Category: News

EDDIE Murphy is a funny man – not Eddie Murphy the comedian, but Eddie Murphy the hurling man. Being a Kerry hurling man he’d want to have a sense of humour.

He showed it off one Saturday morning a decade or so ago when John Meyler called a training session for the Kerry senior hurlers on Banna Strand. Very lonely Banna Strand as it turned out. Only two players showed.

“When Roger Casement landed here there was nobody to meet him. At least we had two,” quipped assistant manager Eddie.

Anthony Daly is a good man for a quote, but he had no need to dip into his reservoir on New Year’s Day. Instead, he nearly had his Clare hurlers dipping into icy Atlantic waters as they showed for training in Spanish Point.

Armada galleons may have floundered on the rocks off Spanish Point, but it’s from where the good hurling ship Clare set sail for 2006. A good ship that hopes to have a mighty wind in its sails in a year to September.

That’s why legends like the Lohans, Seanie Mac, Colin Lynch, Davy Fitz and Niall Gilligan togged out for another new year. In with the new on Spanish Point strand – starting out on their slog to September.

Same as it ever was for All-Ireland men who look to the future rather than dwell on past glories. So it was exactly 20 years previously when three famous footballers gathered on Banna Strand.

Lonely Banna Strand – but Mickey Sheehy, Ger Power and Seanie Walsh only needed each other for company. Mickey and Ger had seven All-Irelands, Seanie had six. Wanting one more brought them to Banna on New Year’s Day. QED Kerry won the All-Ireland in ’86.

Wanting one more like Mickey, Ger and Seanie before them, brought the Lohans, Seanie Mac et al out on New Year’s Day. It also brought out those players who have won nothing.

If they win their All-Ireland like Mickey, Ger and Seanie did 20 years ago, they’ll talk about their New Year’s Day on Spanish Point.

The slog of stamina training on the strand. Chariots of Fire stuff.

How sweet it would be for the good ship Clare.

CLARE’S top planning official has hit back at criticism by the county’s leading architects that the system is not working and needs to be radically overhauled.

In a letter to the architects, Clare County Council’s Acting Director of Service for Planning, Liam Conneally, stated that the contents of their letter prior to Christmas “undermines the working trust” that existed between the architects and the council’s planning department.

The architects had written, “We are totally frustrated by lack of consistency, poor management structure, lack of productive dialogue, poor communication and absence of a rational coherent, consistent and common-sense approach to planning within the council.”

They told Mr Conneally that they see little point in holding any further Agents Liaison Group meetings with the department “until there has been a significant and tangible overhaul of the present system which, in our view, is clearly not working.”

Now, Mr Conneally has responded, “I am disappointed at the negative tone and content of the letter. The planning service provided by the council is of a high standard and the commitment of staff to serving the public is beyond question.

“While extensive negative aspects of the ALG concept and planning service are opined, no constructive solution is put forward.

“I think your letter indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the council as planning authority and its function to act as an independent assessor of proposals for development.”

He continued, “The council fully recognises that there is scope for improvement and continuously works towards creating a better situation. The content and circulation of your correspondence has, I feel, undermined the working trust that I thought existed between the ALG members and the Planning Department of Clare County Council.

“The only way to get work done in a constructive manner is to address the concerns of the group through the group forum itself. Unfortunately, the group as it existed became an isolated planning clinic where the individual concerns of the small group of agents in attendance were the main focus for discussion.

“I believe that the ALG idea and concept is good and that, subject to a mature common-sense approach, wider buy-in by the county’s agents and to the preparation of an agreed protocol for the group, it can have a future.

“What we need to work towards is a situation whereby the group is representative of all those engaged in the planning process and where both sides recognise that each has a major role to play.”

Mr Conneally said that he is happy to arrange a meeting of the ALG “early in the New Year to see how matters can be constructively addressed”.

SHANNON rolled out the welcome mat for half of the Chilean refugees who fled to this country in the wake of the military coup which ousted the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973.

According to records released as part of the opening of the State Archives, 99 of a total of 25,000 people forced to flee the country came to Ireland and about half of these settled in Shannon.

Garret Fitzgerald, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, informed the Dail on February 20, 1974 that the refugees would be admitted to Ireland. The remainder of the refugees who came here went to Galway, where the Committee for Chilean Refugees had hired the Continental Hotel in Salthill.

Bairbre Ni Giollarnath of the Refugees committee wrote to Dr Fitzgerald at the time, outlining how a whole football team had been taken from their homes and disappeared.

And according to the archives from the same year, Clare residents were concerned that the purchaser of Mutton Island could have been a front for the CIA as a secret military base.

In fact, the island was purchased by a Mrs Husty, who then transferred it into the name of her family company, The Vancouver and Delaware Corporation of Washington.

A TRUCK driver who claimed he was unfairly dismissed lost his case after a private detective took pictures of him working on the Ennis bypass.

Thomas Lynch, Marion Estate, Kilkee made a complaint to the Employment Appeals Tribunal against employer Francis Greene, of Lisdeen, Kilkee.

Lynch was employed by Greene driving a Readymix lorry for €500 a week.

On September 25, 2004, Lynch arrived at the Moneypoint quarry for the third time that day to pick up concrete to deliver.

The quarry manager said the order had been cancelled and he could go home for the day.

Greene contacted Lynch later that day by telephone, saying the driver had cost him money.

Lynch claimed that despite telling his boss that the order had been cancelled, Greene was very aggressive towards him and Lynch said that he asked that any money owed to him be paid.

Lynch’s wife received a cheque on his behalf for €700 and his p45 the following week.

He told the tribunal that he had not worked since but when he was shown pictures of himself in the driver’s seat of a digger at the site of the Ennis bypass, Lynch said that he had been testing the machine and had not received any payment for the half-day he spent on the site.

He denied suggestions that he was working at the bypass for his brother and that he had left Green’s employment planning to do so.

In evidence, Green said that he had employed Lynch on a flat wage of €480. He said that Greene did not show up for work on September 1.

Greene said he spoke to Lynch the following day and Lynch said he wanted a wage rise. The figure of €500 a week was agreed.

Lynch took a week’s holidays later that month and two weeks’ wages were made up and paid to him.

The day after the driver returned from holiday, his employer got a call from the manager of the Moneypoint Quarry to tell him that Lynch was planning to leave.

Green told the Tribunal he went to the lorry which Lynch normally drove and saw that all of the employee’s personal belongings were gone from it.

When he contacted him, Greene said that Lynch told him he was “sick of it” and that he hadn’t been paid that week. Greene explained that he had received two weeks’ wages to cover his holiday week but Lynch said he wanted his p45.

The tribunal found that the claimant did not produce sufficient evidence that he had been dismissed.

A MID-WEST unit for disturbed children, which cost the tax-payer €10 million, has catered for just three children since it opened it 2003.

Coovagh House in Limerick closed just three months after it opened and remains shut. Severe staffing difficulties have been blamed for the continued closure.

The unit – which was purpose built to cater for children who are disturbed and require intensive attention – opened behind schedule in September 2003. Initially, it was recommended that the unit would need 38 staff for five children and this was later to be reduced to 22.

The centre now has a staff of 32 but it needs 46. The unit cost €5.1 million to build and another €5 million in wage bills, running costs and security costs, according to figures drawn up by opposition health spokesman, Richard Bruton.

“Millions in taxpayers money is being wasted while children in need of urgent special care are instead being placed in private residential units costing the State up to €10,000 per week,” Deputy Bruton said.

In a reply to queries from the opposition spokesman, the Health Services Executive said Coovagh House would re-open once the staffing quota had reached 46, including the appointment of a senior clinical psychologist and the appointment of a management advisory committee.

At the time, the HSE said it envisaged that the unit would open for referrals in December, but this was dependant on additional staff being recruited and the unit being certified by the Irish Social Services inspectorate.

THE company controlled by former GP, Paschal Carmody, Lyntondell Ltd, which was recently convicted of selling unlicensed medicines, had a positive balance of over €120,000 in its most recent returns to the Companies Office.

At a recent special sitting of Tralee District Court, Mr Carmody, Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, was fined €1,500, ordered to pay €10,000 in costs and expenses and given a 10-month sentence suspended on condition that he be of good behaviour for 12 months.

Lyntondell Ltd pleaded guilty to five summons of selling unlicensed medical supplies. The company was fined €1,000.

And according to accounts returned to the Companies Office last July, Lyntondell had a positive balance of €128,308 to the end of 2003. Mr Carmody, along with Mr Jay Daly, are listed as directors of the company.

Two other companies, Heddonvard Ltd and Tinerana Ltd, with which Mr Carmody has been involved, have not been performing as well. Heddonvard also has a previous conviction for the unauthorised supply of medicines in January 2004, when it was fined €1,000.

Its most recent returns, last June, show that the company had a negative balance of €40,736 to the end of May 2004. The accounts also listed Mr Carmody’s wife, Dr Frieda Keane Carmody, as company secretary.

In relation to Tinerana Ltd, the accounts show that Pascal Carmody served as a director with Dr Keane Carmody in 2002 and 2003, but resigned in 2004, leaving his wife as the sole member of the company.

The company had a negative balance of €100,605 to the end of December 2003 in accounts lodged last July.

Mr Carmody was removed by the Medical Council from the medical register for misconduct in September 2004.

His defence counsel Brian McInerney told Tralee District Court that Mr Carmody “has fallen very considerably from grace. This process took place almost in a fish bowl under the bright lights and glare of the media at every twist and turn”.

Mr McInerney said that the father of five children, aged between 15 and 21, “is virtually unemployed and unemployable. At the age of 58, Mr Carmody wishes to look forward now, not backwards, and to make the best of what is left of the remainder of his life.”

EIGHT locally-based Clare voluntary and community organizations have received funding as part of a €3.68 million nationwide grants programme from the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Almost €60,000 worth of funds was allocated to Clare organizations with the Clare Federation for the Mentally Handicapped topping the funding list with a €20,000 grant.

The Ennis based Congress Information and Opportunity Centre also received significant funding as they were allocated two separate grants amounting to more than €17,000.

Other organizations to receive funding include Iniscealtra Community Development (€7,282), the Leon Committee (€5,525), the Alfa Project-Active Learning for Adults (€5,247), the Kilnamona Community Centre Development Committee (€3,576), the South West Clare Community Radio (€3,600) and the Clare Women’s Network (€1,530)

Speaking at the announcement of the grants the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Noel Ahern welcomed the funding.

The €3.68 million of funding will go to 355 community and voluntary organizations across the country, bringing the total funding under this year’s programme to €5.88 million.

SOCIAL and community projects in Clare have so far benefitted to the tune of €58.8 million from the National Development Plan (NDP). To date, €13.8 million has been approved for childcare facilities. €18.5 million was allocated to non-national roads. Money was also spent on water services, the Rural Transport Initiative (RTI), broadband, the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre, the Youthreach programme, social housing, a new slipway in Ballyvaughan Bay and three Community Partnerships.

KINVARA could be on the verge of a major property boom over the next five years, as plans to construct a new sewage scheme in the town is expected to be given the green light over the next few weeks.

The sewage scheme could open the way for a number of new housing developments to take place in the town where property is already in high demand.

The announcement follows years of campaigning for a scheme in the south Galway area, where a reported 70,000 gallons of effluent is being dumped into the bay on a daily basis.

The project, with an estimated cost of several millions of euro, should get the go-ahead this month.

However, it may take as long as three years after the construction of the sewage system for the pollution problems to be rectified in Kinvara.

The local community council have campaigned for the scheme for years, amid fears that pubs and restaurants there were losing customers because of the smell from the raw effluent being dumped into the bay.

Meanwhile, Clare TD Pat Breen (FG) has hit out at the government over the speed at which sewerage schemes in the county are being processed.

Speaking in the Dail before the Christmas break up, he slammed the government inaction on the schemes.

“The delay in the completion of a number of sewage schemes in County Clare, among them the Scariff, Feakle, Quilty-Mullagh, Labasheeda, Cooraclare and Carrigaholt schemes, is part of a trend in rural Ireland where development grinds to a halt, home builders are put in limbo and everything remains at a planning stage because of the failure by the government to install a sense of urgency in such projects,” he said.

Deputy Breen went on to criticise the speed at which projects which are currently under construction in the county are making. According to Deputy Breen there are ten projects, including one in Ennis town, which are currently behind schedule.

Regional Hospital in Limerick, which is a next port of call for many Clare patients,

ENNIS Regional Hospital had to cancel 56 cancelled 126 operations.

operations last year, and the busy Mid-West The figures were revealed this week on foot of a Freedom of Information request.

The Ennis hospital comes in the lower third of the cancellation league for hospitals nationwide and, of those which kept records, the joint figures for University College Hospital Galway and Merlin Park Hospital Galway were the highest.

The two facilities had to cancel 4,308 operations between them. Tallaght Hospital in Dublin cancelled 2,264 surgical procedures.

On the lower end of the scale, Mallow General Hospital in Cork and Bantry General Hospital both performed all the operations they had scheduled last year.

Naas General Hospital had to cancel 60 operations while Mayo General Hospital had to cancel 15. Sligo General Hospital had to put 76 operations on hold.

According to the Health Services Executive, the reasons for having to cancel vary from hospital to hospital and there were differing reasons for elective procedures being shelved, even within individual hospitals.

In some circumstances, surgery was cancelled because of lack of beds while in others, a lack of specialist staff was the cause.

And, in some circumstances, patients themselves were to blame when they cancelled or did not turn up on time for procedures.