Category: News

THE County Manager has told councillors that their unanimous move to dismantle their ‘locals only’ policy on one-off housing departed from the National Spatial Strategy and was wrong in law.

County Manager, Alec Fleming, also stated that the councillors’ proposal was in breach of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and didn’t have sufficient regard to Ministerial guidelines.

In a 45-page report circulated to councillors, Mr Fleming said that their proposal “would result in a significant relaxation of rural housing policy that would undermine the ability of the County Development Plan to support the objectives of the Mid-West Regional Guidelines to support the growth of settlements.”

At last night’s March council meeting, councillors agreed to hold a special meeting on the issue.

Mr Fleming said that if the proposal succeeded, “it would remove the need for any landowner to show that they have links with the rural community and would not be consistent with the National Spatial Strategy.”

Mr Fleming said that the amendment undermined the ability of the plan to support the development of key services to provide a significant level of social, commercial and community centres in peripheral areas.

On the environmental impacts of the amendments, Mr Fleming said they would result in significant adverse effects.

At the Council’s September meeting last year, the members unanimously voted to pass two motions against the advice of management to amend the Clare County Development Plan 2005 in order to make it easier for applicants to build one-off homes.

In the plan, the council had sought to control the proliferation of one-off homes in large swathes of Clare by imposing a general ban on non-locals.

As part of the implementation of the non-local rule, the council demands from applicants cattle herd numbers, copies of birth certificates, school records and letters from parish priests to prove that they are local to the area.

However, in a proposed amendment unanimously adopted by councillors, those who own land in the area prior to 1999, but might not have any links with the area, would now qualify as being a local person entitling that person to planning permission.

A FAMILY say they are “terrified” that a mobile phone mast, to be erected near their house, will cause them serious health problems.

Fionnuala and Mike Casey of Lisheen Cross, Ballynacally, say they will have to leave their house and uproot their two children, if the 02 mast goes ahead.

The Caseys are among dozens of objectors to the proposed 50 ft high mast at Lisheen. Fifty six others, led by the Lisheen Mast Action Group, sent in objections, after a public meeting.

The Caseys, who live just 600 metres away from where the mast is to be erected, say they “hope and pray” it won’t be allowed.

“We are terrified that this mast will act as a trigger for ill health. As a family, we look after our health to the best of our ability, but we are convinced that living so near to a telecommunications mast will cause serious health problems for this family.

“We made this area our home and we had planned to live here for the rest of our lives, but if this structure is granted planning permission, we would be forced to uproot our two children and move to an area free from health risks.

“We hope and pray that common sense will prevail and that O2 Communications are not successful in their request”.

They also claim there’s no need for the mast and that it will slash the value of their property.

“There is not a problem with mobile phone coverage in the Lisheen, Ballynacally area so the erection of this structure is not essential to the development of telecommunication services. The fact that this mast is so close to our house will without a shadow of a doubt devalue our house, as we certainly would not buy property so close to a mast ourselves.”

The Caseys also express concern over the visual impact the mast will have on their lives, describing it as “alien to any other structure” in the area.

Green Party councillor, Brian Meaney, has also lodged an objection against the proposal.

“I am opposed to the mast because it is an area of scenic amenity and there are no proposals in the application lodge to camouflage the structure,” he told The Clare People . As a result, it will have a strident impact on the landscape,” he said.

A decision on the application is due next month.

A POLISH man has appeared in court, accused of attempting to break a window on a plane as it flew into Shannon at the weekend.

Szczepan Drzewiecki (37) was travelling from Warsaw to Shannon to take up employment in the construction industry in Tralee, when the alleged incident occurred.

He was arrested at Shannon Airport on arrival there on Friday night and brought before a special sitting of Ennis district court the following day.

Gardaí say the alleged offence is at “the higher scale of seriousness.”

Drzewiecki is facing three charges, arising out of the alleged incident on board a Centralwings flight from Warsaw to Shannon.

He is charged with being intoxicated, engaging in abusive behaviour on the plane and failing to cease engaging in abusive behaviour, when requested to do so by a crew member, contrary to the Air Navigation and Transport Act.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said it was alleged that when the plane was about an hour away from Shannon, the accused became aggressive and violent.

“He was drinking from a bag, which gardaí will say was vodka… He assaulted two passengers behind him. He went to punch the window and break the window,” he said.

A number of people had to intervene and the accused sustained an eye injury in a struggle that ensued. One of the witnesses travelling on the same flight was an Ennis businessman.

Garda Brian McCarthy said when charged, the accused replied “I am sorry” to one of the charges.

Defending solicitor, William Cahir, said his client was due to commence a job as a labourer in Tralee this week.

Inspector Tom Kennedy applied to remand the accused in custody and said there was a fear he may flee the jurisdiction.

“The circumstances of the offences with which he is charged are quite serious,” he said.

“I’m particularly concerned about the offences. They are very much at the higher end of these offences. If he were convicted the penalty would be quite severe,” said the inspector.

Mr Cahir said the accused’s relatives lived in Fermoy and he was willing to surrender his passport.

But Inspector Kennedy said he did not believe the accused’s links in Ireland “would be good enough to guarantee his appearance here to face the allegations.”

Judge Joseph Mangan agreed to the request from the prosecution and remanded the accused in custody, to appear again in court tomorrow.

A WOMAN who was given a stolen laser card in Limerick and told to go to Ennis and do the best she could with it, has been jailed for four months.

Kathleen Stickle (22), of Pineview Gardens, Moyross, Limerick, unlawfully obtained goods to the value of €865, in nine premises in Ennis and surrounding areas, on September 30, 2004.

Ennis District Court was told she was given the card in Limerick and told to go to Ennis with it.

Stickle was addicted to cocaine at the time and had fallen into arrears with a drug dealer in Limerick.

Her solicitor Daragh Hassett said his client’s doctor was asking the court to give her a break. He said the mother-of-one would not benefit from going to jail.

“If she goes to prison there is no-one to look after her child. She is petrified she will get a prison sentence,” he said.

“It wasn’t that she stole the card. She was given the card. It was brought on by her dealings with nasty people,” said the solicitor.

Inspector Michael Gallagher told the court that the accused had 17 previous convictions, in Limerick. Mr Hassett said those arose out of a few incidents, most of which were public order offences. “This is her most serious todate, without a doubt,” he said.

Judge Joseph Mangan imposed a four month jail term and fixed recognisances of €500 in the event of an appeal.

COUNCIL officials came under fire yesterday from councillors in the Ennis electoral area, over the poor condition of the town’s roads and footpaths. Councillors took the opportunity at yesterday’s Ennis electoral area meeting to grill senior engineering staff over a number of issues relating to roads in and around the Ennis area.

In total, councillors submitted six submissions concerning road conditions in the county capital with the issue of a footpath for the Quin Road high on the agenda.

Responding to a motion submitted by Councillor Joe Carey (FG), Senior Executive Engineer, Hugh McGrath, confirmed that construction work on a footpath that would connect the Quin Road with the Bruach na hAbhainn housing estate, would be completed in a number of weeks.

But he was unable to say when suitable pedestrian access would be provided over the railway, which was now an issue for the road design office of Clare County Council.

This prompted sceptical remarks from councillors who said that the issue had been shelved for too long.

“We seem to be welcoming this work for a long time now, I thought we were looking at this to be done last year,” said Cllr Peter Considine (FF) who added that the road design office “wasn’t the safest place to leave the proposal”. Cllr Sonny Scanlon (FG) commented that the situation was “frightening” given the amount of people that used the bridge over the railway line. Mr McGrath said that the council was considering a number of proposals including the construction of a stand alone foot bridge.

There was also heated debate over the condition of the Ballybeg road with councillors demanding to know why the situation regarding the installation of a sewerage pipe had yet to be addressed. Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) accused the council of refusing to meet with developers to reach a compromise over the installation of the pipe.

“It’s been thrown around like snuff at a wake. Someone from either Ennis Town Council or Clare County Council needs to bring the developers together. No one wants to take a decision,” he said.

This was refuted by Mr McGrath who confirmed that €300,000 had been set aside for development work on the road, which would only begin once the final stage of the sewerage scheme had been completed for which additional funding might be required.

He added that a structural review of roads in the Ennis area would take place once work on the Ennis bypass was completed.

A 38-year-old woman who has been involved in a rejuvenation scheme for the John Paul housing estate in Kilrush yelled at gardaí, calling them “a shower of c**** and b*******.”

The incident occurred when Geraldine Rogers, of 7 Willow Green, Kilrush, came home from a hen party to discover her car had been vandalised.

Garda O’Herlihy told the Kilrush District Court that the accused had a lot of drink taken at the time. “She told us we don’t pull the ones that need pulling,” said the garda.

She went in to her home, before she returned and screamed at the gardaí, he said.

Defending solicitor Eugene O’Kelly said his client had never been in trouble before.

He said this type of behaviour was out of character and the garda agreed with this.

“She was agitated by the damage done to her car,”said Mr O’ Kelly.

The garda said someone had thrown a stone at her car earlier in the night. Mr O’Kelly said the accused’s car had also been damaged previously. “There may have been some resentment because of the work done trying to help matters in the estate,” he said.

He stressed that his client had no animosity with the gardai and that she worked with Garda O’Herlihy for many years in the rejuvenation programme.

Judge Joseph Mangan was told the accused has no previous convictions. He adjourned the case to allow a professional report on drug and alcohol abuse to be carried out.

THE lack of customs checks on some flights into Shannon Airports is of huge concern and must be rectified, according to Clare independent TD, James Breen. He was speaking after Finance Minister Brian Cowen revealed that 17 flights passing through the airport last year were not subjected to custom controls.

Deputy Breen said that because the drug culture was a huge threat, every effort must be made to prevent drugs being imported.

“I would be very concerned. The drug culture is so large now, no chances can be taken. There has to be full cover at all times. Those drug barons know every trick in the trade,” he said.

He said various seizures of drugs in Clare in recent months must be welcomed, but warned that drugs were getting through.

“We can take no chances in our airports. There must be more cover. We have to address the reasons people are getting drugs,” he said.

Sixty five kilos of drugs were discovered concealed in luggage at Shannon last year, while 14 weapons were seized. Almost 800,000 cigarettes were seized, which is a significant increase on less than 500,000 in 2004.

A spokesperson for the Revenue Commissioners accepted that Minister Cowen’s figures were factual, but said that customs staff would always be present to deal with any “risk” flights arriving at Shannon.

He said most flights were covered by customs staff and decisions made depend on the origin of the flight, combined with intelligence.

“The vast majority of flights are covered by rostered staff (full-time employees), who work on shifts between 6am and 11pm. Some flights are covered by non-rostered staff , who work between 11pm and 6am,” said the spokesman.

He said customs officers attended flights “as required” and if any information was received which would lead to a risk, adequate action was taken.

“All flights are monitored on a risk basis. We wouldn’t check every passenger on every flight.

“It depends on where it comes from – high risk areas or suspects are monitored in particular . . . drug and cigarette smugglers would be high risk,” he added.

“We have to apply risk analysis and other information,” he said.

A spokesperson for Shannon Airport confirmed that a sniffer dog was always available.

CLARE Library is celebrating a world-first after launching its Internet Geographical Information System.

The digitized maps on the Clare County Library Website will allow users to further investigate local studies and genealogical information.

By clicking on a townland marked on a map, all related information (census records, Griffith’s Valuation, photographs, trade directories and so on) will be presented.

Clicking on a monument feature, such as a castle, tower house or round-tower, will make everything in the library’s extensive Website about each of these features instantly available.

The maps will also provide and demonstrate new relationships between existing data on the site, and users will be able to use feature-layers produced from the maps as a new search facility.

Over 6,000 images were created as ‘tiles’ from original scans of the 1842 Ordnance Survey (OS) Six-Inch maps of County Clare.

More than 2,000 townland pages, and in excess of 6,000 monument pages, were also created in conjunction with the project.

Clare County Library holds two complete sets of the first edition OS Six-Inch maps for County Clare. However, the set scanned for this online project was acquired from the O’Brien family of Dromoland Castle. The Ordnance Survey was originally established in Britain in 1791, and in 1824 the Survey established its Irish headquarters in Dublin, in order to undertake the mapping and measurement of Irish town lands.

The maps were drawn on a scale of six inches to one mile and published between 1833 and 1846. They were later revised on a county-by-county basis.

There were four OS centers in Ireland, at Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Ennis. The Ordnance Survey House in College Road, Ennis, now Maoin Cheoil an Chláir, became their local headquarters in Clare and was the centre of operations for the survey and mapping of Clare, Limerick, part of Galway and Kerry in the earlier stages of the work and, later, Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon.

The entire survey was under the direction of Colonel Thomas Colby who realised the need, not just to produce a series of accurate and realistic maps, but also to compliment it with a separate topographical inventory of all places of interest in each county, as well as aspects of architecture and archaeology. At the time of the original publication of the OS maps, Ireland was considered to be the bestmapped country in the world.

Full details are available on the library website at www.clarelibrary.ie.

NURSES in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh are carrying personal alarms following numerous attacks on staff in hospitals across the region and country.

The Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) this week confirmed that all nurses in the Accident and Emergency Departments of the Mid Western Regional Hospitals in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh carried the alarms, while other staff could request them.

INO representative for the Mid Western Area, Mary Fogarty, told The Clare People that alarms were particularly necessary for nurses who are working after other staff had finished, making them more vulnerable.

“You could be isolated in a ward and one lash could knock you to the floor,” she said.

She said all hospitals were very public areas, with a lot of frustrated people and relatives visiting.

They were also open 24 hours a day, allowing people to come and go.

Ms Fogarty said that she hoped management would continue to review security in the hospitals, especially after incidents.

Meanwhile, the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) held a meeting on Thursday last, in advance of a Labour Relations Commission conciliation conference, scheduled for April 3.

The conference will discuss eight claims which the unions have lodged on behalf of nurses and midwives.

The unions clam that it will take 21 years for this year’s honours nursing graduates to achieve the same pay as qualified and unqualified childcare workers. The unions are also calling for a 35-hour week.

In 1980, the Labour Court, stated that because of the nature of their work and the stressful environment in which it was performed, nurses and midwives should benefit from a reduced working week.

Nurses and midwives are the only

officer grades of the health serv ice who work longer than 35 hours per week, according to the INO and PNA.

In a joint statement, the INO and PNA stated their committment to maintaining industrial peace and had no intention of breaking Sustaining Progress, but would not tolerate “the no comment approach adopted by the previous Benchmarking Body in the past.”

A SENIOR Clare County Council official has refuted claims that documents were illegally removed from site offices at the Ballyduff Waste Managament facility in Inagh.

Conor Culloo, the Senior Executive Engineer at the Ballyduff Waste Management Facility, said documents concerning the Surface Water Results were being copied in Ennis, when the request was made to view them in Ballyduff Beg on Thursday March 16.

He says that the documents are not part of the Public File which the Environmental Protection Agency requires on site at all times.

In a statement to The Clare People, Mr Culloo said, “The originals of these documents, which do not form part of the Public File, were being copied in Ennis. At no time was the Public File not available for inspection or access to it denied. What happened was a misunderstanding as to what forms part of the Public File.”

Mr Culloo’s comments are at odds with those of local resident Perry Long, who said that all files, including the Surface Water Results, are required to be available at the dump at all times.