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MAYO DIGITAL TV start-up Irish TV will launch its full content schedule next Tuesday, targeting the Irish diaspora with original and syndicated content.
However, it could have worked out differently for husband and wife team Pierce and Mairead O’Reilly, who founded the company in 2011, were it not for a meeting in a London pub with London multi-millionaire John Griffin.
The O’Reillys had managed to raises some venture capital, and had backing from Enterprise Ireland, but the cupboard was bare when Pierce went to London around a year ago to drum up funds for the company.
Rock bottom
“We were at rock bottom with a great project”, Mairead O’Reilly told TheJournal.ie. ”We sent Pierce over with only a few bob in his pocket and he met (Griffin) in a bar through a mutual friend.”
The next day he had a cheque for €50,000…we all cried that night.
Griffin, who has roots in Mayo and previously appeared on the British TV show The Secret Millionaire, sold his minicab company Addison Lee for £300 million last year to private equity player Carlyle Capital.
He’s since made good on the initial investment, providing the lion’s share of a €15 million investment into the company in preparation for a fully fledged assault on the Irish diaspora market.
Irish TV will officially launch on Sky TV next week, although it has been broadcasting since May. The company employs 30 people based in Westport, and has used a further 96 freelancers to make content for the channel.
The channel’s flagship programme will be 32 weekly half hour slots, one for news and features from each county in Ireland. On top of this, Irish TV is in talks with national broadcasters about syndicating content.
It is also understood to be in negotiations with UPC, which could open up more European markets for the channel. Next year the O’Reillys hope to expand into America and has opened up talks with the major networks there.
It was announced today that the company has secured a licence – essentially a broadcasting permit – from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, enabling it to continue broadcasting from its base here.
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And about time too.
Why do we not have more medical graduates coming out of the colleges?
We are always told that there is a shortage of consultants and overworked Junior Doctors.
Why are there so few consultant positions and if there were more JD’s being trained surely this would help?
I think it’s more a problem with keeping doctors in the country as opposed to producing enough. Even if many more graduates were coming through the medical schools (at a significant cost to Ireland) they would likely react to the problems faced by current NCHDs in the same way and emigrate to better conditions. As to more consultant posts – the HSE are having significant trouble filling the currently available posts. Basically doctor jobs in the irish system are seen by many doctors as unattractive compared to what’s on offer elsewhere.
the reason is a constant percentage of Irish graduates are emigrating all the time and foreign doctors are not allowed training at all, even if seat remain vacant. so net result is less trained doctors.
Its catch 22. The graduates emigrate because of better working conditions abroad but for every one going the service gets worse for those within.
The HSE should prioritise a mass recruitment of at least 250 JD’s and the universities should drop the points requirements for the medical courses. An immediate injection of fresh blood is now urgent.
Wont be popular but I would pay more tax if it was red fenced for improving front line health professionals numbers.
Points are determined by demand/places. Only way to drop points is to allow more places but is there not a blocker on that happening?
There was a recent study done by NUIG that showed that the emigration of JD’s and Med Grads is due to lack of promotion and career development opportunities in the main.
Good, I hope they are fined a absolute fortune for this. It’s an ongoing disgrace.
The problem with that is they’d be happy to pay a fine every week if it meant they could carry on regardless, after all its our taxes that’ll pay it.
We’ve been hearing about this for years now yet nothing has changed, this isn’t something that has suddenly been imposed upon this government by Europe. Time and time again, government after government has made promise after promise to junior doctors only to procrastinate and outright lie. It’s become painfully obvious at this stage that they will only address this issue when forced to do so, even then nobody really expects miracles from an Irish government.
I’d say the IMO might give the gov a bit of a handout here considering their former chief had a pension package of close to 25 million ………!
I worked in an industry were both the employees and employers could be fined thousands for breaking the WTD,Not to mention the impact it has on road safety.
Yet there is a government/agency body breaking these rules,Anyone who has ever worked shift or excessive hours knows that the body cannot take it and eventually shuts down.
Fatigue is just if not more dangerous than being under the influence of drink & drugs,If the mgmt cannot put a roster together they should be shown the door.
Leo Varadkar as Minister of Health has this to say:
“We the Government are doing everything in our power to protect fishing rights in our waters and protect small fisheries against the invasion of super trawlers”.
I hope they take the Irish Govt to the cleaners. The Govt have fought this indefensible case for years knowing full well they were wrong.
The fine is paid by the taxpayers, so we lose… again and again and again.
Concur with most of the above.
Medical professionals always went abroad to gain expertise in specialities, some with a view to coming home to work here/ some notThey would intern here work as SHO, go abroad for a while and return with the expertise and contribute to the society that gave them their education
It’s enriching to have a health system formed with people from different backgrounds but not a setting where Irish health workers are in a small minority
Spare a thought for those who want to stay here advancing their careers knowing that they will never earn what they deserve and won’t get much kudos from the general public either The permanent departure of any well educated young citizen is not only a loss economically but socially and culturally People studying Medicine have had a high academic standard including Irish language skills never again to be utilised
Ar gach aon leibhéil is náireach é “Na coinníolachaí oibre ” tá ann le fada agus faoi láthair
The HSE is clearly overworking its junior doctors.
And yet it has not changed its policy.
Doctors should be on. 35 hour week!
Some years ago I had to go to hospital on Sunday morning to have stitches taken out!
I had to be seen by a doctor before the nurse could take out the stitches.
The doctor was asleep! He had only 4 hours sleep in 2 days.
When I met the doctor 2 hours later he was very tired. A lovely person who clearly was overworked !
Time for policy change.
No wonder our junior doctors want to emigrate !
Government needs to address these serious issues!
No wonder he’s tired. Why would someone have their stitches out on a Sunday?
Interesting to see that most of comments here are supportive of change and penned by people who are awake during the night (myself included) and are mostly using names that they are not hiding behind
If I thought that repeating myself ad nauseum on this issue would influence future practice I would sit neaworsr the keyboard morning, noon and night but as a vehicle for any reasonable debate or discussion i fear “airtime” would win out to postings from contributors such as
DONT CARE
BORED
MEATMASHER and many more much worse with destructive remarks and foul language.Lets hope change can be achieved by more campaigning that doesn’t involve moaning about the cost( a valid consideration)and happens soon
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