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AN ENNIS man has been charged with assault causing harm arising out of an alleged incident in the town last December. Patrick Francis Doherty (32), of Bay 1, Ballaghboy, Quin Road, Ennis, is accused of assault causing harm, at Rocky Road, Ennis, on December 23, 2010. He is further charged with criminal damage at Ashline, Kilrush Road, Ennis, on December 24, 2010. A garda that he arrested the accused that morning at Ennis Court house and charged him. The accused did not reply to charge after caution, the court heard. Defence solicitor Daragh Hassett sought an adjournment until next month. Inspector Michael Gallagher told the court that the DPP has directed that the case be dealt with in the district court. The case was adjourned until next month.

A COURT has heard allegations that a man threatened to kill his brother-in-law at Shannon Airport last week.

Martin Joyce (20), of St Patrick’s Mews, Clarecastle, is accused of threatening to kill Michael Ward, at Shannon Airport, last week.

At Ennis District Court on Friday, Detective Sergeant Kevin O’Hagan applied to remand the accused in custody. He said the alleged incident was of a serious nature and he said that gardaí believed witnesses may be interfered with if bail was granted.

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said that her client and his family went to the airport last week by bus en route to a pharmacy in Shannon.

She said he was at the airport with the purpose of getting a cab to the town centre.

The accused told the court that he was talking to another individual at the airport when Michael Ward approached and started “mouthing off”.

He said he did not go to Shannon to cause trouble. He denied making any threat to Michael Ward.

“He’s my brother-in-law,” he told the court.

He denied suggestions that he was acting in an aggressive manner at the airport.

Ms Godfrey applied for bail on behalf of her client.

“My client could not have gone down to Shannon with the expectation of meeting the Wards.

“He was looking for a taxi in the vicinity of the airport,” she said.

She said her client has a constitutional right to bail. However, Judge Joseph Mangan refu

sed bail and remanded the accused in custody for a week. He said he was making this decision based on the State’s evidence and also based on the gravity of the charge before the court.

AN Ennis man who is studying horticulture was un-successful in his attempts to grow a cannabis producing plant, a court has heard.

Rory Mythen (25), with an address at Fergus Manor, Ennis, appeared at Ennis District Court on Friday charged with the cultivation of a cannabis plant.

The court heard that when Gardai entered 18 Fergus Manor in August 2010, they discovered the plant along with a small amount (value € 20) of cannabis.

Solicitor for the accused, Daragh Hassett, told the court that his client and his girlfriend had co-operated fully with Gardaí. He said the canna- bis had been for his client’s personal use. He added that the plant discovered by Gardaí “was on its last legs” and would not have been able to produce cannabis.

He said the “ultimate irony” of the incident was that Mr Mythen’s area of expertise was horticulture.

Mr Hassett told the court that his client, who has no previous convictions, had purchased cannabis seeds over the Internet. He said his client had been accepted to study horticulture at college and that cannabis “no longer plays a part in his life”.

Judge Joseph Mangan ordered that the man and his girlfriend make a donation of € 200 to the court poor box. He dismissed the charges under the probation of offenders act.

A 36-YEAR-OLD woman lost her life when her car left the road and struck a tree near Shannon in the early hours of Saturday.

Aileen O’Brien, who lived in Raheen, Limerick, and worked at Servisair in Shannon Airport, died when her Peugeot 206 smashed into a tree at Hurler’s Cross, shortly before 5am.

The tragic accident occurred on the main N18 Limerick to Galway road, just a few miles from her place of work.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. A post mortem examination was later carried out at Limerick Regional Hospital.

Gardaí are investigating the possibility that she may have swerved to avoid an animal on the road.

Ms O’Brien is survived by her husband Wayne, parents Stephen and Margaret, her brother Denis and sister Ciara. She will be buried in her native Pallaskenry tomorrow, Wednesday. Ms O’Brien was the first person to die on the county’s roads so far this year. She had recently told her family that she and her husband were expecting their first child.

Gardaí in Shannon are investigating the accident and are appealing for witnesses to contact them on 061 361212.

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.

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.

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.

AIR quality in Shannon is clean, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is monitoring levels on a continuous basis.

The EPA has placed a mobile laboratory in the town and is actively analysing the quality of the air in the town and surrounding areas.

The initiative is set to continue for up to a year.

This is part of a comprehensive assessment of air quality in all major cities and towns in Ireland.

Initial results from the assessment show that levels of all parameters being measured are well below limit values set for the protection of human health, according to the EPA.

An assessment was started in March, on foot of requests from local town councillors. This assessment is done via a trailer, which is located at the rear of the civic offices in Shan- non. Analysers are contained in the trailer and these are read on a regular basis. Concentrations of oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and benzene and toluene are being measured.

According to Kevin Delaney of the EPA, the readings last month were good. “I have looked at the data for the past month and Shannon is pretty clean. That’s provisional data,” he said.

“We are called in to do assessments on a routine basis around the country. We were required to come down and do an air quality assessment within Shannon.

“We have a number of trailer units that we bring around the country and do assessments. We will be there (in Shannon) for six months; maybe up to a year,” he said. “We are assessing for parameters in accordance with the 2008 Cafe Directive.

“It came up at a councillors’ meeting in Clare and that is why we de- cided to do this,” Mr Delaney said.

At a meeting of Shannon Town Council last week, Independent councillor Gerry Flynn welcomed the news that the EPA was monitoring air quality in Shannon and said that businesses must play a key role in this.

“I’m looking forward to the findings. I’m glad that they are staying for 12 months. If it’s a decision I have to take on health or jobs, it’s health unfortunately. Every business has to make sure the Ts are crossed and the Is dotted. What we need in this town is clean industry,” he said.

Fine Gael councillor Seán McLoughlin said, “I would like to see 24-hour monitoring all the time.”

In addition to the trailers that are moving from one location to another, there is also a fixed network whereby a number of sites nationwide are monitored on a continuous basis. One of those sites is Ennis.

THE Office of Public Works (OPW) has been urged to abandon plans to develop river walkways near a housing estate in Ennis.

The OPW has informed Ennis Town Council of its intention to build a new footpath and handrail as part of the River Fergus (lower) certified drainage scheme.

According to the OPW, reinforced concrete floodwalls with natural limestone cladding will be constructed along the visible faces, along the left riverbank in the Fergus Park to Knox’s bridge. Works will also include the reinstatement of surrounding ground, while all existing surface water outfalls are to be fitted with a tidefex valve.

However concerns have been raised over a walkway running so close to houses. Speaking yesterday, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said locals were concerned that the walkway could introduce an element of “anti-social behaviour” to the area. He warned that it might make easily for people to “casually stroll into the back of people’s homes”.

“I suggest that we re-think that element of the works,” he added.

Cllr Meaney made the comments at yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis West Electoral Area, where Cllr Tony Mulqueen (FG) requested a statutory update on the flood relief scheme. He said residents and land owners in Fergus Park and Cappahard were anxious to know when the works will begin.

Eamon O’Dea, Senior Executive Engineer, told the meeting that it was anticipated that work would begin in September.

He said he would organise a system whereby local people could get relevant information from the OPW.

Cllr Mulqueen criticised the fact that there it had been an almost two year delay in starting the works.

“It will almost be the anniversary of the floods in 2009,” he added.

Town manager Ger Dollard said that both the Council and the OPW were anxious to see the project progress as soon as possible.

MORE than 100 people turned out in Scariff last night for a public meeting to debate plans to close the local Teagasc office in East Clare.

The office, which is ear marked for closure later this year or early 2012, is cur rently being used by more than 450 far mers in the East Clare area to process thei r document ation for a large amount of far m schemes and as a venue for t raining courses and other communit y activities.

This latest threat of closure comes after the closure of the local Teagasc office in Ennistymon last year and the relocation of all local Depar tment of Agr icult ure services from Ennis to Limer ick – leaving Clare as the only county in Munster wit hout an office of the Depar tment of Agr iculture. The Clare People underst ands that the majority of the staff currently employed at t he Teagasc office in Scariff will be relocated to Ennis with a new extension planned for the Ennis office to cope with the influx of numbers. “There is a ver y big catchment area for the Scar iff office. Besides all of the schemes that are administered from this office t here is also a number of courses administered from the office as well – some by Teagasc but others from FÁS, Clare Development Agency and the VEC so there is huge amount of activity goi ng on in these offices at the moment,” said East Clare farmer and member of Clare Count y Council, Joe Cooney (FG). “If this office is closed hundred of East Clare farmers will be forced to t ravel to Ennis, Limer ick or to Loughrea to access the services they need.

“This is going to be a big set back to far mers i n t he area – not alone the farmers but the other local people who use the office on a regular basis,” he added.

The Clare and Galway area manager for Teagasc, Brendan Heneghan, at tended t he meeting and it is hoped that he will be influenced into reconsidering t he plan to close the office.

“This is somet hing t hat has been proposed – we have a member from Teagasc coming to the meeting tonight as well as our four Oi reacht as members so we are hoping t hat t his is not set in stone,” conti nued Cl l r Cooney.

“There is suppor t to retain this service. I don’t think it adds up to close this ver y good new office and come into Ennis and have to build extensions in building in t here.”