Month: November 2006

CLARE County Council has refunded over €1 million in rates to businesses across the county this year, it has emerged.

News of the refunds emerged ahead of the council’s series of meetings to approve a budget for 2007. Over 2004 and 2005, the council collected over €50 million through commercial rates from businesses across Clare.

Concern was expressed last night that the refunds could adversely affect council finances.

The largest recipients of rates refunds were Shannon Development that received over €600,000 and the Shannon Airport Authority (SAA) whic received €229,720.

Other companies to be refunded sizeable amounts include William Neville and Sons of Rockfield House, Wexford who received €43,544; Business Integrated Services who received €18,933 and Austin Delaney of Ballykilty Manor, who has been refunded €9,097.

Council documents show that Shannon Development received €516,628 as a result of vacant properties in the Free Zone and €89,888 for properties in the ‘Clare County Cluster’.

“It is my understanding that the council’s finances are turbulent to say the least in terms of meeting the targets set down by the budget last year.

“Now, having to pay back this money is putting extra pressure on Clare County Council and I’m sure there are valid reasons for the refund of rates, but this warrants an explanation from management,” said Cllr Brian Meaney (GP).

“I would be concerned about the number of vacant industrial buildings and I would also be concerned about the council’s finances, but I believe that the council would have been aware at some level that these buildings were vacant,” Cllr Patricia McCarthy said.

“It would appear that five per cent of rates income is being paid back to state companies. That is completely unacceptable and the Local Government Act needs to be amended.

“The amount of vacant property is an indictment on Shannon Development and when the council vacates its office at the information age park to relocate to its headquarters, is it then going to be the information age park white elephant?” said Cllr Martin Conway (FG).

A council spokeswoman said, “Rate refunds are made in accordance with the Local Government Act 1946 Section 14, which is the appropriate legislation in this area.These are provided for as part of the annual budget process each year.”

THERE are almost 3,000 more people registered to vote in Clare than living in the county.

Amid claims that there are still deceased people on the register, especially in the Shannon area, more have complained that no-one called to their home to check who was eligible to vote.

This week, people who have voted in previous elections and still live at the same address have discovered that their names have been removed from the register without any notice.

As many as 12,335 amendments have been made to the Clare register since the Minister for Environment, Dick Roche, directed Local Authorities to undertake work to improve the accuracy of the Register of Electors.

Clare had one of the highest rates for deletion of names in the country, with 20 per cent of names removed.

Clare County Council engaged 66 field workers to undertake house-tohouse enquiries with a view to ensuring that eligible voters were correctly recorded in the Register of Electors.

In a written response to a council motion, Senior Executive Officer Michael McNamara said, “The current Register in force for 2006/2007 contains 86,331 names while the Draft Register published on November 2 following the fieldworkers exercise contains 83,748 and this will no doubt change having regard to the responses being receive since the publication of the Draft Register and the issuing of letter to persons where clarification was needed.

“Arising from the work of the fieldworkers, there were 12,335 amendments to the current register in force, these included persons who had changed address within the county in addition to persons who had moved away from the county or were deceased since the previous register was published.”

The full cost of the highly criticised register review has not been finalised, but so far a total of €90,512 has been spent in Clare.

The Department of the Environment have notified the council of an initial allocation of €79,000 for this work and say further allocations are available.

“If and when an election/referendum is called, persons have a further opportunity to get on the register through the supplementary list which has to be compiled within 14 working days of the polling date.”

The Draft Register is on display at all council offices, post offices, Garda stations and libraries or online www.checktheregister.ie.

CLARE’S Moneypoint power station is belching more poisons into the air than any other industrial source in the country, a new report has revealed. The environmental cost of the damage has been put at €1 billion, according to the British Stern Report on Climate Change.

Also featuring in the list for chemical pollutants were the neighbouring Tarbert ESB plant and Aughinish Alumina in Limerick.

Figures published by the European Pollutant Emission Register show that Moneypoint tops the list for highest emissions of a number of environmentally-damaging chemicals.

The coal-burning station near Kilrush is the greatest source of carbon dioxide emissions, producing 5.55 million tonnes of the stuff in 2004.

It was also the leading source of arsenic and its compounds, along with five other chemical pollutants.

The Tarbert station came second in the emission of chromium and its compounds, sending 0.141 tonnes skywards in 2004, while Aughinish was second for the production of arsenic and its compounds, releasing 0.052 tonnes into the air in 2004.

A spokesman for the ESB said that they are “taking steps to reduce emissions and, with investment in cleaning technology, we expect to see them drop dramatically in the coming years.”

He added that the station is a vital part in the power production chain as it “lowers Ireland’s dependence on a single fuel to produce electricity”.

The ratings come in the wake of the ESB taking a hammering over revelations that an average annual pay for employees of the company range between €750,000 and €100,000 per annum.

The Environmental Protection Agency said that the inclusion of any company does not mean that it is in breach of its environmental obligations, just that it has been assessed to be among the State’s largest producers of pollutant chemicals.

TEACHERS in Clare’s overcrowded classrooms remain unconvinced that the 800 teachers promised by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin for next year will go a long way to easing their plight.

The minister plans to provide the teachers from the 10 per cent increase in funding to her department announced in the Government estimates.

Teachers across Clare are scepwtical of such promises, as half of them are teaching in overcrowded classrooms, despite years of Government promises. According to Declan Kelleher Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) Central Executive Representative for Clare, 100 of the 800 teachers promised have been employed for special needs, 200 as language teachers and a further 200 to cope with the rise in population in developing schools. Therefore 500 teachers will have no affect on the teacher pupil ratio, with 300 having minimal effect.

In the 2002 Programme for Government Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats promised one teacher for every 20 pupils under the age of eight by the end of the Government term.

“So far they are a long way from that,” said Mr Kelleher.

The INTO in Clare completed a survey of class sizes in every Clare Primary School during October.

The survey revealed that for the school year 2006-07, more than a half of the county’s primary pupils would be in overcrowded classrooms. It shows that almost a quarter – 3,016 – of Clare primary pupils are in classes of between 30 and 34 children. Another 611 pupils are in classes of 35 or over (4.5 per cent) and 3,409 pupils are in classes of up to 29 pupils (25 per cent).

Minister Hanafin also promised, “investment in special education is to increase to over €820 million which will see the commencement of the EPSEN Act implementation.

BUSINESS leaders in Clare have welcomed what they describe as a “pro-enterprise book of estimates”

But they support the Chamber of Commerce Ireland view that the increase of two per cent in the Exchequer contribution to the local government fund is “measly.”

Ennis Chamber President, John Madden, said that the allocation of €10m to provide 100 per cent nation-wide broadband coverage where it is not commercially viable for the private sector to do so “is certainly to be welcomed”.

“It is the way of the future that more and more people want to work or run businesses from home and it’s absolutely vital that we have broadband coverage.”

He added that he was in agreement with the Chambers Ireland summation of the increases to county councils.

“Local government is under funded while the day to day cost of running the services has increased enormously and it is businesses that will end up having to pay for it” the chamber president said.

Chambers Ireland’s Chief Executive John Dunne said that, “increased investment in upskilling our employees is particularly welcome. However, while overall Government spending is up by eight per cent, the two per cent increase in the Exchequer contribution to the local government fund won’t even cover the increase in wages. And, as local authorities look to meet the shortfall through increasing commercial rates and other businesses charges, this will inevitably feed into higher costs for business.”

There has also been a broad welcome for the commitment of €20 million under the CLÁR programme for the development of areas that have sustained continuous population loss.

And €26 million has been provided for the Leader 2000-2006 programme for rural development.

A 13 per cent increase in current funding for the Western Development Commission has also been promised and the Rural Social Scheme will involve expenditure of more than €43 million in 2007.

THE Government is to pour more than a billion euro extra into the health sector next year, yet how the increase impacts on the Clare services is as yet unknown.

There are no major capital development plans for the mid west included in the brief outline of where the Government will be allocating next year’s budget. Hospital lobby groups remain cautious as to the future of the Mid-Western Hospital Ennis despite the go ahead of the first phase of development there.

As acute services in Monaghan hospital come under threat and the new CAT scan for the Ennis hospital comes under criticism for having a short life span, there is nothing in the early budget figures to alleviate such fears.

Women in Clare can breath something of a sigh of relief however, as the Government is putting its money where its mouth is in supporting the roll out of Breastcheck.

A total of €8 million additional funding has been provided for further expanding the service in 2007.

Seven years after the pilot programme was launched in the east of the country, women in Clare will finally become part of Breastcheck, more than likely at the end of 2007.

Planning permission has been granted for a unit at the University Hospital Galway, which will accommodate both the Breastcheck base for the West and the existing symptomatic breast disease service in UHG.

In addition to its base in Galway, Breastcheck will have three mobile screening vehicles covering counties Clare, Tipperary North, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal. Almost 58,000 women in this region, aged between 50 to 64 years, will avail of this service on a two-year cycle.

Another €40 million has been put into services for older people. With a high population of senior citizens in Clare, it will be hoped the Banner County will see a large percentage of that allocation.

Long suffering carers, who are represented by the Clare-based Caring for Carers in Ireland, are also long overdue an increase in their allowance, but such an increase, if any, will more than likely come from the Department of Social Welfare.

EXPECTATIONS are high in Kinvara that a break in the current impasse concerning the planned closure of Seamount School College is imminent.

The college’s parents’ council met last night, November 20, and while nothing concrete emerged from the meeting, members of the council were hopeful that real progress was close at hand.

“We have submitted the facts and figures to the Department of Education last week and we are waiting for them to get back to us,” said a THE Citizens Information Service Pre-Budget Submission which was launched this week draws on issues raised in the Pre-Budget Forum held in July as well as the Social Policy Returns submitted by centres throughout the year.

According to Paul Woulfe, Manger of Citizens Information Centres in the county, the main focus of this year’s submission is on low-income families and related income support and service issues.

“The submission identifies key policy considerations relating to the experience of low-income families over the lifecycle in terms of equality of access to income and social services spokesperson for parents and teachers group, RESCUE.

The future of the school has been in jeopardy since the Sisters of Mercy announced that they would be winding down operations at the school over the next three years.

The group has been seeking a meeting with the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, to see if her department could intervene and save the school.

RESCUE have also reiterated their call on the Sisters of Mercy to re-appoint the school’s Board of Management which was not ratified by the Sister’s at the start of the school year and links in with policy recommendations agreed in Toward 2016,” he explained.

Many of the queries to Citizens Information Centres focus attention on the complex difficulties faced by low-income families. The submission addresses income and service issues as they impact on low-income families with children, people with disabilities and older people in lowincome households.

Recommendations in the submission include targeted child income supports, FIS improvements, addressing welfare to work traps, community care services, cost of disability payment for people with in September.

The Sisters of Mercy had planned to put in place a manager to oversee the winding down of the school. But no appointment has yet been made. RESCUE have expressed their concern that if new students are not permitted to start at Seamount in September of 2007, it will be a mortal blow for the school.

At present, some 250 students from the Kinvara area attend the all-girls school.

The closest alternative schools, located at Gort and Oranmore, are already operating at full capacity. significant disabilities, payments to full-time carers and housing issues in relation to social housing provision, rent supplement and the exclusion of low-income earners from support. A number of concerns relating to administration of social services are also raised.

The Citizens Information Service has participated in the Pre-Budget Forum and also continues to make social policy returns on an ongoing basis to Comhairle, which provides the material for submissions and social policy reports.

The submission has gone into a number of Government departments.

GARDAÍ in Clare are satisfied with the level of resources available to secure Shannon Airport. Last week, an Islamic cleric advocated an attack on an Irish airport.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, who is a founder in the UK of the now disbanded al-Muhajiroun movement, advocated an attack on Dublin Airport.

He referred to Dublin as the airport where American forces flew to reach Iraq, “to kill our brothers”, suggesting he was mixing up Dublin with Shannon Airport.

Last July, Garda resources at Shannon intensified, in the wake of a threat by anti-war protesters who claimed they would “shut down” Shannon.

The warning came after five antiwar protesters were acquitted of damaging a US military aircraft at Shannon in February 2003.

Chief Superintendent Liam Quinn told The Clare People that he is satisfied that sufficient resources were available at Shannon, in the wake of the latest threat.

“We have always relied heavily on good intelligence. We have felt so far we have called it about right,” he said. He said he was aware of the latest threat and said the security that had been there for months was still in situ.

“We take any information that we can get our hands on, however that comes, be it through the Internet or otherwise and we gauge our responses accordingly,” he added.

Clare Junior Minister Tony Killeen said, “There is no evidence that I have ever seen that there is an attack planned on Shannon. The Government has decided to continue to make the facilities available for the transportation of troops.

“I agree with that decision. It would be a sorry day if the Government was to bend to threats, whether real or imaginary.”

THE rising numbers of non-nationals coming before Clare’s court system is highlighted with a massive jump in spending on providing interpreting services this year.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from The Clare People , the Courts Service confirmed that over the past three years, almost €30,000 had been spent on interpreters by the Ennis Circuit and District Office.

Underlining the growing numbers of non-nationals coming before the courts, the spend in the District Court to the end of October in 2006 is almost double the spend in the entire of 2005 and five times the spend in 2004.

The figures show that in 2006, the District Courts Service in Clare spent €14,741 on interpreters. This compares to €8,806 spent on interpreters in 2005, while €2,552 was spent in 2004.

As the Circuit Court has four criminal and a number of civil sittings each year, the spend in the Circuit Court in Clare is smaller with the spend this year coming in at €501. The spend last year was at €952 and €2301 in 2004.

Court lists for sittings of Shannon and Ennis District Courts are showing an increasing number of non-nationals, especially from the eastern European countries.

Each Friday, there are interpreters on hand acting on behalf of citizens from Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and other eastern European countries.

The figures nationally show that €2 million has been spent on interpreters in the court this year – a rise of €800,000 on the €1.257 million spend in 2005. The spend nationally in 2004 was €553,761.

A large proportion of the interpretation and translation spend is going to companies that are capitalising on the influx of people from the accession countries.

The figures show that €1.39 million was paid to Word Perfect Translation over the past three years, €1.1 million was paid to Forbidden City while Access Translations scooped €446,818 over the past three years.

The figures show that the District office at Chancery Street in Dublin has the highest amount in fees paid to translators with €782,138 between 2004 and the end of October 2006 while at Cloverhill District Court Office, €404,604 was paid over the past three years.

In Limerick District Court area, the costs for interpreters are €107,821, while in Nenagh District Court office, the costs are €29,232.

AN UNANNOUNCED Health Service Executive (HSE) inspection of the Lakes Nursing Home in Killaloe found the standard of hygiene all over the nursing home to be very poor.

The inspection took place in September. In a formal response to the HSE, mananagement at the home blamed ongoing building works, stating that they did not expect a repeat of these exceptional circumstances in future.

In the HSE report, the inspectors stated “at the inspection, the standard of hygiene all over the Nursing Home is very poor”.

To date, the HSE has now inspected six Clare nursing homes.

In the latest tranche to be published, a clean bill of health was given to Cahercalla Nursing Home, St Domnic Savio, Liscannor and St Theresa’s Kilrush.

The Lakes nursing home is registered for 57 patients and during inspection, there were 48 residents on site.

The hairdressing room was very dirty on the day of inspection with a large amount of cut hair swept towards the wall but left on the floor . . . the overall condition of this room appeared very dirty, according to the report.

It found that several bedrooms were in need of repainting and that a thorough cleaning of the premises should be undertaken immediately.

It goes on: “The Nursing Home Inspection Team was concerned to see a very large crack in the floor in room 50 . . . the team strongly advise a structural assessment be undertaken immediately and remedial work be undertaken as soon as possible in the interest of health and safety.

“The Nursing Home Inspection Team is disappointed to note that the promised recovering of the sitting room floor has not yet been done.”

A spokeswoman for the Nursing Home said yesterday that all items that were highlighted by the HSE inspection were addressed within seven days.

The formal response to the HSE Inspection report stated: “The building of the 28 assisted living units in the adjacent site has generated a large amount of dust over the summer which was beyond our control. . .

It goes on: “We have spoken with the hairdresser – who is not in our employ – and we do not expect a recurrence of this control failure.

“We are currently seeking quotations from our builders on a repainting of the interior . . .

“We would like to confirm that a cleaning schedule for the home is in place and . . .the crack in the upstairs floor in room 41 and 50 had already been previously inspected by our architect and he confirmed that it is a settlement crack and not a structural crack.