Author: admin

A NEW York marketing manager who threatened to headbutt an airline pilot and forced an emergency landing at Shannon Airport was ordered to pay € 3,367 in compensation to British Airways and a sum of € 1,000 to the court poor box at Ennis district Court yesterday (Friday).

Judge Patrick Durkin struck out the charges against Damian Kington with an address at 105 West, 29th Street, NY, 10001 taking into account a number of factors including the affect a new medication combined with alcohol had on the defendant at the time of the incident over the Atlantic.

On Wednesday, Mr Kington, an Australian native, was taken from BA Gunb flight 004 to Ennis District Court and charged with threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour contrary to Section 2A(3) and Section 2A(4) of the Air Navigation and Transport Act 1973 as inserted by Section 65 of the Air Navigation and Transport (Amendment) Act 1998.

He was also charged with engaging in behaviour likely to cause serious offence or annoyance to any person on board the aircraft under the same Air Navigation and Transport act.

Garda Noel O’Rourke told the court he had arrested Mr Kington that morning at 9.15 after the flight from JFK New York to London City airport was diverted to Shannon.

At 7.30am the captain and commander of the flight Niall Jones told air traffic control that he had an unruly passenger on board and requested to land at theCounty Clare airport.

The court heard that when Mr Kington had boarded the 32-seater business class plane he was observed by the cabin crew to be in a sober state.

During the course of the flight, he was served four to five aircraft bottles of wine and in his luggage were found two different types of medication.

Two hours into the flight, the 35year-old got out of his seat and stood over two other male passengers across the isle, in what they said was a “threatening manner”.

He then referred to them as “c@*ts and paedophiles”. He started “F-ing and blinding at staff and other passengers”.

The frequent flyer was served with a verbal warning by the crew and then a written warning. A few minutes later, the captain was called again. As he came down the aisle, the defendant came towards him and pushed him.

“He pushed me and tried to head butt me,” the captain told gardaí in a statement.

As there was no marshal aboard, the crew then struggled to restrain and handcuff the defendant as they considered him “a serious risk to passengers on the flight.”

Later when Gda O’Rourke went on to the flight at Shannon they found the accused to be in a subdued and “dozy state”.

He was extremely pleasant to us,” he said. “There was a strong smell of alcohol and he was unsteady on his feet.”

Mr Kington works in New York as the head of marketing team in a very high profile company and was travelling to England for Christmas.

Solicitor for the Defence Úna Moylan said that her client was in a state of shock after the events aboard the plane.

She told the court that he had an ongoing depression condition and had taken one and a half Xanax and one anti-anxiety tablet coupled with the alcohol. She said he remembered nothing of the incident.

Yesterday (Friday) Mr Kington told the court that he was on a new medication at the time.

“It is fair to say I was and still am mortified by the accounts given by the witnesses. The fact I have no recollection is more frightening.”

He apologised to the airline, passengers, captain and crew and the gardaí. He said he would no longer be taking that form of medication or drinking on an aircraft.

Judge Durkin said that the charges against Mr Kington were very serious but he dismissed them and ordered him to pay € 3,367 to cover the costs of the landing charge in Shannon, the ground handling cost and the fuel cost and ordered him to pay a further € 1,000 to the court poor box.

The judge said he was taking into account that the Damian Kington onboard the flight was not the man reflected in his many references.

He also took into account his early guilty plea, describing the defendant as “a man of impeccable character.”

“I accept your responsibility was seriously diminished,” he said adding that he hoped Mr Kington would visit Ireland again under different circumstances.

BALLYALLA is in mourning today following the tragic death of fiveyear-old Megan Malone in a New York hospital on Thursday.

Megan, who will be laid to rest in County Cork later today, December 22, defied all the odds last year by recovering from a rare form of cancer. She was diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer called SPNET-Medullablastoma in October of 2010. However, following groundbreak- ing treatment at hospitals in New York and Boston last year, Megan made a miracle recovery and seemed to have put her illness behind her.

Tragedy struck again earlier this year, however, when the cancer returned and, despite emergency treatment in America, the brave five-year- old passed away in New York on Wednesday night.

Megan is survived by her father John Malone from Ballyalla, her mother Sheila, as well as her three brothers and sister. She’s also mourned by her grandparents Michael and Kay Malone from Ballyalla and a large number of relatives and friends from all around Clare.

“Our beautiful little princess, Megan, lost her brave fight for life last night. She battled her terrible disease for over 26 months and it finally got the better of her little body and soul,” said John Malone yesterday.

“We will never ever forget you Megan. We love you so, so much. No more suffering, no more pain. Poor, poor little darling Megan, may you rest in peace.”

Megan’s plight touched hearts in Clare, Ireland and the United States. A number of fundraisers took place across Clare to help fund her groundbreaking treatment in America.

Megan’s aunt, Aine Watts, said the timing of Megan’s death so close to Christmas was particularly cruel.

“We are all devastated by the news. The entire family and extended family are devastated by losing Megan who was so, so brave all through her illness. Megan will be sadly missed and we’ll miss her little face, beautiful smile and personality,” she said.

Megan will will be buried in Ballyvourney Cemetery following a 2pm funeral Mass today, December 22.

A BOYCOTT on all farmed salmon caught off the Irish coast has been called for in protest against plans by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) to license the creation of a large salmon fish farm off the Clare coast.

Environmental group Friends of the Irish Environment called for all of its followers to boycott Irish farmed salmon in the run up to Christmas. The call was made Thursday, hours before the Irish Wildlife Trust came out against the proposed fish farm.

It is as yet unclear what impact, if any, the boycott will have on farmed salmon producers in the run up to Christmas – the busiest time of the year for sales of salmon in Ireland.

According to Friends of the Irish Environment, the planned fish farm should not go ahead until the difficulty with sea lice on Irish fish farms has been resolved.

“The initiative contradicts the moratorium on fish farms agreed under the National Development Plan’s Irish Seafood National Program 2007 to 2013,” said a spokesperson.

“This ruled that no increase in pro- duction would take place until the sea lice issue had been addressed. A recent report from Inland Fisheries Ireland showed that in fact mortalities from wild salmon from farmed salmon sea lice have now reached 39 per cent of the returning wild salmon.”

The proposed fish farm has been hugely controvertial since details of the proposal first emerged more than six weeks ago. It has two State agencies – Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in direct conflict.

BIM claim that the farm could creat as many as 500 jobs in the locality while the IFI believe that a more realistic jobs target would be less that 50, while it also believes that pollution created by the farm could threaten inland fishery resources in North Clare and South Galway.

Irish Wildlife Trust confirmed on Thursday that they have made a submission to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney (FG) outlining their opposition to the project. Minister Coveney will decide in the new year if BIM can allow groups to tender for the license to create a fish farm off the Fanore coast.

STAFF at the Clare County Council recycling facility on the Gort Road in Ennis have been praised for their calm actions after a live grenade was discovered on site last Thursday morning.

The grenade, which is understood to date back to Civil War times, was discovered on the site on Thursday morning.

The explosive device was found among a stash of recyclable metal on the facility and is understood to have been live and a genuine explosion risk.

The supervisor at the facility alerted both the Gardaí and the Defense Forces to the find and Clare County Council closed the recycling centre for a number of hours of Thursday afternoon, while the grenade was being dealt with.

The Defense Force’s Army Bomb Disposal Unit were tasked to make safe the ordinance and arrived at the Gort Road Industrial Estate around 1.30pm on Thursday afternoon.

A small controlled explosion was carried out and the area was declared to be safe just after 2.15pm on Thursday afternoon. It is as yet unclear where the grenade came from and Gardaí in Ennis are investigating the incident.

Clare Green Party councillor Brian Meaney paid tribute to the calm ac- tions of the staff at the centre while a spokesperson from Clare County Council also apologised for any delays felt my members of the public as a result of the incident.

“We would like to thank the public for their patience during the interruption to services at Ennis Recycling Centre.

“We also want to acknowledge the assistance of An Garda Síochána,” said a spokesperson from Clare County Council.

This is the second time that Army Bomb Disposal Unit have been called to a suspect device in Clare in 2012. In January a controlled explosion was carried out on a suspicious device discovered on the strand at Lahinch Beach.

A four foot long metal canister, which was discover on the north end of the strand beside Lahinch Golf Course, was discovered by a walker on the beach just after 7pm on Saturday evening, January 7.

EUROMILLIONS winners Dolores McNamara could be set to make Killaloe her new home after a deal was concluded for the sale of Tinarana House over the weekend. A deal for the 270 acre property, which was sold for around € 13 million by Dr Paschal Carmody in 2006, was finalised late last week – with Dolores McNamara understood to be one of the bidders in the final shake-up.

The property was sold for around € 3.5 million, almost double the 2012 asking price but still nearly € 10 million less than was paid for it by development consortium Tinarana Ltd in 2006.

Local property agents GVM have remained tight lipped over the identity of the estates buyer. Once the transaction had done through details of the sale will be published on the newly established Property Price Register. The address of the property and the final sale price will be included on the register – but not the name of the buyer.

It is understood that Dolores McNamara has been on the lookout for a rural property to avoid excess media attention. She already owns nearby Lough Derg Hall, which was bought for € 1.7 million and where she has lived on-and-off since 2005.

Tinarana House has attracted a large number of interested bidders since it went on the market earlier in 2012. Bidders from Austria, Holland, Germany and Britain are understood to have been in the shake-up for the property, alongside the Euromillions winner.

Tinarana House itself includes 16 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms and was put on the market on the instructions of receivers PriceWaterhouse Coopers in June of this year.

While the € 3.5 million price tag is considerably less that the € 13 million paid in 2006, it is understood that the historic property needs restoration work which could total as much as € 1 million.

At the height of the property boom in 2006, Tinarana Ltd received planning permission from Clare County Council to construct a major hotel and leisure complex on the site – which also included an 18-hole championship golf course and equestrian holiday village.

An Taisce objected to the development and those objections were upheld by an Bord Pleanála in 2007.

Tinarana House was built by the Purdon family of England in the 1870s as a fishing and hunting lodge. The mansion comprises 14,467 square feet and sits on a small raise overlooking Lough Derg.

THE small West Clare townland of Kilclogher has strong connections with Newtown in Connecticut, where twenty children and six adult staff members were killed last Friday morning, December 14.

According to sources in America, a large number of Irish emigrants came to live in Newtown in the early 19th century. A large number of these emigrants come from a single parish in West Clare – believed to be Kilc- logher, between Kilbaha and Carrigaholt and the surrounding area.

The Clare emigrants came to Newtown initially to work on the local railroad but settled in the area on tracks of farmland which had been abandoned by previous settlers. Indeed, it is also understood that the majority of the local Clare population settled in the Sandy Hook, where the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings took place on Friday.

It is not yet clear if any of children of teachers killed in the attack had Clare ancestry. One of the murdered teachers, Anne Marie Murphy, is understood to have strong Irish connections but it is not yet clear if her connections date back to West Clare people who settled in the Sandy Hook area. Ms Murphy’s body was discovered in a shielding position around the bodies of a number of her students.

The Irish-American population of the town went from just 5.6 per cent in 1850 to 41.8 per cent in 1890 and 44 per cent by 1900.

Connecticut genealogist, Harlan Jessup, believes that much of these Irish emigrants came from one small area in West Clare. At one point, according to Jessup’s research, the New York Belting and Packing rubber factory in town employed 200 people – 185 of whom were Irish.

Last Friday a lone gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing twenty children and six adult before turning the gun on himself. The gunman, who has been identified by authorities as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had first killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their nearby Newtown home.

POLICING in rural areas of the county affected by the latest raft of Garda station closures can be enhanced thanks to a new partnership approach between Clare Garda headquarters and new community groups.

That’s the message sounded out by Chief Superintendent of the Clare Garda Division, John Kerin, in the wake of the controversial Budget 2013 decision to call time of eight rural Garda stations in Clare as part of a nationwide cull of 80 outlets.

Superintendent Kerin told a public meeting in Inagh last week that the key to future policing in the eight locations that will lose their Garda sub-stations lay establishing “community fora” that would liaise with the Clare Garda Division.

I’m sending out that invitation to all communities affected by Garda station closures,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “that if they were willing to set up a community forum of five or six people affected by Garda station closures, the Gardaí would be willing to meet with them on a monthly basis. The superintendent in those areas will meet with them on a monthly basis – I would be willing to meet with them on a bi-monthly basis,” he added.

Following on the closure of Carrigaholt Station earlier this year, the latest round of swinging cuts of announced in the Budget means that stations in Quin, Inagh, Lahinch, Broadford, Mountshannon, Doonbeg, Kilmihil and Labasheeda are all facing the axe in the new year.

According to Chief Superintendent Kerin the closures can be the catalyst for a new type of working arrangement to emerge between communities and what will be a Garda Division split into a two-district service of Ennis and Kilrush.

“A lot of those areas affected don’t have joint-policing committees,” said Chief Superintendent Kerin, “and I would hope that they set up these fora that would be representative of all strands of society within the community. If we did that, we would know what issues were happening and we would be able to address them,” he added.

MORE than one third of this year’s LEADER funding for Clare was signed off on this month with community groups and small businesses from across the county benefiting.

The board of Clare Local Development Company approved almost € 2 million in LEADER grant-aid at the December board meeting.

This grant-aid is estimated to lever an additional € 1 million in private funding bringing a major boost to the local economy at the end of the year.

Almost € 5.8 million in the total LEADER grant-aid has now been approved in Clare in 2012.

According to the CEO of CLDC, Doirin Graham, the grant aid will support a range of community projects including a new purposebuilt community centre for Lough Graney and the refurbishment of community buildings in Tulla, Cooraclare and Feakle.

“LEADER funding will support the development of new astro-turf playing pitches at Killdysart and a new children’s playground at Clarecastle, while a number of smaller community initiatives will also benefit,” said Ms Graham.

Several Tourism and Enterprise projects also received grant support with new businesses being established in Feakle, Clonlara, Lahinch, Kilmurry McMahon, Quin and Whitegate and existing businesses expanding operations at Shannon, Loop Head, Carron, Ennistymon and Quin.

A small number of training projects also received support as did a local history project for Corofin and a feasibility study on the potential use of Ballinalacken Castle for tourism promotion in North Clare.

The CLDC board also approved funding towards the promotion of The Gathering initiative in the county.

“Next year is the last year of the current LEADER Programme in terms of project approvals and funding would appear to be already expended on capital community projects other than heritage projects,” added Ms Graham.

“We have exceeded the targets which we set at the beginning of 2012 and with the success of the programme nationally our department is now taking stock of the areas where projects will continue to be accepted in 2013.”

Stephen Walsh, Chairman of the Board of CLDC, complimented his fellow board members for their commitment to the work of the local development company in 2012. He also thanked the management and staff for their work in successfully rolling out a wide range of programmes to the people of County Clare and looked forward to further achievement in 2013

MONEYPOINT and Innismurry/Cahercon have been named as “Strategic Sites” on the Draft Strategic Integrated Framework Plan (SIFP) for the Shannon Estuary.

A multi-agency steering group comprising of Clare County Council as lead authority has commissioned the land and marine-based plan, which is said to be the first of its type to be developed in the country.

It has been a long held view of many local representatives that the southern part of the estuary – Kerry and Limerick – has been developed to the detriment of Clare.

This new draft plan outlines a strategic plan for the future development and management of marine-related industry and tourism along Ireland’s largest estuary, and includes a number of key points along the Clare side of the estuary.

The SIFP identifies nine ‘Strategic Sites’ on the Estuary, namely Moneypoint, Innismurry/Cahericon both in County Clare, Limerick Docks, Foynes Island, Foynes Port and adjoining lands, Askeaton Industrial Estate, Aughinish Island, (Limerick), Tarbert Power Station and Ballylongford Landbank (Kerry). For the most part, these sites are zoned for ‘Marine-Related Industry’ with Askeaton zoned for ‘Industry’ and Limerick Docks zoned for ‘Mixed Use’.

In some cases, the zonings confirm existing large scale developments but additional lands for expansion and some new sites are also identified.

Moneypoint Power Station has also been identified as part of the ‘Key Energy Sites’ in addition to Ballylongford Landbank and Tarbert Power Station, the site of the permitted liquefied natural gas LNG project.

The Plan identifies Moneypoint, Kilconly point, Carrig Island and Tarbert Bay as opportunity sites for renewable energy, with opportunities for servicing offshore renewable energy developments also identified.

Five Clare fishing points have also been singled out for fishing and aquaculture development. There are eight separate opportunity sites singled out on the Estuary, including designated Shell Fish Waters at Poulnasherry Bay and Carrigaholt Bay in Clare.

Other areas of opportunity include Rinevella Bay, Killimer and Clonderlaw Bay in Clare, Carrig Island in Kerry, and Greenish Island and Long Rock in Limerick. The plan outlines the tourism potential of the Estuary and includes objectives to further develop the cruise ship industry, while it highlights the potential of the islands on the Fergus Estuary.

Meanwhile, the strategy features objectives relating to aviation and supports the future development of Shannon Airport, including acknowledging the importance of the 2,000acre land bank zoned for aviation uses in the new Shannon Town and Environs Local Area Plan 2012-2018.

BUSINESSES in Clare need further investment in broadband to support enterprise and jobs growth across the county. In a new report, Connecting the West: Next Generation Broadband in the Western Region, the Western Development Commission highlights this need.

The report includes case studies such as that of MeteoGroup in Ennis, a company that finds the cost of telecommunications services for a given level of broadband capacity more expensive in Ireland than at its other sites across Europe. Another Clare company, eTeams based in Scariff, highlighted the practice of eWorking, where employees work remotely from the company office, but need broadband connections to do so.

The Western Development Com- mission’s report examines the likely rollout of next generation broadband services and makes recommendations to ensure next generation access for all areas and better value for money for state investment in infrastructure.

Mr Ian Brannigan (acting CEO) said “broadband costs in the Western Region need to be competitive with prices available across Europe. Rural and regional areas need quality broadband services at a competitive price to ensure that businesses can compete on a level playing field”.

“The evidence from across the region presented in this report indicates that in many areas broadband services lag those that are available elsewhere in the country, for example, the western region accounts for 18 per cent of the households in Ireland but accounts for 28 per cent of applicants to the Rural Broadband Scheme (RBS) highlighting the weaker broadband services there.”

The WDC report noted that a better value of next generation broadband infrastructure can make geographic distance to customers far less relevant and provides easy access to worldwide markets. “This can be a real benefit to promoting regional and rural job growth, but only if the infrastructure and services are there,” said Mr Brannigan.