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IN the unlikely event of a tree falling in the forest at Ballycuggaran, there will now definitely be someone there to hear it.

Coullte are putting the final touches to a scheme which has opened up the magnificent views and provided rest- ing places for weary feet as well as healthy walks.

The woodlands have long been a favourite place for picnics and walks, but having spent in excess of €15,000 on ground works and adding ameni- ties, Coillte have made it possible to walk up to eight kilometres with lots of loop walks and shorter strolls.

The graded walk, which is located just outside Two Mile Gate, will pro- vide a focal point for tourists as well as a valuable amenity for the people of east Clare.

“We did the ground work and opened up the walks and views. We put in seats at strategic viewing points – people get weary when they walk for a bit and this way, they get a rest and a view,” said Christy O’ Dea, of Coillte in Scariff.

The work has also included putting in two small new car parks and pic- nic tables at strategic locations.

In keeping with Coillte policy, the existing conifer trees will be gradu- ally replaced with broadleaf species

which have already been planted in some parts, including oak, ash, alder, beech and hazel.

The new walkway was made pos- sible thanks to a new funding initia- tive announced by Failte Ireland and Coulte last year. In the programme, some €5.3 million in funding has been allocated to help create an up- gerade facilities across the country.

The initiative will focus on provid- ing outdoor recreation facilities for walkers and cyclists across the coun- try and aims at creating some 250km of walking, hiking and biking trails at 34 sites.

Sadly, despite all the good work, selfish litter droppers are costing

Coulte €25,000 a year.

“It’s not just the cost – it’s the em- barrassment of having to ask some- one to deal with litter created by a third party. The motto is “Leave No Trace’, said Christy.

And that includes doggy-do. “One person comes along with two big dogs and the next person comes along with two small children. I’ll say no more other than take home anything you bring with you.”

IMPACT trade union staff at En- nis General Hospital will take part in a lunchtime protest tomorrow (Wednesday) to highlight health service cuts.

Delays in getting oxygen to Clare patients in their homes and under- staffed social work teams are just two of the knock on effects of HSE staff shortages, according to the un- ion.

More than 2,500 health workers in the county will take part in the lunch- time protest, which is not expected to

affect patient care as staff will man the picket line on their lunch breaks.

Andy Pike, assistant general secre- tary for the mid-west region, said the staffing embargo had been nothing short of catastrophic for local serv- leon

Mr Pike claimed that from Decem- ber 2007 to March 2008 the HSE in the mid-west lost 137 whole time equivalents (full time staff) and, given the number of part time posts in the HSE, the true figure could be close to 200.

He said that the employment con- trols introduced in 2008 allowed a

vacancy to be filled only if a differ- ent post was suppressed, so the cost of filling one vacancy was the loss of another in a different part of the Service.

“Two environmental health of- ficer posts have not been replaced in County Clare.

‘This means that patients and the public are at increased risk due to the frantic fall in the number of inspec- tion carried out in hospitals and the community,’ he said.

‘Two physiotherapy posts in Clare are vacant resulting in the closure of community physio services in east

and south Clare which currently serve 42,000 people.

“Two posts are vacant in disability services in Clare resulting in delays in delivering oxygen to patients’ homes,” said the trade union repre- sentative.

“The adoption service in the mid- west is struggling to cope without key posts being filled.

“Service provision has all but stopped. Social work teams are now seriously understaffed across the mid-west, including two permanent posts in ClareCare that have been suppressed,’ he added.

‘Family support worker posts have been left vacant increasing demands on residential services for vulnerable children and clients. Two occupa- tional therapy posts have not been filled thus increasing waiting lists.”

He said budget constraints also make it difficult for staff to carry out their duties as all travel outside Clare being banned except with prior per- mission. Numerous posts in Limer- ick and north Tipperary also remain vacant.

IMPACT workers will be protect- ing across the country on Wednesday from 12.30pm to 2pm.

ESSAM Eid would have stuck out “like a sore toe” in an identification parade as none of the eight other par- ticipants were “remotely like him’, his counsel claimed at the trial.

Michael Collins BL, for Mr Eid, made the claim in his cross-examina- tion of Sergeant Noel McMahon, who conducted the parade at Ennis Garda Station on September 27, 2006. That was the day after a man called to Robert Howard’s home demanding €100,000 to cancel contracts on the lives of the three Howards.

Sergeant McMahon told the court last Tuesday that eight men were made available to him, along with Essam Eid. He said that both Robert and Niall Howard identified Essam Eid as the man who had called to

their home at Ballaghboy, Ennis, the previous night.

However, Michael Collins pointed out that just one of the eight men was in his 50s, one was in his 40s, four were in their 30s and two were in their 20s.

“The reality is there was only one man in his 50s. None of them had a moustache,” said Mr Collins.

He asked, “Did any of them look as if they were of foreign extraction?” Sgt McMahon replied, “One of them had sallow skin.”

“Mr Eid would have stuck out like a sore toe,” said Mr Collins.

Sgt McMahon replied, “I don’t be- lieve he stuck out. These were the people who were made available to me. There was no objection. I had to work with them. I conducted the pa- rade as it should be conducted.”

FOR their first attempt at the Tidy Towns awards, Ogonnelloe Tidy Towns Committee are delighted with the support which they have garnered from the community.

“We thought we might have been a bit overambitious in choosing the projects we tackled first, but people have been very supportive, coming out and giving a hand,’ said PRO for the tidy towns committee, Trevor ee. tF

“Ogonelloe is a beautiful village. We felt it would be right to enter the

tidy village section and it meant we focused in on a few things that need- ed doing,” he added.

Since its inception in February, the group and volunteers from the area have organised the clearing and transformation of what were two overgrown eyesores, planted 52 trees and are currently putting the finish- ing touches to planting flowerbeds and putting in slate surrounds.

Two overgrown areas in the village were cleared of gorse and building debris, which was left in one, has been dealt with.

“One area was quite large, about

200 metres long and we cleared that and planted 40 trees. Now we’re putting in hexagonal flower beds,” said Trevor.

The group have also covered an open drain and got financial support for the cost of the materials from generous local business people.

“We don’t want to put too much on people but we got such great support from people who want to come out and do a couple of hours work that it’s all come together so far,’ said Trevor.

The committee has also organised the cutting of verges the length of the

village which hadn’t seen a trim in years.

“It’s quite a large area with a smaller population than some of the other, more compact areas. Once these projects are finished we’ll sit down and see what needs to be done next.”

Trevor said the committee won’t be expecting to win prizes this year but are happy to have made a start.

‘For any village that enters, it takes afew years before they get anywhere and the judges comments will help us focus on what needs to be done next,’ said Trevor.

claimed that the school

has failed to tackle problems there for too long.

“The children are not getting the

standard of education they should be

getting and this is causing problems

down the line when they go to sec- ondary school. The school and the board of management haven’t tack- led it properly and the children are the ones losing out. Parents will start voting with their feet. The school will close unless this is tackled ur- gently,” he said.

Chairman of the school’s board of management Brendan Quinlivan, said that the school underwent a routine whole school evaluation in November of last year, which high- lighted issues that should be tackled.

Mr Quinlivan added that the board of management “is aware of the con- cerns raised by parents and we are acting on those concerns”.

“We are using the facilities and resources available to us through the St Senan’s Education Office and we are keeping parents informed of what is being done.”

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.