Category: News

GARDAÍ have launched an investigation after three people were injured following a two-car collision in Gorteen on Saturday night.

One man in his sixties and two men in their thirties are being treated in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick following the incident which took place at around 12.30am on the Quin Road.

It is thought that the driver of the van involved in the incident of the scene fled the scene on foot after the collision occurred.

One of the injured men managed to release himself from the car and call for assistance.

The three men, a father, his son and a friend, were travelling towards Ennis at the time.

Meanwhile Gardaí have issued an appeal aimed at preventing forest fires.

In Clare in 2010 there were eight fires resulting in 18 hectares being damaged.

According to private forestry business Woodland, at least 500 hectares of private forestry were destroyed by fires in 2010 resulting.

Sgt Joe Downey, Crime Prevention Officer in the Clare Garda Division, explained, “If fires are lit near or adjacent to forests and not properly controlled they can get out of control and cause sever damage to forests and possibly damage homes that are built too close to the forests and in extreme cases to serious injuries.”

He explained that apart from the risk of injuries there is also a significant cost factor to be taken into account.

Sgt Downey is urging any landowners intending to burn land to clear scrub to contact the fire services before doing so.

He explained, “Under certain circumstances, and based mainly on tradition, the burning of land to clear scrub and unwanted vegetation has become and accepted practice. Members of the community who engage in this practice should make themselves aware of the necessary precautions relating to controlled burning by contacting the local fire services.”

Sgt Downey added, “We want to emphasise the threat that land and forest fires present to people’s lives and property. You must comply with the legislation and undertake burning in a controlled manner. It is also advisable to contact the fire services the day before you intend to burn so that they are aware if any phonecalls come into their office.

AS MANY as 4,200 Clare citizens from the east of the county were required to cast their votes not in the Clare constituency, but the hotly contested new constituency of Limerick City.

As many as 3,270 of those Clare people cast their votes in nine boxes in a school in Parteen and a Scouts Hall in Shannon Banks.

The Clare vote reflected that of the constituency as a whole with Fine Gael’s former leader Michael Noonan receiving almost 30 per cent or 967 of the votes cast on the Clare side of the ever-contentious boundary line. This was just a few percentage points shy of what the Fine Gael stalwart received in the constituency as a whole when he topped the poll for the very first time.

Despite such supporters in Clare as Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF), Willie O’Dea (FF) saw his vote drop to 16.89 per cent or 545 votes.

Despite being elected on the seventh count after failing to reach the quota Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan polled strongly in east Clare, coming in as the second most popular candidate with 21.44 per cent of that vote.

In the only Clare area with a Labour Clare county councillor in the form of Pascal Fitzgerald, the Clonlara native secured 705 votes.

The second Fine Gael candidate and TD Kieran O’Donnell was also the second TD elected following a healthy transfer from running partner Michael Noonan.

Deputy Noonan, had increased his first preference vote across the constituency by 77 per cent.

Fianna Fáil’s Deputy O’Dea’s first preference vote had fallen however by as much as 64 per cent.

Former mayor of Limerick City and former Fine Gael councillor Kevin Kiely, who has long since been an advocate for moving the Limerick City boundary into Clare, did not poll well in the Clare area he believed should belong to Limerick city.

The now Independent candidate received just 36 out of a possible 3,270 Clare votes or one per cent of the vote.

RYANAIR has pledged to breathe new life into Shannon Airport over the next five years by bringing in one million new passengers, provided the Dublin Airport Authority extends its “growth incentive scheme” to the low-cost carrier.

The airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary has told The Clare People that his offer to address Shannon’s flagged fortunes would be the start of a process where passenger numbers could again touch nearly two million passengers a year, which was the case as recently as two years ago before Ryanair started scaling back its operations on foot of higher costs.

“A million passengers in Shannon would create about a thousand jobs there and a visitor spend of close to € 100 million annually,” Mr O’Leary revealed. “We will deliver that if the same traffic growth incentive discount that the DAA have recently given Aer Lingus at Dublin Airport is given to Ryanair.

“It’s a net € 4 per passenger that the DAA are paying Aer Lingus. If they put a similar growth incentive scheme in place in Shannon that we will pay the existing charges that have gone up by 33 per cent on the base traffic of 300,000 passengers, but on the increase of one million new passengers the DAA would pay us a net € 4 per departing passenger,” added Mr O’Leary.

At the peak of Ryanair’s involvement in Shannon, the airline operated 53 routes from Shannon, but began to scale back its operations in March 2009 after the Government introduced the € 10 travel tax.

Then last November the airline cut back to 300,000 passengers annually when passenger fees were increased by 33 per cent, but Mr O’Leary has told The Clare People that the air- port’s recovery can be kick-started

“We are operating year round three routes at Shannon. We would have to take that back up to 25 routes. We now only have one aircraft based at Shannon – we would have to go back up to four, relaunch a lot of the routes we had to close and open some more routes.

“I see no reason why we couldn’t grow our traffic back up to 1.8 to 1.9 million passengers annually if two things happen – one thing if the travel tax is removed and two the DAA give his growth incentive scheme.

“After a 37% traffic decline in January, what has Shannon, the DAA or the Irish Government got to lose, apart from more passengers, more visitors and more jobs in the MidWest region.

“Ryanair has given the DAA until March 5 to accept our one million passenger growth offer,” continued Mr O’Leary “and since Declan Collier and the DAA have no other plans for traffic growth at Shannon, this time we hope they’ll see the sense of accepting Ryanair’s offer and putting Shannon Airport back on a growth trajectory, rather than continuing with the DAA’s failed higher fees/traffic collapse policy,” he concluded.

RESIDENTS in Shannon will voice their concerns over issues in their locality at a meeting of the local town council tonight (Tuesday).

People living in the Cúl na Gréine housing estate in the Tullyvarraga area of the town feel they are being ignored and are concerned that contentious issues are not being taken seriously.

The 107-unit estate was built six years ago and issues such as antisocial behaviour have prevailed, for which locals urgently require action.

A concerned residents group has been set up, with the aim of ensuring their voices are heard by the local authorities.

Three representatives of the group will attend tonight’s meeting and are hopeful that their issues will be taken on board by the town council members. “They are coming along in solidarity of what we are doing,” said Independent Councillor Gerry Flynn, who is involved in the organisation.

“There are big issues. They have made several attempts to start a residents association but they got little or no help from Clare County Council,” said Cllr Flynn.

“There are people bringing up their children there and there are also retired people living there. They are fantastic people. All they want to do is to be able to enjoy their homes in peace,” he added.

He said that some people living in the area are the subject of threats and intimidation, while anti-social behaviour is problematic.

“There is a Neighbourhood Watch scheme. However, it is difficult to get resources even to buy a few signs. They are being forgotten about. I want to give them a voice,” he added.

Cllr Flynn is calling on the council to provide a detailed report on the estate management issues in Cúl na Gréine.

SHANNON Airport must be “freed from the dead hand of the Dublin Airport Authority” and sold by the State to the highest bidder, Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has told The Clare People in outlining his blueprint for the survival of the former hub of the aviation world as an airport of international standing.

O’Leary’s radical proposal to sell Shannon to secure its future came as he launched a new bid to generate much needed business at the airport that has been in passenger freefall over the past two years after Ryanair slashed its operations for a peak of 53 routes down to its current status of three.

In pledging to provide an extra million passengers to the airport over the next five years if granted a growth incentive scheme similar to the one ac- corded to Aer Lingus in Dublin, Mr O’Leary has challenged the incoming government to finally grant Shannon its independence by selling it.

“There is going to be much more radical solutions under the next government,” said O’Leary “and I strongly believe that one of the first State assets that should be sold should be Cork and Shannon Airports to non DAA ownership that would be committed to growing traffic.

“Seamus Brennan tried to give Shannon its independence but he was shafted by Bertie and the unions. It would be a very brave politican, particularly if it were a coalition government involving Labour that would come up with a plan to give Shannon its independence and upset Brother Beggs and Brother O’Connor.

“But Shannon should be sold debt free. The debts should stay with Dub- lin and I say that as Dublin’s biggest customer, so I’ll probably be still paying off the debt. The only way forward for traffic growth, for jobs and for tourism in Shannon and Cork is to free them from the DAA.

“One airline has demonstrated the ability to grow traffic at Shannon – that’s Ryanair. No one can take away from the fact that over the last five years we were operating over 50 routes to and from Shannon.

“There was a buzz about the place; there was traffic growth; we were working closely with what started off as the independent board of Shannon under Pat Shanahan and Tadhg Kearney. Shannon isn’t independent anymore and the best way to give it its independence would be to sell it,” added Mr O’Leary.

THE Dublin Airport Authority stand indicted for allowing Shannon Airport go into “freefall” over the last two years, Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has claimed, while warning that only his budget airline is “the only” way the airport can be saved.

“Shannon is in freefall. It’s facing a traffic collapse and I think that Ryanair is the obvious and only way the traffic collapse at Shannon can be reversed,” said O’Leary as he launched a scathing attack on the DAA’s com- mitment to Shannon.

“The last 12 months show that the DAA have no interest in growing Shannon. They are busily rewriting history at the moment to say that Ryanair shut the base in Shannon last year because of the tourist tax. We didn’t. We cut back capacity because of the tourist tax from 1.9 million passengers to about 1.3 million. We are now down to 300,000

“We did write to the DAA in January of 2010, saying ‘do you want to extend the five-year low cost agreement’, under which we were paying Shannon about € 1 per departing passenger. The DAA wrote back and said no

“They have no interest in Shannon and the reason why the DAA don’t want any discounts in Shannon is they don’t want discounts in Shannon because they’d have to offer them in Dublin Airport.

“The DAA doesn’t care about Shannon and would happily neglect Shannon at the altar of protecting their high costs in Dublin. Shannon Airport at the moment is dying on its feet. It has almost no flights. It has very few passengers and compared to the buzz that was in the place two years ago when Ryanair were growing and opening up nearly 40 routes, the place is dying on its feet.”

“Shannon Airport is facing two alternative strategies. One, you can accept Ryanair’s offer, an offer from the largest airline in the world, to deliver a million new passengers. Two, you can all troop off to some conference in a couple of weeks times hosted by SFDCO, the DAA, the local county councils and all the usual talkers and hoteliers and the Diaspora and all the rest of them gobshites, who’ll talk and talk for f****** Ireland and not deliver for Ireland and not deliver one passenger.

“We could have done this a couple of weeks ago and tried to make an election issue out of it. There is no point making this a political issue – it’s a business issue. The DAA – you own Shannon Airport; it’s collapsing in front of you; your 33 per cent cost increase last November has put the final nail in the coffin. Do you want to grow traffic. If you do here’s the deal?”

THE “crippling cost” of high rents in Ennis are forcing some businesses to close down, a meeting in the town has heard.

The claim was made by a local businesswoman at a meeting between business representatives and General Election candidates in Ennis last Wednesday.

Debbie Harrington, Co-manager of Little Silvermines jewellers, told the meeting that the high cost of rent was forcing her to close her doors.

Speaking in the Temple Gate Hotel, Ms Harrington said she and her sister had “established the business from scratch” in Ennis 13 years ago.

She explained that a number of factors including commercial rates and a lack of parking spaces had forced the closure of her business.

Ms Harrington added that high rent, which she said was set “at the height of the boom”, had had a “crippling effect” on her business.

Calling for rents to be reduced in Ennis, Ms Harrington added, “Everyone has to start living in the real world now.” A loud and sustained round of applause followed Ms Harrington’s final comment from the over 200 business people in attendance.

The chairman of the Ennis branch of the Irish Taxi Federation, Martin White, told the meeting that 33 taxi drivers had recently lost their jobs in Ennis.

He said taxi operators, hotels and pubs should be “working hand in glove” on a collaborative basis to encourage more tourists into Clare. “Until such time as we get together, we’re gone,” Mr White warned.

Eamon Cagney, owner of the Wine Buff, urged Clare’s politicians to do every thing they can to get a major multi-nationals to set up in Clare.

Ger Murphy of Gerz Place Café called for free parking to apply in Ennis until 12 noon. Ms Murphy said this would give parents more time to spend in town after dropping kids of at school without worrying about the cost of parking.

Tattooist Tadhg Kelly said business owners should be entitled to free parking in Ennis.

SHANNON Airport passenger figures are poised to continue to decline until the end of March. That’s the prediction of a spokesperson for the airport, which is anticipating growth after the end of the first quarter of the year. The reduced figures were released last week, after Ryanair’s decision to reduce its services from the mid-west airport took effect in January.

Figures published by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) showed that commercial terminal flights through Shannon were down by almost 25 per cent in January. “The performance at Shannon Airport is a cause for concern,” stated a spokesperson for the IAA.

According to the figures, air traffic through Irish airspace increased by 5.1 per cent last month, compared with January 2010. Dublin and Cork figures were more promising than those for Shannon. Commercial terminal flights at Dublin increased by 0.7 per cent, while they were down by almost seven per cent at Cork.

North Atlantic flights between Europe and USA increased by four per cent last month, compared with January 2010.

Responding to the figures, a Shannon Airport spokesperson said: “Shannon Airport monthly passenger figures will continue to show a decline for the first quarter of 2011, at the end of which they will stabilize and return to growth.

“The drop is largely attributable to the ending of a five-year agreement with Ryanair, which had four aircraft based at the airport and operated 18 services twelve months ago compared to one aircraft and ten services this January. Shannon Airport was unable to accede to the airline’s demands for a new agreement that would have involved unsustainable passenger charges and significantly reduced traffic volumes. The ending of the agreement accounts for 90 per cent of the decline in passenger numbers at Shannon since.

“However, from May of this year we expect that both passenger and air traffic movement data will show a marked improvement at Shannon, arising from the airport’s strong recovery in the latter half of 2010 and its move towards a more sustainable network of services. This has already yielded positive results, with the announcement of a range of new services in the latter half of the year, an upswing that has been maintained into 2011,” added the spokesperson.

Among the newer services include the establishment of Aer Lingus services to Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol (last summer) and the commencement in December of a new Aer Lingus Paris service.

CLARE General Election candidate Brian Meaney (GP) says his primary focus will remain local issues, even if he is asked to take up a senior position within the Green Party following the elections.

Cllr Meaney will be the most senior party member in the country should the Greens, as predicted, lose all of their Dáil seats in the upcoming election. Cllr Meaney has already been touted in some quarter as a possible party leader following next week’s vote.

“I will probably be the most senior elected Green in the country [after the election] and that is not something that I would relish. What will happen will happen but the party will not go away. The party will need to be rebuilt, and they’re not going to be rebuilt from the ashes because the possibility is there that there won’t be any ashes,” he told The Clare People . “But that said, on a good day we could get four seats; we could even get eight seats. There is no way of predicting this.”

Should the Green Party lose all of their Dáil seats, they will need to retain at least two per cent of the overall national vote to retain funding for national party office in Dublin. Even if they don’t achieve this, Cllr Meaney is confident that the party will survive.

“In many ways we are still a campaigning party and no matter what happens we will remain a campaigning party and many of the issues that we are campaigning on have become main stream issues. The issues have not gone away and the need for a Green Party has not gone away,” he said.

“It wouldn’t bother me [if he started to get responsibility within the party] but I would concentrate on my main job which is a councillor representing the people of Ennis West. The electorate of Ennis West, the electorate of Ennis Town Council and the various other positions that I have as a result of these, they are my primary function and responsibility.”

STUDENTS from Ennis Community College will set sail on the River Fergus in April after taking a lead role in a new currach-building project.

Working alongside members of the Fergus Rowing Club, James Madigan and Richard O’Donohue of the West Clare Currach Club, 11 first and second year students have spent the past week building a currach.

The pinnacle of the project will be the official launch of the boat as it embarks from the River Fergus in Clarecastle and makes its maiden voyage west of the Shannon.

Teacher Vivien Arthur-Grogan explained, “The project is cross-cur- ricular in nature and the benefits are admirable. Students who normally would have no hands-on knowledge or no previous point of reference to such a craft are responding excitedly.

The 11 students involved are Jordan Slattery, James Slattery, Ethan McNevin, Shaun Brody, Eoghan McInerney, Michael Daly, Brendan Molloy, Roisín Peoples, Toheeb Tolulope, Sylvia Kielak and Corey Hayes.

Vivien added, “The project provides an ideal forum to engage students from a multitude of nationalities and cultures to engage in team building exercises, benefiting them in countless ways.” I a m Ge r r y Wa ls he , a n e le c t r ic ia n b y t r a d e a nd for m e r c ont r a c t or who e m p loye d 7 m e n. I a m a s king for your num b e r 1 vot e or 2 nd p r e fe r e nc e if you ha ve a lr e a d y d e c id e d on your 1 s t p r e fe r e nc e . In t he p a s t I ha ve c a m p a ig ne d t o ke e p Ennis Ge ne r a l Hos p it a l op e n wit h full s e r vic e s , a nd c a m p a ig ne d a g a ins t t he b a il out wit h NAMA a nd Lis b on r e fe r e nd um , I a m a ls o a g a ins t t he c ur r e nt b a il out of p r iva t e b a nk d e b t . I d e c id e d t o r un a s a c a nd id a t e in t he Ge ne r a l Ele c t ion b e c a us e I a m d is g us t e d wit h t he c or r up t ion wit hin t he p olit ic a l s ys t e m . If e le c t e d I will b r ing hone s t y a nd a c c ount a b ilit y t o t he Dá il a nd will b e a s t r ong fig ht e r for t he p e op le of Cla r e a nd t he ir ne e d s . I will fig ht t o ke e p Ennis A & E a c ut e s e r vic e op e n a nd c a m p a ig n for t he Links Ca r g o hub a nd d e ve lop m e nt of t he Sha nnon r e g ion wit h a r a il link t o t he a ir p or t . I will a ls o d e ve lop a loa n s c he m e t o a s s is t our Fa r m e r s , s e lf-e m p loye d a nd s m a ll b us ine s s e s , not for g e t t ing our fis he r m e n. I found e d a n a nt i-c or r up t ion or g a nis a t ion wit h t he we b s it e www. s p ir it -of-t r ut h. or g whe r e I p ub lis he d a ud io a nd d oc um e nt e d e vid e nc e t o s how a c onne c t ion b e t we e n Ir is h s old ie r s a nd t he b uying of a r m s on t he b la c k-m a r ke t . I wa s t he m a in wit ne s s who e xp os e d t he s e ir r e g ula r it ie s a nd wis he d t o c onfr ont De fe nc e Minis t e r Tony Kille e n a s t o why he r e le a s e d a m ilit a r y r e p or t wit hout int e r vie wing m e t he m a in wit ne s s wit h e vid e nc e . I a ls o p ub lic ly c r it ic iz e d t he c ove r up of c hild a b us e wit hin t he Polit ic a l a nd St a t e b od ie s a nd p ub lic ly r e a d c or r e s p ond e nc e fr om a s e nior Ga r d a whe r e he c la im e d he c ould not look in his offic ia l file s r e la t ing t o t he s e m a t t e r s b e c a us e he wa s not in Cla r e in 2 0 0 8 . If e le c t e d t o t he Dá il I will b e a wa t c h d og for t his Count y a nd Count r y a nd will c onfr ont t he c or r up t p olit ic ia ns , b a nke r s a nd wha t e ve r d a r k s e c r e t s t his c or r up t s ys t e m ha s b ur ie d . I ur g e you t he p e op le of Cla r e , if you wa nt r e a l c ha ng e t o s t op vot ing for t he s a m e old c r onie s a nd g ive m e a nd ot he r ne w Ind e p e nd e nt s your Vot e s o we c a n he lp b uild a Ne w Ir e la nd .