Category: News

A 30-YEAR-OLD man was arrested in connection with an arson attack on a house near Kilkee in the early hours of Sunday.

A vacant house at Lisdeen, Kilkee, was set alight at around 2am. Substantial damage was caused to the interior of the house, causing damage worth several thousand euro.

A man from west Clare was arrested a short time later. He was detained at Kilrush Garda Station, before being released without charge. A file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

There was no-one in the house at the time. One unit of Kilkee fire brigade attended the scene. It took firefighters almost two hours to quench the blaze.

Gardaí say they are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident.

“The house was completely destroyed by smoke inside and we are satisfied it was set on fire maliciously,” said a Garda spokesperson.

“The man we arrested is from the area and is known to gardaí,” added the spokesperson.

Gardaí believe that diesel was used to light the premises.

Separately, gardaí are investigating a fire that caused extensive damage to a forest in Lissycasey on Sunday.

The fire broke out at lunchtime and raged for several hours, before being brought under control at around 8pm. Four units of the fire brigade and a water tanker fought the blaze throughout the evening.

Gardaí are appealing for members of the public who may have seen any suspicious activity in the area on Sunday to contact them.

A CAMPAIGN by two Clare Steiner Schools for official recognition has hit a snag with the news that the Department of Education has been unable to process their application for recognition.

The Department of Education has informed Clare VEC that it is currently not in a position to process the application for recognition of the two primary schools at Raheen Wood School Tuamgraney, Scariff and Mol an Óige, Ennistymon.

The Department has cited technical difficulties in the dual application as the reason for the delay. The difficulty in the process is believed to centre on the issue of Clare VEC serving as patron for both schools.

However Clare VEC believe that the Department have wrongly interpreted the regulations concerning patronage and believe that the organisation is entitled to serve as patron for both Mol an Óige and Raheen Wood.

CEO of Clare VEC, George O’Callaghan, confirmed the delay at last Thursday’s monthly meeting of the board.

He said that he would be meeting with Department officials to further discuss the matter.

The Board of Clare VEC had previously accepted a proposal to become conditional patron of the schools provided both received official recognition from the Department of Education.

In order for the application process to be finalised, the schools must first agree to the curriculum as set out by the department.

In the case of Mol an Óige, recognition would allow them to pursue a permanent site for a school building.

“There was some suggestion that there might need to be a change of patron, but it is certainly the case that Clare VEC are entitled to act as patron,” said Cllr Flan Garvey (FF).

THE construction arm of controversial US conglomerate, Halliburton, has withdrawn from plans to construct the €375m Shannon tunnel.

Kellogg Brown & Root Limited (KBR) was part of the “Direct Route” consortium that was identified as having “the most economically advantageous tender” to complete the public-private partnership (PPP) project last year.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) yesterday identified “Direct Route” as the “preferred tenderer” for the project.

Construction work on the scheme – which will involve the construction of a €100 million 900-metre tunnel under the River Shannon – is due to start later this year.

In the toll scheme adopted by the NRA for the project, car drivers are to be charged €1.60 to access the tunnel. Truck-drivers will have to pay €5.46.

This is the biggest infrastructural scheme being undertaken by the NRA outside Dublin.

KBR employs 64,000 people in 43 countries around the world and as part of the Direct Route consortium would have received a portion of the estimated €456 million that would be generated in tolls from the tunnel over the first 30 years of its operation.

The other companies involved in the “Direct Route” consortium include the Austrian company, Strabag AG; John Sisk & Son (Holdings) Limited; Lagan Holdings Limited and Roadbridge Ltd.

The Texas-based Halliburton conglomerate is the biggest private contractor for American forces in Iraq and has received contracts worth some $18 billion dollars for its work there.

US Vice-President, Dick Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton in the five years immediately prior to taking office. He earned €45 million during his tenure at the world’s largest oil-and-gasservices company.

One of the many contracts that Halliburton has secured from the US Government is the €37 million deal to build prison camps in Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay for suspected terrorists. The company has had more than 35 of its contractors killed while working in Iraq.

Irish firm Roughan and O’Donovan has replaced KBR in the tunnel consortium. Construction is expected to take four years.

A SPOKESMAN for the Doolin residents group that opposed the taxdriven holiday homes for the area said that the battle “was in many ways the community fighting for its own survival”.

“If these applications had gone through, it would have resulted in 25 years development in one year. This would have represented overdevelopment and turned Doolin into a ghost town with empty homes all over”.

The spokesman conceded that the issue “divided the community to a certain extent, but we have to live as a community.”

He also criticised Clare County Council for breaching its own development plan to facilitate the development, by allowing the sewage treatment plant for the proposal to be built on unzoned land.

“The council should really abide by its own development plan and we shouldn’t have to rely on An Bord Pleanala to enforce the council’s own development plan.”

The spokesman said that it was a regret that the residents did not come together sooner to act, as a number of tax-driven holiday home developments were already granted or it was too late to object.

“A number of the holiday homes that did receive planning permission are selling for between the €350,000 and €450,000 and the total value of the homes would be €20 million.

“This wealth is being accumulated by people not from the area and the tax reliefs represents a massive loss to the Exchequer and still we can’t get the €4 million for a new pier at Doolin. The holiday homes are taxdriven and nothing to do with the market. The style of the houses was also not in keeping with the area.

“With the drawing up of the development plan, there was a great turnout in Doolin and the people’s views need to be listened to.”

The spokesman said that land in Doolin is now selling up for €1 million per acre.

DISTRICT Court Judge Joseph Mangan has said he may refuse to sit in Ennistymon after September, because of the poor heat and bad acoustics of the building where the court normally sits.

The judge made the comments at this month’s district court, at the Teach Ceol premises (which is owned by Comhaltas), where it has sat for more than 10 years.

A spokesperson for the district court offices in Clare said the judge “couldn’t hear anything and he was frozen” during the March sitting.

“He will not sit in Ennistymon after the annual licensing court this year. He will do the September court, but not after that. The facilities are not suitable there,” added the spokesperson.

The spokesperson added that it was up to the Court Services, nationally, to find a suitable place to hold the monthly court sittings.

“Ennistymon is very important, as it is the main court area for north Clare and the people of the town like to see a court there,” added the spokesperson.

The Court Service will seek out a suitable building and failing that, the hearings could move to Ennis courthouse. Prior to sitting at Teach Ceol, the courts were held at the local credit union building and the community centre in the town.

One of north Clare’s most senior solicitors, Michael Petty, said the conditions were “not satisfactory. It is like Siberia up there.”

“It is a beautiful old building but is not suitable as a venue at all. The administration of justice is a serious business, but the Department of Justice can’t provide a suitable venue for us. I have been saying this for a long time, I agree with Judge Mangan and I am surprised he did not move before.

“We don’t want the court to be taken out of the town. Lisdoonvarna and Miltown Malbay are also both frightful. You can’t talk to your clients which is run-of-the-mill in the district court. That is not good enough,” said Mr Petty.

If an alternative venue is not found prior to October, the court may well have to move to Ennis, which means gardaí and legal practitioners will have to travel there for the hearings.

Ennistymon Superintendent Eamon Dolan said the regional manager from the Court Services had visited Ennistymon, with a view to finding an alternative venue.

“This is a matter for the Court Services. It will have to be looked at by them,” said Supt Dolan.

THERE is now a cast-iron case for Clare County Council to establish an in-house legal department.

That is the view of independent councillor, Christy Curtin, who was commenting on figures released to The Clare People under the Freedom of Information Act, showing that the local authority spent €825,799 on legal expenses in 2005.

The figures bring to over €4 million, the amount the council has spent on legal fees over the past three years.

However, last year’s amount is significantly down on the monies spent in 2004 and 2003.

In those two years, the spending was €3.2 million or €1.6 million in each of the years concerned.

However, Cllr Curtin said yesterday that irrespective of the drop in money spent on legal expenses, over €800,000 was still a sizeable amount spent.

“It is now imperative that the council establishes its own legal office now. The case is made and the case is cast-iron.

“It is time for the County Manager, Alec Fleming, to come off the fence on this one.

“You can’t put a price on independence and it is appropriate that the council would now establish its own legal office with work on its new HQ to start soon. The manager needs to be pro-active on this.

Cllr Curtin said that any organisation with an annual budget of over €100 million would have its own in-house law agency.

The figures show that Ennis-firm, Michael Houlihan, which acts as the council’s legal advisers, received the highest proportion of costs, at €573,193.

Ennis-firm John Casey & Co. received the next highest amount at €79,694 followed by Connolly, Sellors, Geraghty & Assoc., which received €25,000 and PF Moloney & Co., which received €22,226.

The design for the council’s new corporate headquarters has not made provision for a legal department in house.

SAFE levels of smoke and grime in the air have been breached in Ennis eleven times in the last two months.

That’s according to the results of air quality testing which has been carried out by the mobile Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the town.

A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency agreed that the levels were “high by comparison to other similar sized towns” but the lack of a smoky fuel burning ban could account for this.

The EPA’s mobile unit has been carrying out testing in the town on a daily basis for the last eight weeks.

The testing is part of a national project and Ennis is the last of 20 towns visited over the last three years.

The mobile unit spends six months at a time in each town, testing for levels of gases and substances, including sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, which is smoke, dust and other small particles suspended in the air.

A spokesman for the EPA said that so far, all tests for nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide in Ennis have come in way under the level which is considered safe.

The levels of smoke particles and other grime suspended in the air have been breached six times during the last month.

But the EPA spokesman said that this alone was not cause for alarm.

“The safety limits state that there can be 35 days in the year on which the limits can be exceeded.

“It is not believed to be a threat to health until there have been 35 days in excess of the safety levels.”

The fact that there have been so many in the first two months of the year does not mean that the town will be over the 35 instances limit for the year.

“This was a very cold period, so we would expect people to be lighting more fires and for there to be more smoke present.

“But if it was in excess on more than 35 days, then a decision would have to be taken on whether continuous monitoring is needed.

“The county council would have to decide what action to take” the spokesman said.

The issue of consistently high levels of dust and smoke in the air was raising concerns for public health and safety right across Europe, the spokesman said.

SOURCES close to Fianna Fáil believe that the Clare General Election convention will follow a process whereby only one of three places on the ticket will be up for contest.

Through the “district convention”, Minister of State Tony Killeen would automatically be placed on the ticket as the only North Clare candidate for the party.

Senator Brendan Daly would also be automatically selected as the only representative for the Soldiers of Destiny in the West of the county.

This would leave the two remaining candidates to battle it out for the third place on the Fianna Fáil ticket in Clare.

A similar process was followed at the Longford West Meath Convention and the Cork North West convention.

The new date of the Clare convention, April 3, was announced this week.

Senator Timmy Dooley and Councillor Pat Hayes are both considered as East Clare candidates, despite Senator Dooley opening an Ennis constituency office last month.

Cllr Hayes was the last of the four candidates to indicate his intention to run for the party in next year’s election.

The man for Maghera put forward his name last December, just weeks before the initial date for the county convention.

The announced retirement from politics after the next election of Minister of State, Síle de Valera, in November, meant Fianna Fáil headquarters had to rethink the date of the selection process in Clare.

According to Fianna Fáil sources in Dublin, a search to find a suitable replacement candidate from the Ennis area proved fruitless and the April 3 date was set.

A spokesperson for Fianna Fáil told The Clare People that while the form the convention would take would not be decided until nearer the convention date, the Fianna Fail rule book allowed for “district conventions” and it was not unusual to hold them. The convention will take place in the Auburn Lodge Hotel at 7.30pm.

Meanwhile, the Fine Gael selection convention is expected before the party’s Ard Fheis in May.

Five Fine Gael candidates were pre-selected for the contest last October.

Sitting Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen along with councillors Joe Carey, John Crowe, Tony Mulcahy and Madeleine Taylor-Quinn will be vying for a position on the blue team’s ticket in 2007.

Early indications from party sources suggest that the historical two candidates will be put on the balloting paper, one less than in 2002.

TOP council official Tom Coughlan has once again claimed the highest amount in expenses among the executives of Clare County Council.

Mr Coughlan’s claimed €12,928 last year, the fourth year in a row that the Ennis town Manager and Director for Community and Enterprise claimed the top amount.

The €1,000 per month claimed by Mr Coughlan last year was more than €5,000 greater than next highest amount claimed, by Director for the Environment and Shannon Town Manager, Ger Dollard. He claimed €7,778.

Figures provided by the council, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Clare’s County Manager, Alec Fleming added to his €109,000 salary with €7,706 in expenses.

The salary scale for Directors of Service goes from €75,000 to €89,000. The manager and directors of service also shared a fund of €72,000 in undisclosed ‘bonus’ payments last year.

Mr Fleming ordered a management shake-up last year with Mr Coughlan transferring from Housing to Community and Enterprise.

Mr Dollard went from Planning to the Environment and David Timlin left Environment to take up Housing.

Bernadette Kinsella switched from Community and Enterprise to Planning. She is also Manager of Kilrush Town Council.

County Engineer, Tom Carey, remained as Director for Infrastructure.

In all, the Manager and the Directors claimed €46,767 in expenses – down from the €59,000 claimed in 2004.

Mr Timlin claimed €7,246 in expenses, Mr Carey, € 6,531 and Bernadette Kinsella – who was on leave for the second part of the year – claimed €4,680.

In all, the 998 Council employees claimed €1.788 million in expenses last year, down on the €1.9 million claimed in 2004.

Mr Coughlan was the only member of the executive to feature among the top ten overall expense earners in the council. The top earner claimed €18,571, though that included an overpayment of €3,271.

Eighteen of the twenty top recipients in expenses work in the council’s roads and water infrastructure section, the department with responsibility for the county’s network of 3600 km of road, along with public water and sewerage installations.

Five officials, one wastewater inspector, two supervisors for rural water programmes and two executive engineers, each received in excess of €15,000.

KILRUSH said goodbye to its most senior citizen last week.

Just 24 days shy of her 104th birthday, Mai McMahon passed away in her home, having contracted the winter vomiting bug 25 hours earlier.

The mother of nine, grandmother of 27 and great-grandmother of 28, lived an active life right to the end, even though her walking had declined in the last year.

The secret to the long life of Kilrush’s oldest citizen included an annual visit to Knock up until the age of 100, taking a trip to America at the age of 99 and keeping an active interest in politics and current affairs.

Born Mai Googan in Tullycrine in 1902, she was the second oldest of nine children. She married Patrick McMahon in 1925 at the age of 23 and moved to Kilmurry McMahon. There she reared her nine children, eight of whom survived their long-living mother.

During her many decades in Kilmurry McMahon, Mai ran a small shop two doors down from the church while helping her husband run the family farm.

The hard-working West Clare woman buried her husband, Patrick, 34 years ago, at the age of 72.

Just a few years later, she moved to Vandeleur Street in Kilrush to live with her daughter.

Living in Kilrush, Mai went to Mass every day and the devout woman made an annual trip to the shrine in Knock up to her centenary year.

A keen knitter and talented at crocheting, Mai also kept abreast of current affairs, reading the newspapers every day and keeping up to date with the news right up to the end of her 104 years.

The active pensioner baked bread until she was 100 years old, and is one of the few people ever to say they collected the old age pension with all of their children.

Mai’s son Martin died just over a year ago and she also buried one grandchild, Mary McMahon, in her lifetime.

While her family were expecting Mai to pass away, it still came as a shock to them in the end.

“It was a shock but not a surprise,” said her granddaughter Marian McMahon Jones.

Marian is a member of Kilrush Town Council, and this month’s meeting of the council was postponed as a mark of respect to Kilrush’s eldest citizen.