Category: News

HOUSEHOLDERS in Clare are being exposed to radiation doses that are the equivalent of having three chest x-rays a day, a shocking new study conducted by the Radiological Protection Institute (RPII) of Ireland and released in July revealed.

The statistic emerged from a new radon investigation in the county, which found that one in five homes tested by the RPII registered high levels of the gas, with a number of dwellings in the county containing over five times the acceptable levels of exposure to the cancer-causing substance.

And, the findings revealed that the county capital of Ennis was the county’s chief radon blackspot, which prompted the RPII to sound out new appeal on all householders to carry out radon tests on their dwellings.

“It is a serious problem,” an RPII spokesperson told The Clare People, “because 11 homes in the county have been identified as having radon gas levels above the acceptable levels in the past five months”.

Two homes in Ennis had up to five times the acceptable levels of the gas, while another six in the county capital as well as two in Clarecastle and one in Tubber levels up to three times the acceptable level.

“Tens of thousands of homeowners in Clare have yet to test for radon and among them are many hundreds that are unknowingly living with a high risk to their family’s health,” said RPII scientist Stephanie Long.

“Only a small fraction of homes in Clare have been tested for radon. Our research shows that, of those that have already tested, there is a large percentage with high radon levels and so we are urging homeowners to take the radon test.

“It is really important for people to test their home for radon as this is the only way of knowing if your family is exposed to this cancercausing gas,” she added.

Radon is the second biggest cause of lung cancer after smoking and is directly linked to up to 200 lung cancer deaths each year.

A MAJOR shake-up in the way that policing is operated in Clare was announced in December with the news that eight Garda Stations were to close around the county.

Stations in rural areas such as Quin, Inagh, Lahinch, Broadford, Mountshannon, Doonbeg, Kilmihil and Labasheeda were named for closure while it was also announced that both Ennistymon and Killaloe District Garda Headquarters will be downgraded.

Former Superintendent, Frank Guthrie, who is now involved with the Inagh Housing Association said that there was some concern in the village about the new arrangement.

“A lot of people, especially older people, favour the old-style policing and confiding in their local garda. They felt safe. The meeting is really to see how this will be dealt with,” he said following the news.

The changes will see the garda serving in Quin reassigned to Ennis, the gardaí in Inagh and Lahinch moved to Ennistymon, the Broadford garda will now be based in Ardnacrusha, the Mountshannon garda will be based in Killaloe and the Doonbeg garda will be working out of Kilrush Garda Station.

Labasheeda and Doonbeg stations were provided with a garda from Kilrush every weekday from 10am to 1pm and at the weekend from noon until 2pm. These stations will also close.

The Chairperson of the Lahinch Community Council welcomed the closure of Lahinch Garda Station, saying the station was already “virtually closed” and the town would be better served from Ennistymon.

Donogh O’Loghlin believes that the closure of Lahinch Garda Station will not have an effect on the safety of the local population.

“I am not really concerned by the closure of the station. It is a beautiful building but I think it has been more or less closed for years already,” he said.

“It should have been closed years ago really. The local people here don’t have any idea when there will be a garda present in the station or not, so what is the point of having it there? There are 30 guards stationed just two miles out the road in Ennistymon. That should be enough.”

Clare Labour Party National Executive Member Seamus Ryan called on the Government to rethink the course of action.

“While the Commissioner is operating under the same financial constraints as so many people and the Government, it is short-sighted on the part of the force to abandon these facilities in favour of patrols and cover from other stations, some of which are up to 20km away and are themselves part-time and up to 25km to a 24-hour station for communities like Mountshannon,” he said.

CLARE County Council voted unanimously to place an explicit ban on hydraulic fracturing or fracking in the Clare County Development Plan at the January meeting of the local authority.

More than 50 West Clare residents and members of the Clare Fracking Concerned group packed the public gallery of Clare County Council for the meeting to express their support for moves by the elected members of the local authority to ban fracking in Clare.

Despite a number of procedural objects from the executive of Clare County Council, the councillors voted unanimously to amend the County Development Plan to specifically ban fracking – making Clare the first county in Ireland to take such a step.

Councillors also voted unanimously to write to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbittee (LAB) asking that the process of fracking be banned in Clare.

This follows a motion put forward by West Clare councillor Gabriel Keating (FF) calling for a ban to fracking in Clare.

Speak on the proposal Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said that fracking was “raping the natural environment” for the benefit of “gamblers” in the petroleum industry.

“I say this as a land owner but in reality we don’t own the land, we hold it in trust for the next generation. It is bad enough that we have managed to bankrupt the next generation never mind poisoning the land as well,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a separate motion, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) criticised what he described as a lack of support from the executive of Clare County Council to change the County Development Plan to include a specific ban on fracking.

“We need to put into action the words that we have said today. I completely reject the directions coming from the executive of Clare County Council regarding the change of the County Development Plan – I reject this out of hand,” said .

“This actions bring Clare into the spotlight of the petroleum industry’s attempts to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Clare is the bottom of the barrel for these people. We have an opportunity to send a clear signal that we are not willing to participate and sit idly by.”

Despite the unanimous vote of Clare County Council, the County Development plan had not been altered with council official stating that to include an explicit ban on any activity in not within the scope of a development plan.

SHANNON’S ability to be transformed into a strategic freight logistics hub that would have direct connections to some of the world’s global logistics centres was highlighted following a major think-tank that took place in London in July.

The Mid West Regional Authority (MWRA) and the Irish Exporters Association (IEA) sounded out Shannon’s potential after meeting with international freight logistics experts in London this week to promote the mid-west region as a strategically located and sustainable freight logistics hub.

Through its participation in the EU co-funded Weastflows project, the MWRA chaired the meeting in London to discuss methods to promote the major North West European freight Gateways in terms of their connectivity to other European Gateways and onwards to the major global logistics hubs in the United States and Asia.

“The importance of an effective and well-managed Gateway for freight movements cannot be overstated for a peripheral European region, such as the mid-west,” explained Liam Conneally, Director of the MWRA.

“The Limerick-Shannon Gateway is at the heart of the region and is an important contributor to the economic development of the mid-west. Ireland’s exports continue to rise in 2012, despite the challenges faced by our key export markets, and our exporters rely on an efficient transport system to move their products within the North West Europe area and beyond.

“Furthermore, if Ireland is to meet its commitments in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, the region needs to learn the best methods for en- couraging modal shifts from road to more sustainable forms of freight transport,” he added. “The Weastflows project is seeking to improve and enhance freight logistics in North West Europe on a West-East axis. The project brings together experts from all sectors of the freight industry to work towards connecting and improving sustainable supply chains for the movement of freight. During the recent meeting in the UK, the MWRA promoted the LimerickShannon gateway, which as the most western gateway in the project has a key location for freight movements.”

Linda Newport, EU Projects Officer with MWRA, explained that the benefits for the mid-west region in participating in the Weastflows project include an opportunity to improve the connectivity from the region to the major North West Europe transport corridors, as well as an opportunity to test out the latest in innovative approaches to freight transportation via participation in pilot projects.

“The mid-west region is strategically located on the west coast of Ireland and is an important logistics hub in Ireland with the Shannon Estuary and Shannon International Airport. The Limerick-Shannon gateway is at the heart of the region and is an important contributor to the economic development of the region.

“Through our participation in the Weastflows project, the MWRA will work with the Irish Exporters Association and other partners to establish the Limerick-Shannon gateway as a sustainable gateway and improve links with the Seine gateway, the Liverpool-Manchester gateway and the London-Thames gateway, among others. It is anticipated that the results of the project will feed into the regional planning processes,” she added.

SHANNON Airport’s status as a stopover point for world leaders from President John F Kennedy to Mikail Gorbachev to Barack Obama has been showcased once more with release of the State Papers from 1982.

The papers released under the 30year rule show that Cuban leader Fidel Castro passed through that year, creating the possibility for what could have been one of the more unlikely summit meetings in Irish history.

All because when passing through Shannon, Castro left a gift for Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The documents show that the Cuban president stopped off at Shannon Airport in late 1982, probably en route from Moscow after attending the funeral of USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Haughey wrote a private letter to the Cuban president on 9 December, 1982 – one of the final acts he performed during his term as Taoiseach in that government – to thank him for the gift Castro had left for him.

An election in November had seen Fine Gael and Labour form a coalition and Garrett Fitzgerald took over from Haughey as Taoiseach on 14 December, just five days after the letter was written.

In the letter, Haughey thanked Castro for the “magnificent gift” of cigars and a casket which the Cuban leader left for the Taoiseach during the stopover.

“The hand-carved casket is most impressive and the cigars will be greatly enjoyed by my family and friends at Christmas,” Haughey told Castro.

Given the differences in political philosophies between the two men and Cold War tensions at the time, it is somewhat surprising how eager Haughey seemed to be to meet with the socialist leader, telling him:

Please accept my apologies that I could not be there to greet you in person but I hope that we can meet on some future occasion.

The letter ends with Haughey expressing his “warm personal regards” for the Cuban leader.

THE future viability of smaller nursing homes in Clare was called into question in January following the leaking of plans by the government to move a number of publiclyowned nursing homes into semi-private ownership.

Fears were raised that the Minister for Health, James Reilly (FG) planned to effectively force smaller nursing homes, with under 50 beds, into funding their own existence and not be grant aided each year by HSE funds.

This news prompted fears for homes such Ennistymon and Ra- heen, which have 22 and 33 beds respectively, that the local communities would be forced to take over the running of nursing home units from the HSE.

The news came fast after a number of drastic cuts in the number of HSE nursing home beds in the county in recent years.

St Joseph’s Hospital in Ennis has borne the brunt of these cutbacks, with bed numbers slashed from 270 down to the current number of 166 over the past three years.

And a Government commitment to close up to 900 community nursing home beds over the course of the year led to fears being expressed that a number of nursing homes in the county could be closed, forcing them down the privatisation route as the only feasible way to keep their doors open.

Regional Health Forum West member, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) blasted any privatisation plans, saying that “the onus is on the Government to keep as many community care beds as possible”.

“A level of service has to be maintained,” he says, “and you can’t compromise on that. It will be hard for the public to support privatisation when that means beds will be about making profit.”

Speaking at the time, Tomsie O’Sullivan of the Friends of Ennistymon Hospital, said that many local community groups would not be able to cope if the proposals put forward by the health minister lead to a greater funding burden being placed on the local community.

“There is not a hope that we would be able to cope [if the recommendations from Minister O’Reilly come into force].

“We are in ongoing talks with HSE West in relation to the future of Ennistymon Community Hospital,” he said in January.

“The cutbacks will make it very difficult but we have been in very difficult situations before. And the way that we got out of those situations was through communication from all sides.”

DIPLOMATIC efforts are being made to get the Princess Royal – better known as Princess Anne – to visit Loophead Lighthouse in 2013, as part of the Clare contribution to ‘The Gathering’ initiative that aims to bring 300,000 extra tourists into Ireland. The Clare People learned in August that Clare County Council, local West Clare representative, Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) and Deputy Pat Breen (FG) were spearheading this campaign after the Princess Royal wrote to the local authority in praise of the groundbreaking tourist initiative that has operated at Clare’s most westerly point over the past two summer seasons.

Princess Anne’s correspondence was sparked by a letter she received from Clare County Council last month, with Director of Service, Ger Dollard revealing “We wrote to Princess Anne and told her about Loophead and its success. We did this because Princess Anne is a pharologist, which is someone who takes a special interest in lighthouses and she was invited to come to Loophead,” added Mr Dollard. The Clare People has seen Princess Anne’s reply, which was written on her behalf by her private secretary, Captain Nick Wright. In the letter, Captain Wright said Princess Anne “was glad to hear that the opening of Loophead Lighthouse was an outstanding success”.

He added, “All visits overseas, including of course to the Republic of Ireland, are co-ordinated by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As such, there are no plans at present for the Princess to visit. Should matters change, we shall bear your kind invitation in mind.”

Now, the campaign to bring Princess Anne to the lighthouse is being taken up by Deputy Pat Breen, on behalf of Loophead-based councillor, Gabriel Keating.

Through his chairmanship of the Dáil Foreign Affairs committee, Deputy Breen is to approach British Ambassador to Ireland, Dominick Chilcott about beginning the diplomatic process of extending an official invitation for Princess Anne to come to Ireland.

“Enda Kenny officially opened the lighthouse to start this year’s tourist season at Loophead on May 18,” said Cllr Gabriel Keating, “and the aim is to have Princess Anne to do the same in 2013 when we have ‘The Gathering’, because she has taken an interest in what we are doing with the lighthouse,” he added.

CLARE’S President of Ireland, Dr Patrick Hillery, was caught in the eye of a diplomatic storm in 1982 over the birth of Prince William, the son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and second in line to the throne.

The State Papers from 1982 reveal that President Hillery was accused of snubbing the royal birth, but that what happened was that diplomats had wrongly advised him not to send a message of congratulations to Queen Elizabeth on the birth of Prince William.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach’s office became embroiled in a row over whether or not to send a message of congratulations. A memo sent from assistant secretary Richard Stokes to Charles Haughey outlines advice given by the Chief of Protocol, who said it would not be appropriate for a message to be sent as Prince Charles and Princess Diana were not Heads of State.

The Chief of Protocol had been asked for his advice following a press query by a journalist to the President’s office. Stokes told the Taoiseach he “would strongly disagree with the Foreign Affairs advice on this”.

“I believe that a message of congratulations should be sent by the President to the Queen on the birth of her grandson,” he continued.

President Hillery’s chief of protocol in the Aras sought advice on the issue, with his own thinking being that a message was not necessary, as Prince Charles, was not a head of state. Foreign Affairs backed the advice, as did a Mr Ó hAnnrachain in the Taoiseach’s office, who also said then Taoiseach Charles Haughey was not to be consulted.

However, Mr Stokes believed “an explanation will be no substitute for a warm and gracious message for this happy event on our neighbouring island”.

Another document from HJ Dowd, an official in the Department of the Taoiseach, shows that he was in agreement with Stokes. He also said it would be of “no harm” to tell the Foreign Affairs Department that “they were in error when they said that their files suggest that a message should not be sent”.

He points to two further precedents for sending such a message. On the 15 November 1948, President Seán T Ó Ceallaigh sent his wishes to King George VI on the birth of a son (now the Prince of Wales) to Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen). On the 16 August 1950, he sent a similar message to King George on the birth of his grand-daughter Princess Ann.

A note made out on the 22 June shows that the Government then scrambled to reach an agreement that the President should send a message of congratulations. The draft was cleared with the Chief of Protocol at 12.50pm.

THE world of prostitution and exploitation was brought home to Ennis in February when it was revealed that the county capital of Clare had a key role in a vice ring being operated at locations around the country that involves non-nationals.

The fact that there are now working brothels in Clare was exposed in a Prime Time Special – the brothel specifically identified in the RTE programme prompted Gardai to reveal that a criminal case was immi- nent against those involved.

Clare viewers of the Prime Time Special were shocked to see footage of three young women being ferried into and out of the brothel in Clare, which was located just off the Mill Road in Ennis, less than 500 yards away from the office of The Clare People .

According to a garda spokesperson, the brothel had been under investigation at the time of the Prime Time Special, was closed down shortly after the footage was recorded and criminal prosecutions are likely in regard to activity in the building. Garda sources told The Clare People that brothel start-ups like this are not uncommon in Clare but they usually close as quickly as they open. “What happens is that girls will advertise online for a few days to gauge if there is a demand for their services. They will then arrive in Clare, set themselves up in an apartment or hotel room and see clients. “Of course, before long they will come to our attention or that of a member of the public. “When this happens, they will move on straight away,” our source said.

Internet advertising and mobile phone technology means that brothels can be set up and dismantled in a matter of hours and garda sources in Clare have identified these operations in a number of Clare towns.

“We are working all the time with the National Bureau of Criminal Investigations,” a garda spokesman told us.

“This means that very often we are aware almost immediately if these persons enter Clare, but sometimes they are here for a couple of days before we are alerted and can act.”

ROMANCE was in the air in September as a Canadian dentist travelled more than 8,000 kilometres to track down the love of his life, a Clare woman he met for just two minutes in Ennistymon more than a year previous.

Dr Sandy Crocker from British Columbia put his life on hold for four weeks, as he took an extended break from work to travel Ireland in search of his red-haired Irish beauty.

The story which made international headlines told how the lovestruck dentist was in An Teach Bia in Ennistymon on July 9, 2011, when he noticed the woman who has captivated his thoughts for the last 14 months. He describes her as being in her mid- to late-20s with freckles and redish-brown hair. Sandy spoke to her briefly before she left the cafe, but realised too late that he might have met the love of his life.

“We were on our way to the Cliffs of Moher that morning and we stopped in Ennistymon to grab a bite to eat. She was eating and I didn’t want to interrupt her meal so I waited until I noticed her leaving and spoke to her. I asked her for directions to the Cliffs of Moher,” he told The Clare People yesterday.

“I was leaving Ireland a day later so, at first, I didn’t see the point in pursuing things more – but after she left I decided that I had to. So we paid our bill quickly and myself and my brother started looking for her. We searched the town for an hour or two and couldn’t find her, so we went to the Cliffs but later that evening we came back and looked for her again for another two hours. But there was no trace of her.”