Category: News

AN Taisce was last night described as Ireland’s only secret society that receives state recognition.

Making the claim at last night’s adjourned June meeting of Clare County Council, Councillor PJ Kelly (FF) said, “An Taisce doesn’t release the identity of its members and they could come from the ranks of Al Qaeda, MI5 or the CIA. We just don’t know.”

Tabling a motion that objections received from An Taisce be made available to the public, Cllr Kelly said An Taisce was “anti-rural and anti anything outside of the Pale.”

“I have no problems with objections being lodged. If an ordinary person lodges an objection, the applicant can see the objection on file.

“However, An Taisce has special status and applicants cannot see objections An Taisce make against developments. This goes against any principle of natural justice as applicants can’t respond to the objections.

“An Taisce has special status under Clare County Council, but there is no provision in statute. The regulations only state that an An Taisce submission can be regarded as a report.

“Unless the council receives legal advice stating that it cannot release An Taisce objections prior to planning decisions being made, I am calling on the council to make public the objections An Taisce make, especially having regard to the chequered past of the organisation.”

Cllr Kelly’s call received support from his colleagues. Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said, “It is only reasonable that the An Taisce objections be made available in the interest of transparency and fairplay.”

The Council’s Director for Planning, Bernadette Kinsella, said, “Where we refer planning files to An Taisce in their role as a prescribed body, their reports are not available.

“However, when An Taisce make a submission or objection, they are available for the public to view.”

THOUSANDS of visitors will flock to Spancilhill on Friday for the annual fair that vies with Ballinasloe for the honour and glory of being the biggest equine gathering of the year.

The Fair of Spancilhill has been running since the mid 1600s and in its heyday attracted horse buyers from all over Europe.

Napoleon’s generals used to come to Spancilhill, looking for horses that would be up to tackling his many war front around his sprawling empire.

Those days may be gone, but there is still a trickle of European visitors to Spancilhill every year, while the fair is celebrated in song and story.

And, not all of those who flock to the cross of Spancilhill are there to buy horses. Some just come for this history and the novelty of it all.

All because, Spancilhill is now considered one of the great days out in the social calendar – a day where experiencing all the fun of the fair is the motto of organisers and participants alike.

Wheeling and dealing as horses and ponies are knocked down, competitions and fun for all the family. “We are looking forward to a great day and are expecting a large turnout,” said Fair PRO Paddy Hassett.

“The champion of the fair will be crowned the Pride of Spancilhill, while there will also competitions for the best dressing lady and best dressed gent.

Among many other things there will also be a raffle for a pony,” he added.

A CALL was made last night for Clare County Council to appoint an in-house legal agent to work full-time with the local authority.

At last night’s adjourned council meeting, Councillor Christy Curtin (Ind) requested County Manager, Alec Fleming to appoint the full-time legal adviser to be based at the council offices.

Supporting Cllr Curtin, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) requested that the council undertake a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it was more effective to have an in-house law agent rather than retaining an outside firm to act for the council.

“I would like to know what is best practice in other local authorities. My own preference is that we would have an in-house law agent as opposed to employing someone from the outside, who can be distracted by other work,” he said.

The councillors made their call after the council confirmed in a letter circulated last week that it will advertise for legal services in the coming weeks, prior to the ending of the arrangement in September with Michael Houlihan & Partners, which have acted as the County Solicitor for the past 30 years. The post is a lucrative one with Houlihans receiving €2.2 million from the council over the past three years.

Cllr Martin Lafferty (Ind) last night recalled the contract being awarded in 1976 when the then County Manager told him that it wasn’t feasible to have a full-time legal officer.

Cllr Lafferty said, “Surely with the all the legislation that the council must now contend with, it is time that the Manager appoint a permanent law agent.

In response, Mr Fleming said that current contract is ending based on age and the new contract would be a seven year term.

THE Clare People has uncovered a failed attempt to defraud Clare County Council of more than €300,000 over a two-year period.

The dramatic revelation comes two years after a former traffic warden was jailed for defrauding another Clare local authority – Ennis Town Council – of €300,000 in coins.

The latest attempt came to light following publication of a local government auditor’s report which shows that an effort was made to defraud the council of €317,000, during 2003 and 2004. As a result, internal control and safety procedures have been further enhanced.

The report by auditor Thomas O’Callaghan stated that counterfeit paying orders “in the sum of €317,000 had been presented to the council’s bank. The sum included paying orders of €185,000, which the bank regarded as being fraudulent and did not debit to the council’s account.”

The balance of €132,000, which had been debited, was subsequently recredited to the council’s account.

Council Finance Officer Niall Barrett told The Clare People there was no loss to the council and Gardai were informed.

Asked to outline the circumstances around the attempted fraud, Mr Barrett said, “It is not appropriate to get into the transactional detail as the future effectiveness of the relevant control procedures could be diluted.”

The bold attempt to defraud the council follows a successful bid by former traffic warden, Chris Harford, to defraud Ennis Town Council of €300,000 in coins between August 1999 and September 2002. Mr Harford was jailed for three years in 2004 at Ennis Circuit Court where Judge Carroll Moran said that it was “extraordinary” that Mr Harford could steal such a huge sum undetected.

Mr Harford’s counsel, Michael Fitzgibbon BL, said the fact that his client could steal a staggering amount of money in coins over a three-year period and not be detected was astounding.

He said the lack of proper internal vetting and account procedures at Ennis Town Council was quite unbelievable.

The audit report in relation to the attempted €317,000 fraud was published and was up for discussion at the council’s June meeting. However, councillors chose not to refer to the attempted fraud. Instead, Clare’s mayor, Cllr Patrick Keane (FF) confirmed that County Manager Alec Fleming briefed councillors on the issue at a recent meeting of the council’s Corporate Policy Group (CPG), which is not open to the press or public.

A JUDGE will rule next month if a young Shannon man is guilty of assault.

Before Ennis District Court was Mark Delaney (18), of Rossbracken, Shannon, arising out of an incident in March 2005.

Witness Thomas O’Connell (20) said the accused asked him for a cigarette, outside Supermac’s, in the early hours of the morning, and he said, “No.”

He said the accused headbutted him and hit him into the stomach.

Defending solicitor Caitriona Carmody said, “My client will say nobody assaulted you at all. You could have fallen over and not remembered it,” she added.

Garda Fiona Coleman said Mr O’Connell arrived at Shannon garda station in the early hours of March 20, and said he had been assaulted by the accused.

“He was in a very disorientated state. He had a cut to the upper bridge of the nose and was bleeding heavily,” she said.

The accused told the court he saw Mr O’Connell staggering around the place outside Supermac’s.

He said Mr O’Connell “came up to me. He walked very close to me. I thought he was going to hit me. I pushed him away and his glasses fell off.”

Ms Carmody applied for the charge to be dismissed. She said there were “several conflicts” between the evidence Mr O’Connell gave in court, to that contained in his statement to gardaí.

Judge Joseph Mangan adjourned a ruling on the assault charge until next month.

GAA President, Nicky Brennan, will make his first official visit to Clare since assuming the reigns of power on Friday, when he turns the sod on the €1million Michael Cusack Project.

The project is being spearheaded by the Michael Cusack Development Company and will see the restoration of the Cusack family cottage in Carron and the construction of a visitor centre and exhibition space.

The centenary of the death of the founder of the GAA occurs later in the year. The key objective of the voluntary company behind this venture is to honour Cusack with a project that commemorates his achievements. Friday’s event takes place at the cottage at 11.45am.

Clare GAA board chairman Michael McDonagh said “the Cusack Project has now been cut loose from the mother ship and we’ll see where it comes in.

“There is no question, but Michael McDonagh had to take a lot of credit for what has happened with the Cusack project,” said secretary Pat Fitzgerald.

It is hoped to have the project completed in time for the centenary of Cusack’s death, which falls on November 28.

Cusack’s cottage was first renovated in 1984, but has fallen into disrepair in recent years.

HE might be a horse of a different colour, but Zippy’s young riders, Mia Scanlan and her sister Farrah, reckon he’s in a class of his own.

He won’t be there, but if he were to put in an appearance at the Spancilhill horse fair — which starts this Friday — Zippy would surely have dealers thinking they were having nightmares. The very idea is enough to make a horse laugh.

The girls were getting aquainted with the 16-month old zebra at their farm at Gurtmagee, Killaloe.

Family friend and horse breeder, Johnny Cross, earned his stripes by breaking the mount, after being told it was impossible to do.

Having bought him from a dealer in Holland a few weeks ago, Johnny says he won’t be racing Zippy just yet — even though he has go-faster stripes!

ALMOST 60 per cent of Clare farmers cannot make ends meet through their farms, a new survey has revealed.

The survey, which was released today, also revealed that 40 per cent of farmers in the county plan on making major changes to their farms following the introduction of the Single Farm Payment.

The survey, which is entitled , was commissioned by the Agriculture and Rural Development Group of the Clare County Development Board and funded under the Clare LEADER Programme, by Rural Resource Development and by Teagasc.

“The lack of future development plans for farms, coupled with the ongoing decline in the actual number of farmers, is a serious issue for the future viability of farming in the county,” said Doirin Graham, Chairperson of the Agriculture and Rural Development Group.

“The enterprise culture on farms seems to have been stifled, possibly due to the lack of opportunities available under the quota/premium led production era.”

The survey, conducted by Broadmore Research, also revealed that 56 per cent of farming households had at least one other source of income besides the farm. There was a high dependence on construction and driving jobs. The main difficulty stated was time pressure affecting the running of the part-time farm.

“The most alarming finding is that 77 per cent of farmers intend to spend some, or all of their Single Farm Payment, on day-to-day farm costs,” said Pat Bogue of Broadmore Research.

“These farmers will spend an average of 70 per cent of the payment on running the farm. It is costing them money to produce, which is not only inefficient, but unsustainable.”

Those farmers who are forced to take off-farm jobs face hours in commuting time each week, with the majority of jobs centered along the Ennis-Shannon-Limerick axis. Some 59 per cent said they were satisfied following the introduction of the Single Farm Payment, even though only one-in-ten believed that they would be better off following the decoupling of payments.

“We are particularly concerned about the large proportion of the Single Farm Payment being used to support production, even though payments are now decoupled from production, and the level of dependence on off-farm income sources,” continued Ms Graham.

The survey found that half of the farmers were in receipt of a Single Farm Payment of less than €5,000.

CHARLES Haughey’s rise to the top of Fianna Fáil was 13 years in the building. He had designs on leadership in ’66. These weren’t completed until ’79 and Clare’s contribution to it cannot be underestimated.

It was Dr Bill Loughnane who fired the first shots of a battle that eventually saw Haughey replace Jack Lynch as Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach.

“The trouble with the Fianna Fáil party originated with the formation of a cabinet advisory group which completely ignored the ordinary TDs, who are in constant touch with the people in towns and rural areas of the country,” said Loughnane on July 27, 1979.

“These people were mostly theorists with no practical experience of the ordinary TD’s situation. The rural TDs were never asked about it until the Ard Fheis, when he had to withdraw it and show his incompetence,” he added.

Loughnane also called for Neil Blaney’s return to Fianna Fáil. It was seen as a direct pitch of support for the leadership ambitions of Haughey, something Dr. Bill further embellished when saying “there is compatibility between Blaney and Haughey, while there is no compatibility between Blaney and Lynch”.

Then came Deputy Síle de Valera’s attack at the Liam Lynch Commemoration on September 9 in Fermoy, when she openly criticised the Taoiseach’s policy on Northern Ireland.

“If our political leaders are not seen to be furthering our republican aspirations through constitutional means, the idealistic young members of our community will become disillusioned and discontented with politicians, and far more important, they will lose heart in the political and constitutional process and turn to violence to achieve their aims, which the politicians, in their eyes, have ceased to further,” she said.

“As a young person whose one wish is to further the task, which such young men as Liam Lynch had set before us, I look upon our party and particularly our leader to demonstrate his republicanism and bring these beliefs to fruition in our people,” added Deputy de Valera..

This outburst caused a sensation within Fianna Fáil ranks, even if it was thought that many members of the parliamentary party shared her views and her direct challenge to the Taoiseach. That challenge had its day on December 5th that year, when Jack Lynch resigned as Taoiseach and party leader to be replaced by Haughey.

IRELAND’S nuclear watchdog says one in five homes in Ennis has high radon levels and equivalent to those facing workers in Sellafield.

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) says the convictions secured against three Ennis companies last week will encourage it to take other cases, if necessary.

The Clare People has learned that over the past 16 years, 1,634 homes in Clare have been measured for radon levels. 14.9 per cent of those have shown levels higher than the recommended safe level. 137 schools in the county have also been measured during this time, 17 per cent of which have exceeded the recommended safe level. RPII spokesman David Fenton said people in the areas above the recommended level “are experiencing levels comparable to workers at a nuclear station.”

Radon, the gas which is linked to 200 lung cancer deaths each year, is particularly high in Ennis, along with Tralee, he said. This was one of the reasons those towns were targeted by the RPII.

“One in five houses in Ennis have problems with radon. While there is no legislation governing radon in homes, awareness is important,” he said. Mr Fenton also expressed satisfaction that convictions were secured against three Ennis companies in the District Court last week.

The court proceedings arose after the companies failed to comply with directions issued by the RPII. Thirty companies in total were picked at random in May 2004 and issued with directions. The failure of the three to follow the directions, resulted in the court action.

“We are pleased with the outcome of the court case. There may well be other cases in Ennis. We won’t hesitate to prosecute companies who don’t comply with directions,” he said. He also stressed that when tests were carried out on the premises of the companies that were prosecuted, radon levels low and staff were not at risk. The RPII is encouraging householders to carry out their own radon tests. For details: 1800 300 600.