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RECENTLY I drove a cream version of the new Mini First. It’s very like the Mini One, only cheaper.

It was lovely, but at this stage of my life I’m probably too old for a Mini. The cream colour, did attract many envious glances. But then the curios onlookers could have been saying to themselves ‘what’s that auld fella do- ing driving his daughter’s car?’

However, it’s said that you are never too old for anything in life. The Mini has always been a bit pricey, but this Mini First is very affordable, with starting prices now reduced to at €18,180. And if you want to take ‘to- tal loving care’ of your new Mini, for a once-off payment of €250 you can buy a service and maintenance pack- age called “TLC’ covering the car for five years.

Since taking over Mini nine years ago BMW has retained all the old features and added a few new ones. Now they have introduced their auto stop/start technology where the car cuts out if stopped at traffic lights. You simply start it again by press- ing the clutch. BMW say it definitely saves fuel and C02 emissions are only 128, which equates to €104 road tax.

Those front headlamps seem to be smiling at you as you approach the car. Inside the seating is natu- rally a bit lower than your normal family car. Once seated you cannot but notice the massive speedometer

which dominates the dash. And if the speedometer is not big enough you also get a digital speed counter just above the steering wheel. So no excuse for breaking the speed limit.

The dash is very busy and at first the area could seem like the cockpit of a small airplane, there are so many toggle switches. The controls for the windows are included on the dash, which takes a bit of getting used to. The radio on/off and volume is con- trolled by one simple button and it’s easy enough to scroll up and down the wavelengths.

In the back there is room for two small adults, or maybe three chil-

dren. The leg room for the back seat passengers will depend on the size of the people in the front and how far back the front seats are pushed. The boot is naturally small and no spare wheel, just a repair kit.

You probably remember the old tel- evision ads where they crammed sev- eral people into a Mini. I think the world record is 21 and it was set in Malaysia a few years back.

According to independent UK ex- perts the Mini First should retain 50% of its value after three years or 30,000 miles. Also I think people are always on the look out for a good second hand Mini.

You get a six-speed manual gear- box, but it takes 13.2 seconds to get from zero to 100/kmh. Still on the open road the car can certainly move with the best of them. I drove the 1.4 petrol version, but if you have extra cash to spend there are lots of extras available. The only complaints I got were from family members, who hate two-door cars and the hassle of getting out to allow other passengers enter and exit the rear seats.

So no matter what age you are, have a test drive. If you are young and fe- male you will love it. If you are older like me it might help to bring you back happy memories of your youth.

THE contribution of Bishop Willie Walsh to the diocese of Killaloe was the subject of widespread tributes last week after he submitted his resigna- tion to Pope Benedict on reaching his Rll metaretee ys

Dr Walsh, who has served as Bishop since 1995, is to remain in charge of the diocese for a number of months until a successor is appointed.

Feakle parish priest, Fr Brendan

Quinlivan said: “Bishop Walsh has provided a model for leadership in the 21st century in how he led the di- ocese. He is a true Christian and has been Christ-like in how he interacted with others.”

Fr Quinlivan said that Bishop Walsh stepping down as Bishop “will not only leave a deep void in the diocese, but leave a void in the hierarchy”.

‘As a Christian, Bishop Walsh has tremendous credibility amongst the people and he has lived the Gospel as

he preached it. His affability, warmth and kindness was there for all to see in how he dealt with others.”

“IT cannot speak of him highly enough. He has provided effective and inspiring leadership and _ this came from his deep humanity. Bish- op Walsh has always been available to priests and was never more than a phone call away,” Fr Quinlivan said.

Stating that the diocese had bene- fited from Bishop Walsh’s leadership humility, collaboration, availabil-

ity and affirmation, Ennis priest, Fr Tom Hogan said that “the Holy Spirit came the way of the Diocese of Kil- laloe when Dr. Walsh was appointed Bishop”.

‘We have been blessed by his pres- ence. He has enabled so much to hap- pen. He is a very wholesome man, who is very comfortable with him- self,’ Fr Hogan said.

Parish priest of Shannon, Fr Tom Ryan said that Bishop Walsh becom- ing bishop was one of the greatest

blessings for the diocese in his life- time. He said that Bishop Walsh is a man of deep prayer and is respected and admired throughout the country.

‘He has provided tremendous lead- ership. It was providential that he became bishop when he did. He has given 50 years service to the Church and we will miss him. I am delighted that he is in good health and I wish him the best in his retirement where he can enjoy life at a slower pace. He deserves it.”

THE second Building of Hope team to arrive in Mombassa in Kenya have been starting work at 4am and major progress has been made on the train- ing centre for parishioners of Cranny priest, Fr Martin Keane.

‘The heat is incredible in the after- noon so the volunteers have been get- ting out and on-site extra early to get the job done,” said project organiser, Olive Halpin.

Volunteer Tony McMahon from Lissycasey said that the team effort is “amazing”’.

“From roofing to kerbing, to elec- tronics and anything else that needs to be done, everyone is pitching in. There’s a massive willingness from everyone. Everyone mucks in. And the weather is absolutely roasting.”

Electrician Sean Hull, also from Lissycasey, said that “nearly every- one helped with the roof for the first days and now that that’s done, we’ve split into different groups and started some inside work and putting down pavements. It’s all go.”

The roofing is now finished and some of the rooms have been plas- tered with an amount of kerbing and paving also laid.

Volunteers have also been meeting the people of Fr Martin’s parish and learning how their efforts will change lives of the people of Migombani.

Olive said the Cranny priest is “de- lighted with the work and the people

here are amazed that so many people would make this journey to better their lives. It’s such an amazing ex- perience. The volunteers will never forget it and the people of Migom- bani certainly won’t.”

With one of the most difficult parts of the job now behind them – roof- ing in the blazing sun – the next two groups of volunteers will still have plenty to do, with plumbing tiling more electrics, painting, decorating

and a massive clean-up all to come still.

Many of the volunteers brought specialist tools with them but some of the most ordinary items are the most impossible to get in Mombas- sa, said Olive.

“We’re making a special appeal to anyone coming in the fourth group to try to bring paint rollers and paint trays – we just can’t get them here and the painting will be so much slower

and harder if we don’t have them. Please, please bring some out.”

On February 14, in Ballybeg Com- munity Centre there will be a post- poned “Turkey Trot’ to raise money for volunteer Rob O’Neill. It starts at lpm and everyone is welcome.

THE long-awaited children’s play- ground for Lahinch looks set to get the final go ahead in the coming weeks following unanimous sup- port for a license to be granted to the Lahinch Playground Committee at yesterday’s meeting of Clare County Seiee

A local group has been working on a number of proposals to construct a

playground on the promenade area of Lahinch for the last number of years. The group has raised tens of thousands towards the project while funding has also been secured from the council own funding for play- pace Uien

The project had become bogged down with choosing a site for the playground but it now looks almost certain that the green light will be given to construct the playground

on a piece of land belonging to the council supported by Lahinch Sea- (eyule

The local authority will lease a sec- tion of land belonging to Seaworld for £15,000 per year and will in turn licence the operation of the site to the Lahinch Playground Committee for a nominal fee, believed to be €1 per year. Some of this money will be recouped by Clare County Coun- cil through the provision of 12 extra

parking places as part of the devel- opment.

“A huge amount of funding has been raised by the community in Lahinch for this project and we are delighted to be able to proceed with this at last,” said Cllr Richard Nagle ¢3D)

“The playground committee have worked in very close co-operation with the staff here and in Ennis and we are now happy to start this

work.”

Councillor Martin Conway (FG) also complimented the local group on the work they have put in.

“The playground committee have done the rounds in terms of submit- ting the different sites that were up for consideration. They have done great work. This won’t be just a play- ground for the children of Lahinch, it will a playground for all the visitors who come to Lahinch and the people

THE parents of a young Clare school- boy have hailed as “incredible” the impact a special training programme for people with disabilities has had on their son’s life.

Nine-year-old Jack Caldwell and his new best friend, a two-year-old gold- en retriever named Aggie, officially

teamed up at a ceremony in Dublin last week.

Up until a month ago, Jack, who suf- fers from Ataxic Cerebral Palsy, had to use a walking frame to help him move around. The pair were brought together under a scheme operated by Irish Dogs for the Disabled.

Over a period of six to eight months, the charity trains dogs to meet the

needs of its clients.

Aggie has been trained as a stability dog meaning Ennis boy Jack can walk holding her harness on one side and a stick on the other.

In a letter, Jack’s parents John Cald- well and Emer Sherry expressed their delight at the positive impact Aggie has made on their son’s life.

“When we heard that Irish Dogs for the Disabled had identified a suitable dog for him, Jack was motivated to start practicing to walk using tripod walking sticks. Within four weeks, he was confident enough to leave the walking frame at home and just bring his walking sticks to Cork. This was an incredible achievement for a nine- year-old with balance problems and low muscle tone,” they said.

They say that the difference made to Jack’s life as a result of teaming up with Aggie has been “incredible”.

“Aggie is a beautiful two-year-old golden retriever with a lovely calm disposition. Jack adored her from the minute he met her. The difference this has made to Jack 1s incredible. On his second day of training, Jack said to us, ‘I love Aggie because no-one looks at me anymore.’ In his mind, the burden of going out in public with a visible disability had been lifted.”

Irish Dogs for the Disabled aims to assist people with disabilities to enjoy a greater independence and a better quality of life through the provision of specially trained Assistance Dogs.

THE Ennis woman behind a popular Facebook page has said she is over- Wwhelmed by the response it has at- tracted so far.

“You’re a true 30-something from Ennis if you remember…’ invites people to share their memories of growing up in Ennis.

The thread was posted on the social networking site Facebook by local woman Fiona O’Sullivan in early Jan- uary. So far it has attracted over 5,000 comments from the almost 1,000 people who have visited the site.

Fiona said she decided to set up the internet thread after seeing a similar one posted about the Cork town of Carrigaline. “I was using Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. My husband is from Cork and I saw that there was a Facebook page about growing up in Carrigaline. It had got about 30 hits when I saw it and I thought Ennis could probably do a bit better.”

Fiona said she has been amazed by the popularity of the site.

“T never thought it would be this popular. It’s amazing the amount of people that have been on there. It has

918 friends and over 500 people have posted comments on it. It’s not do- ing so bad. And people are putting up pictures and links to YouTube, which is great. It really adds to it,” she said

‘I’d never heard some of the stories. I’ve laughed an awful lot at some of them. I loved the ones about the old characters from town and the old games like skipping and things like that. I loved the stories about old shops like Bridie Quigley’s chip shop.”

The site has attracted comments from Ennis people now living in various parts of the world. “There

are people living in Dubai and Aus- tralia who have put stories. There are people using it who I wouldn’t have seen in years. It’s great to see people using it to chat and catch up on old mbes lone

One of the Ennis characters re- membered is the late Michael Tier- ney. Fiona has now started a new site calling for a statue to be erected in memory of Mr Tierney in the market area of Ennis.

“It started off as a bit of a laugh but so far about 350 people have logged onto it so it’s getting kind of serious,” she said.

EVEN at knock down prices, Clare County Council is unable to sell its affordable housing stock as numbers on the housing list exceed 2,400. New figures provided by the coun- cil show numbers on the housing list have increased by 40 per cent from 1,716 to 2,408. However, that figure includes those on rent allowance, who in order to qualify for the allow- ance must go on the housing list. Excluding those who are on the list to secure rent allowances, there were 1,594 on the list on January | — an in- crease of 30 per cent on the 1,218 that were on the list at the start of 2009. Special Policy Committee Chair- woman, Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) said the increased numbers were “extremely worrying and a cause of

concern’.

‘There are real people behind these statistics. There is no way that the council can keep up with the de- mand, but we are managing as best we can. The numbers on the list are high and will continue to get higher,” she said.

The council completed 87 social houses in 2009 and 91 in 2008. A further ten affordable houses were provided through agreement with de- velopers but with the collapse in the housing market, the number of af- fordable homes completed under this scheme dropped to just two.

The council expects to complete 16 affordable homes in 2010 in Shan- non, where there is a strong demand for affordable homes.

However, uncertainty surrounds the number of new house starts for

2010 as local authorities are await- ing a capital allocation for 2010 from the Department of the Environment in relation to the social housing con- struction programme’.

The council has also confirmed that it has 15 unsold affordable homes for sale dispersed over eight locations.

A council spokeswoman – said: ‘These have been for sale for an av- erage of one year. The council has responded to changing market cond1- tions by reducing the purchase price of affordable homes. The reduction in price varies but averages at 15 per cent to 20 per cent below the market price,’ she said.

HARD work and dedication are pushing one group of science enthu- siasts towards a place on the podium at the annual Fl in School’s competi- tion.

Team Firedragons are one of two entrants from St Flannan’s College, Ennis, who will take part in the re- gional finals of the competition in Cork on March 2.

This is the fifth year for the com- petition to run in Ireland under the guidance of the Irish Computer So- ciety (ICS) in partnership with Dis- cover Science & Engineering.

The Fl in Schools challenge is an international competition, which now attracts more than 90,000 stu- dents from across the world.

The competition 1s open to sec- ondary schools to design and manu- facture model racing cars. Student teams will compete against each other in a national championship to determine the best-engineered and fastest car in Ireland.

Team members Tim Janssan, Nor- bert Rosik, Eric Mullaly, Christo- pher Ogbonna and Jack O’Dea are hoping the months of hard work and preparation they have devoted to the project will pay off in Cork.

Team Manager, Norbert Rosik de- scribed the work the students have done to get to this stage in the com- petition. “The team has been very consistent and very committed to the project even with the increasing amount of school work due to three of the team members preparing for the Junior Certificate. The qualitfy- ing stage consisted of submitting a five-page plan on how the Firedrag- ons intended to create their project of a 25cm balsa wood Formula One car by showing their research, proposed

budgets, designs etc. In this compe- tition our team will be using com- pressed air canisters to power their model car to achieve scale speeds in excess of 350kmph.”

Artistic Manager, Christopher Og- bonna said the team decided to de- sign a logo in order to set their de- sign apart from competitors. “The Firedragons came up with this logo because it defines us from other

teams as we have a fiery passion for what we do. Apart from this our logo is very unique as it 1s extremely in- tricate.”

Norbert believes the team deserves to get through to the national finals and win because of the amount of ef- fort put in and the results so far ob- tained. He also thanked the group’s science teacher, Michael Horgan, who has encouraged both teams

from St Flannan’s throughout the de- sign process.

The Fl in Schools National Finals will be take place in April. Visit www. linschools.ie for details.

IF the names of Brid and Roger Fahy are familiar to you it’s probably be- cause youve heard them _ before. Located on the Flaggy Shore of Fin- varra, at the very northern tip of the Burren, the pair set up Linnalla Ice Cream back in 2006.

As we all know farming is a tough gig. Besides the hard work and unso- cial hours – dairy farmers also have to live with the prospect of selling milk to Co-Ops for less than it costs to produce it.

Brid and Roger may just have found a solution to this problem. There new idea, a milk vending machine, could soon allow farmers to sell their milk directly to the customers in a hygi- enic, safe and ultimately profitable EN

By cutting out the middlemen and constructing a machine which allows farmers to sell directly to consumers, the pair might just have cracked one of the biggest problems facing dairy farmers today.

Although largely unknown in Ire- land, the Latteria of milk dispenser has become popular in mainland Eu-

rope and in Italy, where it 1s made.

Besides providing consumers with the freshest possible product, the Latteria also gives farmers a chance of getting a fair price for their milk and cut down in transport costs and emissions and cuts down drastically on packaging.

The local shop owner would receive a “fair” price for hosting the Latteria but the overheads of unnecessary transport and other cost associated with the large Co-Op would be re- moved.

The Fahy’s have received €3,000, sponsored by Clare Ireland recycling, for taking first prize in the Clare Farm Idea Awards Competition and will now go forward to represent the county at the national competition.

Linnalla ice cream started produc- tion in 2006 and the specialty ice- cream is now available in shops and restaurants in the Clare and Galway eer he

In 2005 they met Pat Shannon from the Clare Enterprise Board who en- couraged them to develop their idea.

Over the next two years they had planning approved, secured LEAD- ER funds, worked with officials from the Department of Agriculture and soon were on the way to starting a new and innovative business.

FORTY-FIVE people last night reaped the rewards of their studies as they received FETAC awards at St Patrick’s Comprehensive School in Shannon.

The group took PLC (Post Leaving Certificate) courses in_ childcare, business studies and sports and rec- reation.

The childcare course included a focus on special needs; the business studies course also included secre- tarial and IT skills, while the sports and recreation course featured a wide-ranging programme.

“Tt will allow people to work in a gym, leisure centre or sports com- plex or in primary schools coaching young people. There is a swimming module and water safely and also IT. We feel they need it for running a leisure centre,’ said Bernie Ruane, who is the co-ordinator of the PLC programme at the school.

She explained the idea behind choosing those particular courses. ‘I do a bit of market research to see what people in the locality want and See what our students want,’ she said.

“Some students use these courses to progress to third-level courses. Some of the institutes of technology have reserved places for FETAC ap- plicants,” said Ms Ruane.

Those who take the courses range in age from 18 to 60 and they engage in their studies between September and May (daytime). “If you haven’t done the Leaving Certificate and are aged over 23, you can come into the course,’ she said.

There is a significant level of in- terest in the courses, which also give participants the opportunity to engage in work experience. “There seems to be huge demand for the childcare one since the Health Serv- ice Executive (HSE) got more in- volved in créches and pre-schools.

There is always the need in Shannon for the business course. They have very good data entry skills and very good typing skills,’ said Ms Ruane.

“The courses are very accessible for local people and also for people with families who want to get back into education,’ she said.

Such has been the demand for the courses that there are not always

enough spaces available. “We have had to refuse people. Last year there was a big long waiting list for the sport and leisure,’ she said.

The courses are government-fund- ed and the cost is just €100 for the year. Anyone interested in taking any of the courses for the coming year should phone St Patrick’s Com- prehensive School on 061 361428.