... 'cause that's a ballsy move.

Yeah.

It's 1989.

There's no internet.

There's no cell phones.

You know, there's, there's payphones.

Practice ends, your parents wanna pick you up, you wait on the line, you put the quarter in.

Right.

But maybe I'll turn it over to you for a little intro.

For sure.

Yes.

Thank you very much, Brent.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, Richardson International is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I myself am also from Winnipeg, so born and raised in this city.

I guess that was ultimately one of the questions I, I bounced off you ahead of time was how does the farmer feel about growing barley? And I think they still look at it like favorably for all those reasons we just talked about.

Does the council, anybody have a question or comment right now? Gentlemen, would anybody like to speak or Tom?

Council President Spina, fellow council members, Billy Poe, city manager.

I'm very proud to announce another project for the city of Zephyrhills.

Actually, we've been working on it a little longer than Billy said.

It's been about a year.

But I'm very honored to introduce you to the leadership of Monin here in Clearwater, and I will let them answer any questions you might have and also talk a little bit about what they're doing.

I'd like to introduce Bill Lombardo.

And then you're going to go, the county's going to partner in this as well?

You've just been operating to farm to the best of your ability all your career, really, in

farming.

Like, I suppose, I don't know.

We were lucky the lads, Mary was able to stay at home when the lads were small and they were reared here on the farm.

And they were always, she always had them out from young age, little buckets and bringing minerals or whatever, feeding cows, hunting back other ones they didn't like and playing with the cows around the yard.

So there was a time when I remember they'd sit on your wellies at dinner time so you couldn't go without them.

you know, at all these stages.

But what advice would you give to people that are? trying to make a decision um obviously i know from the couple of times i have met you that that was well talked out between yourself and mary and and the lads then as well subsequently but we'll say what kind of tidbits of of uh knowledge can you maybe pass on from your experience of it maybe

So I thought it was ideal to end our interview, and while I was talking to Father Tom, I thought I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to find out all about the pilgrimages which are being arranged locally.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I also have the responsibility in our own diocese as being the pilgrimage director.

And on Wednesday of this week, on the 24th of June, we will travel on our diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes.

We leave Shannon Airport next Wednesday afternoon at a quarter to four with 189 pilgrims on board, led by Bishop Fenton, our bishop.

And in doing so, we have a number of pilgrims who are assisted.

In other words, when they arrive in Lourdes, they'll be brought to the Akai Notre Dame, which is a place in the sanctuary that cares for people who need that little bit of extra care.

Yeah, lovely.

Explain, first of all, what this research was looking into, because people might be a bit confused what local authorities have to do with things like traffic noise and solid fuel.

Yes, so every three years, Ciara, the EPA agrees with the local authorities on national environmental enforcement priorities.

And all of those priorities are across three environmental themes.

So there's waste enforcement, water quality, air quality and noise pollution.

And then every year we measure the performance of those 31 local authorities or county councils against those priorities and so what our report this morning is telling us that local authorities play a vital role in safeguarding our environment and they do that through enforcement of environmental laws and they succeed in that when enforcement is given priority and when the resources are put against that enforcement and what we're seeing is over the last three years you know an overall improvement of about 20% in the performance of local authorities with the top county councils performing.

They would be Meath, Dublin City, South Dublin, Kildare, Fingal and Cork City.

But there are a number of local authorities that are lagging behind and need to do better.

But you're saying the opposite holds true.

Yeah.

I had lots of good friends on the team, and things were going well, but I wanted more.

And at the time, th- I mean, there was no internet.

There were no cell phones.

And the University of Iowa, led by legendary coach Dan Gable, was winning year after year.

They were producing national champs, world champs, Olympic champs.

Um, so it was, for me, kind of a... just a logical for me, a very logical next step.

[laughs]