Category: News

A WAR of words has erupted between rival General Election candidates over Dáil expenses, after Cllr Tony Mulcahy accused Cllr James Breen of using a call to abolish Dáil expenses as a “cynical exercise” to get elected.

Fine Gael candidate, Cllr Mulcahy, launched a scathing attack on the move made by Cllr Breen when he said, “We should reduce Dáil expenses and abolish them altogether and oblige TDs to live on their salary with no expenses.”

“Saying he wants expenses abolished is rich,” blasted Mulcahy to The Clare People this week. “It’s cynical exercise in self-promotion in the run up to the election from a man who had no difficulty in collecting almost € 1 million during the lifetime of the last Dáil between his TD’s salary, his expenses, his independent TD’s allowance, his council expenses and council severance payments. This is like St Paul on the road to Damascus,” added Cllr Mulcahy.

However, an unrepentant Cllr Breen has reiterated his call for an overhaul of the expenses structure, even going to far as to say, “I am pre- pared to forego expenses.”

Continuing, Cllr Breen said, “I will campaign for the abolition of expenses if I am elected to the Dáil.

“There are genuine out of pocket expenses that you would have to claim for always. I will be campaigning for a reduction in expenses for everyone

and a reduction in

TDs’ salaries.”

Figures secured

by The Clare Peo

ple show that Cllr

Breen received

nearly € 400,000

in expenses during

the lifetime of the

29th Dáil between

2002 to 2007. This

included payments

for six years, with

figures showing that

he received € 71,868 (2003), € 62,539 (2004), € 75,122 (2005), € 70,947 (2006) and € 48,000 (2007).

However, Cllr Breen has defended these claims and said, “When I was a TD I had three people working for me and my expenses went towards employing three people. I had one person employed part-time in Dublin, I had an IT advisor in Clare and a girl worked two days a week in my office in Clare.

“It’s about reforming for the future, not the past,” he added.

GARDAÍ HAVE submitted a file for the DPP in connection wit h an att ack on a baby in Shannon in which a burn mark, broken l imbs and multiple br uising were sustained.

Last mont h, a 10-mont h-old baby boy was taken to hospital with serious injuries, including two broken arms – one of which was broken in three places – and a broken leg. He had also sustained br uising to several par ts of his body.

A Garda investigation swung into action and two people were questioned as par t of t he enqui r y. Gardaí then prepared a file on the matter and t his has been sent to the DPP, who wi ll decide whether charges are to be brought in relation to the case.

The Healt h Service Executive is also investigating the mat ter. Last mont h, an emergency care order was t aken out by the HSE in the distr ict cour t in relation to the baby boy.

MAYOR of Clare Cllr Christy Curtin (Ind) is to pick up the bill for his mayoral trip to New York this St Patrick’s Day.

The mayor’s council expenses usually cover the official trip by Clare’s first citizen to the Big Apple, but this year the man from Miltown Malbay said he would be covering his own costs.

“I will be paying for it myself. I think it is only right and fitting,” he told The Clare People .

Each year the mayor of the day travels to America to promote Clare from both a tourism and enterprise point of view.

The first citizen also takes part in the St Patrick’s Day parade.

“The purpose is to promote Clare and meet with the diaspora,” said Cllr Curtin.

“I will be there to show that Clare is a county worth coming back to, especially for anyone with entrepreneurial and enterprise skills,” he added.

The agenda for the visit to New York by Cllr Curtin has yet to be finalised but it is expected he will be there for March 17.

Meanwhile the mayor of Kilrush has been invited to New York to promote the town and area for the first time ever.

No decision has been made yet as to whether the current mayor Cllr Liam Williams (FG) will travel.

Ennis Town Council will not be represented at the annual St Patrick’s Day in New York, after councillors declined an invitation to attend the event at this month’s meeting.

Mayor of Ennis Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) turned down the invitation, saying the mayor’s place on St Patrick’s Day should be in Ennis.

Members of the Ennis/Phoenix twinning delegation will be in Arizona however for St Patrick’s Day.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP); Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) and Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind), who as deputy mayor represented Ennis at last year’s parade in New York all turned down proposals that they should attend the parade in the Big Apple in place of the mayor.

It is not known if Shannon Town Council is to send a representative abroad this St Patrick’s Day at time of press.

SINCE moving to Ennis in the early ‘70s he hasn’t missed an election count – he won’t miss the action of February 26 either, even if his beloved Fianna Fáil are in grave danger of being usurped from poll position in Clare General Election politics. Once a soldier, always a soldier, who doesn’t dessert his post and all that.

Frank Conway has seen it all, from being in the Ard Fheis audience the famous RDS day when Paddy Hillery told the world that they “can have Kevin Boland, but you can’t have Fianna Fáil” to facing down Charles Haughey when on the National Executive and voting against the expulsion order of Des O’Malley from the party.

“Elections are great,” he says, “because they’re a bit of a blood sport and from Council to General Elections I’ve experienced a fair few,” he adds, rolling back the years to when this love affair with the machinations of politics took hold.

“I was living in Shannon,” recalls Frank “and my friend Paddy Monaghan ran for Fianna Fáil in the 1967 local elections. Paddy was a character and he was chairman the Community Association and somehow talked his way into getting an audience with Lyndon Johnson. He called himself the Mayor of Shannon – this was way before there was Town Commission in Shannon – and it worked and he met Johnson in the Rose Garden in White House.

“We ran a unique campaign, printing leaflets saying ‘Shannon Needs Representation’. We were ahead of our time really and I was Paddy’s advisor – his Henry Kissinger. I remember we went up to Ennis to an election rally and Frank Collins, who was secretary of the Comhairle Dáil Ceanntair introduced Paddy by saying ‘now we have good Galway man Paddy Monaghan’. We were fecked after that.

“And at the convention a delegate from Sixmilebridge said ‘that Monaghan from Shannon is not a true Fianna Fáil man, I saw him reading The Ir ish Independent ’. After the election count we were going back to Shannon through Clarecastle and we threw the election leaflets out the window. I can still see them fluttering in the wind.”

However, even in defeat Conway’s interest was ignited. There were his 20 years on the National Executive, being a founder member of the Sean Lemass Cumann in Shannon that survives to this day, out on the canvas with Sylvie Barrett, Brendan Daly, Dr Bill Loughnane and Tony Killeen.

“I remember Conor Cruise O’Brien saying that Dr Bill was ‘a bogoak Irishman’. Dr Bill responded by saying ‘you can tell Conor Cruise I’m a proud bogoak Irishman’. Dr Bill was great, he was always a winner.

“Sylvie Barrett was a winner too and the night he was selected to stand for the Dáil is one of my outstanding memories. There was never a night like it. It was in the Queen’s Hotel and it went on until the early hours.

“Kevin Boland chaired the meeting and Frank Aiken was there too. With 15 candidates it became known as the ‘Night of the Long Count’. Boland ordered the door locked until the count was over. It was like the conclave in Rome, but some of the delegates had contacts out in the bar and bottle of stout were being handed in. In the end it came down between Sylvie and Jack Daly. I knew Sylvie from his days collecting rates in Kildysart and he got the three votes from the Sean Lemass Cumann, from myself, Rory Lynch and Peter Ryan. There was never an election like it. It changed history.

“I had great time for Slyvie. I remember he was drafted in by either Charlie Haughey or Jack Lynch to try and sort out a row in north Kerry between rival Fianna Fáil factions the Tom McEllistrim faction and the Kit Ahern faction.

“We went down to Tralee. It was like a peace summit and we came away thinking that peace had broken out. We had a good drink for on the way home and were delighted with ourselves, only to hear a few days later that the peace didn’t last long and they were at war with each other again. Such in politics.”

BUSINESSES around Clare are acknowledging the county’s volountary sector with the launch yesterday of the volounteer discount card.

The initiative, which is jointly supported by the Clare Volounteer Centre, Ennis Town Council, Clare County Council, Ennis chamber and the Clare Local Development Company, is aimed at recognising the work of all volounteers in Clare.

The volounteers discount card enables volounteers to access a range of discounts and special offers from over 120 businesses across Clare in 2011 – the European Year of the Volounteer.

The scheme is the first of its kind in the country and, according to Sharon Meaney, Development Co-ordinator with the Clare Volounteer Centre, it is hoped that Clare can be showcased as county who recognises and acknowledges the valuable contribution that all volounteers bring.

Sharon said, “You are inspired everyday by people’s stories of volounteering. Volounteers do make a difference. It’s important to say thanks. Without volounteers, the fabric if Irish life would be dull.”

Melissa Healy is a volounteer with Special Olympics Ireland and the Brothers of Charity. She urged people to volounteer, describing it as a worthwhile experience.

“When it came to the games [Special Olympics] and it all came together, the joy your work brings to the athletes and their famillies make it all worthwhile. I knew straight away it was something I was going to stay involved in.”

Melissa is a student on a community care course who started volounteering for Special Olympics Ireland last year for the summer games.

Asked what advice would she offer to anyone thinking of volounteering, she said, “I would definitely tell them to do it. You get a great feeling of self worth from taking time out of your day to help people who maybe would not receive help if it wasn’t for volounteers.”

The Clare Volunteer Centre is part of the national network of volunteer centres, supported by Volunteer Centres Ireland. The Clare Volunteer Centre opened its doors in Ennis in 2008.

Last year 256 people registered with the centre, an increase of 25 per cent from 2009, bringing the total number of volounteers registered at the centre to 496.

HOSPITALS like Ennis General Hospital will always be an election issue. This was one of the many statements by Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin during his visit to the county town. What the former Minister for Health failed to realise or at least mention was that the issues around the hospital are the same before every election, the same issues that five years on from the last set of promises still have not been resolved. This time around a colonoscopy unit has been promised for the hospital that will be part of a pilot cancer-screening programme. That coupled with a € 15 million extension should give people some hope of a healthy service, but experience leaves everyone with doubts. Before the 2007 General Election the extension promised was an almost € 50 million development. All forms of promises were given about the future of the hospital, including the commitment from former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that the county hospital would not be downgraded. Five years prior to that, Independent candidate James Breen was elected to the Dáil when fears for the hospital’s future first surfaced. Nine years on and Breen is back in the ring, supported by the chairman of the hospital committee hoping to secure the seat he lost in 2007. Since he first entered the Dáil, the hospital has lost its 24-hour accident and emergency service as well as some acute services. There are still more acute services to be centralised to the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick and the people are meeting again ahead of the election to raise concerns and the issue is back on the table. When he came to Ennis, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny gave his party’s commitment that the reconfiguration of hospital services in the mid-west would cease until such time better replacement services were in place. “As I move around the country I am being asked by so many hospitals, can you restore facilities that have been taken away here and my honest an- swer is I can’t.” He said however services as they are in Ennis General Hospital would be retained until such time something better was proposed. Deputy Martin was more supportive of HSE policy. “Health is complex. We have to pull together in my view the critical mass of professional people and sufficient volume of patients to make sure we get best practice. I believe in that. I am not going to pretend to people that I don’t. I am not going to be dishonest with people and say we can do everything on every hospital site. There has been a bit of dishonesty on that debate along the way.”

PROLONGED roadworks on both entrances to Gort are hampering businesses and may cause a number of premises to close in the months ahead. That is the opinion of prominent Gort businessman who claims that the town’s businesses have suffered a triple blow in recent months.

According to Mr Finn, the combination of the town being by-passed, the on-going roadworks and the bad weather over the Christmas period has made life almost impossible for the business community in Gort.

Mr Finn, who is currently trying to sell his furniture business which was heavily damaged in the 2009 flooding, says he can’t see a future for many businesses in the town if the situation is allowed to continue much longer.

“People have stopped coming into the town, the roadworks are having a devastating effect on businesses in the town.

“This has been going on since November and the information I have is that it is not going to be finished until April or May, a lot of the businesses won’t last that long,” he told The Clare People yesterday.

“The business community up here are very frustrated with the situation. We know that the job has to be done but the timing of the works and the speed at which it is being completed is an issue.

“The town of Gort has been hammered over the last few months. First we had the bypass, the the roadworks and then the bad weather conditions, which delayed the road works and made it nearly impossible for anyone to access the town over Christmas. It has been a real double whammy for the town.”

THE MAN who oversaw the establishment of the HSE admitted that reform of the administrative area of the organisation was needed.

The former Minister for Health Michéal Martin made his comments while beginning the first leg of the Fianna Fáil election campaign in Clare on Wednesday.

“I felt on the administrative side it could have been stronger at the beginning in terms of how it was structured, and I think reform can be undertaken there; but what I would caution against is any dismantling of the structure. The last thing the health service needs is another big overhaul of structures. In terms of the Fine Gael proposal I think they are very dangerous in terms of health and outcomes,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil leader was adamant that progress had been made in health in the last number of years, but more work needed to be done.

Deputy Martin was also asked to defend the failure of the € 39 million expansion to Ennis General Hospital, which was promised by his predecessor Bertie Ahern (FF) prior to the 2007 General Election, to materialise.

He also faced strong opposition to proposed plans to remove cardiac service from the Clare County Hospital. Deputy Martin attempted to defended previous promises by saying that all political parties made predictions in 2007 in terms of predicted growth of the economy.

He said that the change in that growth lead to change in policy – policy which he attributed to the HSE.

He said that since 2005 a number of people working in the HSE in Clare had increased and that the biggest killers in Ireland – heart disease and cancer – were being tackled.

The Fianna Fáil leader was well aware that the “hospital issue” was not going to go away anytime soon.

“For 45 years for 50 years if you go to Roscommon if you go to Nenagh if you go to Ennis there will always be an issue around the hospital,” he said.

“Where ever you have hospitals that are doing good work like Ennis you are going to have debate about it. You are going to have genuine positions adopted by different people on different sides of that debate and I think that is natural and that is something to be welcomed. This is an issue in this election and I guarantee you it will be an issue again in the next election.”

He claimed the Government put a lot of investment into hospitals and other infrastructure making the required health services more accessible to patients.

“We can now get from A to B anywhere in the country including this part of the country much faster than we could three years ago. That is significant in how you configure your health service and it should be borne in mind,” he said.

“Health is complex. We have to pull together in my view the critical mass of professional people and sufficient volume of patients to make sure we get best hospitals.

“I believe in that. I am not going to pretend to people that I don’t. I am not going to be dishonest with people and say we can do everything on every hospital site. There has been a bit of dishonesty on that debate along the way.”

AT A TIME when Fianna Fáil is changing its election strategy to run just one candidate in some constituencies, party leader Michéal Martin is confident not only about the two candidate strategy in Clare but that this strategy can return two Fianna Fáil TDs.

The Cork man was in Clare on Wednesday to begin the party’s election campaign and to rally the soldiers of destiny in the Banner county.

He told the gathered media that every constituency was different and he was confident the party has two very strong candidates in Clare.

“I am confident that they can win two seats here – yes,” he said.

“We have two seats, we have two deputies here. We will do very well in this election. We will bring the issues to the people and I think we will be elected. That is my position. Others have their position, I have mine.”

The party leader was well aware that is views did not necessarily tally with the national polls and he was keen on staying well away from any talks of surveys or predictions.

“I think the public out there are generally tired of talking about polls and seats. Obviously it is something the pundits love talking about.

“People are genuinely more interested in the issues, the future and what party has a real credible path to the future and that is what I am thinking of, and I think what John (Hillery) and Timmy (Dooley) have to do is talk about the issues. That is the value of an election campaign that is the value of debate.

“That is why I think it is great the a person like John Hillery takes a very courageous step from a relatively safe environment in a medical career and enters politics and say there is something I want to do something for my country.

“Timmy Dooley is a young man. He could have done other things as well, but he decided to commit himself to public life again.

“The value of a campaign is that you get an opportunity to talk through the issues and flesh them out because the issues are bigger now than they ever have been in terms of the future of the country.

“We cannot hide the real issues from the people. We have got to be honest with them and say there are no easy choices now but if we follow the correct path we will get there,” he added.

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny came to town on Saturday last looking for what he described as “a history-making event here in Clare”.

He said he had every confidence in the party’s election strategy in the county and was even optimistic that the Banner County would return a record three Fine Gael TDs to Dáil Eireann.

The leader’s confidence comes amid internal issues in the party in Clare that maintain a fourth candidate should be added that is geographically better placed. Suggestions include poll topper Cllr Joe Cooney from the east, Cllr Martin Conway from the north or former TD Madeleine Taylor Quinn from the west of the constituency.

Deputy Kenny said that the decision not to run candidates in these areas was “all choices the party has to make”.

“Last time we ran four and got two against the opinions of everybody. On this occasion we decided to run three and we have two deputies Pat Breen and Joe Carey and the mayor of Shannon Tony Mulcahy. This is an exceptional team and experienced candidates,” he said while supporting the candidates in Ennis.

“I have made the deliberate policy of putting in place the best teams that we can. This is beyond the scope of any one individual and you need teams of professional competent people who are prepared to make decisions in a courageous and in a fair fashion. So I look to Clare and its electorate to judge fairly not only the merits of one candidate but the quality and the power of our plan.

“I am happy that the trio of Pat Breen, Joe Carey and Tony Mulcahy are on the verge of making history here. Their challenge and our supporters challenge is to translate our five point plan and what it means in every town and every town land in County Clare,” he added. “I have great faith and belief in these candidates,” the Fine Gael leader said, but he would not say if that faith extended to making one of them a minister should he become Taoiseach in the next month.

There is currently no Clare TD on the Fine Gael front bench.