Community Matters 1oct2024

Connemara Credit Union is sponsoring the Community Matters show. The host, Ronan Tierney, discusses various topics including the budget, the No Name Club, the Galway Recovery College, and updates from Councillor Eileen Mannion. Gavin Duffy, a partner with Duffy Burke & Co., provides analysis of the budget, highlighting changes in inheritance tax, income tax thresholds, and energy credits. The minimum wage will also increase, and the reduced VAT rate on electricity and gas will be extended. There is a focus on energy enhancements such as heat pumps. Community Matters is kindly sponsored by Connemara Credit Union Limited, incorporating Clifton, Tunicross and Carnda Branches. Connemara Credit Union is here to serve the people of the Connemara area. Main Office, Clifton and Tunicross Branch, 195-211-01. Good evening and welcome to Community Matters with me, Ronan Tierney and Blair McDunnian here on the Sound Desk in Leatherfrack. I hope you're all doing well out there this evening, it's a stunning evening. I was driving back along Killary and into Leatherfrack, biked home over there, the lakes are just flat calm, beautiful evening and long may it continue. Can't believe it's the 1st of October, I have to pinch myself when I see that date. It's Budget Day of course and shortly we'll be talking with Gavin Duffy, partner with Duffy Birkin Company, accountants in relation to the highlights from today's budget. Later in the program, we'll be speaking with Edith Geraghty, who's a program officer with the No Name Club, that's an organization that supports young people. We'll be hearing a little bit from Edith about their work. We'll also hear from Siobhan Collaren, recovery education facilitator with the Galway Recovery College in relation to a wellness recovery program that will be run in Clifton, a free program, 5-week program from mid-October to mid-November, so we'll hear a little bit on that. I will also hear from Councillor Eileen Mannion, just a general update in relation to a number of items including the local property tax, the Clifton flood relief plan, the Clifton regeneration plan and also some announcements and contracts signed recently by Galway County Council in relation to new bills, social housing there on the Westport Road, so it'll be good to hear from Eileen as well. So a busy program and we'd, as ever, we'd be delighted to hear from you, from our audience, from members of the public. If you'd like to contact us, you can do so directly here by contacting the studio on 09541616. You can also contact us via WhatsApp on 087-6058447, that's 087-6058447 and we'd love to get your reaction to the items we're covering tonight or any comments etc. on those items. So that's tonight's show, so we'll start this evening, I suppose, as most of you are probably fed up now at this stage, hearing about the budget all day and listening to the various different politicians setting out why it's such a good budget and why it's not such a good budget, but we thought we'd try and get some objective analysis onto the radio this evening and I'm delighted to, as I said earlier, to be joined by Gavin Duffy, who's a partner with Duffy Burke and Co. Gavin, good evening. Good evening, Ronan, and good evening to all your listeners. Great to have you back again, as I remember this day last year, I think we were also talking about the budget. Yeah, as you said, a lot better weather this year, I think, compared to last year, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Gavin, how would you, just even in terms of comparing it to last year, how would you characterize this year's budget? Well, I suppose, compared to last year, like we definitely could see this is an election year budget. I would say there's probably, try to give a bit to everyone and try and do the least amount of harm, I suppose, if that makes sense, so that there wouldn't be too much anger with any measures. So there seems to be kind of like a bit, like Dave Bourne used to say in the late late show, kind of approach to it, which it seems pretty fair, you know, they do have a big budget surplus to operate with. And like that, that's even excluding like, I suppose, those people would have heard like the Apple money and all that, which can't be spent on this day to day stuff. So like, I think the budget is coming in like, you know, 23 billion, one of the largest we've ever had, the largest we have ever had. So they've tried to improve measures, I suppose, that were there already, more so than introduce new measures. So I suppose increasing payments that exist already, or expanding programs that are there already, more so than bringing in any new measures per se. Okay. So, okay, we'll talk a little bit more about some of them. So we start then with just some of the, any kind of tax changes, I suppose, that have stood out for you there? Yeah, so I suppose, probably, so the one I'll probably go to, probably that might be one of the big ones was, and it was kind of semi flagged throughout the summer with the changes in the inheritance tax. So they increased the threshold, so say, from more or less, what they would say, just three classes and the class A was probably would be the most one, so like parent to child type of inheritance, and you could, there was a threshold there, so anything below 335,000, you could inherit tax free. And they've increased that to 400,000, they're trying to base that on, I suppose, the increase in property values over the last couple of years and stuff. Now, while it'll probably grab the headlines, I was only reading a couple of weeks ago that in reality, it may actually only impact about 9% of actual inheritances, because most inheritances even now are probably below that 335 for a foreign individual, so while it is a welcome increase, I assume, for that 9%, it may be not something that will impact across a wide range of inheritances. Yeah, and of course, there's a move, or not a move, but there's been some lobbying to actually abolish the inheritance tax. I know Alan Shatter was on primetime there recently, saying that, you know, advocating for its full abolition, but of course, those who support it, the retention of it, say, yeah, that would be just benefiting the wealthiest in society. Well, it probably goes back to that point, yeah, that increase, you know, it's probably, you know, impacting on a smaller amount of inheritance transactions than we think of. So most people are probably covered by the threshold already, where there is no, I suppose, an inheritance tax to be paid, because their inheritances are under them amounts, so as you said, an abolishing of it would probably, you know, yeah, probably would benefit people that are getting larger inheritances, and there is tax planning around transfer of stuff, even before inheritance time, so, you know, people can do it, you know, before they pass away, through a will or something that, you know, where there could be tax reasons, where it's beneficial to do it beforehand, you know. So, yeah, that is a valid point. Okay, and I suppose the income tax thresholds, I know the standard rates haven't changed, but the point at which you start to move from the lower rate of tax to the higher rate of tax has shifted. Yeah, so they've done a bit on each of them, so yeah, so they've increased that by 2,000 euros up to 44 now, so well, 42, so you can earn up to 44,000 at the lower rate of tax, which would be the 20%, and they've also increased the tax credits everyone has, so they've increased the main, three main tax credits by 125 euros, but most people will have two if they're working as a PAE worker, getting a wage every week, so that's an increase of 250 for the tax credits, and they've done a bit of reduction around the universal social charge there, they've reduced the middle income by 1%, which is actually probably one of the biggest cuts they've made in a few years, they cut it last year as well, but only by about a quarter of a percent, so they were kind of, I suppose, the major, three major ones around income tax, so adding them together, you know, that could make an impact of maybe a few hundred euros to maybe 1,000 euros, depending on the personal circumstances of an increase in their net take-home pay next year, you know. And then moving to the cost of living, I see that we've got the energy credits, there's going to be two payments there worth 250 euros, one this year and one in the new year, we see the minimum wage is going to increase by 80 cents from the 1st of January, rising to 13.50 euros an hour, and there's going to be the reduced 9% VAT rate on electricity and gas has been extended to the end of April next year. Yeah, like I think probably, yeah, the energy credits, I just wonder if probably, yeah, that was probably, there was a lot of debate around that probably in the last month or so, I know a certain number of charities, I think about 12 charities signed kind of a joint letter, all saying not to do universal energy credits, it should be more targeted towards maybe like fuel allowance payments and things like that, or energy poverty, more targeted. Again, government, you know, there's a bit more administration on that, so, you know, the universality of being able to say most people have, you know, a meter in the house and you can apply it to that meter and, you know, it's a lot easier to do the energy credit. Now it's reduced down from last year, I think last year it was possibly 400, you got three payments last year, I believe, so there was more of last year and the one, yeah, that you pointed out there, that probably has a good impact as well, because, you know, it's based more on usage, that's where you're keeping that reduction of the VAT on the electricity and gas prices, so, you know, the more you use, you know, the bigger that reduction is going to be, you know, at least until April next year, you know, get over the, hopefully the worst of the winter at that stage and they actually, not really energy related, but what I thought was interesting probably for people doing renovating and they've reduced if people are installing heat pumps, they've actually reduced the VAT on that, it was 23 for installing heat pumps and they've reduced that down to 9% as well. That's a significant shift, isn't it? Yeah, that's a big one, now they did it last year on solar panels, they brought it down as well on solar panels last year, so there is that, there seems to be that shift now towards, you know, these, I suppose, energy enhancements on renovations, reducing the VAT levels on them, as a way, I suppose, making the cost more achievable for households, you know. I see they didn't, I know there was a lot of lobbying from the hospitality industry to have a lower VAT rate, I know we had that back during COVID or post-COVID for a period of time and there's been a fair bit of criticism, I think, that that hasn't emerged through the budget. Yeah, like, I think the restaurants and, you know, hotel associations are very strong lobby groups, they do, they're very, you know, I think they're very good at getting their point across and getting their message across, so that was a big campaign, like I even noticed in restaurants and stuff over the summer, you could see posters up about it, you know, but I just, yeah, it was one, I never got the sense throughout the year, the last few months, that there would be any budget on it really, I suppose it was, you know, it's been used a couple of times, it was used after, I suppose, the last financial crash in 2009 to try and help the hospitality, it was used during COVID, but I think government very much sees the 9% on hospitality as temporary measures and that, like, it will always go back up to 13%, so while there was probably disappointment it didn't move, I don't think I was overly surprised it didn't move back down to it, I think it was like once it went up, that was kind of where government was going to be on it. Yeah, so then some of the welfare measures, so the weekly social protection payments are to increase by 12 years, that includes the state pension, so we're talking about unemployment benefits, unemployment assistance, you know, all the different allowances, the weekly allowances there, they're all going up by 12 euro. Yeah, that's across the board for them all, I suppose the standard ones will be going across the board, no increase in the children's allowance, but there's a double payment before Christmas, alright, on that, but yeah, all the standard social welfare payments going up by 12, I know last year, because I suppose the massive increase in the cost of living crisis, so while we're looking for getting something like 26 euro of an increase, so I think government were kind of conscious of that last year, because I suppose it's very hard for people, and it's hard for people on wages, but you know, if someone's on a wage, they can always go in to the employer and say, I want an increase, but it's very hard for people on a pension or a social welfare payment, you know, to go in to the government and say I need an increase, other than lobbying at budget time, so I think they are kind of conscious of that over the last couple of years to try and increase that. Yeah, I see, it's actually, there's going to be two double child benefit payments, one in November and one in December, so it's going to be, yeah, so it's two double payments, if you like, so 280 euro per child for November and December, and that kind of pattern there, you can see that, you know, between the energy credits, the child benefit payments, there's going to be a double payment as well for long term social protection payments, an October bonus, if you like, and there'll probably be the Christmas bonuses, I'd imagine, within there as well, so I suppose, you know, some of the criticism has been that a lot of that money for these one-off measures, which are very attractive in the short term, but don't do anything, I suppose, in terms of the longer term rates, you know, that the money could maybe be spent a little bit more strategically, what do you think of that? Yeah, you see, I suppose we have a system very much of, I suppose, universality, mainly probably, you know, that everyone gets the increase, everyone gets the payment, in my own head, I think a large part is because it's easy to administrate, I suppose we don't sometimes think of the cost or the bureaucracy side of putting changes in place, so I think maybe like a flat across the board payment is easier to do sometimes for government, but there is, and I suppose what does give government a certain bit of flexibility that they're sort of doing is a bonus payment, it means they're probably not tied in to, now most years you get, you know, most years, you know, the double pension payment is a Christmas, you know, it nearly has become a standard payment, but I suppose that they're able to call it a kind of a bonus payment, gives them the option if they need to make changes to it, but it has been probably a criticism of, maybe, especially in the social welfare spending side of things of government, not just this year, but for a good number of years, that sometimes it isn't targeted enough for maybe the people that do need it, you know. Yeah, and a few other areas there I noticed, and again, it will only be certain, you know, certain cohorts that will benefit from this, but free school books up to leading cert level, now they introduced this last year for up to junior cert, and now it's been extended to leading cert, and again, for families, speaking from experience now, I'm in that space, but like, that can, that could be, you know, 6, 700 Euro at least of a benefit to a family, if you had one, you know, two children, one in junior cycle, one in senior cycle. Yeah, without a doubt, like I suppose, you know, we talk about free education came in in the 1960s, but was it ever really free when you factor in all these factors and stuff, and you know, you probably be well aware, you know, in schools, there's pressure, you know, for, you know, contributions, voluntary contributions to the schools and everything, so it is, you know, it's a pretty big step, you know, to cover the whole cycle all the way up to leading cert with free books. It's something I, personally, my two guys are a lot younger, they're in the crèche sphere, so if you've seen the extra payment, and that, you know, is the personal side for me, but you know, I do think it is definitely, you know, education is so important, and we have, you know, it's one of the things that's always been, probably, you know, for the last 20, 30 years, that has been, you know, a factor of the Irish success as a very well educated, you know, population and workforce with one of the highest rates, I think, of, you know, third level degrees in the world. So, you know, actually improving that system by supporting it and funding it, yeah, I think, like, to me, I think it's a great way of spending the education budget, too, you know. Yeah. I was just wondering, is there anything, from the point of view of, from a business perspective, that caught your eye, or anything in relation to farming, that featured? Yeah, so in farming, and just kind of before it came on, yeah, I was looking at kind of how maybe some of the farming bodies reacted, and there was a bit of, you know, again, like I suppose how I said at the very start, is probably, you know, trying not to do something for everyone, and try not to upset them too much, and it seems to be, you know, that, yeah, they welcome some measures, and there's disappointment in other measures, so they kind of, again, like that, nothing majorly new, but, you know, they've increased payments across some of the, so, like, you know, I suppose in Connemara, there'll be a lot of sheep farming, so the sheep welfare scheme, I think it's like €5 a year increase, so I think the total scheme payment now is something like €25 a year, and then there's similar schemes for beef as well, and they've just, I suppose, put extra funding into a lot of the schemes, I suppose, that inheritance tax threshold too would apply to farmers, so that would normally be the threshold that would be used for transfers as well, and probably a lot of farmers in the Connemara area, possibly on the acre scheme as well, there's, I think, €60 million extra allocated to the acre scheme for next year as well, so it's been very much probably nothing too new, and extra funding for some, they have tweaked a few other schemes, I know there's one where there's, again, for some of the taxes that, more or less what they would call, I suppose, genuine farmers, so maybe full-time farmers type would be only able to avail of some of the schemes, and there has been some funding in relation to, they've actually increased the training budget for actually giving more targeted training to farmers in relation to probably, I suppose, all the change that's come on, you know, climate change and things like that, and just best practice in farming going forward, so they've increased that budget, so it's been a bit of that, a bit of that with the agriculture side of the budget, yeah. And finally then, Gavin, the minimum wage then up by 80 cents to $13.50 an hour, and I assume that when they, you know, in increasing that by 80 cents, it still pretty much keeps people on the minimum wage out of the tax net, would that be the case? Yeah, so that'll bring the minimum wage up to like $13.50 an hour, yeah, so by and large people on the minimum wage wouldn't overly be in the tax net, they might, I'm not sure how it will factor out on the USC, sometimes there might be a small amount of USC on it, but the way they've tweaked it now, I'm not sure will that take them out of it as well, and generally they're not caught for employees' PRSI, very little if they are, and then the employer obviously would pay PRSI on the other side of it, so generally, yeah, minimum wage wouldn't overly be in the tax net. Yeah, very good, and good to see that. Very important for people on low incomes to be able to see an increase there, given the wider kind of cost limit, and of course the business community might have something different to say on it, in terms of an added cost for maintaining business. Gavin, I think we'll leave it at that, I think that we'll see, I suppose, a little bit further detail over the coming days from different departments in terms of the specific spend and the budgets within individual departments, be it education, transport, etc. One thing we didn't mention there, I suppose, is free public transport for under 9s, and also a companion scheme I can see for over 70s, where they can bring a companion with them for free on public transport, which again, I think would be a practical measure there. As you say, we have to bear in mind, it's election year, it's that type of budget, there's a little bit for everybody, and they don't want to really piss anyone off in relation to the funds, so I think that's it. Well, as they say, the budget before the election, they need something for the doorstep, you know. Gavin, thank you very much for joining us this evening, as ever, I really appreciate your insight and your analysis there, that was Gavin Duffy, partnered with Duffy Burke and co, focusing on highlights of this year's budget. Now, we're going to take a nap break, and we'll be back shortly with Councillor Eileen Mannion. Jobspot on Connemara Community Radio. Thank you. Cavanagh Supervalue Clifton are recruiting for part-time team members in their bakery, deli, and a butcher assistant. Applicants need to be flexible, enthusiastic, and customer focused. For more information, or to apply, please ask in store, call 095 211 82, or email coaching.hair at cavanaghgroup.ie, and that's coaching, C-A-I-T-I-N, dot hair, H-E-H-I-R, at cavanaghgroup.ie. Jobspot on Connemara Community Radio. Jobspot on Connemara Community Radio. When I got up this morning, the house, it was a-freezing. 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One thing I just wanted to ask you about and it's kind of linked to the budget in some ways is the news that's emerged now in relation to the property tax and it seems that council have approved a 15% increase in the property tax to apply for next year and the first increase now that has applied since 2017 so can you just give us a little bit of a surprise maybe in some quarters that we've been hearing all day I suppose about the health of the public finances and then I suppose to have a property tax increase at a local level kind of jars a little bit with that. So what's your take on it? Yeah well I suppose the local property tax, we have an option every year to increase the local property tax or to vary it I should say up or down we've left it at the baseline for most years 2017 we did increase it for one year and then it went back to baseline again. Now it wasn't an easy decision I assure you there's a lot of soul searching but Goy County Council, we've been underfunded for many years, we did get extra funding last year, but any time as Carheerlook or the CEO go to the department or the minister we're kind of told that we have a mechanism to raise funds and why weren't we using that mechanism and we haven't used it for years and we haven't increased it because we felt you know, cost of living people were struggling but you know we're understaffed, we're under resourced and it was impacting and we have a new CEO he started last year and he just has done a lot of I suppose a lot of strategic planning and he needs a lot of extra staff and he felt, he came to us and said he needs this increase to help, I suppose, fund the local authority, fund the services and improve the services and so we increased it by 15% and while that sounds a lot it's, you know, over the year for 43% of households that's €13.50 extra a year and 29% is €33.75 extra a year and look, we don't want you putting and we haven't for years put anything extra on people but we did do a deal where each municipal district would get a pot of money as well so for Auckland American Municipal District we'd get €184,000 extra per year for councillors to allocate for projects and I know other years, several years ago I was working on the Craigin County Community Council in relation to their traffic management there and a new car park and we had a special fund at that time of €250,000 it was actually 500 from the municipal district I got €250 for Craigin so that was an extra funding that we had and in the last two years we've got an extra funding and Councillor King and myself put ours together and we put €40,000 towards the pedestrian crossing in Baddick Canary so we hope that this €184,000 that we have extra each year from the municipal district will go towards, you know, very important projects in the communities that we haven't been able to fund through other sources I know from the local elections that road safety is really a big issue now and, you know, at schools and people pedestrian crossings I think every village that I've come across are looking for, I suppose pedestrian crossings or traffic canning maybe this is a fund we can use for this or for hedge cutting I don't know if we can use those projects I mean you could argue Eileen the need to, I understand the new CEO has a vision around, wants to expand the staff and expand the services etc but why are local home owners kind of paying for that because really, you know, I think you've alluded to this and I think we've spoken about it previously that there's an historical underfunding of Lough Galway County Council and why can't that be rectified at the centre from the general taxation base as opposed to putting it back on homeowners again and this €800,000 fund that's been set up, really I can see the attraction to that obviously an individual councillor will have an allocation there that they can spend as they see fit but that's, again, is that not just kind of leaving the decision making up to the local councillors putting the money into priority projects maybe, that's spread it very thinly Yeah, but I mean, I do think it is a good it's good to be able to have that discretion all those projects, whatever we come up with will have to be approved by the local area office, have to be approved at the new district level and go forward to Cleanery Council so the full transparency like it won't be just projects that are worthwhile for the communities and, you know that's something that's very certain it'll also, I suppose, with the extra funding like over €2 million extra for Galway County Council and they'll be able to leverage further funding of up to about €8 million for projects such as the one we talked about, the Wye Prickly Regeneration project you know, when that goes to planning that's due to planning in October when planning is granted then the council will have to go to the department for further funding to deliver the project and the council will have to come to with 20 or 25% match funding to deliver that project so this will enable the council as well to be able to deliver more projects across the county, it's not just the fund that we have for the municipal district it'll be for bigger projects as well for the council to be able to get more funding from the department to deliver projects right across the county in Connemara so that's important, we've been underfunded and I know we would much prefer if we got it from central funding but that hasn't happened and most local authorities have increased their local projects year on year and where we haven't, we have less 2017 was the last time we increased it and that was just for one year and back to base and this increase won't happen again this will be in place for five years and there won't be any increases in the next five years and I know it's difficult and I know it's putting more burden on families and individuals homeowners but we felt we had no choice and up to 39 councils 32 of the 39 motion save profit including my colleagues in Connemara, Councillor King, Councillor Welby and you know we felt it was really important for us to fund the local authority and to try and get more service and I suppose in real terms we'll move on to the regeneration piece so if you're valued up to 200,000 your property it will increase from 90 euro to 104 if it's between 200 and 252,000 it will go from 225 euro to 259 euro and then for up to 350, between 252 and 350k the actual cost will go from 315 a year to 362 so just moving on then to the regeneration there's a few things we can chat about here do you want to just first of all I can just give sort of a status update in terms of the overall regeneration and where things are at yeah no because I know it's been gone a long time, I think funding was granted in 2020 an amount of just over a million to bring the project to shovel ready status and so we're working towards that and there was you know extensive public consultation, there was a lot of submissions and the design team had been working on it since and I suppose three areas have been covered in the town town centre enhancements, then the Clifton Harbour Park as many people would know and the Beach Road Quay area they're the three areas that are part of the regeneration project and we had an update last week and it's expected to be large for planning this month October now, so hopefully before the end of the month that will be large and that will be because it's a part 10 application and it goes straight to Walton Orla for decision and the update now we haven't, I haven't seen the final plan so I'd be like everyone else, when it's large it will be available to view on the cliftonregeneration.com website but also hard copies in the Clifton area office and I think in the Chamber of Commerce office is that sorry Eileen is that the planning for each of the three kind of areas or yes it will be all in one application it will be all in one application and when will we expect a decision from Walton Orla then? Walton Orla is different to the council as in Gora County Council the statutory period would have to make decisions Walton Orla is a little different so I don't know when the decision will be made, I suppose when it's large we'll be given a date and sometimes that date changes but it's welcome that it will be large, a lot of people have been asking about it and they kind of said it was just a case I'd forgotten about a lot of work went into it they came up with initial plans to go to public consultation which was very good, there was huge engagement with it, it's really really important it will be for the local people for the local community at the end of the day it's really important they have input it's good that it's reaching this milestone the frustration as you'd know from constituents is the time it takes to achieve this it just really, it's like other infrastructure I suppose, like the Greenway, like other things it just seems to take forever for delivery of these different plans it does and it is very frustrating and I brought a couple of updates I'm trying to push them along but just to show people this isn't forgotten about as we're moving forward and once it's large they'll review the plans online and people still can have their say when it's large and what's known except for the consultation period there where people can make submissions to say if they love it, they like it or whatever else I think one issue I suppose that was concerning people was the parking and that's something we've always continuously raised with pre-design teams that if they're taking parking space out of the town, we need to have alternative parking that's something they're working on as well I remember it came up as a big issue ok, the flood relief scheme, again talk about regeneration, this is all part and parcel of the wider regeneration of the area remember the floods back in 2020 I think it was, was it in summer 2020 the flash floods you know, and we understand the environmental impact assessment on the proposed scheme is near completion and is designed by the end of the year when will we see delivery on this particular scheme well, it's expected now to be 2027, as you said a lot of studies have to be carried out, it is a very sensitive area the bridge is protected there's a lot of environmental constraints and everything there the other issue that came up earlier was the cost benefit ratio which didn't come out in favour of spending a lot of money on the development so Goy Country Council had to make a business case which they presented to the OPW who fund the project because we can't just look at things in financial terms, I mean there's people living along the river there, on the low road and riverside, and every time with heavy rain, I mean my heart goes out to them because you just think of them you know, have your house flooded once it's very difficult to be looking out and be concerned another winter now, wondering is there going to be floods is there going to be that risk it's huge, I mean we're talking about three years really 2027, three years before there's delivery on this case scenario, because these schemes are very time consuming and very difficult to get over the line, but the most important thing now is that the OPW will accept the business case by Goy Country Council, and we've raised it at meetings, the importance for those people living there, the importance of getting the scheme underway and giving them confidence and security in their own homes when we have an orange, yellow, or any kind of rain warning, or even heavy, like we've had so much rain this year, and there was a message in the summer, they had to use sandbags because they're concerned about the house being flooded, which actually didn't happen, but it has to be constant warning for those people and that's not any way to live it's very difficult really for them yeah, and there's no relief really in sight, three years is a long time to wait, and as you say that could be a best case scenario and I suppose the scheme had been the funding had been put in place for the scheme long before that flooding happened in 2020 so if we start it off in 2020 we'd be going into I don't know, 10 years down the line, but I mean a lot of work had been done prior to that and I suppose when that flood happened then they had to re-look at it because that was an exceptional heavy rainfall and flood, I suppose system, so they had to kind of re-look at everything again and I suppose improve what they had initially planned. Yeah, I mean a lot of these points, you know, we've talked about you know, the regeneration the relief scheme you know, the delivery of infrastructure it's not a local issue it's a national issue, isn't it? and how difficult it is, and how we're not great at it, are we in Ireland? we're not great at delivering on, delivering results there's a huge amount of red tape, unfortunately and every, you know, so like for instance, the flood relief scheme, the OPW would be the, I suppose the funding agency, and they the Goi County Council are going to work on the ground they're going to have to back up OPW for approval to go on to the next stage, and it's the same with like, building houses or schools, you go back to the Department of Education, there's so many different people involved. I think it's an area we have to get better at anyway, it's about the bottom line on that. Yeah I want to talk to you about the new bills in Clifton because I know that there's been an announcement now with 30 new social houses on the Westport Road, isn't that right? Yeah, so, I mean this was tied to development and a lot of people asked me about it and, you know, I said well the Goi County Council and because Goi County Council hadn't confirmed to me that it was, but they confirmed to me today, the contracts were signed last week and the Goi County Council has bought that as a turn key development, and you talk about today's, it is quicker for the Council to buy development like that than if the Council bought that land and went for planning, there's so many different stages the Council has to go through which takes a lot longer so the turn key development is much quicker, so the development has started, the contracts were signed late last week 30 units, it's an 18 month contract so there's 5 3-bed units, I think 8 1-bed and 17 2-beds, I hope that adds up to 30 so it's very welcome news for people on the housing waiting list, I think Coonamara has the longest wait times for housing in the county, I think other municipal districts have shorter wait times I know that we do also need affordable housing schemes, and Goi County Council at the moment are running a survey in relation to affordable schemes, and people who are interested in an affordable housing scheme can go online and fill in the questionnaire there, and that's really important to more people that do that openly, it's a better chance we have of getting an affordable housing scheme in the area because they will look at the survey and see, well, you know, there's 20 in Clifton there's 50 down Nathan High or whatever else so they will go to where I suppose to deliver where the most demand is and Eileen the Gartner Cloth House development on the hospital road, that was the original building which was the orphanage there, St Joseph's Orphanage, so that is going to be that development is complete or near completion, that development is complete, and the 18 houses there are occupied, and the I thought the old orphanage building was a protected structure, and there's apartments now there, but there's going to be I suppose an open viewing on I think it's Friday the 11th of October from 12 to 2, I thought because the orphanage was, St Joseph's, so much part of the community, that was important to have an opportunity to use the building now in its new form, which is again, you know, providing housing to people so any former residents or people who worked there or the local community to come along they can come in and have a look, and that's Friday the 11th at 12 to 2, and those houses then like the way it works isn't it, for those on the social housing list the council advertise the houses they become available on the website, and if you're interested in a particular property you register for it it's not the way it works, well those houses they have all actually been allocated now we're talking about the choice based letting which is what the council now because a lot of times they're offering houses and people are refusing them on certain occasions, so they're doing what is choice based letting, so people who are on the housing list who are qualified I think so often the council would advertise houses on the choice based letting and people who are on the list can go on there and if they're interested in a house they can register for that OK, it's a good idea to try and properly match people and try to speed up the process Eileen, we'll talk about that again maybe in more detail the council covered a range of areas there, and thanks so much for joining us this evening, thank you very much Thank you, that's councillor Eileen Mannion and just to say that again, that viewing there that Gerts MacLeod development was open viewing on Friday the 11th of October so that's Friday Friday week isn't it? from 12 to 2pm and that's anyone in the community really, former residents or members of the local community who want to view that social housing scheme are welcome to visit 12 to 2pm on Friday the 11th so that is good and it's interesting I suppose it's one of the things with those, between that development and then the contract signed last week then for the 30 houses on the Westport Road we are seeing an increase in housing in social housing in the town I suppose the question is whether that's matched then in other parts of Connemara I think there's probably a concentration maybe in Clifton because of services etc in the area but it kind of remains to be seen whether that will materialise in other parts of Connemara because obviously there's people on the housing list across communities in all parts of Connemara so we'll wait and see what happens there OK so that is that, good to talk to Eileen and I'm now joined on the line by our next guest who's Edith Geraghty who's a Programme Officer with the No Name Club Edith you're very welcome to Community Matters Thank you so much and thank you for having us we really appreciate it Edith tell us a little bit about the No Name Club what do you do? Well No Name Club the No Name Club respects the dignity and the uniqueness of all young people we support them, we advocate for them and we help to safeguard their right to enjoy their life, feel respected and to mature without a reliance on alcohol and other drugs so we run national youth clubs throughout the country and we like to give them a space to make new friends, try exciting new things and express themselves our clubs are for young people between the ages of 15 and 18 and every club is unique while we're a national organisation and they are affiliated to that each club has a unique identity because it's actually based on the interest of the young people who are running the clubs and they are supported then by our adult volunteers to do that ok so it's basically youth groups, local youth groups who are affiliated to the No Name Club organisation and then you support the development of those organisations locally, yeah? Absolutely, absolutely so we're looking obviously for adult volunteers in the first place to come and join our organisation we have videos on YouTube, just look for nonameclub.ie and that will also take you to our website so you might say, ah volunteering teenagers, ah well actually you'll never do anything more fulfilling in your entire life and we're looking for people who have maybe 3 hours to spare a week and it may not even take up that much time but we'd say 3 hours at a number, you're going to join a national organisation we will guard it out to you we will look after you, we will induct you, we will train you and you'll be supported by a training programme officer who will come to your club and be there with you for the first couple of months while you're getting off the ground and once we have our volunteer committee in place then you get your young people in the door and young people want to join Noname Club, why wouldn't they? They're going to come and have a fantastic time with us. Yeah, so you look to get your volunteers in place, your adult volunteers in place first and then you do some training with those volunteers, is that right? Yes and then you look at establishing a club in a locality That's it exactly and we're looking for a whole range of volunteers so we're not just looking for parents, we're looking for maybe somebody who's retired and it could be somebody who's very good at bookkeeping, they could do the books for that club maybe there's somebody who's very good at maintenance, so if the club had a venue, they do all the maintenance, there's many ways that you can contribute as a volunteer, so if you're interested at all, come and talk to us because we'll draw it out of you and the best committees have a range of people with a range of strengths and abilities and if you want to volunteer for Noname Club if you're over the age of 18 and under the age of 101 you're very, very welcome and how do they make contact with you Edith? You can go to our website which is nonameclub.ie and contact us through there and we will get back to you straight away and we'll put you in contact with our National Training and Development Officer a chap called Ethan Jordan he'll come down, he'll meet with you in person and he'll talk you through everything if you look at our videos on YouTube you'll see that we consider ourselves a family we've been going since 1978 we are an organisation that while respecting the rights of anybody over 18 to drink we're just asking young people when they're with us in a Noname Club not to do so and we help to educate them around alcohol and drugs and give them information so that they can make informed choices going forward but the best thing about Noname Club is we all have fun together, young people and the volunteers OK, excuse me Edith, how does Noname Club differ from other types of youth organisations? Members our audience would be familiar say with YouthWork Ireland Is there a different, unique element to Noname Club? Well, every YouthWork strand is beneficial because all of the studies show that if you have access to one good adult in your life you do have better outcomes so all YouthWork is welcome and appreciated Noname Club, we only take people aged 15 and above we just find that they tend to age out of other youth organisations by then you know, if they've gone into a club around 12 they don't really want to be hanging around by 15 so it's kind of like a developmental step and then Noname Clubs are very much based as I said, on the interest of the young people themselves, so they're affiliated to us, so we run national events so we have our National Youth Conference for example, which will be happening in November we have our National Ice Skating Day, we will have our Christmas Bowl we will have our Valentine's Bowl we will have our National Youth Awards and we have a Noname Club talent competition so those are all national events, we also have our outdoor days in Petersburg so we have a lot of activities nationally where you can get to know young people from clubs all across the country and then you have your own club's identity, so your club might be into podcasting and creating content that's what your club would be about another club might be into hiking and they do an awful lot of hiking other clubs, you know, movie nights, cups of tea, community work all that kind of thing and it's exciting for young people to join Noname Club, because they absolutely have a voice in our organisation we have a youth council and our young people join this youth council and that youth council feeds directly into the board of Noname Club, so we have a director on the board of Noname Club a guy called Fionnual Gallagher and he has come right up through the youth council and any decisions that we as an organisation make are run through the youth council, so their voice is at the heart of every decision that we make as an organisation very good, Edith Thank you very much for joining us this evening NonameClub.ie for further information and for anyone out there who may be interested in volunteering and training available with a view to setting up a Noname Club in their locality maybe a few people together might want to consider it have a chat locally with some maybe neighbours, friends, etc who might have an interest and if you could come forward as a group it would be all the better to have a basis there for setting up a youth group for 15 to 18 year olds in your community Edith, thank you for joining us Thank you, take care, bye bye And that was Edith Geraghty, their programme officer with the Noname Club and as I said their Noname Club can be, you can find out more information NonameClub.ie is the website and I think as Edith said it would probably be an investment of about 3 hours per week which I know can be a fairly significant amount but with the resources there for training and for supporting volunteers and the fact that you're linked to a national organisation there really are a lot of benefits and you're not, you know, soldiering in isolation at a local level, you've very much got the support of the national organisation so it's very much a case of of being able to access those supports so that's definitely something that to look at and if there's anyone out there I know it can be, there's a lot of different types of organisations, I know there's Florida, there's YouthWork Ireland, there's different types of organisations out there in the community who are supporting young people and the good thing as well is that they all have that kind of regional and national structure in relation to to link in with and there's loads kind of learning from and peer support from other clubs as well as around the country that are doing lots of really interesting things and there can be a huge amount of sharing and learning between all the various different organisations so it's kind of something to think about and to consider in relation to to youth clubs and if you do have a few hours to spare maybe have a think about it and see if it's something you can you can commit to. Okay, now we're just going to be joined our next guest is Siobhan Collarin who's a recovery education facilitator with the Galway Recovery College and is going to tell us a little bit about a wellness programme that is planned for Clifton Siobhan you're very welcome to the programme and just very briefly can you tell us about the Galway Recovery College and what you're about? Okay, so the Galway Recovery College were based in the University in Galway City and Galway Recovery College they're designed to enable people to become experts in their own care around their mental health and develop skills and confidence to manage their own recovery so I suppose one of the things that's unique about Recovery College is that it's facilitated by peers so by that I mean that everybody that works in the Recovery College also has a mental health challenge of their own and we would be considered experts by experience as well as experts by profession. Excellent and you have a programme called the Wellness Recovery Action Plan or WRAP it's a free 5 week programme and it's coming to Clifton from the 14th of October It is, yes, so yes as you said it's a free 5 week programme and it's recovery and mental health and it starts on the 14th of October and finishes on the 18th of November and it's coming to Clifton Town Hall so it starts at 11am in the morning and finishes at 4 in the afternoon so the day will run like this, we start at 11am, we'll work up until 1 o'clock, then we break for lunch and lunch is actually provided and then we work again between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and is it one day a week over the 5 weeks? It is one day a week so it starts, it's a Monday so it's every Monday for 5 weeks and who would be, who are you targeting I suppose with this programme? Who would most benefit from it? I suppose who would benefit most from it is people with lived experience of mental health challenges, but again anybody with any sort of challenging experiences in their life you may have somebody who have addiction issues you may have people who have had bereavement in their lives, so any sort of difficult life changes WRAP is actually for that Primarily it's targeted at people with mental health challenges And is there a maximum number of participants or people to participate in the programme? We'd like to see about 16 people participate in the programme. 16, ok and how if any of our listeners are interested how would they apply to get on to the programme or how would they find out some more information? Ok, so they can call us at 087 2139 508 or they can email us at GalwayRecoveryCollege at gmail.com Ok, so that's GalwayRecoveryCollege at gmail.com or you can call 087 2139 508 Excellent Siobhan, and that's that Wellness Recovery Action Plan the WRAP programme free 5 week programme, starting October the 14th, finishing October or November the 18th from 11am to 4pm one day a week, so that's on a what day of the week is that? That's a Monday, so it's every Monday Every Monday for 5 weeks And we do find people get great support from coming to a programme like that Yeah, and it sounds really great that it's peer led I suppose people with lived experience would be kind of leading and facilitating the programme so again, it's very much peer to peer Excellent, Siobhan, thank you so much for joining us this evening You're welcome, thanks very much for having me on Thank you, that was Siobhan Culler in there from the Galway Recovery College and again, you can email GalwayRecoveryCollege at gmail.com or contact 087 2139 508, that's 2139 508 for more information That's pretty much it from tonight's programme I want to thank Dermot Dunyon here on the sound desk in Letterfrack, Bridget O'Malley who produced tonight's programme From me, Ronan Tierney, until next time Good night, and next up is Casual News with Bernard Dee