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SHARON Collins is not a greedy woman and the allegations against her do not make sense, according to one of the men she is accused of conspiring to murder – who planted a kiss on her lips in open court.

PJ Howard kissed Ms Collins af- ter he stepped down from the wit- ness box, having completed giving evidence to the trial just before noon last Thursday.

The 58-year-old businessman leaned over to the accused woman, touched her cheek and kissed her, be- fore swiftly leaving the courtroom. Minutes earlier, she had broken down in tears as he told the court she was “far from” greedy and had looked af- ter him when he had been ill.

Asked about the allegations against her, he said, “It doesn’t make sense to me. It is totally out of character. I find it very, very, very hard to be- lieve.

‘In the eight years since I’ve known Sharon, she has never asked me for anything. That’s one of the things I find astonishing. I often offered her things and she said ‘No’.

“If she was given three or four hun- dred euro for herself the first thing she would do was make sure her two lads had enough. She’d be far from a greedy person, far from it. I made a Statement to that effect,’ he said.

“When I wasn’t well she looked after me extremely well. She had a very good life for us. I was very happy with it. I presume she was too. We didn’t feel there were any serious

problems between us until this situa- tion arose. Prior to that, we were liv- ing quite normally,” he said.

During a 20-minute cross-exami- nation by Paul O’Higgins SC for Ms Collins, Mr Howard was asked about a “marriage” to Ms Collins. Mr O’Higgins referred to a pre-nuptial agreement and asked was part of that to ease Mr Howard’s two sons’ state of mind.

“They were considerably involved in the business at the time and would have expected to be left the business. The business is too small to be di- vided up,” said Mr Howard.

“It has been put across here that it was a very fast decision. This was not a very fast decision. It was de- cided over a number of months. We Spent time discussing it. We both took legal advice. I was told by my

solicitor that pre-nuptials were not accepted by the Irish courts. This was made perfectly clear to Sharon. She accepted this and we decided that we could not get married,’ said Mr Howard.

““T think it was well established that we were not married,’ he added.

THE LOSS of connectivity with Hea- throw is being part-blamed for the loss of 48 jobs at Shannon.

Buffalo Technology has reported the unfeasibility to serve its market- place from its location in Shannon as one of the reasons that it had to an- nounce closure at the weekend.

Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen said that there is “little doubt that this “unfea- sibility’ is due to the rising cost of

doing business in Ireland. A further consideration for the Shannon region is the loss of the Shannon-Heathrow service last year which is a consider- able obstacle when attempting to at- tract new investment to the area.”

A spokesman for SIPTU said that while it does not have members among the workers who are losing their jobs “this would seem to show that all the uproar about the loss of the Shannon Heathrow route was not a fuss abut nothing”.

Buffalo Technology Ireland as- sembles, tests and distributes devices used for storing information.

The company said its Irish business had made losses in the past two years and it was no longer feasible to serve its marketplace from its location in Shannon.

Buffalo said the main markets for its products were concentrated in the UK, Germany, Nordic countries and southern Europe, while it was also developing in Eastern Europe and

the Middle East. The company said it had started talks with workers on redundancy packages and was also consulting Shannon Development on the closure.

A spokeswoman for Shannon De- velopment confirmed they had been talking to the company but said she could not make any further comment ZIM MOV B DON LSS

Deputy Joe Carey called for im- mediate action from the Government to maintain Irish competitiveness in

the manufacturing and technology sector, following the announcement of the expected closure of Shannon- based technology company.

“Unfortunately the announced clo- sure of this plant 1s evidence that Ire- land has a huge issue maintaining its competitive edge, allowing an exodus of good jobs to international mar- kets as a result. The statistics show that Ireland has dropped from fourth place to 22nd in international com- petitiveness,’ he said

FOR any reader who is not edu- cated in what the meaning of the word “minker” is or what part of your anatomy you would put “Rub- ber Dollies” on, For Focal Sake – the book that celebrates all of Ireland’s slang on a county-by-county basis, has just been released.

It was written by people from the 32 counties who gave a focal (or two)

about their county on www.slang.ie. The book is entitled For Focal Sake and contains over 500 slang terms.

Under the section for Clare slang, the book explains that the word “Jag (v) means “to shift, court, feek, see etc. someone, for example “Skutch out of it yee dirty feckers… go jag somewhere else.”

Gobaloon is “another word for a dope or eeyjit.” And of a fat person ‘That person is a lunchbox.”

“In October 2007 a competition was set up between the 32 counties of Ireland on www.slang.ie in order to capture the various nuances of our mudder tongue’, a spokesman for the book’s compilers said.

“Within a matter of months there were literally thousands of entries added to it by people from all over d’internet. The order of the counties in the book was determined by their placement on the www.slang.ie lead-

er-board on February 18. Cork was the outright winner of the competi- tion and as a result appears first in the book.

The book contains a general Irish slang section with 15 lessons about how we ‘spayke’ as well as a selec- tion of choice vocabulary. Lesson 13 deals with “drunken focal”.

“Trish people have a huge variety of adjectives to describe the various stages of drunken intoxication. When

they go on a “session” the following words might describe the resultant State: blithero, blocked, blootered, blotto, drunk, buckled, bunched, flamin’, flootered, full as a bingo bus, gallybandered, etc.”

The book also has 32 chapters, one for each county, which includes a profile on the county detailing songs, nicknames, funny place names and a paragraph describing it. Available from Eason’s the book costs €9.99.

EAST CLARE Councillor Colm Willey (FF) proposed a novel idea to help schools avoid crippling water Ot heone

The colourful councillor asked the county manager if schools could receive a grant to sink a well in the yard for their use.

The suggestion, which received a smile from the head of the council executive, was made in response to a question from Cllr Tom Prendev- ille who asked for an outline of the charges to schools as set out by the Department of the Environment.

Cllr Prendeville told last night’s meeting of the council, “The Depart- ment of the Environment needs to know schools are cash strapped and under resourced. They rely on char- ity and local fundraising to make ends meet.”

Clir Cathal Crowe (FF) said the charges were also affecting sporting Ode ee aU ISTALB CO) ILE

“One group was advised to shut off water to toilets and urinals until it was needed,” he said.

Green Party cllr Brian Meaney blamed the controversial charges on the failure of successive Govern- ments to implement the EU Water Framework Directive.

“T think we are really at a stage where councillors here look at things

through Fianna Fail tinted glasses. The sad reality is successive Gov- ernments have failed to put in water directive. There would be no need to charge schools or other non-profit or- ganisation.”

A circular was received by Clare County Council from the Depart- ment of the Environment in January this year that announced transitional arrangement for charging schools for water services as part of the imple- mentations of the EU Water Frame- work Directive.

The transitional arrangement in- volves the payment by schools of the flat rate water charges proportion- ate to the school size for three years 2007 to 2009.

The amount to be charged to non- fee paying schools for these years will be based on the number of pu- pils at a cost of €3 per pupil for 2007, €3.50 for 2008 and €4 for 2009.

However if the actual usage as re- corded by a metre is less than that calculated per head then the lesser amount will be charged.

While Cllr Flan Garvey (FF) suggested that the council allow a threshold before charging schools, Clare county councillors agreed to write to the Departments of the En- vironment, Education and Finance asking that compensation funds be made available to the schools to help cover the charge.

A GROUP of enterprising youngsters from Sixmilebridge have launched their very own fundraising drive to raise money for a project that will benefit themselves.

Last September, a group of teenag- ers, aided by parents and the local Bridge Complex, set up The Teen Cafe in the village. Geared for those aged between 12 and 17 years, the café opens every Friday evening at the courthouse.

Entertainment provided at the café is varied and includes games and quizzes, while the children run their very own shop every week.

While the group of up to 30 young- sters who meet weekly enjoy the café, they decided they wanted additional

facilities, such as a soccer table and karaoke machine.

They felt that they needed to put to- gether an initiative to raise money for equipment for the café and compiled a fundraising plan.

“They decided to do some fund- raising themselves and came up with the idea of a sponsored walk from Sixmulebridge to Shannon town cen- tre,” said one of the supervisors of the café, Richard Cahill.

They undertook the walk last Friday and in the process raised money for the new equipment. When the final figures are totted, they are hopeful that €700 will have been collected.

Mr Cahill said that the young chil- dren will appreciate the equipment they will buy from the proceeds, as they have worked hard to raise the

funds.

“You can give a group of kids any- thing they want, but will they ap- preciate it? If they earn it as a team, there is a sense of ownership. They have been exceptionally enthusias- tic,” he added.

‘The response has been very good. The children have been knocking on doors with sponsorship cards and have been generously received as they went around,’ said Mr Cahill.

He said that the children looked forward to attending the café every week.

“They are left to their own devices. It is not a specific club. It’s a drop- in hang out kind of thing,” said Mr rT TUE

Aoife Cadogan is one of the young girls who help to run the shop at the

café. The 14-year-old enjoys taking part, but has found the fundraising a tough challenge.

‘“T help out with the shop a lot. It’s a great place to hang out. The fundrais- ing has been difficult, because some people in the village are foreign, it is really hard to explain to them about it,” she said.

Niall Cahill (13) and his young brother Ronan (11) were pleased with their fundraising efforts, as it helped them to get to know people in their locality.

“It’s great fun, because we met some people we didn’t know in the ‘Bridge,’ said Niall, while his brother said, “The fundraising was brilliant. I really enjoyed going around to the houses.” A politician in the making, perhaps.

THREE of the five people injured in a road traffic collision near Ennis on Sunday evening have been trans- ferred to Limerick for further treat- ment while two others were expected to be discharged from hospital last night (Monday).

The two car crash occurred at Bal- lyline shortly after 6pm and left the N18 Ennis/Galway road closed for three hours. The closure also result- ed in traffic tailbacks stretching over three kilometres in each direction.

Gardai are investigating the pos- sibility that the driver of one vehi- cle was driving under the influence of alcohol. It 1s understood that the man was asked in hospital by gardai to provide a blood or urine sample which has been sent away for analy- SIS.

In an uncanny twist of fate, the crash happened just seconds after a

fleet of emergency vehicles passed the exact location on their way to an- other accident near Lough Cutra on the Clare/Galway border. That origi- nal crash was not a serious incident and the emergency services were not required there in the end.

When fire crews were alerted to the second crash, a third fire appliance was scrambled from Ennis along with another from Shannon Town. The fire tenders sent to the original incident also returned and attended the crash at Ballyline.

The two Peugeot cars, which were travelling in opposite directions, crashed at the entrance to the GAA pitch. Passing motorists and locals used a fire extinguisher and water on one of the cars after they saw what they believed to be smoke. It is un- derstood however the there was no fire and that powder from activated airbags gave the impression that one of the cars was smoking.

Four men and a woman were in- jured in the collision three of whom were able to get out of one vehicle themselves. They were treated at the scene by fire brigade first responders until four ambulances arrived at the incident. The occupants of the sec- ond car however had to be cut from

the vehicle by fire crews using spe- cialist cutting equipment.

Two of the injured were a husband and wife from County Galway, who had been travelling home from the currach races in Kilrush.

While none of the injuries are said to be life threatening, as part of a

new trauma bypass protocol, three of the patients have since been trans- ferred to Limerick for further treat- ment. The remaining two patients were due to be released from hospital ETS mp epeaele

A fire brigade spokesperson con- firmed, “Fire crews from Ennis were sent to an incident at Lough Cutra when a call was received about a second collision. One of those crews was sent back to the second incident while appliances were also sent from Ennis and Shannon to assist. Fire brigade first responders also assisted in treating some of the injured at the scene.”

Gardai in Ennis are investigating the incident and have asked for wit- nesses to contact Ennis station on 065 6848100.

CLARE County Council spent al- most €5 million on private consult- ants in 2007 it was revealed at last nights meeting of the local author- ity.

Responding to a motion put forward by Councillor Martin Conway (FG), the local authority revealed that it spent a total of €4,936,000, or more than €2,700 per day, on consultants last year.

“We are spending a serious amount of money on consultants. Surely to God we don’t need all these. At this time of financial difficulties I wonder could a lot of this not be dealt with in-house,” said Cllr Conway.

“We have had a number of nega- tive issues with contractors lately, and one on the Lisdoonvarna to Bal- lyvaughan road in particular. We need to make sure that we are get- ting value for money. Maybe we need to bring in consultants to make sure that we are getting value for money from our consultants.”

The meeting heard that the majority of consultants fees was spent on large projects such as the Ennis bypass. In addition to this some €400,000 was spent in the interactive video exhibi- tion at the Cliffs of Moher.

“Really the expenses on consult- ants are spent in the area of infra-

structure. The Ennis bypass was a large amount of this funding and the NRA would have paid for a lot of that,” said Clare County Manager Alec Fleming.

‘The second biggest area of invest- ment here would have been water services. We have €60 million work done on this and we plan to spent another €200 million in backing that up. We need to have an expert consultant on some of the bigger projects.

“If you have a very large product like the Ennis bypass you need to have a large expertise there and it would not be possible to build up that experience in house. Now that the Ennis bypass has been completed this will not appear on our budget for the coming years.

In a related motion, Councillor Martin Lafferty (IND) called on cutbacks to be made in the area on CLO ITIUU LEAT OT ACR

“I would be urging the county man- ager to indicate where savings could be made. Are there areas where we could cut back? If we spend this money the people who will lose out are our own local workers and the services that will be available for the people,” he said.

You should keep a tight reins on these expenses to see us through a particularly tough year.”

AS the primary school summer hol1- days loom close, bookings are cur- rently being taken for a variety of summer camps in the Shannon area.

One of the main camps this sum- mer is being run by the local youth office. The office has provided sum- mer activities for children, aged be- tween nine and 13, for more than 30

years.

This year, five days of summer camp have been planned and will go ahead between July 1 and 5, at the Respond Community Building, R1- neanna View.

The camp is offered to young peo- ple in Shannon and the surrounding areas of Cratloe, Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus.

The summer camp activities on of-

fer will include arts and crafts, inflat- able fun day, storytelling, quizzes, bowling, quasar, soccer, swimming, day trips to Lahinch Seaworld and Ailwee Cave. It also offers young volunteers aged 17 and over from the area a chance to train and become a leader for the duration of the camp.

The camp costs €65 for the five days, while family rates are also available on request.

Applications will be accepted un- til Friday, June 27. Two registration days will take place, between 4pm and 7pm, this Thursday and Friday (June 12 and 13).

Local businesses EI Electronics and Schwarz Pharma will sponsor the summer camp this year.

For further information on the camp or to obtain booking forms, phone 061 364318.

CLARE has distinguished itself once again in the Blue Flag environmental awards scheme.

Blue Flags have been awarded to Cappa Pier, Kilkee, White Stand/ Miltown Malbay, White Strand/ Doonbeg, Fanore and Lahinch as well as Mountshannon and Ballycug- geran on Lough Derg.

The Blue Flag is an international award for beach excellence. It 1s presented to beaches which have ex- cellent water quality, which provide a range of services and which fulfil other specified criteria including en- vironmental management and educa- tion.

Details of the award winners for 2008 were revealed by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley on Monday.

This is the 20th year in which the Blue Flag programme has operated in Ireland. Blue Flags were awarded this year to 78 bathing areas and two marinas. This is a decrease of

three from the total of 83 awarded in 2007.

The minister noted that it was “dis- appointing for all when flags were lost especially as a large effort has been put into the Blue Flag programme at all of these locations”.

The losses are due to deterioration

in water quality in some areas, which resulted largely from the heavy rain- fall that we experienced last year. The Blue Flag scheme is operated by the Foundation for Environmen- tal Education (FEE), a non-Govern- mental organisation. The criteria for the award of Blue Flags, which are

determined by FEE, relate to water quality, facilities for visitors, beach management including litter control, environmental information and dis- OE NaB ELON DLAC

FEE operates through national bod- ies who are responsible for the ad- ministration of the Blue Flag scheme in their countries. The scheme in Ire- land is administered by An Taisce. The administering bodies inspect beaches and conduct an initial as- sessment of applications for Flags based on the previous year’s bathing water quality results and compliance with the other criteria of the scheme.

They are assisted in this task by a national jury comprised of members with appropriate qualifications/ex- pertise in environmental, conserva- tion, marine, and consumer interest areas. The recommendations from each national jury are subsequently assessed by FEE’s International jury, which determines actual Blue Flag AMEE OK

ON Friday last all four Clare TDs – two Fianna Fail and two Fine Gael – campaigned together around the county.

Minister of State Tony Killeen has urged the people of Clare to support the Lisbon Reform Treaty while he also criticised ‘No’ campaigners for making claims that had zero basis in ele

“It is now only a matter of days to polling in a referendum that will make a huge difference to the direc-

tion of our country. I believe that the only way that our country can grow, prosper and provide opportunities for our people is to be at the heart of the European Union,” the Junior Agriculture Minister said.

‘I know that many people are con- fused about what is involved in the Lisbon Reform Treaty. Part of this is because they are hearing claim and counter-claim from both sides. A lot of this has been a deliberate tactic by groups like Youth Defence, Sinn Fein and Libertas which are making claims that have zero basis in fact.

For example, they claimed that the treaty undermined our tax policies even though every independent body which has examined this has said ex- actly the opposite.”

Opposition TD Pat Breen (FG) was in the unusual position of supporting the Government stance.

“A ‘No’ vote will do nothing for our tax autonomy, do nothing for our independent defence policy, do noth- ing for workers rights, do nothing for our farmers and nothing for Ireland’s capacity to develop new opportuni- ties for our people,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Ire- land’s only regional agency has warned that the Lisbon Treaty is too important an issue for the people of the mid west not to take time to be- come informed about it.

“A “Yes’ vote for the Lisbon Treaty referendum is vital for Ireland. By supporting this treaty we will be supporting Ireland’s position as a global economic player and failure to do so will result in this position being eroded and undermined,” said John Brassil, Chairman Shannon Development.

“There seems to be a view out there that people are voting ‘no’ because they are not sure of what the treaty is about. This is too important an issue not to take the time to get informed. I would strongly urge everyone who 1s unsure to take time to understand the treaty. There is plenty of information out there.

“We are all in businesses of one type or another and therefore the re- sponsibility for ensuring the future prosperity of the business communi- ty in Ireland rests in all our hands,” he said.