00:00
All right, lads, how often do you change your underpants? It's time to talk. I'm listening to you on the radio at this time of the morning since I'm at least two years old.
00:08
They blocked me from trying to get a refund. It's just appalling.
00:11
The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM. You couldn't make it up, lads. The voice of Cork. Who does that like?
00:18
Be part of the conversation. The Neil Prento will show at Elevate Credit Union. Friday as we head into the weekend means that it's a free food Friday with lots of pizza. Not just pizza, but lots more besides. Courtesy of yourselves and Domino's Pizza. So if you're working, you'd like to know who you are, where you're working, who you're working with, text 0868-104-106 and I'll tell you more about free food Friday. About a half an hour's time. Paper-wise this morning, well, you know what? Tax receipts are booming. And it would appear that loans from banks and all sorts of stuff like that are also booming.
00:51
I mean, it's amazing the amount of borrowings so far this year. The Independent this morning is saying car and wedding loans are fueling €3 billion worth of borrowing. Irish consumers, at an unprecedented scale... up to last March because that's the latest figure up to March of this year. It's averaging at about €11,000 per loan. It could be a new car. It could be a home energy upgrade. It could be the cost of covering a special occasion like a wedding. It might well be for holidays, things like that.
01:23
So €3 billion in a 12-month period. It's never been that high ever. And this at a time, of course, when there's quite an amount of global uncertainty as to what's going on with regards to the world and much of it driven by America and Donald Trump. But they're talking about nearly 300,000 loans drawn down. And it's very interesting because we're looking at that this morning in The Independent. You look at the interest, the international interest rates for the ECB rate is 2%.
01:46
But that bears absolutely no resemblance to what you're being charged on a loan from a bank. Now, it can vary slightly, but would it be fair to say that it's about 10%? You get 10% interest charged on your loan. If it's a credit card, it could be as high as 20% or even higher. So I think really banks are milking it big time with the interest they're charging on loans. by comparison to the actual price that they paid to buy money themselves at 2%. And while all of that is happening, and lots of loans for all sorts of different reasons, which have to be repaid, of course, at the same time, the Mirror this morning says that we should be, but we won't be, in for some kind of a worker's budget.
02:27
come the next budget in the autumn, but I don't ever see that happen. We get those promises. They just tinker around with things. And the reason I say that is because tax receipts are just absolutely bursting at the seams with hardworking people earning money and paying their taxes. You're looking at 3.4 billion euro more than this time last year. The entire tax receipt so far that's been collected is 60 billion euro in tax receipts. So it's the workers that keep the country going. Absolutely. Like 60 billion, of which three and a half billion is an increase in just seven months alone.
03:02
Now, when you look at the same time at VAT receipts, and I mentioned this only in passing, because of that figure then, VAT accounts for over 16 billion euros.
03:13
But did you see any reduction in prices when the VAT was reduced for food businesses and hairdressers and hospitality last July? No, I don't think it did. And I think we would have been naive to think that prices would come down as a consequence. But there you have it nonetheless. Lots of stories regarding money and the state of the economy and bank loans and all sorts of stuff like that. Now, we have covered a lot over the last few days, as have the newspapers and print and online. The issues out in Balafihan and the attack down in Mahan.
03:44
A little more on that a little later on because I'm still actually getting through a lot of your thoughts and comments on it. But it's amazing because for the last three days, people from the different areas, particularly Balafihan, have been telling us on the air exactly what this was all about. And they were proved to be right in everything they're saying. So there's a bit of a synopsis in the examiner this morning from Liz Dunphy. It's pretty much what everyone in the area has been saying. Warring criminal factions were behind Tuesday evenings armed assault and the reckless car chase throughout Cork suburbs.
04:15
Now, and people were right also when they told me that there was an earlier incident on the north side of the city on Tuesday morning. And that's believed to have sparked the violence in Balafihan. Retribution, revenge, later that afternoon in Balafihan, where you had a number of masked suspects understood to have gone on a manhunt looking for a fella. They had metal bars and baseball bats and wooden bats and all sorts of stuff like that. And they found this guy on Pierce Road.
04:43
And actually, it was near a home which had earlier been hit by a Petro bomb earlier this year. So you can see this back and forth. It's all to do with warring, feuding, criminal factions. And of course, it's all centered around drugs. Now, your man escaped the scene and then there was the car chase afterward and we heard all the rest of it. So this is the reason why. Criminal feuds, all to do with drugs and territorial issues, I suppose. And then...
05:08
You know, you think you've seen it all then, but I can't say much about this court report from the Echo, apart from what we know was heard in court. So there's a book of evidence now being prepared for the case. This fellow, he denies the charges. He's up with allegations against them. He set fire to a house and he set fire to a car that was parked outside it. So this story was up in court yesterday where a fellow by the name of Dean O'Hearn has been held in continuing custody.
05:33
for preparation of the book of evidence, right? But what's interesting about this is that he's denying that he had anything to do or was responsible for the criminal damage to a fire at a house in Little Island and an earlier incident when a car was burnt outside the same house. Now, it was a woman living in the house with her young children. And the allegation is that the arsons to the car and then subsequently to the house was because of a drug debt. So we'll be interested to see what the DPP decides to do on that one, and we'll report on the court case when that happens. And there are other stories then of interest with regards to transportation of different types.
06:07
I mean, I know I covered this. Maybe I shouldn't bother bringing it up again, but just as a bit of a byline, the Independent this morning will remind us The people who ride e-scooters face a higher risk of injuries to their brain or their internal organs than cyclists or motorcyclists. Now, this is the latest analysis. We know that the most vulnerable are on e-scooters, right? Like, you know, one in 10 e-scooter riders are children. There are no helmets on. And if you see them, it's very, very rare. So the smaller you are, and if you're up on an e-scooter, you are 10 times more likely to suffer severe injuries accordingly.
06:41
So that's just, I only pass that on if anybody's thinking of a birthday present for a smallie. And then when you look at the four-wheeler ones, I see the NCT report out from across the country hones in on Cork.
06:53
where nearly 10,000 cars in Cork were deemed unsafe this year. Now, if you get an unsafe, like failed dangerous, they'll put a sticker on your car, right? The NCT inspector. And then the advice is, do not drive this vehicle away from the test centre. If you do, we will call the guards.
07:09
you should have the vehicle towed instead. So that figure is quite high, isn't it? Over 9,200 of them. And there are lots of different reasons as to why you add up all of the different NCT centres in Corka, Skib, McCroom, Charleville, Yaw, Blarney, places like that. But a lot of it has to do with things like defective tyres or defective brakes. Two kind of things that you would think would be very, very important when it comes to a motor car. And then...
07:34
There's a very interesting court report that makes The Independent today that has to do with cars or when one car crashes into another car or tips into another car. Apparently, this story has to do with a car that was just taking off, but traffic lights, you know, just taken off nice and casually. And the car behind it bumped it.
07:54
But this led to a court claim, which... It's quite interesting because it was withdrawn at the last minute then. So it's a woman by the name of Pamela Varga, a 45 year old. She's a grandmother and she claimed she suffered extensive physical and psychological injuries after her BMW was bumped by a Mazda at the traffic lights. Now, she ultimately withdrew her claim because of discrepancies in her affidavits and what she was saying in court. Things didn't add up anyway. Pamela Varga, this is out of County Kildare.
08:26
She was suing following the collision back in 2022. She was driving a BMW X5, struck at the back then by a Mazda 2, driven by a girl called Amy Forbes. But what's interesting about this is that AXA disputed the claim, right? And they said, you couldn't have the injuries you claimed to have given because we looked at the crash and it was just so minor, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what's very interesting is the...
08:47
Prosecution and defence and then the judge all got involved in the fact that the injuries that she was describing bore a very striking resemblance to allegations that were made in another case involving a claim back in 2022. And there was more than one because there was another one then in 2016 where she got three and a half grand's compensation. And then in 2022, there was another one which she had forgotten about. She initially stated she didn't remember the incident and on and on it went. She was a passenger in the car in that one.
09:18
So between the heel and the hunt then, when they broke for lunch or something, they come back after lunch. They said, well, we're not going to pursue with this. Like several people had been involved in different compensation claims paid out by Hibernian, of which Miss Varga was one of them. But the judge got very annoyed at one stage because he intervened when he saw Miss Varga looking towards her partner and seated in the public gallery, a man by the name of Yusuf Passare. And she started speaking to him up in the public gallery in Romanian. And you can't be doing that, like, if you're in the middle of a court case. So the judge said, don't be looking at him.
09:50
Look at me. And then asked whether she remembered the accident. And, of course, it all kind of fell apart then over lunch. So it's interesting to see, certainly in the case of AXA and Aviva, I think, are the same. We see more and more of them not contesting insurance claims, Yusuf. even though a lot of the time for the monies that are paid out, they would save money by actually paying out rather than contesting with regards to the legal fees. And you've got to bear in mind the legal fees for something like this and also the barristers fees, they would be quite substantial. There's a story making the Telegraph this morning.
10:21
you might be interested in. You know, with regards to surrogacy, where a couple might, you know, engage with a surrogate to give birth to their baby, money changes hands. I mean, typically in America, it could be up to $70,000 would be paid to the surrogate mother. But there's a legal battle now where a couple...
10:39
were requesting that the surrogate mother would abort the baby because of a diagnosed heart defect that was picked up a 20-week scan. This is very interesting because this is all going through the courts at the moment in America. This woman signed up to become a surrogate last year through Surrogacy Specialist Company. She was paid up to £70,000 by the couple. She described the couple at the time being a perfect match. Then she became pregnant. Then you had a 20-week scan where the left side of the heart was deemed to be severely underdeveloped.
11:09
It wouldn't necessarily mean it would be a fatal fetal abnormality. There is a chance that that could happen. But there's a bigger chance that at birth, it's a rare condition, but it could be fixed by surgery shortly after birth. But anyway, the intended parents said, no, we don't want to carry on. We would ask you to terminate the pregnancy. But the woman... As in Mackenzie West, the nurse from Alaska who became the surrogate, refused. And she says, no, I'm not going to do that. So that's very much, very much in the courts now. She decided to continue with the pregnancy, found a hospital in Texas who said that they'd treat the baby, et cetera, et cetera.
11:41
But then the intended parents stopped sending payments.
11:45
and demanded that she repay all of the money that they had already paid her.
11:51
And they also looked for damages for breaching the surrogacy agreement. And she's fighting back with regards to this because she says, for the unwarned baby, she says, I want to fight for him because he deserves a chance. So I suppose that's an example in the Telegraph when surrogacies go badly wrong. And there's another one which is, I mean, If you saw this in the front of an Irish paper, you'd do a double take on it. But here it is, front page of the Telegraph this morning, with everything that's happening with regards to, you know, the new Labour leader and the powering on in popularity of the Reform Party.
12:25
What do the Tories decide they're going to do if they get back into power? Check this out. A line in the Telegraph this morning says, the Tories will end social housing for foreigners. Anybody that comes into the UK, wherever you come from, will not be allowed to go on any council or public authority housing list. Full stop. So, Kemi Battenhock has come out and said that she will pledge to evict foreign nationals from council housing to end Britain's status as the cash machine of the world.
13:00
She says that they would eject 230,000 non-EU foreign nationals from households and that would free up the homes then for British families. I mean, if you said something like that or had a policy like that here in Ireland, how would people react to it? I'm asking you the question, how would people react to it? To a political pledge like that, text 0868104106, making Britain your home, she says, should be earned by working, paying taxes and integrating. And it should not become a free ride on the benefit system.
13:33
Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world. They have a social housing list in the UK that has 1.3 million people on it, and she is pledging that it will only be British-born people and not people coming from overseas, regardless of your circumstances. You will not get anything for nothing. How would that go down here? Text 0868-104-106. I mean...
13:56
They've got to get back into power first, don't they? And then it could well be a broken problem. A bit like the one I played for you recently with regard to Simon Harris back in 2016, saying we have to get rid of the hated USC. And the minute we get back into power, we will get rid of the hated USC. You know, anyway, please text 0868-104-106.
14:16
Actually, you have to worry about different agencies and companies that will be hired to look after people who are vulnerable or age it. Because Seamus found a story this morning from the Telegraph that said that, I mean, this is alarming and it's quite sad. There's an elderly woman was mistakenly fed microwaved dog food by a care worker. This is an investigation where the meal was taken out of a freezer and was logged on the sheet by the care worker as lamb dinner.
14:46
Apparently, the carer couldn't read the label. Now, it doesn't say whether the carer couldn't read the label or the reason behind it. It could have been that the carer didn't have good English and wasn't able to read good English and thought it was a lamb dinner, wrote down a lamb dinner. It was dog food, right? So she was under the care. She was being cared for in bed. So she was committed to bed.
15:07
And she ate the dog food because it was logged at being eaten. And sadly, the woman passed away about a month later. But the food was in packaging labelled dog food, suitable for adult dogs and puppies. And maybe the only word the care worker saw was adult dogs.
15:24
Oh, my God. It was found that she'd been given stale food, inedible food, left unattended, left wet, left in the darkness, and fed in a manner in which the family considered to be forceful. Isn't that very sad? It's barbaric in many ways, but very, very sad for somebody near end of life. And anyway, you know, the papers also talk about something that we've been talking about a lot on the air, and these are the meta Ray-Bans. I don't know if this is happening here, but there are companies now, pubs, restaurants, gyms, shopping malls in the UK that are banning the use of meta Ray-Bans.
15:59
And if security see you wearing them, they will ask you to take them off and to put them away. They're selling by the millions now. And as they get sold more and more, they're becoming more and more popular with those that are buying them, but more and more unwelcome by everybody else. Now, it all has to do with who's filming you and strangers filming and things like that. Now, Meta apparently have updated the hardware where the glasses will flash the little red light, which you can hardly see anyway when they're recording or taking a photograph. But many people are saying that they don't see this little red light.
16:31
It's just a complete and utter nonsense. So they're not aware. And a lot of the time people aren't aware until the likes of Randy Vlad and the likes of him post the stitch up videos on Instagram. So I'm wondering if that could well happen here where there'd be more and more unwelcome information in, say, restaurants and indeed pubs and public settings. You know, we talk about pubs and what's welcome and not welcome. Murphy's is powering ahead in the UK and Beamish Stout also is powering ahead in the UK. And Murphy's now is Britain's favourite Stout, apparently.
17:05
And people are ditching Guinness. They prefer... Not two things. They prefer the taste of Murphy's Irish stout and they prefer the price of Murphy's Irish stout. And it has doubled in sales as people continue to switch to a cheaper pint of stout. So you've got Murphy's, then you've got Beamish, and then you've got Guinness, and then you have all of the other British stouts that just pale into insignificance when it comes to Irish brood stout, which is great. But...
17:28
Vogue Williams. I'll come back to everything else a little later on, but I just want to finish on this one. Vogue Williams was on Heart Radio yesterday, where they did a kind of a challenge to her. And Vogue figures that she has let down her native country of Ireland. And I don't know whether she's, you know, being tongue-in-cheek about this. She's a lovely girl. She's a lovely woman. And she's very talented. So she's on the air. And they give her three categories to sample. One is tea.
17:54
Butter and crisps. So you have an Irish tea, as in Barry's. You have Irish butter, as in Kerrygold. And you have Irish crisps, as in Tato. Then you have the British equivalent, which probably was PG Tips, Country Life Butter and Walker's crisps.
18:12
So it's a blind taste. She failed all three of them. Oh, no, I wrong her. I wrong her. I wrong her. She got the butter right. She identified Kerrygold. But she failed on Barry's tea.
18:25
It wasn't able to identify that as being the Barry's tea and the preferable one. And what's really bizarre is that she failed on the crisps. Now, who could miss the taste of...
18:36
potato crisps. They're just so different to all others. And they're like chalk and cheese when it comes to Walker's crisps. They're like chalk and cheese and onion. But anyway, that's the only thing that really disappoints me, that she would fail on the crisp test, for God's sake. But anyway, we forgive her. You can come home anytime, Vogue. Don't be ashamed. We still love you. Text 0868104106.
19:00
On Red FM.
19:02
Conversation that matters.
19:04
Text 0868104106. Pick up the phone on 0818104106. A lot to cover this morning. Oh, incidentally, a little later on this morning, just thinking about people who change careers, right, and change paths in life, I will have a conversation with an Irish woman, Cork woman, who worked in the bank for many years and then decided that she would flip her career and become a private investigator. And she's booming ahead. So if you're ever thinking about maybe saying, I've always wanted to do that, or I've always wanted to do something different, this is exactly what Audrey did.
19:36
And I'm not going to say much more about it now, but it'll just get you thinking about maybe career paths or career choices. I'm not lecturing anybody, for God's sake. I'm in no position to lecture anybody, but... A lot of the time people are maybe doing things that they're not 100% happy with or feel, you know, satisfied with that type of job or that type of profession, but they've always wanted to do something else. So that's what she did. Became a private investigator. Exciting, isn't it? Sounds like a very exciting job. So more on that a little later on. So let's get stuck into the phone line. It's going to be busy this morning as usual. Carmel, good morning.
20:07
Good morning.
20:08
OK, I want you to talk us through this story because you were looking for a two week period of respite for your mother, happened to be down in Cove and everything was hunky dory and agreed. Had you gone away then to book a holiday subsequently, knowing that that had been sorted?
20:24
Yeah, so I booked it back in March, April time. And when it was secured, I booked my holiday for two weeks.
20:31
And are you carer for your ma'am then, is it?
20:34
I am, yes. I'm part-time carer.
20:36
Okay, okay. And of course, respite is great. It gives you opportunity and it's a change of scene for people as well. So it's win-win. So what happened?
20:45
So I'm new to this. I never used respite before until this year. So I used it back in May. I went on a long weekend, so I put mum in for a week. It was kind of a test just to see how she'd get on. My sister was there just in case, if she didn't settle, that she'd be able to take her. So everything went great. She got on great. She loved it. So I went and I booked two weeks then. So I was saying she'd get on great and I'll have my holiday.
21:10
And how does respite work then financially?
21:13
So you have to book it through your public health nurse and they arrange then somewhere that has available beds. um for you uh you don't pay anything because of um it goes through the hfc so you're entitled to four weeks in a year of respite good if you need it um so i didn't know should i contact them it was coming up to the time it's only in 10 days time that we're going away so i said i'd ring um so i rang cove and i just said look i'm double checking that my mom's name is down and it's yeah we have her down for two weeks all great Yesterday afternoon, quarter past three, I received a phone call from the public health nurse saying the room has been cancelled.
21:55
There's no respite there for your mum.
21:57
When?
21:59
Yesterday afternoon.
22:00
And when is she due to go down?
22:03
Next Tuesday week.
22:05
OK, and did they give you an alternative?
22:08
OK, so have you an alternative? No, no, we don't. You'll have to ring private nursing homes.
22:18
And I went, but what do you mean? I have to, I said, like, could you give me names who I should bring? Oh, no, that's not a HSE issue. You'd have to look them up, bring them. We will give you a grant towards a private nursing home.
22:34
So I looked into that. I think it's about 600 euros per week.
22:39
How much would private residential respite cost for a fortnight?
22:43
1,500 a week, so 3,000.
22:46
So you'd be poning up 2,400 if you could find somewhere.
22:50
If I could find somewhere, which I was in work yesterday. So during no customers coming in, I was ringing around. I rang eight different private nursing homes. One said they'd get back to me. They didn't know if they had looms, they would get back to me. It would cost 3,000 euro. And I said, look, I have this form that I can give you for emergency grants or whatever. And they said, that's fine.
23:13
What did the other seven say?
23:15
Full.
23:16
Okay.
23:17
Yeah.
23:18
Okay.
23:18
Which I can understand because I booked respite in March. Like everybody else do, you have to plan ahead.
23:25
And what reason was given, because you're entitled to a reason, I would think, for this last minute U-turn?
23:32
Yeah. Health and safety issues around staffing.
23:36
Okay. Has this anything to do with this HICWA report into Cove Community Hospital?
23:42
Yes, exactly. It has, which I found out later. Yeah.
23:45
Okay. There are some ongoing concerns that need required action by the provider. Is that it?
23:53
Yeah. Yeah. I have no problem being told, look, you can't go to Cove, but here is an alternative ADRC.
24:02
But to be told that it was cancelled, go find your own, you know, at this notice, late notice, it's impossible. And fair enough, I'm going to get a grant to cover some of it. But on a two-week holiday, I don't think it's worth paying out that much. To go on a two-week holiday, yes, I need a break, and my mum needs a break. She loves going and meeting people. She was a very sociable person back before she got dementia. So I'm kind of trying to give her an outing as well.
24:31
And her condition, is it something she's looking forward to, or is she aware of the respite?
24:38
She wouldn't be aware, no, she wouldn't be aware. No, no, no.
24:42
OK, like because this, I can't see why a HICWA report would stop your ma'am going down for a fortnight because it's already got lots of other residents there who are remaining there anyway, right?
24:55
Exactly, yes, yes.
24:57
And like if they see a report, why can I not bring in extra staff?
25:02
The report found inadequate staffing, particularly at night, which affected residents' daily activities. Perhaps they're saying we can only deal with what we have following this HICWA report and we are so short of staff we can't bring anybody else in.
25:18
Looks like that would be fair enough to say, look, OK, you have so many booked in, that's it. There's no more bookings being allowed until you sort out what needs to be sorted out. But not to go along and cancel. I know I'm not the only family that has been affected. There's probably several more families.
25:32
Well, if there has been, I'd love to hear from them. Text 0868 104 106 with regards to cancelled respite. But, I mean, like, there's a lot of compassion needs to be shown in this, but also there's a financial aspect to it. Where are you going on holidays?
25:47
I'm going to Spain, mainland Spain.
25:49
Okay. And do you mind me asking how much all of that cost?
25:53
1,500 euro. Okay.
25:55
Okay.
25:56
So non-refundable, of course, because I was saying, look, you can take the option. Yeah, exactly. You take the option that, look, everything is going to go to plan. You don't pay the extra to get it refundable. OK, so yeah.
26:09
So it's highly likely that you won't find somewhere. Does that mean you cancel and just belay the loss of the holiday?
26:16
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
26:18
How do you feel about that?
26:19
If my mum got sick, I would cancel, you know.
26:22
I feel that it shouldn't happen. You know, respite isn't a luxury for me. It's a necessity. It gives me a break away. It gives my mom a break, gets her into a new scenery of dealing with people that know what they're doing. I'm going day to day kind of knowing what I'm doing, you know. For my health reasons, I need a break.
26:44
it's come to a stage now that my health has gone down so I've handed in my notice at work and I'm leaving work to spend time with my mum.
26:53
You're upset about that?
26:55
I'm very upset.
26:59
I think that upset is very much compounded by the fact that you're exhausted.
27:06
Sorry.
27:08
Yes, I don't sleep that much anymore.
27:13
Because, like, my mum gets up every few hours, go to the toilet, whatever. So I'm aware of that.
27:20
All through the night?
27:21
All through the night. All through the night.
27:25
And do you go to work then in the morning, then, and hold down an eight-hour day?
27:27
Yeah.
27:28
So, yeah, so I was working. My dad passed away at the end of 2019. I was working full-time, but I had to change to part-time to look after my mum. It came to the stage that she had to have full-time care. So I've been working part-time since. But it's just come to a stage now that, for me, I can't continue doing what I'm doing.
27:53
You're burnt out, like many others like you, who do what they want to do.
27:59
It's necessity, but it's very much grounded by love. But have you anyone else to help?
28:06
I have. I have my sister that helps if I do get away.
28:11
And I have a brother that calls as well.
28:14
But, like, they have their lives, you know, and they have their family as well to look after. So, like, it was my choice to give up full-time work to look after my mum. So, like, and as you said, it's done out of love. My mother did it for her mother, so I would do it for mine.
28:33
But, like, there's no help.
28:36
They say they're helping, but they don't. This isn't helping what they just did to me yesterday. That certainly isn't helped.
28:45
Yeah, you get caught between two stools. The HSC saying, well, it's not our problem. You need to deal with it directly and we'll give you a few bob towards it. And of course, you have the care home then that says, oh God, this HICWA report is not the best thing in the world. Shortest staff, we'd better cancel all respite. But they don't look beyond that really into the actual human lives and the consequences to families. And for all of us, family comes first, of course.
29:09
It does, of course. And like, if all carers say tomorrow across Ireland decided, look, I can't do this anymore. How much financial pressure would that put on the government?
29:19
But you see, they know that carers won't do that because they wouldn't do that to their loved ones.
29:26
No, no.
29:28
I know.
29:30
So are you waiting out now for the last one to come back and say?
29:34
Yeah, I'm waiting now to see that...
29:37
Some hospital or somewhere will have a bed for my mum on those dates.
29:44
If you're not sleeping, you must know how much that impacts on your general health, physical and mental.
29:51
I know, and I know my health has gone down. I've been to my GP, I'm trying to sort out, because I know if my health goes, who's going to look after my mum then? You know, I moved out of my own home back into my mum's. I was only married in 2018, so I left my husband and daughter to move back in with my mum.
30:12
And your husband and daughter back in the family home and you're in with mum?
30:15
Yep.
30:17
Wow, what a... It's a great marriage.
30:20
Ah, listen, I know. It's far from ideal. But it's a sacrifice that...
30:25
It's a sacrifice that I've decided that I would do for my mother.
30:29
And when do you go back to the family home, your husband and daughter?
30:33
I don't.
30:35
They come up all right to me and I cook dinner.
30:39
That's the time we have together.
30:42
So they come to where you are, to your mam's house for dinner and then go back into the home.
30:45
Is that ideal?
30:47
I mean, I don't mean to micromanage your life, but... Oh, I know.
30:50
It's not ideal, but that's the way it has to be. I can't go along and say to them, look, we have to sell up the house. Come on up and live with my mam. You know, they have lives as well. So it's working for the moment-ish.
31:07
And others must be aware, like, that you're... You're at the end of your tether.
31:13
Yeah, yeah.
31:16
I get on with it. I put on a brave face and I just, you know, I go out and I scream at the shrubs now and again in the evenings.
31:24
I'm lucky that I live in the countryside, you know, and since I'm mad.
31:29
Would you really have a good shout, you would? Or a good cry? Oh, I do.
31:32
I do, I have to. Sometimes when, yeah. And I've said to myself, stop crying. What is crying going to do? I'm soft.
31:41
No, you're not. I mean, it's not a vulnerability.
31:46
It's just a fact.
31:47
Yes.
31:50
And is there anything that can be done to try and help you with this?
31:54
I know you wanted to highlight it because it's frustrating beyond words, but I wonder, is there anybody in a position maybe to help in this regard?
32:02
I don't know. It's just if there's available beds anywhere that could help.
32:08
in any of the, I don't know, even in the private nursing homes. I know some private nursing homes do allocate beds to the HSE.
32:17
Because like, realistically, I can't go down the private nursing home because it's not worth going on a holiday.
32:23
No, you'd be, you'd be, no, listen, that's another two and a half grand on top of the 1500. Would it be, I mean, like you, you'd cancel that. You'd cancel the holiday cheaper than paying the rest.
32:34
But what's important?
32:37
Yeah. Well, you, you, you, you could, you can't, you can't do that because there's nowhere for you to go and you're not going to get a refund. But it's a real kick in the teeth considering the work that you do with love, which is actually putting your own life on hold. You know, a lot of other aspects of your life you're not fulfilling. You know, things you should be doing because, listen, you know, you love your mother. I understand all of that. And these are the things we do. But...
33:04
It's kind of very upsetting then when those that should be helping at a time like this for a bit of respite for both won't help and just literally drop you like a stone.
33:17
And like whoever did decide to make a decision, why didn't they pick up the phone and ring all the families that they cancelled on? No, they just handed it down, down along the ladder.
33:27
and got them to do it.
33:28
And I mean, I'm not prying, but there's no way you could talk to your brother and sister and say, look, this is just after falling off a cliff at this stage. I know they've got other lives, but is there any chance for the two weeks that you guys will just... My sister's actually going on holidays as well that time.
33:45
It happened because it was secure. Like, you know, when you sign a paper saying, these are the days I want, it's like a contract. You think... you know, it's signed, sealed and delivered. You don't expect a week before you're going that you get cancelled.
34:03
Well, I have to say, you certainly are shining a light on behalf of other people who themselves are carers for a loved one. That's for sure. And how difficult it can be and how you really put your own life on hold.
34:16
And I see it because I run a WIST in Caratool and I go to all the WIST during the winter months. And I see husbands or I see wives looking after their partners and there is no help.
34:30
And I work in a pharmacy and I see customers coming in and I know who they're looking at. There is no help. They're doing it themselves.
34:38
You know, it's not out there. Maybe there is help out there, but it's not being given to the right people.
34:46
I hope that somebody could well be listening that might have a solution or some way of helping you out with this. And listen, if I hear of anything, I'll be back to you. And you come back if you get any updates in this regard.
34:58
I will.
35:00
I mean, you don't need it, you know, Carmel. You just don't need this. You don't need this.
35:05
No, there's enough bubbles in the world.
35:07
Yeah, there is enough going on.
35:08
Yeah.
35:09
All right. Okay. I'll get back to you if I hear of anything. Thanks, Carmel. Stay in touch. Will you text 0868 104 106? Anyone in a position to offer some direction or advice in this one, pick up the phone 0818 104 106.
35:21
Get on to Prenderville.
35:23
Text or WhatsApp Neil now. 0868 104 106. The Neil Prenderville Show.
35:31
Be part of the conversation. Text 0868 104 106. I have a very large one-bedroom apartment upstairs over our home with its own separate side entrance. This is to do with housing. There is no lack of housing, actually. There's lack of initiative. That's what it is. You see so much that could be turned around very quickly. Anyway. It's got a separate side entrance. It's only about a 20 minute walk from the city centre. I would be happy to let it at a reasonable price. But I'm afraid of bringing someone into our home and having the place abused through things like parties. If I could get someone who was coming to study and needed a lovely new clean apartment for a year, I would consider it.
36:07
The problem is that once someone is in your property, there are tenancy rules and it can be very difficult to get them out if things go wrong. The 14,000 tax-free would certainly help us as we're both nearly 70. It's a shame to leave the apartment empty and the extra income would really help with bills, which are becoming increasingly difficult for pensioners to meet. Don't get my details, but I love listening every day. Yeah, I know. I mean, you're afraid to take a gamble. And that's a shame, really, because, you know, if you could get some kind of background checks done or you had references or things like that, or you just could get the right tenant, wouldn't it be absolutely ideal?
36:48
And I think maybe you should look at doing something because you just can't kind of sit back and say, well, I won't because this could happen or that could happen or nothing could happen. But... You won't know unless you try. And if you can just get the right tenant, you drive on, you get 14 grand a year tax free added to your pension. On antisocial behaviour, you spoke about drug dealers just being brought before the courts and getting a slap on the wrist. But there is a law that says that any amount of drugs with a value of 13,000 carries a sentence of 10 years or more.
37:19
It is enforced only a mere few times because the culprit is from a decent family or the culprit is going to rehab or the culprit has had a bad childhood. I'm afraid, no. If they do the crime, they should do the time, regardless of who they are, where they came from or their background. I'd also open up the old prison. I presume it's still fully functioning. Yes. And that is the plan, actually, to make a big, massive super prison up around the Glen and to reuse the old one. So keep those coming. Text 0868104106. We're going to do a lot of stuff this morning by phone, obviously, because we have a lot of different topics on the boil.
37:54
Amongst them, those metaglasses, right, which to me are an absolute pest and a scourge. Lisa, good morning.
38:01
Morning, Neil. How are you?
38:02
So they're being banned in more and more places now where people seem to be wearing them at all. Take them off. Just take them off. You're a nuisance. But you have a pair.
38:10
I do. I heard on your show, I'd say it could have been six months or more ago, a man from Cove that heard about them, a visually impaired man, Richard or something. That's right.
38:20
Lovely, lovely guy.
38:22
Yeah, I was listening to that. So I looked into him and within a couple of days, I went up to Brown Thomas and I bought them.
38:30
Now, did you buy them?
38:32
Let me just tell people, it's because you're visually impaired.
38:35
You weren't buying them for the crack.
38:38
Oh, no, no. And probably you wouldn't be buying them for the crack anyway.
38:41
How much were they?
38:42
They were 550.
38:44
Forget about it.
38:47
Yeah, but now for what I bought them for, that's very cheap because there's nothing like that out there. But...
38:55
Yeah, so for the last few years, I wouldn't have been able to go to the supermarket on my own to do a shop without my husband, my children, or tormenting the staff in the shop.
39:05
And is that the way it used to be? You'd have to get staff to help?
39:08
Yeah.
39:09
Did you feel as if you were tormenting them?
39:12
It depends on the shop. Some shops are great. And, you know, being in a small town, a lot of people would know I'm visually impaired, so it's not a bother. But other shops, then, you could be just they could be busy or, you know, you feel like you're annoying them.
39:27
Yeah, that's how you felt anyway. You can't help how you feel. All right. OK, go ahead.
39:31
So I got the glasses and now I can go into the shop. They just look, I'm sure you've seen them, like black framed clear glass. So they just look like gardening glasses. And I can do my shopping. I can walk up to where I think a certain thing is and say, hey, Meta, look, what's this? It'll tell me what it is. I can say what's the best before date on this. I can ask ingredients on it, anything at all.
39:56
Post coming into the house, I can now read and not wait for my husband to come home to read it. Medications, a menu in a restaurant, anything like that.
40:08
It's actually given me back so much independence.
40:11
So it talks to you, it reads out, you have a conversation with it.
40:15
Yeah, on the arm of the glasses, so nobody else can hear it. It's going behind your ear where the glass, the arm of the glasses is.
40:23
Would you be able to say, you walk into an Aldi or a Lidl, Tesco, etc., bring me to the aisle where the detergent is?
40:32
No, but you could go down the aisle and say, hey Meta, where's the detergent? And it might say three shelves down on the left, but you have to be kind of looking in that general area for the camera to pick it up.
40:44
Wow.
40:45
That's life changing, isn't it?
40:47
It's absolutely life changing. Even if I go to the supermarket now with my husband and he'd go to pick something up or I'd have something in my hand and he'd go to read it and say, stop, you know, because I have independence back. I can do it myself.
41:02
Now, there are other features on it, as you heard, Neil. I can, if I want to go for a walk, we say I can activate the camera and my husband can be on WhatsApp and he can speak through the glasses and say, turn left, turn right.
41:15
Do you do that?
41:18
I couldn't be bored. He'd be bored out of his brains. No.
41:21
Might do it once and say, well, don't do that again.
41:26
So he could look at his phone and through WhatsApp, he's seen what I can see through the glasses and he could be miles away. He could be anywhere and see where I'm going and stuff. Now, I don't activate that. I don't activate the video. I don't activate the camera because I don't. That's not what it's for. But I'd be absolutely more. It's not embarrassing, Neil. It takes away, even though it gives me a lot of independence, it takes away a little bit of that independence by having to put them on.
41:54
Why? Like I was in, well, I was in Aldi a few weeks ago and I had to take them off and there was a girl next to me and I had to say, sorry, can you find such a thing for me? Because my glasses are gone dead and she just kind of looked at me stupid. The battery was gone out or it mightn't pick up your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on your phone.
42:14
Okay, but apart from the odd tech glitch, it's rock and roll for you. So can I ask you, being visually impaired, how much sight do you have?
42:25
Well, 6 over 60 is a medical term. I don't know. I don't know.
42:30
Not a lot, but I can get around. You know, I kind of get on with it.
42:34
Shapes, like, is it?
42:36
Yeah, shapes, colours and blur kind of. Blur, okay. I can get around, yeah. When I go running, I have a certain place that I go running, a route that I know. And the same when I go for a walk, then a certain separate route that I know.
42:51
Yeah, but if there's something dropped or if there's a rock or somebody discards a can, isn't that a danger?
42:57
I haven't gone over it.
43:00
And have you fallen, tripped up?
43:03
Yeah, a few times.
43:04
Injured yourself?
43:06
Yeah.
43:07
So if you're in a restaurant then before the meta specs, who'd read the menu for you?
43:15
Whoever's with me.
43:15
Yeah. I mean, it's a question you could put to any person who's visually impaired or blind. Somebody else has to do it.
43:23
Yeah.
43:23
But not anymore now. You can just do it.
43:25
No, no.
43:28
Yeah. So that's the that's the upside. That's the upside to them.
43:32
Oh, they're life changing. I have a friend in Mayo and he gradually went blind as he got older and he'd go to the pub a couple of nights with his friends and sit there while they play cards. And I told him about the glasses when I got them. Now he's very savvy when it comes to computers. He put QR codes on the cards and put it all into the phone, which connects to the glasses. And now he goes out and plays cards.
43:54
So he plays cards with his pals because he's put QR codes on all of the, what is it? Is there 52 cards on the deck or something?
44:00
All the playing cards, yeah, yeah.
44:02
And he's back in with the lads now.
44:04
Back in with the lads playing the game of cards, it's just after changing his life completely as well. So why then?
44:10
Why then doesn't a country that's supposed to be awash with money, we're having a massive big tax take again this year, 60 billion. They weren't even expecting that kind of money. Why wouldn't they give those out to everybody who is legally deemed to be visually impaired? Look at the change in their life for 500 euro.
44:25
No, no, the National Accounts for the Blind, I know they've changed their name recently, but they are amazing. They are brilliant. I don't ask for much. We say I've got a laptop or an iPad over the years. They're fantastic like that. But when it came to the metaglasses, because I think it's, I don't know why, to be perfectly honest with you, but no, they don't fund us.
44:46
Or make it tax deductible or something.
44:49
You can get the VAT back.
44:51
No, that's only like 70 or 80 euros. I'm talking about the whole lot.
44:55
Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. They're not funded.
44:58
All right. That's brilliant.
44:59
Yeah. That's brilliant. No, they are. And I'd be mortified if someone came up to me in the restaurant or a supermarket and asked me to take them off. And anyone that's listening and sees me with the glasses on, I'm not videoing yet. I don't care enough to be videoing and they're taking photos.
45:12
You don't care about anybody. I wish to God we could all get across that line and say, nobody cares about anything except themselves.
45:22
I just don't care enough. I'm in there to get my shop and get out. I don't care what you've got in your trolley, to be perfectly honest with you. I hope that lady before me gets sorted, Neil. I think carers are very badly treated in this country, just on another note. I hope she gets sorted.
45:38
And so do I. And I would love if somebody was in a position to help, you know, because the system can be very cold, very dismissive. Oh, I know. It is. Yeah.
45:48
Well, I'm delighted with regards to your independence restored, Lisa. Mind yourself. Thanks for taking the call.
45:53
Thanks a million, Neil. Thanks. Bye-bye.
45:55
All the best. Text 0868 104 106. Back after 10.
46:04
Be part of the conversation, the Neil Prendival Show with Elevate Credit Union. It's Friday. And as we head into the weekend, so you're at work, right? And you've got lots of workmates around you. How about lunch? Well, again, this week, Domino's are on board and we have food that will feed up to 15 of you. So let's say you've never got involved in Free Food Friday. Start today. Start texting and keep texting week after week. And finally, we get around to everybody. So make that move, right? Text who you are and where you're working to 0868 104 106.
46:35
We have for you, if you win, Red Patrollers will deliver this lunchtime, three large pizzas. The biggest ones... What am I talking about? Five of the biggest... They are the biggest ones that Domino's do. We've got a cheese, pepperoni passion... We've got the cheeseburger, the Texas barbecue, and the ultimate hot honey with pepperoni. But on top of that, there's boxes of chicken wings and boneless bites and chicken kickers and chicken tenders and lots of potato wedges and dips. Very important, the dips. You know, all the dips for the different things, including the pizza. So it's a big swag of food, if you like, from Domino's.
47:09
So text who you are and where you're working to 086-8104-106. Get involved. We'll start the first bunch of shout-outs in about 15 minutes' time. Also, bear in mind, I know I'm doing a bit of housekeeping now, but it's important. We continue across the month of August to give away wonderful family passes to all sorts of great tourist attractions in our beautiful county. And at the moment, we're doing the very popular Clonacilty Park Adventure Centre and golf. They just put in 10-pin bowling alleys down there as well. They've got aerial trekking and high ropes and climbing tires and zip lines and power fan jumps and adventure golfs.
47:39
Oh! loads of things to do for the family of all ages. So we'll be giving away more of those family passes before midday today. We open the phones randomly, but also calls, texts and emails. Best of wins one of our family passes on this here program. So get involved in all of the conversations. Text 0868104106. Massive response already this morning on a couple of different items, which I will come back to through a course of the morning. Interestingly, when you talk about metaglasses, for those that are visually impaired, superb. But obviously there are those that abuse them and it's an invasion of privacy thing.
48:12
It's very interesting that Meta are getting into more and more hot water. They've just ordered to pay over a billion dollars over child safety failings on their platforms. There's a judge in New Mexico now who said that Meta are a public nuisance. And they've been fined a billion because of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and I suppose the harm that it could cause to children using the platform. What's very interesting is that later this month, there's a trial against Meta beginning in California and they'll face four of the 29 states That'll be another one.
48:47
Suing the company, alleging that it's knowingly designing features that addict children to its platforms. So there is some pushback and some are fighting back. Meanwhile, by text to 0868104106, I sent you a video of Roma's stealing from Lidl in Toker yesterday. Why aren't you talking about it? Because they're foreigners, I suppose. You had no problem in talking about the man who stole the stakes from Dunn's, says John.
49:16
Okay, if you're calling me out on that, that is not the reason why I didn't mention it.
49:21
I just hadn't got around to it by the time you and others started texting about it. I have seen the video, which was recorded, I'm assuming, by a security member of staff from Lidl in Toker. And I have watched it. It's not for the first time that I've seen videos like that. In fact, it's not for the first time I've seen videos like that in Cork supermarkets. What's very interesting about it for me, because people from all sorts of different nationalities rob in supermarkets, right? We know of that. And we have known in the past, we've seen from court reports, a number of members of the Roma community robbing in supermarkets.
49:57
But what was very intriguing about this one, and it's probably what John is talking about in his text, and there's another few actually calling me out on this, is the quantity that the quantity that could have been stored inside the pleats of the long skirts. Now, I don't know how they're designed, but I'm assuming that inside the skirt, there are all sorts of pockets in there. And I have to be very careful dealing with stories like this, because in the past, I get into all sorts of hot water with regards to, you know...
50:30
claims of racial discrimination. So all I can do is say, yes, I have seen the video. And I thought it was extraordinary, the amount of products, because the woman was stopped, the door was locked, the guards were called, right? And then, and in fairness now, the security staff in the lead in Tokar, they weren't taking any nonsense, let me say. They wanted to know what was inside and they wanted the woman to take everything out. Now, I wouldn't be sharing this video because you get into issues then with regards to racial discrimination or what have you, but I have seen it.
51:06
And there's a vast quantity of meat. I mean, like so much meat.
51:11
Loads and loads and loads and loads of rashers and sausages. And what else did I say? Oh, yeah. Washing up detergent.
51:23
You know, the big plastic bottles of fabric conditioner.
51:28
Fairy liquid. I mean, you have no idea. Like, I couldn't even begin to count the amount of things. But you're starting to talk about 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20. 40, maybe 50 different packaged items came from inside the pleats or the pockets of the skirt. So I have seen it.
51:47
It went to let justice take its course, but I have seen then subsequent to stories like this, countless, and I mean countless, court reports of people who will then end up in court for attempted robbery and burglary and shoplifting and thieving. So it was astonishing, the amount.
52:05
of product or produce or meat that came from inside. And of course, it's all wrong. I mean, I don't know what you would do with that kind of quantity of food. I don't know whether it's sold on, whether it's a market for it or whether you're feeding huge families on the basis of it, but all from inside the skirts.
52:22
Happy with that, John?
52:25
Job done on that one. It hadn't passed me by. I had seen it. And if people want to comment on that, I'm okay with that too. Text 0868-104-106. After the break.
52:34
Listen to The Neil Prendiville Show wherever you go. Download the Go Loud app, the new home of Red FM.
52:41
The Neil Prendiville Show on Red FM.
52:45
The Neil Prendival Show. Pick up the phone. Text 0868 104 106. Here's an incredible story for you. If you ever thought of changing career, you might be in a job that you maybe think isn't for you anymore. You'd like to go down maybe a different career path. You might like to investigate other avenues. And you know something? Investigate is actually the word. And that's exactly what Audrey Philpott did. Because she previously worked in banking and now has her own firm, Clarity Investigations.
53:15
Ladies and gentlemen, she's a private investigator. Audrey, good morning. Good morning, Neil. How are you? What an incredible job. Let's get to it in a moment. But you previously worked in banking, right? Yeah. For a period of your life. At what stage during banking did you realise, firstly, that you wanted a career choice? And secondly, that being a PI was the path you wanted to follow?
53:36
It kind of happened organically. I was in banking for about 15 years, AIB and Bank of Ireland, and a family matter occurred and I hired a private investigator to help us with that. During that case, I actually ended up assisting him in the financial elements of the case because of my financial background. And he then offered me part-time work in the industry and I grew to love it. As luck would have at Bank of Ireland... had redundancy packages that were offered and I decided to take the chance and I took it.
54:07
And I remained working for that firm for a number of years. And then I wanted to go out on my own so that I could work things better around my young family and my mum. So I have more control over my hours and all of that.
54:20
So I get to the hours because I imagine that they're very, very long and there's no such thing as a nine to five. But you have to train for a job like that, do you?
54:28
There's a path. So first of all, you need to get your licence from the ICSE, which is an employee licence. Then you need to work under a contractor. So there's about 80 contractors in the country. Within that contractor... framework, there are approximately 300 employees. 50 of those are women and roughly 250 are men. So it's about an 80-20 split.
54:48
They've got to get that balance more equally divided, don't they?
54:52
It would be nice certainly to get that up to a more balanced level.
54:55
So would you describe yourself as always having been a curious kind of a person then?
54:59
For sure. Even as a kid, I was always interested in private investigation and mysteries and novels and way back, The Famous Five, like when I was reading as a child, it was always in there. And I ended up going into the bank in my twenties and The bank didn't suit my family life because it's nine to five. And, you know, when you've young children and I'm a single parent as well, it just made sense. And I love the work.
55:24
I absolutely love the work. I'm quite sure that no two days are the same, no two weeks are the same. There are lots of different types of investigation. Is it like on television? Is it surveillance, gathering evidence, following people?
55:37
There's a certain element of what you see on TV. You can take that with a pinch of salt, what you see on TV or what you see in American TV shows. But for us, broadly speaking, we've got kind of three main clients. They would be private clients that would come to us for infidelity matters, family law. Maybe they need help preparing evidence for court or because of my financial background, I would often do financial analysis for divorce proceedings when someone supplies their affidavit and means I'll go through it and try and ascertain the parts that might be useful to my client and then we do other items for the business and retail community like mystery shopping so mystery shopping is what it says in the tin you go into the business you assess them under various criteria and you come back with a report talk about the divorce aspect of it are you saying that you would investigate as to whether one of the spouses is divulging everything with regards to their finances I would do a deep dive into the financials that they have supplied to my clients.
56:35
So they might have supplied an affidavit of means. And because of my banking background, I would be in tune with bank statements. We would go through the bank statements rigorously. There might be one transaction going to one account elsewhere. This is just for an example. That would lead you to a whole plethora of transactions. additional wealth that they may not have disclosed, things like that. You know what I mean?
56:56
Yeah, pulling on a loose string, of course, and everything falls down accordingly. You know, when you talk about suspected infidelity, it's where one spouse thinks or believes or has a suspicion about the other, is it?
57:09
Yes, of course, yeah, that the other party is behaving or is involved in extramarital relations and they would... employ our services to see if that is the case or not. By the time they get to us, they already know that it's happening and they want validation. Then we will put basically an operational requirement casework in place and then we will follow that casework and then we will deliver a report for the client.
57:35
And how much can you tell us about that? I mean, are we talking about fitting a GPS tracker to a car?
57:40
No, you're not allowed to track anybody. Usually, I'll give you like an example. Someone might have uncovered an email of a booking to a hotel in their partner's email or their phone or whatever the case may be. And they are saying they're going to be somewhere else and they have a booking for a hotel. We will set up a surveillance operation at that hotel. Then we will go back to the client with the results.
58:01
That doesn't involve a face-to-face confrontation. It's kind of some form of video recording or something, I'd imagine.
58:07
Yeah, you would take video evidence usually, or you may have evidence of, you know, walking by, them arriving, them leaving, that kind of thing.
58:14
And it's interesting you say that the partner usually knows in advance, but just wants confirmation of it. Do you ever do an investigation, I'm just thinking out loud, where it's not true and you have to say, well, actually, no, it's not happening?
58:27
Yes, yes, absolutely. We do come across cases where the subject as the person that is being surveilled is innocent. And our job in that instance is to go back to the client with a clear report to say that there was no evidence of infidelity found.
58:41
And have you ever done stats as to how many suspected infidelity cases you've done and how many of them were surveilling, if you want for a better term, men?
58:51
Or women? Are there more men or women?
58:53
Well, I can tell you, I can tell you off the top of my head in my own experience, it's pretty much 50-50.
58:59
Is it?
58:59
Yes. So I would work for male clients and female clients. It is pretty much 50-50. There are certain times of the year maybe where, you know, the men might outstrip the ladies and then it will pull back again over the next few months. And by Christmas, we're usually ending on level pegging.
59:14
I know we're dwelling a lot on infidelity, but do you find that person who is having an extramarital affair or not being faithful is very sloppy about it? Or do they put a lot of work and effort into trying to cover their tracks?
59:26
That varies a lot. Some people will make a huge amount of effort to cover their tracks. Other people won't. It really does depend on the case.
59:35
And are female investigators unique in this with regards to are they would they be stronger in this kind of area or do they have any unique advantages when it comes to, you know, access to things and places that they could go? Am I making sense?
59:47
I think there's a place. Yeah, you're making sense. I think there's a place for both men and women. I mean, I have four men at the moment, one literally that I took on this morning to cover the northwest region. And we both bring different elements to a case. It depends on the case. So, for example, if we were working for a male client and the subject is a female, a female investigator can be more useful because we have access to women's bathrooms, women's locker rooms, places that men can't go. So we would have a slight advantage in that area.
60:19
And likewise for the boys, The same would apply if there are areas that men or women cannot go for those type of reasons, then obviously it would be advantageous to have an investigator that would have access to those type of areas. It will depend on the case.
60:32
You have to be invisible, don't you? You have to kind of blend in. The last thing is being seen or being rumbled, I suppose.
60:38
We call that being made, M-A-D-E. Made. Yeah, being made, you were made.
60:44
We try to avoid that, obviously, at all costs. I mean, it does happen. It doesn't happen very often because, you know, we hone our skills and we try, for the most part, to ensure that we're not seen. Unless the job requires it, sometimes the job requires where you are more involved with the subject. And that might be a staff member going into a store. You might have to have an interaction face to face. It's so varied. And that's why I absolutely love the job because no two days are the same. Like today I'm working on a high court case, a financial fraud case.
61:18
And yesterday I was bringing an elderly gentleman from A to B as a companion because my client was a little bit apprehensive that, you know, they wouldn't be able to navigate the And I just went with them and I was their companion. I made sure they got there safely. So there's stuff outside of what you'd normally think that we do.
61:37
I imagine you've done things like insurance fraud that must involve surveillance, right? And incidentally, you must have some surveillance equipment as well, or indeed maybe the best of it, do you?
61:49
Every investigator will have their basic kit. I mean, you must have a suitable vehicle. Like my own vehicle, for example, everything in the back is blacked out so that you can sit, you know, inconspicuously in the street and no one knows you're there. If they can see the front of the car is empty, so the back would be blacked out. And then your kit, which you build over the years, and I've built my kit over the years, you have a really good camera, you've got a short range camera for close-up work, and then you've got a longer range camera for That is required for other types of work.
62:20
So you have multiple cameras. And then night vision sometimes is a real godsend when you're in a, you know, a nighttime situation. And then things like disguises, wigs, glasses, scarves, jackets, hats, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
62:36
So kind of a lot of it is a lot of what we see on TV, to be honest with you. But it would need to be.
62:41
Yeah, there's a lot of that kind of stuff. But you kind of hone your skills and you develop your skills. It's very expensive.
62:45
Exciting, though, isn't it? I mean, I know that more and more insurance companies now are pushing back and they're making sure that claims are valid because they want to do right by those that are paying their premiums. So they're fighting more cases. So they're going to need you to be able to prove to them that the person who is injured or whatever can't walk, isn't running half marathons kind of thing. Yeah.
63:04
We'll say the insurance company has a suspicion or it could be a business that someone is trying to defraud them and they suspect that the injury is not actually real or it could be an employee, any of those type of things. They are put under surveillance for a number of days and then we try and ascertain if the injury is real. I mean, sometimes they make it very easily. Sometimes they don't provide any evidence that their injury is not real. You know, we will go back with a report basically stating that the subject did not do anything wrong. that is, you know, untoward.
63:37
Those type of cases are really important now because there's a lot of money at stake.
63:41
There is.
63:41
Someone could be getting sued for 30, 40, 50,000 euro.
63:46
Is there a great sense of achievement? Is it exciting then?
63:49
Oh, it's hugely exciting. Obviously, when you get what we call the money shot and you know you've done a really good job and sometimes you may have been on a really long stint of surveillance with nothing happening. That is part of it. It's not all glamorous. And then eventually... That money shot comes and you have your evidence and you can write up your report and you know your client is going to be extremely happy. Of course, there's a huge buzz in that. They're the days we live for. Every investigator will tell you that, you know, those days that you really get or you might get lucky as well.
64:20
There might be a lucky stint in it where you just took the right turn at the right time. And, you know, the evidence that you needed or the shot that you needed was right there. Other times you have to really work hard for it.
64:30
It's fascinating, it really is, your line of business, because it also must involve, as you just said there, very long hours just sitting around waiting.
64:39
Yeah, I tend to utilize that time to prepare other parts of my business because I am a young company. My contractor's license came through last December. So I'm building a business from scratch, essentially. So I have to wear many hats and I'm a mom and I'm a mom minder as well. So I have a lot of things going on at the same time. So when I'm on long stints of surveillance, i usually have my phone propped up and i use ai because i can't take my eyes off of the target you you can't be scrolling on your phone so i use ai to work out different things i might have a business strategy i might need to do some social media i might need to develop or start a report for a client and i use ai with my speaking voice and i tell it okay i'm going to prepare a report for johnny murphy This is the, you know, these are the particulars.
65:28
Can you start that report in a word doc for me? And I do an awful lot of my office work.
65:32
Because you can take your eye off the prize, you see. That's where you won't get the money shot. You can lift something in two seconds.
65:38
In my very... Early days as a private investigator, I was on surveillance in Waterford. I'll never forget it. I was in the back of the car and I was watching and I got distracted. And when I looked up, not only was she after coming back to the car, the target, she literally was gone. The car was completely gone. And I had looked down for seconds. Oh. So you can come out your front door, get into the car and leave. Within, you know, five or six seconds is all it takes for you to be in the car and gone. And if you miss it, you're back to square one.
66:08
And I learned a hard lesson that day. So the eyes have to stay on the prize.
66:12
You don't eat a whole load of junk when you're sitting around for all those hours, do you? Drinking lots of Coca-Cola or eating crisps or sandwiches or food that's bad for you, do you?
66:20
No, do you know what? I'm actually pretty good. I have usually in the car, if you're going on a long stint, I'll usually prep my stuff so that I don't be doing bold things in garages. I'll bring a salad in a lunchbox with a fork and I'll have a nice salad in the car.
66:38
You have young children, you have a mother who you look after. Do they worry about you?
66:41
They do, but my kids, to be fair, they think mum has a cool job. Now, they don't obviously know the extent of any cases that I might be working on that are, you know, inappropriate for their age group. But they do know what I do. They think it's really cool. My youngest, especially, I think he will probably be the most likely to follow in my footsteps. He loves the cameras. He loves all the equipment. He loves all that kind of stuff. So you never know. There could be a PI in the making there. They sometimes say, mom's a spy. And then lads, no, I'm not a spy. I'm a private investigator or a private detective. I'm not a spy.
67:12
And we have a little bit of fun with it, which is nice. To get back to your original point, I'm very cognizant as a female. Sometimes I'm out at night in places that is dark. And, you know, my safety is paramount and I have things in place. that ensure that people know where I am. One of my staff will always know where I am. My location is on for them and them alone. So they know exactly where my phone is, essentially. And I, you know, I don't do anything silly that puts me in immediate danger.
67:42
Yeah, yeah. So far, so good. But like, say, for instance, serving a subpoena, a subpoena could be confrontational, couldn't it?
67:49
Serving someone could potentially have confrontation attached. However, I have developed different strategies whereby I reduce the possibility of a confrontation. I don't go in swinging and, you know, being rude or anything like that. Usually I will go very softly, softly and I'll say, Mary, look, there's a letter there for you. I'm sorry, but... It's a summons for X, Y, Z, whatever. And I'll be very nice about it. You don't have to be cruel or mean. They're already getting, you know, probably not a nice letter because they've been summoned to court for something.
68:24
Now, sometimes people are summoned and they haven't done anything. They're just summoned as a witness. But generally speaking, I keep it professional, kind, and I approach... in a non-confrontational manner. And I just say, look, I have a letter there for you. Sorry about that. You know, I'd be nice about it. There's no need to be rude.
68:41
It's just you never know the way a person is going to react with something like that. It comes as a shock. But you have ways of doing it to minimise the risk. It's an amazing insight into the life and times of a private investigator. And I want to thank you for that and wish you well. You're very welcome. Are you looking for staff, Audrey?
68:58
I am trying to increase my network around the country. So staff is a specific term. I'm not looking for staff per se because I'm such a young company. I can't put, you know, 10 or 15 people around the country on salary. That just wouldn't be economically viable. But I am developing my network around the country. I have staff. a gentleman in Wexford I have a gentleman in Cavan I now since this morning have an experienced investigator in the North West in Sligo and Donegal and I have a girl in Cork which is on maternity leave so I'm doing all her jobs at the moment and I have a lady in leash how it works is a job will come in I will ring them and say listen would you like that job and then I said this is how much and I say yeah there you go and off they go and do it but I have a set standard that I need to in their reporting and all of that, which is, you know, that's fairly self-explanatory.
69:49
So I'm trying to build a network around the country, basically.
69:52
And it seems as if you're going to get bigger and broader as time goes on in the world that we live in nowadays, I suppose.
69:58
There's no shortage of work. You know, it's just about developing...
70:03
A network that can service the entire country. So when someone rings that I can actually do it. Now, I travel the length and breadth of the country myself. I mean, I have 435,000 kilometres on my car. In how long? The car is five years old and I bought a Brennan. So five years.
70:24
For God's sake, drive safely, will you? For God's sake.
70:27
Yeah, no, there's definitely safety, but there is a lot of mileage. But it really does depend. Some people will be specialists in research and working at home on the desk. They might be good at social media. Someone else might be brilliant at surveillance. So the contractors or subcontractors would only take the jobs that they are strong on.
70:53
I forgot all about the hours of trawling social media and Instagram accounts and Snapchat accounts and, you know, Facebook and also TikTok and all that kind of thing. Well, can I just ask you, what's the attitude of the Gardaí to private investigators?
71:08
Generally speaking, I always have a very positive interaction with the Gardaí, generally speaking. Look, I'll have a bit of crack with them. Sometimes they'll give you a little poke, you know, oh, Jesus, private investigator, you know, and I'll be like, well, I'm actually the boss.
71:22
And then I'll flash, you know, I'll flash the badge and I'll give him a card and I'll say, listen, when you retire, you know, give me a shot.
71:29
And that's like two of my subcontractors are actually ex-Guardi, high-level ex-Guardi. I just, you know, you just have a bit of practice. I mean, some will give you a poke or it, but, you know, you just laugh it off.
71:39
Yeah, you can deal with that, I'm quite sure. Upwards and onwards for Audrey Philpott of Clarity Investigations. Listen, thanks so much for taking the time. You're very welcome. It's amazing the insight into what you did. Have a great day. Mind yourself.
71:52
Get on to Prenderville.
71:54
Text or WhatsApp Neil now. 0868 104 106.
71:58
The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM.
72:01
I thought it was an amazing conversation with Audrey, the private investigator. So it's clarityinvestigations.ie and she's also very strong on Instagram. Check her out yourself. I'm mad keen to hear people who have changed career paths. Like Audrey started out working in banking and then moved into the area of private investigations. Imagine other people have maybe yearned to change careers and go down another path. But if you did, get in touch because we'd love to hear your stories as well. Text 0868 104 106. Somebody did a complete flip and said, OK, I'm doing this long enough.
72:31
And to be honest with you, I don't enjoy it. I mean, yeah, it pays me a wage, but this is what I've always wanted to do. You can also email neil at redfm.ie. So it's Friday. Makes it free food Friday. Courtesy of ourselves in Domino's. A big shout out to everybody at K-O-B-W Architects. I think you're a first time texters. Welcome aboard. NetApp in Navigation Square. Always listening. Would love. Friday treat thanks for getting in touch Mark everybody at DPD Depot 27 morning to Liam and all of the and all of the gang now we're craving pizza for lunchtime we're in the office working super hard to supply drinks to music lovers all around the country for festivals concerts pubs clubs and that's from classic drinks who are doing the business the matter private radiology team would love feeding today they've had a hard week The staff at MMPL, Sullivan Cash & Carry and Duke Cline, always hungry.
73:19
Past Attack based in the lock. Morning to Owen and everybody there. Energy Solutions in Glanmire. Doc Decor, painters and decorators. They're tuning in a mellow today as they're working and building kitchens and spraying stuff and everything like that. Lusso, Unit 5 at Inishmore Enterprise Park in Ballancolic would happily share with the neighbouring businesses. All of the staff at Woody's and Blackpool, they're always listening. And it's my birthday today and I might share it with them.
73:45
So text who you are and where you're working to 0868 104 106. There's a big, big swag of pizza and chicken and all sorts of chicken tenders and kickers and bites and wings.
74:07
Potato wedges and dips and big super-sized pizzas as well from Domino's this lunchtime. And don't forget, if you're getting pizza at the weekend, Domino's Pizza have locations at Blackpool, Douglas, Wilton, Glenmire and Formoy. Enjoy it. Text 0868-104-106 for that and all other business. Now, can I just catch up on some texts over the past couple of days? Very interestingly, we talk about and I see that Cork Beaux there during the week did a poll online. I think they had 4,000 people who responded to the poll already. I believe the question was something along the lines of, do you think how safe or do you think Cork City is a safe place to be?
74:44
And of the 4,000 people who responded, the results were massively one-sided, according to Cork Bureau and the people of Cork have spoken. 71% of people who responded said they feel that Cork has become more dangerous and they no longer feel safe walking through the city. Now, that's sad, isn't it, that the few can ruin it for the majority? 4,000 people and 71% said that it's more dangerous and they don't feel safe. Now, I suppose added to that then would be the altercation between these two criminal groups in Belfihan.
75:15
And on top of then the family attack in Mahan where you had Shane and Logan McCarthy brutally attacked by two gurriers and left badly injured.
75:26
Interestingly, as part of this survey article, Cork Bureau says that Cork was awarded four Gardaí from the latest graduating class. The latest class that came out of Temple Moor was the biggest class ever.
75:41
Now, that tells us two things, that more and more people are interested in joining on Gardaí Chicano. It was the biggest class ever. So we got four out of that class.
75:50
100 were allocated to Dublin. So even if you look by virtue of population sizes and city sizes, that's way out of kilter. Cork should have been much, much higher. Two, sorry, my apologies. We got four as opposed to 100 in Dublin city. And that's all wrong. I can't come on air, Neil, but I wanted to comment on callers regarding the issues with teenagers and it all being the fault of the parents.
76:15
I suspect the majority of those commenting aren't raising teenagers. In the digital age today, says Sean, parenting is completely different when I was a child. In the past 10 years, it has completely changed. The discipline enforced on us in school or at home is of a bygone age and era. There are many very good parents and people out there really struggling with their children's mental health challenges. CAMHS, TSLA, state agencies are, for the most, dire cases.
76:46
The resources are so thin on the ground. So unless you can go private, you are likely living in your own state of chaos with children suffering from mental health issues. Now, I don't know of which type that Sean speaks of, but he goes on to say, I'm not saying all troubled children have mental health challenges. I'm not saying that all parents are perfect. I'm saying, applying a broad brush approach, all parents are doing nothing and they're part of the problem is frankly an uneducated, poorly thought out point of view and coming from those almost certainly not parenting teenagers now.
77:21
Times, they are a-changing. And if you're not actually in the glasshouse, I'd be very careful about throwing that stone.
77:28
Okay, I take that under advisement. I hear what you're saying. I want to be absolutely clear. Whether it's a violent assault in Mahan or any of the other recent incidents involving young people in Cork, there is no excuse for that behavior. Violence, intimidation, dangerous driving, deliberate disrespect for the law deserves real consequences.
77:47
The people responsible must be held accountable. What I struggle with is the idea that the answer simply becomes, hold the parents responsible. It's the parents' fault. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well, I'm in my 30s, but as a teenager, I knew exactly how to push the boundaries of the law. I was never violent, but I certainly wasn't law-abiding. I understood where the legal grey areas were and how far I could stretch them. Those choices were mine. My parents both worked full-time in emergency services and healthcare.
78:19
They were good people who taught me right from wrong, but they also had mortgages to pay and shifts to work. They couldn't supervise me every minute of the day, and I don't think that's a realistic expectation of any parent. Society has now changed. Young people have fewer places to go, fewer affordable activities, and fewer opportunities to earn their own money.
78:39
Families are under greater financial pressure than ever. Many children have less day-to-day involvement from grandparents, aunts, uncles, or the wider community than, say, previous generations. Well, anyway, none of that excuses criminal behaviour, but it does create the environment our young people are growing up in. So, yes, parents have a responsibility. particularly where there is neglect or where the parents encourage criminal behavior. But making parents the default explanation every time a teenager commits an offense is too simplistic. Sometimes good parents raise children who make terrible decisions.
79:12
Some bad parents raise exceptional adults.
79:15
Ultimate responsibility for a violent assault of any criminal act first belongs and foremost to the person who commits the crime. If we're serious about reducing crime, we need consequences for the offenders, but also the wider societal issues that have been building for years. So blaming parents alone might make it for an easy headline, but it won't solve the problem. Now, there's a lot to unpack there, and it's a very well-structured email. You say young people have fewer places to go, fewer affordable activities and fewer opportunities to earn their own money.
79:45
I understand what you say about fewer opportunities to earn their own money because of health and safety in the workplace, which years and years ago, you get all sorts of part time jobs, not a bother. But I don't accept much of the others where you say that there are fewer affordable activities, fewer opportunities and less places to go. I mean, I think there are more. Now, there might be a financial constraint with the cost of some of them. But if you go back to generations, there was nothing like there was absolutely nothing. You used your imagination an awful lot more. But thank you for it.
80:16
Nonetheless, a lot of people are pushing back that you can't constantly say it's the parents fault. But how and ever there are sections of society really who have absolutely no regard whatsoever for law and order or respect. And that comes from the parents to the children. It's just it's just a fact that It's a very gray area as to how much you can talk about that aspect because of all of the changes with regards to protecting particular sections of society. But there you have it nonetheless. Text 0868-104-106.
80:48
Calls on the way after the break.
80:59
It's been an interesting week of criminality on Leeside, whether it was the attack on the two lads down in Mahan or the big issues that kicked off out around Balafihan. Seamus was out in Balafihan yesterday, actually, speaking with residents and people in the area. I mean, you know, I think to a large extent, they're still kind of reacting with regards to the scene happening. and the level of violence that unfolded there earlier in the week. But he was in the area asking locals if they still feel safe living in their community in general. I want to thank everybody who went on mic. Not everybody would, for obvious reasons, so I appreciate every single one of them.
81:31
Have a listen.
81:42
And what do you think needs to be done?
81:44
A lot more guards around and a lot more punishment around when they do get caught.
81:51
Do you think that they're not meted out with any punishment? No, they're not.
81:54
They get a slap on the wrist and they're left back out again to do the same thing.
81:57
Do you feel safe in the community? No. Not what happened, did me? No. Were you close to what happened the other night?
82:05
No, I wasn't. No, we weren't. But we're only living up the road from it. We got a taxi now yesterday morning and yesterday morning and he said he collected a fella from Clarks Road, a car pulled up next to him and threw an iron bar at him. It's not safe from that.
82:18
What would make it safer for you?
82:20
Well, guys, because it's not safe.
82:22
There was fellas in the moorbeck there last week, two fellas in the moorbeck by the Clavis, and they came up round here, and they were over there, and your man, he had a knife on his hand, or something in his hand, and then all of a sudden, they spit off, and he's on the wheelie, they threw him on the bike, off the wind, and that was it then. It was our joke, really, like, it was from a long ago. There used to be a guard on the press, but there's nothing like that no more.
82:43
Yeah.
82:43
So very rarely you see a guard on the press now.
82:45
But I suppose there's nothing to kind of entice them in now because of the abuse that they get and what they're up against.
82:51
Would you be kind of half worried? All right, because it's going on for a couple of weeks now with this thing, I think. A couple of feuds and things.
82:58
And what do you think is needed for the area? I suppose more girls, but can you get them? That's the problem. When they come out of Templemore, Cork, when you seem to get one or two? That's all, yeah. It's all Dublin, Dublin and Dublin up the north.
83:10
I was inside in the pub there and there was a chap who came over to the echo and he was showing me.
83:15
He would land around the barns with a cow.
83:18
Is that the first time you've seen something like that around here? Yeah.
83:23
Is it a disgrace?
83:26
Yes, indeedy. I was in the city yesterday morning, Neil. I saw a great Garda presence around the place. It was very, very reassuring. Well, OK, you're responding maybe to the Corpio survey where the vast majority of people felt unsafe. Quick temporary solution to our drug and crime problems. Refurbish the old prison on Rathmore Road while they build a new super prison. Politicians are fighting at the moment regarding the location of a new prison while the country is falling apart. Solicitor strike shows no sign of resolution. Agree with everything Jim is saying. We need to get tougher rather than continuing to enable criminals and addicts.
83:59
I think it's simple. When they come out of prison, they have to be housed because they have nowhere to go. They go back doing the same thing, robbing and drugs. So give them all a home, I think you're suggesting. You're failing to mention in Mahan situation and correct me if I'm wrong, if no one mentioned it, the alleged offenders and everyone else and where all these lads are hanging around at the council, abandoned their own yard down in Mahan by the football pitches, left all the containers and free prefabs. And that's where all their people congregate every night of the week drinking. Then they go onto the streets as soon as it's dark.
84:30
And that's when everything kicks off. Well, I suppose it's all to do with idle hands. Can't come on because I'm at work. But as a child of the 80s, we knew boundaries. We knew respect. We knew right from wrong. We didn't get a cuddle or a trip to a shrink. We got a clipper on the back of the head or worse, pulled by the locks around your ears. And I can safely say it worked for me and my six brothers and sisters. My small fellow was acting up a lot since he got these iPads. And it went on for a while until one day... was placed in the bin and has not returned. His attitudes got a lot better because he now knows what will happen.
85:01
And it was the fear we were brought up on that is now gone from society because we live in a snowflake generation. It really is that simple, says James. Do you agree with that? Agree or disagree? Text 0868-104-106. Pat, good morning.
85:15
Morning, Neil. That's an interesting perspective from James when you compare the generations, which is what you want to do. Go ahead.
85:25
Well, it's all down to the drug situation. There's massive money in it and it entices people into crime.
85:34
Yeah, I mean, much of what we hear about is drugs related. It's drug feuds, it's drug gangs, it's territorial, it's drug debt.
85:44
Well, it's been going on in Ireland since the 50s and people were making vast amount of money, especially in Dublin.
85:51
And there was no stopping us.
85:55
And it took the death of Veronica Gehrman to have the government sit up and take notice.
86:00
And Biden was too late. I had spread.
86:05
Well, that's more of a historic statement, a fact that you're making. I do appreciate it, but that means that's not a solution to the problem.
86:13
No, but you see, at that stage, drugs had got out of hand completely in the country.
86:22
And you see, your survey there was quite right to 71%. That's probably correct.
86:30
Okay, that's Corkbill. 71% of the 4,000 said that the city isn't as safe and they wouldn't necessarily go in.
86:38
You could go around to every city in Ireland there now and you probably would get the same result.
86:45
People don't feel safe anymore.
86:48
But I was in town again yesterday on a beautiful sunny day with all the buskers doing their thing. The English market jammed with people. Irish, tourists, the lot. The four corners of the world. Not an ounce of trouble.
86:59
None.
87:00
Like it was just a beautiful place to be.
87:03
Yeah, but you can be lucky and unlucky in parts of the city. You could walk in other parts of the city and you could get mugged. Yeah, okay.
87:16
Wrong time, wrong place. I get you. I mean, if you went to some particular side streets or alleyways or lanes, you'll see a completely different type of city. But you could say that about anywhere. I mean, there was guards on the beach, some on their own, some in twos. Sun was shining.
87:33
But were you up around the North Main Street, Castle Street, Shear Street?
87:37
I was not. No, I was not.
87:40
And the other places that's been his.
87:43
You know?
87:45
So, I mean, the city, Park Street, is probably where you're in, around McCartan Street.
87:51
Patrick Street, McCartan Street, Oliver Plunkett Street, Cook Street, Wyndham Street, you know, areas like that.
87:57
And that's during the day.
88:00
At night time, it's probably, it's not probably so that different.
88:06
Okay, so if you were part of that survey, for instance, the 71% who said it's not as safe or they wouldn't feel safe, would you be amongst the 71% then? It's more dangerous.
88:20
We don't deserve.
88:21
Okay, okay.
88:23
Okay.
88:24
So what if we built a massive big... What if we built a massive big super prison? I mean, huge, on a massive scale. Say, for instance, in... Hang on a second. Hang on a second. In Leitrim, middle of the country, right? Super prison.
88:37
And that judges and courts got really serious. That anybody that breaks the law with regards to serious crime... And I'm not talking about...
88:46
Mickey Mouse stuff now, right? I'm talking about serious stuff. Drugs, assault, anything like that.
88:52
Theft. They just go to jail. Big, huge super prison. If anyone wants to visit them, they've got to find their own way up into the Midlands, up to this massive super prison where everybody goes to jail.
89:04
Yes, that would be right. I'm sure the people of the Glen wouldn't appreciate you talking about opening the old prison.
89:17
Well, it's not me.
89:18
I mean, I'm only dealing in fact. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. I'm not saying that I agree with it in a residential area where people shouldn't have to live or rear children around a big, massive prison like that. Sometimes the prisoners are shouting out to people in their backyards, for God's sake. I'm not saying that's right, but that is going to happen. It's not my making.
89:37
See, what I think you need is you need a sort of a goal between the army and the Gardaí and other organisations.
89:46
Because, I mean, you have the army of Lebanon trying to control something in a foreign country.
89:51
No, you want the army on the street.
89:54
What we really want is people to go to jail for the crimes that they're committing against other people and not listening to all of the excuses they're given in court with regards to why they shouldn't go to jail or get a suspended sentence.
90:09
At the moment, you have a solicitor strike on and there's nobody going anywhere.
90:16
Okay, so we reaped the seeds that we sowed back in the 60s and 70s.
90:21
Well, that's a fact. That's a fact. Anyone will tell you that. Tony Gregory was still alive, he'll tell you that.
90:28
Appreciate that. Text 0868-104-106. We'll pick it up after 11. The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM.
90:38
be part of the conversation the Neil Prent of a show with Elevate Credit Union and it's free food Friday as well with Domino's lots of pizza cheese pepperoni passion cheeseburger Texas barbecue the ultimate honey nut and pepperoni the biggest pizzas you can get out of Domino's chicken wings boneless bites chicken kickers chicken tenders potato wedges dips the lot we're looking at feeding at least 15 of you in your work team and the Red Patrollers will deliver at lunchtime. So text who you are and where you're working to 0868 104 106. We'll do another bunch of shout outs in about 15 minutes time.
91:11
Neil, it costs 100,000 a year to keep a person in prison. And yet there are no places available in rehab where actually much of the work should be done. Those being rehabilitated need to move away from the areas they came from. We're surrounded by drugs. The Shandon Street area, which is known to me, is flooded with drug addicts and drug dealers strolling around as if they were business people. I'm sickened by our government. People struggling with addiction often owe so much money that they're literally owned by the dealers. mandatory sentences to drug dealers, no exceptions.
91:46
We already have a law for a 10-year sentence for anything over 13 grand worth of drugs. This is not happening. Suspended sentences are be handing out and there are no consequences for crime. So really, a lot of people believe that it should change in court. It should change as part of the judicial process. I haven't walked up and down Chandler Street in a while. I've certainly cycled it from time to time. But perhaps they should be visiting other areas of the city to get a proper opinion in general. I agree with your caller about putting kids into tough sports.
92:18
There's a big gang of girls going around our area bullying and videoing themselves as they attack girls. My daughter was attacked by them. I spoke to so many people whose kids have also been targeted. These people are just being dragged up by their parents. Walking away doesn't really work when you're on your own and there's a big gang of them. you need to be able to defend yourself. And some kind of martial arts, arts or tough sport is a way to go.
92:43
Kids need to be able to defend themselves against brutal attacks that are not being punished in the courts. Allowing these thugs to get away with it because they're underage only emboldens them and encourages them to carry that attitude into adulthood, says Anthony. No, I mean, like people are picking up on probably something that I said earlier in the week that what if you've all the martial arts or you've You know, you're able to defend yourself because you play tough sports. You know, you might play, I don't know, rugby. You might play hurling, gah, whatever the case may be.
93:15
What if the people who are setting upon you have a knife or a Stanley blade or whatever? That's the only point I was making. And that's why I was saying a lot of the time it's just better to try and walk away. Most people are not racist, but they are angry. Angry when our own government is letting the Irish people behind.
93:31
The government is finally giving permission for modular homes in our back gardens. If we go that way, then our family will never get homes. Modular homes will be the future. Pay our nurses and they'll stay is a typical example.
93:46
You know, the trailer parks in America actually were a consequence of what you're just saying. Actually, I was out and about earlier in the week, just as a by the way, when you mentioned the word modular homes, because I was out cycling and I happened to be down. I was down to Michael's graveyard. But anyway, amongst other things, when I was cycling, I saw the modular homes in Mahan. I'd often wondered about them. I had seen them up in Charlottesville and areas like that. So I went and I had a look at the modular home. There are two areas there. One is the ones that are finished and lived in and have been for quite some time now.
94:18
And there are families in there and they have, they're actually quite impressive, the modular homes. If you haven't seen them, then it's hard for me to describe them. They look like bungalows, not the biggest home in the world, but it's like a prefabricated bungalow. And they come finished with all of the furniture and the you know, the white goods and the brown goods and the sofas and everything in them. So they're finished. They got, you know, you got, I don't know, 60 or 70 of them that are finished. And they have a big green area out the front and kids can play and all that sort of thing. So they look like a housing estate.
94:50
And there are lots of cars there. Now, these would be Ukrainian families. I'm open to correction here. Didn't get to talk to anybody. There was nobody out and about.
94:58
Mind you, all of the car, apart from one car with a Ukrainian reg, all of the other regs are Irish regs from different counties around Ireland. So I would believe that the Ukrainians who are here bought themselves a secondhand car so they could get around and get a bit of independence. That's fine. But just up along from it then, they're actually building and finishing another block of... Modular homes adjacent to the existing ones. They're not finished. They're pretty much finished. They've got all of the shrubbery done and the green areas done and the footpaths and the houses are done. I cycle down past them and the ones that are unoccupied, they're fully furnished.
95:32
So they're very close now to being finished. But I can't help but does anybody know what will happen with them when they're finished? Because the modular home proposal is being wound down.
95:44
And I'm not 100% sure what will happen with all of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of modular homes all over Ireland. They could be given to housing authorities, right? They could be given to councils online.
95:57
They could be given to people on the housing list. I don't know. What certainly could happen with regards to the hotels is all of the above. They could go back to tourism or they could flip from Ukrainian refugees and hotels to IPAS centres. So it'd be interesting to see what they do with the new ones, which has nobody living in them just yet, and also the ones that does when October comes, when everything changes. But at least I can talk because I've been down there and I've seen it for myself with my own two eyes. Can I just mention also that there's a text came in here and it says there's been a terrible crash on a car.
96:30
It says that would be Cars Hill, wouldn't it? As opposed to how it's spelt there. So it'd be Cars Hill on the road to Carragallion. Traffic is crazy on both sides. There's an ambulance there at the moment. So be careful, right? Be careful and go with caution. Isn't Cars Hill absolutely deadly? No matter how they try to improve it. We've got calls on the way. Pick up the phone. 0818 104 106.
96:50
Get on to Prenderville now.
96:54
0818 104 106. The Neil Prenderville Show on Red FM.
97:00
All right. We were talking yesterday, actually, about the amount of money that you can spend across a counter. And it was jobs that were being done. I think it was Viv originally mentioned. Mickey O's down Glanmire way. Lisa, good morning.
97:12
Good morning, Neil.
97:12
I love these kind of calls. I really do. Because I think she spent six euro, but I beat that. I was in Brownlows on the South Link, A&R Brownlows, the engineering. I got a job done on a lawnmower piece and they charged me four euro for it. Can you beat that?
97:28
Fantastic.
97:30
No, I suppose I'm like your work colleague there.
97:33
My car failed the NCT, so just two bulbs, even though I had gotten the service done and the lights were perfect. In the few days that lapsed in between going from the service to the NCT, it failed on the lights anyway. I went down to Mickey O's and two bulbs, six euro.
97:52
and they came out and fitted him. They were fantastic. So I said, put 10 on the card because I was paying him the card and he wouldn't hear of it. So I came out to the car and I got four euros together and I went back in and I gave it to him. But I just thought they were fantastic and to fit it and everything and not even want to take a tip, you know, just a great shout out to them. They're fantastic.
98:15
Like how much is each of the bulbs?
98:18
I've no idea but I got two so it must have been three euros each I suppose But if they were doing that all day I'm quite sure they're selling car batteries and they're selling alternators and all sorts of different things like that where there's a bit of profit in them
98:33
Definitely. Well, they were very busy anyway the day that I was in there and there was loads of stuff going on. So they do sell all different types of stuff.
98:40
I'm delighted. I'm actually delighted to hear that kind of customer service is still alive and well. I really am.
98:46
It is. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, like if you were to bring it to a garage and get that done, should they charge it for labour and God only knows how much for the boat?
98:54
But potentially the labour, if you were to leave it there and they were going to do it and get to it and fit it and all this kind of thing, like the labour can be 78 euro an hour.
99:03
Yeah, exactly. So they're just fantastic down there. And I only found out about them last year because I was staying with a friend in Glammire and she used to go down there. So I suppose I go there since.
99:15
Okay. So my next question for you, because this all started as to what, and this may sound sexist, but it was not of my making. I didn't start this conversation. How much do women know about what goes on under the bonnet and different parts of the car? Are you any good?
99:28
Very good. Brilliant. How did that work out for you?
99:37
shocking I went in wanting to know how to change a tyre and how to put petrol into the car and he had the bonnet opened up and had me looking at the car pressure and getting oil under my nails and I said forget this for a game of soldiers so I gave up you gave up I mean what was the idea that they wanted you to know how to strip an engine and you just wanted to know where the petrol but like forgive me now forgive me now Lisa but clearly before you went in to do that course you knew where the petrol went me these were days now I'm 60 so these were days when there was an attendant at the petrol company they put it in for you no that's just you didn't want to damage your nails or get petrol all down your clothes you still knew where the petrol went Oh, I definitely know where the petrol went, but I never kind of used the pump.
100:28
And I'd be nervous about it, you know, and even putting air in the tyres and stuff like that. You know, there are all things that I wanted to know for myself, not to have to go in and ask and be like an eejit.
100:39
Yeah, you wanted the basics and he wanted to teach everybody with regards to complete car maintenance, like...
100:46
Exactly. So when I started getting oil under my nails, I'm taking the carburetor apart.
100:52
This is not for me. All right. Nice one. Take care, Lisa. Oh, listen, does anybody know if there's any serviced petrol stations as opposed to self-service where somebody comes out and does it for you anymore?
101:05
I don't know. I haven't seen it anyway, to be honest.
101:07
No, and I haven't either. No, it's a thing of the past. I bet you there's someone somewhere. Yeah, it was great. Well, you know, OK, maybe all you had to do was to get out and pay, but they did everything else. Do you remember the days then when they'd wash the windscreen for you, the lot?
101:22
I don't remember that now. I remember being stuck at the lights and people coming across and doing it.
101:27
That's a different set of stories.
101:31
Just by the way, I used to work in a supermarket and we had all that with the gypsy skirts and a belt underneath and all S-hooks under it and hanging all the different stuff they were robbing underneath.
101:44
And I don't mean now to be getting caught up in the whole race relations thing, but did you see that video, what came out from under the skirts?
101:51
I didn't yet, no, because the reception is bad in the house. I watch it now when I go out there in a minute.
101:56
I'm talking about 30, 40, perhaps more different items of produce. A lot of the meat came out from it. I mean, it was bizarre to see how much.
102:06
Neil, I was at the checkout one day and the security man started shouting at this person that was in my queue, take out what you want to your poncho. And she was pretending she didn't understand him. There was a leg of lamb, a centre fillet of ham, a bottle of tannura, a sliced pan. There was 70 euros worth of produce came down from her skirt and her poncho.
102:27
And she was just told, get out. Just left goal, I can tell, get out.
102:32
So was he watching this shoplifter gather all of the stuff?
102:36
Oh yeah, so they used to come in all the time and do it.
102:38
Right, right.
102:39
And they used to go into the market as well to a chicken counter and they were watching him there. They had him under surveillance. The girl told me for ages they didn't understand how their chickens were going missing.
102:52
And the manager went upstairs to the stairs and was looking down and saw what they were doing. And when it would get busy, they'd come in and start stealing the chickens under the skirts on the little soup.
103:04
Is there a market? And is there a market for all of those perishables? Because you couldn't eat that quantity. Like, if you were doing that, going out robbing every day.
103:13
Like, there'd be about 15 or 20 of them in the house. So I suppose there'd be just... robbing the food for themselves every day.
103:20
Okay, okay.
103:21
People will blame off them.
103:23
Although I have to tell you, I mean, you've raised a very interesting topic. I was talking with a business owner in the market who wouldn't want me to give details, but she was telling me that you'd be very surprised about the type of people that are robbing and shoplifting. And she said that they come from all walks of society and they wouldn't necessarily have kind of any addiction to kleptomania or anything. They could be quite well-dressed and respectable, she said.
103:48
That's right. You see all different types of people. I was working in the supermarket over 20 odd years. So you'd see it all, really.
103:57
And would you ever say that any of that was just out of desperation to feed children?
104:03
Oh, definitely. You'd know. You'd know the people that come in because, like, they might put 100 euros worth of shopping in the trolley. And then when they get to the queue, they might have only 50 euro. And then they'd be just saying, well, I wish they could back. It was very sad, really. Isn't it sad?
104:18
It's awfully sad.
104:19
Very, very sad.
104:20
And this was not kind of luxury stuff. This was just staples, essentials.
104:23
Essentials, essentials, essentials. And sometimes the person in the queue behind... might just say, look, leave that go or whatever. I sort that out, you know, which was very sad. And it was the same people the whole time, you know, that would be short money. So it was very sad.
104:41
And did you often find that somebody in the queue would pay the difference for those people?
104:47
Not all the time, sometimes, but not all the time.
104:50
Yeah, it's a wonderful thing to be able to do.
104:53
It is. It is. And you know, it's such a lovely thing to do for somebody if you can't afford it and somebody behind just says, look, that's OK, I'll do that. It might be embarrassing for the person, but it's a lovely thing to do if you can afford to do it for somebody.
105:10
A spontaneous act of kindness. Well, we covered a lot of ground in that little chat, Lisa, never mind just the fitting of two light bulbs. So well done for that. Appreciate it.
105:17
Well, as usual, it's lovely talking to you. You make my day.
105:20
And you make mine when you pick up the phone, all of you guys. Thank you, Lisa. Take care. Text store at 68104106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104106. Free Food Friday, courtesy of ourselves and Domino's Pizza. Don't let the opportunity pass. because sooner or later, you will win for you and all of your workmates. As we say good morning to Diarmut and all of the staff at Nesbitts and Blarney. Brendan and the lads at the foundry in Dupuis in Ringeskiddy, starving and it could do with a feed for the lads. Balancholic primary care, Neil, the bellies are far from touching the spine, but we'd love a free munch all the same.
105:54
They're very honest. That's Niamh and Myra and all of the team in Balancholic Primary Care Centre. Crowley's Opticians, 26-27 Grand Parade. They'd also share with the Balancholic and Carigoline branch. Looking forward to some good hot food. The sun is breaking out for a great weekend. Yes, indeed, it certainly is. Peach Vintage Clothing. B2B signs. Everybody at Lima. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Bloom at the Marina Market. Morning to all. Southern Renovations in Middleton are always listening. The Dairy Gold of Pounds counts payable in Mitchellstown. Interactive Interiors in Little Island.
106:24
Rockleck Electrical in Tremor Road. Constellation Cold Logistics in Middleton. Intro Centre at Clark's Bridge on Hanover Street. They do terrific work. They'd love some pizza. Crowley's Engineering in Upper Glanmire Bridge. They'd love some domino ho-ho-hos for the lunch. We're down a few due to holidays and up the walls, so we'll do some sustenance, says Keith. Cove Primary Care Centre. We're always listening in Ticknock and Cove. And finally for now... Everybody at Little Hands Childcare in Blackpool. Keep those texts coming. Text 0868 104 106.
106:56
We'll do one final big bunch of shout outs in about 20 minutes time. But can I just... Oh, actually, this is good. The lads in Noel Murphy's Vickers Road always help people at the pumps. Is this then the only garage left?
107:11
Noel Murphy's Vickers Road that actually fill petrol as opposed to self-service. Is there anywhere else? I think it's a wonderful thing, these kind of little touches. So keep in common, text 0868 104 106.
107:24
Give Brenda Denny here a little time off this week to head off to Sonny O'Climbs, but she'll have her nose back to the grindstone next week. But of course, she's never far from a story or two. Brenda, good morning.
107:36
Buenas Neil, how are you?
107:39
Buenas. Where do I begin? So anyway, you got to Spain safely, thank God, because you can never tell with you.
107:45
I know, I got to Spain on Sunday morning and we started off in Calahonda at a fitness camp with the wonderful Trisha Lewis, Trisha's Transformation.
107:53
A fitness camp, what does that involve? Yes.
107:56
Well, it's kind of... It's just all about working out, Neil. And it's about... We went for walks. We worked out. We went on a hike. We ate well. We had the crack. It was camaraderie. There was around 70 of us. I knew two people. My friend Karen, who's here next to me, another girl, Peggy from Kerry. I knew Tricia. And there was people from all walks of life with all different stories and everyone there for their own reasons. And we did that until yesterday morning.
108:21
I'll give Tricia my regards. What did you do? What do you do for... Nighttime entertainment, though.
108:27
Well, at the camp, we all just kind of sat around and had chats and a few people had the sangrias. I was on the Coca-Cola Zero. We, you know, had the fun. But one night, all right, myself and Karen were like, you see, Neil, when you land in a different country and you're single like ourselves, one of the first things you do, like some people might, you know, book a restaurant or something like that. I have a tendency to find good hairdressers, but also to go on Tinder. You know, you land and you go on, you check out the talent. It's a must, you know.
108:53
OK.
108:54
I was swiping at Malaga Airport, to be honest with you.
108:59
OK. And did you land plenty of fish?
109:03
I tell you now, we were swiping the first night and I spotted this new feature, Double Date, on Tinder. Karen and I had never heard of it. And of course, I screamed going, Karen, do you see this? Do you see this? It's a Double Date thing. What is it? So I swiped. So basically what it is, is you go, it's like a group chat. So basically me and Karen, we have a profile together. Karen has her profile. I have my profile. And then there will say Julio and Enrique. And they have a profile and I'll be swiping and I'll say to Karen, oh my God, look at Julio and Enrique. Enrique's a bit of you. Julio's a bit of me.
109:34
Let's swipe. Julio and Enrique match the two of us. Then the four of us, we meet and we go on a date. And what happened, Neil, was I didn't realize it was a thing until... Wednesday night, or Tuesday night, and myself and Karen met these two lovely men, Gerardo and Antonio.
109:49
Well, wait a second. What happened to the Julio guy?
109:52
Oh, that was just kind of an example. That's Julio Ingles and Enrique. That was just kind of an example.
109:57
Oh, I forgot. I can't keep up. Okay, so that's a fictional version of what potentially can happen. Okay, go on.
110:03
So then we decided to go down the town in Calahonda after one of the camps and we went down to the heart bar in Calahonda and we were waiting for our two new matches, Gerardo and Antonio, a real estate agent and a cop. Mine was a cop.
110:16
And we made an absolute show of ourselves waiting for them. The whole thing was played out on the old Instagram. And yeah, we went on a double date with the two of them and we had the best crack ever. We really did know.
110:26
You had crack with a real estate agent.
110:29
We did. Oh, yeah, he was fabulous. Antonio, he was lovely. Karen, that was kind of Karen's fella for the night and I had the cop.
110:35
Oh, you had the cop then. How was his English and how was your Spanish?
110:40
Not great. No, we were just like, oh, there was a lot of Google Translate. Karen had the Google Translate out. So every time I'd say, Karen, get out the Google Translate there because Karen's a teacher. She's a good head on her. And they could really understand me because neither do you know me. I'm a bit giddy, like, you know, so they were kind of looking at me.
110:53
Well, you talk a little fast for a Spanish policeman, I would think.
110:57
Well, we were, yeah. Well, he says he was a Spanish policeman. God only knows. But he did flash the badge, you know, in fairness. But he was, at times, he was a bit like Kay. And he was asking his friend Antonio. And they were kind of speaking Spanish. But sure, they could say, what are we doing with these two clowns here, you know, in Spanish. But we were just smiling away, having a great time. But they were lovely old chaps. We had a great time. And we got so into it, Neil. Like, we came home. We went into bed laughing. We woke up laughing. We were hitting Narca yesterday. We landed in Narca. We were...
111:25
Ah, no, wait a second now. I want to go back to the real estate agent and the cop, right? Okay, did their photographs match up to who arrived?
111:35
They did, well... The problem is, right, Karen's been annoyed at me. I warned her that Antonio, like, might have been so much her type because she hadn't really seen his photo, right? Because she couldn't see it for some reason because it was on Gerardo's, the cop's page. So she got a bit of a land, okay? But he was a lovely...
111:55
He was a lovely man.
111:57
He had a really nice personality, is it?
112:00
He had a really nice personality.
112:02
That's code for, you know, I mean, not blessed in the looks department, as they might say.
112:09
No, we thought he might have been younger. He was little 60 where we thought he was. How old was he?
112:17
I'd say he was hitting 60. We thought he was around 50. He's twice your age. There was a good gap. But look, he was lovely.
112:25
Is Karen there?
112:27
She is here. She's here. Do you want to talk to her? Put her on there and make sure you're telling me the truth. Hello, Neil. How are you?
112:33
Is she telling me the whole story?
112:36
She is, she is. That's the true story now. But you know what now, Neil?
112:39
What's going to happen now is... You'd have to take a man home and tuck him safely in bed. He's in his 60s.
112:45
But you know what? What a lovely man, Neil. We had great chats about his divorce, his family, his kids. And sure, Brenda then was trying to communicate with her guy with the Google Translate. So we had the best laugh.
112:58
But hang on a second. You're not supposed to go on a date with anybody who offloads about his divorce and his ex-wife and his children. That's not what it's supposed to be about.
113:07
I know, I know. But sure, your man was really double my age. Sure, what else are we going to do? So we were having... Do you know what? It's all about the laugh. But we have another two lined up now for today, so...
113:18
Okay, give me the deets on the two. Give me the deets on the two today, will you?
113:23
So the details, we won't give the names, right? But there's one guy, he's saying he's a doctor. Now, again, again, this could be a fake profile, but at least we're safer together. It's like we're going out meeting two new friends for coffee. That's what it is.
113:38
Okay, in the middle of the day. Yeah, okay. So if he wants to give you an examination, you can do a runner. So one's supposed to be a doctor and the other fella...
113:46
He's an electrician.
113:48
OK. Who gets who?
113:49
He said, see, we don't know. We decided to make the pact that we just go. We'll have the chats and then we can decide.
113:55
Now, who's paying for it? Ask Brenda there who's paying for it.
113:59
Brenda, I'll put you back on to Brenda.
114:01
What are you saying there, Neil?
114:02
Who's paying for it?
114:04
Oh, my God. Who is paying for it? Well, they certainly didn't dish out any cash for us. Anyway, we paid for our own. There was no incentive at all. But look, that's grand.
114:12
So the cop and the real estate ageman didn't... You went 50-50.
114:17
They bought their own water. We had the drinks before them. See, it's very important we're there before them so we can clock them coming in then. You see, now, we were out last night as well, Neil. We met two fellas, two electricians, Antonio and Francis. Now, Francis, one of them didn't... There was a bit of catfishing going on, I was telling Seamus. But lovely man. Again, we started chatting to them about their ex-wives and they were confiding in us and all sorts of... But we kind of told them then for the crack, we said, look, will we tell them we've different careers? So I was a pilot and Karen was air traffic control.
114:47
Did they buy that?
114:48
They did. They did. But they said at the start, teacher. No, teacher. And I was like, oh, sugar. I said, because that's on our profile. I said, career break. So I said, no. And she was like, I own the tower, the tower. And then I said, I said, I'm the pilot and stuff like that. I'm in the clouds. But they believed it away.
115:04
So people, so obviously people lie or make things up.
115:08
Of course.
115:10
sure we were only doing it for a bit of crap now I did say I worked in media as well but we just added a few strings to it you know and do you know all of these because you seem to have had a number of days do any of them get in touch afterwards like a great scene I'd love to see you again oh come here the cop was on first thing the next morning it's 7.28 good morning and he said something else and I was a small but like could have waited another few hours man you know you could have waited until you got into the station he's a little over anxious was he a small bit new like I was like you could have if there was a fella now I was into Neil and if I was working with you we'll say on Monday right I'd wait till after the show at least to text so if you see me on if you see me on the phone suspiciously on Monday I'm texting the fella So are you in Norka now is it?
115:51
We're in Norka now and we're just going walking back there now to go out in the pool and we're going to be getting ready then for our two dates later on.
115:58
And who are they? Any idea? Who do they claim to be?
116:00
Well, one of them, one of them anyway is a guy, Karen does kind of the hots for one lad, right?
116:06
But I'm kind of... Lad, it'll be 260 odd euros when they arrive.
116:10
No, this fella's old, he's youngish enough, 38. Now, I think there was one fella that cropped up, he was 23, so we're going to have to unmatch them because what happened was Karen was half asleep this night. She was swiping in her sleep. And there was all these matches like Neil as well. You see there's mixed couples as well. So one match was like a man and a woman. And I was like, what's this about? So she was half asleep doing it. Why would that? You can carry the wave in with this. You can all sorts, you see. You can mix and match. Mother and daughter and all sorts. It'd be all sorts. It's all too weird. We're just straight, heterosexual. We want the men. The men want the women.
116:41
How the women are getting stuck in between it, we don't know.
116:43
It's all too confusing for me, I can tell you. Keep it simple.
116:46
Come here. If there's people... See, this is the thing, right? I'll finish on this, right? We are going to go back to Cork and do this because we're a holy show on dates, right? Especially when it comes back home. But we want to entice people who don't know about it to get out there and do it because there's a lot of people in there messaging me kind of saying, oh my God, I couldn't do what you're doing. But when you're... It's safer. It's safer. So when you're with a friend and we send on our location now to friends we met here and everything. So they know where we are. But you would have way more confidence with a friend. And we are in hysterics. They're watching them come in laughing at ourselves. It's ourselves we're laughing at.
117:15
But years and years and years ago, double dating was very common.
117:20
Yeah, but it's coming back. It's coming back. And it's a big feature. We can't wait to hit Cork next week, Neil, and suss it out there. We're going to be swiping mad. So the boys in Cork, you better watch out.
117:31
Have a great weekend and look after each other. Come here, that Karen is as mad as you, so you're well teamed up there.
117:36
She's as mad as a brush. We are. We're great old pals. She's a great friend.
117:39
All right, mind yourself. Talk to you Monday. That's Brenda Dennehy and her compadre, Karen, and their exploits in Spain. Actually, double dating was very, very common years ago. Very common. The further back you went, it was just very common to do that kind of thing. Text 0868 104 106. The crew inside Mike's tires and Fermoy are brilliant. I've been in many times with slow punctures and not once have they charged me for the puncture, but I always drop in some cakes to them just to say thank you. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You used to talk about the price of fuel at the pumps.
118:12
It's heading towards two euro again, Neil. You should pick up the conversation and tell us. I wouldn't know whether or not there'll be any more protests, but I'll tell you one thing. It's up in the 190s now in many places. You'd be absolutely astonished now if you saw the old time of 183, which we used to think was cheap. None of it's cheap, but we will see over two euro and it won't stop at that. It'll go to 220 and 230. Don't forget to mention to put out the cork flags for the cork camogie girls who are in the final against Galway. Absolutely. We want to see more red and white, whether it's flags or bunting.
118:44
There's a big response then to meta glasses and other topics like that. So keep them coming. Text 0868104106. Lots to do after the break.
118:52
All righty.
119:00
Free Food Friday. Curtis and Domino's Pizza. Lots of pizza and chicken and all sorts of wonderful sides of potato wedges and kickers and chicken bites and bonus bites and cheeseburger pizza, pepperoni, passion, cheese, Texas barbecue. Loads of them. Last opportunity now to text 0868-104-106. Good morning to everybody. Topman, Barbers and Balancholic. A to Z. Oh, forgive me. A to Z. Painting in Fairhill. I don't know how that slipped out. Angie Budden, Makeup Studios in Whitegate. Willie from Sodexo. We could do with a big feast. I'm sweating buckets all day, making sure that Pfizer is spotless.
119:35
Everybody, Cork Builders, Providers and Toker. We've also got everybody, ABS and Churchfield, always listening and loving pizza. Ring a Skiddy, Container Terminal. We'd love feeding today. All of the staff. We're always listening to O'Connell's and Reva Tiles and Curra Road. I just moved back from Canada and haven't had an Irish takeaway yet. Still adjusting to reality and I'd love some dominoes to share with the guys. Everybody at Stryker and Tuller Green checking in again. The Monday Munchies last week didn't happen but we're a forgiving bunch. It's Friday now so we'd like to formally apply and put the past behind us and accept pizza instead.
120:08
I just love the text from Stryker. I know you've won a few times in the past, but we'll see what happens in the future. No hard feelings, they say, just hard hunger at Stryker. The Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board out in St Finbar's Hospital, the Mercy Outpatients Department, High Street Books, the warehouse in Ballycorine. We'd love some delicious food on a Friday morning as our staff are working round the clock. You're working round the clock because... is getting closer and closer to back to school. Kilsara in concrete in ovens and Tom Bartley water softeners in Rath Cormac.
120:40
If I get a chance, I'll do a rogue bunch, the last bunch of straggling texts between now and midday and pick a winner for Free Food Friday. It's fun, actually. You talk about relationships and things like that, like we did, you know, because it's all Tinder now.
120:53
You go back far enough, of course, you struck up friendships person to person in school or in the workplace or going to a club or a pub or whatever. But sometimes it was overseas. I want to play something that aired in 2021 because we just came across it during the week and it was just lovely to hear the conversation. We were speaking about friendships and how things had changed over the years on the air, right? Back in the day, it would have been a case of pen pals, all right? So imagine people listening to me now had pen pals and would write regularly to their pen pal. There's always a great story behind them.
121:24
So if you have a story, you can always text 0868-104-106, email neil at redfm.ie. But be careful, though, for what you wish for, because sometimes a pen pal, the storyline can develop and develop. You'll understand what I mean. Have a listen to this, because it was actually Nora, and it aired January of 2021. But it's worth a replay, right? Have an aged.
121:49
Nora, good morning.
121:51
Good morning, Neil.
121:52
I have a lovely Vox Pop, actually, from the streets of Cork with Seamus on Pen Pals, but did you have one?
121:58
I did indeed, Neil. Back in 1970.
122:02
Get away. You were about 13, I'm told, is that?
122:05
Just 13. 50 years ago now, Neil. It was a scheme brought in by the National School to improve our letter writing, you know?
122:13
Yeah.
122:14
And we should have been all great writers after because we were told what to say in the letters and...
122:20
So then you pick a country. I picked India.
122:23
And then I started writing to this. He was a boy. It was a boy.
122:29
I just started writing to him and tell him all about me and where I lived and the countryside.
122:35
And then I get a letter back. And he told me all about India and all about his own culture. And he sent me pictures.
122:42
Of him sitting on elephants or feeding the elephant. And he was quite young. He looked at my own age group as well, maybe 14, you know?
122:51
And he used to wear a turban with a pearl at the front of it in the pictures.
122:55
Yes, of course.
122:56
So I was fascinated, so I quickly write back. Now, I wouldn't have any pictures, but I had to do drawings for him and I'd include something, you know?
123:05
And he'd come back again with some more beautiful pictures of flowers and the elephants and gorgeous...
123:11
So this day he wrote to me, he told me he was coming to visit me.
123:17
And he said his father had decided he must take a wife and after going to Ireland, visit Ireland. Ah, you're joking me. Was all this in the letter?
123:26
All this was in the letter. So he said to me, he'll visit me and he will let me know when he's coming.
123:30
How old were you when you got the letter that his dad said he's to go to Ireland and get a wife?
123:35
Well, that was the age group, so this letter writing went on maybe for six months.
123:39
So you were still about 13, is it?
123:41
I was, yeah. So I was jumping up and down and I ran to my mother and I said, look, I think his name was Jamal, it was a J-A-M something, I can't remember now, but you were after bringing back a memory. My God, I'd long forgotten, you know.
123:55
So you showed your mam the letter that Jamal was coming from India.
124:00
I did.
124:03
And she jumped up off the chair. She says, what?
124:06
And she said, he knows where we live now. He knows where to come. And she shouted at my father to come in and said, you know, he called. She called him by his first name and said, oh, come here, come here. Look, look what's happening here. She said, look, those fellas with the turbans, they're coming. They're coming to Nora. So my father came in. He says, ah, look, to be great, to be great. She said, what do you mean to be great? She said, He never arrived, no? Oh, you're upset about that.
124:40
You were thinking you were going to get married.
124:57
Well, I was excited my pin pal was coming to visit, you know. Oh, my God. I'd love if you still had that letter.
125:07
What I do have, not the letter, but what I do have is Steve McGarris. I wrote to him.
125:12
You told me that in the text, yeah.
125:14
And that was 1972, and I started off again writing to the stars. So I wrote to Jack Lord, and I got a response of a postcard with his picture with the flowers around his neck. the hawaiian look you know yeah and he just said aloha in the front of it in the back of it my name is there my address thank you for you know writing to me and you know if you want a bigger picture you can send one dollar and whatever to cover the postage who else did you write to what other stars did you write to Oh, I wrote to...
125:50
I used to love... Riverboat used to be on a Saturday night with Bart Reynolds and Darren McGarvin. I don't remember Riverboat at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night.
125:59
Don't know that one, but I've heard... Did you write to Bart Reynolds?
126:02
No, no, Darren McGarvin. He was also the outsider. He used to be on on a Thursday night. He was a PI.
126:08
Did he write back?
126:09
And I got some response, but it was just in a letter. I didn't get a picture. I was looking for pictures, you see, really.
126:16
But still in all. I mean, you might have been a PA or somebody in the office, but somebody wrote back to you.
126:22
They're all California Boulevard or something. You just put the actor's name on the top whichever actor you want to write to. You know, it's the one address, kind of, you think of it. And also at the time, you see, we're living out in the country, so we used to join fan clubs. So when Dan won the 1970, you know, Eurovision, I joined a fan club so that every so many weeks you get a newsletter. And then I joined Dermot Hegarty and, you know, some other things.
126:50
Those were the days when people wrote letters.
126:52
And you've got a newsletter and the excitement. You'll reach with a postman. You know when it's due every three months, a newsletter.
126:57
All that drops now is bills or people trying to send you stuff or junk mail. That's a great story. But the letter from India and him coming over to find a wife, that's lost, is it?
127:08
Oh, I haven't got that. I've only got Jack Lord for you.
127:12
Well, I gave it a spin yesterday.
127:15
I gave it a spin for you, so here's another 10 seconds of a Wi-Fi vote for you, all right? See you, Nora.
127:27
On Red FM.
127:28
With Elevate Credit Union in Douglas, Glanmire, Passage West and Grange, where members matter.
127:34
Oh, it's funny. It really is. I mean, that would be the equivalent, like writing to Steve McGarrett back in the day would be like the equivalent of trying to become a pen pal or writing to Brad Pitt, I suppose, if you like. Anyway, keep them coming. Text 0868104106. Unfortunately, I started this morning with a conversation with Carmel regarding her mother's respite down in Cove for two weeks, which was cancelled with a week's notice. And without recapping in too much detail, of course, now she will have, if nothing happens, and I've had no response to many that can happen, that's disappointing, I have to say, then, you know, it would be a case of Carmel losing her €1,500 holiday to Spain.
128:09
And I'm not saying that that's the biggest issue for her. She just feels very let down in general. Actually, I got a text in then from somebody who was a bed manager with the HSE saying, saying it's heartbreaking to hear that lady's story with regards to her mother's respite care being cancelled. The HSE should find her an alternative because it's a compliance issue. I was a bed manager and my advice would be to contact her GP, ask for a letter outlining the urgent need for respite care for her mother and the pressure she is under as a carer.
128:40
She should email it to the HSE's complaints department. She should also contact a TD who can usually raise the matter directly with a senior HSE contact. One of the HSC community hospitals should be able to provide the respite bed. It may not be available for the exact dates of her holiday, but respite bed cancellations do happen. I can also offer a private nursing care and there's a nursing Facebook page where she could reach out for recommendations. Carmel may not want to go down that route, but at least it could give her a much needed break.
129:11
Yes, but I appreciate that. But that care then would come at a huge cost to her, much more than the cost of losing the holiday. But I understand what you're saying.
129:21
Somebody else suggested, and this is the terminology that's used, it's not mine, tell Carmel to land her mother to the A&E and let the state deal with the issue. What's wrong with training that girl's brother and sister to care for their mother for the two weeks when she's away? After all, that lady is their mother as well. Why should she have to sacrifice the holiday when sharing is caring? I lost my mum and I fought to have her at home with us. I've seen it all, believe me, and I feel so sorry for Carmel who was speaking to you about her mother. I know how incredibly difficult it is, but one day she'll be proud of herself for everything she has done to care for her mother.
129:58
Those memories and the comfort that you gave her will mean so much to you. It made me realise, caring for my mother, how little support there is for families in these situations. It really opened my eyes to how alone you can feel at a time. when you need the help the most. I often thought I'd love to support people going through the same experience because we didn't have anyone to guide us at the time. But sending so much love and strength to Carmel, she's doing a fantastic job caring for her beautiful mum and she needs to be told that. And so say all of us. Keep those texts coming.
130:29
Text 0868 104 106. Could you please give our social camogie team a shout out? St. Vincent's camogie team will be playing at halftime in Croke Park during the All-Ireland final at the weekend. Lots of excited women en route to Croker. It's the St. Vincent's camogie social team. Best of luck to St. Vincent's player, Amy O'Connor, who's playing in the senior final against Galway.
130:52
Amy's army and the social saints will be out in force. Oh, when the saints go marching in, says Michelle and everybody at St. Vincent's. Yes, indeed, we should all get behind the girls on Sunday and get the red and white out. bunting and flags and everything. Okay, just before I leave you for the day that's in it, I'm just curious. I want to just have a quick word, if you don't mind, with Antoinette McLachlan behind Katie's wish to walk. Katie's 19 years old now and if you know of that Katie's wish to walk, you probably know it amongst other things because we've been in touch with Antoinette down through the years.
131:24
Antoinette, good morning.
131:26
Good morning, Neil. How many years back? Are we talking like 15 years? Um...
131:35
About 13 years since Katie had her last surgery.
131:39
Okay. And finally, all these years later, there is some movement in more ways than one with regards to the HSE and funding and the surgery. Am I right?
131:50
Yes. The HSE have actually agreed to pay for Katie's surgery in Florida.
131:56
And why did it take so long? She's 19 years old now.
132:02
I don't know. We've been to so many different consultants and we've been given so many different excuses as to why they wouldn't operate.
132:11
We told them that we had a surgeon in Florida. As you know, I approached Michal Martin.
132:18
That was on the RPH, the Roachstone Park, wasn't it?
132:21
Yes, he kind of escalated a forest, but it still took another 10 months after that.
132:27
Do you think it wouldn't have happened without him pushing it? I don't think it would have. Well, then I have to say fair play to him for doing that, in spite of our differences. Well, it made a difference.
132:37
I'm not one to praise the politician, but he did what I asked.
132:41
It shouldn't have taken that. It should have happened much, much sooner. And what do we mean by finally getting new legs?
132:50
That's Katie's own thing. She...
132:54
It's an ongoing kind of family joke. Like, if I'm going to the shop, I'd say to her, do you want that? Yeah, new legs. You know, because obviously her hip is at her or whatever.
133:03
So there's the orthopaedic surgeon, because she's got hip dysplasia, will make everything surgically right.
133:10
Yeah, well, she's got two surgeries. First, she has a tear in her labrum, which is...
133:19
when you have a ball and socket the other way a ball and socket is sitting there's like an elastic band goes around that to keep it in place that's torn so that has to be fixed first and then two weeks later then they'll fix her hip and her pelvis and her fema and I won't dwell on the intricacies involved that apart from the fact that it's life changing a massive lease of life oh it's unbelievable unbelievable so so good for like so are you excited about travelling when will that be We're literally just waiting on a date of Dr Paley and his team.
133:54
So hopefully we'll have that someday next week.
133:58
And then we can kind of plan from there then on, once we have the date, like obviously booking flights and accommodation and getting our visas and all that. You'll travel as well, won't you, Antoinette? Oh yeah, yeah. And my husband's coming with me too because obviously Katie is 19.
134:17
I can't lift her anymore because I have scoliosis in my own back.
134:22
So she's non-weight bearing for six weeks after the surgery.
134:28
So I need Pat with me to lift her up.
134:30
Absolutely.
134:31
Basically, you know. So listen. I'm standing here at the minute like my own. I lift her up the other day because nobody else here.
134:37
No, family first. Absolutely. You don't want to be putting yourself in any pain. You know, that's what the funding is there for. Get it done. It's so exciting because she'll be pain free then, right?
134:48
Hopefully. Fingers crossed. You know, once all this is done. You know, it's not a quick fix. You know, it's going to take time. I know, I know. To...
134:57
get her back up to full strength, obviously. Now they will do physio with her. I know, but it's just... She's not weight-bearing.
135:04
I know that. I understand the intricacies of it. I'm just going to run out of time rapidly, but it's just so much of her life all through her teenage years, but you have to forget about that now, I suppose, don't you?
135:15
No.
135:15
Because it would be easy to be bitter about the lost years.
135:19
Yeah, no, but we look forward now and, you know, Hopefully by Christmas, you know, we'll be in a better position that she'll be able to.
135:27
Ah, that's fantastic.
135:28
You know, walk and whatever. She can still walk, but walk without being in pain.
135:33
Well, you never give up, Antoinette. You never give up. Neither you nor Katie nor the family. No, I don't want to judge her. No, you don't. And I want to wish you the best of luck going forward. And of course, we'll stay in touch with regards to your trip and the surgery to Florida. And we'll chat again about that. But I'm in awe of your perseverance and courage. Well done. You should be very proud.
135:53
Thank you. And thank you so much for your help over the years.
135:55
It was nice to walk the walk with you. I don't mean quite literally when I'm talking about Katie, but I'm just so happy at this stage now that at least something's going to be done, albeit so many years later. So well done on that and best of luck going forward. All right.
136:09
Yeah, thanks a million. Okay, what a lovely family. What a lovely woman. What a great mother and a great daughter. Text 0868 104 106. Pick up the phone on 0818 104 106. It's going to run rapidly out of time before I love you and leave you here. Evans is up next. Stand by for that. We've got to pick a winner for our free food Friday. Lots of pizza. And so many people desperate to get it. So at this stage now, I think I have a fair idea where it's going, right? I think we're heading down...
136:37
We have a look at this now. Where am I heading to? Little Island.
136:42
We're heading to Little Island, where they crave pizza for lunch today because they've been working hard, looking after everybody who goes to festivals, concerts, pubs, clubs.
136:54
Companies called Classic Drinks. Standing by, we should have Paula taking a break from filling bottles or something. Paula, good morning.
137:04
Morning, Neil.
137:05
What is it you do with classic drinks?
137:08
Classic drinks? Well, I actually make the payments, so I'm in finance and accounts payable.
137:12
Oh, you're the bean counter. So what do the others do? Fill bottles with what?
137:18
Oh, everything. We're supplying all sorts of drinks to everyone. And, you know, guys in the warehouse then are getting everything ready for us to ship off to our purchase buyers and off to the concerts, pubs and clubs.
137:31
All right.
137:32
Yeah, it's crazy season at the moment because of all the concerts that are coming out.
137:36
Where would people at concerts and festivals be without Paula, Peter, Colm, Diarmuid, Bartek, Jack and all of the warehouse staff at Classic Drinks? Thank you so much for listening.
137:45
Oh my goodness, I'm so happy.
137:48
I hope you're hungry down there.
137:49
Yeah, are you hungry guys? Yeah!
137:53
Amy's been very quiet.
137:55
Listen, I want a big weekend cheer and tell Amy to book up and cheer with the rest of you. Give us a big weekend cheer then from Classic Drinks.
138:04
A weekend cheer, guys. Yay!
138:08
I'll take it. I'll take it. You have loads to wash the pizza down then, don't you, with?
138:14
Oh, well, that's not allowed on our page.
138:16
There we could crack open a few Corona there, for God's sake.
138:21
Have a great weekend.
138:23
Yeah, thanks, Ian. Thanks so much, everybody. Bye.
138:26
Bye. Thanks for listening, everybody, at Classic Drinks in Little Island. The Clon Adventure Park Passes. Lisa and her two kids Lisa wears the Meta glasses from earlier on this morning with very limited sight what a lovely chat we had with her so we're going to sort you and the family out for a Clon Adventure Park pass and Dee who texted in she said my 10 year old boy is having a horrid summer with illness we spent 12 nights in this UH ongoing treatment for colitis and I'd love one of the passes for a lad who really deserves it well how could I say no Dee so you're sorted as well have a great weekend everybody we will talk to you Monday
