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SEVERAL MEMBERS of Ennis Town Council yesterday expressed mixed views over the proposed re- zoning of Cusack Park to construct the €350 million RiverSide Quarter.

In a bid to fast-track the rezoning, the Clare GAA have submitted a rezoning application with the town council, rather than the wait for the new Ennis Development Plan to come into force in 2009.

The public will be able to make submissions on the plan over the next four weeks. After that process Ennis

Town Manager, Tom Coughlan has two months in which to draw up a re- port and present it to the council.

The nine-member council will then have a further six weeks to consider the proposed rezoning. Majority sup- port is needed for it to pass.

In financial terms and the impact it will have on Ennis, the decision by the members is set to be the biggest they will make in their time to date as councillors.

The €350 million RiverSide Quar- ter will comprise of a 15,000 sq m net retail area, a food court, ten res- taurants, an eight screen cinema, a

200-bed four-star hotel, a 100-bed budget hotel, office, 200 residential units, a civic centre and a hub for a new urban bus service. The plan also includes a riverside boardwalk, a pla- za for weekly events and markets, a creche and 1,100 car parking spaces at basement level.

Cllr Frankie Neylon (Ind), a stead- fast opponent of the plan, re-iterated his opposition. He said that “there is no point talking about rezoning Cu- sack Park because planning cannot be got for the GAA stadium on the Quin Road as it is a flood plain.”

However, Cllr Peter Considine (FF)

said that his gut instinct was to favour the rezoning and not have further re- tail be driven to the outskirts.

He said, “We should try to retain as much commercial activity in the town centre as possible because I would have a worry about this out of town mall syndrome.”

Cllr Considine cautioned that re- zoning was no guarantee of planning permission being granted.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said that he remained open-minded in relation to the rezoning.

“However, I am not convinced that it should take place at Cusack Park.”

has learned that plans to have the project finished be- fore the 2007 tourist summer season have now been scrapped.

Instead the developments’ will continue on the Lahinch lifeguard centre, which is due for completion in mid-June, with all other majors works to be suspended until after the tourism season.

“A number of brand new designs have now been shown to the council- lors and among those there are two or three realistic possibilities.

“The developers must now consult with private stake holders such as Lahinch Golf Club, Seaworld and

the Lahinch Playground committee,” said local councillor Martin Conway GnGoF

“We can’t at this point go public on the specifics of the options but what we saw was totally new.

“The councillors made observa- tions but we reserved any judgement until after the developer spoke with the interested local parties.”

It was, however, confirmed that some minor works would be carried out on the much delayed project over the summer.

“We felt that significant progress had been made in the last number of weeks. We are now three weeks into the building work on the lifeguard centre which is expected to take three months, so that should be completed before the height of the summer sea- son,’ continued Cllr Conway.

“Some minor works will be car- ried out throughout the summer and I would hope for major developments to start this autumn.

i eFeTMncva CoN Oaks another cause to be happy. “I’ve been told I’m accepted at NCAD in Dublin, providing I get my Leaving

Cert,’ the sixth year student said.

No stranger to success in the com- petition, Lucy has won three special merit awards in recent years.

“T couldn’t believe it – I thought it was a joke,’ Lucy said of her reac- tion to the win. She is delighted to have been accepted for the Dublin college, but is keeping her options open. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet’, said the girl who has been painting since she was a child. Nor did she lick her talent off the stones. Lucy’s mother, and sister both paint while her aunt is an artist and her erand-uncle a sculptor.

A second Clare student, Edel Mulqueen, aged 18, from Kilrush Community School also won a spe-

cial merit award in the competition.

Praising Lucy as “a well deserved winner’, the chairman of the judging panel, Professor Declan McGonagle said that she had produced an intense portrait painting in which every inch of the surface is active and alive with brushmarks and paint.

This is the second successive year in which the top prize has been won by a Clare student. Last year, the overall winner was Cillian Boyd, a student at Gaelcholaiste An Chlair, Ennis. This year, a total of 754 stu- dents from County Clare entered the competition, a 21 per cent increase on the 2007 figure.

Announcing the awards at a recep- tion held in the Dublin City Gallery,

The Hugh Lane, Enda Riney, Coun- try Chairman of Chevron (Ireland) Limited described Lucy as an ex- tremely talented young artist whose work has featured prominently in previous competitions.

In 2004, 2005 and 2006, she won a Special Merit Award for her entries. ‘Her achievement in winning the top prize this year has helped maintain the very high standard set by Clare students in the competition,” Mr Riney said.

THE nine members of Ennis Town Council have been told that €327 million in retail spending will be lost each year by Clare to adjoining counties if additional retail space is not provided in Ennis.

Consultants for Clare GAA, ad- vancing the case for the €350 mil- lion RiverSide Quarter in Ennis, state that currently €271 million is being lost each year to other coun- ties as consumers leave Clare to shop elsewhere.

Currently, the level of retail leakage is 62 per cent, they say. The consult- ants estimate that if additional retail Space is not provided in Ennis, this leakage will rise to 75 per cent by 2013 as aresult of the amount of new retail space coming to the greater |Biiintoule arts

However, the consultants state that if the RiverSide Quarter proceeds, the level of retail leakage to adjoin- ing counties will reduce to 30 per cent. This will translate into an ad- ditional €140 million being spent by consumers in Clare each year.

The biggest threats to Ennis are major new retail developments in Limerick, The Coonagh Cross cen- tre is set to increase its space from 20,000 sq m to 28,000 sq m, while the new Opera Shopping Centre in Limerick city centre is to provide an additional 28,000 sq m. It will start to trade in 2010.

The report also refers to the growth of the Crescent Shopping Centre which, the consultants state, has been transformed into the “regional retail attractor in the mid-west”.

The consultants estimate that there

is currently 55,000 sq m of retail Space in Ennis, but admit that the sector 1s lopsided as there has been a large expansion in retail warehous- ing.

The consultants state that the devel- opment will significantly increase the footfall in the town as it will make the whole of Ennis a destination lo- cation for shopping in the Midwest.

The document also promises easy pedestrian access from O’Connell S15 Koro e-0 016 a0) Lane] OReel ROO Kol OO suring strong commercial synergies with the existing retail facilities.

PLANS have been lodged for a fur- ther 226 homes in the eastern out- skirts of Ennis, bringing the poten- tial number of new homes in the area to almost one thousand.

One of the country’s biggest home builders, McInerney Homes Ltd, has lodged plans for a €56 million devel- opment at Knockaderry, Roslevan.

The McInerney Homes application joins that of Crystal Partners for al- most 700 homes at Gaurus.

The first phase of the Crystal appli- cation is for 471 homes in a site that takes up 75 per cent of the Gaurus townland.

The McInerney Homes application consists of 136 semi-detached, 24 detached and 66 terraced homes.

Yesterday, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said that the applications were pre- mature when the current infrastruc- ture deficit in Ennis was taken into account.

“I believe that these applications are premature and I wonder if they are just kite flying exercises by the developers.”

Cllr Meaney said that the environ- ment minister, John Gormley, was to shortly introduce a new green paper

on local government to ensure that unsustainable development would not be permitted.

A site nearby to that of McInerney Homes was, last year, the subject of a Finn Properties application for 100 homes. The town council re- fused planning permission to due limitations of the town’s sewerage system. The council partly granted Finn Properties permission to extend Oakleigh Woods by 51 homes. Per- mission for 115 others was refused because of the sewerage constraints.

In an internal memo recommend- ing refusal, Town Engineer, Tom Tiernan said, “While I have no ob- jection in principle to the overall pro- posal it is impossible to approve it in its entirety at this stage.

“With a view to being in a position to accommodate development to a very limited degree at various loca- tions throughout the town, it won’t be possible to consider approval for this CCAVoaleyeyentooelmpes limo) 11N0Ko A Ae

A ROMANTIC evening of candle- light, poetry and music on the shores of Lough Derg will raise cash for a life-saving cause.

A collaboration between the RNLI lifeboat service and the Killaloe- based Writer’s Hedge School has re- sulted in a poets and pipers evening on May Day.

Famed Scottish poet, Kenneth Steven will be the star reader at the event.

Kenneth is coming to Killaloe at

the invitation of best-selling author in residence, David Rice who runs the Killaloe Writers Hedge School along with poet and writer, Kathleen Thorne.

Providing the music for the evening will be talented piper, Brian Mooney and friends and between 8pm and 10pm, the lights will be lowered, the music mellow and the poetry mov- ing.

All the profits will be going to sup- port the voluntary RNLI service for Lough Derg and the Shannon.

The lifeboat was in Killaloe at the

weekend for the official launch of the poets and pipers night.

Every week, the lifeboat service saves twelve lives when people get into deadly danger on the inland and coastal waters of Ireland.

The Lough Derg boat, which is sta- tioned at Dromineer, has a voluntary crew of 20 and provides 24-7 cover for the lake and that portion of the river.

“They come out in every weather and have saved countless lives and helped people in great distress. It’s an important service and is volun-

tary with people giving their time and skills to rescue victims in trou- ble on the water,” a spokesman for the service said.

Tickets for the lovely evening are €20 a head and can be had from N1- amh McCutcheon on 087 6592955 or Eleanor Hooker, 067 24186.

moje sultants for Clare GAA have told the

council that the new RiverSide Quar- ter could be operational by 2013.

A new Ennis Development Plan is being drawn up which will include a range of new zonings.

However, consultants for Clare GAA have told the council that it may be early 2009 by the time the process of drawing up the new de- velopment plan 1s completed. Rather than seeking to have the site rezoned as part of the plan, Clare GAA are

seeking a standalone rezoning of the site. The process could be completed in five months.

The consultants have told the coun- cil that the development of schemes for both the Cusack Park site and the new GAA stadium “are well ad- vanced”.

Taking into account appeals to An Bord Pleanala, Clare GAA are an- ticipating that the planning process in relation to the scheme will take

two years.

The consultants state that it 1s in- tended that the RiverSide Quarter will act as a landmark site, point- ing out, “If we are dependent upon the adoption of the new Ennis Plan before we can lodge the application, there is a possibility that the site will not have the benefit of planning per- mission until 2010-2011.

The consultants state, ““The sooner the planning permission is received for the development of the site, the sooner Ennis Town Council will be able to utilise the significant income derived from commercial rates and development levies.”

The consultants argue that the shorter timeframe will significantly benefit Ennis in terms of an immedi- ate improvement in the town centre and the provision of a new GAA sta- dium.

The consultants state that the de- velopment is not designed to take consumers from the existing retail centre and, in particular, the town centre but to contribute to the re- tention and consolidation of retail spending in Ennis in the face of in- creasing competition from other re- tailers and leakage of retail spending from the area.

The consultants also argue that the development of retailing in the scheme would improve the diversity in the Ennis retail offer.

FIANNA FAIL Minister for State, Tony Killeen was remaining tight- lipped on how he saw his future un- der the new Taoiseach.

The Corofin man who has served as junior minister in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natu-

ral Resources and the department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government for the past 10 months said he was happy to fill whatever role the new Taoiseach desired.

He said while there was a lot of speculation as to what moves would be made in cabinet and in the gov- ernment under Brian Cowan, he did

not get involved in such speculation.

He said Minister Cowan is famil- iar with the issues in Clare through his previous portfolios in health and transport and has an overview of 1s- sues as Minister for Finance.

Former Clare TD Brendan Daly, who was quite close with the Offaly man while in Dail Eireann, said he

believed that Cowan would make an impressive Taoiseach.

“T think Cowan will be less charis- matic than Bertie Ahern. He will give straight answers to straight questions and will take things very seriously and won’t underestimate the implica- tions of some of the things that might be taking place.

“Bertie tended to gloss over things that on the surface might not have been looked at but deep down were very serious,’ he said.

“He (Cowan) will be firm, he will be decisive, he will say if something can be done or can’t be done, and he wont second-guess anything,” he Sr HLOe

AFTER breaking the €100,000 mark last year, organisers of the sixth annual Micheal Dunleavy Walk in Doolin are hoping to push things even further this year.

The Michael Dunleavy Foundation was set up in memory of Michael Dunleavy, who died from a rare brain tumour when he was just eight years old in 2002. The charity organises a number of fundraising events both in Ireland and the US.

Michael himself lived most of his life in America, but often came to Clare to visit his aunts, uncles and erandparents in Doolin. Hopes are

high that this year’s walk will be one of the best yet.

“In total, we have raised more than €100,000 for the Irish Cancer So- ciety. We tipped over the €100,000 mark last year which is really won- derful. It shows the commitment and the generosity of the people taking part,” said Mary O’Connor, organ- iser of the Doolin Walk.

“We usually have about 200 peo- ple. It’s a good day, nice and relaxed. It’s like a family day. We have peo- ple who bring the dog along or bring the pushchair. It’s a good family day with lots of children involved.

“We would usually have walkers from all over. We have people who

come down from Miltown and Mul- lagh and that side of the country. We also have a lot of people from Bally- vaughan and an awful lot of locals. It is something that people really keep in mind and look forward to.”

The walk will take place this Sun- day, April 13, at lpm. Registration will take place at Doolin’s Russell Cultural Centre at 12.30pm.

“It 1s a three- or five-mile circular walk, so there 1s a bit of choice de- pending on how fit you are feeling. It’s going to be a really enjoyable day with great fun and a lot of relaxing.

“If the day is clear, and I hope it will be, we will get brilliant views of all the local scenery and even the

Aran Islands,’ continued Mary.

“All money raised goes to the Irish Cancer Society paediatrics research and to our local fund which is there to assist terminally ill local people and their families.

‘We have sponsorship cards avail- able and people can come along on the day and give a bit.”

Anyone looking for a sponsorship card can contact Mary O’Connor on 7074332 or Maurice Dunleavy on 087 2912916.

A BOOKLET detailing the results of Europe’s foremost large-scale audit of farm machinery will be launched at Clare Museum in Ennis on next Monday, April 14.

Produced by Clare County Coun- cil and east Clare-based consultants Minogue Associates, Antique Farm Machinery of County Clare tells the social story of the county’s farm ma- chinery from the early 1800s to the aL Oks

The Clare Heritage section secured funding from the Heritage Council and Clare County Council to under- take the project last year, as part of the implementation of the Clare Her- itage Plan 2003-2007.

“I am delighted to see that the lo-

cal authority has played its part in establishing a framework for docu- menting unprotected early agricul- tural machinery, which played a sig- nificant role in the socio-economic development of this country over the last number of centuries,” said Ber- nadette Kinsella, Director of Serv- ices, Economic Development and Planning, Clare County Council.

“The west of Ireland is tradition- ally an agricultural region and this tradition has bequeathed a signifi- cant amount of farm machinery dat- ing from the late 19th and early to mid-twentieth centuries.

“Therefore, it 1s imperative that we develop a strategy for the conserva- tion and posterity of such items as seed drills, harrows, ploughs and rollers, horse carts, and harvesting

and haymaking machinery.”

Commenting on the audit, Cllr Pat Hayes, Chairperson of the Clare Heritage Forum, said that there is a sionificant gap in awareness when it comes to our agricultural heritage despite its fundamental impact on the socio-economic development of this country over the last number of centuries.

‘The Clare Heritage Forum is con- fident that this audit and its subse- quent promotion will help address that gap in Clare and also provide an effective template that can be used on a national and international lev- el,” he said.

‘For example, local authority herit- age offices in Galway and Donegal have already followed our lead by undertaking similar studies.

“We are confident that this au- dit will achieve its main objective, which is to uniquely inform as to the historical, geographical, eco- nomic and even scientific develop- ment of agricultural machinery in one county.”

Following the launch of the audit, 10,000 summary booklets will be made available at schools, libraries, museums and heritage centres across County Clare.

Dr Hugh Maguire of the Heritage Council will launch Antique Farm Machinery of County Clare at Clare Museum at 7.30pm on Monday, April 14.

The launch will also include an il- lustrated presentation on The Devel- opment of Clare Farm Machinery, 1800-1950.