Category: News

THE new committee structure put in place by the Government that has responsibility for implementing Shannon’s independence and the break-up of Shannon Development’s old responsibilities will produce results by the end of the year.

That’s according to Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar, who has rejected that the appointment of 28 different people to three separate government committees was too unwieldy to put concrete plans for the airport in place.

“It’s the nature of everything really that you want to include people and bring them along with you with as much as possible and at the same time you need to keep things tight. You need to strike that balance,” said Minister Varadkar.

“The steering committee is very tight. There are only five or six people. The task forces are all made up of people with particular expertise, or the particular agencies involved,” he added.

The committee structure for the airport was blasted on the first day of the aviation conference on Wednesday when aviation entrepreneur Domhnal Slattery said “committees are a useful forum, but don’t start businesses and are very rarely effective”.

In continuing his broadside against the blueprint for Shannon, chief executive of Avolon aircraft leasing company said the Government “has pretended to do something by putting Shannon into an interregnum, but has only kicked the can down the road, made it someone else’s problem and put off the ultimate decision”.

However, in defending government policy on Shannon, Minister Varadkar has told The Clare People that the roll out of Shannon’s new independent structure will take place in the coming months, ahead of the final deliberations of the two task forces and steering committees that have been given the job of formulating the new airport blueprint.

“The airport is still in decline and this year things haven’t really picked up and what’s important for everyone is to have certainty and to have decisions made and concluded this year,” he said.

“What I’m trying to do is add a sense of urgency to things. We are in a very difficult environment for aviation at the moment, but the job of government is to put in place the environment and the tools to be suc- cessful.

“The timeframe that has been given to the task force is to report to the government with detailed plans by November, but I don’t necessarily think we should wait that long. I would like to see things happen as they can be done and have everything concluded by the end of the year because uncertainty not helpful,” he added.

Minister Vardarkar said he couldn’t “say for certain” when the new Shannon structure will be up and running. “That involves other people and other bodies and potentially primary legislation, but we need a clear roadmap, clear decisions and a clear picture this year and implementation after that.”

AN estimated 28,000 Clare households can expect unwelcome mail this week as the Local Government Management Agency begins writing to home-owners that still have not paid the contentious household charge.

According to the agency, as many as 27,762 Clare households registered for the charge last month, 354 of which received waivers.

However, the CSO’s preliminary figures puts the number of houses in Clare at more than 55,800.

Not all of those who have not paid will get letters immediately, as an example will be made of just a percentage.

Chair of the Household Charge Project Board, Jackie Maguire said the first batch of homeowners who have not yet paid the charge has been taken from a sample set “following an initial data comparison between the Household Charge database and other databases as set out in the Act”.

Meanwhile, householders with a septic tank will be asked to pay up again within the next three months.

From now until September 26, owners of domestic wastewater treatment systems are required to register their systems with Clare County Council.

A once-off registration fee will apply, starting at € 5.

After September 26, however, the free will increase to € 50. Owners will then need to renew their registration every five years, at no cost.

Homeowners can register online at www.protectourwater.ie, in person at any local authority office in the county or by post to Protect our Water, PO Box 12204, Dublin 7.

Inspections of septic tanks will by carried out by the EPA from next year. Householders have been warned however that all inspectors will carry identification and should not be allowed on to any property without it.

Meanwhile the Chairman of ICMSA’s Farm Services and Environment Committee, Pat Rohan, said that the Minister for the Environment must now ensure that provisions are put in place to assist rural-dwellers that may have to incur significant costs in upgrading their sewerage systems.

He said a properly funded grant scheme must be introduced for rural dwellers to ensure compliance with the new regulations.

AN ENNIS man who wanted to bring the stars of European football to Thomond Park says he is considering legal action against the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

Damien O’Brien claims the FAI blocked his plans to stage a soccer tournament at the well-known Limerick venue at end of July.

Mr O’Brien’s Iconic Company in association with Endemol sports last year staged a tournament involving Inter Milan, Celtic and Manchester City at the Aviva stadium.

The Ennis native says the FAI scuppered his plans to host a similar event this year because they say it clashed with their plans for a tournament in Dublin.

He says, “I don’t know any tournament that’s taking place in Dublin in four weeks time. Madonna is playing alright but I don’t think she’s played for any team.

“I’d been in touch with the likes of Celtic, Chelsea, Lazio, Spurs, clubs like that about coming to Limerick. It was estimated that this would have been worth € 80 million to the local economy. Those aren’t my figures. Those are the figures from Thomond Park. Think of all the hotels and bars and restaurants and how well they could have done from something like this. I think its crazy what has happened.”

Mr O’Brien, who is originally from McNamara Park in the Turnpike area of Ennis, adds, “I’m looking at my options legally. They don’t have the authority to do this.”

The 38-year-old former Turnpike Rovers player says he has also pulled his sponsorship from the FAI’S flagship Emerging Talent Programme.

An FAI spokesman yesterday said the association had “no comment” to make on the matter.

Six years ago Mr O’Brien devised the format for Football’s Next Star a reality TV show that offers young footballers the chance to earn a professional contract with clubs such as Inter Milan and Chelsea. In 2009, Tulla United teenager Sunny Jay qualified for the final 40 of the competition.

The show will be screened on Irish television in September.

A MAN was rescued off a tiny island just off the Doolin coast in the early hours of Saturday morning after spending the night camping on the rocky, uninhabited mound. The man, who lives in the North Clare area, spent the night on Crab Island before he was spotted by the Doolin Harbour Master who contacted the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard to assisted the man back to the mainland.

Concerns were raised over the man’s safety as weather conditions in the area at the time were described as “extreme”. The local unit of the coast guard managed to reach the man and ferried him and his equipment back to the mainland. The man had used a small kayak to reach the island in calmer waters on Friday evening.

Crab Island is a designated bird sanctuary and members of the public are not allowed to disturb the birds nesting on it. The island also has a long and often tragic maritime history.

In July of 1983, eight young men, including three brothers, drowned while swimming nearby when a strong current caught the men by surprise and dragged them out to sea. Crab Island is also the site where a German spy came ashore during World War 1. The man, who came ashore on an April evening in 1918, surrendered to locals because he believed that he had landed on the mainland and had destroyed his boat.

“We were on out way to provide cover for the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway when we got the call from the harbour master. We sailed to Crab Island and spoke to the man and we had to call out a smaller ves sel to get close enough to the island to bring him ashore,” said Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard. “The sea was rough but the man was not in any immediate danger. We had to make three journeys back and forth to the mainland to ferry the man and al of his equipment back from the island.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Doolin Coast Guard unit was tasked to assist in the search for a number of walkers who had become separated from their companion near Blackhead in Fanore. The walkers had descended back onto the Green Road track but had come down on the steeper side and had suddenly lost contact with each other in the heavy mist. The walkers were found safely and reunited with their companions.

LOCAL hellraisers are turning to God in their droves with the foundation of Ireland’s first ever Bikers Church in Gort. The church, which is located in an industrial building on the Kinincha Road in the town, attracts more then 50 motorcyclists to service which takes place on the last Sunday of each month.

The service is run by the Christian Motorcyclists Association of Ireland, who were invited to base the Biker Church in Gort by local man John Joe Finn.

According to the Pastor, motorcyclist Graham Stephens, many bikers can feel uncomfortable entering more traditional churches.

“We invite everyone to come as they are. It doesn’t matter who they are of what they have done, we invite everyone to come and join in God’s love,” he says.

“Some churches wouldn’t be very biker friendly, they would see bikers coming in with tattoos and piercing and they might hold back and not really show true love to them.”

The church does not belong to any particular denomination of Christianity but instead bases their religious views on the words in the bible.

“If you are looking for something that is very traditional, this is not the right place for you. People [Christian bikers] have been hurt by things that have happened in the past and they are fed up with it. We just want a place where we can be ourselves,” continued Graham.

“We have a music team in the service on Sunday, so we have contemporary music with some heavy guitar and drums. We would start off with some Christian songs and worship music. We would start off with some Christian songs, some worship music, so the same thing that you would find in any other church. We also get people standing up and sharing their own stories so it is very relaxed and very easy going.

“A lot of bikers would not feel comfortable going into a traditional church but there is nothing in this church that would frighten anybody off. It’s just about the person themselves and God and we are trying to facilitate people getting to know God.

“We have people coming along to the services and some of them have very colourful backgrounds. But at the end of the day they are people just like us, they might not have made all the right decisions in their life but they are no different. We all screw up, it’s just that some of us do it more publicly than others.

“That is the thing about God, he forgives no matter what. That gift of forgiveness is one of the biggest gifts that mankind has ever gotten.”

For more information on the Christian Motorcycle Association and the Bikers Church visit www.cmaireland.ie.

EAST Clare County Councillor Pascal Fitzgerald made history on Friday when he was the first Labour councillor to be elected to office in County Clare.

The man from Westbury was named deputy mayor at the end of Clare County Council’s AGM.

In a heart felt speech, the new deputy mayor paid tribute to his daughter Joyce who he said was the one who encouraged him to run for public office.

“It is a hard game and we are in hard times,” he said.

Among his colleagues in the council chamber Cllr Fitzgerald was recognised as the man who fought off Limerick’s attempt to take over lands in Westbury, Meelick and East Clare. “It was not just me at the bridge who told Limerick ‘no’,” he said.

“We don’t just recognise parties we recognise people,” he said of Clare County Council.

Cllr Fitzgerald said the biggest issue facing the council during the next political year was Shannon Airport.

He said it was essential to the future of the county.

The East Clare councillor was nominated to the position by Independent county councillor and former mayor

Cllr Patricia McCa

rthy. She said she was

happy to nominated

him as he was from

an “isolated part of

County Clare” that

is very much part of

the county. She said it was

also appropriate for

a Labour council

lor to hold office

in Clare County

Council for the first

time this year – the

year of the party’s

centenary.

Cllr Christy Curtin (Ind), who like Cllr McCarthy is also a former member of the Labour Party seconded Cllr Fitzgerald to the position of deputy mayor declaring he had the qualities and experience necessary to hold such a position.

CRATLOE is the most expensive part of Clare for house hunters.

According to the real-estate website daft.ie the average asking price for a house in the southern part of the county, on the border with Limerick city and stretching up towards Sixmilebridge, is now at € 181,698.

However the prices here have dropped significantly since peak prices, from April to June 2007.

Back then the asking price for an average family home was € 371,091, over twice the current asking price.

As of June this year, the average price for a two-bed property in this area was € 114,577, a three-bed property € 161,458, and a four-bed property € 273,758.

On average house prices in Clare have dropped by 50.6 per cent since the height of the boom, but while almost all of Munster was showing an evening out of prices during between March and June, Clare and Limerick City were the exceptions.

Asking prices for house in Clare continued to drop by as much as 2.8 per cent during these last three months, with the average price now at € 151,211. The average four-bedroom house in the county has an asking price of € 186,000 however with five-beds reaching € 261,000.

Those wishing to become home owners can also expect to pay above the county average in Flagmount, Feakle and Caher where there is an average asking price of € 158,911, down 49 per cent since peak prices and Tulla and O’Callaghan’s Mills has an average asking price of € 153,599 down 45.6 per cent.

Prices are also relatively high in Doolin and Kilshanny at € 154,833, down 48.7 per cent in five years.

And if you want a bargain buy in County Clare your best bet is West Clare where houses covering an area from Kilmurry McMahon, up towards Connolly and Quilty and west to Cree have an average asking price of € 91,959.

A FORMER St Flannan’s College teacher, who was last week named as the Irish Secondary School Teacher of Year, has spoken out against the Government’s treatment of young teachers.

Newly-crowned teacher of the year, Evelyn O’Connor, has been contracted on a year-to-year basis since she left St Flannan’s in 2010. She believes that the Government is failing young teachers and students by the way they are managing the cutbacks in the education budget.

Currently, in Clare, one in every four Clare-based teachers are on temporary contracts from the Department of Education.

“Ultimately, this is very bad for students. I am worried about myself and my students. Continuity is so important in education. If a student has a teacher that they work well with, they need to know that that teacher will be there the next year and the year after that,” said Evelyn.

“The Government are pretending that they haven’t cut the student/teacher ratio but that is just not true.”

According to Evelyn, the popular preconceptions held by the majority about teachers are not true.

“I think the perception is different from the reality. The Government are trying to turn teaching into a part-time job and they are avoiding, whenever they can, giving any teacher a full-time jobs now. Instead, they issue teachers with fixed-term contracts with so few hours a week that they can never hope to be made permanent.

“These teachers then have to look for other jobs just to make ends meet and a lot just end up leaving the profession. Students ask me more and more, ‘Will we have you next year Miss?’, and I don’t know what to tell them. Because I don’t know.”

Evelyn also hit out against redeployment in the education system, which she says has created an atmosphere within staff rooms where teachers are afraid to speak up for fear of being redeployed by the management.

THE Clare unemployed who previously worked in middle management or in a supervisory capacity are finding their new job-seeking status particularly difficult, so much so that the local St Vincent de Paul has set up a support and information network targeted at this group.

Clare Connect will support people as they write a CV, prepare them to search for jobs in a changing economy and, most of all, according to facilitator John Quinlivan, “help them out of the feeling of hopelessness”.

He explained that a number of people began work a long time ago in jobs where they could work their way up the corporate ladder.

Many of these people worked all their lives in the same company and, when the recession hit, they were unprepared when they lost their jobs.

They then discovered that they were over-qualified for many positions they wished to apply for, or potential employers had concerns about the financial cost of employing someone with such experience.

“Even coming to terms with the whole thing can be difficult,” explained Mr Quinlivan.

However, he maintains there is help and hope out there through Clare Connect. Through this support, people can learn how to retrain, rethink their job-seeking tactics and, just as importantly, according to the group’s facilitator, meet other people in a similar situation so that they can support each other and learn that they are not alone.

On Thursday, July 12, Clare Connect will hold a meeting in the Information Age Park, Shannon Development Offices, Ennis, at 10am.

During the meeting, Liam Horan of Sluath Nua will help people plan their CV and work out the best plan for them. All are welcome to attend and it is free of charge.

Mr Quinlivan asked that those wishing to attend would let the organisers know by emailing clareconnect123@gmail.com.

The Clare Connect programme is part of the work carried out by the St Joseph Conference of the St Vincent de Paul. This conference specialises in education and helping people back into the work place.

It is supported by the Clare County Enterprise Board, Shannon Development, Clare Local Development Company Ltd (previously Leader) and Clare County Council.

CAROLNE and Mark Winder are living every parent’s worst nightmare. On June 3, shortly before midnight, their caring and charismatic 15-year-old son William died.

“He took his own life,” explained his heartbroken mother. “It was a moment of madness, that is what they say to us, but that doesn’t give us any answers,” added Dad Mark.

Now his brave parents, despite their harrowing grief, are fighting hard to prevent another family suffering the unbearable heartache and loss they face every day.

The Miltown Malbay couple, supported by their family and William’s many friends, are setting up the William Winder Rainbow Foundation, which will be a one-stop shop for teens in crisis and young people with any worries.

The foundation will provide a safe and confidential counselling service to teenagers, and provide support to families. Through the foundation, Caroline, along with her brother, Lee Brennan, will visit schools and explain to teenagers the impact William’s untimely death had on their lives. A trained counsellor will accompany the family to the schools to provide professional advice to teen- agers and answer any questions.

A wallet card with the details of all the support groups out there, including the William Winder Rainbow Foundation, will also be provided to students.

The foundation will make available a counsellor to any teenager who wants one, and can be arranged in confidence through the website or by calling the foundation.

“We want to make available a counsellor if a child needs one outside of the school environment so there is no one going, ‘Oh look, there’s Mary Jane going in for counselling, what can we tease her about’,” said Ms Winder.

“The counsellor is to be provided to the family also, if needed, to help bridge the gap between the adult population and the teenager,” explained Mr Brennan.

A blog and discussion forum overseen by a trained counsellor is also to be set up.

“William obviously didn’t know there was help out there. I want every other kid to know that, yes, there is help out there,” said Ms Winder.

“It can no longer be a taboo subject. There are kids out there hurting. The thought that William was going through whatever pain he was going through is heartbreaking. No parent should have to go through it. No child should have to go through what they are going through.”

“Me and Mark would be the first to say to parents: You say you know your child, we knew our child insideout. He just had that worry. The only worry we knew of was the exams and we truly believe that, three days before he had to sit his exams, it got too much,” added William’s courageous mother.

“We know children have been taking their lives for quite a while and we hear a lot about road deaths but no one talks about this. This is part of our society. If young people feel they no longer want to be part of our society, what is wrong? This is not just affecting the kids and their families, it is spreading out to the community and society,” added William’s uncle, Lee.

To help the community and teenagers who may need some support, the grieving family are putting the final touches to the William Winder Rainbow Foundation.

“We know our lad and the idea of the Rainbow Foundation…well, William would be in the thick of this,” said his father, Mark. “This is a starting point for something unique, but it is needed.”