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INCREASES in the number of beaches and days covered by life- guards, more flexible arrangements for funding rural graveyards and the setting up of a full time fire service were all items on the shopping list of Clare County Council members as they met to budget for the com- ing year.

Cllr Martin Conway (FG) called for a five-year plan to be drawn up to provide a full-time fire service which would replace the retained fire serv- ice in Ennis.

He asked that more lifeguards be brought in. “Surfing is a 52-week a year occupation now. Everytime you go to Lahinch, the car park is full. I would like to see the lifeguard serv- ice extended to this beach.”

Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) asked that some of the €206,000 allocated for litter prevention in the budget be “used to catch people who are us- ing the bring banks to dump rubbish and to bring them before the courts. Fines should be raised. The current fine is not a sufficient deterrent.”

Cllr Richard Nagle (FF) said that some larger areas were seen to be

‘getting much more favourable treat- ment in terms of allocated funding for graveyards whereas small, rural communities have to purchase land for burial grounds themselves.” Director of Services, Ger Dollard, said that two lifeguards are rostered on at a time on beaches in consid- eration both of child protection and health and safety concerns. “If one lifeguard gets into trouble, then there is a second to go and help,” he told the members at the budget 2008 meeting. “Our plan is to provide cov- er during the time that the primary school children are off and it can be

difficult to get lifeguards outside that time, as many of them are in college or having their own holidays.”

Director Dollard told the meeting that the issue of a full-time fire serv- ice 1S part of a national review.

‘There is a review of the fire service model to assess where there should be a full-time service. We will have to spend five times as much to go full-time.”

He also told councillors that litter fines are not in the control of the local authority once they get to court, “but judges are taking a sterner view now, One fine recently was for €5,000.”

THE east Clare economy is to receive a massive boost with a health farm resort, formerly jointly owned by Paschal Carmody, to be transformed into a multi-million euro mixed use integrated tourism, recreational and commercial development.

For a number of years, the former doctor and his wife, Dr Frieda Car- mody, operated a health farm at Ti- narana House on the shores of Lough Derg at Islandcosgry, Ogonnelloe.

However, the couple sold their property in summer 2006 in a multi- million euro deal to a Limerick city investor and businessman for an un-

disclosed sum.

Tinarana House resort and spa is set on almost 300 acres near Killa- loe. Last week, the new owners of the prestigious property, Tinarana Ltd., published a planning notice outlining the scale of the proposal for Tinarana House and the lands.

The biggest single investment in the east Clare economy in a number of years, the planning application involves the extension of the exist- ing commercial operation and refur- bishment of Tinarana House, which is a protected structure to include an apart-hotel comprising of 30 two bedroom accommodation suites.

The refurbishment of ‘Tinarana

House will also include multi-pur- pose banqueting, a function/confer- ence facilities and a spa and wellness oon anes

The development is to also include the provision of 155 two bed short term accommodation units and a 18 hole championship golf course that will include a clubhouse, restaurant and bar facilities within the proposed extension of Tinarana House.

The proposal also includes the de- velopment of an equestrian holiday centre comprising of indoor and out- door equestrian areas that includes 20 horse stables.

The plan coincides with Clare County Council putting in place a

number of economic stimuli to aid the east Clare economy.

Earlier this year, the council stated that the construction of a new €30 million bridge across the River Shannon south of Killaloe would commence in two years.

The provision of the long antici- pated bridge will see the end of the traffic gridlock in the heritage towns of Killaloe and Ballina.

The council is also progressing a €2million amenity scheme for the Ballycuggeran area adjoining Lough Derg. It has revealed that provision has been made in the 2008 budget for the preparation of a Lough Derg Marina Tourism Plan.”

THE Clare-based Irish Seed Savers Association, 1n association with Tea- gasc, organised a series of biodiver- sity walks which took place across the country last week. The walks were organised to highlight the larg- est planting of hedgerow in the his- tory of the Irish state.

Nationwide, farmers are busy planting hedgerows on their land, with 15,000 expected to plant an in- credible length of 5,000 km of new native Irish hedgerows in the next KAW (erase

According to Teagasc this will change the landscape of every parish in Ireland as farmers participate in

the REPS 3 and REPS 4 schemes.

More than 25 farm walks will take place around the country between now and the end of February.

The Teagasc walks will demonstrate best practice in hedgerow planting and maintenance. A full range of na- tive Irish hedgerow species are being planted on farms, including whiteth- orn, holly, hazel, spindle, guelder rose and blackthorn.

“Correct planting methods and maintenance will ensure the estab- lishment and survival of all these new hedges,’ said Tim Hyde, Tea- gasc environment expert.

“This is the start of widespread planting in the countryside so it 1s important to get it right first time.

All the stages, including cultivation, planting, pruning, weed control and fencing, will be featured.”

Most Irish hedgerows were planted in the 1700s and 1800s. Acts of Par- liament were then passed, making it obligatory for landowners to plant hedgerows at that time. Hedgerows along townland boundaries often date from medieval times or earlier.

Over time if hedgerows are not managed they grow into an escaped hedgerow with a thin, gappy base. One management option for such hedgerows under REPS is to rejuve- nate by laying or coppicing.

A further 2,800 km of existing hedgerows will be rejuvenated, and the skill of hedge laying will be

CC aaeyeOecIKceMmDOMBOOT- DIN AMGOleII Non MEvaN a number of events contractors will demonstrate coppicing with a circu- JE Tansy- Me

A range of other demonstrations/ stands will also be presented at this series of Teagasc Biodiversity walks, and may include broadleaved tree planting, traditional orchards, LIN- NET crops for wildlife, The Hen Harrier Scheme and slurry injection methods.

The walks are being held in as- sociation with Coillte Nurseries, Seed Savers, the Hedge Laying As- sociation of Ireland, the Professional Contractors Association of Ireland and others. A full schedule can be viewed on www.teagasc.ie

FURIOUS members of Clare County Council told their officials that charg- ing people for recycling will result in fly-tipping and a sharp drop in the amount of recycling which goes on in the county.

At a resumed budget meeting of the local authority to set out the coun- cil’s spend and income for the com-

ing year, the proposal to raise cash by charging people who come to the council’s recycling centres met with stern opposition.

Council members were told that a “nominal” charge of €3 per car would raise an estimated €160,000 in the coming year. This would go to- wards the costs of improvements and additional services at the centres.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said that

for the amount raised 1n the exercise, it would not be worth the damage to recycling practice.

He said there were other ways of freeing up money to improve facili- ties. “Nothing the director of services tells me will change my mind about these charges. We are not using best practice or methods of compacting, SO we’re paying to transport fresh air. There are savings to be made there. I

want to appeal to your better sense which says we should reward people who do the right thing and look at other means of raising funding.”

Cllr Martin Conway (FG) said he agreed “100 percent with Cllr Meaney – we are Sending out the wrong mes- sage if we start to charge”’.

Cllr Tommy Brennan (NP) said that the minister “has said publicly that his department is awash with money – the manager should ask him to send some of it down here instead of these Oi Neon

Cllr Flan Garvey (FF) said that the “way to get people to comply is to reward and encourage them, not pe- nalise them with charges”.

Cllr Pat Hayes said that the Govern- ment is already collecting for recy- cling through the Repak system and asked how much comes back from the scheme to the local authority.

Cllr Patricia McCarthy (NP) told the members that they have “been presented with a balanced budget and either we find some other way of raising this money or we don’t ap- prove the budget, in which case the council 1s disbanded.”

Director of Services, Ger Dollard said that if the council wants to con- tinue having new and improved recy- cling facilities, ““we need the funds to do it and we don’t have any extra funds to avail of so we have to intro- duce charges.”

Mr Construction, but neither of the chart toppers are likely to be as big a hit with the people of Kilrush as the RNLI calendar.

The fundraising object has a spe- cial calendar pin-up in local curate Fr Michael Collins, who is one of just two Irish people to make it on to the RNLI fundraising calendar.

The only other Irish member is a lady from Ballycotton.

Fr Collins has been a crewmember with Kilrush lifeboat station for two years.

His involvement began when the station invited him to look around. It was an inspirational visit that made his mind up to volunteer.

Despite his comparatively short time as a crewmember, he’s had his fair share of drama, particularly the rescue of a family of five whose boat had capsized and was drifting out to sea.

Fr Collins will feature on the cal- endar for the month of July, making him a household name in homes and offices around Ireland and Britain.

The calendar has been on sale since

late last year on the RNLI website or from its catalogue.

As a sea faring town, Kilrush has always been a huge supporter of the RNLI providing funds to maintain the life boat and people for its crew.

The “Rose West’ lifeboat has car- ried out great work for years provid- ing vital assistance to seafarers from Kilbaha to Limerick.

The 30 strong crew are trained and retrained for every eventuality.

The members of the RNLI meet once a week and take part in dilf- ferent exercises with the lifeboat. In case of an emergency a beeper alerts all the crew within a seven-mile ra- dius who make their way to the life- boat station, change and be on the water within eight minutes.

The first three to arrive set out on the boat, one person stays in the sta- tion to assist the crew with any direc- tions. Others open the doors to the lifeboat and see it safely to the sea.

All from 18 to 45 are welcome to ove

FOLLOWING the Dublin launch of BurrenLIFE’s first ever Farming for Conservation international con- ference last week, the Carron-based organisation has teamed up with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to announce a series of illustrated rece

These will take place in the Coun- cil Chamber of the County Museum Building in Ennis for six Wednes- days, from February 6 to March 12.

The series will reflect on and cel- ebrate the hugely diverse range of natural and cultural heritage in the Burren region. It promises to be a rich and varied programme of talks.

The series kicks off with a talk entitled “Eating The Landscape – Farming The Burren’ by Ruairi O Conchuir.

The talk will highlight the upcom- ing conference and will also focus on the production of quality food from a quality environment.

The lecture on February 13 will be delivered by Barry O’Donoghue, park ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

O’Donoghue grew up watching hen harriers on the family farm in Tralee and this helped him attain a depth of knowledge of the factors regarding the conservation of these rare birds.

His talk is called ‘Rare, Beautiful and Preying – the Hen Harrier’.

Ian Doyle will take up the mantle on February 20 and give a talk en- titled “The Vanishing Monuments of the Burren’.

This will be concerned with, amongst other things, the huge den- sity of archaeological monuments in the region and the real threat posed to them by the onset of scrub.

Guest speaker on February 27 will be Eugenie Regan. She is one of two ecologists in the National Biodiver- sity Centre in Waterford.

Eugenie’s research is focused on wetland and limestone grassland ecology.

The penultimate talk in the series will focus on the rich geological di- versity of the Burren Region. The

talk is entitled “Rocks and Land- forms – The Geodiveristy of the Bur- ot

The speaker in this case is Mat- thew Parkes, assistant keeper of the National History Museum in Dub- lin with special responsibility for its geological collections.

A QUESTION mark has been put on plans by All-Ireland winning Clare hurler, Niall Gilligan to press ahead with a €7 million housing develop- ment in Kilkee.

This follows local resident, Ray O’ Halloran lodging an appeal to An Bord Pleanala against a decision by Clare County Council to grant the Sixmilebridge man the go-ahead for the development.

Along with the Kilkee application, Mr Gilligan also has two separate planning applications for his home village of Sixmilebridge where he is seeking to construct 14 apartments, two shops and a pub.

The council has put those applica- tions on hold after seeking further in- formation on the two applications.

The Kilkee proposal faced a small number of objections and the council gave the go-ahead after Mr Gilligan lodged revised plans.

The site is zoned ‘residential’ and adjoins a third class road.

In his appeal, Mr O’Halloran of Dunlicky Road, Kilkee said he was shocked by the council decision as it showed no regard for the existing residents who are in situ for more than 25 years.

“The roadway is barely adequate for our needs at the moment and is certainly not sufficient for this pro- posed new development.

“T cannot believe that the additional information requested regarding the traffic was not addressed and that the traffic impact assessment was not carried out by a competent traffic management company.

The planning authority gave Mr Gilligan the go-ahead after ruling that the plan “would not seriously in- jure the amenities and would not be contrary to the proper planning and development”.

As part of the 38 conditions, the council ordered the omission of two homes. It is also seeking that Mr Gil- ligan pay €175,000 in levies towards public infrastructure and that the homes be the principal places of res1- dence of purchasers of the houses.

SPANISH Point is set to become one of the world’s leading sites for the production of wave energy following the launch of the Ocean Energy Ini- tiative last week.

The new initiative, which guaran- tees a price of €0.22 for each KW hour of ‘blue’ energy, has made Ireland the world’s most attractive market for the generation of wave energy.

Spanish Point was identified by the Irish Marine Institutes as one of Ire-

land’s top four sites for the produc- tion of wave energy. Indeed, it was short-listed as a possible site for the creation of Ireland’s first test facility for wave energy.

“Places like Spanish Point are now going to get more and more attractive because investors will be able to see exactly what price they will be able to get for the energy in the long term,” said Andrew Parish, of pioneering wave energy company, Wavebob.

“Investors will be able to go into Spanish Point, examine the prevalent wave strength and predict with cer-

tainty exactly what revenue they will be able to make. This will make it much easier to get financial backing for large-scale projects.”

“The real key is that we will have market stability. This makes it attrac- tive for developers such as ourselves to invest and it also makes it easier for us finance major projects.”

With a host of new wave energy generators at the prototype stage, the wave energy market is expected to boom over the next 10 years.

“We are relying more than 90 per cent in Ireland on fossil fuels. So by

having this tariff for renewable en- ergy, it encourages more alternative clean sources of energy into the mar- ket, which will actually make energy cheaper in the long run,” continued Mr Parish.

“Fossil fuels are going to get more and more expensive as time goes by, and wave energy is going to become a reality.

“Not only will Irish companies be looking at developing sites like Spanish Point, but international com- panies will be there too. It 1s very at- tractive for them.”

WHERE experimentation goes in the McGrath Cup campaign of 2008, Limerick can claim to enjoy an edge on Clare. Mickey ‘Ned’ O’Sullivan has used 27 players in their three games to date, while Clare have used 23. And, as he looks ahead to the fi- nal that fixed for Cooraclare on Sun- day, O’Sullivan that there’s more to come. “We’ll try a few more because we have a big panel in at the moment,

but by the time the National League comes around the following week, the county board will want numbers aria Cena F

‘“We’ve brought in five new for- wards, while we’ve experimented in other areas of the field as well. In that respect the McGrath Cup has been great — we’re getting competi- tive games and a chance to see what we ve got.”

However, the wholesale changes that O’Sullivan made in the cam-

paign thus far shouldn’t lull Clare into any sense of confidence ahead of Sunday’s final. ““Now that we’re in a final, we will be going out to win it, just as Clare will be,’ says Kerry’s 1975 All-Ireland winning captain. Famously he tasted defeat at the hands of Clare as Kerry manager way back in the Munster final of 1992, but during his tenure with Limerick to date has enjoyed league and champi- onship victories against Clare. However, most of those who will

line out on Sunday have no experi- ence of playing against Clare. “This is my third year in charge of the team and the team has changed a lot in that time,’ admits O’Sullivan.

“In my first year I more or less stuck with the team that had been there before. They had played a lot of football over the years and put in a lot of hard work to try and win a Munster championship.

“In my second year I brought in a good few players, but many more

have come in this year, so the team is going through some transition. After the McGrath Cup we go straight into a tough league campaign where we will be up against teams like Sligo, Wexford, Fermanagh and Down. By then I’d hope to have the new players and the old fighting out for places on the team.”

The first test comes 1n Cooraclare on Sunday — not a must win game, but Mickey ‘Ned’ O’Sullivan wants to win it all the same.

HUNDREDS of walkers are expect- ed in north Clare this May for the first ever walking marathon ever to take place in the county.

The Ballyvaughan-Fanore Walk- ing Club will host the Clare Burren Marathon Challenge on Sunday May 24, and organisers are expecting a treat for enthusiast who can experi- ence first hand some of Ireland most SURINDER OMA

The marathon will coincide with the Burren in Bloom Festival in Bal- ly vaughan and will finish in the in the Burren Coast Hotel in Ballyvaughan. It starts at 8am in the morning and

will go cross country through a va- riety of different landscapes before arriving in Fanore.

They return via Black Head and the Green Road and back into Bal- lyvaughan.

“It’s more of a challenge than a running marathon. Half of it will be done on road and half of it will be cross country. It’s the exact same distance as a marathon,” said Mary O’’ Brien of the Ballyvaughan-Fanore Walking Club.

“We will also have a half marathon route and a mini-marathon route available for people on the day.

‘In a marathon like the Dublin City Marathon you would have walker,

runners and elite runners and the route is always flat. This event is dif- ferent, you are talking about walking up hills and over many different ter- rains. It’s not an event for wearing runners, you would need a good pair of boots.”

The Ballyvaughan-Fanore Walking Club was set up in 2006 and has al- ready some 80 members drawn from all over the country.

The club was all the brian child of Kevin McCormack from Fanore who is a well seasoned walker himself. Now we have members from all over the place and organise walks each Sunday all year round,” continued Mary.

“For each walk we leave around 11 in the morning and we wouldn’t be back until half three or four. You bring some lunch with you and make a day out of it.

“We have walked in spots all around Clare and we will be going to Letterfrack and Kilkenny later in the year. The islands are a big thing for the Club. Each year so far we have gone for a walk to the Aran Islands in August. Last year we had 67 peo- ple in the Aran Islands. We walked on each of the islands throughout the weekend.”

For more information check out www.bally vaughanfanorewalking- club.com.