Month: November 2024

I’m only in my mid-sixties and I could hardly describe my childhood as deprived, but as kids we had to make do with lots of things and we didn’t mind because we didn’t know any different. In many ways I think we were better off.

People had a lot more common-sense then too. They were practical and could be inventive when they needed to be. If they had a problem, they found a solution. If they couldn’t buy the part they needed, they made it and if the proper materials weren’t available, they improvised.

Many years ago, a few of us were out of town in a Morris minor and on the way home, it broke down as it did regularly. When we opened the bonnet, the problem was obvious, and it needed to be because none of us had a clue about engines. The fanbelt had disappeared, so the car was overheating.

We walked into town and one of the lads took a pair of his gran’s nylons. We returned to the car and used them as a temporary fanbelt just to get the car home and it worked fine. For non-mechanically minded people we were delighted with ourselves.

These days, when something starts to give trouble, the first thought that comes to mind is to throw it away and get a new one. Money can buy anything. You simply need to go online, find out where in the world a replacement can be found, enter your credit card details, then sit back and wait for a man in a van to drop it at your door.

The idea of trying to find a practical common-sense solution to a problem doesn’t enter the equation. A perfect example of this is the recent government decision to allocate €9 million in the Budget for equipment to store students’ phones during school hours.

The government planned to fund schools to buy pouches and lockers, so kids wouldn’t have access to their mobiles during the day. Telling them to leave them at home or not to be playing with them during class is way too complicated and might just stress the little Johnnies out.

Better to buy ‘pouches’ with special locks or electronic lockers. Once the phone is put into the pouch or other storage system, it is sealed and can only be opened by the school, which will be done at the end of the school day.

The idea is that students can still have the phone on their person so that parents can contact them on their way to and from school but that the student is prevented from using the phone during school hours. 

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland said schools are in a worse position to tackle “the challenges posed by mobile phones” now than they would have been years ago, adding that “pastoral supports must be enhanced” to help students deal with challenges.

I think it’s the adults who need help dealing with modern challenges. We didn’t have mobile phones in my school days but if we did and one of us attempted to use it, we would have been punished and we would have been reluctant to use it a second time. If phone usage in class became an issue, here’s what would have happened.

One of the teachers would have arrived in the class with a cardboard box. He would have collected the phones and put them in the box. The box would have gone into the principal’s office and would have remained there until after school. That would have cost nothing and would have been just as effective.

In my time, if a parent needed to contact a student for any reason, they phoned the secretary’s office and little Johnny would be summoned to the office to answer the call. If little Johnny wasn’t feeling well, he went to the office and rang home.

Calls like that were rare though because kids were taught to go to school and get on with it. You would want to be close to death to disturb the class, or your parents, during school time or your next call would be to the local doctor. Parents were too busy trying to make ends meet to be worrying about little Johnny feeling stressed.

Cycling to school was very popular in the sixties too. We cycled in the hail, rain and shine and it didn’t cost us a thought. Nearly every kid had a bike, and we had a bicycle shed too which was pretty full most of the time.

As far as I can remember, the one in our school consisted of a corrugated iron roof which was supported by a few metal poles in front and secured to a stone wall at the rear. When it rained, the bikes stayed dry – it wasn’t rocket science.

I doubt if the Dail bicycle shed will perform any better than our old school version but that seems to be the way of things now. When dealing with public money just pick a number, add your first thoughts to it, then double it and hey presto, you have a price. 

This applies to security huts too it seems. In my early days in An Garda Siochana, I did many tours of duty in security huts that were of dubious construction. They weren’t designed to be comfortable or even warm, but they did what they were supposed to do and kept the rain out. Well, most of the time anyway.

So how is it that these basic items are now costing millions. Have we lost the ability to appreciate value for money or have we all just become accustomed to waste. Don’t even get me started on the new National Children’s Hospital.

Movember is upon us once again and a time when guys get up to all sorts of antics to promote it like Jon Montgomery for instance. He’s a Canadian Olympian and television host who sent his moustache on a solo mission into space to kick off the start of Movember. 

A Canadian broadcaster reported that Montgomery took one small step for man and one giant leap for men’s health by sending his moustache into space when he launched his whiskers to the edge of the stratosphere as part of the annual month-long campaign. 

“If you’re going to raise funds and awareness you might as well have fun with it,” he said. Montgomery’s moustache was sealed in an acrylic case and sent on its way. It was a “no brainer,” he said, since his dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2016 and was successfully treated for it.

So, what exactly is Movember? The Movember Foundation explains that this annual global campaign encourages men to grow moustaches and participate in various activities to raise awareness about men’s health issues.

The month-long event focuses on promoting physical and mental well-being among men, addressing issues such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health challenges, and suicide prevention.

While there is a fun side to the campaign, Movember also provides a platform for men to discuss their health openly, seek support, and take proactive steps towards a healthier and happier life.

It aims to challenge the stigma around men’s health issues, spark conversations, and promote early detection and intervention.

It all started in Australia twenty years ago when a group of friends decided to grow moustaches to raise awareness about prostate cancer and depression in men. It has since evolved into a global movement with millions of participants and supporters and has funded numerous men’s health projects and initiatives and has become a symbol of solidarity and awareness.

Let’s face it, (no pun intended), men are notoriously bad at dealing with medical issues and we are even worse at talking about them which is completely stupid because ignoring a potential illness will only complicate any possible medical intervention.

That’s why I’m taking this opportunity to beat the awareness drum again. Modern medicine is advancing all the time and these days a simple blood test can tell us so much about the current state of our health that it makes no sense not to have one on a regular basis.

Many of us avoid it because we fear a blood test might reveal something unpleasant. It might indicate that there is something wrong with us, which of course it might. So rather than take that chance, we pretend there’s nothing wrong and carry on.

But surely, it’s better to make that discovery early so it can be dealt with rather than living in ignorance until it’s too late. Especially now as results from blood tests are becoming more sophisticated and in time, they may even be able to warn us about potential dangers coming down the track.

I came across an article in The Sunday Times recently that said a simple blood test could one day forecast the likelihood of contracting more than 60 conditions as much as a decade in advance.

This means that patients could be diagnosed sooner if they do contract a disease and many more could be alerted that they were at risk. They could then be offered advice on how to alter their lifestyle to lower the risk.

That sounds very promising, but it is very much at the discovery stage. In the meantime, another article in the same newspaper, stated that a coalition of Britain’s leading prostate cancer specialists have called for GPs to start proactively offering high-risk men, blood tests that can help detect the disease.

The simple test measures levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein which can be elevated in men with prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with 52,000 cases and 12,000 deaths each year in the UK and according to the Irish Cancer Society, almost 4,000 men are diagnosed with it each year in this country. Early detection is vital in the treatment of the disease and the PSA blood test can be used alongside other measures to detect early signs.

The use of PSA tests is controversial in medicine, as they have historically been seen as too unreliable and flawed to be rolled out as a routine screening tool, as three quarters of men with a raised PSA do not have cancer, and 1 in 7 men who do have cancer will have a normal PSA result.

However, a new paper argues that improvements in technology mean the balance has now tipped in favour of offering some men blood tests, as those with raised levels will be sent for accurate MRI scans to confirm a diagnosis and to determine whether treatment is necessary.

It says GPs should “proactively discuss” the PSA blood test with men over the age of 45, and with men who have a family history of prostate cancer. All men over 50 should feel empowered to request a PSA test, it says.

Speaking from experience, I would encourage all men, regardless of age, to have a discussion with their GP about prostate cancer as soon as possible. Especially if there is a history of it in the family. Don’t wait for symptoms because they might never appear and don’t wait until you reach the age of fifty either.

Early detection is vital in the treatment of this disease and a simple blood test is one of the tools they use to find it. It just takes a few minutes out of your day to give a blood sample, but it could add years to your life in the long run.

We had a close call with scammers recently. While we were in Cyprus, my wife got a message from what she thought was our bank at home. It looked genuine and, to cut a long story short, it sucked us in. She spoke to a guy on the other end of the phone who was very convincing. He even told my wife to hang up and he would call her back just to ensure the call was genuine.

He did receive a lot of information before the call ended. A few minutes later however, we got another phone call. This time it was from the Fraud Section of the PTSB who told us they had discovered a suspicious transaction on our account which they thought looked peculiar. Someone was trying to relieve us of two and a half thousand Euro.

The bank blocked the transaction immediately and put a hold on our account. The scammers were good but fortunately for us, the fraud guys were better, and they prevented us from losing a substantial sum of money. Apart from the potential financial loss, these fraudsters cause a huge amount of inconvenience too.

The bank had to cancel our credit cards and that’s the second time it’s happened to us out here Because our cards were cancelled, we had to order replacements and as happened previously, they were sent to our home address in Cork. We had to arrange to get them out here to us but in the meantime, our standing orders were bouncing back to us, so we had to rearrange all those as well.

These thieves have caused us an amount of inconvenience and stress and it’s all very frustrating. I only hope that someday, the law will catch up with them and give them their just rewards. In the meantime, I wish them all kinds of excruciating pain for the remainder of their miserable lives.

It is also very embarrassing that someone who has spent thirty-five years in An Garda Siochana should have been duped so easily. My wife isn’t feeling too good about being codded either. She is annoyed because she would have considered herself to be street wise too.

We’re both computer literate and reasonably tech savvy for our years but I know many of my generation and older who would be even more trusting than we are which makes them soft targets for scammers. I wonder how many more vulnerable people are being robbed on a daily basis?

So, how do we protect ourselves? Well, for starters there is plenty of professional advice available and we need to start listening to it.

FraudSMART is a fraud awareness initiative developed by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, and they aim to raise consumer and business awareness of the latest financial fraud activity and trends and provide simple and impartial advice on how best they can protect themselves and their resources.

They are advising consumers to be on alert for text message and phone scams currently in circulation claiming to be from your bank. These are very convincing and sophisticated scams. 

I have merely glanced over this kind of advice in the past because I thought I was really tuned in and could never be caught. But when you get a call or a message, that has all the appearance of being genuine, advising you that you are at risk of losing money from your account, it kind of throws you into a bit of a spin.

The professional scammers are very practised in what they do and once you take the initial bait, they skilfully reel you in. As someone who has had a close call and feels a bit foolish, I would encourage everyone to read the advice from FraudSMART. Not just to read it but to actually take it in and be ready for the scammers when they come calling.

So, how does the scam happen? You may receive a phone call and/or text message which creates a sense of urgency in relation to a ‘suspicious payment’ from your account or other security issue. A text message may ask you to click on a link, call a number or even expect a call from their security team using a landline or private ID.

If you do click the link, you may find yourself on a fraudulent online banking login page that mimics the real bank login page. In some cases, you may receive an authorisation code and be asked to input it on screen to ‘reactivate your account’ or ‘cancel a fraudulent payment’ – however this actually gives the fraudster access to your account.

If you receive a fraudulent call, the number may mimic the genuine number of the bank. The fraudster will try to get personal, financial and security information. The fraudster may imply that if you don’t act immediately, it will have negative consequences, for example, that money will be lost from your account.

Remember that a bank will never text/email/phone you asking for personal information, will never send you a link on a text message, will not ask you to delete your banking app or to avoid logging into banking online. A bank will never ask you to click on a link or for personal information.

If you take nothing else from this piece of advice, heed this. If someone is pressurising you on the phone to take urgent action, hang up and call the number on the back of your debit / credit card. Never give away personal information, bank card payment details, bank account details or security details such as your PIN or online password to anyone. Block the sender of a suspicious email or text message and delete the message.

Anyone can be a target of this kind of scam as I found out.