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A PROMINENT County Clare solicitor has strongly criticised the decision not to re-open a courthouse in Ennistymon, describing it as “an assault on rural society”.

Eugene O’Kelly, of O’Kelly Moylan Solicitors, said he will have to consider relocating his office from Ennistymon to Ennis, as a result of the decision.

The Courts Service has ruled that from January all north Clare court cases will be heard in Ennis Courthouse. In the past few years, the cases were heard in Kilrush Courthouse, but have now been moved to Ennis as part of plans to centralise the service.

A few years ago, court sittings moved from Ennistymon after the then District Court Judge Joseph Mangan argued that the venue, Teach Ceol, was unsuitable as it was cold and acoustics were poor.

At the time, the Courts Service looked for a new venue in Ennistymon and temporarily moved the hearings to Kilrush.

Mr O’Kelly, whose client base mainly covers West and North Clare, said he understood that North Clare sittings would eventually return to Ennistymon.

“I am dismayed to see it being closed without any consultation. I would see it as an assault on rural society. It is one more step in the continuous erosion of the fabric of rural communities,” he said.

Mr O’Kelly said that in 2008, there were 71 district court sittings in Ennis and this will increase to 120 next year.

“It is not that the workload has increased in Ennis requiring these sittings. Since 2008 Kilkee, Kildysart, Miltown Malbay, Lisdoonvarna, Corofin, Tulla and Scarriff were abolished. When they were abolishing the North Clare ones it was said a very good facility would be developed in Ennistymon,” he said.

“That’s 31 court sittings (Ennistymon and Shannon) simply being abolished. It’s an enormous inconvenience and disruption for people in outlying villages and towns in county Clare. People are being made travel further and further to access basic services.

“The loss of a court from a town takes from the prestige of that town. The whole town suffers,” he said.

He said the decision was “centralisation for the sake of centralisation”.

“I accept that economic times such as we have require savings but these savings shouldn’t be made at the expense of rural communities. Rural society is degraded the more services are centralised,” said Mr O’Kelly.

Two years ago, Mr O’Kelly – whose main base is in Kilrush – opened an office in Ennistymon and says the proposed re-opening of a courthouse in the town was a significant factor in this decision. He said he will now have to reconsider his business options, based on this latest development.

“It is of considerable importance to my practice because we have a large client base around Ennistymon. We will have to look to opening in Ennis,” he said.

He said he fears that further services will be eroded in rural parts. “If the court is gone from Ennistymon, will the next centralisation be the garda districts? Is it going to be reduced to a 9 to 5 district as opposed to a 24-hour station?” he asked.

KILRUSH Town Council is set to ramp-up the number of inspections it undertakes on local authority housing in the town for 2012 – in an effort to reduce the amount of money currently being spent on repairing council houses.

At last Thursday’s annual budget meeting in Kilrush the local authority approved a plan to reduce the annual allocated for social housing repair from € 45,000 in 2011 to € 40,000 for 2012.

This reduction has been budgeted, in part, to take account for a number of major repairs currently being made by Kilrush Town Council to their stock of local authority houses.

The council has also decided to adopt a strategy of increasing the number of housing inspections taking place to local authority houses in an effort to reduce the amount of damage done by tenants in local authority houses.

According to Mayor of Kilrush Ian Lynch (FG), the council would hope to reap the benefits from this year’s capital expenditure in years to come.

“This year we will more proactive on making sure that houses are properly maintained. We would hope that we will see the benefit from this next year,” he said.

Kilrush town clerk John Corry confirmed that there will be an increase in the level of inspections of council houses in Kilrush in 2012 and that more staff had been delegated to the housing sections to help with this.

He also confirmed that the local authority was having a more difficult time in collecting rent from council property as a result of the recession.

In total Kilrush Town Council has allocated € 270,000 to be spent in the Housing and Buildings Section for 2012 in addition to € 40,000 to be spent on house repairs. They have also budgeted for just over € 300,000 to be raised in council rents locally in 2012.

KILRUSH Town Council have given themselves just 36 hours to come up with a solution to a € 24,000 hole in the local authority’s budget or face the possible closure of Kilrush Town Council.

Councillors were unable to pass the 2012 budget at last Thursday night’s meeting of the local authority and were also unable to schedule a follow-up meeting before the evening of January 3, 2012.

The council is statutorily required to pass a budget within 21 days of being presented with the draft budget – meaning the council must have a balanced set of figures for 2012 in place before January 5.

This leaves the council just 36 hours to find a way pass the budget and little or no wiggle room to defer a decision on January 3. It is not clear what would happen should the local authority be unable to pass a budget before the 21 day deadline but in theory all operations undertaken by the council could be brought to a halt.

The € 24,000 hole in the budget came as a result of call by councillors for a number of cuts to arts and community schemes to be reversed and a cut of two per cent to the local rate by introduced. A second proposal for a rates cut of one per cent would mean a hole of € 16,000 in the budget, while the restoration of a number of arts and community projects by themselves would leave a budget deficit of between € 5,000 and € 6,000.

The difficulty began when local councillor Tom Prenderville (FF) suggested that a one per cent rates cuts would be of benefit to local businesses.

“We know that business people are struggling this year and they will not be able to pay their rates next year. If we continue like this we will erode our rates base because people won’t be able to stay in business,” he said.

“I think, as a gesture, if we were to reduce out commercial rate by one per cent it would send a message to business people that we are on their side.”

This sentiment was shared by Cllr Mairead O’Brien (Ind) who said that she would prefer a two per cent rate cut for 2012.

According to town clerk John Corry, the two per cent rate cut would result in a rates reduction of just € 2 per week for the vast majority of businesses in Kilrush – 201 of the 241 businesses.

When asked how the money could be raised they suggested cuts to the tourism development and promotion fund, savings made from the reduced cost of maintaining council houses and a possible increase in revenue from planning applications.

“Everything comes with a cost, we are looking at a reduction of € 17,000 in next year’s budget as a result of the introduction of free parking, it will be very difficult to find a one per cent reduction,” said town manager Nora Kaye.

“At the moment we have just under 74 per cent collection in rates – there are a lot of people now on a phased payment and they will not have their rates paid by the end of the year. I think that it will be a very difficult task to find € 16,000, never mind to find € 24,000.”

SHANNON Airport should be separated from Dublin Airport Authority control and placed under the management of a new company drawn from public bodies like Clare County Council and Shannon Development.

This is the chief recommendation given to Transport Minister, Leo Varadkar by Booz and Company – the team on international consultants hired by the Government to come up with a workable blueprint for the three state airports.

This landmark recommendation follows on from a month-long consultation process when interest groups and individuals were invited to make submissions to the consultants ahead of a November 30 deadline.

Now, The Clare People has learned that the report submitted by Booz and Company to Minister Varadkar in the past week has backed the biggest change in the airport’s 75-year history, ahead of a formal government decision that will be made at Cabinet level early in the new year.

Booz and Company have told Minister Varadkar that Shannon Airport, which has run up accumulated losses of € 24m over the past three years, is unsustainable in the current model.

The consultants warned that Shannon’s high cost base, plummeting passenger numbers that are expected to dip below 1.5m in 2011 meant that it might not have “a viable future” if the current model was maintained.

As a result the recommendation is that Shannon will be separated from the DAA, with responsibility transferred to a new public holding company, with business interests coming in to take over the management of the airport, with local public bodies like Clare County Council and Shannon Airport also having an “ownership” stake in the former hub of the aviation world.

According to Booz and Company, Shannon should maintain its international airport status, but that it that extra business ventures would have to be developed to boost traffic numbers and activity at the airport that last year saw passenger numbers decline by 37 per cent.

The consultants have highlighted the development of cargo traffic as key, a prospect that has been brought closer by Lynxs Cargo decision to establish a hub in Shannon.

Other suggestions that have been identified in the report tabled with Minister Varadakar include developing aeronautical businesses at the Shannon Free Zone and private plane traffic through the airport.

The current status at Shannon has been in place since 2004 – a half-way house whereby Cork and Shannon have their own boards but have limited autonomy from the DAA.

When he launched the consultation process on Shannon’s future in October, Minister Varadkar said the current status quo at the airport “cannot continue indefinitely”.

MORE THAN 200 volunteers were out in force on Saturday and Sunday as the search continued for a woman who has been missing from the Cliffs of Moher for more than a week.

The missing woman, who has been named locally as Gillian Richardson from Limerick, was last seen on Saturday, December 10, and the alarm was raised when local gardaí located the car belonging to the 38-year-old Dell employee parked on a road close to the Cliffs of Moher.

More than 200 people took part in one of the largest searches to take place in north Clare in recent years with the emergency services being joined by more then 150 family, friends and neighbours over the weekend.

The Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard, who have been leading the search effort, was joined by volunteers from the Kilkee Coastguard and the Lough Derg Rescue Service over the weekend as-well-as members of the Gardaí and a number of local volunteers.

The search area has also been widened and now stretches from Blackhead, between Fanore and Ballyvaughan in north Clare, and Quilty in West Clare. According to Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard, the search will continue for a number of days this week but is likely to scaled down later in the week if no major discovery is forthcoming.

“We are still searching and we will continue to search tomorrow (Tuesday, December 20), and later on into the week.

“We had more than 170 people out with us looking on Sunday with most of them being relatives, family and friends,” said Mattie.

“The search area now stretches from Blackhead down to Quilty so it is a very large area to be searching. The search will continue for the time being, but is likely to be scaled down later this week.”

As well as the various local units of the Irish Coastguard, family, friends and relatives, the search has also included the Shannon based Irish Coastguard Rescue Helicopter aswell-as the SARDA Dog Team.

The search was officially launched on Saturday, December 9, when a car was discovered on a road near Aill na Searrach a short distance from the Cliffs of Moher on the road to Doolin.

Inquiries also confirmed that the woman had left her home early on Friday and she is understood to have told family members that she had a doctor’s appointment.

UNOFFICIAL REPORTS from the Beckman Coulter manufacturing plant in East Clare have indicated that the plant, and the majority of its 180 strong workforce, is likely to survive the company’s restructuring programme.

An announcement has been expected concerning the future of the plant for more than two months since vice presidents Pamela Miller and Charles Pittman visited the O’Callaghan’s Mills plants in early October.

The company now operates two manufacturing plants in the west of Ireland with the Beckman Coulter top brass expected to close either the East Clare plant or its sister facility in Galway City and roll operations into one location.

Workers at both factories have been warned to expect an announcement at some stage this week but no formal time or date for an announcement has been identified. The company currently employs 180 people in East Clare with more than 200 people employed in its Galway facility.

SIPTU are currently engaged with ongoing negotiations with the company and unofficial indications are suggesting that it will be good news for the East Clare facility.

“It is looking positive at the moment but we must stress that we have heard nothing official from the company at this stage,” said local Cllr Joe Cooney (FG).

“This would be a huge boost for the area if the factory remains in East Clare, especially when you consider the 70 or so jobs that have been lost at FINSA over the last 12 months. It would be a massive blow for the area of something happened to this facility as well after what has been a really tough year.”

The East Clare facility was formally operated by Olympus Diagnostics until it was purchased by Beckman Coulter in 2009. Beckman Coulter was in turn purchased by US medical giant, the Danaher Corporation, earlier this year and it is this latest buy-out which has brought about the stand-off between the Galway and East Clare factories.

The two facilities, which have both retained the Beckman Coulter name, develop and manufacture products used in complex biomedical testing. While Beckman leases the facility in Galway, the company owns the site in East Clare, which has also been upgraded in recent years.

This is thought to be one of the key factors which may swing the decision in favour of the Clare factory.

TEACHERS may have to be hired on a temporary basis to cope with retirements from Clare schools, a meeting has heard.

It has been predicted that a high number teachers will take early retirement in February.

According to the Association of Secondary School Teachers in Ireland (ASTI),

“Under the terms of the Croke Park Agreement, teachers who retire before February 29, 2012, will have their pension and lump sum calculated on ‘pre-cut’ salary – the salary they were earning before the pay cut imposed in January 2010.”

Clare VEC is waiting to see how many teachers take up the option in order to assess the impact on Clare schools.

At the December meeting of Clare VEC, Fianna Fáíl councillor, Peter Considine asked what contingency plans are in place to cope with teacher retirements.

“Hopefully there will be no disruption to students,” he added.

CEO George O’Callaghan told the meeting that teachers could be hired in a temporary capacity to take classes until the end of term.

Mr O’Callaghan said there should be no problems filling posts given the high level of unemployment in the country.

He said the VEC would examine the situation more closely in February.

Concern was also expressed over the impact of cuts to career guidance services announced in this month’s Budget.

Under the new system schools will have to provide the guidance service from within their general teacher allocation.

Mr O’Callaghan said the VEC would study the implications of the decision when to it receives its teacher allocation quota from the Department of Education and Skills in February.

“However he told the meeting that for schools in Clare and around the country, the cut “effectively means a de facto increase in the pupil teacher ratio”.

Mr O’Callaghan said the decision would have a varying impact on various schools, adding it would have “an upward impact on the pupil teacher ratio”.

In response to questions from Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF), Mr O’Callaghan pointed out that pupil teacher ratios would not increase at ‘disadvantaged’ or DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) schools around the county.

DESPITE a well-received bid, Clare has missed out on a € 200,000 music teaching windfall.

The Clare Music Education Partnership (MEP) is to meet in the New Year in order to consider making a third bid to the Music Generation a programme co-funded by U2 that aims to provide up to € 7 million to music education initiatives in Ireland.

Members of Clare’s music community met in October to formulate the bid, which was spearheaded by Clare VEC.

A successful bid would have seen € 200,000 invested in the Banner County over three years. Clare Music Partnership would also be expected to provide matching funding in the same period.

Local authorities, Maoin Cheoil an Chláir and the University of Limerick were among the groups who had backed the Clare bid.

In a report to Clare VEC, Dr Sean Conlan Music Education Officer confirmed that the Clare application had been unsuccessful.

He stated, “A second submission to Music Generation on behalf of the Clare Music Education Partnership (MEP) was made in November. Clare VEC was the lead agency. Unfortunately the application was unsuccessful again on this occasion. The Clare MEP application received a score of 71 per cent across the three key evaluative measures, core values, feasibility and value for money.”

Dr Conlan continued, “A further round of applications will be announced in the autumn of 2012. Successful projects will each received a maximum grant allocation of € 200,000 annually over three years. This has to be co-funded at local level and after three years the music education partnership is expected to be in a position to self finance its operation with collaborative funding from the Department of Education and Skills. The Clare MEP will meet early in the New Year to consider its position.

The second round of Music Generation funding was announced last week with partnership’s in Laois, Cork City and Wicklow receiving up to € 1.7 million.

In July 2009, U2 and The Ireland Funds announced a € 7 million donation to support music education programmes.

Music Generation will provide three-year seed funding to establish local services, which will be sustained by Music Education Partnerships on a long-term basis.

A RARE original copy of the 1916 Proclamation, belonging to a Clare volunteer who was wounded during the Easter Rising, was sold at auction last week for € 55,000.

The proclamation, which is one of just 40 originals copies of the famous document still in existence, was removed by Clare volunteer Murty Tubridy, who was wounded in the head while defending his post near North King Street, beside the Four Courts, on the day of the rising.

Just 1,000 copies of the proclamation were printed, under armed guard, at Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday 1916. The proclamation was printed on poor quality, newsprint-style paper – something which contributed to such a small number of such a small number surviving to this day.

Less than 40 copies of the original document still exist and few are in good condition. Murty Tubridy’s copy remained in excellent condition except for a section of the third paragraph of the proclamation – which was torn away when it was removed, in haste, from North King Street.

The area around North King Street saw some of the most intense fighting during the Easter Rising. The copy of the proclamation was removed by Murty Tubridy while his post was taking fire from British troops.

Mr Tubridy served in Ned Daly’s Battalion during the Rising and was part of a unit headed by Peadar Clancy. His main involvement centred around the Four Courts, where he was appointed as grenade thrower and was also responsible for constructing a blockade on Kings Street.

On the second last day of the fighting, he received some minor injuries and was grazed also on the ear. He was sent to Richmond Hospital for treatment and while being moved to the hospital by his comrades he first removed the proclamation from the hoarding at King Street which he had been blockading.

Soon after he arrived at Richmond he was advised to leave the hospital immediately as it was about to be overrun.

His battalion surrendered on April 29, 1916, but Tubridy was not detained at this time. He was later imprisoned at Dundalk Jail, where he was granted parole for four days to attend his father’s funeral in Clare. Following the Rising, Mr Tubridy also served in Belfast with Terence Mac Swiney, Thomas Mc Curtin and other prominent Republicans of the day.