Senator Cecilia Keaveney has told the Seanad a situation could be on the cards where strong RTE, TV3 and TG Ceathair pictures are being digitally broadcast into the North, while people parts of Inishowen cannot receive a proper picture.

Speaking on the adjournment debate last night, Senator Keaveney said she understands cross border television coverage is being discussed at government level, and asked if her concerns could be addressed in those discussions.

Responding, Junior Minister Aine Brady did not directly address the question which was raised, but confirmed that RTE will be ready to go digital by the end of this year, with a two year delay before the North follows suit.

Senator Keaveney urged the minister to ensure that the Inishowen concerns are addressed.

A march and rally which was to have taken place in support of Lifford Hospital next Tuesday has been put back until the 17th of May.

The event is being organised by the Friends of Lifford Hospital, who are seeking commitments from the HSE that the hospital won’t close as a result of an ongoing review. The HSE’s Local Health Manager for Donegal John Hayes says the review ias continuing, with results expected in early summer.

Sylvester Mc Gee is Secretary of the Friends of Lifford Hospital. He says the biggest problem is the lack of clarity.

A new television advertising campaign promoting Donegal will be lauched next month.

The new adverts are designed to encourage people to holiday in Donegal this year.

It’s all part of the larger Discover Ireland Campaign launched by the tourism authority earlier this year.

Head of Operations for Failte Ireland in the North-West, Paul McLoone says Donegal will be the only county to get its own specific campaign.

Donegal does not exist on the maps of the Government‘s crisis response headquarters.

The apparent oversight at the National Emergency Co-ordinating Centre was further proof the country’s second-largest county does not exist in the minds of central policy-makers, senior politicians claimed.

Charts on the walls of the taskforce HQ, two floors up in Dublin’s Agriculture House, show in detail the east, west and south of Ireland, but their is no sign of Donegal.

Donegal TD Joe McHugh said the revelation would be nothing new to the man on the street in Donegal but it would rub salt into their wounds.

A 50-year-old man has gone on trial at Derry Crown Court charged with falsely imprisoning, assaulting and stealing from an 83-year-old woman.

Thomas Anthony Samuel Burke, from Eglinton Terrace, is alleged to have committed the offences in the woman’s home on the Northland Road last May.

One hundred and eighty pounds was stolen from the lady who is registered blind and wears two hearing aids.
A 83-year-old woman told Derry Crown Court today how she tried to fight off an intruder who had entered her home last May by attacking him with a curtain pole.

50-year-old Thomas Samuel Anthony Burke of Eglinton Terrace in Derry was charged with stealing from the woman, falsely imprisoning her and assaulting her on May 20 last year.

The court heard that the woman was in her home in the Northland Road area at around 8.30 p.m. when there was a loud knocking at the door. She told how she asked who it was and the person used the name of her son.

Thinking it was something to do with her son she opened the door and the intruder pushed her in and pressed his arm against her throat.

The woman said she asked the intruder if it was money he wanted and she gave him money from her purse but he demanded ‘the rest.’

She said she tried telling him there was no more but he wouldn’t listen.

The jury of eight women and four men was told that the woman grabbed a curtain pole and stuck it into the intruder’s stomach and then wrestled with him for it.

She also said she brought her knee up into his groin and added that he ‘grunted but I didn’t get him hard enough.’

The woman said she would never forget his face and said he was ‘horrible and dead ugly.’

The court heard that while the intruder was searching through the house the woman tried to run out but he stopped her at the door and that she tried to scratch him and bite him but he hit her in the face knocking her hearing aid out.

The trial is expected to last into next week.

Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has urged the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture Fisheries and Food to consider the Lost at Sea case outside of the constraints of party political lines.

Addressing the committee this morning, Ms O’Reilly said she does not believe acceptance of the report would lead to a cascade of follow on complaints, leading to a significant cost to the state. She said a number of complaints have been received about the scheme, but the complaint from the Byrne family from Donegal was the only one she upheld………….

Ms O’Reilly urged the committee to consider the Byrne case from the perspective of fairness, rather than that of financial implications.

She said consideration of the issue must transcend political lines………….

Aer Arann has confirmed it’s resuming flights today. Flight RE 325 from Donegal to Glasgow is operating today, as is the return flight RE 326 from Glasgow to Donegal. Flight RE 206 linking Donegal and Dublin is also operating, but flight RE 207 from Dublin to Donegal is cancelled.

Meanwhile, flight RE 287 from Dublin to City of Derry Airport will operate this evening, as will flight RE 288 from City of Derry to Dublin.

Donegal Senator Pearse Doherty is calling for clarification on Donegal County Council’s priority list for libraries, after being told last night by Minister Sean Connick that the priority as far as the government is concerned is Donegal Town.

However, Senator Doherty says his understanding is that the priority has been changed to gfacilitating the transfer of the Gweedore Liobrary to Aislainn Gweedore after the existing building was severely damaged in last year’s flooding.

Senator Doherty says with capital grants to be announced within days, it’s vital the issue is cleared up.

The European Commission is to look into the economic impact of the ongoing travel chaos following a lengthy discussion on ther issue by the European Parliament in Strasbourg last evening.

One of the contributors was North West MEP Pat The Cope Gallagher, who says every EU country will feel the financial impact of the past week. However, he told the parliament that Ireland has suffered more than most countries as a result of our isolation.

He said with thousands of people trapped, the priority must be to get them home.