Category: News

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.

ALMOST half of all Clare homes have no recognised waste collector and no indication of how or where they dispose of their household waste. According to new figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 47 per cent of Clare homes have no kerb-side waste collection service.

With fly-tipping and illegal dumping now reaching epidemic proportions in every part of the county, fears are growing that the costs associated with disposing of household waste properly are deterring many people from disposing of their waste properly.

This latest EPA figure does not mean that 47 per cent of Clare households are involved in illegal dumping. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that there has been a significant increase in the number of neighbours sharing a single collection service and people bringing rubbish directly to the Central Waste Management Facility at Ballyduff beg for disposal.

“The figures in the report means that 47 per cent of households in Clare did not avail of, or were not offered, a kerb-side collection service,” said Emily Williamson of the EPA.

“However, to qualify this, this does not mean that 47 per cent of households in Clare were illegally dispos- ing of their waste, as we are aware that there are households that bin-share, opt to bring their waste to civic amenity sites or landfills or who can bring their household waste to their workplace for collection.

“The percentage is based on the number of households that the waste collection operators said they collected from and the number of occupied houses in the county.”

It has also been mooted that Clare County Council could soon introduce new bye-laws which would put the onus on the home-owner to show how they are properly disposing of their waste.

Similar bye-laws have been introduced by a number of local authorities, including Limerick County Council, in recent months and they require households that do not have a recognised waste collection service to show some level of proof as to how they are disposing of their waste properly.

According to the EPA report, more than 13,000 tonnes of household waste were disposed of at the Central Waste Management Facility at Ballyduff beg in 2010. It is, however, unclear how much of the waste from from individual households and how much was from commercial operators. The Clare People contacted Clare County Council in relation to this story but no comment was forthcoming at the time of going to press.

A NEW multi-cultural women’s group with the aim of empowering women and promoting greater integration is to be established in the county this week.

Excelling Women Network will be the Clare branch of a national organisation for women of all ages in the county and will be launched by the Mayor of Clare, Cllr Pat Hayes, this Thursday in the Old Ground Hotel to kickstart International Women’s Day celebrations in the county capital.

“Excelling Women is a network for all women,” says spokesperson Orla Ni Éilí, “and will focus on activities that engage, inform and empower women, support and deepen integration and create opportunities for self and community development and fulfillment.

“Excelling Women Clare are delighted to be launched on the 101st anniversary of International Women’s Day, a day that is celebrated and marked worldwide in commemoration of the New York women garment-workers’ strike for equal pay and better working conditions in 1911,” Ms Ní Éilí added.

“The organisation is a network of women from many different cultural backgrounds coming together to learn, celebrate, build relationships and enhance life in Ireland for themselves and the wider community,” explained Kate Njoku for the Excelling Women Network. “Women will have the opportunity to get out of their homes, meet others, cut down on isolation and also engage in society at all levels from the very personal to the political,” she added.

Ahead of launching the new organisation, Mayor of Clare, Cllr Pat Hayes said, “Excelling Women is a very positive initiative for the county.”

The calendar of events for Excelling Women Network includes information sessions and discussions on health and wellbeing, participation in civic and political life, training and employment, child rearing and the family and of course intercultural celebration.

The next event, pencilled in for April, will focus on personal development and active citizenship at local and global level.

FIFTY new part-time jobs are to be created in Clare over the next 12 months as part of an almost nationwide roll-out of over 500 jobs in the care system that have been announced by Comfort Keepers Home Care.

Part-time carers are to be appointed in 15 counties, while in Clare there will also be one new full-time appointment to the Comfort Keepers service, which is expected to come on stream over the next couple of months.

Comfort Keepers is an Irish-owned family-run home care provider that helps people to live independent dignified lives in the comfort of their own homes. Their carers provide high-quality, person-centered care to people in the community when daily tasks become too difficult to manage alone.

They are the only home care provider to be awarded ISO 9001, the Healthmark and the Q Mark for quality and excellence in its service provision.

“We are delighted that our focus on the provision of quality home care has led to the continued expansion of Comfort Keepers in Clare,” said managing director, Bob Power this week.

“It is also huge boost of confidence for us as an Irish-owned, family-run business to be able to create this level of employment in the county over the next 12 months.

“Home care is a very personal type of care and we seek carers and management staff who have caring and empathetic instincts. These are the type of people who make great carers and help people remain independent and happy at home,” he added.

The Comfort Keepers in Clare service is co-ordinated from a Limerick office that also administers a similar service in Tipperary, with Joanne Burke and Niamh Landy being the manager and coordinator of the services in the county.

THE village of Kilmaley is to get an economic and jobs boost, as a result of further investment into a local voluntary housing scheme.

The Kilmaley Voluntary Housing Association has received € 2.126 million from the Department of the Environment Community and Lo- cal Government, which will fund the building of 12 new houses for older people. This will bring to 24 the number of houses in the scheme.

Kilmaley Voluntary Housing Association Director Cllr Tom McNamara (FF) said the committee fought hard for the funding, but it will prove to be great value for money in the provision of elderly care.

The group now hopes the HSE will provide funding for at least two supervising staff for the housing scheme.

Cllr McNamara explained that many of the residents living in the houses have been there for a number of years, and require a little more support. He said it is also hoped that the adjoining day care centre’s opening hours will be extended to seven days a week. The day care centre is currently open four days a week providing services to at least 100 people from Kilmaley, Lissycasey, Inagh/ Kilnamona and Coor as well as some people from Ennis.

It currently costs between € 300,000 and € 400,000 to maintain the service, with the HSE providing € 158,000.

Cllr McNamara maintains that the service could be extended to seven days a week at a relatively low cost and is hoping to receive HSE support to undertake this challenge.

It is hoped building on the new houses will begin next month and is likely to take 10 months to complete.

The construction phase will provide much needed employment and a local income injection according to Cllr McNamara.