Month: February 2006

The people of Clare can now assist a children’s charity by helping to preserve the environment.

From today The Clare People will be collecting empty toner and inkjet cartridges and mobile phones on behalf of the Jack and Jill Foundation, at our Carmody Street Office in Ennis.

For every item collected, the charity will receive a donation, which will be used to help sick children.

The charity aims to help the families of children up to four years of age, who suffer from extensive brain damage.

It provides emotional support through frequent visits to affected homes from the professional liaison team, finances home care, listens to what parents want for their child and helps to access the services required.

The charity now hopes to recycle the 20 million old mobile phone sets being hoarded all over Ireland to raise money for the charity.

As well as depositing the used phones and carridges in The Clare People Offices, people can also respond to the Jack and Jill Foundation Recycling Appeal by calling 1850 525 545.

THE Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche (FF), received a hostile reception from a group of Clare farmers when he visited the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis last Friday.

Some 50 farmers door-stepped the Minister outside the hotel and challenged him on the implications for farming in the county if the new Nitrates Directive is enforced.

“If it comes in, it will destroy the very fabric of rural life, there are still 200,000 jobs dependent on farming in rural Ireland,” said Clare IFA President, Seamus Murphy. “It will lead to massive de-stocking, put fulltime farmers out of business and put a huge amount of pressure on the whole sector.”

The controversial regulations were introduced before Christmas and limited the amount of nitrates and phosphates that can be used on farm land. It has prompted an unprecedented response from farming organisations and has even seen the IFA boycott Teagasc over its role in introducing the regulations.

“We feel that this legislation is totally over the top,” said Clare farming activist, Jim Enright. “As farmers we are custodians of the environment and we know what is good for it more than some civil servant in Dublin.”

Speaking outside the Temple Gate, Minister Roche defended his position to the farmers.

“The directive is the law and we have broken that law for 13 years,” said the Minister. “One of the reasons we are in a difficult position here is that we haven’t put in place a nitrates action programme.

“We are the last country in Europe to do it, even the 10 new member states have their programmes in place, so what we have done is put ourselves up a cul-de-sac. If we continue as we are, we will have daily fines and disruption on our farm payments.”

Mr Murphy said that the large turnout showed the level of anger that Clare farmers had with the current directives.

“It just goes to show you how committed these farmers are,” he said. “There are a lot of cattle in Clare who will be having a late breakfast this morning. But if this goes through, there will be no feed for them at all.

“Wherever Dick Roche goes, we will be there to meet him, lobbying him as intensely as we can. We won’t go away, we can’t. This is our livelihood.”

GREEDY taxi drivers who refuse to bring passengers on longer journeys outside the town of Ennis during peak hours, are a rare exception rather than the norm.

That is according to Union Taxi Federation representative, Martin White. He was responding to claims that a young woman, living miles outside Ennis, was left in town on a busy weekend night, in preference to shorter taxi runs.

Other late night party goers have also told The Clare People that they were asked to wait for half an hour for a taxi, until the driver was finished with local runs.

“I can imagine it happens,” said Mr White. He said, however, that 99 per cent of drivers would take the person home immediately.

“Once a person gets into the taxi to hire you, they must be taken home.

“I know I have never refused such a fare. I can’t see any taxi driver seeing any girl left there.”

The only exception is if a passenger has taken drugs or alcohol and is abusive or threatening to the driver.

There are currently 115 taxis in the county town, an increase of 400 per cent over the last two years. New legislation is currently being considered that will allow taxi drivers refuse fares over 18 miles.

CLARE’S INTO District Representative, Declan Kelleher, has expressed disappointment at the reluctance of the Department of Education to increase the number of grants for building expenditure in the case of small and medium sized schools.

In January of this year, the Department announced that 54 primary schools could proceed to early architectural planning for major projects, but none of these were in Clare.

Just last week, the Department announced that 12 Clare primary schools would benefit from improvements under the summer works scheme.

These were Coláiste Mhuire, Harmony Row, Ennis; Ennistymon Vocational School, Ennistymon; Shannon Comprehensive School, Shannon and Kilrush Community School, Kilrush

These works include improvements to toilets, roofs, windows and electrical matters.

At a meeting between the INTO and department officials in Tullamore the teacher’s union asked for a further extension to the scheme and sought to highlight the dire conditions of playgrounds in schools throughout the country.

“Children need safe, secure and well designed playing areas and this is still far from the situation which obtains in many primary schools in Clare and elsewhere. There was also a chronic shortage of PE Halls throughout Clare and this is taking from the emphasis which should be placed on PE especially during the winter months,” Mr. Kelleher told The Clare People.

IRELAND’S most high profile Muslim has appealed for calm within the country’s growing Islamic community, as outrage over the publication of a cartoon lampooning the prophet Mohammed stretches into a second week.

Dr. Moosajee Bhamjee, who created Irish political history in 1992, when he became the first Muslim elected to Dáil Éireann, has hit out at the cartoons that were published last week in a Danish newspaper.

However, the South African born Muslim is supportive of what he calls, “the majority Muslim view” of a peaceful reaction to the publication of the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

One of the offensive cartoons was published in The Irish Star , the editor of which is Quin man, Gerry Colleran. Dr. Bhamjee has urged Muslims to react by starting a letter writing campaign.

“By peaceful means is the proper way to react to this controversy and is to use freedom of speech to voice anger at this ridiculing of the Muslim religion,” Dr. Bhamjee told The Clare People .

“Reacting with violence is not good. This is an emotional outburst from Muslim fundamentalists, who feel that their religion has been ridiculed. It has been ridiculed but it should not be met with violence.

“Muslims in Ireland should write to the Danish Embassy expressing their outrage at the way in which their holy prophet has been branded a terrorist by this cartoon. They should also write to An Taoiseach,” added Dr. Bhamjee.

The former Labour TD claimed that the decision of The Star to publish one of the cartoons was very unhelpful and that this highlighted the need for the establishment of the long-mooted Press Council.

“I would go so far to say that it was silly and stupid on the part of The Star . It could affect multi-cultural relations in Ireland,” concluded Dr. Bhamjee.

MORE and more children as young as seven and eight are being put through rigorous beauty regimes in the run up to their First Holy Communion, according to reports received by The Clare People .

It is not uncommon now for Holy Communion children to have fake tans and make-up applied for their big day, with use of sun beds being reported in extreme cases.

And while tanned holy communicants are the exception rather than the rule in Clare, Ennis beauticians are reporting a growing trend in requests for fake tans and leg waxes for children as young as 10 and 11 years old.

Ennis beautician Martina Costelloe said that she has been approached by mothers of children of Confirmation age, requesting eyebrow re-shaping, waxing and other beauty procedures. With the wide availability of tanning products in shops and chemists, Ms Costelloe says this can also be done at home.

The Ann Levy’s Health and Beauty beautician also confirmed that she knew of cases where children of Communion age had their “tan done”.

She lays the blame with parents, who she says are taking their own vanity out on their children.

Ms Costelloe said that she, like most of her peers, refuses any beauty procedures on girls and young teens, unless there is an unnatural facial hair growth and the child herself has a complex about it.

Demands for hiring hotels, booking limousines and purchasing not one, but two outfits for the day, are also coming from the school yard to already pressurised parents, adding to emotional and financial stress.

The Catholic Church in Clare is attempting to take the focus off the commercialism, with a new programme for First Holy Communion.

“Do this in memory” started as a pilot scheme three years ago and now runs throughout the Diocese of Killaloe. It helps parents with the spiritual development of their children.

Diocesan Advisor of Primary Catholic Schools, Fr Maurice Harmon, told The Clare People that it was based around the Eucharist and parents had the option of becoming involved in 10 Sunday Masses as part of the programme. Each parent also receives information to help prepare their child for Holy Communion and back up what they have learnt at school.

“It’s the child’s day and this can so often get lost in the affluence of the society we live in,” said Fr Harmon.

Minister for the Environment and Local Government Dick Roche has promised to sit down with Clare County Council to “break any log jams”, in the implementation of the county’s long awaited water and sewerage schemes.

During a visit to Ennis on Friday, the minister asked the council officials to carry out an examination to establish “how they will bring schemes back within the financial parameters” set by the department.

He vowed to be flexible in dealing with the ongoing problems with water and sewerage schemes.

Describing as “nuts” the need for continuous boil notices in a town the size of Ennis, the Minister said that his department would support the interim solution.

“It is an issue I want to see resolved. I understand exactly why it is in the difficulty it is in, but I am interested more in a solution,” he said.

During his visit he also met with councillors and the county manager.

He said he recognised that there were water and sewerage schemes in county Clare in difficulties, which a €200 million water and sewerage programme for the county, could address.

“I said to the county manager that I would be very flexible with that. If there are schemes that are in the 2007 . . . category that can be brought forward I’d be flexible bringing them forward. If there are some that are stuck in 2006 for whatever reason, maybe to do with foreshore licences or whatever else . . . we will be as flexible as we can.

“I want to see the money spent, I want to see the water schemes in, I want to see the boiling notices a thing of the past.”

Meanwhile Clare County Councillor Christy Curtain said that schemes such as that proposed for Mullagh and Quilty, had already completed the whole process and there should be no more delay in getting it started.

Minister Roche approved the contract documents submitted by Clare County Council for the final two elements of the Newmarket on Fergus Water Supply Scheme and for the extension of the Lisdoonvarna Water Supply Scheme to Ballyvaughan.

This will allow the Council to invite tenders for these contracts, with an estimated cost of €5.5 million and €5.6 million respectively.

THE four accused men denied assaulting Michael Cahir and denied causing criminal damage. In court, they said they did not threaten him and went to his premises seeking the P45.

Referring to the first of the two incidents, defending solicitor Eugene O’Kelly, said the Malones did not kick or punch Mr Cahir.

“You pushed Joseph and Michael Malone at the door of the premises. Joseph lost his balance, he reached out to hold his balance and in the process tore your shirt,” said Mr O’Kelly to Mr Cahir.

Mr O’Kelly said the McNamara brothers were “motivated by their desire to assist their sister.”

“These are decent rural folk. They didn’t set out to get themselves in this situation,” said the solicitor.

Michael Malone told the court he had three drinks in a public house before he went to Mr Cahir’s premises. He said he asked Mr Cahir for his wife’s P45 and was told to leave.

When asked by Inspector Michael Gallagher what he thought of Michael Cahir, Michael Malone said, “I think he is the lowest type of a c*** that ever came into the parish of Liscannor.”

After hearing five hours’ evidence, the judge convicted all four men of assault.

He dismissed the charge of criminal damage against Michael Malone and Martin McNamara and convicted Joseph Malone and John McNamara of criminal damage to Michael Cahir’s t-shirt.

He ordered the McNamaras to pay €2,500 compensation each and fined both €500.

He ordered Joseph and Michael Malone to pay €1,000 compensation and fined them €350 each.

He also fined Joseph Malone and John McNamara €250 each for the criminal damage charge and ordered both to pay compensation.

He ordered all four to pay €212.50 witness expenses and fixed recognisances.

“The reason I am not adding custodial sentences is because they have no previous convictions. If they had, I’d have no hesitation in sending all four to prison,” said the judge.

A BUSINESSMAN who dismissed a woman working for him, was subsequently assaulted by four of her relations in Liscannor.

Convicted at Ennis District Court were brothers Michael (33) and Joseph (28) Malone, of Ballyvislane, Liscannor and brothers Martin (35) and John (29) McNamara, of Tarmon west, Kilkee.

They appeared in relation to two separate incidents at Liscannor filling station in July 2005.

The Malone brothers denied assaulting the owner of the business, Michael Cahir, and the McNamara brothers denied assaulting him, causing him harm. All four also denied a charge of criminal damage.

Michael Cahir, a native of Ballyduff, Barefield, said the Malone brothers went into his shop on the evening of July 15.

“They came in demanding a P45 for Michael’s wife, who I had dismissed several months previously,” said Mr Cahir.

He said he did not give them the P45 and they started spitting, kicking, insulting and threatening him. He claimed he got “several” blows and Joseph Malone tore his t-shirt.

Two days later, on July 17, Mr Cahir said the McNamara brothers – related through marriage to the Malone brothers – caught him from behind, “flung” him and threatened him.

He said they punched and kicked him and Martin McNamara headbutted him. John McNamara struck him once and the two brothers threw him out over the boundary wall on his premises.

Gda Michael Burke went to Michael Malone’s home on July 15 and said there was a strong smell of drink from his breath.

“He denied assaulting Michael Cahir but admitted there was pushing and shoving,” said Gda Burke.

One woman who was working at Mr Cahir’s filling station when the Malones entered said there was some pushing and shoving going on at the door of the shop and when her boss went back in to the shop, his t-shirt was torn.

Another employee of Mr Cahir was working on July 17 when the two McNamaras approached her boss.

She said Mr Cahir was lying over the wall and two men were holding his shoulders. She said Mr Cahir’s t-shirt was torn but she did not see him being hit.

A woman who lives close to Mr Cahir’s premises, said she heard a ‘racket’ on July 17. “Mr Cahir jumped over the wall into the field,” she said, adding that she did not see any blows.

CLARE Vocational Educational Committee will seek legal advice after receiving a report of the inquiry into the involuntary resignation of the organisation’s first ever female chief executive officer.

The report, prepared by the Department of Education and Science, examined the functions of Clare VEC and the events surrounding the resignation of former CEO Padraigín Uí Riordáin in 2004.

Following a private meeting held last Wednesday, Clare VEC issued a statement saying that any future consideration of the report would be deferred until legal advice had been sought from local authority solicitor, John Shaw.

“Following the resignation of the then chief executive officer, Padraigín Uí Riordáin, County Clare Vocational Education Committee requested the Minister for Education & Science to establish an inquiry.

“The report of the inquiry has now been forwarded to the committee. At a special meeting of the committee in private on Wednesday evening, it was decided to defer consideration of the report for a period of time following legal advice,” said the statement

The Department of Education and Science launched an initial investigation into the workings of Clare VEC in 2004, following the involuntary resignations of both Ms Uí Riordáin and Ms Teresa Lineen, the former principal of St Michael’s College in Kilmihil, who left her post in 2003.

That investigation was heavily criticised at the time by Fine Gael T.D. Pat Breen, who claimed it had been botched. It was subsequently terminated by the Minister of Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, as problems had arisen regarding the terms of reference.

A new investigation with expanded terms of reference was then initiated, and headed up by retired assistant chief schools inspector, Turlough O’Connor. His report was delivered to the Minister in January. Ms Uí Riordáin announced her resignation in July 2004 at a stormy meeting of the board of Clare VEC. She was replaced as CEO by former Kerry football goalkeeper Eamon Fitzgerald. He has since left the post.