[caption id="attachment_71851" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Enda Kenny campaigning for a “Yes” vote. "]
WESTMEATH HECKLER WANTS ‘JIBE’ APOLOGY
An Athlone man whose bus business closed down last year is calling on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to apologize for a “jibe” he made when confronted by protesters in the town last week.
The man told Kenny, who was campaigning for a “Yes” vote on the fiscal treaty, to "take the bridge, head west, and stay there.” When Kenny asked him his name, Gordon Hudson said: “It doesn’t matter.”
The taoiseach then said: “You could do with a day's work, I'd say."
A furious Hudson told the taoiseach “Oi! Self-employed and had to pack it in because of ye. Twenty-nine years self-employed. Don't give me your crap!"
In the Dáil the next day, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett called on the taoiseach to apologize for the "demeaning and insulting" comment, asking him if it was part of "a new government policy of contempt for people who are out of work."
Kenny replied that he had been "the subject and victim of a range of verbal comments" from protesters, and that his philosophy was to make decisions in government that would help lead to the creation of jobs.
"I empathize with everybody who does want to work but can't find employment," he said. "The priority and focus of government is getting people back working."
Hudson, who is the head of the Athlone campaign against household and septic tank charges, told the Westmeath Independent that his bus company had to cease trading last August because of "ill health and the recession."
TIPPERARY UNITY TOO FAST: SF POL
There’s a lot of talk about unification, but not so fast says a Sinn Fein politician. Councilor Seamus Morris believes that the plan to join the traditionally separate North and South parts of Tipperary hasn’t been fully thought through and that the matter requires careful consideration before being signed off on.
He said there is speculation that the existing North Tipperary complement of four electoral areas could be reduced to just two, leading to difficult representation issues for councilors, the numbers of which would also be reduced.
"But this is not about councilors," Morris told the Nenagh Guardian. "It's knowing how many engineers we're going to have for these areas, and how the services will be delivered." He also questioned the implications for temporary workers employed by the council.
Meanwhile, the Tipperary Star reports that Fianna Fail Councilor Siobhán Ambrose has predicted that the North will get the better deal in the merger. But her comments were opposed by her colleagues in the South, who welcomed the plan as the first step on the road to the unification of the two Tipperarys, officially known as the North and South Ridings between 1898 and 2002.
LONGFORD CENTER SAYS GAMBLING IS UP
The deepening recession has led to a big increase in the number of young men seeking treatment for gambling addiction, an investigation by the Longford Leader has found.
The Gulladoo Treatment Center there has seen a nearly 50 percent increase in client levels across Counties Longford, Leitrim and Cavan over the past 15 months.
Center director Martin Quinn blamed the spike on rising job losses, spiraling household debt and the rise of online betting.
“People who have lost their jobs, the dole is no good to them so they go into the bookies and gamble it all to see if they can make a week’s wages. There is no way out of this,” said Quinn, himself a reformed gambler. “It’s just a vicious cycle.”
But the bookmaker chains themselves have had problems because of the growth of web sites that facilitate betting 24 hours a day.
“When wives or children have gone to bed, there are more and more cases of husbands getting up and going online to bet,” said Quinn. “It is just the compulsive nature of a gambler; they live the dream.”
CORK MASTERS IS 1ST IN EUROPE
The first Masters program in Europe in organic horticulture has been given the green light in West Cork, the Southern Star reports. The MSc course, which will be accredited by University College Cork, will commence in September at Liss Ard Estate on the outskirts of Skibbereen.
The news has been welcomed by a movie producer who sits on the Labour benches in the British House of Lords. “I'm really delighted,” said David Puttnam, who resides locally. “And 10 years from now, if we get this right, I believe it will be seen as one of the more important developments in the evolving story of West Cork in general, and Skibbereen in particular. I'm thrilled to have played a small part in helping bring this about.”
Puttnam, the producer of “Midnight Express,” “The Mission,” “The Killing Fields,” “Chariots of Fire” and several other successful films, made a speech at the Ballydehob autumn food festival in 2010 that pointed to a local economic anomaly. He said that Ireland imported a lot of food, plants and flowers that should be grown at home and added that West Cork was particularly conducive to horticulture.
Members of the Carbery Enterprise Group, a voluntary group, then advanced the idea of a horticulture college for West Cork with help from a number of local people as well as academics at UCC. The next step in the story was the co-operation from Roman Stern, the owner of Liss Ard, who was very supportive of the estate hosting the graduate course.
WICKLOW GREYS THREATEN REDS
Red squirrels are at risk of extinction in Wicklow due to the spread of diseases by their grey cousins, according to a local expert, Dr. Michael Carey.
The forestry consultant has urged the public to keep their eyes open and to report sightings of either grey or red squirrels to www.woodlandmammals.com so that strategies can be developed to deal with the threat, the Wicklow People reports.
“Grey squirrels represent a major threat to the survival of the red squirrel and to broadleaf trees because of the manner in which they remove bark,” Carey said.
It is now over 100 years since six pairs of breeding greys were introduced to Ireland, and the species has expanded hugely, except towards the West, stopped by the obstacle of the River Shannon. In the same period there has been a marked decline in the numbers of red squirrels.
In 2007, the last time an all-Ireland squirrel survey was carried out it revealed a dramatic increase in the spread of the grey of the species over the previous 20 years. There were 110 sightings of grey squirrels and just 80 of red squirrels in County Wicklow.
“Recently there have been reports of two cases of the pox virus in County Wicklow and another in Antrim. The disease is lethal to the native reds and carried by grey squirrels,” he said.
Carey said that with the increased planting of broadleaf trees over the last two decades, woodland owners and the public need to be vigilant with regard to the threat posed by grey squirrels and the extent to which they can destroy vigorous healthy trees through bark stripping.
