the real IRA attack. It was the worst single atrocity of the troubles. Chloe St John reports. The real IRA car bombing claimed the lives of 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. Hundreds more were injured. A warning that a bomb had been planted was given by telephone 35 minutes before the blast, but it gave the wrong location. That meant people who thought they were escaping danger were heading straight towards it. In 2021, a high court judge found there was a real prospect the attack could have been prevented. The UK and Irish governments were urged to conduct investigations. The Secretary of State is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons later. Donegal County Council is being urged to review and reassess spending practices in order to provide the best possible value for money. The call came this week from Councillor Nicholas Croson, who says officials suggested at the last budget meeting, a rates increase may be sought in 2024 and he wants to avoid that. Director of Finance Richard Gibson stressed there are many processes, systems, structures and policies within local government that are designed to achieve accountability and best value for money for the citizen. Councillor Croson says he still believes savings can be made. At the budget last time around, they said probably they will be looking for a rates increase. That was said at our budget meeting that day. I decided then that I would go back and have a look through my budget book to see where savings could be made. I do believe there was events and various projects carried out. I think that could have been better done and money could have been saved at them. Cutbacks might be the wrong word to use, but we must be making better use of our spend with money. The draft letter Kenny Plan has been published. It sets out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of the town from 2023 to 2029. The focus of the plan is regional party, stronger urban place, a letter Kenny regional centre, the northwest city region and strategic growth ambitions. People are now being invited to have their say before February the 16th. And for weather now today will be mild and breezy with a good deal of dry weather. Some patchy drizzle at times with highest temperatures of 10 or 11 degrees. That's all from Highland Radio News for now. We'll be back with news again at 10 o'clock. Until then, good morning. You may think you know driving, but you don't know Nissan e-power, an electric motor that brings you the performance and response on the road that you demand, charged by a petrol engine as you drive. The thrill and economy of electric driving without ever having to plug in. And it's exclusive to Nissan. Who said you have to plug in to drive electric? Find the drive you've been looking for with e-power, now available in the new Nissan Qashqai, a unique electrifying experience now unplugged. Nissan, innovation that excites. The county's number one talk show, the 90 noon show on Highland Radio. And now it's time for the talk of the northwest, the 90 noon show with Greg Hughes on Highland Radio. Hello. Good morning to you. Three minutes past nine Thursday, the second of February 2023. It's a very good morning to you, as I've just mentioned.  The lines are open for you right now. Sorry, can't string two words together. The lines are open for you right now. 07491 25,000, Caroline taking your calls as always. What's apps and texts to 0866025,000, 0866025,000, or your emails to comments at highlandradio.com. All right, Thursday morning. Let's take a run through the newspapers for today. Let's start with the Chicano Tribune, Milford, the big loser in Guard of Policing changes. Fears have been reinforced this week that the Milford Guard of Districts on the cost of a decision that may see its HQ status lost to letter Kenny in the streamlining of the policing system. And I suspect this is going to happen. There are those quite high up in unguarded she had kind of informed us of same and the paper covering it today as well. Of course, it's feared that Milford will lose its 24 hour on call service with staff numbers and significant services migrated to letter Kenny as a consequence. The future designation of the Milford station is unclear according to our sources, the paper sources drew Harris, the Guard of Commission visited Donagall in the past fortnight. However, there was no mention of the pending changes when he briefed the joint policing committee. Harris was not going to be drawn on specifics during his visit and he avoided giving any clarity on the location of the headquarters for Donagall being based in either Sligo or letter Kenny in response to a question on the matter. Harris said he was not going to micro manage his officers. So what does that mean to you? Milford Guard of Station seems very likely at this point to lose its 24 seven status and resources being moved to letter Kenny in terms of policing on the ground. I'm not sure what the consequences of that might be, but certainly something we can try and get to the bottom of the dairy people. Donagall news this morning a judge has warned that students in Donagall are being used as money meals by criminals in order to launder the proceeds of crime. Judge John Elmer made his comments that yesterday sitting of letter Kenny circuit court when sentencing two former students for money laundering offences, Rachel Nyarko, 22 of Dublin and her co accused. I can't read that name here. Co accused our twerl aid at USAF who was 23 from Castle Barber, each handed down community services in lieu of custodial sentence. Nyarko was charged with using a false instrument to set up an account with on post and a number of money laundering offences and the bottom line is is here. I mean the warnings are out there. It seems like handy cash for our students and we speak to the guards annually on this issue, but the criminals have to wash their money somewhere and often they do go to students and promise them, you know, 500 year old 100 year old 400 year old for seemingly doing nothing. But as the guard, you often say to even though many may not be aware of it, ignorance often is not a defense. The Donagall Democrat and letter Kenny couple had to hail a taxi in Monaghan to make a flight from Dublin airport on time after their boss Aaron coach broke down Janine and Charlie McLaughlin only made their flight to Portugal by the skin of their teeth after taking a taxi costing 250 euro with three others. The bus was 70 minutes later than scheduled in leaving letter Kenny after encountering mechanical issues. The expressway route 32 service in January 18 was due to leave letter Kenny at 20 past 11 but only departed at half 12 passengers were advised that the bus had to be attended to by mechanics. Just 20 minutes into the journey, those on board were aware that something was missing. It went on broke down and they had to get their taxi. Thankfully, though, they did make their flight on to the Irish Independent now and bad news. If you are a variable rate mortgage holder because people with those types of mortgages at the main banks have been warned they are next in line to face hikes in the repayments. The warnings come as the European Central Bank is preparing to announce its fifth rate rise today. AIB Group Bank of Ireland and permanent TSB have spared their variable rate customers up to now despite the ECB having raised rates four times since last July. Mortgage experts said this is not set to last. Two more ECB rate rises are expected in the next few months. They pointed out that some variable rates are as low as 2.75% as they have not yet gone up. The ESB's refinancing rate is set to go to 3% with today's announcement. That means that a variable rate of 2.75% is now below the cost of funding such a mortgage up to now the banks have concentrated on fixed rates. The three main banks have each pushed up fixed rates by one percentage point in the last few months. Automatic rises for the 200,000 or so Irish homeowners with tracker mortgages are also on the way with the ECB's main refinancing rate set to go from 2.5% to 3% and more fixed rate rises are in prospect. Now that's obviously if you wish to fix from a variable now. I don't believe a fixed rate mortgage obviously goes up if you're already on that fixed rate. The average margin on a tracker is around 1.15 percentage points which means the average tracker customer is set to end up paying 4.15% compared with just 1.15% less than a year ago. That's a huge increase. So for those on for those with 150,000 euro remaining on their mortgage, the move will add around 350 euro a month to repayments. That's probably pretty bad average around here isn't it? Which is 400 euro a year that people are going to have to find in difficult times. It's not easy. It's one thing after another isn't it? On to the Irish times now and if you or someone close to you are waiting a driving test, unfortunately, the long waits for a test are going to continue it seems. Lengthy waiting times for driving tests will not return to normal until the middle of next year an EROCTA's committee has heard chronic backlogs have developed in both the driving test service and the national car testing service due to staff shortages. There are currently more than 47,000 learner drivers are waiting a driving test and approximately 375,000 vehicles in need of an NCT inspection. That's 47,000 people you know and I'd say the majority of them are younger that are paying over the odds for their insurance that can't get to and from work.  You know they've done there are 12 lessons which was asked of them they've done that. They're paying the 49% young person's premium on their insurance perhaps and through no fault of their own they're waiting months and months and months to get a full driving license because they can't get a test it's crazy it's unacceptable I think it's unacceptable because it's not 40,000 people it's 40,000 lies a lot of in a lot of cases is discounted people that can't get jobs people that can't move out of home for whatever lots of different ramifications. I'll read on here although efforts are underway to hire temporary driving testers to cut wasting times the Arctis Transport Port Committee heard yesterday that even if granted permission to proceed with the appointments waiting times will not return to a standard 10-week average until mid 2024 the committee was told that the increasing number of testers or increasing them from 125 to 170 is crucial not just to cut backlogs but to keep pace with demand so how did we end up in a situation where we have 125 people providing tests for 47,000 people it's crazy really is I mean outsource it bring them in I don't know I'm surprised someone hasn't suggested the army do it they suggest the army fix everything else but you know it's really discomolding people big time and what it's doing is that people shouldn't do it right but the people are going to risk driving on the railplates because maybe they have to there's no excuse for it it's illegal all right I'm not suggesting a little condoning it but you know like it's not our problem it's not our problem that they don't have enough people to have reasonable waiting times for driving tests it even puts more pressure on you sitting your test then because you know if you fail it you're probably waiting another few months anyway if the Irish Daily Mail this morning paying compensation of illegal care home charges and the dial of disability payments is inevitable according to coalition politicians TDs and senators in Finafall, Funigale in the Greens have told the Irish Daily Mail that they believe compensation schemes are the only way to end the controversies there is growing unease among backbenchers at the government's response to the revelations of heavy-handed legal tactics against the most vulnerable in society backbenchers are fearful that the damage caused by the fallout could hurt them electorally of course it will or that it could even prompt an election one Finafall TD told the Mail that some colleagues have told him to order the cable ties for your election poster as he also said there is a need to draw a line under the controversy but that would be an incredibly incredibly expensive line and still very keen to hear what the what the opposition proposed to do in that situation all right on to the Irish Daily Star today no level of consultation would have made a difference in some areas where protests have taken place against housing asylum seekers that's according to the minister for equality Roderick O'Gorman protests have been held in Waterford Cork in areas of Dublin in recent weeks where refugees or asylum seekers have been accommodated among concerns raised by local people is that they had not been consulted about dozens of migrants being moved into their community as well as a lack of services for a larger population now yesterday in an interview Roderick O'Gorman said there was no policy of not consulting with locals now I'm not saying he's not being truthful there for a for a second but I remember really really quite clearly when there was some controversy about direct provision centres in this part of the country doing interview where I was told that they were no longer doing consultation that it was a strategy that they wouldn't do consultation because it would hold up the inevitable they it was inevitable that these places had to be developed in certain places and they decided to do away with public consultation because they could not get them over the line in doing so that it was had to be fax fast track no I remember very very clearly me being told that officially but according to the minister O'Gorman yesterday he said there is no policy not to consult with locals which as I say is at odds with a very clear recollection that I have but anyway politicians have argued that a lack of engagement from authorities has left a vacuum of misinformation to grow Mr O'Gorman said the department is under such pressure to have people that it's forced to move rapidly he told RTE will look to increase our department's ability to provide information when we're opening new international protection accommodation but I think it's also important he said to say in some of the examples that we've seen in recent weeks it's clear that no level of consultation no level of engagement would have changed the outcomes now I do agree with him on that I think and this is really the problem they had back when they were trying to develop direct provision centres you can't get a group of 100 people together and satisfy their concerns to the point where they say all right then so well you better provide that type of accommodation in our area it's a tough whole situation I wouldn't like to be trying to sort it out the Irish farmers journal tells us that the 2023 marked trade is off to a flying start this is due to a combination of low supplies of finished castle increased demand for manufactured beef earlier than expected Chinese demand and a solid export trade cold cows are hitting record prices with heavy fleshed cows soaring to three euro per kilogram in March this week Irish farmers journal marks and bids data shows the top quality beef breed beef heifers over 600 kilograms have been regularly hitting over 330 a kilogram this translates into a beef price of over six euro per kilogram which depending on the grade is currently 120 to 150 euro per animal ahead of the equivalent factory price good news then so hopefully bad news for boxing fans and it's Katie Taylor is going to fight in Ireland this year it's really really significant but it's not going to be in crook park which could accommodate it perhaps 80 000 odd people it's going to be in the relatively tiny three arena which has a capacity of only 9 000 now when you strip out you know corporate tickets and sponsorship tickets and competition tickets and all of that I would say there's probably not going to be any more than seven and a half thousand tickets on general sale that's if we're lucky which is a big big disappointment it's great for her to have her homecoming but an awful lot of people are going to be denied the opportunity to go along and see it and it will be I suspect a once in a lifetime situation Eddie her and that's her promoter he's killed off hopes of Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano's proposed spring rematch taking place at crook park but insists it will still be in Dublin now um Amanda Serrano's got a reasonably tough assignment this weekend she has to get through first but anyway the promoter says getting the fight on a crook park has proven too pricey he said the cost of everything involved with the page 39 the cost of everything this is quite significant for a lot of people who would have a lot of people out there listening would have taken their daughters to this I think as well as their sons right okay where were we here he said the cost of everything involved with the event is three times nearly more at crook park than staging it at Wembley Stadium it's unbelievable it's so frustrating so crook park for them to run this three times that of Wembley now am I being naive here in saying that maybe crook park should wave some of the costs involved in this to allow this fight to go ahead in front of a proper sized crowd the crowd that Katie Taylor deserves Taylor defeated Serrano in an epic fight at Madison Square Gardens last April and fans have been hungry for them to face off again ever since I'm not sure there's a massive appetite for the rematch because they're in two different ways categories of the truth be told I think people just want to see Katie in a big big fight but a hern speaking on the MMA hour with Ariel Helwani said May 20 is the target date for the lightweight rematch providing Serrano beats Erica Cruz at featherweight this Saturday and he said a crook park clash then is no longer a possibility suggesting that the three arena could host it with crook or possibly staging a trilogy fight between the two later in the year he added people will just tweet me and go shut up haters or shut up hern just do it anyway it doesn't work like that it's business ultimately Katie Taylor has her financial demands for this fight as does Amanda Serrano and we want to make sure we deliver them that now that means really they have to recoup an awful lot of money off seven and a half eight thousand people the tickets for the three arena are going to be very very very very pricing most of us will be completely priced out of it even if we could manage to secure a ticket right the Irish Daily Mirror finally what do you think about this you know the song Delilah you'll all know the theme to it the melody to it sorry and you'll all have done the my my my Delilah and all that kind of stuff it's huge at rugby matches but no more it's not going to be played anymore Tom Jones classic song Delilah will not be played at the first six nations clash between Ireland and Wales on Saturday it's been banned from the Welsh rugby games at the Principality Stadium after accusation that it glorifies domestic violence now the song I mean people just listens to songs there's so much tragedy and stuff and songs in any case I think it's drama I think it's like Romeo and Juliet Shakespearean sort of type of ideology me personally you know the line is I held the knife in my hand and she laughed no more it is there right but who cares about that everyone just sings my my my Delilah or maybe you know because it is quite graphic and because there is a serious issue with domestic violence maybe it does glorify it what do you think it just seems to me not that it matters what I think it just seems to me that we're we're losing the run of ourselves here House of Common Standards Chief Chris Bryant has long campaigned for the classic 60s hit to be banned because of its lyric about abuse towards women Tom's 1968 hit is about a jealous lover stabbing is unfaithful partner and has long been a Welsh rugby anthem a spokesperson said Delilah will not feature on the playlist for choirs for rugby internationals at Principality Stadium and presumably is because of that like that line but as I say on stages everywhere there is you know and it's far more graphically shown violence and all that kind of stuff that just seems to me like a a line in a song but anyway what do you think I'll wait six sixty twenty five thousand I'll wait six sixty twenty five thousand or call us an old seven four nine one twenty five thousand our first guest on the way very shortly the newspapers are courtesy of Kelly Centra mountaintop leder Kenny the C store national large four court of the year for 2022 the nine tonning show with bluebird care providing home care services for all ages and done it all visit bluebird care dot ii and bring care home bill me on and I'm going to be small on the team from the heron on the moon you can go to Alain take a glaring bill with a canter so could they get the nori you know the hash clip live is we need to go to Alain wet and wild is celebrating 20 years in business with a massive 20 off absolutely every product in store in february choose any top outdoor brand product in store and we will deduct 20 percent of all prices at the toe by premium quality outdoor clothing footwear and equipment today and save 20 percent don't sleep in and miss the very latest beds and mattress offers from dfi beds dot ie Ireland's leading online bed and mattress retailer you'll get a comfy irish made mattress a postard base and headboard from an amazing 229 euro check out the full range at dfi beds dot ie delivery free and guaranteed to you within seven working days dfi beds sleep well live well super value makes saving money as easy as one two three one we match Aldi on the products you love like super value whipped cream 350 mil 179 super value spaghetti one kilo 109 two get thousands of special offers and three money off vouchers every week on the app super value makes saving money as easy as one two three from the smallest shrub to the largest tree in an awkward place donnelly tree services provide a complete range of tree surgery services whether you need to remove a dangerous tree or some nuisance branches donnelly tree services have the experience and expertise to carry out tree surgery to the highest of professional standards call 08 3 005 939 donnelly tree services donnie gall no job is too small no tree is too tall the department of education has been accused of increasing stress amongst those sitting leaving sort of exam students going into fifth year this september will sit english and irish paper one at the end of the school year two teacher unions the sti in the two ui say the move is flawed kiran christie's general secretary of the sti and joins us now good morning kiran good morning okay so um for those of us who've been out of school for quite some time now uh what is flawed about these proposals what's the possible consequences well on the 29th of march last year the minister arane announced a suite of measures that she would intend to bring forward in relation to redevelopment of leaving certificate and we would welcome some of those proposals but uh stuck in the middle of them is a proposal uh we think she's rushing our fences we think there's a lack of clear thinking around us uh whereby uh starting next september using the syllabus that currently exists uh students will at the end of their first year of leaving starts at the end of fifth year in irish and in english take paper one now she has provided no educational or logistical rationale uh in relation to this and uh you know the the syllabus that are in existence were designed such that they would be assessed in relation to the aspects that are covered in in paper one after two years of study not after one year of study and uh the distortion that we we already see the complication of this distortion because in many schools during this year when these students are in transition year or many of them are in transition year not everybody just transition year uh they're already preparing for and disturbing and distorting that that's uh program of study as well as students like a student self-motivated sorry um kieran a student self-motivating and studying for this in transition year or a teacher saying look we're gonna have to do some work on this because it's just around the corner well the demand uh is there from from students and uh also from from parents because they recognize that you know leaving starts at very high stakes and they they want to avail of an opportunity in transition year to to be doing this work rather than going in cold next september and and taking it on and that even particularly disadvantages those students who and there is a percentage every year who do not do transition year and they will be competing with people who've already a substantial part of the syllabus done by the time they arrive next september so the thing is is is is conceived and uh can i just say that it's not just you mentioned ourselves and our colleague you mean the tui opposition to this the subject associations uh of of the teachers that teach these subjects specifically have been family opposed to it organizations like gaolin have voiced their concerns around this uh the students the iris second level students union are very opposed to this as well so uh many experts uh in in in the field have have been writing about this uh it's it's and and what is interesting about it is that the minister's announcement last uh mark was uh to somewhat based on a report that was provided to her by the national consult for curriculum and assessment and now they're the body under legislation that are mandated to advise the minister about curriculum change and they didn't advise this so it came out and over it seems uh on the face of it uh that they're trying to do two years work in one work one year effectively is it as simple as that i mean obviously you've talked about maybe some work now being done in transition year but transition year is very important in its current form like is it a case as it seems that two years work effectively will be put into one year and and what is the educational argument for that being the right thing to do well that that's it precisely and uh if if such a measure were ever to become implemented the logical approach and several uh experts in education who work in the universities have pointed this out that is such a proposal was ever to work the syllabus of the specifications of the subjects would have to be totally redesigned to accommodate this new reality whereby at the end of the first year of study there would be a substantial examination this is going to cause an awful lot of stress for all involved teachers and primarily i suppose our concerns would have to be with the students as well yes it's quite frankly in our view it's an untenable proposal and sooner rather than later the minister should make a statement and the sensible thing to do will be to withdraw this proposal and go back to the drawing board because you know it's even laden with very practical issues suppose at the end of fifth year uh you know you did the higher level and you were disappointed with the outturn and you wanted to do lower level then for the following year how would that be accommodated that it makes an absence of it and similarly uh how would work from the point of view of students who would like to repeat so you know none of this has been fleshed out the minister has has rushed her fences here and she really needs to to um uh they have another look and and and uh withdraw this proposal as it currently stands all right kieran listen thanks for laying out so clearly for us i appreciate it take care thank you very much all right kieran christie general secretary of the asdi what do you think i'll wait six sixty twenty five thousand yesterday we received a contact from a listener um who asked about um the postponement of i'll tell you i'll read the question we submitted to the the hsc because it might make it more clearer early h released a statement over a fortnight ago apologizing to patients who had elective surgeries cancelled and stating that they would be reviewing over the following fortnight rescheduling the affected patients are not kept informed so it'd be helpful if lu h now provided an update maybe uh we could get a word with um we could get a word with uh show murphy on it so we got a response from the hsc and it reads as follows the emergency university letter letter cutting university hospital resume normal elective surgery schedules next week the emergency department remains very busy this week the hospital has seen a significant increase in patients attending and requiring admission resulting in lengthy patient waiting times and increases in the number of patients awaiting admission this continues to have a knock on impact on capacity and the ability of the hospital to admit scheduled surgical cases this will continue to be reviewed on a daily basis we apologize for the impact on any patients and will do our utmost to reschedule as soon as possible so in reality i think what they're saying is is the problems that led to the postponements persist rescheduling hasn't begun yet uh a return to um scheduled operations will begin next week but in terms of those that have been deferred uh from my reading of it the work in terms of rescheduling them has yet to begin so hopefully that brings clarity to our listener though i'm sure it doesn't bring much comfort uh we were also contacted by a listener to say greg on my way to lettermark award recently i saw a dead deer along the side of the road it's a horrible site with just bones left there was another one uh along the road to glentes who can i call to get these removed they really are a shocking sight for young children it's not just young children either so again trying to get an answer for that listener we advise you to go on to the donagall can't cancel website uh go to report an issue online um and then you'll get a list of questions do you want to report an issue such as illegal dumping potholes or a dead animal on the road uh you can report such an issue uh such as illegal dumping potholes or dumping all potholes or a dead animal on the road using their online reporting system to do this you'll need a mobile phone number you enter your phone number and request a pin code once you receive a pin code by text message you enter the pin code and log in to report that issue you can also call to report an issue on<PHONE_NUMBER> or email info at donagallcoco.ie or call into any of their offices so they will um they will respond to your calls there right let's get back to the roads deklin good morning good morning nice to chat to you deklin right you have noticed something at a set of traffic lights in letter kenny yes someone's at mcginnelly's down in the pierce road there what's wrong now but you got a green light to go ahead you don't get a green light to turn right the green light for turning right doesn't come on at the same time as the green light to go ahead but people are actually going forward to turn right and then there's a few behind them and they think they should turn right so they're all sitting on the horns then keeping away and at rush hour tensions are high enough but i think there's something should be done about it you know it's just the way an excellent way to happen right so when you talk about turning right is this coming from sort of the tesco right about direction or from the mcdonnell's direction no turning right to turn up to stay the courthouse or the old courthouse all right okay they get you right so that mcginney motors would then you're right in that case yeah okay so there's no problem there's no problem coming from the other side but the road that turned us up just a swash road there yeah well there's no green light for that to see the same green light that goes forward oh i get you right okay and you believe there is a green there's a green light comes on after a while you know but people don't understand that they think when the green light comes on to go forward they have the right to go forward in the green light to turn up right i get you right okay all right so do you what what would be the solution to that does it need to be a red light for right hand turning as well as the green light then i would say well probably uh what do you think that's probably i don't know the need to sort something out right because last night was passing there was one sitting there banging away the horn like you know and the people sitting in the middle of the road then trying to turn up right so yeah something's gonna happen i get you obviously isn't that working so yeah all right are people don't know do it i say so well listen we'll put it out to one of the callers thank you Declan take care of yourself hello to everyone yes go ahead okay it sounds a fault today uh right okay so um you heard Declan outline the i struggled with that a little bit because it took me about halfway through the call to know which lights he was on about because i'm terrible on road names but i don't understand where he's coming from now i've not had occasion to come down that road though and turn right uh up in that direction um but anyway uh have you shared uh hit your concerns let us know oh wait six sixty twenty five thousand um greg we need pierce daughter to look at the insurance companies again house insurance is increased by 300 to 500 right well i'm not sure if he's look he's focused on the multi insurance i don't want to do any one of the service uh why did you shop around sorry did you like it's just really important that if you got a bill because i got a bill i'm sorry to talk about my own situation but it's the one that i can say with absolute certainty i uh underinsured my house in terms of rebuilding it okay but when it came from renewal it went up it went up about 60 euro i switched to another company um as it turned out i had my car insurance with them the insurance actually came down 70 euro and i actually insured it as to how much you need to insure it you know to mean it's insured underinsured previously a lot of us have our properties underinsured because we think oh well the house is worth 80 grand i'll insure it for 80 grand but of course you couldn't rebuild that house for 80 grand could you and stock it with the furniture and what have you um so i've not really come across the house my experience is my house insurance actually came down when i shopped around um so tell us a bit more did you try and shop around and it was higher with everyone or was it just higher for your renewal let us know because 300 to 500 is a huge increase uh anyone else any experience of rising house insurance and just if you are texting and let us know uh is it higher everywhere or just higher with your current provider house insurance is something we don't switch around too much if the truth be told uh Greg we soon won't be able to speak or have a conversation without uh anyway anyway the world the way the world is here they're on about Delilah being taken off the soundtrack listen i think there's some things i would agree with whereby you know if something's clearly offensive to a group of individuals you know times change i don't want to upset anyone um but i don't think people sing in that song which as i say i think it's very theatrical i think it's very Romeo and Juliet ish you know what i mean almost uh now that's my initial take i'm very open to be convinced otherwise by the way uh i think the chorus is really what the catchy part is that's what people sing along with um the the words if you take them out of the song pretty graphic of course i took the knife in my hand and she laughed no more um but a lot of people when they're singing that song do the pretend you laugh and all that kind of stuff but do you agree that this is going over the top here or maybe and you may have actually been the victim of domestic violence and i want to hear everyone's opinion maybe you think well that's easy if you'd say Greg you know no one's going to come up come at you with a knife and i respect that and let's just say i'm always open to my views uh changing and having a better understanding of things of course it's not the biggest thing in the world but it's not terribly insignificant either because it's part of a a cultural shift we are seemingly on right okay um we're going to talk about the latest controversy um as it relates to disability payments but we do have to take a short break back in a moment watch the show live now on youtube facebook and at highland radio dot com the nine till nine show brought to you by bluebird care providing nurse led home care services and donnie gall call bluebird care nine one two nine five six two and bring care home live is a different experience with 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ashiakana visit orsa.ie don't know if you know alison pat blade 40s couple of kids been together 17 years never married of course but that's not a problem until something happens and suddenly words like unmarried inheritance and substantial tax bill enter the equation you never need proper estate planning until you do that's why the experience team at mckelhenny and associates are here to help find us online a call<PHONE_NUMBER> mckelhenny and associates solicitors strannolar transport for arland invites you to bring someone on board for free this February bank holiday weekend simply pay your fare using a tfi leap card and your plus one travels free on participating tfi bus train and tram services this promotion is valid for travel from saturday the fourth to monday the sixth of february so with cleaner greener and cheaper travel the only question is who'll be your plus one see transport for arland.ie for details terms conditions and participating operators all right um we read today that new compensation could be paid following the t-shox admission that the state hadn't alleged to stand on when stopping disability allowance payments once a person entered an institution meanwhile it's emerged former finnegale minister michael noonan previously argued that people who lost their maintenance allowance could get pocket money from the health board instead we're going to focus on the first part of that i believe in our conversation with uh john joe mcginley a regular guest on the program behind um autism dad good morning to you john joe thanks for joining us again good morning greg and welcome hello to all your listeners thank you for having me on good stuff right okay um these revelations that have come out this was the the rt investigation it turns out really you know the the the policy to sort of prevent having to reimburse and compensate people was the same adopted in terms of nursing home charges but as it relates to uh disability rights this really hasn't come as any surprise to you i believe it comes as no surprise to me at all that these might be historical but it's it's symptomatic of a government policy or an embedded policy by the civil servants that for any support for children or adults with additional needs of disabilities in ireland you have to fight them at every corner let's take children with autism the what we've got at the moment through either through ministerial neglect there's now so many long waiting lists for children to be diagnosed that diagnosis for autism allows you to at least get into the system for the what limited support that is available and that means there are thousands of children throughout the state that are now being excluded from receiving that support because they can't even get through the first hurdle which is the diagnosis and it seems to be in ireland that it's a very cool place for people with disabilities let me ask you why that is john joe because let's just if there were a referendum amongst the people of this country and the question was something simple along the lines of do you believe that we should be proactive to ensure that we put every resource available to us into supporting these children and their families for example now really simplified it there it would be passed overwhelmingly probably 90 percent you get 10 percent begrudges or something i don't know right so what is what is the cultural issue here do you think that we do not move heaven and earth to help people as much as we can prioritize that type of stuff to make children's lives better to make their families lives better why does it seem that we go out of a way almost too complicated to discourage to avoid it it can't be financial because there's there's money being squandered every single day left right in the center so what do you think what do you think is going on it's emotional and political let's take the political aspect the political aspect is that invariably there is a great organization throughout the country for disability rights there are fantastic campaigners and fair players on the do a fantastic job but there is a small small group there the second thing is the emotional we i'm a care for for two autism children and there are hundreds of thousands of carers throughout the state and we do it because we love our children well we don't do it for the money we do it for the love and the state relies on that emotional attachment because they know that regardless of what support we have to give our children we'll do it and they rely on that emotion when in reality that emotion should be supported by services that our children and adults disability who are citizens of the citizens of the state deserve and again it goes but down to the those two things the politics because we're not organized and the second thing the emotion because we know we will do it regardless and also to love our children we have also organizations that have to be established by the families of children who their time is is heavily occupied already to establish i don't know maybe respite in the local area you know the like of work that we know there's some great organizations in this county do i'm thinking of you know i care in bluestack and others that provide for lots of different people but if they weren't there the gaps that would be left would be cavernous do you know what i mean but we have families who already have enough on their plate happen to group together and band together to come up with these type initiatives and then beg beg the government for money to keep them going you know like how do we live in a society like that i don't understand why we don't have politicians maybe politicians don't have an understanding of the reality of people's lives that that's all the and the civil service that's the only thing that's the only thing that i can imagine as to why this is not a focus they keeps going back to the politics in the emotion these people have what they perceive as being a list of priorities they have a list of those that will shout shout the loudest and who could give them most damage at the the ballot box then they goes back to their emotion they know that we will continue to support our children and our adults 24 seven so they put us to the back of the queue and that is in my view has been highlighted by the uncaring attitude of both the politicians and the civil servants with the revelations that have come through in the doll in the last few days and those revelations will have to be answered to i know they've got a holding period at the moment where they've tried to say well we need to find out all the documentation and simply you want to give them that chance but there's there's two things that have to become highlighted if the ministers were aware of it and supported it well that we shameful and if the ministers weren't aware of it why weren't they aware of it when they're not on top of their brief when they're not actually doing their job properly and sometimes i think we we sometimes we detach these decisions from humans right what happened in this case with the disability payments what happened in terms of the payments to people in nursing homes humans fellow humans countrymen and women some of them had to come together some of them had to come together and make a decision that they were not going to do this which is bad enough right that they were going to withdraw these payments or make people pay for care that they didn't have to pay for and then after making that conscious decision it would be a conscious decision they then apparently and we have to find out if it is exactly is the case they had to make a conscious decision to frustrate the process of people seeking redress or justice these aren't autonomous AI decisions these are not human people sorry to lay for that point but you know what i mean sometimes i just want us to appreciate the fact that our fellow country people are doing this to all the country people fellow country people these were cold calculations done by human beings that affected the lives of other human beings and hopefully the next few days the facts will come out but somebody has to actually own up to what has happened somebody has to apologise for what's happened and because it's political somebody will have to answer for what has happened and hopefully that'll happen in the next few days but i wanted to reiterate the point that it's not just historical we have a whole situation with disability rights within the state where the current governments are delaying support are cutting support and making parents carers mothers fathers sisters brothers jump through hoops to get the support for their children and other relatives that these people deserve as citizens of the state there has to be a completely different mindset adopted by the state when it comes to disability rights as you've identified Greg these are human beings there are children there are mothers our fathers our sisters and their brothers they deserve respect decency and support from a state of which they are citizens of you know what's happening yeah go ahead jungle sorry go ahead and the moment was happening is we're having a jump through hoops continually it becomes the situation that you feel you're actually begging for support when in fact all you're asking for is what your children deserve and are entitled to and i've actually spoken to parents that have been guilted uh into seeking by seeking support they've actually been made feel guilty for doing so as if in some way yeah you know which is which is horrendous and i just think the people that aren't directly affected by this need to fully try and get inside what it's like to uh deal with the child with autism to want the best for them but the constant battle constant battle to try and just get the basic level of services for your child so as well as dealing with everything else that comes along with it you have this battle effectively against the state to try and get assistance and i just think we all need to understand what that must be like and where is the break for parents in all of this do you know what i mean and and we also want the children then to grow up in their life to achieve as much as they possibly can and that is also done through uh you know wrap around supports and care and the mental well-being of their parents that that's a very salient point you talk about the the support and the care not only are we facing a battle to get services we're also facing a battle of diminishing services the once you'd actually do get into the support mechanism you find that services that were perhaps there a couple of years ago are no longer there or if they are there they're severely rationed and that goes back again to the philosophy of the state these services i can only assume that they believe they're not that important to the state and that might sound harsh it might sound simplistic but speaking as a parent of two children with additional needs that's been through the system for the last 14 years not only is it getting harder to get services those services when you do get them are severely severely diminished spread to thin and there's other services too that people have in other parts of the country that aren't available inexplicably in in the northwest as well which is an issue actually i want to return to another time as a standalone issue because i think it's an important one but for now john joe unfortunately that's where we have to leave it thanks for your time this morning i appreciate it no thank you very much i really appreciate you giving me the chance to speak at one for the next few days yeah we'll find out what's happening yeah bye okay we'll see we'll see we might talk again john joe McGinley there uh check out autism dad for his uh resources bluebird care our hiring nurses and carers are crossed on it all call 911 29562 bluebird care our sponsors of today's show zoos in letter kenny are looking for production operatives to work on night and evening shifts these are full-time permanent jobs with shift allowance and very competitive pay and benefits to apply go to work at zoos dot com that's work at z e us dot com point company are the northwest's leading interiors paint curtain and blind and interior design specialists make a statement in style and give your home or commercial premises a fresh new look this year with over 25 years experience the in-house team of interior designers and paint color consultants will make it happen this month get a free one hour color and interior design consultation at foyan company in letter kenny book now to transform any room or commercial space on 91 21925 the letter kenny real food and farmers market returns after the christmas break this saturday the fourth if you care about how fresh your food is and where it comes from the real food and farmers market look forward to welcoming you back this saturday and every saturday from nine to one at port road letter kenny if you smell gas at home or on the street don't ignore it open windows and doors don't smoke vape or use a naked flame don't unplug or switch anything electrical on or off turn off the gas at the meter then no matter who your gas supplier is call gas networks arland on 1800 2050 50 visit gas networks dot ie to screenshot the safety steps saves them to your device and share with friends and family highland radio weather updates with ireland west airport thinking of a sun holiday this summer with the family flight to alicante malaga faro lansarote me york and melanne with ryan air ireland west airport don't just take off take it easy all right mild and breezy today in mostly cloudy weather long dry spells with just occasional light rain or drizzle some brighter spells too highs of 10 or 11 degrees with fresh to strong south westerly winds okay that's you up to date with the weather right shantel joins us on the program now good morning to you thanks for joining us i'm all right okay so you did your driving test or someone close to you did so uh did it go ahead or what's the story what's your situation shantel so what happened was i booked my driving test back there in november and i got a date for the 20th of january and that's gone the 20th of january comes around and there is frost is the morning test i should say amuse frost and so on the road so the test didn't go ahead that's fine whatever i give it about a week because i didn't hear no contact from so i give them a box and i go um i like driving test was cancelled there last week but i haven't heard nothing like what's going on and they're like oh we're so busy with tests and they think that's the best thing i can do is i learned the 24th of february and i thought right that's grand and so by the time i got on the site to actually book that date the date was gone and it was great so i gave it a few days when i rang them back and i said you know it's such a hindrance but i'm still waiting on a test you know i mean there's other commitments i need to be driving for and stuff and they're like right this was there on tuesday and i was on the phone for one on or say and she said those tests coming out now on wednesday so if you want to stay up to 12 on wednesday and see if you can get a test um there should be dates coming on it and i thought right i'll stay up to 12 and i'm a college student so i'm going to bed early and getting up early and i'm not routine with the bus and stuff now for me to stay up to 12 it was quite an inconvenience but anyway i stood up to try and get the dates i'm not a date there i got up down to seven to the bus and there was no date there and then i got an email there yesterday on wednesday for a final invitation to book my driving test but there was still no date there and i'm going to lose my 85 euro deposit over there and i could take it wow how important is it you to get on the road shantella very some people just want to get the full license others they need it for their life how much of an inconvenience is it to you not being able to get this date i mean obviously that you don't want to lose your deposit either but you're very keen to get on the road are you yeah i my practice is getting the car so the fact i have to pay for a bus and that instead of me being able to drive my car to college it's just quite frustrating yeah okay right so what is the solution to this like when might you know i mean it seems from january 20th you had to wait a month to to get another date i mean with people waiting much much longer than that people might say oh that's not so bad but you never actually got that february 24th date no i when i was on the phone on that tuesday i was asking when's possible date and they said best you could do is march wow and i thought i'd been waiting since november here and do you have a march date yet even no i have nothing yet right so it's just worried at this point you don't actually have a new date that you test i know i'm not quite sure what's going on there or if this final invitation will mean my deposit is now gone right okay well we're looking to you but you physically can't go on the website at the moment and book a test as soon as you go on the website you click on book car a lot of stuff decided there's no match available but if you go to donningall try and go to donningall town it's handy compared to letter county but anyway say nothing all right shantel listen we'll chase up to see what the story is in boncran okay thank you great thanks all right take care of yourself we'll be back with more after the news at 10 the nine tonne in show with bluebird care providing home care services for all ages and donningall visit bluebirdcare.ie and bring care home our wide range of 2023 skodas are going fast this is the sound of the brine family getting their powerful diesel kodiak and this is fully charged riona driving away in her electric skoda enyak and this is the sound of someone who didn't place their order in time order your 2023 skoda today before it's too late skoda made for ireland your local skoda dealer is dmg motors claire road donningall town telephone 074 97 21 396 or visit dmg motors.ie in the final clearance at watson menswear letter kenny there's half price shirts polo shirts and knitwear also half price offers on top labels like super dry and penguin selected suits and footwear also half price don't miss out on big savings in the final clearance sale at watson menswear main street editor kenny and online at watson menswear.com also a grid selection of first communion and confirmation where now in stock wild atlantic way adventures await you this spring with the midweek escape to the luxury rattlesn blue hotel and spa sligo from just 120 euro with complimentary breakfast each morning indulge in afternoon tea overlooking sligo bay unwind with a treatment at the spa enjoy a delicious meal in the brasserie sit back and relax in waves bar or surround yourself with the best of sligo's outdoor pursuits right on your doorstep book now at rat sligo dot com for the perfect spring midweek escape air online and on the highland radio app this is highland radio news good morning it's donna mary darty with the 10 o'clock news the government the british government will announce today if there'll be a public inquiry into the oma bombing the secretary of states expected to make a statement in parliament clue gibson has more the real ira bomb was planted in a car which had been parked close to the centre of the town when it exploded it ripped through crudes of people and demolished a number of buildings t-shock bertia herne described the event as the most evil deed in years in total 29 people were killed including a woman pregnant with twins making it the single worst loss of life during the troubles donnie gall county council is being urged to review and recess spending practices in order to provide the best possible value for money the call came this week from councillor nickas nicolas crossing who says officials suggested at the last budget meeting at rates may be sought in 2024 and he wants to avoid that director of finance richard gibson stressed that there are many procedures systems structures and policies within local government that are designed to achieve accountability and best value for money for the citizen councillor nickas crossing says he believes savings can be made at the budget last time around he said probably we'll be looking for a rates increase that was said at our budget meeting that day i decided then that i will go back and have a look through my budget book to see where savings could be made i do believe there was events and various projects carried out i think that could be better done and money could have been saved at them cutbacks might be the wrong word to use but we must be making better use money the draft letter kenny plan has been published the plan sets out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of letter kenny from 2023 to 2029 the focus of the plan is regional parity stronger urban place and a letter kenny regional center the northwest city region and strategic strategic growth ambitions mikaela clark has more the letter kenny town and transport plan aims to add 4500 more homes to the town accommodate 15 000 additional people pave the way for the creation of 6 000 jobs facility at the delivery of the 10 t row project and other vital infrastructure projects as well as creating a town center regional transport hub capitalizing on the regional center and northwest city region status and other focus will be increasing student numbers in the time by 1000 over the coming years a number of opportunity development sites have been identified white climate adaptation and mitigation plants have been highlighted environmental mitigation measures have been included in the form of zoning considerations and proactive objectives and policies people can have their say on the plan between friday january the 6th and friday february the 17th the plans are available online or at public services centers across the county as well as county house lyford questions are being raised once again over donnie gall's casual trading bylaws a number of businesses are said to be experiencing a loss in profits due to the rise in portable vendors popping up councillor martin harley says it is his priority to protect the rate paying establishments probably more assistance a lot and we've had different businesses on myself and other accounts for salt rate decoding about the impact that they will have on businesses and towns and the footfall that there are the businesses in the towns we're losing out on and plus the fact that the rates that businesses pay to contribute to the council and to contribute to the different funding streams the council give out each year you have to provide college you have to keep up to all the standards that was the main point that was pointing out but we need to we need to protect the rate paying business as well first water mains are affecting parts of venezuela today supply disruptions are being experienced in don ross called off black blackmore art drum to scale in quickly points and surrounding areas irish water is advising that water will be restored to all areas by 2 p.m. this afternoon and now for weather today we'll be mild and breezy with a good day of dry weather some patchy trezzles a time highest temperatures of 10 to 11 degrees that's all for the 10 o'clock news we'll be back with more at 11 o'clock the obituary notices for this thursday morning february the second the death has occurred of henry o donnell glenn car letter kenny and karik finn his remains will be reposing in mcglenn's funeral home this afternoon from two o'clock until five o'clock removal then to his own home in karik finn where he will be waked from seven o'clock funeral mass on saturday morning at 11 o'clock in the star of the seat church anagri fall by cremation in lake lands crematorium cavern highest private from 10 p.m. until 10 a.m. and on the morning of the funeral the death has taken place of rose o'keane nay divine 42 bali cullman rode stroban and formerly of strong bracket donna mana reposing at her home this afternoon from four o'clock funeral leaving her home on saturday morning at 25 past 11 for recreation mass in st mary's church melmite at 12 noon interment afterwards in the adjoining cemetery family time please from 11 p.m. until 11 a.m. the recreation mass can be viewed live via the parish webcam the death has taken place of gloria mcfadden abbey villas manor conning him gloria's remains will repose at her daughter martina and husband derrick michael hinney's home at ray mohey manor conning him today from 11 o'clock until 10 o'clock with rosary at nine o'clock funeral from there two more morning at 10 o'clock traveling via manor conning him village and down the nice going to st clombas church drama hall for 11 o'clock recreation mass fall by interment in the adjoining graveyard family flowers only please donations and lay off flowers if desired to the dunagal hospice care of any family member family time on the morning of the funeral please the death has taken place of sean mccabe five railway close killie gordon formerly balfast shawnes remains will be reposing at mcguyan's funeral home at drombo avenue sternorler today from three o'clock until half past seven leaving there two more morning at half past 10 for mass of the resurrection at 11 o'clock in simpatrick's church crossroads killie gordon interment afterwards in the adjoining church yard donations and lay off flowers if so desired to a charity of your choice care of any family member or martin mcguyan mcguyan's funeral home the recreation mass will be streamed live on the simpatrick's church crossroads killie gordon parish youtube channel and the death has taken place of rose marion mcdonald carnigarh of movill rose marion's remains are opposing at her home funeral mass will take place tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock in sympias the 10th church movill fall by burial in valley brach cemetery rose marion's funeral mass can be viewed live on movill parish.com for more details including any family health guidelines for wigs and funerals please go to highlandradio.com banking can make you feel a bit so why not switch to a provider that helps you take control of your finances the on post money current account lets you see exactly what's going on with your money and gives you control with the tap of a button switch with the on post money app or pop into one of our 900 plus post offices you don't even need to make an appointment take back power over your money today on post is authorized by the minister for finance provide payment services and is regulated by the central bank of ireland in the provision of such services the county's number one talk show the nine till noon show on highland radio okay you're very welcome back to the proven good morning if you're just joining us greg the people is gone crazy says a texture enjoy the song that's delilah and be happy the world is sad enough afraid to say this and that all nonsense have a good day greg okay thank you morning maybe a yellow box at the bottom of saint oliver plunkett road when lights on pierce road go red the traffic has it blocked impossible to get out to onto pierce road even worse now since the light at the community centre there or mcginley's motors well i was shown an image quite helpfully by caroline who thought i didn't have grasp of it so she died to print out an image of traffic lights and do you know what fair play the traffic lights that we're talking of here are a set of the regular three lights of course green amber and red and then there is one alongside the green with an arrow turning right it's not illuminated unless it's green to turn right now what's happening is is the lights are going from red amber and then green and the green arrow is pointing straight ahead but the right hand or turn signal hasn't illuminated but there isn't a red version of that right i don't understand why that doesn't also go red i'm correct here caroline so what's happening is is the go forward green arrow is on and traffic in both lanes the left lane is going forward and then the inside lane people start seeing the green arrow and they're turning right into oncoming traffic which also has a green light to go ahead what's needed there i would suggest is that and maybe it'll be learned behavior over time but anyway is if the green turn right arrow was red when it wasn't green if that makes sense and i think that would eliminate a lot of the concerns uh that we're talking about there when the traffic light near mcdonald's was new there there was a green light to turn right and now it's gone i don't know the story there i can't remember maybe that road layout has changed somewhat uh gree we were talking to someone yesterday who was having issues with their ulster bank they switched accounts but the money still hadn't transferred between accounts in three weeks and they had no one to contact this listener says re the person asking about ulster bank tell them to try calling their belfast branch it worked for me to close my account with them it says 0044<PHONE_NUMBER> and hang on for transfers that's coming in from mary and we'll retain that number i wouldn't expect you to uh be able to uh if you are that listener and it would help to have that number for ulster bank call us and we'll pass it on to you radio let's take the bingo numbers because it is jackpot day and i know you are waiting uh with baited breath to see if you are the winner it's time for mcbi bingo on highland radio it's thursday the second of february jackpot day you're playing for the jackpot prize of 14200 euro on the pink sheet the reference number is s4 it's game number five the jackpot number is 46 this number can come out in any position from the next 10 numbers drawn and now here are your daily numbers 84 53 37 70 58 31 59 83 41 and finally 56 phone your claim to 9104833 before eight tonight leaving your name contact number and the name of the shop where you purchased your book and we'll call you back the next working day get all your ncbi bingo information at highlandradio.com with the largest selection of pre-owned vehicles visit iMotors.ie to view our stock we have them all starter cars family cars luxury cars or maybe i'm feeling young and want to treat myself to a two-door sports car kind of car visit our showrooms in letterkenny or malin get a great clarin's gift this week from mcgee's chemist letterkenny you'll receive four beauty treats and a gorgeous beauty bag when you purchase two clarin skincare products want to be a moisturizer or serum this great clarin's offer is available while stocks last in store at mcgee's chemist letterkenny and online at mcgee's.ie with the best costs less for any skincare advice call in and talk to the resident skincare consultants mary or jemma the nine till nine show brought to you by bluebird care providing nurse-led home care services in donagall call bluebird care 91 29562 and bring care home on to the program now we welcome anmarie cullen head of economic development with donagall county council good morning anmarie how are you keeping good morning greg yeah keeping good thanks very much greg great it's great to have you on the program but we're talking about a new video campaign to encourage people to relocate to donagall or back to donagall i presume uh with the promise of a more connected and balanced life okay so uh talk to us about this campaign and who you're trying to reach okay so yeah greg look it's part of our i suppose our brand building for donagall um in terms of uh building the reputation of the county in terms of a great place to live to work to to visit um and i suppose when we're working with businesses right across the county one of the the key issues they have is attracting people and getting paid and you know attracting talent um and we have a lot of talent out there and we have a lot of really good quality jobs in the county and i suppose really the focus of this campaign is to tell that story and to tell people who may be interested in coming back to look to donagall uh that look there's really good career progress progression here in the county for you uh there we have many companies working right across different sectors so say from the financial services sector to the construction sector to engineering from like different technology type industries such as reg tech and shure tech and what have you and these companies are actually looking for people and a lot of these people are donagall people who may be located in dublin who may be in london who may be in dubai so the campaign's about trying to reach out to them and trying to tell them the story of donagall the opportunities that exist now and uh and to encourage them to think think about maybe relocating back to to the county you know yeah because people might have a certain career path and they believe it has to be in the hustle bustle and some people love that don't get me wrong but many of us prefer a different type of life that you can do different things with your down time and there are going to be group of people out there that would not be aware that donagall can offer that like you can still pursue your career and advance within that career but also maybe switch off a bit more in the evenings and the weekends absolutely absolutely and it's hard to beat family as well you know and to even have that support structure as well around you so i think i think all of us like at different stages of your life you know the city is very attractive when you're young and free and single and you're looking at starting out your career but then as life moves on and maybe people have children and and they're kind of looking at like where do we want to raise our children so it's about looking then at donagall it's not a compromise you know so it's not just about returning home and maybe compromising you know your career opportunities you can actually have both you know and i think it's about telling that story that that a lot of people may not be aware of and it's about building that that reputation i think for the county as well and the work that's happening particularly with businesses right across region yeah but people might say well i don't want to give up my hobbies or i want to sort of expand my interests in certain areas or i like to go to the theatre you don't have that in donagall and i suppose that part of the message is to say well actually you know we do absolutely greg that's it um and it's about and who better to tell it than ourselves so really that's our job it's about telling that story about showcasing the really good amenities we have and i think covid kind of has really accelerated things for us because the the great outdoors is now a great attractor for for many people and the fact that we have such stunning scenery such um such brilliant amenities right across the county and then as you say we have the theatres we have the nightlife we have the you know the music sessions we have the restaurants the cafes so we have a really lovely kind of um sense of living a really good you know communities as well you know in terms of the sporting opportunities that are here in the county as well and a number of the people that were profiling you know for example we're profiling Dave McLaughlin who is um who's a donagall gay like footballer and it's around her her decision to return home and to play football and and what that's meant for her so and i think that's really an important part of the campaign is telling the stories of those people who've made the moves who have located in donagall have have come back home but also people who may not be from donagall but who've made the choice to actually come and love here as well so and it's about profiling those stories and i think when people actually see someone's done this this is this is the the pros and cons this is how it's worked out it really means that they can actually um they can actually make their dream a reality and know that this is a real positive option for and i want to stay positive on this but there is a reality that people might be listening in dubai or london or america and say yeah but uh you know will i be able to get a house to rent uh will i be able to get access to to a gp uh but those are realities and they're not unique to here in you know i think anyone relocating to most places are going to have to sort of overcome that uh but can the council offer any signposting or guidance in relation to that yeah and i'll look absolutely and look there are challenges with housing there's no doubt about that uh but there's challenges everywhere um and i suppose as you say it's just you know uh it's about overcoming a lot of these issues look and i think in the next number of years we will be able to we will see you you know houses being built and we'll see a lot of those issues being hopefully being addressed um but like i suppose what we want to do now is start telling that story so like we have information on our website donigall.ie and we're we're asking people to sign up so we've actually had a really good response over the last number of days where we're just looking at the figures there this morning so um and and from all over the world which is interesting very you know in terms of our sign up so we don't have really donigall people which is good and that we're having people signing up from dublin from dubai from london from sydney you know all over the all over the world and they're interested in learning more about what's happening so we will be keeping in touch with people through newsletters and and you know continually engaging with them when they sign up to our newsletter but they can also get information on donigall.ie where we have information in terms of um you know housing in terms of uh high access services so we have a really good section on relocating uh and moving to to the county i mean obviously too in terms of attracting and retaining uh business you know i'm i'm sure businesses are looking to you know to see where the future is is that in terms of of the workforce you know there's a there's a there's a bigger picture here as well too about the the development and growth of the canterie from maintaining where we're at here now. Yeah no absolutely so like we have companies that are coming to letter kenny because you know they may have an office in belfast or in dublin but that's overheating that market's overheating so they're they're seeing new opportunities and locations like donigall so we would have companies coming here because they know people want to come back to where they're from and they know that that's a really good attractor and also working with the likes of our university working with um the likes of the the etb in terms of upscaling people so there's a real kind of collaborative kind of i suppose uh i suppose um ethos and the county and that and the various agencies and businesses kind of work together to make the best that we have um and actually just one other point maybe just to say great we're actually there's an event now happening in dublin on uh next thursday the 9th of february so it's kind of targeting those people who may be interested in looking at career opportunities not just in donigall but also in slago and litrum and it's been hosted by the idea and we'll be there as well so we'll be there you know offering practical information and we've about 20 companies coming so they're going to be talking about the the career opportunities that they have these are kind of targeting middle to senior managers where they're finding you know the i suppose really the the challenge in terms of attracting people so anybody in dublin um that might be interested in coming along come along to the westbury next um next thursday the ninth of february just to learn a little bit more from some of the companies in terms of the senior positions that they have available yeah and look at you know uh the timing might be good too because there's even people dublin based at the moment with uh it companies um reducing their staff numbers to some extent there's going to be crossover skills there opportunities why stay in dublin why not come to donigall and get much more value for your uh money so there's always a possibilities visit donigall dot ie sorry visit donigall dot ie forward slash move that's right well actually just donigall dot ie forward slash move i know but you see it's the way it's written okay oh yes yes sorry yes go on to log on to log on to donigall dot ie forward slash that's why everyone keeps going the useless w w w's maybe because it's it's a it's a clear it's a clear no but anyway log on to donigall dot ie forward slash move no need for the w's uh and i think you know if you want your young ones home or your your dad home or whatever it is send it on to them as well to share it out in social media uh and maybe it might catch uh as you say you've already been a good interest in it yeah absolutely great interest so far so all good all right listen fair play to you thank you very much indeed amri always a pleasure to take care thanks very much bye bye okay that is uh amri conlon there who is head of economic development with donigall county council 08 660 uh 25 000 it's very important on programs like this uh that we highlight the deficiencies where we need to go what needs to be improved we know all about that okay but it's also we have to recognize the good work that's been done the investments that have been made the improvements in uh digital connectivity uh as well because it is for all its flaws one of the nicest parts of the world to live in uh so we can talk about what needs to be improved but not at the same time find ourselves not recognizing what's great i wouldn't personally live anywhere else and i've had to engage with the health service and all that type of stuff and gps and now dark and all the stuff we talk about drive to doblin or drive to belfast so we know all about the roads but still uh i wouldn't be anywhere else and i would strongly recommend people um come here to live or return home to live right um do you agree disagree 08 660 25 000 whatsapp syntax of that number or give us a call on 07 49125 000 a quick call here from a listener to say just wondering did anyone not get their social welfare payments this morning apparently on post is to blame they say there's a delay of about a day in processing payments uh what about people dependent on this payment today that's what welfare uh that's what welfare office in lungford told me this morning okay uh so i'm not sure if you've experienced that delay um apparently payments will be made tomorrow we're told but still a lot of people would just be waiting um to get their money for today i love the idea if this campaign says a call but after watching my only two grandchildren head to australia can we not do more to keep them here in the first place yes indeed i get exactly what you're saying and i referenced that a couple of weeks ago it just seemed there was an awful lot of people taken to the skies for a new life okay i think we can say good morning now to nolene galleher who's community radio radiographer with the hsc can you hear me nolene yes hi good morning lovely to have you on the program right we're talking about a new state of the art community x-ray facility opening in letter kenny tell us what's available now and what's it replacing or is this a new service altogether nolene um well firstly yet we are delighted to announce the new donnie gall primary care x-ray and letter kenny it became operational there on the 6th of january and i'm not sure if uh that many are aware of it yet the facility is actually located just opposite the entrance to the emergency department and letter ken university hospital it's on the letter ken the kiln mcrennan road and now it's not it's replacing as such a service it was already available in the hospital and but obviously the facility has been put in place to address the recommendations put forward in both the 2017 slantia care report and also to facilitate the rollout of the enhanced community care program and i'm sure you're all aware the slantia care report had stated that one of the most significant obstacles to access and timely diagnosis and care in ireland was poor access to diagnostics for public patients it did state that gps needed direct access to radiology for all patients and this new facility actually brings to five the number of community x-ray sites that we have operating across the donnie gall community health network areas and it's actually providing a plain film x-ray so obviously your cts mr is ultrasound all of that still goes on within the acute services but this is plain access for the gp so what might happen that i might find myself being here for example you know what are we referred there as patients of the gp and for what type of stuff yeah so if you have a cough you go to your gp and the gp says right i think i would like a chest x-ray so obviously they can refer now electronically um from the gp practice and that goes directly to the appointment system that we have we have clerical officers there then um who will appoint so for example something like a chest x-ray or an urgent referral will get an appointment within two to three days of seeing their gp and if you go to your gp with back pain or knee pain or something like that there you're probably looking more and a week to two weeks so in terms of say for instance if you know someone's child is out playing or whatever and and and they they hurt their ankle i think most times it's probably soft tissue damage normally we would go to the a and e and probably face quite a long wait there because it wouldn't be a priority above what a lot in the a would be in the emergency department that would that be the type of case that might be referred to this x-ray unit or would that still be an ed job um well i have to say now in the unit that i work in myself here in don low and that has become more and more common practice obviously with the waiting times in ed a lot of people are stating look you know can we not just get x-rayed and if there's anything there you know if there's anything that has to be highlighted you know we'll carry on to letter kenny then probably eight times out of ten that is what's happening people will come to the local facility they'll have their x-ray done the turnaround time for reporting is quite good um and obviously you know we as radiographers are obviously trained you know we're not trained to report on the images but we are trained to have a fair idea of what's there if we see anything that we think warrants an urgent report we will try and get it reported ASAP should that patient then need to go to letter kenny they will obviously still need to go to ed to get a fracture referral but their x-ray will be available on the national system that's within the hospital as well we're all working off the one system so when they get as far as ed their x-ray is already there yeah what other um cases do you see no lean like what other typical solar referrals from gps you give me an example of uh you know um what we've just been talking about chest x-rays which is great presumably for a gp in terms of you know diagnosing what needs to be done uh or what can't be done within the gps practice what other kind of um cases do you see no lean oh everything it's all plain film it's all plain film x-ray so anything from your jaw to facial bones um your spines uh you know extremities lower extremities upper extremities it's all plain film x-ray okay right okay um as well as the gps now obviously again because we're already up and established in the other sites we would also um continue to work with the consultants in the hospital in that should you go to an outpatient clinic in scaly and the uh for example say dr keatings and she recommends a follow-up chest x-ray but you're living down in malin rather than you now having to come to back up to scaly place to have an x-ray that will be done closest you know to the site to the facility closest to you so nobody from malin should have to travel back up to letter kenny or nobody from karik should have to travel to letter kenny there's sites all over the county um so again it's all about the enhanced community care you know the right place right time right location the people are supposed to get seen to as close to the roll home as possible and this is not going to fix all the problems but it's part of it's part of maybe a pathway to to easing pressure on the ed getting people to travel maybe having to travel less uh or or getting a quicker turnaround it's just part of uh presumably a whole avalanche of things that are being done or need to be done no lean down the line this is not the silver bullet as such and it these these units are busy aren't they these facilities are busy yeah um now some of the units are still uh running part time but obviously the hope is and we can see the numbers rising every day that the units will be opened full time the unit in letter kenny is going to be opened five days a week uh monday to friday obviously we have one radiographer there at the minute and they're processing between 25 and 30 patients a day there will be a second radiographer taking up position um at the beginning of may and so you will see the numbers increasing there in the other sites we are seeing most of our patients within two weeks as in they see their gp they've had their x-ray and the report is back within two weeks and that's obviously achieving this launcher care targets the letter kenny we do have a bit of a backlog there obviously um so we are working our way through that but hopefully like within a couple of months we will have those same turnaround times in letter kenny all right and for us really there's no access directly this is something that is a tool of the gp it obviously remains a tool of the consultants in the hospital uh it's just really to make people more aware that these are the type of advances that are being made is that a fair enough assessment yes yeah yeah so this is not a this is not an like we don't turn up and go off twisted my ankle i need a neck it's not like that this is no this is to assist the gps in diagnostics and what have you and also to continue the work with the hospital just so everyone's clear on that yes no absolutely not you cannot turn up without having had a gp visit obviously uh it's a gp that has to decide whether or not you weren't an x-ray um after clinical examination um again we have to justify all our x-rays you know you just don't x-ray somebody just because they feel like it um but uh again i suppose especially the the gps in the letter kenny catchment area that obviously when they were referring patients their patients had to be fitted in along with all of the other stuff that was going on within the acute services all of the other services that they were providing within the x-ray department so hopefully you know the gps will in time now start to see a quicker turnaround with their patients obviously again like in the other sites you know we have built built up a rapport with the gps um i have many days here where the gps from the different catchment areas that i work with are ringing up you know looking for an urgent chest x-ray they know i'm here if they're worried about somebody that's in front of them there and then and they want to get them in straight away you know we're here to do that so like it's very flexible and again what the other sites have proven um the service user does find it much you know much handier the parking is obviously a big issue with the hospital um and all of these sites now have much easier parking um and the parking is directly beside the x-ray department so especially for your elderly patients there's no long haul from where they park to to getting into the hospital unit and they're not in that specific hospital environment as well which are presumed they try their best but this is is especially for the other areas closer to home all right nollyn this is thanks for your time appreciate it well done can i just say one thing i would just before i go i would just like to acknowledge though the significant support that was provided by our colleagues in the litter kenny university hospital the general practice and the wider hsc management they've all been instrumental in supporting the setup of this facility and again the lu h radiology team have been vital um to the progression of the unit to this point so just to acknowledge all of the help getting us to where we are today well done take care nollyn i've got to say i hope to see you soon but i don't but thank you anyway good morning okay thanks uh nollyn gala her community radiographer with the hsc 08 660 25 000 what's ups and texts letter kenny shatakan karate club have a date for your diary saturday the 11th of march at letter kenny community centre all students are invited class from 1 to 2 p.m 2 p.m to 2 30 p.m celebrating 45 years in karate with letter kenny shatakan karate club letter kenny's lord mayor will be in attendance a cup of tea maybe a bit of cake see you all there from john okay that's something you'd be interested in that's the info there you can check out john wilkie's facebook page presumably where that's printed in full right um i'm going to take a break bluebird care our harrowing nurses and carers are crossed on a call call 9 1 2 9 5 6 2 bluebird care our sponsors of today's show join homeland a nutritious animal feeds for our farming future event at 8 p.m in the mount harrigal hotel letter kenny on tuesday 7th of february an informative evening highlighting essential schemes such as cap 2023 for each advice and the 2022 dunigol silage competition results and presentations speakers will include representatives from chagasque and grassland agro enjoy spa prizes refreshments and meter suppliers on the evening 8 p.m 7th of february mount harrigal hotel letter kenny looking forward to seeing you there for more info visit homeland.ie Dylan's hotel letter kenny is the perfect place to celebrate special occasions Dylan's exclusive function rooms cater for up to 120 guests for any occasion from corporate celebrations presentations and networking events to milestone birthdays anniversaries and retirement parties there's audio visual equipment integrated pa systems and even a private bar Dylan's hotel perfectly located letter kenny town center with a ward winning food and five star service call 9 1 229 double seven wet and wild wet and wild is 20 years in business and would like to thank and reward our loyal customers with a massive 20 percent of absolutely every product purchased in store during the month of february choose from our massive in-store stock of quality outdoor clothing footwear equipment and accessories and 20 discount of all prices will be applied at the till the letter kenny real food and farmers market returns after the christmas break this saturday the fourth if you care about how fresh your food is and where it comes from the real food and farmers market look forward to welcoming you back this saturday and every saturday from nine to one at port road letter kenny okay an irish psychologist who has decided to let her or has decided not to let her own children have electronic devices has said children should spend more time outdoors than they do on screens kathryn hallissey is a chartered psychologist and joins us on the show now good morning to you good morning two of us sitting looking at screens what are we at i know that's the thing screens are amazing yeah this isn't about demonizing screens in any way it's around to supporting our children to develop healthy technology habits right from the start so that they gradually increase their independence and just develop a really positive relationship so that they can use the best of the internet and not be exposed to the worst i what do you propose i think we all agree with okay i think no one believes the child should be staring at a screen under the age of two i think we'd all like our children to be outside more and communicating in a real way and exploring the world and climbing trees or i don't know sticking a wheel whatever it might be all right but it just feels that life doesn't permit us to do that because we're under so much pressure and we're trying to grab a couple of moments to ourselves sometimes and sometimes it's called chameleon or whatever it might be that facilitates that and then at six or seven or eight or nine dependent on the child the pressure starts i want a phone i want a phone all my friends have phones and then we're really worried about them we want to be able to contact them so you know maybe the phone might suit us because we might not see them for five minutes we want to check on them the whole direction of traffic is pushing us to the screen i'm not really saying that's an argument for us going on screens i can see that we all don't want to but just life corrals us into it kathryn can that be overcome i think it's really important that we have these honest discussions about when are the times we use screens and so that we can become more intentional and let's face it we've all used the tv babysitter if the tv babysitter gives you a chance to catch your breath to get things organized maybe you're working from home maybe you're caring for your home maybe you're caring for an elderly parent there's no problem whatsoever with using screens and it's just our overuse our unintentional use that's the issue so when my children were very small and my first child i never used any screens at all and i bent over backwards and if i could go back in time i tell myself to chill out a little bit and use a little bit of screens just to give myself a chance so there is i don't think there's a problem with that it's it's i suppose fundamentally we're too busy we're overwhelmed so that is part of it sometimes we're lazy as well if we're going to have a frank conversation sometimes there's a bit of laziness there you know i think that we need to look at what is what is what we are negatively calling ourselves lazy about it's usually that we're overwhelmed you know so um i talk about you know kids do well if they can that comes from ross green but actually parents do well if they can we're all just trying our best and we're all somewhere on the overwhelmed scale and that can vary from day to day is it possible to that in terms of what we want to do we try and do it individually do you know what i mean and i talked a little earlier on just about the peer pressure and it's the same with teenage discos you know we'd be contacted by parents who don't want their 15 or 16 year old to go to a teenage disco uh but all their friends are to the point where they prefer if they weren't held at all because if they weren't held at all they wouldn't have to have this conversation with their teenager right so can we collectively as parents and guardians work together to make life a bit easy for for each other i wonder i think life would be a little bit easier for us if we were all abiding by the like even the technology companies have been forced to say no social media before age 13 so even if we abided by what the tech companies themselves say that would be really helpful for all of us but you know the reality is that we don't have any business trying to force other parents to do things instead of if we can have these conversations about um how to gradually build these healthy tech habits and age of getting a device is significant um so one of the things that i shared in the article is that um not to have a device coming from santa because if a child gets a device from santa they feel that it's a gift from santa to them and that a parent can have no hand actor parked in policing it instead if a device is originally a parent's device that the parent allows the child to borrow from time to time and that they build up their um self control and impulse control under the parent's guidance gradually working up to being able to get their own device and excuse me and if they can build those skills over time where we gradually increase the independence and then allow their behavior to guide um if we need to roll back a little so if you need to roll back a little saying look your behavior is showing me that you need more support to develop healthy tech habits so this is how i'm going to support you so you're coming at it from a support rather than a control point of view you know you could view it as control but instead of we can also change our own mindset into support and then also working with your child um teaching them about the addictive um nature of these devices all of us are hooked and all of us have to work hard to manage our own technology never mind them the only thing is is catherine it's already the case and i fear it's going to be even more so is is that you're viewing life in sort of as one thing and then you know our devices another life almost is completely integrated the device is almost completely integrated into our lives i just don't i just think we've gone so far now maybe at this point there's still a chance i don't know what it's going to be like in five or ten years but i mean some children's first names first words now are okay google or hey alexa do you know what i mean like it's such a microphone's going off now there's such an integration there now this conversation feels like it was actionable five years ago i just wonder as my two-year-old becomes a seven-year-old say for instance i think it's even going to be an extraly different type of world i just don't wonder is this conversation too late i'm not giving up you know i think every generation has a version of this every generation of parents has a version of things that they um that they're grappling with and the more we can educate ourselves on this about the impact on our children's developing brains and if we're saying yes everything we say yes to we're saying no to a million other things so if we're saying yes to two hours of screen time we've got to ask ourselves what are we saying no to so sometimes what we're saying no to is losing our cool because we can't actually get something done then the answer is yes go with the screen if what we're saying no to for a young child is that they're developing their reading or developing their in-person social interaction by having friends over to play or they're developing their skills to climb the tree then that's a hard no so we've really got to look at what are we saying yes to what are we saying no to we also looked have to look at the people who are actually developing these devices and all of these apps the vast majority of them are saying they don't not allow their children to have smart devices before the age of 16 so the people who know the most about it won't allow their children to have it no i think that's really relevant that's something that we really need to question why are we then blindly going down a path and the vast majority of parents will say they're uncomfortable with the amount of screen time their children have they will also the vast majority of parents will say that their children find it hard to come off screens and it brings drama into their home yeah now if you're a family where there are no issues with screens then that's fine keep going the way you're going it doesn't it must not be having an impact on your family but if it's stressing you out as a parent if it's stressing your child out when they've come off it if they're constantly nagging you forward it means a lot of their brain space is taken up with wanting this this want brain is turned on and that is distracting them from their developmental task which is to develop all of their conflict resolution and creativity through play yeah i mean when you when you draw two columns of the pros and against i mean obviously you know uh there's the development of a child the child's brain there's the visual impact you could have on the rise uh their posture their neck how they socialize exposure potentially to dangerous adults exposure to bullying um body shaming and what have you the way that apps are designed to encourage uh they're designed really the same as fruit machines are you know what i mean the refresh and all that type of stuff um everything everything about it tells us that this is bad for our children you know and maybe we're starting to see how younger people as the mature can can interact with others in the workplace or just socially that maybe they some of them are are are damaged by how they've grown up using screens and apps and what have you i mean everything is screaming that we need to do something about this but we i'm not sure we are and even i recommend you start with yourself now hold on you second i am not giving up my phone next no no it's not about giving up phones it's not about giving up anything it's about intentional use and you see this is the reaction i get from every parent when i'm real you see that's because i don't put on any airs and graces on this program it's the truth and the thing is that's how i am as well look i'm a mom i've got five kids i work i i get it i get the pressure that we're all under and what i'm advocating for is intentional use of screens using the best of it and letting go of the rest being really intentional about the incredible benefits that screens bring to our lives and bring to our children's lives like we use them for learning guitar learning ukulele learning piano learning art general knowledge all of those kinds of things i think screens are amazing it's just the unintentional use or do but exercise or doing something useful around the house or outside the house there's there's nothing on the phone that will give you that sense of achievement or right i can relax now because i've earned it or i feel good now because i've got the blood rushing through my veins there's nothing yeah unless there's some advances quite significant in terms of vr and what have you but currently there is nothing that on your device that like you will find yourself i've found myself my thumb is flicking through you know uh the for you page of whatever it might be facebook or whatever you're not even watching it you've got this instinctive hand movement and you're you know you're not even interacting with the screen i'm really glad you brought that up because that that's called endless scroll the person who has who developed endless scroll has said it's one of his biggest regrets because of the change on people's behavior what it did was a dramatically increased people's time on their devices and it because you no longer have to make a decision it's leading to more unintentional time being used so what i'm advocating for is getting more intentional deciding on the amount of time so lead by example like ask yourself are you happy for your children to copy your screen use if you're not then that's the first place to start it's actually not with theirs so once you are managing your own you can start to think about how can i adapt it in my home so it could be you decide on some screen free time you have a box where the devices go during meals that's the traditional one but it could be some other time it could be you have some time that's just for conversation and that there are no devices for that or you could try to balance screen time with green time which is where if a child is on a device for two hours they go outside for two hours or some variation of that so it's just trying to think about how can we have more of the good stuff in addition to what do you think of the headlines in the Daily Star because you sound so reasonable experts plead to ban kids from devices irish psychologist refuses to let her kids on electric devices i was not i was not quite expecting you to be so calm about all of this look it would be different if i lived in a lab and had no children and didn't interact with anyone i'm sure i'd be more definite about things you talk about the end yeah you talk about the end of scrolling to the refresh is is a it's a it's an amazing thing that they've done you pull down and it blasts you with a whole new type of thing you try and exit tiktok twice they'll throw a new video at you before you actually get out it's amazing and i'm not praising them but it's fantastic because the amount of people that exited tiktok and a new video popped up we'll stuff it i'll stay for this one and they're there 10 minutes later like it is ingenious what they're doing but unfortunately it's incredibly incredibly damaging so uh kathryn when you sort of start that conversation about us as parents and guardians that we need to look at our own behavior we can't ask necessarily of our children what we don't do ourselves is that when you sort of see parents sit a bit further back in the chair a little bit and go like i kind of joked about a little earlier but you know can parents put their phones away for a couple of hours sit around the table and have you know and have that family meal it's but it's a very challenging question i think it's a really great proposition and these these are the hard conversations that i think it's really important for us to have you know we can do all the hand wringing that that we like and never take any action i'm not in favor of that i think we're too busy to be having endless conversations we need to just take action you identify something you want to work on and take one small tiny step so i'm a big fan of taking tiny steps day after day aim for one percent improvement if you go for one percent improvement each day you're 37 times better off one year later i'd prefer to be going for one percent improvement than one percent dis improvement i think too there's a wider problem we've talked about this on um on um this program before is that we are conditioned to be fearful we're conditioned to and it's not just government by the way or it's not just advertisers you know there's an awful lot of conversation in this country at the moment that would have you think that nobody's safe at any stage doing anything and that feeds into parents going right go outside you know i'm not saying you should allow children to run away on supervised don't get me wrong but we're told at every turn that there's something there to harm our most precious thing our children and then the path of least resistance then is it you know we'll go on your phone no harm can come to you there well we know that's simply not the case uh kathleen does that feed into it do you think i think it does i think that um all of us parents we're doing a very best we have positive intentions and we're trying to make the best decision we have with the information we have however what we're doing is we're swapping what we think are known risks with unknown risks we don't yet know the full implications of all of the screen use on the developing brain so i got a phone in my 20s i got a smartphone in my late 20s and yet i can see the impact on my attention my ability to stay focused and and that's quite profound when you consider our children are growing up with these devices i think it's really important that we actually protect their attention as much as we protect them physically and we need to be talking miserly with their attention actually we need to be talking about all of this as well because this is in the context of record numbers a tsunami of cases of young people presenting with mental health issues with self harm i'm not saying this is why it's happening but we need what's happening to our children is shocking and if this is part of it maybe it is maybe it isn't i don't know but we need to be exploring all of this and we as parents and guardians maybe start reducing the screen time we you see very quickly a change in a child you know particularly the younger they are you know so this is stuff that is actionable by us we don't have to wait for nanny state to tell us things and also when we're talking about everyone's psychological well-being their emotional mental health there are things we know that protect that outside time movement connection looking up at the sky and experiencing all all of these things are actually protective to mental health so in a sense we almost get distracted by saying our screens causing mental health issues i think it's much more helpful to focus on can we increase more of the good stuff that we know protects mental health in other words sometimes it's it's what we're not doing rather than what we are doing what are we saying no to for every yes to a screen that's a thousand dollars so we've got to ask ourselves what are we saying no to and is that trade-off worth it so it's not about no screens it's about intentional use really thinking about does this add value because i can tell you my kids learning piano guitar ukulele art on screens that adds value well i put the ukulele in the bill bin well actually if they learn well it actually sounds really good now give me a tin whistle and i'm getting the air plugs what about the bagpipes you're starting to start an orchestra ukulele tin whistle and the bagpipes and maybe a bad oh dear no no okay right it's through it's food for thought for all of us you know and the other stuff that children do that we can relate to more it gives us an opportunity to talk to them and have a conversation even if it's actually watching a tv program rather than actually you know on the screen whatever it might be how was your day what did you do if you know 90% of that was scrolling through where's the conversation and where's the commonality there it's a fascinating conversation kathryn i really appreciate your time this morning thank you so very much and i do like the ukulele by the way just i know that ukulele's are popular around here take care of yourself all right bye bye okay that's kathryn hallacy there chartered psychologist oh wait six sixty twenty five thousand does any of that resonate to you i know what kathryn's saying and maybe i'm making excuses but it's tough isn't it it's tough to sort of enforce some of what we're talking about it really is because then as well we'd be you'll be afraid almost at this stage as well that it could have a negative impact on their mental well-being if we were to take their screen time away from them that's the kind of challenges of modern day life now it seems the nine tonne in show with bluebird care providing home care services for all ages and donnie gall visit bluebird care dot ie and bring care home you may think you know driving but you don't know nissan e power an electric motor that brings you the performance and response on the road that you demand charged by a petrol engine as you drive the thrill and economy of electric driving without ever having to plug in and it's exclusive to nissan who said you have to plug in to drive electric find the drive you've been looking for with e power now available in the new nissan kashkai a unique electrifying experience now unplugged nissan innovation that excites saint bridget you legend original irish rebel icon this bank holiday centra celebrates you and every one of ireland's modern day bridges the irish women who rock our world irish mommies sisters from other misters the ashlings the stonehorns girl squads and teammates the fight for what's writers and the stay out on writers legends all this bank holiday is about you so pop into centra and pick up whatever you need for you and your crew centra live every day guess what what larkins of new mills are offering an early bird special for only 695 monday to friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. a full menu is available seven days per week along with dilly lunch specials calling anytime to larkins of new mills or phone 07 4 9 1 2 6 6 7 9 and let our family look after yours highland radio weather updates with ireland west airport sala nines the beetles you can now fly to liverpool eight times a week with ryan air this summer ireland west airport don't just take off take it easy all right uh relatively dry and chilly weekend uh we're being told but let's focus on today modern breezy in mostly cloudy weather long dry spells with just occasional light rain or drizzle some bright spells too temperatures 10 or 11 degrees with fresh to strong south westerly winds just have one quick break to catch upon before the news 11 the 9 till noon show brought to you by bluebird care providing nurse led home care services and donnie gall call bluebird care 9 1 2 9 5 6 2 and bring care home are you building moving or renovating in 2023 think ireland's expert electrical for all your home appliances big and small with our layaway service you can secure your products now with a deposit until you're ready to collect or have them delivered ireland expert electrical letter kenny and bonk rana in the final clearance at watson menswear letter kenny there's half price shirts 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11 o'clock it's time to get a news update let's say good morning now to mikaela clark thanks great good morning the british government will announce today if there will be a public inquiry into the oma bombing the secretary of states expected to make a statement in parliament western ml a daniel mccrossen has repeated calls for a public inquiry to be held he says he welcomes a commitment from former t-shock meet home martin at the end of last year that the irish government will look again at its approach to the investigation of the oma bomb donnie gall county council is being urged to review and reassess spending practices in order to provide the best possible value for money the call came this week from councillor nicolas crossen who says officials suggested at the last budget meeting a rates increase may be sought in 2024 and he wants it to avoid that the draft letter kennie plan has been published it sets out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of letter kennie from 2023 to 2029 the focus of the plan is regional party stronger urban place a letter kennie regional centre the northwest city region and strategic growth ambitions questions are being raised once again over done it goes casual trading bylaws a number of businesses are said to be experiencing a loss in profits due to rise in portable vendors popping up councillor martin harley says it's his priority to protect rate paying establishments the family of natalie mcnally have arrived in court in antrim a 32-year-old man is due to appear charged with her murder the 32-year-old who was 15 weeks pregnant was stabbed to death at her home in lurgen on december the 18th first water means are affecting parts of any shown today supply disruptions are being experienced in don ross kuldaf glac glacmore oct drone skellon quickly's point and surrounding areas irish water is advising that supply will be restored to all areas by two o'clock this afternoon and denigal county council have been approved to appoint a biodiversity officer the position is expected to be filled by september of this year those are the latest headlines we'll be back with an update at 12 noon thanks for cater as long as the main lunchtime news then it's what that was as long as the main lunchtime news well it gives people a break from listening to you i'm gonna lose that fight at elster bank our team is continuing to close current and deposit accounts along with some of our branches at this time if your notice period and your deadline has passed your account is now queued for closure all personal and business account deadlines are fast approaching you must take urgent action if you are still relying on your bank account and in need of more support please contact us immediately visit ulsterbank.ie your local branch or call 0818 210260 call costs may vary and calls from mobiles may not be free ulsterbank our land act is regulated by the central bank of our land all right you welcome back to the program watch the social dilemma on netflix it's scary it's about social media another caller says regarding the campaign to bring people back to donningall this sounds fantastic and like greg there's no place i'd rather be the reality however is challenging for those in employment i.e. cost of childcare and cost of living in general so much more needs to be done for working families if you take on paid parental leave obviously you're on a reduced wage but still have childcare to pay there needs to be an incentive to work rather than to build a job and i get what you're saying but a lot of the challenges aren't unique to hear some of them are unique and you know what we should be screaming from the rooftops if we can that come here because it's better i still genuinely do believe it is but as i say i recognize all the challenges as you've outlined there joe gilmore is ceo of arland west airport in nock good morning to you joe good morning greg until all your listeners how's everyone done in beautiful arland west airport we're all very good greg and uh you know uh delighted with the news yesterday that erlingus have launched a new Heathrow service from us commencing on march the 26th you never had to put those tents outside to accommodate the queues in arland west did you i mean it's uh it's a smooth transition from the car park to the airport and to your onward destination that's uh it's it's brilliant uh that airport in that regard it's one of the benefits of being a regional airport with i guess not the same challenges as as our larger city airports but just um no it's uh it's it's one of the i guess ease of use and convenience for passengers using the airport is one of the key parts of the whole trip here how significant is erlingus announcing this flight from arland west airport uh nock to london Heathrow and we often focus on the outward journey but we can never underestimate how important it is to have connections into arland into the west of arland particularly that's hugely uh important especially presumably so head towards the summer but to get into Heathrow from nock is that is that particularly significant i tell you i'm not being smart now but we're certainly going to find out shortly it's in the airport's 37 year history probably top of the list in terms of priorities has been to have connectivity into an international major home and the slots in Heathrow as you probably know are like gold dust and it's extremely difficult for airports of our scale to to achieve a slot so from that perspective it's i hate the word game changer but for us it's opening up a whole new marketplace yeah and i mean and that's i i think people will get that because obviously if you if you're going to fly somewhere else or or you want to connect if you fly to one of the outline london airport so grand if you're going in to visit the city or have you but this means that people will look as a viable option say right i've got better options out of london and i can fly from nock straight in there and fly out from within the same airport but it's a succulency at this stage is it uh joe the stats and the the information you know available in terms of the research highlight that you know there are tens of thousands of passengers in the region that travel to other airports to take Heathrow services to connect onwards so like if you take beer lingus iag network alone they have six partner airlines so like as of yesterday you can book on british airways american air canada iberia jet blue united and and we're right up there now on the booking screen both inbound and outbound so you know we're expecting it's difficult to put a finger on the transfer traffic that will initially i think people will first of all have to try it you know you can you'll be able to seamlessly check in here now with a true ticket to basically most destinations across the globe through the iag network alone air lingus and ba will be offering ac destinations and that's covering the you know the us middle east africa asia and so forth so connect it's a lunchtime service as well which we're delighted to get and they're they're very difficult ones to get but the service will land in here just after lunchtime and be back in Heathrow about just after two o'clock so it gives you a a signal you know a very wide range of connectivity after and likewise on the inbound it's a morning service inbound so people arriving on on early morning flights into Heathrow a great connectivity straight back into the west yeah and we'll talk a bit about the advantages of that obviously though the you know you have to look at the big bigger picture the airline does as well as yourselves there are those that might have been quite comfortable and familiar with the london gatwick route this is replacing that that will terminate on the 25th of march now there might be some customers already booked on that they'll be rebooked presumably into Heathrow but look at you have to look at the bigger picture and see what you know this new more central uh as well this international uh connectivity all the advantages of that over may be discounting some into gatwick no that's a that's a very fair point Greg and we recognize that we've had a very loyal customer base using the Gatwick service over the last 15 years and it's evident you know it's comments back and Facebook and support that this isn't uh you know ideally and what we had hoped and saw for is both servers to run concurrently for a period of time however in this situation with Erling this particular hasn't been feasible it's not to say that we won't be now looking for replacement airlines on the Gatwick service you know what you talk about social media reaction the reality is is that it's inevitable that more people who are upset at Gatwick not they're going to post people aren't going to post oh this is lovely about Heathrow those motivated are those that are feel discommoded so you social media doesn't necessarily give you uh an exact read of the situation what we do hope Greg is that Erling has have you know committed to offering people that are discommoded in Gatwick uh transfer on to the Heathrow service with the connectivity out of Heathrow and I know it's a major airport with the you know the access to the Gatwick express the new Elizabethan line the tube and all that we hope people will at least try the Heathrow service and hopefully they'll find that it's maybe not as difficult or as cumbersome as they may expect but look at if you if you want to go in and see London or you want to fly somewhere else you know Heathrow is the airport no harm to Gatwick I mean and you know what I mean it is it's you can get on a train and you are in the heart of it really really quickly that's correct yeah as I said Heathrow there is a defined marketplace around Gatwick and it certainly is going to be a service we're going to try and reinstate I don't give up on it this year but I think certainly moving forward as a marketplace they're forward as well yeah the in-bound traffic as I say you know I I think that's really important too because what it does is it connects the west of Ireland for people who might you know be looking for a weekend away or something you know uh so so hopefully it has a positive inward tourism um effect I think it will and again that's that's a whole new um bargain for us if you like because we haven't had that hub connectivity through Heathrow we know from empirical data that some of our other regional colleagues down the coast that have Heathrow services in place they can get up to between 30 to 50 transfer traffic on their Heathrow services inbound on the inbound leg from the US um and from you know like you can fly from Abu Dhabi over here you can fly literally any part of the world now through Heathrow so it's going to be very exciting for us to see the the the spread of traffic the challenge we have and just it will be a call out to the community across your region and particularly businesses we you know we are acutely aware and the business community have always saw the Heathrow service in terms of hub connectivity we'd ask them to take a serious look at this service now because it's in place it's a daily service we really want it to be a tremendous success th