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THE Citizens Information Service will hold An Information Session on the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act, 2009, also ‘known as Fair Deal Scheme’ on Tuesday, December 15, in the Temple Gate Hotel, Ennis, at ro) NOE

The session will be presented by Marie Keane, Partner with John Callinan & Co Solicitors who has extensive experience in the area of Family Law and the emerging area of Mental Health Law She is a mem- ber of the Family Law Civil & Legal Aid Committee of the Law Society of Ireland and has contributed to a number of reports and publications undertaken by the Committee

The Nursing Homes _ Support Scheme, A Fair Deal, began on the 2/th October 2009.

From that date onwards, people may apply to the HSE for the new scheme.

The Nursing Homes Support Scheme is the single funded means of accessing long-term nursing home care for new entrants.

“We have been receiving a lot of queries fron the public and I’m urg- ing those wishing to avail of the financial support towards nursing home costs under A Fair Deal to familiarise themselves with the ap-

plication process so as to be ready to apply to the HSE,” added Paul Woulfe Manager with the Citizens Information Service

The Nursing Homes _ Support Scheme will equalise State support for public and private long-term care recipients.

It will ensure that there 1s one, trans- parent system of support towards the cost of care that will be fair to all, irrespective of whether they are in public, private or voluntary nursing homes.

It also aims to render long-term

care affordable and anxiety-free, and ensure that no-one has to sell their home during their lifetime to pay for their care.

Finally, the Fair Deal will replace the existing Nursing Home Subven- tion Scheme. However, it is impor- tant to note that individuals already in receipt of subvention may retain their existing arrangements or may opt to transfer to the new scheme if they so wish.

For further information you can con contact The Citizens Informatio Centre in Ennis at 065 6841221.

A COURT HAS heard allegations that a gate was thrown at a woman as part of an ongoing dispute in north ETc

Arising out of an alleged incident, Joe Scales, of Callura, Ennistymon, is accused of assaulting Anne Ma- digan causing her harm at Callura West, Ennistymon, on May 14 last.

Solicitor Jim Finnegan, represent- ing Mr Scales, told Ennistymon District Court that the case would be defended.

Superintendent Declan Mulcahy

told the court it would be alleged that gardai went to Callura West as a re- sult of a call.

He said they met the husband and a son of Mrs Madigan. He said it was alleged that the accused threw a gate at Mrs Madigan.

Supt Mulcahy said Mrs Madigan sustained injuries and was taken to hospital.

The Supt explained that this was part of an “ongoing dispute.”

Judge Joseph Mangan accepted ju- risdiction of the case in the district court. The case was adjourned until early in 2010.

THERE was great excitement in Tulla this week, as the community council took delivery of not one, but four life saving machines.

The four defibrillators were do- nated to the people of Tulla by John and Brid Littleton and will be placed at the strategic locations in the town. The first will be placed outside

Vaughan’s shop in the middle of town, the others will be placed at the GAA pitch, the soccer pitch and the last one will be placed at the primary School.

Training took place over the last month and the Red Cross were hap- pily surprised when more than 50 people turned up for training. The group was so large that it had to be split up into two for different train-

ing sessions.

The campaign to secure the vital machines and to train local people in their use produced an amazing response, said Jim O’Sullivan Chair- man of the Tulla Community Coun- ote

“It was a very generous gift to give to the people of Tulla but hopefully something that we will never have to use. And we had great interest from

local people in being trained to use the machines. There were four dif- ferent groups at the training so now there are people trained from the soc- cer club and the GAA club, teachers from the primary school and a group of people from the community.”

Tulla is one of many communities across Clare where defibrillators have been provided locally.

The move towards having the life-

saving equipment available has, in many cases, been prompted by fear- ful statistics which show that 6,000 people a year die from sudden car- diac death in Ireland. Two per week will be under the age of thirty five. The defibrillator provides a vi- tal link in the chain of survival as speedy combination of CPR and the defibrillator can often restore life which would otherwise be lost.

THE owners of businesses which were damaged during an incident in Ballyvaughan earlier this year have been fully compensated.

The businesses bore the brunt after a row involving a group of youths and a number of visiting American students in June.

Several premises were damaged in what locals described as a “mindless attack”.

At the time, concern was expressed that gardai were not available to pa- trol the area that night.

However, gardai did launch an investigation into the events and a garda source confirmed to

SHIOFRA Keogh aged 14 from Ar- dnacrusha has beaten off creative competition to be announced Octo- ber’s secondary school finalist in the Boyne Valley Book of Kells National Art Competition.

Shiofra produced a bespoke work of art based on the brief of using inspi- ration from either the Book of Kells itself, the monks who wrote and 1I- lustrated it, or life in the 9th century.

Malachy McCloskey, founder and chairman of the Boyne Valley Honey

Company and judge commented: “Shiofra’s creation really stood out from the crowd due to its level of fin- ish, use of colour and overall inter- pretation of the brief.”

Shiofra’s school Laurel Hill in Limerick now goes forward to the final, held in March 2010, and is in with a chance to win a Fine Art Facsimile copy of the Book of Kells worth €20,000.

Over the Christmas period Boyne Valley Honey is encouraging fami- lies to take advantage of the time off, and get the creative juices flowing by

entering – there are still four chances left with finalists being announced each month from now until March 2010.

Three Fine Art Facsimiles of The Book of Kells worth €20,000 each will be presented to the primary and secondary winning schools and to the individual from the third level and adult category, with runners up receiving cash prizes of €100, €250 Ane OOO OF

Miriam O’Callaghan who helped to launch the competition in September commented: “It’s a great initiative. The judges are looking for creativity, individuality and real pride in work. The Book of Kells is a national, vis- ual treasure, SO we expect exciting works of art to be created!”

Judges include; Malachy McClos- key, founder and chairman of the Boyne Valley Honey Company; Des Egan, renowned poet; Robin Adams, College Librarian and Archivist, Trinity College; Edward McPart- land, Fellow Emeritus, History of Art, Trinity College.

The culmination of the competition will be an exhibition of winning en- tries, with winners being presented their prizes by Miriam O’Callaghan.

See | www.boynevalleyhoneyart. com for further details / to enter or check us out on Facebook / Bebo.

Local wisdom can reduce flood risk

A STUDENT of St Anne’s Com- munity College, Killaloe, was one of the ten highest achievers in this year’s Junior Certificate engineering examination.

Christopher Balfe of Clonfada, Killaloe, brought the honour to the East Clare academy. He is son of Anne and Brendan Balfe and now in fourth year.

He has received a special certifi- cate from the Engineering Teachers Association of Ireland in recognition of an outstanding performance.

The presentation was made in Lim- erick Institute of Technology at a cer- emony attended by his family, John Fitzgibbon, principal of St. Anne’s, and Raymond Murray, teacher.

Christopher (left) is a keen sport- sperson and is a member of Smith O’Brien’s hurling teams.

ENNIS Town Council has been urged to listen to the views of the local peo- ple when it re-evaluates its flood risk assessment for all areas of Ennis.

Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of Ennis Town Council, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) said local people, par- ticularly elder members of the com- munity, should be given an input into the assessment.

He said, “Will you take local knowledge into account before you get consultants to look at photos? Listen to the local people.” During last month’s period of heavy flood- ing, areas of Ennis were washed out after drains overflowed.

Cllr Brennan told yesterday’s meet- ing that some drains in the town “had not been touched in 40 years”.

“Talk to local people and sit down with the older people. They know where the water goes,’ he said.

Town Engineer Eamon O’Dea con- firmed yesterday that the council will be evaluating recent flood events.

In response to a motion submit- ted by Cllr Brian Meaney (GP), Mr O’Dea stated, “Following the evalu- ation of the recent flooding events in certain parts of Ennis, the council will be seeking funding to carry out works to reduce the impact of heavy rainfall events on certain areas of the rena tae

Mr O’Dea said the council had col- lected a substantial amount of data on the recent flooding. He also re-it-

erated that if it weren’t for improved river wall defences at Parnell Street and Woodquay, floodwater would have reached as far as Clonroad.

Cllr Meaney’s motion along with that of Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG), which calls for the construction and re-location of a flood barrage from Latoon to Clarecastle, will be sub- mitted to the next meeting of Clare County Council.

Cllr Paul O’Shea (Lab) asked how much the council had spent on hous- ing a flood hit Traveller family of

nine in the West County Hotel.

Town Manager Ger Dollard told the meeting that he did not know the cost. He said the number of people currently in temporary hotel accom- modation as a result of flooding was going down.

Figures supplied yesterday by En- nis Town Council showed that of the 28 local authority houses damaged by floods, 23 were evacuated with 21 of those families being housed in the West County Hotel.

According to the council two fami-

lies have returned home, three have been temporarily housed in Ennis Town Council accommodation and 11 have secured private rented ac- commodation.

In terms of repairs 18 homes are ex- pected to be ready before Christmas with the balance through January.

IT’s the time of year when people’s thought turn to the first Christmas. But the East Clare Musical Society will be taking audiences on a jour- ney to the other end of that story when they stage their new produc- tion, starting tomorrow, December 9 and running until December 13. Described as the greatest story ever told, the musical has played all over the world and tells the tale of the fi-

nal week in the life of Jesus of Naza- olsen

The East Clare Musical Society have enlisted the talents of young- sters from Scariff Community Col- lege and East Clare national Schools to stage the all singing, all dancing production.

This spectacular rock musical fol- lows the last week of Jesus’ life, as told through the eyes of Judas. Au- diences will be enthralled with this incredibly moving show which is en-

tirely sung.

“It is an amazing story of love, friendship and ultimately betrayal.” the Musical Society’s Martina Canny SnCOE

The songs from the show have be- come so familiar that they are now classics, although when the parent production first opened – almost five decades ago now – it caused huge controversy because of the modern nature of it’s portrayal of Chris and particularly of Mary Magdalene as

she sang “I don’t know how to love avbee eae

The cast are gathered from all over East Clare and this year the show will run for five nights.

The Society have gained loyal sup- port in the years since they started staging productions, with the tongue- in-cheek production of ‘God Bless Archie Dean, followed by ‘Oakla- homa’ ‘Some Like it Hot.

The group recently held open evenings to get the numbers they

would need for crowd scenes in this year’s productions, but they came up against a problem with finding the twelve wise and holy men need to pay Christ’s apostles. ““We did have a bit of a search to find twelve men to play the apostles – we had to resur- rect a few of the lads.” said Martina.

There 1s a special reduced ticket price of €10 for Wednesday night and €15 for every other night.

Tickets will be available at Roger’s Centra or on the door.

yesterday (Monday) that the breast cancer screening unit will definitely be lo- cated in the county town, Ennis, but an exact location has not yet been

HCO CCVOLBUOLSLOME-DALG M-ea Rolo D

The unit is large and is usually lo- cated on the site of hospitals or in large car parks with nearby facili- Woe

Screening of women for breast can- cer began in Clare in August 2009 when women from the north of the county were invited to attend the BreastCheck Western Unit in Gal- WEN

A mobile unit must be rolled out to cater for the rest of the women in the county.

Breast cancer screening has been available in other parts of the coun- try for more than seven years, and women in Roscommon who, like

Clare women, are in the HSE West area, were last June invited for their second round of screening.

There are in excess of 8,000 eligible women from Clare to be screened.

BreastCheck provides free mam- mograms (breast x-rays) to women aged 50 to 64 on an area-by-area ba- sis, reflective of electoral divisions, every two years.

Women aged 50 to 64 in Counties Clare, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Tip- perary north are screened from the BreastCheck Western Unit and at- tached mobile digital screening OTOP LAE

BreastCheck advises all women

aged 50 to 64 to check that they are on the BreastCheck register.

Once on the register and known to the programme, women will auto- matically receive a BreastCheck ap- pointment.

Since early March, the breast clinic at the Mid Western Regional Hos- pital Limerick – the centre of excel- lence for the mid-west – is only pro- viding symptomatic mammography, with routine screening mammogra- phy now falling under the auspices of BreastCheck.

For more than a year, women from Clare, seeking a routine mammo- eramme (breast x-ray) had to pay privately for it in Galway.