Month: February 2013

FARMERS in Clare need a fairer share of the common agricultural pie, as farmers in the Banner are currently receiving half the amount paid to the east coast, Clare councillors have argued.

The three MEPs Mr Gallagher (FF), Jim Higgins (FG) and Marian Harkin (Ind) attended a meeting with Clare’s county councillors to discuss a number of issues including the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) told the meeting “ultimately the decision made in Europe will have a huge impact here in Clare”.

He said the average CAP payment in Mr Gallagher’s county of Donegal was € 6,112; in Mayo, where Mr Higgins is from, the payment is € 5,373; and here in County Clare the average payment is approximately € 8,000.

The figures in the west coast he argued are significantly less when compared to Waterford where the average payment is € 16,000 and counties such as Kildare and Kilkenny where the payment are at € 15,000.

“The people in the west of Ireland did not choose the land they got,” he argued and the system should be more equitable.

Cllr Richard Nagle (FF) said, “I think there is a much more favourable and amicable payment to be had. Farmers on better land get almost twice the payment than the west of Ireland.”

Cllr Pat Burke (FG), who is also a farmer, said he disagreed with any suggestion of a flat payment per hectare.

He argued that the payment should go to active farmers, and not to farm- ers who have set down the land.

Mr Gallagher told the meeting that times have changed and so has Europe’s attitude to CAP in the last two years.

“If I were here two years ago I would say I was very concerned as it was said CAP would be reduced by 35 per cent. There was a time when only rural areas were in support of CAP,” he said.

He said that urban areas now see the importance of the market and are also supporting the Common Agricultural Policy.

“We want to ensure that Ireland gets a fair share of that.”

Mr Higgins said that the allocation under CAP is reduced only slightly for the period 2014 to 2020.

“One of the things that is crucial is that we project direct payments,” he said.

He added that there is also a proposal supported by Germany that young farmers will get a 25 per cent “top up”.

Ms Harkin, who is a member of the Agricultural Committee, said that the cut to REPS has been significant. “A lot of farmers have been cut off at the knee.”

A TOTAL of € 1.25 million is allocated in the council budget for Clare councillors’ wages, expenses, allocations and support cost.

The majority of that sum, € 916,832.12, was paid to councillors in the form of wages, expenses and allowances.

Among the higher earners for the year were the two mayors – Cllr Pat Hayes (FF), that served from January to June, and the current mayor Cllr Pat Daly (FF), that took over as first citizen in June.

As well as their basic annual allowance as a councillor of € 16, 724, they also received a mayor’s allowance of € 13, 500. Both payments are subject to taxation.

Among the expenses listed on Cllr Hayes’ accounts was a € 1, 535.56 subsistence allowance for a weeklong tourism promotion trip to New York in March, including St Patrick’s Day.

Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) received the third highest payment of € 37,784.72. The Shannon councillor’s payment includes an allowance of € 6,000 as chairperson of a Strategic Policy Committee and € 4,500 as chair of the County Development Board.

Councillor Richard Nagle (FF) also received an allowance of € 6,000 as chairperson of another SPC and € 1, 500 for chairing the County Development Board.

Cllr John Crowe (FG) received an allowance of € 5,870 as chairperson of an SPC, as did the sixth highest recipient, Cllr Joe Cooney (FG), who received € 6,000 as chair of a SPC.

As well as payments of almost € 920,000 to councillors, a budget of almost € 250,000 is set aside for support costs provided by council staff and the offices.

Councillors can claim up to a maximum of € 4,700 in expenses and € 6,156 to attend conferences.

Just one councillor, Cllr Christy Curtin (Ind), noted the tax and PRSI paid on his council income. Including PAYE on salary, PRSI, universal social charge, pension levy, the deduction totalled € 5,100.

CLARE’S county councillors cost the taxpayer almost € 920,000 in salaries and expenses last year.

According to accounts published by Clare County Council, 31 of the 32 councillors claimed expenses totalling € 381,664.12; this does not include the € 16,724 salary paid to each member of the council.

From the expenses listed a total of € 112, 580.99 was paid in conference allocations.

This included trips to one-, twoand three-day conferences all over Ireland including different parts of Donegal, Dublin, Mayo Waterford, Cavan, Cork and Down.

Among the many conferences attended were conferences on ‘Utilising your Tax Entitlements and Relief’, ‘Understanding EU funding and functions’, ‘Personal Injuries’, ‘Dr Garret Fitzgerald Spring Seminar’ and ‘Local Media and the Councillor’.

Councillors have also claimed for mobile phones, stationary, computers and repairs to lap tops under this category, although this makes up a very small percentage of the overall allocation.

Councillors also receive allocations for mobile phone use, which varies from councillor to councillor and was reduced in July 2012.

An allowance for attending meetings, replacing the old milage system, is also paid as are special allowances to the mayor, deputy mayor and those serving as chairperson of a Strategic Policy Committee.

Councillors appointed to the VEC, HSE West Forum and other public bodies are also entitled to claim expenses from these bodies, which is not included in this county council figures.

While the position of county councillor is not considered a full-time job, a number of Clare’s local elected representatives have decided to become full-time elected representatives.

The majority of members however also have another form of income through employment, business, farming or are retired professionals.

All councillors are required to pay tax and PRSI on their council “salary”.

Just one member of the council, Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG), does not claim any expenses as a member of Clare County Council or as a member of Ennis Town Council.

He is frustrated however that he cannot reallocate this money saved to projects and issues within the community.

CRUSHEEN storyteller Eddie Lenihan will begin a new and unusual chapter in his career next month when he appears in one of the most underground Irish albums to be released in 2013.

Mr Lenihan, who captured the nation’s hearts with his 12-part RTÉ series ‘Ten Minute Tales’ in the 1980s, is to feature on a new album by London-based dark-ambient outfit ‘From The Bogs of Aughiska’.

The album, which is due for release on March 18, includes a nine-anda-half-minute-long track featuring samples of the Crusheen native over the dark and ominous instrumental of ‘From The Bogs of Aughiska’.

The track, which is entitled ‘An Seanchaí’, is the second song on the album and has already started to create a stir within the UK underground and dark-ambient communities.

‘From The Bogs of Aughiska’ is the brainchild of musician and record producer Conor Droney, also known as the Human Jigsaw.

Originally from Lisdoonvarna, where he was half of speedcore duo Drugzilla, he has been working in the record industry in London for nearly a decade.

“I remember Eddie performing in the Spa Wells in Lisdoonvarna when I was growing up and, when it comes to an Irish storyteller, there really isn’t anyone better,” he said.

“I found a piece of him telling a story on Youtube which was perfect for a piece of music I had written. So I wrote him a letter, expecting to hear nothing back, but I get this lovely letter back from him saying I was wel- come to use the piece and the whole thing just grew from there.

“His voice is great, it really brings the story he is telling to life. I mean, this track is over nine minutes long and once you get to the end of it, you just want to go back to the beginning and play it again and again.

“The reception has been great already – we’ve already had a few reviews back and they have all been very positive.”

Dark ambient music is a type of industrial music that features foreboding or discordant sound with usually no lyrics. The songs are typically around 10 minutes long and can often feature sampled speech.

Despite the alternative nature of the project, Eddie was happy to give it his blessing.

“I am always looking for new and different things and it is not a bad thing to try something that you’ve never tried before. Like next month, I’ve been invited to speak in Russia at the University of Moscow. If I can get a visa sorted, that will be an amazing experience – and something that I never thought would happen. So I think it’s better to try out something than not to try it at all,” he said.

PARENTS from a North Clare primary school are to use online “crowd funding” to raise the € 2 million needed to build their new school.

A new organisation entitled Build Mol An Óige will be officially launched later this week, with the aim of convincing people all over the world to pledge € 1 or € 2 to help fund the construction of the Ennistymon school.

In recent years, crowd-funding has become a popular method for bands to raise money to fund recordings, with fans pledging donations before a record is made in return for receiving a copy of the finished project.

This is the first time, though, that crowd-funding has been used to fund the construction of a school in Ireland or for such an expensive project.

Mol An Óige is currently based in a temporary location between the Ennistymon Vocational School and the Falls Hotel.

They are on the current Department of Education waiting list but department funding for the project is at least five years away.

“We are on the list to be built even- tually but it could take years and years before any funding is made available. We have this beautiful new site and we would just like to move there.

“The outreach online and on the social media is huge. Two million euro is a lot of money but we are aiming to reach hundreds of millions of people through this project – and if a million people were convinced to donate € 2, then we’d have our school,” said Stuart Woolley of Build Mol An Óige.

“Many times, with crowd-surfing projects, people set themselves a funding target and, if they hit that target, they will go forward with the project, and if they don’t then the money goes back.

“We are not going that way – we are considering these small, charitable donations and we will make some progress on the school no matter how much money we receive.”

The funding project will be officially launched in Ennistymon this Friday when parents, teachers and students from Mol An Óige will walk through the town to the site of the new school, beside the Teach Ceoil at 12 noon.

For more information or to donate, visit www.buildmolanoige.org.

KILRUSH’S designation as host town for the 2013 National Famine Commemoration will be kickstarted in a big way this Tuesday as the ‘Famine in Clare Exhibition’ is formally opened in the West Clare capital.

The exhibition will be staged at Kilrush branch library, where it will be on display from now until the National Famine Commemoration on Sunday, May 12, which will be the highpoint of week-long events in the town.

The exhibition concentrates upon the famine in Clare (1845/52) and explores each Poor Law Union, its electoral divisions and workhouses.

Reports are included from those such as English Poor Law Commissioners and Relieving Officers, the Board of Guardians and Poor Law Inspectors.

Lists of names of those who died in the Kilrush and Ennistymon Workhouses will be displayed.

“This is an important part of the commemoration of the event,” said Paddy Waldron of the local Kilrush Historical Society, which was the prime mover in bringing the commemoration to Clare for the first time.

“The week itself will be a week of lectures and tours leading up to a commemoration ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

“It will bring what happened in Kilrush to national attention again. It will bring people with a history in that period to Kilrush.

“It will enable us to put up permanent memorials to some of the more tragic events of the period. It will hopefully engender an interest in history in the people of West Clare,” he added.

Among the memorials that will be put in place will be one to the victims of the Poulnasherry ferry tragedy of 1849 when 41 people drowned.

“They were turned away from the workhouse and were going home to the west and drowned. There should be some permanent marker on the shore that a terrible tragedy occurred there,” revealed Mr Waldron.

“What really happened to Kilrush town was that the people who were evicted anywhere from Quilty to Loophead to Kildysart all headed for the workhouse in the town. The town was swelled with the poor and the starving and the original workhouse was built for 800 and they ended up opening a total of six auxiliary workhouses and they were all overcrowded.

“There were 19,000 living in workhouses during the Famine and well over a quarter of them were in Kilrush at one time,” he added.

LESS legal aid and more gardaí was proposed by Fine Gael councillor Tony Mulqueen at Friday’s adjourned meeting of the county council.

The Ennis-based councillor received the support of Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) from Shannon in his motion to “call on the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, TD, that free legal aid in criminal cases be given only once and that repeat offenders pay for their legal costs with their own money.”

“Widely known criminal and serial criminals are abusing the system day in day out,” said Cllr Mulqueen.

He added that many of these criminals have undeclared money and money hidden away in off shore accounts.

“The savings from such a move could be used for Garda recruitment,” he said.

“I think we need to strengthen up free legal aid. People are using and abusing the system,” added Cllr McCarthy.

Last October,

NORTH Clare could soon become Ireland’s capital for civil partnerships, including same-sex couplings, following plans to create a centre for civil ceremonies in Doolin.

Documents have been lodged with Clare County Council for the development of a conference centre at Ballyvara House in Doolin where events, such as civil ceremonies could take place. The plans were lodged in the name of Lazarus Investments, a new company which is understood to have roots in the North Clare area.

With the development’s proximity to desirable wedding locations such as the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, coupled with the shortage of registered locations for civil ceremonies in Clare and Ireland generally, it is thought that North Clare could prove a very attractive location for couples looking to tie-the-knot outside of the church.

Clare has already been identified as a hotspot for same-sex partnerships, with the Banner County having the second highest rate of same-sex civil partnerships in Ireland. According to figures released by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN), 15 Clare same-sex partnerships were awarded between January 2011 and the end of last year. Indeed, Clare has the second highest incidence of civil partnerships per head of population in Ireland, with only Dublin registering a higher rate of civil partnerships.

Despite these figures, only two same-sex civil partnerships have taken place on Clare soil, with no Clare locations registered to conduct civil partnerships until late last year.

According to Kilrush man and Director of GLEN, Brian Sheehan, the large uptake in civil partnerships will prove a stepping stone to full marriage for gay couples.

“It has been an incredible take-up in such a small space of time. I think once same-sex couples become more visible in Clare and other places, more and more people will see that a same-sex couple is no different from a heterosexual couple – this is people making a really profound commitment to each other,” said the West Clare man.

A decision is expected from the planners at Clare County Council on March 20.

A LOCAL entrepreneur has launched a new competition aimed at showcasing the best of Clare to a worldwide audience. My Destination, the global travel resource powered by a community of local experts, is set to unleash travel’s ‘Biggest, Baddest, Bucket List’ and offer one lucky person the prize of a lifetime – a six-month, all-inclusive, blogging trip around the world to a minimum of 25 international destinations and $50,000 (USD) prize money on their return. The competition will be in partnership with a series of interna- tional associates including Hotels. com, Travelex and Viator. It closes on March 31.

Applicants must create a video application in English and up to three minutes in length telling about their favourite destination around the world, whether it’s where you live or a dream holiday destination.

The Clare branch of My Destination was set up by Ennis businessman Gerard Lynch. Gerard says the competition is a great chance to show off Clare in the year of the Gathering. He explained, “People from County Clare and the Shannon Region would surely love to know about this and even enter. And wouldn’t it be great if the winner was from Clare?

“Secondly, every video and written entry acts as an advert for Clare. One that can be shared, talked about and tweeted about for the duration of the competition and beyond. The shortlisted ‘top 10’ and the eventual winner’s videos are likely to be watched by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of potential tourists. What a great way to promote our region.”

He continued, “The winner gets to choose their own trip. However, at least 25 destinations that they choose have to be from the My Destination network, which includes County Clare.

“So, when we help them plan, if you are able to promote the competition, maybe through your web site and network, we will encourage them to come and see County Clare, so even more exposure can be had”.

He added, “There is a massive opportunity for Clare to gain incredible exposure to a worldwide audience through the campaign, especially with The Gathering also happening”.

Videos with completed application form and a travel blog-style entry can be uploaded to www.mydestination. com/bbb.

ENNIS’S bid to some day bring the Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann back to the town has received the Presidential seal of approval.

Ennis lost out to Sligo as the host town for the 2014 event, missing out on an estimated € 20 million boost to the local economy.

It marked the third time in three years that Ennis has missed out on staging the country’s largest festival of traditional music, song and dance.

However, at an event in Ennis on Friday, President Michael D Higgins said he believes the town will host the event again.

He said, “I hope that you have every success. In Ennis you have a wonderful history in which you can showcase your distinctive heritage that is there.”

Asked later if he thought Ennis would make a good host town, President Higgins said, “Yes I do. One of the things you have to be ready for for the Fleadh Cheoil is the volume of people that come. Cavan used to be swamped. What’s good about it now is that it isn’t defined to just the competitive side of it. You have all sorts of competitions, art and other competitions. It’s a major influx of population and of course Ennis will be very good. The spirit of Mrs Crotty will be celebrating I’m sure.”

President Higgins also expressed his admiration for Ennis, the town where he attended secondary education.

He said, “I think the narrow lanes and streets of Ennis have a particular character of their own all in different ways, from the legal atmosphere that comes out of Bindon Street. I think Ennis has had an extraordinary history. It has a great history of resilience be it from the cholera epidemic of 1832 or the extraordinary losses of life from the famine of 1845 to 1848.”

He said Ennis also had a deserved reputation as a welcoming town.

He said, “Ennis could give lessons in inclusion to many, many places. The people that came of the planes in Shannon, often without the pro- tections of modern guarantees of law that we have now, they would stay overnight in Ennis. And then it would become a few weeks, and then a few months. There are so many of them. I spoke to the President of Chile and we spoke about the Chileans that came here. And that is how it should be. We have sent our people from Ireland all over the world and people have come to us. And what binds us all together is that respect for human dignity and particulary for migrants and people who may be in need of assistance and assurance.”