Category: News

COURT sittings across Clare will experience significant changes in the new year if proposals to centralise the service, which is currently on the table, are adopted.

Under the changes, there will be specific dates for crime hearings, separate dates for civil hearings and other listed dates for hearings related to traffic offences.

Also, most of the hearings will be centralised to Ennis. While Kilrush cases will continue to be heard in the west Clare town, cases from north Clare are to be moved to Ennis.

Shannon cases are already heard in Ennis, while Killaloe courts currently sit in Ennis as a temporary measure while a new venue for the east Clare courts is being sought.

Up to six additional east Clare sittings will take place annually, after Athenry was moved from the district to the Galway district. It frees up the 11 Athenry sittings currently presided over by the district court judge responsible for Clare. Some of those will go to Killaloe, where a backlog has built up over the past few years, after Scariff and Tulla courts closed.

Under the proposals, there will be five crime sittings a month, two traffic days and two civil hearings, along with two days of family law sittings.

Crime cases will be heard on Wednesdays, with civil and traffic cases on Fridays.

“The bulk of Ennistymon is going back to Ennis, apart from a few townlands that will go to Kil- rush. Kilrush will stay as is,” said a spokesperson for the Courts Service.

The spokesperson added that if possible, courts will move back to Killaloe.

“If we can keep a court in Killaloe we will. A committee is looking at venues,” said the spokesperson.

The proposed changes, which are at draft stage, are poised to be implemented in January if they are adopted.

The separation of the types of offences heard means that less Garda resources will be wasted. In recent years, members of the traffic corps regularly spent hours sitting in court waiting for hours for their cases to be heard during the general court sittings.

“It will reduce Garda overtime, for example if there are 14 gardaí from Shannon sitting in Ennis court, at least seven will be on overtime, at the moment. Now, they can be put working on the days their court is sitting. It is a way of reducing State expenses,” said the spokesperson.

A Garda spokesman told The Clare People that hopes are high that the Killaloe courts still return to east Clare, having sat in Ennis since September.

Additional dates for Killaloe court sittings were requested by gardaí, after lengthy sittings prevailed in recent months.

“The logistics of bringing all the gardaí and witnesses from Killaloe to Ennis is a nightmare. There is no direct public transport service for people travelling the 35 miles to court,” he said.

WITH pedestrianisation due to be in place in Ennis for two days in December, there have been further calls for a reduction in parking charges.

Yesterday’s meetings of councillors in the Ennis Electoral Areas (East and West) heard calls for changes in parking policy.

Cllr James Breen (Ind) said that “two-hour free parking should be put in place daily in Ennis for a trial period of three months”.

Cllr Breen said the trial could benefit shoppers and businesses. He told the meeting that the one-hour parking limit in place in parts of the town centre was an inconvenience for many shoppers. He said this was particularly the case for women going to hairdressers to have “highlights put in their hair”. He said women were often in the salon for more than an hour.

Cllr Tom McNamara (FF) said current parking limits are an “awful hindrance” for rural shoppers. He said that many people are now opting to shop in Limerick instead.

In response, Town Clerk Leonard Cleary stated, “At the November meeting of Ennis Town Council, the possibility of an incentivised parking scheme to stimulate the Christmas shopping market was discussed. This matter is being further researched. Consultation with the business community has been arranged”. Mr Cleary stated that views from the Ennis Area Committees would be considered by Ennis Town Council.

Cllr Pat Daly called on the council to consider allocating the first hour of parking to shoppers in Ennis free of charge on a trial basis.

Cllr Daly said this would assist rate-paying businesses, many of whom he described as “struggling to survive”.

Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) requested that members of Fine Gael and Labour should lobby the government to ensure parking charges are made exempt from a proposed increased in VAT.

Town Manager Ger Dollard said yesterday that the current parking regime has been designed to ensure a high turnover of spaces.

Mr Dollard said there is a good mix of short- and long-term parking spaces in Ennis.

Ennis Town Council is proposing to pedestrianise Abbey Street from its junction with Francis Street to O’Connell Square; O’Connell Square and O’Connell Street from O’Connell Square to its junction with Station Road.

It is proposed that the areas will be closed to traffic from 11am to 6pm on December 17 and 24.

ENNIS Musical Society are aiming to take the stress out of Christmas shopping by hosting a ‘Favours Auction’ at the Old Ground Hotel on Thursday, December 1.

The society’s Favours Auction will offer a range of items in one place for those searching for interesting Christmas gift ideas.

“This is a new venture for us in Ennis Musical Society,” explained chairperson, Kaye Gaynor.

She added, “For those unfamiliar with the idea of a Favours Auction, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Members of the society will offer favours for auction to the public as part of an event to raise funds for our upcoming production of ‘The Sound of Music’.”

Ms Gaynor said, “We’re a talented bunch in Ennis Musical Society. People will have witnessed the talent of our members on stage; now they get the chance to see what we can produce off-stage as well. The whole theme of the event is taking some of the stress out of Christmas preparations while also trying to raise a few all important euro for the society.”

Without revealing the full extent of what will be on offer, Ms Gaynor said prospective buyers can expect something a little bit different from a regular Christmas present. She added, “We’ll have good quality gifts for sale, ranging from the practical to the savoury to the sporty to the artistic. There’ll be plenty of Christmas goodies, the chance to have one-toone singing lessons with one of Ireland’s most celebrated sopranos, the offer of somebody to cook in your home or to have your house made spotless before the Christmas. We’ll have a couple of items of interest for golf enthusiasts, support for individuals thinking about their direction in life, beauty treatments, pieces of art and a couple of items that will make Christmas really special for children this year.”

While the Ennis Musical Society is keen to use the event as a fundraiser, Ms Gaynor said that members are also clear that this will be an enjoyable event.

She explained, “There’ll be music and food and on the night and our own auctioneer, Cormac O’Sullivan, will help make this a fun occasion while also doing his utmost to loosen the purse-strings of all the prospective buyers.”

The auction will get underway at 8pm.

MORE than 20 per cent of the limestone pavement of the Burren is now covered in scrub, with more hazel encroachment taking place each year. While the scrub explosion is only one of the threats to the biodiversity of the Burren, it has become a rallying point for Burren management, both because visual impact of scrub encroachment but also because of the direct correlation between new farming techniques and spread of hazel.

Farming in the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme now actively manage more than 50,000 acres of land n the Burren. Scrub is kept under control by encouraging cattle and goats to use the old winterage area of the Burren, instead of being housed inside during the winter.

While outside in the dry limestone winterage, the animals eat the young hazel saplings and prevent the bushes from becoming established on the limestone pavement.

“It doesn’t really pay farmers to graze these areas anymore. There is too much work and labour involved in making these areas suitable for grazing. That is what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years, a lot of the upland areas are not being grazed anymore – and that is where we find all the wonderful monuments and the flora,” said Brendan Dunford of the Burren Farming for Conservation Organisation.

“So what we are paying for is good management of non-profitable areas. And there is a cost for this, over and above what the farmer will make back. So what we make sure is that payments are only made when the land is managed properly. If the farmer isn’t bothered then he won’t be paid, but if a farmer is willing to go that extra mile then we are happy to pay for it – because in the long term for the future of the Burren it is incredibly cost effective.

“We are an environmental scheme so our focus is on delivering environmental aims such as good water, biodiversity and good landscape. But the only way that we can achieve that is to try and continue the old farm practices, which were dying out in some areas. So the farmers are absolutely key to the future of the Burren.

“Farmers are a part of the social fabric and the spirit of the area but they are absolutely key in managing the Burren environment. The farmers have the skills, the motiva- tion and the know-how to make this work. The farmers are also the first people who will benefit if this works, not the environmentalist or the tourists,” said Mr Dunford.

“We see ourselves not as saving farming in the Burren but just adding an extra impetus on the ecological side of things. We feel that the production of food is still important and farmers will still benefit from the Single Farm Payment but hopefully what we are doing is helping to put some confidence and relevance back into farming. Farming is about producing food but it is also about managing environments.”

THE future of the Burren Farming for Conservation Project beyond 2013 is inextricably linked to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – with the future of the unique Burren landscape now tied to negotiations which will take place in Brussels.

With the entire grant funding of the project now coming from unspent SFP, any major change to the CAP could threaten the entire future of the project.

Despite this uncertainty however, project manager Brendan Dunford is hopeful that the project could be rolled our right across the Burren in the years to come. A total of 35 farm families applied to become Life Farmers in 2010 and it is though that this number has swelled following the success of the first two years of the project.

“My biggest regret is that we cannot accommodate all the farmers who want to be involved. So all that we can do for the time being is to do as good a job as we can with the farmers that we have and hopefully that will strengthen our position in the future to do more,” said Brendan.

“It is very much our vision that every farmer in the Burren who wants to farm for conservation would be available to do that. That is dependent on funding but the better that we do the better position we are in to get funding into the future.”

While scrub encroachment is often seen as the enemy of biodiversity in the Burren, according to Mr Dunford the key is to strike a balance between all the natural habitats that exist in the area and now allow any to dominate.

“The problem that we are dealing with now is that, because of the withdrawal of farming from some areas in the past thirty years, we are getting a big imbalance between the areas of encroaching scrub and the areas of well managed grassland. What we want to is to maintain a balance,” he said.

“Even with the work we are doing here, the amount of scrub encroachment exceeds the amount that we are able to remove each year. But in a way that is beside the point, scrub can turn into a great woodland itself and we are certainly not trying to eradicate it. It is about a balance, what we want to do is manage the grassland to maintain what is some of the most bio-diverse landscape in Europe and if scrub comes in on these areas we want to push it back out again.”

THE refurbishing of council housing stock in Kilrush has been held up as offering a beacon of hope for the community and a timely antidote to the sense of hopelessness that was out there, the monthly meeting of the town’s urban authority was told last Thursday night.

The comments were made by town clerk John Corry, as all nine councillors were universal in their praise of Kilrush Town Council’s commitment to upgrading its council housing stock, through a scheme that will eventually see up 40 houses in the town renovated.

“There was a lot of talk about the feeling of hopelessness in the estate,” said Mr Corry about John Paul Estate, “but the appearance alone is a lot brighter and raises the positivity around the place. People can be proud of the area they’re living in. It has come on a long way in the last couple of months and sends out a very positive note,” he added.

Mr Corry made his comments following confirmation that the first phase of the council’s 2011 redevelopment programme has been completed, with the next stage set to commence in the coming weeks fol- lowing the completion of a tendering process for a range of works.

“There has been significant work going on in the estate over the last number of months,” said Mr Corry. “It has consisted of refurbishment of 11 houses has been virtually completed.

“The work was done to a very high standard indeed. Ten of those houses have been occupied with the 11th being snagged presently. With regard to the next phase, we propose to a further 21 houses, that needs to be split into two phases of 11 and 10.

“We have tendered for that and the tender is with the Department of the Environment. We would hope that works would begin there very, very shortly and can proceed to the next phase of 11 houses. In anticipation of that we have met with the tenants of the 11 houses and a number of them have already been transferred to alternative accommodation,” he added.

In addition to the works in John Paul Estate, improvement works have been undertaken on seven houses on Wilson’s Road, four of which have already been occupied, while the remaining three will be over the next couple of weeks.

PEOPLE in Kilrush might struggle to have the financial means to pay for a series of stealth taxes that are expected to be introduced in next months Budget, town councillors have warned in calling for a means test to be introduced for people in the west Clare capital catchment area.

This claim that there are now a host of families in Kilrush are now on the breadline was sounded out as member of the local authority gave their universal backing for the introduction of a means-tested waiver scheme for householders “who have not the financial means to pay for taxes like water charges and property taxes on principal residences”.

“Some people living in a sheltered world don’t know how bad it is out there,” said Mayor of Kilrush, Cllr Ian Lynch told the meeting. “There are an awful lot of people on the breadline and I think some people will not be able to afford services.

“A means test will have to be brought in. We mightn’t realise ourselves how bad it is around town. It is absolutely dire out there,” Kilrush’s first citizen warned in backing a mo- tion that was proposed by former Mayor, Tom Prendeville.

“While the government implements financial austerity measures ordinary people in Kilrush will be asked to make huge financial sacrifices,” blasted Cllr Prendeville.

“The mention of water charges and property taxes in the upcoming Budget will mean that some pensioners, widow and other social welfare recipients will go hungry as much of their paltry weekly allowances will have to be set aside for these new stealth taxes.

“All this in the so-called name of fiscal rectitude. This is morally wrong, while NAMA bails out developers with generous allowances and the reckless lending of some bad banks is rewarded with € 700m of taxpayers money.

“There are people in Kilrush who will have to continue to exist by scrimping on the bare essentials of life to pay for the excesses of the Celtic Tiger. A waiver scheme to help these people to keep food on the table has to be brought in. It’s a small concession to ask for on behalf of a very vulnerable section of society,” Cllr Prendeville added.

VACANT buildings in Kilrush are being vandalised and looted for any valuables inside, Kilrush Town Council was told, amid renewed called from members for the local authority to ramp up security measures at unused premises around the town.

The extent of the vandalism and looting problems were sounded out by Independent councillor Paul Moroney after Mayor of Kilrush, Cllr Ian Lynch sounded out his call for “a safety and condition survey of all vacant council property”.

“It’s unbelievable what’s going on in the town,” said Cllr Moroney. “I know that someone went into a house recently and heard a noise the there was someone up on top of the roof stealing the lead – I’m not talking about a vacant house.

“This was happening in broad daylight. We can talk about estate management plans all you like, but when there’s ignorance out there, it’s very hard to get over it. Lads that are doing the houses are being told that copper is the last thing that should go into the houses, because it will be stolen,” added Cllr Moroney.

To confront such problems, Cllr Lynch called on the council “to comply with our duty to prevent unauthorised access to property under our control”, while he also called for the convening of housing meeting to discuss estate and property management among dwelling owned by the town authority.

“People are going into houses and this should be stopped,” warned Cllr Lynch. “There are quite a lot houses that were boarded up, but are no longer boarded up. My fear is that children will be in those vacant dwelling and that there could be an accident and if there is we as a council will be liable. We need to focus on property management,” he added.

The mayor called for the implementation of an action plan to monitor the council’s vacant housing stock – part of this plan would see CCTV cameras focused on vacant houses, as well as having these properties monitored by FÁS maintenance workers and a community warden.

A MAJOR new job creation drive could be on the cards for Clare in 2012 after Shannon Development was one of a small number of regional organisation granted an increase in funding by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton (FG), last week.

The regional promotional and job creation agency has been granting a year-on-year budget increase of almost 40 per cent and will see their operations budget swell from € 3.6 million to € 5 million next year.

It is as yet unclear what this € 1.4 million budget increase will be spent on or whether a particular major project has already been identified for the money. It is also unclear whether some of all of this budget increase has already been accounted for in the € 3.2 million in tourism funding which was announced for the Shannon region by the Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar (FG), earlier this month. The Clare People contacted Shannon Development in relation to the funding boost but no comment on the increase or the possible use of the funding was forth coming at the time of going to press.

Speaking on the budget increase, Shannon Senator Tony Mulcahy (FG) said it was a vote of confidence for the work being on the ground in Clare to promote the region to foreign tourists as-well-as foreign investment. “This funding is good news for Clare and the region and it just highlights the positives work that is being done. I mean, we had an Olympic Handball event here [Shannon] last week and that saw about 400 extra people here for a week,” said Senator Mulcahy.

“Even sporting events like the Munster match the other night will help boost the profile of Shannon Airport and the region as a whole.”

Meanwhile, a major seminar for the promotion of walking tourism in Clare has been announced for the Pavillion Theatre in Lisdoonvarna on Wednesday, November 23.

There will be a number of speakers in north Clare for the event including experts from Shannon Development as-well-as members from the Clare Trails Steering Group.

The purpose of the seminar is to let the public know of recent developments in the provision of way marked trails and to announce a special two-day training programme for walk leaders.

Walking tourism is now Clare’s fastest growing tourism attraction, attracting more people to the county each year than traditional favourite golf.

THIS year celebrates Ennis Players 26th anniversary Supper Theatre at the Old Ground Hotel from Monday, November 21, to Thursday, November 24. One of the town’s premier pre Christmas social occasions, Ennis Players will be performing two one act productions this year.

Rae Shirley’s hilarious comedy “What shall we do with the Body” is set in a lonely country cottage. Miss Temple played by Carmel Quin, a famous crime writer is dictating her latest novel to her enigmatic secretary, Miss Worthington, played by Ailbhe McMahon. However they become increasingly worried by a number of unusual events and especially the sudden arrival of a strangely dressed visitor, played by Tony Coffey. This is a great little thriller and the audience is kept guessing as to the identity and motives of the murderer right up to the end.

The second production is a wonderfully written comedy, “The Way of All Fish” by Elaine May, whose screenplays for “Heaven Can Wait” and “Primary Colours” have earned her Academy Award Nominations. The play is set in the New York office of a high- flying businesswoman, over an impromptu dinner with her meek hard working secretary. A power game is played out between the two with sharp American humour, enriched with sinister overtones. The cast is made up of Bairbre de Barra and Amy McEnnis.

Tony Coffey takes the reins for the first time as a director with the Ennis Players and will produce “What shall we do with the Body”, with the veteran Joe Varden directing “The Way of All Fish”.

Ennis Players have reduced their ticket price this year to € 15 which includes the two plays and a wonderful supper. The show will begin at 8pm each night and tickets can be booked through the Irish Shop in the Market at 065 6820769.

Ennis will be hosting the MACE All Ireland One-Act Finals in Glór from December 2 to December 4, so you can expect a feast of the very best in amateur theatre over the next few weeks.