It was an incredibly busy week in Irish politics. Government, media and the general public were quite shocked by the resignation of Finance Minister Paschal Donoghue. Thus meant that Cabinet Ministries had to be reshuffled, and into the senior Ministry of Education and Youth came Hildegarde Naughten, a big achievement for Ms. Naughten, a first for Fine Gael in the Galway West constituency, and a first minister for the constituency since Éamon Ó Cuív was a minister back in 2011. We discussed and congratulated the appointment with Hildegarde Naughten.

Staying with education now, and Scoil an Chroí Naofa National School in Ballinasloe has been waiting for a new school build for some 24 years. There've been a number of false starts and false promises, and the school has really intensified a campaign, searching for locals and people interested in this area to sign up and demand a school build to be put top of the agenda in the Department of Education. We discussed this on the programme with the Principal of Scoil an Chroí Naofa, Christine Connor.

It's a pivotal time for the Irish farming community and farming in general right across the European Union. The Mercosur trade agreement will be debated and voted on in the European Parliament this coming Monday.

​Now, we've been discussing this throughout the course of the week on Galway Talks, and we had Ciarán Mullooly, Independent Ireland MEP for the Midlands–North-West constituency, on the programme. He has a number of concerns with the Mercosur trade agreement in its current form as they seek to get assurances that Irish farming will not be left uncompetitive with South American countries who may not be up to the regulatory standards that we have here in Ireland and across the European Union.

Now, as Ireland gets ready to hold the Presidency of the European Union next year, security of our nation and topics like neutrality really come to the fore.

Today on Community Matters: Ballinderreen

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Today on Galway Talks with John Morley: 

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Today on Galway Talks with John Morley: 

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Today on Galway Talks with John Morley: 

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Parking metres continue to be a bone of contention here in Galway city and with City Councillors, as a legal settlement has been reached between the city council and the private company who were operating the machines in and around the city centre. Fine Gael councillor Frank Fahy has hit out at the fact that we don't know what the settlement was and he also wants clarity on how the parking situation can be improved upon in the future, as we are currently left in limbo. He joined me on the programme earlier on this week to highlight his concerns.

The issue of road safety in Kinvara was brought into focus again this week as a number of schoolchildren protested from Seamount College, the National School and the creche. They marched through the village on Thursday at 12 noon, calling for safe crossings along the busy stretch of the N67. Currently, there is no traffic management plan for the village and there are no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings for the children. With many children exiting out of buses, they are having to cross the road at peak times.

​Our reporter, Saoirse Duhan was out there and spoke to a number of the children who were part of the demonstration and our reporter, David Nevin, also spoke to the Principal of Seamount College.

The Government published their new housing plan this week, and it got a mixed response.

​Government spokespeople say that there are ambitious targets and that there have been a number of changes which will improve the lot of first-time buyers, developers, and builders looking to ramp up construction and infrastructure projects in the country.

​The Opposition have said that a lot of announcements in this plan have already been published in previous documents from previous governments, and they've added that it lacks the ambition and the mechanisms to allow us to ramp up the speed of our housing targets.

​We discussed this on the programme with Minister Seán Canney and also with Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell.

Don't forget the best of Galway Talks comes out every Saturday and Sunday morning between 7:00 and 8:00.

Join us again on Monday morning for Galway Talks and after 11:00 Our Galway Great is none other than the Westside native and former Republic of Ireland international goalkeeper, David Forde.

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Today on Galway Talks with John Morley: 

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Today on Galway Talks with John Morley 

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