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CLARE County Manager Alec Fleming was told last night to sort out the planning mess in Clare.

Councillor PJ Kelly (FF) made the call as the majority of councillors continued to delay important coun- cil business as part of their stand-off with Mr Fleming.

At the council’s adjourned June meeting, 12 items, including the council’s annual financial statement, the draft annual report, the review of Development Contribution Scheme,

a discussion on the upgrade of the \Eoso rT ele mm (OMe Tele Mm Ike) peKmBus) EIB UETSamLe the Ennis and Environs Plan and County Development Plan, were all deferred.

Mr Fleming told councillors that items relating to the annual financial statement and the draft annual report must be passed by law by councillors before the end of the month.

In a bid to overcome the impasse, Mr Fleming confirmed to councillors that he would hold a special meeting behind closed doors with councillor representatives after last night’s June

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“T don’t know what is going on with these shenanigans, but there are far more important things at stake such as the safety on a road like the N67, which the EU has classified as one of the most dangerous roads in Europe,” said Cllr Brian Meaney (GP), express- ing his frustration at the “go-slow”’.

However, councillors opted to defer a discussion on advancing the case for upgrading the routes and a suc- cession of votes were taken on the deferral of items.

In the votes, councillors voted 19 to

three and 20 to two against the items being heard. Clare’s mayor, Cllr Pa- tricia McCarthy (Ind) found herself isolated along with Cllr Meaney.

Cllr Kelly said that a planning ap- plication before the meeting was symptomatic of the malaise in plan- ning in Clare. He accused the mayor of trying to break the councillors protest by putting the various items before the meeting.

Cllr McCarthy said she would like to intervene to help resolve the row but over the past couple of weeks had felt her intervention was not wanted.

AS KERRY manager Pat O’Shea emerged from the dressing rooms to greet the waiting media, his demean- our was not typical of a manager whose side had just won by twelve points in their opening game of the championship. His acute frown ex- hibited all the signs of a manager who was expecting a barrage of criti- cism for his side’s performance and who could blame him for such obvi- ous disappointment?

His Kerry side are ret hot favour- ites to complete a three-in-a-row of All-Irelands, not seen since the days of Pat Spillane, Jack O’Shea and the ‘Bomber’ Liston. The county expects and it is up to Pat O’Shea and his team to deliver and facing Clare in the first round was simply a distrac- tion he could have done without. A

hammering would have given them little preparation for their annual Munster final outing while if Clare had run them close, the purveyors of doom would have descended on O’Shea and his side.

As it was, this game produced a mixture of both scenarios with Ker- ry unable to get into their normal rhythm in the opening period but flexing their muscles significantly in the second half to brush off Clare’s flagging challenge.

There were also the added dis- turbances of captain Paul Galvin’s sending off and his histrionics in it’s aftermath as well as a serious injury to key forward Declan O’Sullivan. Therefore the frown was understand- able as O’Shea dealt with the per- formance first.

“It was probably not a great per- formance by us to be fair. It’s our first

championship match of the year and obviously there was a little bit of a settling-in period in the first half and it took us time to get into the game.

“It was a stop start first half, there were a lot of stoppages in play, there was a lot of time wasting in certain things and there was no fluency in the game. But you have to play every way and thankfully we were in the lead and thankfully we got off to a good start in the second half and closed out the game. Right now we want to try and progress but we also want to work on our performance and after today, we are going to have a lot to work on.”

Assessing O’Sullivan’s knee injury as a ‘worry’, the questions inevitably switched to the major talking point of the game, the sending off of Paul Galvin and understandably, O’Shea was coy with his opinions on the

subject.

“To be fair, I think from our point of view, we will have to look at the incidents that led up to the sending off. Obviously Paul was very frus- trated and I think he felt himself that maybe he was sinned against in that situation. Obviously, I haven’t seen the video so I’m not sure until we have a look at it. I mean the game of football is all about emotion and Paul probably showed a little bit too much emotion there but he obviously felt that he was sinned against in that incident.”

Evaluating the game as a two fold test, O’Shea went on to explain that what he looked for on Sunday was firstly the result but also the perform- ance and in that regard, his side still have a lot to do before the Munster final. But he is in no doubt that the Clare game will benefit his side go-

ing forward.

““T think when you play a first round game against Clare, people will talk about no win situations. You win the game by too much ‘Was it really a test?’, you win the game by a little bit “Will it really stand to you?’. Look, that was a physical game, that was a championship match, there were a lot of big hits going in there and it was a tough game. I’m sure it will stand to us. It’s our first game in the cham- pionship this year and I hope we will come on from it but you know, we will obviously have to learn from what we did today and there is im- provement to be done.”

Improvement seemed to be the re- sounding theme to emerge from both camps on Sunday but with Clare and Kerry at varying ends of the cham- pionship divide, the degrees of that improvement are still worlds apart.

ONE method of killing that was con- sidered was to put medications which could cause a heart attack into liquor, the trial has been told.

However, this was_ eventually deemed not possible, prosecution witness Teresa Engle told the court.

Ms Engle, partner of Essam Eid, confirmed that she has been given immunity from prosecution in this case, by the DPP.

Asked had she ever visited Ireland, she said she had, at the end of August or beginning of September 2006. She said she was due to meet Ashraf Gharbeiah, a friend of Essam’s, and

she stayed at the Queen’s Hotel in En- ny

“T was here to meet Ash. He was supposed to kill, PJ and Robert, no, Robert and Niall, the two sons,” she Said.

She said that she walked to Westgate Business Park, to see the Howards’ business.

“When Ash arrived, I had the previ- ous day before walked around to the business park to see where it was. Me and Ash walked there,’ she said.

Asked how she knew how to find it, She said, “From directions from Sha- ron.”

She said that Ash had “his own plan. He had several medications that

was supposed to cause a heart attack or for somebody to die.”

She said he was going to put these in liquor. “We’d been to a grocery store and looked at the liquors there. We walked to the business park and he decided the plan was not do-able. I think he left the next day.”

She said that she remained in Ire- land for a few days and then travelled to Spain. She was in Fuengirola for a day or two.

‘I was picking up a key to the apart- ment in Spain. I was to look around and find info for Essam . . the loca- tion . . go see the boat.”

Mr O’Connell asked her which apartment was she referring to and

she replied, “Mr Howard’s apartment in Spain.”

She said the keys to the apartment were left in an envelope for her at the hotel. She said she had directions to the apartment “on an email, from Sharon”’.

She said she sat outside a restaurant, down from the apartment “just to look and see if I’d see PJ or Sharon”.

“At that point I was starting to get sick. I just couldn’t bring myself to go in either. I went back to the room and I went back to Ireland for a day or two,” she said.

She said that when she returned to the US, Mr Eid was “furious, because the plan hadn’t been done. He started

working on a visa to come to Ireland to do it himself.”

Asked where the keys to the apart- ment in Spain ended up, she said that after she was arrested, she went to Ennis courthouse. “I wrapped them in tissue paper and put them in gar- bage in the women’s restroom at the courthouse,’ she said.

The witness said that she met Es- sam Eid in 2003 or 2004 at a time she was separated. They met at a casino in Detroit, Michigan. The two devel- oped a relationship and she moved in with him in Las Vegas. She said they married in Las Vegas. She had pre- viously married another man, Todd Engle, three times.

TWO men from north Clare will next month take on the world’s most challenging road race in an effort to raise money for charity. Andy Bash- er and Sean Walshe will tackle the Mongol Rally, which takes drivers cross country through thousands of miles from London to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia.

The rally leaves Hyde Park in Lon- don on July 19, after which drivers are allowed to choose their own route to Mongolia. Only 200 cars are tak- ing part in this year’s event – chosen from the 40,000 plus who applied to make the journey.

The race is limited to | litre cars and the lads will be using a 1991 Nis-

san Micra on their fundraising trip.

‘Every team that takes part has to raise at least 1,000 pounds sterling for charity but obviously we want to raise a lot more than that,” said aUKOWe

“Different teams have different ways that they manage it but we de- cided right from the very start that we would be paying for the trip 100 per cent ourselves so that everything we raise will go to our charity cho- sen charity which is Christina Nobel Children’s Charity.”

The Christina Nobel Charity is an Irish charity which works with the thousands of children who live in poverty on the streets in Mongolia.

‘Ulaanbaatar is actually the coldest city in the world. It is constantly mi-

nus 40 during the winter and the con- ditions are terrible for the children. Most of them have to live down the Sewers,’ said Sean.

“Christina Nobel works out there providing first aid and medical at- tention for the street children. The government won’t let charities give out food because they think it will encourage the kids to come out onto the street. She has set up an orphan- age and a charitable hospital for the people there.

“Christina Nobel has one of the lowest administration percentages of any charity so almost all the money donated goes straight to the people who need it.”

This Friday the latest installment of North Clare’s regular clubnight, the

Funkion Room, will take place with all money made on the night going to Andy and Sean’s journey.

Pet Tong (London) and Tokin White Boy (Limerick) will be in residence for the night in Cliffs of Moher Hotel in Liscannor.

For more details or to sponsor the lads contact Sean at 085 7201494 or donate money to a specially set up account at the Ennistymon AIB, sort code 93-51-58, account number One Tes OOP

ONE Clareman got planning per- mission to build a house in his native Corofin while his brother was re- fused on the grounds that he is not a local rural person, a meeting of Clare County Council was told last night.

The council members were being asked to approve a Material Contra- vention of the County Development Plan to allow a planning applicant build a home at Ballycullinan hav- ing been previously refused planning permission.

County Manager Alex Fleming,

cautioned the members that they needed to be “guided solely by the proper planning and development and sustainability of the proposal’.

Cur Tommy Brennan (Ind) told the meeting that when the applicant originally began the planning proc- ess, he was approached. The council- lor said he had originally been told there shouldn’t be a problem, but an official from the planning depart- ment subsequently contacted him and said there were difficulties.

The applicant, who had spent some time working in Dublin was subse- quently refused. Issues which had

needed resolution had been resolved “but he was refused on the grounds that he is not a local, rural person. His brother bought land from a pal and got permission to build a house across the road. Born and brought up in the same house and one 1s a local rural person and the other is told he’s not”.

Cllr Brennan said that he was pro- posing the Material Contravention on the grounds that he had supplied enough new information in the mat- ter. Cllr Richard Nagle(FF) said that the situation on the local rural people “needs a serious reality check. We

are presiding over rural depopula- tion. That is a fact. All that people are asking for is the permissions they Uomo B10 (orem kOe

Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said dealing with the issue through a material contravention “is using a sledgeham- mer to crack a nut… and while there are genuine cases, if we start doing that then it will eventually come down to which applicants are the most popular.”

The meeting put the proposal to a vote and voted in favour of by a majority of 27 in favour to three against.

CLARE manager Frank Doherty was left to ponder the usefulness of the Tommy Murphy cup after his side bowed out of the championship with defeat to Kerry.

Clare must now try and get their kicks in Gaelic’s football’s Inter-toto Cup instead of the more exacting theatre of the All-Ireland champion- ship.

Doherty didn’t quite match the lev- els of frustration conveyed by Mick O’Dywer after his Wicklow team were condemned to the Tommy Mur- phy Cup after losing to Laois, but, still, you could tell that it rankled.

‘“That’s something we’ll sit down and talk about. It’s hard when you win a championship game for a min- now county like ourselves,” said Doherty outside the Clare dressing

room in Fitzgerald Stadium.

“It’s a competition and you have to play it. You look at the likes of Wick- low. They beat Kildare in Croker and then they’re thrown into the Tommy Murphy and we beat Waterford and we hadn’t much of a chance coming down here and you’re going into the Tommy Murphy. With the qualifiers, at least if we could have got some- thing at home, we might have been of the same standard and who knows where it might have led us. We’ll have to sit down and talk about it later,’ he added.

Clare, in fairness, made a game of it in the first half, snapping at Kerry and denying them time and space on the ball.

The dismissals of Conor Whelan and John Hayes made a hard task 1m- possible against a side blessed with enormous talent, said Doherty.

“I thought, to a degree, that we could have put up a better show in the second half. We were there or therea- bouts in the first half, playing to the best of our ability I believe. But that’s an awesome Kerry team out there. What came off the bench, it’s scary. And that’s not to mind what’s on the field. I have to give credit to the lads. We probably played for about 45 minutes, something like that. The sending off of Conor Whelan was a big minus to us, but there again, Kerry can kick on when they want and they upped it a gear and we just didn’t have the answers”.

Still, despite the odds, Doherty was disappointed Clare didn’t make a better impression on the scoreboard in the second half and singled out the performance of goalkeeper Joe Hayes.

‘Joe was awesome. There were at

least two goal opportunities where he pulled off great saves. We had two or three other opportunities at least in the second half to make it a bit more respectable. There again, fair play to Joe – that’s what he’s capable of and that’s why he’s number one for Oem

Doherty revealed that he encour- aged his team to play without fear against the best team in the land in one of the finest arenas in the GAA.

‘Ennis for us was a must win game because we had lost the year before and I felt that if we lost to Waterford again it would have put Clare foot- ball back maybe x amount of years and we couldn’t afford that. We were nervous against Waterford, but today, I said look, lets have a go in front of a big crowd against the best team in the country and see what we can do in relation to going forward”.

Doherty didn’t see the incident leading up to Connor Whelan’s red- card and had no complaints over the late dismissal of John Hayes.

“T didn’t see what Connor Whelan was sent off for because it was down the other end of the field and I didn’t see it. Connor told me that he shoul- dered him. So I can’t really comment any more on that. John Hayes, obvi- ously it was late in the game, he was on a yellow card. I suppose he had to go and what can you do. As re- gards the Kerry sending off, I have no comment”’.

And off he went to the dressing room. Encouragement and work to take away from Killarney.

LARGE tracts of land that run along the River Fergus have been rezoned from limited residential to open space in the new Ennis Development Plan in response to fears over flooding.

In what will render the price of land banks located close to Ennis town centre to agricultural prices, the new draft Ennis Development Plan re- zoned land mainly to the south of the Quin Road business park from ‘other settlement land’ to ‘open space’.

The draft plan — which will be pub-

lished next month — also rezones land bordering Lake Girroga on the north outskirts of Ennis from ‘other settle- ment land’ to ‘open space’.

The lands rezoned ‘open space’ to the south of Ennis now form part of a “development exclusion zone”. This ‘development exclusion zone’ also includes the former Doora landfill. Part of these lands have also been re- zoned from ‘other settlement land’ to “open space”.

The move to create development ex- clusion zones follows the completion of a consultant’s report earlier this

year on flooding in the greater Ennis area which recommended the freez- ing of development on 210 acres of land in the town and its surrounds.

The consultants’ report also rec- ommends the spend of €15 million to carry out works on barrage, river channel and N18 bridge upgrade.

Apart from creating new develop- ment exclusion zones, senior plan- ning officials have resisted the cla- mour for rezoning.

As part of the drawing up of a new development plan for Ennis, devel- opers seeking to profit from rezon-

ings were seeking to rezone a total of 1,720 acres of land around Ennis to residential, mixed use, commercial and industrial.

In the 168 submissions received by the council, the developers were seeking to rezone 1,247 acres of land for housing, 150 acres for mixed-use development, 115 acres for commer- cial development, 57 acres for in- dustrial and 97 acres for low density residential zoning.

However, in a planner’s report ap- proved by County Manager Alec Fleming, the vast majority of the

rezoning applications have been rec- ommended for refusal and the current Zonings are to remain as they are.

Planners held workshops’ with councillors and, after much heated debate, have recommended that only 100 acres be rezoned for housing — well short of the 1,247 demanded by developers.

The planners have also recom- mended that 63 acres be rezoned for industrial and commercial develop- ment.

The draft plan is to go on public display next month.

OANA Seems Rehm GcusaITMAYcapnt Ennistymon’s Mol an Oige Steiner School on Friday to officiate over one of the last events ever to take place at its current location.

After years of campaigning, the school finally received Department of Education status this year and will move into a new premises on the grounds of the Falls Hotel from September.

Griffin warmed up for Clare’s clash against Limerick by putting the chil- dren of Mol an Oige threw their pac- es on the school’s annual sports day.

“We are delighted at how things have turned out. A lot of us have

been in the school since the very start. When we started off first with eleven students and one teacher we would have been very happy to thing that after three years we would have almost 80 students, department rec- ognition, four full-time teachers and a full-time learning support teacher,” said teacher Una Ni Ghairbhith.

“We didn’t know that this would happen. We are very happy that the school has taken root in the com- munity and is fulfilling a need that is there in the community for this type of education.”

This Wednesday the school will have it’s final day of classes in Data Display before they move to their new school next September.

“There is a lot of work to be done over the summer in getting the new school ready. We will be spending a lot of time making the whole place homely for the students,’ continued Una.

“We will have four classroom and a staff/resource room down in the Falls. We will be starting the moving work in the next coupe of weeks.

“At the moment we have 78 stu- dents pre-enrolled in the school for next year.

“It’s great to move on but it will be sad too to leave our home here be- hind. We really would like to thank all the people who have helped us over the last three years. We have been here in Data Display the whole

time and they have been wonderful. We have had a great space and have been able to decorate and use it ex- actly to our own needs.

“The school that is opening up in September will be a continuation of this school but it will be at a new premises and things will be that bit different. We probably wont have to do as much fundraising, but of course the fundraising was a great social occasion for the locals here. I’ve already had a few people saying please don’t stop the concerts.”

MORE than 20 people in Clare who have had development on their lands frozen by part of the planning act are being treated unconstitutionally, it was claimed last night.

The council is damaging it’s own policy to halt rural depopulation by putting Section 47 orders on land Where one permission has_ been granted, members of Clare County Council were told.

The deferred meeting of the coun- cil heard from Cllr PJ Kelly(FF) who had asked for details in relation to section 47 conditions placed on the granting of planning in areas where the is a lack of development, known as structurally weak areas.

The condition means that no other permission, regardless of what it is, will be given on that land for a pe- riod, usually five years.

“I believe that many people in County Clare have had section 47s

imposed illegally. Section 47 is in- tended for urban areas, not for rural areas which are structurally weak. We are suffering from a condition called planorexia,” he said.

The councillor called for the “1- legal burdens to be removed forth- We LNee

Cllr Madeleine Taylor-Quinn (FG) seconded the motion.

“In my view, the issuing of section 47’s is an unconstitutional act. Land where a section 47 is applied could

vary in size from 10 acres to 100 acres and no distinction is made. It’s inequitable,’ she told the meeting.

Councilor Pat Hayes (FF) said he supported his fellow councillors. “I sought legal opinion six months ago on this area.”

Councillors expressed concern that section 47’s were making freezing family lands where a second and subsequent children in one family would need to build homes.

ClUlr Martin Lafferty (Ind) said he believed the application of a section 47 is “often a matter of opinion. I know of at least one case where one planner was going to impose a freez- ing order and after discussions with a more senior planner. It wasn’t im- posed.”

In written reply to the councillor’s query, Director of Services, Berna- dette Kinsella, said that there have been 21 section 47 conditions 1m- posed in Clare since 2005 and she was not aware of any being removed in that period.

Cllr Kelly said he wanted officials to go back and find out how many of these had been imposed in structur- ally sensitive areas.

Manager Alex Fleming told the meeting that in relation to the ques- tion of the equal provisions in struc- turally sensitive areas was that the act itself made reference to such areas.

CLARE football is at a crossroads and can go one way or the other. It’s nothing new for the minority GAA sport in the county to be in this state of chassis. It’s always been the way, in all the bad times and very few good times there have been down the generations.

It’s simple really — those charged with promoting the game can commit themselves to the future 1n a positive and proactive way or just carry on the way things have been for most of the 124 years of the GAA in Clare.

People in power don’t like hearing it, much less reading it, but it’s the lack of commitment that’s institu- tionalised at county board level that has kept Clare football down so often and for so long.

County boards have always point- ed to the balance sheet, explaining away its commitment to the game in terms of the amount of money spent on county teams every year. Money never papers over the cracks that are more like the San Andreas faultline.

This is the board’s annual cop-out — the safety net to absolve the top ta- ble from any responsibility for doing something tangible about address- ing Clare’s Third World status as a county football entity.

It was no fault of the Clare senior

team that went down to Killarney on Sunday as ready-made fodder for Kerry’s machine as it very slowly cranked into action for another year.

The Clare team that went down by 1-14 to O-5 were a product of neglect — the blame for which goes to the top and has nothing to do with Frank Doherty and co.

You see, it’s more than county board money that makes the wheels turn — much more important than money is mindset, from the top table down to the clubs. Value, real value, just isn’t placed in a Clare football jersey, from the board or many club WEN Ece

A properly audited system for the development of football in the coun- ty isn’t there — the coaches aren’t there. It’s simple mathematics, but coaches in numbers in every nook and cranny of Clare would help give truth to theory that you speculate to accumulate.

Instead, Clare football has just let good men go. Former manager Do- nie Buckley was a de-facto member of the Limerick backroom team on Sunday, brought in by Mickey ‘Ned’ O’Sullivan to help with the team’s preparations.

Buckley should not have been lost to Clare football — think of the ex- pertise he could give young players in the Development Squad system. Pat

Hanrahan too — a man who helped Clare to win in ’92 and Doonbeg win a Munster club in ’98.

It’s not just the board though, some- thing that came home to roost on Saturday evening in Doonbeg. When Kilmurry Ibrickane brought on Paul O’Connor and Martin McMahon as subs in the O’Gorman Cup, Clare county football was dealt a mortal blow. Both were in action for the Clare junior team the following day.

Who allowed this happen? The club want call on their players — nothing wrong there, but it shouldn’t have come to this. If there was a danger that they’d be played in the O’Gorman Cup final, the fixture should have been pulled by the county board and re-fixed at a later date.

Of course the board will argue that it wasn’t their decision, as the com- petition is run by the Doonbeg club. Doesn’t wash though — the competi- tion has the backing of the board and the board had a duty to intervene and protect the interests of the county team.

This must never happen again, but then again there are a lot of things that shouldn’t happen.