MORNING FOCUS WEDNESDAY 11TH DECEMBER
With weather conditions worsening over night a decision was taken this morning to close the Cliffs of Moher to the public. Katherine Webster Director – Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience joined John to discuss the closure decision.
Several hundred gardaí were set to work through the night on Tuesday to create a secure environment for Wednesday’s planned water charges protest outside Government Buildings in Dublin city centre. Senior gardaí are anticipating a crowd of up to 30,000.Thousands of crowd control barriers will be erected, with the controlled environment they create set to be heavily policed from the early hours. While trouble is not expected at the main event on Merrion Square in the South Inner city, contingency plans have been made in the event small groups of militant protesters seek to “take on” gardaí after the main rally. Protestors Kathleen Austin and Pat Talty who were enroute to the march. spoke to us this morning
Shocking scenes of mistreatment of residents at a Co Mayo centre for adults with intellectual disabilities feature in an undercover documentary to be broadcast on RTÉ television last night. The programme, Inside Bungalow 3, raises serious questions for the Health Service Executive, which runs the facility, and the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), which is responsible for monitoring standards. Eleanor McSherry Special Needs Parents Association Vice-Chairperson and Dermot Hayes Disability Campaigner and Senator Tony Mulcahy who has campaigned on the issue of disability and who is the parent of a child with special needs joined us to discuss the fallout from the show, understandably we got a lot of calls from listeners about the treatment of patients highlighted in the programme.
Pat Cahill , manager of Laurel Lodge in Ennis was in studio to talk about the on going problems in the area of homelessness. The issue was highlighted recently with the death of Jonathan Corrie who died just meters from the entrance to Leinster House. An emergency forum on homelessness which included government amd those working in the area of battling homelessness was convened and moves have bee made to ensure that all those sleeping rough in Dublin will have a place to stay at night by Christmas, Pat outlined the extent of the problem here in Clare.
A social awareness project that a group of Irish schoolgirls completed has been recreated by RTE's Primetime as part of an investigation into internet safety. The class of 24 teenagers from Coláiste Muire in Ennis, Co Clare set up a fake Facebook page as part of a project to create awareness amongst young people around the dangers of social media and general internet usage. Blonde 'Aoife', a fake account set up with public settings, accrued 1,660 followers before the students saw fit to remove it. Students Nell Hensey and Ellen Farrell along with their teacher Fionola Howard spoke to John about the project.
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