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HOUSEHOLDERS who had to claimed for repai rs on thei r home insurance after the big freeze last December are in some cases facing a 300 per cent hi ke in t hei r insurance costs.

One householder who made a claim after pipes burst and flooded her West Clare home is now facing a bil l of € 1, 200 to insure her home for the comi ng year.

“Our insurance last year was less than € 400 for the year. I was ab- solutely st unned when they told me how much the renewal would be. And we can’t even shop around because the company still hasn’t paid for all t he work t hat was done,” t he woman, who asked not to be named, told The Clare People .

Having never made a claim on her home insurance before, the householder said she feels it is “ a ver y severe hi ke. They have you over a bar rel because you can’t not insure t he house in case somet hing happens. But I really feel this is excessive when there has never been a clai m before.”

Another home-owner who had to clai m after pipes burst on Christmas Day and flooded his home in East Clare has had a jump in the cost of his renewal to € 1,100.

“There was a lot of damage to put right as there was water flowing for a long ti me because of the day that it was. It was hard to get anyone out. But this just r ubs salt i n the wound. Our yearly premiums were around € 350 before this. They were quick about paying for t he work done but they were quick to put the price of renewal up as well,” he told The Clare People .

Household insurance rates increased by an average of 10 per cent last year and a similar amount the year before.

The last two years had been “heavily loss-making” for the indust r y, a spokesman for the Insurance Federation of Ireland said.

Insurance companies paid out a massive € 10. 573 million in compensation to householders and businesses in Clare whose proper ty was damaged in December’s big freeze.

The Banner count y received the four t h highest amount of insurance money in t he count r y, behind Limerick Galway and Ker r y.

The cost per 1, 000 head of population in the count y was € 95, 295.

And whi le the Munster area accounts for 28 per cent of t he national population, 40 per cent of the claims which insurers paid out were from Munster.

The December severe weather cost insurance companies € 224 million national ly.

THE theft of diesel and home heating oil is happening in Clare “on a daily basis” it has been claimed.

A West Clare haulier, who contacted The Clare People after reading reports last week about the thefts says he has personally lost more than € 2,000 worth of diesel, “and I can tell you, I know more than 40 other people who have had fuel stolen in large amounts. One driver I know, they bored a hole in the tank of his tr uck to steal fuel.”

The haulier – who asked not to be named in case it marks him out for further thefts – said he has “gone to ever y length to keep fuel safe. I have to have fuel for the tr uck. I had locks on the shed where I keep it, locks on the gate leading to the shed. They just cut them open.”

The West Clare man said that he has reported the thefts to the gardaí but many of his fellow drivers have stopped reporting such thefts.

“They don’t see the point. No-one is caught for these crimes and if they are, they walk away. There was a man in court a few weeks ago, caught red-handed by the gardaí stealing diesel in Shannon and all that happened was that he was given the Probabtion Act.”

The driver said that he believes that stealing home heating oil and other types of fuel “is not an opportunistic crime. These are ver y organised criminals. They drive round in vans with containers and syphoning equipment in the back. If they’re stopped by the guards all they have to say is they were syphoning fuel from their own tanks.”

Angr y at the loss of his own fuel, the haulier told The Clare People that he has “been doing some investigating into this myself. What some of them are doing is taking the stolen heating oil up to Galway and selling it to students.”

Gardaí had confirmed that they are investigating a number of reported thefts of fuel around the county.

CLARE’S very own ‘horse whisperer’ will be on hand at the Galway Horse Show at the weekend, aiming to give a little TLC to 1,000 animals.

Gina Syver from Tulla is a qualified equine touch practitioner, having trained in the practice for two years.

And with Saturday being National Equine Awareness Day, Gina will be demonstrating how her technique can help.

“People think that troublesome horses have an innate badness in them but I don’t believe that’s true. In almost 100 per cent of cases, there is pain at to root of a horse giving grief,” Gina told The Clare People .

Equine touch is a discipline which was developed by Scotsman Jock Ruddock, who worked as a professional wrestler.

It started out with he and his fellow wrestlers learning to give each other therapeutic massage while on tour. With his wife, Ivana, he developed and adapted the system to treat horses and the practice is now fully accredited in the UK.

“Equine touch is a gentle hands on soft tissue bodywork technique which encourages tight muscles to relax, stimulates blood circulation, reduces pain and boosts the immune system, helping the whole body to improve its functionality,” said Gina. She has even worked with horses considered to be too dangerous to handle to return them to being gentle animals.

As well as treating injured and traumatized animals, Gina is starting to teach the technique, which takes two years and a series of studies and examines to qualify.

Gina and some of her students will be on hand at the show on Saturday and Sunday.

“To celebrate Equine Awareness Day, we want people to bring their animals to us to work on. There will be other people working at other centres to help us achieve our 1,000 horses target, so come along and let us give a demonstration of the technique.”

Anyone travelling to the show can find Gina at the green Equine Connect lorry near showjumping arenas one and two or call her on 087 9021666.

A COMPANY will be officially formed later this week to create a centre for international humanitarian aid in Shannon. The Atlantic Way group will officially register the not-for-profit company ‘Global Aid Shannon’ this week, following more than a year of behind-the-scenes negotiations with a partner organisation in Jacksonville in Florida.

The new facility, which will co-ordinate the delivery of Irish and EU aid as well as disaster relief, is expected to create hundreds of new jobs in the Shannon region as well as greatly increase the chances of a major logistics hubs for cargo transport to be created at Shannon. The Clare People has also learned that the Limerick Institute of Technology and the University of Florida at Jacksonville are preparing to launch a new four-year joint degree course in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. The course, which will see students spend their time between both institutions, is being created to produce the trained professionals to work at the facility in Shannon and a sister facility in Florida.

Speaking to The Clare People last week, Brian Byrne, a member of the advisory board in Atlantic Way, said work on Global Aid Shannon could begin before the end of this year. “The ultimate aim is to promote the region and to create jobs. We view this as being a very worthwhile project from a global humanitarian perspective, which is very important because you are saving lives, but this is also generating jobs and using the Irish budget for overseas aims very effectively.

“So, instead of Irish overseas agencies taking out the phonebook and seeing who can provide what they need in other countries, they will be calling Shannon to see who can get them what they need in Shannon tonight. This creates jobs here and it helps to reinvigorate traffic flow through Shannon. It helps reinforce Ireland as a centre for global aid. We are working hard with our friends in Jacksonville to make sure that this will be bearing fruit by next year or even before – so we will be creating jobs in Shannon soon,” he said.

“We brought the universities together and encouraged the development of this curriculum because it matched the strategic aims that we have in mind for Shannon Airport and it underpins the shared regional assets that we have here and in Florida. This curriculum is being developed to allow Shannon to become a centre of excellence for humanitarian aid and to allow it to supply the trained people needed by the NGO and the agencies who work in disaster relief. This centre of excellence will be a conduit for employment, not just at home but also at overseas locations.

“There are some very large commercial players who have indicated their willingness to become involved and that significantly strengthens the proposition. It will be a not-for-profit entity but it will involve commercial players coming together to make it a reality, and that will help generate support at a government level and at an international level. All of these things are coming together.” The Clare People understands that delegations from The Atlantic Way and the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce have already held eight top-level meetings on the development with a ninth meeting due to take place in Ireland later this month.

Along with the humanitarian aid hub, the groups have also been working together on creating twin logistic hubs for cargo transport in Florida and Shannon, as well as exploring avenues in which tourism links between the two areas can be strengthened.

“We have built up some very strong relationships…which enables us to approach the challenge [of building connections between Shannon and Florida] at a regional level in Florida as well as in Georgia and South Carolina,” continued Mr Byrne. “For companies based in Jacksonville, Shannon is a major stepping stone into the European market. It is an ideal distribution point for cargos destined for the European market and that is why the focus from Jacksonville has been on Shannon as a bridgehead into Europe.”

The ‘World of Opportunity’ meeting between the two groups will take place in Shannon from June 22 to 24. Besides the two organisations, industry heavy-hitters such as DHL Global Forwarding, Dell’s Global Operations and the Irish Exporters Association will also be in attendance.

SHANNON Airport is on the verge of launching itself as a major hub for corporate traffic, with Shannon Development and the airport’s management working towards creating a Centre of Excellence for Business Aviation at the airport.

With corporate aviation currently on the rise, the airport is seen as a prime area to take advantage because of its US pre-clearance facility and uncongested runways.

According to Grellan Kelly of Shannon Development, corporate aviation could be a major grower in Shannon in the months ahead and create a host of new jobs in Shannon as well as providing spin-offs for tourism and increasing Foreign Direct Investment in the area.

“In recent months there has been a real increase in the amount of corporate traffic that is in the air. At current levels, it is still 10 per cent behind what it was at its peak. It is recovering and we want to be in there at the point in time that it is recovering so that we can win some of this new traffic through Shannon Airport,” Mr Kelly told The Clare People .

“There is significant volumes of this type of traffic coming through Shannon already. We want to create awareness in the marketplace that Shannon is a transit place for corporate jets but also to win any ancillary business that might come form that. We are trying to being a tourism product out of it – so that we would get the corporate traffic along with an overnight and some sort of tourist activity like golfing or fishing.

“The plan after that would be to get an investment from some of the corporate activity coming through. In these jets will be the decision makers for a lot of major corporations – if we can create an investment opportunity for them we might get an investment that will create some jobs here. We are trying to work up an investment product that would encourage these investors to come here.

“This is all built around the preclearance to America. That is unique and gives us a reason to compete in the market place. It is key to the whole idea.”

While the creation of a centre of excellence may be years off, increased demand could make it a real possibility in Shannon in the near future.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a centre of excellence for business aviation at Shannon Airport, but you have to build on what you have. There are probably 2,500 corporate jet movement through Shannon Airport every year and we want to grow that. If we can grow then after awhile ti will warrant a centre of excellence there for corporate jets,” continued Mr Kelly.

“For the centre of excellence we are probably talking about creating a physical building – but that is long term. We have the facilities there to do what we need to do at the moment but if we can get the critical mass up then we would warrant an investment. This is Shannon Airport and Shannon Development coming together jointly. We see an opportunity for increasing this traffic, there is also a tourism possibility and then there is the possibility of investment in Shannon and the area.”

THE bonds between Tony Killeen and Brian Lenihan ran deep – theirs was a special relationship honed by their status of being from Fianna Fáil’s 1990s generation of TDs, their connections with North Clare and their very private battles with cancer over the last couple of years.

These recollections of a friendship and relationship forged through their time spent together on the backbenches and in Cabinet, talking about North Clare and their own mortality came flooding back to Mr Killeen this week as he reflected on Mr Lenihan’s passing at the age of 51.

“The Clare connection gave us something in common in the early days,” said Mr Killeen. “The North Clare connection was the critical part, rather than the Clare part, and we would have been considered very close. Certainly over the last year and a half, since Brian was diagnosed, we would have had a lot in common.

“We talked a lot about it. I was dealing with illness for a year and a half before Brian. There was one enormous difference in that I had a substantial prospect of recovery and, when I was mulling over whether to run again, I talked to Brian more than most and was taken aback the way he talked about terminal cancer as opposed to an illness that had some hope of being dealt with.

“He was very clear that it would be grossly irresponsible for me to endanger health prospects and that he was in a different position because his cancer was terminal,” added the former Minister for Defence.

“Brian was a great people person,” continued Mr Killeen. “He did have a presence, a great personal presence and he had great time for people. He was genuinely interested in talking to ordinary people and hearing their views. People instinctively felt that. It was one of his qualities and one of his strengths,” Mr Killeen.

And Mr Killeen, who retired from politics ahead of the last election after serving as a TD for 19 years from 1992, paid tribute to Mr Lenihan for the tough decisions he took as Minister for Finance.

“He was very clear that there was a path out of the troubles the country was in and that path was politically disastrous. He said to me, ‘Tony, we have a responsibility and our responsibility is to do the right thing. You and I know what the right thing is and we know we’ll be hated for it’.

“He was very clear about that and he wasn’t interested in being popular. He didn’t have a need to be popular, but he was, because his personality transcended the difficult and unpopular decisions he had to make,” added Mr Killeen.

CLARE County Council may seek to de-list Ballyalla as a bathing area due to an ongoing failure to meet “stringent” European water quality standards.

A report by David Timlin, Director of Services at the Council’s environment section, outlined the background to water testing in Ballyalla over the past five years. He said that Ballyalla did not see a significant amount of bathers up to and including the 1980s. Mr Timlin states that the area is now being primarily used for walking and general amenity.

He explained, “One of the critical elements of the EC Bathing water quality regulations 2008 is that areas should be designated on the basis of the numbers of bathers in the area.”

He continued, “Unfortunately there was little consideration of the history of bacteriological water quality at the bathing area prior to the designation. After its designation, monitoring of the waters at the Ballyalla bathing area was undertaken during the May to September period annually. It was frequently found that the bathing water quality did not meet the standards set out in the EC Quality if Bathing Waters regulations 1992.”

Mr Timlin said the failure to meet standards is “likely to be due to the frequent use of the slipway for feeding birds”.

He added, “The slipway is adjacent to the bathing area. The two activities are not compatible from a public health perspective and the bathing water monitoring data is testament to this.”

He said the situation at Ballyalla is often exacerbated by poor weather. The report states that since 2005, Clare County Council have erected signs in Ballyalla warning of the unsuitability of the waters for bathing.”

The reports adds that the bathing area in Ballyalla has been classified as “poor” status in recent years.

Mr Timlin explained, “It is considered unlikely in the context of the juxtaposition of the slipway and local bird life that the bathing area at this location will meet the 2008 standards.”

He continued, “Monitoring will be undertaken in the 2011 season, but failure to reach the necessary standards is likely to result in an application for delisting of the area as a bathing area.”

The report was compiled in response to a motion submitted by Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) to the June meeting of Ennis Town Council.

Cllr Meaney told the meeting that he “was not happy” that Ballyalla is still being assessed as a bathing area.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said money should be put aside for the overall development of Ballyalla as motorhome and camping area.

DESPITE the landmark achievement of returning three government TDs to the Fine Gael/Labour coalition in the February 25 election, Clare was the only county along the western seaboard to be ignored for either full ministerial or minister of state status in the new administration.

However, 100 days into the government, the county has finally received recognition thanks to a number of key appointments made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Fine Gale deputies Joe Carey and Pat Breen have been appointed Assistant-Chief Whip and chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs & Trade respectively.

“This role will ensure I have daily contact with An Taoiseach and Government ministers in relation to legislation and co-ordinating debates in the Dáil,” Deputy Carey told The Clare People after his appointment.

“My role will be most important, especially as tough decisions need to be made in the months and years ahead. It will also allow me to develop and enhance strong relationships with all Ministers and I will endeavour to use that influence and insight to the benefit of the people of County Clare.

“I will also have responsibility for monitoring Senate legislation entering Dáil Éireann. The role of the Whip is to have strong relationships with deputies and ministers and to ensure the smooth operation of Government in its highest capacity. I believe my appointment is recognition of the inter-personal skills which I have developed over the years,” he added.

“Restoring Ireland’s international reputation is a top priority for our Government,” said Deputy Breen after his promotion to a key Oireachtas committee that carries with it an extra salary of € 10,000 per annum.

“The Taoiseach has entrusted me with the responsibility for driving and formulating Fine Gael policy in this area. I will be making it clear that the message that Ireland is open for business must be communicated all over the world and that our Corporation Tax rate is not up for discussion,” added Deputy Breen who cut his teeth in foreign affairs as a member of the Council of Europe.

Labour’s Michael McNamara has also been also appointed to a position on the Dáil Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as to a place on the Committee on Communications, Natural Resources and Agriculture.

In addition to his assistant-chief whip duties, Deputy Carey has been appointed to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, while Fianna Fáíl’s transport spokesperson, Deputy Timmy Dooley has been appointed to the Committee on Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht.