Articles in the General News Category

SPECSAVERS remains open for all eye care and hearing needs, in line with the latest government guidance. The government has recognised opticians and audiologists as providing essential healthcare services and this means that Specsavers will continue to keep their doors open to the public and offer a full breadth of services to the local community. Specsavers is encouraging all its customers to keep their appointments to ensure that they protect their eye and hearing health after research by the retailer showed that a third of people in Ireland noticed a deterioration in ...

Monaghan camera club have loaned several of their photographs to St Aidan’s to inspire students to create their own photographic compositions. The work seen in school is creative and engages the viewer in perspectives only seen through the camera. Students are then taking their own photographs entitled ‘Me in my World’, a way of seeing ‘The smile we cannot see’ due to the masks students have to wear in school.This project is called Creative Schools and is funded by the arts council of Ireland and aims to bring creativity into the ...

Michael Fisher The Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD has told the Dáil that a high-level taskforce has been created by the government to oversee the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines in Ireland once they are approved by the statutory authorities. Mr Martin said that targeting people who are vulnerable to Covid will be the immediate priority. He revealed that Ireland is due to receive around 1% of whatever vaccines are made available through the EU’s collective purchase scheme. Mr Martin was replying to Labour leader Alan Kelly TD who said the government ...

Two of Cavan/Monaghan’s Dáil representatives were at odds yesterday as the political fallout continued to radiate from Tuesday night’s contentious Leinster House debate prompted by the tabling by Sinn Féin of a vote of no confidence in Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar. Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy accused fellow constituency Deputy and Government Minister Heather Humphreys of engaging in “gutter politics” for attacks on his party made by her when speaking during the debate, which resulted in a Government motion of confidence in the Tánaiste being passed by ...

Michael Fisher Anti-pylon groups in Monaghan, Cavan and Meath have accused Fianna Fáil Oireachtas members of selling out local communities and reversing their policy of undergrounding EirGrid’s proposed North South electricity interconnector. Fianna Fáil’s complete U-turn on the issue now that they are members of a three party Coalition government became apparent in a radio interview on LMFM’s Michael Reade Show by the Minister of State for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne TD on Friday (see transcript on page 12). Speaking on the EirGrid sponsored programme, Minister Byrne confirmed that there ...

The Gardaí and the Environment Services Section of Monaghan Co Council have combined in four joint operations in relation to large-scale illegal waste activities in the county since March of this year, Tuesday’s meeting of the Co Monaghan Joint Policing Committee heard. Co Council Director of services Cathal Flynn said that a number of enforcement actions under the Waste Management Act, arising from the inspections, had been commenced. “Although diesel wash dumping incidents have reduced very significantly in recent years, there are still sporadic incidents of diesel wash dumping taking ...

The Gardaí were liaising with the PSNI in relation to the investigation of a number of burnt-out vehicles found in the Knockatallon and Scotstown areas, it was stated at Tuesday’s meeting of the Co Monaghan Joint Policing Committee. The occurrences were brought to the meeting’s attention by Monaghan Co Council member Cathy Bennett. Referring to a recent report she had received of a burnt-out car in the Knockatallon area, Councillor Bennett said she had subsequently been made aware of two similar incidents of this nature, leading to Monaghan Co Council ...

Shock and disappointment was voiced at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council that a €63.5 million funding package for greenway projects announced by two Government Ministers did not include any provision for the extension of the Ulster Canal Greenway development. Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan TD and Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton TD jointly announced funding for a range of greenway projects across the country on Monday, with projects in Cork, Galway, Kildare, Kerry, Mayo, Offaly, Wexford, Wicklow, Limerick and Longford all receiving money. It was stated in the management ...

Michael Fisher Monaghan County Council has turned down an application to construct a human crematorium on a greenfield site near Broomfield outside Castleblayney. As reported in this newspaper last month, the proposed building was said to be the first of its type in Co. Monaghan and was planned on a four acre site adjacent to an already approved pet crematorium at Aghnafarcan. That application was made in July last year by Olive Cunningham and was granted permission with certain conditions on 12th November 2019 by Monaghan County Council. It is ...

The Border Communities Against Brexit (BCAB) campaign group held a virtual meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD this week to discuss issues of concern at what they described as a crucial time in the Brexit negotiations. BCAB said the wide-ranging meeting discussed the current Brexit talks, trade agreements, the Shared Island initiative, Brexit effects upon EU citizens and issues affecting people working and living in Border communities who wished to access financial services. The campaigners added in a media release: “BCAB would like to publicly thank An Taoiseach for meeting ...