Category: News

CONCERN was expressed yesterday that all Turkish workers employed by GAMA, the Turkish company constructing the €190 million Ennis bypass, may not have received back-monies owed to them by the company.

Independent deputy, Joe Higgins expressed concern over the situation after the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Michael Martin said that he is unable to give guarantees that all GAMA workers have been paid their back-monies from the company.

The company is currently aiming to have the first phase of the Ennis bypass completed by October of this year. It will remove all heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) from Ennis.

Last year, as controversy surrounded GAMA over alleged under-payments, Clare County Council erected a wall of silence over their contract with GAMA following legal advice.

Along with the bypass project, GAMA has been involved in a number of other construction projects in Ireland and in a written Dáil reply to Deputy Higgins, Minister Martin said: “the Department wrote to GAMA Turkey’s legal advisers on 29 April, 2005 seeking certain details on each current and former employee, including the money transferred to Finansbank and the money transferred from Finansbank to their personal bank account in Isbank in Turkey.

“Some weeks ago a substantial volume of data was presented by GAMA to the Department and was examined by my officials. The information was not sufficient to enable me to assure the Deputy that all GAMA workers in Ireland, past and present, have received value for the amounts that were transferred into their personal accounts in Finansbank. GAMA has been asked again to supply the missing information.”

Minister Martin said that he was assured by GAMA’s senior managers, legal adviser and human resources consultant that all workers in Ireland, past and present, would have full access to the money transferred to their accounts in Finansbank.

In response to the Minister’s statement, Deputy Higgins told The Clare People : “it is very unsatisfactory and exposes the shortcomings in the level of transparency of how the workers were paid.

“The Turkish GAMA workers who were working in Ireland when this came to light received their money, but we don’t know about workers that had left Ireland prior to this becoming an issue. I want the Minister to continue to pursue GAMA to ensure that the payments have been made.”

County councillor Brian Meaney said: “GAMA has secured the largest ever public contract in Clare and it behoves the company to make all information requested by government available.”

SHANNON Airport bosses have confirmed that there will be more than 2,500 extra seats from the airport to Cardiff and Bristol to help Munster’s Red Army travel to the Heineken Cup Final. Details of the flights and tour operators are available on www.shanonairport.com.

But supporters determined to have a ticket for the showdown are prepared to travel much further than Cardiff to get what they want. Last week, fans were turning up at the French side’s stadium, Stade Aguilera, where tickets for the Cardiff game were in plentiful supply.

Two supporters went as far as buying up 100 tickets which they say they will charge just face value for to friends, sources in the Munster supporters side said.

And when the Red Army goes overseas, there will be no shortage of red flags to mark their passage. The Limerick company with the franchise for the official Munster flag has used contacts in China to help produce enough flags for the supporters.

DJ Daly will turn out more than 40,000 Munster flags at his factory in Pallaskenry, County Limerick but his company has been swamped with orders.

To met demand, he contacted a friend who runs a similar business in Beijing and they have obliged with a shipment of flags for Munster supporters to wave.

CLARE County Council have revealed a €40 million shortfall in capital funding for the County’s water services program.

Alec Fleming, County Manager made the announcement at yesterday’s monthly meeting of Clare County Council at which members debated the lack of progress on the County’s water services investment programme.

Mr Fleming said that the provision of sewage treatment plants across the county was the “single biggest issue” facing the council at the moment.

Mr Fleming said that the Council was working hard to address the shortfall.

“On the positive side it does seem that a number of schemes are progressing and we are expecting progress on the Services Land Initative (SLI).

“The biggest problem is with sewage problems across the board, it is the single biggest issue facing us at the moment.

“We are negotiating that process. I would also like to tell councilors that there is a big capital shortfall.

“There is between a €40 to €50 million shortfall in the water services programme which we addressing,” said Mr Fleming.

Councilors had earlier called for updates on on the progress of water treatment proposals currently with the Department of Environment and Local Government.

The long running saga over the wait for treatment facilities in rural areas again came in for sharp criticism.

Cllr Joe Arkins raised the issue of the delay in a foreshore loicense for Ballyvaughan and Doolin.

“We have supplied all the necessary information and complied with all the conditions, why is it not progressing.

“We have been given no reason why these schemes are not progressing, this is not appropriate.”

Cllr Richard Nagle said the blame lay firmly at the feet of the governmnt and that the wait for water services was a disgrace.

“It is an absoloute scnadal, just when towns were about to benefit, the department moves the goalposts.

“We have been waiting two years for a foreshore license for Doolin and it has been years years since funding was announced.

“We are blue in the face talking about it at this stage, not €1 has been spent on the development.”

Tom Carey, Director of Services, said the Council was putting the department under pressure, but that no definite timeline had been given for schemes in Feakle, Quitly and Scariff, Cooraclare and in Doolin and Ballyvaughan.

He added that engineering difficulties had delayed the installation of the interim water treatment plant for Ennis.

DRASTIC traffic calming measures are to be introduced in a Clarecastle estate to curb mounting traffic problems in the area.

Temporary speed ramps are to be installed in St Joseph’s terrace after a petition containing 100 signatures from residents in the area was presented to council officals. Locals are said to be very concerned that the estate had become a “rat run” for traffic avoiding delays on the N18.

Councillors had originally wanted to install two permanent ramps in the area but agreed a temporary solution after Hugh McGrath, senior execuCALLS were made by a Clare TD at the weekend’s Fine Gael Árd Fheis to liberalise the Irish insurance market by allowing EU-based competitors greater freedom.

Speaking on a motion proposed by the Sandymount, Dublin, branch of Fine Gael, Clare Deputy, Pat Breen, tive engineer, expressed reservations about such a course of action.

The petition was presented by Cllr Joe Carey (FG) at yesterday’s Committee Meeting for the Ennis Electoral Area. Cllr Carey’s motion called on the council to urgently provide speed ramps as the heavy volume of traffic using the road posed a definite risk to children living in the area.

Cllr Carey said residents’ concerns had been ignored for too long and that urgent action was needed.

“There is potential there for a serious accident,” he said. “I know that this is tied up with the bypass being finished, but I don’t want to be the one explaining to parents that said that in a market such as Ireland’s, the insurance industry was relatively small and despite a lowering of prices in recent times, many analysts felt there was room for improvement.

“A small market restricts choice and leads to high prices. In any survey comparing profits, Irish insurers always come out better than insurance companies, for instance, in the ramps didn’t go in because the bypass wasn’t finished. Clare County Council must deliver speed ramps to the people of Clarecastle. It’s like a rally circuit down there at eight in the morning.”

Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) supported Cllr Carey’s call, saying other forms of traffic management had a negligible effect on speeding.

“I’m living in an area where there were traffic calming measures imposed and you might as well have been lighting candles. If residents want that, then we should accept it.”

Mr McGrath said he was against the idea as speed ramps represented a last resort. “Speed ramps are the very UK market.

“In one notable survey by the Motor Insurance Advisory Board, it found that motor insurers in Ireland reported 11 times the profit earned by their UK counterparts between 1983 and 1999,” he said.

Deputy Breen, his party’s spokesman on small business, added that he received many queries from young last option on a list of traffic calming measures. We would conduct a traffic flow survey of the area to assess its needs. Lighting and signage are far more effective. Ramps have a detrimental look, feel and sound.”

There were some heated exchanges over the issue. When Mr McGrath asked whether councillors now determined engineering policy for Clare County Council, Cllr Brennan replied that as elected officials, wanted their decisions carried out.

Tom Coughlan, director of services, intervened and proposed a compromise. “There has never been a vote at an Ennis Electoral meeting. We could put in temporary ramps.” people in particular who are frustrated at the prohibitive cost of motor insurance.

“I feel that new entrants would encourage more attractive packages for such people,” he said.

He pointed out that if the Irish insurance market was healthy and competitive as was often claimed by the industry here, then they have nothing to fear from competition.

“In the same way that entrants such as the Bank of Scotland are shaking up the mortgage market, I feel the entrance of new insurers to the market would have a positive effect for consumers.

“If Ireland is to shake off its ripoff image then the underlying reality has to be tackled. It’s not just about marketing the image but tackling the cause,” he said.

Deputy Breen said afterwards that any person unable to get a quotation for motor insurance could contact the Insurance Information Service (016761914) who would assist them and arrange for their case to be considered under the terms of the Declined Cases Agreement.

Among the other Clare Fine Gael members who attended the weekend Ard Fheis for a special meeting of the party’s councillors were cllrs Madeleine Taylor Quinn, John Crowe, Martin Conway, John ‘Mashen’ McInerney, Oliver Garry, and Joe Cooney. Councillor Crowe missed by one vote being elected to the executive committee of Fine Gael councillors.

FIANNA Fáil members in Clare will kick off the party’s 80 year anniversary celebrations over the weekend with a commemorative evening in Kilfenora.

The event, which has been organised by the Ennistymon/Miltown Malbay and North Clare sections of the party, is the opening event in a nationwide calendar of events taking place over the weekend.

Retiring Clare TD, Síle deValera, will be guest of honour at the ceremony which will take place in Vaughan’s Bar on Saturday evening.

“The main event of the celebration will be Síle deValera’s speech,” said one of the events organiser, Mary Crawford.

“She will speak on the topic of ‘Fianna Fáil: 80 years on’ and will be the only person to make a speech on the night.”

Another highlight of the night will be a special commemorative booklet compiled by the west and north Clare groups.

The booklet will include a variety of photographs from the last 80 years as-well-as messages from An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.

“It is a compilation of all the things that people have picked up from over the years,” continued Ms Crawford. “All the photos that are in there have some significance for Clare people. For example, there is one great photo of Charley Haughey meeting a group in Miltown Malbay where his driver at the time came from.”

The event will be attended by Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Corofin’s Tony Killeen who remembers some of the parties biggest achievements in the county.

“Undoubtedly, Dr Paddy Hillery signing Irelands accession in to the EU was a major achievement for the party in Clare,” said Minister Killeen.

“Clare has also benefited from the economic revival over the last number of years and Fianna Fáil can claim a lot of the credit for that.

“I have a slightly different view of this from that of other people as I have attend Council of Ministers meetings in the EU and see the level of admiration that is there for the Irish success story.”

The Kilfenora commemoration will be followed on Sunday by a major exhibition of artefacts in University College Dublin. This exhibition will feature a significant amount of photography and election material and includes Fianna Fáil’s first ever policy poster.

CLARE’S 2,300 registered Fine Gael members are focused on this Sunday’s selection convention in Ennis where five party members, including sitting TD Pat Breen, will fight it out for two nominations to run for the party at the next general election.

The other four candidates seeking selection are former TD Cllr Madeleine Taylor Quinn; Cllr Joe Carey, the son of former TD Donal Carey; Cllr John Crowe; and Cllr Tony Mulcahy.

Deputy Breen said the number of people seeking selection was a mark of the vibrancy of the party in Clare.

“Unfortunately there will be losers as well as winners at the convention but I know that everybody has their eye on the greater goal of regaining a second seat in Clare,” he said.

“I am looking forward to a dynamic convention where the party faithful in the county will get an opportunity to assess the candidates.”

With five of the better-known members of the party vying for a position on the blue team’s ticket in 2007, one Fine Gael insider has predicted, “it will be a right dog-fight.”

Fine Gael won two seats in Clare in the 1982, 1987 and 1989 elections. Deputy Breen added that it was apparent from this weekend’s Ard Fheis in Dublin that there was a new mood of optimism in the party which had built itself up and unified itself under the leadership of Enda Kenny.

“Leading the Fine Gael team going into the next election will be an honour,” he said.

“I have spent the last four years seeing at first hand what the problems and issues are for people in Clare and after nine years of the same Government, people are looking for change.”

The party selection convention is scheduled for the West County hotel in Ennis this coming Sunday.

The Fine Gael party has seen a 2,000 per cent increase in its membership in Shannon town in the past year.

Membership has increased three fold across the county.

The Shannon town branch has swollen to 21 and a half times its original size, from 24 to 516 in the run up to its election convention now pencilled in for mid-May.

Across the county the party figures have also increased to more than 2,400 members as the party prepares for its one member, one vote general election candidate selection process.

RESIDENTS living close to the Éire Óg GAA grounds in Ennis say they are shocked by a decision to allow the ESB build an 80 foot high mast.

The telecommunications mast for the ESB’s compound at Cahercalla More got the go-ahead after An Bord Pleanála chiefs overruled a strong recommendation from their own inspector.

“I am absolutely gutted by the decision,” a local resident told

.

“Citizens have no rights and everything is dictated by Government. It is an absolute disgrace that the Board has granted permission for this mast and ignored the recommendation of its own inspector.

“This mast will tower over all of us. It is extremely distressing. I feel absolutely powerless.

“There is no resource to any other body as our only option would be to seek leave for a Judicial Review which could cost between €25,000 and €100,000.”

The ruling may come against future objectors to mobile phone masts, because with regard to this mast’s height, the Board cited the presence of Ennis Cathedral spire.

Local residents had told the appeals board that the structure was of excessive height, out of keeping with existing development in the area and would effect a significant visual impact, including the protected view on the Rocky Road. They also claimed it would depreciate the value of properties in the vicinity.

The Board’s inspector agreed, writing, “The proposed development would set an unwelcome precedent for similar development within urban areas. The proposed development would therefore be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.

However, rejecting the inspector’s recommendation, the Board had regard to national policy, the commercial zoning of the site, and fact that the site consisted of an existing ESB substation.

When refusing planning permission, Ennis Town Council stated that the mast would materially contravene the Ennis and Environs Development Plan.

The Board stated that it noted that the council had decided to refuse permission. But it cited Department of Transport guidelines to conclude that it was not constrained in granting permission.

As a result, the Board granted planning permission.

A SIX-lane motorway passing through Clare, surrounded by thousands of acres of native woodland where people can live, is the way forward, rather than “Mickey Mousing around with bypasses,” a transport expert has said.

And Transport Minister Martin Cullen has promised to try to “frontload the dual carraigeway between Limerick and Galway and I hope to make an announcement on it in the coming months.”

Professor Ed Walsh of Limerick University made the call for the construction of the highway between Limerick and Galway while addressing a business lunch organised by the Shannon and District Chamber of Commerce at which Minister Cullen was the guest speaker.

Professor Walsh said that providing a high-speed corridor between the two cities and having the two come together to create an “Atlantic counterpole” as a counter-balance to Dublin.

He cited the example of the US State of North Carolina which “offers a fine example of how a neglected region moved from the fringes, prospered and became a remarkable model for knowledge-age development.

The prospects for North Carolina were bleak, as cotton and tobacco farming went into decline, until the State Governor, Luther Hodges moved to bring together three universities to form the Research Triangle Park.

The associated cities of Raleigh and Durham grew together with the Raleigh-Durham airport as the transport hub at the core.

This partnership of universities and cities has acted as a catalyst for investment in North Carolina and transformed a once-poor State into a prosperous and progressive one.

“A similar opportunity and challenge presents itself to the cities of Galway and Limerick, to their universities and to Shannon Airport at the core of the interurban corridor,” the professor said.

The professor said that the motorway “would significantly improve the prospects for Shannon and for the creation of the Atlantic Cities counterpole.

“The energies of the Mid-West and West regions should be directed towards ensuring that the current defective plans are upgraded and a Motorway to normal EU standard is built between Galway and Limerick.

“Provision should be made for eventually upgrading this to six lanes, anticipating the development of the Atlantic Cities counterpole.”

In his address Minister Cullen said that he believes that having Galway and Limerick come together is the right thing to do.

“On their own, none of the cities can be a counterbalance to Dublin,” he said, adding that the Government is ‘Mickey Mousing about with bypasses’.

“We’re spending ten million per day of taxpayers’ money – the difficulty for me is that everybody wants their road first.”

MORE than 200 Clare people die needlessly each year because of the effects of tobacco smoking. This is the message being promoted by an new Europe-wide campaign which was launched at the University of Limerick on Thursday.

The HELP Campaign aims to educate people, and young people in particular, about the dangers and damage that smoking can do to their health and lifestyle. HELP travels to regions around Europe and measures the carbon monoxide levels in the lungs of people in each area.

“People are genuinely interested in giving up smoking, they know every cigarette is doing them damage,” said event organiser Benoit Puissant. “Many people do not understand all the problems associated with smoking, and we are always trying to raise awareness amongst smokers that they should try to kick the habit.”

North Clare Councillor, Martin Conway (FG), travelled to Limerick to help launch the campaign in the area.

“As a young politician I feel that there is an extra responsibly on me to help educate young people about the dangers of smoking,” said Cllr Conway.

“Every family in the county has been touched by smoking in some way. As politicians we fight about a lot of different things but when it comes to health and smoking we have to have an extra level of responsibility to help people quit.”

While the campaign is aimed at all smokers, it is particularly concerned with young people and those who suffer from second hand smoke inhalation or passive smoking.

With more than 7,000 people dying in Ireland because of smoke related illnesses each year the Irish Cancer Society has come on board to help promote the HELP Campaigns message in Ireland.

“The campaign will be travelling to different locations across Europe over the next few months, spreading the word about the dangers of tobacco smoking,” said Siobhan Smyth. “It is not just cancer, smoking causes a variety of illnesses from heart disease to diabetes and people are dying from these every day.”

The HELP Campaign will return to the west of Ireland in the coming months and more Carbon Monoxide levels will be taken.

SEVENTY-FIVE individuals who own land along the Crusheen-Gort bypass have lodged objections against the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) for the the €187 million road.

As a result, An Bord Pleanála is now to hold an oral hearing into the contentious scheme in the next number of months.

The board has also confirmed that submissions have been made on the environmental impact of the scheme by An Taisce, the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board (SRFB), the Department of the Environment, the Gort Regional Alliance for Community and Environment (GRACE) and environmental consultant, Peter Sweetman.

A spokesman for An Taisce yesterday described the scheme, “as one of the most complex road-schemes ever to be proposed because of the environmental impacts it will have on the limestone area where you have variable watertables and a number of turloughs”.

Galway County Council, the lead agency for the bypass, is intending to compulsorily purchase almost 500 acres contained in 103 farms.

The scheme – which involves the construction of 22 km of new dual carriageway – will also involve the severance of 845 acres of farmland along the route. The farmers concerned are set for a bonanza. As a result of the CPO of 500 acres of land for the Ennis scheme, €22 million was paid to 67 landowners.

“It is typical to have this number of objections at this stage and I would be very surprised if there were a large number when the oral hearing takes place,” infrastructural services manager with the IFA, Tomas Ryan told The Clare People .

“The objections are practical objections to get negotiations going. A lot of the objections will be resolved through negotiation. Our hope is that active negotiations will resolve as many objections as possible.”

The construction of the scheme is expected to commence towards the end of next year and will involve the bypassing of Crusheen and Gort.

According to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) published, the construction will lead to a reduction in road injuries on the N18 where, between 1989 and 2002, ten people died as a result of traffic accidents with 126 personal injuries recorded.

The EIS states that 14,000 vehicles a day currently use the road between Crusheen and Gort and the route, “fails to cope with the demand of motorists and residents frequently experiencing delays during periods of peak movement”.