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THE future of the campaign to secure a second entrance to Gort from the Gort/Crusheen dual carriageway hung in the balance last night as a meeting between south Galway politicians and the Gort Regional Alliance for Community and Environment (GRACE) went into overtime in a local hotel.

The ongoing situation has seen the National Roads Authority (NRA) at odds with Galway County Council over the construction of a second entrance. The NRA have advised GRACE that because of the growth rate of the town, Gort should have a second entrance onto the bypass. This point is disputed by Galway County Council. Council officials argue that the population of Gort does not justify a second entrance.

The latest census figures reveal that the population of Gort has grown by 53 per cent in the last six years. GRACE have examined the planning situation and zoning in the town and believe that the increase will continue in the foreseeable future.

The group have lodged a submission to the environmental impact study for the proposed roadway and are currently awaiting a response.

Aside from the bypass issue, the meeting also heard plans for the creation of a water and sewerage system for the town. These are already at an advanced state.

GRACE also announced preliminary plans to launch a Wealth from Waste project in the town. This project, which would be the first of its kind in Europe, would include a major recycling facility.

A public meeting is due to take place to discuss all of these issues in Gort on October 6.

SPENDING of €11.9 million on environmental works and €8.9 million on a redundancy programme contributed to a 60 per cent drop in profits at Roche Ireland last year.

Accounts filed to the Companies Office show that Roche Ireland, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, returned a profit of €6 million to the end of 2005, compared to the €14 million profit secured after tax in 2004.

The drop in profits at the Clarecastle plant is explained by the €20.8 million spent on environmental works and redundancy payments last year to 35 workers let go. The director’s statement attached to the accounts state that the “directors have increased the company’s provision for obligations associated with its environmental development programme by €11,950,000 in the financial year. This is based on the conclusions of a number of on-site studies indicating soil stabilisation remediation requirements”.

It goes on: “In September 2005, the company announced that, as part of a group strategy to restructure its global manufacturing network, it would be closing its d, I Acid production plant during 2006. The above restructuring charge relates primarily to the costs of a redundancy programme associated with this closure.”

The accounts show that Roche enjoyed a turnover of €118 million in 2005 compared to a turnover of €124 million in 2004, while operating costs also dropped from €111 million in 2005 to €106 million in 2004. But, accumulated profits stand at €99 million.

IN ONE of her final engagements before resigning as Tánaiste, Mary Harney praised Clarecastle’s highly skilled workforce after officially opening a new €5.4 million state of the art laboratory, at the Roche Ireland facility.

Ms Harney said the presence of a skilled labour pool, along with the company’s close community ties, were central to Roche success.

“The flexibility and commitment of the Irish workforce attracts companies like Roche to Clare and the mid-west. As people in Clarecastle know well, you don’t have to be in a big city to compete in big markets”

Managing Director John Liddy said, “We are fortunate to be well served by excellent schools and third level institutions in this region.”

The Clarecastle site was established in 1974 by thxe Syntex corporation and was acquired by Roche in 1994. Since then, Roche has pumped €200 million into the Clarecastle site which now produces final products and intermediaries for a wide range of health care products. The plant currently employs 240 people, 75 per cent of whom have third level qualifications. Mrs Harney said this figure underlined Roche’s importance to the region.

“We are very much moving into an era of fourth level education. The Government plans to double the amount of PhD holders so we continue to develop our knowledge based economy”

She was joined at the opening by the Chargé d’Affaires of the Swiss Embassy, the honourable Mr Ernst Balzili, Dr Jan van Koeveringe, head of Roche worldwide pharmaceutical manufacturing, Mayor of Clare Flan Garvey and Mayor of Ennis Joe Reidy.

CLARE County Council is making moves to provide relief to entrepreneurs unable to afford massive rents for commercial spaces in Clare’s rural towns.

At the Council’s Special Policy Committee on Economic Development yesterday, chairman, Richard Nagle (FF) said that rents up to €100,000 a year are being sought from young entrepreneurs.

Cllr Nagle said: “They cannot afford these leases and that is why the Council has moved to make sites available.

Senior Planner, Liam Conneally said the Council passed a motion at its July meeting to acquire land in towns to provide sites to facilitate the start-up of small business. As a result, he has since been liaising with area engineers in the electoral areas in a bid to identify sites and the Council has also been in contact with Shannon Development to establish where vacant commercial space exists.

“The council wishes to work proactively in this issue and that includes adding lands to be zoned for commercial use. Purchasing lands will be a matter for the council,” he said.

SPC member, PJ Ryan asked was the Council proposing to subsidise the rent or sale of sites.

In response, Director for Economic Development, Bernadette Kinsella said the council was at an early stage in this process and a funding mechanism had to be decided.

Cllr Patrick Keane (FF) said: “I can’t envisage the Council subsidising sites. The Council doesn’t have the funds. It is not the Council’s job to provide subsidies. The Council can zone the land for commercial use”.

Cllr Nagle – who brought the motion before the Council’s July meeting – said that to charge €100,000 a year was totally impractical and occupied industrial sites were needed to keep small towns alive.

“The only way sites can be leased is that if they are at a reasonable cost. What we are talking about here are one and two-person businesses,” he added.

PRIMARY school principals across Ennis yesterday railed against the reliance by the Department of Education on prefabs to address continuing accommodation difficulties for students.

A Clare People survey of Ennis primary schools found that there are over 1,000 school children being accommodated in 44 prefabs in the town’s schools.

The survey found that there are currently 16 prefabs in place at Ennis National School, 11 in place at Cloughleigh National School, eight prebabs at Ennis Educate Together, seven in place at the CBS primary school and two at the Holy Family School, where planning has recently been secured for a third.

School principal of Ennis Educate Together, Sean O’Comfhaola, said yesterday, “The lack of planning for the education of children now and into the future is criminal.”

Mr O’Comfhaola said, “We are at this site since 1998 and have not made any progress for a new school. There are two sites zoned for school use in the Ennis Development, but they are not available.”

Mr O’Comfhaola was supported by INTO spokesman, Declan Kelleher. He said, “Anyone who would have witnessed the growing numbers enrolling in Ennis schools over the past 15 years would have seen the demands that were being placed on Ennis schools. Why weren’t these demands acted upon?”

He said, “Someone, somewhere in the planning of primary schools in Ennis, stands indicted. It should never have got to this and there is a huge amount of catching up to do as the Ennis area has been totally neglected.”

At the CBS primary school, there are seven prefabs in place and school principal Br Liam de Roiste said, “I believe, economically speaking and from a common sense and forward planning point of view, that the prefabs are a terrible waste of precious money. If we want the best education for our children, it should be done in proper buildings, not prefabs.”

School principal of Scoil Chriost Ri, Pat Hanrahan, said, “Half the staff at the school here are in prefabs. There is no question of building a new school on this site. The site was never adequate.”

As Mr Hanrahan was speaking, the school was taking delivery of another prefab for the coming school year. He said, “We are hopeful that the school will have a new school building on a new site in time for the 2010 school year.”

A SISTER of the principal of the Ennis Holy Family Senior School was the only Ennis resident, along with her husband, to voice opposition to rezoning that allowed the relocation of Ennis National School.

In all, Clare County Council received five submissions relating to its plans to rezone lands at Ashline, on the fringes of Ennis, to facilitate the relocation of the national school.

Submissions came from the Holy Family Senior School, the Department of Education and the Killaloe Diocesan Trust.

However, a fifth was lodged by Catherine and William Sweeney of Tobartaoscain, Ennis.

It emerged yesterday that Ms Sweeney was a sister of Ennis Holy Family Senior School principal, Margaret Cooney. The senior school is strongly opposed to the proposed relocation.

In their submission, Ms Sweeney and her husband point out that the present Ennis National School site will be lost to primary education in Ennis and that the present site is in a central location.

The Sweeneys also state that the present site is within convenient walking distance for many pupils and that its loss would lead to more traffic congestion and inconvenience, as pupils would require transport.

Ms Sweeney told The Clare People : “I have no problem with the national school relocating as long as the school’s existing site remains a site for a new school.

“The Department of Education has pointed out that the current national school site is a perfectly viable site for a school.

“The site is a fantastic resource and that it might be lost to the town of Ennis is the main reason we lodged our submission.

“There has been an enormous increase in children seeking places in Ennis schools and it would be very short-sighted if the National School site was lost to education and it would be a long-term loss for Ennis town.”

Ms Sweeney said that her decision to lodge the submission with her husband to the council was “not connected” to her sister’s job.

She said: “I am a very independent person and I am surprised that more people didn’t make submissions.

Ms Sweeney said that she and her husband were, “very, very interested in education.

We are both teachers and from our time in Dublin, we saw the effect that schools moving out of areas can have on those areas.

“It can change the dynamics in other schools and change the ethos and balance and I would hate to see that balance being lost.

However, in response to the Sweeney submission, Executive Planner, Bill Sansum said: “The present site is not necessarily lost to education as education remains as appropriate use in Proposal Site (the current Ennis National site) in the Plan.

“It is understood that a high proportion of pupils currently travel by car and this would be likely to remain the case at Cahercalla until such time as local bus services are introduced and a local community develops in the area.”

THE town of Ennis was described as an “educational black-spot” yesterday by a school principal as it emerged that up to 25 children are without a school in the town due to lack of space.

Making the charge, school principal of the Ennis Educate Together school, Sean Ó Comfhaola revealed that in the past week he has had to turn away between 20 and 25 children searching for a school in the Ennis area.

“This is an emergency situation. They are mostly foreign children and are not just junior infants, but kids looking for school places in first, second and third class. A few of the children have been back to us a second time after not finding a place elsewhere in Ennis,” he said.

Mr Ó Comfhaola said, “One of the toughest things I have ever had to do as principal was in the past week where a young Brazilian girl and her mother came looking for a place for the girl.

“The mother had no English, so it was up to the daughter to ask for a place in first or second class and I had to say ‘no, sorry we’re completely full’. She said that she had been around to every school and getting no place. I couldn’t tell the mother where to go, there is nowhere where they can register and as a result, we don’t know what has become of these people.

“The parents from eastern Europe come from a system that is quite organised and they can’t understand why there wouldn’t be schooling for their children,” he said.

Commenting on the situation, Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen said, “Everyone has a right to be educated and to be facilitated with a proper education, so it saddens me to hear that there are children going without one.”

A CONTENTIOUS plan by Parteen National School to construct a Portakabin has been put on hold by Clare County Council after opposition from local residents.

Earlier this year, the school lodged plans for a Portakabin to accommodate the growing number of schoolchildren attending. However, the plan has run into opposition from local residents who claim that the Portakabin is located in green space that forms part of a private housing estate in the area.

In her objection, Donna O’Donovan has told the council, “The land they are asking to use is not the school’s land. My understanding is that it belongs to the residents of Fieldbrook. The school has plenty of room on its own land on which to erect a Portakabin.”

Officials say they also have concerns about the proximity of the proposed development to adjacent residents. A decision is due on the application before the end of the year.

EVIDENCE of Clare’s growing multiculturalism emerged this week when English was found to be the minority language among one class of junior infants.

Such was the influx of non-national children beginning their education at the Holy Family Junior School that English was no longer the first language in one class leading to the class being re-structured.

School principal Sr Betty O’Riordan declined to comment but confirmed the school was in discussion with the Department of Education.

The Department said it was aware that many children now enrolling in schools did not have english as a first language.

“The latest figures indicate there are over 22,000 newcomers pupils in primary schools and over 12,000 in post primary schools. However the Department would not have any information on enrolment patterns emerging in individual schools around the country in 2006/07”

Under Department of Education guidelines non-Irish children are placed in age appropriate classes, unless their standard of English language is deemed to be so low as to prevent them from successfully following the curriculum of their peer group. In such cases, school authorities may place them in classes one level/year below.

It is recommended that such placements are monitored closely with a view to bringing children into class with their peers as their level of English language improves.

A YOUNG man is fighting for his life

in hospital with serious head injuries

after a weekend brawl in Kildysart. Vincent Hehir (32), a father-of-five, was attacked as he socialised on Sunday night. The incident has left the small rural community in deep shock.

Gardaí say he sustained a number of blows in a fracas involving up to five men. One of the blows knocked him to the ground and he hit his head. He was then kicked to the body.

Mr Hehir, a native of Glencanane, Kildysart, moved to London a number of years ago where he has managed a bar.

He was home visiting his family in Kildysart over the weekend.

Gardaí received a call after 11pm on Sunday and discovered Mr Hehir lying on the footpath in an unconscious state on Main Street, having sustained serious head injuries.

He was removed to Ennis General Hospital and was taken from there to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, where he underwent a CATscan. He was taken back to hospital in Ennis yesterday (Monday) morning, where his condition was described last night as critical.

Vincent’s wife Mairead flew in from the UK at lunchtime yesterday, to be by his hospital bedside as he remained on life support in the intensive care unit.

An incident room has been set up at Kilrush Garda Station. Detectives and members of the Clare Scenes of Crime Unit attended the scene yesterday.

Gardaí have spoken to a number of people who were in the young man’s company in various pubs in the hours leading up to the assault and are still keen to speak to others.

“We have not established the full extent of his injuries . . . A number of witnesses have come forward,” said Clare Chief Superintendent Liam Quinn.

“There was a bit of a brawl. We are appealing to anybody who can assist us to contact Kilrush Garda Station,” he added.