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A CLARE man home on holidays for Christmas hid in a ditch after crashing his sister’s car into a bridge near Mullagh and was banned from driving for six months at Ennis District Court last Wednesday, January 2.

Brian Keane (26), with an address at Kilcolumb in Kilmaley pleaded guilty to obstruction and failing to give information when asked by a member of the gardaí but a further charge, under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, was withdrawn.

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that on December 20, 2012, at around 1am Mr Keane drove his car into a bridge near Mullagh – about five miles away from his house in Kilmaley.

The court heard that Mr Keane left the scene of the crash on foot and was discovered by a member of the gardaí “hiding in a ditch”.

Counsel for Mr Keane told the court that the defendant was driving a friend home when the incident took place.

He said that Mr Keane had become distracted and hit bridge.

He also said that Mr Keane was discovered in a nearby field and not in a ditch.

According to the defense solicitor the car involved in the incident – which was owned by Mr Keane’s sister – was written off in the incident but no major damage was done to the bridge.

Mr Keane has had to pay for a new car for his sister.

Counsel for Mr Keane told the court that Mr Keane was a block-layer by trade and had emigrated to Australia four years ago and had been “getting on well” in his employment abroad.

He was home for Christmas when the incident took place.

The court heard that he planned to return to Australia on the following day, Thursday January 3, unless he was prevented by the court from doing so.

The court heard that Mr Keane had a number of different conviction from various dates in 2008, 2006 and 2005.

The most significant of these was a charge of dangerous driving which was reduced to “careless driving” in March of 2008.

Judge Patrick Durcan noted that Mr Keane had a “bad record for a 26year-old” and said that considering that, he had no option but to disqualify him from driving for six months and fine him € 500.

ENNIS has been deemed ‘Clean to European norms’ in the 2012 litter survey from business group Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL). Ennis, in 27th position, was among 13 towns out of 42 to receive the designation, with a further 22 classed as ‘cleaner than European norms’.

The report on Ennis by An Taisce, who are charged with conducting the surveys, stated, “A great improvement at Ennis compared to the earlier survey in 2012 when there were two seriously littered sites. This time there were none and eight out of the 10 sites surveyed got the top litter grade, including all four approach roads.

“Significant improvement was recorded at the Quin approach road previously it had been in quite a poor state – not so this time around.”

Dr Tom Cavanagh, Chairman of IBAL, added, “This is a significant result. Ten years ago, when measuring started, only two towns/cities in Ireland were deemed to have reached this standard.

“Here’s hoping that Ennis will be even cleaner than the average European town in 2013, the year of the Gathering,” he added.

The survey gave grade Bs to Ennis National School and the Railway Station.

According to IBAL, the Kilrush Road creates a “positive first impression” of Ennis.

On the Quin Road, the report states, “There was a significant improvement recorded at this site, especially at the bridge area. Hope- fully this high standard can now be maintained.”

Holy Family Junior and Senior School is described as a “great site”. The report states, “the extensive grass area was in very good condition and the planters were a lovely feature – all aspects of the site surveyed were in good order.”

On McHugh Villas, the report states, “A low density residential area which was well laid out – the grass area was nicely kept with colourful planting and mature trees – a top ranking site throughout.”

THE number of patients waiting on trolleys at Ennis General Hospital had fallen back to just one yesterday (Monday) following pressure on staff and facilities over the Christmas period.

Just last Thursday as many as 11 people were waiting on trolleys at the County Clare hospital, according to figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

However as children returned to school yesterday and most people were back at work, life returned to “normal” at the hospital.

Meanwhile a blanket ban has been imposed on visitors to the area’s biggest hospital – The Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick – as a result of the winter vomiting bug (Noroviro).

Visiting to all wards at the hospital is prohibited with the exception of critically ill patients, but visitors must first contact nursing staff before they visit critically ill patients.

Parents and guardians only are permitted in the Children’s Ark and children should be kept away from all areas of the hospital.

“The hospital regrets this inconvenience but it is necessary at this time to prevent the spread of these illnesses to both patients and staff. Where appropriate, mobile phone contact between families should be considered as an alternative to visiting,” a spokesperson.

The hospital is also asking the public that only genuine emergencies should present at the Emergency Department (ED) and that where possible people should consult their GP before coming to the ED.

The vomiting bug is highly contagious and is in the community in County Clare as well as Limerick.

Norovirus does not usually cause serious illness, but it is very easily spread. People who contract it can be infectious for 48 hours after they recover.

The principal symptoms are nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea and generally begin very suddenly with nausea followed by projectile vomiting.

While there is a ban on visiting in Limerick, people can still visit patients in Ennis General Hospital during visiting hours.

LOCAL arts groups and festival organisers in Clare face a challenging 2013, despite a slight increase in funding for the county under the Arts Council’s Festival and Events Scheme.

Clare’s funding under the first round of the Festival and Events Scheme (formally the Small Arts Festivals Scheme) rose from € 20,500 in 2012 to € 24,500 in 2013. Despite this increase, the amount of money being awarded to individual festivals under the scheme has decreased, with an extra festival being added to the funding list.

This has resulted in flagship events such as the Iniscealtra Arts Festival (down 22.2 per cent) and the Ennis Book Club Festival (down 5.8 per cent) losing valuable funding. If this trend is continued into the second round of funding it could have a negative impact on another dozen festivals throughout the county.

This funding also represents a decrease of almost 58 per cent from the € 57,100 awarded to Clare festivals under the first round of the Small Arts Festivals Scheme on 2007.

According to County Clare Arts Officer, Siobhan Mulcahy, the local arts community have shown great resilience in the face of recent quotes.

“I think the cuts have been more challenging than damaging. Obviously, they impact on the quantity of programming that takes place but, inevitably, the quality of the artistic product has been maintained throughout the county, thanks in many instances to the tireless work of volunteer festival organisers and the work of individual artists,” she said.

“The increase in the number of festivals funded reflects the diversity of quality arts practice in the county. Festivals, as well as most arts practitioners, are realistic in terms of the current financial state of the country and in what they can aspire to with the limited resources available to them.

“For many, the success of getting funding from the Arts Council is a reflection on the quality of the festival and this augurs well to lever funds from other resources at local and national level.”

There were also cuts to Clare artists under the Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme. Two Clare groups, trad/folk group Guidewires and Nicola Henley of the Wise Ways Projects, received combined funding of € 37, 500 under this scheme last year. No Clare artists received under the first round of funding this year.

Funding news on Clare’s main Arts Council funded projects, such as Glór and the Willie Clancy Summer School, is expected in the coming weeks.

FAMILY and friends gathered in Ennis yesterday to say a final farewell to the late Jack Wall, who passed away last week.

Originally from Ennistymon, John Joseph Wall was well known in Clare from his ownership of the Auburn Lodge Hotel and his long association with the Ennis Musical Society.

Along with his wife Anne, Mr Wall ran the Auburn Lodge from 1969 to 1990. He was also the proprietor of the Beehive Café in Ennis.

He served as a gunner with the British Airforce in World War II and lived in California for 10 years before returning to Clare.

Mr Wall, who lived in Ballymaley, was a long serving member of the Ennis Musical Society whose talent was recalled at his funeral service in Ennis Cathedral yesterday.

Friends recalled being enthralled by Mr Wall’s memorable performances for the Society. The service heard that Mr Wall was a man with a commanding stage presence and someone who wore his talent with great modesty.

He played lead roles in numerous productions including

IT WAS not all bad news for Shannon in the Airport Feasibility Study Commissioned by Irish Aid, however the light at the end of the tunnel was quite dim.

It outlined a potential opening for the airport in EU civil protection.

However the EU civil protection is in its infancy and most member states “are not yet fully on board” with civil protection.

According to the report, an EU civil protection role for Shannon Airport presents a more attractive risk/benefit ratio that the other three roles because the potential European disaster sites are closer the reports author maintains.

It also ascertained that Shannon’s neutral peripheral site could be useful in certain circumstances, and it could fit into the ongoing trends at EU level to strengthen civil protection co-ordination and response capabilities.

Setting up an EC civil protection base in Shannon would also be more cost effective than any of the other roles. The study argues that civil protection also shows as higher variable than other roles because European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) has not yet defined its civil protection policy direction and is exploring various options.

This statement however also argues against such a role for Shannon Airport any time soon, as there is disagreement between different Eu- ropean bodies on the precise role of civil protection and any resolution will take time.

Ireland has provided some resources such as flood management experts in response to requests from other European states which strengthens the Shannon cause although dimming that light again is the National Directorate’s description of Ireland as “not a major player” relative to other states such as Germany, France and the UK.

The Shannon Feasibility Study maintains however, “While the specifics are by no means decided, an EU civil protection role for Shannon Airport may potentially represent better value for money, particularly because there are no clear service providers with whom to compete.”

THERE is no role for Shannon Airport and its facilities in the international humanitarian relief effort, according to a feasibility report carried out by Irish Aid.

Plans to use the airport as a hub for storing aid material and medicine, and as an emergency training ground were included in the Programme for Government but rejected in the report by Ireland’s official overseas development programme.

According to the report, the 42 stakeholders from 27 different organisations showed a minimal degree of interest in using the airport as either an aid hub or an emergency training centre as they considered the airport fraught with “expected high cost and uncertainty”.

The cost of running an international aid storage hub at Shannon International Airport for just one year would be the equivalent of providing humanitarian aid to more than 23,000 people.

The humanitarian aid organisations consulted also maintained there was no major gap in the existing structures.

The stakeholders consulted did not see Shannon Airport as a strong site to fill a humanitarian role nor did they believe their organisation “would use, manage or fund such a role”.

The report stated that physical locations are primarily chosen due to cost, ease of access and proximity to disaster affected areas.

The majority of humanitarian headquarters are located in or near major donor capitals or other strategic cities.

Many humanitarian actors also pre-position supplies close to commonly affected areas to enable faster response time and less expenditure on transportation costs.

The report outlined deployment costs when delivering emergency humanitarian aid from Shannon compared to other countries with hubs.

The air cost per tonne from Shannon to Cameroon for example was 337 per cent more expensive than the cheapest option available, and 389 per cent more expensive in delivering goods to Haiti.

In its overall rating of the four possible roles proposed for the airport under the humanitarian umbrella, the pre-positioning of relief items and medical items at the airport was rated at 31 per cent and 39 per cent effectively.

A training centre was given a 53 per cent rating, while an EU Civil Protection base was given a 57 per cent rating.

While it was estimated that the benefits outweighted the risks of the role of a training centre in Shannon, the difference was marginal.

According to the feasibility study, many humanitarian actors saw the airport’s distance from major commercial traffic routes as inconvenient for participant travel.

It also seemed redundant to them to develop a centre in Europe when the greater focus is on Africa and Asia.

The start up cost and the need to attract an external training provider also led to this role for Shannon Airport being declined.

“This analysis leads the team to conclude that it does not presently see a role for Shannon Airport that adds clear value to the international humanitarian relief effort,” the author said.

“It should be noted that there is little doubt about the commitment of Shannon Airport and its various stakeholders to developing a new role for the site. Unfortunately, geography, costs, and existing structures do not make Shannon Airport an ideal location for humanitarian functions.”

CHARGES against Clare hurler Fergal Lynch were struck out at Ennis District Court last Wednesday, January 2, because of the length of time taken to bring the matter to trial.

Counsel for Mr Lynch (30), Darragh Hassett, applied to the court for the case to be dismissed saying that some of the dates recorded for summonses connected to the case were “factually incorrect”.

Mr Hassett also argued that the incident had taken an extremely long time to come to court, saying that Mr Lynch, who has an address at Dangan in Tulla, is a local school teacher who is well known to the gardaí because of his exploits on the hurling field.

Speaking for the State, Inspector Tom Kennedy, asked Judge Patrick Durcan for 14 days to gather “the correspondence about the case” but this request was turned down.

“This all related to an issue which took place three years ago. I am striking out the case,” said Judge Durcan.

THE 500 year-old body of a Clare teenager discovered in April is helping to paint a clear picture of what life was like for the people of Ireland during one of the most violent periods in the country’s history.

Carbon dating of human remains, discovered in a cave on Moneen Mountain, just outside Ballyvaughan, has revealed that the dead person was between 14 and 16 years of age, and was severally malnutritioned.

According to Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo, the evidence suggests that the youth crawled into the cave and died, rather than being placed in the cave after death. This suggests that Moneen Mountain was being used as a refuge or meeting place for poor Clare people at this time.

This period, around the time of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, was one of the bloodiest times in Irish history.

“At this time in Ireland, there was religious persecution, a lot of warfare, Gaelic people are being dispossessed of their land and there are lots of famines.

“But to find the remains of one of these individuals and to see, first hand, the evidence of what was going on is very interesting,” said Dr Dowd. “Another mystery is why the remains were in the cave and not in a burial ground – because there were a number of official burial grounds quite close to the cave. It seems that this young person went into the cave, crawled into a small recess in the cave wall and died there.

“This person may have been completely on his own and died in the cave or there may have been a few people hiding out there.”

The excavation also revealed evidence which suggests that Moneen Mountain may have been a significant place for Bronze Age people.

“The other material dates back to 1,000 BC. We discovered a large quantity of broken-up pots and a deer antler. There is something quite unusual about this also, it does not look like a refuge, there was no-one living inside the cave at the time, and we know that the pots were weathered outside,” continued Marion.

STAFF shortages and overcrowding at Ennis General Hospital was once again in the headlines in April with ongoing cuts resulting in “dangerous conditions” for patients in the hospital.

One one day in early April one nurse was left alone to care for 22 acutely ill patients in the county hospital, while care assistants replaced nurses in vital areas of care. The under pressure staff are also dealing with overcrowding at the hospital, as 12 to 15 patients are regularly cared for over-night in the medical assessment unit.

Nursing staff have to be taken from other wards to care for patients in the unit, which was added as part of the hospital reconfiguration programme and is supposed to be closed at night. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Association described the situation as unacceptable stating “this level of care is dangerous for patients”.

Sources close to staff at the hospital told The Clare People in April that they are concerned for patients and frustrated that they do not have the time to care for patients the way they should and would like to.

INMO Industrial Relations Officer, Mary Fogarty explained there is an acute shortage of nursing staff at the Ennis hospital since the moratorium was put in place. This has been exacerbated by a number of retirements.

While the staffing freeze does not allow vacant nursing posts to be replaced, the HSE is employing care assistants through an agency at € 12 per hour in an attempt to fill the wid- ening staffing gap.

“We are very concerned about the standard of care across the system,” she told The Clare People .

“While care staff have a vital role to play they cannot replace nurses. They do not have the education or experience,” she said.

Ms Fogarty was also critical of the reconfiguration process that took 25 beds out of Ennis General Hospital without having replacement infrastructure in place.

“This is a very inefficient way of managing,” she said.