman. I thought the latest homeless figures, the official numbers, which are not, they'll include rush sleepers or if you're sleeping on a relative's couch, it's somewhere about 10 and a half thousand homeless people and that's the second highest number on record in here. And it's like, you know, these news cycles last for 48 or 72 hours, then they want to move on to something else and then everything is outdated at that stage in here. And like, it's just very difficult listening that there's effectively no leadership. There's no inspiration being put forward. You know, like Ireland's supposed to be better than all these other countries in Europe. You know, they're neutral, they're not part of NATO, but they're acting like NATO. And, you know, you get to the point, I don't want to use the term, but it's like, it's like, there's war mongering going on under the surface here. And it's like, it's almost like people want to see a lot of people die because that somehow satisfies them in some way, which, you know, I can't fathom, but that seems to be the case in here. You know, and, you know, like I'm no expert, obviously. Yeah, I can say I would agree with that point. I don't think anyone wants to see more death. I don't think anyone wants to see more disruption and destruction. Eileen, I want to come back to you on that point. That I mean, the point made by our caller was that effectively you're putting forward some, it's idealism, but it's not rooted in the real world. And no, you have all people that suggest have no understanding of freedom and justice. I suspect you will question that strongly. Yeah, I actually think that sums up exactly the whole point around it. And I'm glad that you're listening or texting that because that gives me points, you know, if we were to come out, work out for an act we don't believe in equality, we don't believe in justice. And I believe people who are anti-war and who want peace, who want to live and let live are actually the people who are thinking outside the box of the young people, young families, people who have to flee their country. Come live in hotels in Ireland and that's treated for dignity and respect if you want. You know, nobody wants that. Nobody don't want people. Me personally, I think like people that happen to flee their own country, live in horrible situations, is that there to me is not equality and it's most definitely not justice. I want to put one final point too, while you spoke earlier about the importance of neutrality. Do you take comfort from the fact that every poll that's come out this past couple of weeks, whenever the neutrality issue is raised, even though we have so much discussion about should we question neutrality, should we look at NATO, should we look at the European army, even though the question is being asked quite a lot in the polls, we're still showing fairly solid between 60 and 65 people, supportive of neutrality and no suggestion that there is any appetite among the wider population to join NATO. I still don't feel comfort in the North because unfortunately unless there's a referendum on if the people don't have the power, who the power is in the hands of the men in our country at present and that there's the hard reality of it. I want to put both of you, I'm going to say thank you very much and a very good morning to both of you, Senator Eileen Flynn and to Raymond, both of you, thanks for your perspectives and for your comments. And I have to say the majority of people calling into us actually are in agreement. Caller says the main focus regarding Sabina Higgins letter should be the content which we should fully support in an attempt to get a peace resolution, stop the political grandstanding on a technical matter, on where the letter was published. It's totally distracting from what is essentially a desire for peace. Now, Caller says, Eileen says nobody in their right mind could see Putin's point, but in the same breath says we need to discussion. Is there not a hypocrisy there? If Putin is wrong, then why are we discussing? No, it's actually discussing a peace doner. You know, obviously he's that conflict but it's about discussing a peace doner. It isn't 100% nice. Another caller, I agree with Sabina in what she said. Another caller, no one wins in war. And an interesting one and we'll leave it perhaps on this. The world is becoming a strange place when someone is criticised for asking for peace and the war is being ignored. Eileen and Raymond, thank you both very much indeed. Thanks, Eileen. Thank you. Good morning to you both. Irish SMEs are known for their adaptability and innovative thinking. Many of them are now using digital to take their business to the next level, like Jack of the Babas Barbershop. I went online with my business and I set up a website. After the website was set up, it sent me in the direction of opening up a booking system and the booking system. Then it started to grow the business. 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Green Shoes with the perfect fit for every foot. Text 086 60 25000. Highland Radio, your voice, your station. This is the 19-inch show on Highland Radio. Caller says, we're full to the throat now. We're only able to offer a floor in a day centre. Well, will we admit we can't handle any more people? These people need a place to stay and we cannot offer that at the moment. So says a caller that I suspect is prompted as much by the discussion about the hotel contracts for the housing of refugees. Caller makes an interesting point. If a house is severely overcrowded and represents a fire hazard, who do I contact? The fire department or the county council? Well, I know certainly in these parts, the fire department is essentially an arm of Donegal County Council. So if you make contact with Donegal County Council in the first instance, they'll be able to put you on to the appropriate person. But the council ultimately would be the fire authority as it were and the fire brigade is part, it comes under the directorate of, I can't remember the full, but there is a directorate, I think it's finance and emergency services. And I think that's the, excuse me, sorry, I think that's the directorate. Caller saying, out for a beautiful stroll around our lovely Bunkrana and the stunning Swan Park. But oh my God, why do people think it's okay to walk dogs without a lead? I met at least seven dogs with no leads. Maybe I'm being a bit anxious because I was mauled with stitches required by a dog last week while out walking, but I seriously believe there is no excuse. I think signs should be up saying no lead, no dog, with fines implemented. I hear we children screaming to their mums when a dog approaches. Can that not alert the dog handler that there is something seriously not right in that situation? I know you would probably love me to be in there. Now, what I'm gonna say is this, and I have in my youth, I was quite afraid of dogs. And the reason I was afraid of dogs is I used to walk home from school every day and there was one dog that would come out and would yap and would snap around your ankles. And you ran a gauntlet every day getting past that dog. And I still have a slight latent fear of dogs. And I think here's one of the issues. People know their own dog and people know their own dog is harmless and people know that their own dog is not going to do anything. And people know that when their dog runs at someone with the tongue out and they start barking, it's an act of friendship and they know that. The problem is the person to whom the dog is running doesn't. And I think a big, big problem here is that it's the perception of the person that sees the dog. I'll be honest, if a dog runs for me, I go cold with fear. That is the absolute truth. And I walk regularly and I have, and especially when I'm down in my mother-in-law's house, which is in a rural area outside Tremor in Waterford, there was one route I walked past and a person down that road kept dogs. And there was one day I was on the road and six dogs, they looked like Doberman pincers. Now they may not have been Doberman, I can't because I'm no expert on breeds, but they looked like Doberman pincers and there was six dogs on the road as I walked past. Now, it was scary walking past them. They didn't utter a sound. They did nothing, but they just turned their heads and watched. And the most scared I have been in the past 10, 15 years, and this is honest, the most afraid I have been in the past 10 or 15 years was when I walked down that road knowing that there were six dogs with their eyes on my back. And I did not take that route for another year and a half. And that is the truth. It took a year and a half for me to do that route again. And that was one of my absolute regular, whenever I'm down in my mother-in-law's, I mean, there's about three routes I walk and two out of three days I would have walked that one, but not didn't do it for a year and a half. So I can absolutely accept the point the corridor is making and I find myself in agreement with the corridor because I would have those fears as well, being absolutely honest about it. But I think what's important is that a dog owner knows their dog, but I think it's also incumbent on us to understand that a lot of people are afraid and we need to keep that in mind. Now, enough about me. Let's go to Blaine McCarron, who is PRO of the Clonmani Agricultural Show, which is on today. Blaine, good morning. Good morning, Bill, how are you? I'm very well indeed. Thank you. Just looking at the window, I'm, whether or not the best here in Ladder County, I'm hoping it's a little better where you are and that you do get a good day for it. Yeah, well, thankfully, we've been, as you know, we've been watching the forecast for the last three weeks. I don't know what it's going to do today, but it's not until you show up on the day that you see what it's actually doing, but it's quite good here today at the moment. Excellent. A bit of rain this morning, but it's really starting to brighten up here now. It's dry and there's a nice breeze going, it's warm, so it's shaping up to be a really good day here. So it is, yep. Excellent. It's an important day. The Clonmani Festival is on, obviously, at the moment as well, and that's always a huge, one of the biggest festivals in Donegal. And the Agricultural Show has become a very important part of that. And as we know, like so many things over the past couple of years, it's been disrupted. So it must, from your point of view, must be really good to be back. It's absolutely fantastic to be back. So does, yeah. We've got a packed show field here, our committee put in a huge effort this year to relaunch the show, and make it bigger and better than ever before. So it's really an action packed day here. We've been preparing for basically the whole year, but in the last three or four weeks. And it's lovely to see it all coming together here now. We've got some great entertainment on this evening. We've got Olivia Douglas live on stage. We've got Martin Koff, and we've got all folked up in the evening. Then we've got sheep shearing taking place in the field. We've got sheepdog trails, cattle, horses, sheep, you name it, and it's all happening here today. And as I'm standing here in the hospitality tent, looking out over the field, our trade stands are all starting to set up. People are starting to pile in and the sun's just breaking through. And it's looking like it's gonna be an absolutely fantastic day here today. I'm really looking forward to it. And the important thing too, as you said, the trade stands are setting up. And for businesses in North Ineshaun, there'll be some national businesses and some national names we'll all recognise there. But there'll be local businesses there too. And it can be a very important day for them to actually put their wares out on display and to make what could prove to be very important contacts. That's what we like about this show. Because yes, we've got some massive trade stands here, some fantastic companies from all over Ireland. But we've also got local trade stands in our arts and crafts. And to take a walk around the arts and crafts trade stand and just see the talent that you have locally there with local homegrown produce, baking, all sorts of that. I mean, the talent out there don't look absolutely unbelievable. So, and it's great to give the local people an opportunity to show at a show, at a show field like this, just to be able to show what they can produce, you know. It's on the Pollen Green in Ballyliffen and it's on all day to day. Blaine, and as we said, it's an important one from the point of view of Clonmany. But I mean, it goes way beyond Clonmany. It's important for the whole of North Anishone because it's become one of the focal points for people. And we know too that, you know, for people in the farming community and others, they do like to get together and have conversations and meet up and there's, as well as a business element, there's a huge social element to this as well. Absolutely. I mean, one of the core findings of an agricultural show is the social aspect. You've got like-minded people all coming together on the day, meeting up with your neighbors, having a chat theme what other people are doing. And I suppose with the COVID restrictions, that was all lost there for two years. So it's great to see it all coming back stronger than ever. And we've got loads of facilities here on the day for that to take place. You know, we've got our beer tent, our hospitality tents, we've got our marquees. So yeah, it's a great day for socialising, for meeting up and just getting back to normal. And also LinkedIn and perhaps it shows my own personal priorities, but I have to confess the first five words that jumped up at me were, Taste of Finish Owned Food Festival. That's right, yeah. Yeah, we've got our celebrity chef, there, Nevin McGuire. Brian McDermott, unfortunately, couldn't make him on short notice, but he's running things over in the Taste of Finish Owned Food Festival. We've got local produce on display. We've got live cooking demonstrations. You name it, everything from starter, main course to dessert, it's on display over there today. Hopefully I'll sneak away myself for five or 10 months to sample some of that, don't know. Excellent. Blaine, it's been great talking to you. We wish you all the best with it. Certainly the signs so far are good. Thanks very much indeed, Blaine. And we wish you and the committee and everyone in Klon Mani a great day. Thanks very much, don't know. I appreciate you having me on. It's our pleasure. That's Blaine there in Klon Mani and Blaine McCarren the Piro of the Klon Mani Agricultural Show. Now let's go to Zoom because we're joined on Zoom by a very important and interesting caller. We're joined on Zoom and we're going to discuss the issue of supermarkets and how they are structured. And I will just ask you to pardon me for a moment because Bernie Koyne is on the line. Bernie is the managing director of Koyne Research. And Bernie, you've been doing some very important work on the issue of special offers in supermarkets and what impact they're having on shoppers. Yeah, so we conducted the survey. It's a thousand sample. It's nationally representative of the population, age 18 plus. So there was a number of questions we asked. These were all generic. So we didn't use any retailer brand names or specify any particular retailers. But what we did ask is whether they'd ever intentionally over-shopped or shopped more frequently or bought something they didn't need to qualify for these money off vouchers in a supermarket. And remarkably so, we'd won in two, so 50% of all adults said yes they did. And then we went on to say, well, how much do you overspend? And the average was nine euros. So I think that was the headline of the press release that if you gross this up, so if every time you go out and you're trying to get to the supermarket voucher, you're trying to get to the amount or whatever and you're spending this nine euros, that can actually mount up to 477 euros over the course of a year. Now we're not saying that everybody will do it every time, but I suppose it's to be conscious and aware of the impact of that spending to get the voucher. The question then becomes, what are you actually spending that on? Because I mean, you know, I will stand in front of you and I will say guilty is charged. I absolutely have done that myself. And in more than one supermarket, I have said, oh, hang on, if I do a little bit more. But the question is, I mean, you know, does it not sort of make a difference what you spend it on? If, for instance, I spend it on something frivolous and say, right, I'll just buy a couple of cream buns. That's one thing. But if I spend it on an extra packet of toilet rolls, for instance, and you know, that'll just mean I have bought something I will need and I will use and it just means I don't have to buy toilet rolls now for the next four or five weeks. So, you know, there's going to be a difference in there. Is that nine euro wasted or not? And that's going to depend on what you spend that nine euro on. So, I mean, that's a very good observation and we don't know what they're spending it on. But what we do know is there was another statement which says loyalty schemes and money off vouchers and sales lead me to wasting food. So, one in three agreed with that. So, that's a little bit. That's part of the answer to your question. Certainly one in three believe they're wasting food. They're throwing it out. They bought excess food and it's gone to waste. And there was another statement we had which is these kinds of sales offers. Now, this was a different question. It was about buy one, get one. So, this was an agree, disagree question. So, the statement was these kind of sales offers lead me to buy things I don't really need or want. So, in that case, we 43% that agree and 32% that disagree. So, you've still got four and 10 of the population that are saying the buy one, get one free or three for two is leading me to buy something I don't need or I don't want. Yeah, it's an interesting one because I would do exactly the same. For instance, if you get a buy one, get one free, say on bread, so if I want to buy a sliced pan and I know I and my family will use one sliced pan over the course of three to three and a half days. Now, but I mean, I can buy the two, get the free one, whack that in the freezer until day three and then take it out. Take it out the night before it's going to be needed. It'll throw out and then you've got effectively, you're starting from scratch with the second slice pan. So, I think a lot of the time it's a matter of, yes, if you're going to buy way more things than you need and just chuck them into the food compost bin at the end of the week because you haven't used them, absolutely. But surely it's a matter of the individual shopper sort of thinking smart and, you know, when they get home thinking, okay, I can put this in the freezer, I don't need this. This is perishable. This isn't perishable. This will last. Always keep an eye on your best before dates. There's no point in buying something that goes off on the third of August when there's one beside it that goes off on the ninth. And yes, I am that annoying person that will sort of poke down to the back because I know they'll have put the one with six or seven more days left on it right at the back of the pile. So that's another interesting observation because when we look at the data by age, the people that are agreeing to spending more, spending on stuff they don't want, spending more than they planned are more likely to be families. And the more canny shoppers are actually those over 65 and the empty nesters. So those older shoppers have much smaller shops versus families. And maybe they're just being more careful, more canny, who knows? But the families are the ones that are most likely to agree to spend, you know, the vouchers encourage me to spend more, buy more than I want, waste food. All of those statements are higher amongst families. It is an interesting one. And the other thing, it's interesting because in tandem with this, I just noticed in one of our papers in the independence today, there's a suggestion that supermarkets should scrap best before dates in a bid to cut waste. And I think a lot of people sort of look at best before dates and, you know, they sort of equate best before and used by. Now to me, used by means to be careful after a day or two. To me, best before means you're grand for a week. And a lot of people will take phrases like best before and used by. And, you know, as I said, you know, I find it's really important, you know, just to keep an eye on the best before is keep an eye on the used by. Isn't even more important to know the difference between the two. Yeah. And I think I suppose this data is even more relevant given all the economic stuff that's going on inflation. And people are, you know, need to be more careful about what they're spending in their grocery shopping. So I suppose it's just, it's a little reminder that maybe unconsciously we're being impacted by these vouchers, money off vouchers and these, you know, super ones, but just to be more conscious of what we're spending. Yeah. And I know there's, I mean, there's more than one at the moment have the kind of, you know, if you spend X amount, you'll get a voucher off for your next shop, which is a very canny way from the store's point of view. It's a very interesting way for them to ensure that you come back there next week and come back the week after and come back the week after and come back the week after to the point that you'll go in some, they'll say, do you have any vouchers? And you go, no. And you're thinking, oh my God, I am, I should have vouchers, I should have vouchers. Yeah. And it's interesting. And they do get into your head. But I always think too, with any offers from any supermarket or any business, you know, they're in there for the profit, they're in there to make money. And much as they will tell you that they're in there for the benefit of their customers and for your better health and for your well-being and much as they care about us and I'm sure they do, they're in there first and foremost to make profit and they're doing this because it suits them, not because it suits me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody can empathize with that voucher guilt. If you don't have the, you don't have the voucher at the tail end, you feel guilty because you think it's at the bottom of the bag somewhere, you left it somewhere. Well, I'll give you that too. It's on the window set at home, yeah. And I suppose just to point out, although the average was nine euros of an overspend, there was three in 10 that spent over 10 euros. So they spent overspend a lot more. The nine is like the average across everybody. Yeah, of course. But they were the main things now, the main differences. Oh, we've got another statement. I mean, it's the same pattern, same picture. Loyalty schemes, money off vouchers and sales offers encourage me to buy more groceries than I really need and 44% agree with that. Again, higher amongst families, anybody under the age of 60. So buying more groceries than they really need. And then that is linked to one and three saying that it leads to me wasting food. Yeah, and that is the real asset test. I mean, the real asset test is what is going into your compost bin or what's going into your recycling bin at the end of the week. I mean, you know, and again, it comes back down to being smart. And I mean, you know, I would always say, look, if I need to spend eight or nine quid to get up to the voucher, what I will buy is I will buy dishwasher tablets or buy capsules for the washing machine or buy something that you don't need to buy every week that you can store and it will stay out in the utility room and that you will eventually need. And then, you know, that's something you can knock off your bill. And the biggest problem is I suppose you turn around to where is the nearest and you say, okay, there's the biscuits. I'll buy three packets of biscuits. That will see me through. And I think that's maybe where the problem is that, you know, you just turn around and we all know that supermarkets make sure that they put high profit and highly desirable reward items like bars and so on right at the till. So, you know, very often what's at the tail is not going to be, you know, just wash your capsules or washing up powder. That's right. What's at the tail is going to be bars of chocolate and bottles of coke. Yeah, so that is very interesting observation again. Like, you know, should there be ambient things at the at the till so that people can round up by, you know, not wasting food, not buying something that's going to go off. But the three for twos, I think it's not just the vouchers. The three for twos is also causing people to buy a higher volume potentially that they need. Or that's what they're saying, you know, 46% are saying it leads them to buy more than they planned. Yeah. So it's not just the money off vouchers. It's those volume sales three for two and maybe you only need one, but you're buying three. Yeah, Bernie, it's a fascinating one and it's an interesting one and it's been great speaking to you. And you know, it just, it behoves all of us. Just think a little bit more when you're in the shop. You've got to go in there with a strategy and you've got to go in there with a plan and most importantly, go in there in a way that hopefully is going to benefit you rather than benefit them. 100% brilliant advice. Bernie Cohen, it's been a pleasure. The managing director of Cohen Research. Thanks very much indeed. Thank you, Donald. Thank you. That's Bernie there and Bernie joined us on Zoom, of course. And don't forget, we are broadcasting the program on Facebook and also on our YouTube channel as well. And all the Zoom conversations, obviously, you can see if you watch back or if you have access to them live. Now you can actually see those conversations as they unfold. That was Bernie. We're going to take a short break the news with Emma after these. Nutrace Weenland Crunch Offer, directly supported by the Arrivo Futter Support Fund, is now available at your local homeland store. Buy 10 bags of Nutrace Weenland Crunch ATP, get one free. The Nutrace Beef ATP pack enhances animal performance through maximizing room and efficiency. Teas and seas apply. Contact your local homeland or farm commercial specialist today. Visit nutrace.ie for full product details. Don't sleep in and miss the very latest beds and mattress offers from DFIbeds.ie. Ireland's leading online bed and mattress retailer. You'll get a comfy Irish made mattress, upholstered base and headboard from an amazing 229 euro. Check out the full range at DFIbeds.ie. Delivery free and guaranteed to you within seven working days. DFI beds, sleep well, live well. Island motors, main Renault, Dacia, Citroen and Honda dealer in the Northwest, are vacancies for a fully qualified mechanic. A third or fourth year apprentice mechanic and a full-time service advisor. Experience is required for all roles. Send a CV to parts at hynomotors.ie or by post to hynomotors Mountaintop Letter Kenny. Live on air, online and on the Highland Radio app. This is Highland Radio News. Good morning, it's 10 o'clock. I'm Emma Ryan. Four parish priests are set to retire as the Bishop of Rafault has announced the number of clerical changes for the dioceses of Rafault. The changes are to take effect from August 20th and 21st. Very Reverend Dean Austin Lavery, parish priest of Ardra, very Reverend Sean O'Gall, parish priest of Gorda Hork, very Reverend Pat McHugh, parish priest of Gerton and Terman, and very Reverend Padre Gobol, parish priest of Guidore, are all set to retire as parish priests. Bishop Alan McGuckian, thanks the priests for all their generosity and says he prays that retirement affords them a well-earned rest from their burdens of leadership. Two hotels in Donegal are among the 10 hotels in the country earning millions by housing Ukrainian refugees. In total, the government has agreed contracts worth 99 million euro for private accommodation and services for Ukrainian refugees with two hotels in Donegal earning a combined 6.1 million euro. With more, here's Donna Marie Doherty. According to tender documents published by the Department of Integration, McGatigan's hotel in Lettercanny has been awarded a contract worth 3.7 million. The contract secured by Grand Central Hotel in Bundoran is worth almost 2.5 million for providing the hotel for use as temporary accommodation. 90 tender documents have been signed to date. However, the state are still seeking additional solutions such as housing families on islands. As of last week, 28,000 refugees have been placed in service accommodation since they started arriving in Ireland in early March. Approximately 25,000 hotel rooms are in use across the country. A voluntary critical care doctor with a community air ambulance service says while extending the service to Donegal and the Northwest would be desirable, securing it would be very difficult and a complex process. Gerry Lee and a former emergency department consultant at Lettercanny University Hospital says the service is not supported in any way by the state and securing an air ambulance for the region would require voluntary contributions in the region of 2.5 million a year. He says a cross-border service might be possible but it would require a lot of discussion. Gerry Lee and says the most important thing is that those voluntary contributions would need to be guaranteed. There are cases here in the Northwest where certainly rapid transport will be very valuable and a helicopter would be an excellent platform for that. We could certainly lease a helicopter and we could certainly hire a pilot and have the necessary infrastructure to support it. The issue is how would we actually fund 2.5 million euros per year on a recurrent basis and keep that funding stream smooth on a voluntary basis. Meanwhile, a number of people waiting over 24 hours in emergency department this year has tripled. Over 24,000 patients spent over a day waiting for a bed in the ED from January to May. This includes over 6,000 patients who were over the age of 75, according to the examiner, Sinn Féin Health spokesperson David Keenan says that people presenting recently seem to be older and sicker. When there is any pressure on hospitals, the emergency departments bear the brunt of that pressure and the increase in presentations as well as hospitals not having the capacity that they need is resulting in very high wait times. In many of the hospitals as well, people who are presenting are sicker and older and more frail and need more treatment and it's possibly been one of the busiest years on record for EDs across the state and it's going to get worse. And finally cash strapped parents are being urged not to turn to money lenders to cover back to school costs. Instead, those worried about the cost of uniforms, footwear and school books are being urged to contact the Department of Social Protection. John Low of moneydoctors.ie says low income parents who are working should also speak to credit unions. The people to avoid, I can tell you, are the money lenders. Believe it or not, there are 35 authorized money lenders. That's authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland and they can charge up to 200%. The first protocol, if you do have to borrow and make sure you borrow within a year because your child is going to go to the next level, the following year would be the credit union. They would probably be the cheapest and also probably the most accessible. To weather now, showers early today, heavy or thunderly in parts, will clear and there will be sunny spells in the afternoon with scattered leather showers, highest temperatures of 17 to 19 degrees. That's all for now. We'll be back with an update at 11 o'clock, but until then, good morning. Obituary notices for Tuesday morning, August 2nd. The death has taken place of Thomas Willie Joe McCullough-Bride of Cotting Dairy Bag, originally from Gulley Island. His remains were opposed at Rorty's funeral home Dairy Bag today from 2 p.m. to 6.45 p.m. Removal afterwards to St. Mary's Church Dairy Bag to repose overnight. Funeral mass tomorrow at 11 a.m. with entierment afterwards in Mahara Gallon Cemetery. The funeral mass can be viewed live on Cure and Rorty Funeral Director's Facebook page. The death has occurred of Anthony Tony Boyle Lower Kedew. His wake has taken place at his home from 11 a.m. this morning with rosary at 9 p.m. Funeral mass tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. in St. Mary's Church King Casula with entierment afterwards in Bell Crute Cemetery. His house strictly private on the morning of the funeral please. The death has occurred of Noel Dooley, Nain, Milbroke Heights, Navany, Balibuffet. Remains reposing at McCullough's Chapel of Rest, Balibuffet, with visiting time this evening from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. Funeral leaving there tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m. for a requiem mass at 10 a.m. in the Church of Mary Immaculate St. Orler. Cremation afterwards at Glass-Nevin Crematorium Dublin. The requiem mass will be streamed live via the parish webcam at www.churchservices.tv slash St. Orler. Donations in lieu of flowers if desired to the Oncology Award Letter to the University Hospital, care of any family member. The death has occurred of Gareth Freel, Liz Snikelly, Bunkranna. His remains are reposing at his late residence. Removal from his home at 10.15 a.m. this morning to St. Mary's Church Cockhill for a requiem mass at 11 a.m. followed by entierment in the joining cemetery. Gareth's requiem mass can be viewed on churchservices.tv slash cockhill. Family time please from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu if desired to James Conley Memorial Hospital Patients Comfort Fund, care of any family member or Murphy Funeral Directors. The death has taken place of Robert Noel Bertie Edwards. Funeral service at Bertie's late home, the Moile Newtown Cunningham, tomorrow at 12.00 followed by burial in Newtown Cunningham Presbyterian Church burial ground. House private, family flowers only. The death has taken place of Pat Rice, 87 Laurel Drive, Straban, and formerly of Oakman Street, Belfast. His remains are opposing at his home. Funeral leaving his home this morning at 11.25 a.m. for requiem mass in St. Mary's Church Millmount at 12.00. Entierment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Donations in lieu of flowers please to Cancer Research, care of Quigley Funeral Directors, 1A Newton Place, Straban. House private, two family and friends only please. The requiem mass can be viewed live via the parish webcam at melmountparsh.com. The death has taken place of Rita McFadden, knee rainy, Durley Park, Sligo. Mass of the resurrection will be celebrated at 11.30 a.m. this morning in St. Anne's Church Sligo. Burial follows in Sligo cemetery. Funeral mass will be live streamed at mcmedia.tv, St. Anne's Cranmore. Home private please, floral tributes welcome or have preferred a donation in lieu to Northwest Hospice Fund, care of Sean Philly's funeral home, Cateron Cross, Sligo. For more details, including any family health guidelines for wicks and funerals, please go to highlandradio.com. Donegal Suffolk Sheep Breeders' Premier Expert Show and sale takes place this Saturday the 6th at Ruffo Mart. Show at 10 a.m. sale at 12 noon. All sheep are eligible for export. Online bidding available via MartsBid.ie. That's this Saturday at Ruffo Mart. Moby Blast, mobile sandblasting, covering Donegal, Dairy and Trone. Marine sandblasting, automotive and machinery. Also stone cleaning, wood sandblasting, graffiti and paint removal. Suitable for most surface restorations. See Moby Blast Ireland on Facebook and Instagram. Moby Blast, extending the life of your investments. For big name menswear at great prices, visit Watson Men's Wear in Letter Kenny. Top casual brands, including Mishmash, Sixth Sense, Tommy Bowe and Penguin. If you're going to a wedding or a big event, formal wear names include Rimasimo, Andre and White Label. Also a great selection of children's casual and formal wear in stock. Watson Men's Wear open seven days a week on Main Street Letter Kenny and online at WatsonMen'sWear.com. It's a busy time on farms, so watch out for tractors, trailers and other farm machinery using the roads. Be patient, slow down and only overtake farm machinery when it's safe to do so. If you're driving a tractor, you must hold a license. Make sure your vehicle is road worthy, check your load regularly and drive at a safe speed. Be aware of traffic building up behind you and when possible, allow cars to pass safely from the Road Safety Authority and the Irish Farmers Association. Call now on 074 91 25,000. This is the 90-minute show on Highland Radio. Connor asks, is Fintown Chapel closing as the priest there is being moved? My expectation would be no Fintown Chapel certainly will not close. There may have to be alterations in the numbers of masses and confession times and things like that. But what will happen, and this is happening in Diocese right across the country at the moment, is there are fewer priests than are required to run all churches. So what will happen is a priest from a neighboring church, it may be a priest will come in from Guador or a priest may come in from Glenties or a priest may come over from Ardraa or wherever or a priest may come in from Glentfin or Balabafe or wherever. So what they will do is that priests in surrounding churches will come and will serve, you know, a priest may come from Dury. It depends that what will happen is priests will find themselves saying extra masses and they'll travel to say masses and I think we're gonna see this more and more, I think, over the course of the next while. Connor says, totally agree with that lady about supermarkets and offers. There's only two of us at home now. I find it very hard to do a weekly shop without being bombarded with three for two offers. Why would I want to buy three boxes of cereal, for example? Is there a flu outbreak around or some virus that's not COVID because texts are coming up negative but our weather is so mixed up for the summer? Now, what I would say is don't forget before COVID in 2020, we got colds, we got flus, we got sick, we got tummy upsets, we got snuffly noses. It was just a part of ordinary life and I think what's happened is sort of since 2020, any time you blow your nose or you snuffle your thinking to yourself, COVID. Now, what it is, I think, in a lot of cases is your standard summer cold hasn't gone away. So, you know, I have a tendency to get a bit snuffly at times over the summer and that is still happening. And I must say, yeah, every time you go, oh, God, I wonder. You know, and sometimes we're diving for antigen tests to do tests when what we actually have is a summer cold. They are still there and there is flu still there and there are colds still there. So, I'm not sure, I mean, how do you think back more than, you know, three years? I mean, how often have we said, oh, there's a woeful dose going around? And how often did we all say about how there was an old dose going around? Yeah, and those doses are still there. We're still getting our colds, we're still getting, and yeah, the weather is a bit mixed up at the moment, but I mean, you know, I'm not sure it's any, is it much more mixed up than any summer we've had recently. Another, with regards to the supermarket's corner, says five one liter bottles of a popular soft drink for five supermarket deal, that should only be one per person. I saw someone buying 30 bottles for 30 euro. I'm wondering, are they selling them at a profit? Perhaps they are, I don't know. That's some of the comments that we've been coming through. We'll get more comments a little later, but right now, if you play Highland Radio, NCBI Radio Bingo, it's time to grab your pencils, grab your books. After this, by the way, we'll take a short break and then we'll have our community gather information slot with Sergeant Union, who is in the studio with me. But before we do anything else, grab your books, grab your pencils, and we will say welcome back, Kanas. It's time for NCBI Bingo on Highland Radio. It's Tuesday, the 2nd of August. You're playing on the brown sheet. The reference number is S12. It's game number 31. The numbers are 43, 58, 39, 61, 89, 54, 77, 24, 63, and finally, 27. Phone your claim to 910483 before 8 tonight. Leave in your name, contact number, and the name of the shop where you purchased your book. And we'll call you back the next working day. Get all your NCBI Bingo information at highlandradio.com. Attention all staff, clean up on aisle 4, please. That's a clean up on aisle 4. And Jacob, who's popped in for a pint of milk as diabetes. We don't always know who's at risk from COVID-19 and other viruses, but we do know how to protect them. Keep hands clean and wear a mask. Let fresh air in. Get vaccinated and stay at home if you are unwell. From the HSC, for us all. Professor Walter McNicholas from the Sleep Disorders Unit at St. Vincent's University Hospital here. Did you know one in five fatal crashes on Irish roads could be linked to driver fatigue? If you feel tired behind the wheel, pull in somewhere it's safe to do so and drink a coffee or caffeinated drink before taking a 15 minute nap. The short nap will allow time for the caffeine to take effect before you continue your journey. This should give you another hour or so on the road. Remember, stop, sip, sleep. From the Road Safety Authority. If you have a job to do this weekend, did you know that wantson hire still have their brilliant weekend hire deal available? You can hire any item on Friday, keep it until Monday, and only pay for one day. That's three days hire on any equipment or machinery for the price of one. So there's no excuses to get that job done this weekend. Book airy to avoid disappointment by calling Watson hire in Etter Kenny on 911-6777. It's time to upgrade. 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Very well indeed, a pleasure as always, Union. We're going to start with a road traffic collision that happened on Thursday night last. Yes, Donegal, this was a road traffic collision which occurred on the Letter Kenny to Remelton Road last Thursday, the 28th of July at approximately 6.50 p.m. I know an appeal was made at the time and I would just like to renew it. It occurred on the R245 at Casual Shanahan, between the Silver Tassie Hotel and Oknagadi on the Letter Kenny to Remelton Road. Involved the motorcycle and a car, Donegal. The motorcycle was traveling in direction of Letter Kenny at the time of the collision and the car was traveling in the opposite direction towards Remelton. The motorcyclist was taken by ambulance to Letter Kenny University Hospital to receive treatment. And he currently remains in hospital. The driver of the car was not injured. So we're appealing to anybody who traveled on the stretcher road around the time and who had a dash cam to make the footage available to Gardie. And again, appealing for anybody who may have witnessed the collision to contact the Gardie at Milford 0749153060 or again, the confidential line, 1-800-TRABLE-6-TRABLE-1. And as you say, that motorcycle is still in hospital receiving treatment and thankfully it could have been more serious but I mean, obviously we don't want to see any injury on the roads and we have had appeals for people to be aware of motorcyclists on the road and all those road safety appeals obviously still very much alive. Up to Bankrana now, appealing for witnesses in relation to an assault on the Cockhill Road. Yes, don't know this is an assault which occurred last Saturday night, Sunday morning. Sunday morning being the 31st of July at approximately 1.35 a.m. It happened on the Cockhill Road outside of the Crana View Estate in Macrana. We believe that a man was assaulted by three other males at the time. The male sustained injuries, none of which fortunately are life threatening in nature. We believe that the three suspects involved had access to a vehicle. We appealed to road users who traveled along the Cockhill Road at the time, Saturday night, Sunday morning and who may have dashed camp and who may have witnessed the assault or any suspicious activity involving the vehicle to contact the guard in Macrana, 07493 20540. To kill Macrana now and a burglary just over a week ago. Yes, this was discovered last Wednesday, the 27th of July, the 8 p.m., but we believe it occurred between the Friday beforehand, that's Friday the 22nd, so between Friday the 22nd and last Wednesday the 27th, a house was broken in the Rosemount area of Kilmachrana. Some of cash was stolen from the property and some damage was caused inside. So that's a house in the Rosemount area of Kilmachrana. We appealed to anybody who observed any suspicious activity in the area or who may have information in relation to the burglary to contact the guard again at Milford, 07491 53060 or again, don't know the confidential line, 1-800-TRABLE-6-TRABLE-1. Now, a number of incidents happened in the vicinity of the hall in Lifford in the early hours of last Friday. Yes, this is last Thursday night, Friday morning, Friday being the 29th of July between 2.50 a.m. and 3.30 a.m. A local business premises was broken into and burgled and a number of items were stolen from a van that was parked at a location between the times. We know that two men get into the business premises and stole a number of items, namely a red Honda power washer, a flow rug and a flow lamp. Again, unfortunately, a number of items were stolen from the van which was parked at the property, red Oakley sunglasses, blue Nord face jacket, a black survival kit containing a mini saw and flip knife, waterproof HD speakers, Android ear pods, power banks, first aid kit and gold micro binoculars, very distinctive there, which were in a black pouch. Again, our pay list for anybody who traveled along the N15 at the time between Castle Finn and Lifford and who has Dashcam to make the footage available to Gardea. Donal, we're particularly interested in the sighting of a silver Vauxhall Vectra, which we believe is connected to the crime, the partial registration XLZ, so that's a silver Vauxhall Vectra that was in the area at the time. And again, we're asking for people in the area who may have seen this vehicle or seen any suspicious and particularly people who passed the area at the time who have Dashcam to make it available to Gardea, again, at Littler Kenny 0749167100. And again, if you come across items similar to those that I described on sale, we ask you to contact the Gardea, please. Another burglary this time in Rathmullen. Yes, this happened over the weekend of the festival down there on the pier road Rathmullen between 11.40 p.m. last Saturday the 30th of July and 2.30 p.m. on the Sunday. So sometime during the Saturday night, entry was gained into the takeaway premises and a cash register containing some of the money was stolen. No damage caused within the property, so the intent obviously was to get in and get the cash register out of the way again. We believe that entry may have been gained to a side window that was left ajar. So again, anybody who saw anything suspicious or any people or vehicles acting suspiciously in the time to contact the Gardea at Milford 0749153060 or again the confidential line 1-800-6111. To Bunkrana now and an incident of criminal damage. Yes, this is an unfortunate incident which occurred at the park at the Riverview in Bunkrana on Sunday night past Monday morning, the week before the 25th of July. So approximately 4.30 a.m. on Monday the 25th of July, damage was caused to a swarm ornament in the park and flowers were pulled out and a number of other elements in the park also damaged. So we have two males captured on CCTV causing the damage. One of them was wearing a T-shirt and light-colored shorts with dark trainers. So that's a T-shirt, light-colored shorts with dark trainers and the other was wearing a tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie and the boat of the males left on foot in direction of the Riverview Park following the incident. This is a park Donald which is well kept and maintained by the residents in the area and great disappointment and anger caused amongst them as a result. So we're appealing for witnesses. Anybody to contact the Gardea in Bunkrana 0749320540. That sort of mindlessness really, oh, it's awful. A number of property-marking events taking place in and across the call and important one this bit. It is getting a bit of publicity. It's going down very well with people who have property that needs to be marked. So one of the events was held at the minute, excuse me, across agriculture show yesterday, but there's still other events scheduled to take place in the coming days. So if you have any valuable property which you think you should be marked or encourage you to come along. So today actually at the Klumballi Agricultural Show between 12 midday and 4 p.m. That's Tuesday the second, that's today. So the festival is on down there. So I think McDonver is on tonight, is it? So you come along, get your property marked, feel more secure, that's secure and go out and dance your night away then afterwards. This Thursday the 4th of August, term and complex between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. So just to remind people that the machine can be used on a number of surfaces, including metal, carbon, fiber, wood and plastic. It uses a pattern of dot stone to mark property making it highly distinguishable and easy to return in case of theft and again rendering it unattractive to thieves. So we're just reminding people to ensure that you have your correct air-coated with you so that it can be marked onto your property and we look forward to seeing you over the next couple of days. That's really good. I would not be a man to contradict or correct a member of Angar the Sheikana that's not a sergeant like yourself but I do believe we spoke to Plain earlier from Clonmany. I do believe it was Olivia Douglas he said was on in the show tonight with Kieran Cough. It might be Mike Denver, I've no doubt Mike Denver will be playing the Clonmany Festival. But Clonmany will have every name in Irish country music will be in Clonmany over the next couple of days. Just goes to show you, but I'm sure he's there somewhere. Oh, you'll be sure he'll be there somewhere but I think it was Olivia Douglas now was playing at the show tonight and Kieran Cough. Well, come along on me. Oh, do, absolutely. Get your property marked. Absolutely. Pleasure of all of this. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Sergeant Union Walsh there of Angar the Sheikana and we'll obviously be putting this up on our webpage. You can listen back to the Community Guarda Slot. You can listen back to the whole program and of course the Angar the Sheikana Facebook page will have this up on their page as well. The Community Guarda Information Slot is brought to you by Sheridan Security Systems protecting what you value most. Call today and get your zero-wire alarm system from 299 Euro. Sheridan Security, 911-26025. Couple of your comments. Connor says, nothing annoys me more than owners letting their dogs walk on top of you while saying, he's a puppy, wouldn't touch you. I hate dogs and really find dog owners some of the most annoying people. Just put your dog in till I pass. I do not find your precious dog beautiful. I'm terrified of it. Also, I think bigger dogs should be made where muzzles while out in public. Now, I wouldn't go that far. I mean, I know a lot of dog lovers and they are excellent people and they do genuinely love their dogs and they really look after their dogs and they do so with great responsibility. And the last thing I would ever do is make any derogatory comments about dog owners because I mean, you know, as I say, I would lose half my friends immediately. I've one very good friend who has a big sign on the inside of her door and the sign says, dogs welcome humans, tolerate it. And she means it. She absolutely 110% means it and you can be absolutely sure of that. But yeah, I think consideration all around. And I think in many cases, the dog owner, you know, knows their dog, the other person doesn't. Carlos says, you're onto a good thing if you find roots with no dog walkers, less fouling, probably too. All dogs should be on leads where required. It's a matter of showing respect for everyone. Now, the roots I walk, when I'm in my mother-in-laws, it's out in the country and they're rural, to say the least. Going back to Sabina Higgins and the comments that she made. Sabina Higgins is a lovely lady. She is only calling for peace. She must be respected. Some years ago, nobody would have shown such disrespect to the president's wife. Another caller says, the only people who win in war are grave diggers. Now, an interesting question has cropped up. Caller says, I spent 40 euro in a shop and went to get a refund. But the man said I could only get a credit note. Does anyone know if I spent cash and only got a credit note? Is that right? Now, my understanding, we will try and verify this. My understanding of this is that if you are returning a defective good or if you are bringing something back because it doesn't work or there is some form of problem with it, then you are entitled to a refund. If you have brought something back and you're saying, look, I've changed my mind, I don't really want it and there's nothing wrong with it. My understanding is at that point, the shop is under no responsibility or under no obligation to change that for you. So in that instance, as I understand it, the shop has every right to say to you, we will give you a credit note, but they're not obliged to give you a refund. That's my understanding. If the good is defective or if there is a problem with it, you are entitled to money back. If you are bringing it back because you've changed your mind and they are going to exchange it for you, then that's, as I understand it, a different story. But as I say, that is my understanding. I could be wrong and we will double check on that for you. It's approaching half-past line. We're going to take a short break back after these. Park Run has taken my run into the next level. It's a good opportunity to catch up and meet friends and make new friends as well. It's how I got introduced into the local running club. Just known as there every week, no matter what stage you're at. I find it's a much healthier approach to running. I'm Dave and I'm a park runner. VHI believes Park Run is more than running. That's why we're their biggest supporter. Join us every week at your local Park Run. Tonight at the 53rd Club Money Festival, it's Mike Denver. Tomorrow Wednesday, it's David James, followed by Derrick Ryan. Log on to clubmanifestival.com for a full program. Shane Connelly Car Sales has relocated to Drumm-Launa, her Dunny Gold town. Besides offering quality used cars, we have a brand new state-of-the-art workshop for all your car service needs. At Chevy Chase, no, did Chevy Chase do that video or did Chevy Chase do, you can call me Al? I may have walked into that one. I think Chevy Chase did that one and you can call me Al was a different video and I have just made myself wrong and I've no doubt there'll be about 15 people on Twitter and WhatsApp and text within a matter of minutes to tell me I'm wrong. 086625,000 is the number for your text messages and also for your WhatsApp messages as well. Now, let's go to Zoom because North Dunny Gold's coast has been identified as a high biodiversity area of interest that designation has been mentioned in a recent report by Fair Seas, which is a coalition of Irish environmental non-government organizations. And from Fair Seas, we're joined with their communications officer, Jack O'Donovan. Jack, good morning. Good morning, how are you? Thanks for having me on. We're very well indeed and Jack O'Mean Dunny Gold has always prided itself on its marine life and its marine culture and its coastline. And that's been recognized by yourselves and it's a very high area of interest in your view. That's exactly right. So just two months ago now in June, we published a report called Revitalizing Our Seas. And that report looked at all of the available data, so all of the available kind of scientific information for Irish marine wildlife and habitats out at sea. And we analyzed them to look for areas of interest to become potential marine protected areas. So that would be like a national park in the sea. So we identified areas where you have high marine biodiversity. So many species inhabiting the one area or potentially very sensitive areas. So areas that are sensitive to disturbance and change as well as areas that are very important for say, storing carbon because the ocean is the largest carbon store on earth. So it's a great ally to us in fighting climate change as well as biodiversity. And the North Donegal Coast is one of those areas we've identified. Now I see the picture behind you for those watching this on Facebook or YouTube. We'll see the basking sharks loriously behind you. And we know there have been several sightings of basking sharks off the North Donegal Coast in recent years. And yet you're dead right. So this photograph here was taken by George Carvis who's a photographer based in the West of Ireland down in County Clare. However, up around Mallon Head. So within the area of interest in the North Coast we've identified groups of up to 75 basking sharks have been seen together in a single sighting. So it's identified as a very important area for basking sharks for these huge, amazing mobile filter feeding species. So these are just gentle giants. They come to feed here on plankton that is blooming in our waters. And as well as that, there's a lot of other species that visit the coast of Donegal and species that stay around all year long. So for example, around the mouth block Swilly has been identified as a very important area for bottlenose dolphins and for harbor porpoise. And they actually spend the entire year in the area. They're not migrating in and out. So they rely on those waters for reproduction, for feeding for all sorts of stuff. That's their primary home. And in that area, especially Lux-Willy again, it's a refuge site for the flapper skates. So if you know a skate is like an array, you know it would be in the same family of sharks. And the flapper skate is actually the largest skate on earth. It can grow up to 2.8 meters. So nearly three meters in length. It's an enormous, enormous animal. And that is an animal that has been very kind of overexploited, let's say, in much of its range. So it's now critically endangered. And within the North Coast, that has been identified as area where they're still surviving. So that with marine protected area status, what you'd hope is that that area could be protected and the species could be given a chance to recover. And that would mean working with local communities, local industry to try to help put management plans in place for this area to ensure the recovery of these amazing species that live there. What needs to change in terms of the levels of protection you're seeking? Because a lot of people are going to be listening and they're going to be thinking, hang on a tick, they're important fishing waters, they're important aquaculture waters. I mean, you know, are you now going to butter us up and say, yes, you live in a really important area. Oh, by the way, you can't make your living there anymore. Well, exactly, no. And definitely not, that's not what we're about. So again, Fair Seas is a coalition of Irish environmental NGOs and networks. So it would actually be the government who are the people to put these in place and to make the designations. What we are doing is just identifying the important areas from a biodiversity point of view because that's what we would specialize in. And we are encouraging the government to use the best available scientific data to kind of identify the areas, but then what it'll take is long, early and continuous engagement with local stakeholders. So working with local fishing communities, working with local ecotourism or industry. And really what we need to do is we need genuine monitoring and management of these areas. And that'll take a lot of communication with the people on the ground who are using those waters. And that's really what it'll take to give biodiversity a chance to recover because in a lot of the world, marine protected areas have been designated, but there isn't that active management put in place. So it doesn't allow the species a genuine chance to recover because nothing really changes in the area. So it's really about working with the people on the ground to inform people and talk to people about what we can do to help protect those species while also allowing coastal communities to thrive. And marine protected areas also have huge added benefits by protecting particular areas, like say spawning grounds of a particular fish. So this area actually in the North Coast area of interest has the largest herring spawning ground in all of Ireland within us, within a part of it anyway. And if you think, if you can protect a part of the spawning ground and you can allow those fish to reproduce in that area, eventually they move outside the area and they start to replenish fish stocks in a wider area. And that's what you call the spillover effect. So marine protected areas can have a huge added benefit for local communities in that way. And also there could be the potential to develop new ecotourism and lots of other things within the area. So they have huge benefits outside of the benefits to biodiversity itself. And as you said, that community buying is going to be absolutely central to that. I'm listening to you describe what this is and what this strikes me as being is and you did use the sort of similar area is almost like a national park would see. It seems to be very similar to sort of special areas of conservation. This is almost like a marine SAC. Yeah, exactly. So a marine SAC, so special area of conservation essentially is a type of marine protected area. However, what we are hoping to achieve with these marine protected areas is what you call the whole site approach. So rather than just protecting a specific species or maybe a specific habitat that occurs, you can give protection to the entire ecosystem so that you can protect the food that species relies on, the habitat that it reproduces in. And within the North Coast area of interest that we've identified, there were multiple SACs and SPAs which are special protection areas for protecting say seabirds or different habitats like that exists there. But our marine protected area would basically act as a corridor that would link them together. So it would really help to enhance the level of the protection that's there. And unfortunately with a lot of the SACs that do exist in Ireland, there is no active management or monitoring in a lot of them. So with the NPA we're hoping that that would be the next step that's brought in so that measures can really be taken to help to increase the biodiversity within those areas. And you'll see the Mulroy Bay is a large SAC on the North Coast there and all of that would be encompassed within the marine protected area to allow species to move safely and freely between those areas. In terms of the climate and weather and conditions at sea, are there changes in the way we're getting sort of creatures like the basking sharks and so on in Dunnegal waters? Because it seems to me, and this is just a personal observation, it seems to me in the last two, three years we've had far more say reports of dead whales washing up on Dunnegal beaches and so on. And it seems there's an increase in shark sightings as well. And I'm wondering, is that linked to climate? Is that linked to subtle changes in the Gulf Stream? Are we at a point where the external climactic factors are going to have an impact on this as well as what humanity is doing and as well as human interaction with the marine environment? Yeah, and so firstly what I'd say was that, I mean, I can't speak specifically on that because that is not within the remit of our research. Of course I appreciate that, yeah. What's occurring, where it's occurring. However, definitely we know that global whale populations are increasing and the only reason for that is because we're no longer hunting them in most of the world's ocean. So they finally had a chance to recover. However, they're still only at between say five and 10% of their historic levels. Actually, and one great thing about creating marine protected areas maybe specifically for these large mobile species like whales. If we were to restore, from a climate change point of view, if we were to restore whale populations to their historic levels, so say pre-industrial whaling, we would sequester an extra 9.5 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year because whales play such an important part in absorbing carbon and recycling it and helping to sequester that into the seafloor then. So I can't speak specifically on differences we're seeing but no doubt with warming oceans, changes are being seen. But the biggest I suppose increases in whales and things like that that we are seeing is definitely due to the fact that we're no longer hunting them. So now they're given the chance to recover. What's the timetable with regards to what you hope will be designations of MPAs in North Donegal? Obviously, as you said, it's now down to government to make the designations, have the consultations with communities and so on. What sort of timeframe are we looking at? Is this one year, two years, three years down the line? So the government have committed it's within the programme of government to protect 30% of Irish seas by 2030. So that is eight years from now that they hope to have 30%. And that's international, that's an international commitment that they've signed up to. And they also hoped to achieve 10% protection by 2020. However, unfortunately, we're still only at about 2% protection of Irish waters. And currently there's actually no legislation in Ireland to designate these areas. So the SACs and the SPAs that we do have currently have been designated through European law. And so currently the government is writing the Irish legislation for marine protected areas. But we're hoping that by 2030 we'll have 30% of our seas protected and we'll have that done in consultation with local communities and using the best available scientific data that exists. And that would really give our species, our habitats and our coastal communities the maximum opportunity to thrive. Jack O'Donovan, Fair Seas Communications Officer. Thanks indeed for speaking to us this morning. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. That's Jack there. And that designation, as he said, over the course of the next eight to 10 years. And we'll be keeping an eye on that one with interest. Let's look at some of the comments that have been coming in. Connor says, Rathmullen traffic yesterday was awful. A car then drove up the wrong side of the road to skip the queue. It's no wonder there are so many accidents. Places like, yeah, it can be so difficult on a really, and yesterday wasn't the best day, because yesterday after, well, certainly in letter Kenny, yesterday afternoon was teaming down. Other comments, Connor says, Sabina Higgins was right in what she said. Another caller says, the Irish media have become like Fox News. They are totally biased. It's all a group thing with them. Sadly, independent free will thinking is gone now with them. And another caller says, raid the provision of an air ambulance for Donegal. What a great idea. Surely this proposal must be included in the political manifesto of any party that cares about our local community here in Donegal. 2.5 million per annum is nothing compared to the saved lives. Well done, Jerry Lane for putting people first as Europe now. The comment that Jerry did say is that, and the way he phrased it to me, because it was myself that spoke to Jerry for that piece. The way he says, neither on this island nor on the adjacent island is their government funding for an air ambulance service. As he said, it is a community air ambulance service that runs on a voluntary basis. He's hopeful that perhaps the HSC might provide medical personnel to actually work on board and attend that scenes, but he himself works as a volunteer doctor and a lot of volunteers are involved with it. So at this point in time, these services are not funded. Now, if you're moving into the government funding and air ambulance service, that becomes a different thing. You do have obviously the Coast Guard takes part in transfers from hospital to hospital and transfers from, you know, we see Rescue 1018 regularly at Latter-Kinney University Hospital and at Sligo Hospital as well. But what Jerry Lane is specifically talking about is the community air ambulance, which is a voluntary service. Now, as we said, the Mary from Donegal Festival took place over the weekend. And Mary was crowned. And we'll be speaking to Mary in just a moment. Neutrace Lamp Feed Offer, directly supported by the Arrivo Futter Support Fund, is now available at your local homeland store. Buy 10 bags of Neutrace Intensive Lamp or Neutrace Lamp Reef Crunch, get one free. Contains intake booster for higher intakes, better thrive and faster finish. Teas and seas apply. Contact your local homeland or farm commercial specialist today. Visit Neutrace.ie for full product detail. Attention all tractor and forklift owners. Donegal Tires in Donegal Town is a leading supplier of agricultural and solid forklift tires in the Northwest with a huge range available at competitive prices. Donegal Tires can help you choose the correct tire for your application and we will come to you. So no downtime. Check out DonegalTires.com or call 07497 21482. That's Donegal Tires Donegal Town where you'll get a great deal. That's when we flap, flap, flap the cash to get you in the mood for the big, big bucks. Big bucks. It's all coming soon. Only on Highland Radio. Text 086 60 25,000. It's time to Nuncho on Highland Radio and the winner of this year's Mary from Dunlowe was the London Mary, Caitlyn Finn. Delighted to say Caitlyn joins us on the line. Caitlyn, good morning. Good morning, Donegal, how are you? I'm very well indeed, thanks. Now, you were born in London, Caitlyn, but you grew up in Balabafé and you'll be well known in Donegal. Yeah, absolutely. I started skilling Balabafé and moved to Letter Kenny subsequently until 2019. Sorry, I did my leaving certificate in the red or Letter Kenny and moved to London that following summer to start my primary teaching degree in Twickenham. And you've now qualified obviously as a primary teacher. You're working in London, but the view maybe is you might come back and teach in Donegal in the fullness of time. Yes, absolutely, that is the long-term goal. At the minute I'm working at the University Students Union for the upcoming year and after that I will teach here for a couple of years before moving on. And you've become, as you said, you are president of the Students Union at St. Mary's University in Twickenham. And the first woman ever to be named president of that institution. Yeah, the first ever female student life president. Massive honour. Now, you also have been a member of the Ladies GAA team in London along with another former Mary. Yeah, me, Gavigan, was the Donegal Mary in 2017 and I was on the Ladies Gaelic team at St. Mary's with her. I think we may... Ends up. Yeah. Sorry, Kate, I think we just lost you briefly there just a moment ago. No, I will say you and I have crossed paths before because we both had the honour of taking part in Oliver together in Castle Fane a couple of years back. It was really good fun and you've always had an interest in drama, in acting, in singing and you're no stranger to stages in the baller on Greenwell and for the revealed. Yeah, absolutely. No, I love all things musical. I've got passion for it and hope to continue doing all of that in the future. Well, in the dark room. I mean, I recall when Greg was over in Islington at the invitation of Troy Galloway, when Troy was mayor there, you were one of the guests he spoke to that weekend and that was the first that I'd heard that you were... You had been chosen as the London mayor and it was even clear back then that you were really looking forward to coming over and looking forward to the whole Mary experience and to the festival. Obviously, to win it is the icing on the cake. Oh, 100%. Like, as I said, on stage on Sunday night, like it's even be chosen as a Mary is an incredible honour. So to be chosen as the Mary as Roshan Fada is just... Well, like I was in Belfast Airport last night coming back over to London again and people are recognising me in a tracksuit. So it was... It's just incredible. And congratulations. And I know you will be a great mayor because one of the responsibilities, per se, of the Mary is to promote Donegal abroad and I have no doubt that you will be promoting Donegal in London right, left and centre. And I've know that you've been doing that already, actually, knowing you. In terms of the year, I mean, it's something that I know a lot of Mary's taken seriously, that there is this sort of feeling that, no, I'm going to be an ambassador for Mary from Donegal. I'm going to be an ambassador from Donegal. And it's something people do take seriously. And as I said, knowing you, I know that that's something you're going to take really seriously, indeed. Absolutely. I think there's a real need for... a real want and a need for things like the Mary from Donegal Festival. And I now have the opportunity to promote the festival, Donegal, Donegal, and Ireland on a much larger scale in London after their faith. And I'm going to the St Patrick's Day Parade in New York. So that's incredible. It's promoting the Mary from Donegal Festival, Donegal, in a whole other continent. It's madness. The other, the Gayburn Perpetual Crown too. It's a reasonably new addition to the Mary paraphernalia in honour of Gayburn, who obviously has huge associations with Donegal and whose family still have a home locally. Yeah. They're children are quite very often in Donegal. They have a house down there. And Gayburn is remembered very fondly. And Donegal, he was considered one of the best in Ireland. And it's just an incredible honour to see he passed after my win. Yeah. I can tell you, Caitlyn, the messages are coming in. Huge congratulations today to Caitlyn on winning Mary from Donegal. So proud of you with love from Nani and Granddad McGinley. A big shout out to my beautiful niece, Caitlyn. So proud of her. I've no doubt she'll continue to be a fantastic ambassador for Donegal, Donegal and Ireland. That's lots of love from Auntie Onia. And also, well done to Caitlyn from Mum Claire and from Oren and from Hannah. And so say all of us. Caitlyn, well done indeed. And may you have a enjoyable and fulfilling year in the role. Thank you very much. OK, Caitlyn, it's been our pleasure. Thank you and congratulations again. Thank you very much. OK, that's Caitlyn Fender. Caitlyn is the new Mary from Donegal. She was crowned at the Crowning Cabaret on Sunday night, as we said, born in London, raised in Balabafe and Andlery County, obviously, with a lot of family still here, currently in London, where she's done her teacher training. She's currently working with the students Union at St. Mary's College in Twickenham and then will teach for a few years in London with the plan of eventually coming home. Now, one or two callers, how many people died of COVID last month in Ireland and Donegal, please? I don't have those immediate figures to hand. We'll see what we can do. The caller says, I totally agree as regards to flu, but in the whole epidemic of COVID, we were protecting ourselves so well with the wearing of masks and sanitizing that I had no flu or infection. The minute I start to let my guard down slowly, I get the sore throat, et cetera. It's a fair point. The caller says, my granddaughter works in Berlin. She's home to visit me. She got off the bus in Straban, went to get a bite tweet in Lifford. When going into pay, she realized she'd lost her purse, which has her passport in it. She needs her passport to go back out on Thursday. If anyone has come across it, could they please get in touch and if they could call Stephen, please on 0749146333. So if you have found a passport in a purse, could you please contact 0749146333? It's a young lady who is working in Berlin. She's home to visit her grand, home to visit, got off the bus in Straban, went for a bite tweet in Lifford and realized then she'd lost her purse while she was in Lifford. So the passport is obviously, if we can get the purse back and any money in it, all the better. But really, really important is the passport. So you can please call 0749146333. Just want to just remind you that if you want to get in touch with the program, you can do so, 0749125342, both Caroline and Donna Marie taking calls outside. You can text us on 0866025000. You can use that number for WhatsApp messages as well. You can use social media at Highland Radio on Twitter. It's Highland Hub on Facebook. You can email comments at highlandradio.com. And of course, if you prefer to use the old-fashioned method of sending a letter, that's always appreciated. You can send letters to Ninth Hill Noon Show, Highland Radio, Pine Hill, Mountaintop, Letter Kenny. That's Ninth Hill Noon Show, Highland Radio, Pine Hill, Mountaintop, Letter Kenny. We're going to take a short break. The news headlines with Emma coming up after this. Are you interested in becoming part of a dynamic sales team? Do you have sales experience, along with an understanding of digital and social media? If so, we'd love to talk to you. Send your CV to jobs at highlandradio.com before Friday, 5th of August. The award-winning Genesis Aesthetics and Skin Care Clinic, you do work now offers a wide range of skin boosters. The injectable moisturizer for under eyes that improves dark circles, fine lines and wrinkles. Also treating the face, neck, chest and hands. This amazing treatment works from the inside out resulting in brighter, smoother plumper skin. For help choosing the right aesthetic treatment for you, contact Mary Ferry, your aesthetic practitioner. You can download the Genesis app or call 0749532575. Water's calm, sun shining, perfect for paddle boarding, but conditions can change quickly. This is Water Safety Ireland. Be prepared, get the right training. Always wear a life jacket, never paddle board alone and bring a phone in a waterproof bag. For advice on paddle boarding and more, visit watersafety.ie. Better safe than sorry. Supported by the Government of Ireland. This is the New Show on Highland Radio. It's 11 o'clock, time for the news headlines and we say good morning, Emma Ryan. Thanks, Donald. Good morning. Gardie renewed their appeal for information following a serious collision on the letter Kenny to Remelton Road last Thursday evening. The collision involving a motorcycle and a bike and a car occurred at around 6.50 p.m. on Thursday at Castle Shannon. The motorcycle was taken to hospital and remains there for treatment for his injuries. Four parish priests are set to retire as the Bishop of Ruffaux has announced a number of clerical changes for the dioceses of Ruffaux. The changes are to take effect from August 20th and 21st. Bishop Alan McGuckian thanked the priests for all their generosity and says he prays that retirement affords him a well-earned rest. Two hotels in Donegal are among the 10 hotels in the country earning millions by housing Ukrainian refugees. According to tender documents published by the Department of Integration, McGedigan's hotel in Letter Kenny has been awarded a contract worth 3.7 million euro. The contract secured by Grand Central Hotel in Bondorn is worth almost 2.5 million euro for providing the hotel for use as temporary accommodation. A voluntary critical care doctor with a community air ambulance service is while extending the service to Donegal in the Northwest would be desirable. Securing it would be very difficult and a complex process. Jerry Leigh and a former emergency department consultant at Letter Kenny University Hospital says the service is not supported in any way by the state and securing an air ambulance for the region would require voluntary contributions in the region of 2.5 million euro a year. Meanwhile, the number of people waiting over 24 hours in emergency departments this year has tripled. Over 24,000 patients spent over a day waiting for a bed in the ED from January to May. That includes over 8,000 patients who were over the age of 75. And finally, petrol stations may have to ration fuel at the pumps for only essential workers if there are oil shortages this winter. It's one of the contingency plans being locked up by the government's emergency energy group. It's meeting today to discuss how to deal with the worst case scenarios of low fuel stocks caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's all for now. We'll be back with an update at 12 o'clock, but until then, good morning. At Ulster Bank, we are closing. And as a bank that is closing, we have reduced some of our services. What this means for our customers is reduced counter-services in branch, no foreign exchange or night-save services, and less Ulster Bank ATMs. For customers who still have current or deposit accounts, you really do need to start considering other options. Our branches remain open, and we are here to help. Switch your clothes at any Ulster Bank branch or log on to UlsterBank.ie. Ulster Bank Ireland DAC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Text 086-60-25000. This is the Naintil Nyncho on Highland Radio Donald Kavanaugh with you for the next hour. And we're joined on Zoom now by Dr. Monica Murphy, who is the author of What Could Prove for some people to be a very important book indeed, the manager's handbook for a new world of work. Monica, good morning. Good morning, Donald. Thank you for having me and hello to all your listeners. It is our pleasure. Monica, we know that COVID changed a lot of things, and one of the things that has really changed is the world of work. And the numbers of people working from home, the number of people getting used to that new reality is huge. And what's now interesting is the number of people who have gone into long-term hybrid arrangements or long-term working-at-home arrangements. And for some companies and for some employers, it's a whole new world and it's something you've been paying a lot of attention to. Yeah, I've been writing this book, I suppose, over the last two years during the repeated lockdowns. And my work, my day job is I own a training and development company. So we do a lot of training with managers and various companies, various industries. And what I started to observe was that there were changes coming anyway pre-COVID. There was a lot of focus on wellness, on employee well-being and people wanting more flexibility. So COVID kind of really sped all of that up. And so I decided to start working on a handbook that might prove useful to managers who would have to emerge into this new reality where we have to rely on trust and we have to, if we're gonna be at the races as it were, if we're gonna compete in the marketplace, we're gonna have to offer people some flexibility, real initiatives around wellness because the free fruit Friday and the free this and the free that was just not cutting it for employees. I mean, people certainly have a certain age group would prefer a couple of hours extra off on a Friday to get their big shop done so that they're not squeezing everything into the weekend rather than some of these token gestures which were well-meaning by organizations but often weren't doing enough really to really relieve the pressure on some employees. So the book is seven chapters around the themes of how managers can help themselves and their employees to emerge into this new world in a successful way. Now, it's going to be very different depending on how big the company is, how many employees the company has and also how important it is to the employer that the employee is in their place of work. I mean, for instance, I don't have an option to work from home because I need access to a studio. I need access to microphones. I need access to transmitters. So I do not have access at home to the equipment I need in order for me to do my job. So it's just not possible at this point in time to run a newsroom from home. So I came to work all the way through COVID and continue to do so now. So much as I may and the government is saying they want to give people the right to work if they want to work from home. I mean, sometimes I'd love to work from home but it's just not an option. And that's going to continue to be the case for a number of companies. Yeah, and you're right. I mean, it's not going to be one-size-fits-all by any means. However, you know, there are a lot of organizations where some of the roles can be completed, you know, or some of the work can be done from home some of the time. So what we're seeing now with our clients is there's a lot of policies around kind of a hybrid balancing option where people might be in the office for two days and they're at home for the three days. Even in sectors like construction, you know, we are beginning to see a shift towards naturally engineers and surveyors and that would be expected to be on site a lot of the time. But as they become more senior in their roles, there's work that they can do that they actually have to do on a computer. And oftentimes that can be disruptive when you're on site because people are interrupting you all the time. So you could get a lot of work done in a, you know, in a home or a remote setting that you wouldn't get done necessarily in work. And I also, you know, think from, certainly from the conversations I've been having with employees and with managers is that they're often more productive at home for lots of reasons because there isn't the chit chat going on. There isn't the, you know, half hour conversation in the morning by the weekend was, and don't get me wrong. That's all very useful, but it really comes back to the balance. And that's really what the book is around trying to help managers, you know, get the balance right around how they manage themselves in the first instance, how they lead, by example. Another trend we're seeing in our businesses, you know, some managers sort of making demands of people that they come back to the office. And there really is no other reason for it other than the manager is not as digitally literate as they should be. So there's a whole piece around digital literacy and digital leadership that needs to happen as well. So I, if I'm a manager, it's my job to be able to hold a meeting that is engaging and inspiring on Zoom. I need to be able to meet a client and maybe sell them a service or a product on Zoom. So, you know, it's just, I think there's a fear factor around it as well that people are, oh, that's uncomfortable for me. I have to learn how to do those things. I'm not good online. I prefer to meet people in person. And, you know, there is a certain amount of that that you will have to meet people in person, but there's a huge amount of it that can happen online. And I think this is a fantastic opportunity. I'm a business owner, but yet I say this is a fantastic opportunity for us to claw back a bit of our lives that work has taken over. And, you know, there's only seven people in my organization, but yet, you know, we do try and practice what we preach. If you don't need to be there, stay at home. If you want to come in for social, you know, or a team building or to meet a client by all means do. But like one of the reasons I left work, Donald, you know, and set up my own business 11 years ago was because of that pressure of having to be somewhere from Monday to Friday, nine to five and having to put my whole life, all my other interests into 48 hours of the weekend. So I think this is a great opportunity for employers to think creatively about how we can offer real flexibility and real remote working options in a way that works for the business and works for the people that will keep good people because the great resignation is very real. There are thousands and thousands of people leaving their jobs and opting for a more flexible option. I think COVID made people realize that you can do it less. If all you're living on, if you have to live on 350 a week and you have two of those coming into a house, that's actually doable. And you get a huge impact on your quality of life, the time you're spending with your family, it's the time to exercise. So employers need to be kind of smart about this and offer people real positive reasons for staying with them rather than moving on to somewhere that's got a more flexible. The other thing that I think for many people remote working has done is it's actually, you might have had someone, if we take, we'll take Galway for instance, someone in Chum might have a meeting in Galway City. So they've got to leave their office in Chum, drive into Galway City, not always the easiest thing to do, find parking in Galway City, an even harder thing to do, go to the meeting, come out, drive back to the office in Chum. So they've had their meeting, but they've also taken an hour and a half to two hours on the road and parking and going through all of that. If they're at home, they can have had another two meetings over the course of that hour and a half to two hours that people can actually do more. And maybe one of the important things is, and I'm sure this is something you've come across, is if people are conversant with and skilled at sort of things like file sharing protocols and sending files and sharing documents and being able to do that. I mean, you can get an awful lot done at a meeting, arguably at times, if you actually have a split screen opened and you're working on a document together, you can possibly do it faster than faith the faith. Absolutely, and this is where we run a course called digital leadership literacy because it's to encourage managers to give these things a try, to give the very people know how to use Zoom, but they don't know the intricate features of it often. They don't know what some of these WebEx, some of these platforms can really do for productivity. So it's just to give people an opportunity to learn more about that and to trust themselves that they can conduct really engaging positively, positive outcomes of work through technology and clawback so much of their personal lives. And as you say, being off the road, but it also feeds into our climate problem in a huge way. I mean, I was listening to your previous speaker there about the specials conserved areas around Donegal. I'm actually originally from Litur myself, so I'm well familiar with the Donegal coastline, but yeah, it absolutely feeds into that as well. And I think, so the managers, particularly managers, because leaders and the owners of the business will set the strategy in many ways and the people who work in the business will come in and do whatever's asked of them generally. But as the managers who would be the game changers about how open, how trusting they are, how good they are at also accountability because trust works both ways. It's not a case of, oh, let everybody go home and hope for the best. The manager has to be kind of clever enough to check in at the right times to keep that relationship open, to have outcomes set so that they can be checked against and things like that. So that's why I wrote the book really, I suppose, was to kind of help them link in with all of those new skills that wouldn't have been required when someone's sitting beside you or sitting near you. Can I put one of the potential downsides to you? Sure, yeah. And that's this. Previously, if someone lived at home and their office was, we'll say, half a mile down the road, they leave their office at five o'clock. They lock the door behind them, they go home. They are now home. They leave the house, they drive to the office. They're now in the office. The problem now is, in some cases, people will have their office in the room next door to the kitchen. People will be walking past their office if they're going to the loo. And in many cases, I've heard of people who will, I'll just go in and check an email. Or, oh, Mary told me that we need to have a look at this before the night is out and I'll just go in and I'll just do that one and I'll send that message to Tom. And what actually is starting to happen in some cases, I'm hearing certainly anecdotally, is that people are actually doing a lot more work because they're not having that differentiation between office and home. That effectively, they'll just nip in and send an email after tea. And the next thing they know, they're putting in an extra hour or two's work between eight and nine o'clock at night because they're living in their office. Yeah, and there has been research and studies on this to suggest that people have been more productive during the pandemic at home, up to 33% more productive because of that, because of them wanting to prove that they are actually working, that they have achieved whatever was expected of them. But I'll put it to you like this, as was done, that's been around for a long time anyway because of the nature of our phones. You don't even need to be walking to the toilet and you don't need to be walking, you're sitting and you're sitting trying to watch Love Island or something and you remember something because it triggers something on the telly, it triggers you to something you've got to do. So you pick up the phone and you're straight into your work email. So I don't think it's like, that's more of a mental problem I would say than a working from home problem. That's more of a kind of a psychological mindset where people, and the good news is that it gets better the more you do it, it gets easier the more you do of it. If you can try and discipline yourself that I'm putting the pen down at five o'clock or I'm getting up at six AM and I'm putting the pen down at 12 PM and I'm gonna take the afternoon off and that's what real flexibility looks like. If there's employers like in my business, for example, you might be doing course development. You don't need to be in front of a client for another couple of days. So you're doing your research and that could be from six AM if somebody works well at that time of the day up until 12 and then that's them finished. It's about outcomes more than hours. So, but it is a challenge but I think it's not one that's insurmountable once the person has a good relationship again with their manager and they explain to them that look, this is my plan for working this week. I've got to pick the kids up at two so I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna have X, Y and Z done and I'm gonna do this. So it's just that communication piece to where people don't feel guilty about when they've got their hours put in that they're able to close the door, turn off the phone and it's as much an individual challenge I think and as I say, a mental mindset as it is anything else. A good manager will not be expecting you to reply when you've done your time for the day unless it's an emergency or an urgency. And again, you made a good point earlier it depends on the size of the business. If you've got a very small business that relies on two or three key people you might have to do an extra email but the other side of that is work and life are blending together better. So I don't mind if I'm back online at six o'clock for something for an hour because I was off for two hours during the day to be able to pick up my kids or have a lunch or go for a walk. So I don't think it's as much, you know again, it's in the mind and people will know if they're doing too much work they'll know because they're not relaxed they're not getting their exercise they're not eating well. And so then it's time for them to say look I'm just gonna park it now and get a better system going next week where I actually do take my lunch and take my walk and that. So it is a challenge but not one I don't think that can be overcome. And the key word there is communication that we need to have communication between managers and employees and you know have laid out clear what's expected on both sides. Absolutely and we're coming into September even I've been working with my own team I have twin girls who started school in September so I've said look I'll be available to be online or to go somewhere from half nine until half one these days a week. And then the other days my husband is there so I can go to Dublin or I can go to Donegal or wherever I need to be. So it's just about that kind of early planning and organization and you know yeah I love an old plan and being organized but it allows you to be sort of spontaneous then because if a meeting is canceled you do have the afternoon off. So it's just about I suppose that planning and communication as you say but so yeah the book is a kind of a kind of as I say seven chapters of that sort of thing like communication considerations. Chapter two is they're not your people they never were. One of the things that really bugs me when I'm working with companies around the country and around the world is people referring to I have 10 people working under me or I have you know so and so works for me. The reality of it is somebody can come in and give you their notice any day of the week and they're gone. They're no longer your people. So I think if we get out of that mindset of they're my people they are your colleagues they give you their services for money. You know that's it. And there's a huge shift in the labor market where people are moving leaving jobs and going somewhere else. So if we've trained you know that's for managers to try and get their head around that they're not your people they're their own people and it's what we can do together. We've know the chapter in time and attention being your most precious resources because truthfully I could be in the office five days a week and get diddly squat on because my attention is not there my focus is not there. So it's about how if I have only 25 minutes to do something how do I really make sure that I knocked it out of the park in 25 minutes. The next chapter is about enabling performance from a remote setting. So how do we set up expectations? Check on those expectations, trust people. Naturally people who are early on in their career will need more guidance, will need more check-in than someone who's in the job 10 or 11 years who's trusted to you know to deliver on their expectations. Chapter six is about hiring people doing Zoom interviews, hiring people remotely. And chapter seven is a bit of a contradiction. It's called being consistently flexible with people. I think that's the name of the game for the next 100 years is being consistently flexible because look, we're all human at the end of the day and work has become a massive slice of our life. And I think we need to put it back in its box a little bit and make it relatively equal to our home life, our health, our own happiness. Look at our numbers around mental health, around sickness in the country. We just need to rebalance it a little bit. So maybe that'll be my next book that I'll write about. And the book is The Manager's Handwork for a New World of Work. Dr. Monica Murphy, thank you very much indeed. Can I just say, Donal, where the book can be got? Absolutely, you can. I have it in a couple of bookstores down around here in the southeast and southwest at the moment. I'm still working on some of the bookshops in Donegal, but it's available on our website, which is M-O-N-E-R-E www.M-O-N-E-R-E development services.com and you'll find it in there. So we'd be delighted to pop a few copies in the post and get them up to Donegal if anyone's interested in them. So thank you. Dr. Monica Murphy, thank you very much indeed. Thank you for having me, bye-bye. It has been our pleasure. That's Dr. Monica there. And the book, as we say, The Manager's Handwork for a New World of Work. Now, it's 20 past 11. We're going to take a short break back after these. Want unbeatable value from Sky? Here's the deal. Get Sky broadband for just 29 euro a month plus SkyQ for only 10 euro a month. Super fast, super reliable broadband and SkyQ with your apps and recordings. That's Sky broadband for 29 euro a month plus SkyQ for 10 euro a month for 12 months. Now that is unbeatable value. Go to Sky.ie. Availability subject to location. Offer does not include Sky TV subscription. New Sky customers only. Set up fees, minimum term and further terms apply. For more info, see Sky.ie slash speeds. Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why. The EuroMillions jackpot is a guaranteed 17 million euro. Clear responsibly, in-store, in-app or at lottery.ie. The National Lottery. It could be you. Charlie McLeafordy, Funeral Directors. Serving letter Kenny in the surrounding areas for over 100 years. Charlie McLeafordy, Funeral Directors. Let our family take care of your family and guide you through a difficult time. Call now on 074 91 25000. You'll have heard on the news over the past couple of weeks that 200 jobs being created in letter Kenny over the course of the next while. By FinTru, they're establishing a European delivery centre in letter Kenny. They have already got a presence in Derry and in Belfast, I believe as well. As part of the process, they're holding a recruitment drive at the Radisson Hotel in letter Kenny on Thursday evening next and delighted to say that I'm joined on Zoom by Greg McCann, who's the Executive Director and Head of FinTru Northwest. Greg, good morning. Morning, Donald, how are you? Very well indeed, thank you. Greg, I know you're well established in Derry and FinTru's going very well there. What was the motivation behind coming 25 miles down the road to letter Kenny? So FinTru, a very rapidly growing company, Donald established only, what, in 2013, and 1,000 jobs created in that space of time. So the company itself is growing very, very fast. They work in the global banking system. Clients are global banks. These are banks that you would get in letter Kenny or in Derry, they can invest in the banking sector. You would get in the city of London or Wall Street. So it's a huge sector. FinTru is growing very, very rapidly within that. And what we do is we offer solutions to the regulatory issues that these banks have. We do technology-enabled solutions with them and help them meet their regulatory objectives, which are very heavy and very difficult for them. So we work on that space. It's a huge market, it's massive and we're growing very rapidly within it. So we opened in Derry, what, four years ago, created 300 with 320 people here in Derry at the moment. And we continually have more growth, more clients. I think we've passed them a check with 14 different banks. So we're obviously looking to expand. We're looking where it makes sense for us to invest and expand and letter Kenny made a lot of sense. It's very close to us here to our premises. Derry, obviously, that helps us when we go to start up. And key to it is probably the ATU is there. So yeah, the university is important to us. L-Y-T becoming a university is good for letter Kenny. It's good for the region and something that definitely interested us. And that was definitely part of it because Ulster University and then Northwest Regional College were key to us being here in Derry. So because we employ a lot of graduates as well. And plus you have the Northwest Science Park where you've got the ATU linking up with, say, Catalyst and the site at Fort George there, which is going to be very important as well. Absolutely, and we work with a Catalyst Accident. We're involved Catalyst and we're looking to leverage that as well and letter Kenny, which is another exciting thing of what we're looking to do. So it made a lot of sense and we were looking for a European base as well with the Brexit and it just made a lot of sense that letter Kenny made a lot of sense in many ways and we're close to the ADA. And yeah, we're coming to letter Kenny. We're very excited about it. So the Radisson Blue Hotel in letter Kenny on Thursday evening between six and eight. It's a sort of a, to a certain extent, this is come in, have a look, see what we are, see what we're looking for, see what you have to offer. We'll have a chat and see where we go from there. Yeah, so we have a nice 300 jobs over five years and we also have a fountry speed. So we did, it was to be 300 jobs and there are five years and we got like three and a half. So no doubt we'll do a quick on that. But so we're very aware we got that nice couple of weeks ago and this is our follow up to it and people probably don't understand what fountry is. It's not the simplest thing to explain sometime, you know what it is. So if you want to come along and have a chat, it's an opportunity. We have jobs in our website already for letter Kenny. You can see them and if you want our website there and for the event itself, it's on our website as well on the careers thing. We'd like people to register, but you don't have to register if you just want to come along. That's fine, you know, and it's more to meet the team, meet what we do, you know, to find out about us, kind of the rules that are going to be available over the next next year. And we also have our academy there as well. So we will work with A2. We've already launched our first letter academy. So that will be 20 graduates will take from ATU. We've launched at the minute. It's closed in the 18th of August. So any graduates right there and letter Kenny should look at that and apply to that. So that's actually open at the moment. So people there are talking about that as well. And obviously we'll have our kind of corporate benefits and career opportunity people there as well. They have a chat about the kind of things we offer and sort of life at Fentry. Yeah. We have just coincidentally just been having a discussion with a management consultant about the whole issue of working from home and the new way work has been structured. And I'm sure you're looking at a hybrid system as well. In terms of a premises, have you identified a premises in letter Kenny? Will you be developing a larger premises or will you be working on the basis that a lot of your staff will work from home so you won't necessarily need physical space for 300 people? So we are looking at premises. That's kind of advanced stage at the moment. Hopefully we'll be able to announce something that soon. In the meantime, we have premises down in ATU and co-labs and the unit's down there. So we're starting with that. Yes, with people working from home, we're employee learning that. We've asked people what do they want to do. So we have premises in very operating so people can come in, whatever, what they do is they have an app and they go on, they book their day in, whatever they want to come in. So we work on the hybrid model at the minute, working very, very well. But yes, we will have premises in letter Kenny. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of the future, it's a very important one, obviously. And we've seen over the years when Optum's predecessors, Pacific Air, I think they were called initially and when Primerica came in first, I mean, they came in small and they became really important parts of employment in letter Kenny and the wider Donegal. And it's looking certainly from what you're saying, as though Fintry was going to occupy that same sort of space and we can hopefully see more growth in the future. Absolutely. Fintry are a hugely ambitious company, very, very rapid growth. If you look at it with an awful lot of awards, recognize it really, really good with the two, great people to work for, hugely ambitious for their own letter Kenny and we only see that grown. It makes a lot of sense to us. The global market is absolutely massive. We're grown rapidly. We have a very tiny piece of it. We're very ambitious. We have offices in New York and Maastricht and we're looking at other openings as well. So coming from rapidly, it's in the right market at the right time. So yeah, we're hugely ambitious for letter Kenny. We see the 300 has just been the start of it. Greg McCann, the executive director and head of Fintry Northwest, thanks very much indeed for speaking to us, fintry.com forward slash careers and more details obviously about the open day in the Radisson on Thursday between six and eight as well. But we'll go on to Greg, thank you. Thank you Don, thank you very much. It's been our pleasure. That's Greg there from Fintry and as we said, you'll get more details on that online fintry.com forward slash careers. Getting value on your shopping has never been more important. That's why at Supervalue we have great offers like save 33% in our Irish steak sale, Heineken 50 and Pat Cahn's only 25.45, that's lowest price guaranteed and get new weekly money off vouchers on the real rewards app. For low prices that compete with anyone, it's got to be Supervalue. Enjoy alcohol responsibly. Tonight at the 53rd Clumb Money Festival, it's Mike Denver. Tomorrow Wednesday, it's David James followed by Derek Ryan. Log on to clumbmanifestival.com for a full program. It's time for a new Nissan 222. We have an award winning range, so call into iMotor's Nissan in Lederkenny or Mallon with the new Nissan cash guy and Nissan Micro available for immediate delivery. Get amazing discounts on all your home essentials in the Foy and Company summer sale. Re-vamp your interiors for less with up to 50% off selected lines across all departments. There's great value in the furniture department with offers on bedroom, living room and dining room furniture. Chat with our interior design and colour experts to find out how you can make over your home on a budget with the Foy and Company summer sale online and in store in Lederkenny and Valley Buffet. While stocks last. Text 086 60 25000. Inflation is one of the issues that we are all talking about and we're all concerned about. And coming up to Christmas, we're looking at the prospect of inflation topping 10%. And a lot of people worried about the expense associated with the end of the year, not to mention the expense associated with getting children back to school. And that's coming up now in the next number of weeks and a huge amount of concern about that. You may have heard indeed a clip with Emma on the news earlier on this morning. John Low is author and founder of Money Doctors and John joins us on Zoom. John, good morning. Good morning, John. John, one of the... And we have this discussion so often, but it's always such a worry for people that when people are in need of money for the back to school and for the other expenses they're facing at this time of year, one of the temptations may be to go to a money lender and that's a big none-all. Absolutely. You know, there are a number of steps, really. If you look at the lending hierarchy, you've got the banks, you've got the credit unions, even the Post Office now are starting to get into loans. But at the bottom of that hierarchy are the money lenders. There are actually, don't know, 35 authorized money lenders and are authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland, by the way. And these money lenders, they're relatively decent people, but they can charge up to 200% per annum in terms of interest. So you look at the unauthorized, they're the ones who really you need to avoid like-to-play because these unauthorized money lenders can charge up to 2,000% and they can use strong-arm tactics. So, you know, certainly I would rather go to say a credit union or a bank before going to the authorized money lenders. And I'd certainly, if, you know, you haven't got the credit with all, you haven't got the ability to repay any loan, I mean, wouldn't think twice about going to St. Vincent de Paul or one of the other great social outfits out there that are there to help. And indeed, Mabs is there as well of people are in difficulty. I mean, Mabs can be a very good place to go to maybe just to try and get things back on track. And if you're facing the pressure of back to school, maybe it's a good time to have your finances looked at and maybe be ordered. That's actually a very good point on because actually back on track.ie is their own head site. So, back on track.ie. So, I mean, Mabs are an excellent, you know, kind of an authorized, they're also the law of Ireland. The problem is that you can take a long time to get an appointment to see them. Because there's so many people who are kind of in trouble and need help. But, you know, for those with debts of under 35,000 and they're unsecured debts, Mabs are also the unauthorized intermediary. They're the ones you would go to for those where they may, it could even write down the entire amount if you haven't got the money. It's as simple as that. You know, all money is based on the ability to repay. If you don't have that ability to repay, how in the name of God can you pay it back? One of the things you're stressing, John, and it's good advice, is that people can start planning and budgeting and, you know, check out things like secondhand books. Does the school operate a book loan scheme? If it doesn't, is it time to talk to the school about potentially operating a book loan scheme? Look at things like lunches, how they're going to operate. And look at the uniform. And maybe don't necessarily buy the cheapest, because sometimes buying the cheapest is not going to give you the best value. Absolutely, but you could also buy, you know, a non-designated, you know, generic type of, you know, uniform could be the jumper or the skirt or whatever. And then you can put the school badge on afterwards. There's all sorts of things. Even, I wouldn't dismiss charity shops by the way. Yeah. charity shops, you know, you'll find that some of these people, you know, charity shops are now getting very, you know, touchy about who brings in what. They want good stuff. They're not going to get stuff that is, you know, you wouldn't be seen dead in. So you could actually find that you've got a pretty decent uniform at a rock bottom price. So don't discount charity shops. And you're right about the budget because all, basically all of it is about the amount of money that's committed to your house and the amount of expense that you have. And it really, at the end of the day, it's about, you know, how much does it cost you to run your life on a monthly basis? And once you have established that, you look at that expenditure list and you ask yourself two questions. One, do I need it? Two, is there a better cheap alternative? That's how you're going to save money. And as you said, if people do need to borrow, perhaps the credit union, the best way of doing so, because that's certainly where you'll get a sympathetic hearing from people who are part of the community and we'll very possibly know you and certainly you'll be better going to a credit union than going to a money lender. Certainly not an authorized one, but even an authorized one, that the credit union really is the optimal option. Absolutely, Donald, because, you know, you look at the rates of that, maybe seven and a half, eight cents. So the rates are, first of all, decent. But as you said, they know them, but there's more than two million people that have a credit union account. So there's every like that. You know that you can only go to your local credit union where you live or where you work. There are the two conditions that you need to comply with. I want to ask you, John, before I let you go, about another story in the papers today and that's on the front page of The Independent that the Department of Social Protection are looking at, as it were, linking pension and social welfare payments to the average industrial wage and the idea being that it'll be benchmarked to the extent that if the average industrial wage goes up, then pensions and social welfare payments will go up with it. It looks on the face of it to be a very desirable and progressive move. Would you concur? Absolutely. I mean, you know, if inflation is going to go at 10% this year and it continues going up next year, well, there's absolutely no way that your 253 euros, 30 cents weekly state pension is going to be worth the same amount of money next year. So that's an obvious move I would have thought at all that the government, and again, it's probably timely for election time as well, that they're going to add on a kind of a percentage, you know, that will allow that to happen so that the inflation is not going to erode what money that you are getting. John Lowe, as always, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. Thank you very much indeed for sharing your expertise with us, John, and that's, as always, very, very good advice indeed. Thank you very much, John. Thank you. Good morning, John. Thank you. Good morning. That is John Lowe, author and founder of The Money Doctors there, and John always won to give very good advice indeed. Someone just asking me to repeat the contact details for Fintru. The website is fintru.com, that's F-I-N-T-R-U.com, and there's details of that open day on Thursday between six and eight at the Radisson Hotel in Letterkenny. Now, a caller just asked if I would give me my bread recipe again. I know it's only got two or three ingredients. I didn't have a pen to hand when you gave it out a few weeks ago. Yes, the famous bread recipe has given to me by an independent counselor in Waterford called Mary Roach, and this is Mary's bread recipe. It's absolutely perfect. You get equal amounts of self-raising flour and natural yogurt. You mix them together in a big bowl, and you put them in a loaf tin, and then you put that in at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes. I usually use the 500-mil tub of yogurt. I usually put in about... Because you're never going to get a full 500 out of it, so I will put in about 475 grams of self-raising flour. Mix them up, grease up a loaf tin, put them into the loaf tin, and into the oven, 180 for about 30 minutes, and that is the bread recipe. Now, you can improve it, and what I sometimes do is I will soak some raisins in cold tea overnight, and then put in, if you have some mixed spice, or just some cinnamon, some nutmeg, and some coriander and ginger. And if you get either a mixture of, to your own taste, of ginger, nutmeg, coriander, and cinnamon, or you can just buy the little jars of mixed spice, Schwartz do them, and all the other Tesco do them, and all providers put them together wherever you do your shopping. You can get that little jar of mixed spice, put a nice liberal dollop of that in with the raisins and the cold tea, mix it up together, leave that to one side in the fridge for about 24 hours, then you can mix that, just mix the soaked fruit in with the mixture as well, and it makes a lovely sort of a fruit cake. So that's the bread recipe. Basically, it's equal amounts, natural yogurt and self-raising flour, and if you wish, you can add in the raisins soaked in tea and mixed spice, just to give it a bit of extra flavor. It's 21 minutes to 12 noon, coming toward the end of the show, but as it's the middle of the summer, let's just, compilation of my sort of top 20 songs of the 1990s, that's going to be on it, Nina Cherry and Yosha Undur, and that is seven seconds. Now, as you will recall, the Eurovision Song Contest this year was won by Ukraine, and sadly, for obvious reasons, Ukraine cannot host it. So it has been determined that Eurovision will be hosted next year in the UK, and a system has been put in place where cities and councils can bid to host the Eurovision, and the process of bidding is getting underway very shortly, and the suggestion has been made by Austrian-Unionist Alderman Derrick Hussie that Derrick City and Sturban District Council be one of the bidding councils. Derrick, good morning. Good morning, John. Pleasure to have you, Derrick. Thanks, indeed, for joining us this morning. A lot of logistical issues around this, but you believe this is doable. It's time to be ambitious and reach for the stars. Absolutely. I mean, our events team in Derrick City and Sturban Council have a fantastic record of delivering world-class events. I mean, we've only just had the final end of the Maritime Festival, the Triple Race, et cetera, hosting the Power Cup at the same time. Anyone will tell you the place to be at Halloween is in the city of Lombardy. So when I had this thought, I contacted one of our events team and made the suggestion the response back was very simply, why not? So, you know, our team in the city and in the district, how they can do attitude. So, as the team themselves say, why should we not consider the feasibility of submitting a bid to host the 2023 Eurovision Bank? And certainly, questions will be asked. Do Derrick and Sturban have the hotel capacity that will be necessary? And I have no doubt people in Donegal will be saying, excuse us, we have plenty. People in Fermanagh will say we have plenty. People right across Tyrone will say we have plenty. That this isn't just going to be about Derrick and Sturban. I mean, if this were to happen, this is going to bring in Donegal and Fermanagh and the wider Tyrone area because the hotel infrastructure and everything else is going to ensure there is a payback for the entire region and further beyond. Absolutely. You rightly point out the capacity will be needed, but the capacity is there not necessarily with our own district, but throughout the entire Northwest, none of them moving into cause of the coast and lands. So, how though we would be the focus of the bed, it has economic benefit and social benefit to the entire Northwest, which is to be welcomed. The biggest issue, it seems to me, immediately is what venue you would use. I would suspect Millennium Forum is probably too small. Foil arena, a possibility, I'm sure it's going to be looked at, but that would be one of the big issues. I mean, has any venue been proposed or scoped out yet? I'm leaving that in the hands of our very capable officers, you rightly pointed out some of the alternative venues that could be used, but I'm sure there is creative thinking within our team that could perhaps come up with some alternative to the ones that are suggested. Obviously, as I said, Millennium Forum, maybe out of the question, there will be alternatives. It's all part of a feasibility that will be presented to elected representatives to consider. And as you've said, there is a can-do attitude within the actual events team itself, and that's half the battle. If you have buy-in from your officials and if you have buy-in from your colleagues on council, and you certainly do seem to have cross-party buy-in into this one, you know, the stage would appear to be set, if you're pardoned upon, you know, for, at the very least, a credible bid. I would be very disappointed. In fact, you know, I just don't believe it would happen that our team could not feasibly put together a unattractive bid. Now, I realise the competition will be stiff to the best of my knowledge, last I knew, but... And I'm afraid... There will be others throughout the United Kingdom. But, you know, as our team has said, why not? I'm also mindful, Donald, of the fact that we have a considerable number of Ukrainian refugees living in the northwest area, hosted by families and organisations. And, you know, that's something that I would like to see part of our consideration, that we could give a Ukrainian atmosphere together with our, you know, well-known Northern Ireland can-do attitude and welcoming ability that we could have a touch-up Ukraine with them on our submission. And that certainly would be something that would be welcomed, I know, certainly here and right across the region. And that is a very good thought. And it would be important to get them involved in the bid right from the start. Absolutely. I mean, we all know the unfortunate circumstances whereby Ukraine is only able to host. It's their right to host. So, why not have local Ukrainian citizens involved who are here in the area, anyway? This motion went before Dairy City and Stubborn District Council last week. It passed unanimously. And it's always good when something passes unanimously like that. It's an indication that you have the support. And as you said, with the political and with the official and clerical backing behind the bid, it's a very interesting one that we will be watching with very keen interest. Well, we will all be watching with keen interest. We would hope to be successful. Now, I realize there are mountains to be climbed logistically resource-wise and everything else. Some would say, you know, are there not bigger issues that Council should be dealing with? But the social and economic benefit this could bring, not just to the city, but to the entire district, you know, because teams coming to compete in Eurovision, they'll be looking for perhaps areas outside of the city to host them during their presence. I think on, you know, the Special Olympics that will help Ireland, where communities hosted the various teams coming in. I would envisage that sort of approach being part of what we and Dairy City and Stubborn would offer, not just for the city, but for the entire district and region. And the other potentially important thing, too, is obviously this is European broadcasters. So BBC will have a big say in this. BBC have an office in Dairy City. You have Radiofoil there, obviously, and they have sort of some television people based in that office in Dairy as well. So from that point of view, there is a BBC presence in the city as well, and that's important. And that'll maybe, you know, give them an opportunity to get on board with local expertise within the BBC organization. Yeah, absolutely. You know, as you rightly say, the council expertise is there. And let's not forget our tremendous historic link with the organisation via Rosemary Skellman of Rosemary Brown, Dana, 1970, one in Amsterdam. That was something that the council in the area can use as well. So, you know, there's a lot going for a bit. As I say, let's look at the feasibility. If it's considered feasible, let's go for it. Derek Hossi, Alderman Derek Hossi, member of the Sturban District, Dairy City and Sturban District Council. I haven't interviewed you since you were a member of that former organisation. That's... I think that is a muscle memory kicking in there. Derek, thanks very much indeed for speaking to you this morning. And we will watch as I say, with great interest and have no doubt that Donegal will be backing this big time and will be looking forward to the payback from it as well. But for the moment, I ask you, thank you. That's Derek Hossi there. Thanks, Donald. Thank you. It's an interesting one. You know, I mean, does Dairy have the capability of making people welcome? Absolutely it does. To my mind, the only question here is the venue in which it's hold. If you can sort the venue personally, I must be honest. I can see no reason why Dairy City and Sturban District Council shouldn't host the revision. Large range of wall and floor tiles on display and in stock. Over 70 different laminate floors to suit every pocket. Tiler's and Woodfooters available. New Bathware showroom now open. Milford tiles, Wood flooring and Bathware. 083-091-0707. 7. 9. 715. 845. 730 is as far as I'll go. 830. 8. 815. 810. 813. 812. Fine. Great. I want to take in 745. No more negotiations with your children. Now you can set their digital bedtimes. Get the bedtime feature and more with new Vodafone SecureNet to help ensure their time online is well spent. Search Vodafone SecureNet. Vodafone. Together we can. Broadcasting throughout the Northwest and across the world online. This is Highland Radio. Into the final seven and a half minutes of the nine till noon show. Connor says it's long past time for public service pen pushers to get back to the office. Having to spend hours on a phone before someone answers is an absolute insult to the general public. In the meantime we're running up huge telephone bills. I for one would really appreciate the chance to talk to a human being or better still to meet them face to face. That's a comment on the remote working there. Now we're going to go to Susan Gray from Innochon, the founder of PARC, Promoting Awareness Responsibility and Care on Our Roads. And an issue that Susan has raised on many occasions in the past and it's still an issue. Susan, good morning. Susan, one of the issues that you have been commenting on a lot in recent years is the fact that in many cases if a conviction for dangerous driving is not matched to a driving license in court then ultimately the driver just stays on the road and that happens an awful lot more than we might think. Yes, Donald. For a conviction to apply onto Sunday's license the RSA needs to have the driver number as well as the driver's details. Now we've asked time and time again of the RSA. Maya Murdoch, the previous CEO and now Sam Wade, the new CEO to give us figures on how many people have they unsuccessfully been able to match a disqualification with the actual driver. We know that they have what they call a ghost file and on that ghost file there are people who have been disqualified in court either for dangerous driving or drink driving or for accumulating the maximum amount of penalty points and they're disqualified in court. But what you're effectively saying is that even though that penalty is applied in court until such time that they can match that they didn't get the driver number and 100% know they have the right person until they have the driver details and the license or the driver number of the driving license they cannot input that information onto the transports national vehicle driver file and that's where the GARDI gets information from when they stop somebody at the roadside with their new handheld devices this new technology that got a few years ago they need access to the national vehicle driver file at the roadside for instant clarification that the person that they have stopped may have been disqualified and are still driving. It may well be that there are data protection issues involved here but I'm sure a lot of people are going to be very surprised to hear that it's not just automatic that a clerk of the court or a member of Angar the Shia Khanna they can't take the address and the name and then match that to a database of driving license numbers I mean is this data protection or is this an issue of computing why can't this just be done automatically? They need the driver number and if the driver doesn't present this license in court or if he doesn't surrender their license and we know from PQs that we got raised that over 90% squalor in court are not surrendering their license to the RSA. Now if they did if the RSA insisted on this and made sure it happened they would have that driver number now the RSA is excused some people squalor in court do not have a full Irish license they have a foreign license so be it we are concentrating on the people that do have full Irish licenses and yet the RSA has a ghost file and we want to know how many people are on this ghost file which we believe is going nowhere they're hoping they may in future time be able to match the driver with the license that is not good enough we met with Sam Wade he asked us for a meeting we met with him on the 1st of February our main question to him was could he please class with the figures on how many people are on the RSA's ghost file whereby they cannot match the driver with the license and how long have they been on and at what stage are they taken off if they cannot match and that was on the 1st of February don't know we're now in the 2nd of August that's over 6 months ago Sam Wade said on the 1st of February he would get Michael Ronan on that information and the question is and a lot of people can't understand this if I am disqualified why can't someone go to the driving license service and type in Donald Kavana and my address and into their database get my number off the driving license services database and then transfer it over onto the database that they use all the details are there services and various government departments surely it should just be a matter of bringing those databases together and you know the argument would be I would have thought if I am disqualified from driving I have lost any right I may have to the privacy of my driver number yes but obviously it is not working that way because if it was Donald the RSA wouldn't have a ghost file it's a very important point and we look forward to hearing what response you get from Sam Wade and from others and we'll obviously be asking the RSA about this as well in the meantime Susan Time has beaten this I'm afraid I have to say goodbye it's actually a minute to go we will speak about this again Susan thanks for the moment that Susan Gray then from Park and it's a very valid question and it's one that does I think deserve a comprehensive answer thank you to Carla Norr for producing Donna Marie for all her help as well thank you to all of our contributors most of all thank you to you for listening coming up next it's John Breslin around the Northwest but for myself Donald Kavanaugh have a very good day