Author: admin

A MEMBER of Clare County Council has written to the Minister for the Environment, expressing concerns over the delayed completion of a housing estate in Shannon.

The letter was submitted to Phil Hogan by Independent Councillor Gerry Flynn in relation to the Cluain Airne housing development, which was brought to a standstill last year. At a meeting earlier this month, the Shannon Town Manager, Bernadette Kinsella said the council was not yet in a position to provide a date for completion of the 22-unit scheme.

The project got underway in June 2009 and it was initially envisaged that it would be completed within a year.

However, it was halted and those living in the immediate vicinity are demanding its resumption.

Town councillors expressed concern over the delay and took into account the residents’ frustrations.

Cllr Flynn said he was looking for answers to two questions:

“When is the start date and when is the finish date?”

Cllr Flynn told The Clare People that he has now submitted letters to both Phil Hogan and the Clare County Manager, Tom Coughlan.

“It’s like a saga at this stage,” said Cllr Flynn. He said he would like the circumstances surrounding the development to be outlined.

At the meeting, Ms Kinsella told councillors, “I share your total frustration.

“Without a doubt, it is a nuisance for the residents in the area. We have a significant level of expressions from people who are looking for a home.”

She said that the completion period from the time the work recommences until completion is 16 weeks, adding,

“But what I don’t have is a start date.” She said;

“There were delays in the retendering process. It had been our intention that we were expecting a nomination in January. The whole process is taking longer than anticipated.”

Cllr Flynn referred to the issue as a fiasco. Fine Gael Councillor Mary Brennan said that the people of Cluain Airne were “living their worst nightmare”.

‘HONEST’ Tom Steele never stood for political office, content instead to nominate Daniel O’Connell for office ahead of his famous 1828 election victory, but a man hailing from Steele’s Terrace in Ennis has launched a bid to succeed Mary McAleese as president of Ireland.

Dermot Mulqueen heralded his Áras an Uachtarán ambitions this week as he set about getting his name on the ballot paper to contest the October election to become the country’s eighth president.

“My first objective is to secure a nomination,” Mr Mulqueen said in launching his campaign to become Clare’s third president after Eamon de Valera and Dr Patrick Hillery.

“The British and Irish states have taken away my good name. The Irish city and county councillors can give it back by allowing me to contest the Irish presidential election as in independent candidate,” he added.

Mr Mulqueen’s entry into the Áras an Uachtarán race opens up the prospect of an unprecedented three candidates with Banner County creden- tials contesting the presidency.

Michael D Higgins, who was born in Newmarket-on-Fergus, is seeking the Labour Party nomination, while Pat Cox, the former Progressive Democrats Munster MP and TD whose family links are in Shannon is emerging as favourite to be the Fine Gael nominee.

To get his name on the ballot paper, Mr Mulqueen must secure the back

ing of 20 members

of the Oireachtas

or at least four city

or county councils

around the country.

As an independent,

his hopes of secur

ing the nomination to

contest what’s shap

ing up to be the larg

est presidential field

in history rests with

receiving support

from local government.

Key to his chance will be the backing of Clare County Council that sits less than 300 yards away from his home on Steele’s Terrace. Clare has a tradition of backing independents to contest the election – giving Derek Nally their imprimatur to take part in the 1990 election and also backed Dana Rosemary Scallan’s presidential bid in 1997.

THE Killone Group Water Scheme will be forced to cease production in the coming weeks due to a lack of funding, the scheme’s chairman has warned.

Murt Redington said the scheme is in a “severe financial predicament” and he has described the situation as “becoming critical”.

The Killone plant, which was built at a cost of around € 900,000 in 2007, serves an estimated 3,000 homes, farms and commercial businesses in the wider Clarecastle area.

Mr Redington’s concerns are outlined in a letter to councillors, TDs and officials at Clare County Council.

He writes, “It appears from our projections that water production will have to cease in or about mid-May unless the subsidies held and capital works grants due to us are paid to us. As we intend to hold an EGM / AGM in the near future, we will be informing members of the group scheme of these difficulties.”

In the letter, Mr Redington requests the support of local representatives as a “matter of urgency”.

He adds, “As mentioned above, our current projections are to midMay but, in the event of unforeseen circumstances, we may be forced to cease pumping due to funding insufficiency.”

The matter of funding for the scheme was raised by Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) at yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis East Electoral Area.

Ennis Town Manager and Director of Service at Clare County Council Ger Dollard, told the meeting that discussions are ongoing between representatives from the Killone Group Water Scheme and the Council’s water services section.

SHANNON Airport chiefs have turned to the business public for ideas and input into the formulation of a new masterplan for the development of the airport over the next decade.

The unprecedented decision to turn to business leaders in Clare in an effort to come up with the best possible plan to drive the airport going forward comes in the wake of the worst passenger figures recorded at Shannon in many years. The Clare People has learned that the new initiative, being spearheaded by Shannon Airport management, with the imprimatur of the DAA that governs the airport, began on April 28 last when business groups in Clare and beyond were invited to a think-tank aimed at kickstarting renewed development at Shannon.

“The new masterplan will provide a framework to ensure timely delivery of infrastructure,” documentation secured by The Clare People this week says.

“The Master Plan is required to enable DAA to provide a clear direction for the Airport to ensure it develops in a strategic way so that the potential of all aspects of the business are optimized,” a Shannon Airport spokesperson said on Monday.

“A key element in drafting such a plan is to elicit the opinions of airport stakeholders,” he added.

The move to plan for Shannon’s future has also been heralded in light of the fact that the current blueprint for the former hub of the aviation world is over a decade old and, in that time, passenger numbers have fallen sharply.

In February, confidential Dublin Airport Authority figures revealed that passenger numbers at Shannon dropped dramatically and were approaching levels not seen since the early 1990s. In January, 92,000 passengers passed through the airport, a 37.4 per cent drop on the same month in 2010.

This figure comes on top of a similarly poor performance at the airport for the full 12 months of 2010 when 1,755,900 passengers used the airport, 37.2 per cent down on the 2,794,563 passengers that used the facility in 2009.

Shannon has experienced a 52 per cent drop since its peak in 2006, when 3,639,046 passengers used the airport, and 2010 passenger numbers were similar to 1996 levels.

The figures also forecast that if the rate of decline experienced in January continued throughout 2011, then the airport will only handle 1.1 million passengers for the year, a figure not experienced in 20 years. The Clare People can reveal that strict criteria have been laid out for the formulation of the new plan. Business groups in Clare have until this Friday to make submissions to the airport authorities.

Under the timeline schedule set down by the airport authorities, the identification of Shannon’s future requirements will be formulated in June in time for the completion of a draft plan in July, while the final masterplan will be completed and published in September.

COUNTY Clare has missing out on millions of euro in annual funding allocated by the European Union (EU) because Clare County Council has not had a presence on the Southern and Eastern Regional Authority.

According to Cllr PJ Kelly (FF), more than € 440 million has been allocated to Irish projects over the last three years – but none of that money has come to County Clare.

“Last year Kerry, Cork and Waterford got a huge investment and we got none of it. We don’t seem to at the races for this funding. We need to have people who can see what is coming down the track and see what other people are getting and what we are not getting. We have got to look at this in the future,” said Cllr Kelly.

Speaking on this subject last night, the Mayor of Clare, Christy Curtin (Ind), said that Clare has not got its fair share of money down the years. Cllr Curtin also said that while successive county managers have made sure that the county has done well in terms of funding generally over the years, the employment of a person to directly interact with the Southern and Eastern Regional Authority would help the local authority to get a larger share of funding.

“The manager and his team of directors are very vigilant in terms of the money which is coming down the stream but we need someone who can tap into these organisations directly and see that we get our fair share of funding, which we haven’t got down the years,” he said.

This information came to light following a motion by North Clare Cllr Richard Nagle (FF) in which he asked what was being done to protect the Clare coastline from coastal erosion and in particular a section of road between Lahinch and Liscannor.

“I have a particular concern over a road entering the village of Liscannor. We have a situation now where there are more then 700,000 people visiting the Cliffs of Moher every year on this road and there is a large section of this road which is in danger of disappearing,” he said.

In response to this motion Director of Service for Clare County Council, Nora Kaye, said that a national directive on coastal erosion is expected to be issue in the coming weeks.

CLARE County Council is not yet in a position to provide a date for completion of a contentious housing development in Shannon. That was the message delivered by the town manager at a meeting last week, where councillors expressed concern that the 22-unit development at Cluain Airne is at a standstill, much to the anger of local residents.

Cllr Gerry Flynn (Ind) placed a motion on the issue, in which he sought an update on the project. In a written response from the council, he was told that, following liquidation of the initial contracting com- pany, the process to secure a completion contractor has taken longer than expected.

Cllr Flynn told the meeting: “I’m only looking for two simple questions to be answered. When is the start date and when is the finish date?

“We are talking about a small site – 22 houses. That’s the least the residents of Cluain Airne deserve,” he said. He added that anti-social behaviour was taking place on the unfinished site.

Sinn Féin councillor Cathy McCafferty also raised concerns and said that “kids as young as five and six are swinging off scaffolding. It’s ridiculous the way it’s left at the moment.”

In response to a query she tabled, she was informed that security costs have reached € 15,000, while additional costs of € 75,000 had also been incurred by the council in surveying, site security and consultants fees. These costs are recoupable from the guarantor.

Fine Gael councillor Seán McLoughlin said the houses were started in June 2009 and it was envisaged they would be completed within 12 months. “Nobody seems to know what’s happening since. I’m beginning to wonder is there going to be enough money to finish the site,” he said.

Independent councillor Patricia McCarthy said the situation “has been allowed to drag on far too long. We seem not to be able to give a time limit. We need to get answers. We need to get action; get people on site and get people into the houses.”

Fine Gael councillor Mary Brennan said that the people of Cluain Airne were “living their worst nightmare”.

The Shannon town manager, Bernadette Kinsella, told councillors: “I share your total frustration. Without a doubt, it is a nuisance for the residents in the area. We have a significant level of expressions from people who are looking for a home.”

She said that the completion period from the time the work recommences until completion is 16 weeks, adding, “but what I don’t have is a start date”.

“There were delays in the retendering process. It had been our intention that we were expecting a nomination in January. The whole process is taking longer than anticipated,” she said.

“The funding for the scheme was always through means of department contributions and a council loan which would be funded then by way of sales,” said Ms Kinsella.

She said she hopes the project will be completed as soon as possible.

THE National Roads Authority (NRA) has not returned any correspondence made to it by the Mayor of Clare over the past year.

According to the Mayor of Clare, Christy Curtin (Ind), the NRA has snubbed a series of letters and questions from the county’s first citizen in relation to damage to signs in Clare for more then 12 months.

This information came to light following a motion at last nights meeting of Clare County Council, requesting that the local authority begins an immediate programme of restoration and maintenance on the existing roads direction signs.

“There has been defacing and vandalism of signs right across this county. Signs are continuing to be defaced – I saw a lot of it during the last general election,” said Cllr Curtin.

“I have been continually on to the NRA about the vandalism of signs and they have not been back to me once over the last 12 months.”

Speaking on the motion, North Clare councillor Joe Arkins (FG) also raised the issue of a number of misspellings on new signs recently erected by the NRA.

“I have a big issue with some of the information on these signs, there seems to be a number of towns and villages showing up all over Clare which I have never heard of before,” he said.

“Can we finally agree on what we call our towns and villages. Just because some sergeant made a mistake when he was translating from the Irish in the 1840s doesn’t mean that we have to keep living with that mistake forever.

“Some of the names on signs for our villages and towns is just unbelievable at the moment. It is a real issue and an inconvenience for tourists and people in the tourist sector.”

Place name and directional signs for a number of Clare’s flagship tourist town have been erected in recent months with spellings, which are not used by the locally. Among the towns who names have been spelt incorrectly are Lahinch, Bal- lyvaughan, Kinvara and Corofin.

“We are finding Burren Connect here in the council to improve tourism but if these signs are left in place we will have Burren disconnect. If people are coming home from America or wherever they are totally confused by the spellings on these signs,” said Cllr Michael Kelly (FG).

Clare County Council has been allocated € 10,000 as part of Civil Responsibility Week which the local authority plans to use for the maintenance of signs.

THE business community in North Clare is bucking the national trend with four new businesses in Ennistymon opening their doors to the public over the last number of weeks.

This follows last Friday’s official opening of Banner Books on Parliament Street in the town, an event which comes hot on the heels of the opening of the Twinkle Toes shoe shop, cafe and arts venue The Blue Frog Cafe and the Upstairs Downstairs charity and second-hand shop.

According to Gerry Harrison, owner of Banner Books, the recession can be the perfect time to open a new business.

“There is a saying that there is no better time to start a new business than in a recession because the only way you can go is up.

“I don’t know if that is going to be true for myself or for the other new businesses in town but it is certainly encouraging to me to see that four new businesses have opened in Ennistymon in recent weeks,” said Gerry.

“I like Ennistymon very much and this is the fifth premises that I have looked at in the town. What I found was that, despite the recession, land- lords were extremely unwilling to drop their rents.

“You would assume that, given the recession and the fact that a lot of units are empty, people would be willing to drop their very high rents. It was difficult to find somewhere that was affordable.”

Banner Books will sell a large selection of second-hand books as well as a large selection of new local books and books about the Burren.

“The shop won’t be anything like a high street bookshop. Myself and Marcia, who has a lot of experience selling second-hand books in San Francisco, will not only greet the customers a little bit more warmly [than major high street booksellers] but will also have a large amount of knowledge about all the books which will be on the shelves,” continued Gerry.

“As well as that, we will have jazz playing on the sound system to help make people who want to come in and browse a little bit more comfortable.

“It is something a little bit different for Ennistymon and for County Clare. It is something a bit off-thewall and a bit non-typical.”

Gerry is a former Labour Party politician in London but moved to Clare to open a bookshop with his wife in 2006.

COUNCILLORS in Ennis have backed a proposal that would see the need for specific Traveller accommodation sites removed from the next Ennis and Environs Development Plan.

Under the planning and development act (2000), Clare County Council is legally required to make provision in its 2008-2014 development plan for the provision of Traveller accommodation in the Ennis and Environs plan area. However, with the role of the council’s Traveller Accommodation Advisory Committee (TAAC) coming in for recent strong criticism,, councillors say there is no longer a need to provide specific Traveller accommodation sites in Ennis.

TAAC Chairman, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said yesterday that he had thought “long and hard” about his proposal but had concluded that the policy had been a “disaster” for Travellers, local communities and, for financial reasons, Clare County Council. Repeating a view he expressed last week that the committee represented a “fantastic waste of time”, Cllr Meaney said there had been a “complete lack of engagement” from the Traveller community in accommoda- tion policy.

Cllr Meaney had previously told the May meeting of Ennis Town Council that Travellers’ representatives had not attended one TAAC meeting in the last 12 months.

At yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis West electoral area, Cllr Meaney said Travellers could be accommodated through the provision of social housing stock, a process he described as more “efficient” and “egalitarian”.

Cllr Meaney said that the motion would be sent in as a submission to the Ennis and Environs Development Plan. He said a decision on whether or not to include a provision for Traveller sites would ultimately be made by the County Manager and the council’s planners.

Seconding Cllr Meaney’s motion, Cllr James Breen (Ind) said the council had been to the forefront of providing Traveller accommodation in Ireland. However, he added, “We have done enough for the Traveller community and now it is time to cry stop.”

Cllr Breen said that some sections of the Traveller community did not respect the fact that they are getting accommodation “gratis”.

Cllr Tom McNamara (FF), chairman of the Ennis West electoral area com- mittee, said that there was already an adequate supply of Traveller accommodation sites in the Ennis area. He said that not all of the four sites are currently being used.

Responding to Cllr Meaney’s comments, Colette Bradley, Manager with Ennis Community Development Project (CDP), said two Travellers’ representatives attended TAAC meetings in late 2010.

Ms Bradley said both representatives had “contributed very well” to the meetings and that this had been noted by other committee members. She said she was “surprised” by Cllr Meaney’s comments.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama might not set foot in Clare during his historic whistle-stop visit to Ireland later this month, but Kilrush Town Council could be set to fly the Banner flag when the leader of the free world visits his ancestral home in Moneygall.

It’s all to do with a link between President Obama and the West Clare capital that will be debated at this Thursday’s monthly meeting of Kilrush Town Council as the lo- cal authority moves to celebrate one of its most famous sons during the presidential visit.

President Obama was a member of US Congress for Chicago before becoming president – the first congressman with Irish links since Kilrushman Thomas Cusack represented Chicago in Washington.

Fianna Fáil councillor Tom Prendeville is behind the move for Kilrush Town Council to “gain an audience with President Obama”, while also using the occasion of the presidential visit to honour “a native of Kilrush who lived the American dream and distinguished himself in business and politics”.

Thomas Cusack was born in Kilrush in 1858 and emigrated to America with his family three years later. They settled in New York, but as a five-year-old he was orphaned and moved to live with relatives in Chicago.

It was there that Cusack eventually set up business in advertising, becoming a pioneer and world leader in outdoor billboard advertising, while also immersing himself in Democratic Party politics.

From 1898 to 1901, Cusack served one term as a member of Congress before returning to full-time advertising. Now, 85 years after his death, Kilrush Town Council are finally moving to honour his achievements in time for President Obama’s visit to Ireland.

“This council should honour the fact that the last Congressman with links to Ireland was a Kilrush man,” said Cllr Prendeville. “At a time when Ireland and Moneygall prepares to welcome Barack Obama back to his roots, this council should give public recognition to the fact that Barack Obama was following in the footsteps of Thomas Cusack by his election as Congressman for Chicago, which ultimately paved the way for his subsequent election to the office of the United States of America.

“It’s right to honour him and to do it during President Obama’s visit is appropriate and it would be great if we could mark this man in the presence of President Obama,” he added.