 Next month it comes as rules around self-isolation for asymptomatic close contacts are to be scrapped at a cabinet meeting this morning providing that those affected have been boosted. Transport Minister Iman Ryan says he hopes this would bring clarity to what is a complicated system. However, he adds there won't be any other restrictions being discussed at this morning's meeting. We're not you to come back to look at those restrictions until later in January. That gives us plenty of time. I think we're all agreed we'll get to the end of this month. These measures will help us kind of keep the country going in a functioning manner, but we wait until the end of January and then it's in February. Touch wood, please, got all going well where we can start easing those restrictions and I'm confident we will be able to. Well the government says the changes to the close contact regulations are based on guidance from the European Centre for Disease Control but DCU professor of immunology, Christine Losher is somewhat skeptical. If I was taken the information that came from the ECDC it was around workplace shortages, it was around staffing. They categorically said there was no scientific evidence to support any of their guidance at all and they made the stipulation that people couldn't be around other vulnerable people. So I'm not sure that that's translated into what we were hearing last night about what's going to happen. A hybrid option for this year's Living Cert is not on the table according to the State Examinations Commission. The Irish Times is reporting today that the option of accredited grades or a written exam won't be considered because the junior cert was cancelled in 2020 and information from the junior cert has been seen as crucial in helping teachers grade students for the senior cycle exams over the past two years. The commission says it's examining other contingency options for this year's cohort. There were 64 COVID infected patients at Letter Kenney University Hospital at eight o'clock last night down from 71 the previous evening. Nationally the number in hospital fell just below a thousandth last night, 997 COVID infected patients being treated across the country, 92 in intensive care, three of those in Letter Kenney. And the Donegal councillor is welcoming new legislation allowing pensioners to purchase their council homes under present regulations. Pensioners can't do so because they're not on the seat of regular income other than their social welfare payments. Well councillor Micheal Nocten says changes in income thresholds are coming in which will address that issue and he says that's only right and proper. It's very important that basically after working all their life and paying for these houses all their life they have the opportunity to buy them out and I think basically you know it's very important that basically you know it was there for other people to go to buy out the houses all allow but the ceiling scale for pensioners was too high because your contributed pension basically was only coming in less than about 12,000 a year and the ceiling was 15,000 so basically there was a sharp fall there of 3,000 so basically there was a fair plan for pensioners who was living in their houses for four years and I think basically this has revived it. Dry and bright this morning with goosebumps of sunshine developing becoming cloudier later with the odd spot of drizzle occurring highest temperatures today 89 degrees celsius in light to moderate south westerly or variable breezes. That's how the radio news we're back with news again at 10 o'clock. You have one new message. Hi Claire, Aunty Dee here. I just wanted to say a big thank you for skipping my party. We had a great night and everyone was so happy you didn't come. Now you take care. I hope to see you soon. Bye. No one will thank you for turning up to work or anything else when you're sick. Stay at home and get a test to protect yourself and others from COVID-19 from the HSC for us all. The 9 till noon show brought you by Kelly's Toyota Port Road Letter Kenny. Explore our wide range of virtual tools at kellystoyota.com and now it's time for the talk of the northwest the 9 till noon show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio and it's a very good morning to you. Four minutes past nine on this Wednesday the 12th of January. I do hope you well and you're very welcome along to another edition of the 9 till noon show here in Highland Radio. Lots coming up on the program. We're going to be having a look at what's happening over in Britain. Boris Johnson facing even more controversy. We're going to have a look at the situation to the change in close contacts. We're going to talk about how your used car may be worth more now than when you bought it before and we're taking your questions on your interior design. New year new house perhaps you know. I think most of us couldn't afford to do massive changes to our properties but you can spend a little and make a big change. We've an expert coming up in the last hour answering all your interior design questions. So how do you get in touch? You know the story. Your WhatsApp protects us on 086-6025-000. 086-6025-000. You can give us a call on 07491-25000. 07491-25000. For outside the Republic by the way for both of those numbers it's 00353 then drop the O. If you want a comment via email well it's comments at HighlandRadio.com it couldn't be easier than that and if you're watching us on our social media a very good morning to you. Good morning to Ireland and Michael already on board. You can watch us on Facebook on Highland Radio News and Sport or on Facebook Highland Radio Hub that is or on YouTube Highland Radio Ireland. Now if that's all you don't want to subscribe to you know you don't want to subscribe to social media you don't want to support Mark Zuckerberg or whatever it might be you can go on to our website and there is a featured box there and if you click on that you can watch YouTube in the browser so you don't need a YouTube account you don't need a Facebook account if you want to watch and engage in the show. If you do subscribe to those services it'd be great if you could give us a subscribe as well particularly on YouTube any new subscribers would be greatly received and you can also hit the bell on both social medias and be reminded when we on this program go live or John Breslin or David James or Kevin or Tommy or Paul or any of the team that stream live on our social media you won't miss any of them. Okay let's start with a look at the news but actually you know what before we start at the news but I'm going to throw the rule book out and just give you an update on the car tax situation because there was a person who contacted us and they wanted to tax their car and I committed to get an answer for them as it relates to when you can do it in person and because they don't use the internet and they don't have a code or whatever can't remember the exact circumstances but motor taxation offices are open between 9 15 a.m. and 12 15 p.m. and 1 15 p.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays so if you want to tax your car in person you can go to your local tax office and tax it between 9 15 and 12 15 well it's between 9 and 3 close for lunch 12 15 to 1 15 and that's on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I said I'd get an answer there and I wanted to and there you have it right the Donegal post very sad news coming out of Balai Shannon and it's not unique to that community but it's been hit hard with with the loss of life of particularly young people as of late the community of Balai Shannon though was shown phenomenal support as they always do for the Whelan family as they come in term two terms with the untimely death of their beloved Kieran Whelan who was a superb musician 40 years of age he passed away in Baltimore Maryland he was say on Saturday sending a shock way through the Ironside town and beyond since his sad passing a GoFundMe page set up by friends of Mr Whelan to raise money to repatriate his remains has raised more than 22 000 euro which is really quite remarkable and I believe the Kevin Beltros too is also working closely with the family as they do it's an amazing organization the Kevin Beltros helping people at the most difficult of times but between their assistance and the generosity of the local community they have will get Kieran home incredibly sad though but as I say just Balai Shannon has as of late taken an awful hit in that regard and may he rest in peace and our thoughts and love with his family the Irish times close contacts to have isolation period cuts before I read this story you know say for instance as it relates to restrictions on hospitality or the live music scene or whatever it can take weeks can't it you know it'd be like yeah it's going to happen is it going to happen kite flying leaks speculation weeks on end weeks on end it takes to make a decision even to reopen that sector you know a lot of people feel now is there a justification for say for instance closing hospitality after eight but it's wait and see let's see what happens but when it comes to close contact and getting people back to work which is a good thing getting people back to work decisions can be made very very quickly and decisions can also be made that really don't align themselves with the ec dc the ec dc say yes you should reduce close contacts the isolation period or get rid it for the fully vaccinated in health or the other areas that are under jobs pressure but what we're going to do is we're going to put the the the baby out with the bath water so to speak and as I say some people will welcome this for others it will bring a little bit of concern but anyway here is the story covert restrictions for close contacts of cases are likely to be relaxed before the weekend if the cabinet gives the go-ahead two proposals from the minister for health Stephen Donnelly when it meets this morning close contacts who have received a booster dose of the vaccine will no longer be required to restrict their movements for five days a move that ministers hope will ease pressure on hospitals and other vital services but you're going to have people who are vulnerable perhaps in the workplace that are going to go hold on you a second but anyway this comes as the omicron wave sweeps across europe and ireland with chief medical officer talk to tony hulan estimating that up to 500 000 people here may have been infected last week while the world health organization warned that half the population of western europe could be infected in the next six to eight weeks but many immunologists at this point now are saying look you know if anyone was going to catch it it you know this is not the worst of it um and that uh you know we are seeing hospitalization figures dip again under a thousand um you know 92 in in icu uh but that is nowhere near where we would have been last year in this situation those with a vaccine are getting a further boost with omicron those who chose not to get a vaccine are are going to get antibodies with omicron and there is a feeling that this is going to leave us in a very positive position providing there are no curve balls uh in in in eight to ten weeks and towards the rest of the year so fingers crossed on that could we possibly be you know moving towards the end of this and that's not to say by the way that i don't understand that there are those of you listening who are suffering from long COVID and the long lasting effects of this by the way i'm not diminishing that in any way shape or form uh right on to the Irish independent today do you ever read stories and you think this this doesn't apply to me and never will apply to me uh but i suppose it depends in which sector you're working uh lots of people now starting to make lots and lots of money uh straight out of college or whatever it might be or straight out of school if they don't go to college there are some really good paying jobs out there and some are even going to get better workers will be offered pay increases up to 20 percent as employers become locked in bidding wars to attract talent a shortage of skilled staff in some high-demand sectors means salaries are set to surge according to uh recruitment agency Morgan McKinley many employees can expect pay increases of as much as five to ten percent which will be welcome news amid the soaring costs of living due to inflation bigger increases of 15 to 20 percent above normal market rates will be offered for those with niche skills a lack of competition from international talent due to pandemic restrictions will play a big part in the upward pressure on wages according to uh Morgan McKinley irish salary uh guide 2022 so that's a good news for some people in certain sectors uh those that are likely to see significant increases the financial services construction science human resources 20 to 30 percent increase there technology marketing customer support multilingual office support engineering legal supply chain procurement but none nothing to do with radio presenting anyway or perhaps the jobs that user in listening today some of you of course will be lucky the irish daily mail we must get back to work hundreds of thousands of people deemed close contacts of covid cases will now be able to get back to work sooner under changes due to be signed off by cabinet this morning as i mentioned earlier on uh we'll be talking more about this a little later on but just to give you a preview the irish son tells us that some second hand cars are now more valuable than their new counterparts a don deal report said covid and brexit means we have imported less cars from the uk since the pandemic began a 50 fall on 2019 levels the report states the price gap between new and used cars is tightening and in some cases a second hand version of the same model is being listed for more than its new counterpart and unprecedented situation as that worked in your favor against you in terms of you know the value of your second hand car i think often those things all sound well and good until you go to sell your second hand car and then people come around and kick the tires and tell you it's a pos but anyway that's just sometimes in my experience uh the irish daily mirror listened to this interview yesterday actually it was kind of a bit of a strange one because there were follow-up questions to be had that weren't asked uh tonnister leo forad car said he's focusing on work and not what may happen if he's still under god or investigation when he's due to be t-shocked last year god he confirmed an inquiry was underway into circumstances surrounding the disclosure of confidential government papers to the finnegale leader's friend over two years ago social democrat co-leader russian short all suggested it would be a problem if the probe is ongoing when mr forad car takes the job in december but he told rte that's not my focus that most that's almost a year away and have a job to do his minister for enterprise trade and employment and that was it that was the interview finished but i would have thought of a decent follow-up question might have been be that as it may can you for a moment suppose that you are to make this decision would it be appropriate now if you were still under investigation but once he was given that answer and it was at the end of the interview and i imagine somewhat pre-arranged that it would be asked of course he was flagged to him that was the end of it but as i say i thought follow-up questions might have been more interesting there finally in the mirror sorry the star the much coveted caretaker job in a remote island which is no running water and electricity's have been plucked from thousands of applications again this year the most recent caretaker on the great blasket island located about three miles off the coast of dingle that's in canterbury of course where limberick woman neve keller and our boyfriend jack cakehead uh nice name who lives in france who finished uh who finished living on the island in late september apparently a hundred thousand people applied for that job a hundred thousand people applied to manager to be manager of that job right before the first break of the day we were speaking to uh peter casey yesterday about uh his uh shock that uh there was a product from donagol catch um which alaskan fish it was alaskan pollock right caught in alaska and uh shipped to poland i think it was and processed in poland and then shipped island and sold uh under the donagol catch brand okay which is is factual information but donagol catch were on to us and i hope everyone knows they're always trying to be fair and they wanted to point a few things out about the company as well so we're going to help in doing that so they say that yes uh peter is correct we have four products in our range that are currently not produced in arland but they want to hollow out highlight a few points this is the donagol catch company over 80 of the donagol catch range is currently produced in arland that's pretty good isn't it the products discussed on the piece are being transferred back to arland in may 2022 increasing our irish-based production to 90 percent so it's very important you know that in six months time we don't go oh should that's alaskan pollock and donagol catch they're saying that that product which is currently caught in alaska processed in poland and shipped back here is going to be shipped back to production in arland from may so that means 90 percent of their product will be produced in arland again which is good they go on to say that donagol catch has been operating the largest whitefish processing facility in arland locating in gurchine in slago since 1984 they say that the largest purchaser of white fish from the irish catching sector purchasing over 20 percent of irish-landed haddock and whitening and then they say donagol catch is part of green oil foods and irish don company employing over 110 people across two sites in gurchine and nason kildare so while they say yes of course that one product happens to be caught outside the country processed out the country and brought in here that's to change in may and then 90 percent of their produce will be produced in arland okay so more than happy to clarify that and it's important that we remember that too when we're out looking at the shops and realize that if you do purchase donagol catch you are for the most part supporting an irish company employing irish people the newspapers are courtesy of kelly centra mountain top letter kenny the nine till noon show brought to you by kelly's toiyota port road letter kenny explore our wide range of virtual tools at kelly's toiyota.com n-h fitness done though are inviting you to bring a friend for free to a class with the purchase of a bundle of eight classes this month terms and conditions apply michael murphy sports and leisure has everything you need for getting fit in 2022 from training gear to resistance bands skipping ropes weights and foam rollers we have all the essentials to see you through every step of your fitness journey from training to recovery shop or range of gym wear equipment and accessories at michael murphy sports dot e at cherrymore kitchens and bedrooms donagol town their sale is now on new 2022 collections now in stock with great offers across all ranges see and store for details book a design consultation today on 0749725822 or see cherrymore dot ie cherrymore excellence in manufacturing since 1996 suffering from hearing loss kingsbridge hearing care has arrived in the northwest yes we have a brand new clinic location at kingsbridge private hospital in bali kelly and can offer you a full range of hearing care provision including enhanced hearing assessments and ear walks removal treatment so what are you waiting for don't let hearing loss hold you back get in touch with our expert audiology team today call us on 04890667030 or visit kingsbridge hearing care dot code dot uk at hikki clark and langan insurance brokers they compare quotes from all leading insurers so you get a great price home motor and van farm holiday home travel and liability insurance they quote them all so if the worst happens you're covered for a competitive insurance quote today called hikki clark and langan on 9112688 or pop into their office at bali mccool letter kenny hikki clark and langan general insurance is limited trading as hikki clark and langan is regulated by the central bank of ireland highland radio time checks brought to you by letter kenny shopping center the center of shopping in donnie all free parking and shopping all under one roof letter kenny shopping center bringing you the time at okay the time is 20 minutes past nine now remember we were chatting to a lady two days ago i think it was two days ago who uh had to ring now dock the unfortunately there was this i won't go over it again because i don't want to upset anyone but they called to a neighbor's house had to ring now dock they didn't know there was a new now dot number and that old number was ringing out um and there was no message saying you know diverting them to the new number and on google as well or on the internet and it's normally google uh you typed in now dock number and the old number came up well it took a couple of days but now we have the new number up for now dock on google so if you just type in now dot number the new one comes up and it's 081840911 081840911 that's the new number it's replaced the old number and that just means for those who are not aware and people go well why would you ring now dock uh if it's an emergency because that's what people do people panic people think well you know something serious is happening i've heard it can take an hour and a half for an ambulance to come i need to speak to a doctor or maybe new parents uh don't realize that uh a temperature is particularly high and would ring now dock there's a myriad of reasons as to why someone might ring now dock instead of 911 in an emergency but now if they google the number they'll get the right number which i think is hugely positive and fair play to those that change that and we're still following up the situation as it relates to the old 1850 number to make sure that you know no one loses out there's no need it's just a technical thing all right so we're working on that we've got the google number changed and we're working on the telephone number as well it's still ringing which is problematic let it ring out mikaela and just if you have the time and see if it still does the message try again later because as i say that's very uh distracting for people okay uh we're joined on the program now by superintendent gretti sheridan thank you very much for taking the call superintendent good morning to you morning greg how are you i am good right now um local policing issues the public are being invited to make submissions is it just boncrant at the moment or is it across the board i think i read somewhere bon uh in the balochanan area this is happening as well but listen i don't want to confuse the situation what's happening at the moment across the county okay so greg and and gradually corner they have devised a strategy statement for the next three years so that's 2022 to 2024 and arising out of that then they have devised a national policing plan which will highlight the key you know the mission and the priorities for the organization over the next three years over the next year for the for the policing plan so basically that delves down then and at the visual level then our chief superintendent turning in she devises a divisional policing plan for the county of donningall and then we have four districts currently in the county and that's letter kenny valley shaman melford and boncranah so myself superintendent michael sainan the superintendent turned up in superintendent davie kelly then wave responsibility then to devise a local policing plan and for our districts so for me it's boncranah so i'll be looking at what policing priorities i have in the anishoan area in donningall and like from a national perspective i suppose the organization reached out to the national organizations across the country and invited submissions from them there was external consultation with you know local or with groups across the country and so then from a local perspective i suppose what we would like is for people living in donningall organizations and individuals young people old people anybody um basically that wants to make a submission or make a suggestion as what is their priority or what they see as the policing priority and the county going forward okay so say if i thought i'm in the in the shone area and i think you know i don't see enough of gardi around the place i don't think there's enough of patrols or i think gardi should be walking the streets at this particular time or there should be a particular focus in that area now i'm making that up because you know i'm not suggesting that these are concerns is that the type of thing we're talking about is that the kind of stuff you'd want to hear or you know i'm concerned about a perceived increase in drug taking and i don't think you know there's enough undercover work going on are those the type of things that you're looking for or or maybe you could give better examples yeah well so the priorities would be okay so we'll have seen throughout covid let's say how how well we work with the community and looking after the most vulnerable in our community so like that you know like it's so we have to work with the resources we have so you know that's for like i can't promise that we'll have a guard on every corner so then that's where work with the community comes in because community are often our eyes and ears so they may see somebody selling drugs or a particular area or particular premises that's involved in the unsupply of drugs they may identify you know victims vulnerable victims in the community whether they be elderly or victims of domestic violence or or young people and that that may be something that we can look at whether we conclude in our strategy statement like we do it anyway but sometimes maybe we're missing something like we also have new members of ethnic and cultural diverse groups and living in Donegal so are we reaching out to all those groups so that's important so i think it's always good to go back to the public and say look this is what we're doing could we be doing more or could we you know like it's always going to be limited by resources and we're talking a massive area here of course but you know it's always good to go back to the public and get their views on these things absolutely and i think you know they have so much to offer we're only one entity in the community so like i mean we there's only so much that we can do ourselves and we can't operate and i think even if we go back to when the like i think this year we're celebrating 100 years and the organization is 100 years old i'm going back to when it was first set up and the commissioner at that time michael steins he said that the the guard of chicano will succeed not by force of arms or numbers but on their moral authority and servants of the people so even going back 100 years you know it's all about the community and providing the service to the community and so um whether you're young or old and what your situation is in the community like we're open to taking suggestions from everybody and and i suppose there is a recruitment campaign this year so um the recruitment 100 guards into the organization and again that is a positive and i suppose i would encourage anybody living in donny gall to consider joining the guards and if they have any questions or they want to meet up with any of the the young guys that are working in the organization that can certainly be organized and from i suppose really they're they would love to have people from across the different communities um or the new communities that are now living in donny gall so yeah before we talk more about a final invite as it relates to the survey just generally in your in your opinion uh you know um prior to the pandemic we would get uh you know public satisfaction with the guard reports pretty high high ratings in fairness through the pandemic do you feel the relate because the guards have been asked to do uh you know probably on popular jobs as part of police in the pandemic to some extent do you believe and i suppose it might be anecdotal that the relationship with the community from a guard perspective has improved through the pandemic or dis-improved personally i would think it has improved greg um certainly we were all our energies were diverted towards providing services you know and i suppose crime in general went down and we were out and about we were interacting with the most vulnerable in the community and we were delivering messages uh collecting prescriptions you know checking changing light bulbs etc there's different a huge array of stuff that the guards were doing that ordinarily they may not necessarily have had the time to do or maybe hadn't got the focus um aside from that i suppose we were doing our checkpoints and i suppose that's where we were detecting that they drink driving and drug drivers um but crime in general went down i personally would think that the you know that the opinion has you know has increased you know that that's people would have seen us as providing a good service and we were very adaptable like i mean over the last two years you know the change in the in the country or in the world like i mean the guards have adapted and you know have strived to support the communities that they work in all right so in relation to making submissions to to help form the bunkrana district policing pound for 2022 and and people should note that the uh the cutoff date is january 20th and you email your submissions to bunkrana underscore ds at garter dot ie is there a form uh that people fill out and answer questions or do they just write what they feel and send that in uh gretty yeah so they can just write what they feel and likewise mulford letter kenny and ballie shaman uh their email addresses are mulford underscore ds letter kenny is letter kenny underscore ds and likewise ballie shaman underscore ds and they can just write write and you know and if they even want to give it a hand on a letter if they want to to ring in to the district officers and make a suggestion that are to the that will be accepted as well all right okay and as i say people have until january the 20th and we have those email addresses here if people want to call us we can pass them on and then after that when is the plan drawn up and is it an internal document or made public superintendent the district plans are internal but the divisional plan which will be devised by chief superintendent mcginn that will be that will be published um and i know i've spoken to the chief there and she has been liaison but you know the likes of the jbc committees so likewise they and they've been invited to make submissions as well from a divisional perspective it's kind of filters down like from a national level we would have had submissions from let's say the national council's part of the blind or the rape crisis center um so like there's everybody like the organizations are cans at national level and then down at divisional level and now at district level so actually to get the people on the ground doing the hard slog you know the the community members and that are out on the ground doing doing work we want to link in with them yeah all right listen thank you very much for your time this morning i appreciate it greatly that is superintendent gretty shared in there if you wish to make a submission to any of the district see their letter kenny boncran and milford or bali shannon it is uh the name milford boncran letter kenny uh or milford yeah underscore ds at garda dot ie and get your submissions in by january the 20th if you want to have your say the nine till moonshow brought to you by kelly's toyota test drive toyotas incredible self-charging hybrid range at our showroom port road letter kenny get fit this new year with inish fitness dunlow they are open seven days a week and ready to help you with your new year fitness goals see inish fitness donnae for 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use the online banking services on our website www.inneshowandcu.ie or call us on 0749361017 we'd also like to ask our members to help us go green if you sign up to receive your agm report by email you'll be in with a chance to win 200 euro for more information visit www.inneshowandcu.ie forward slash let's go green in a show on credit union is regulated by the central bank of ireland beat the cost of brexit and no customs charges do you need a uk address for your limited company or personal use space hub and dairy can provide you with your own virtual office or mailbox have your post and parcels delivered to space up and collected your convenience also brand new 20 foot shipping containers now in stock ideal for all your storage needs at our springtime and comore depots find us on facebook or spacehubdairy.com or call 04871 it's 78007 for details Sheridan security now introducing zero wire smart alarm systems zero wire zero mess and a real peace of mind with a simple press of a button your alarm can be set or on set or download the free app and control it from your phone call us today on 0749126025 and get your alarm from 299 euro stay local stay safe and protect what you value most with Sheridan security systems all right you're very welcome back to the program keep us busy on the lines please 0866025 1000 what's absent texts are called 07491 25000 I have a very stressed young girl over the leaving sir to don't know what we're going to do with her I've tried looking online and I can't figure out what is happening well they are looking to persist at this time officially with the traditional leaving sir there is moves on for a hybrid approach they're saying look how can we you know calculate grades when this cohort didn't do the junior cert so you can see the problem there but it's an ongoing issue and I think it needs to be brought to a final conclusion one way or other very soon that so people know what's going on but this is one caller with a very stressed young girl stressed over the leaving sir and uncertainty but I've told you as much as I know in terms of what the situation is I was involved in a crash says this caller number of weeks ago insurance companies won't pay out the value of second hand cars my car was a write-off I was quoted 6000 euro to replace the car but the insurance company would not cover more than 4000 euro the insurance companies are not playing ball at all with the rising costs of cars I wonder with the rising costs of cars if we need to be contacting our insurance companies to increase the value of our vehicles do you know because you know when you get them they say how much is it worth and you might say two three five ten fifteen whatever it is um you know maybe we should be do we need to be contacting our insurance companies to reevaluate our vehicles to make sure they represent to make sure that they represent the actual value uh right as I say the old now dot number it's still ringing by the way and a recorded message says that the service is currently closed but operates during regular now dot service hours they need to get on top of that so people don't believe that the call is going on answered when they're ringing a call it's not at all monitored uh thanks Greg for helping Margaret sort out the now dot number situation much appreciated by all it's something we're continuing to work on it's not uh finished just yet right okay uh British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to face MPs today amid furious demands to come clean over his attendance that are reported bring your own booze party in the number 10 garden in breach of COVID lockdown rules mr johnson will make his first public appearance since the leak on monday of an email from his principal private secretary martin reynolds inviting downing street staff to the gathering in may 2020 now uh there's been a a process that's been gone through here in that in initially you know uh Boris Johnson wouldn't comment on the initial claims uh then he was shocked and saddened and he'd do an investigation we couldn't believe this was going on but as it turns out he may well have attended these himself so that kind of is painted himself I think somewhat a little bit into a corner to say the very least labor MP Pat McFadden joins us on the program again a very good morning to you Pat thank you very much for taking your time to speak to us this morning good morning Greg it's nice to see you I remember when redo interviews were just just voiced but now we do this by zoom boring and if you want to watch our interviews of course go on our social media and you can watch what I'm watching as well right um this is a very difficult one for Boris Johnson of course you know you're you're you're an opposition uh in in uh an opposition to uh he and his party in any case but this is uh what's the reaction amongst the British prob uh the British public it's almost unbelievable at this point the action has been an angry one from the the public and the reason for that's pretty obvious here in the UK just like in Ireland people had to make great sacrifices over the past couple of years they they had to stay home they couldn't see relatives and in the worst cases Greg of course people couldn't say goodbye properly to loved ones or attend funerals and that's probably been the most painful part of the restrictions for people and this isn't just one story uh uh about a party number 10 there have been about 10 of them now but this one is different for a couple of reasons first we've got an email from the Prime Minister's private secretary saying it's lovely weather come to the garden bring your own booze and that's obviously a party it's not something prompt you glass a wine at your desk at the end of the day or somebody other the excuses we've heard for the other ones and secondly there's the obvious question of whether or not the prime minister attended and we're in a bit of a farcical situation here because we've got an inquiry led by a senior civil servant Sue Gray uh into all this but you don't need an inquiry to establish whether or not you attended a party in your own house yeah you should just be able to come out and tell people that so uh the the obfuscation and the hiding behind inquiries is becoming ridiculous um yesterday was quite interesting wasn't it in that you know that most of the conservatives were nowhere to be seen what what do you read into that is it that you know don't show your face because there's no answers was that some sort of a tell as to the support for for Johnson in this situation because of course you know yourself it's the it's the MPs are in this country the TDs on the ground that get the flak really you know what do you read into to yesterday's no show from so many conservatives it looked like they were on strike uh not just the back bench conservative MPs but the uh the cabinet ministers as well they sent out a minister uh Michael Ellis who on a human level a bit of some sympathy with a junior minister he is as well isn't he to uh to deal with that he was there for about an hour and a half and he had no support from anybody uh behind him so he was asked to go and take the flak yesterday but you're right that the MPs in their own constituencies will be taking a lot of flak because this affected everybody wherever wherever they live and the thing that makes people really angry is the notion that the leader of the country is effectively laughing that he's legislated for all these rules he's asked the public to abide by them people you know to to a great degree have abided by them look everybody's human everybody can make up a small mistake you forget to wear your mask when you went to the shop or whatever the rule is i'm not saying you know we're demanding sainthood from everybody but this is about 10 parties now and the impression of the cumulative effect of all this is that there's one rule for the general public and another rule for the prime minister and that on the basic that that would be like you know we we uh had very few at our wedding or we weren't allowed to have that 18th birthday party and that's on one level but there's another level here as well where people you know were very heavily restricted in terms of attending funerals or seeing sick loved ones or the the fact that people were dying in in great numbers in britain you know in the same on the same days as these parties were being held so the pain for some is much more than you know what we all feel at times you know it's one rule for them and one rule for us it cuts much much deeper for for large swathes of the population that suffered great loss or were robbed of you know very important time with people very close to them that's absolutely right and you saw that yesterday in parliament itself a number of mps spoke of their own experiences or read out emails from constituents me one of the most telling moments was when the northern island mp jim shannon actually just he was talking about his mother-in-law dying alone and he he just couldn't continue and there was huge sympathy for him across the house he was so emotional and you contrast that pain with the appearance of the cavalier attitude in number 10 and the culture comes from the top and it comes back i said to this idea that there's one rule for everybody else and that the person ultimately making those rules is contemptuous of them himself i have to say i don't want to be unkind of at this but it's the way he's lived his life you know even his head teacher at school wrote that he didn't appear to be bound by the duties and responsibilities that affect the rest of us so this is characteristic uh and in this case it's undermining trust in politics and government it's undermining trust in public health and it's making people really angry it i don't really see he's out in this either you know because the field saying of course when you're explaining you're you're losing um it's hard to imagine he could say well i'm not commenting on whether or not i had a party until such time as a report is concluded that would be farcical um i don't think the mea culpa mea culpa i think so much has said been said beforehand i don't think that gets him gets him through this at all it's very difficult to see an out for him on this not that you were i had to sit here and try and you know bash our heads together to try and find one for him but just as even as a you know someone just observing it and not necessarily involved in it it's hard to see how he can respond to this and come out of it anyway other than worse than when he went in well i think that's right i mean he's got out of plenty of scrapes in the past uh by kind of joking his way through it uh he describes politics as a show uh he thinks it's a show he thinks he's an entertainer but at some point uh the show stops being funny uh and i think it has stopped being funny so i don't know i can't give him advice on the out uh i do think the best thing is to tell the truth this is not a man who likes apologizing he thinks uh you should just bluff your way through and you shouldn't apologize apologize his weakness and so on so i can't predict what he'll do but we will know more in a few hours because we've got prime minister's questions at 12 o'clock we'll see what he has to say then do you think your party leadership has shown enough leadership on this i mean i i mean i haven't seen any cause for a certain nation or maybe i've missed them um you know i i don't follow uh british politics that closely it seems to be uh he needs to explain himself questions needs to be answered is there a strategy there to give him enough rope to hang himself should we not be well um i wish i wish it was as easy as uh prime minister's resigned when opposition MPs asked them to do so that's not how it works of course particularly when you're sitting on a majority of 80 uh it just doesn't prime ministers resign when they've lost the confidence of their own party out with an election period uh that's when they go so the real question is not you know i look i think if he's broken his own covid laws his position's untenable but my opinion is not what will make him go uh this will be down to conservative MPs and how long they are prepared to carry a prime minister who has been described by one of his own former ministerial colleagues as encompassing a vacuum of integrity it's how long they're prepared to carry that and pay the price for it in their own constituencies so i'm not trying to dodge your question but in real terms this will be down more to the Tory party than to opposition calls them to go exactly and they internally face their own challenges in that who replaces him how much support might they have is there an obvious contender and someone and so forth that's not for you to concern yourself with i'm sure no i mean look there's been rumors of uh various you know incipient election campaigns going names have been mentioned of rishi sunak uh list trust and so on i don't know who the runners and writers would be uh i'm sure there's some attention turning to this inside the conservative party the chancellor has been conspicuous by his absence in parliament in recent days we've had two quite big economic debates on monday and tuesday of this week he chose to upset himself from either quite that quite why that is i don't know uh but speculation is mounting on whether something like that would happen and i think we'll know a bit more after prime minister's questions today it's going to be very very interesting to say that he's listen as always pat thanks so much for for taking the time to speak to us it's greatly appreciated and now there are quite a few demands on you and we appreciate you sparing time for us have a good day thank you it's a pleasure to be on and good morning to everybody and i go good morning to you too that is uh mp pat mcfaden labour mp who have has connections to donagall of course and um yeah it's going to be an interesting questions time p m q's at 12 because i just think is uh it it's to try and watch someone explain their way out of an inexplicable situation 08 6 60 25 000 you what's our protects 08 6 60 25 000 a caller says uh canadian province of cobec has just announced plans for health tax on the unvaccinated is this the way forward here for our ailing health service well they haven't priced it up yet um i don't know i don't think we'll ever get on the route i hope we don't um the health service is there for all everyone's paid into it um and i don't think and even discussing these things it just causes further division amongst us i would love to see us and i'm not blaming jn for this i'd love to see us try and you know find more that unites us than than divides us but uh that's what's being suggested in cobec half of their half of their um icu occupancy is taken up by the unvaccinated and that's what they're looking to do to increase vaccination through uh taxes on on health but i mean that's that's just something if you talked about that two or three years ago you would say that cannot ever or what shouldn't ever happen yet we have a we have a place where it is uh being discussed and is potentially going to happen all right 08 6 60 25 000 that's the whatsapp or text number now later on in the program we're going to be answering as part of our uh wellness wednesday because your your wellness is not just about your health or your mental health or your physical health it's about your environment and your happiness we're going to be talking about uh the place we spend most of our time for most of us anyway and that's at home and maybe you walk into your hall and it's like oh or you walk into your front room and it seems tired and dated uh maybe you want to change something up maybe you want to your your painting your house what's the new color everything was grays before gray blues wasn't it that's hugely popular i think gray greens are becoming you know interesting more interesting now uh for a lot of people also there seems to be a lean back towards carpet a lot of people used to go for hard floors then maybe you're going for hard floors and these tiles that have a wood effect maybe you want some advice as to what would work uh in your house be at your kitchen your bedroom whatever it might be if you have any interior design questions please get them into us now because what will happen is when our guest joins us the phones will light up and then i won't get to everyone's but if you get your questions in early i can be uh pretty sure i'll get an answer for you so your interior design questions to the following numbers uh for whatsapps and for your text it's 08 660 25 000 and if you want to give us a call it's 07 4 9125 000 it's coming up after 11 how can you make for me it's often small changes that make a big difference you know a lot of us can't afford to uh fit out our house or build an extension or a son room so it's the little things that can make a big difference and that's what we'll be talking about the 9 till noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota with over 45 years of experience trust us to help you on your electric journey inish fitness dunlowe are now offering class only memberships register in person with reception to get access to the convenient inish fitness app for booking and paying for classes brain makormic sports and leisure mean street utter kemi the big winter sale is now on with weight reductions throughout the store selected kids clothing reduced to clear also added as track suits for all ages on bmc sports dot ie men's and women's sports clothing with discounts of up to 40 percent off check out the brian mccormick's winter sale in store or click on bmc sports dot ie for great fuel deals contact gortley sales and hire large sacks and trailer loads of logs also briquettes coal kindling and gas with free delivery locally contact gortley sales and hire in letter kelly on nine one two six two seven six for a huge selection of furniture all in one showroom pulling to grow furnishings in letter kelly sofas beds wardrobes tables and chairs also a range of carpet vinyl rugs and laminated flooring if it's time for a change it's time for a visit to grow furnishings growth deliver throughout dunnegall dairy and tarone be inspired at grow furnishings kill toy road letter kelly is your water safe to drink if your water tastes unpleasant or has a foul smell it may be a sign that something is in your water brother's tech dunnegall provide a complete private well water treatment service using the best water treatment equipment to meet your needs or maybe you drill the new well and the water isn't satisfactory at brother's tech their expert team will also service existing problematic systems if you're concerned about the quality of your water called brother's tech on 087 638 7057 right now there's a child who desperately needs a foster family it's the right of every child to grow up in a supportive and loving home could you open your heart to a child origins foster care need foster cares now together making children's lives better call 01 907 9196 or follow us on facebook now you're welcome back to the show onto it we welcome john joe again of autism dad i hi john joe good to see you again how are you keeping i'm doing grand greg thank you very much for having me on and hello to all your listeners right happy new year to you and happy new year to you john joe now you have started a petition a petition calling for the minister for disabilities that's on rabid to end what you describe as the unfair treatment of special needs teenagers so can you define that unfair treatment john joe yeah well as you know i run autism dad i a website really just to try and increase autism awareness and as part of that i'm a member of a number of facebook groups and one of them is for parents who are children who are 16 and older who are transitioning from the domiciliary care allowance to disability allowance and let me explain that basically a child a childhood special needs especially autism in ireland if they if the medically condition shows that they have issues that are different to children of their own age then they're entitled to domiciliary care allowance and that is not means tested and a lot of parents use that to fund for support that is sadly lacking or has even been reduced and removed by the state in the last couple of years like speech and language therapy occupational therapy and a whole room of supports for that child but once that child gets to 16 the domiciliary care allowance in ireland ceases and the child then has to apply their own right for disability allowance effectively as an adult as an adult yeah but let's there's two points to that the first thing is that the condition or the need that they have that allowed them to get domiciliary care allowance hasn't gone away you know autism doesn't disappear doesn't change from the 14 to the 15th of january or no it doesn't doesn't go overnight but the thing is that the state is now treating them as an adult who's ready for work and a lot of these children are still in education now i'm not against the the principle of once a an individual is 18 the treat is an adult they should be and then go into a process and that process is defined pardon my ignorance john joe say for instance children's allowance okay children's allowance there's another reassessment i mean there's an ongoing form you have to fill out but at 16 it doesn't become defunct or you don't switch to something else why would they switch from one form of support to another at that particular age is it that at 16 even i mean if they're at school they're not seeking work so surely a form should just be declared at 16 to say that my child's continuing in education and and and it continues to 18 that would be i don't see the logic for for changing maybe there's no logic and that's why we're having this conversation john joe when we look at the the regulations around support for children with special needs and disabled people in ireland logic is not a word that i would ascribe to the current situation and the current situation i've written to an rabbit i got a holding letter back and i know she must she must be busy but i'm waiting on the full full reply and it because of the delay in that full reply i decided two days ago enough was enough and to seek the support of other parents and those that are concerned about teenagers with special needs to get this petition up and running and can i extend that out to parents who aren't parents of children uh with special needs we are exactly it has to be everybody here too much in this country sometimes it's those that are directly affected everybody if people are listening and the uh they don't have a child that would be affected by this it doesn't mean you don't sign this petition petition you say it means that i could be in that situation or that could be me and support all their families so that the voice gets louder i think it's all about as a society caring about the most vulnerable in that society and our children with special needs are amongst the most vulnerable cohorts it's a situation that's not logical it's a situation that i do not believe is fair and it's a situation that i really do get passionate about because it's part of these Facebook groups a lot of the the the children who are transitioned from domiciliary care allowance at 16 when the applications are filled out bizarrely the application is supposed to be filled out by the child and most of them are in no situation to fill in that form but a worrying trend has developed and i raised this before and i raised it with the minister to actually look at it and get my answer back the trend is that in the first application for a disabled disability allowance more and more children of 16 are being denied they've been taken off domiciliary care allowance and denied disability allowance now they can appeal for that but it's a lengthy appeal process now i know there will be situations sorry that it's designed to frustrate it that in other words well we can cut 10 percent here of claims because it's so bloody complicated that people will just give in i think what we have to take into account is that anybody has filled out any forms for domiciliary care allowance or for disability allowance the process is designed to put you off and the cynic in me would suggest that there is a you can see if a government needs to save money they can save money by denying people the first application and hoping that the process scares them off and they go away but what the people have to realise is that parents of children with special needs and disabled adults don't go away okay we're determined we're fighting for our children and i'm calling on arne rabbit to have a bit of logic and a bit of caring and a bit of common sense that if children on domiciliary care allowance at 16 are still in education then surely it should be extended at the process until they finish that education send a letter out a month before the process yeah send a letter out a month before it and ask what will the child status be at 16 and then if you want to send other forms out every six months between 16 and 18 saying has the situation changed do that but that should be the presumed position uh finally john joe just as we head towards the news at 10 if anyone listening wants to support this petition to put the pressure on minister rabbit how do they do so there's three ways to do it firstly it's on my website autism dad.ie it's on my twitter account autism dad 67 and it's on my facebook page autism dad ireland i'll be contacting the local politicians and the local press the campaign is only two days old but it's going to keep going until we get an answer that's sufficient from arne rabbit and the government john joe thank you very much gregg for giving us a chance to speak to you no problem john joe of autism dad.ie thank you very much indeed okay we'll be back with more on the night till noon show after we take a break for the news with donal cavena and the obituary notices stay right where you are live on air online and on the highland radio app this is highland radio news good morning it's 11 10 o'clock donal cavena at the highland radio news desk the transport minister says he's confident the government can begin to ease restrictions next month it comes as rules around self-isolation for asymptomatic close contacts are to be scrapped at a cabinet meeting this morning providing those affected have been boosted transport minister iman ryan says he hopes this will bring clarity to what is a complicated system however he adds there won't be other restrictions being discussed at this morning's meeting we're not you to come back to look at those restrictions until later in january that gives us plenty of time i think we're all agreed we'll get to the end of this month these measures will help us kind of keep the country going in a functioning manner but we wait until the end of january and then it's in february touchwood please god all going well where we can start easing those those restrictions and i'm confident we will be able to the government also expected to date to publish new legislation that will allow adopted people access to their birth records the birth information and tracing bill is being discussed at the cabinet meeting and ministers will sign off on an online safety commissioner this morning media minister catrin martin is bringing the online safety and media regulation bill to cabinet for approval it'll see a new watchdog given the power to find social media companies for allowing harmful content like criminal material cyberbullying or the promotion of suicide on their sites the new commissioner will also take over from the broadcasting authority of ireland in regulating tv and radio stations and streaming platforms such as netflix a don't go counselor is welcoming new legislation which will allow pensioners purchase their council homes under present regulations pensioners can't purchase their council homes because they're not in receipt of regular income other than social welfare payments which are too low to meet the income thresholds well councillor michael nocton says changes in those thresholds will address that issue and that he believes is only right and proper it's very important that basically after the working all their lives and because working and paying for these houses all their lives to have the opportunities to buy them out and i think basically you know it's very important that basically you know it was there for other people that go to buy out the houses all allow but the ceiling scale for pensions was too high because your contributed pension basically was only coming less than about 12,000 a year and the ceiling was 15,000 so basically there was a shock ball there out of 3,000 so basically there was an unfair plan for pensioners who was living in their houses for four years and i think basically this has resolved it brexit is one of the reasons why the cost of a used car in ireland is 56% higher than it was before the pandemic some secondhand models are now being advertised at higher prices than the newer versions the latest dundee car price index says supply issues linked to brexit are a major factor the author of the report is economist dr tom gillespie so a large part of the flow of used cars into ireland was come from imported used cars in the uk before brexit and since brexit materialized and bad has been introduced on cars coming in from the in the uk the numbers of cars that have come into the uk is pretty much halved a tonne gold td is calling for an urgent review of the disabled drivers and passengers scheme after it emerged that all members of the the appeals board linked to the disabled drivers scheme resigned just it's understood the board members who take decisions and applications to the disabled drivers and passengers scheme withdrew after a number of concerns were raised regarding the eligibility threshold to qualify for it only five percent of all appeals are successful and those wishing to appeal must travel to dunlaire in dublin for a hearing regardless of their location w thomas pringle says the scheme simply isn't fit for purpose so basically the theme i have has been set a legislation in the governing legislation that actually established what probably in 1970 or 71 and the language that the legislation uses is completely archaic which means that if it's taken laterally that basically the whole disabled driver are very few would actually qualify for to port it onto the scheme and looking at the weather forecast this morning and that air intelligence will be dry and bright with good spells of sunshine developing becoming cloudier later with the on spot of drizzle occurring highest temperatures eight or nine degrees celsius in light to moderate south westerly or variable breezes and that's highland radio news for an hour back with news headlines again at 11 o'clock good morning the opportunity notices for this wednesday morning the 12th of january the sudden death has taken place in england of martin joseph sweeney formerly of golland lower ballet buffet his remains are opposing a tyrants mental index veneral premises ballet bow convoy removal from there this evening at half past six to arrive at the church of mario macklitz to an owner for reception prayers at seven o'clock reposing overnight veneral mass there on tomorrow thursday at 11 o'clock followed by burial in the family plot in drum boat cemetery the family home at golland lower is private please the death house taken place of john johnny philly tremina lohesk donnie goll town and san francisco for the rearrangements to follow the death has occurred of michael carney morris inch island and formerly of don patrick county down his remains are reposing at his residence removal on friday morning at quarter past 10 twirly of lured church inch island for 11 o'clock requiem mass with interment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery the wake is strictly private to family only please family flowers only donations in lieu of desire to the oncology unit letter kenny university hospital care of any family member or murphy funeral directors the death has taken place of desi mcfadden glascha and formerly of mean dairy gump with or his remains are reposing at his late residence rosary nightly at eight o'clock on pro-wishtag with or facebook page the house is strictly private please veneral mass in chock public home kill knook follow on friday morning at 11 with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery the veneral mass can be viewed live on kiran roti funeral directors facebook page the death has occurred of mary sweeney tommy key road done low her remains will repose at her late residence from three o'clock this afternoon with rosary nightly at eight veneral mass on friday at 12 noon in synchronic's church done low with interment afterwards in the local cemetery house private to family and friends only please the death has occurred of frances hans clear clon money her remains are opposing at her late residence funeral from there on friday morning at half past 10 to st mary's church clon money for a queer mass at 11 o'clock with interment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery family friends and neighbours welcome family fires only please donations of desire to hillcrest nursing home letter kenny care of any family member or mcfeely funeral directors funeral mass can be viewed live on church services dot tv the death has taken place of neil neilus mean benone creasel viewing an eternal night chapel of rest mountaintop letter kenny from four o'clock this evening followed by removal at five to st michael's church creasel arriving at six to repose overnight funeral mass tomorrow morning at 11 with burial afterwards in doe cemetery mass can be viewed live on mc and media dot tv family fires only please donations of desired to the lake house nursing home port nabla patients comfort fund care of any family member or james harkin funeral director creasel the death has occurred of sheamus laverty barley hill railway road stern order the family home is strictly private to immediate family only please sheamus's remains will leave the family home tomorrow at half past 12 traveling via ard mccool and main street stern order to arrive at the church of mario macklitt stern order for mass of the resurrection at one o'clock burial afterwards in drumbo cemetery stern order requiem mass will be streamed live via the parish webcam at church services dot tv family fires only please donations in lou if desired to the oncology department letter kenny university hospital care of martin mcgowan or any family member the death has occurred of a mndlacken late of king's heath birmingham and formerly of eight mccray park drum quinn funeral from lynch's funeral home castle dirg tomorrow afternoon at 20 past one for rick weo mass at two o'clock in st patrick's church langfield drum quinn in term and afterwards in langfield old cemetery the death has taken place of michael winters seven camis park strubam funeral from his home tomorrow morning at 20 past 10 for requiem mass in the church of the immaculate conception struban at 11 o'clock in term and afterwards in struban cemetery donations in lou ifla is pleased to chest heart and stroke care of quickly funeral directors house private pleas to family and friends requiem mass can be viewed live on mcn media dot tv the death has occurred of nan hone kilty fergal clohen nan's remains are reposing at her letter residence with removal to the church of her lady of perpetual suckered len fin for reception prayers at seven o'clock tomorrow evening funeral mass can be viewed on mcn media dot tv requiem mass on friday at 12 noon with interment in killwater cemetery the death has occurred of tony mcbride anagree west his remains will repose at medlin's funeral home from five o'clock this evening with removal at six two star of the sea church anagree to repose overnight funeral mass tomorrow at 11 within term and afterwards in the new cemetery family far as only please donations if desired to the dunigol hospice care of any family member or shone medlin funeral director the death has occurred of derrick day reed bale mnemona bale buffet his remains will repose at mcn's chapel of rest tomorrow with visiting from seven to nine for close friends and family only please funeral from there on friday morning at half past 10 for 11 o'clock requiem mass in the church of maria maculots turn order followed by interment in sesha o'neill cemetery requiem mass will be streamed live on church services dot tv donations in louis floris if desired directly to the dunigol hospice or care of any family member the funeral home and funeral are strictly private to family and close friends only please the death has occurred of bridget cavana afford are in more island funeral mass this morning at 11 o'clock in synchromous church are in more with interment afterwards in the local cemetery and the death has taken place of rosaline macul formerly off back shore road cumore dairy requiem mass will be celebrated in the church of the sacred heart ardmore muff this morning at 11 within term and afterwards in the adjoining cemetery for more details including any family health guidelines for wakes and funerals please go to highland radio dot com okay you're very welcome back to the nine till noon show we've a lot to fit in so we're going to bang straight on with the bingo numbers afterwards we're going to be talking about the increased value potentially of your second hand car it's time for ncbi bingo on highland radio it's wednesday the 12th of january you're playing on the blue sheet the reference number is s8 it's game number two the numbers are five 37 two 45 30 14 41 32 and finally 72 phone your claim to 9104833 before eight 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 highland radio dot com trust us to help you on your electric journey Enish fitness done low offer yoga palates circuits and women's only weight training class to find out about their class's only membership call in to Enish fitness today new this weekend home store and more all fireside accessories are half price but better hurry because when all our half price fireside accessories are gone they're gone also all 100 content printed duvet sets and all our duck feather and down duvets are still half price but when all our half price all 100% content printed duvet sets and all our half price duck feather and down duvets are gone they're definitely gone dropped by your local home store and more home store and more a happy home hello grace where are you heading down to made to measure fireplaces and cresla made to measure fireplaces didn't you just buy a fireplace there yeah but i'm going now to pick my kitchen work top create the kitchen and living room of your dreams at made to measure fireplaces and granite work tops they've been in business for over 40 years so for help choosing granite or quartz for your work top fireplace or stove visit the made to measure showroom at cashel cresla or see mtm fireplaces dot com or on facebook last chance to enter homeland and nutritious animal feed in association with tamma ireland are hosted the dunigal silage competition and entries are closing soon entry is free and includes five categories dairy beef sheep round bale a new entrant first prize 300 euro voucher second prize 200 euro voucher in each category for full entry details visit homeland dot i e closing date the 21st of january cuny's furniture at letter kenny retail park january sale is now on you'll find everything for your home has been reduced with massive savings on suites tables beds and accessories but hurry only while stocks last call in today and treat your home with a visit to cuny's furniture are you worried about trees on your property northwest forestry services belly buffet are fully insured and have over 40 years experience in dangerous tree removal tree felling surgery and stump grinding for peace of mind call northwest forest services belly buffet for no obligation quotation on 91 32033 now the price of a used car in arland has hit an all time high according to don deals car price index a second hand car has risen 56 compared to figures from january 2020 uh dr tom gillespie is economist and author of the latest don deal car price index and he joins us on the program now a very good morning to you at tom thanks for joining us morning right so um is this uh about supply and demand or is it that it's you know not as handy to uh import vehicles in so the the vehicles that are here on the land are naturally going to increase in value normally the answer to that is it's a mixture it's a mixture of all things yeah it's certainly a supply and demand story and more so on the supply side really um and it's a story that's really happening in most used car markets around the world at the moment um primarily because of the shortage of semiconductors um brought on by the pandemic so these are the microchips that they're used in computers in most cars these days and so there's a big supply shock with those so car manufacturers couldn't get their hands on enough microchips to meet their production targets so so if you think about it you know if you're going to get a new car and there's a big waiting time to get one then most people learn incentivize them to turn to the used car markets which puts an added pressure on used cars um so that's just kind of the supply shock for the new car production which is inherently linked to used cars uh and then you know this there's an increase in demand globally i mean the people have more reliance on cars they don't want to take public transport because of the pandemic and you have these you know accidental savings from the pandemic so that's kind of the globe that's a global story it's happening in most markets but an island has been compounded by brexit so the bat on imported used cars from the uk is is really depleting the the number of cars we're bringing in from the uk that's down about 56 percent um you know half or more than half from since 2019 which is kind of the last normal year in the used car market yeah so it's kind of this double supply shock in ireland and also a demand increase which is leading to this unprecedented price inflation is it across the board uh or uh is it particular types of cars you know like diesel or petrol you know more economical cars that people are being taxed out of the the gas guzzlers you know are being disadvantaged in buying older cars you know so it seems that uh that the sort of the field in terms of you know good affordable uh easy or to run cars it is narrowing could that be part of it as well yeah i mean like is that across the price distribution it's it's it's it's not the same so the biggest price inflation is being seen in the lower end of the market and in cheaper cars and and so the catics there was a big boom in new car registrations in the target years so the 06 07 08 cars and there was all these cars floating around in the used car market for the last 10 12 years and there's a lot of these cars and now those cars are becoming kind of obsolete they're starting to fall off the market 10 12 13 years of age and so that puts a strain on the lower end of the market so there's this far fewer cheaper cars to get which means price inflation is more acute in the in the lower end of the market than in the upper end how does this work in terms of you know into the future it would take quite some time i'd imagine for this to work through the market with you know second-hand cars to become available again the import situation is unlikely to change like are we sort of reaching a new level of cost or will over time the costs come back down again i wonder and it's difficult to say i mean we could be getting like you said to a new level whereby we were somehow in line with with the market in the uk and because it's a big feeder of used cars and like i said the inherently the supply of new cars affects the used car market and that's been affected by these semiconductors and they're kind of forecasting that the semiconductor supply shock won't it will keep going well into 2022 so it doesn't seem to be slowing down the index it seems to be still rising so it doesn't seem to be leveling off in the short term anyway but it is difficult to say and of course you know it's not like we have five used cars and we can sell them and sort of you know make great use of the market you know you're often selling your car and you'll have to replace it so you're going to maybe get the advantage but you're going to get the hit so this is an increased cost of living really that that's that's what it boils down to isn't it yeah i mean there's a couple of different ways to look at it i mean if you were to buy a car now it's going to hold its value for much longer and so in a way if you're if you were thinking about buying it's probably a good time to buy it now and certainly if you're in the market for a new car the value of a new car relative to a used car is much greater now because the gap between the two is tightened and you know if you're trading in a car dealers are desperate to get cars for their inventories so you really have a good bargaining chip there if you're bringing in a car and you know you know i've ever like if you bought a car in 2020 and then drove it around normal mileage there's a good chance you could have sold it for a profit in in 2021 so it is quite a unique situation but yeah i mean like certainly everything is leveling up really so yeah it is obviously a more expensive to have bought a car now than it was last year the year before but it is going to hold the cars cars most cars are appreciating in value whereas they should be going down in value as time goes on and they're they seem to be appreciating with with this kind of price inflation yeah colis says i bought an suv jeep three years ago when the vehicle was only eight months old and i was thinking about changing it shortly the garage in dobblen offered me four thousand a year more for it than i originally paid for it that's uh that might be an extreme example but that's the kind of stuff we're talking about isn't well i mean if to give an example there i mean a Volkswagen polo 2009 um in january 2009 Volkswagen polo in january 2020 that would have been averaged about 2890 and we would expect it that to now for the that that car would have sold like a 2009 polo would be selling now for in normal conditions around 1600 but now they're listening for about 3900 so a thousand year or more than was bought for with the extra mileage um and two years older so that's you know one final thing i can't get my head around how is a second hand version of the same model being listed for more than its new counterpart i mean listing something is one thing getting it is another i still can't sort of get my head around that how a second hand vehicle could be worth more than the new vehicle is it the fact that the new vehicle actually isn't available or what's going on there it's it's down to availability i mean if there's two if there's two cars there in front of you in in a in a dealer i mean that the new car would still be more expensive but you know you could you could put in an order for one and then you know and by the time you get it in six months time the used car will be more expensive than what you get it so by the time you get it you know the used car will be more expensive than than and what you pay for so yeah it's tough for the car industry because they've got people employed to sell new cars you know people uh i don't know if it's uh certainly fellas anyway it's probably the same with women you want something straight away and they also necessarily don't have the second hand stock uh you know to satisfy demand there it's it's it's tough for that industry i presume they're feeling it certainly yeah absolutely and you know the game is changing a lot you know they have to the dealers are struggling and car manufacturers have to change their production strategies you know because of the reduced number of semi-conductors and then behind all this there's just this huge growth in EVs and hybrid vehicles which are you know inherently different um to you know combustion engine cars and that they're they're growing very fast like new car registrations like in the second half of 2021 10 percent of new car registrations were fully electric and in 2019 that was just 2.4 percent of it's quadruple it's a similar story with hybrid vehicles so the game is changing a lot it is but it's still not uh you know i mean and i'll let you go now tom but you know you would think right if there's more demand for electric cars that means you know maybe the value of of combustion engine cars would fall away but the two are rising at the same time is that uh unusual or is that just something that we're seeing now and that will change into the future i think i think electric vehicles are for one market they're still quite expensive and you know people still need you know affordable combustion engine cars you know i mean if you're able to afford an electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle that's great but i mean the majority people you know are in the end of the market where you know they can only afford a second hand combustion engine car so if they're in scarce supply then the price will still rise up but it's definitely you know new cars are looking more attractive now in terms of you know um their their viability in terms of economics so because the the gap between us and new cars is is tightening so much all right brilliant stuff thank you very much for explaining all that to us i really appreciate it that's dr tom gillespie economist and author of the latest done deal car price index second hand car says this caller in england haven't increased in prices much why are they so much more expensive in arland well different tax bans and what have you i don't know the exact answer to that um are we sure second hand cars in england haven't increased in price i mean there's much greater they produce cars for example i presume that has to be a factor we don't really produce cars as such do we um so there's no import charges and what have you and maybe they approach it differently from from a tax perspective i don't know the internet so maybe they have better maybe the better public transport infrastructure has some sort of a perverse impact on that as well anyone with an insight into that get in touch oh wait six sixty twenty five thousand the night till noon show brought to you by kenny's Toyota port road letter kenny with offers on a wide range of passenger and commercial vehicles well davie brilliant that you weren't in work today we had some crack it was petters last shift so we all went out for lunch thanks for staying away the lads are delighted chat to you soon mind yourself no one will thank you for turning up to work or anything else when you're sick stay at home and get a test to protect yourself and others from covid 19 from the hse for us all enish fitness done low are offering half price programs on saturdays this month that's a one-hour consultation and a full week plan for just 10 euro this month at enish fitness done low homeland fuel offers keeping you warm for less 20 kg eco bright buy five bags for 50 euro softwood logs three bags for 10 euro one kg fire logs four for five euro shopping store or online 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kenny are looking for an experienced service advisor for their aftersales departments for all four of their franchises reno dacia honda and citron this is a full-time position with an immediate start experience in the motor industry is essential but this is for you email your CV to michelle at highland motors.ie by friday the 14th highland radio time checks brought to you by letterkenny shopping centre the centre of shopping in dunny all free parking and shopping all under one roof letterkenny shopping centre bringing you the time at 1028 some of your comments here have a daughter 16 passed in june and was turned down for the miscellany allowance after having dca for last six years still attended school still has aspergers and ocd or odd sorry nothing changed we just lost the support for her i mean that has to be appealed that's something that we need to see our politicians on on top of i think hi greg this do you remember we had a person that couldn't pay their property tax they were concerned about it i think we've a resolution here hi greg after a phone call to doblin was able to get security number to pay property tax after several hours my daughter managed to eventually get it paid they certainly do not make it easy i can understand security but who in the right mind is going to go through all that to pay someone else's property tax so stressful and i get you but maybe look they could be access your account with that code and you know disadvantage you in other way but i understand morning greg the irish media seemed very focused on the party at 10 dining street conveniently ignoring the golf gate scandal where members of the irish elite are currently on trial hypocrisy and it's best or worse depending what where you look at it i get where you're coming from but you know that comment doesn't make any sense to me and i mean that absolutely respectfully because we spent weeks and weeks and weeks talking about golf gate at the time and the trial started and now the trial has been adjourned until february i mean do you seriously think we're going to talk about golf gate for three weeks whilst there's an ongoing trial with the risk of prejudicing that trial or subjudice or whatever it might be you know i mean i understand the point you're trying to make but apply common sense to it logic you know you can't talk about a trial that's ongoing we spent much of last year talking about it and it's it's on hold until the start of february and then it will be started to be talked about again that's the way it works what's happening in 10 dining streets a fascinating story from my perspective because there are nearest neighbors barris johnson is a an extraordinary character and he's found himself painted into a corner that it's really quite interesting if you're not interested in politics to see how he's going to get out of it so i respect your point i appreciate you texting it in but it doesn't match with reality regarding car insurance it's not the value of the car that's insured it's the driver who's insured to drive the car safely also against accidents occurring while driving be that as it may you are asked to you're asked to price your car for fully comprehensive you're asked to um price your car and then you're told that if they are to replace your car they'll either do it at the price you said at the current market value so it's beyond what you're saying also please can i impress on everyone to shop around for your car insurance i i'm crap at it and at 350 350 euro is going to be in my bank account this year that wasn't last year that's the saving that i've made by shopping around 350 and i'm not finished yet because i still have to play one off the other a little bit but i am going to save this year 350 euro um so that's me one person so anyone out there please shop around and see if you can save money that's my saving it's really really significant it makes a big deal to me uh a lot of outgoings and and the in go incomings aren't quite as high as some might think so that's massive for me 350 euro i've switched my car insurance i switched my phone provider i used to pay i've said this before 70 quid a month stupidly buying a phone over two years now i just paid 1299 so that's 350 plus the difference between 13 euro and 70 every month what else did i change i changed electricity i'm changing that every year now saving quite a bit of money in that regard i switched broadband i was with one company for a year and i now i might be stupid for signing up for this in the first place but i am saving 45 euro per month on broadband so 450 on broadband and 350 on insurance uh that's five 800 euro on two things that i'm saving plus it's well over a thousand euro if you add in the mobile phone as well so i've started to practice what i preach here and shop around and i'm definitely 2022 going to be saving a minimum of 1200 by not having stupid loyalty to a phone company a bit for mobile a broadband company stupid loyalty i had there you know brand loyalty to do car insurance talked about it never did it now i'm done it electricity as well switched it as well so um that's huge so we could all do that i think we could all do that and save some money right here's riana please don't stop the music ironically i just have but there you go uh texas says hi i was glad to hear that gaudi are taking 800 800 on this year it'd be good to have serving members of gaudi on and talk about their job and experience just to get insight as many would be interested in joining we do do that from time to time i think we've done it twice as part of the community garden slot on a tuesday but yeah um we we could do if you'd be interested in that uh taking 800 on is grand it's where they go though you know how many of those come up here uh charlie on facebook says the prices of used cars in scotland have gone up over the last two years so it's not a case that you know prices are static in britain uh but going up here thanks for that charlie appreciate you uh watch and appreciate you texting in uh call us as they're saying that leaving certain children don't have their junior cert grades but they have sat their junior cert it's not very fair they did sit the junior cert so they do have grades uh i'm not sure all of them did but okay uh we will be speaking i did are you sure they sat their leaving the junior cert that this year's uh entrance at least some of them and on vaccinate any unvaccinated conspiracy theorists so covid deniers who end up in hospital because of the virus should be billed with the full medical costs for the duration of their stay hit them in the wallet to make them pay for the foolishness they are comparable to those irresponsible people who like to drink and drive and end up injuring themselves or others resulting in an unnecessary drain on our health service now i don't i mean that's a dangerous road to go down right because let's just say right and i'm not saying this but let's just say that someone who has chosen not to take a vaccine right they might say well people who are vaccinated might make lifestyle choices that make them more inclined to go into icu uh you know i mean obviously some of us have conditions that uh are are problematic but some of us live a life in a certain way that could make us more inclined to become very sick in icu they could say well there should be a penalty on on those people as well because they made choices you know what i mean like so i think when you go down that road i just don't think it helps anyone i understand where you're coming from and i feel it and and and there's times one would agree and many might there agree but once you get down there well where do you stop that policing of you know personal responsibility uh complicating complicating health it's a it's a it's a it's a deep hole um i didn't see that that's a comment from yesterday if an ambulance was called to your house and you have firearms on the property why is the armed response unit called i don't know the answer to that question it's quite could you give us more information as to why you posed that question because it really is quite specific uh are you saying i mean i can't imagine the firearms unit is caused called to any you know every single farm you know many farms have firearms on it and would be visited by ambulances would armed response go to all of those calls you need to give me some more explanation i'd find that unbelievable not unbelievable sorry remarkable is it policy to stop somebody driving northern car in donny gall if they if that car is based in the republic i would say it is greg any word on the change of telephone numbers i you know doc that was highlighted highlighted on your show i gave you an update on that we've got the number changed on google so if you google now doc the new number comes up uh we're still working on either a message on the 1850 number or to discontinue it or something i don't know but what's happening is people are ringing it it rings out and they say the service is currently not available and is available during regular hours so people might think in that situation that they're ringing the right number okay which is which is pointless even if it's not about saving people any bad health it would save people an awful lot of time if they're endlessly ringing a number that no one will answer it's like that phone in a back office in a film in a warehouse no one's going to answer it i got a text from the hsc to say that i was a close contact i'm an elderly person and haven't left the house since before christmas i live with my wife son and daughter and none of them have tested positive for covid 19 i know that i'm not a close contact because i didn't leave the house a contact with the hsc and explain my circumstances and was told that i still need to follow the guidelines i asked them if my name and number could be given maliciously and was told it could but due to data protection they couldn't tell me who provided them with my name has this happened to anyone else uh i'm sure it has it's it's a complex system and there will be mistakes look you know the hsc aren't the the hsc aren't the police you know and the police aren't going to come knocking at your door for me personally and i hope i'm not given bad advice you you know you're not a close contact uh so just because someone on the end of a phone says you must follow the advice i'm not saying to i'm not saying ignore the advice but it's clear that that advice does not apply to you and you should not be uh input uh you should not have to be your life complicated for seven to ten days for no reason or seven or ten days or whatever it is so you know off the record i know what i would do anyway but it's up to you what you do all right okay we're going to be speaking about uh what the what what what what what we can do about these state exams uh to to an absolute definitive this is the answer because i think if we have that uh we're not going to get it today by the way i think just as a nation if we get that answer it would ease the concerns um of an awful lot of young people out there already going through a nightmare situation the 9 till noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota port road letter kenny stock is of a wide range of used passenger and commercial vehicles getting fit just got easier with enish fitness dunlow subscription payments are now available to help spread the cost of your membership call in to enish fitness dunlow for more details beat the cost of brexit and no customs charges do you need a u k address for your limited company or personal use space hub and dairy can provide you with your own virtual office or mailbox have your post and parcels delivered to space up and collected your convenience also brand new 20 foot shipping containers now in stock ideal for all your storage needs at our springtime and comor depots find us on facebook or space hub 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start the new year by treating yourself and availing of the best finance offer available driving away and your new cars become even more affordable with zero percent finance now available on the all-new kia sport hash and kia seed range call us today to book your test drive on 0749134567 or visit i motors dot ie okay so the state exams commission says it won't be possible to rerun last year's hybrid leaving cert model the Irish Times reports the cancellation of the junior cert in 2020 makes it impossible to give students a choice as the information was seen as crucial in helping teachers grade them the commissions now understand now the commissions now understood to be examining other contingencies options but this uncertainty as we know here is causing great anxiety to our young people we're being contacted by them and their parents their parents are at the witsend this uncertainty this lack of you know what's going to happen is causing great angst and we've heard from gps who have also stated that they're seeing an uptick in you know young people suffering with stress and anxieties brought on by this and you know we have to be able to come up with some sort of a solution let's find out what labor is a solution might be its deputy Aiden O'Reardon is education enterprise and trade spokesperson for that party and joins us on the program now thank you very much Aidan for joining us and a very good morning to you good morning i we're doing this by zoom i know your listeners won't know that but that means i can't do these interviews in my pajamas anymore because you can see exactly what i'm wearing well you certainly can't do them in your pajama top i can't vouch for what you're wearing i can't vouch for what you're wearing below the camera but i won't even allow my mind to strain to that minefield deputy you know this is something you know this rhymes we've done this is it the third year the hooker by crook comments and the uncertainty in the angst and you know it can't be beyond us to come up with something that satisfies what we have to do you know properly assess our younger people but do it in a way that alleviates as much stress and strain as it's possible outside of the normal stress and strain of exams i would agree and can i first say that i know that you know the labor party have been quite critical administer fully but when it comes to leaving search he's always on the right thing in 2020 when she has inherited the assess grades model that had been presented to her by her own local deputy there at dromacue we asked her to take her school profiling and she did it last year she listened to the student voice when they asked for a choice a hybrid model because what was happening in the school system with schools out and she did it and this year i think it's only fair that we could expect her to do the right thing again now if you just maybe reflect on where the six years are this year they missed a number of months of in school learning last year when they were in fifth year that is vital part of the of the senior cycle um two-year program you don't get to do that cover you know those elements again and most of the time so they were out and now it's a huge level of uncertainty because number of teacher absences understandably because of because they have covered or because they're close contacts and indeed the students themselves are out so and also we don't know what kind of variant could come down the tracks between now and june so we feel notwithstanding what the state examination commissions are reported to have said this morning but it's unsurprising that you know an agent of the state would be conservative when it comes to these things and and would advocate for no change notwithstanding all of that's what's been said and notwithstanding what the teacher unions have also said we believe and other critical parties are saying that the fairest thing to happen now will be a hybrid model as rolled out last year it will alleviate a huge amount of stress a huge amount of anxiety you would recognize the fact that an awful lot of teaching has been lost because of what happened when they were in fifth year but what's happened currently in November December were very disrupted months this month is being heavily disrupted teachers are and you know support staff SNAs etc are understandably out and there's no suggestion that that's going to change radically over the next number of months so let's vote for the first time so what about the the problems at the heart of this yes exactly and and you know what time and time again what we hear is they're not being consulted their voices are not being heard which i think is ridiculous because next year yeah i would say though that issue which is the irish secondary students union have been quite vocal they are at the table and the minister did listen to them last year so i think that was a welcome break in what normally happens in this type of cycle that the other voices are okay i get that and i and i accept that as it relates to last year let's hope that continues into this year what about the problem of not having the junior cert results to lean on how do you do a proper hybrid with assessment in there when you don't have sort of that that that batch of exams to to to look at when you find you find the way the majority of students would have done a junior cert in in 2019 the majority of even serve students would have done a transition year so in most cases that won't be a factor also there's an awful lot of subjects that you would do a leaving cert that aren't examinable at junior cert level there's at least 10 if not more and i also feel that with the best will in the world the system can find the way and you know the word impossible as it once said to me is only an opinion the system tends to be very conservative when it comes to this it wants to go back to what they feel is traditional what they've always known to be the case the traditional leaving cert and get over the blip at the last two years and go back to what we knew before which was the rather brutal leaving cert of pre 2020 but to be honest why do we have to do that why does that that always have to be the default position that's why i'm disappointed what the teacher unions are saying and the the association of of principals and deputy principals they're saying it needs to be a hybrid model i know the students are most likely to come out and ask for a hybrid model as well why do we have to be so unbending so rigid um you know when because i just wonder if i just wonder if if if the the the the emotional impact on people is being considered in these decisions because for us to proceed with the traditional leaving cert examination two things have to happen or one thing if they're the same thing we have to presume that uh the education of these children has not been disrupted by by covid but we know that's simply not the case so we're sending them in disadvantaged you know and i can't see in any scenario where that is actually fair no it isn't and and we cannot even if we were to be absolutely certain from here on into june that there would be no further disruption on any level it still wouldn't be fair because of this disruption here to four but we can't be sure of that we've seen what's happened even since december that even last week there was a suggestion that the schools wasn't open and one of the teacher unions who is now saying that we shouldn't um we shouldn't have we should we should have a traditional leaving cert we're saying that there was a potential for 50 percent of the teachers to be out so if that's the projection from from people who know what they're talking about at the cold phase but then we can't stand over that and i think six-year students who have suffered enough if you are in sixth year think of what your day is like you're masked up you're in a very you know highly um you know stressed environment covid is running everything freezing cold possibly freezing cold the the the principles are not leading learning they're leading a covert environment where they're trying to be health and safety managers more than anything else and they're dealing with covid all the time and for trying to protect their teachers and their staff and their and their students all the time so learning has come in secondly you know in second place to that so this was recognized that and i am you know i i am encouraged by voices in fiend fall in finnegale and in shin fain and indeed in the social democrats who are all following our call and we have a petition online which now has six thousand five hundred signatories and you go on to labor dot i you'll see it and i i would encourage the the the young people who are infected by this and their families to have their voice heard to contact their local representatives so to you know and not everybody's of the same mindset some students contact me and they you know they're quite comfortable going on with a traditional leaving search but the majority that get in contact with me and i believe other politicians are asking for recognition to be made the fact we are in the middle of a raging pandemic with over twenty thousand cases a day hugely disrupted a senior cycle can we not just trust teachers to trust you know you know and they're they're young people and and facilitate a hybrid leave insert a lesson past tradition next to their lives i mean i think as much as we can give a definitive definitive answer in other words you know that this is how it's going to be one way or other um and obviously this a lot of people prefer the hybrid model that needs to be complete and absolute certainty to the point whereby it's generally accepted by the opposition that that's the government's decision and they're not going to change and then you know the debates out of it we need to know categorically what's going to happen i think because at least then yeah it's the uncertainty that's driving people up the wall at least then we know what we have even if it's not perfect for everybody yeah well this won't be perfect no matter what happens i mean we do have to deal with the issue of great great inflation that was a problem last year we do have to look at third-level places or places within further colleges of education i accept all that and i also agree that people might with myself if we're not successful we can continue campaigning on this into february march that wouldn't be fair either if a final decision is made in the coming days or weeks well then we have to go with that we may be disappointed but it's unfair to raise expectations of young people that something can change when it quite clearly isn't but at this point in time i think it's reasonable to expect that the minister who has done the right thing in the previous two leaving certs and i think you know when it comes to politics it's we have to be in a position to congratulate ministers when they do the right thing as much as we criticize them when they don't and when it comes to leaving cert i would have to say that norma 40 has always done the right right fair enough for that's good finally um if they proceed with i mean obviously last year and the year before i think there's a general acceptance is there that you know points went up very high because maybe you know the the points achieved were higher than when the leaving cert was sat traditionally if they progressed with a traditional leaving cert this year um would they be further disadvantaged students in terms of trying to get college places particularly with those that may have deferred from last year sitting a traditional exam versus that hybrid model where people may have got higher points plus also the risk of hitting lower points because of the disruption to the year is that something that should be factored in here well absolutely should be but again there will never be a perfect solution but what we're trying to prevent is the situation where students keep planning on until june not knowing what teacher is going to be in or out worrying about any reports of another variant you know realizing that they missed out so much in in fifth year realizing they missed out so much before christmas and currently and expecting them to sit a traditional leaving cert that i think is an unreasonable proposition what we're proposing i think is more reasonable maybe imperfect but we can always find a way with with a bit of good will deputated and all read on thank you very much for joining us it's been nice having you on the program he's labor is education enterprise and trade spokesperson keep your calls and comments coming in on that issue of course to the usual numbers and we'll get to some of those after these the nine-tailed moonshow with kelly's toyota port road letter kenny where you can care for your toyota with a two-year service pack from 299 euro inish fitness dunlow is offering a free fitness plan a dealer to you with every six or 12 month membership purchased in january call in to inish fitness dunlow to find out more the january sale at foiant company has everything you need to create a beautiful home get the new year off to the right start by giving your home a new lease of life there is discounts of up to 20 percent across a range of departments including homewares and furniture with up to 50 percent off special offers you won't want to miss shop in store at foiant company and letter kenny and ballet buffet or online with nationwide delivery at foyes dot ie the northwest independent clinic is now king's bridge private hospital yes we have arrived in ballet kelly and if you need treatment or surgery there is no need to wait at king's bridge private hospital northwest you will have access to over 300 consultants and hundreds of treatments and services we are approved by all major insurance companies and self-pay options are available in fact treatment could 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low are inviting you to bring a friend for free to a class with the purchase of a bundle of eight classes this month terms and conditions apply new this weekend home store and more all fireside accessories are half price but better hurry because when all our half price fireside accessories are gone they're gone also all 100 cut and printed duvet sets and all our duck feather and down duvets are still half price but when all our half price all 100 cut and printed duvet sets and all our half price duck feather and down duvets are gone they're definitely gone dropped by your local home store and more home store and more a happy home at cherrymore kitchens and bedrooms we are now operating out of one new state of the art showroom in dunningall town and we invite you to visit our new 5000 square foot dunningall town showroom to discover the latest eye-catching designs remember at cherrymore you're dealing directly with a manufacturer which means high quality kitchens at factory prices start planning your dream kitchen or bedroom by calling cherrymore on zero seven four nine seven two five eight double two cherrymore 25 years delivering value quality and service all over ireland coonies furniture at leta kenney retail park january sale is now on you'll find everything for your home has been reduced with massive savings on suites tables beds and accessories but hurry only while stocks last call in today and treat your home with a visit to coonies furniture recently engaged discover your dream dunningall wedding at jackson's and villa rose in the heart of ballet buffet with our wedding venue showcase on sunday january the 23rd contact wedding team to book your showcase appointment with jackson's and villa rose with the onset of different variants of coronavirus it is vital that your business office or school has the most up-to-date air purification device mcdade's bathroom plumbing tiles introduce the daikon air purifier it eliminates 99.9% of coronaviruses in under three minutes ideal for residential settings offices classrooms and waiting rooms priced at 495 euros is a great investment for more details contact mcdade's bathroom plumbing tiles we're only a phone call or email away okay coming up we're going to be answering all your interior design questions and so much more besides but it's just coming up to 11 o'clock so it's time for a news updates and it is a very good morning once again to donal kavanaugh thank you great good morning 10 million covid vaccines have now been administered in ireland the hhc chief executive paul reed says it's hugely reduced the impact of the omicron variant that he shook me whole martin this morning urged anyone who hasn't been fully vaccinated to do so as quickly as possible the transport minister says he's confident the government can begin to ease restrictions in february it comes as rules for self-isolation for asymptomatic close contacts are to be scrapped at a cabinet meeting provided those affected have been boosted that meeting is ongoing in government buildings at the moment the government is expected to publish new legislation this morning that would allow adopted people access to their birth records the birth information and tracing bill is being discussed at cabinet the new laws have been long awaited by campaigners as it will allow adoptees access to their original birth certs and allow them to find out who their birth parents are brexit has been given as one of the reasons why the cost of a used car in ireland is 56 percent higher than it was before the pandemic some second-hand models are now being advertised at higher prices than the newer version the latest done deal car price index says supply issues linked to brexit are a major factor with the number of cars coming into this country from britain now cut by around half hickwell has published inspection reports into four designated centers for people with disabilities in dunigal three of the reports looked at centers where non-compliances had previously been identified improvements were noted in each but there were still some non-compliances in all three a dunigal counselor is welcoming new legislation allowing pensioners to purchase their council homes under present regulations pensioners in many cases can't purchase their home because they're not in receipt of regular income other than their social welfare payments and the thresholds are too high councilmember moctham says income thresholds are now going to come down which will allow people on the pension by their home he says it's only right and proper but that's the case and boris johnson is facing in peace at lunchtime under intense pressure to confirm whether he was at a bring your own booze party in the dunning street garden during lockdown it's the first time he's appeared in public since it emerged around 40 staff had gathered in may of 2020 and we're back with news headlines again at 12 noon okay donal thank you very much indeed there are silent conversations that happen on our roads every day between drivers and older pedestrians like me when we catch each other's eye to say do you see me or i'm crossing but when people don't look out for each other those connections can be missed and so can i too many older pedestrians are being killed on our roads when we look out for each other we keep each other safe please look out for older pedestrians from the road safety authority visit rsa.ie okay so any questions as it relates to interior design little changes you may wish to make as it relates to your property and so on so forth get them into us we'll be having a general chit chat about what's on trend what's not on trend and so on so forth uh claire mcdonough joining us very shortly uh my child sat that leaving really recommended predicted grades didn't suit her she got h1 in subject when sat the exam got a h4 and predicted the same subject another leaving search have not covered the course thank you labor sense at last please sort this out for the mental health of our young people hi greg i wish we had borris johnson running this country wouldn't we still wouldn't be in lockdown the amount of people heading to dairy every weekend is unreal bars close to eight and on and all do they think uh people are heading home i hope to god this government is wiped out next time around they say but there is no opposition party opposing what the government are doing here by the way so wiped out replaced with what certainly not going to be borris johnson radio claire mcdonough is co-director of le Maison and joint vice president of letter chamber uh and we're going to be talking interior design can you hear me okay i'm around right one second i think i'm being on playback as well can you hear me claire claire can you hear me i can can you hear me yes okay we're live thank you right claire how are you keeping happy new year to you i'm keeping very well just enough gap in that window for me to say happy new year to you just a bite just a bite the same to yourself hope you're keeping well um we we try and focus on ourselves i suppose in a new year you know it's a fresh start time for change do we do that with our homes and and uh our apartments and what have you do we tend to sort of write it's january i want to change a few things around here 100 percent and if you'd have seen me last week i was like a woman on a mission i was on a major deep clutter in the house had a few days to take all this and uh i cleared out i would say all the rooms in the house that were really bugging me um so i did a great big career right i have charity shop bags i have bags going to school for clothing and i think what it does is it sort of um sets us up nicely for the rest of the year that those little niggly jobs in the house that have been annoying you if you get them done this time of the year it's great it just sets you up for right what am i left with what are the areas of the house now that that maybe are bugging me a little bit and when you get rid of the clutter you can see what's left to do and what you can change up you can move furniture around uh there's lots of different things fresh like a paint you know knows the time uh to plan those projects even if we don't do them just yet there's something about decluttering isn't there um i don't know what it is like it didn't make the house look any nicer but i cleaned out uh a couple of cobs in the kitchen and it's like wow look at all this space i've got a really un unnatural response to it i think it's in the same space that that wonderful feeling when you put the bin down and you take it up empty i don't know what it is but there is something on a real emotional level that decluttering it it it affects you emotionally doesn't it especially work clearing out wardrobes and mess in a room there's just something on a level that uh an emotional level that's there it is it's very cathartic and actually if you want to see that in action and we've done this myself and i've done this a few times when we go into home sometimes the messiest room in a house where there are children is that playroom where there's just stuff everywhere and smaller the child the bigger the toy and very often if we've gone in to help somebody declutter you will find this 100 percent of the time if you declutter a playroom or a child's bedroom what you're doing is creating space on the floor for them to actually play and they dance in the middle of the room like it's incredibly like at a really basic human level when you do it for children you see how it actually affects our mind space and you know like uh we were very lucky in that you know we we were given really useful stuff for hudson or what have you but you know i think people accumulate a lot of stuff through the generosity of others and then leave it sitting out and around the place because obviously you're not going to put a present in in the cupboard are you and you know that just ends up being the way it is for the next year or two at least that's the thing and you know when people are so kind if it's something you really love or it's something that's really useful that you need and it's practical absolutely it should be there and certainly i think there's a time frame when if it doesn't fit those categories you need it to be out and on display and then over time maybe you can move it around and maybe move it somewhere else and very often annan and i when we teach her into your design classes we we tell funny stories around you know when somebody buys you a gift somebody goes into your house and they see a particular type you know a particular type of ornament and that's being collected they think you love it so the next time they come and need to buy you a gift you'll get more of that thing so be careful what you put out because ornaments tend to multiply because it's a handy i might just stick gold bars i'll get a fake gold bars and stick them on shelves and stuff yeah exactly for a few wine bottles yeah it's funny because there's a psychology to that as well because people think they're doing a really good thing right as people text in i'll wait six six to twenty five thousand and i'll get to the questions that have already come in you know like paint okay i think one of the things that we feel we can do that has the greatest impact and maybe one of the lowest costs although it's not free of course is is painting in what's the trends at the moment have we moved away from and maybe we had some time ago the bluey grays is there anything else that's sort of more in vogue than that i hear bluey greens you're talking about green toned grays are you have great sources Greg you're you're right up there with the trends it's it's funny i think the trend um for paint is not so much the color but it's the saturation point so what we've gone away from are paint colors that have a lot of white in them that look quite thin you know like quite acidic paints and what's in are any kind of colors neutrals or darks but that they're quite a deep shade of that color so when you look at the paint it looks like a really rich color even if it's a taupe or if it's a camel color or a you know a brown or a sage green if you look at it and the paint looks a bit thin to you you think there's a lot of white in it those sorts of sharper colors are sort of out and what we're what we're looking at and it's probably post-covid and wanting to feel kind of you know cozy in our homes and all of that what we're finding the trend is is for more saturated color so if you're a fan of big color then you're going for deeper shades and if you're a fan of neutrals you're still going for a neutral but it's a deeper shade of a new truck so it's more that the saturation point of the paint rather than the color and those lighter colors can look very washed out close to a window very quickly i don't know if that's the right phrase theology but they lose their color very quickly and you almost look like you've got a two toned room is paneling coming back in paneling is huge you know paneling sort of came in maybe three to four years ago in a big way and you'd be thinking you know as a trend maybe it's going out again but i mean i had two panel consultations yesterday it's just you know when people are paneling offices they're paneling kids rooms they're paneling sick rooms halls you know paneling you know even in my own house now i would have four five rooms that have different types of panel what color are they uh i well in my house for example at my hallway it's quite i want it doesn't have great light it's north facing so that paneling is not quite yes but in in my kids playroom where i wanted to create a cosier sort of entertaining day on tv cinema and it's actually a dark navy all right okay and what color wall are you going with that dark navy out of interest well out of interest that dark navy i have taken what i i would call it new england paneling it goes right up and stops about a foot and a half from the ceiling oh really it's really really deep but it's not right to the ceiling and then what i've done is when your paneling is that high on the wall you don't have a wall color and a ceiling color you're better to take the one color on that foot above the panel right up the wall and onto the ceiling and that's what i've done so i wanted two colors and just in terms of those considering paneling does it like i don't know but it feels like it could close a room in do you need a room of a certain size does it create it doesn't make the room feel small once definitely not definitely not and there's different ways to do it like some people with small rooms will just do the one wall and like particularly in bedrooms that's a really really popular choice at the moment as you do one one paneling wall behind say the headboard of the bed so that's a way to do if it's a small room and you just want that thing you could certainly do that but i mean paneling like walls can be painted anything so no matter what the shape of the size of the panel is how you paint it will affect the room even more and so i would say no room's too small and there's but there's so many different types of paneling people think it's just the the low georgian paneling that goes around your your the lower part of your walls with maybe a paint or a paper above it but there's lots of different styles of new england coastal paneling there's american ship lap there's tons of different styles so you know if you're not sure i would say google you know instagram look at pages save a few photographs and then consult somebody like yourselves that doesn't hear design they can advise you on the right stay in the right color for your room and then you need the good carpenter and that's the key yeah panel of course you can do it yourself um but really if you want to get the proportions right and for your room there's a tricky size um and you've lots of windows and lots of plugs and lots of doors and built on furniture and things you know and the walls you know if it's not a square room um that's when you need a very good carpenter yeah of course yeah because you want it to look right and those joints and gaps and the oh yeah one final thing on that and unless anyone asks any questions it might be a stupid question does the paneling come down to the skirting board do you generally take the skirting board and bring it down to the floor or so the skirting board go on top of the paneling yeah well that's a great question we get that a lot and the answer is it really depends on the type of paneling you're doing so if you have a really good carpenter and you don't want to disturb your um your uh skirting board you can do that by getting them to actually rip mdf uh much um much neater so you can do smaller boards and then you can do smaller what's of mdf so you can actually do it without disturbing anything or if you want really chunky um very um deep paneling then yes that the skirting board does come off and then you start afresh and then it goes back on but it really again there's so many options it's about getting the right advice for your room and the amount of mesh you want to create yeah um we'll get to some mess in a second uh because someone's thinking about changing their tiles uh but before we get to that I just want a more general general questions in terms of of trends because you know I speak to people that say some will say carpets never went out of fashion but that the more people are moving back towards carpet they want to step out of the bed and feel you know that plushness under their feet or down the hall you know are we are people favoring carpet over hard floors at the moment is there any trends in that regard do you know I I think carpets always in fashion it's always on trend because there are people who a carpet just equals luxury so even though lots of new builds now have all the under four heating and that you could you could put tile in your bedroom and that but you would not be cold psychologically it's a bit of a hurdle to get over but you would not be cold but I think for some people carpet just means luxury so it'll it'll never date um the key is getting the right carpet for for the right room you know is it a high traffic area is it um is it more that you want just a bit of luxury is is it that you have small kids and you want to be able to clean it you know there's again there's lots of different options there if you do love carpet it's definitely the right advice in terms of cleaning it because I think that's what puts an awful lot of people off in this day and age you've scotch guard is that such a thing is it you put in the carpets you've got carpet cleaners or you've got carpets that maybe you know I mean they'll all accept dirt but maybe might be more resistant I mean scotch guard is more for fabric and couches it's not really for carpets but what I would say is go to the likes of carpet interiors or grove or your local carpet shop and speak to the people there because they will advise you the the best carpet for the surface or the the room that you're using it yes but most carpets a lot of carpets now come with an 80-20 blend where they they're bleached cleanable so you can clean them really well you can you know they're very robust and they're structured so they will stand up well to a good scrub it really depends on making sure that you have the right carpet for the right function in the right room so certainly cleaning the carpet isn't it should not put anybody off getting the carpet but stairs are going to get a hammering a hallway is going to get a hammering a bedroom or the track from the the bed to the bathroom is going to wear it less it's about having the right car but that's why we have experts in the companies that you've mentioned because that's what they do right okay listen that was a general chit chat stay with me if you don't mind I have to take a really short break and we're going to be coming back with the questions more specific your questions to Claire McDonough after these messages the 9 till noon show brought to you by Kelly's Toyota Port Road Letter Kenny home of the new pro-way city your perfect business partner get fit this new year with Inish Fitness Dunlowe they're open seven days a week and ready to help you with your new year fitness goals see Inish Fitness Donnae for timetable prices and membership offers is your water safe to drink if your water tastes unpleasant or has a foul smell it may be a sign that something is in your water Brothers Tech Dunegal provide a complete private well water treatment service using the best water treatment equipment to meet your needs or maybe you drill the new well and the water isn't satisfactory at Brothers Tech their expert team will also service existing problematic systems if you're concerned about the quality of your water call Brothers Tech on 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today and treat your home with a visit to Cooney's Furniture Highland Radio Time Checks brought to you by Letter Kenny Shopping Center the center of shopping in Donegal free parking and shopping all under one roof Letter Kenny Shopping Center bringing you the time at the time is 18 minutes past 11 we're in conversation with Claire McDonough co-director of Le Maison and joint vice president of Letter Kenny Chamber and we're talking interior design now how big a job is it someone wants to know to lift kitchen tiles and replace them it's a messy enough sounding job at the very least Claire yeah it can be and it depends on the both the size of the kitchen does it as a part of a bigger open plan room and also does it have an island on it and are the tiles going on or over I had the very same problem in my kitchen and one of the things you can do and I opted for this because for all of those reasons that joined on and had an island and it was going to be a mess and I had you tiled over the old tiles well we tiled over with what's called a luxury vinyl tile which is available in carbon interiors where they literally come in and they do a very fine screed so I didn't have to lift my tiles and then on top of that we've done like a luxury vinyl tile which is such a great job it was done on a day and no mess no dust let me ask you someone might wish to match in wall tiles in the kitchen can you apply that same product to walls not as far as I know but what I always say to people about wall tiles I would be if there's another option for floor tile you want to avoid that mess because of services and islands and different things that's grand for wall tile unless you want a very quick fix say to rent a house out or something and you just you need to give it your under time pressure you can paint the tiles certainly to freshen them up but wall tiles are not expensive there's so many great options that for me the lift that they will give your kitchen for the input and the effort I would say get rid of the kitchen tiles if you can upgrade those because you can do that or for a little money enough you know whereas the floor tile is a much bigger job and there's much you know it takes longer and there's more mess so for me wall tiles unless it's a quick turnaround paint them otherwise reinvest how did you find with this this covering of the kitchen tiles in terms of you know like saddle boards and stuff well what what you can do actually is you can put in a trim of your choice so I'm a great believer in trying to get all your metals the same in a space because it's visually less busy so and for me for example I have chrome knobs you know in my kitchen so I put in a nice slim chrome and struck between the two between my wooden floor and make my kitchen area so very again very easily done yeah okay right okay so more questions a caller has a large sitting room with a cream fireplace and cream carpet what would be a good color for a couch and curtains now they haven't mentioned their wall color but maybe that's pretty neutral and and they think the focus should be on the carpet and the fireplace right well um great foundations they're really really good foundations and I would think that that customer could either do one of two things they could either go really neutral and invest in a lovely neutral colored couch that that works really well um with the carpet and the fireplace and then sorry what is your class of neutral color the neutral colors you're talking you know topes camels biscuity colors beiges you know that might sound boring to some people and if that sounds boring to you then you're the color customer and if the neutral seems really calm and relaxing and that's the feeling you want in the room then I think that large sofa or two soles whatever it needs to be on the neutral palette too I would even go so far as maybe doing curtains neutral with maybe a little trim of something down the side so bring in a color but again if you're fan of neutrals that color would be soft greens soft duck eggs those kind of cam or colors and then I would actually saturate the walls a little so the color in the walls and I wouldn't be doing cream I would be doing a nice sage green or a nice duck egg or a gray blue something that has a deeper shade that brings the room together it's still neutral and it's very calm if you're the other person and you really want to bring in color I would still probably do quite a neutral sofa or a dark sofa like maybe a navy or a dark green or that and then bring that color into your curtains and your cushions and your accessories the thing about a really dark sofa color wise is it can make the room feel that little bit busier so if you want that cam space you're better to stay on the neutral pad and if you want a bit of color and a bit of maximalism and a bit of joy and you know all of those things and a bit of business and a bit of fun then really you should bring and if you put that dark furniture in you're likely want to sort of brighten it up with cushions and you're going the wrong way around about it then because it's the dominant piece of furniture isn't it and you want it to sort of exactly yes it's eyebrows I think if you if you can really notice them there's something going on do you know what I mean he's just so funny I totally agree with you know like a couch you just sit there you should go you know it should be there it's like eyebrows anyway I have a fireplace with I have a fireplace with a black insert outer cream marble tile and dark mahogany surround have you got the picture it's a black insert okay outer cream marble tile dark mahogany surround which I'd like to update without replacing it so can I paint wood surround and the cream marble people are really nervous about painting wood certainly on a large scale your expensive mahogany woods yes they're beautiful the pine all that stuff bang the paint on that that's from my perspective anyway but I don't know what yeah what's your fireplace yeah that's a great question and it's funny um Greg this this exact question comes in every time that I'm on with you I don't know if you realize that every time you can't decide what to do with this fireplace yeah exactly but no it is a great question because a lot of people have exactly that setup so yes you can paint this the fire surround and because there's a little bit of marble there already I would try and color match the paint to that marble so that the overall effect is that you have a marble fireplace with the black insert and actually the marble and the black is very sharp together really classic very elegant will work really well so I would say do not be afraid to paint it I can tell you why that question comes in because people look at it and there's many of these in their homes and it feels dated and the sister calls around or the brother calls around they go you know I'd love to do something with that you can't touch that that fireplace is absolutely beautiful and then 10 minutes throughout the door and they're looking at it and they hate the fireplace you just have to bite the bullet don't you you do you do but I always say trust you've got it your fireplace exactly please yourself I have a curved wall in my hall which sounds lovely actually um can I panel it it's a very dark hall yes you can panel it and in fact if you go on to the lames on instagram page or our um facebook page you will see exactly that I did that in a beautiful house before christmas there were quite a few curved walls and we have a lovely soft wallpaper above and the panel is curved um right the way around beautiful beautiful walls beautiful proportions it really really works um well with a classic scheme but you could equally do it with a contemporary scheme so it absolutely can be done and I would say you know when you talk to your carpenter about it if they're in any way hesitant if they go oh I don't know if yeah well she would give it a go they're not the person for you you want somebody who's done this before and who's confident to do it but it absolutely can be done it looks wonderful if you want to see photos go on her instagram page scroll back to before christmas you'll see the photos and it will look outstanding you can just absolutely amazing it'll actually it'll actually make more of the the wall to give it that attitude it's a something of a unique feature so you want to maximize it don't you especially as it's what you see when you walk in I have a large sitting room black marble fireplace what wooden floor and paints would you choose or suggest okay so again there's a bit of a blank canvas there I think with um I'd probably go quite dark on the floor you know maybe like a really dark wooden floor like a lovely walnut you could do a herringbone you could do a parquet you could do depending you know whether you want to throw heating and you want to do solid or uh maybe do you know there's great laminates out there so I would probably go quite deep on the floor and maybe neutrals on the furniture and then bring in color on the walls and the fabrics sounds good what paint color for walls would you use for a cream kitchen uh with walnut counters it's an open plan area with dining room and sun room sounds lovely but the kitchen screen and the counters are walnut okay what I actually do there is um we always say to people if you have a cream kitchen like that don't do cream on the walls because it's just going to blend and you won't see your lovely kitchen and I would take the notes there from your cream and your walnut they're lovely natural colors very autumnal you know quite country colors so for me I would either do a lovely deep sage green where the kitchen as she pops and the walnut is picking up the green and it looks quite natural or again you could do something lovely like um maybe a duck egg again those those quite natural sea green blue colors will work really well with the cream and the walnut I would avoid anything yellow the greeny blue I'm really on top of this I mean I don't know why I'm here what are we doing here let's switch seats but I would say to that lady avoid maybe oranges and yellows they're not going to go great with the cream yeah and you know they might look fantastic on your first couple of times going into a room but I think you know you're I don't know how often we paint our homes Claire but you have to think of what this is going to look like in the summer in the winter in the autumn in the spring and you know and you can change lighting colors as well I've smart bulbs in my kitchen too and it's astonishing how you can almost change the tone of a paint just by slightly changing the tone of the lights and they're they're they're quite inexpensive now as well my hallway down to the bedroom it's a dark wooden ceiling I've carpet could have put walling or paint better so my whole white way down to the bedroom dark wooden ceiling I've carpet could I put on wallpaper or what paint because I think that might find quite enclosed with it being a hall and a dark ceiling I think if the dark state the ceiling is staying like she hasn't said anything there about painting the ceiling I would seriously consider painting out that ceiling because that will make a massive difference because it sounds like it's dark it's narrow and then you have this darkness so you know overhead so I think before I invest in wallpaper I would actually price maybe painting that ceiling first yeah and it would require a few coats as well it's not going to be oh definitely and it's not going to be cheap the first time but it is a great investment and it's easy enough to maintain I put in a new floor it's vinyl and I can't keep it clean can I paint over it with a varnish or anything so like oh no I don't think I'd paint a varnish over over what I would do in the first instance I would maybe go back to where I bought it and see do they have does it maybe need a specialist cleaner you know or because I know I know some of the chemicals some of the cleaners that we use clean floors actually strip your floor whether it's wood I've seen wooden like lovely solid oak floors ruined with I'll not mention any brands but really harsh chemicals what you wash in the floor how is that chemical reacting to the floor and is it making it although it doesn't feel sticky is it making it a dust magnet yeah so you need to make sure you have the right cleaning advice and instructions from wherever you bought it that's the first thing I would do before I would consider doing anything else yeah okay and again this is why these professionals have shops and that's the advantage of shops you can go in and speak to people and look them in the eye that's what they that's what they want to do could you ask Claire how to paint a white glitter floor for a children's room oh um actually not that hard um what you need to do you need to buy floor paint or paint that's suitable for the floor and then into that and this might can sound very scientific you can actually just dump some glitter and get it mixed out it's as simple as that now there are some paints that you can buy that have glitter in them and I can't think of one immediately that is suitable for a floor but what you could do is you could paint that and then varnish that you certainly could do that but again your local paint shop should give you exact products you know that they would stop that would do that but I know loads of people who want that glitter look and they literally just dump glitter and the key is mixing it really really well I put down a laminate in the hall I've got curved walls leading into the front door I put on new skirting how do I curve skirting or can I get pre-curved sections uh the rest of the room is finished uh a bare wall at the front door um so they have some of the skirt and don yeah I mean that is quite flexible and yeah it is yeah if they're doing it themselves it's hard to advise but a professional would write off the professional would know there there are ways some of it you can buy that is more flexible and then that's how you notch it to come around the corners they do little notches and if they bend it right soak it in water and make it more bendy don't do that I'm not a carpenter but to me that's even even to go back and ask again where you bought it how they would advise you to do it if you're doing it yourself otherwise any carpenter would be able to do that uh I let the sweets out of vogue ask the caller I wouldn't say they're out of vogue I would say that um what's happened with leather sweets is that the fabric suite options have improved so much now because you have 100 so where a young family before never would have chosen a fabric sofa now they can so maybe that's the the popularity of the leather has maybe waned but because the options are better lovely leather couch is always going to look a lovely leather couch I mean in and of itself they can't go necessarily out of style can they it's just no I don't think so it's quite expensive some of the most fabulous couches that we've ever worked with have been leather and you know you get what I love about the leather couches now is that there are much more contemporary shapes of course before it was always the kind of you know that kind of chubby one that you sink into and it sort of hugs you that was the only real leather couch and you're walking down the hall and it's still stuck to your back that exactly so leathers improved so much and you know even the colors available on leather and the shapes more contemporary and one thing that I don't personally like about a leather sofa the majority of them that are right there is that the ones that go to the floor and they're recliners they can tend to be in very big dark colors so when you walk into the room all your focus goes to that and they tend to be this big dark glob where some of the newer sofas are on legs you know so you can see underneath that really helps that really really helps the look of your room a couple of quickies I have a red fire brick of a red brick fireplace with a black stove with terracotta tiles I'd love to know what color to paint the room to match that okay I have the exact same so I have a terracotta or a red brick fireplace with a stove what I would say is if you want a neutral color make sure that there's a little bit of taupe in it so avoid yellow avoid yellow with all costs or creams they're going to overheat the brick and overheat the red what you want is a color whether it's a full color or a more neutral palette you want something that has a bit of a green base in it so that it the green and the red really work well together so again if you want a lot of color blue is quite good navies would work if you want deep saturation and there are you know your paint shop again which are there are lots of navies out there that are on the purpley scale they have a little bit of red in them and therefore they pick out the red brick so there's little clues like that on the paint that will help but to me those kind of taupe cappuccino colors but the darker ones work really really well if it's a little bit of green or a little bit of blue in the background they work well all right two quickies because but the lines are closed now i hate to leave anyone behind but two quick ones i have a small boxed room upstairs it's to the back of the house it's a small enough window in these type of rooms it's a very dull room the dark gray paint and wallpaper wouldn't be doing it any good it seems to pull it in more i'm going to paint and paper it and try and bring more light to the room i'm thinking going very light creams and a light colored wallpaper and one wall possibly cream and golds on the paper any advice greatly appreciated i'd bang a mirror in that room as well too perhaps 100% and the other thing i would do is look at what window treatment you've on like is the if the room if the window is quite small and there's a big pair of curtains on it that that's not doing it any any good either so maybe open that up maybe replace the curtains with a roller blind or a roman blind above the window to kind of maximize like you'd be surprised how much and it also gives you in your mind another five or six inches because the the window covering is pushed back is not yeah exactly and not every window sits curtains and i know curtains are easy to go out and buy or animate or whatever but even if that person pushes back their curtains back to be on the window you know you'll see the amount of light that you'll get and so some windows when they're small north facing blinds are much better so it could be a very simple roller blind internally and maybe do a little bit of archetry around it that will be fabulous um and if they're doing golds in this room um because they mentioned gold they're trying to do golds that are on the paler side like a champagne gold rather than a brass gold and that again will help with light but anything that's you know if they're going to put on wallpaper something with a little bit of reflection again will help and as you say Greg a mirror will also help last one then so can you ask Claire i have an oak shaker style kitchen for 14 years black appliances and the cream and black range master i've got cream walls as everything 14 years ago was 50 shades of creams yes to lift and modernize the kitchen without changing it what color would you paint the cupboards it's a black countertop also do you know what i newly think that this i was on this lady's house um before christmas now obviously wasn't but somebody very similar and what we did was we basically sprayed our kitchen and we sprayed it a lovely pale um green gray because that worked really really well with um other items that you had that were still oak in the kitchen like she might have had an oak table or whatever so that's that's what i would be doing i wouldn't again i would stay away from cream i would stay away from yellow tones um if it's not in her budget she's in she's a black worktop but if she could replace that worktop she would get a massive difference in light in her room um if it's a formica worktop the you can get those covered and i have a contact for that that'll do that quite inexpensively if it's black marble she'll not want to reinvest in that and that's fair enough but i think i think again a pale color that is that is not doesn't have a lot of yellow because that'll overcook the the other oak that's in the room and some might say it's a sin to paint an oak kitchen but she's been looking at it for 14 years doesn't wear anything at this stage and she'll get another 10 years out of it if she sprays it and sprays it well and again we have great contacts for for those services too okay so that's claire mcdonough co-director of lamezon and joint vice president of let it Kenny chamber if you've got a contact number for lamezon claire or do you want to tell people to your socials instead whichever way we're on instagram and we're on facebook as lamezon and then our phone number is 07491 61694 all right listen thanks for all your time this morning we ran over a little bit but i appreciate it take care of yourself thanks thanks great take care bye bye okay it's wednesday it's wednesday so business matters with kieran is coming up very shortly the nine-tail noon show brought to you by kelly's toyota port road letter kenny explore our wide range of virtual tools at kelly's toyota.com Enish fitness done low are now offering class only memberships register in person with reception to get access to the convenient Enish fitness app for booking and paying for classes my name is tubie and i'm a mature student studying to be a maths teacher when i teach i just love the way maths comes alive it's the look in the students eyes when they get it i think my african heritage is a real asset it's 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innovation in the public sector also a masters in governance compliance and data protection in financial services and a certificate in online dispute management visit la it dot ie for more information okay it is uh 20 to 12 this wednesday we're welcome into studio kiran old donnell presenter of uh the business matters podcast thanks very much for joining us kiran good morning greg did you get laser eye surgery i don't see your glasses so just you made it to prop me this is going to be good right turn up the brightness in the auto queue mikaela i mean but not for the stage greg no you're grand uh listen um new car registrations are up this money that some people seem to have accumulated during the lockdown uh they're starting to to put their hands in the pockets now yes there was a 14 and a half percent increase in the number of carers registered anthony gall in 2021 compared to the 2020 figure as according to the society of motor industry and nicely new care registrations rose by 19 percent so a total of eight thousand six hundred and 46 electric cars were registered in 2021 that's an increase of four thousand six hundred and thirty three compared to the number registered the previous year and other stats of note show a changing marketplace in 2021 diesel accounted for 33 percent petrol 32 percent hybrid 16 electric eight and plug on hybrid seven percent and i heard your your your conversation earlier on uh in relation to the appreciation of cars which is it's pretty hard to get your head around the fact that you have a car that's two years older and has many many more miles obviously that i've had when you bought the car and it's worth more money yeah but listen that's the market but so between hybrid plug-in hybrid and electric it's a third of the market there now it's on a par with on a par with diesel and petrol which is really quite quite interesting you just you do wonder though uh have we got the infrastructure in place to sort of cope with uh the major shift that has been forecast i know i i agree with you and that's really really important i think now and what we're seeing to what we're starting to see is cars that have ranges uh that are usable so in other words someone like myself can drive to and from work and if i've got to drop people to football yeah or go to the shop that there's enough juice in there for me extra well yeah yeah exactly but it seems to be there they're improving that regard but the infrastructure is i mean listen there's one or two and normally they're either not working or someone's parked there and they're in a petrol car or a diesel car right i don't know i didn't hear about this there was a time where uh you know there'd be brass bands leaving leading ministers up the street if they were visiting i don't know if they're trying to avoid avoid people but anyway we had a ministerial visit recently yeah minister of state for trade promotion digital and company regulation robert draught paid a recent visit to the site of the nishone innovation digital innovation hub in bonkrana and that was to get an update on the progress of the development so funded by enterprise errant and partnership with donagall county council the new three million euro innovation center is duty open at the end of 2022 all right uh lachesque the hotel outside donagall town um leo forad car was uh i think he stayed in harvey's point over christmas good news for them i suppose lachesque doing very well again they had some very high profile guests over uh from from the wall of rugby and elsewhere around about christmas and they're they're topping charts yeah more good news craig as you say lachesque castle in donagall town has been named as the number one best luxury hotel in irland by the times travel publication in the uk times so the elizabethan style castle house which was built in 1861 is now owned by pat de holley of harcourt developments and has 97 rooms and as you say an order uh award to add to their long list lyt information evening coming up again yeah text list next wednesday greg uh january the 19th um from 5 p.m to 8 p.m the event will include a series of live webinars that will be streamed live on lyat's youtube and facebook platforms and more details uh on the information even are available on lyat's social media all right contact lama catching the eye in the business world yeah uh speaking of the headings again greg for all the right reasons donagall based content lama which automates the collection configuration and delivery of multi-source product content for e-commerce retailers has been included in the 10 area startups to watch in 2022 and beyond by e-u startups and e-u startups is the leading online magazine about startups in europe founded in 2019 content lama is on a mission to connect brands and retailers in a more meaningful way uh back in november content lama secured a 2.5 million euro investment with the financing to be used to create 20 new jobs and for expansion purposes all right and uh good news obviously for the future of uh donagall airport uh emerald airlines on board for uh the next three years hopefully i listened to your segment yesterday with uh elie starry emerald airlines will fly the donagall dubbing route onto the airline's brand from february the 26th the airline will fly a 72 seater eight a or aircraft twice daily each way between the two airports and ermal's contract will run for three years and just in relation to uh that add on the dubbing service from carry fun the dubbing has been described as the backbone of donagall airports operation by its manager director elie starry and that was in conversation with yourself yesterday greg radio so this week's business matters podcast what's the subject yeah on this week's program i speak to columnist photographer and owner of the christie studio in the rikini brian mcdade brian has been taking photographs for over 40 years and to go to the christie gallery which was originally located on port road back in 2002 brian has also served with the rikini fire service for 27 years he left school at 16 and worked as a carpenter with local building contractor ternish pansby during the construction of some bernardette's school at college farm road in the rikini a motorsport enthusiast brian began taking pictures at car rallies in the early eighties and when i spoke to brian earlier this week he recalled his early days as a photographer in the rikini i'm doing photography from a very young um the late jim mccormick would have been my mentor um we used to go to him and bought my first camera i bought most of my cameras off him and buy them off jared now um if they can if they can get them they get the first chance on them and um i used to motorsport is where i got onto the photography and um i used to maybe go to whatever rally would be on and uh it took a week for the film to come back and you would be leaving it on the monday and you wouldn't be able to pay for it to the next friday anyway so you would be collecting the uh film normally only one roll maybe a 36 and you'd be going up the church lane and you'd be looking through them to see did you catch the cars or did you not catch the cars and just the smell of prunted pictures um the yellow and black negative uh packet um you were just going through them you just couldn't wait to look through them you know and even to this day that's still i have still that when i'm taking a picture i'm still want to see what it's like you know i'm just pressing the button and you have everything set but you still have the uncertainty of how it's going to turn out yeah and that's what keeps the interest keeps the excitement that and much more i'm sure the full interview with brian mcdade's available now on the highland radio website on highlandradio.com on Spotify and iTunes as well it's in the in the playback and regular visitors will the to the website will see there's been a few changes we've moved the deck chairs around and we would and no it's actually looking beautiful and uh there's an on-demand section there so you'll easily or more easily find the likes of the latest business matters podcast if people want to listen to it on air as a traditional way kiran yeah after the such club news greg on sunday evenings and if anyone wants to get in touch with the show maybe they want to be a guest or they want to some give you some feedback whatever it might be just to chat to you what's the story yeah just drop me an email please greg businessmatters at highlandradio.com thank you very much indeed that is kiran old donal the presenter of the business matters podcast here in highland radio and he'll be back with you on this program next wednesday but right now if you want more of kiran and more of brian hop onto the uh hop on to the uh your favorite podcast player Spotify or iTunes or our website and you can hear that in full the nine to the moon show brought to you by kelly's tayota test drive tayota's incredible self-charging hybrid range at our showroom port road letter kenny nish fitness dunlow offer yoga palates circuits and women's only weight training class to find out about their class's only membership call in to nish fitness today for great fuel deals contact gortley sales and hire large sacks and trailer loads of logs also briquettes coal kindling and gas with free delivery locally contact gortley sales and hire in letter kenny on nine one two six two seven six another christmas gone another year begun another opportunity to do those things you've been meaning to do for so long maybe doing something about your hearing loss is one of those things at hidden hearing we are the hearing experts our expert audiologists will assess your needs and recommend what's right for you the results can be life changing book a free hearing test today go to hidden hearing dot ie or call one eight hundred three seven zero triple zero hidden hearing your hearing is our expertise most people say that dunning all is the coolest place in the planet but up here we know that sometimes it can be the coldest charles bonnar and son's ballet buffet is the one stop shop for all your heating needs we have a huge range of multi fuel and wood pellets stoves and ranges spare parts for all major stove and range brands plumbing and bathroom wear all at exceptional prices so visit our showrooms where our friendly and experienced team will be ready to help you charles bonnar and son's ballet buffet and the stove store dot ie where you can always do a good deal better is debt getting in the way of you enjoying your life a homie version may help you find out more at plus a dot ie or contact advice first financial your local qualified financial advisor at advice first dot ie home plus because retirement is for living residential reversions limited trading as home plus is regulated by the central bank of ireland advice first financial limited trading as advice first is regulated by the central bank of ireland give blood dot ie know we can count on you our community of blood donors to give blood and to choose to be there for others in their hour of need blood donors from letter kenny and bun beg should attend the clinic in the radison blue hotel in letter kenny from monday 10th to thursday 13th of january to ensure social distancing all donors need to make an appointment so call 1 800 7 3 1 1 3 7 to book your time new donors are welcome visit give blood dot ie to check eligibility and clinic details because we count on you okay now to some of your calls and comments so you've been sending in to us throughout the course of the morning and thank you for that uh hi the lady the interior designer that's clear my donor of course uh that was just on talking to greg i didn't catch her instagram page name could you let me know please it's lamezon interior design so that's l a m a i s o n lamezon interior design search that and it'll auto fill once you get l a m a i s in um greg what problems are people in hospital with the virus presenting with this time i don't know i don't know what the i don't know what the question means there's about 70 percent of them are presenting with covid related problems um you know they're not needing as much invasive support with in terms of oxygen it seems certainly not i see you but even uh other uh invasive i think they call it oxygen support that's not being needed as as much as it was in the past uh 70 percent of those that are in hospital uh according to some are sick with covid so that could be i don't know shortness of breath whatever else it might be around 30 percent of them are sick in hospital for other things and tested positive because there's so much of it in the environment uh in that that's going to happen uh if that's what you mean as i say i'm not if that's what your question is that's the information i have okay that's what we're being told uh i call it says given that the lotto keeps rolling on i think 10 million of the 19 million would be a lot of money still for someone to win it would be nice if they gave one million to two hospices in each province in rland it would be but you have to understand that it's a profit making company they have uh investors uh to which they would have to say listen do you mind if we give a million to the hospice it's not like back in the old days you know uh the way it used to be run this is a business a company bought it and they invested in it some of the money goes to charity some of the money goes to people who take part and a big chunk of that money goes to the likes of a group of canadian teachers who are have their pensions with that company you know that's the kind of the way it works hi greg on the decluttering topic does anyone know where will take toys that are in perfect condition but boxes are a little ripped or worse for wear with cell phone or cellophane on them uh charity shops only want new or excellent condition right so this person has toys that are in perfect condition but the box is a bit tatty probably on day one you know yourself uh so anyone know that would place that would accept toys in great condition but the boxes obviously show wear and tear i call us as i give everything to the brother in law it's free he'll take it okay right um greg leaving cert this year didn't do junior cert exams unless they don't t y yes there is a mixture it's not one size fits all i get that greg just want to add two shows um on uh donnie gall tonight i think it is tg carat 8 30 p.m on costa tear uh griddle presenter ania nebresin travels the coastline of arland started with narossa bbc to northern arland 1035 the band a donnie gall family prepares for a smaller ross now the 12th than usual that comes in from our friend kevin and dunlow there are other shows too he tells us which i'm sure he'll keep us up to date just to let you know we've been a news here that police are currently attending uh are currently attending a report of a serious assault at the main street area of syan mills this morning okay uh three men have been taken to hospital for their injuries one man in their 30s and one man in his 20s have been arrested in relation to the incident but obviously there's an ongoing police presence there very distressed for earlier on i'm sure uh particularly for those with young families to see all that activity uh but that's ongoing the newsroom will keep you updated with that as this day progresses hi gregg i just heard that my child who's due to make the first holy communion this year that they won't be doing it this year have you heard from the clergy or anyone that first holy communions have been postponed i haven't heard anything in that regard off the top of my head i can't recall when uh they're supposed to happen because it's been a while but listen don't uh i would ignore that for now i've not heard anything no decisions have been made and i think uh come february middle of february this country is going to be in a very different position and that might maintain throughout the course of the year uh so hold your fire on that one don't be anxious about it and i'll try and find out more information uh as it stands um religious services are exempt from any restrictions even now so i can't understand the background to that uh since going back to school on january the sixth my daughter has not had a full day's learning with teachers absent it's absolutely ridiculous at this stage to accept them to sit a normal leaving cert exam there's a growing uh growing mood in that direction i think gregg i don't agree that the majority did transition year therefore will have the experience of doing the junior certain 2019 in most schools it's not compulsory and maybe half chose to do ty sitting your first date a set of exams at lc level without accommodation is unfair yep you're not going to hear anyone disagree on this program in terms of me for example that's what i'm saying i think it's important that the the children it's it's huge for them i think the leaving cert for uh you know obviously outside of maybe you know some someone passing in the family or whatever it's one of the biggest deals in their life if not the biggest deal because we've set it up that way that everything rides on this we as a society not we as individuals and it's important that we sort this out what's best for them the majority of them can't please everyone and what eases the pressure off them as soon as is possible and we'll continue to advocate for that on this program the charity shop in the courtyard in letter kenny will be happy to take your toys i'm told uh so that person with the uh new toys not the new toys but the good quality toys but the boxes aren't fantastic the charity shop with the courtyard in letter kenny right okay listen to my apologies if i didn't get to your comment they'll be carried over till tomorrow but that's where we have to leave it on the