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SHANNON Airport management are set to adopt an aggressive marketing approach in order minimise the adverse effects on to Mid West region of a potential 35 per cent loss in transatlantic traffic as a result of the Open Skies agreement.

Roisin Kelly, Marketing Executive for the Shannon Airport Authority revealed that the authority expected to lose 35 per cent of transatlantic traffic in light of the Open Skies agreement brokered between the European Union and the United States. It will see the Shannon stopover permanentley ended by April 2008. The first phase of this agreement is due to be phased in later this year.

“These figures are based on our traffic assumptions if nothing happens but we are working hard to reduce any potential loss,” she told a Shannon Development tourism briefing.

“There will be fallout but it is hard at this exact moment to determine the level of it,” said Ms Kelly yesterday.

“Shannon is already firmly established as a gateway to the west. There is real potential in attracting young backpackers from the US to stay in the Mid West before travelling on to Europe” she added

Shannon Airport is also pursuing a number of other specific tourism initiatives including joint initiatives with other European airports, developing new markets such as short term breaks and sports tourism, publishing new promotional literature and greater promotion through the airports website.

The move is part of an overall strategy that is to be implemented in the Mid West Region, designed to increase visitor numbers in the region.

Shannon Development has set a target of increasing tourism growth to the region by 5 per cent over the next year.

John King, Director of Heritage and Tourism at Shannon Development, said the strategy was designed to ensure a more evenly balanced spread of tourism revenue throughout the entire Mid West region.

Mr. King was also speaking at the Shannon Development tourism briefing.

“Increased traffic through Shannon International Airport with the introduction of new services from the UK and Europe operated by Ryanair, from Boston by American Airlines, and in more recent times from Warsaw, all had a positive impact on the Shannon Region tourism industry during 2005.

“For the first time ever, Shannon International Airport recorded 3.3 million visitors, and the Ryanair announcement of four new routes from its Shannon base to Manchester, Wroclaw, Rome and Murcia, will continue to impact positively during 2006,” he said.

THE Clare People has learned that a dying West Clare woman spent some of her last hours on a borrowed bed in the male medical ward at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Ennis.

The distraught woman’s family said the 90-year-old broke her hip early on Wednesday, January 18, and was taken from her home to the Ennis hospital by ambulance.

On arrival, they were told that there was no beds available in Limerick for the woman.

Her son-in-law, hospital activist, Peadar McNamara, said he was told that there were 36 people waiting for a bed at the Mid Western Regional hospital Limerick.

His mother-in-law was then put on a bed borrowed from St Joseph’s Elderly Care hospital. This bed was placed under the sink in the male medical ward, according to Mr McNamara, the chairman of the Ennis General Hospital Development Committee.

On Thursday morning at 8 0’clock, she was removed to the Regional hospital in Limerick, where 12 hours later a bed was found. She died in the early hours of Friday morning.

“While I am outraged on a personal level, I am equally outraged as a citizen of this state. How many more Clare people have gone through this and continue to go through it?,” asked Mr McNamara.

He praised the work of the medical and nursing staff who cared for his late mother-in-law. He said the problems were at a more senior level and with provisions.

Meanwhile, the hospital committee chairman claimed that the unavailability of a cat scan in the hospital made the future of 24 hour emergency services there more tentative.

Mr McNamara said he was aware of a private company willing to provide and man the scan, on site in the hospital, at a cost of €250,000 per annum. This would ensure that the 820 Clare patients going to Limerick for a scan could be treated in Ennis.

CLARE Fianna Fáil Senator Brendan Daly has confirmed he is one of a group of politicians who has changed hotels in Dublin, in the wake of revelations that the hotel he has stayed in for a number of years is at the centre of a major investigation.

The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) raided the well-known hotel last week, as part of an investigation into suspected paramilitary links to a €100 million property empire. It was one of 20 businesses and homes in Dublin and Meath searched by CAB last week.

At least two dozen politicians, including Defence Minister Willie O’Dea and Junior Foreign Affairs Minister Noel Treacy, were among the high-profile politicians who have stayed at this hotel during their midweek visits to Dublin.

Senator Daly has stayed at the hotel since he was elected to the Seanad in 2002. He checked out late last week and does not plan to return there, at least until after the CAB investigation is complete.

“I moved hotel when there was allegations made that the hotel was involved in moneylaundering. I was in the Council of Europe in Paris the week before last and I moved last week,” Senator Daly told The Clare People .

“A whole lot of others moved until the issue is clarified,” he said. “I won’t be going back there this week,” he said, adding that he was shocked to hear the hotel had been searched.

He stressed however that he made the decision on a personal basis and not on advice from party headquarters.

“Nobody from the party contacted me and said ‘You are in a place being investigated for money laundering.’ Word went around the hotel among the guests,” he pointed out.

Senator Daly previously stayed at this hotel in the 1980s and in between times had stayed at a variety of other hotels and guesthouses during his weekly visits to the capital.

“I have stayed there ten years or more, off and on, over the years,” he said.

He said his decision to move hotel is a “disaster from the point of view of convenience”, as he is moving to a hotel which is further away from Leinster House, where the Seanad sits.

He said while the news was difficult for staff, he didn’t “believe personally that CAB could take away all the records, unless they could justify it.”

A WORRYINGLY high number of women in the Mid West are still not availing of the Irish Cervical Screening Programme being piloted in the region.

According to the latest figures, almost 60 per cent of women did not respond to invitations offering free screening as part of the programme aimed at 25 to 60 year olds.

A total of 27 per cent of women had a smear taken some time during the six months following the issuing of the invitation letter. A further 13.6 per cent did not have a smear taken for a number of reasons, including reports of the woman having a hysterectomy, or having a smear prior to the letter being issued.

According to the figures 103,022 invitation letters and reminders were sent to 36,542 women in the Mid West including Clare from October 2000 to December 2004.

Of the 78,769 smears taken, the slides of 369 smears were either damaged or broken.

Some 83 per cent of smears were found to be normal, while around 10 per cent were inadequate and required repeating the test.

Two per cent were “abnormal” and required further examination of the patient.

The Government is now coming under pressure to roll out the pilot programme, which encourages young women to avail of free cervical screening at five-yearly intervals, to women in the rest of the country.

Cervical cancer affects the cells lining the neck of the womb and is most commonly found in the 40-60 age group, so the programme targets women aged 25 – 60 years.

The Health Service Executive Mid West Region is encouraging women to avail of the free test, which could save their lives.

Regular cervical screening can detect cell abnormalities, which if detected and treated early, can be prevented from developing into cancer.

A cervical smear is a screening test done to look for early changes in the cells of the cervix – neck of the womb, which if not found and treated could become cancer cells.

The earlier a change is found the easier it is to treat.

CLARE County Council have given up the fight for the land sought by Limerick City Council in the proposed boundary extension, just weeks before the issue is to be decided.

That is according to one Limerick city councillor who said the Clare local authority has been negligent in their responsibility for the south east of the county.

Limerick City Councillor John Ryan (Lab) told The Clare People that Clare County Council have given approval for planning permission for houses in the Corbally area with no consideration for infrastructure, schools, roads or child safety.

“It shows Clare County Council have given up the fight on this one,” he said.

“If they were interested in stopping an extension of boundary they would have invested in it (the area).”

Accusing the Clare council of having “no regard for people who are going to be living in that area”, he said that he had received numerous complaints from people about the state of the roads from outside Corbally, towards Clare.

Should the boundary be extended, the Limerick City councillor said that plans could be put in place to link the Dublin and Ennis roads, and therefore ease traffic through the city.

He said while Limerick has plans for such a link it would mean going through County Clare.

Members of Clare County Council remain defiant, however, that not an inch of Clare will be given over to Limerick City.

A decision on the Clare-Limerick boundary extension will be decided long before the first whistle is blown in this year’s Munster championship, and county jerseys bought for the coming season.

The Minister for the Environment and Local Government Dick Roche has promised to have a decision made within weeks on the controversial proposal to move the county line.

An application from Limerick City Council to extend its boundary into Clare and Limerick city is currently with the Minister. The Minister met with the Limerick Manager on Friday before meeting a deputation from Clare County Council.

“It is a matter of weeks before I issue the determination. I am going to make the determination. I am not going to play it safe politically and do the cute thing and kick it off to some commission. I don’t think that is the way to go,” he said.

“I understand fully the passion that people in this county have, as they do in other counties, about their place.”

AN EAST CLARE man has hit out at claims by Clare County Council that a new electronic scanning system has speeded up the process of applying for planning permission.

The use of the new system has resulted in more than half of the planning applications received by the local authority in December being ruled invalid.

But the council has defended the system saying that it speeds up the process in the long run.

An angry Killaloe man, who has been trying to sell a site, told The Clare People that this had not been his experience.

“The people who want to buy my site applied for planning permission on it and were told 24 hours before the reply period expired that their application was invalid and they would have to start again. These people applied on December 14 and they were told on January 15 that there was a problem with the application and they would have to go back to the start. Even allowing for the holiday, that’s a whole month and just one day inside the period they had to have a site notice up. And that was just to tell them the applications wasn’t valid. If that’s speeding things up, I’d hate to see the council’s system on a go-slow”, the landowner said.

He asked not to be named so as not to identify the site in question, but added that he was “very frustrated not just because the site is being sold subject to planning permission, but also for the people who are trying to get a house built. I can’t see any reason for that kind of a delay.”

The planning office received 90 applications during the month of December . Of these 49 were ruled invalid.

Twenty five were deemed unacceptable due to mistakes in the newspaper advertisement, 14 site notices were inaccurate, 35 drawings were invalid, 18 had problems with maps and 17 other applications had miscellaneous problems.

December was the first month that all applications were scanned.

Previously, staff would phone the agent who applied on behalf of a client, to let them know if there were mistakes and this allowed the agent to resubmit a valid application.

But the scanning system automatically register applications and rejects as invalid any which have mistakes.

CLARE Vocational Educational Committee will seek legal advice after receiving a report of the inquiry into the involuntary resignation of the organisation’s first ever female chief executive officer.

The report, prepared by the Department of Education and Science, examined the functions of Clare VEC and the events surrounding the resignation of former CEO Padraigín Uí Riordáin in 2004.

Following a private meeting held last Wednesday, Clare VEC issued a statement saying that any future consideration of the report would be deferred until legal advice had been sought from local authority solicitor, John Shaw.

“Following the resignation of the then chief executive officer, Padraigín Uí Riordáin, County Clare Vocational Education Committee requested the Minister for Education & Science to establish an inquiry.

“The report of the inquiry has now been forwarded to the committee. At a special meeting of the committee in private on Wednesday evening, it was decided to defer consideration of the report for a period of time following legal advice,” said the statement

The Department of Education and Science launched an initial investigation into the workings of Clare VEC in 2004, following the involuntary resignations of both Ms Uí Riordáin and Ms Teresa Lineen, the former principal of St Michael’s College in Kilmihil, who left her post in 2003.

That investigation was heavily criticised at the time by Fine Gael T.D. Pat Breen, who claimed it had been botched. It was subsequently terminated by the Minister of Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, as problems had arisen regarding the terms of reference.

A new investigation with expanded terms of reference was then initiated, and headed up by retired assistant chief schools inspector, Turlough O’Connor. His report was delivered to the Minister in January. Ms Uí Riordáin announced her resignation in July 2004 at a stormy meeting of the board of Clare VEC. She was replaced as CEO by former Kerry football goalkeeper Eamon Fitzgerald. He has since left the post.

A BUSINESSMAN who dismissed a woman working for him, was subsequently assaulted by four of her relations in Liscannor.

Convicted at Ennis District Court were brothers Michael (33) and Joseph (28) Malone, of Ballyvislane, Liscannor and brothers Martin (35) and John (29) McNamara, of Tarmon west, Kilkee.

They appeared in relation to two separate incidents at Liscannor filling station in July 2005.

The Malone brothers denied assaulting the owner of the business, Michael Cahir, and the McNamara brothers denied assaulting him, causing him harm. All four also denied a charge of criminal damage.

Michael Cahir, a native of Ballyduff, Barefield, said the Malone brothers went into his shop on the evening of July 15.

“They came in demanding a P45 for Michael’s wife, who I had dismissed several months previously,” said Mr Cahir.

He said he did not give them the P45 and they started spitting, kicking, insulting and threatening him. He claimed he got “several” blows and Joseph Malone tore his t-shirt.

Two days later, on July 17, Mr Cahir said the McNamara brothers – related through marriage to the Malone brothers – caught him from behind, “flung” him and threatened him.

He said they punched and kicked him and Martin McNamara headbutted him. John McNamara struck him once and the two brothers threw him out over the boundary wall on his premises.

Gda Michael Burke went to Michael Malone’s home on July 15 and said there was a strong smell of drink from his breath.

“He denied assaulting Michael Cahir but admitted there was pushing and shoving,” said Gda Burke.

One woman who was working at Mr Cahir’s filling station when the Malones entered said there was some pushing and shoving going on at the door of the shop and when her boss went back in to the shop, his t-shirt was torn.

Another employee of Mr Cahir was working on July 17 when the two McNamaras approached her boss.

She said Mr Cahir was lying over the wall and two men were holding his shoulders. She said Mr Cahir’s t-shirt was torn but she did not see him being hit.

A woman who lives close to Mr Cahir’s premises, said she heard a ‘racket’ on July 17. “Mr Cahir jumped over the wall into the field,” she said, adding that she did not see any blows.

THE four accused men denied assaulting Michael Cahir and denied causing criminal damage. In court, they said they did not threaten him and went to his premises seeking the P45.

Referring to the first of the two incidents, defending solicitor Eugene O’Kelly, said the Malones did not kick or punch Mr Cahir.

“You pushed Joseph and Michael Malone at the door of the premises. Joseph lost his balance, he reached out to hold his balance and in the process tore your shirt,” said Mr O’Kelly to Mr Cahir.

Mr O’Kelly said the McNamara brothers were “motivated by their desire to assist their sister.”

“These are decent rural folk. They didn’t set out to get themselves in this situation,” said the solicitor.

Michael Malone told the court he had three drinks in a public house before he went to Mr Cahir’s premises. He said he asked Mr Cahir for his wife’s P45 and was told to leave.

When asked by Inspector Michael Gallagher what he thought of Michael Cahir, Michael Malone said, “I think he is the lowest type of a c*** that ever came into the parish of Liscannor.”

After hearing five hours’ evidence, the judge convicted all four men of assault.

He dismissed the charge of criminal damage against Michael Malone and Martin McNamara and convicted Joseph Malone and John McNamara of criminal damage to Michael Cahir’s t-shirt.

He ordered the McNamaras to pay €2,500 compensation each and fined both €500.

He ordered Joseph and Michael Malone to pay €1,000 compensation and fined them €350 each.

He also fined Joseph Malone and John McNamara €250 each for the criminal damage charge and ordered both to pay compensation.

He ordered all four to pay €212.50 witness expenses and fixed recognisances.

“The reason I am not adding custodial sentences is because they have no previous convictions. If they had, I’d have no hesitation in sending all four to prison,” said the judge.

Minister for the Environment and Local Government Dick Roche has promised to sit down with Clare County Council to “break any log jams”, in the implementation of the county’s long awaited water and sewerage schemes.

During a visit to Ennis on Friday, the minister asked the council officials to carry out an examination to establish “how they will bring schemes back within the financial parameters” set by the department.

He vowed to be flexible in dealing with the ongoing problems with water and sewerage schemes.

Describing as “nuts” the need for continuous boil notices in a town the size of Ennis, the Minister said that his department would support the interim solution.

“It is an issue I want to see resolved. I understand exactly why it is in the difficulty it is in, but I am interested more in a solution,” he said.

During his visit he also met with councillors and the county manager.

He said he recognised that there were water and sewerage schemes in county Clare in difficulties, which a €200 million water and sewerage programme for the county, could address.

“I said to the county manager that I would be very flexible with that. If there are schemes that are in the 2007 . . . category that can be brought forward I’d be flexible bringing them forward. If there are some that are stuck in 2006 for whatever reason, maybe to do with foreshore licences or whatever else . . . we will be as flexible as we can.

“I want to see the money spent, I want to see the water schemes in, I want to see the boiling notices a thing of the past.”

Meanwhile Clare County Councillor Christy Curtain said that schemes such as that proposed for Mullagh and Quilty, had already completed the whole process and there should be no more delay in getting it started.

Minister Roche approved the contract documents submitted by Clare County Council for the final two elements of the Newmarket on Fergus Water Supply Scheme and for the extension of the Lisdoonvarna Water Supply Scheme to Ballyvaughan.

This will allow the Council to invite tenders for these contracts, with an estimated cost of €5.5 million and €5.6 million respectively.