Category: News

SOME well-known male personalities in Clare are getting in touch with their feminine side as they aim to awareness for Rape Crisis Midwest.

The Dainty Daisy competition was launched in Ennis on Friday. The event takes place at the Auburn Lodge Hotel on Saturday, November 24 and involves 12 men from across County Clare taking part in a beauty competition with a difference. Rivalry between the competitors continues in a light-hearted fashion, with many remaining tightlipped about their party piece and evening gown for the event.

The MC on the night will be Ciana Campbell and the judges include Clare Rose Orla McDonagh, and Tess Purcell, fashion stylist.

Verena Tarpey, Director of Fundraising with Rape Crisis Midwest, said the organisation have received a fantastic response to the event so far.

She explained, “Miss Read, Seamus Ryan, is our youngest contestant and works at Ennis Town Li- brary. We also have Miss Cast, Ken O’Shaughnessy – when she isn’t acting in her local panto, she likes to get down and dirty with a Hotpoint and Whirlpool every now and then. When she isn’t running lines, she is running around Ennis fixing washing machines.”

In addition to raising awareness for Rape Crisis Midwest, organisers hope to challenge the stereotype that Rape Crisis Centres are just for women. Rape Crisis Midwest provides free, professional counselling for male and female survivors of all forms of sexual abuse.

Ms Tarpey stated, “It can be extremely difficult for men to come forward and look for help. Men frequently feel isolated and alone as there is little talk or understanding of the sexual abuse of boys and, particularly, of the sexual assault of adult men. Rape Crisis Midwest, however, does provide a safe environment where the survivor comes first.”

Tickets are on sale and are available to purchase from the contestants, Auburn Lodge Hotel and Rowan Tree Café Bar. The Rape Crisis Cen- tre can be contacted at 1800 311511, online at www.rapecrisis.ie or on the centre’s Facebook page. The centre is based at Tracklands Business Park, Clonroadmore, Ennis.

ORGANISERS of the upcoming Ennis Trad Festival estimate that the event could generate up to € 2.5 million for the local economy.

A crowd of around 10,000 people are expected to visit Ennis during the festival, which takes places in the Clare county capital from November 8 to 12. Up to 500 musicians will perform at venues around the town for the festival, which is now 19 years in existence. There will once again be a strong international dimension to the thousands of music lovers that will descend on Ennis. An association of American veterans of the Vietnam War and a large group of Swedish music students will be among the throng soaking up the atmosphere.

According to festival chairman, John Rynne, the event will give a pre-Christmas boost to the Clare economy.

He said, “We’re in the midst of this terrible recession and there is a lot of doom and gloom about but we will have a lot of people coming in to the town spending money, spending on accommodation, taxi, pubs, food. There is a lot of money. We reckon that anything up to € 2.5 to € 3 millions is spent in the town and its environs. You will have people coming for the music but also going off to visit other parts of the county.”

Mr Rynne said the festival also offers a unique opportunity to market Ennis to overseas tourists.

He explained, “If you have 10 American tourists going back home telling their friends about the great music they heard in Ennis, that will build up year after year. It all adds up.

“We are spending millions on these advertising campaigns to market the country but at the end of the day the product sells much better than advertising,” he added.

Mr Rynne said the festival received a “fairly slight” response to an appeal for support from local businesses. He said that while it is a tough time for traders, the festival would help to generate a lot of “repeat business”.

He added, “It has a big footprint around the world internationally. It is very well recognised internationally.”

THE impact of the recession is leading to an increase in the number of victims of sexual assault seeking support in Clare, according to Rape Crisis Midwest.

The service recently reported an 11 per cent increase in requests for support in 2011.

The Ennis Rape Crisis Centre, which is open a year, helps 10 people a week, while 250 people have passed through the doors of Rape Crisis Midwest.

According to Verena Tarpey, Director of Fundraising, stresses brought about by the recession are having a major impact on victims of sexual assaults.

She explained, “The recession has had an impact on people. People lose their jobs or their marriages break down and suddenly things that have happened to them in the past come back to them.

“When people are in difficulty, you will find it has a knock-on effect for other things, such as something that has happened in the past.”

The majority of people seeking help from the service are women but Ms Tarpey says more and more men are coming forward.

She said, “It took a while for the word to get out there that the service was open to men also. I also think that men maybe have more of an issue about coming forward about what has happened to them.

“Maybe men are trying suppress it a bit more and there is definitely a stigma about men coming forward, which is why this event coming up in November is a great way for men to get involved in the centre.”

Ms Tarpey said that while there is a waiting list for services, no person is turned away from the centre.

She explained, “We have a waiting list of about four months, generally. But nobody will ever be turned away. They will be seen immediately once they ring.

“In terms of giving them long-term counselling, they may have to wait a couple of months.”

Rape Crisis Midwest are also rolling out an educational programme in Clare schools, aimed at raising awareness among young people.

Ms Tarpey said, “I think most people would assume that rape is all about [a crime taking place at] 3am down an alleyway by someone wearing a balaclava.

“They are usually the cases that make the headline.

“Rapes are more common in a domestic situation or when it’s someone you bring home or a family relative.

“We’re trying to challenge that myth with teenagers.”

A NEW offshore organic fish farm planned for the Burren coast will generate almost € 15 million in wages for the people of North Clare and South Galway each year.

That is according to figures released last week by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), who say that the jobs created by the € 40 million development will be high paying, sustainable employment with pay “well above the average industrial wage”.

The new BIM figures put the figure for annual direct wages at € 14.7 million, should the twin fish farms be developed to capacity. This would equate, roughly, to the entire Single Farm Payment (SFP) paid to all the farmers in North Clare each year.

Speaking to The Clare People yesterday, Donal Maguire, Head of aquaculture development at BIM, said that spin-off incomes for the area could also run into the millions of euro.

“This fish is a perishable project so it has to be handled and dealt with in the local community. So there is a great business argument for processing the fish in the local area. So you get a massive spin-off employment near these big fish farms,” he said.

“We estimate this as about € 14.7 million in wages for the local community.

“That is in direct and indirect employment concerning the farm but then there is the wider circulation of money when we look at the money spent in local shops, and restaurants and petrol stations.

“These are full-time, year round jobs that will pay way more than the minimum wage. They will pay more than the average industrial wage, so these are good jobs. It will also create an extra hundred million more in exports for the country which we don’t already have.”

The BIM also confirmed that all money needed to get this projects off the ground would be payable from the operating company and not the state.

“Basically, we do all the heavy lifting in creating the means for this to happen; in getting the aquaculture license and the foreshore license, but all the major spend in actually getting the project physically off the ground comes from the operator,” continued Donal.

“It’s not money for nothing. IT is a big undertaking and requires a lot of effort from different aspects of the state to achieve it. Also, we have had to do a lot of design work to ensure that a farm of this size would not have a negative environmental impact.

“We’ve looked at this really closely and we are confident that this will not cause a huge impact.”

DEVELOPERS in Clare continued to construct holidays homes in scenic areas of the county, even as the property market began to crash.

New figures released by the Central Statistic Office (CSO), reveal that the Banner County’s stock of holiday homes increased by more than 27 per cent in the five years from 2006 and 2011. While some of these developments were constructed in the second half of 2006, while prices continued to rise, the majority were constructed in 2007, 2008 and 2009 – when property prices were already in a sharp decline.

According to data obtained from the CSO, Clare had a total of 4,610 buildings classified as holiday homes in April of 2011. That is an increase of 986 on the 3,624 holiday homes recorded during the same month n 2006 – or an increase of 27.10 per cent.

With just under 60,000 holiday homes now in the country, one out of every 13 holiday homes which currently exist in Ireland are now located in Clare.

In fact, Clare is now the fifth most popular location for a holiday home, behind Donegal, Kerry, Cork and Wexford. Clare has gained on most of these counties with only the Banner county and Donegal recording a sizable increase in the number of holiday homes since 2006.

The price of purchasing a holiday home in the county has also dropped by between 40 per cent and 55 per cent since 2006.

Meanwhile, Clare has also recorded one of the highest levels of house vacancy in the country. According the the CSO figures, one in every four Clare houses, or 26.2 per cent, were vacant in April of 2011.

Of Clare’s total housing stock of 34,853, just over 4,300 houses were vacant, along with 377 vacant flats and 4,511 vacant holiday homes. Only Donegal, Leitrim and Kerry recorded a higher percentage of vacant homes than the Banner county.

AS MANY as 70 per cent of Clare householders have now paid the household charge, making the county one of the most compliant in the country when it comes to paying the controversial tax.

The county has also reached the figure quoted by local TDs as the figure that would ensure that Clare County Council could hold on to 100 per cent of its Local Government funding.

However, last month Minister or the Environment, Heritage and Local Government Phil Hogan said the loss of € 247,000 from the third quarter of the Clare budget would not be returned, despite the earlier reassurances.

Meanwhile the remaining 30 per cent identified by the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) as having yet to pay received reminder letters in the last week.

Clare County Council was charged with issuing the letters, but could not reveal how many letters were posted.

The letters being issued are based on information taken from the Property Registration Authority compiled by the LGMA.

All owners of residential property in Ireland are liable for the household charge on each residential property they own, as of January 1, 2012.

The Government has said that revenues from the Household Charge will be forwarded to the Exchequer, and will be later distributed to local authorities throughout Ireland to support the provision of local services such as public parks, libraries, open spaces and leisure amenities, planning and development, fire and emergency services, and street cleaning and lighting. Changes to Local Government Structure announced last week stated that in the future each local authority would be directly responsible for setting and collecting its own property tax. Niall Barrett, Head of Finance, Clare County Council, said, “The responsibility is on all residential property owners to pay. The amount now due, including late payment fees and interest, is € 127 per property and this amount will continue to increase on the first of each month per property until the charge is paid.” He explained that the LGMA has carried out a comparison between the data on the Property Registration Agency database and those that have registered and paid, or obtained a waiver, in relation to the Household Charge. “The comparison exercise was carried out for a very large number of households across the country with properties that did not match exactly in both databases being listed to receive a letter. “Thus, if the information provided at the time of registration for the household charge does not match exactly the information provided at the time the property was registered then a letter will be issued. “Examples of items that may give rise to such mismatches include the use of abbreviations in one case and not in the other, changes of name due to marriage, changes in spelling of town lands, and the addition of house names to addresses. “It should be noted that a large number of houses are owned jointly by married couples. “This will mean that as each person who is a joint owner is liable for the household charge there will be two letters issuing to such households. The letter will provide contact details for the resolution of any issues arising from the receipt of the letters,” he said.

GARDA stations in the county will close in the coming year, it is just a matter of where and how many.

Chief Superintendent John Kerin said the Garda Commissioner is expected to make a detailed announcement in the coming weeks that will see more rural Garda Stations locked up.

Only one station closed in Clare last year, Carrigaholt Garda Station, but more are expected to follow suit.

“As part of the plans more stations will be closed. I assure you more will close that escaped last time,” said the Clare Garda chief.

“Some will close this year and I can see more closing in the year ahead,” he added.

“It will present us with difficulties in the years ahead. It doesn’t help us when stations close. You lose the personal touch.”

It is not known what stations will close when the commissioner makes his announcement, but many rural communities fear the loss of their station and their local garda.

Among those communities is Doonbeg.

Murt McInerney, Doonbeg Development, said there is fear locally that the station will be closed.

“The garda was always a welcome presence in the village. However given the number of gardaí available closure of Garda stations seem immanent,” he said.

Chief Supt Kerin said, “I have lost 45 gardaí in the last two years through retirement,” adding that he expects to lose more in the coming years.

This will impact on the way the Gardaí carry out their day to day policing and will mean more co-operation and assistance from the public will be required.

“More and more we will be relying on people. The community has to protect its own property,” he said, encouraging people to keep property locked and secured and report any suspicious behaviour.

He encouraged people to “get a lot more nosey”.

The chief superintendent explained that if the Gardaí get information on a crime quickly it greatly enhances the chance of a quick arrest, and called for the establishment and reestablishment of more Community Alerts.”

“A lot of Community Alert schemes and Neighbourhood Watch programmes have become stale,” he said.

The chief superintendent is also taking time to consider a text alert system which is to be piloted in a number of areas in the district.

He said he has seen incidents where the text alerts have not been used properly opening up the sender to civil action.

He said he therefore wants to consider the best way to use this service so that it has maximum impact espe cially in rural areas, without leading to anyone being put in danger of legal action.

FROM 8pm this morning (Tuesday) the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick will begin providing 24/7 angiography services.

Up until now the “Centre of Excellence” for the mid-west could not provide proper diagnosis or treatment for a ST elevation MI (a specific type of heart attack) after 5pm or at weekends, forcing patients to travel to Galway for the life-saving treatment.

On average more than one very ill patient a week was forced to take this 100-kilometer journey to the University College Hospital Galway.

Following meetings with Professor Kieran Daly, national clinical lead of the ACS Programme, it was agreed that the Mid Western Regional Hos- pital Limerick could assume a 24/7 PPCI role as part of HSE West’s ACS programme on Tuesday, October 30, the HSE has confirmed.

A PPCI (Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention) can only be carried out in a hospital equipped with an emergency catheter laboratory.

It diagnoses STEMI heart attacks by using 12 lead ECG machines and treated by clot busting drugs (thrombolysis) or by the insertion of wire into the artery to open it by using a balloon to allow the blood to flow to the heart muscle again.

A STEMI is a heart attack caused by a blockage in the arteries.

The ACS (Acute Coronary Syndrome) is a national clinical programme aimed at improving cardiac care throughout the country by providing patients with prompt access to higher level investigations and treatment such as cardiac catherisation (angiography), advanced radiology and critical care.

“International evidence has shown that PPCI is the most effective treatment for major heart attacks and most countries in the developed world have moved to this model of treatment. It is for this reason that we are striving to expand this service to the people of the mid-west,” said a spokesperson for the HSE.

He added, “Cardiology services in Limerick have expanded greatly in recent years with a fifth cardiologist recently appointed. The hospital has a 24/7 coronary care unit and a cardiologist on call round the clock. The coronary care unit and day cardiology services will shortly be moving to a new state of the art critical care block.”

CONCRETE steps must be taken towards the separation of Shannon Airport and the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), before Christmas, or the airport could face another 12 months in the doldrums.

That is the opinion of Helen Downes, the chief executive officer of the Shannon Chamber of Commerce, who believes that Shannon can be re-born in 2013 – if progress is made quickly.

“This is the critical first step in the reestablishment of Shannon Airport as the economic driver in the region and there is no reason why this shouldn’t happen,” she said.

“We don’t feel that anything should impede or slow down the separation of Shannon from the Dublin Airport Authority. The separation can only be of benefit to this region.

“The whole issue around Shannon Airport and the Shannon Free Zone is complex. We appreciate that the level of complexity involved does slow down the process but we feel that once the airport it split [from the DAA], it will revive the whole region.

“We realise that things take time but we are anxious that something takes place before the end of the year. If one interim board could be put in place before the end of the year to oversee the split.”

According to the Shannon Chamber of Commerce, new legislation which will allow the IDA to operate in the Shannon Free Zone could provide a massive boost for the whole region.

“We have been promised legislation to permit IDA and Enterprise Ireland to operate in the Shannon Free Zone. This legislation is sup- posed to be published before the end of the year,” continued Helen.

“We feel that 2013 could be a very big year for Shannon Airport. The chamber really feels that there are opportunities for Shannon as a standalone entity – and that includes passenger growth and route development as well as things like the international freight hub. These are the opportunities that must be grasped now.

“The ongoing uncertainty with the decline in traffic will have a very negative effect not just on the airport and the employees here, but on the whole region. This is about industry as well as tourism and a newlyformed Shannon Airport has the capacity to turn that around.

“I think we will see a new appetite to get Shannon back on its feet and to promote the whole region once this split has been formalised.”

THE fortunes of Shannon Airport are set to dip even further this year with new figures predicting that 2012 will be the worst year for commercial traffic at the airport since before 1997.

According to figures obtained from the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), Shannon Airport is already 646 commercial flights behind where it was for this time last year. This represents a 4.35 per cent year-on-year drop when compared to the nine months from January to the end of September 2011.

Should this trend continue through October, November and the end of this year, Shannon Airport’s total number of commercial movement in 2012 will come to just 18,435.

This means that the number of commercial flights using Shannon Airport has halved in just five years. In 2007, the total number of commercial movements at the airport reached an all time high of 35,630. These numbers fell consistently until 2010, when the appeared to bottom out at 18,771 movements and rallied back to 19,275 last year.

These losses at Shannon Airport are in contrast to Dublin Airport, which has shown steady growth in 2012, and Cork where commercial movement have been largely flat or showing a slight year-on-year drop.

The long-awaited separation of Shannon Airport from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) could move a step closer when Taoiseach Enda Kenny (FG) will be briefed jointly by the chairpeople of the two taskforces set up in June to plot a new direction for Shannon.

John Fitzgerald and Rose Hynes will present to the sub-committee on economic infrastructure on Thursday. This committee, which is chaired by the Taoiseach, also includes the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan (FG); the Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar (FG); and Richard Bruton (FG), Minister for Jobs and Innovation. 40,000 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000