Galway Bay FM Newsroom – The consequences of European “red tape and bureaucracy” are heavily impacting on this country.

That’s the opinion of Roscommon-Galway TD Michael Fitzmaurice.

Deputy Fitzmaurice points to the major issues caused by the EU’s Habitats Directive, which he says has hindered decision making for years.

He further says another example of “madness” is that Ireland imports peat from other countries because of a European directive against harvesting milled peat.

He’s also drawing attention to a new European directive which impacts how veterinary medicines can be purchased by farmers.

He says many licensed merchants are now fearful of losing their incomes, if all medicines must be prescribed by a vet.

Deputy Fitzmaurice argued that many European directives are having a negative impact on the country.

Galway Bay FM Newsroom – The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 13 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

10 of these deaths occurred in February, 1 occurred in January, 1 occurred in October and 1 date of death remains under investigation.

The median age of those who died was 81 years and the age range was 55 – 92 years.

There has been a total of 4,313 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight, Friday 26th February, the HPSC has been notified of 738 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 218,980* confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland. 

Of the cases notified today:

• 356 are men / 378 are women
• 71% are under 45 years of age
• The median age is 32 years old
• 311 in Dublin, 54 in Limerick, 36 in Cork, 34 in Offaly, 33 in Donegal and the remaining 270 cases are spread across 20 other counties. **

As of 8am today, 550 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 135 are in ICU. 27 additional hospitalisations in the past 24 hours.

As of February 24, 391,355 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ireland:

• 254,948 people have received their first dose
• 136,407 people have received their second dose

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community including daily data on Ireland’s COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.

*Validation of data at the HPSC has resulted in the denotification of 9 confirmed cases. The figure of 218,980 cases reflects this.

**County data should be considered provisional as the national Computerised Infectious Disease Reporting System (CIDR) is a dynamic system and case details are continually being validated and updated.

Today’s cases, 5-day moving average of new cases, 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population and new cases in last 14 days (as of midnight 26 February 2021) (incidence rate based on Census 2016 county population)

~The 5-day moving average of the number of new cases provides an appropriate indicator of current daily case numbers within a county. It takes account of any validation of cases for previous days and smooths out daily/weekend fluctuations in case numbers.

• The 7 day incidence rate is 97.3
• The 5 day moving average is 655

Galway Bay FM Newsroom – A Galway business and a Craughwell native have picked up major awards at the Digital Business Ireland – Permanent TSB National Digital awards for 2020

Over 300 businesses and individuals entered the awards series across 13 categories with the finalists gathering for the virtual awards ceremony hosted by broadcaster Jonathan Healy yesterday evening.

During the virtual event, viewers saw the prestigious and coveted National Website of the Year Award go to Galway company, Spotlight Oral Care with Dublin Airport taking the Runner-up spot.

Galway was also represented among the winners of the awards celebrating Ireland’s top digital talent.

Galway native Ashley McDonnell from Craughwell, who works for international fashion retailer Puig, won the Next Generation Award aimed at under 30’s.

Secretary General of Digital Business Ireland, Lorraine Higgins, said, “We were delighted to recognise seventy outstanding businesses and people in the finals of the 2020 Digital Awards series. Selecting the winners proved to be a genuinely difficult task in light of the exceptional quality and high standard of the entries.

With numerous standout submissions, the expert judging panel had an exceptionally difficult task. The passion and perseverance of businesses in Ireland was consistent throughout and we were thrilled to reward their hard work and endeavour at our virtual event.”

“The growing importance of digital capability in business is crucial to meet the demands of the Covid-19 pandemic, as new channels are developed for customers to access goods and services.

So many of the entrants in the Digital Awards demonstrated cutting-edge innovation and as such, have played a key role in keeping our economy open amid the various restrictions.

Their resilience in the face of the extreme disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic is simply inspiring.”

“On behalf of all at Digital Business Ireland, the members and partners, I want to thank all three hundred entrants for getting involved in the process.

We would also like to extend our our heartiest of congratulations to those businesses, innovators and industry professionals who have been awarded across the thirteen categories and encourage those that did not to learn from the process and enter again next year.”

Head of Business Banking at permanent tsb Mags Brennan said “We, at permanent tsb, are delighted to partner with Digital Business Ireland for this year’s inaugural Digital Awards and in particular as sponsors of the Website of the Year category. 

It is clear from the quality and standard of finalists across all Award categories that digital is now a critical capability and key to the way we now do business in Ireland. 

Permanent tsb is committed to supporting businesses in our communities and our partnership with Digital Business Ireland allows us to reward and recognise the very best in digital businesses.  Congratulations to all the winners and runners up.”

Among the other winners announced at the virtual Awards evening are An Post, Fáilte Ireland, Pinergy, LuLu+ Belle, Nami Naturale, Batch, McElhinneys, Dogpatch Labs, social media influencer Louise Cooney, Colin Meagle of the Continuum Group and Niamh Tallon of HerSport.ie.               

The runners up include Triona Design, Harvey Norman, Inish Pharmacy, Jump Juice Bars, Beauty Buddy, HatchHouse Digital, LoyLap, Boxworks Co.Work.Space, Devan Hughes of Buymie, Samantha Kelly AKA Tweeting Goddess, Alice Goodwin of Core Optimisation and Fiona Daly of Codec.

Sponsors of the category Awards include Campion Insurances Ltd, Codec, Grouper Technology, Hikari Data Solutions, humm, .IE, Olive Group, Open Out, Lewis Silkin and Magico.