Category: News

CLARE Youth Service have launched a new guide aimed at helping students make the adjustment to life in thirdlevel education. ‘Flying the Coop – a Guide to Going to College’ is now available from Clare Youth Service in Carmody Street, Ennis.The publication provides useful tips about accommodation, adjusting to college life, budgeting, health and accessing support services.

Patricia Flynn, Youth Information Officer with Clare Youth Service, said, “College life brings a lot of decisions – what kind of accommodation, how to budget, how to settle into college life. The publication, which has been produced by Roscommon Youth Information Centre, provides information on all areas. It also draws on the wisdom of current students.”

Copies are available from the Youth Information Service at Clare Youth Service in Carmody Street. Visitors can call in from Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, phone 065 6845350 or email info@clareyouthservice.org

Meanwhile, Iarnrod Eireann’s announcement of free car parking at Craughwell, Ardrahan and Gort Stations has been welcomed as a boost for students. The promotion will run to September 10.

According to Ennis councillor Brian Meaney (GP), “This represents the first steps in promoting and marketing the Western Rail Corridor. The provision of student rates will give the option to students to consider commuting rather than having to pay expensive rents in Galway and Limerick.”

ANY cuts to the already inadequate home help hours allocated to one elderly West Clare woman will have a devastating affect, not just for her but for her whole family.

Carer Margaret Scanlon is living in fear that the six and a half hours of home help allocated to her highly dependent mother-in-law will be cut again as the HSE take the knife to community services.

This one and a half hours, five days a week means that the mother of five can go to work to earn the only wage for the family since her husband was made redundant.

As well as working outside the home, she spends every available minute caring for her mother-in-law, teenage son who suffered a stroke when he was just four years of age and the rest of her family.

Just 18 months ago, when the HSE made its first cuts, her home help hours were reduced from two hours to one and a half. If they are cut again, Ms Scanlon is in no doubt that she will be forced to give up her job.

“There is no way I am putting my mother-in-law into a nursing home. Why should she have to move out of her home of the last 48-years?” she said.

In October 2010, Ms Scanlon applied for a Home Care Package, so grave was the situation. The HSE agreed that, as at least one of the two family members Ms Scanlon cares for around the clock was highly dependent, she was entitled to the package.

However, the package was “put on hold” due to lack of funding.

Ms Scanlon believes she will never receive that assistance now, and is awake nights worrying that she will lose the little assistance she has.

“It can be very stressful. We have five children and the whole of family life has been affected,” she said.

“People are not going out for the day during these home help hours. They have to go do the grocery shopping, or keep doctor or other appointments. Carers are annoyed and frustrated at what is happening,” she said.

“The old and young – the most vulnerable – are being hit by this again. Carers have to stand up for themselves. We do this because we love or care for the person, but it is not easy.”

CARERS are living in fear not only of the day when they are not around to care for their loved ones, but living in fear that the system that should be there to assist them will let them down.

One carer from just outside Ennis asked that her name not be used. She said that rightly or wrongly, she feared her case would not be looked on favourably if she “said the wrong thing”.

“You are very vulnerable and you may need these services again,” she said.

Rose (not her real name) is married with five children. Just over 13 years ago, when the children were still very young, her husband was diagnosed with a very rare disease of the brain and a stroke. Since then, he has suffered numerous side affects, further complications and a blood condition.

As a result, this still relatively young man requires round-the-clock assistance. The responsibility for his care lies solely with Rose.

The family have currently no outside assistance.

“The DPOC gave funding for a man to come two mornings a week. He was great – so helpful and respectful of my husband and his needs. Two years ago, the funding was cut and we lost the service,” said Rose.

Currently, the family have no home help, although Rose is applying for assistance.

“I have no home help hours and now I definitely won’t be getting them,” she said, resigned to a difficult winter.

“My husband cannot be left alone. For now, everywhere I go, I have to bring him with me or the children stay with him while I go out for something. They are great but they have to have their lives too,” she said.

“I am lucky. I know some people who have no one,” added the young mother, looking at the bright side of a sometimes very bleak situation.

“The cutbacks are terrible. I thought when he (Minister for Health, James Reilly) came in, he would be good as he is a doctor, but he seems as bad as the rest.”

SMALL businesses across Clare are foregoing the use of credit cards and debit cards in their shops as the cost of maintaining the service is crippling them.

Businesswoman Joanne Dillon from Kilkee accepts that by getting rid of the credit card service in her two businesses – Jo Soaps Launderette and The Flower Shop – a year ago she has lost some business, but retaining the service was costing her too much money.

“In July to August last year, I looked at my statement and I realised the credit card service cost me € 150, and I only took in € 100 in credit card payments that month,” she told The Clare People .

“It has been tough sometimes without the service, not so much for the launderette but definitely for the florist. I hate having to tell people to lodge the money into my account or send a cheque when they ring. It also means I have to follow up on bills,” said the young businesswoman.

“One Portuguese company rang me to supply flowers for them but I couldn’t because they needed to pay by card, so yes, I suppose I am losing some business.”

She said it was impossible, however, to continue with the charges associated with providing credit and debit card services as the standing charge for the machine and every transaction was costing her. “A lot of small businesses in town got rid of them for that reason. We would love to have it but we just can’t afford it,” she said.

This is not just an issue for businesses in West Clare, however. Rita McInerney of Ennis Chamber of Commerce confirmed it is an issue for a lot of small businesses in the county town too. A number of smaller businesses in Ennis have signs up saying they are no longer taking cards due to the cost.

“The charges on credit and debit cards are quite hefty. It is not just the bank charge, there is the charge from the credit card company and the cost of the technology involved and the leases,” said Ms McInerney.

She said she was hopeful that new technology that is currently being developed in Ireland would allow businesses to use their smart phones or tablets to make credit card charges, which would reduce a lot of the cost.

OVER 24,000 houses were built in Clare during the past 20 years, despite the fact that the population of the county only increased by 15,000 during the same period.

The full extent of the building boom, that was experienced in Clare during the Celtic Tiger years, has been revealed in the latest census returns for the county, which show that in the 20-year period from 1991 to 2011, there was a 76 per cent increase in the number of houses in the county from 31,606 to 55,616.

Of this figure 42,534 of the houses are occupied, which means that there is a vacancy rate of 21.2 per cent in Clare, representing over one fifth of the county’s housing stock.

The numbers of vacant houses is 5,936, while there are a further 1,236 flats unoccupied. The number of holiday homes in the county stands at 4,610.

According to a recent report Clare was the most over-zoned county in the State with enough development for a population of 273,000.”

A FULL-SCALE murder investigation began in Clare last evening (Monday) following the death of a man shot during a wedding celebration.

The victim, named locally as Robert Sheehan of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick, received numerous shots to the head and body while he stood outside the Bunratty Castle Hotel on Sunday morning last. He died last evening at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Limerick.

The 21-year-old was attending a family wedding in the County Clare hotel, and had left briefly for a cigarette break.

At approximately 3.40am, at least one gunman approached him and shot him a number of times. The culprit was then driven away in a dark saloon-type car.

Gardaí have confirmed that they are examining a “short type fire arm” found near the scene.

It is understood that detectives are following a number of lines of enquiry, including a link to a large row in Moyross in July during which two men were stabbed.

Two men in their 20s were arrested in Cork on Sunday morning in connection with the Bunratty incident.

They are currently being held in Ennis and Shannon Garda Stations under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2007.

Gardaí have appealed to anyone who may have seen a dark saloon- type car in the Bunratty area during the early hours of Sunday morning or who may have any information relating to the incident to contact them at Shannon Garda Station.

The late Mr Sheehan had come into contact with Gardaí previously.

He was sentenced to two years detention in October 2007, after he pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering the lives of Gavin and Milly Murray. He admitted acting as a look-out as two other men petrol bombed a car in which the four and six-year-old were sitting.

AS CARERS, the elderly and those with disabilities face an uncertain wait while the HSE decides how much of their services to cut, one Clare mother worries about her daughter’s future. Mary Finnegan worries about what will happen her daughter Claire when she is gone.

The Cratloe woman is Claire’s primary carer and assistant but she realises that if the cuts to the health services announced last week remain in place, her daughter has no chance of ever receiving a personal assistant and her independence.

The greater worry for this mother is how her daughter will manage if she can no longer take care of her.

“It is more about what is going to happen after me. I look at what I do now for her and I wonder who is going to do it when I am gone,” she said. Claire is even more frustrated by the lack of service, and is very stressed as she battles for some little assistance from the HSE.

She has applied to the service on numerous occasions for a personal assistance for a few hours a week but repeatedly she has been told “no”.

More than two years ago Claire, who lives with the condition spina bifida, broke her leg during a fall while she tried to shop.

“I was in a wheelchair. I could not drive and still I was turned down for an assistant. I explained to the HSE that this would happen again if I did not get some help. I told them I was struggling. My biggest issue was with shopping. I cannot reach items if I am in my wheelchair, and I cannot carry bags if I have my crutches,” she explained.

Last November Claire’s harrowing prediction came true and she fell again, and once again broke her leg.

Mary maintains that this would not have happened had she an assistant with her.

Claire has also suffered severe burns to her feet while taking a bath. She explained to The Clare People that she attempted to live independently without home help, but one evening while drawing a bath was unaware of the temperature this resulted in severe burns.

THE outstanding success of the opening of the Loophead Lighthouse to tourist traffic for the first time in its four centuries old history is set to spawn a major new building development on the West Clare peninsula. The Clare People has learned that an Irish-American investor has identified a site in the Loophead area as the ideal location for a hotel devel- opment that has the potential to be a boon to West Clare in the construction and operation phase.

There is huge speculation in the area this week that a planning application is to be lodged with Clare County Council’s planning authority in the near future for what is earmarked to be a 50-bedroom hotel and restaurant on the peninsula that has been the biggest new tourist success story in the county over the past two years.

It is understood that the hotel development, if given the green light by the planning authority in Ennis, would bring over 50 jobs in the construction phase and the same number of jobs again in full-time and part-time staff when it opens for business. The Clare People understands that the as yet unnamed investor has been attracted by the success of the lighthouse opening initiative that was initially the brainchild of local Loophead councillor Gabriel Keat- ing (FG) by way of his first motion ever motion to Clare County Council after he was elected in 2009.

The idea was then taken on and brought to reality by Clare County Council director of services Ger Dollard in partnership with Shannon Development and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, who are the owners and guardians of the lighthouse.

Another major factor in attracting to such an investment to Loophead is the fact that there is no hotel in the West Clare capital of Kilrush, while nearby Kilkee no longer has a hotel that’s stays open for 12 months of the year. The last major infrastructural project planned for Loophead was the controversial Loran C navigation mast that the Commissioners of Irish Lights wanted to construct near Kilbaha in the mid-1990s, but after a public out-cry on the peninsula and subsequent oral hearing, plans for the development were eventually scrapped.

ENNIS has held onto its ‘Clean to European Norms’ status in the latest litter survey by Irish Business Against Litter, despite dropping 15 places to 31st, among 42 towns surveyed.

There were just five top ranking sites out of a total of ten surveyed in Ennis – combined with two seriously littered sites. This puts Ennis in the bottom third of the towns / cities surveyed. Ennis Rail and Bus Station was the only area in the survey deemed to be “littered”.

The railway station scored a grade C in An Taisce’s report. It states, “The station itself is well presented e.g. good paving / road surface / planter boxes etc, but unfortunately there were a couple of separate incidents of heavy levels of litter on the ground beside the telephone box and on the steps. It was mostly ‘fresh’ litter, indicating it was not a long-term problem.”

A spokesperson for An Taisce descrbied the results for Ennis as “disappointing”.

She continued, “The two seriously littered sites, Ennis Community College and Ennis Railway Station, put Ennis at the bottom of the ‘Clean to European Norms’ category. The litter situation at Ennis Community College was a more long-term issue than that at the railway station. The R469 Quin approach road had been a very poor site during previous IBAL Anti-Litter surveys. Things were much improved this time around and hopefully this upward trajectory can continue.”

The findings come a week ahead of the results of the annual Tidy Towns competition. The study, despite showing continuing improvement in the cleanliness of our cities and towns, revealed the environs of Dublin Air- port to be a litter blackspot.

76 per cent of the 42 towns and cities surveyed were deemed to be clean, a record percentage. Cavan was judged Ireland’s cleanest town, one of 18 to be rated ‘cleaner than European norms’. An Taisce inspectors praised it as “a town that clearly takes great pride in its environment”.

CIVIL disobedience is a civil right of people in Clare – that’s the banner being waved by one public representative in Clare this week who is embarking on a crusade to have the practice enshrined into the practices and procedures of a local authority.

Outspoken Shannon Town Council member Cathy McCafferty will launch her campaign at a monthly meeting of the council in Shannon Town Hall on Tuesday by way of a notice of motion that will be up for discussion and consideration by the nine-member authority.

Cllr McCafferty made the headlines earlier this year after publicly falling out with the Sinn Féin party she had represented on Shannon Town Council, being initially suspended from the party before then resigning her membership altogether.

The exact details of her fall-out with Sinn Féin, both locally and with the party hierarchy in Dublin, was never publicly disclosed as the both party and politician went their separate ways. In the wake of her resignation from the party, Sinn Féin demanded that she live up to the party pledge to resign her seat on Shannon Town Council. However, Cllr McCafferty stuck to her guns and declared herself an independent.

Now, the independent has come up with a maverick stand of calling on her eight fellow councillors, headed by Mayor Michael Fleming, to back her controversial motion. While it’s expected that her fellow councillors will support her call for “the right of every citizen of this Republic to engage in peaceful protest”, it’s unclear whether they will back her right that they also be allowed engage in “civil disobedience”.

Cllr McCafferty was unavailable for comment when contacted by The Clare People on Monday.