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A MAN who gardaí say went on a 10day crime spree has been remanded in custody after a court heard a fear that he would re-offend if granted bail.

Patrick McNamara (29), from Miltown Malbay and with an address at Lisdeen, Kilkee and also of no fixed abode, appeared before Kilrush District Court, facing five charges.

He pleaded guilty to trespass, at Kilkee Bay Apartments, on March 21 last; trespass at Cunningham’s caravan park, Kilkee in January; and with entering Matt Lernihan’s garage as a trespasser and stealing €36 of petrol at Cree, Kilkee, on March 17 last.

He also admitted driving without insurance at Ennis Road, Kilrush, on March 19.

Detective Garda Michael McDonagh said the accused broke into an apartment at Kilkee Bay Apartments on Saturday, March 18 last and made it his own to live in.

In January, McNamara entered a mobile home at Cunningham’s caravan park and made it a place of abode.

He forced open a lock on a door at Lernihan’s garage in Cree, turned on the mains for petrol and filled the car with €36 of petrol before leaving the scene, on March 17.

The court was told McNamara had 25 previous convictions, including convictions for deception and false pretences and several for motoring offences.

Det McDonagh said the accused was “on a serious crime spree.”

“I believe Mr McNamara has serious problems, one of the most serious problems of any individual I have come across. Something is amiss there . . . he admits his crimes and then goes out and commits more crime,” said the garda, who added that “more serious charges” would be brought against him.

“He is living off his wits and in relation to the people of west Clare, he is committing crime after crime,” he added.

“I do believe the way he is at the moment, he will re-offend.”

“He has kept us very busy for the last 10 days in Kilrush. It is one thing after another. If he goes out again he will re-offend. There is no doubt in my mind,” he said.

His solicitor, John Ryan, said this case centred on a housing need. He said his client has made efforts to secure accommodation in west Clare.

Judge Joseph Mangan remanded him in custody to appear again in court later this week for various reports on him to be heard.

IT WAS close but when the winner was finally confirmed another World Championship gold medal was on its way to Whitegate.

26 year old Derek Malone produced the race of his life to win gold at the International Paralympic Committee World Indoor Games in Bollnas, Sweden last weekend. The Clare man edged out Russian rival Valerij Stepanskoy in a thrilling climax to the 400 metres, classes 36/38 event, in a winning time of 55.89 seconds. Trailing for the first 200 metres, Malone dug deep to snatch victory on the finishing line. The closeness of the finish ensured there were a few anxious moments as the race officials deliberated over the photo finish.

“It was very tight,” said Derek. “I was behind for the first part of the race and I just took it on the very last stride. There was a photo finish and the officials were checking just to make sure that no one had broken the line or anything. It was a relief.”

The IPC World Indoor Games at Bollnas is the first global indoor IPC athletics competition. It offers Paralympic athletes an opportunity to compete in winter as well as summer and is a step towards periodisation, where athletes try to peak twice a her mother, Mary, says that the plucky youngster never complains. “She would love to be able to go out with her friends but she can’t do those things. But if I’m low, she’s the one who tells me it will be all right. She never complains – she just says she’s fine.”

Having to watch her diet closely means that Sara can’t eat anything with a high salt content and she is restricted in a range of foods.

“I’d love to eat a packet of Tayto,” she told the Clare People “one of the hardest things is having just one night a week where I don’t have to be on the machine.” year instead of just once.

Having devoted most of his training to preparing for the outdoor season and in particular the World Outdoor championships in Holland this September, the weekend’s victory was an extra bonus for Derek, who usually competes in the 800 metres.

“I have dropped down to 400 for this season and so far my progress has been okay. but I would be looking to improve,” said Derek.

His latest title adds to an already bulging medal cabinet that includes a silver medal from the 2003 European Championships, two gold medals from the 2001 World CP Championships and a bronze medal won at the 1998 World Championships.

Derek’s mother Anne said she was immensely proud of her son’s latest achievement.

“I’m delighted, he has worked so hard and he has put his life on hold to compete. It’s wonderful to see the hard work pay off. You could never tell him not to do anything because he will just go out and do it,” beamed Anne.

Now Derek has his eyes firmly on the 2008 Beijing Paralympic games. His success could have knock on benefits for other athletes with dreams of competing at the highest sporting level. Sara has been on the transplant list for 18 months and needs an adult kidney, but she is also an uncommon blood group, making a donor organ even more difficult to get.

As well as the ten hours a day of home treatment, Sara has to travel to Dublin regularly for specialised blood tests and this means leaving home at 5.30am and not getting back until around 8.30pm, when she has to get hooked up to the machine.

Her mother explains that the whole family would benefit if Sara got a kidney. “We can’t think about taking a holiday. Even on a day out, we have to be ready in case a call comes. We don’t think too far down the road but we know it could be much worse.”

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.

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.

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.

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’

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.”

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 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.

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.