Talking to Clare FM’s Gavin Grace on today’s Afternoon Show was Peter Power, Executive Director of Unicef Ireland and former Minister of State for International Aid and Development. They discussed the findings of a new report which shows that Ireland is the tenth best country to be a child in a list of 29 industrialised nations. The Netherlands, Norway, and Iceland are top of the list while bottom of the table are Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. The report shows Ireland has the highest rate of children exercising with almost one in three children exercising for a least an hour a day. And it warns that childhood must be protected during the economic downturn.
Niamh Gallagher is a co-founder of the group – Women for Election and joined Gavin on the show to discuss women in politics in light of the death of Britain’s first (and so far only) female Prime Minister. Margaret Thatcher’s death has brought the issue of women in politics back into the spotlight. Six years before she was elected to 10 Down Street, Margaret Thatcher famously declared that there would be no female Prime Minister in her life time, but how far away is Ireland from its first female Taoiseach?
Dr. Anna Clarke, a medical expert with Diabetes Ireland also let listeners know about a special meeting taking place in the Mid West this weekend for people living with the illness. Diabetes is a 24/7 condition and left unmanaged or poorly controlled can have a detrimental effect on a person’s quality of life. Uncontrolled or poorly managed diabetes is the primary cause of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, blindness and amputation, most of which can be avoided with effective self-management and treatment. Diabetes Ireland’s National Spring Meeting is taking place in the Castletroy Park Hotel, Limerick on Sunday April 14th April.
Aidan Courtney from The Ennis Book Shop was in studio to review – Pudsey: My Autobiography, about the dog who danced his way into the history books as the first canine winner of Britain’s Got Talent and The Sea Garden a book on seaweed foraging and cookery, by Marie Power who has been running seaweed workshops for 5 years along the south coast of Ireland.
Gavin also spoke to two students this afternoon – Sarah Kearns from Sixmilebridge and Paul Tracey from Caherdavin who are currently in Vienna as part of an EU competition that they won. Three teams of two people won the “Talk To EU” Eurotrip Citizen X Challenge and as part of the challenge are racing across five EU cities or towns in just six days and complete five tasks during their trek. Each of the tasks is designed to test EU policy around citizenship as part of the 2013 European Year of Citizens – which could include anything from finding a job to getting hold of information about the EU rights of Irish citizens.
Also joining Gavin on today’s show was Voice of Ireland contestant and Limerick native Aoife McLoughlin. Aoife is among the final ten contestants battling it out to become The Voice of Ireland 2013. Competition is stiff, however Aoife, who is part of Sharon Corr’s team, is holding her own and on the latest show was awarded 22 points from judges for her version of Alicia Keyes – Girl on Fire. Bressie commented that she is “definitely one of the strongest female singers on the show”.
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