Category: News

THE CONSTRUCTION of a new secondary school in Tulla should be given the green light and a firm commitment on the project is essential.

That’s according to Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley, who has highlighted the ongoing difficulties with accommodation at St Joseph’s Secondary School.

The situation has been reviewed by the Department of Education over a number of years, amid concerns that the site is small and does not have a recreational area.

More than half of the schoolrooms are prefabricated, many of which are old and in poor condition.

The issue was raised in the Dáil in December, when Mr Dooley said that an extension had been proposed by the Department of Education some time ago. However, given the increasing population in the area, this is no longer a suitable option, he said.

“Given the population growth in the area and the very small site on which the school is currently housed, it is now clearly recognised that the needs of local children will not be addressed by an extension to the school.

“The Department should finally make a decision that the appropriate solution to this accommodation problem is a new school,” he said.

He said that an appropriate site has been earmarked for a new school and an investment is essential. “Now is the time to invest in a school building in conjunction with the community group (Tulla 2016), thus ensuring a campus-style approach catering for all the needs of the community at the same site,” he said.

“The school accommodation needs have to be addressed because during the exams earlier this year there was not enough room to accommodate the various exam centres that were required, including separate centres for children with special needs,” he added.

“Were it not for the principal (Margaret O’Brien), the board of management and the parents, the place would be falling down. They have put a tremendous amount of effort into maintaining this very poor facility. I have reasonable knowledge of schools throughout the country, and this one is in an exceptionally bad state,” he added.

Environment Minister John Gormley, on behalf of the Minister for Education Mary Coughlan, told Deputy Dooley that while the project is under consideration, “in light of current competing demands on the capital budget of the Department, it is not possible to give an indicative timeframe for the progression of the project at this time”.

OPPOSITION politicians in Clare have given a stern thumbs down to former Taoiseach Bertie Ahearn as a possible candidate for the presidency.

Former Labour TD Dr Moosajee Bhamjee and Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen both told The Clare People that they are less than impressed with Bertie’s criticisms of the current Taoiseach.

Dr Bhamjee said, “He has left politicis and he could have offered his support and experience to the current Taoiseach from the back benches. That was the time to make his opinions heard – not now when he has left.”

The Fine Gael Deputy spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Deputy Breen, had a similar opinion.

“I don’t think he’s being fair to Cowen. After all, he was Taoiseach when the trouble started and to say that as Taoiseach that no-one told him there was a problem with the banks, that’s just unbelievable,” Deputy Breen said.

Dr Bhamjee, who was part of the Rainbow Coalition Government of 1994, said he met with Bertie Ahern at various delegations and found he “had a way of pacifying people. He is a very co-ordinated person. He made social partnerships work by his way of dealing with people.”

But despite this quality, Dr Bhamjee feels it is “time for him to go. I don’t think he is a suitable candidate for the presidency. He has stepped away from politicis and he should just go quietly now and not make the kind of statements he has made over the last few days.”

Deputy Breen accused the former Taoiseach of having “bought his way through every election. He gave everyone what they wanted”.

The Fine Gael Deputy says Bertie’s potential candidacy would do the party no good.

“His work on the peace agreement was fantastic but he has wiped that out. He will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The Galway tent was born during his era and that’s where many of the problems we know have begun.

“He created so many junior ministries there was nearly one for everyone in the audience. He can’t stand for the presidency, there are too many ‘if’s’ .

He continued, “For a former Taoiseach to take part in an ad where he appears out of a cupboard – he’s just not a creditable candidate for Fianna Fail.”

Deputy Breen said that while Bertie “has a great presence, you’d certainly know that he’s in the room”, his departure from politics should now be swift. “He can’t change his political legacy,” Deputy Breen said.

A TEAM of 120 volunteers maintained the Samaritans 24-hour telephone service in Clare throughout the Christmas period.

The Clare branch recorded almost 25,000 calls in 2010 with many calls relating to stresses and strains caused by the recession. Branch director, Gerry Dobbin, said that Christmas could often be very lonely and difficult time for many people.

“Our branch was open over Christmas and we would’ve been fairly flat out. People who have been bereaved over the years and in recent times, the empty chair at the table. It can be a very sad time and a very lonely time because of the pressures out there. You are expected to be happy and merry and all the rest of it and people feel very separated from that”, he said.

He added, “This year there would have been an increase in calls relating to the economic situation and people would have had a lot of financial worries about what might be coming next year. People who have experienced economic hardship in recent times, people worried about paying bills in January. We’d have noticed an increase in that kind of call. And then people, socially, who would be marginalisied, isolated very lonely people. People who may be in broken relationships who are on their own, possibly single parents or people who are parents but the partner has them (the children). People who are separated and there could be issues around that”.

New figures show that between November 2009 and October 2010, Samaritans Ireland responded to 243,000 calls. This represented a six per cent increase on the previous 12 months; an additional 13,000 calls. “A lot of those would have related to economic worries and financial worries. A sizeable number of those calls would have related to the economic situation. People who would be experiencing depression, people depressed at the thought of insecurity, lack of jobs and little chance of employment”, Mr Dobbin explained.

Despite the difficulties posed by dangerous road and weather conditions, volounteers in Clare ensured there was always someone on hand to provide confidential emotional support to people experiencing feel- ings of distress and despair.

Mr Dobbin said everyone associated with the branch had shown great commitment during Christmas and throughout the past 12 months.

He explained, “They are giving up their time. They do their shifts and because of the weather situation we’ve had volounteers who have done over and above to keep the branch open. People who didn’t have to drive long distances would’ve come in when people who are living out in the country maybe would have had difficulties getting in because of the roads. Other people have taken up the duties.

He added, “They’ve given a big commitment. People from diverse backgrounds, but with the common cause to be there and give a listening ear to other people who are not so fortunate. It’s important to talk about the people who give their time. They come in and so generously give their time for other people”

The Samaritans can be contacted at 1850 60 90 90 or by email jo@samaritans.org.

ALMOST three in four workers at Shannon Aerospace Ltd, have voted in favour of a restructuring programme which will see more than 100 jobs being shed from next month.

Almost one-fifth of full-time workers will face redundancy under the deal.

Shannon Aerospace, a subsidiary of German-based Lufthansa Technik AG, provides airframe maintenance, engineering, painting and technical services for airlines. It is blaming the recession, which has severely affected the aviation industry, for the need to shed jobs.

The company, which currently employs 628 full-time staff and 97 trainees, confirmed in October that it proposed laying off 107 workers, mostly administrative and support staff.

The announcement came as Lufthansa Technic announced losses of almost € 1 million between August and October this year.

After weeks of talks, between management and SIPTU, the union representing staff at Aerospace, workers voted.

After the ballot a company spokesperson said that 71.5 per cent of workers voted in favour of accepting the restructuring moves.

It is understood that workers were offered an improved redundancy package to the one originally proposed, while remaining staff have accepted an 18-month pay freeze and changes to the rostering system at the plant.

When the restructuring is complete, the company will employ more than 540 people.

Shannon Aerospace chief executive Thomas Rückert welcomed the agreement. “In my short time here in Ireland, I have been deeply impressed with the people working for Shannon Aerospace. We asked a lot of our employees and, together with the board, I am grateful for their support, which will allow us to implement our plan and safeguard the maximum number of jobs at the company.”

The original announcement by Aerospace management that jobs were to be cut was the first of three in as many weeks, all from companies who have put down roots in Clare over decades.

Within an hour of the announcement at Aerospace, management at publishing company, Elsevier, announced that it was leting 100 people go. Elsevier, who publish medical journals including the prestigious Lancet , will now have just a handful of staff in Ireland. It is not clear if the few remaining employees will still be based at Shannon.

Then came the Roche announcement that it is to shed 25 jobs at its Clarecastle plant.

The move is part of a wider restructuring programme that will see it axe 4,800 jobs worldwide.

THE SUCCESS of the Northern Irish peace process will be Bertie Ahern’s legacy in years to come and when the current financial troubles are forgotten he will be remembered as a good Taoiseach.

That is the opinion of Kilnamona man Michael McTigue, who got to know the former Taoiseach very well when he served on the National Executive of the Fianna Fáil party for more then a decade.

“I got to know him well enough when he was Minister for Finance and I was on the National Executive of the party and I was there when he was first elected Taoiseach. He was a great man to hang around and chat after a meeting – he always seemed to have time for everybody,” said Mike.

“Mind you he was always a very disheveled looking character when he was Minister for Finance, he was probably one of the worst dressed people going into Dáil Éireann at the time.

“He had an old shinny suit on him with the pockets bulging with notes about different things.

“Nothing was too small for Bertie, he would always make time for people. I used to always get a phone call from him on Christmas Eve, and if he didn’t get me his secretary would arrange another time for him to call.

“But I think the Good Friday Agreement would have to be his greatest achievement as Taoiseach. I remember I was at his mother’s funeral when he was whisked off by helicopter back to Belfast.

“He was knocking heads together up in Northern Ireland while his mother was dying. He came down for his mother’s funeral and at the end he was whisked back over the border again.

“I remember being at his mother’s funeral and in the middle of all of that he remembered everyone’s name – that’s the sort of guy he was,” he added.

“I mean he managed to solve the most intractable political problem in western Europe, something that has been an issue for many centuries, that is some achievement.”

Despite the current economic trouble, Mike believes that Bertie Ahern will be remembered fondly by the people of Ireland.

“Right now he is taking a bit of a beating but in the long term it will have to be seen in a positive light.

“We are in a mess now and people need someone to blame but when all of this is done they will realise that we have a roads’ network now that we never had before and even now there are twice as many people working now as there were in the 1980s,” he added.

TOURISM OF an unprecedented level could be the reward for ongoing efforts to gain Geopark Status for the Burren and to make the Cliffs of Moher into one of the new 7 Wonders of the World.

Last month Clare County Council officially submitted an application to the European Geoparks Network (EGN) for the European and Global Geoparks status for the Burren region of north Clare.

The EGN was founded in 2000 to help protect geodiversity, to promote geological heritage among citizens and to support sustainable economic development of regions through the development of geotourism.

If successful, it is hoped that the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark project will provide the region with an identity as a region for sustainable ecotourism that is recognised across Europe.

European Geopark status is a fundamentally non-legislative designation, and as such it holds no influence on planning issues or land manage- ment practices. The proposed European Geopark in north Clare will comprise a network of managed publicly accessible sites, an established network of education and visitor centres, and the newly accredited Burren Ecotourism Network, as well as the existing Shannon Region Trails and National Walking routes.

Meanwhile, the ongoing campaign to make the Cliffs of Moher one of the New 7 Wonders of the World will come to an end in 2011. An estimated one billion people will have voted for their favourite location before the final round voting comes to an end on November 11, 2011.

The campaign to make the Cliffs of Moher one of the New 7 Wonders of the World has been ongoing for more than two years with the landmark tourist attraction already coming through three different stages of voting.

If the cliffs does make the final list it is estimated that the publicity associated with the event alone could being tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of extra tourists to north Clare in the coming years.

FEWER debt judgments were served in Clare courts than in almost any other county in Ireland in 2010. A county-by-county breakdown of debt judgments obtained in Irish courts in 2010 has revealed that the Banner was one of Ireland’s three least indebted counties.

Clare finished second only to Kilkenny in the list of court judgments per head of population over the last 12 months with counties Mayo and Donegal also recording low levels of debt.

According to the figures the most indebted county in Ireland was Cavan, while counties Cork, Limerick, Laois and Sligo also recorded high debt levels.

This information was compiled by Dublin-based financial research company BusinessPro.

In a separate survey from earlier this year, BusinessPro also showed that the average debt of Clare people rose from € 6,159 in 2003 to € 20,596 last year – one of the highest levels of debt per person of any county in Ireland.

This would indicate that there are still large levels of personal debt in Clare which is not being seen yet in the amount of debt judgments coming through the local courts.

According to the whose managing director of BusinessPro, James Treacy, the situation is likely to get worse in 2011.

“We estimate an additional € 2 billion of non commercial debt coming down the line next year,” he said last week.

“Most of the consumer debt has yet to hit the courts, but with the end of the one-year moratorium for homeowners and other factors such as the proposed changes to our bankruptcy regime, we expect to see a huge surge in personal insolvencies connected with consumer debt,” he added.

The last 12 months saw the largest ever number of individual and corporate judgments registered in one year in the Irish courts.

While Clare courts dealt with fewer cases per capita that almost every other county in Ireland, the largest single corporate judgment was obtained against Donatex, the company used by Lisdoonvarna developer Bernard McNamara to invest in the Irish Glass Bottle Site in Dublin.

A judgment of more than € 62 million was also obtained against Bernard McNamara personally, arising from the € 412 million purchase of the former toxic dump in 2006 by a consortium of investors.

COORACLARE’S Brendan Daly had been in the Dáil for just four year when a young Bertie Ahern was first elected in 1977. For the next two decades their political careers became more and more entwined as first Daly and then Ahern were promoted to the Cabinet table where they became both friends and close political allies.

Thinking back to those early day, the former Clare TD remembers a quieter Bertie Ahern. A political mind with undoubted talents, who had a skill of helping people to get along and wished to keep his private life to himself.

“Even in the Cabinet he was very discreet. He kept his council very much to himself and was very considered and discreet. He was Minister for Labour at the time and he was very good and finding solutions to problems at that time. He came in in the ‘80s at a time when the Depart- ment of Labour was involved in solving disputes almost every day and he made a big contribution towards the establishment of industrial peace in Ireland,” remember Brendan.

“He was a very private individual. I wasn’t aware, for example, that he was having marriage difficulties even though his close friends did. I didn’t become aware of that until I went to his father’s funeral in Dublin. It was then that I met his wife whom I had known for a long time and I found out from her. It was only that day at his father’s funeral that I became aware that they had separated – that is how much he valued his privacy.

“In my time it was very rare to see him in the Dáil bar or socialising with the TDs in the Dáil. He preferred to be with his own loyal followers in the constituency when he had any free time and not so much socialising around the Dáil.”

When the historians finish with Bertie Ahern, Brendan believes they will have much more good things to say about him than bad.

“I think the one major contribution that he made was to the situation in Northern Ireland which was a very difficult situation. I think when people begin to write in more detail about him the one thing that will be mentioned is the settlement which has brought an end to the killing and bloodshed in Northern Ireland,” continues Brendan.

“I think it what was almost as important as the Northern Irish talks was coming to that tripartite agreement with the unions, employers and the government. We were on the brink of a major industrial dispute in 1991 and this arrangement worked out by Bertie brought about the industrial piece which has remained until now.”

AS GREATER emphasis is placed on the importance of renewable energy, Clarecastle man Eddie Connors is operating at the coalface of a growing industry.

A qualified Woodwork, Technology, Maths, Science, and IT Secondary level teacher, Eddie established Clare’s first ever eco-farm – Imecofarm – at a 100 acre site at Islandmcgrath, Clarecastle.

The farm operates as a centre for renewable energy training courses, a wildlife reserve and destination for family days out and school tours.

With energy bills on the rise, the level of public interest in renewable energy has seen a growth in demand for courses like those on offer at Eddie’s farm.

“This is one of the big reasons we get people from all parts of Ireland. People studying and visiting imecofarm, realise that its not only possible to have reduced heating and electricity bills, but also little or no waste charges, collect your own water, grow food, and be very self sustainable very easily,” Eddie said.

Plans are already underway to increase the number of courses on offer at the farm. Eddie explained, “In 2010 we managed to get started at imecofarm, and over these winter months we are preparing and adding some major projects to imecofarm, for 2011 including an eco library, a huge eco craft area where people can build small projects like birdfeeders, etc, a wheelchair friendly farm trail, a huge wildlife pond, rope bridges indoor children’s pedal go karts, an eco train, and lots more renewable energies to run the whole centre and farm.”

While Eddie admits that “cash flow” is the most difficult part to any emerging business, support from outside agencies has been crucial.

He said, “Clare County Council have been very helpful in advice in all aspects relating to planning per- mission, signage and also many environmental and biodiversity displays here. Paperwork and permissions can be tedious and difficult for every new business, so it’s great to be able to get advice, and help from different bodies. The Clare local Development Company, Leader, have given terrific support and have granted three applications of funding towards the project”.

Volounteers have also played a key role in helping the project get off the ground.

Eddie added, “We have people volunteering to help with our nature projects, gardens, and energy displays, so this has been a massive help to keeping down labour costs, get projects done, and also allows a very special low entry rate for the people of Clare and beyond. Volunteers are also learning about renewables here and receive vouchers, and if looking for work, find that working on projects here shows great initiative, giving better employment prospects”.

He said, “We are also looking at FETAC qualifications to some of the courses here, as well as FÁS registration. Some people are also eligible for funding on our training courses, so this helps those wanting to learn, but without high incomes. Cashflow is always the most difficult part of a new business, but from next Easter on, we are aiming to be busy, and continue to grow each year, with school tours, families, tourists, and training courses here at imecofarm”.

THE legacy of Michael Cusack is being felt as far away as Warsaw thanks to the work of fellow Clare man, Eoin Sheedy.

The Ogonnelloe native was part of a small group of Irish ex-pats who set-up Poland’s first GAA club last year and will return to Poland after his Christmas break later this week to take up the position of Club President of Cumann Warszawa.

Sheedy moved to Poland on a temporary basis more than two years ago but after enjoying a six month trial in Warsaw has decided to put down some roots. In recent time a flood of Irish emigrants have allowed him to realise his dream of setting up Poland’s first GAA club.

“It is unbelievable how it has turned around. When I was going over there first the whole plane was filled with Polish people – I’d be the only Irish person on the plane most of the time. That has changed big time. I go on the plane now and I’d know half the people on the plane and know that they are Irish lads travelling back and forth for work. A lot of the Poles have gone back and a lot of the Irish are now going over there looking for work,” says Eoin.

“When I went over there first I used to head down to the Irish pub, the only one that was in the place, and you might be there on your own. But now there might be 20 or 30 lads at all the matches, no matter who is playing. In the last year I have seen a massive influx.

“There are a lot of lads over there working on the roads. Lads are saying that construction is finished in Ireland so they decided they would try the hand in Poland.”

Cumann Warszawa completed their first season in 2010 and now have both a ladies’ and a men’s team.

“I always had it in my head to start a club. I had worked in Stockholm and they had a club there but in the beginning it wasn’t feasible, there wasn’t enough people. But then more and more people started coming so we decided that we would give it a go,” continued Eoin.

“The club doesn’t play hurling be cause the skill level is just too high and I haven’t played football before in my life but I’m kicking away now and it’s great craic.

“The European teams are 11-a-side and we have enough now to field a men’s and a women’s team. We play in the Eastern European league with Budapest, Prague and Vienna. We actually won the European Shield Competition back in October – we have some fantastic footballers over there at the moment,” Eoin claimed.