Category: News

CLARE’S population may have risen to a 110-year high according to the findings from the 2011 census, but some towns and villages along the west coast now have a ghostly appearance to them.

This finding is contained in the latest bulletin report from the Central Statistics Office on the 2011 National Census of Population that has shown up Kilkee, Lahinch and Liscannor as being home to more vacant houses than anywhere else in the county.

All three centres are in the top ten of a national league table of vacant housing, the only county to have more than one town/village in this listing.

The figures released by the CSO last Thursday show that Liscannor has the highest number of vacant houses in the county, with 73 per cent of the premises in the village and wider parish unoccupied, making it joint second in the national list with Balitmore in Cork behind Mullaghmore in Sligo that has a vacancy rating of 78 per cent.

Kilkee is next on the Clare list with 71.5 per cent of vacant houses, with Lahinch just over a percentage point back on 70.4.

This means that three Clare centres have been held up as virtual ghost towns/villages for most of the year, with only time when most of the houses are occupied coming during the peak holiday period of July and August.

The large number of vacant houses in Kilkee and Lahinch can partly be attributed to the huge surge in holiday homes in both tourist centres for a decade from 1995 onwards, when developers availed of special tax incentives.

The tax breaks were contained in a seaside resorts scheme introduced by the then Rainbow coalition government that reigned from 1994 to ’97. Both Lahinch and Kilkee were among 15 towns/villages around the country included in the scheme devised by the Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn.

However, the building boom that occurred on the back of this special designation has now resulted in reducing both Kilkee and Lahinch to ghost towns for most of the year – the building boom pushed up the house prices, which has been held up as the largest contributory factor to population decline in the two tourist resorts.

Kilkee now has a population of 1,037, which is a drop of 21.5 per cent on the 2006 census, something that is expected to see the town lose its town council status in the upcoming reform of local government.

Together the high vacancy rates in Liscannor, Lahinch and Kilkee mean that Clare now ranks fifth out of 26 counties in terms of vacant holiday home statistics with 4,160 behind Donegal, Kerry, Cork and Wexford.

Liscannor’s status as having more unoccupied houses than any other village in the county comes against a backdrop of a rising population. Between the 2006 and 2011 censuses the population there grew by 32.6 per cent.

A map of the county produced by the CSO shows that vacancy rates in West and North Clare are now running at over 25 per cent. Only seven other counties have higher rates of vacant housing than in Clare, with Leitrim topping the league table with 30.4 per cent, while within Munster, Kerry on 26.5 per cent is the county with a higher rating than Clare.

Vacant Houses
Liscannor 73.1 per cent Kilkee 71.5 per cent Lahinch 70.4 per cent Mountshannon 59.2 per cent Bunratty 51.3 per cent Ballyvaughan 50 per cent Doonbeg 42.4 per cent Miltown Malbay 39.3 per cent Lisdoonvarna 37.9 percent

THE full extent of the building boom that was experienced in Clare during the Celtic Tiger years has been revealed in the latest bulletin report released by the Central Statistics Office on the 2011 census returns for the county.

Figures for Clare have shown 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 – statistics that paint a picture of the biggest building boom in the county’s history over a period in which the population grew by over 15,000.

The 2011 figures show that housing stock in the county now sits at 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 the county, which represents over one fifth of the county’s housing stock know lies vacant.

This figure can be directly attributed to the building boom that took place in the county, with the number of houses being build over a ten-year period from 1996 to 2006 illustrating the scale of the property industry in the county at the height of the building boom. In 1991 there were 31,606 houses in Clare when there was a vacancy rate of 14.6 per cent. The number of houses increased by less than 3,000 over the next five years until 1996, while the vacancy rate dropped to 12.8 per cent.

However, from 1996 onwards there was a massive increase in construction, with 7,124 new houses built over a five-year period, which had the knock-on effect of bumping vacancy rates up to 16.1 per cent.

This trend continued from 2001 to 2006 when 7,321 new houses were built as vacancy rates jumped to 20.1 per cent. Now there are 55,616 houses in the county, an increase of 24,010 when compared with 1991 figures, but the vacancy rates are now higher than they ever were at 21.2 per cent which translates into 11,782. 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.

The Census figures revealed that the number of new housing stock in Clare increased by 14 per cent in be- tween the 2006 and 2011 censuses, which means that Clare house builds ran ahead of the national average of 13.3 per cent.

These figures highlighting Clare’s building boom have been released in the same year that Clare planning was placed in the dock by the heritage watchdog, An Taisce, which published a report saying that Ennis was “an example of some of the most senseless zoning excesses of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ era”.

This damning indictment was delivered in an Taisce’s hard-hitting annual report, ‘State of the Nation – A Review of Ireland’s Planning System 2000-2011’.

Ennis and wider Clare was singled out for special mention in the 45-page report that turned the microscope on 32 planning authorities throughout the country.

Clare has been ranked 23rd out of the 32, the planning in Ennis coming in for special mention because of a range of decisions that were made during the 11-year timeframe covered by the report.

“Clare was the most over-zoned county in the State with 3,208 hectares allowing for an overall additional population of 273,000,” the report said, while noting that between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of all planning decisions in the county was for one-off housing in unzoned land.

In Ennis, An Taisce said that “almost 4, 500 acres of land was zoned for development, sufficient to increase the population of the town from 26,000 people to over 100,000.”

KILRUSH is the third largest town in Clare behind Ennis and Shannon but, in terms of the information super-highway, the West Clare capital has now been cast into the slow lane when it comes access to technology.

Ennis once enjoyed Information Age Town status, while a new highspeed broadband service is now be- ing rolled out in Shannon, but the 2011 National Census of Population has revealed that Kilrush ranks as the second-worst town in Ireland when it comes to internet access.

The census statistics have revealed that 45 per cent of households in Kilrush now have internet access, which places the once bustling business and market town second-worst only to Rathkeale in Limerick, which has 55 per cent no internet connection rating.

The release of these statistics outlining Kilrush’s lowly internet rating came on the same day that the Minister for Communications, Pat Rabbitte, announced details of a new National Broadband Plan to bring the internet to every citizen in the country by 2015.

In acknowledging that there is a problem with internet access outside major urban areas and that State in- tervention was necessary, Minister Rabbitte said the new € 300m plan has been put in place following detailed consultations with leading telecommunication companies.

The census returns for Clare show that 25,041 households in Clare have access to broadband internet services, which leaves a shortfall of 17,493 households that have no broadband.

And of these 17,493 households without broadband, it has been revealed by the CSO that 12, 313 of these have no form of internet access whatsoever, while 4,149 have low speed internet access.

Thes low figures for the county will heighten calls for Clare to be given a prominent place in the new National Broadband Plan and its stated policy of providing broadband speeds of at least 30 megabits to every citizen within three years.

CLARE County Council’s clampdown on one-off houses in the rural part of the county has been graphically illustrated with the latest publication of the findings from the 2011 National Census of Population.

According to the ‘Roof Over Our Heads’ report, the number of new roofs over the heads of people in rural Clare has plummeted sharply from previous censuses, with the 2011 population study showing that oneoff house builds have been halved between 2006 and 2011.

There were 2,784 houses built in Clare between 2006 and 2011, with the number of one-off houses being 861, which represented just 30.90 per cent. When compared against the last census, which gave a breakdown of house builds between 2001 and 2006, there was a drop of 860 in new oneoff houses constructed in the county.

This reduction is in keeping with the slide in one-off planning permissions and house constructions that was heralded in the 2006 census when the figure of 1,721 one-off houses meant that, for the first time since records began, there were less single houses built in the county than houses than were part of developments. Between 1991 and 2000, the number of one-off houses constructed represented 69.80 of all houses built in the period.

Kilbaha-based Jim Connolly, who is the founder of Rural Resettlement Ireland, has said that present planning policy that’s against wide-scale oneoff housing is “enforcing urbanisation on people with disastrous consequences for the country”.

Continuing, Mr Connolly, who contested the 2011 General Election as an independent and a founder member of the Irish Citizens Party, said “future generations will rightly curse the planning policies of the Celtic Tiger period” and that “social, economic and cultural life has suffered from people being refused planning permission to build family homes in the countryside”.

IN AN era of Kindles and iPads, online gaming and smartphones, children across the county still find fun and adventure in an old-fashioned book.

Libraries across Clare will celebrate that love of reading and aim to recruit even more bookworms during the Children’s Book Festival 2012.

Events are already being planned at all Clare library branches over the month of October. Up to 100 events are in the pipeline to spark the imagination of young readers from toddlers to teens.

In association with Children’s Books Ireland, everything from readings by popular authors to writing and illustration workshops, plus storytelling and competitions, will be part of the line-up, with countless opportunities to explore a wide array of books.

Headlining this year’s festival in Clare are Marita Conlon McKenna ( Children of the Fa mine trilogy), and literary superstar Derek Landy, who will be celebrating the publication of the latest title in his Skulduggery Pleasant series, Kingdom of the Wicked .

Other visiting authors will include Alan Early, whose first book, Ar thur Quinn a nd the World Ser pent , has enjoyed extensive media coverage. Alan Nolan will be there as well, with his graphic whodunnits for 10- to 14-yearolds including The Big Break Detectives Casebook, Death by Chocolate and Six Million Ways to Die .

Nicola Pierce will give four readings based on her novel, Spir it of the Tita nic , now in its fifth reprint since publication last year, while Michel Moylan’s ‘Irish History Live’ will present an interactive show to his audiences on the making of the ship, how it was powered, the class system on board, how the ship sank and more.

Also among the many other authors visiting is Tomi Reichental. His visit to deValera Library, Ennis, on Tuesday, October 2, is exclusively for Leaving Cert students. During his visit, he will speak about his book, I Was a Boy In Belsen , as well as recalling his harrowing boyhood memories.

Hands-on workshops facilitated by experienced artists are always popular and, this year, children can choose from percussion workshops to journal writing by Isabelle Gaborit or story creation workshops with Donough O’Malley.

Visual artist and co-founder of Dog and String Theatre, Sarah Fuller will also be on hand to guide children in making their very own animated film show based on characters they will create on paper.

NERO fiddled, while Rome burned.

It was this analogy that floated around Ennis Town Council on Monday as Fine Gael representative Johnny Flynn received unanimous cross-party backing for his demand that the process of giving Shannon Airport its full independence from the Dublin Airport Authority be ac- celerated.

This demand for swift action came against a backdrop of another alarming drop in Shannon figures, with the latest results confirming that commercial movements at the international airport have fallen for the first seven months of the year when compared to the same period in 2011.

This downward spiral started with a two per cent drop in movements in January and peaked in April when the figures showed nearly a ten per cent drop on the corresponding month from 2011.

The figures then remained relatively stable for May and June, as the returns posted for commercial movements only showed a 1.6 and 1.3 drop respectively, but the slide accelerated once more in July with a four per cent drop.

These trends are set to continue for the remainder of 2012, which will en- sure that returns at the year end will show nearly a 50 per cent reduction in commercial terminal movements from the peak of 2007 which represented the peak of Ryanair’s association with the airport.

Ryanair currently operates to 11 destinations in Britain and mainland Europe out of Shannon. This represents over a 300 per cent cut in operations out of Shannon from a high of over 50 flights in 2008.

The airline began reducing its Shannon-based aircraft in February 2009.

It was this slide in Shannon’s fortunes that prompted the Government to embark on a consultative process over the future of the airport that was co-ordinated by Booz and Company in 2011, ahead of the formal announcement in May that Shannon would be given its full independence from the DAA.

THE engine sounds that echoed through Ennis at the weekend and were met with curiosity, speculation and, in some cases, annoyance, were the result of one of Ireland’s most popular motorsports among the under-25s.

The drifting competition took place on the grounds of the mart, with the sounds vibrating around the area.

Drifting, which originated in Japan and then grew in popularity in America and Europe, is a regulated motorsport that is judged on the driver’s control of the car rather than speed.

The sporting event in Ennis was organised by Driftfest, with 38 participants coming from all over the country, including Clare.

Owner of Driftfest, Robert Roshu, said the sport is not just popular among young people, but has also received the approval of the gardaí as it has encouraged young men to take their fast cars off the road and onto an organised track.

“A lot of these lads are building their own cars, some on a very small budget.

“They are taking their fast cars off the road and using them for drifting and getting small diesel vans to use every day,” he explained.

Mr Roshu said the sport is governed by strict health and safety rules, with cars checked before the event begins, and ambulances and the fire service are on stand by during the event.

The recession has impacted on this motor sport in the last year, however.

“I was disappointed that the crowd was way down yesterday (Sunday), but no one got hurt so that is the most important thing,” said Driftfast owner.

The economic downturn has also meant there are fewer drivers as many have emigrated, with more opting to double drive – buy one car between two and enter it in two separate competitions.

He also said he “was disappointed that some people found it loud”.

“It was my first time in Ennis and I hope the next time to have more to offer,” he said.

A PACKED passenger jet was forced to dump thousands of litres of aviation fuel over the North Atlantic and divert to Shannon Airport after a woman on board suffered a suspected heart attack.

Air Canada flight ACA-871 from Paris to Montreal in Canada was about 500 kilometres off the Irish west coast when the crew was forced to turn around and divert to the nearest suitable airport.

The Boeing 777-300 jet was carrying its maximum capacity of 350 passengers at the time. The flight had crossed over Ireland earlier at around 2pm and was about an hour into its oceanic crossing when the 55-year-old woman complained of chest pains.

Cabin crew members quickly tended to the patient and informed the flight crew of the incident. While staff administered oxygen to the woman, the captain contacted air traffic controllers, reporting a passenger was suffering a heart attack and that he wished to divert immediately.

The pilot declared a medical emergency and requested that medical services be available for the flights arrival. The crew had to dump thousands of litres of aviation fuel to ensure the aircraft touched down within safe landing weight limits.

Airport crash crews were placed on standby and took up designated positions alongside Shannon’s 3.2km long runway ahead of the flights arrival at 4.15pm.

Emergency vehicles raced down the runway after the jet and accompanied the plane to its parking position.

Fire crews checked to ensure the jet’s brakes had not overheated during the emergency landing.

A HSE cardiac ambulance and local doctor were standing by at the terminal building and medics quickly boarded the jet to assess the patient.

The woman was stabilised on board the aircraft before being re moved and taken by ambulance to the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick for treatment. It’s understood the woman had a previous cardiac history.

The pilot also reported a possible technical issue as a result of having to jettison fuel.

He requested that engineers also be available to meet the aircraft and investigate the issue.

FOR 10 years now, the posters for the Nell Galvin Festival have indicated the return of school for children around West Clare.

For adults, it has proven to be a recession-friendly festival and summer school that has brought the season to a positive close.

This year, the weekend events promise to be better than ever as the festival in honour of the Moyasta concertina-player celebrates its tenth anniversary.

This year, all of the music classes will be on site at Garihy’s Bar, as the publican has renovated the old shop to make way for new classrooms.

All classes are free, as are all the concerts and events, making it a purse-pleasing event for all visitors.

New committee secretary Tim Thompson said there would even be a free cup of tea and coffee and sand- wiches for those attending the festival beginning on Friday night.

The highlight of this year’s festival will be an outside stage, which was secured with some help from Leader.

“There will be music inside and outside at the same time, and if the weather is as good as promised, there will be a great atmosphere,” said Mr Thompson.

“There is also a huge line-up of music on Sunday night, with a major concert finale planned,” he added.

The secretary attributed the success of the festival to the many sponsors who have remained loyal over the decade. “We really have to thank the sponsors. In these tight times, they are still helping us out,” he said.

The festival is dedicated to Nell Galvin, who was born Ellen McCarthy in Ballydineen, Knocklough in 1887. In 1937, she became the first Clare woman to broadcast traditional Irish music on 2 RN, later to be called Radio Éireann.

During those years, she married Patrick Galvin from Moyasta and had three sons and two daughters. Nell and her late son Stephen later played as guests with the Kilfenora Céilí Band.

She played with some of the greats, including Willie Clancy, John Kelly, Dr Bill Loughnane, Mrs. Crotty and Sean Reid.

Ms Galvin died on September 5, 1961, aged 74 years.

THE cost of sending children to school has become too much for many Clare families, with large numbers turning to charities such as the St Vincent de Paul for help and record numbers applying for Government supports such as the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance.

With the cost of kitting out a child for primary school now as high as € 700 for some families, anecdotal evidence indicated that money lenders have began door-stepping some houses, offering money to cover school expenses.

With primary schools also suffering budget cuts from central government, many parents have found themselves unable to pay voluntary contribution towards the operation of their children’s primary school.

Indeed, according to Clare teachers and former head of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI), Bernie Ruane, in many schools only one in every five families are in a position to make a voluntary contribution.

Large delays have also been seen in the processing of the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance. According to Clare Citizens Information Services – parents from every walk of life are getting in contact with questions about the grant.

“Our main queries at the moment are concerning the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Grant and we are getting questions from all varieties of parents about this – but particularly from parents who have had a change of circumstance over the past year. We are getting a lot questions for Clare parents who have lost a job of who have changed from over payment to another over the last 12 months,” continued the spokesperson. Any parent who is in receipt of a social welfare payment is entitled to apply for the Back to School Clothing and Footwear grant.