Category: News

GARDAÍ have admitted they are seriously concerned by a recent rise in burglaries amid fears that criminal gangs from other counties are targeting Clare.

It follows a garda appeal for information following a spate of burglaries in Ennis last week. Four homes were broken into between the hours of 8.10am and and 7pm on Tuesday April 9.

Between 11.30am and 3.15pm a house in Westfields was broken into by forcing open the front door. A gold chain office for Chartered Accountants Midwest Society was stolen. A house in Toberteascain was ransacked when the front door was forced open between noon and 4pm.

Passports, bankcards and cash were stolen between 10.30am and 4pm from a house in College Park when the rear window was forced open.

Between 8.10am and and 7pm a house in College Green was entered when glass on a side door was broken. Cash and coins in a bottle along with the contents of small safe and jewelry were stolen.

Superintendent Derek Smart of Ennis Garda Station said the burglaries are under investigation and has appealed for anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the areas to contact gardaí.

Supt Smart said, “We haven’t ruled anything in or out at this stage because the investigations are very active in respect to it. But there is a strong possibility of them being connected. With a certain amount of burglaries, we have travelling criminals from all over the country that are targeting the road network. Whether or not the ones on Tuesday are connected with that, we’re not that firm yet. They could be or if it’s something more local to us. There are a still a lot of enquiries to be finished in respect of that aspect of it. We would certainly believe that we have been targeted by travelling criminals in some of the burglaries that have been committed.”

There were 364 house break-ins in Clare last year though burglaries have fallen by 31 per cent in the county over the past five years.

Supt Smart said, “I think we’re probably slightly up on where we were last year with regards to the burglaries. I would have seen an increase in it and that would be very worrying for me in that regard.” Tue16April13

MORE than 20,000 healthy Clare ash trees are currently being planted at various locations around England – in an effort to find a cure for ash dieback disease or chalara fraxinea.

Its is hoped that some of the native Clare tree could contain genetic components that might help them fight the disease or could even make them immune. If this proves successful, the Clare trees could eventually be used to restock much of the ash population in Northern Europe, which has been devastated by the ash dieback in recent years.

The Clare trees, as well as a number from Donegal, are being planted in various locations in the South East and South West of England – where the disease is already well established.

This was revealed in a draft strategy to combat the disease published jointly by the Irish and Northern Irish departments of agriculture yesterday.

The news that Clare trees could provide a possible solution to the ash-dieback crisis is cold comfort for foresters in the county. Two positive finds of the disease have already been identified in the west and east of the county and it is considered likely that more trees in the area are effected.

“We are basically waiting and holding our breath. There is noting else we can do. We are basically doing whatever the forestry services tell us at this point. We are not making any of the decisions, we are just doing what we are told,” said one Clare forester, who asked not to be identified.

“They [forestry services] are sending out letters and contacting foresters. Where the disease is found there is felling, and there is also felling at associated sites. At the moment this is mostly young trees, maybe two or three years old.

“The forestry services are now actively going around and checking sites off their on bat and they had put in place a tractability system to try and identify infected trees.”

There has been some criticism of the measure of the way in which the disease was allowed to enter Ireland. Before the disease was discovered in Ireland, no attempt was made to ban imports of ash saplings from counties where the disease was already present, because it was deemed to be against the EU fair trade rules.

However, now that the disease has reached Ireland, a ban on saplings from these locations has been implemented.

NEIGHBOURHOODS and communities around Clare are being encouraged to report any suspicious activity in thei r areas in the bid to beat the burglars.

There has been a recent spi ke in burglaries in rural and urban parts of the county and Gardaí says scheme such as Neighbourhood Watch and Community Alert play an important role in helping to deter crime.

Supt Derek Smart of Ennis Garda Station said, “Anybody that sees anthing suspicious that they feel isn’t right, pick up the phone straight away and give us a call. No matter how trivial they think it is, let us look at it. Let us now and that can all be done in confidence.”

Supt Smar t said plans to roll out a community alert text system in Clare are cur rently being reviewed. “There is an issue there with ensuring that the cor rect information goes out on that system. It’s actually being reviewed on a trial basis in parts of the country. Any system like that, we’d be eager to adopt.”

Cll r Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) is the area co-ordinator for the Turnpike Neighbourhood Watch Scheme that has been in operation for 22 years. He said the scheme has been effective in curbing crime and giving residents greater security.

He added, “I would encourage all communities, given all the recent cutbacks there has been to Garda resources, to set up neighbourhood watch schemes. It gives people in an area more security and confidence that their homes are protected.”

Ray Cummins, Chai rman of the Glassan Residents Association, said the area has been relatively unaffected by break-ins. However he said that the resident’s committee has discussed setting up a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme.

He said, “The one area, from a security and safety point of view that people are concerned about, is the inability to get proper street light- ing put in place. We are waiting for Ennis Town Council to take over the estate but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Meanwhile, three people arrested by Gardaí as part of an ongoing investigation into a series of aggravated burglaries in West Clare were released without charge last week.

The arrests of two men and one woman came following Gardaí investigations into recent aggravated burglaries targeting elderly people with incidents repor ted in Kilmihil, Moyasta, Kilmaley, and Inagh.

The suspects – all in thei r 20s were questioned by Gardaí at Ennis and Kil rush stations before being released without charge.

CLARE TD Pat Breen (FG) has been accused of helping to rig parliamentary question time for the Minister for Health James Reilly’s (FG) – in order to flood the session with positive questions.

Deputy Breen used his allocated question, during Minister Reilly’s last questions time, to question the Minister for Health about cuts to waiting lists at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

This followed a similar question from Clare Deputy, Joe Carey (FG), about the reduction in the number of patients on trolleys at Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Ennis.

Indeed, more than half of the 170 questions submitted to last month’s health session were queries about cuts to waiting lists or MRSA infection rates submitted by Fine Gael backbenchers.

These actions were described as a “cynical abuse” of the rules of the Dáil by Clare Fianna Fail TD, Tim my Dooley.

“The Government parties are engaging in a cynical abuse of the outdated parliamentary question process to prevent opposition parties from getting to the truth of the broken promises which were made prior to the election,” said Deputy Dooley

“The five government reps in Clare, three TDs and two senators, need to face up to the litany of uturns on property tax, PRSI increas- es and child benefit cuts amongst others.”

The Minister for Health hosts a parliamentary questions and answers session every five weeks. The number of questions submitted has increased greatly in recent months with 71 submitted in September, 86 in November, 112 in February and 170 last month.

In a statement, Deputy Breen claimed that he had a perfectly valid reason for submitting the question.

“The reason why I submitted a PQ [Parliamentary Question] in rela tion to waiting lists at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, was because the Small Hospital Framework will shortly be published by the Minister for Health, which may have some affect on the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Ennis and given that hospitals in the Louth area have already undergone a reconfiguration I was interested in ascertaining the impact that this reconfiguration had on the waiting lists in Louth,” he said.

HOPES that a new state of the art national school will be built in Sixmilebridge to cater for the population explosion in the catchment area over the past decade have soared this week thanks to the intervention of the Department of Education.

Nearly a year after St Fiannachta’s National School in Sixmilebridge was controversially was excluded from the Government’s five-year schools building programme, the Department of Education has performed a u-turn.

In a decision announced on Monday, the department has revealed that the new school project for Saint Finnachta’s will now be progressed through the architectural planning stage.

“It’s good progress,” said school principal Gareth Heagney in welcoming this latest development “and it means we are moving the project to the real business stage and we will be liaising with the business unit shortly to get the specific details.”

Last June on a visit to the school, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn admitted that the facility, which now boasts ten pre-fabs to cater for the ever-growing numbers of students, “wasn’t fit for purpose”.

Sixmilebridge is one of the fastest growing towns in the county with the development of 22 new estates swelling the town’s population by 51.1 per cent over the past seven years.

This population explosion has been reflected in school enrolments – there are currently 421 pupils in the school, a figure that’s set to rise to over 550 in the next three years.

The existing school was built in 1934 and was extended in 1985, while one of the ten pre-fabs in use dates from 1976. In 2005 the school applied for a capital grant to re-development the current building.

Three years later the project went to the design team phase, but was then shelved because of the gathering economic crisis.

However, the school principal has expressed hope that this week’s announcement doesn’t represent anoth- er false dawn for St Fiannachta’s.

“We are thankful and relieved that the Department of Education has finally acknowledged that our school is a school of rapid growth and with that classification it means that we’re going to move along a lot quicker than we have done,” he said.

“This news might be greeted with a little bit of skepticism, given the cutbacks in capital expenditure and the knock-backs that this project has encountered down the years, but I genuinely think that we are on the right track,” he added.

CLARE children are almost twice as likely to be admitted into a psychiatric hospital as children born in the rest of Ireland. According to the State of the Nation’s Children report, published by the Department of Children last week, a total of 20 Clare children were placed in the care of a psychiatric hospital in 2011 – the most recent year on record.

This means that Clare’s rate of committal per 1,000 children is 65.2 – the second highest in Ireland after Tipperary. Clare’s committal rate is almost twice the national average, which stood at 37.9 children per 1,000 in 2011.

The counties with the highest rate of children being admitted to psychiatric hospitals were all located in rural areas. Each of the counties with the highest rate of children placed in the care of a psychiatric hospital have suffered a major downgrade of their primary hospital in recent years with Clare, Tipperary, Roscommon, Monaghan and Leitrim having the highest ratios.

According to the report, 435 young Irish people were admitted to psychiatric hospitals in 2011. The vast majority of these young people were under the age of 18, however information concerning three people who were over the age of 18 but treated in child and adult units was also in- cluded.

Meanwhile, the report also revealed that Clare has the lowest rate of children with a registered intellectual disability in Ireland. According the State of the Nation’s Children report, just 148 Clare children had a registered intellectual disability in 2011.

The county’s rate of children with a registered intellectual disability is 4.8 per 1,000 children – almost half the national overage of 7.7 per 1,000 children.

The report does not give any indication as to why Clare should have such a low rate of intellectual disability compared to other counties. Besides being a possible indicator that Clare has a low level of children with intellectual disability, it could also be interpreted to indicate that Clare children with intellectual disabilities are less likely to be diagnosed or are less likely to be officially registered with the statutory bodies once diagnosed.

A FINAL decision on revised plans for the construction of a long-awaited Crusheen stop on the Western Rail Corridor will be made tomorrow, April 10.

A decision on the development, which includes a new 90-metre platform, a 17-bay car park, a telecom and equipment room and a bicycle shelter, is expected from planners at Clare County Council tomorrow afternoon.

A campaign to create a Crusheen stop on the Western Rail Corridor has been underway for more than a decade.

Government funding of € 1.5 mil- lion was allocated for the development when the Ennis to Galway section of the Western Rail Corridor was reopened on 2010.

Clare County Council previously granted planning permission for a station at Crusheen in June of 2011. However, a fresh application for a revised plan for the station was submitted to Clare County Council in September of last year.

The main difference between the current proposal and the one granted planning permission in 2011 is a reduction in the number of parking spaces sought – which has been reduced from 47 to 17. A platform shelter which was part of the 2011 planning permission is not mentioned in the current planning application.

PEACE has broken out between Clare County Council and home owners in the Ard na Deirge estate in Killaloe – who have agreed to work together to resolve the seven-year impasse at the unfinished estate.

More than 80 local people turned out at a protest at the site last week. A second protest, which was due to take place at the Ennis offices of Clare County Council today, April 9, has been postponed indefinitely.

Three properties in Ard na Deirge were purchased in 2006, before the contractor behind the development went into receivership.

The buildings on the estates are partially completed but services, such as water and sewerage, are not currently operational.

AIB took control of the development, through a receiver, and an investor is currently in the process of completing the purchase of the estate.

Local couple Michelle Burke and William Buck, who have been paying almost € 1,400 a month in mortgage payments for their Ard na Deirge since 2006, organised last Tuesday’s protest in the hope that the bond for the property would be used to complete water and sewage works and allow them to move into their home.

“We were very happy with the meeting with Clare County Council. We are really hoping that they can do something to resolve this situation. The bond is there to cover costs if a developer goes bust and that is what happens here,” she told The Clare People yesterday.

“We can’t be left the way we are. It was an initial meeting [with the council] and they are going to ex- amine what options are available to them. They are not working with us in any kind of formal way but it was a positive meeting.

“Our hope would be that they could draw this bond and use it to complete the sewerage, lights and roads. We would have to completed the property ourselves. It is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully. It was a positive meeting and the lines of communication are now open,” she added.

A council spokesperson yesterday confirmed that last week’s meeting had been positive.

“We had a very useful meeting last week with the three house owners involved. The current complex situation was reviewed and a number of different scenarios were discussed,” said the spokesperson.

“While no decisions have been made at this point, the council is willing to uses its good offices to progress matters to a satisfactory solution for all. Towards that end, a number of other meetings have been scheduled with other stakeholders. We will continue to work with the householders involved to aid an overall resolution.”

MONEY set aside to improve broadband infrastructure may be used to make up the shortfall in commercial rates collected by Ennis Town Council, it has been revealed.

A provision of € 205,000 has been made in the council’s accounts to develop broadband services in Ennis under the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) scheme.

However Town Manager Ger Dollard has indicated that the money may have to be used to make up shortfalls in the council’s revenue account for the 2014 budget

The council’s audited accounts for 2011 note that fina`ncial provisions, by way of revenue transfers to capital, were made to provide for: broadband (€ 205,000), Ennis environmental improvements (€ 34,800) and other balances (€ 40,000).

Mr Dollard states that the provi- sion under the heading of broadband relates to the matching contribution that is required for the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) for Ennis. He adds, “This scheme has not to date been approved by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The other balances referred to are reserved for particular projects that are at varying stages of progress.”

Mr Dollard told the council’s April meeting that the level of commercial rate collection has fallen as businesses experience difficult times.

He said councillors may have to consider using money set aside for broadband to cover any shortfall in the council’s revenue account.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) indicated his concern at the proposal, saying councilors must get an opportunity to discuss it beforehand. Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) proposed that the council consider investing in free wi-fi services for Ennis town centre.

RESIDENTS of local authority housing in Ennis who mistakenly received letters requesting payment of the property tax have been urged to raise the issue with the Office of the Revenue Commissioners directly.

The letters have caused confusion and concern among council tenants, according to Ennis councillor Frank- ie Neylon (Ind). Cllr Neylon says that as the owner of the properties, Ennis Town Council is liable to pay the tax. Cllr Neylon has urged the council to tell the Department of the Environment how many houses it is responsible for.

Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Peter Considine (FF) said he is aware of letters being sent to people who have died.

Town manager Ger Dollard said the he is aware that some council houses mistakenly received letters from the Revenue Commissioners.

He said that even though the council is the landlord liable for the tax, the person who receives the letter is responsible for bringing the mistake to the attention of Revenue.

He told the council’s April meeting that staff would assist residents. However he rejected a call from Cllr Paul O’Shea (Lab) for the council to carry out an awareness campaign.

He said the council had no role in the collection of the tax and any involvement “would only confuse the issue even more”.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) says he has received a number of calls from elderly residents concerned about the tax. Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) queried why there are differences between the values of neighbouring houses in the Turnpike area of Ennis.