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ENNIS has held onto its ‘Clean to European Norms’ status in the latest litter survey by Irish Business Against Litter, despite dropping 15 places to 31st, among 42 towns surveyed.

There were just five top ranking sites out of a total of ten surveyed in Ennis – combined with two seriously littered sites. This puts Ennis in the bottom third of the towns / cities surveyed. Ennis Rail and Bus Station was the only area in the survey deemed to be “littered”.

The railway station scored a grade C in An Taisce’s report. It states, “The station itself is well presented e.g. good paving / road surface / planter boxes etc, but unfortunately there were a couple of separate incidents of heavy levels of litter on the ground beside the telephone box and on the steps. It was mostly ‘fresh’ litter, indicating it was not a long-term problem.”

A spokesperson for An Taisce descrbied the results for Ennis as “disappointing”.

She continued, “The two seriously littered sites, Ennis Community College and Ennis Railway Station, put Ennis at the bottom of the ‘Clean to European Norms’ category. The litter situation at Ennis Community College was a more long-term issue than that at the railway station. The R469 Quin approach road had been a very poor site during previous IBAL Anti-Litter surveys. Things were much improved this time around and hopefully this upward trajectory can continue.”

The findings come a week ahead of the results of the annual Tidy Towns competition. The study, despite showing continuing improvement in the cleanliness of our cities and towns, revealed the environs of Dublin Air- port to be a litter blackspot.

76 per cent of the 42 towns and cities surveyed were deemed to be clean, a record percentage. Cavan was judged Ireland’s cleanest town, one of 18 to be rated ‘cleaner than European norms’. An Taisce inspectors praised it as “a town that clearly takes great pride in its environment”.

CLARE County Council’s clampdown on one-off houses in the rural part of the county has been graphically illustrated with the latest publication of the findings from the 2011 National Census of Population.

According to the ‘Roof Over Our Heads’ report, the number of new roofs over the heads of people in rural Clare has plummeted sharply from previous censuses, with the 2011 population study showing that oneoff house builds have been halved between 2006 and 2011.

There were 2,784 houses built in Clare between 2006 and 2011, with the number of one-off houses being 861, which represented just 30.90 per cent. When compared against the last census, which gave a breakdown of house builds between 2001 and 2006, there was a drop of 860 in new oneoff houses constructed in the county.

This reduction is in keeping with the slide in one-off planning permissions and house constructions that was heralded in the 2006 census when the figure of 1,721 one-off houses meant that, for the first time since records began, there were less single houses built in the county than houses than were part of developments. Between 1991 and 2000, the number of one-off houses constructed represented 69.80 of all houses built in the period.

Kilbaha-based Jim Connolly, who is the founder of Rural Resettlement Ireland, has said that present planning policy that’s against wide-scale oneoff housing is “enforcing urbanisation on people with disastrous consequences for the country”.

Continuing, Mr Connolly, who contested the 2011 General Election as an independent and a founder member of the Irish Citizens Party, said “future generations will rightly curse the planning policies of the Celtic Tiger period” and that “social, economic and cultural life has suffered from people being refused planning permission to build family homes in the countryside”.

CLARE’S population may have risen to a 110-year high according to the findings from the 2011 census, but some towns and villages along the west coast now have a ghostly appearance to them.

This finding is contained in the latest bulletin report from the Central Statistics Office on the 2011 National Census of Population that has shown up Kilkee, Lahinch and Liscannor as being home to more vacant houses than anywhere else in the county.

All three centres are in the top ten of a national league table of vacant housing, the only county to have more than one town/village in this listing.

The figures released by the CSO last Thursday show that Liscannor has the highest number of vacant houses in the county, with 73 per cent of the premises in the village and wider parish unoccupied, making it joint second in the national list with Balitmore in Cork behind Mullaghmore in Sligo that has a vacancy rating of 78 per cent.

Kilkee is next on the Clare list with 71.5 per cent of vacant houses, with Lahinch just over a percentage point back on 70.4.

This means that three Clare centres have been held up as virtual ghost towns/villages for most of the year, with only time when most of the houses are occupied coming during the peak holiday period of July and August.

The large number of vacant houses in Kilkee and Lahinch can partly be attributed to the huge surge in holiday homes in both tourist centres for a decade from 1995 onwards, when developers availed of special tax incentives.

The tax breaks were contained in a seaside resorts scheme introduced by the then Rainbow coalition government that reigned from 1994 to ’97. Both Lahinch and Kilkee were among 15 towns/villages around the country included in the scheme devised by the Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn.

However, the building boom that occurred on the back of this special designation has now resulted in reducing both Kilkee and Lahinch to ghost towns for most of the year – the building boom pushed up the house prices, which has been held up as the largest contributory factor to population decline in the two tourist resorts.

Kilkee now has a population of 1,037, which is a drop of 21.5 per cent on the 2006 census, something that is expected to see the town lose its town council status in the upcoming reform of local government.

Together the high vacancy rates in Liscannor, Lahinch and Kilkee mean that Clare now ranks fifth out of 26 counties in terms of vacant holiday home statistics with 4,160 behind Donegal, Kerry, Cork and Wexford.

Liscannor’s status as having more unoccupied houses than any other village in the county comes against a backdrop of a rising population. Between the 2006 and 2011 censuses the population there grew by 32.6 per cent.

A map of the county produced by the CSO shows that vacancy rates in West and North Clare are now running at over 25 per cent. Only seven other counties have higher rates of vacant housing than in Clare, with Leitrim topping the league table with 30.4 per cent, while within Munster, Kerry on 26.5 per cent is the county with a higher rating than Clare.

Vacant Houses
Liscannor 73.1 per cent Kilkee 71.5 per cent Lahinch 70.4 per cent Mountshannon 59.2 per cent Bunratty 51.3 per cent Ballyvaughan 50 per cent Doonbeg 42.4 per cent Miltown Malbay 39.3 per cent Lisdoonvarna 37.9 percent

KILRUSH is the third largest town in Clare behind Ennis and Shannon but, in terms of the information super-highway, the West Clare capital has now been cast into the slow lane when it comes access to technology.

Ennis once enjoyed Information Age Town status, while a new highspeed broadband service is now be- ing rolled out in Shannon, but the 2011 National Census of Population has revealed that Kilrush ranks as the second-worst town in Ireland when it comes to internet access.

The census statistics have revealed that 45 per cent of households in Kilrush now have internet access, which places the once bustling business and market town second-worst only to Rathkeale in Limerick, which has 55 per cent no internet connection rating.

The release of these statistics outlining Kilrush’s lowly internet rating came on the same day that the Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, announced details of a new National Broadband Plan to bring the internet to every citizen in the country by 2015.

In acknowledging that there is a problem with internet access outside major urban areas and that State in- tervention was necessary, Minister Rabbitte said the new € 300m plan has been put in place following detailed consultations with leading telecommunication companies.

The census returns for Clare show that 25,041 households in Clare have access to broadband internet services, which leaves a shortfall of 17,493 households that have no broadband.

And of these 17,493 households without broadband, it has been revealed by the CSO that 12, 313 of these have no form of internet access whatsoever, while 4,149 have low speed internet access.

Thes low figures for the county will heighten calls for Clare to be given a prominent place in the new National Broadband Plan and its stated policy of providing broadband speeds of at least 30 megabits to every citizen within three years.

AS CARERS, the elderly and those with disabilities face an uncertain wait while the HSE decides how much of their services to cut, one Clare mother worries about her daughter’s future. Mary Finnegan worries about what will happen her daughter Claire when she is gone.

The Cratloe woman is Claire’s primary carer and assistant but she realises that if the cuts to the health services announced last week remain in place, her daughter has no chance of ever receiving a personal assistant and her independence.

The greater worry for this mother is how her daughter will manage if she can no longer take care of her.

“It is more about what is going to happen after me. I look at what I do now for her and I wonder who is going to do it when I am gone,” she said. Claire is even more frustrated by the lack of service, and is very stressed as she battles for some little assistance from the HSE.

She has applied to the service on numerous occasions for a personal assistance for a few hours a week but repeatedly she has been told “no”.

More than two years ago Claire, who lives with the condition spina bifida, broke her leg during a fall while she tried to shop.

“I was in a wheelchair. I could not drive and still I was turned down for an assistant. I explained to the HSE that this would happen again if I did not get some help. I told them I was struggling. My biggest issue was with shopping. I cannot reach items if I am in my wheelchair, and I cannot carry bags if I have my crutches,” she explained.

Last November Claire’s harrowing prediction came true and she fell again, and once again broke her leg.

Mary maintains that this would not have happened had she an assistant with her.

Claire has also suffered severe burns to her feet while taking a bath. She explained to The Clare People that she attempted to live independently without home help, but one evening while drawing a bath was unaware of the temperature this resulted in severe burns.

THE outstanding success of the opening of the Loophead Lighthouse to tourist traffic for the first time in its four centuries old history is set to spawn a major new building development on the West Clare peninsula. The Clare People has learned that an Irish-American investor has identified a site in the Loophead area as the ideal location for a hotel devel- opment that has the potential to be a boon to West Clare in the construction and operation phase.

There is huge speculation in the area this week that a planning application is to be lodged with Clare County Council’s planning authority in the near future for what is earmarked to be a 50-bedroom hotel and restaurant on the peninsula that has been the biggest new tourist success story in the county over the past two years.

It is understood that the hotel development, if given the green light by the planning authority in Ennis, would bring over 50 jobs in the construction phase and the same number of jobs again in full-time and part-time staff when it opens for business. The Clare People understands that the as yet unnamed investor has been attracted by the success of the lighthouse opening initiative that was initially the brainchild of local Loophead councillor Gabriel Keat- ing (FG) by way of his first motion ever motion to Clare County Council after he was elected in 2009.

The idea was then taken on and brought to reality by Clare County Council director of services Ger Dollard in partnership with Shannon Development and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, who are the owners and guardians of the lighthouse.

Another major factor in attracting to such an investment to Loophead is the fact that there is no hotel in the West Clare capital of Kilrush, while nearby Kilkee no longer has a hotel that’s stays open for 12 months of the year. The last major infrastructural project planned for Loophead was the controversial Loran C navigation mast that the Commissioners of Irish Lights wanted to construct near Kilbaha in the mid-1990s, but after a public out-cry on the peninsula and subsequent oral hearing, plans for the development were eventually scrapped.

CIVIL disobedience is a civil right of people in Clare – that’s the banner being waved by one public representative in Clare this week who is embarking on a crusade to have the practice enshrined into the practices and procedures of a local authority.

Outspoken Shannon Town Council member Cathy McCafferty will launch her campaign at a monthly meeting of the council in Shannon Town Hall on Tuesday by way of a notice of motion that will be up for discussion and consideration by the nine-member authority.

Cllr McCafferty made the headlines earlier this year after publicly falling out with the Sinn Féin party she had represented on Shannon Town Council, being initially suspended from the party before then resigning her membership altogether.

The exact details of her fall-out with Sinn Féin, both locally and with the party hierarchy in Dublin, was never publicly disclosed as the both party and politician went their separate ways. In the wake of her resignation from the party, Sinn Féin demanded that she live up to the party pledge to resign her seat on Shannon Town Council. However, Cllr McCafferty stuck to her guns and declared herself an independent.

Now, the independent has come up with a maverick stand of calling on her eight fellow councillors, headed by Mayor Michael Fleming, to back her controversial motion. While it’s expected that her fellow councillors will support her call for “the right of every citizen of this Republic to engage in peaceful protest”, it’s unclear whether they will back her right that they also be allowed engage in “civil disobedience”.

Cllr McCafferty was unavailable for comment when contacted by The Clare People on Monday.

ANY cuts to the already inadequate home help hours allocated to one elderly West Clare woman will have a devastating affect, not just for her but for her whole family.

Carer Margaret Scanlon is living in fear that the six and a half hours of home help allocated to her highly dependent mother-in-law will be cut again as the HSE take the knife to community services.

This one and a half hours, five days a week means that the mother of five can go to work to earn the only wage for the family since her husband was made redundant.

As well as working outside the home, she spends every available minute caring for her mother-in-law, teenage son who suffered a stroke when he was just four years of age and the rest of her family.

Just 18 months ago, when the HSE made its first cuts, her home help hours were reduced from two hours to one and a half. If they are cut again, Ms Scanlon is in no doubt that she will be forced to give up her job.

“There is no way I am putting my mother-in-law into a nursing home. Why should she have to move out of her home of the last 48-years?” she said.

In October 2010, Ms Scanlon applied for a Home Care Package, so grave was the situation. The HSE agreed that, as at least one of the two family members Ms Scanlon cares for around the clock was highly dependent, she was entitled to the package.

However, the package was “put on hold” due to lack of funding.

Ms Scanlon believes she will never receive that assistance now, and is awake nights worrying that she will lose the little assistance she has.

“It can be very stressful. We have five children and the whole of family life has been affected,” she said.

“People are not going out for the day during these home help hours. They have to go do the grocery shopping, or keep doctor or other appointments. Carers are annoyed and frustrated at what is happening,” she said.

“The old and young – the most vulnerable – are being hit by this again. Carers have to stand up for themselves. We do this because we love or care for the person, but it is not easy.”

CARERS are living in fear not only of the day when they are not around to care for their loved ones, but living in fear that the system that should be there to assist them will let them down.

One carer from just outside Ennis asked that her name not be used. She said that rightly or wrongly, she feared her case would not be looked on favourably if she “said the wrong thing”.

“You are very vulnerable and you may need these services again,” she said.

Rose (not her real name) is married with five children. Just over 13 years ago, when the children were still very young, her husband was diagnosed with a very rare disease of the brain and a stroke. Since then, he has suffered numerous side affects, further complications and a blood condition.

As a result, this still relatively young man requires round-the-clock assistance. The responsibility for his care lies solely with Rose.

The family have currently no outside assistance.

“The DPOC gave funding for a man to come two mornings a week. He was great – so helpful and respectful of my husband and his needs. Two years ago, the funding was cut and we lost the service,” said Rose.

Currently, the family have no home help, although Rose is applying for assistance.

“I have no home help hours and now I definitely won’t be getting them,” she said, resigned to a difficult winter.

“My husband cannot be left alone. For now, everywhere I go, I have to bring him with me or the children stay with him while I go out for something. They are great but they have to have their lives too,” she said.

“I am lucky. I know some people who have no one,” added the young mother, looking at the bright side of a sometimes very bleak situation.

“The cutbacks are terrible. I thought when he (Minister for Health, James Reilly) came in, he would be good as he is a doctor, but he seems as bad as the rest.”

SMALL businesses across Clare are foregoing the use of credit cards and debit cards in their shops as the cost of maintaining the service is crippling them.

Businesswoman Joanne Dillon from Kilkee accepts that by getting rid of the credit card service in her two businesses – Jo Soaps Launderette and The Flower Shop – a year ago she has lost some business, but retaining the service was costing her too much money.

“In July to August last year, I looked at my statement and I realised the credit card service cost me € 150, and I only took in € 100 in credit card payments that month,” she told The Clare People .

“It has been tough sometimes without the service, not so much for the launderette but definitely for the florist. I hate having to tell people to lodge the money into my account or send a cheque when they ring. It also means I have to follow up on bills,” said the young businesswoman.

“One Portuguese company rang me to supply flowers for them but I couldn’t because they needed to pay by card, so yes, I suppose I am losing some business.”

She said it was impossible, however, to continue with the charges associated with providing credit and debit card services as the standing charge for the machine and every transaction was costing her. “A lot of small businesses in town got rid of them for that reason. We would love to have it but we just can’t afford it,” she said.

This is not just an issue for businesses in West Clare, however. Rita McInerney of Ennis Chamber of Commerce confirmed it is an issue for a lot of small businesses in the county town too. A number of smaller businesses in Ennis have signs up saying they are no longer taking cards due to the cost.

“The charges on credit and debit cards are quite hefty. It is not just the bank charge, there is the charge from the credit card company and the cost of the technology involved and the leases,” said Ms McInerney.

She said she was hopeful that new technology that is currently being developed in Ireland would allow businesses to use their smart phones or tablets to make credit card charges, which would reduce a lot of the cost.