Category: News

THE number of planning applications in Clare has fallen by almost one third in a year.

According to Clare County Council, 577 valid planning applications were submitted so far this year.

The majority of these were for new homes or housing estates. A total of 207 such applications was made.

Domestic extensions and garages are also proving popular, with 115 applications.

Agricultural developments accounted for 34 applications, with 82 applications for retention also received. Nine applications received by the planning authority were for outline planning permissions.

The remaining 130 applications were made up of changes of use, extensions to schools, wind turbines, entrances, graveyard extensions, and change of design.

The fourth National Housing Construction Index complied and issued by Link2Plans maintains there is a continued drop in housing construction activity throughout the county.

The National Housing Construction Index measures every submitted Planning Application and Planning Commencement.

The team of researchers at www. link2plans.com have examined every housing construction planning application and planning commencement from January through to August 2012, in the production of the National Housing Construction Index.

The Index gives a direct comparison with the exact same period in 2011.

The Link2Plans research demonstrates that from January to August 2012, 231 planning applications were submitted in Clare. This compares to 341 in 2011 resulting in a drop of 32 per cent, ranking it the county with the third largest drop.

There was also an 18 per cent decrease in the number of Commencement Notices issued in Clare from 186 down to 152.

This volume examines the number of planning permission applications for residential projects from January to August, showing a significant variation regionally when looking at planning applications activity per head of population.

According to Managing Director of Link2Plans, Danny O’Shea, “Once again, the National Housing Construction Index has shown huge variations throughout the country. In the first eight months of the year, across the country, a total of 9,197 individual projects applied for planning permission which is down from 10,953 or a fall of 16 per cent compared with 2011. In terms of project commencements, nationally there was a 10 per cent fall from 4215 in 2011 to 3782 in 2012.”

DESPITE no submissions from people to the public meeting before it began, the people of Kilr ush showed an interest in the policing of their town with a larger than average crowd turning out for the Public Joint Policing Committee meeting.

Kil rush Town Clerk John Cor ry described the attendance as a “dra- matic increase” on previous meetings, with more than 20 members of the public showing thei r concer n.

Many people spoke up during the 90-minute meeting, with the majority stating they were afraid to report criminal activity to Gardaí for fear of reprisal. One man even queried the statistics presented by the superintendent.

“I think they paint a rosy picture. I don’t think ever ything is reported,” he said.

“It is not nice to wal k the street at night because you feel unsafe and that is for a man. It must be worse for a woman,” he added.

One woman raised issues about people being afraid in thei r own home, and being too afraid to tell the Gardaí.

“I know someone who is very lucky to be alive. I am afraid in my home. I don’t blame ye, I blame the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I blame the minister because he closed down all the stations and ye can’t be everywhere, covering everywhere. Ye can’t be in two places at once,” she said.

Supt Gerr y Wall encouraged people to call the Gardaí and report incidents immediately, even if it has to be anonymously.

“I can give you every reassurance that any information we get we act upon,” he said.

The superintendent also explained he has more resources available to him at peak “crime times”, and was managing the manpower accordingly.

“There could be a day and the (Kilr ush) car could be out of town and a take a few minutes to get there, but we will get there as quickly as possible,” he said.

He said it was essential that people reported crime to the Gardaí even if they are slow to give thei r name.

“If people hold back we will never make progress,” he said.

AFTER more than eight years of work and hard graft by the local community, a major redevelopment of the Corofin Community Hall will begin later this month after funding of € 300,000 was confirmed yesterday.

This funding, which has been made available by the Clare Local Development Company (CLDC) under the LEADER programme, will enable the local hall committee to activate a loan of € 200,000 from the Clann Credo social financing organisation in finance construction works.

The € 500,000 development will include a total modernisation of the building as well as the construction of new dressing rooms of the dramatic society, a storage area for the local show society and new dressing rooms and toilets facing out onto the Corofin Community Field.

Work on the site should be completed just in time for the Festival of the Finn to return to Corofin next May.

“When we were putting our application together we calculated that there were more than 50 community organisations – large and small – in the Corofin area and this will benefit all of those,” said Gerry Kennedy of the Corofin Hall Committee.

“We have a group like the Corofin Dramatic Society who won an All Ireland last year and have had to be nomadic – they have had to go to Lisdoonvarna and to Ennis to put on their plays instead of here in Corofin.

“This is going to be a huge relief to all of the local community groups. We are fundraising locally now with a 500 Club draw and it is over subscribed.

“There is actually a waiting list of people who want to sign up, so the local community has really supported this project,” said Mr Kennedy.

“We are hoping to start within a month. We still have to sign a lease with the diocese for the building and we have to finalise the paperwork with Clan Credo, but we will hopefully be able to make some real progress on the building soon.

“Our target is to have the centre up and running for the Festival of the Finn on the May bank holiday weekend next year, so fingers crossed.

“We have a great committee who have put in a lot of work to this over the years,” he added. Built more than 60 years ago, the Corofin Community Hall was the centre of activity for much of the local community until it fell into serious disrepair more than 10 years ago.

As part of the same Leader funding, Clare Camogie Board received € 181,000 in funding towards their development in Doora.

THE community centre at the centre of John Paul Estate in Kilrush has remained closed since its caretaker Stephen O’Gorman retired.

Former Mayor of Kilrush Cllr Ian Lynch (FG) believes that the centre is the lifeblood of the community and must reopen as soon as possible.

He said the town council should “convene a community meeting with the residents of John Paul Estate to obtain residents’ input on how this council may assist in enhancing the existing community centre with the view to encouraging community growth and spirit” within the newly regenerated estate.

Speaking at the October monthly meeting of the council on Thursday night last, he said the local authority housing estate “looks great” and there is a change in attitude in the area.

“There is a great community spirit and people are working together,” he said. “If we could get a community project over there, I think it would enhance the community.”

Cllr Tom Clyne (Ind) said that a new caretaker must also be employed because no one was going to do it on a voluntary basis.

Kilrush town clerk John Corry said he was aware that there were a number of groups interested in opening and using the centre, and he was in discussions with many of them.

Among those hoping to make use of the facility is the community garda in his work with the community.

Mr Corry said there were some concerns about the insurance.

He said the insurance company had some concerns that there was not a caretaker in place.

The town clerk added that any group that used the facility would probably have to pay a nominal fee so as to help cover the insurance costs.

THE Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have been accused of hypocrisy as it calls on rural dwellers to register their septic tanks, while overseeing what has been described as “one of the biggest polluters in West Clare”.

Raw sewerage is pumped daily into the Shannon Estuary from the holding tanks at Skagh Point, despite a € 12.5 million Wastewater Secondary Treatment Plant being promised for the towns of Kilrush and Kilkee more than seven years ago.

It is now unlikely that the much needed scheme for the West Clare towns will come to fruition as the towns’ manager, Anne Haugh, said the county council’s hands are tied when it comes to raising the funds.

She explained that the council has been told it must raise € 2.7 million for the project, yet the Department of the Environment will not approve loans for any new projects.

Sean Ward, Senior Engineer with Clare County Council’s Water Serv- ices, said the Department of the Environment has approved a “procurement and construction budget of € 8.042 million for the two waste water plants, one third of which will have to be funded by the local authority.

“However, the council cannot begin this process until the EPA issues a wastewater discharge licence and the scheme is included in the 2014 WSIP (government) list.

“The only thing that would move the scheme from ‘scheme at planning’ status to ‘contracted to start construction’ status ahead of 2014 would be if the EPA issues a discharge licence with a very tight deadline to have the treatment plant completed,” said Mr Ward.

He is not very confident that the licence the council applied for in 2008 will be issued anytime soon.

The father of Kilrush Town Council, Cllr Tom Prendeville (FF) said he believed it was hypocritical of the department to threaten people in rural Ireland who have septic tanks, yet allow the incident at the estuary continue.

“The spin doctors from the department have been at pains to point out the need for septic tank owners to register and carry out regular inspections and servicing operations to ensure that our ground waters are not contaminated with the resultant threat to the environment and to jobs,” he said.

“Yet some might find these utterances hypocritical when one realises that the long promised wastewater treatment programme for Kilrush and Kilkee more than seven years ago is still being considered by the department.

“Some people might be discomforted to hear that raw sewage is being pumped out daily in the Shannon Estuary from the holding tanks at Skagh Point. This anti-environment act gives credence to the sceptics who charge the local authority with being polluters in West Clare,” he warned.

The former mayor of Kilrush called on the Oireachtais members to bring the matter to the Dáil and the MEPs “at EU level where the € 12.5 million funding has been secured”.

UNMANNED killer drones, such as the one which killed 16 people in Pakistan last week, could be being transported through Shannon Air- port every day, according to Shannonwatch. The anti-war group published a new book on Sunday detailing the number of US military and chartered flights which have travelled through Shannon Airport over the last 10 years. The group claim that, despite promises made in the programme for government, the Irish Government is still allowing international and Irish law to be broken in the airport. The book also highlight the lack of inspections at the airport. “There has been a lack of political will to do this for many years. But we also know that with the new programme for government, a commitment has been given to ensure that international law is respected in Irish Airports,” said John Lannon of Shannonwatch. “By putting this into the programme for government in the first place it was an admission that international law was not being respected in the first place. But it also showed a willingness to change that, but we have seen absolutely nothing from them in this regard to date. This booklet is a timely reminder to the Government about this. “There is a growing amount of disillusionment with them [the Labour Party]. Many of their current TDs would have been out of the front line of the campaign against the torture flights and the military use of Shannon. It is disappointing that they seem to have become suddenly less vocal as soon as they entered government. “I think the next two years will tell a lot about whether Labour in particular meant what they said while in opposition before the last election. “I think it will come as a surprise to a lot of people the number of national and international laws that have been broken in Shannon. At the moment we don’t know what is coming through and nobody is checking. There could be drones coming through Shannon Airport every day and we just have no way of knowing.”

THE so-called “Centre of Excellence” for the mid-west cannot provide treatment for a specific type of heart attack after 5pm or at week- ends. The HSE admitted that as many as 58 people a year, or an average of more than one a week, suffering from a heart attack as a result of blocked arteries must be sent on to Galway to be treated, as the service is not available in the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick outside of Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. When reconfiguration of hospitals in the mid-west was announced and the Accident and Emergency Department at Ennis General Hospital downgraded, Limerick was hailed as the centre of excellence for the whole region. It has now emerged that if Clare patients, who can no longer be treated in Ennis, arrive at the Regional Hospital in Limerick with a ST elevation MI (type of heart attack) after hours, they will be turned back and sent to Galway. A spokesperson for the HSE anticipated that Limerick will become a 24-hour Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) centre within the next few weeks, and the treatment will then be available around the clock. “Preparatory work has been in train for several months in accordance with national guidelines. The two centres for STEMI patients in the West of Ireland will be Galway University Hospital (which went live on October 1) and the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Limerick,” he said. “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 stateof-the-art critical care block “It is important to note that a STEMI (ST elevation myocardial infarction) is not a case of cardiac arrest. Anyone suffering a cardiac arrest will continue to be treated 24-7-365 in the Mid Western Regional Hospital,” he said.

NORTH Clare will be the venue for a gathering of some of Europe’s best known poets and musicians this weekend.

The Western Writers and Clare Three Legged Stool Poets will host poets and musicians from Iceland, Faroe Islands, Norway, The Shetland Islands, Ouessant, Corsica, Sardinia and Ireland.

They will join colleagues from Ireland to explore the ‘Sacred and Profane origins of the island of Europe’ at a conference in Carron.

The event will run from Friday, October 19, to Sunday, October 21.

Estonian poet laureate Yaan Kaplinski will perform at the opening of the conference in Kilfenora Cathedral on Friday, 8pm.

He will also appear to an open mic session hosted by the Clare Three Legged Stool poets on Saturday in Glór, Ennis, at 2pm.

A final concert of all participants will take place in the Cathedral in Ennis on Sunday at 8pm. Entrance to all events is free.

Brian Mooney of Clare Three Legged Stool Poets said part of the conference will be closed to the public.

He explained, “The closed aspect will be two close-up ‘getting to know you’ sessions of all the participants in the Michael Cusack Centre in Carron where poets and musicians will have an opportunity to give a more intimate presentation of their work. These sessions will be held on Saturday morning from 10am to 12.30am, and on Sunday over two periods from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 5pm. These sessions are not open to the public as such but are open to any poets who wish to participate.”

Mr Mooney continued, “At these two sessions, the main themes to explored will be the Brendan Voyage theme or spreading of Christianity north to the Western Isles of the Atlantic and the Norse theme and its movement south to the Mediterranean and both of these as an ongoing inspirational motif for modern day poetry.” For further information contact info@claresrock.com or enq uiries@kilfenorahostel.com.

A MAN has received a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a burglary at the Kilmaley Inn earlier this year.

Jamie Brohan (29), with an address at 142 Hermitage, Ennis, received sentences totaling 10 months at Ennis District Court on Wednesday.

Mr Brohan pleaded guilty to entering the Kilmaley Inn as a trespasser and committing an arrestable offence, the theft of a Samsung cash register valued at € 1200. The register contained € 15. The incident oc- curred on February 13.

Mr Brohan also pleaded guilty to stealing protein drinks valued at € 46 from Rochford’s Pharmacy, Kilrush Road, Ennis on February 23.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) directed summary disposal of the case. Jurisdiction was accepted in both matters.

The court heard that Mr Brohan entered the Kilmaley Inn through the rear of the premises at around 3am in the morning.

Detective Garda William Delaney told the court that the accused was subsequently found in possession of the register.

The court heard that Mr Brohan co-operated fully with gardaí and the property was recovered in full working order.

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that the accused has 58 previous convictions.

The court heard that Mr Brohan had previously received a five month suspended sentence for possession of a claw hammer and flick knife at Lasting Impressions hairdressers, Chapel Lane, Ennis between July 28 and 29, 2011.

Solicitor Daragh Hassett told the court that his client had developed an unfortunate addiction to heroin at an early age.

Mr Hassett said his client had received treatment for his addiction but had lapsed back in drug use during the time of the offences.

Mr Hassett added, “He’s still a young man.

“He’s not without hope.”

Judge Patrick Durcan described the break in at the Kilmaley Inn as an “extremely serious matter.”

He activated the five month suspended sentence imposed for the offence at Lasting Impressions.

He imposed a four-month sentence for the burglary at the Kilmaley Inn and one month for the theft at Rochfords Pharmacy.

Both sentences are to run consecutively to the previous five-month sentence.

Judge Durcan said assaults on businesses are “assaults on the fabric of the community.”

He said the message must go out that criminals are “going to face the highest level of penalties within the circumstances that we can impose.”

Recognances were fixed in the event of an appeal.

A FORMER social care worker from Kildare who fraudently claimed € 7000 from an Ennis based healthcare company has been ordered to make a contribution to charity.

Adrian Sexton (33), with an address at 13 Shrowlands, Athy, Kildare, pleaded guilty at Ennis District Court on Wednesday to 46 charges of deception.

The court heard that “financial desperation” drove the former horse trainer to steal from his employer. Mr Sexton fought back tears as details of the case were heard in court.

Detective Garda William Delaney of Ennis Garda Station said Mr Sexton worked as a social worker for TTM Healthcare, Ballymaley Busi- ness Park.

The court heard that Mr Sexton submitted fraudulent timesheets that exaggerated the amount owed to him for work he said he carried out at children’s care units in New Ross, Newbridge and Drumcondra.

The offences dated from September 19 (2011) to January 2 (2012).

The amounts claimed for ranged in size from € 8 to € 500. The court heard that Mr Sexton repaid all the money owed to the company.

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that the Director of Pubic Prosecutions (DPP) had directed summary disposal of the case on a plea of guilty only. Judge Patrick Durcan accepted jurisdiction.

Detective Delaney told the court that the fraud came to light when TTM Healthcare were informed by the care centres in question that the work had not been carried out. He said Mr Sexton cooperated fully with the garda investigation.

He has no previous convictions.

Solicitor Daragh Hassett told the court that Mr Sexton previously worked as a horse trainer near the Curragh.

He said the father-of-four was under extreme financial pressure at the time.

The court heard he volounteers with a number of organisations including Cuan Mhuire and Chernobyl Ireland. He also works with his local GAA club.

Mr Sexton has since lost his job with TTM Healthcare. Mr Hassett said;

“It is the height of stupidity, not matter what pressure he was under.”

Insp Kennedy said Mr Sexton was “clearly remorseful” for his actions. He described the offences as “completely out of character.”

The court heard that the Sexton family are moving to Australia to seek work.

Judge Patrick Durcan said these were serious offences “that happened systematically over a period of time.”

Noting the accused’s guilty plea, total co-operation and his repayment of the money, Judge Durcan ordered Mr Sexton to pay € 1000 to the court poor box by December 30.

He said the charges would be struck out if the payment is made by that date.