Category: News

ONE of Fine Gael’s general election candidates, Cllr Tony Mulcahy, has come under fire from Shannon residents over his plans to jointly develop a number of homes in Shannon.

Last month, Cllr Mulcahy, along with Noel Justice, lodged three separate planning applications with Clare County Council to build three dormer homes at Ballycasey.

In their objection, the ‘concerned residents of Clairin Glas’ against all three applications, state that the proposed houses, “will be out of character with existing houses and lead to increased density and traffic flow and, in turn, risk to our children and disregard the rights of surrounding residential homes.

“The availability of single sites in Shannon is at a minimum and it was never intended for the Clairin Glas area to be used by property developers as an opportunity to change the pattern of development and intended use by individual families.

“This is now being contravened by Cllr Tony Mulcahy and Noel Justice.

“We would like to bring to your attention the fact that a portion of the proposed site is zoned open space in the south Clare plan for the area.”

The residents also state that the current application contravenes the condition of a previous application in relation to style of house and overall density as laid down by Shannon Development who insisted on a low density for the area.

“Purchasers of sites were legally compelled to abide by these conditions as part of sale and overall development of these sites. There is a duty on the council to uphold these conditions.”

Speaking to The Clare People yesterday, Cllr Tony Mulcahy said, “I certainly reserve the right as a citizen to submit a planning application. However, as the application is live and as I am a member of the planning authority, I cannot comment on the applications.”

A decision is due on the applications later this year.

TWO Claremen were injured following serious confrontations involving gardaí and members of the Shellto-Sea campaign near the village of Rossport in County Mayo last Friday.

More than 20 members of the Clare Shell-to-Sea organisation travelled to Mayo to take part in twin demonstrations at the Corrib gas terminal at Bellanaboy and at the nearby Lennon’s Quarry.

Clare Shell-to-Sea spokesman, Tony Kirby, received minor injuries following the protest at Lennon’s Quarry.

“The gardaí came to clear the protesters and kicked several people while they were on the ground. One man received a fractured nose from a guard as well as a black eye and concussion,” said Mr Kirby.

“He claims to have been kicked by a guard when he was on the ground. I didn’t see him get kicked, but I saw the guard drag him to his feet, get him in a headlock and drag him 200 yards along the road before three guards threw him into a field over barbed wire.”

A second Clare protester, Niall Harnett, was injured while attempting to film the protest at Lennon’s Quarry. Mr Harnett claims that three gardaí broke his digital camera before throwing him to the ground and kicking him in the face and head.

“I went to Bellanaboy after the incident at Lennon’s Quarry and, from speaking to people there, it did seem that Maura Harrington’s car was pushed towards the guards which I believe was wrong,” continued Mr Kirby.

“The response was very excessive. For some reason, they decided to use their batons which was completely excessive for what we considered to still be a very peaceful protest.

“I think that the guards are out of control and it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt.”

A spokesperson from the Garda Press Office declined to comment about individual injuries sustained during Friday’s protest, but did confirm that a baton charge was ordered and a number of gardaí and protesters received injuries.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Mr Harnett gained a High Court injunction last Tuesday, November 7, preventing gardaí at Belmullet Garda Station from selling his car, which was seized at the Bellanaboy site on October 21.

Mr Harnett, with an address in Liscannor, will appear at the High Court on December 1, where he will seek the return of his car and an award of costs for the trial.

A PILOT scheme for third-level education in Ennis will be in place by February next, members of Clare County Council have been told.

Harriet Cotter, the new Director of the Clare Lifelong Learning project, was giving a presentation to a meeting of the local authority on the provision of third-level education in the county.

She told members that, to begin with, there would be two pilot projects, one in February of next year and one the following September.

The courses offered on these pilot projects would include community studies and foundation studies in various subjects.

One of the concepts behind the overall project is to establish a facility in Ennis enabling people from all parts of the county to access courses through distance learning, in association with the third-level institutions of neighbouring counties.

It is envisaged that the facility will prioritise courses relevant to the county’s economy in the areas of culture, tourism, forestry, maritime and agriculture and programmes for immigrants.

In the past seven weeks, Cotter told the meeting, she had been liaising with existing third-level facilities and the possible course providers.

“I have found a huge commitment to this. In addition, we have a growing population and a strong business, industry and commercial base as well as a traditionally high participation rate in third-level education.”

But she told the meeting of councillors that there was a major issue around fees.

“The fees issue is a significant inhibitor. It’s an inequity which allows full-time students to study free while part-time students have to pay for it.”

An awareness campaign is being planned to let people know what will be on offer, with a series of public meetings scheduled for around the county.

A WOMAN suffered horrific injuries when she was dragged along the ground by a donkey. She died as a result, three months later.

Ennis Coroner’s Court heard that Jane Welford, (53), of Derroran, Mountshannon, suffered severe injuries as a result of a fall off a donkey at Sellarnane, Mountshannon, on May 16, 2004.

She had been moving a donkey from one field to another, when a dog belonging to a local man barked. The donkey reacted to this by bolting, Ms Welford fell and was dragged a considerable distance along the road.

The inquest was told the donkey would stop and then move again, dragging Ms Welford along the ground in the process. The rope twisted around her and she sustained severe head injuries.

She was taken to hospital and was later transferred to the Lakes’ Nursing Home in Killaloe, where she died on August 24. She had been recovering there for two weeks prior to her death.

One witness recalled seeing a donkey on the road, while Jane Welford was lying nearby.

She was attached to the donkey and appeared to be unconscious.

Garda Mick Mulryan, who attended the scene of the accident, said Ms Welford sustained severe head and facial injuries.

Mark Wilson recalled calling to Mr Welford’s house that afternoon. They discussed moving the donkey from one field to another.

“Jane decided to catch the donkey. I decided to go away so as not to frighten the donkey,” he recalled.

“She said she had trouble getting the donkey out of the field and away from other donkeys,” he said.

Stuart Myles said he was at his home in Sellernaun and saw Ms Welford lying on the road, attached to a donkey.

He tried to get near the donkey but as he did so, the animal would move away again. He eventually managed to get hold of the donkey.

Dr Jeffrey de Freitas carried out an autopsy on the deceased’s body. He concluded that death was due to acute respiratory failure.

“She had suffered significant head injuries due to the accident, with associated brain damage,” he said.

Coroner Isobel O’Dea said the accident was, “very unfortunate, where Ms Welford suffered very severe injuries, so severe that it was three months before she went to a nursing home for convalescence.”

She said the most appropriate verdict was one of accidental death.

AFTER three years in existence, the position of full-time biodiversity officer at Clare County Council is to be scrapped later this week.

The position, which has been held by Elaine Keegan since its creation in October of 2003, will be down-sized to a part-time position following the failure of Clare County Council to meet the shortfall in budgeting created by the withdrawal of LEADER funding.

The project was funded for last year through a combination of LEADER, Clare County Council and Heritage Council funding. All LEADER funding has been suspended until the end of 2007. It had been hoped that the local authority would put forward what one council member described as the “very small amount of money” required to keep the position viable.

“I find it hard to reconcile this when we appear to have appointed our sixth Director of Services at Clare County Council,” said Clare’s Green Party general election candidate, Cllr Brian Meaney.

“From my understanding, a Director of Services salary would pay for three full-time biodiversity officers. I cannot even contemplate the loss, or even the scaling back, of the biodiversity brief at the council. We should look at the more grandiose and cosmopolitan functions of the council before we cut back on something like this.”

In recent times, Ms Keegan has been responsible for a number of Clare County Council’s most successful projects. These include the recent survey of the cuckoo population in the county, the creation of a CD-ROM for primary schools on Clare Biodiversity and the recently formed Clare Bat Group.

“It is unfortunate that the funding is not available and we will have to scale back,” commented Ms Keegan. “We will carry on and push for more funding in the future. These projects should be funded by the Department of the Environment through the Parks and Wildlife Service as they have stated in their own biodiversity plan that each local authority should have a biodiversity officer.”

The work of the biodiversity officer will be discontinued completely in the beginning of next year, but will be restored in a part-time capacity later in 2007. It is hoped that ongoing projects such as field trips for primary and secondary schools and the work of the Clare Bat group will be continued for the immediate future.

FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny is predicting “a humdinger of an election” in Clare.

“There won’t be a house in County Clare that one or two or four of them won’t visit,” he said referring to the four Fine Gael candidates battling it out in the four-seater constituency.

The leader was facing criticism for adding two more names to the ticket following the convention, during his visit to the county last week.

During the hotly-contested convention, Deputy Pat Breen and former mayor of Shannon Cllr Tony Mulcahy were selected by the Clare delegates, but afterwards the names of former TD Cllr Madeleine Taylor Quinn and Cllr Joe Carey were added by the national executive.

Asked if this move woiuld scupper any chance of a second seat for the party in Clare, Deputy Kenny said, “I never presume to know what the good people of the Banner County are going to decide, that is their absolute remit, but we are going to give them choice. The situation we have in the Fine Gael party is that the executive council mandate the delegates, who are the members of the branch, one man one vote. Every member is entitled to a vote if they are registered for two years to cast their votes for a candidate and the convention selected two.

“The Fine Gael party then polled the constituency, looked at it subsequently and decided to make two additions.

He said the party did the same in Galway East and other constituencies.

“First of all, we are going to be guaranteed intense competition within the party for the votes of the Fine Gael electorate . . . and for those outside of that afterwards. And that is going to mean no effort will be left untouched as it were, to get out there in front of the electorate. We have evidence from the local elections and the European that that kind of internal competition brings out the highest volume of support,” he said, pointing to the success of Mairéad McGuinness and Avril Doyle in the Ireland East European Election.

Mr Kenny also pointed to the recent TG4 poll, which showed a nine per cent increase overall for Fine Gael.

“(It) puts us in the two-seat territory and what we have got to do here in Co. Clare is manage that strategy, so the transfers begin to fall properly and that is a matter for the election strategy committee here in Clare.

“I think this is going to be probably the most competitive and exciting general election campaign for very many years.”

CLARE County Council needs to exercise its “green” buying power and count the environmental cost of where it spends its money, an elected member has said.

Cllr Brian Meaney’s comments came as an international conference in Ireland heard how local authorities had the spending power to make a serious environmental difference.

Junior Environment Minister, Batt O’ Keefe, opened last week’s “Buying Green” one-day workshop on Green Public Procurement in Ireland.

The seminar took place at the Enterprise Ireland Conference Centre in Glasnevin, Dublin, and was convened by ICLEI, the international association of local governments and regional and national government organisations that have made a commitment to sustainable development.

In his opening address, the minister noted that public authorities were one of the largest consumer blocks in Europe, spending some 16 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product.

In Ireland, the total Government purchasing budget is between €8 billion and €10 billion per annum. This gives “significant leverage” to procurers in the public sector to “move the market” towards the competitive provision of greener products and services, he said.

The Minister added, “The extent to which we integrate the environmental, economic and social dimensions of our policies will determine our future prosperity and quality of life”.

Clare County Council had no representative at the conference and just three other Irish local authorities were represented.

Green Councillor Brian Meaney said that it was “very important that we as a council consider our public procurement policy. First, we need to ensure that we are only buying materials from suppliers who are operating within the planning laws.

“It has happened in the past that this has not been the case. And we must give serious consideration to the carbon dioxide impact of what we are buying.”

A spokeswoman for the County Council’s Environmental section said that Clare County Council’s Waste Minimisation Policy is “coordinated regionally by the Regional Waste Management Office”.

She added that the region was the first to appoint a Regional Industrial Waste Minimisation Advisor.

“The Replacement Waste Management Plan for the Limerick/Clare/ Kerry Region has incorporated clear policies and targets. Objectives include to implement green procurement of office stationery in each local authority, to increase waste prevention and recycling in each local authority, to investigate tendering for the purchase of consumables on a regional basis and to reduce and reuse construction and demolition waste.”

LEADER of the opposition Enda Kenny said he was unaware of the contents of legal proceedings being brought by one of his deputies against a national newspaper.

Enda Kenny (FG) told The Clare People that he would not be involving himself in the proceedings.

“I can’t comment on the situation, because I don’t know the situation where legal representatives for either Deputy Pat Breen or a newspaper are involved in discussions. It is not for me to involve myself in any way in that,” he said.

In a solicitor’s letter to The Irish Examiner , Clare Deputy Breen threatened legal action over its reporting of a parliamentary question during which he inquired about the eligibility of convicted paedophile Joseph Nugent for early release.

The letter also embroils two of his general election running mates in the libel action. The article in question contained critical comments by Cllr Madeleine Taylor-Quinn and Cllr Joe Carey on his tabling of a Dáil question.

The editor of The Irish Examiner Tim Vaughan told The Clare People that the national paper “will defend any litigation” on the matter.

He said the paper was willing to join Deputy Breen’s election colleagues, Cllr Madeleine Taylor-Quinn and Cllr Joe Carey as co-defendants.

“We strongly deny that we have defamed or liable him,” he said.

The Clare People attempted to contact Deputy Breen regarding claims in a Sunday newspaper that he also made inquiries about the early release of a convicted murderer.

The Clare People was told that, “Deputy Breen has no comment to make on any other parliamentary question.” The Fine Gael leader said he was satisfied with the Clare deputy’s explanation as to why he tabled the “Nugent” question, but believed he would have done it differently in hindsight.

“When people are elected to the Dáil, irrespective of what party they represent or none, they have a democratic right to ask any question that they want. Now Pat Breen clarified on national radio that in no circumstance was he seeking the early release of a convicted paedophile.

“You can question the phraseology used in the question and I assume as the Taoiseach said at his Ard Fheis speech that in hindsight people would live perfect lives if they knew certain things were going to happen,” he contined.

“So I’m happy that Pat Breen was in no way attempting to seek the early release of a convicted paedophile,” he added.

“It is the right of every deputy to ask a question but probably, in hindsight, I would say Deputy Breen might have phrased his question differently.”

Deputy Kenny believes that the issue has done no permanent damage to the party in Clare.

“We have had some discussion ourselves about the strategy that I want the candidates to adopt, and I want to move on from this and I want everyone to understand the fundamentals of that, and that we have a situation where we have all candidates fighting the Government on the issues that matter for Clare, and that campaign will be sufficiently strong to secure a second seat for us, led by Deputy Breen.”

THE Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen has confirmed that the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) intends to issue its recommendation on a ‘survival plan’ for Shannon later this month.

In response to a Dáil question from Green Party leader, Trevor Sargent, Minister Cullen said that the LRC had recently overseen an intense round of negotiations between unions and management.

Both unions and management declined to comment on the talks, which have taken place under an LRC-imposed blackout on press covAER ARANN is to abandon its link between Shannon and Dublin for the second time.

The decision leaves Shannon as the only national airport without a connection to the capital.

The pull-out comes days after Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, told a gathering of Clare business people that an early-morning link to Dublin was erage.

Minister Cullen said: “If Shannon Airport is to develop as a successful and sustainable business, it is clear that one of the issues that must be addressed in its business plan is the airport’s very high cost base.

“Negotiations with the unions at Shannon on the cost cutting changes that would be required to ensure the viability of the airport have been underway for some time now.

“In this, the parties have been helped by the Labour Relations Commission, the Labour Court and the National Implementation Body.”

The talks between unions and management have been ongoing for vital.

Now the Shannon Chamber of Commerce has called for the route to be subsidised, as is the case in Kerry, Cork and Galway. The airline has taken the decision because passenger numbers on the route are so low as to be uneconomical.

Changing the current flight time to earlier in the day wouldn’t work because an earlier time would be impossible under Aer Arann’s aircraft one year and in September, the offer of a €30 million ‘survival plan’ for Shannon was withdrawn by the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) after unions failed to ballot members on the offer.

The move by both parties to accept the invitation of the chief executive of the LRC, Kieran Mulvey followed the intervention of the National Implementation Body (NIB).

The NIB has imposed a four week deadline for the talks to be completed. At the start of the talks, the DAA’s Director for Change, John Horgan confirmed that the €30 million was no longer on the table. The two sides have held over 50 meetings scheduling, according to the airline.

Speaking to the Shannon Chamber of Commerce dinner on Friday, Enda Kenny said that he would give every encouragement to any airline that would take on an early service from Shannon the Dublin.

“This is extremely important to facilitate business. This has been said to me time and again as I met people on this visit. Passengers need to be able to get to Dublin in time to do in the past year, with the DAA warning that large cost savings will have to be made to avoid Shannon losing €130 million over the next 10 years.

The DAA’s plan for Shannon includes cutting the workforce of 520 through 200 voluntary redundancies and to out-source work at a number of areas at the airport, including catering.

In the deal that was on the table, the workers who opted to remain in their jobs were to receive lump payments of up to €10,000. The voluntary redundancy package gives staff with over 24 years experience a €100,000 pay-off, while it also entitles workers to their company pensions at 55. business and get back the same day.”

Chamber Chief Executive, Triona McInerney said that there was still, “a real need for an alternative method of transport between this area and Dublin. This is evidenced by the number of Clare people who fly from Galway.”

Ms McInerney said that the chamber “would be happy to facilitate focus groups for any airline thinking of setting up a route. But it would have to be planned to be responsive to the needs of the business community, taking into account office hours and the time it takes to get from Dublin Airport into the city.”

She added that the route, “should be subsidised. This is the case in other airports under the Public Service Obligation.”

The Fine Gael leader also outlined his proposal to site a Transatlantic Foundation in Shannon to “draw together academia, politics and business with a view to conflict resolution.”

Meanwhile, Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, is to make a fresh bid to clinch a bi-lateral deal between Ireland and the US while the Open Skies agreement is on hold.

The deal would see the current practice of having one flight to or from Shannon for every flight to or from Dublin dropped in favour of one Shannon flight for every three Dublin flights and access for Aer Lingus to three new US gateways.

ENDA Kenny is predicting a twoseat win in the Clare constituency in light of recent polls and the party’s successful run in the local and European elections.

The Fine Gael leader has admitted, however, betting on a Mayo win in this year’s All Ireland following the Connacht team’s success in defeating Dublin.

But Deputy Kenny is adamant that the party can succeed and on Thursday last promised to fulfil for the party faithful their dreams for Clare if elected Taoiseach.

First at the Mayo man’s door, if he is successful, will be Cllr Joe Arkins, who will be asking him to fulfil his promise to him on the hospital.

Cllr Arkins asked “when Fine Gael are in power” will Ennis General Hospital be guaranteed continuing and developing consultant-led Accident and Emergency service and appropriate diagnostic services?

“A simple ‘yes’ will do me fine,” he said at the public meeting with Deputy Kenny in the Auburn Lodge Hotel on Thursday last.

The leader received a round of applause as he said, “You have my word on that.”

Deputy Kenny also promised to put Ennistymon Community School on a critical building list, much to the appreciation of Cllr Martin Conway.

The Fine Gael leader also promised Cllr Conway that he would visit the Doolin Rescue Service to see for himself the “appalling conditions” in which they worked.

He promised a special SSIA scheme for first-time buyers so they could accumulate a deposit for a new home, to abolish stamp duty on houses under €400,000 and to ensure a set standard for building houses and granting planning permission in all counties.