The Neil Prendeville Show | Cork's RedFM

00:00 Cork. 00:00 Morning. 00:02 It's time to talk. How much of your son's life have you been in? I always have been advocating moshy peas and garden peas. Do as much cool stuff as possible. 00:12 The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM. The last 22 months has been an uphill battle. The Voice of Cork. 00:19 Be part of the conversation, the Neil Prendival Show with Elevate Credit Union. Morning all. Well, a date for your diary, Thursday, November 12th. That is when the public sector unions, and there are many of them, are preparing a 24-hour work strike. Actually, they say that it's on the same day as a major EU presidency event, and that's all very well, but we have bigger fish to fry than that, particularly if you have kids. going to school, say, for instance. But the rank and file Gardaí are also planning a work to rule around that event on that day as well. 00:53 So that's the deal with all of the papers this morning, November 12th, because the gulf between what's being offered and what the public sector workers in their union wants is too wide. By all accounts, The Independent is saying that they had been offered a 6.75% pay increase, close enough on 7% over three years, and backdating a portion of that back to the summertime. But they ain't having it. It's not enough. The public sector unions want either 11% or 12%. 01:23 Now, as to whether or not this can be sorted out ahead of the 12th, I don't know. But it makes many of the papers today because it's a 24-hour work stoppage. Yet another one. We had one only less than a fortnight ago. We'll have 300,000 public sector workers set to strike for the second time on the 12th. And the papers this morning have it in quite some detail. A lot of power with regards to the public sector and their workers because a lot of chaos can be caused right across the education system, the health system, all sorts of different government departments and different city and county councils and what have you. 02:00 And after that, then, the day after, November 13th, I'm seeing some rumblings online that trucks will be rumbling, hauliers will be rumbling and farmers as well because they're calling for November 13th. 02:13 as the date for everybody to come out on the streets, especially in all of the major towns and cities. And it's a call to not just the truckers and the hauliers and the farmers to down tools and get rolling, but anyone who doesn't want our country to go further down the... 02:28 I'm going to say plug hole. They're much more descriptive than that. But there you have it. But anyway, to be honest with you, nothing to laugh about here. And at the same time then, I can't help but think of everybody in the private sector who has no power That's in any way comparable to the public sector workers or the public sector unions. Are you behind them with regards to another day, another 24 hour of strike action? Do you think that they're looking for too much in the sense that they want 11 or possibly even a 12% pay increase? 03:00 I just humbly ask the question, who in the private sector could ever get anything like that? And certainly doesn't have the security of employment that one would have in the public sector. I'm just putting it out there. Push back if you wish. Text 0868104106. And it's quite interesting when you look at it also through the prism of people who have children going to school. If you looked at, say, for instance, primary school, just back after a week of the midterms. 03:26 And I'm told that there's another couple of in-house training days coming down the track in the next week on top of everything else. Those in-service days also feature next week. So you throw that into it and throw the old 24-hour strike as well, and there won't be much education at all for that week, so there won't. Anyway, enough of me. Text 0868 104 106. We have a lot from the courts this morning and also from the streets of Cork. I hope to come back to this for a few minutes a little later on, but we were hearing yesterday afternoon of a teenager. 03:58 I mean, we just kind of... 04:00 tut tut a little bit and move on to the next story of course that breaks with regards to criminality in our country and indeed all over the world this is just from the bus station four o'clock yesterday afternoon as a teenager now in hospital he gets seriously injured he was stabbed in the bus station and then he ran ran and he legged it up uh merchants key and eventually collapsed at merchants key shopping center the side entrance there um And the attackers apparently took place at the bus station in Parliament. He ran from his attacker by all accounts. 04:31 Gardie were called and this person was then taken to the CUH with injuries that are believed to be not life-threatening. But there you have it. There you have it. Do you remember the story that I told you of Abdullah Khan, the 24-year-old? I was talking about this on the air last week. He's a jihadi. He decided that he wanted to stab, as the sun puts it this morning, he decided he wanted to stab a cop. And he says, I was angry. I was going to stab a guard, he said. I was angry at the state and I wanted to make a protest. I felt that the Prophet Muhammad was being insulted. Now, this is the same guy then that, you know, set fire to Conor McGregor's pub, right? 05:05 So he was in court yesterday because he felt that people's views were insulting Mohammed in this country. Nothing. His plan was to attack and to stab two guardie. Now, he did manage to stab one guard fairly seriously, actually. He launched his attack on the two guardie. They were on foot patrols, six o'clock in Dublin. 05:22 And one guy got stabbed badly. They eventually had to use pepper spray to subdue this guy before he was arrested. But anyway, he was before the courts yesterday and the court case is ongoing. But that was the reason behind it, the arson and the knife attack. It's very interesting. You look at our... We live in dangerous times, don't we? When you go out and about, you have no idea what potentially could happen anymore. Don't mean to make you alarmed, but maybe just aware. It's interesting when it comes to, and this has really kicked off over the last few days on air. There was an awful lot of texts on it again this morning, I see, that I didn't get to yesterday, on learner permits and those that drive on a learner permit that don't have a fully qualified, somebody with a full driving license in the passenger seat with them. 06:04 All sorts of things can happen. Sometimes it can depend on the guard, but up to and including your car being taken off you, penalty points and a fine to get it back. I think there was a case earlier in the week of a chap's daughter who had to pay €250 to get the car back because she was in the car on her own. She had no full license holder driver in the passenger seat. 06:25 So then it can really depend. I don't know what it is. It might depend on the day of the week, the guard that you meet, or indeed the court that you're in. But you would think that laws are laws. And if there is road traffic offences or road traffic offences, and it shouldn't be kind of like a lazy, fair attitude to how you impose sentencing or fines. I mean... I just get confused of it. It has nothing to do with the fact that this woman is Brazilian, but it's just a bizarre one out of McCroom. So she's a Brazilian woman whose learner permit had expired. She crashed into a ditch in McCroom, right? 06:58 But she had road traffic matters against her struck out in court yesterday. 07:04 This woman is from Sunday as well. She was down around McCroom, fairly dodgy part of the road, apparently, to make evasive action to avoid hitting another car. And she did so, but she ended up crashing in the ditch. She was driving a Volkswagen Golf half past five October of last year. So by all accounts, her learner permit had expired June 12th, 2025. 07:25 She wasn't accompanied by a qualified driver. She didn't hold a valid Irish driving licence and she held a full Brazilian licence for more than 10 years, which isn't recognised in Ireland. So, there's a lot of boxes unticked there with regards to being on the roads in Ireland, isn't there? Now, by all accounts, all of this was heard in the court and the judge decided that she would strike out all of the road traffic matters against the Brazilian woman, as in I'm not going to say there's nothing to see here because there clearly is an awful lot to see. 07:59 But apparently her defence counsel said that she was applying for Irish citizenship and she feared that a conviction could affect that application. The judge said it's her understanding that a road traffic matter wouldn't affect citizenship whatsoever. 08:13 So that all comes as a relief, I suppose. But at the same time, there's no penalty points. There's no licence suspension. There's no fine, from what I can understand. All traffic matters. struck out so it can depend I don't know it can depend on so many different things it's very much stick your finger in the air see which way the wind is blowing and then there's another one also from the courts now this woman got jailed for two years she recently had this is very interesting because she's Laura Penricks she's a 40 year old she ripped this guy off like she absolute serious financial scam and um, with a woman that he thought he'd been in a romantic relationship. 08:53 She got two years jail, right? She had told your man that she was in senior management in the HSE. She said her name was Laura Kelly when her name was Laura Penrick. She said she had nearly 4 million euro tied up in an account that was frozen because of probate involving a will. And then she slowly, uh, drained. Oh, she also said that she had six brothers in Angarda Shecona. I mean, serious fantasist stuff, but unfortunately this man believed it. And, uh, over a period of time, she drained 65 grand out of his bank account. She was taking out loans in his name without his knowledge, borrowing money from him, buying stuff on his credit and debit cards and all sorts of stuff like that. 09:30 So she was before the courts. What was interesting is she got two years jailed for that. But what really interested me is that she had previous convictions for similar crimes of defrauding other people. She went through the entire court process to be sentenced in the past for similarities, right? And she recently got an 18-month sentence with six months suspended. But you know how long she actually spent in jail? So she got 18 months with six months suspended and actually spent six weeks in jail. 10:01 Six weeks. So don't tell me there's not chaos in our justice system and certainly in our courts and our jails. And then the papers this morning talk of a serious cash cow, of which there are many in this country, I'm quite sure. But one of them is this non-profit company behind the deposit return scheme. What they want to do is to get everybody to recycle glass. Sorry, well, certainly glass, that's separate, but to recycle plastic and cans. And to a large extent, it's happening if the goddamn machines would only work, if they weren't out of order or constantly jamming and what have you. 10:36 But they also love when we don't do the recycling because it means that they've charged us The 25 cent or whatever it is. I think it's in around 25 cent. And then they're awash with money because they don't have to pay it back because not everybody is actually recycling the cans or the plastic bottles. So they have 330 million euro, or at least they will by the end of this decade. There will be 330 million unclaimed euro. 11:05 By 2031, according to the Daily Mail, they are awash with money as to what they want to do with it. Well, they think it would be good to build a new recycling plant, a recycling plant, because we need to be more and more green than ever before. But I suppose to some extent, you know, by not returning the cans and the plastic, you're just helping this cash cow to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Talking about things getting bigger and bigger and bigger or indeed be interested to see what happens in the next 24 hours now with regards to the midterm elections in America because they're today. 11:37 So the Senate and the Congress is expected to swing away from the Republicans back to the Democrats. But everybody now is wondering what will Trump do next? 11:46 He's on the ropes, they're saying, according to many of the papers, because his ratings have slumped to the lowest ever. And today, they figure, will be Trump's day of reckoning. Not quite sure how many lives he has or whether he's used them all up or not, but the next 24 hours will be interesting in that regard. I don't know if you have heard the final moments of the Learjet that crash-crashed in Florida. 12:10 I did hear it. It's very upsetting. It really is so upsetting. You're looking at this Learjet that slammed into Palm Beach Country Road yesterday. It plunged 25 feet in less than 60 seconds. It was a jet that was actually supposedly going to fly from Austin, Texas to the Bahamas. 12:31 If you listen to the audio of the pilot's last 60 seconds, it is so upsetting. And she was a young girl. She was 20 years old. She had earned her flying license at the age of 17. She was with another pilot. And you can hear the other pilot in the cockpit repeating the Our Father in the final seconds before the crash. It's so sad. interacting with air traffic control as they slowly spark... What am I talking about? Slowly, within seconds, travelling faster than the speed of sound into the ground. 13:04 There is nothing left in the crater that was left by the... As in, nothing, because it had a full tank of aviation fuel. So it's dominating many of the international sections this morning. Very little being said about who's on board, but there were others on board because there were flying individuals to the Bahamas. And one was a tech tycoon by the name of Adam Robinson. There's a photograph of himself and his wife and his two beautiful children who all perished on board as the aircraft slammed into the ground. It's so, so sad. There are other aircraft-related stories making the papers because Michael O'Leary has given an interesting warning saying that they're going to have to freeze workers' pay And they're going to have to raise airfares, all to do with the surge in fuel costs. 13:48 It's quite interesting because they're saying that there's been a 15% decline in profits from April to September of this year. And you can't be doing anything at all. And you have to take emergency evasive action to protect the profits. So put up the fares and freeze the workers' pay. Which is kind of interesting when you look at the profits for Ryanair for 2025 into 2026. 14:12 So this is a net profit for Ryanair of 2.26 billion euro net. That's after tax. 2.26. Why would Ryanair have any worries in the entire world with 2.26 billion profits net? 40% up on the year before, incidentally. They fly 208 million passengers a year. You would think that they would be hunky-dory and that they could assume the loss. He would think that I'm absolutely mental to suggest anything like that. But things have to be protected. And of course, he's a very hardworking man, Michael O'Leary. 14:44 I won't take that from him, but he's well remunerated for it. His pay in the last calendar year that I found was 3.8 million euro. And don't you love social media? And I'd love to get your thoughts on this, where you can doctor different photographs. And if you see people at an event or a function or on the beach or out with their pals or taking selfies or whatever the case may be, I bet you the photographs are doctored. Seriously, it is so easy to do it now. And you're only kidding yourself. But who am I to lecture anybody? 15:15 But there's an example of it that makes the mail today, right? 15:18 So the front page in the mail has two different photographs. And the headline is, What a month without drinking did to my body. So Polly was drinking two glasses of red wine a night. Biggins. 15:30 And it left her with dry skin, high cholesterol, broken sleep. Read what happened when she went teetotal for 31 days and you might put a cork in it too. So they took two photographs. One is before and one is after when Polly stopped drinking the red wine. Now, the first photograph. OK, you got to find the worst backdrop possible. So stand against a dark background with half a door over your right shoulder, right? Put your hair up in whatever it is, tie it up in a bun, Make sure that it's greasy and unwashed and wear no makeup. 16:07 That's photograph number one before she stopped drinking the wine. Photograph number two, 31 days later. Find a white backdrop. Stand in front of it. Have your hair done so it looks absolutely gorgeous. Get your makeup done. 16:22 I don't know the different parts of the body or the face of a woman as to what you do. I know something is called mascara and then you got makeup and you can have lipstick and you can have eyeliner. So as in throw the kitchen sink at the after picture and then post it as a before and after. I mean, it's absolutely appalling, isn't it? And this isn't even AI generated, but it's an example of clickbait all day long. If you're going to do a before and after, you know, make sure your hair is the same. Make sure you look presentable before. But you see it with weight loss. See on Instagram, people are like, I lost 100 kilo in three months. 16:55 Here's how I did it. You got this video then of these side angle photographs and stuff like that. You just can't believe anything anymore. If that you can't be sure. So, I mean, beauty's in the eye beholder, I suppose, but... 17:05 You look at other things that are hard to believe. Do you know all these different products now? And someone's got a successful product and you know that within a period of time, somebody is going to copy it. And the latest one, you recall Colin the Caterpillar and all of the different knock-off Caterpillar cakes. And there was murder over all of those ones. Then there was the trouble between Supermax and McDonald's. And I'm delighted that Supermax keeps on winning because they're a hardworking company. And then you do other issues. Then you see also similarities between somebody who sets up as a chocolate bar, a box of cereals or tinned food or ketchup. 17:40 And some of the supermarkets then do knockoff versions of them. The latest one is the Magnum Ice Cream Company, which owns an awful lot of brands, now are suing Aldi for trademark infringements because of Aldi's Gianni range of ice creams. They're copycats, they say, because the colouring that's used and the style of packaging is pretty much identical. they say, to the Magnum ice cream. 18:05 And not just that, but they give examples of other... I mean, there are similarities then between an HB Cornetto and the knockoff kind of Cornettos that you get in supermarkets. And people are... Companies are very touchy-feely about stuff like that, and rightly so. And it's very interesting that you look at, you know, the things that you can and can't do. A little bit of nostalgia with this final story, but they're talking about a ban... 18:26 on cheap scratch cards to stop kids from gambling. There seems to be an awful lot of things that kids can buy in supermarkets or in shops or in petrol station four-court shops that they shouldn't be buying. But how in the name of God can a kid buy a scratch card if you've got to be over 18 to gamble? I mean, is it that they look over 18 and they're only 15 or they're not producing ID? But there it is nonetheless. So they're coming up with a plan now. There's a study in this country where they're saying that we need to restrict, just like we did with tobacco products, So what we need to, because you know how they got rid of the 10 euro, you know you could get 10 box of fags before, you can't anymore. 19:01 It's all 20. So, and then they increased the prices and stuff like that. They also got rid of the, buying the single fag. Does anybody remember when you were young, you could buy a single fag down at the shop at the bottom of the North Bond and you get a little bit of scratch, which was a tiny little bit of the matchbox and maybe two matches to light it. You could buy one cigarette. Selling one cigarette to children. That's it. That's the way it was. They got rid of all of that. So now they're saying a good idea now would be to introduce a minimum gambling spend. Say maybe you have to spend a fiver or a tenner or 15 euro and it will reduce impulse participation of children. 19:36 So if you make gambling and scratch cards dearer, it will make children not want to play more. But what happens to people who are interested in scratch cards or indeed might well have an addiction to scratch cards? We're already buying them. And you're going to say, we're going to make them a 10 or a 15 euro entry cost for a scratch card. Do you think of the implications for adults on something like that at all? Just asking. Text 0868104106. 19:59 The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM. Conversation that matters. 20:06 Text 0868 104 106. Your thoughts on this upcoming public sector days 24 hour stoppage next week. Text 0868 104 106. Indeed, if you're in the public sector, love to hear from you as well. Or indeed, if you're a member of the public as to whether you support it or not. Text 0868. 104, 106. I got a statement from on Garda Chicana overnight regarding the events inside in town yesterday. This was round about half past four. They say the Guardian Emergency Services responded to reports of an incident. They say on Patrick Street, which is interesting, a male in his late teens discovered at the scene with serious injuries and brought by ambulance to hospital. 20:46 No arrests have been made regarding this. Stories picked up in the papers, as I say, with regards to this one. And of course, we... We know at this stage that something kicked off at the Parnell Place bus station. So, of course, you'd have had a lot of people at the bus station waiting around for buses and boarding buses. You'd have a lot of people on, say, Merchant's Quay, which is actually where it all happened, because that's where the man ran to get away from whomever had... whatever knife or sharp object that stabbed him or injured him. People then at the entrance to the Merchant's Key shopping centre and also waiting for buses and taxis. 21:18 So I say a lot of people would have witnessed much of what went on. Aaron, by all accounts, arrived at the scene at one stage. Aaron, good morning. 21:26 Good morning, how are you? I'm good, man, I'm good. How much can you add to what we kind of already know with regards to this? Something that kicked off at the bus station. Pick it up for me. 21:35 Yeah, quite confusing, isn't it? I'm delighted you got some confirmation overnight. But indeed, when we arrived, the gentleman was actually in a very distressing situation in an aisle in Dunn's stores. And that's where apparently he fled to when he fled his attacker. And he collapsed in, I believe it was the drinks aisle in Dunn's stores in Merchants Quay. And that's what we would have seen when we arrived in... There was a lot of ambulance personnel, Gardaí and members of the armed response unit were on scene when we got there quite quickly after seeing a couple of messages that we had received, Neil, while we were in town. 22:13 So I believe we got there quite quick when it happened. 22:15 OK. Oh, and without being too graphic, he was in a very bad state, I'd imagine. 22:20 Yeah, you could hear him. You could hear him, his pain, I suppose, Neil, as he expressed himself in pain. And there was a, how to say, without being graphic, yeah, you could see the results of a strong physical attack, i.e. blood and things like that, you know. I don't want to be too graphic, you know, but yeah, you could... Well, it's reported as a stabbing. 22:41 Stabbing's a stabbing. I don't know whether it was bodily or facial, but it sounded, from some of the descriptions I got, that it was, you know, fairly horrific. 22:50 Yeah, and I do believe quite young, Neil, you know, I was a teenager or something along those lines, and I am seeing and hearing maybe a punctured lung. You know, I did indeed feel for the gentleman, but Neil, I suppose it's not something to go off topic, but it seems to be very worrying. It's something that we're coming across a lot in Cork City. Is crime similar to this, or indeed heavily distressing situations? 23:14 It seems to be, unfortunately... happening quite a lot more than I would have remembered happening across Waterford and Cork when I was growing up. 23:21 No, absolutely. There's no argument about that. It is becoming much more... And some might say, well, it's just being reported more. I don't buy that. There has been an upsurge in crime and physical attacks involving weaponry. There was another case a couple of years back, not too far from that, in the other side of Patrick Street, where actually there was a guy in a very, very bad state after being stabbed very badly. Some passers-by came to his... And I remember seeing some of the video of the results of the injuries to him. So I don't know. 23:51 We're hearing more and more of it. So clearly it is happening more and more. But you're saying to me this fellow ran into Dunn's. So on top of everything else, you had people in there doing their shopping, seeing all of this play out. 24:03 Absolutely. And credit to the Gardaí and, of course, Dunn's store staff. 24:09 Quite quickly, the aisle was closed off, and when we did arrive, there was a couple of guards on the scene. As I say, more and more guards came, the Armed Response Unit came, the National Armed and Service. And they did indeed, like, I suppose, try and curtail, I suppose, Neil, what was seen by the public, in fairness to them, you know. But the aisle remained closed for a bit of time. I stayed and observed, of course, look, I looked at it from an article media point of view, of course, and... My thoughts indeed are with the man that was injured, but it was an unusual situation to come across, I suppose, as an actually witness to myself. 24:45 Are you in the city a lot, Aaron? 24:47 I am. I am. And unfortunately, Neil, we've come across a lot of this kind of thing, you know, and I think it was maybe last... 24:56 Me, we came across a sexual assault in the South Mall. I believe I may have even talked to you about it, but we won't go there. I sent it on to yourselves. And then I came across another attack where there were seven or eight youths, again, teenagers, had jumped on a 14 or 15-year-old boy in Patrick Street across the road from Hurley Centre. 25:15 Do you think that the Garda foot patrols are making any improvement? 25:20 I... 25:23 I do and I don't. I do when they're present because I don't see them ever present, to speak need. We are in town a lot. We started our project on the 14th of April in Cork City. 25:34 What was the project you started? I'm just curious. 25:37 We started out investigating the homeless crisis. Then we went into the line of drugs. And then we actually started looking at the Gardaí and Cork County Council themselves. And we're still processing that. We're only about six months in, just slightly over it. 25:51 But it's been eye-opening. I was going to use the word entertaining. It hasn't been entertaining. It's been eye-opening. 25:59 I can't say it's been entertaining. It's been stressful. It's been very, very, I suppose, heartwarming in some senses and heartbreaking in another, Neil. It's not nice to come across a lot of the stuff that we do come across. I've been involved in and witnessed serious crime in Cork City and... 26:20 I'm a man from Dungarvan. I'm proud to be a Waterford man, but I love the people of Cork. I've been delighted to come here four years ago, and I love being in Cork City. Do you feel safe? 26:31 Do I feel safe in Cork City? 26:35 I do. I'd like to believe I'm 35 years of edge. I'd like to believe I'd be able to Do my best in many situations, but I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who don't feel safe. I've been out there late at night. I've seen a lot of ruckuses on Patrick Street, Oliver Plunkett Street. I've seen the Gardaí deal with a hell of a lot of issues. Unfortunately so. I really have, from fights to stabbings to mental health incidents. 27:02 I do feel for them. I want to be honest and say that. 27:17 doing work that maybe the guard shouldn't have to do, and that is looking after people or picking up people who are unconscious or trying to help people who have serious addictions and have passed out from drugs. And that's all very commendable, don't get me wrong. But I think that should be somebody else's job, as opposed to members of Vangardish Akana, because sometimes you could have two guardi dealing with a guy who's completely comatosed. I see it all of the time, particularly young people who can't even stand... because of what they've taken and the addictions that they're going through. And that could take up an hour, two hours of their time just trying to get them to an ambulance or waiting for, you know, that kind of stuff. 27:54 I mean, it's important work, but I'm just curious as to whether the Gardaí should be doing that kind of work. It's sad to see, I know. 28:00 It is. I have to fully agree with you. I really have to fully agree with you. Two points I'll make quickly there. 28:06 I would see in Peace Park nearly every couple of days exactly what you've described. And I mean a couple of incidents. I've seen the Gardaí. I went for a pint in the Oval there at one stage a couple of months back. I've seen the Gardaí arrive at three separate occasions on the same day to the same park. 28:22 And for the similar incidents like you're speaking about, either intoxication of some description. 28:27 Yeah. 28:27 I, again, another night on the footbridge across the road from Paranel Place, the bus station there, Neil, I waited with two guardie there for nearly three hours for an ambulance with a man who was attacked. 28:39 And the guards have to wait also, don't they, for that period of time? 28:43 Correct. And that would be one example I'd make. I understand completely the ambulance services and a number of emergency services across Cork City at any given time could be under severe pressure. But for an ambulance to be, you know, I don't make the last, but for an ambulance to be nearly three hours from either the Mercy or COH to a footbridge at Parnell Place is a little bit of a mess, isn't it? 29:03 It's exasperating, my friend. It's exasperating. Thanks, Aaron. I appreciate you coming on with me this morning. That's... 29:09 Aaron from LTT Media, text 0868104106. Interestingly, though, I tell you one thing, all about Cork this morning are reporting that thugs got a rude awakening when they sat upon a man in his 60s there recently on Shandon Street. These two fellas, they attacked a man in his 60s on Shandon Street Sunday morning. They got more than they bargained for when their intended victim decided to fight back. This is at half past nine on Sunday morning. The man whose details have been kept private was leaving a shop, was approached by two fellas believed to be in their late teens, early 20s. 29:41 One of them punched him. 29:42 But he stood his ground. So then the situation escalated when the second young fella joins in, attempting to kick and to punch the older man. So the man believes they had intended to rob his wallet and rob his mobile phone. But the pair had seemingly underestimated the physically strong man's ability. So despite suffering a number of cuts, he fought back. He landed several blows on his attackers, floored one of them. 30:08 grabbed a scooter belonging to the pair of them and threw the scooter across the road. So then you see the two others, the two thugs, limping away, the two of them, tail between their legs, one fellow bleeding heavily. Your man has chosen not to report the incident to the Gardaí. He believes the two young men may think twice before attempting to attack someone again. 30:28 And I suppose at the same time, it's a warning to others in the Shandon Street area to be vigilant and cautious around individuals you do not know. They took on the wrong guy in that case, didn't they? Text 0868-104-106. 30:42 Get on to Prenderville. 30:43 Text or WhatsApp Neil now. 0868-104-106. 30:48 The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM. 30:51 Be part of the conversation. Pick up the phone 0818-104-106. Annette, good morning. 30:57 All right. So where are we off to? 30:59 We're off to Charleville, is it? 31:01 You're off to Charleville, yeah. 31:02 Okay. 31:03 The events of Saturday night. Sorry, go ahead. 31:06 So I run two notice boards online. So Manor notice board and Charleville notice board. So everything local gets posted on there. It goes through me. 31:14 I love the notice boards, incidentally. Can I just say a very good morning to everybody on the Ballanglana notice board. I hope you had a good night's sleep and you're all waking refreshed and have a great day. 31:25 Well, that's more like their WhatsApp group, but you know what I mean. 31:27 Yeah, the notice boards locally, you know, they're just, they're priceless. People get loads of information on it. But anyway, so on Halloween night, a lady messaged me and asked to remain anonymous. 31:40 And she said that in a certain area in Charleville, and this was from quite about six now in the evening until about eight that night, There was a gang of about 10 to 15 boys roughly between the ages of 13 and 15. 31:55 They were throwing fireworks everywhere. Like they weren't aiming them up into the air like fireworks are meant to be. They were aiming them at other people, at other children who were out trick-or-treating. A lot of children were taken away by their parents, obviously, and older children that were able to trick-or-treat by themselves. rang their parents to come and collect them because they were absolutely terrified. 32:21 When we say fireworks, do you know what kind of fireworks we're talking about here? 32:25 I don't know. I don't know. But they're ones that they have to use As far as I'm aware, they're the ones that you have to use a lighter to light the end of them. 32:36 Okay, so they're like firework rockets. 32:39 Yeah, absolutely. All right, fair enough. 32:40 Thank you. 32:41 So I posted that on the notice board on Saturday evening and got quite a lot of reaction. Another lady who was driving from Mallow into Charleville, and so Brindle Hill, where this happened, is just on the outskirts of Charleville, the Mallow side. 32:57 And she said she saw the same group, same time, And they were aiming the firework at the petrol station across the road. 33:05 Well, I heard it was at the pumps, actually directly at the petrol pumps. 33:09 Exactly, which is what I said. They're aiming at the petrol station, Amber, which was directly across the road from Brindle Hill. So, they were literally trying to set the petrol pump on fire. 33:24 Moronic. 33:25 And these are young boys from the ages of 13 to 15-ish. I'm Like, the mind boggles as to the damage that could have been done and the amount of people that could have been injured and even killed. 33:39 I bet you they were filming it on smartphones. I bet you they were. 33:42 Probably. Probably, Neil. I have no idea. Probably. And I suppose, you know, the thing about it is, is that this lady who originally reported it said she was absolutely terrified. She was beside her own house. They were aiming fireworks at every house and the cars And she was on her own with just a small baby because her partner had gone out with the other two children. 34:06 So how young are we talking about, 10-year-olds to 15-year-olds, is it? 34:11 She reckons between 13 and 15. 34:13 Okay, 13 to 15-year-olds. And is it that they don't have any sense to know the consequences of what they're doing potentially? 34:19 I don't believe that's the case at all. Of course they know. 34:22 They're not completely and utterly thick. 34:24 No. So this lady then, obviously being in Charleville Town, she ran in Charleville Garda Station, but there was no answer. 34:31 And so... You've got to be calling 999, not ringing guard stations. Anyway, just saying. 34:37 I know, I know. But look, you know, people are so conscious these days of not wasting emergency services time that they don't want to ring 999 for something like that. 34:48 Well, I would think that 999 is the place to call if you've got stupid, idiotic teenagers firing fireworks rockets at petrol station pumps that, you know... Yeah, well... 34:58 These are two separate ladies now. So the one who saw them aiming at the petrol station, perhaps she didn't ring 999. I don't know. But the lady who was in her house chose to ring the garage stations, Charleville and then Mallow, and didn't get an answer from either of them. But yeah, I mean, people are conscious of not wasting emergency services time, especially on a Halloween night, you know. Was it emergency that the lady who was inside the house was terrified? 35:28 Perhaps not. She was terrified and she wanted to maybe get some information from the guards, you know, maybe just... She said the behaviour was absolutely terrible, she says. 35:38 I couldn't confront them as I had a small child and small children and you just never know what would happen if I said something to them. My partner had the children out. Somebody else said, my partner had the children. I was at home with the baby and felt trapped in the house. Another person said it was furious the fact that they were left off to roam around here causing havoc. And of course, that's directly a finger pointed at the parents of these morons. 36:01 Of course it is. I mean, should you know where your 13 to 15-year-old boy or girl is on Halloween night? Of course you should. 36:10 Well, they clearly didn't know about some of them up around Mount Oval on Saturday night that were terrorising people in their homes. Or the characters that went down to Passage West on the bus, you know, threatening to stab people up. 36:22 Yeah, if your child travels on a bus to another town, surely to God you know that. And they're not going down just to... Well, Neil, at 13 to 15 years of age, you should know where your child is. It's as simple as that. And especially on the likes of Halloween and that sort of thing. I can tell you now, both of my children were never out and I didn't know where they were at that age group. 36:47 No, maybe I was a very strict mother, of course. 36:49 Hang on a second. I've had a few conversations there over the last couple of years, and they won't mind me saying this, both my son and my daughter. They do things when they're young that they do not tell you about, right? And thankfully, can I just say, thankfully they got through it and they survived it. But they ain't going to tell you about it when they're 15 or 16 years old, where they are or what they're doing. It's all part of their journey. I get that. Of course it is. 37:13 We all did the same thing. 37:14 Parents don't always know, is the point I'm making. 37:17 But the point is, though, I know that my children were out and about. They most certainly were not harassing anyone else. Not that, no. Yes, I did find out about a couple of other things the two of them got up to. But they're all natural and part of growing up. I did it myself. It's grand. We got over it. But when your son or your daughter is out and creating an absolute terrible atmosphere, terrifying young children, quite possibly... creating a massive incident that could have caused serious loss of life, life and injuries. 37:52 And like how many homes nearby would have been damaged should they have been successful? inciting the petrol pump. I hear you. 38:00 I hear you. I hear you. Thanks, Anette. Appreciate it. Stay safe. 38:03 That's coming from the people now of Charleville. That is not me. I'm just speaking for them because they didn't want to come on. Okay. 38:09 I hear you. I hear you. That's the WhatsApp group up in that area. Thanks, Anette. Thanks for listening. Thanks for getting involved. Text 0868 104 106. The reason the government can't bring in a minimum sentence for carrying knives like three to five years because the jails are full. You're lucky now to get five months and you'll be out after one. The simple fact of the matter is there is no deterrent for carrying knives in Ireland in 2026. Well, if that's the case, I said it before and I said it again, for serious crime involving murder, attempted murder, issues like that, criminal, anything criminal in intent that involves hurting, maiming, stabbing. 38:45 That just means we need bigger jails because they're really the people that need to be in there, right? Regarding the impending, well, somebody's calling it a teacher strike. It's a lot broader than the teachers. It does include them the next week, but all of the public sector. I work in a factory. I've done so for 37 years. I get 600 euro a week after tax after 39 hours a week. Teachers work six hours a day. Half day on Wednesday and get paid way more than I do. It seems all the public sector that are going on strike don't even do their jobs particularly well. 39:19 The roads are in a total disrepair. Hospitals are overcrowded and so on and so forth. And who will suffer again and again for the public sector pay rise? The private sector taxpayer. I don't, you ask the question, Neil. I don't support any of them going on strike. Another one or two here. Neil, the private sector needs to come out on strike in solidarity with the public sector. We will shut the country down next week if we all walk out. Eilish is 100% behind all of the strikes. Time to put manners on our useless leaders. 39:51 Good morning, Neil. The public service dispute, 12% as you figure, that's what they want, the public sector. It's over three years. And that equates to less than 1% per annum, says Mick Scannell in Crosshaven. How, in the name of God, did you come up with that figure of 1%? If you take 12% over three years, that's 4% a year. How are you coming up with 1%? Please explain. I was never great at maths, but do explain that to me. No matter what way you unpack it, though, it means that in a period of three years, the public sector will have had a 12% pay increase. 40:24 Who in the private sector can say that? What are you on about? Everyone has the right to negotiate their contracts, says Ellen. Fair enough, but try and do it in the private sector. Negotiate pay and conditions. 40:39 They'd be kind of looking at your cross-eyed and thinking, are you half stupid? I mean, you kind of take what you get in the private sector, right? And sometimes that's nothing at all. After the break, text 0868-104-106. 40:50 Get on to Prenderville. 40:51 Text or WhatsApp Neil now. 0868-104-106. The Neil Prenderville Show on 40:59 Just a couple then on driving tests and driving on learner permits from yesterday. I was up at the test centre last week as my daughter was sitting her test as we were getting out of the car. Two people drove up and came in to do their test. They were both alone and did sit their test, even though I saw one girl being sent away for not having insurance disc properly displayed. You really and truly have to have everything tickety-boo when it comes to that. You've got to have all of the paperwork and the certificate. Absolutely right. So that's interesting. You say the two people drove up to do their test and they were both alone and they did set the test. 41:33 So they were obviously doing it on a learner permit, but they were still allowed to do it because somebody said to me, if you arrive at the test centre without a full driver, with a full licence with you, you automatically fail. So we're going to have to find out which is the truth. I mean, I'm not doubting what you saw, but somebody else said if you... If you rock up for a driving test and you don't have a full driver licence person in the passenger seat, you automatically fail. You need a full driver licence holder with you before and after your test. If you don't have a full licence driver with you as you arrive to the test centre and the tester asks to see... 42:09 and sees that you're alone, they can instantly fail you. It has happened to a few friends of mine. So it's interesting, isn't it? A small little bit of confusion there. Can you renew your driving permit if you've applied for the test but haven't got a date yet? I would say so. I mean, if you've applied for the test and you need to keep driving, you can renew your permit. But the law says you've got to have a full license holder. And come here. We all see it with people with L's up. A lot of the time they don't have anybody in the car with them. And I think a lot of it has to do with absolute desperation. 42:41 So they're still taking a gamble. When you pass your test, until you receive a license, you are still classified as a learner. So you need a full license driver until you actually physically receive the full license. Thank you for all of those. But somebody's suggesting, what is the point in doing a test? I did it and I passed it first time, four months after my 17th birthday. I drove the way they wanted and never drove like that again. And I'm now 61. I've broken the speed limit every day since then. And I bet so have most people if they're honest. 43:13 You might inadvertently break the speed limit from time to time. I know that I do. Sometimes I can get caught, like all of us. But I wouldn't go around driving like a lunatic intentionally. So that's interesting. How many people would hold their hand up and say that? I did everything I was supposed to do to pass the test, followed all the rules of the road and everything. And as soon as I got it, I said, feck that for a game of soldiers. I'm off and I'm going to do whatever I want. 43:37 The law is the law. If we only applied the law to government agencies, wouldn't we be in a much better place as well? What other countries would let you get away with? Not quite sure what you mean by that one, but you're thinking, I suppose, it's to do with the disparity of how justice is disposed, I suppose. 43:54 Keep them coming, though. Text 0868 104 106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. I was thinking last night about... Do you want to jump on? You got something on that one? Because, yeah, it'd be interesting to clarify that, actually, what the story is with whether or not you get turned away. 44:09 You have to be... You're taking a risk. I wonder, do people up there now ask people passing by, walking their dog and stuff, will you pretend to be my mum? 44:15 Will you jump into the car here for a while? Yeah, I'm just wondering, because, like, people are saying that you... 44:21 How would they even know whether or not... Well, that's what I'm wondering because not all the driving testers are out. So do the other driving testers who are out in the car park go in and say, your one's on her own there now? 44:29 Hopefully somebody will text me on the sly and let me know, particularly if you're a tester or somebody's involved, text 0868-104-106. Because one of the questions would be, when you walk out with the person to do their test and you're a tester, you would have to say to them, where is your accompanied driver with? Where is your accompanied driver with? 44:46 But I was just, one of the texts there was saying, you know, there's a 50% or higher fail rate in some places. And it's true. It's a lot of luck on the day. Like I had a friend and she won't mind me saying it. She couldn't drive into the city. She wouldn't go into a car park because she couldn't drive into car parks. She passed with flying colours. And there was I like driving all over the place. I failed my test the first time and I was a fine driver. But on the day, a dog ran in front of me. There was a fecking... There was a kid nearby with a ball, all sorts of things. Anything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I failed the first time, as do 50% of people. 45:18 Yeah, I did. 45:19 I did twice. I failed my Irish first time. I failed my Canadian first time. 45:23 Did you? You failed again there about 10 years ago. I did. I failed the third time. You failed a lot. 45:28 Fair play to me. I'm very, very consistent. 45:30 But my point is she was that way. Like she literally could not drive into a car park for fear of driving into, you know, a small space. And she passed Flying Colours. 45:40 Have you ever sat into a self-drive reversing car? 45:46 No. 45:46 Oh, my God. My wife has one. They're scary things. They park the car for you. 45:50 Yeah, I don't know what I like that. 45:51 They are freaky. 45:53 My brother was in one of those over in Canada or not Canada, in America, you know, the driverless cars. 45:59 No, this isn't full driverless. It just finds the car space for you and it parks the car automatically. 46:04 I wouldn't like that and I wouldn't like the driverless one. I couldn't cope with the driverless one. The stress of it. Can you imagine? Sitting in the back of the car and no driverless. 46:12 I'd love one. I would absolutely... I just hope I'm alive by the time they become commonplace. 46:16 Why don't you just go to America? 46:18 Okay. 46:20 I'm with 2027 America. Here we go. Text 0868104106. I was thinking last night about the daughter driving without an experienced driver accompanying her and her father feeling that the cost of getting her car back was a lot of money. Yeah, that is all true. The guardie took the car from her. And so she would have got penalty points and a fine and then €250, I think, to get the car back. Just imagine if his daughter, though, had been involved in an accident. The insurance company would refuse the cover because she was driving without the required experienced driver. 46:54 She could then face prosecution by the Gardaí for driving outside the conditions of her learner permit. She'd be at fault for being on the road without meeting the legal requirements. Her father could potentially be left having to pay for the repair or the replacement of the other person's car, which could easily cost between 10 and 20 grand if it was bad enough. Then there would be a personal injuries claim from the occupants of the other car, potentially running to 100 grand or maybe even more. All of this because she was driving without proper supervision and had no valid insurance cover. Perhaps the 250 he paid to get the car back should be a wake-up call. 47:28 It should have been so much worse, both financially and it could have been worse personally. Sometimes a small fine or expense is a very cheap lesson compared with what could have happened, says Desi. 47:38 Yeah, I accept that. And well said. Good, wise word. 47:42 But why then? Why then? In a court in McCroom, did a woman who had a crash. Now, she didn't hit anybody else, but she did crash her own car. It was a Volkswagen around about half past five October of last year down at Macroom. 47:56 She had a learner permit that had expired. She wasn't accompanied by a qualified driver. She didn't hold a valid Irish driving licence. She held a full Brazilian licence for more than 10 years, which isn't recognised in Ireland and before the court with a worry. I don't know whether it's associated with the worry of her Irish citizenship application. 48:17 I'm not saying that the judge decided to strike it out on that matter. Probably didn't. But at the same time, the court struck out the road traffic offences against her. As in, just said, OK, free to go. 48:30 I mean, what's going on? 48:32 Back after 10. 48:39 You're part of the conversation. The Neil Prendival Show with Elevate Credit Union. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. And it's quite interesting. I was talking earlier on this morning about clickbait. You know, the headline of a story that you might read online that actually is not what the story is about at all when you actually go into the body of the text. And I was talking about Photoshopping. I actually prefer to call it photo faking. Here's an interesting observation from Anne this morning on what I was talking about earlier. And she said, myself and my sister want to know why people post their children on social media and block their faces or turn the children's backs to the camera. 49:14 Like post them or don't post them. We don't care. But carrying on like you are Victoria Beckham when you're living in Cork is complete BS. My sister was out on Friday night for her work Christmas party. Now, that in itself is a story for another day. A work Christmas party, if it was last week, is the back end of October. But anyway, she was out at the work Christmas party and she said the gang were showing her posts of Victoria Beckham wannabes who do this all the time. Then my sister showed me and I was crying laughing too. 49:47 So you have the Victoria Beckham wannabes posting the pictures of faceless kids and all the comments are reading things like, oh my God, what a beautiful child. 49:58 It really sums up the fakery of social media, doesn't it? I better point it out in case you don't get it. How do these people know that the child is beautiful? Now, I might be slow, but I do get that. But in fairness to you, how do they know the child is beautiful if the face is blocked out or the child's back is turned to the camera? Anyway, we're calling this out as Grade A Notions. And I reckon you should have a spot on your show for Notions of the Week. Because no one can do notions like the people on the south side, Suzanne and Farrenry, claiming that it's outsiders who are taking photographs with their children and then blocking out their faces. 50:36 Some do it because they feel, oh, I want to protect their anonymity and they mightn't have consent and they might be annoyed with me later in life with photographs. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, is it a security risk? Perhaps I haven't a clue. But why you'd be posting a comment afterwards saying, you have beautiful children. You can't see their faces. That's a story for another day. Either way, you know, we were talking yesterday about, they say that we only use like, I don't know, about five or 6% of our brain. Most of it is inactive. And we just, and as the years go by, we'll probably all end up using less and less of it the way things are going. 51:09 But you look at a dog then and how smart and clever and perceptive they are. And we spoke about that yesterday. I'm not going to backtrack on much of what we said yesterday. but it had to do with knowing when their loved one was coming home five or ten minutes before they arrived in the door. I was talking with dog groomers who told me that a dog groomer with a room full or a dog salon full of dogs will tell you that the dogs know in the groomers Five or ten minutes before their owner comes to pick them up. 51:42 I mean, that's what they tell me. They can tell. They get agitated. They start to get excited. They start barking. And five minutes later, they're collected. 51:50 My dog is harmless but barks at the postman. He senses the postman long before he gets to the house. The other day, Milo started barking out the side of the house. So I went to the window to see if the postman was here as I was actually waiting on a parcel. But the postman was still two doors up. Keep in mind, Milo was out the side of the house. He couldn't even see the postman. And he also drives a very quiet electric van. But yet... Even though he couldn't see him nor hear him, Milo knew it was him. There's definitely some kind of sense there with regards to dogs, says Stephen. 52:21 The dog routine doesn't explain, it doesn't, you know, as in, oh, you'll come home at the same time every day and that's where the dog knows. Um... No, the dog routine doesn't explain it. My parents are from Meath and drive down to West Cork maybe twice a year. Our dogs, about five minutes out, can hear the dog coming and never bark when their car lands at the gate. But they do get 100% excited. They know the sound of the car or something. Also, our neighbour up the hill and my husband drive the exact same red Fiat van. 52:52 If the neighbour drives down the hill, the dogs are out barking before he even gets to our gate. If my husband drives down the hill, the dogs are out wagging their tails when he's still at the top of the hill. They just seem to know. So thank you for all of those. Keep them coming. And one final one then, and I'll get back to calls then. You know, I was talking about people's traditions and things that we would do, a bit of nostalgia. For some reason, we ended up talking about the crib. Oh yeah, somebody said... People will be putting their crib up in the next few weeks. Don't be putting the baby Jesus in. The baby Jesus doesn't go in until Christmas morning or at least Christmas Eve night, I suppose. 53:26 I used to always take a bit of straw from the crib in my church, just like you, Neil. But a few years ago, the crib was abolished. And the figures are just put out on the steps of the altar, which is just like a kind of nativity scene. I was sad to see the crib tradition done away with, as I remember myself as a child looking into the crib amazed. And also my kids. Unfortunately, my grandchildren will not enjoy this tradition. And I think it's unfair of the churches to do this. Suzanne in Mayfield, she says she's talking about Our Lady Crowned Church. 53:57 where they got rid of the crib and just used the figures instead. I think that's sad. I don't know why they would do that, but it's done nonetheless. Maybe other churches did likewise. Text 0868 104 106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. I mentioned earlier on this morning... 54:13 that Michael O'Leary is warning about two things. Freezing the pay rates of staff because of the fuel increases and also increasing prices of flights. And I'm curious, is that impacting? Are we seeing people now... because it's usually, I don't know, is it kind of the back end of the year or is it January when people really will start looking at the summer holidays? And are they thinking twice about being able to afford to go overseas for their holidays in 2027? 54:44 Thinking twice because they just won't be able to book it because they won't be able to afford it. Owen Corrie is with Travel Extra. He joins me by phone as always. Very willing and able man. Owen, good morning. 54:54 Good morning from London, World Travel Market. All the destinations of the world, there's about 4,500 exhibitors here, 80 from Ireland, and we're all scratching our heads wondering exactly the same question that you've posed. 55:07 And are you aware, because I was kind of bemused when I look at Ryanair's profits year on year, but he seems to be very worried, so much so that he's saying freezing staff wages and increasing prices. Is it true that it all has to do with fuel? 55:25 It has to do with fuel, really, because fuel is a very high proportion of Ryanair's cost. Sorry to throw figures at your unfortunate, long-suffering listeners at this hour of the morning, but his fuel bill was £6 billion. It's going to go up to £8 billion. His profits last year were just over £2 billion. I don't need my St Anne's National School sums. That private profit is going to be wiped out. So that's what he's talking about. Now, what seems to be going, you never know with Michael O'Leary. There's always a back story. What he seems to be doing is softening up his audience and testing the water a little bit, saying, how much can I put the prices up? 56:01 Oh, I didn't. I didn't look at it from that point of view, because his profits were, as you say, nearly 2.3 billion year on year. But you're saying that the fuel increases all on their own, wipe that out. 56:13 like that out there on 6 billion up to 8 billion that's what they're talking about yesterday's half yearly results what the reason you see he had a big good arrangement he told everyone he was a very clever how clever he was he'd 80% of his fuel bought in advance at 67 dollars a barrel really really good move all through summer he was sort of rubbing his hands with glee Everybody else was in trouble. Spirit, the sixth largest airline in the United States, went bankrupt. There are two airlines in trouble at the moment, Air Baltic and Europe. 56:46 Two airlines in Europe, Air Baltic and Volotea. And there's some suggestions about others. But now he's looking at 2027. That's when the volume is going to lose money over winter. He always loses money over winter. Not a big deal. But summer is when he makes hay. And that is not looking great because he's only 15% hedged 1.5%, and that's at about $87 a barrel. The spot price, the price you wanted, if you go down to your local Arabian shake and buy jet fuel at the moment, it's going to be over 140. 57:16 Okay, he's crude. It doubled compared with, you know, by about 40% on the crude price barrel because of refining capacity, all of that. So that's what he's looking at. He's looking at... 57:31 You know, if he has to buy on the market, which he doesn't like doing, he likes the certainty of knowing what the price is, it's going to be $140. That's where the $2 billion comes from. Whites out its profit. He's going to have to get that back somewhere, and he's going to get it back from airfares. That's really up to how much the consumer can bear. 57:48 Okay, but when he says double-digit price increases, is that 10%, 15%, 20%, 30%? What? 57:55 More than 20. And we've been preaching for this because there is a tradition of hedging fuel among European airlines. There isn't among American airlines. And we've seen that Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving's a big deal this week, and listeners need no introduction to that. It's about 35% higher than last year. Some of the people I'm talking to here are paying $500 more to come to Ireland for Patrick's Day next year. than they did last year all of that is happening in america about 30 35 the question really is europe has been positive because the airlines have absorbed the fuel cost how long much more can they do that and michael leary is pretty sure that he's like he's debt free since may he's in a great position he's sitting on a big bag of money he's well able to get through this but he doesn't really want to lose all his profits And he's hoping and part of what he's saying is that all the European airlines would start pushing up prices massively. 58:52 He'll put it up a little bit less and he'll win. 58:54 OK, so what impact is that happening then, for instance, with regards to people booking early and things like that for next year's family holidays? 59:02 They haven't been booking early. They've been booking late. That's part of the problem. They booked late all through the summer. So they didn't get some of the prices in October came down in the two weeks before the flight, which means people weren't booking in large enough quantities. He's afraid that will spill over into the new year. January is the big booking period, as you alluded to. And he's hoping it won't. A lot of what he's sounding now is, book now, book now, the prices are going to go up. But it's a bit more complicated than that because when the consumer holds out and books late, they don't put the prices up and that's what he's afraid of. 59:36 Yeah, and it's a bit like the boy who cried wolf, you know, you don't know whether to believe somebody when somebody says book now, book early because prices are going up or whether it's a bit of marketing. 59:45 Well, there's a wolf. The wolf is on our television screens every night. 59:49 And it's quite clear that what's happening in the oil market is really, really, really going to cause devastation through the aviation industry. Airlines will absorb the increases if they're stuck in a market where people don't want to pay more. But they can only absorb it so long before they're going into real trouble. We could see the government's been asked to bail out Air France, Lufthansa, all of that. The EU is a great organisation for telling member states like Ireland, oh, you can't give state aid. But when Germany and France go into trouble, you could see something like that happening without the European barking. 60:24 We saw that round-the-world cruise ship, the Odyssey, literally telling all of its passengers, sorry, you have to go home. We can't continue. We can't afford the price of fuel. That was insane. 60:35 Yeah, the cruise business is not as causative as aviation. Aviation is sort of an agreement what the price is around the world. What they were doing in Asia was they put this price up fourfold. The Odyssey was not, that wasn't enough, that wasn't just what brought down the Odyssey. The Odyssey was very badly marketed, very badly priced, very badly scheduled to start with. They obviously sold their apartments on board. 61:01 far too cheaply and their their charges the annual charges were too low to they're reaping the consequences now yeah I don't I don't think it would have survived anyway so the upside to this then is that perhaps 2027 we might see more and more families staying at home in Ireland for their holidays do you think 61:21 Probably not. I think that, you know, the home holiday market is also going through a couple of quans of its own and it has a looming crisis with the, which I think you've covered on your programme, with the self-catering sector. So if you take 40 or 50% of those beds out of the market, we could have a very big price increase. a sharp price increase interesting to see visitors to Ireland you know the number that complained about price would always be low Falls Ireland would keep lecturing us that it doesn't show up in the visitor terms and am I here yeah no I'm saying like 62:00 Here's an example. I don't know why they say low. An example came in here from a family, husband and wife, three kids, went to Killarney for two days. We spent two nights in the Glen Eagles with breakfast, €720. 62:13 Breakfast for two adults and three kids was an additional €85. 62:17 So they pay for the breakfast on top of the 720. Lunch when we arrived was €95. We went to Milano for pizza that night, €105. 62:25 Three bowls of chips and four drinks in a pub, €45. Thai food on the second night, €140. 62:32 When you total our two nights for a family of a husband and wife and three children, two nights in Killarney cost us €1,105 for the two nights. My God almighty. 62:43 We're going to see a lot more of that. What turned out of summer this year was instead of about 10 or 15 percent of Americans complaining about the price, it went up to 40 percent. Oh, I see. 62:54 So they are complaining. 62:58 So that's the deal. It's not gone past 50% yet. And you've got to remember the dollar is so strong that the Americans are the ones least likely to complain. A lot of the Europeans, Brits, people like that have already been complaining. But when it hits 40%, I think it's alarm bells for the cost of an Irish holiday. And we're going to see that impacting on our home holiday market as well, exactly for the reasons that your texts are pointing out. 63:21 I'll let you get back to the conference, Owen. Thanks so much. Appreciate you taking the call. 63:23 Oh, it was a pleasure. Take care. 63:25 Onkari, you can follow him on Travel Extra online. Interestingly, the things we complain about and the things we don't complain about, we complain about unleaded, we complain about diesel, but we don't complain about other things that you can equate with regards to a litre price as well. Tim says to me, I just paid, well, he says, small little bit of clickbait here. He says, I just paid €17.40 for a €4 coffee. 63:49 In a garage, yes. When you look at the cost of coffee, it is €17.40 per litre. 63:57 for coffee. Everybody protests about fuel, but people have no problem paying the equivalent of €17.40 for a litre of coffee. Isn't that absolutely bizarre? Well, it's bizarre when you look at the cost of a coffee in that sense, you know, as to, you know, when you look at the litre price, if you'd have the equivalent litre price of coffee, it would be €17.40 for a litre of coffee, when it's €197 for a litre of petrol. I get what you're saying. 64:27 Back after the break. 64:34 Okay, of course, next week now we'll be looking at a fairly big 24-hour work strike. It's actually the same day as the major EU presidency event and they're a bit touchy-feely about all that. That might actually help the public sector workers with regards to their pay claim because they don't want the rank-and-file guardee as well who are planning a work to rule around the event. That's because we're We have the presidency of the EU at the moment. It's kind of interesting. And people are suggesting earlier this morning that everybody should down tools next Thursday, including the private sector. 65:06 And Anthony says, as you were aware by now, Europe had their protests and demonstrations by the millions. from different nations who are sick to death and sick to the teeth of watching the fat cats get richer while the ordinary workers are being asked time and time again to pay huge prices for food, medicine, fuel, gas, oil, clothes. Why are they not demonstrating in Ireland, though? As in, why is there not any here? 65:31 And maybe that next Thursday isn't enough. We should challenge our shower of, I won't say what, as to why we are the most expensive country in Europe to live in. Government officials, big businesses couldn't give a damn about the level of homelessness, couldn't give a damn about the price of a litre of petrol or milk or butter or bread. They continue to get their pay rises automatically each year. And every year they get more added into their huge pensions. It would be interesting to know what your listeners think as to why we don't have a massive protest and demonstration where everybody stops next week, along with the public sector. 66:09 Thank you, Anthony. Text 0868-104-106. Back to the phone lines we go. Boy, did we have a big response on Friday to all things spooky and scared. So much so that this is Tuesday and I'm still trying to catch up on the amount of calls that were there. when we ran out of time on the air. Amongst them, Mark has an incredible story, I have to say, rather than me introing it. Let's get the entire story from him. Morning, Mark. 66:33 Good morning. Now, tell us this story that goes back to, I believe, during the War of Independence here. Go ahead. 66:42 It was actually 1918. Okay, okay. 66:48 Last year of the Great War. 66:50 Okay, the Great War. The First World War known as the Great War. Okay, and a lot of Irishmen fought in that war. 66:57 And a lot from Cork. 66:58 Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. 67:01 But my great uncle was a doctor. 67:07 And he was a medical doctor. What was his name? 67:11 His name was Robert Bassett. 67:13 Bassett, okay. 67:15 B-A-S-S-E-T-T. All right. 67:19 And he lived off the Wellington Road in Cork. 67:22 Dr. Robert Bassett, the Wellington Road. 67:25 Wow. 67:26 Yes. 67:28 Anyway, on the 10th of October, 1918, his only sister, which was my grandmother, woke up in the middle of the night and he was standing at the end of the bed. And she said, Robert, what are you here for? I thought you'd gone back to work on the front. 67:48 to the hospital, and he said nothing. 67:52 And two days later, they got a telegram from Dublin to say, would somebody come to Dublin to identify his body? 68:01 Oh my God. 68:03 It was the RM Leinster, which was a mail boat leaving Dun Laoghaire, going to England, and the mail boat was torpedoed by the Germans. 68:15 So he had been home on a visit, left Cork, went to Dublin to catch the mail boat back to England to get back to the war front, probably the Somme or Yeap or an area like that, Chippewa and Passchendaele or something. And the boat that he was on was torpedoed. So did he appear to his sister on the day that he drowned? 68:41 Well, I just concluded the story of what happened was that they got a telegram in Cork with one of his stepbrothers or somebody from the family who opened and identified his body. 68:52 So my grandmother said nothing. And when her brother came back, she said, was it him? And he said, yes. 69:01 She said, don't tell me anything now. Tell me, had he cut across his forehead and was he sucking in his bottom lip? 69:10 And he said, how the hell did you know that? 69:12 That's how he appeared to me two days ago, the night he died. 69:17 Isn't that amazing? 69:20 My God. My grandmother told me that herself. 69:24 So you got it from your grandmother who saw her brother at the end of the bed. Yes. And she didn't dream it or anything. She was categoric that she was awake. 69:33 But she was able to describe how he looked. 69:39 She certainly was. 69:43 She didn't say anything to him. She thought it was a dream. 69:48 And did she find comfort in that, I'm wondering? Did she chat about that? 69:54 She was terribly upset because it was her only brother. She had stepbrothers and sisters. 70:01 Her father married her aunt when her mother died. Sorry, her stepmother died. 70:09 So there was a peculiar situation in the family. 70:14 And he's brought back to Cork and he's buried in St. Finbar's Cemetery. 70:18 And does it say on his gravestone that he was a doctor of the war, the Great War? 70:24 It said he was a victim of the RMS Leinster. 70:29 And there's a memorial every year on the 10th of October. in Dun Laoghaire to mark the event. 70:35 How many perished on board that, do you know? 70:39 Oh, five or six hundred, I think. 70:41 You're choking me. 70:42 Huge. 70:44 Oh, my God. 70:47 Oh, man. 70:48 Is there anything you've ever done? Have you ever visited any of the war memorials in France or Belgium or places like that? 70:56 No, no. My sister, who lives in Tremor, has gone to the memorial, all right, in... 71:02 Dublin and she has his cat badge and she has a few other things belong to him. 71:10 I imagine that his sister, your grandmother, took some comfort from the fact that he came to visit and was there saying a goodbye, a personal goodbye, if you like. 71:20 Yes. 71:22 Wow. 71:24 And he was as clear as day. Yeah, he was 28. With the injuries as well. My God almighty. 71:33 And he was last seen giving his life jacket to a mother and child. 71:40 Oh, man, when you look at the sacrifices and the bravery of people back then, I'm speechless every time I hear stories like that. They were incredible. I wonder what they'd make of the world now, having fought two great wars, a lot more besides. Look at the state of it now. They'd be disappointed, I'd say. They'd say it wasn't worth it, would you? 71:58 No, they would. 72:01 Yeah. 72:02 The other interesting thing was I had another uncle. He was in the Second World War. 72:09 And he was an Irish Catholic. 72:12 But he joined up and he went to fight and he was in Dunkirk. 72:17 And he was the first man ever to receive a Victoria Cross in the Second World War for bringing back all his company alive from Dunkirk. 72:27 Was he a Cork man? 72:30 No, he wasn't. He was in Charitable. He was in New Ross. He was born in Keedy County, Cavan. 72:38 Okay, okay. 72:40 Amazing stories. So many stories of people. Yeah, that's lovely. That's lovely to hear that he got back alive. Sadly, your grand-uncle didn't, sadly. 72:52 All right. Thanks for taking the call, Mark. Appreciate it. Much of likes to you. Lovely, lovely story. And again, that's not the first time you hear of apparitions that are connected to the passing of a loved one. Text 0868 104 106. Call's on the way. 73:12 It's amazing, isn't it? The intuitive behavior of animals and pets in general. We spoke a lot about dogs to a lesser extent, of course. We spoke about cats and different topics over the last week or so. But it prompted a call from Thomas, our good buddy to the show, not just about Thomas, but also Harry the tortoise, who I'm told is... 73:32 And the verge of going into hibernation, but Thomas was saying that he's got lots of stories about Harry and how instinctive and, I suppose, how perceptive Harry the tortoise is. Thomas, good morning. Good morning, Neil. How are you? I'm good. Just in other news, I hear that he's also wearing his Man United jersey, is he? 73:53 He's asleep under it. 73:55 I know he wouldn't blame him, the way they are going at the moment. 73:58 Ah, come here. It must be tough being a Man U supporter at the moment. 74:02 Well, I was. I'm not anymore. But Harry is, unfortunately. 74:09 Yeah, it's interesting because I got a text in. You might let Harry know. I know he's having a little bit of a snooze now. But a fellow by the name of John got on to me and he said, Why don't Manchester United fans, including Cork Manchester United fans, start a movement to take over the club? Manchester United, Neil, have 600 million active fans. If they all gave €20 each, that would be €12 billion. €7 billion to buy it off the current owners, €5 billion left over to build a new stadium and much money left to buy the best players in the world. 74:44 All this for only €20. We need to give the club back to the people and it's time the fans stepped up to the plate. Isn't that a novel suggestion, all the same? 74:54 It's a novel suggestion, but I don't think it'll happen. 74:57 If you had 600 million fans and they all gave 20 euro each, the fans would own the club? 75:04 Yes, that would be a problem because then if you have a difference in the club, you have 600,000 fans, if you like. 75:16 600 million, yeah, with all of their own opinions. 75:19 Yeah, so you're going to end up with a sort of a crisis there then because you don't know. You'd have people, yes and no, and yes and no, and yes and no. I suppose, I suppose. 75:28 Yeah, no, I suppose. And the more I was thinking about it, if that did happen, it could happen. Roy Keane could be the manager. 75:37 Yes. Well, Roy Keane, I think, is better off staying the way he is. 75:42 I'd say you'd agree with that. He's doing fine as he is without the headaches. 75:46 Yes. And I think there's only impact on his personality because, you know, Roy speaks off the cuff. 75:51 Yeah. 75:53 And I think that he would probably end up a lot more with his mouth in trouble than he would anything else. 76:01 So I think I should just stay put and do the fantastic job that he's doing. Fair play to you. 76:07 And tell me about, you wanted to talk about how perceptive Harry is with regards to instincts and stuff. 76:14 Absolutely. 76:16 I'm going back about 15, 16 years ago. I had to go in for open heart surgery. 76:24 in the COH and unfortunately things didn't go out as planned and I was delayed there for about two and a half weeks but while I was in hospital Harry never came out of his summer residence or out of the garden into the house he'd always come in every day when I was there he never went in once and on our way back from the hospital which my brother was bringing me with my late wife I just happened to remark that Harry be waiting for me on the steps of the door when we came back. 76:57 And when we came back and we came up the steps, there was Harry at the front door. 77:02 And I went into the, along the hall and sat down in the chair of the kitchen and Harry came in and sat at my foot for half an hour. Isn't that amazing. And walked back out again to the garden and he came in every day after that. 77:15 Isn't that amazing when you tell that story like that? 77:18 He was waiting for you, then he knew when you were coming before you arrived, was at the door to meet you, followed you in, sat with you for a long period of time and then when he decided everything was right with the world, he was happy out. 77:30 He was happy out. He went back out. But even the summer there, when I get up in the morning, it didn't matter if I got up at 9 o'clock or I got up at 11 o'clock, when I'd open the front door, he'd be outside the door on the step waiting to come in for me to make his breakfast. 77:46 Yeah, that's not routine, is it? 77:50 No, because I could be 9 o'clock. It could be 11 o'clock before I'd open the door. It might be 12 o'clock. 77:58 And he'd be there on the step waiting. You'd see him and he'd up in the door and into the kitchen and he's down by my foot then waiting for me to make his breakfast. 78:08 Mad, isn't it? Like, he should be going into... Forgive me now, what is he? He's 80, 85, maybe 90 years old. We're not 100. Yeah. He should be going into hibernation now, but is he holding off for some reason? 78:21 Well, for the reason... My health hasn't been great recently. 78:26 And I have him with me in the television room covered with his Manchester United top. 78:32 And when I come in at night, no, he's sleeping during the day. But when I come in during the day and I sit down, he comes out and he sits on my foot. 78:44 And he stayed there until I get up and I wrap him up again for the night and put him away. 78:51 Is he delaying because he might sense that your health isn't great? 78:58 That's what I'm thinking. 79:00 But he's ready to go. He's on the verge. He's ready to be packed away. Now, interesting, I was five-star home and all ready for him to go in. 79:11 And he'd be okay. 79:13 But just to give you an idea, the instinct, like, Even if I'm coming back from, if I was out shopping and I'm coming back, he's waiting on the doorstep for me when I come back. 79:27 Yeah, they're amazing. 79:29 You can see him. And he will jump off a step to greet me. And sometimes if I'm down at the end of the steps getting my breath, he'd even go down the steps. He'd tumble down the steps down to my feet. 79:41 We had a great visit when he was out here for his birthday. We really enjoyed it. He got around the radio station at a rate of knots. He travels a lot faster than you think, to be honest with you. 79:50 But people don't realise that a tortoise will travel a mile in an hour. 79:56 Yeah. 79:57 You know, and when you think of the shortness of the legs. That's right. I mean, if he had long legs in him, he'd be flying all over the place. 80:07 Well, you miss him now when he goes to sleep and he takes a colour. 80:10 Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But just to give you an idea, you know, the other night I was feeling a bit thirsty, so I said I'd go down to the fridge to have a glass of milk. And this was three or four in the morning. So I went down, I was having my milk sitting down in the chair and And next he comes out of the television room and along the hall into the kitchen, down by my feet. 80:34 You're great buddies, the two of you. 80:36 And I said to myself, you should be asleep. 80:40 You're great pals. So if he goes to sleep now in the not-too-distant future, when will he wake up again then? 80:46 He'll wake up in, sorry, late March, early April. 80:51 That's it, for the spring and heading into summer. We'll all look forward to that, not just Harry, the rest of us do. 80:57 But he's going to miss, if you think about it now, like, he knows the weather is coming. He knows winter is coming. He knows, you know, whatever is built into his brain or whatever kind of system he has. He can detect this, that the winter is coming. 81:17 He must sleep. 81:18 Yeah, yeah. 81:20 I often wonder what would it be like if we were using all of our brain power, humans, as opposed to just maybe 10% or whatever. Like, our ability would be endless. I mean, we would be telepathic all of the time. We would be in contact. We would just be a completely different human race, you know? 81:41 Where do you get 10%? I use 95% of mine. What? 81:46 You're in a minority if that's the case. 81:49 I actually am, yeah. 81:51 All right, well, he's all tucked up and ready to go. 81:56 He'll go when he's ready and he'll wake up again the back end of March. He'll miss Christmas. 82:01 Yeah, but you know, a suggestion to you, when you're talking about animals like that, I'd imagine that if you got onto Photozoo and talked to some of the the people that look after animals there, they would be able to explain to you what the different habits of other animals do. 82:20 Yeah, because they're more advanced than us with regards to using their head, using their brain. That's the thing. We've lost it over the millennia, you see. 82:32 Yeah, but they're not influenced by AI. They're not influenced by technology. They're not influenced by anything. They're influenced by nature, and nature is perfection. 82:41 Yeah, yeah. 82:43 And that's why pets are perfect in their own right, in their own species. They're perfect. They're the perfect species of what they should be. 82:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I suppose we're kind of like cavemen. 82:58 but we've lost most of our ability to survive. 83:02 Over the thousands of years, of course, life has changed and circumstances have changed and we've become less aware. 83:09 We've lost everything. We've completely... We've lost the sort of... I won't say the appetite for life. 83:18 But there's one thing that we never have lost and we don't... I don't know if you agree with this. You need to follow your gut. It'll never let you down. Sure, it won't. I mean, it's almost like your sixth sense. Your gut will tell you. It mightn't be your brain. You mightn't be rationalising something. But there will be something deep within you. We call it follow your gut. Yes. 83:36 And you've got experiences of that the same as I have. You know, there's some days where you say, I'm going to do something, then all of a sudden you say, here I won't bother with that, I'd stay at home and walk around the house. 83:47 Yeah, yeah. 83:48 And then you find out that you could have been somewhere where something happened that it could have been you. 83:53 God forbid, yeah. 83:56 And this is what we have as human beings. We have this built-in instinct that tells us what right is wrong and how we should live our lives. 84:08 Well, I suppose we're creatures that had... one thing in my mind all of the time, and that was fight or flight, survive, find food, stay safe, look after loved ones. Now, to a large extent, we still want to do all of those things, but it's a lot more, it's a lot more, it's changed a lot now, you know, it really has. And certainly in the last 50 years. 84:32 We're influenced by outside forces. You know, people putting their perspective on life and what we should be doing, what they're doing in order to enjoy ourselves, which isn't true. We should enjoy our lives towards ourselves, what we want out of life. 84:46 Yeah, yeah. And that's a lesson that hopefully is not learned too late, isn't it? 84:51 Yes, and I think it should be instilled on the young, like I felt long ago, when I went back to college in 2003 or something like that, And when I was looking at the students around me, I felt that we were losing a generation of people. The way they interacted with people, the mobile phones were on the rise, everything. And I just felt we were going to lose a generation. And we have lost. 85:17 Well, they say the minute you put a mobile phone into the hand of a child, you've lost the child. Everything changes. Absolutely. Well, listen, listen to me. Give him a little hug on behalf of all of us, Harry, as he heads off to hibernation. 85:30 Of course, yeah. 85:31 And we'll chat again. Hopefully, please God, I'll chat to you again. But certainly we'll be talking about Harry's reawakening at the back end of March. 85:38 Yes, of course we will. We'll give him a shout. And again, the hardest part I have is he'll be asking me about where Manchester United are in the league. 85:50 Hopefully you'll have better news for him, all right? 85:55 All the best, Thomas. Take care. 85:56 All the best, Neil. Thank you. 85:58 Bye-bye. All the best. Lovely man, Thomas and Harry the Tortoise. Back after the break, text 0868104106. 86:12 We're talking about next week and the impending 24 hour stoppage of the public sector. And that will be something that could well be averted, of course, if they get what they want, which is potentially up to 11 or 12 percent wage increase over the next three years. Interesting perspective from a prison officer. Once upon a time, a public service job was considered a great job with a great pension. These days are long gone. I'm a prison officer and I'm one of many struggling prison officers. My house is freezing cold. I can't afford to heat it. I used to sit in my car to get warm at night. 86:45 Now I can't even afford to do that. I go to bed with a hot water bottle. I'm up to my ears in debt trying to pay a mortgage for a very small two-bedroom house. The shame it would bring on my family to know I'm struggling. The shame it brings on me. I lie in bed tonight with a hot water bottle, still freezing, having had soup before I left my prison officer shift. Please don't ask me to go to St. Vincent de Paul. Please don't offer help. I won't accept it. I shouldn't. None of us should have to rely on charity to help us. But I just want to say this. I'm at the end of the road. 87:16 I see how nurses, teachers, health care assistants and guardee are all struggling. It helps to know I'm not alone, but it doesn't help the extreme loneliness and sadness that I'm literally freezing at night and spend every moment worrying about how to pay the next bill. Thank you. 87:52 Martin and Harris and their cronies aren't sitting here tonight desperately trying to live and pushing to make ends meet until next month's wages and wondering what's the point in life anymore. They don't feel that way. They aren't freezing like me and so many others. There's just no end to this. We head into the winter and I just don't see a way out of this poverty. I'm begging people to understand. Just because you see my salary at 50,000, I'm left with 200 euro after paying my mortgage and all my bills. I don't smoke. I never go out at night or nights out because I just can't afford it. 88:24 The government don't give a damn about us. Let's all be honest. We'd be replaced in the morning. Same as what's happening with nurses will happen with others. Their answer to the nurses being badly paid was to replace them with nurses from overseas. They couldn't give a damn about our highly educated nurses being forced abroad. We're all next, about to be replaced with cheaper labour options. I love my country dearly. I love my family, who too are struggling. I can't confide in them, though, and they've enough on their plate. But I can say this. I hate my government, and I will never vote for any of them who promise to help us, but once elected, look down their noses at us. 88:59 No more will I listen to a Fianna Fáil, Fianna Gael bullshit. 89:05 Forgive me for saying that. Self-serving, I won't read out that word. God help us all. Many of us just can't keep this up any longer. At least we can share and have a voice. And that's from a desperately struggling prison officer. 89:20 And that's ahead of next week's public service employees 24-hour strike action. Back after 11, text 0868104106. Your thoughts on that and lots more besides. 89:38 Be part of the conversation. The Neil Prent of a show with Elevate Credit Union. Look how mad it is. And rightly so, a listener says. This might be a topic of interest that's connected to what you're talking about. I've worked and paid into the Irish tax system since I was 16 years old through being employed and then self-employed for the last 17 years, as well as working for other companies as an employee since the age of 16. With my recent diagnosis, I applied for illness benefit. I was told yesterday I wasn't eligible for it because I was self-employed and I would only be entitled to supplementary welfare allowance, which is means tested. 90:16 Surely this cannot be right. You would think that it should not be right, but it is correct. It's not right in the sense that it shouldn't be happening. Of course it shouldn't. But it is correct. That is absolutely what happens to people who are self-employed. They are treated completely different to an employee who works for an employer, even though you have the same obligations with regards to deductions from your wage packet as a person who is employed by an employer. You run your own company. You take all of the risks and everything. You pay extra taxes, actually. 90:47 You've got corporation tax. You've got capital gains tax. You've got VAT and all sorts of stuff like that. But you also pay your taxes and your USE. And then you're treated appallingly like a second-class citizen when you're looking for the same benefits and same treatment as regular self-employed PRSI workers. So in one way, it isn't right, but it is accurate, if you follow me. And you know what? 91:11 Let's say you've done reasonably well. And because you worked so hard, you took all of the risk and you took all of the stress and the anxiety and the worry of running your own company and keeping it afloat. And you have a few bob. When you go looking for help that you're entitled to as a PRSI contributor, you're means tested. So they will actually say, no, you've got savings. but they don't see how hard you worked for those savings. Like as if savings are a bad word, right? Anyway, keep it coming. Text 0868 104 106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. 91:43 Lovely to chat with Nuala. Nuala, good morning. 91:46 Good morning, Neil. And indeed, you've run your own business for nigh on 30 years on the beautiful North Abbey Street area. Am I right? 91:54 Yes, you are indeed. Okay. What did you work at? 91:59 Oh, I made beds. Did you? 92:03 I did. 92:04 And we did re-upholstery. Are you part of the greater famous Jackson family? 92:10 I am indeed, yes. 92:12 Oh, my God. I knew a couple of your relations over the years. I certainly did. I knew Mick. I knew Mick, God rest his soul. What a lovely, lovely man. Lovely man. 92:21 He was indeed, yes. I used to do business with him. Yes, other than being my first coachman, yes. 92:27 So the Jacksons, very much into furniture, bedding, making, building, rebuilding, reupholstering. Yes. Extensively. 92:36 Yes, indeed. 92:37 Yeah, yeah. So, you wanted to talk, we're talking about primarily dogs and their intuition, yeah? Correct, yes. Go ahead anyway, Nuala, tell your story. 92:50 I had a, it's a long story, but I'll make it short. Because I know you're busy. 92:56 Not at all, girl. Let's hear what you have to say. 92:59 I had a dog called Sam. 93:02 Now, he looked like a German shepherd, but As my daughter would say, one of my daughters would say, Asher, Mum, he's a copy. 93:11 A copy, a knock-off, German Shepherd. 93:14 A copy, yeah. 93:17 And his name was Sam. And I used to take him to work in North Amby Street with me. And I had a Bluebird card. I don't know if you remember them. 93:26 A Nissan Bluebird. They were a fine motor car. 93:30 They were a fine bus. Yeah, big car. 93:34 Yeah, but anyway. 93:36 Sam would go around. There was a garden station just across the road from the lane, I suppose, the street. 93:44 And also he'd go in and visit everybody that was in business there. 93:49 And everybody knew him and everybody was mad about him. 93:52 But anyway, he'd get into the car and he'd lie down on the ground, not on the back seat but on the floor. Yeah. One day... 94:04 I was at work and there was a wet came in and he said to me, Nula, I thought you weren't here. I said, why did you think that? He said, because your car isn't there. I said, ah, you're joking me. 94:19 He said, no, your car isn't there. 94:22 So I went out and there was no car there and there was no tram there. 94:28 So I went into the car station and I said, You know, my car has been stolen and Sam is in it. 94:37 But you see, in the evening time, my two lads had worked for me in the north side and I used to drive them home at night, you know, at six o'clock in the evening. 94:47 Yeah, yeah. 94:48 I drove them home. 94:51 And anyway, between the jigs and the reels, the dad came on the phone and Sam, they drove out to Blarney and Sam made himself present and when he saw the two strange young fellas in the car he gave them an almighty bark at them and they turned around and they ran for their lives Sam was a gentle soul. 95:33 Do you know what I mean? 95:35 They stopped the car and legged it? 95:38 Oh, they did. They did, yeah. 95:41 And a very good friend of mine, he's past now, George Fingriff. He dealt in cars as well. 95:48 And I rang George and like being the man that he was, he was always very helpful to everybody. 95:56 And he came down and he said, look, we'll go out. 96:01 to Blarney and we'll see if we can find your car right so my husband who is now deceased as well so they went into the car with George and they got out to Blarney and the guards in Blarney because the guards in North Abbey Street had been on to them in Blarney you see 96:27 I didn't even know there was a barracks on North Abbey Street. I would have thought you'd have gone over to the... I would have thought you'd gone to the Bridewell. 96:33 Yeah. 96:34 No, no, there was one on North Abbey Street for years. On the North Mall? 96:40 Yeah, behind the North Mall in North Abbey Street. I did not know that. Yeah. 96:44 I didn't know that. 96:45 Oh, for you. It went up to ground abroad then. 96:48 Yeah, okay, okay, okay. 96:52 Yeah, yeah. But anyway... 96:55 I continue the story. 96:58 The guards in Blarney phoned my car, and they told the guards in North Abbey Street, who knew me, of course, very well, and my dog. 97:12 And they said, Nuala, the car has been found in Blarney. But the guards in Blarney are afraid of their life to open the door because there's a big bloody German shepherd in the back of us. 97:30 He was guarding the car. He was guarding the car. 97:34 In the meantime, George Fingham and my husband. George, George says, are you crazy, Ross? 97:50 He won't open the door. That dog is the most gentlest dog I've ever known in my life. And I'm a doggy person. 97:59 And he said, all he'll do is lick your hands. That's all he'll do. 98:03 Yeah, but I mean, how are they supposed to know that? If I came across an abandoned car with a German shepherd looking out at me, the last thing I would... 98:14 If you told me I'd win the Euro Millions if I opened the door to let the German shepherd out, I'd say, no, thank you. 98:19 No, you just wouldn't. 98:20 No, you see a German shepherd and you keep walking. 98:23 He wasn't. He was a mix. But he looks like a German shepherd. 98:29 To me, he would be a German shepherd in the back of a car and that's where he will remain. I certainly wouldn't open the door. 98:37 But anyway, I got my car back and my dog back. 98:41 And that was Sam. And your other poor old dog, Charlie, passed away, didn't he, in the summer? 98:46 He did. Oh, she listened. He died on the 1st of July after 20 years with me. 98:52 Wasn't he a great age though, Nuala? 98:55 He was. And I spent over 2,000. 99:00 I'm not going to mention the vest. 99:02 It was... 99:04 getting things done for him and to him because I thought he'd live forever. 99:09 Ah, sure, I know. None of us will. I know, I know. 99:11 Well, sure, I was 80 years old, no, for God's sake. Yeah. And I worked until I was 70. 99:17 What a beautiful area, though, that you worked in. I just have a real love and fondness for the whole North Mal area. I really do. 99:25 Oh, well, 30 years I was there. 99:27 Right, yeah, yeah. 99:29 My father bought the premises. 99:33 His name was Tom Jackson, of course. And he's actually deceased 45 years today. He left us at the young age of 59. And his anniversary is today. 99:45 Was he a master craftsman, I'd say he was, was he? 99:49 Yeah, he was a great businessman. 99:51 Yeah, I wonder where he learned his trade. 99:55 Well, I believe he learned his trade in Buckley's. 100:01 Did he? On Academy Street? 100:04 No, no, no, no. Across the river. No, there's swan bedding now. 100:09 Oh, swan bedding. They're out in Toker now. They're still thriving, making great things. Bedding. 100:13 Oh, they are, yeah. 100:14 Swan bedding. Because I often think about the whole Northgate Bridge and the North Mall and the beautiful, beautiful homes and houses there, the gorgeous terraces that at one stage would have been full of families. Would it have been doctors and surgeons and posh people or what? 100:31 Oh, exactly, yes, yeah. One of the premises that I had there, originally, because I just back on it and the history of it, it was actually a stable that the people that lived in the big houses had their horses in. 100:48 And that arch is still there, and I know that home you're talking about, it was bought and refurbed quite extensively about 10 years ago, isn't that right? 100:58 That's correct, yes. And it has the archway into the courtyard at the back and I think there's either a horse's head there or there might well be a horse's hoof over it or sorry, a horse's horseshoe? 101:11 Yes, I think so. Gorgeous, they're beautiful. I've been there now a long time because for the simple reason I took over the business after my father's death and then I moved from Mount Davis Street out to the mills in Douglas And I spent 15, 16 years there. 101:32 Were you building beds or frames or were you upholstering or doing the mattresses or what? 101:38 Oh, I was making the mattresses myself. 101:42 God, that's a tough... And a machine. Tough job, I'd say. 101:47 Oh, it was. Tough job, yeah. A very tough job, but listen, you do what you have to do. 101:53 You do. 101:54 I had five children, so therefore... 101:58 And they had to be well-educated and well-dressed. 102:02 So I often worked seven days a week. 102:07 To meet the orders that were coming in? 102:10 Oh, yes. 102:10 Did you do it all on your own? 102:13 Oh, well, I had two lads employed and I had to call an upholsteress as well. 102:21 Yeah, but I did most of the donkey work myself. 102:25 Yeah, yeah, you just rolled up the sleeves and got on with it. 102:28 Oh, exactly, exactly. But you were talking about your jet yesterday. Because I love your program. You were talking about the jet. 102:38 Well, the same dog, Sam, that I had that time. 102:44 You were talking about the time, you know, that they... They know. 102:47 They know before you come home. They know well before you come home. 102:50 Well, that time my third daughter was only 13, 14. 102:55 And she'd go up to Nemo. I live in Greenhouse, the old Greenhouse. And she'd go up to the disco there on the Friday night from 8 to 11. And at quarter to 11... 103:12 Sam would go to the front door to be left out. 103:16 And he'd be up standing outside, you know, waiting for her. 103:22 They were unbelievable, weren't they? 103:23 I have no idea. I have no idea. How did he know where she was? 103:30 and that he was going up there to escort her home. 103:33 I'll tell you something now before I let you go. I'd say if the guards had opened the door, or if Sam was able to get out of the Nissan Bluebird, right, in Blarney, he'd have found his way all the way home to the North Abbey or whatever. No problem. 103:47 Oh, he would. 103:48 He would, yeah. In the name of God, they could do that. I have no idea, but he just would. 103:52 I have no idea. 103:54 No, but it reminded me of when you were talking about your jet. 103:58 Yeah. 103:58 Yesterday. Yeah. 104:00 And I thought about that and I said, I might get on to Neil and tell him about that. 104:05 Well, it's lovely chatting with you again, Nuala. Look after yourself. 104:08 And you too, Neil. And God bless you. All right, we'll chat again. 104:12 You're welcome. God bless you. Take care. Take care. Lovely woman. Thank you very much. Nuala Jackson. Text 0868 104 106. 104:24 Be part of the conversation. Text 0868 104 106. You can also leave a voice note if you can't jump on air. It's the same text line, but on WhatsApp 0868 104 106. Let's just stay with the intuition of other species that would leave us in the Haveny place. Miriam, good morning. 104:42 Hi Neil, how are you? 104:42 Well this has really taken off since yesterday morning. So you have dogs, rescue dogs I think, isn't it? 104:48 Yeah, so I have four rescue dogs. 104:50 And you said in your text, I sat up and take notice, you said they communicate, you just have to be open to it. 104:56 What do you mean? 104:58 Absolutely. As a young girl, I was always talking to my dogs. We had them when we were growing up. I always could communicate with them in a way that didn't need words. You don't always need words to communicate with their animals. 105:13 I lost it as I grew up because I had children, got busy. 105:18 I started looking into, I suppose, communicating with animals, animal communication, animal Reiki, and the more that I actually sat and just literally sat with my dogs. 105:29 there was things came up, you know, not just words. It was like, you know, colours, memories, sometimes their needs, sometimes my needs. And the deeper that got into it, the more I was kind of like, you know, we just really need to sit up and listen to our animals. 105:46 What do you mean? What do you mean the more you would sit with them? You said colours, memories. 105:50 Just quiet. Just be quiet. Just don't expect anything. No expectations. Just see what bubbles up. You know, sometimes the animals, my dogs won't sit with me, and that's fine. You know, they don't need whatever they're looking for at that moment, but sometimes they'll actually show me what I need. There's one in particular, he's the youngest, Mario, and a couple of weeks ago, he just kept on running up the stairs on top of my bed. Now, it's not that I don't need them upstairs, but there's four dogs. 106:22 There's a lot to have upstairs. 106:24 So he just kept on like scratching at the door to come upstairs, come upstairs. And I didn't realize, I suppose, how busy I had been the kind of last weeks beforehand. And, you know, there was a lot of emotional stuff coming up and a lot of things that I had to deal with. And I actually lay on the bed with him and I fell asleep. Two of us fell asleep, half an hour, just gone. And I woke up and I swear it was the most rested I've ever felt in ages. 106:55 But it was my husband actually was like, what's he doing? And I was like, oh, I know what he's doing. I just don't have time, you know, and you keep on putting it to the back burner that he just wanted me to just chill. 107:07 And that was what he, that was his way of telling you. 107:09 That was his way of telling me. He tells me he's, he's absolutely, you know, they're all amazing, but he's just wonderful. He, like before then he had a tummy issue. And I didn't realise, but he kept on at me and at me. So I said, look, we'll go upstairs. And that's why I kind of do rakey with him. 107:28 And the gurgling out of his belly was something else. Like, so it was all energy. It was all, you know, building up. And, like, he went out, like, after that, jumped up, wagged his tail, went out to the toilet, went and done his business, and he was absolutely perfect afterwards. 107:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 107:44 You know, and actually, it's funny that you actually had a net on your call because Annette is a part of this story as well even though she doesn't know that I'm on this morning. Annette is an actual angel in my eyes because we went on holidays I say about five or six years ago. 108:04 What was Annette talking about? We had a lot of calls. 108:06 She was talking, she was talking about the fireworks. 108:09 Oh, you're talking about the story out of Charleville. Yeah. 108:12 But it's just amazing that she's on the call at the same time because my dog went missing about five or six years ago. We went on holidays and one of them went down to our mother-in-law and she got really spooked and she ran. 108:27 She ran for miles and miles and miles and You know, obviously on holidays we were distressed. But you know, when there's just a knowing in you, I could just see my animal. I could just see Kirby. I just could see she was safe. 108:40 So I wasn't panicked. And Kirby's the kind of dog that will only come to me. 108:46 She's very timid. 108:48 And my brother-in-law and their wife were out looking for the dog. And, you know, everybody was really helping. There was a really sensitive community, even though I'm not from the area whatsoever. And I just drove past. She was... I had no connection with her. She was just out driving around and she just got this sense that my dog was in a barn. 109:07 And she knocked on the farmer's door and went up to the farmer and my dog was in that barn. 109:13 I think you're all barking the whole lot of you. 109:17 How would she know that? 109:18 How would she sense that some random barn somewhere? 109:22 Yeah, I swear. And honestly, if people know me, they know I'm as honest as they. 109:30 Why would she know? 109:34 It's a barn. 109:35 You just have a knowing. No, she wasn't even barking. She doesn't. She's not that kind of a dog. You know, she will. If you saw the size of her now, like she's only about three kgs. Like how she survived, what she survived, crossing main roads, fields. You know, she ended up living in the barn with the cows. How long is she in there? She was missing for four days. 109:59 But the fact that is the fact that Annette knew she's driving around minding their own business. Oh, there's a dog trapped in that barn. I'm going to go and investigate. 110:08 But the thing was, she wasn't even trapped. Like the little fecker had a little hole in the door and going in and out and in and out and in and out. 110:17 Okay. 110:19 I know, it sounds funny. It sounds funny and I didn't know that at all at that stage. 110:23 You talk about a dog knowing that there's something wrong, right? You'd be interested in this. Or in your case, you're just flaked and the dog said, come on, it's time for you to lie down. Let's go upstairs and have a rest. Wayne said, my mam got a dog a few years back against her will while my brother was away in the army. She got a knee replacement a few months later and the dog kept licking her knee. She thought he knew she was hurt and sore, but he was acting attracted to the smell of the infection and the poison that was actually building up in her knee that she knew nothing about. 110:56 She went to the hospital eventually because the dog kept doing it. And she was days, if not hours away from losing her leg from the knee down. Now, I find that bizarre that the dog knew there was something wrong with the knee. He could smell the infection, smell the poisoning building up in her knee and was trying to attract her attention to it. 111:17 And it worked. Yeah, but I've seen that here. I've seen this with both my mother-in-law and my mother-in-law. They both have very bad skin and very bad legs. And Mario, look, he's a chihuahua terrier. So, you know, he does have that kind of sense, you know. And he can tell when they have a cut on their leg. They obviously know, but like they're always fascinated that he'll go to the cut on their leg, you know. 111:45 Yeah, that's because he knows that this is not normal. But would you imagine being able to know or sense that someone possibly could get gangrene or sepsis or indeed need to have their leg amputated and the dog kind of knows this. I got to attract their attention to this. This is serious. That's an amazing depth. I mean, that level is completely incomprehensible to me. 112:06 Yeah, but I think the more that we sit and the more that we spend and the more that we open ourselves up to it, I find the connection between animals, energy, people is actually fascinating, but it's something that we put to the back burner because we're too busy. And you know something? 112:22 There's a lot of truth in that, actually. Sometimes just to sit and do nothing or even to be bored isn't such a bad thing after all. 112:30 No, if you look at animals, like, they teach us, like, unconditional love, patience, loyalty. They teach us living in the moment. They don't care about our jobs or money. You know, they don't care what we've done in our lives. They just love us for who we are. 112:44 That's all very well. They start to care if you're no money and there was no dog food, though. They still care. 112:49 They still care. Okay. 112:52 Take care. 112:55 All right. Thanks, Miriam. Well said. Appreciate it. Text 0868 104 106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. You talk about the carry on over Halloween. These texts are still coming in. I was a mellow on Halloween night. I've never in my life heard or saw anything like it. The kids were setting off fireworks, but they seemed to have something else this year too. The explosions were absolutely frightening. The only way I can describe the noise in Mallow is that it sounded like bombs going off. I've never experienced anything like it. Isn't it one of the most amazing things that people... 113:27 So many absolutely 100% flout the law at Halloween when it comes to the illegality of fireworks. Why would it be surprising to see this violence on a daily basis now when under 18s can do anything they want and know that we can't touch them? Rubbish comes out from the authorities that run this country and only giving them a road to future criminality by not being able to stop them when they're underage. It's absolutely crazy. This we can't touch them. 113:58 They're underage. So they grow up to be adult criminals instead. Can't come on air. Please don't give up my details. We're dealing with fireworks every day from gangs in Loch Mahan playground, throwing the fireworks at houses, throwing the fireworks down here at electric cars. Yes, we ring 999, but they don't come out half the time. It won't be long eventually before down here in Loch Mahan, the Black Rock area, before a car or a house goes up in flames. Keep them coming. Text 0868 104 106. Talking of houses and homes. 114:28 Pat, good morning. 114:30 Good morning. All right. Now, we have already been on to City Council on your behalf and asked them some questions, which I'll go through in a moment. But we're talking about Hatton's Alley, which is Blackpool. It's in the greater Shandon Parish, right? For the last two months, there are people in City Council housing, shared apartments and flats, with no water and no heating, no hot water. 114:57 That's correct, yeah. Two months. 114:59 Two months, yeah. Even longer, Neil. It's gone back quite a while. Even back to October 12 months ago, we were routed for two weeks, right? That's when it started to be real problems, you know? And at that time of the year, it was really, really cold. And we suffered that time. They repaired it, but it came back again. And then on and off, it kept going on, off, on, off. Until about maybe two months ago, it just ceased to work altogether. 115:32 Okay, are we talking about senior citizens there? Are we also talking about younger people? 115:37 Yes, there's 12 apartments there and they're all share city council residents, you know. And I said the youngest resident there would be 69. I'm 74 myself. 115:53 And I've got a few little health problems. 115:58 Arthritis and kidney failure. And I don't need to be I need to be kind of kept warm and things like that, you know. 116:08 Without a shadow of a doubt. How old would the oldest resident be in and around Hattons Avenue? 116:13 He'd be well into his 80s, you know, well into his late 80s. 116:17 Late 80s then, late 80s we'll say. Okay, so how have you coped, all of you, particularly people that will suffer with the cold a lot more than many others, right? As you're getting older, one does. How have you coped without any heating and any hot water for eight to ten weeks? 116:36 Yeah, like, what I do, I'm involved here with the Blackpool Men's Shed and they gave me a super shower, which I'm a bit nervous of, you know? 116:48 And... 116:50 for taking a shower we have an immersion here like I'm only under the old age pension and the immersion would eat into the the power you know and I just put it on for about half an hour and I'd have a lukewarm shower okay okay but your homes must be cold I got up at 7 o'clock this morning to have a shower and it was absolutely freezing this morning. 117:16 And how do you then go about heating yourself up and heating up your little home? 117:21 Well, I tell you, I'm out and about here at the moment now and it's warmer outside than there is inside. You know, that's basically what it is. That boiler is 44 years old. 117:33 Yeah, correct. You know the life of a boiler is about 10 to 12 years. You know that. 117:36 They're clapped out. I didn't actually. And I got two independent guys to come out to have a look at this. They told me not to mention their names or anything like that. 117:48 But the first two words out of them all was, that's obsolete. Obsolete. And then some. And the fourth said it on different locations. Yeah. 117:58 Why do City Council treat people so badly when they're tenants? Yeah. 118:03 I have no idea. And I just passed a van there with one of their council vans and it says, we care. That should be, we don't care. Yeah, yeah. I can understand why you'd say that. 118:13 So we asked them, or Seamus was on to them. He said, why have the residents been without heating and hot water for over two months? What action are you taking to repair or replace this 44-year-old boiler? When can the residents expect their heating and hot water to be fixed? Why have residents not been getting updates? And what assistance are you providing to the residents, particularly the elderly, vulnerable tenants in the meantime? Fairly straightforward questions now that I'm demanding an answer for. So I got a very quick response and I'm hoping that this will be very positive. 118:46 They said in a statement, City Council is actively pursuing a resolution to the issues on site. That's as much as I know at this stage, but I only got that at 10 o'clock this morning. Hopefully, I'm not going to let this go. I want that boiler replaced. I'm quite sure you do as well, don't you? I do indeed. Not repaired, because the repair is a patch job. This is 44 years. 119:10 No, this needs to be replaced. And that boiler is not fit for purpose anymore. And if anybody in the City Council want to come on and say that that boiler is fit for purpose... 119:23 They're making a big mistake. 119:25 It's not right. It's cruel to treat people like this. It is indeed. It is indeed. And I'm not going to put up with it. And I know you're not, but I'm not going to put up with it. I want the boiler replaced. I want people treated with respect and the dignity that senior citizens deserve. Right. That's what we want. That's correct. OK, OK. Well, I'm glad I'm glad you called me, Pat. I'm glad you got in touch because speaking up makes a difference, my friend. 119:50 Yeah, speaking of it does. And I'm delighted that you took my call anyway and that you've done something about it. 119:58 Okay, I'm going to leave it alone for a couple of hours now and maybe around one o'clock again, be back on to them again. Seamus is on this and he doesn't let go. That boiler does not need repairing. That boiler needs to be replaced and it needs to be replaced in the next 24 hours. 120:13 Correct, yeah. Okay. Fingers crossed, Pat. All right. All right. Thanks, Neil. All right, kid. Mind yourself. Take care. Take care. 120:19 Bye-bye. 120:30 Just like a caller yesterday, I got stopped before while driving on my own. I passed a car which was scanning registrations and they came after me, stopped me and told me I have no full licence driver and they took the car off me. Long story short, I went to court because I got issued a summons stating I had no insurance. I wasn't covered, you see, while driving alone and fair play. The judge struck everything out. So all that judge, so all that for the judge to strike it out and fair play to him. 121:01 Well, all that. I mean, you know, the Gardaí are going to have to follow what they do. What a judge does, of course, isn't in the hands of a Gardaí Shakana. I would have thought that the law is the law is the law. They took your car. So you obviously would have had to pay to get it back. Long story short, went to court because you are not insured if you are a driver on a learner permit driving on your own. Judge struck it out. So it can really depend on the day and the judge and maybe the weather and which way the wind is blowing and all that kind of stuff. So keep it coming. 121:32 Stay at home in 2027 for our holidays, you suggested. Yes, and we'll be fleeced. I'm not suggesting it. I'm just wondering if flights are going to get so expensive and foreign holidays dearer and dearer. Will people choose to or be forced to? Leave Michael O'Leary alone, only for his cheap flights. Most of us Irish would never be able to afford to see any part of the world. And then with regards to the, I was saying that if you compare a litre of petrol at £1.99 and the equivalent litre of coffee at €17.40, somebody says that's just a load of nonsense, your coffee argument. 122:11 You don't have to buy coffee by the litre. In fact, you don't even have to buy coffee, but you do have to buy fuel to go to work. What a stupid way of looking at things. Coffee is optional, man. Petrol is not. 122:27 I'm not necessarily saying that. I'm talking about the profit margin of coffee. 122:32 You'd pay €4.50 or €4.80 for hot water and a few beans. 122:38 So by the litre, then, it comes in at €17.40. I mean, no coffee should cost that much. I mean, the markup on coffee is just absolutely astronomical. I'm just saying. Anyway, I love when people push back. Text 0868104106. John, good morning. 122:54 Good morning to you, Neil. 122:55 And so we want to hear about Gaffer the dog, who apparently was some character. Go ahead. 123:01 Yeah, Gaffer, just to give it a backstory, but unfortunately he was kind of a half a greyhound dog, the other half we don't know. But going back to the early 80s anyway, he would sleep in the kitchen and for some reason he would sleep on top of the washing machine. That's where he slept every night. 123:20 And every morning, you'd be on voting. 123:22 I was going to say, he'd jump up onto the washing machine, is it? 123:25 He would. He'd jump up onto the washing machine and that was his pouch, as we used to call it at the time, my parents. So you couldn't get him off it. That's the way it was. And every morning, he would come up and call me for school without fail. No, he would. And that's the truth. But that would all change then down the road because he was a terror and he'd Like we had the number two bus stop just across from our house. Where was that? 123:54 Up in Harbourview Road. Okay. So my mother used to get the bus into town every so often and she'd get onto the bus and before she realised it she'd get off then in town and there would therefore be next to her. 124:09 And as she said to me, he was often inside in pennies with me and the owner being there saying, is that your dog? And she'd have to pretend it's not. 124:17 So he didn't follow the bus. He got on the bus, did he? 124:20 Oh, he got on the bus. He got on the bus and he, as bizarre as it sounds, he hid in the bus. 124:27 And she didn't even realise he was there until, obviously, then, over time, she copped it. But even at times when she did get on, she thought he wasn't on it, and he was. So, yeah, he was a terror for it. And at times, she'd literally get off in town, he'd be there, and she'd have to get on to the next bus again with him just to get him home. 124:51 He'd be cursing him. 124:51 Yeah. But the thing about it then, that was all good and funny and great in a way. We all got a great laugh out of it. No, we were only kids at the time. But one day, he was never followed the neighbours, no. But one morning he got onto the bus with the next door neighbour. But the next door neighbour then was carrying on, I think, on the train to Cove. 125:13 And didn't he get onto the train as well? No. Obviously, no, he wouldn't have been used to trains or anything like that. But somewhere along the line, he got off in Cove, but he got lost. 125:26 And he did. He got lost. And I remember, remember I told you that every morning he would greet me. 125:34 And they said nothing to me at home, obviously, because my dad went down and the neighbours went down trying to find him. In Cove. And... Oh, they did. They were all over trying to find him. Couldn't find him, obviously. And the following morning then, obviously, he didn't come up to me. I was in a terrible way. And where is he? And blah, blah, blah. But the day anyway went into a week and it went into a month. 126:00 And they all believed, Neil, that he'd never return. 126:05 And because, look, This was back in the 80s. And as I said, they gave up on him then because I suppose they had to. But I never gave up on him. And I remember home saying all the time to the mother and father, he will return. He will come home. 126:18 How old were you? Was it the early 80s? This was the early 80s. 126:22 So I might have been about seven, I'd say. All right. You never gave up on him. I was very young. And as I said, I never gave up. But look, time went on anyway. And it was actually six months later. And I remember we were inside the front room and I don't know, I think it was my dad turned around to my mother and goes, that's Gaffer outside. 126:46 And she turned around to him, she goes, no, no, no, that's not him at all. I remember the words... He's very emancipated. Emancipated, a typical Cork word. Emancipated, yeah, it's the word. 127:00 Obviously, like, skin and bones. 127:02 Emancipated. 127:03 Emancipated, I still remember that word as a child, I never forgot it. And he goes, no, it's him, all right. And the bizarre thing about this, and listen to this now, Neil, and this is true as well, he didn't come in the gates. 127:18 And you might say, why didn't he come in again? He was standing outside. We'd know a wall at the time. So it was just the old bars and the old gates back in the old 80s. So he was standing outside. 127:29 And I remember my mother goes, what is he doing? He's just staring up at the house. Because she still wasn't sure what was him like. He was afraid to come in. He thought he'd get murdered. No, I tell you now. And it's pure intuition again. Because, like, she was kind of trying to convince my dad, don't go out there. That's some bad stray, that he's not well or whatever. And my dad was kind of looking at, trying to suss out the situation, I suppose, in his brain, saying, it is him. But why isn't he coming in? 128:00 And then it clicked, Neil. Do you know what it was? 128:03 The house was after being repainted. 128:07 And that's what it was. And it was him. And they got him in. And in fairness, he was skin and bones. 128:16 He was emancipated because he hadn't eaten for months on end. He was skin and bone. 128:21 He was absolutely skin and bones. And in fairness, they brought him back to life. But how he survived, Neil, for the six months and how he made his way from Cove, all the way to Nognini was, it was a miracle. 128:37 How in the name of God did he find his way? You're very lucky because that train in the early 80s would have run all the way to Yarl. So he's lucky he didn't stay on till Yarl. 128:46 He'd be 12 months. 128:49 Yeah, he'd be 12 months trying to get back from Yarl and he'd be doubly emancipated. 128:54 Well, I suppose in reality, he wouldn't have survived. My God. He was skin and bone. How did he do it? With like, we, like, nobody knows, but, like, honestly, you know, all the neighbours around, because they all knew him, like, nobody could believe it that he actually returned after the six months. And is that true? 129:15 You're just not making up a revisit of a lassie story. 129:19 I'm not making it up, Neil, and I can prove it. 129:22 Or the War Horse movie. Do you remember that? 129:24 He should have his own film for your dog, Gaffer. 129:27 Yeah, even if you thought now for a second that John is exaggerating a little bit there now just for the radio. That isn't true at all because I wrote about this on my writing page maybe about two years ago. 129:39 three years ago and everything I even sent on a picture to you there you'll see me a young John Morgan with blondie hair back in the day so it's the only photograph in the world we have of him to this day I'd love to see that pic maybe we have it maybe you sent it did you send it here so it's lovely you never gave up on him and he never gave up on trying to find his way home And you know, I've been on to you on a couple of occasions about my own intuitions and coming out to the house here and done more and seen the vision of it. 130:15 And honestly, you know, I, even as a young child, six and seven, never gave up. And I remember, I remember my mother said later, later in life, she said, you used to break my heart. And I said, why? And she said, you always used to be saying to us, Gaffer will come home. 130:34 Gaffer there's a book in that Gaffer there's a film in that like a Mills and Booney kind of Gaffer come home yeah I used to always say to my mother she said like obviously no she didn't show but she was in she'd nearly be in tears over him because no matter what we said to him because they did say other things you know and out to try and distract me and blah blah blah how would a dog know how would a dog know how would they know 131:00 How to get back from Cove to the north side of Cork City. 131:03 Do you know how they know, I think, Neil? What it boils down to, I think, is their sense of smell, right? It's meant to be, I don't know, is it a hundred times greater than ours. 131:14 But even if it is, it's about direction. 131:17 It is, and how did he survive the traffic? How did he survive the roads? 131:22 It's... As you said, honestly, you know, when you're 100% correct, there's a movie in it. And you wonder how they survive. 131:29 Well, bear in mind, there was none of the big plastic wheelie bins that we have now. A lot of the rubbish was in rubbish bags and he probably rifled through food or all rubbish bags. 131:38 He probably did, yeah, to survive. 131:40 They actually say that a dog's sense of smell is between 100,000 and 10 million times more sensitive than a human's. 131:46 Oh, is it that high, is it? 131:47 Well, I wouldn't want to be a dog if my sense of smell was 10 million times stronger than a human's. My God, what about the noxious, flatulent smells that'd be, you know, want of a better word, the fart word, 10 million times stronger. 132:02 Forget about that. For them, I suppose. We've had dogs all through the years and I think the biggest thing with them is just the smell of food. 132:11 So tell me, yeah, and that must be a persecution for them. Tell me this. So if Gaffer would come up and get you for school in the mornings, what would happen on a Saturday morning? 132:21 Oh, he'd still come up and call me to get up and get out and go for a walk. Every morning, seven days a week, he'd get up off that washing machine. And, like, he didn't call my brother. He didn't call my sisters. He didn't go into the parents' bedroom. He went in to me. And that's why I missed him so much, Neil, because... I used to be crying every morning. I mean, I was only a child. 132:44 Ah, that's a beautiful story. 132:45 I know, you would, but like, you would, and I kept saying, he will come home. Did he live a long life then, John? 132:53 He didn't, unfortunately. I mean, I hate to ruin the end of the story. 133:00 He lived a decent life, but as I said, he was mad for going out onto the road and onto buses, and eventually the poor fella got knocked down. 133:10 Ah, that's a shame to hear. 133:13 It is, the poor fella, because no matter what we've done, he always seemed to get out of the house one way or another. But what I will say is, when he returned, looking back now, we'd know a lot of him back then, but it would have been greater than winning the Euro Millions for me, which is a seven-year-old boy. And the time I got to spend with him afterwards, It really gave me, Neil, my love of animals and my appreciation for of all animals, especially dogs. 133:49 Well said. What a beautiful story. 133:50 Well, that's a beautiful story of Gaffer the dog and a great bond between you and him. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Lovely, lovely story. Out of time, lads. What a great way to finish the programme this morning. Thank you for that. Listen, with regards to the issues regarding Hatton's Alley in a 44-year-old crocked-out boiler and people living with no hot water and frozen with the cold, We've been informed by a source that several repair attempts have been made on the boiler in Hatton's Alley in Blackpool, but none of them, none of them have been successful. You can see why. It's 44 year old. 134:21 It's clapped out. It's probably a danger. It's gone beyond its best before. For sure it has. An interim repair will be carried out this week while a longer term solution is being explored. I'm being kind of told that off the record, so I can't quote the source. 134:35 The contractor has been asked to source a replacement boiler, but it's expected to take several weeks for the new boiler to be sourced and installed. I'm sorry, I don't accept that. It just isn't good enough. If I wanted a boiler today, I could get one today. I could buy it today. I could get a contractor. You have contractors at City Council who you could expedite the job with and get it installed. You can get a boiler today. I don't accept. Okay, it may be a huge boiler that services 10 apartments, but suggesting that people have to remain like this for several more weeks, It's got to be faster than that. 135:11 So let's make it faster than that. Another botched job in the meantime, they're saying, to see if they can get it going while they get a new one in. It needs to be faster. I'll update on this one tomorrow. Have a good day. Kira Evans is here from Midday. Tickets to be one for the Take That gig and also big news on Christmas in Cork because Christmas is coming. I'll see you tomorrow.