Category: News

MUCKROSS Park in Killarney could soon have some serious competition from Kilrush as the council proposes to introduce jaunting cars to Kilrush Wood.

The wood, which surrounds the popular Vandeleur Walled Garden, is also the responsibility of Coillte, and members of the council executive are to meet with the state body to discuss this proposal and a number of other issues.

At the March meeting of the council, Mayor of Kilrush Ian Lynch (FG) asked that “Shannon Development and Coillte in association with Clare County Council to explore the possibility of opening of the Kilrush Wood existing road and track network to the seasonal attraction of jaunting, which would complement the existing attractions of the Vandeleur Walled Gardens and Kilrush’s Historic Trail while also providing tourism revenue to the town.”

He said that there are already old stables on the grounds of the Vandeleur Walled Gardens and the tracks are in place.

Marketing Officer with Kilrush Town Council, Síobhan Garvey said, “The Vandeleur Walled Garden and Kilrush woods remain a top priority when the town council engages in any tourism promotion and in recent years Kilrush Town Council has invested in resurfacing the roadway leading from the main road in through the woods to the car park as week as including it in the Historic Town Trails Walk.”

“In 2011, following consultation with coillte, they developed their walkways further by adding a new marked way and interpretational signs. It is acknowledge that the gardens and woods are almost a hidden treasure in the area and every effort is being made to promote both.”

A TOTAL of 26 people retired from Clare County Council during the first two months of the year, according to new figures.

A report presented at yesterday’s meeting of Clare County Council provided a breakdown of the retirements across departments.

There were 20 retirements in transport, water services and environment; two in housing, change management, cultural and emergency services and four in finance, information technology and human resources.

There were no retirements in planning, community, economic development and tourism. The highest number of retirements (17) took place among outdoor staff in the transport, water services and environment section. A total of nine indoor staff retired during January and February.

The figures set out the numbers of staff who retired from the council between January 1 and February 29, 2012.

In a report, deputy county manager Ger Dollard explained, “Only a very small number of retirements actually took place on the day of February 29, 2012, and so to show a more complete picture the retirements over the period January-February 2012 have been included. This is consistent with the projection of staff retirements as set out in the circular letter of February 9, 2012.”

Mr Dollard continued, “The circular letter made reference to efficiency measures already taken and achieved through meaningful consultation within the Framework of the Croke Park Agreement. Further significant change and a wide range of efficiencies must be implemented in the short term to achieve the fundamental public sector reform and structural change, which is now demanded by National Government. This will have to be achieved in the context of the above reduction in human resources and the reducing level of financial resources.”

The figures were compiled in response to a motion submitted by councillors Christy Curtin (Ind), Oliver Garry (FG) and Johnny Flynn (FG).

Cllr Johnny Flynn told the meeting that the figures showed the “stark reality of the loss of people on the ground”. He said this loss of staff was particularly evident in the En- nis area. Cllr Flynn added, “We are losing the expertise to deliver on the ground.” Cllr Curtin said, “We as a council are going to have the measure the impact of this.”

Cllr Gerry Flynn (Ind) said the motion had been submitted by three councillors with links to the Government parties. He urged councillors Johnny Flynn and Oliver Garry to highlight the impact of austerity on essential services with their Fine Gael colleagues. He said Cllr Curtin should use his influence with the Labour Party to raise the matter with them.

Noting the challenges posed by retirements and reduced funding, Mr Dollard told the meeting, “There is no quick-fix solution, no silver bullet. It’s just something that we have to work through.”

THE MAYOR of Kilrush has threatened to get a brush and can of white paint and draw road marks on a road that has being dubbed “Bombay Junction” locally.

Mayor Ian Lynch (FG) was told that it would be a serious traffic violation to interfere with the road markings at Limekill Junction (sic) on the entrance on the town.

Cllr Paul Moroney (Ind) said it would be a shameful for the council, if something wasn’t done about the busy junction.

The councillor, who is also a volunteer member of the fire service, said the fire brigade has already been called to a serious accident at the cross roads where the occupants of the car had to be cut from their vehicles.

Another man told Cllr Moroney that he got knocked off his bike at this junction.

“It would be a shame if this council got this done two days after someone is killed,” he said.

“We have discussed this for two years. Let us do something about this now. Shame on us.”

Cllr Liam Williams (FG) said at nine in the morning when children are going to school it is a very seriously dangerous junction.

The councillors were responding to news that plans for re-drawing the junction are still not in place.

Clare County Council maintained previously that they did not have time or the staff available to design the junction.

Town engineer Derek Troy then designed a solution for the dangerous junction, which was not approved by the road design team.

Town Manager Nora Kaye told the members of the council that there were a lot of people out on sick leave and as a result a lot of work was on hold.

“We have a bit of an issue at the moment.”

She said the junction, which is a cross roads past Aldi as you enter the town from the Ennis side, was the re sponsibility of the NRA.

“Don’t lose sight of the fact that we do not have money to do it. Strictly speaking it is a primary secondary route and the responsibility of the NRA,” she said.

She said once the road design is complete the project will still not be done.

“We should just get the design done and worry about the money after. We look foolish on this when we can’t even get a white line drawn,” said Mayor Lynch.

Cllr Marian McMahon Jones (FG) asked, “Could we still be here next year and it still not done.”

‘WARNING dog s**t on pavement.’ That was the advice on a large red sign held aloft by a member of Clare County Council in the council’s chamber last evening (Monday).

As he raised the sign, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said that the council should “throw its hat” at attempts to prevent dog faeces on the county’s footpaths, and simply warn people “in the most graphic way possible that there is poop on the streets.”

The councillor was responding to the fact that Clare County Council has issued just one on-the-spot € 150 fine in relation to dog fouling in the last five years. Cllr Meaney said that this anti-social behaviour by dog owners can lead to people contracting bacterial toxicosis.

“It is clear that an attitude that once existed, where you were allowed to throw the content of the chamber pot out the window, exists with these dog owners,” he said.

The councillor told the March meeting of the councillors that a 22year-old woman was distraught when she discovered her hands covered in dog excrement as she made her way through Ennis in her wheelchair.

Director of Services Nora Kaye said, “The enforcement of the dog fowling provisions under litter pollution legislation can be problematic in that it is necessary to observe the act of dog fouling taking place in order to take enforcement action. It can also be difficult to establish the owner or person in charge of the dog, who is deemed the responsible person under the legislation.”

Cllr Meaney said that as enforcement of the law was not working, the only option that seemed to be open to the council was to shock people into awareness. Cllr Bill Slattery (FG) agreed that shock tactics were becoming necessary.

The North Clare councillor said that when he visited Lahinch on Sunday, people were expected to pay € 2 to park their car, yet there were no bins available to dispose of dog faeces or any other litter.

“Clare County Council might as well go up and take down the signs in Lahinch because it is not being enforced. It is a disgrace,” he said.

Not all the members of the council were happy with the Green Party councillor’s approach to highlighting the issue. Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) claimed, “It is the most vulgar and ridiculous sign that has come into this chamber,” adding that it demeaned the council chamber.

PROMOTING Kilrush in Galway has proven too costly an endeavour for the Kilrush Town Council’s diminished marketing budget.

However, promoting the town and particularly the Loop Head Lighthouse, in Limerick and Kerry has already paid off according to the town council’s marketing and development officer Síobhan Garvey.

“It is an achievement to get people from Kerry out of their own county and spending money,” she told the March meeting of Kilrush Town Council.

But that is what the people south of west Clare and from many other parts of Ireland did last year, with 1,700 people visiting the lighthouse over a few weeks.

Despite having her budget cut this year, Ms Garvey said she is adapting and using imaginative ways to promote the town and the west Clare area. She said she was now pushing social media as a way of free advertising.

“You could put an ad into a magazine and you don’t know how much you get out of it,” she said.

The council pays to have the Kilrush promotional brochure in stands in Clare, Kerry, Limerick and Shannon Airport but it cannot afford to do it in Galway due to high costs.

“It is too expensive. I would love to get in there,” said Ms Garvey.

“I had to renegotiate for the other stands already because of the cuts to the marketing budget.”

Mayor of Kilrush, Councillor Ian Lynch (FG), who flew to New York at the weekend, has produced an investment document with the assistance of the marketing department, which he will present to business people, potential visitors and politicians.

Meanwhile Ms Garvey told the council members that she also has responsibility in providing a supporting role to the town clerk in the area of parking fines and permits.

Here too, she is using new and imaginative ways. In co-operation with the town clerk and Clare County Council, she is currently co-ordinating a pay-online facility for parking fines. This is expected to be live by the end of the year. “We have a lot of visitors that get parking fines,” she said.

A POPULAR new stone sculpture in Ennis will aid tourism in the town, according to the Mayor of Ennis.

Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) said last week that the Market Day, installed in the market roundabout last week, has already generated huge interest on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Speaking at the March meeting of Ennis Town Council, Cllr Guilfoyle said, “We need all the attractions we can get in this town at the moment”.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) described the piece as a “fantastic piece of sculpture”.

He added, “The amount of people getting their photos taken is amazing. It’s going to become a major tourist attraction”.

Made from granite, the near 20 tonne work depicts the two farmers discussing the purchase of a cow. The sculpture was installed on the market roundabout earlier this month as a replacement for the Icarus statue, which has been re-located to the Rocky Road roundabout.

The piece was designed and built by local sculptor Barry Wrafter. Market Day was commissioned by the Ennis Sculpture Initiative who also covered the cost of transporting the sculpture’s pieces to Ennis.

The Ennis Sculpture Initiative has installed numerous sculptures along the riverside in Ennis, as well as creating street furniture in the town centre. The sculpture trail takes many forms depicting cultural, historical and sporting events as well as more

abstract pieces.

In recent years, the initiative has spent close to one million euros on sculptures in and around Ennis in recent years.

Noel Crowley, Chairman of Ennis Tidy Towns, said there has been a fantastic response to the sculpture.

He also paid tribute to the efforts of the Sculpture initiative in ensuring the project was completed. “We commissioned it and paid for the transport.

“The Council paid for the re-enforcement of the roundabout so it could be installed there”.

ST PATRICK has his work cut out for him if he ever decides to return to County Clare, with reports of grass snakes in the Ennis sewer, corn snakes in a Kilmihil graveyard and a 14-foot anaconda living in one Clare council estate.

According to the Clare Dog Warden, Frankie Coote, the Clare snake population has ballooned in recent years and, with no laws or licensing system in place for snakes, there is little that can be done to control the numbers being introduced into the county.

While the number of poisonous snakes in Clare is believed to be low, Frankie has urged snake owners to be vigilant and ensure that their animals are not allowed to escape. A number of snake escapes have been reported in recent months, most recently a corn snake which was discovered in Kilmihil and has since been returned to its owner.

“The county has become a lot more cosmopolitan when it comes to animals and there are a lot of different types of pets in Clare these days. There were a lot of people, during the boom time, who started buying exotic pets like snakes,” said Frankie.

“The problem is that because they are so new, there is no law for them. It is against the law to go down the road with a Jack Russell if he’s not on a lead, but it is not against the law to walk down the road with a big snake or a tiger.

“We had an incident in Ennis recently where someone was leaving his snakes out to play as people were on their way down to bingo – in the middle of the town centre. People were getting worried and phoning me but it turned out there was nothing against the law going on.

“We had one snake that lived in the drains in Ennis for six months. It was found in the back of Paddy Quinn’s pub in the market. It had been seen by several people going in for a drink but no-one believed them, they thought they had drank too much. We managed to find the owner for that one.

“I am also aware of one particular man who had a 14-foot anaconda in a council estate in Clare.”

The corn snake, which was found at the Kilmihil Graveyard, had lived there for six months and survived by hunting mice and rats at the graveyard.

THERE have been calls for the 60 jobs created by the construction of a controversial new road maintenance depot near Ennis to be ring-fenced for Clare people.

40 jobs will be created during construction of the facility at the old GAMA site adjacent to the N18 motorway on the outskirts of Ennis. 20 permanent jobs will later be available at the 6, 500 tonne salt barn facility, which will be run by the National Roads Authority (NRA).

Details of the jobs were outlined at a meeting between officials from the NRA and Clare County Council last week.

The NRA will take charge of maintenance of the country’s motorway network with the proposed Tulla Road depot used to service the motorway in Clare and parts of Galway and Limerick.

Clare County Council has applied for planning permission to develop the site, a move that has attracted strong criticism from some local councillors.

The matter was raised at yester day’s monthly council meeting. Former Mayor of Clare, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) said the county was already adequately served by salt depots at Beechpark.

He said Clare County Council could tender to operate the facility at Tulla Road and maintain the region’s motorway network.

He said, “Clare County Council carried out this work all along. Why should we have to tender. It’s a downright disgrace.”

Cllr Brennan added, “I still think this is another quango set up by the government.” He called for all jobs created by the project “to be filled by people in this county”.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said the junction layout near the proposed road depot should be re-designed to allow for proper on/off access to the M18.

He told the meeting that the current 100-metre access road was too short for buses and trucks to reduce their speed from 120 km/h to 30 km/h when they exit the motorway.

Acknowledging concerns over “compact junctions” along a stretch of the M18, county engineer Tom Tiernan said he was not aware if the NRA planned to address these issues through the development of the road maintenance depot.

He said the transfer of responsibility for the maintenance of Clare’s motorway network to the NRA would reduce the council’s workload by 10 to 15 per cent.

However he added that there was still a significant network of secondary and regional roads in the county to cater for.

In response to a question from Cllr Pascal Fitzgerald (Lab), Mr Tiernan said that he did believe the NRA’s new functions would have any impact on existing jobs at Clare County Council.

A FORMER All-Ireland-winning Clare hurler has scored a victory against Tesco in a defamation case taken over the purchase of a bottle of wine.

Scariff man Patrick Moroney (33) was awarded € 7, 500 and costs at Ennis Circuit Civil Court last Thursday.

However, Judge Donagh McDonagh granted a request from Tesco’s legal representatives to have a stay placed on the order for a period of 10 days in the event of an appeal.

Mr Moroney, who played wing forward on the Clare minor hurling team that won the All-Ireland title in 1997, took the case for defamation following an incident at Tesco, Corbally, Ardnacrusha on November 28, 2010.

The court heard that Moroney and his girlfriend, Claire Hayes, were on the way to his parent’s house when Ms Hayes suggested that they purchase a bottle of wine.

Ms Hayes, a trainee solicitor who was then aged 25, was refused purchase of the wine because she did not have identification.

Mr Moroney, a solicitor for Moroney Meehan Solicitors who have offices in Scariff and Limerick, was then refused the wine by Tesco employee Ann Devlin.

In refusing to sell the wine to Mr Moroney, Ms Devlin, it was claimed, said, “you might as well be buying it (wine) for the children on the street”.

This was disputed by Ms Devlin. However, in his judgment, Judge McDonagh found that “these words or words to that effect were used” by Ms Devlin.

He described the words as “inflammatory and unnecessary” and seemed designed to “put him (Moroney) in his place”.

Counsel for Tesco, Ronnie Robins SC, had previously told the court that Tesco were presenting a defence of qualified privilege.

He had stated that qualified privi- lege failed when malice is shown, claiming that Mr Moroney had failed to prove that there had been malice.

Judge McDonagh said he was satisfied that Mr Moroney’s reputation had been “impugned” and that Mr Moroney had discharged the appropriate proof.

He said that he had raised concerns over accepting jurisdiction of the case.

Judge McDonagh said no evidence had been given of “serious or any damage” to Mr Moroney’s reputation.

He added, “As defamation goes, it is not a serious defamation”.

He said the appropriate damages are € 7,500.

Noting that Tesco clearly recognise their responsibilities regarding the sale and supply of alcohol, Judge McDonagh said that the retail firm should also train their staff in the “limits of language”.

The court had been told that damages of up to € 50,000 could have been awarded by the court.

SHANNON is one the verge of a major rat infestation with no specific funding currently available to tackle the growing pest problem in the town.

This has come to light following an official request from local Cllr Gerry Flynn (Ind), at this week’s meeting of Shannon Town Council, that there’s no funding be found to tackle the problem. Shannon Development has previously provided some funding to tackle the problem but it was confirmed at the meeting that no specific source of funding was in place to tackle the situation.

“I requested that Shannon Town Council source some funding for this and this need to happen. Up to September of 2004, Shannon Development made funding available for pest control in the town. Unfortu- nately, this is no longer the case and no funding has been put in place by Clare County Council for this,” said Cllr Flynn.

“Shannon is a unique place, there are a lot of wetlands here. A lot of people are ringing me about difficulties with pests and they are surprised to learn that there is no funding set aside by Clare County Council for pest control. I am not happy with the reply and I would hope that you might find some funding for this.”

Speaking at the meeting, Shannon Town Manager Bernadette Kinsella said that pest control in Shannon was paid for out of the normal Clare County Council’s central budget.

“I know Shannon Development used to take care of this and it’s a pity that they didn’t transfer over the funding as well,” she said.

“The first point of call when there is a serious infestation is here, at the Shannon Local Offices, there is no specific budget from Clare County Council for dealing with pest control in Shannon.”

Meanwhile, Shannon Town Council will continue to host the Shannon.ie website after a heated debate on the subject in last weeks meeting. It had been proposed that the web address, which is the property of Clare County Council, was to be taken from the local authority and held in reserve for a new unified website about Shannon – when funding became available to create this site.

“I’m not happy with changing the name. What does Clare County Council intend to do with the existing name? I don’t understand why is it going to take so long to develop this unified website?” said Cllr Cathy McCafferty (Ind).

“This is the same council that wants to take over running of the airport and it’s going to take them six moths to develop a website.”