DARREN J. PRIOR (MAC AN PHRÍORA)

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Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts

22/10/26

New as Gaeilge hub for parents — The Dublin People Group (2026)

This article is online-only.

https://dublinpeople.com/news/dublin/articles/2026/10/20/new-as-gaeilge-hub-for-parents/

New as Gaeilge hub for parents

A new “Irish for Parents” website was launched last month to serve parents across Ireland who would like to improve their ability as Gaeilge.

The website, IrishforParents.ie, was launched by Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton in September and was created by Gaeloideachas with support from the Department of Education and Foras na Gaeilge.

Dublin woman Clodagh Ní Mhuirí, who may perhaps be better known in her other public capacity as a northside Fine Gael councillor, is the manager of the online hub.

Gaeloideachas was established as Gaelscoileanna Teo. in 1973 to support and help grow the then very small Gaelscoileanna movement in the Republic of Ireland outside the Gaeltacht.

Today, it is the national support and advocacy organisation for Irish-medium education in the Republic of Ireland, both inside and outside the Gaeltacht.

Its expanded remit, catering for Irish-medium education within the Gaeltacht as well as Gaelscoileanna outside it, led the organisation to change its name to Gaeloideachas in 2016.

Speaking to Dublin People, Clodagh said:

“When we did a bit of research on this, one of the things we found was that while there are a lot of resources out there, parents don’t always know about them or where to find them.

“They want to be able to support their children as they are learning Irish in school and they just don’t necessarily know where to go for that support or that help.

“Especially for parents who don’t have any Irish. A lot of parents have a certain level of Irish from school but they might not be confident in it.

“Other parents might not have gone to school in Ireland themselves, so they are really starting from scratch with the language.

“So what we wanted to do with this was create a central point, a central hub that people can go to and find the resources that they need, regardless of their own level of Irish, and be able to get started on that and get the information that they need.

“We have over 100 resources linked from ‘Irish for Parents’.

“So if you go onto the site, you can search; you can categorise them all by what age your child is; by what your own level of Irish is; what you are hoping to achieve with them; what type of resource it is.

“There are plenty of ways to filter them and find what you need and what suits you because that won’t be the same for every family.”

Keeping pets safe this Halloween — The Northside People East and Southside People (21.10.26)

Keeping Pets Safe This Halloween

Darren J. Prior

A well-known vet has spoken to Dublin People to offer advice to pet owners on how they can help their pets avoid traumatic experiences at Halloween this year and every year.

Pete Wedderburn, better known as Pete the Vet from his many television and media appearances, told Dublin People that animals in general “evolved to be familiar with certain loud sounds and flashes like thunderstorms and so on”.

However, according to Pete, they have not evolved to be “familiar with what fireworks cause, which is extremely loud bangs and squeals and whines and very bright flashes”.

This means that animals can find Halloween “highly stressful because as far as they are concerned it could be the end of the world. It is not anything they have witnessed before and so it causes a great deal of fear and the fear can lead to panic and animals behaving in kind of wild ways as they try to find safety”.

Many people in Ireland and around the world are unaware of the range of strategies available to pet owners to help their animals cope with fireworks.

According to Pete, there are several measures that pet owners can take to help ensure that their pets, particularly dogs and cats, get through the Halloween period, which can extend throughout October, with as little distress as possible.

Some of these strategies may be well known to many people, while others may not.

The first is to make sure that your pet is microchipped. While it is a legal requirement for all dogs in Ireland to be microchipped, this requirement does not currently apply to cats.

The “reason I say this is is that very commonly around Halloween vets are faced with loads of animals that have strayed because they have been frightened by a firework and they run out of their own territory and they get lost”.

If a pet is microchipped and its owner's contact details are correct and up to date on the database, the animal can be quickly identified and returned to its owner if it is brought to a veterinary practice.

Pete also recommends that dog owners avoid walking their dogs at night during the Halloween period. Crucially, he also advises cat owners not to allow their cats to roam outdoors after 3pm.

“You can take your dogs for walks alright but it would be better to take them out for walks during daylight hours, so that probably means kind of 9.00am-3.00 pm”.

Pete also recommends playing music at a reasonably high volume in the home to help mask the sounds of bangers and fireworks outside.

This can help many animals indoors. However, he also emphasises the importance of pet owners remaining calm when their animals become distressed.

If “you get yourself into a state of high anxiety worrying about your dog and sort of frantically petting them and reassuring them you can actually give them a heightened sense of anxiety”.

There is also a form of dog “sound therapy and firework training” available to download from the Dogs Trust website. Dog owners can play these recordings gradually over the months leading up to Halloween to help their dogs become accustomed to the sounds of fireworks while indoors.

In relation to the deliberate cruelty to animals that can sometimes occur involving fireworks around Halloween, Pete points out that if “you see anything like that – take photos, take videos and then you can report that to the authorities such as the NSPCA and action will then be taken against such people.”

13/10/26

World Animal Day marked in Dublin — The Northside People East / West and Southside People (14.10.26)

World Animal Day 2026 was marked in Dublin on Sunday, 4 October, as well as by a couple of events earlier that week.

This year marked the 101st anniversary of World Animal Day being observed around the world.

The week saw two Oireachtas committee meetings at which the issues of puppy farms and pet theft were discussed. Dublin People spoke to three animal rights activists about the week.

Lisa O’Connor from Missing Stolen Animals Ireland first addressed the Oireachtas Petitions Committee a year ago and, during the week of World Animal Day, addressed it again.

According to Lisa: “To mark World Animal Day every year, I think, reaches more people and there are more people aware of how important animals are in our lives; that they don’t have voices and we need to speak for them.”

Lisa’s petition, which has over 11,000 signatures, and a formal request from the committee for the Minister for Justice to attend and answer questions on the issue of pet theft have been forwarded to Minister O’Callaghan.

According to Lisa:

“The committee have invited the Minister for Justice in. And he keeps replying that he is too busy. But the committee are going to keep pushing that if he can’t come in, maybe one of his officials can come in because it is really important that someone comes in and answers the questions that the committee has for him.”

Lisa told Dublin People that she is waiting “for the latest reply from the Dept. of Justice, which comes through the committee. I have given a list of six questions which I would like the committee to put directly to the Dept. of Justice. The committee are aware of that. So the next step is I just have to wait now until the next meeting of the Public Petitions Committee to discuss my petition again.”

The other Oireachtas committee meeting held during the week of World Animal Day was that of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, where Minister Martin Heydon’s Dog Breeding Establishments (Amendment) Bill 2026 was scrutinised. Among those speaking before the committee were representatives from the NSPCA, Dogs Trust, Dog Law Ireland and the Kennel Club, as well as the owner of Dogs.ie.

John O’Callaghan from Dog Advocacy Ireland is also involved in this process and told Dublin People that he is “totally passionate about the intolerable abuse of thousands of innocent dogs through Ireland's shameful distinction as 'Puppy Farming Capital of Europe', which is permitted to continue unaddressed.”

Regrettably, according to John, Minister Heydon’s “draft legislation will do nothing to address the continuing mistreatment of thousands of dogs, held captive in many of these abusive establishments.”

According to John, senior officials in the Dept. of Agriculture, who hold responsibility for the Animal Health & Welfare Act and the Control of Dogs Act, “insist that there's a legal restriction on the Dept.'s ability to implement an upper limit (or CAP) on the number of breeding females permissible on any one dog breeding establishment site”.

John says that other jurisdictions have no such legal impediment. He also consulted a barrister on the issue, and “the barrister confirmed that no such legal restriction exists regarding the imposition of a cap on any one dog breeding establishment site.”

“By not imposing an upper limit restriction, the Dept. of Agriculture is actually complicit in maintaining Ireland's shameful distinction as 'Puppy Farming Capital of Europe'”, John told Dublin People.

The Party for Animal Welfare held the only publicised public event in Dublin, and possibly in Ireland, to mark World Animal Day on the day itself, 4 October, with a demonstration on Grafton Street.

According to Cathal Leavy, Dublin Area Representative for the party: “We were just raising awareness about animal cruelty and particularly focusing on animal lab testing. We were encouraging people to sign a petition. We have been keeping up this campaign for the last two-plus years and we are determined to get a change in the laws on animal lab testing.

“We got a lot of positive feedback from the public. We get a huge amount of positive feedback. It’s just bizarre why the Government doesn’t respond to this. People do truly care about animals.

“If more people saw what is happening to these animals, they would be horrified.”

22/09/26

Puppy farm demonstration at Dáil — The Northside People East / West and Southside People (23.9.26)

On the day the Dáil came back for its new term (16th September 2026), a demonstration was held outside Leinster House calling for an end to puppy farms in Ireland.

Despite not having a Facebook event page for the demonstration, approximately 70 people, including eight Oireachtas members, attended, which attendees felt was a reasonably good turnout on the day. This publication attended the demo.

The event was organised by Spiddal native Máirín Ní Chonghaile, who is a Clinical Animal Behaviourist and a registered veterinary nurse. Máirín is passionate about canine behaviour, runs a Puppy School and, as part of her job every day, she "sees the repercussions of the legislation that has legalised the mass production of dogs".

In Ireland, it is "legal to have as many dogs as you want" in puppy farms, and that is unacceptable and "legalised cruelty", according to Máirín.

"The Government have refused to put in any kind of significant reform to stop this. All of the dog breeding establishments in Ireland, all of the big ones, have all got a legal licence. So we can't put the blame completely at their feet. They are doing something that has been legalised by the State."
Máirín has contacted the Department of Agriculture about a lot of the "problems with the system, but a lot of the Government TDs are held by what their party's stance is".

Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has started the process of enacting legislation on this issue. But, according to Máirín, while some of the current plans in his legislation are very good and welcome, he and the Government "haven't done the most simplistic part of stopping puppy farming, which is that we need to cap the amount of female dogs on a premises". And the Government legislation currently doesn't "do anything about the conditions". Minimising the number of dogs in a puppy farm "has to be the first step", according to Máirín.

Oireachtas members attending the demo on the day included Senator Chris Andrews (Sinn Féin) and TDs Jennifer Whitmore (Social Democrats), Pádraig O'Sullivan and Willie O'Dea (Fianna Fáil).
According to Senator Andrews, "it is really important that we say enough is enough" and "that we keep the pressure on Government". The Government "talk the talk but we need them to walk the walk and ensure that dogs are looked after". Dublin People has previously covered the legislation Jennifer Whitmore TD has brought before the Dáil on puppy farms.

Speaking at the demo, Deputy Whitmore said: "Last year I brought forward a bill on behalf of the Social Democrats that would have a cap on the number of breeding females in any facility. We put a number of 30 on it. I still recognise that 30 is quite high. But I had hoped at that stage that Government would work with me on that bill and that we would be able to achieve something that would be a first starting point at really addressing industrial puppy farming.

"Unfortunately the Government aren't going to work with me on that. They brought forward their own legislation which has no cap in it."

According to John O'Callaghan from Dog Advocacy Ireland, the issue of puppy farming in Ireland is "not going away. This is a national scandal. With €200 million per annum being earned from the criminal abuse of thousands of dogs. So it has to stop."

As well as Deputy Whitmore's legislation, Pádraig O'Sullivan has also introduced his own similar legislation on the issue of puppy farms in Ireland.

According to Deputy O'Sullivan: "The Minister has already done a wide consultation in terms of improving the conditions and in terms of resourcing the various charities. But look, the proof will be in the pudding.

"The Minister has to publish an action plan. It will have to be well resourced. We are all in it for the same reasons, the right reasons. We all want to see animal rights respected.
We don't want to see animals abused. Anything we can contribute to that we are more than happy to do so.
It is something that we will continue to work on here with the animal welfare groups and the Dáil's action group with John O'Callaghan."

END