Gavan Reilly's Portfolio writings, ramblings, mumblings

Budget 2010: Agricultural investment would give ‘results within months’ – IFA candidate

KLIKENNY’S candidate for the presidency of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has expressed concern that last week’s Budget confirmed cuts to major programmes promoting development in the agricultural sector.

John Bryan, a suckler farmer and cattle finisher from Inistioge was disappointed with cuts to the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) and the halving of grants being paid under the Suckler Welfare Scheme.

“What was one of the best environmental schemes in Europe – the REPS scheme – resulted in huge improvement in farmyards; it was good for the environment and for the visual appearance of the country, which aided tourism,” explained Bryan, “but under the Bord Snip Nua report, no new entrants are being permitted to the scheme.”

REPS is seen as an important support scheme for up to 60,000 farmers nationwide, and the third iteration of the scheme is due to finish next year. The scheme is to be replaced with a new “agri-environmental scheme”, details of which are yet to be outlined by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food.

“Any euro spent on REPS is returned and spent in the local community,” Bryan said. “It helps keep a lot of farmers viable. Kilkenny has a strong agricultural community with large employment in the county’s meat factories, cattle marts, and in major dairy firms like Glanbia… any euro spent on the scheme locally helps create jobs in Kilkenny. I’m concerned that the lack of funding for schemes like REPS and the Suckler Welfare Scheme means a threat to jobs. It will have a long-term impact on the viability of small and medium-sized farmers, and will definitely cost jobs in the area.”

Payments under the Suckler Welfare Scheme, originally set at €80 for cows that completed seven measures laid out by the Department, have been halved to €40 per cow.

Elsewhere, the budget for Food Safety and Animal Health has been slashed by 26%, a move Bryan believes will have significant impact. “We fought for rules on ‘country of origin’ labelling and it took us four years before the laws were introduced, but not a single euro has been spent on enforcement… Cutbacks in this area are very short-sighted.

“We need to put more into promotion and long-term investment. Agriculture is a sector that has the capacity to grow jobs and maintain levels of hard currency coming into the Irish economy.”

Bryan argued that with the current economic situation, the Government needed to be target any sector that could create sustainable and long-term employment, insisting that investment in agriculture would offer a “quicker delivery” of cash and jobs that any other area, adamant that a 16 per cent cut in funding from a Department overseeing “a sector capable of creating jobs and helping the economy recover itself” was an example of poor long-term economic planning.

He asserted that agriculture could stimulate economic recovery “much quicker than investment in banking services or even tourism, which is dependant on recovery elsewhere in the world. Even a small investment in agriculture would give a result within months.”

The Inistioge man also attacked cutbacks in agricultural education which would have a pronounced effect on the sustainability of the sector.

“When I started farming in 1980, the country was poor, but even then there were local agricultural offices in medium towns like Castlecomer and Thomastown, let alone in the city. Closing agricultural colleges will have a serious long-term impact – in a recession, most countries invest in education, but on the whole that was lacking.

“I would have liked to see a further injection of investment into agricultural education and training. There’s a generation of young farms who’d have a lot to contribute to the sector and it’s essential that they get every help – whether it be education, training, or the restoration of the installation grant, to promote the transition.

“Overall, it’s very clear that the Government needs to invest in sustainable jobs and we didn’t see that very much in the Budget. I know it’s not easy to cut €4bn and spend money at the same time, but we need long-term vision and decision, even if it affects short-term cash flow. I didn’t see much value for money long-term planning.”

Balloting in the Presidential election comes to an end today (Wednesday) with the results being formally announced when votes are counted next Monday, December 21. Bryan is one of three candidates for the Association’s top job.

Fundraising continues for African charity

THE Kilkenny-based charity Kilimanjaro Direct is continuing its drive to raise funds for the construction of a new school in a remote part of Tanzania. Construction on the project has already begun in the town of Moshi, at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, with significant progress reported.

Through the charity has previously funded the construction of seven houses for local families, as well as providing basic food and funding the education of local children, its efforts have been concentrated on the construction of the school, in the belief that such a project will bring about long-term and sustained improvements to the population of the area.

Sheila Ryan, a music teacher in Presentation Secondary School and the driving force behind the charity, recently visited the area to survey the ongoing building works, and returned with photos and videos showing the extent of the site and the progress being made. She was accompanied on her visit by Fr Peter Muldowney, formerly of St John’s and Thomastown parishes.

Local singer-songwriter Ger Mulvey has released a CD in aid of the project. The ‘Holding Out For You’ CD, featuring 11 tracks written by Mulvey and another local teacher, Frances Cotter, is on sale for €10 in Essaness on Kieran Street, or directly from glmulvey@gmail.com. All proceeds from the album’s sales go directly to charity.

Meanwhile, a group of local children from Maiden Hill on the Kells Road recently held a cake and bookmark sale in raise funds for the project, earning €150 for the charity. The charity wish to thank the children involved – Sophie, Lucy, Tom and Andrew Mason; Emma, Rachel and Gary Moore; Katie and Niall Byrne; and Casey, Conor and Alex Lalor – for their efforts.

Charity volunteers will be fundraising through bag-packing and carol singing at various locations around the city in the coming weeks, while a sale of original African old paintings and batik fabrics takes place in the Ormonde Hotel this Saturday from noon to 5pm.

Day care centre attendees launch book in Gowran

A CAPACITY crowd filled Dalton House Day Care Centre in Gowran last Wednesday evening, 2nd December, for the launch of a book titled Life Through Our Viewfinder.

The book details the stories, life experiences and anecdotes of over fifty attendees of the day care centre, and was produced over twenty months.

Though the contributors might be average older people, some have extraordinary tales to tell as they recount their journey from childhood to the present time.

The project was initially born as an occupational therapy project for those attending the centre every Friday night, but as the scheme continued it became apparent that the quality and uniqueness of the stories being shared deserved to be shared a wider audience. A small number of the stories shared – referred to as “armchair stories” – were carefully transcribed and ‘ghostwritten’ on behalf of the attendees.

While naturally the book’s stories deal with a variety of local and broader historical issues, it is not meant to be seen an objective historical publication, but rather as the personal recollections of the senior citizens who attend the centre on a weekly basis.

In his welcoming address at the book’s launch, Gowran’s Parish Priest, Fr Pat Dalton, had high praise for the centre’s manager, Nellie Brett, who as chairperson of the project’s steering committee had huge input into the production of the book. Ft Dalton commented that it was Nellie who “sought the writers, gathered photographs and even engaged in some ghostwriting”.

Fr Dalton also lavished praise on Ashling Brett, who took on the laborious task of transcribing all the stories from the paper to the screen, and her husband Paul whose technical expertise was given voluntarily in laying out the book, and reproducing the pictures to an extremely high standard. The cover design was contributed by local artist Lorraine Brett.

After transcription and typesetting, there remained the final phase of producing the book – the delicate art of editing. The group were fortunate in securing the services of award-winning journalist Sean Hurley,who offered to do the final cut.

Launching the book last Wednesday, John McGuinness TD congratulated Nellie, her team, and in particular the contributors who made the publication of Life Through Our Viewfinder a reality. He remarked that he was very impressed with the book, and suggested that every home should have a copy.

The book has already proven popular and the committee plan to organise a sequel publication in the coming years. Half of all proceeds from its sale will be invested in the production of the second volume of stories, while half will be returned to fund the facilities offered at Dalton House.

The steering committee, who oversaw the management of the book from conception to publication, was also comprised of Jimmy Breen, Nancy Whelan, Des Kehoe, Jim Flanagan, Bridie Byrne, Michael Farrell, Geraldine Nolan and Fr Pat Dalton, PP.

Dalton House Day Care Centre – and the publication of the book itself – is supported with funding from the HSE. The centre provides a range of activities and services for the elderly such as ‘meals on wheels’, laundry, art, respite and computer classes as well as a weekly social gathering for bingo, card games, refreshments and singsongs.

The Centre is also assisted financially by the Government’s intermediate charity, Pobal, which pays the staff at the centre, and which also contributed to the costs of publishing the book.

Life Through Our Viewfinder is available from Teach Mhuire, Callan; Hennessy’s shop, Gowran; and from the Book Centre, High Street, Kilkenny. The hardback edition of the book, which has almost sold out already, costs €18.90 while the paperback is priced at €14.95.

Tullaroan man awarded with prestigious Vatican medal

A TULLAROAN man has been presented with a prestigious medal from the Vatican in recognition of his 40 years of service to the Catholic Church.

Joseph Fitzpatrick, who has lived in Manchester for the past fifty years, was presented with the Benemerenti Medal last month at St Patrick’s Church, Collyhurst, Manchester, in recognition of his service to the Diocese of Salford, which encompasses the Greater Manchester area.

A builder by trade, Joseph ran a successful construction company and carried out a substantial amount of work for the Salford Diocese, such as restoration work on church bulidings and schools. He has also organised regular retreat weekends for local children and has helped to organise the Diocese’s annual trip to Lourdes for each of the past 27 years. Joseph recently built a grotto at his parish church of St Patrick’s in Collyhurst, having personally brought home the statues of Our Lady and St Bernadette from one of his many trips to Lourdes.

Joseph was presented with the medal by Fr Michael Buckley, Parish Priest at St Patrick’s, who spoke at length of Joseph’s invaluable contribution to the parish and the wider diocese.

Born in Tullaroan in 1941, one of the eleven children of Patrick and Anastasia Fitzpatrick, Joseph moved to Manchester in 1959 where he married Cecilia O’Dowd, whose family originated in Claremorris in County Mayo, and had five children.

The Benemerenti Medal is an extremely prestigious award and is one of the highest honours awarded by the Vatican to the lay community. Instituted by Pope Gregory XVI in 1832, the medal is conferred on those who have exhibited long and exceptional service to the Catholic Church, their families and community.

The medal itself features the word ‘benemerenti’ (meaning ‘to a well deserving person’) inscribed on its face, surrounded by a crown of oak leaves, and its ribbon displays the Papal colours of gold and white. Previous recipients of the medal include Maria Augusta von Trapp of the famed Von Trapp Family Singers.

Festive cheer for Rackard’s party

AMID the doom and gloom of dark evenings and bitterly cold weather, the people of Skeoughvosteen, Graiguenamanagh, The Rower and Inistioge will have something to smile about this festive season as Rackard Cody’s annual Christmas party returns to the Springhill Court Hotel this Sunday, 13th December.

Chief among the attractions on the day will be a raffle with a top prize of a holiday voucher worth €2,000 as well as oil vouchers and a top-of-the-range bicycle, all donated by local businesses. With a total prize fund of over €3,000, tickets are a bargain at only €5 each. Proceedings kick off at 1pm with a special Christmas dinner. “We have music, we have bingo worth €600 with free entry, we have the raffle… the sky’s the limit!” remarked Cody. “It’s better than any wedding in Ireland.”

Special guests on the day will include Mayor of Kilkenny, Cllr Malcolm Noonan, Meath-based MEP Mairéad McGuinness, and a flying visit from Santa Claus who will act as a special guest bingo caller later in the evening. Buses will be provided to shepherd senior citizens from Graiguenamanagh and The Rower to the venue.

Among the fundraising activities for the party is the raffle of 20 limited-edition, specially manufactured ‘four-headed’ hurls autographed by the captains of Kilkenny’s four-in-a-row All-Ireland champions. The special ceremonial hurls, mounted in beautiful wooden frames, are being raffled off through pubs around the county over the coming weeks, with the first such auction taking place at Keogh’s in Callan on Friday, 18th December, where members of the current All-Ireland crop will be on hand to draw the winner.

While the annual get-together started out as an event for more senior residents almost 50 years ago, the occasion has become a much-anticipated day out for locals of all ages in recent years. Cody hopes to see a record turnout of over 300 for this year’s event.

Cody is a widely-known figure in GAA circles as a long-time member of the Kilkenny senior hurling backroom team – he is the squad’s current kit manager – and has now been chairman of the organising committee for two decades.

Cody was thankful to Paul Kavanagh, of J.J. Kavanagh & Sons coach hire, who are supporting this year’s event. Kavanagh said it was “super” for Kavanagh’s, as official carriers of the Kilkenny teams, “to be involved in the four-in-a-row team, and eight All-Ireland finals in the last ten years – we’re thrilled to be able to help out, it’s great to give Rackard a help out.” Cody also thanked John O’Neill of Citroen who has donated the wine being served on the day.

The party was officially launched at Kilkenny Castle yesterday (Tuesday) by current Kilkenny panellists Jackie Tyrrell, Michael Rice and Michael Grace, who were joined by Paul Kavanagh and Jim Power, the squad’s official busdriver.

Kilkenny hurlers honoured at Garda Sportstar Awards

TWO Kilkenny hurling legends were among the winners at An Garda Síochána’s 16th annual Coiste Siamsa Sportstar Awards, held recently in Hotel Kilkenny. Eddie Brennan scooped the award in the hurling category for the sixth time, while Frank Cummins was the winner of the Hall of Fame award.

Cummins’s award was offered in recognition of his exceptional record in midfield for the Kilkenny side, where he won eight All-Ireland medals between 1967 and 1983 as well as four All-Star awards, three All-Ireland club titles with Blackrock (Cork), and a Hurler of the Year award in 1983. The citation for Cummins noted that the Cats failed to win Liam McCarthy for almost a decade after his retirement, and described the Knocktopher clubman as a “true colossus” of the game. Cummins joined the force in 1967 and was based in Cork for most of his service.

Brennan, who is stationed in Portlaoise, was honoured for another remarkable year in the Kilkenny full-forward line, where the Graigue-Ballycallan clubman won his seventh senior All-Ireland medal as well as his tenth Leinster title.

The Coiste Siamsa Sportstar Awards are a celebration of the sporting achievements of the members of An Garda Síochána, and honour those in the force who have excelled in sport locally, nationally and internationally.

The awards were presented on Friday 27th November by Jimmy Magee of RTÉ, who was MC for the evening and who had also chaired the awards selection committee.

Thanksgiving Mass is held for long-standing priest

The parishioners of St Patrick’s, Ballyragget, came together last Friday, December 4, to celebrate a special Mass for the retirement of Canon Percy Grant following his 38 years of service to the parish.

Canon Grant was Parish Priest at St Patrick’s from 1982 until he stepped down in 2002, though he remained in Ballyragget as a Pastor Emeritus until his full retirement in June of this year.

Born in Ballyhale, Canon Grant was ordained at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in 1951 and was posted in the diocese of Hexham & Newcastle, England, for his first five years of service. In 1956, however, he returned to Kilkenny where he served as Chaplain to the De La Salle Brothers and Holy Family Sisters in Kilmacow for two years.

Canon Grant then served for three months in St John’s before being appointed a curate in Danesfort for three years. From there he was transferred to St Kieran’s College, where he served as Bursar prior to his appointment as a curate in Ballyragget in 1971. The Most Reverend Bishop of Ossory, Séamus Freeman, was in attendance at last week’s thanksgiving Mass, which was also broadcast on local community radio for the benefit of parishioners who could not attend the service in person. A celebration was held after the service at the local community hall.

During his time in Ballyragget, Canon Grant also founded the local Credit Union, an institution in which he holds great pride, and of which he remains an Honorary President.

Members of the St Patrick’s parish have spoken fondly of Canon Grant’s time in the parish, commenting that he knew all local residents by name and that we would be fondly regarded by the people of Ballyragget for years to come.

One parishioner recounted that Canon Grant would often speak of his time posted in Newcastle following his ordination, where he learned what he considered to be his most important lesson – to make the effort to visit parishioners in their homes, where they felt most at ease.

A proud sportsman, Canon Grant is a keen golfing enthusiast and an avid follower of hurling. Though he developed a soft spot for the St Patrick’s club in Ballyragget over his time in the parish, Canon Grant remains a proud Shamrocks supporter, staying true to his roots in the south Kilkenny parish.

Three noted Ballyhale men – hurlers Henry Shefflin, James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick and Bobby Alyward – surprised the Canon with a visit to his home last week, to pay personal tribute to his considerable service to the parish and the people of Ballyragget, and to wish him well in retirement.

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