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KILRUSH Town Council’s finances are the healthiest in years and its soon to be disbanded council is determined to have all of the money spent on local projects before it is absorbed “ and lost” within a newly amalgamated county council.

According to the Financial Statement for last year, and published this week, there was an overall net surplus of € 19, 535 at the end of 2012, and € 200,000 transferred to specially marked projects.

This is no small feat considering that at the end of 2007, there was a cumulative deficit of € 187,000 in the council’s revenue account.

According to Town Clerk John Corry the savings were achieved by cuts to expenditure in different sectors including payroll, and despite cuts to the Local Government Fund and grants from the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government.

At Thursday night’s meeting of the town council it was agreed to set aside € 150,000 of the € 200,000 transferred to special projects to the proposed Cooraclare Road Sports Development with the remaining € 50,000 to go towards that Vande leur Walled Garden Capital Works Project.

The council is currently awaiting grant-funding approval from central government for the sport’s development before the project can go through. Grant funding has been refused for the project on two successive years, leading to the mayor Cllr Mairead O’Brien (Ind) having some reservations about setting aside such a large sum.

She pointed out that if the project does not get a sports grant this year, it will be put on the shelf and the money set-aside by the town council absorbed by the larger council.

“Can we set a date to say if it is not achieved can we say it will be used for astro turf pitch?” she asked.

It was agreed that if funding was not provided in the next round of sport capital grants, the funding would be transferred to another project. It was also agreed to tender for the astro turf pitch so that the council could move quickly to have this project carried out quickly, if the sport development did not get the green light.

Meanwhile the council finances were further boosted by local businesses compliance with paying commercial rates. At 76 per cent compliance for the third year in a row this is the highest return to any of Clare’s three rate setting councils, including the county council. Mr Corry said that every effort would be made to collect all outstanding rates.

“We are being as flexible as we can with rate payers, and going down the legal route is a last resort,” he said.

Development contributions were down again this year to € 2,153 from an all time high in 2007 of € 273,096.

THE town of Kilrush is back in the national eye, one week after it hosted the National Famine Commemoration, as it has been shortlisted for Best Kept Tidy Town in Ireland.

The Heritage town is one of just four nationally in the final stage of the competition.

Chairman of Kilrush Tidy Town Committee Paul Edson said that winning the award would be “a great stepping stone for the national Tidy Town Awards”.

Mr Edson said that while the town has never looked as good there are still some contentious areas that need addressing. He explained that the town could not become complaisant. Boundary walls in areas such as Pella Road, O’Gorman Street, Grey Street, and St Senan’s Terace needed to be addressed he said.

The Tidy Town’s committee is tak- ing the issue in hand by going door to door to residence and offering to help them to paint their wall if they wish to take on the project.

In what is likely to be the last every report to Kilrush Town Council the Tidy Town’s chairman said, “This might be our last ever meeting with the town council so we want to achieve as much as possible in the next 13 months.”

The council contributes € 4,000 to the Tidy Town fund.

Mr Edson fears that such funding will not be available from the amalgamated Clare County Council.

He said the Tidy Towns also want to concentrate on Francis Street, the largest and widest street in the town.

“It is like a beautiful around a painting that is not completed,” said Mr Edson.

He said the committee were seeking extra funding to put a three tier planter and hanging baskets for the street.

MORE than three quarters of a million euro was yesterday allocated to 26 different community roads works projects in Clare.

A total of € 767, 529 will be spent on the 26 Clare projects – with a € 614,023 coming from the Department of Transport and the remaining € 153,506 coming from the local communities where the roads will be built.

The scheme is specifically targeted a more rural roads in the county and requires that a portion of funding to be put forward by local communities.

Half of the allocated projects are located in the Killaloe electoral area, where 13 projects have been earmarked funding totally € 420,000. Shannon was the least represented electoral area with just one successful project receiving funding of more than € 15,000.

There were six successful projects in the Kilrush electoral area, four in Ennistymon and two in Ennis.

Clare County Council’s roads maintenance budget has been cut drastically in successive years with decreasing budgets meaning that a large number of roads projects are being delayed by years – or indefinitely.

This funding crisis was compounded by the unseasonably cold and wet winters in recent years which have caused unexpected damages to a large number of roads, with most or sometimes all of the annual roads budget being spent on repairing these roads.

“Local authorities have asked communities to come up with a portion of the cost of road maintenance ei- ther through funding, labour provision, machinery supply or other forms of benefit,” said Alan Kelly, Junior minister at the Department of Transport.

“This funding is then being added to my department’s spend to prioritise maintenance in rural isolated areas and will allow communities have a direct input along with their local authority into local road maintenance.”

It is expected that the funding will effect a total of 108 households in Clare, 56 farms and two forestry plantations.

CLARE County Manager, Tom Coughlan, has been appointed to the board of the new Shannon Airport Authority. Mr Coughlan is one of two new appointments to the SAA board, the move coming on the back of Clare County Council being a staunch supporter of the airport being given its independence from the Dublin Airport Authority.

Mr Coughlan’s appointment to the board, along with that of Tony Brazil of Limerick Travel, came into effect this Tuesday and completed the new SAA board.

“I welcome these appointments as they bring additional and relevant experience and expertise to the board,” said chairman of the SAA, Rose Hynes.

“Tony Brazil’s knowledge of all aspects of the tourism industry will be extremely valuable as we continue to grow passenger services at Shannon Airport. Tom Coughlan’s dynamism and energy as manager of Clare County Council, and his focus in that role on regional development and promotion, will also be a very positive addition to the board.

“I look forward to working with both of them towards delivering further on Shannon’s potential as a key economic driver for the wider region,” she added.

Mr Coughlan’s appointment honours a commitment given by Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar that there would be local authority involvement in the new Shannon Airport. As county manager, he as been in the vanguard of Clare County Council’s support of Shannon during and after the process that brought about its independence from the DAA.

“We are ready, willing and able to work with NEWCO and work with whoever we have to work with to try and make this a success,” he said when independence was finaly granted last December. “I think it can be the new start for Shannon – I think it has to be the new start because we cannot stay where we are. We have to make a new start, we have to move on from where we are. I very much echo the sentiment that doing nothing was not an option,” he added.

A NORTH Clare committee has been set up to organise local opposition to the construction of massive twin fish farms off the Fanore coast. This follows a meeting in Ballyvaughan last Friday night, which attracted more than 100 concerned locals as well as people from as far away as Cork.

Details of the local committee will be formalised in the coming week an organised opposition to the fish farm is likely to intensify this month. Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the state agency who are behind the development, were invited to send a representative to the meeting but were unable to do so.

Representatives of Clare TD’s Pat Breen (FG) and Michael McNamara (LAB) attended the meeting but the North Clare group expressed its dis- appointment that none of the county Dáil representatives were there in person.

“We are setting up a local committee later this week and we will be following up on everything that was said at the meeting. Pat Breen and Michael McNamara both sent representatives to the meeting. Many of the politicians in Galway, including the mayor, have come out publicly against the farm, so it was a shame that none of our local representative could be there in person. But maybe they can come on board in the future,” said a North Clare committee spokesperson.

“There was more than 100 people there at the meeting and not one them was in favour of the fish farm. There was a lot from North Clare but we had people from all over the west coast. There is now an issue for anyone along the western seaboard.

“This concerns everyone involved in who lives along the coast. It is not just the commercial fishermen, it’s people who are involved in the tourist industry – it’s all of us really.

“We invited the BIM and it was a shame that they could not get a representative there. They contact us at the eleventh hour and said that they would meet us if we cancelled the meeting and held it again on another day.”

understand that Mr Daly will be involved in the publicity for the event but it is not yet clear if he will be actively matchmaking during the weekend. For more visit www.theouting.ie.

COROFIN actress Maura Clancy is the toast of the Irish drama world today after capturing the Best Actress title at this year’s RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival. Maura’s victory is a milestone for the Corofin Dramatic Society, having qualified for the All-Ireland Open Finals for the first time just last year. The society also took the top prize for Best Set and Best Stage Management to round off a remarkable week for the players of Corofin. Maura’s success came in the role of Hester in their production of ‘By The Bog Of Cats’, directed by John Clancy. “I am really delighted; it is a huge honour. There are a lot of fine actresses and actors out on the circuit, including a number in our own group, and to win this is a hugh honour,” Maura told The Clare People yesterday. “I see this very much as a group honour; it was a big group effort and I was singled out. We had such a huge cast for this show that it was all about the whole group. Even just to organise rehearsals was a lot of work so everyone involved pulled out all the stops this year. “In 2008 we won the confined All Ireland, so we have only been competing in the full open competition for a few years. Our plan was to work really hard and see could we some day get to Athlone for an All Ireland. “We were over the moon that that happen so quickly for us last year. Our aim this year was to prove that we could do it again, and that is what we did. So we are all over the moon. We are all so delighted with how this has turned out for us this year.”

IRELAND’S oldest matchmaking festival is going pink this September with a gay and lesbian weekend being added to the month-long Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival.

This year’s matchmaking festival will begin with The Outing – a lesbian and gay weekend involving concerts, matchmaking and other events, all hosted by drag-queen Panti.

The event is the brainchild of local hotelier Marcus White who has contracted the organiser of the Dublin Pride Festival, Eddie McGuinness, to manage the event. According to McGuinness, the event will the biggest gay and lesbian matchmaking event ever to take place, anywhere in the world. It is not as yet clear if Ireland’s last matchmaker, local man Willie Daly, will be directly involved in the gay and lesbian festival.

THERE have been calls for a ‘wet’ hostel to be set up in Ennis to help alcoholics.

Ennis councillor Paul O’Shea says the need for such a service, as Ennis can’t keep “exporting” people with alcohol problems to Limerick and Galway.

Wet hostels provide shelter for street drinkers while allowing them to continue to consume alcohol on the premises, unlike other homeless hostels that enforce abstinence. Cllr O’Shea said there are 324 people waiting on the local authority-housing list that are presenting as homeless.

He said a growing number of young people are ending up homeless caused by drink related problems. Speaking at the May meeting of Ennis Town Council, he said, “We don’t have wet hostels in Clare but we have Clare people that are using them in Limerick and Galway.

Councillors were discussing issues raised by the death of Czech national Josef Pavelka (52) who died on the streets of Ennis earlier this month.

His plight came to national attention when District Court Judge Patrick Durcan described as a “scandal” the fact that Mr Pavelka had spent tie living in a toilet.

On Wednesday, Ennis Town Council again insisted that it had no evidence that Mr Pavelka or his Polish friend Piotr Baram (36) had been living in the toilet.

Town manager Ger Dollard said the council never received a report that people were sleeping in the town’s two public toilets. He said, “It doesn’t seem plausible” that the men were sleeping in the toilets. Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Peter Considine (FF) said he had sympathies for Mr Pavelka’s family. He said the story was “badly handled and a bad representation of the town of Ennis”. He said he was “very doubtful” the men had slept in the toilets as the doors open at 20minute intervals. He said the fact that Mr Pavelka had no access to services after his recent surgery was “shameful”. However, Cllr Considine added, “You can’t help people that don’t want to help themselves.”

Cllr Mary Howard described the men as “lovely craters”. “At the end of the day, he’s somebody’s son, somebody’s brother.”

Business man Kevin Keenan who runs, Formacompany.ie on O’Connell Street, said businesses had experienced problems because of people drinking in the area.

He said, “I wouldn’t wish what happened on that man to anyone. Its not they’re fault they’re alcoholics. But people are feeding their habit. They are stopping on the street to give them money. If you knew someone with a heroin habit you wouldn’t go and buy them heroin.”

Mr Keenan says he has noticed an increase in the number of people drinking in the area. “There was an Irish contingent that caused a lot of bother. They were gone for a while and now they are back. There is so such goodwill out there that people are milking it.”

PRIMARY and secondary level students are being called on by Ennis Tidy Towns, to enter their school in the Ennis Schools Sustainability Challenge 2013.

Schools who do their best to reduce waste, recycle and who are environmentally sustainable will be included in this year’s Tidy Town’s entry to help Ennis shine.

Feídhlim Harty of FH Wetlands System Ltd, has said Ennis Tidy Towns are looking for schools who have begun “composting apple cores, who have started a school vegetable garden, or who have even organised a second hand book sale”.

Being environmentally friendly means taking pride in your hometown, school and environment. The involvment of schools is of great importance to Ennis Tidy Towns and is critical to the future of Ennis.

“It’s really important that we can read and write but we must be able to look after the world around us. It is vital that young people get a sense of what it means to reduce waste and be environmentally sustainable,” according to Féidhlim.

“By doing this we can protect the environment and also help the pockets of our local schools.”

To enter your school into this year’s challenge, write a short description of your waste minimisation or sustainability project, when it started and what the results have been.

“We need you to keep it brief,” according to Feídhlim, “time is short, so from one line to half a page with bullet points will be perfect.

“The more initiative the better but it’s about highlighting the work students have done this year. It’s probably a bad time with exams and school trips around now but we want to give students the recognition they deserve for their hard work.”

Féidhlim has said that there is great hope for Ennis in the Tidy Towns competition this year and “each year the town has been going from strength to strength”.

Entries must be sent to reeds@wetlandsystem.ie. before May 17 to take part in the Ennis Schools Sustainability Challenge.