And before we talk, uh, uh, about, um, your own challenges over the years, i- is it a good idea to have a week with a spotlight on men's mental health, do you think, Michael?

It is, Fran.

It, it, it's very important that there is, um, to, to highlight the mental health issues that happen within men.

Um, and I want to compliment Tip FM, uh, on doing this this week and, and providing a couple of slots each day to tell-- for people to come in and tell their stories.

Um, because it's a big issue and, you know, for...

I, I would have gone through it myself, like, you know, we don't, men don't tend to talk about feelings.

They don't tend how their, how their, um, emotions are or if there's problems going on or if there's difficulty financially or difficulty in a re- a relationship.

Were you? Yeah.

You were also talking about what, what's been happening in Littleton, uh, as well.

Yeah, look, uh, there was another incident in, in Littleton as well that was very disturbing as well, and again, we're hear at the courts and the whole lot, like, and, and, you know, and, and I suppose the thing I'm talking about, the two towns here and, and, you know, Clonmel as well, we can mention a thing about Clonmel.

There seems to be a thing that, you know, we, we have incidents happening in our town that are not getting, uh, to daylight.

People are saying, "Oh, look, why, why report this? Why report that to the guards? They never come.

There's never anything done.

If we do report them, we're the ones that are going to be penalized, and we're going to be threatened and intimidated and the whole lot." And so there is a perception, even amongst, uh, going to council meetings and, and, and hearing it as well from within s- different areas that, you know, you don't talk down the town.

You, you keep talking the town up, and you keep things positive and the whole lot.

Yeah.

I know you went there yourself, Michael, didn't

you? Yeah, Fran, I did.

On the bank holiday weekend there, I got a number of telephone calls from people to say that they had doing their weekly visit on a Sunday down to visit their loved ones in the cemetery and they noticed that the the head height guard that goes in that limits access into it had been damaged and that they had noticed that there was a van pulled up there and there was a number of dogs running loose as well and people just felt it wasn't safe to get out of their cars and some didn't get out of their cars and go visit their loved ones so I kind of said like you know I couldn't have a look and I'll see and Because sometimes you can get the telephone calls and they mightn't match to what you're expecting to go in and see.

So I went in and I said, look, and I always think that when we see this happen and we see like, you know, whether it's the caravan or whatever it is that's pulling up somewhere that it shouldn't be pulled up, that I think maybe early engagement is the thing to have like.

So I just went in and I met the people inside there and I spoke to them and I said, look, I said I had a number of complaints.

I said, I just want to let you know that you shouldn't be parked here.

I said to the cemeteries where loved ones come I said there's a restriction there of a height barrier coming in and I said the dogs running around loose shouldn't be either I said like you know there's about eight to nine dogs so I spoke with the man and and he was very uh you know he was he was nice to talk and he said that he was down as well to visit loved ones in his graveyard as well and he was members of his family and that he would move tomorrow um So I think later on that evening he had moved on as well.

so it's something you'll follow up South Tipperary has been hit by a spate of water outages in recent times and out where I am in West Tipperary there up around Anacarty I mean it's every second day at the moment what can you tell us about this?

Was it just the perfect number, and when you make a swing like that, are you just thinking, "How close is it gonna get?"

Yeah, it was a good number for me.

I felt like I kinda just hit a full seven.

I did, I hate to admit it, but I pushed it a little bit.

Um, I mean, that pin's kinda in that front right corner.

I'm, I was aiming probably 12 feet left of it, but I knew the number was good.

Um, hit it solid, and it kinda just went right at the pin from the, from the get-go, and, um, I haven't made a hole in one in 13 years.

What is it about that program that produces such incredible players on the tour?

Talk about how you balance the inertia and familiarity of the Saffir-Simpson scale with conveying the full range of impacts from these storms.

Yeah, it's a great question.

So, you know, the Saffir-Simpson scale has been Pretty institutionalized.

And I always say, like, if we had never mentioned the category again here at the Hurricane Center, it would still be there 'cause people are so used to it.

And I think there was such a focus on it.

You go back 20 or 30 years ago, that's most of what we could tell people was what the storm is right now.

We really had very little ability to forecast the intensity beyond just a few hours in advance, much less days in advance.

Wow.

It's been burning now since Monday.

Yeah, it's been a, it's been a tough week.

It's been a tough week, and a lot of anxiety and, and, uh, nervousness which people that are closely living in the areas.

Um, when we got word at first on, on, on Monday morning that the fire had ignited, and we could see then within the, the first hour of that news breaking, that we could see the big plume of smoke over Slievenaman.

I was attending a funeral in the graveyard on Monday, uh, as well, and, and at, uh, 1:00 there, there was quite significant amount of smoke in the sky.

So nobody really knew what or how it happened or anything like that, or what was happening.

Well, as the day went on, we realized that there was a fire on the mountain, and it was, it was pretty bad, and then it just kind of escalated then over the next couple of days to where we are today.

Jesus

It's been burning out since Monday.

Yeah, it's been a tough week.

It's been a tough week and a lot of anxiety and nervousness with people that are closely living in the areas.

When we got word at first on Monday morning that the fire had ignited and we could see then within the first hour of that news breaking that we could see the big plume of smoke overseas.

I was attending the funeral in the graveyard on Monday as well and at one o'clock there there was significant amount of smoke So nobody really knew what our... how it happened or anything like that or what was happening.

But as the day went on, we realised that there was a fire on the mountain and it was pretty bad.

And then it just kind of escalated in over the next couple of days to where we are today.

have any idea of the extent of the damage? How many hectares of land have gone up?

How has the practice, uh, been this week as you've prepared?

It's been unbelievable.

Um, Bro Ilver is a really special place.

This place is amazing.

Golf course is really fun.

Um, it's great to see you out here.

It's great to have a few more Deacs out on the, out on tour and, um, it's been a f- special week.

Where have you spent the most time, uh, in the practice rounds trying to figure out whether it's lines off the tee or around the greens?

It is the biggest test for soccer's best, and the World Cup is also a massive test for keeping legions of fans connected.

You've got people in there that, that are, that are doing video.

You've got people that are on all their apps, the betting apps.

They're calling people.

They're, they're sending videos around.

They're hitting the send and end button.

90,000 of these people are doing that.

One of the trickiest tests, handling crowds at the entrance gates.

Tell us what's going on with your speedometer in your local community.

Yeah, Ciara, so thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to talk as well.

So we have a big issue in my own district in the Carrickinshore municipal area where we have the digital flashing speedlights have been repeatedly, the batteries have been repeatedly stolen from them and taken out.

So you come into my, just take, for instance, my own village in Killinall where you drive in, you pass the 50 kilometre static sign on the road.

You come to where it's going to get busy.

You have the doctor's surgery.

You're coming into where the GA field is, the cemetery, the whole lot.

So people are taking the batteries out of that so you can't see the speed and it's not reinforced to you that you're going over the speed limit.

Do you sense that those tax changes broadly were fairer long-term for Australia's economic system?

Look, I think the central principle of moving away from the 50% discount towards, uh, cost-based adjustments, so the explicit adjustment for inflation, I think is actually the right principle.

So, you know, perhaps that's a little bit contrarian, but I think there were issues with the 50% discount.

I don't think it's necessarily the right way to think about taxing capital gain.

Now, I think we can quibble about a couple of other elements, the minimum 30% tax, the inability to refund real losses against real gains, and the absence of averaging, which was a feature of the pre-'99 arrangements, and I think those all reflect the government thinking a little, or weighting a little bit more, uh, integrity issues, wanting to clamp down on avoidance.

We can all debate whether they've got the right weight on that versus the right weight on some under- some fundamentals.

I, I think the issue that it leaves us with still, and obviously there's an issue around start-ups, around, uh, founders with a low cost base.

Number one, does this tax system, especially capital gains tax, make Australia more competitive, given the fact that people are now making comparisons with Singapore, with no capital gains tax, with New Zealand, or with even Canada, which has increased its discount rate from 50% out to 66%? What I'm wondering is whether that is enticing new businesses and ventures to, to establish themselves in Australia, or whether they're just simply better to set their business up somewhere else.

So we got a question from Jake from Penn State says, what was the operation tempo like for Director Brennan during a Cat 5 striking Jamaica? What was his life like?

Well, yeah.

So the Melissa last year.

So, you know, we had a lot of lead time that Melissa was going to happen, at least something there.

That goes back to that sort of week two to three outlook.

CPC started outlining the potential for formation in the Caribbean more than two weeks in advance.

So we knew there was the potential for something there.

How are you guys okay to stay there? And just talk about the staffing and the plans and what you're doing to stay safe.

You know, start- start from where we were about storm surge as a risk and- and a- a real world, you know, uh, you know, catastrophe and to where we are now.

Yeah, storm surge still has the potential to kill the largest number of people in a single day from a tropical cyclone.

If you go back to the time of Ka- of Camille, the 1960s up through 2012 or so, storm surge was responsible for about half of the US fatalities in tropical storms and hurricanes.

Since then, it's down to about 10%.

But if you go back to the time of Katrina, we didn't have any kind of visualization of storm surge, we didn't have any warning of it, a specific warning for storm surge.

We provided some numbers and a text product, but we really couldn't tell people what that storm surge inundation would look like.

We didn't have a lot of uncertainty built into the forecast.

So how do you... how do we impress upon them, you know, "Okay, you don't have to go all the way to the wall here, but... but..."