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THE recession may slowly be releasing its grip from Clare’s county town as live register figures for March show that the number of people signing on in Ennis has reduced to their lowest level in more than five years.

According to figures obtained from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the number of people signing on the live register in Ennis last month was just 4,975 – the lowest level recorded in the county town for any month since January of 2009.

These figures represent a market reduction of 560 people or 10.1 per cent compared with March of 2013. The number of people currently signing on in Ennis is also 1,064 people, or 17.6 per cent, fewer than in March of 2010 – the worst March on record.

These recent improvement were also replicate in other parts of the county but the overall figures would suggest that the improvement is taking place in Ennis quicker than in the rest of Clare.

According to Ennis Chamber of Commerce, a number of new jobs could be created in Clare right now, if credit was made more easily available to businesses.

“We certainly feel that there are businesses in Ennis who could expand if the situation with credit was normalised. We need to see some sort of connect between the finance aspect and the supports available. While we believe that there is no point in giving credit to businesses that are not viable and would not work even give credit, there needs to be some sort of support there to make credit available to businesses who have a justifiable plan,” said Rita McInerney, CEO of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce.

“Sometimes there is a bit of a disconnect. You can have a business that, if given the right advice and support, would be in a position to justify receiving credit and moving the business forward. If a business is refused credit from a bank, the question that should be asked is why it was refused. The bank might think that the business is not viable but if might also be the case that the business just need more planning and help to show that they are viable.”

Overall figures for Clare show that 9,023 people signed on the live register last month – a drop of more then 800 people on the same month last year. The number signing on reduced by 200 in Ennis with Ennistymon also performing well, with a drop of 80 people last month.

AN ANIMAL rights group has offered a € 5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the deaths and dumping of 17 animals in Doonbeg.

The decomposing carcasses of approximately 10 horses, four cattle and three calves were discovered at the bottom of the spectacular Baltard Cliffs last week.

Gardaí in Kilrush, along with Clare County Council, the Department of Agriculture and the ISPCA are investigating how the animals died and who dumped their remains.

One horse was found at the top of the cliff, barely alive, and had to be put down by a local vet.

Questions also remain if the animals at the bottom of the cliff were fully dead at the time their bodies were dumped over the cliff edge.

The animal carcasses, which have been at the scenic cliffs for up to two months, have not yet been removed as there is some difficulty in getting the proper equipment to where they are located.

“The council is trying to determine if it can get a tracked machine down to where they are located, which is not easily accessible.

“The HSE has advised the council that the animals are not going to cause a public nuisance in the meantime due to their remote location,” said a council spokesperson yesterday (Monday).

The group, Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN), has now offered a reward for information.

John Carmody from ARAN said, “The new laws which the Minister introduced recently are clearly not going to deter these cowards from taking their issues out on whomever is available to them.

“As a nation we should now hang our heads in shame that we’ve reached a point where animal abuse has now gone so out of control that those who are involved in it, simply don’t have anything to fear. We’ve been saying it for years.”

THE Moneypoint power station could be transformed from Ireland biggest polluter to Ireland’s biggest source of renewable energy, according to a new report.

A BW Energy report, which was released over the weekend, claims that a switch from coal to biomass in the three Moneypoint electricity generators would effectively be a “silver bullet” for reaching Ireland’s renewable energy targets.

The transfer from coal to biomass at Moneypoint would, at a stroke, bring Ireland’s renewable energy levels above the 40 per cent target required by the EU by 2020. With Ireland’s renewable energy levels currently around 19.6 per cent of total, the estimated 25 per cent boost would bring Ireland comfortable over the target and even allow for a slower roll out of other renewable plants.

The three current power plants at Moneypoint are likely to be phased out on or before 2025. At present, there is no obvious choice for what form of power plant might replace the plants as coal or gas plants are unlikely to go ahead without the addition of carbon capture technology, which has yet to be developed.

Pro-nuclear group have begun lobbying the Irish Government about the possibility of building a new form of nuclear reactors, known as Small Modular Reactors, at the site. However, with both nuclear energy and the storage of captured carbon currently illegal in Ireland, there is no obvious energy form to replace the current system.

According to the BW Energy report, the conversion from coal to could be done for € 380 million. The proposed new new generators would burn mainly wood pellets at the West Clare site.

While biomass energy sources do release carbon, they are considered environmentally friendly and renewable as the carbon they release during burning is equivalent to the carbon captured by the trees and other plants used to make wood pellets. In this way, biomass factories do not contribute extra, previously trapped carbon, into the environment.

The majority of the wood pellets needed would likely have to be shipped from America, creating both extra cost and environmental impact, as Ireland currently does not have enough planted biomass plants to meet demand.

CLARE County Council is investigation complaints about the possible disposal of asbestos at three sites in the Shannon region. The local authority said the complaints are still being investigated but no asbestos material has been located at these sites to date. It confirmed however that “intact pipes” have been identified and need to be removed from Clonmoney Reservoir near Shannon where pipes were replaced. The complaints follow the discovery of nine sites in West Clare where the material known as “the hidden killer” was illegally deposited and not disposed of properly. This week the council said it is progressing with its independent investigation into why the material was illegally deposited in the west. The issue came to light last June when former Kilkee Town Councillor PJ Linnane raised concerns about broken asbestos pipes found dumped at a former reservoir near his home. A specialist asbestos consultant was engaged by the council to advise the authority on the removal of the materials just last month. Since then it has removed pieces of broken asbestos pipe from the surface of four of the nine sites. A spokesperson told The Clare People last evening that the surface asbestos should be removed from all nine sites within a fortnight. When this work is completed a specialist asbestos consultant will be employed to develop and carry out soil testing on the sites to establish the extent of asbestos material, which is buried at the sites. “Phase three [of the clean up process] will involve the removal of any asbestos material at any of the sites which is buried. The timeline for phase two and three is not known in detail as yet because it is subject to estimating the amount of material in each site,” he said. The costs associated with carrying out these works are not yet known.

CLARE drill makers Mincon made a record profit of € 15 million last year, despite a general slowdown in the international mining sector. The Shannon-based company last week posted operational profits in excess of € 15 million for 2013, despite a sizable shrinkage in their overall sales.

The company, who famously played a key role in a mission to save a large group of Chilean miners trapped un derground for 69 days in 2010, saw their overall sales drop from € 63 million in 2012 to € 52 million last year. Despite the reduction in overall sales, Mincon managed to raise their overall profits by nearly 20 per cent over the last 12 months.

The company’s increased profits came against the background of a shrinking global mining market, with the price of precious metals continuing to decline in 2014. Mincon’s yearly sales were also hot in 2013 through by currency fluctuations in some of its key markets, particularly in South Africa and Australia.

Indeed, according to the company’s accounts, this currency fluctuation cost the company € 1.3 million in profits last year. The company determines that the profit increase has been brought about by increasing its share of the global rock-drilling products markets, which generates higher margins than what it can earn from the sale of third-party products.

Earlier this year, the company’s two biggest shareholders gave employees € 1.2 million from their own private funds to reward them for their hard work over the years. Company founder Paddy Purcell and Kevin Barry initiated the employee recognition plan, which excluded all members of senior management. The money was paid to Mincon’s 140 eligible employees across the group and was based on years of service with a payment of € 1,000 per staff member per year of service.

The company was founded in 1977 and listed on the Dublin and London stock exchanges late last year. Many of the company’s Shannon based employees have been there for a number of decades.

CLARE could be site of Ireland’s first ever waste-to-energy factory, as plans for a facility which would burn 300,000 tonnes of waste per annum have just been lodged with an Bord Pleanála.

The plans were lodged as a Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) with the planning authority last week by Limerick based company WTP Energy Limited.

The SID process allows companies to apply directly to an Bord Pleanála and work closely with the national planning authority if the project is deemed to be large enough and of a regional or national.

The proposed facility would use a process known as pyrolysis, which involves burning organic materials without the presence of oxygen.

The process can take place at temperature of as much as 550 degrees Celsius and is, according to a spokesperson from WTP Energy Limited, a cleaner from of waste-to-energy production than traditional incineration.

The company also claims that the factory will create more than 100 full time jobs when completed.

“The proposed facility will be using proven technology developed by TechTrade International GMBH, a German company which has advanced pyrolysis as a form of waste treatment worldwide, and will assist the State’s compliance with European Waste Directives as well as providing 100 full time employment positions directly,” said a WPT Energy spokesperson yesterday.

“The phrolysis process has been demonstrated to be considerably more efficient at converting waste to energy energy when compared to mass burn- ing incineration and achieves a more complete conversion to energy and also has lower associated emissions rates,” he added.

While the site has been listed as a County Clare site with the planning authority, the company confirmed yesterday that they don’t have an exact location in mind at this point and that possible locations in other counties will also be examined.

Should the proposal be granted SID status then Clare Council will not have a formal role to play in its planning.

“The pre-application consultation before an Bord Pleanála is to assess if the development proposal and process comes within the requirements for a strategic infrastructure proposal.

“A classification of strategic infrastructure results in an Bord Pleanála dealing with any subsequent planning application,” said a council spokesperson.

“The council understands that the proposal at this point is not site specific to Clare but has been listed under Clare County Council for administrative purposes only.

“This will be clarified when formal communication is received from an Bord Pleanála.”

SINN Fein and the Labour Party added new candidates this week to contest the Ennis local elections, and both parties are understood to be in talks with potential candidates for the West Clare Municipal Area.

With just over seven weeks until polling day Sinn Fein selected Corrovorian man Cathal O’Reilly to represent the party in the Clare County Council Elections in May.

A butcher by trade his family have been traders in Ennis for generations. “I suppose my grandparents would be the best known of my family. My grandmother was May Lyons whose family owned Lyons’ Bar at the top of Parnell Street and my grandfather was John O’Reilly who owned O’Reilly’s butchers shop at the bottom of Parnell Street,” he said.

“This is the first time I have run for election and I’m really looking for- ward to it. There’s a real buzz around the party and I’ve been delighted with the pledges of support I’ve received already. I’m also grateful to my comrades for selecting me.

“I care strongly about my home place. It’s terrible to see the state of not only Clare but the whole country. I want to be part of the fight back and recovery. I want a better future for my children. I believe Sinn Féin have the best policies to achieve that.”

Mike McKee, Shannon, is the only other Sinn Fein candidate declared to date, but it is understood that a West Clare candidate is to be announced in the coming week.

Meanwhile the Labour Party in Clare has added Dermot Hayes to the party’s list of candidates for the local elections in Clare.

The trade unionist and advocate for people with disabilities will join Seamus Ryan on the Ennis ticket. Mr Ryan was selected ahead of Mr Hayes at the Labour Party conven- tion last November.

Mr Hayes said he is being added to the ticket, as Labour is “getting a very positive response on the canvas and now believe that there is a good opportunity to get two candidates elected.

Mr Hayes comes from Kells, Corofin, from a family of 13 children. He attended Ennis Community College and, as a mature student, he studied Community Development in Galway and Maynooth Universities. He has lived in Ennis since 1974 with his wife Marian and two teenage daughters.

The Labour Party in Clare is also running a candidate in the new look Shannon Municipal Area in the form of County Councillor Pascal Fitzgerald.

There are approximately 25 candidates running in the Ennis municipal Area for eight seats, to date, and an estimated 11 in the Shannon area for six seats.

SARAH Keogh knows better than most the huge impact an organ donation can have on a life.

The young West Clare woman has been through a rollercoaster of emotions and experience since she was diagnosed with renal failure at just 12 years old. Since then she has received a kidney transplant, went into rejection after a few years and is back on dialysis and the transplant list again.

“What I can describe it as, you know the way you grieve for someone. When I heard the news that it had gone into rejection it was like you had nearly lost someone,” said Sarah.

For the years the kidney worked however, the now 22-year-old knew what is was like to be free of dialysis, be able to eat and drink with freedom, have energy to keep up with her friends and have her medication cut from 30 tablets a day to just five.

For the first year after her diagnosis medical professions tried to control her condition with a strict diet and medication, however when she was just 13 years old it became apparent she would have to begin home dialysis and begin the wait for a kidney.

“When I was younger I don’t think I grasped the whole concept of it really I just took it as it was but I understand it more now that I am older – the seriousness of it,” she said.

Then when she was 15 years old she received her first kidney transplant, which changed her life. After four years however, for no apparent reason, the kidney was rejected.

“When I was first in kidney failure I still had a urine output, whereas a lot of people in kidney failure don’t have that. I had the function where my kidneys would get rid of the fluid I was taking in, but it wasn’t clearing my blood. I had a looser diet and I wasn’t on fluid restitution, where as this time around I have no urine output so I am on a fluid restriction of 800 mls to a litre a day, which I find really, really hard. I am on a lot stricter diet because I don’t have any kidney function now,” she explained.

Sarah has also opted for home dialysis, which means she has access to the treatment 24 hours a day.

The Limerick Institute of Technology student uses portable bags for her dialysis. She must drain and replace fluid four times a day, a process that takes between half and hour and 40 minutes.

“If I go away for a day, say I go to Dublin on the train, then I do have to bring those bags with me, so usually I am carrying a bag with four bags in it depending on how much I have to do for the day I am gone,” she said.

Despite some of the setbacks and challenges life has put in her way, the Tullycrine student has a positive outlook for the future.

As she approaches her 23rd birthday, she is determined to live a full independent life irrespective of the constraints imposed on her by dialy- sis, food and liquid restrictions and low energy.

“With the home [dialysis] I have so much more freedom. I am in college, I can go on holidays, I hang out with my friends. I can bring it with me. Whereas Heamo you are that bit more restricted. Three days out of your week is gone really because it drains you completely,” she said. More than 40 people in Clare are on Heamo dialysis. “I sleep a lot. I go for a nap during the day for maybe two or three hours. The diet and the fluid I find very hard as well, especially when you are with friends and they might buy a bottle of water and they are able to gulp it down, where as I have to measure everything I am taking in or at least try. And even food wise as well. I am not really allowed processed food. It is very high in salt and stuff,” explained Sarah.

The second year student has her bag packed and is ready for another call from the kidney transplant team, when another kidney match is found.

She said that people who sign donor cards give people like her a great chance at life, for which she is very grateful.

Sarah looks forward again to a day when her dialysis is gone, her medication is drastically reduced and she has the freedom of a regular diet.

“I have told my family if I do get a transplant I want them to come in with a cup the size of my head, so I can have a massive cup of tea,” she said with a good humoured laugh.

DOONBEG is hoping for All-Ireland glory this weekend as its drama group is in the All Ireland Drama Final in Claremorris, Co Mayo.

Having reached the top nine of the 34 drama groups doing the “competition circuit” nationally, the group are now in a position to bring national gold to the long village.

The Doonbeg Drama Group is no stranger to the pressures of national competition having come runners up by just one point to the All-Ireland winners in 2012.

Producer and co-founder of the group 34 years ago, Mary Egan said the 22-strong crew and actors were looking forward to taking to the stage in Mayo on Sunday night with The Cavalcaders written by Billy Roche.

The group was reformed in 1980 by Ms Egan and Murt McInerney who also served as producer for the group for numerous years. In 1990 Doonbeg Drama Group began competing in competitions around Ireland and has been one of the stronger groups on the circuit since.

Those wishing to see the play one last time before the set and cast relocate to Claremorris for the All-Ireland Final, can do so in Doonbeg Hall this Thursday, April 3, at 8.30pm.

The winner of the All Ireland will be announced on Saturday, April 12.

RAHEEN Hospital Support Group said it was satisfied that the 28 beds in the local community hospital would be upgraded to HIQA standards within 18 months.

Following years of requests and a Dáil motion on the issue, senior management from the HSE finally sat down with the group yesterday (Monday) to outline its plans to have the hospital HIQA compliant before the end of next year.

The first phase of the plan will see the upgrade of the current beds, which will entail adding an extension and converting the rooms from fivebed wards to single ensuite rooms.

William McLysaght from the Raheen Hospital Support Group said the meeting was positive and “the HSE were very positive everything was going to be done”.

“Once the architect has drawn up the plans local fundraising will take place for a community donation to the project,” he said.

The money raised by the community will fund an identifiable tangible part of the work.

“We were disappointed it [the meeting] had taken so long but hope now it will be a positive outlook for the hospital,” he said. Work is almost completed in upgrading projects to bring Regina House in Kilrush and Ennistymon Community Hospital to HIQA standards.