THE EU's Social Affairs Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, returned to his home base on Friday to endorse an initiative aimed at involving more women in the media.
Mr Flynn, who is remembered for putting his foot in it with some sexist remarks during the last presidential campaign, has been trying hard to counter the "Flynnstone" image created by the Scrap Saturday radio programme.
He came to Castlebar to introduce the second part of a NOW (new opportunities for women) project sponsored by the local community radio station. Thirteen women have completed a six month media course which included broadcast and print journalism and computer training.
The plan now is to focus on ways of translating their newly acquired skills into income, according to the project's co ordinator, Ms Ann Crowley.
"We looked at our own area and realised that full time work in the media wasn't really an option if people wanted to stay in the area" she says.
The project aims to help the women - and other women involved in the radio station - get freelance assignments with various media outlets. They will compile "packages" for radio with a view to selling them.
"We're also developing a teleservices centre. We'll set up a base with computers and telephones and bring the work in from all over the world, and process and edit it. We have a woman in Castlebar who is doing really well at this and she is helping us to set it up."
Some of this tele work will be for the media, while more routine data processing is also an option. The project will focus on editing work from eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries, correcting the English in scientific tracts and so on.
"We're trying to find out where the middle ground between radio and computers is," says Ms Crowley. "We're looking at the women's needs, which would be to work possibly from home, possibly part time or flexible working, using these kinds of skills rather than trying to attract in heavy industry into the area."
Of the original 13 women, most are still involved with the local radio, while four have taken up places on a radio diploma course in UCG. Two others are due to travel to London to take part in a training session in the use of radio to reach ethnic minorities.
The London course is aimed at helping more recent immigrants to Britain, particularly those from Somalia, Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa, to use radio within their own communities to share information about residency permit applications, job opportunities and dealing with the local bureaucracy.
"They've never used radio as a means of information and communication. Our group will go and show them how to do this."
The project also has links with a similar venture in Germany, which aims to help the children of Turkish, Iranian, Argentinian, Cypriot and Italian immigrants gain access to the media.
"It's for the children of immigrants who want to work in journalism and find that access is denied to them in the normal media. The NOW project is giving them a bit extra so that they are able to compete with native Germans."