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A 24-YEAR-old west Clare man sustained a horrific injury after being stabbed in the eye, while attending a Christmas party on St Stephen’s night.

Gardai say the injured man was approached at a house party – which was taking place in an apartment block close to the town centre – and stabbed with what is believed to have been a fork.

A number of people who were also attending the party were interviewed, as part of the investigation into the incident.

A foreign national in his 20s, who was in the apartment at the time, was arrested by gardai and detained at Ennis garda station under Section Four of the Criminal Justice Act.

He was subsequently released without charge and a file is being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“The injured man received a very serious facial injury. We are not looking for anybody else in relation to this matter,” said a garda spokesman.

Meanwhile Ennis gardai received an allegation of a sexual assault in the toilets of The Grove public house in Roslevan on St Stephen’s night.

However it was not followed up by the alleged injured party.

“A female alleged she was sexually assaulted in the toilet area but todate a formal complaint has not been forthcoming,” said a garda spokesman.

Separately, a foreign national in his 40s will appear in court later this week, charged with theft, arising out of an incident in Ennis town centre shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

The man was arrested on Parnell Street at 11.25pm, after he was stopped by gardai who were travelling in an unmarked patrol car.

He is accused of stealing a ladie’s handbag from a licensed premises in town.

Meanwhile, gardai are investigating an incident in which two panes of glass were broken at The Clare People offices on St Stephen’s night.

The glass was smashed on the Turnpike road entrance to the premises. However entry was not gained to the building.

Ennis gardai are appealing for information and can be contacted on (065) 6848100.

THE trial of an Ennistymon man accused of murdering his sister at their family home will not now go ahead this month, as had been scheduled.

Patrick O’Dwyer (20), of Shrohill, Ennistymon, is charged with murdering his 17-year-old sister Marguerite, a Leaving Certificate student, on November 29, 2004.

The date of January 24 had been set aside for the trial, last October, but The Clare People has learned it will not now go-ahead for a number of months, until a medical report on the accused has been completed.

“It is being put back. The defence’s legal team has requested this as they are waiting for a medical report and the State won’t object,” said a garda source.

It is not yet known if the trial will now go-ahead in Ennis, or elsewhere. That decision will rest with Mr Justice Paul Carney, who fixes dates for murder trials.

Mr O’Dwyer was sent forward for trial to the Central Criminal Court last year.

When he appeared there initially, Mr Justice Carney said he was anxious that the case should go ahead as early as possible, in an effort to provide closure for the O’Dwyer family.

The case was then put in for mention when the Central Criminal Court sat in Ennis last June.

On that occasion the court was told there were complex matters in the case and an adjournment was requested.

This was granted and the case was then put back until July in Dublin, for mention.

In July, the case was put back until October, for a date to be fixed and January 24 next – when the Central Criminal Court will sit in Ennis – was fixed for the trial to go ahead.

A 14-YEAR drought in Clonlara has ended as work began on giving the East Clare area a proper water supply.

More than 100 families in the area have waited since 1991 to get a reliable supply and have had to resort to flushing their toilets with water from the garden pond or water left over from cooking.

The supply was so bad that the emergency fire service tender had to be bought in on a regular basis so that families could wash, cook and clean their homes.

And schoolchildren in the area regularly got unexpected holidays are they were sent home because of a shortage of water in the school.

Local woman Carmel Hayes said that she has lived in Clonlara for 22 years “and I can’t remember a weekend that we had running water. It was amazing to be able to have a shower on New Year’s Day”, she said.

Another local woman, Phyllis Sheehan, said that she could “not put on the washing machine, have a wash or make the dinner when I came in from work. These are simple things that most people take for granted but we couldn’t.”

According to Clare County Council, the problems in the area were caused by low pressure.

Work to make the drought history began two weeks ago but locals will still face some dry times ahead, with warnings that the supply may be disrupted while the job is ongoing.

CLARE’S top planning official has hit back at criticism by the county’s leading architects that the system is not working and needs to be radically overhauled.

In a letter to the architects, Clare County Council’s Acting Director of Service for Planning, Liam Conneally, stated that the contents of their letter prior to Christmas “undermines the working trust” that existed between the architects and the council’s planning department.

The architects had written, “We are totally frustrated by lack of consistency, poor management structure, lack of productive dialogue, poor communication and absence of a rational coherent, consistent and common-sense approach to planning within the council.”

They told Mr Conneally that they see little point in holding any further Agents Liaison Group meetings with the department “until there has been a significant and tangible overhaul of the present system which, in our view, is clearly not working.”

Now, Mr Conneally has responded, “I am disappointed at the negative tone and content of the letter. The planning service provided by the council is of a high standard and the commitment of staff to serving the public is beyond question.

“While extensive negative aspects of the ALG concept and planning service are opined, no constructive solution is put forward.

“I think your letter indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the council as planning authority and its function to act as an independent assessor of proposals for development.”

He continued, “The council fully recognises that there is scope for improvement and continuously works towards creating a better situation. The content and circulation of your correspondence has, I feel, undermined the working trust that I thought existed between the ALG members and the Planning Department of Clare County Council.

“The only way to get work done in a constructive manner is to address the concerns of the group through the group forum itself. Unfortunately, the group as it existed became an isolated planning clinic where the individual concerns of the small group of agents in attendance were the main focus for discussion.

“I believe that the ALG idea and concept is good and that, subject to a mature common-sense approach, wider buy-in by the county’s agents and to the preparation of an agreed protocol for the group, it can have a future.

“What we need to work towards is a situation whereby the group is representative of all those engaged in the planning process and where both sides recognise that each has a major role to play.”

Mr Conneally said that he is happy to arrange a meeting of the ALG “early in the New Year to see how matters can be constructively addressed”.

A TRUCK driver who claimed he was unfairly dismissed lost his case after a private detective took pictures of him working on the Ennis bypass.

Thomas Lynch, Marion Estate, Kilkee made a complaint to the Employment Appeals Tribunal against employer Francis Greene, of Lisdeen, Kilkee.

Lynch was employed by Greene driving a Readymix lorry for €500 a week.

On September 25, 2004, Lynch arrived at the Moneypoint quarry for the third time that day to pick up concrete to deliver.

The quarry manager said the order had been cancelled and he could go home for the day.

Greene contacted Lynch later that day by telephone, saying the driver had cost him money.

Lynch claimed that despite telling his boss that the order had been cancelled, Greene was very aggressive towards him and Lynch said that he asked that any money owed to him be paid.

Lynch’s wife received a cheque on his behalf for €700 and his p45 the following week.

He told the tribunal that he had not worked since but when he was shown pictures of himself in the driver’s seat of a digger at the site of the Ennis bypass, Lynch said that he had been testing the machine and had not received any payment for the half-day he spent on the site.

He denied suggestions that he was working at the bypass for his brother and that he had left Green’s employment planning to do so.

In evidence, Green said that he had employed Lynch on a flat wage of €480. He said that Greene did not show up for work on September 1.

Greene said he spoke to Lynch the following day and Lynch said he wanted a wage rise. The figure of €500 a week was agreed.

Lynch took a week’s holidays later that month and two weeks’ wages were made up and paid to him.

The day after the driver returned from holiday, his employer got a call from the manager of the Moneypoint Quarry to tell him that Lynch was planning to leave.

Green told the Tribunal he went to the lorry which Lynch normally drove and saw that all of the employee’s personal belongings were gone from it.

When he contacted him, Greene said that Lynch told him he was “sick of it” and that he hadn’t been paid that week. Greene explained that he had received two weeks’ wages to cover his holiday week but Lynch said he wanted his p45.

The tribunal found that the claimant did not produce sufficient evidence that he had been dismissed.

THE company controlled by former GP, Paschal Carmody, Lyntondell Ltd, which was recently convicted of selling unlicensed medicines, had a positive balance of over €120,000 in its most recent returns to the Companies Office.

At a recent special sitting of Tralee District Court, Mr Carmody, Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, was fined €1,500, ordered to pay €10,000 in costs and expenses and given a 10-month sentence suspended on condition that he be of good behaviour for 12 months.

Lyntondell Ltd pleaded guilty to five summons of selling unlicensed medical supplies. The company was fined €1,000.

And according to accounts returned to the Companies Office last July, Lyntondell had a positive balance of €128,308 to the end of 2003. Mr Carmody, along with Mr Jay Daly, are listed as directors of the company.

Two other companies, Heddonvard Ltd and Tinerana Ltd, with which Mr Carmody has been involved, have not been performing as well. Heddonvard also has a previous conviction for the unauthorised supply of medicines in January 2004, when it was fined €1,000.

Its most recent returns, last June, show that the company had a negative balance of €40,736 to the end of May 2004. The accounts also listed Mr Carmody’s wife, Dr Frieda Keane Carmody, as company secretary.

In relation to Tinerana Ltd, the accounts show that Pascal Carmody served as a director with Dr Keane Carmody in 2002 and 2003, but resigned in 2004, leaving his wife as the sole member of the company.

The company had a negative balance of €100,605 to the end of December 2003 in accounts lodged last July.

Mr Carmody was removed by the Medical Council from the medical register for misconduct in September 2004.

His defence counsel Brian McInerney told Tralee District Court that Mr Carmody “has fallen very considerably from grace. This process took place almost in a fish bowl under the bright lights and glare of the media at every twist and turn”.

Mr McInerney said that the father of five children, aged between 15 and 21, “is virtually unemployed and unemployable. At the age of 58, Mr Carmody wishes to look forward now, not backwards, and to make the best of what is left of the remainder of his life.”

SOCIAL and community projects in Clare have so far benefitted to the tune of €58.8 million from the National Development Plan (NDP). To date, €13.8 million has been approved for childcare facilities. €18.5 million was allocated to non-national roads. Money was also spent on water services, the Rural Transport Initiative (RTI), broadband, the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre, the Youthreach programme, social housing, a new slipway in Ballyvaughan Bay and three Community Partnerships.

Regional Hospital in Limerick, which is a next port of call for many Clare patients,

ENNIS Regional Hospital had to cancel 56 cancelled 126 operations.

operations last year, and the busy Mid-West The figures were revealed this week on foot of a Freedom of Information request.

The Ennis hospital comes in the lower third of the cancellation league for hospitals nationwide and, of those which kept records, the joint figures for University College Hospital Galway and Merlin Park Hospital Galway were the highest.

The two facilities had to cancel 4,308 operations between them. Tallaght Hospital in Dublin cancelled 2,264 surgical procedures.

On the lower end of the scale, Mallow General Hospital in Cork and Bantry General Hospital both performed all the operations they had scheduled last year.

Naas General Hospital had to cancel 60 operations while Mayo General Hospital had to cancel 15. Sligo General Hospital had to put 76 operations on hold.

According to the Health Services Executive, the reasons for having to cancel vary from hospital to hospital and there were differing reasons for elective procedures being shelved, even within individual hospitals.

In some circumstances, surgery was cancelled because of lack of beds while in others, a lack of specialist staff was the cause.

And, in some circumstances, patients themselves were to blame when they cancelled or did not turn up on time for procedures.

PATIENTS presenting with alcohol disorders were the largest group admitted to the psychiatric unit in Ennis during 2004, a new report has revealed.

The figures in Activities of Irish Psychiatric Units and Hospitals 2004 by the Health Research Board show that those presenting with alcohol-related problems accounted for 22.5 per cent or 134 of the 597 admissions to the psychiatric acute unit in Ennis.

During the year, 33 people, or 5.5 per cent of all admissions, were admitted due to other drug disorders.

The next highest group admitted to psychiatric care was people suffering from depressive disorders at 117 or 19.6 per cent of the overall total.

Other categories include 103 patients or 17.3 per cent of the overall total admitted for schizophrenia; 68 or 11.4 per cent admitted for neuroses; 13 or 2.2 per cent admitted for eating disorders and 67 or 11.2 per cent admitted for mania and 9 or 1.5 per cent admitted for organic disorders.

The report also shows that the Mid-West area, along with the Southern area, had the largest number of non-voluntary admissions at 14 per cent each of the national total.

The percentage of psychiatric patients presenting for alcohol-related illness are much higher in Clare, though lower than the Tipperary percentage.

The report’s finding on the high percentage of people being admitted for alcohol-related problems follow Bushy Park treatment centre last month confirming that there has been a 40 per cent increase in 18- to 25-year-olds presenting for treatment in the past year.

Confirming the rise, the centre’s Director, Margaret Nash, said, “There is a growing problem of alcoholism and it is presenting itself at all levels.”

“The challenge for us two years or 18 months ago was to actually fill capacity at Bushy Park but, in the last year, we are at full capacity and have had an extensive waiting list.”

Bushy Park is to lodge a planning application in the first part of this year that will increase the centre’s capacity by 40 per cent.

The €2 million plan is to also include sports and recreation facilities for the residents, along with additional meeting rooms, and the planned expansion will increase the centre’s current residential capacity from 13 to 18 in 2007.

VISITORS who land at Shannon Airport are not met with any signs to indicate that there is more to Clare than an arrivals terminal, local representatives have complained.

And anyone driving out of Limerick or Galway would think Ennis does not exist, such is the lack of signage for the Clare capital.

Cllr Christy Curtin, speaking on a motion he put before a recent meeting, said signs need to be erected at Shannon Airport for Ennis, Kilrush and Kilkee, “because we need to capture the essence of Clare being a county of contrasts. It is very important to show people where they are on the map of Clare.”

Cllr Joe Arkins said that while Ennis is capital of Clare, “It doesn’t exist if you’re driving from Limerick or Galway. There’s no sign for the town.”

In a reply from county engineer, Tom Carey, the councillors were told that Clare County Council will shortly be going to tender for new regional signposts in the Kilrush electoral area “which will address the West Clare inadequacies highlighted in this motion and these signs should be in place before the 2006 tourist season. The estimated cost is €200,000.”

He added that a survey has begun for a similar project for the Ennistymon area “and we will be following on with a further phase in East Clare immediately thereafter.”