Category: News

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.

ACADEMICS, students and oil companies from all over the world have begun to travel to the Clare coast to get an up-close glimpse of Clare’s rare “sand volcanoes”.

A large number of these rare volcanoes, which were formed more than 300 million years ago, have been preserved along the Clare coastline but are incredible rare elsewhere in the world.

The sand volcanoes are created when large amounts of sand and mud are released in a short space of time, such as at the mouth of a large river.

When a large amount of material is deposited, water can become trapped between layers of sediment.

Eventually this water is forced upwards, bringing with it sand and mud which flows to the surface and deposits material in a cone shape, similar to a volcano.

These structures are sometimes turned to stone when large amounts of pressure are applied to them and, in very rare instances, they can become exposed again.

The Clare coast from Doolin down to Loop Head has one of the highest instances of preserved sand volcanoes in the world.

“People in the geology community have been aware of these in Clare for a while, especially people in the oil companies who come here to study them and how they might impact on oil exploration,” said Dr Eamon Doyle of the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark.

“There is only a number of these in Clare but they are quite rare worldwide. These things are still forming in different places in the world, like the Mississippi Delta, but to get them preserved like this is very rare.

“There is a stretch from Doolin right down to Loop Head where they are at a number of different locations. They formed when Clare was much further south – close to the equator – and the Clare coast would have been very far underwater.

“Since then, we have been moving slowly north and there has been an uplift as well as a certain amount of erosion. “It is this rare set of circumstances which has made and preserved these sand volcanoes in Clare.” Groups come from all over the world to view the sand volcanoes. Dr Doyle visited a number of sand volcanoes along the Clare coast with two of Ireland’s leading experts on the subject, Professor Pat Shannon and Peter Houghton from UCD, last week.

NEXT Monday will be a day to remember for a group of over 100 runners drawn from throughout the county who will take to the starting line of the Dublin City Marathon under the Clare Crusaders banner.

The athletes, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, will be taking part in the gruelling 26-miles and 385-yard test as a fundraising exercise for the Clare Crusaders Clinic which was established by the late Howard Flannery.

This year will see the biggest ever number of Crusaders to take part in the marathon after local organis- ers set a target of having over 100 people clad in the distinctive orange Crusaders garb for the Bank Holiday Monday event which will have over 10,000 participants.

“We knew from the start that we wanted to bring in a lot of new people to the event this year,” says Ronan O’Reilly who, along with Siobhán O’Reilly, assumed responsibility for organising this year’s Clare Crusaders team.

“David Ghilardi came up with the idea of 100 people to take part in the marathon and we knew we had to go for it. Our motto became ‘Think Big, Believe Big, Act Big and the Results will be Big.’

“And it worked. The whole 100 drive gathered a life of its own. More and more people started showing up for the Saturday morning training sessions. We got calls from all over. The more people that joined, the more that wanted to join,” adds McMahon.

The 100 drive means that the Clare Crusaders group will be one of the largest taking part in what will be the 32nd annual Dublin City Marathon.

“How will we feel in Dublin, seeing 100-plus people in orange on the steps of Buswells Hotel for a photograph before the races, all willing to put it on the line for a great cause?” says McMahon.

“I think overwhelmed is the right word.”

THE full recognition of the Mol an Óige Steiner National School in Ennistymon is once again unclear, despite it appearing a mere formality a year ago.

The school, which has been Clare’s fastest growing primary school in recent years, has complied with a number of conditions laid down by the Department of Education over the last four years.

However, it has emerged that officials from the department wrote to the school’s board of management seeking written assurances in relation to the “curricular objectives” of the school.

It has also emerged that a number of extra reports concerning the school have been commissioned by the department – and neither the school nor its patron body were aware of the extra reports being commissioned or been allowed to view or respond to them.

The school’s board of management wrote to the Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn (LAB), earlier this month, highlighting the extra “secret” reports and requesting that some progress be made on the issue as soon as possible.

“We now request on behalf of the children, their parents and the staff of our school, in accordance with the process agreed between the Department and our Patron Body, that the process moves to the next step whereby the parents, the Board and the Patron Body may make their submissions to you, the minister, so that you may then move towards granting our school permanent recognition,” said the statement.

A deputation from the school met with officials from the Department of Education in Dublin last week. However, it is as yet unclear if any concrete progress was made at this meeting.

Mol An Óige began with just seven students in 2005 and has grown to 124 students over the last seven years.

The school secured Lifeways Ireland as a patron a number of years ago.

THE loss of the Aer Rianta International to the Dublin Airport Authority is a further nail in the coffin of Shannon International Airport.

That is according to the former Director of ARI, Liam Skelly, who believes that the Shannon-grown business would provide essential financial support to the ailing airport.

He believes it was unfair to hand over the ARI to a profitable Dublin Airport when Shannon is struggling for survival.

“Aer Rianta International was always known as a Shannon operation,” said Mr Skelly.

The former ARI Director said that Shannon Airport had been “fiddled” out of up to € 400 million in the last decade as it did not get its fair share of ARI profits and sale of assets.

Aer Rianta was set up in Shannon at a time when the three main airports in Ireland – Shannon, Cork and Dublin – were run by independent boards.

It began with the first ever dutyfree and a mail-order department. It was through the airport’s association with Aeroflot that the fuel farms were set up during the fuel crisis of the 1970s.

The Shannon-based Aer Rianta then put in a successful bid to open the first duty-free in Russia at Moscow airport, before expanding to airports all over Russia.

In the 1980s, ARI bought the Great Southern Hotel Group and later invested £30 million in Birmingham Airport.

Mr Skelly believers that the sales of those assets – the Great Southern Hotel Group for € 265 million and the Birmingham Airport shares in 2006 for € 325 million – were not divided evenly between the airports and Shannon did not get its much needed share.

Instead, the money went to the DAA, which was managing the three airports.

“That went to build terminal two in Dublin,” he said.

“A lot of stuff that belonged to Shannon went to Dublin and there was no one on the streets protesting. It went to an airport in profit and this airport was abandoned down in the west of Ireland,” he said.

“Sometimes I get really sad that a vibrant airport has fallen into absolutely nothing at the moment,” he said.

PROSPECTIVE home owners in East Clare can shelve the idea of buy- ing a small family home and instead pick up an entire housing estate, for just € 400,000. The partially finished estate, which is located less than a five-minute walk from the centre of Killaloe, contains two completely finished show houses, 14 houses which require some work, two in shell condition and nine at the foundation stage. Taken all together, the guide price values the estate at just under € 15,000 per house. But that’s not all, the sale also includes a second 6.3 acre site where planning permission had previously been granted for 50 houses. The entire 10-acre property is being offered to the market jointly by Harry Brann and Savills of Cork. Speaking to The Clare People yesterday, Denis O’Donoghue of Savills said there has been a lot of interest in the site since it came on the market last Wednesday. “The interest levels have been really really high, both locally and from all over Ireland. We haven’t got a serious offer yet but we have a large number of people coming to take a look at the estate over the next two weeks,” he said. “The estate is located right in the village of Killaloe. It is about a twominute walk to the river and you’d would certainly be in the middle of the village after a five-minute walk. This really is a unique opportunity for someone. “The notion of owning an entire housing estate of houses in a location like Killaloe for this price really is something that has captured people’s imaginations.” All development contributions have been paid on the estate and phase one works also have access to mains services, which would facilitate a quick completion for that section of the project.

MORE Travellers live in Ennis than any other town in Munster, while the county capital ranks as third nationally among towns when it comes to being home to members of the Travelling community.

These are just two statistics in the seventh bulletin report from the 2011 National Census of Population entitled ‘Religion, Ethnicity and Irish Travellers – Ethnic and Cultural Background in Ireland’ that presents a profile of the various religions in Ireland along with more detailed results on ethnicity and Irish Travellers.

The report, which was published on Thursday last, shows that there are now 533 Travellers living in Ennis – the highest number of any town in the province and third in Ireland behind Tuam which is home to 669 Travellers and Navan which has a Traveller population of 625.

Irish Traveller households have a significantly lower home ownership rate than the general population with one in five (20.2 per cent) households owning their home compared with 69.7 per cent for the gen- eral population.

The average number of rooms in Irish Traveller households was 4.3, compared with an average of 5.5 rooms for all private households in 2011.

Almost one in three Traveller households (30.3 per cent) with a total of 886 persons who were living in mobile or temporary accommodation had no sewerage facilities in 2011.

As a whole, the county has a Traveller population of 855. A breakdown of these census returns show that there are 203 private households among the county’s Traveller population, while there are 789 permanent housing units and 23 temporary housing units in the county.

The census returns show that there are many ethnic groups living in the county, which is evidence of the way a multicultural society has developed in Clare over the past number of decades.

There are 1, 332 people in the county that the Central Statistics Office have classified as being of an African/Black background, 1, 267 of a Chinese/Asian background, 1,025 of a mixed background and 9, 574 of a non-Irish white background.

THE number of flights coming into Shannon Airport continues to drop, despite a general turnaround in the fortunes of Irish airports. According to new figures released by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), an average of just 55 commercial daily flight movements took place at Shannon Airport during the month of Septem- ber. This figure represents a reduction of 7.3 per cent on the same month in 2011. This comes in the context of a mini-revival in the airport sector in Ireland generally in recent months, with both Dublin and Cork airports showing positive figures in the late summer and early autumn. Trends nationally over the last three months have shown a dramatic turnaround, with Dublin Airport largely responsible for this. Indeed, figures for Dublin Airport in September show a 5.5 per cent increase compared to the same month in 2011. Cork Airport has also recorded some gains in recent months, while Shannon Airport has recorded ongoing reductions every month this year. While the IAA figures represent the number of flights coming through Shannon Airport and not the number of passengers, it is not good news for the Clare airport, especially with Knock Airport moving closer to passing it out as Ireland’s third biggest airport. The Mayo airport has opened a number of new routes in recent months, including regular flights to Barcelona, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris. The numbers travelling through Knock Airport grew by more than 10 per cent last year to around 700,000 people. While the exact timetable for the decoupling of Shannon Airport from the Dublin Airport Authority has not been finalised, it is now a possibility that Shannon Airport may begin its time as a standalone airport as Ireland’s fourth most used airport, and not its third.

THE Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton (Lab) was in Ennis on Friday to see the formation of a new organisation that will give a voice to those in receipt of social protection payments.

The Labour Minister even addressed the inaugural meeting of the Alliance of Social Protection Recipients at the Temple Gate Hotel.

The Alliance was formed to give “a voice and a platform to people in Clare who avail of social protection payments and services.”

However, the organisation formed in Clare has ambitions far beyond the county boundaries.

The new Alliance asked the minister to set up consultative groups in each region that will have more than 60 per cent of its membership made up of welfare recipients. Supported by Citizens Information Centres, these groups should meet quarterly and report directly in October to the Minister on their findings, the group maintans.

There are over 10,000 people on the live register in Clare and thousands more on 50 different types of welfare payments across a wide spectrum from children’s allowance to the old age pension.

Dermot Hayes, Chair of the Alliance of Social Protection Recipients, said that many of the rates have been cut in the last four years for vari- ous reasons or the rules have been changed for qualification.

“Welfare recipients have come under a harsh spot light in the last few years. One of the solutions to the big crisis proposed by various wellheeled pundits in the media is that the state pays far too much in welfare,” he said.

As an example, he referred to the former head of the University of Limerick Dr Edward Walsh whose various radio interviews suggest that welfare in Ireland is too generous. “Dr Walsh should remember that his retirement salary is generous and supported by the tax payer,” added Dermot Hayes.

“Fuel and food increases of 7 per cent are causing great hardship and should be a stark warming to Government. We will have to re-examine the tax shelters that have developed over the last 15 years that allow the very wealthy to pay only nominal tax while enjoying the fruits of government spending on roads, water and other services,” he said.