Month: November 2006

A POIGNANT ceremony to remember the 125 women who have died violent deaths since 1996 and to mark the beginning of 16 days of action on domestic violence is being held in Ennis today.

According to figures produced by Women’s Aid, 80 of those 125 murder victims were killed in their own homes.

At today’s ceremony, candles will be lit to remember each of the murdered women.

The ceremony is part of the 16 Days of Action, an international campaign focusing on violence against women, running from November 25 – International Day Against Violence Against Women – to December 10, which is International Human Rights Day.

Events are taking place around the country to mark the 16 days of action on the theme of breaking the silence.

Last week in Dublin, Women’s Aid held a minute’s silence outside the Dáil in memory of the murdered women.

Speaking outside the Dail against the backdrop of a giant ‘In Memoriam’ card, Margaret Martin, Director of Women’s Aid, said, “The seriousness of the levels of violence against women in Ireland today and the failure of the legal system to keep women safe cannot be over-emphasised.

“The tragic reality is that some women pay the ultimate price of their lives.”

According to recent research, almost 50 per cent of all resolved cases of female homicide were committed by the husband, ex-husband, partner or ex-partner. This involved cases where the perpetrator had been charged and found guilty.

Martin continued, “Many people would like to believe that this issue has been dealt with. This is clearly not the case. Current services to women experiencing violence have received no increase in funding since 2002, despite the high increase in costs, which effectively means the curtailing of services year on year.

“The political will to take this issue seriously must be translated into adequate funding in this year’s budget. Women’s Aid has been making this call for the past four years and, still, in Ireland every month, on average one woman is murdered.”

Despite an increase in the number of calls responded to by the Women’s Aid National Freephone Helpline in 2005, there were more than 10,000 calls that could not be answered.

“We sometimes hear from women telling us that they have been suffocated until they were unconscious. It is obvious how dangerous the situation is for those women. While we know that the months prior to leaving and immediately after leaving are the most dangerous, we want women to know that many do make the break from their abuser and go on to lead full lives,” Ms Martin said.

IT took Norma more than 30 years to leave the man who beat her, tried to strangle her, threw dishes at her, blamed her for every disaster in his life and controlled all her finances while convincing the world that she was mad and he was a saint.

But she did it.

About eight years ago, when she found an escape route, Norma turned the key in the door, got into a taxi and travelled to Ennis to the bed and breakfast she had secretly booked.

For the next few weeks, nobody knew where she was, as she struggled to pull a life back together for herself.

The couple were married for two years when he first became violent towards Norma. “We were working abroad when we heard the family property was to go to another family member and not to him. He turned on me and blamed me.”

Other incidents which ended in blame for Norma included accidents which were of his own making. “It didn’t matter what happened – I was to blame.”

Norma endured beatings, threats, emotional and mental abuse. She lived in fear after he tried to strangle her. The beatings stopped when he was threatened by a family member, but the mental abuse got worse. She spent several years struggling with depression. Her health suffered and she had numerous operations.

During this time, Norma sought help from professionals. Some of these people didn’t believe her – one professional took her husband’s side when he had threatened to have her instituitionalised. Another threatened to have her children taken away from her. “He had everyone fooled,” she said.

Norma’s health and well-being deteriorated until, one day, an opportunity arose for Norma to finally leave her abuser. Norma is now living in her own home and works part-time.

“What I would say to women who are living in that situation is that you need to detach emotionally and try to stay positive.

“I kept going back, trying to fix things, but I was just letting myself in for more rough treatment. I finally realized that I had to start saving myself, rather than fix something that could never be. There is wonderful support available from Clare Haven Services and this, together with my deep faith, has sustained me through it all. I have now found peace and happiness.”

THE Environmental Protection Agency has said that issues relating to the pumping of raw sewage into the River Fergus in Ennis should be resolved as soon as possible.

The EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement has been in contact with Clare County Council about sewage treatment problems in Ennis following last week’s Town Council admission to The Clare People that it had been dumping raw sewage into the town’s river from its pump station at Francis Street.

The council said it was forced to take the drastic action because old technology at the pumping station couldn’t cope with the town’s population growth

The facility at Francis Street is operating beyond its capacity and during heavy rainfall it automatically pumps raw sewage in to the River Fergus at the rear of several home just 100 metres away.

The EPA said it was “following up on the issue to ensure that the waste water collection system meets the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Regulations.

“These regulations require local authorities to have collecting systems in place for urban waste water from population centres over certain sizes.”

The environment agency said however that it “notes the commitment made by the council to carry out upgrade works and would like to see this issue resolved as soon as possible. The EPA will continue to monitor the situation.”

Last week, Ennis Town Engineer Tom Tiernan admitted to The Clare People that the council had “serious problems with the pump station at Francis Street”.

“The technology there was acceptable 25 or 30 years ago but unfortunately it no longer is.

“We are not going to pretend that this is a satisfactory situation but we have not been made aware of any safety or health risk associated with it and we have explained the situation in detail to anyone who has raised it with us,” he said.

“This is not an acceptable situation but we have no alternative. There are plans for a major upgrade of the pump house at Francis Street in the Ennis/Clarecastle drainage scheme but until that has been approved and completed, this is the alternative we are left with.

“The next step is to apply to the Department to appoint consultants to commence the design stage of the project,” he said.

A VISIT to his native Wexford proved a fortunate journey for Willie Carr from Dun Aras, Hurlers Cross, Shannon when he purchased the national lottery ticket that got him entry on to last Saturday night’s television gameshow.

Willie, who is originally from Castlebridge in Co. Wexford, won prizes to the value of over €25,000 on the popular RTE programme hosted by Derek Mooney .

He has been living in Shannon for the past six years and is attached to the army transport corps at Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick. Married to Lorraine, who is a native of Shannon, they have an eight- month-old baby daughter, Leah.

He is interested in all sports and played hurling up until last year. He shared in the excitement of the local Wolfe Tones county championship win and is also a big fan of the Wexford county side.

Photograph shows Willie being presented with his winning cheque by Gerry O’Donoghue, National Lottery Security Manager as Derek Mooney gives the thumbs up.

CLARE doctors are paying up to €14,000 per annum for locum late-night cover, according to the Chairman of the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP Committee, Ian McGuinness.

This service, which provides cover for late-night ‘red-eye shifts’ in coops, has become a growing expense for small rural practices, such as those in west and north Clare, in recent times.

Galway-based GP, Dr Martin Daly, commented last week that a number of doctors in Clare were paying up to €14,000 each year for cover. In addition, doctors in Mayo were paying as much as €9,000, while some WestDoc doctors paid out close to €7,000.

“While this might be viable for larger general practices, it is not so for smaller ones.

“The Government and health management are storing up a massive well of frustration among our GP members in relation to out-of-hours work,” said Dr Daly.

It now looks likely that the members of the Irish Medical Organisation will push the doctor’s union to seek the exclusion of responsibility for out-of-hours work from any proposed new GP contract. Dr Daly added that since 2001 it has been impossible to engage with the Department of Health and the Government and to have any meaningful talks about out-of-hours work.

According to the Irish Medical Organisation, if Irish GPs were to follow their British counterparts and opted out of providing out of hours services, it would cost the government and Health Service Executive much more than it is costing at present.

THE planned construction of a second entrance into Gort from the proposed Gort/Crusheen bypass has, once again, been thrown into doubt this week as Galway County Council has stated that it does not believe the second junction is necessary.

Following a lengthy campaign by the Gort Regional Alliance for Community and the Environment (GRACE), the National Roads Authority (NRA) had agreed to build and fund the second junction earlier this month.

However, this latest revelation has cast doubt on that commitment as the local authority looks unlikely to upgrade the supporting roads.

In a statement received by The Clare People , a GRACE spokesperson commented that they had been “delighted” to learn that the NRA approved the second junction and they “thought it would be only a matter of course that the county council would be willing to upgrade a local road”.

However, according to GRACE, the road section of the county council does not accept that Gort needs a second entrance, despite all the figures which suggest the contrary, and despite the NRA’s acceptence of those figures.

The key road which needs to be upgraded is the Gort to Tubber road and this was not included on the list for the EU Co-Financed Specific Improvements Grant Scheme sent up by Galway County Council to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

The current argument centres around different interpretations of the current and projected populations for Gort.

The Chief Executive of the NRA, Fred Barry, informed GRACE that Gort has the “potential to increase in population significantly” from its current level of some 3,000 people, which is already well in advance of the 1,500 to 2,000 people required to automatically be entitled to a second entrance.

However, the local authority has refused to recognise these projections.

UNIONS have welcomed the decision of Aer Lingus worker/shareholders at Shannon and Dublin to reject the Ryanair offer for their shares.

The no-frills airline’s €1.4 billion bid for Aer Lingus is now almost certainly history after 97 per cent of Employee Share Ownership Trust(Esot) members voted against the bid with a turnout of 70 per cent.

The two main unions, SIPTU and IMPACT, have welcomed the employees decision. A statement from Impact said that the employees would not accept a take-over by Ryanair “at any price . . .The bid by Ryanair held nothing for the workers, the consumers or the airline and its defeat is a rejection not only of Ryanair’s employment practices, but it is a victory for common sense and consumer choice.”

Impact, which represents Aer Lingus cabin crew, pilots and middle managers said members were right to reject the take-over. Both IMPACT and SIPTU have nominees on the trust that runs ESOT. The situation could make for uneasy bedfellows in a shareholder relationship. The ESOT will hold a 12 per cent stake while Ryanair will hold a 19.2 per cent stake.

Ryanair has so far made no move to take up the board seats and has said that it will make its views known at annual general meetings. O’Leary’s airline is pressing ahead with its bid, despite the result of the vote. It is planning on convening an extraordinary general meeting on December 14 to get approval for the acquisition. But it is possible that the offer may be withdrawn before that.

FATIGUE played a part in an incident in which an off-duty Ryanair pilot crashed a helicopter while taking a family on a pleasure trip, an official investigation has found.

The pilot had already flown the chopper on a return trip from Dublin to West Cork earlier in the day and was due to report for duty in Shannon at 6.15am the next morning.

The Irish Aviation Authority made the findings after an investigation into the crash-landing of the Bell 206B helicopter in a cornfield near Inniskeen, County Monaghan on June 13 2004. On the day, the pilot had expected to go home, but had agreed to fly trips for the sports day at Kilanny because there were so many people queuing for the flights.

A female passenger described how she saw warning lights come in the helicopter before two loud siren sounds and then the engine went quiet. The chopper started wobbling and her children became upset.

The craft was badly damaged in the emergency landing but passengers and the pilot escaped injury. The authority heard that the pilot was just short of his annual flying limit of 900 hours at the time of the accident.

“The wisdom of getting involved with further commercial operations is therefore dubious, particularly when this is done without notifying his prime employer,” the report stated.

The accident report found that the amount of fuel in the helicopter during its final flight was below the minimum required level, a fact the pilot could have established if he had made a calculation based on the number of previous flights carried out.

“The investigation is of the opinion that fatigue may well have blurred the pilot’s judgement and airmanship towards the end of the day,” the report continued.

The pilot, who was not named in the official investigation report, has been identified by a media source as being employed by Ryanair at the time of the accident, although the crash-flight itself had nothing to do with the no-frills airline.

THE death of Peter McCloskey took place just days after a mediation meeting between himself, representatives of the Clerical sex victims support group One In Four and church representatives.

He was abused while serving as an altar boy at the age of 10 in the Diocese of Limerick by Fr Denis Daly, a priest who had been run out of a parish in Sydney for a ‘moral lapse.’ He had served as a priest in Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s and was a supply priest in Caherdavin in 1981.

Following Peter’s death, a meeting between members of his family and representatives of the Limerick Diocese, including Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray, took place on April 23. The sides later issued a joint statement. It was agreed that the sides would “work together” on the issue. However, no further statements have been issued since then.

In the April statement, the Bishop acknowledged that he accepted the truth of Mr McCloskey’s experience of clerical child sexual abuse. He also acknowledged that there was a failure on the part of the diocese to inform itself as to Fr Daly’s suitability for the ministry.

The diocese accepted that the information available at that time should have prevented Fr Daly from taking up ministry in Limerick.

Peter’s mother Mary called on Dr Murray to resign as Bishop of Limerick over the way in which he and the diocese handled the case.

Peter had been locked in a four-year battle with the Diocese after responding to church calls in 2002 for priests’ victims to come forward and tell their stories. His search for the truth saw him visit Sydney in February 2004, where he demanded to see Fr Daly’s file.

THE family of Peter McCloskey says it is still suffering as a result of his death, at his west Clare home eight months ago. In the aftermath of the inquest into his death, Peter’s brother Joseph said, “We are still suffering and are grieving at Peter’s loss. It is very difficult to come to terms with it.”

Mr McCloskey had started a course in Liberal Arts at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, just months before he took his own life.

He had recorded top marks during the first Semester of his course and his family were thrilled with this.

Just weeks before his death, Peter received a letter from Roger Downer, President of University of Limerick, congratulating him on his outstanding academic success in the autumn semester. Peter was awarded a QCA of 3.56 – the maximum is 4 – and he achieved A1 and A2 grades throughout.

He was poet of the week at The White House, Limerick on March 3 2006, with his poem, ‘Would You Like To Be At Sea Tonight?’.He was featured twice on the RTE Radio 1 Sunday morning programme, ‘Sunday Miscellany.’ He read ‘The Walking Machine’ and ‘Corner Boys’, on air.

His brother Joseph said the family was very proud of his achievements.

“We were enormously proud when Peter got a mature students place in Mary Immaculate College,” he added.

Joseph told The Clare People his parents Mary and Aidan are “devastated and grieving at Peter’s loss.”

Mr McCloskey separated from his wife Cathy and moved to west Clare in 2000. He lived there by himself until his death in April.