Month: March 2006

NURSES in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh are carrying personal alarms following numerous attacks on staff in hospitals across the region and country.

The Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) this week confirmed that all nurses in the Accident and Emergency Departments of the Mid Western Regional Hospitals in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh carried the alarms, while other staff could request them.

INO representative for the Mid Western Area, Mary Fogarty, told The Clare People that alarms were particularly necessary for nurses who are working after other staff had finished, making them more vulnerable.

“You could be isolated in a ward and one lash could knock you to the floor,” she said.

She said all hospitals were very public areas, with a lot of frustrated people and relatives visiting.

They were also open 24 hours a day, allowing people to come and go.

Ms Fogarty said that she hoped management would continue to review security in the hospitals, especially after incidents.

Meanwhile, the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) held a meeting on Thursday last, in advance of a Labour Relations Commission conciliation conference, scheduled for April 3.

The conference will discuss eight claims which the unions have lodged on behalf of nurses and midwives.

The unions clam that it will take 21 years for this year’s honours nursing graduates to achieve the same pay as qualified and unqualified childcare workers. The unions are also calling for a 35-hour week.

In 1980, the Labour Court, stated that because of the nature of their work and the stressful environment in which it was performed, nurses and midwives should benefit from a reduced working week.

Nurses and midwives are the only

officer grades of the health serv ice who work longer than 35 hours per week, according to the INO and PNA.

In a joint statement, the INO and PNA stated their committment to maintaining industrial peace and had no intention of breaking Sustaining Progress, but would not tolerate “the no comment approach adopted by the previous Benchmarking Body in the past.”

THE lack of customs checks on some flights into Shannon Airports is of huge concern and must be rectified, according to Clare independent TD, James Breen. He was speaking after Finance Minister Brian Cowen revealed that 17 flights passing through the airport last year were not subjected to custom controls.

Deputy Breen said that because the drug culture was a huge threat, every effort must be made to prevent drugs being imported.

“I would be very concerned. The drug culture is so large now, no chances can be taken. There has to be full cover at all times. Those drug barons know every trick in the trade,” he said.

He said various seizures of drugs in Clare in recent months must be welcomed, but warned that drugs were getting through.

“We can take no chances in our airports. There must be more cover. We have to address the reasons people are getting drugs,” he said.

Sixty five kilos of drugs were discovered concealed in luggage at Shannon last year, while 14 weapons were seized. Almost 800,000 cigarettes were seized, which is a significant increase on less than 500,000 in 2004.

A spokesperson for the Revenue Commissioners accepted that Minister Cowen’s figures were factual, but said that customs staff would always be present to deal with any “risk” flights arriving at Shannon.

He said most flights were covered by customs staff and decisions made depend on the origin of the flight, combined with intelligence.

“The vast majority of flights are covered by rostered staff (full-time employees), who work on shifts between 6am and 11pm. Some flights are covered by non-rostered staff , who work between 11pm and 6am,” said the spokesman.

He said customs officers attended flights “as required” and if any information was received which would lead to a risk, adequate action was taken.

“All flights are monitored on a risk basis. We wouldn’t check every passenger on every flight.

“It depends on where it comes from – high risk areas or suspects are monitored in particular . . . drug and cigarette smugglers would be high risk,” he added.

“We have to apply risk analysis and other information,” he said.

A spokesperson for Shannon Airport confirmed that a sniffer dog was always available.

COUNCIL officials came under fire yesterday from councillors in the Ennis electoral area, over the poor condition of the town’s roads and footpaths. Councillors took the opportunity at yesterday’s Ennis electoral area meeting to grill senior engineering staff over a number of issues relating to roads in and around the Ennis area.

In total, councillors submitted six submissions concerning road conditions in the county capital with the issue of a footpath for the Quin Road high on the agenda.

Responding to a motion submitted by Councillor Joe Carey (FG), Senior Executive Engineer, Hugh McGrath, confirmed that construction work on a footpath that would connect the Quin Road with the Bruach na hAbhainn housing estate, would be completed in a number of weeks.

But he was unable to say when suitable pedestrian access would be provided over the railway, which was now an issue for the road design office of Clare County Council.

This prompted sceptical remarks from councillors who said that the issue had been shelved for too long.

“We seem to be welcoming this work for a long time now, I thought we were looking at this to be done last year,” said Cllr Peter Considine (FF) who added that the road design office “wasn’t the safest place to leave the proposal”. Cllr Sonny Scanlon (FG) commented that the situation was “frightening” given the amount of people that used the bridge over the railway line. Mr McGrath said that the council was considering a number of proposals including the construction of a stand alone foot bridge.

There was also heated debate over the condition of the Ballybeg road with councillors demanding to know why the situation regarding the installation of a sewerage pipe had yet to be addressed. Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) accused the council of refusing to meet with developers to reach a compromise over the installation of the pipe.

“It’s been thrown around like snuff at a wake. Someone from either Ennis Town Council or Clare County Council needs to bring the developers together. No one wants to take a decision,” he said.

This was refuted by Mr McGrath who confirmed that €300,000 had been set aside for development work on the road, which would only begin once the final stage of the sewerage scheme had been completed for which additional funding might be required.

He added that a structural review of roads in the Ennis area would take place once work on the Ennis bypass was completed.

A POLISH man has appeared in court, accused of attempting to break a window on a plane as it flew into Shannon at the weekend.

Szczepan Drzewiecki (37) was travelling from Warsaw to Shannon to take up employment in the construction industry in Tralee, when the alleged incident occurred.

He was arrested at Shannon Airport on arrival there on Friday night and brought before a special sitting of Ennis district court the following day.

Gardaí say the alleged offence is at “the higher scale of seriousness.”

Drzewiecki is facing three charges, arising out of the alleged incident on board a Centralwings flight from Warsaw to Shannon.

He is charged with being intoxicated, engaging in abusive behaviour on the plane and failing to cease engaging in abusive behaviour, when requested to do so by a crew member, contrary to the Air Navigation and Transport Act.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said it was alleged that when the plane was about an hour away from Shannon, the accused became aggressive and violent.

“He was drinking from a bag, which gardaí will say was vodka… He assaulted two passengers behind him. He went to punch the window and break the window,” he said.

A number of people had to intervene and the accused sustained an eye injury in a struggle that ensued. One of the witnesses travelling on the same flight was an Ennis businessman.

Garda Brian McCarthy said when charged, the accused replied “I am sorry” to one of the charges.

Defending solicitor, William Cahir, said his client was due to commence a job as a labourer in Tralee this week.

Inspector Tom Kennedy applied to remand the accused in custody and said there was a fear he may flee the jurisdiction.

“The circumstances of the offences with which he is charged are quite serious,” he said.

“I’m particularly concerned about the offences. They are very much at the higher end of these offences. If he were convicted the penalty would be quite severe,” said the inspector.

Mr Cahir said the accused’s relatives lived in Fermoy and he was willing to surrender his passport.

But Inspector Kennedy said he did not believe the accused’s links in Ireland “would be good enough to guarantee his appearance here to face the allegations.”

Judge Joseph Mangan agreed to the request from the prosecution and remanded the accused in custody, to appear again in court tomorrow.

THE County Manager has told councillors that their unanimous move to dismantle their ‘locals only’ policy on one-off housing departed from the National Spatial Strategy and was wrong in law.

County Manager, Alec Fleming, also stated that the councillors’ proposal was in breach of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and didn’t have sufficient regard to Ministerial guidelines.

In a 45-page report circulated to councillors, Mr Fleming said that their proposal “would result in a significant relaxation of rural housing policy that would undermine the ability of the County Development Plan to support the objectives of the Mid-West Regional Guidelines to support the growth of settlements.”

At last night’s March council meeting, councillors agreed to hold a special meeting on the issue.

Mr Fleming said that if the proposal succeeded, “it would remove the need for any landowner to show that they have links with the rural community and would not be consistent with the National Spatial Strategy.”

Mr Fleming said that the amendment undermined the ability of the plan to support the development of key services to provide a significant level of social, commercial and community centres in peripheral areas.

On the environmental impacts of the amendments, Mr Fleming said they would result in significant adverse effects.

At the Council’s September meeting last year, the members unanimously voted to pass two motions against the advice of management to amend the Clare County Development Plan 2005 in order to make it easier for applicants to build one-off homes.

In the plan, the council had sought to control the proliferation of one-off homes in large swathes of Clare by imposing a general ban on non-locals.

As part of the implementation of the non-local rule, the council demands from applicants cattle herd numbers, copies of birth certificates, school records and letters from parish priests to prove that they are local to the area.

However, in a proposed amendment unanimously adopted by councillors, those who own land in the area prior to 1999, but might not have any links with the area, would now qualify as being a local person entitling that person to planning permission.

A NEW service which will allow people seeking planning permission to get advice from council officials has just been set up. Experts in planning on the council’s staff can now advise applicants on whether their site is suitable, before prospective homebuilders spend a fortune.

Many people who submit applications fall at the first hurdle when they discover that their site is not suitable for building. If other basic requirements are not met, the exercise of applying for planning permission can become a costly one.

Planning officials last week told a meeting of councillors from the Scariff area that the new pre-planning service was been made available to applicants and details of how to avail of it would be posted on the Clare County Council website in the next couple of weeks.

“What we want people to do is provide us with the most detailed location map they can and as much information about the application as possible at that early stage,” a spokesman for the planning section of the council said.

“We can then at least advise them on what they need, or whether there are any special considerations concerning the site they have chosen. And all of the details of pre-planning meetings will now be recorded on a file, so that the details of the meetings will be retained even if the planning personnel change”.

The spokesman added that while giving a pre-planning to every applicant would probably not be possible at this stage, it was hoped that with the addition of two replacement planning staff next month, the section would have more resources.

The service was free and applications would either be given a meeting or a written reply on their enquiry, depending on which was most suitable, a spokesman said.

Details will be posted on the council’s Website in the next two weeks.

Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) welcomed the new service, which he said could save applicants costly mistakes and a lot of time.

“But I would hope that where written answers are provided, the information will be clearly stated. I have seen some letters sent to applicants and even though I know something about the planning process, I couldn’t understand it. It can be very difficult for people to understand the terms used in planning matters.”

BUSINESS leaders in the Mid West have called for a multi-million tourism campaign which would last a minimum of seven years and promote Shannon Airport in North America.

They say that for the airport to meet the challenges of the new Open Skies deal, it must be left debt-free, be properly resourced and given a first class infrastructure.

The demands are contained in a report on the impact of Open Skies, launched yesterday.

The document is the result of a survey of companies in Limerick and Clare carried out by IBEC and the Chambers of Commerce in Ennis and Shannon.

Entitled ‘Embracing The Challenges and Opportunities of Open Skies’, the report calls for:

*Shannon International Airport to become a fully resourced, debt-free and independent entity.

* Adequate financing and cost competitiveness, so as to provide a full range of supports for airlines to develop new scheduled transatlantic services on a year-round basis.

* Accelerated Infrastructure delivery so that Shannon’s catchment is expanded significantly, creating a vibrant market demand for transatlantic services and ensuring it can compete with Dublin.

*A major multi-million annual tourism campaign in North America to be undertaken for a minimum 7-year period, which promotes Shannon’s transatlantic services as the gateway to the greater West of Ireland region, commencing in Autumn 2006.

A total of 123 companies, employing 19,756 people in 2005, responded to the survey. Total turnover of respondents amounted to €6.12 billion in the same year.

Of the 123 respondent companies, thirty were US and 3 Canadian multinationals.

The report also found that a serious reduction in connectivity could impact over the medium to longerterm on future investment plans of individual companies with knock on implications for employment in the West of Ireland.

IBEC’s mid-west Business Development Executive, Donncha Hughes, briefed an audience in the Shannon Shamrock Hotel in Bunratty at the launch of the report last night.

“Shannon International Airport is a major driver of economic growth firstly in attracting companies to the region and secondly in providing cost effective international access for companies located in the catchment area,” he said.

“To illustrate the importance of Shannon International Airport, 85 – almost 70 per cent – of respondents indicated that they agreed that ‘the current level of access and connectivity from Shannon Airport to the US and Canada is vital for the company’s continued competitiveness’

VISITORS to the Mid Western Regional Hospital Ennis can still bring fresh cut flowers when visiting patients, but are warned to leave the gift at home if the patient is transferred to Limerick.

The new policy, described by a spokesperson for the HSE Mid Western area as a matter of hygienic house keeping, results from a belief that infection control in Limerick’s hospital is more urgent than in Ennis or Nenagh.

“Concerns of hygiene are sharper in cases of acute hospitals,” a HSE spokesman said.

The ban in the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick will begin on Easter Monday April 17.

The latest national hygiene audit gave the hospital a poor result, at 65 per cent.

The ban on fresh flowers is now commonplace in many acute hospitals, according to the spokesman.

Fears of allergies, accidents arising from water splashing or broken vases, as well as infection, are among the reasons cited to support the ban.

Patient support groups have warned that the ban on flowers could seriously wilt patient’s spirits.

Another critic is a member of the Department of Clinical Microbiology, in Beaumont Hospital.

In a letter to The Hospital Infection Society’s publication, Mr H Humphrey said that infection could be acquired from potted plants or flowers and could arise where organisms colonised the water, or soil,

“However, for the vast majority of patients in hospitals, or in other healthcare facilities, fresh flowers, or potted plants do not represent a risk of infection,” he added.

“Fresh flowers often bring much pleasure and joy to patients who are ill and who may be depressed. Indeed for terminally ill patients, it may be their last chance to see flowers and inhale their scent.”

Separately, a new traffic management system at the hospital in Dooradoyle will see an increase in the cost of paid parking.

The €1.20 all-day fee will increase to €1 per hour, from May 1.

Euro Car Parks have been awarded the contract to operate the new traffic management system. There are no plans to impose pay parking at Ennis general hospital.

FINE GAEL Deputy Pat Breen has defended his voting record in the Dáil, following revelations that he was present for less than half of the 137 votes taken in 2005.

Deputy Breen was present for 47 per cent of the votes, with Independent Deputy James Breen there for just over half, or 58 per cent of the votes.

Pat Breen told The Clare People that the figures were misleading as he was in the Dáil every week.

He also cited his role as Fine Gael’s sole member on the Council of Europe and that most of the council’s meetings took place on Wednesdays.

Some 48 per cent of last year’s votes were taken on Wednesdays.

“The record will show that I attended seven meetings in Europe last year,” he said.

He said that as a member of the party’s executive, he had to attend meetings in Head Office mid week.

Deputy Breen also suffered bereavement in his family last year, which might have had a slight affect on the voting figures.

“I like to spend as much time as possible in my constituency,” he added.

“The 47 per cent vote does not reflect the 100 per cent commitment I give to the job,” he said.

He also pointed to the location of his office, beside the party whip’s, “which makes it easy for me to facilitate pairs with the government,” he said.

James Breen welcomed the publication of the figures, claiming a whispering campaign in the county was misrepresenting the amount of time he was spending in the Dáil.

“I want to make it categorically clear that I missed no session in the Dáil in 2005, except in March and October when I was away on parliamentary business.”

He said that he also paired with TDs who had a genuine reason, and who might not have been able to get a pairing from their whip.

The Independent deputy was critical of the lack of any mechanism to record an abstention from a vote, a right that TDs use from time to time. Clare’s two junior ministers Síle de Valera and Tony Killeen were present for 70 per cent of the votes, taking part in 96 votes in total.

THE annual Organ Donor Awareness Week campaign begins on April 1 with the aim of encouraging people to carry an organ donor card and give the gift of life.

There are currently more than 550 people in Ireland awaiting life saving organ transplant operations. “The amount of operations performed is dependent on the goodwill of the public and their decision to carry an organ donor card,” a spokeswoman for the Irish Kidney Association said.

On January 1 of this year, there were 1,364 people on dialysis with almost 1,150 of these on dialysis in hospital and 220 on dialysis which is conducted from the home.

In 2005, more than 200 lives were extended and saved by organ transplantation including heart, liver, kidney, pancreas and lung. In 2005, there were 129 kidney transplants, of which two were living transplants, as compared with 147 kidney transplants in 2004.

For the second year in a row there has been a record number of liver transplants with 57 being recorded in 2005 as compared with 45 in 2004. There was an increase in the number of heart transplants last year with 11 taking place in 2005 and just 7 in 2004. Eight lung transplant operations were performed on Irish patients last year, 3 of which took place for the first time in Ireland and the remaining, 5, in the UK. Five pancreas transplant operations took place in 2005 and these were done in conjunction with kidney transplants.

This donor card campaign is organised by the Irish Kidney Association, the national organisation which distributes the organ donor card in Ireland and promotes the welfare of kidney patients.