Category: News

ENNIS WOMAN Siobhan Keane is spending Christmas in Dubai, having moved there 12 years ago. Siobhan is enjoying the festive season with her Dublin-born husband Karl, having fulfilled her dream to move overseas.

“I always wanted to travel, I remember one time when I was around 10 years old showing my sister a photograph in the world book encyclopedia of Cairo city centre, saying, ‘I’m gonna live there someday’……Little did I know it was going to be somewhere very near there,” recalled Siobhan.

“I suppose the writing was on the wall when I won a set of suitcases a year later. I asked my parents after I left college would it be okay to head off to Australia for a year. The reply was a very firm ‘No’. Anyway, when you have an itch it has to be scratched and a few years later, when sitting in my office in NUI Galway in the Accountancy and Finance Department, I heard Colm McLoughlin from Dubai on the radio talking about Dubai,” she said. “Now this took my interest. I had always seen the ads in the glossy magazines at the hairdressers talking about Dubai, the most cosmopolitan city in the Arabian Gulf, so I listened in. To cut a long story short, within the week I had been in contact with Colm and had arranged jobs for my friend Patricia Walsh and I at ‘The Irish Village’ in Dubai. Tickets were booked, visas arranged and the itinerary sent over. I was extremely excited, but this was only my short-term plan… Once over there I wanted to go for an interview with Emirates Airline and start air hostessing and travelling all over the world,” she said.

Despite some anxiety at home, particularly from Siobhán’s parents, she headed to Shannon Airport on August 21, 1999, and her trip took off.

“For all of about two minutes I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I applied for Emirates and got accepted and started flying in June of 2000. It has been an amazing experience and I have been travelling the world since, from places as far afield as Christchurch, New Zealand, at one end of the world and Sao Paulo in Brazil at the other end.

“The friends I have made have been amazing and the experiences invaluable to me. Along the way I have met many Irish people and with them many Clare people also. At the Irish village there was Brian O’Dwyer from Bodyke and Dermot Geoghegan from Mountshannon. I met Helen McCarthy from Ballyvaughan in Emirates and we became friends almost straight away. Herself and Dermot got married and they are settled in Ennis now with two beautiful daughters. There is a guy here called Will Moroney from Corofin and I met him through his fiance Fiona Devlin, who is from Perth and also Emirates Cabin Crew,” she said.

Six years ago, when Siobhan was considering moving home, she met Karl Tilson from Donnybrook in Dublin in the Dubliner Irish pub in Dubai. “I joke that he ruined my plans to go home but we both couldn’t be happier. We had our wedding in the Cathedral in Ennis and the Temple Gate Hotel in June 2009 with 30 guests flying over from Dubai to see our beautiful country,” she said.

Although Siobhan will spend Christmas in her adopted country, her family will be very much in her thoughts.

“This year I arrive back from London Gatwick on Christmas Eve morning… We haven’t had an Irish Christmas in six years so we really hope to be at home for it next year, as it is never the same when you are not at home. Having said that, if I didn’t have Karl here with me it would be much more difficult. New Year’s Eve we will go to Abu Dhabi to see Coldplay and the new year isn’t starting out too bad for me as I get to take the first ever flight out of Dublin Airport with Emirates on January 9, so I’m very excited about that. You can’t beat the Irish Christmas with family and friends, but please God in the future when we come back home we will have many more Irish Christmases to come,” she said.

Siobhan extends Christmas greetings to her family; her parents Stephanie and Francie on the Golf Links Road in Ennis, her sisters Shauna and Ashling and brothers Ronan and Barry.

CLARE County Council is considering changes to its system of rate collection after the County Manager admitted the current “door to door” method has become too costly.

Tom Coughlan was speaking at last Tuesday’s meeting of Clare County Council as members adopted the budget for 2012.

Responding to a question from Cllr Oliver Garry (FG) about possible changes in rate collection, Mr Coughlan told the meeting that the council should have to go “door to door” to collect rates, citing the method of bill payment utilised by the ESB.

He said, “Other organisations don’t do it. It is very, very costly to be going around knocking door to door”.

He added, “I’d have to question how long we can continue to do it.”

Mr Coughlan told the meeting that new figures from 2010 National Service Indicators showed that Clare County Council had the third lowest level of absenteeism of all 34 city and county councils in the country.

He said the council’s absenteeism rate of 3.95 per cent was “significantly below” the national average.

The council will receive € 10.18m from the local government fund, a reduction of 5.45 per cent from last year.

In his report, Mr Coughlan stated that that represents a cumulative reduction of 38 per cent since 2009.

Mr Coughlan stated that the 2012 cut represented the fourth lowest reduction nationally.

Commenting on the household charge, Mr Coughlan said the charge would not represent additional income for the Council.

In his report, Mr Coughlan said it had not been possible for the council to reduce commercial rates.

He stated, “Due to the fact that the household charge is being paid into the Local Government Fund and, in light of the continuing reduction in local government funding and income from local services, it has not been possible to provide for a decrease in rates in this draft budget.

“It is proposed to meet the ongoing reductions in funding through achieving efficiencies as in previous years, and consequently an increase in the level of commercial rates is not provided for”.

Mr Coughlan continued, “As I stated in the Budget Report 2011, Clare County Council is acutely aware of the financial difficulties which our rate payers are experiencing and we are committed to adopting a practical approach in terms of facilitating rate payers.

“However, I must emphasise that if the council does not receive the income which is identified in this draft budget, the maintenance of the levels of services which are planned for 2012 would be impacted.”

Mr Coughlan said that despite ongoing efforts to reduce expenditure and increase income, the projected financial result for 2011 is a € 500k deficit.

“The key variances are as a result of essential works which were undertaken to respond to the adverse weather conditions in early 2011, unexpected costs relating to Traveller accommodation and the increased levels of vacant properties in the county,” he said.

WHEN North Clare man MacconFionn McNamara touched down in Shannon Airport earlier this week, he returned to a land where Christmas is king. After spending his last festive season in South Korea, the Corofin native was looking forward to all the home comforts that he missed last year.

Maccon-Fionn has been living in the city of Daegu in South Korea for the past two years. For the workobsessed people of South Korea, Christmas is a very different kind of holiday than what he was used to at home.

“There are decorations put up but only in the major, built-up shopping districts. Culturally it is not seen as a big deal” he said. “It is almost a totally commercial thing over here. There is nothing like carolling or any of the traditions that you would associate with Christmas. I would seriously doubt that many people would even have a Christmas tree in their apartment. I think it is the little things that you expect to see around Christmas, they just aren’t there.

“This country is very work-oriented – they don’t get that much time off and they generally work around the clock. Christmas is only a one-day holiday over here so everyone will be back to work on Stephen’s Day.”

With a growing Irish population in South Korea, Maccon-Fionn was able to come together with some fellow Irish men and women and celebrate Christmas Day last year. He shared the holiday with fellow Clare people Aidan O’Donoghue from Ennis, Alex Whyatt from Ennis, Maura Crawford from Inagh as well as Stephen and Mark Milliken.

“There is a good-sized Irish population over here and we come together to have Christmas dinner. There was good camaraderie, everyone made a special effort because we were not with our families,” he continued.

“We managed to track down some pre-cooked turkey and we all made a real effort to make it like home – I think we made a pretty good fist of it. But the atmosphere outside just wasn’t the same. We were making a bit of noise and having a little fun and some of the locals called the police on us and complained about the noise. They really don’t do the boisterous celebration that we would be used to. A lot of drink was flowing on the day, which we thought was perfectly normal, but the locals didn’t know what to make of us.”

Last Christmas was also Maccon- Fionn’s first Christmas spent away from his family in North Clare.

“Of course I missed my family on Christmas Day, but not as much as you would think. It’s the era of Skype and so on so I was able to call them and see them and talk to them. That was nice. We were all in the same boat over here as well, it was a shared experience and that was a help. Some people were feeling bad about it but I think when you’ve spent 24 or 25 Christmasses at home that something like this is just a new experience. The reason I wanted to come home this year was to have that coming-homefor-Christmas experience. If I wasn’t able to come home this year for some reason, I don’t think I would have been devastated by it.”

A GOVERNMENT grant would be required to complete unfinished housing estates as the problem is beyond the “capability” of Clare County Council, a meeting has heard.

The issue of the council’s involvement in unfinished estates was raised at last week’s budget meeting.

Councillor Johnny Flynn (FG) said that while the council is making a major contribution to the community and enterprise sector, there is concern over the work required to complete a number of housing estates in the county.

County Manager Tom Coughlan said the council has previously provided € 55,000 to unfinished estates but the amount was a “drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed”.

He told the meeting that an increase in commercial rates would have allowed the council to set money aside for estates.

However, Mr Coughlan said that the problem is “beyond the capability” of the local authority.

He said the council could appeal to the government to provide a one-off grant to carry out works.

In her report, Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) stated that housing maintenance “is a critical element of the housing programme both in terms of improving safety and security within the home and also within the housing estate”.

Cllr McCarthy, who chairs of the council’s Housing Strategic Policy Committee (SPC), continued, “During the year, 1,420 maintenance calls were logged in respect of 772 properties.

The budget for 2012 at € 891k including loan charges will see a continuation of our maintenance programme with a primary focus on essential health and safety repairs.

“Improvement works to bring the council’s housing stock in line with current rented standards were carried out on 86 units at a cost of € 153k in 2011. Should funding be provided by the Department in 2012 this programme will be continued”.

Cllr McCarthy explained that improvements were carried out on 51 vacant units through energy efficiency upgrades. She said that funding for the scheme is obtained through the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

Cllr McCarthy continued, “This funding is dependent on the availability of a local contribution from internal capital receipts, which are diminishing on an annual basis. The grant rate is related to the energy improvement achieved but generally is 80% of the approved cost. It is ex- pected that the Department funding under this heading will be significantly reduced in 2012 and this will restrict the number of units that can be improved”.

Cllr McCarthy stated that is expected that in excess of 700 housing grant applications will be received by the end of the year.

She continued. “An estimated total of 540 grants will be approved as compared with 472 in 2010. Estimated expenditure for the year is € 3.375m, of which 80% is recoupable from the Department. It is anticipated that due to budgetary constraints a reduced level of activity will occur in 2012”.

THERE will be no roast turkey for Miltown Malbay man Davey Rynne this Christmas Day. Instead, Davey will be barbecuing his dinner outside, in a pair of sandals, short trousers with a handful of ice cold beer.

Davey Rynne has been living in Wellington, New Zealand, for almost six years. Unlike his brother Declan, who will be making the long trek home this Christmas, Davey will be spending Christmas Day in New Zealand, enjoying the heat of a December Down Under.

“I have a Kiwi wife and a Kiwi mortgage so I am fairly settled over here now. I have been back for Christmas once or twice but I think you need to acclimatise here – you need to spend time here or there is no point living here,” he said. “The climate is just so different here at Christmas time. I’m looking out the window here now and it’s 9pm and the sun is just going down after a scorcher of a day.

“I think there is a different emphasis on Christmas over here – it just seems to creep up on you over here and then it is gone again, whereas at home they are building up for it for months beforehand and you’re talking about it for a month after. Coming from what we have at home it is just so different.

“It would be very rare to eat turkey over here at Christmas time – just because of the heat. It is physically too hot for a roast dinner, you actually just couldn’t eat it. Instead of hoping for a white Christmas, you are hoping for a fine day. We will be out in our shorts and sandals and a t-shirt and we will be going up my wife’s family farm to have a nice barbecue.”

While Davey is well settled in New Zealand, there are still things about the wet streets of Miltown Malbay that he misses once December 25 rolls around.

“I think the one thing that you do miss is sitting around the big family table at home and having the turkey and the ham. I actually miss the wet wintery day where you can sit inside and eat to your heart’s content and relax for the evening,” continued Davey.

“It is super easy to be in contact with people back at home now. I’m probably in better contact now with people in Clare than I was when I worked in Dublin. With Facebook and Skype, I know more of what is happening at home than some of the people at home themselves.

“We do have a good Irish crowd out here now, especially in the last year or so. I think it is because of the bad news that we keep hearing about the economy at home that more and more people from Clare are passing through Wellington and a lot of them are staying.”

AFTER decades of campaigning Kinvara has finally been given the go ahead for the construction of a state of the art € 5.2 million treatment plant.

Presently more than 60,000 gallons of raw sewage are been discharged into Kinvara Bay each day. Besides the obvious environmental difficulties associated with the dumping of raw sewage, the village also suffers badly at times of low or unusual tides when a back wash effect can bring some of the waste into the picturesque surrounding of the Kinvara Pier. Because of this unusual movement of water in Kinvara Bay, raw sewage is often seen floating on the flat waters of the harbour – especially during the summer months.

Kinvara village has become a major tourist attraction in recent years with tens of thousands of tourists visiting each year to enjoy the the towns great maritime and traditional music heritage.

Before this year’s General Election local TD, Ciaran Cannon (FG), committed to resign his seat and not run again if a sewage system for Kinvara was not built during the life of the current government.

“When I first ran for the council back in 2004 this was an issue that had lingered for years with no solution in sight. I had always hoped that some day I could work with my colleagues locally and nation- ally to bring this saga to an end, and thankfully we have now arrived at that point,” he said. “Anyone visiting Kinvara at night over the Christmas period will be uplifted by the beautiful sight of a boat moored in the harbour and lit with hundreds of twinkling lights. It is a fitting symbol of a community that has lived and laboured by the sea for generations. I am delighted that within a couple of years that boat will be moored in a bay which has finally been restored to its original pristine beauty.”

The majority of the € 5.2 construction cost will come from the Department of the Environment with the balance being made up from funds already earmarked for the project by Galway County Council.

CLARE County Council will have no landfill facility in operation during 2012, but the aftercare costs associated with the landfill that was located at Ballyduff beg in Inagh have broken through the € 1m barrier for the first time. The Clare People can reveal that Clare County Council has budgeted to spend € 1,122,201 on aftercare maintenance of the controversial landfill facility that has now been shut down – over double the sum they budgeted for and spent in 2011.

These figures are contained in the Draft Budget 2012 that was put before members of Clare County Council this Tuesday by County Manager Tom Coughlan.

The closure of Inagh Landfill last month means that the bill for having a landfill operation in Clare has reduced to zero, as against the € 3,886,535 that was provided for the facility in the 2011 Budget.

However, this significant cost saving is significantly cut by the spiralling maintenance costs associated with the facility, as well as the loss of over € 2m in income to the council because of the landfill’s closure.

The council’s budget has set aside € 1,122,201 for aftercare services, as distinct from just € 482,625 in 2011, which represents a jump of € 639, 576.

“The closure of the landfill will have a significant effect on the budg- et for 2012,” the county manager has revealed.

“The operating costs of the facility will reduce, but provision has to be made for the maintenance of the closed landfill. There will also be a reduction in income at the facility of € 2.1m.

“The closure of the landfill will mean that all waste deposited at our three transfer stations in Scariff, Lisdeen and Ballyduff beg will need to be transferred by licensed waste management companies to landfills outside the county,” he added.

The final cells at the Inagh landfill were filled in November 2011, bringing an end to landfill activity in Clare, but the recycling facilities still remain open, while small quantities of household black bag waste continue to be accepted at the facility.

CLARE County Council’s share of the Local Government Fund provided to by the Department of the Environment has been slashed by over € 6.2m over the past two years.

Money coming into Clare County Council coffers in 2012 has been set at € 10.18m, while it stood at € 16. 41m in 2009. However, this reduction still represents good news for the county’s premier decision-making body. That’s because Clare has moved rapidly up the league table of county councils around the country when it comes to the doling out of government money from the lucrative Local Development Fund.

Figures contained in the Draft Budget 2012 have revealed that Clare Council have been informed by Minister Phil Hogan that their share of the Local Government Fund has been set at € 10.18m.

“This is a reduction of 5.45 per cent on the net Local Government Fund, making a cumulative reduction of 38 per cent since 2009,” Clare County Manager Tom Coughlan has revealed. “The national levels of reduction are not yet published,” added Mr Coughlan, “but I understand that, as in 2011, Clare County Council has not suffered the most severe reductions on a national comparative basis in the Local Government Fund.”

In fact, it’s believed that Clare now sits third in the Local Government Fund league table, when once they were a lowly 23rd when it came to secured monies from the fund that’s crucial to the operation of any local authority.

The funding levels for Clare County Council in 2012 come against a backdrop of a range of cutbacks that have been administered in the local authority over the past few years.

Payroll costs have been slashed from the € 44.8m high in 2009 to € 37.9m in 2011, while it’s been projected that they will be cut to € 36.8m in 2012, which will represent a 17.8 per cent cut in three years.

“Despite the ongoing efforts to reduce expenditure and increase income, the projected financial result for 2011 is a € 500,000 deficit,” the county manager has revealed.

This deficit has been blamed on the weather, Traveller accommodation and reducing rates revenues.

The key variances are as a result of the essential works which were undertaken to respond to the adverse weather conditions in early 2011, unexpected costs relating to Traveller accommodation and the increased levels of vacant properties in the county,” said Mr Coughlan.

Further cutbacks are to be put in place for 2012, with the projected number of staff at the end of February 2012 set at 810, which compares to a figure of 1,002 in 2006, while it’s anticipated that further reductions in staffing levels will occur in 2012.

“The ongoing reduction in staffing levels has resulted in a situation where staff of the council continue to deliver services even though the number of staff available to do so has been severely reduced,” said Mr Coughlan.

MORE THAN 200 volunteers were out in force on Saturday and Sunday as the search continued for a woman who has been missing from the Cliffs of Moher for more than a week.

The missing woman, who has been named locally as Gillian Richardson from Limerick, was last seen on Saturday, December 10, and the alarm was raised when local gardaí located the car belonging to the 38-year-old Dell employee parked on a road close to the Cliffs of Moher.

More than 200 people took part in one of the largest searches to take place in north Clare in recent years with the emergency services being joined by more then 150 family, friends and neighbours over the weekend.

The Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard, who have been leading the search effort, was joined by volunteers from the Kilkee Coastguard and the Lough Derg Rescue Service over the weekend as-well-as members of the Gardaí and a number of local volunteers.

The search area has also been widened and now stretches from Blackhead, between Fanore and Ballyvaughan in north Clare, and Quilty in West Clare. According to Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard, the search will continue for a number of days this week but is likely to scaled down later in the week if no major discovery is forthcoming.

“We are still searching and we will continue to search tomorrow (Tuesday, December 20), and later on into the week.

“We had more than 170 people out with us looking on Sunday with most of them being relatives, family and friends,” said Mattie.

“The search area now stretches from Blackhead down to Quilty so it is a very large area to be searching. The search will continue for the time being, but is likely to be scaled down later this week.”

As well as the various local units of the Irish Coastguard, family, friends and relatives, the search has also included the Shannon based Irish Coastguard Rescue Helicopter aswell-as the SARDA Dog Team.

The search was officially launched on Saturday, December 9, when a car was discovered on a road near Aill na Searrach a short distance from the Cliffs of Moher on the road to Doolin.

Inquiries also confirmed that the woman had left her home early on Friday and she is understood to have told family members that she had a doctor’s appointment.

THE events of the Clare branch of Birdwatch Ireland have been chronicled in another calendar, the proceeds of which will raise funds for the group’s activities organized each year.

The Clare branch of Birdwatch Ireland is a registered charity, with the 2012 calendar being the third production that they have published over the past three years.

“Funds raised go towards the maintenance of our www.clarebirdwatching.com website and the annual running of our branch,” spokesperson and wildlife expert, photographer and filmmaker John Murphy has revealed.

“During the year we run free out- ings on a monthly basis throughout the county so that the general public and Birdwatch Ireland members can come along to see the wonderful birds and nature that the county has to offer,” he added.

The calendars are available from many shops in Ennis including the Ennis Bookshop, Jimmy Brohans, the Paperchase, all the pet shops,

McLougney’s in Shannon and many other small outlets throughout the county.

It can be purchased directly from Tom Lynch or John Murphy, details on our website and are priced at € 8, with a limited amount of copies remaining.