Category: News

A WEST Clare school principal is expected to become the second president of the INTO from the county in six years.

At the primary teacher’s union 145th Congress in Cork this week, Mullagh’s Sean McMahon is likely to be elected vice president of the national union.

Traditionally this means he will become president at the union’s 2014 congress next Easter.

In March 2008, Corofin man Declan Kelleher was appointed president of the INTO after a long career in teaching and working for the union.

Like Mr Kelleher, Mr McMahon has been a strong union man championing the cause of small rural schools, class sizes and teaching principals.

The North Clare man has been involved in the INTO since the 1980s and had represented District 11; Clare, Tipperary and Waterford, on the CEC since 2007.

He will lead a strong delegation of 20 from the Clare branch of the INTO to a congress that will put forward such motions as calling for larger taxes for high earners and for free primary school education to live up to its constitutional claim.

The Clare West branch will also call for the INTO to fully investigate the proposed changes in school patronage with a view to ensuring that teachers’ rights are fully protected during these changes.

This proposal will be put forward by secretary of the branch Brid Hanrahan INTO and Liam Woulfe Principal of Labasheeda National School.

THE legendary West Clare athlete Willie Keane was hailed as a hero of Clare and all Ireland on Easter Sunday night as the Stella Maris Hotel in Kilkee played host to a special tribute night in his honour.

Over 200 people turned out at the celebratory function staged in the Kilkee man’s honour that doubled up as a fundraising night for the West Clare Cancer Centre in the town.

On the night friends, former teammates and rivals from around the county and around the country joined together to pay homage to the Kilkee colossus Keane whose remarkable athletics career saw him win 56 AllIreland titles between 1969 and ’79.

“Willie Keane was the king,” said former international cross-country colleague Mick Priest from Meath, “and as far as I am concerned he still is the king who did so much for NACA athletics in his career,” he added.

Sixty-three-year-old Keane was interviewed on the night by RTÉ GAA correspondent Marty Morrissey and in a wideranging discussion that was interspersed with contributions from the floor he recalled a stellar career in which he landed national titles in every distance on the track from 1500 to 10,000 metres as well as being cross-country runners of his or any generation.

“Every organisation needs a hero,” said former rival Colm Rennicks. “We didn’t have to look any farther when we got Willie Keane. That man is a legend. When you’re in the presence of greatness, you should recognise it. I knew I was in the presence of greatness the first time I met him. I still think it – it hasn’t changed,” he added.

World renowned physical therapist, Gerard Hartman revealed how it was the Keane who inspired to get involved in athletics – a journey that saw him become a scholarship student in America, multiple triathlon champion and physio to such athletic luminaries such as Paul Radcliffe and Sonia O’Sullivan among others as he has treated 61 Olympic medal winners and 47 World Champions.

“I used to see this man on Kilkee beach in an An Clár vest going up down, up down, up down. I didn’t who he was,” revealed Hartmann. “Willie was professional even though he didn’t know he was – it was his application that helped him win 56 national titles.

“Willie Keane was a great inspiration to us all – when I saw him on the beach in 1972 and I was inspired. I started running and became national triathlon champion seven times and been to six Olympic Games as a physical therapist.

“I wonder how many people have been inspired by Willie Keane – I’m sure up the country they’re all around the country. You were an inspiration to me. It’s a phenomenal tribute when you’re acclaimed by your own people. The parish and the people around you who value what you did are here tonight to respect years and years of application, dedication and success,” he added.

Among the other contributors on the night included Willie Keane’s wife Marie, Laurance Larkin of St John’s AC, former Clare NACA chairman Tommy McCarthy, Ger Keane on behalf of the Keane family, Paddy McDonnell who co-hosted the event with Marty Morrissey, chief Kevin Shaloo and Willie McGrath of the West Clare Cancer Centre.

THE Clare Crusaders Clinic is calling budding barbeque party hosts to dust off the barbeque and hold an event to remember in aid of the children’s charity.

The event to be held on Sunday, May 26, and supported by Munster Rugby and Clare FM is encouraging families, friends and local communities to come together across Clare and fire up their barbeques to help raise funds for the Clare Crusaders Clinic.

As part of the event, those wishing to host a barbeque for the clinic will be asked to pay a registration fee of € 10 to the charity. In return, hosts will be entered into a draw for a number of prizes with an overall winner’s prize of Munster Rugby player appearances at their barbeque.

Each barbecue organiser will be supplied with a promotional pack containing clinic tee shirts, posters, flyers and a donation bucket together with a discount coupon, which can be used to purchase a specially prepared barbeque pack at cost price from their local Centra store.

Manager of the children’s clinic Ann Norton said, “Many homes around the county often enjoy having a barbeque on a summer’s afternoon. This year we are asking families and groups to organise a barbeque for Sunday, May 26, with their guests donating to the clinic. Who knows who might arrive at your door?

“The initiative forms part of our continuing season-long relationship with Munster Rugby which has seen players visit the clinic, support with our cook book and the charities match day experience, providing essential funds and greatly boosting our profile.”

The Clare Crusaders charity was formed in 2005 through the ambition of a small group of parents to overcome a lack of publicly available therapy for children with cerebral palsy and autism in County Clare.

The clinic has expanded from one therapist to four full-time and four part-time therapists expanding the range of services provided to over 200 children. Services are provided at no charge to parents and include speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, special teaching and reflexology together with regular group therapy activities. The clinic is available to children of all ages from infants to young adults, ensuring early intervention at a young age or supporting a child’s progression through school life whether in the mainstream or special school environment.

A TEENAGER who suffered years of horrific neglect hopes her “voice will finally be heard” after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) last week decided to appeal the leniency of a sentence imposed on her mother.

In February, the 38-year-old woman was given a suspended four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to eight counts of neglect.

That prompted her eldest daughter to urge the DPP to appeal the sentence handed down by the Circuit Criminal Court.

Last week the DPP signaled its intent to appeal the sentence at the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Clare-based solicitor Patrick Moylan, who was instructed by the 17 year old to write a submission to the DPP, says the girl is happy with the decision.

Mr Moylan says, “She is very pleased that the DPP have taken into account her appeal and that the submission has been successful. She felt she wasn’t heard in the Circuit Court and she hopes now that, in the Court of Criminal Appeal, her voice will finally be heard.”

Last month Mr Moylan sent a letter to the Office of the DPP requesting that the case be appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal “on the basis that the sentence handed down by Judge Carroll Moran was unduly lenient given the horrific nature of the neglect in this case”.

The appeal also highlighted a previous occasion that the woman had been before the courts.

The woman was initially sentenced to six months in prison but on appeal the presiding Circuit Court Judge gave the woman the benefit of the probation act.

Mr Moylan wrote that the “circumstances of this previous matter should have been brought to Judge Moran’s attention” prior to sentence.

The offences, which relate to seven children, took place on dates unknown between March 2001 and July 2010 in two areas of Clare. The eldest child is now 17 while the youngest child is now 4. The woman cannot be named for legal reasons. Her former partner has also pleaded guilty to eight counts of child neglect.

Harrowing details of the children’s “appalling” upbringing were heard as evidence against the woman was outlined in court in February.

The children often went without food and clean clothes. The court heard how a fridge and freezer in the family home were locked with a bun- gee cord.

In her victim impact statement, the eldest child recalled how she was left to look after her prematurely born baby sister when her parents went out drinking. She stated that she and her siblings were subjected to mental and physical abuse. The girl said she was beaten if the child cried at night. She described the couple as “vermin”.

Reports from HSE and Probation Services expressed the view that alcohol was a contributory factor to the abuse and neglect.

In sentencing Judge Moran said these same reports stressed the opinion that alcohol was not alone responsible.

In light of woman having stayed off alcohol and her guilty plea, Judge Moran said it would not be right to impose an immediate jail term. It could take up to 12 months before the appeal is heard.

THE manager of the St Francis Credit Union in Ennis has warned that financial pressures are driving people into the arms of moneylenders.

Louie Fay says people are being “pushed to extremes” and forced to pay exorbitant borrowing rates.

Mr Fay was speaking last month at a seminar hosted by Citizens Information Centre and Alliance of Social Protection of Recipients.

The event at the Temple Gate hotel highlighted the impact debt is having on Clare households.

Mr Fay said, “For me the push is to push people towards moneylenders. I use the word legal but I would use it with a question mark because I don’t believe there is such a thing as a legal moneylender. For example, € 500 over six months, a person will pay € 150 interest. Whereas if they go up to the Credit Union they pay € 15 interest. And that’s what happening. MABS will verify this. People are being pushed out to extremes.”

He also critcised the lending practices of some banks. Mr Fay said, “I had somebody come in to me lately. This lady had a job and wasn’t earning big money. She was saving € 500 a month. When I looked at her pay packet, I asked her how she could save € 500 a month. She said, “What I do is, I save first and then I live.” I thought that’s pretty serious. She had been saving € 500 for 60 months. That works out at € 30,000 saved over five-year period. She needed to get some work done on her house that was going to cost € 55,000. She went to the bank and said I need to borrow € 25,000 on top of my € 30,000. They took the application. She nev- er thought about this idea that she would be refused. It never crossed her mind. When she went back to pick up the money, she found that the bank had approved € 5,000.” He continued, “I thought about it afterwards, the bank didn’t refuse the loan. They offered her € 5,000. So in the stats that the banks are throwing at us saying they are lending, that (situation) did not come under refusal, it came under the customer not taking the money.” Mr Fay told the seminar that tough new regulations and the consolidation of smaller credit unions would have a big impact on the sector. The meeting heard that lending at St Francis Credit Union has fallen from € 20.3m in 2008 to € 11.8m in 2012. He said, “2013 is probably going to be worse than that. The issue is demand for lending has dropped. People have lost confidence. People are not confident about their jobs, they are not secure in doing what they want to do. Mr Fay said credit unions also had to shoulder some of the burden for fueling a lending market that caused the economy to crash. He said, “We’ve got to put up our hands because we were part of the problem, as credit unions we were part of the problem. We bought into some of that bad lending. Some credit unions did, some credit unions didn’t. We need to learn from what has happened in the last five years.”

THE pressure of household and personal debt is creating major mental health problems for people, a meeting in Ennis has heard.

Denis Corbett, co-ordinator of the Clare Money and Advice Budgeting Service (MABS), said the service is observing first hand the impact debt of having on families and individuals. He said, “I have seen the stresses and strains that indebtedness and the lack of money has on a person’s mental health. We are going to have to start putting resources into this. It is a problem.”

He was speaking last month at a seminar hosted by Citizen Information Centre and Alliance of Social Protection of Recipients.

The event at the Temple Gate hotel highlighted the impact debt is having on Clare households.

Mr Corbett also said that there has to be an emphasis in education on responsible budgeting

He explained, “In MABS we are talking about people drowning in a river of debt and we are there at the very end pulling people out. But somewhere upstream there’s been a hole in the ditch and people have been falling into it. What we need from an educational aspect is to block that hole in the ditch.”

Mr Corbett told the meeting that the profile of people seeking help from MABS has changed drastically over the past 10 years.

He said, “What we saw happening in the last number of years in this country was that it was indeed a financial tsunami that hit us. The thing about being hit with tsunami is that by the time it arrived at our doorstep and hit our homes, it started way back and way out at sea.”

He added, “At the start typically the profile of the person we would see coming into us would be someone with a difficulty with a loan, a credit card or a moneylender. That was the sort of profile of that we were dealing with. That all changed and the next thing we were dealing with people with mortgage problems.”

Mr Corbett said that while new personal insolvency legislation “isn’t ideal, it is a start”.

He added, “At least we have this now. We didn’t have anything like this in Ireland before. I’m hopeful that it will start to provide solutions and make things much clearer because what we need is stability.”

Liam O’Connell, a solicitor now working with MABS, said 10 years ago it was “virtually unheard” of that a person would have their home repossessed.

He added, “In 2007 there was only 50 houses in the entire country repossessed. That went up again in 2008. It went up to 96 properties from the mainstream lenders. Since then we know it’s gotten worse. It’s deteriorated. In the last quarter of 2012 there were 238 cases issued as regards repossessions. There were 178 cases concluded and 11 orders granted. That’s part of the mortgage crisis. It is a very, very significant problem.”

DELAYS in processing social welfare payments are causing major hardship for Clare families, a meeting has heard.

The Clare Citizen’s Advice Centre has said that many people seeking making social welfare claims have to wait up to nine months before receiving payments.

Ann Marie O’Reilly, Advisor for the Citizens Information Centre, was speaking last month at a seminar hosted by Citizen Information Centre and Alliance of Social Protection of Recipients.

The event at the Temple Gate hotel highlighted the impact debt is having on Clare households.

The meeting heard that the centre raised the issue with the Government in a pre-budget submission last year.

Ms O’Reilly said, “Everyone knows the waiting list for all benefits are extensive. There is no quick fix for a benefit. No matter what benefit you go for, you’re going to be waiting. Carers allowance, disability allowance, invalidity pension, you’re talking possibly nine months plus. It’s going to be at least six to eight weeks before you even get a text or a letter stating that. We’ve people coming in after six or eight weeks asking, ‘Will you ring them?’, ‘How long more will it take?’. You just have to wait. The delays in processing benefits are causing major hardship.”

Ms O’Reilly said the majority of queries to the centre in Clare relate to social welfare payments.

She continued, “In 2007 the majority of our queries were social welfare. That was it. In 2010 we had a significant increase in queries about redundancies, constructive dismissal, minimum wage, everything. It was a complete change for us. It’s been changing over the years. The main thing I find in particular in Clare is that it is all social welfare queries at the moment. You might get one or two queries about something else but at the moment it’s social welfare, employment and debt. That seems to be a major factor. We seem to be referring a lot more people to MABS.”

The meeting, chaired by Ennis man Dermot Hayes, also heard from Professor Kathleen Lynch, University College Dublin, and Siobhan O’Donghue, Director of Migrant Rights Centre.

THERE was been a heavy visible Garda presence in a Clarecastle estate over the the Easter weekend as armed units from Limerick monitored the troublespot.

The gardaí were responding to the latest incident that involves one house in the estate, which culminated in a fire early on Good Friday morning. No-one was injured in the fire which was attended by local fire services and no real damage was reported.

The suspicious fire, which gardaí are investigating is the latest in a series of incidents that has greatly concerned local residents, incidents that have seen a house and car damaged on more than one occasion. There have also been reports of men armed with slash hooks and other weapons around the house in question on different occasions over the past four weeks.

“It is ridiculous what’s going on,” a concerned resident who called the offices of The Clare People , told us: “One or two nights cars have driven into this lovely quiet estate with the lights off and men with balaclavas got out and smashed windows and attacked a car,” she said.

Gardaí have acknowledged there is an ongoing issue in the estate and have confirmed that they are keeping a presence in the area to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate.

“The windows of this house have been smashed in a couple of times now and windscreens of cars have been done as well. There are children in the house and someone is going to be seriously hurt if this is allowed to go on,” the caller told us.

One neighbour who also didn’t want to be identified said that the house has been subject to a number of late night attacks over the past few months.

“There are children in this house and on more than one occasion we have all been woken up by screaming as a group of men arrived to the house. They are in and out in minutes, breaking windows and shouting and roaring. We’ve called the Guards and in fairness they are here in no time, but the men are gone as quick,” she said.

“The windows in this house and the door is no sooner replaced than there’s another incident, always at night. I’ve seen the weapons. We are definitely frightened this doesn’t get rightly out of hand, someone could be killed,” she added.

Over the Easter weekend there were a number of Garda cars parked in the estate at various times and an emergency response unit from Limerick also parked at the entrance to the estate.

The incidents are not thought to be related to another ongoing feud within the town of Ennis.

ONE man was airlifted to hospital while at least two other removed to hospital by ambulance following a traffic accident on the main Ennis to Kilrush Road on Holy Thursday afternoon.

Traffic on the N68 was disrupted at Lissycasey for three hours following the incident.

An elderly man had to be cut from the wreckage following the crash, which occurred at the Ennis side of the West Clare village at approximately 12.30pm.

He was then taken to the local GAA pitch from where he was airlifted to hospital.

A passenger from his car and the driver of a second vehicle were removed to hospital by road ambulance.

Fire crews from Ennis along with HSE paramedics and gardaí attended the incident.

This follows an incident last month when a mother and her two children escaped with minor injuries following a collision involving an articulated lorry and two cars near Lissycasey on Tuesday, March 19.

The collision occurred at around 8.30pm at Crown approximately five kilometers west of Lissycasey on the main N68 Ennis to Kilrush road.

The woman and her children, aged between 7 and 10, were travelling in one of the cars involved in the incident.

They were taken to the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick by ambulance as a precaution.

The occupants of the other car and the lorry driver escaped uninjured.

The road was closed for more than two hours.

Gardaí from Kilrush are investigating the accident.

ANOTHER late night aggravated burglary in Kilmihil has sent shock waves through the West Clare community, with many people now living in fear.

According to Clare County Councillor Bill Chamber (FF) “Anyone living alone is living in fear, especially vulnerable people such as the elderly and disadvantaged.”

He was speaking in the aftermath of a Holy Thursday night aggravated burglary during which a gang of three armed men broke into a house in the Knockalough area of Kilmihil.

Carrying iron bars the three entered the home of a 61-year-old man and threatened him.

They left the house on the main Ennis to Kilmihil road shortly af terwards with a sum of money.

Gardaí in Kilrush are investigating this latest aggravated burglary and are appealing for anyone with any information to come forward.

Two elderly brothers from Kilmihil were also the victims of an aggravated burglary before Christmas.

“The Government has to lift the moratorium on Garda recruitment. We need more gardaí and we certainly cannot do with less,” said Cllr Chambers.

“There is a lot of fear out there at the moment.”

“The whole judicial system has to be looked in respect of this type of crime,” he said adding that such crimes need to be fast tracked through the court system and the criminals put behind bars as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Gardaí in Ennistymon are appealing for information following an aggravated burglary in a rural area of Clare last week.

An elderly married couple were subjected to a frightening ordeal when a group of intruders broke into their home in the Inagh/Connolly area in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

It is thought that two or three people entered the home, which is an isolated rural area. A quantity of cash was taken.

The couple were unhurt but are said to have been left extremely traumatised by the incident. Gardaí in Ennistymon are investigating and have appealed for anyone who may have noticed any suspicious activity in the area to contact them at 065 7071020.

A Garda spokesperson said, “They were traumatised and very upset. It was obviously a very frightening experience for them.

They have been getting support from their neighbours and family. They have been extremely upset by it. Everyone in the area has been upset by it.”

Gardaí are also urging people to call and check in on any elderly neighbours living in their area.

“It is something we would encourage people to do, calling into elderly neighbours.

“It is important, especially in rural communities, that people call in and check on their neighbours.”