Category: Uncategorized

THE Miunister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, has been accused of reneg- ing on a statement by his predecessor who said Heathrow had a “unique role in ensuring connectivity to and from Ireland.”

“This connectivity is fundamental both to provide connections to and from Dublin as well as to and from the regions,” Minister Martin Cullen said in a statement within the Arti- cles of Association of Aer Lingus.

“The Minister for Transport will not recommend that the Minister for Finance seek to convene an extraor- dinary general meeting to approve

a Slot disposal unless the disposal would result in the slots at London Heathrow falling below the level that is critical to ensuring connectivity to and from Ireland,’ the statement Sr ALGe

Supporters of the airport say that the removal of the flights from Shan- non is removing all connectivity to the west of Ireland and the rest of the ONG b

Legal council for the campaign op- posing the Aer Lingus decision to move the Shannon Heathrow service to Belfast are considering taking le- gal action after studying the Articles of Association.

Lawyers retained by the campaign

are to give an opinion on whether a legal challenge to the decision is fea- sible later in the week.

According to the articles “The Minister for Transport considers that the four London Heathrow slot pairs for service to and from Cork and that four (summer season) and three (winter season) for service to and from Shannon would each be criti- cal to ensuring connectivity to these airports because this is the mini- mum necessary to ensure a spread of flights throughout the day.

“On this the Minister for Finance as a Shareholder in the company (Aer Lingus), acting on the advice of the Minister for Transport, is unlikely to

support a proposed disposal of any slot pair such that there would be less than the existing London Heathrow slots pairs that relate to service be- tween London Heathrow and Cork or Shannon and is likely to request the convening of an extraordinary general meeting, as provided for the Articles of Association, to consider such matter.”

Disposal transaction in defined in the articles of association as “a trans- action pursuant to which any member of the group proposed to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of” the slots.

The transport minister said last week that the four slots at Heathrow were not the be-all and end-all.

THE hills of North Clare will once again be alive to the sound of music this September, as the 14th annual Burren Ramble takes to the moun- tains around Fanore.

Bad musical puns aside, this year’s ramble will feature a very special treat for walkers, as the ‘Lismora- haun Tenors’ will perform at the foot of Slieve Elva.

Following the success of a perform- ance last year by the “Lismorahaun Singers’ in a natural amphitheatre in the heart of the Burren, the ‘Lis- morahaun Tenors’ will take up the

mantle of musical entertainment, entertaining the walkers while they stop for lunch.

The Tenors feature rising star Pe- ter O’Donghue, and special guest Soprano, Naomi O’Connell, both of whom are natives of north Clare, and learned their trade under Archie Simpson with the Lismorahaun Sing- ae

‘Base camp’ for this year’s ramble is O’Donohue’s Pub, Fanore. Regis- tration stars at 12.30pm and the walk will set out around 1.30pm. It’s about a six mile walk in total and this year we will be making our way to Sheve Elva,” said organiser Joe Queally.

“There is a great contrast on the walk between the Burren stone and the bogs.

“The walking route takes in great views over Galway Bay and the Aran Islands. It 1s a very relaxed walk, something that everyone would be able for and it will take in parts of the Burren that most people will nev- er have seen”.

Over the years the Ramble has raised more than €300,000 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institu- tion (RNLI). “All proceeds from the walk will all to help support the work of the RNLI. There has been so many tragedies and near tragedies

along the Clare coast over the last 12 months and the RNLI really do great work at these times. The sup- port that the RNLI has received from the people of Clare over the years has been great. If you look at someone like Tomsie Sullivan from Lahinch who has been a devoted member of the organisation for 43 years now,’ Loy eT Ube LeCsre MN Letom

Anyone interested in taking part in this year’s ramble can contact Joe for sponsorship cards at 087 6260301. The Burren Ramble takes place on September 9 and is being organised by the Ennis and Lahinch branches of the RNLI.

AS THE county board and the clubs of Clare continue their search for a new football manager at tonight’s board meeting, news that Seamus Clancy has ruled himself out of the race will have strengthened the body of opinion calling for the reinstate- ment of Donie Buckley.

It is thought that over the past few days Clancy made known to the county board his wishes not to be considered for the position.

The former All-Star was widely touted as one of the best options for the county due to his experience both as a player and manager and because of his forthright and honest views of Clare’s dismal season.

His withdrawal means there’s one less option for Clare right now and on the back of this weekend’s club championship showing, the county needs as many options as possible.

It was another weekend of sub- standard club championship football in which the quality was low and the scores were even lower. It took 272 minutes for the first championship goal this year, with a total of four goals altogether in round one.

Goals apart, the points tallies are just as unimpressive and paint a wor- rying picture of the state of Clare football at present.

After two complete rounds of the senior championship, only four sides managed to get into double point fig- ures and kick more than nine points over an hour.

In the first round, Shannon Gaels

managed ten points and Wolfe Tones scored eleven. In the second round, Cooraclare kicked eleven points while Lissycasey notched up ten. It means that out of 32 opportunities over the 16 games so far, the magical figure of ten points was only reached four times.

On Saturday, Liscannor managed to beat one of the favourites for the championship by scoring only five points against a Doonbeg side that managed only three points — all from suueKy

It harks back to the dark days of Clare football when county champi- onships were won on meagre score- lines.

On top of this, the so-called top teams are not exactly leading by ex- ample. Defending champions Eire Og again stuttered and stumbled to victory for the second week running and notched up 14 wides in the proc- ess, while Shannon Gaels went under to an unfancied Ennistymon outfit.

Elsewhere, St Joseph’s Miultown couldn’t even put a point on the board in their second-half against Eire Og and St Breckans went 34 minutes without raising a white flag.

On this showing, perhaps other op- tions may go by the wayside in the quest for a new manager.

THE make-up of the strategic alli- ance group that will fight the decision to axe the Aer Lingus Shannon/Hea- throw connection will be unveiled later today.

And as business, tourism and work- ers’ groups throw their weight behind the six names to be revealed, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary is on his way to Shannon for a press conference at which he will outline the airline’s response to the Aer Lingus decision to abandon its Shannon-Heathrow flights.

As the crisis deepened, there was

no response from Aer Lingus to air- port boss Pat Shanahan’s offer to re- duce landing charges for the airline on the route.

Business leaders were yesterday predicting major job and investment losses if Shannon loses its Heathrow slots.

Chairman of the Regional Tourism Board, Michael Houlihan addressed an emergency meeting of Clare Coun- ty Council last night and said, “This is the most serious threat to this area that has happened in my lifetime. All the investment and proposals that have gone into tourism will be set to nought if this happens.”

He added that the tourism industry has “invested millions of euro on the presumption of connectivity. This is the most serious issue that we have ever had to deal with. We cannot have our slots stolen from us.”

There are more than 110 companies employing almost 7,000 people in the Shannon Free Zone and a further 4,000 jobs planned for the area with the completion of Westpark in 2009.

Business leaders are predicting that current and future jobs are under threat as they depend on the connec- tivity which can only be provided by a Heathrow connection for London.

Ken Sullivan, General Manager with Element Six said that between 15 and 20 staff and clients of the in- dustrial diamond company use the e(crLdnKO) Ao es CoA LAM (cle) ©

“This company will have a very uncertain future in Shannon if an alternative carrier is not found. The Shannon operations require con- stant travel to and from all parts of the world and 90 per cent of this is routed through Heathrow.”

Already, projects worth €100 mil- lion for the region have been shelved by Dromoland Castle hotel and golf club, Doonbeg Golf Club and the Flynn Hotel Group.

THE galleries of north Clare will be a hive of activity this month with two major exhibitions due to launch.

Wild Honey, the fourth ‘Burren Annual’, opens in the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan this Satur- day, August 18. Curated by Michael Dempsey, this year’s exhibition fo- cusses on the urban/rural divide and the position of the west of Ireland as a central driving force in forming the identity of the modern Irish.

The exhibition is to be opened by Mike Fitzpatrick, Director/Curator of Limerick City Art Gallery, and

runs daily until September 29.

It will feature work by Stephen Brandes, Dorothy Cross, Blaise Drummond, Patrick Hall, Ronnie Hughes, Fergus Martin, William McKeown, Isabel Nolan and Niamh O’Malley, all artists who have at some stage based their work outside The Pale.

Meanwhile, US Democratic Con- eressman, John Yarmuth, was in La- hinch last Saturday to launch a new exhibition by Pat and Jan Maher at Kenny’s Lahinch Art Gallery.

The Kentucky congressman has be- come a regular visitor to west Clare in recent years and is a member of

Doonbeg Golf Club.

Pat Maher is an accomplished painter in oils and watercolours. He has won a number of awards for his paintings, which capture the essence of the lovely southern Irish coun- tryside through a variety of themes, ranging from Sweeping evocations of the landscape around his home near Tullow, County Carlow, to more inti- mate interiors and still-life studies.

His latest exhibition, entitled °*Pic- tures of Clare and Other Stories’, will show in Lahinch until August 25 and features a collection of paintings of Lahinch and surrounding areas.

Joining Pat for this exhibition will

be his wife Jan, who will be exhibit- ing arange of watercolours as well as pen, ink and graphite drawings.

Jan trained at Epsom School of Art, UK where her tutors included distin- guished watercolourist Leslie Worth. Following a period working as a graphic designer in the 1970s she has concentrated on fine art since 1980, and has found an increasing demand for both her meticulous drawings, and her luminous watercolour land- scape and floral paintings.

The exhibition will run daily until August 25. A selection of the art can be viewed on www.lahinchartgal- lery.com.

CALLS for the resignation of Fianna Fail ministers, the holding of an Aer Lingus EGM and for councillors to protest at the airport with banners came from an emergency meeting of the council last night.

Councillor Madeleine Taylor-Quinn proposed a motion on behalf on the Fine Gael members at the emergency meeting called by Mayor of Clare, Cllr Patricia McCarthy.

She called on the Minister for Fi- nance “to immediately call an EGM of Aer Lingus to discuss the matter and reverse this decision.”

She said that despite having a spa- tial strategy “the Government is about to allow the withdrawl of these critical slots which provide vital con- nectivity”.

Her colleague, Cllr Joe Arkins further proposed that if the slots are withdrawn that the Government lead a legal challenge to the decision.

He described news that a new route may be on the way to Paris as a “smoke and mirrors exercise’,

The Fine Gael members also asked that the council seek an immediate meeting with the Taoiseach on the matter, while Mayor Mccarthy told the meeting that she has made con- tact with all of the mayors in Tipper- ary, Limerick and Galway to seek a

joint meeting with the Fianna Fail leader.

Labour councillor, Pascal Fitzger- ald, called on the “mid-west minis- ters to state publicly that they will resign if these slots are taken from Shannon. People’s livelihoods are at stake and the Government is doing yatelee vb sree

Cllr Colm Wiley (FF) said that “calling does nothing. What I am proposing is that two members of this council go to the airport with placards and protest until we get what we want and rotate the protest so that there are members of this council there at all times until this 1s resolved.”

Cllr Gerry Flynn (Ind) accused the Government of having “no function- al regional policy” while Fianna Fail councillor, Richard Nagle, said that the “only satisfactory outcome to this is the retention of our slots into Heathrow”.

He said the Fianna Fail councillors have jointly sent letters to the minis- ters for transport, tourism and trade and employment outlining the poten- tial seriousness of the consequences of the decision.

He said that the council “should call on the Taoiseach to recall his minis- ters and set up and interdepartmental eroup to deal with what can only be described as a crisis for this region.”

A NEW law which governs how busi- nesses treat their emails has been in place since January but is still catch- ing a lot of people out, according to a leading mid-west business solutions provider.

Vincent Hely, who has recently joined the new Ennis office of PA- QIT Solutions, the computer support company in Ennis, said that the new regulations are “something a lot of people are not even aware of, despite the fact that they are now legal re- 6] USB aoseates pL Riae

The new regulations cover legal requirements for email footers and headers, said Hely.

Mandatory information which now has to be included by a pri- vate or public limited company or a Limited Liability Partnership on let- terheads, order forms and all business emails are the company registration

number, the place of registration (e.g. Ireland or England etc.) and the reg- istered office address

The information should also appear on the company’s website. Failure to comply with these requirements puts the company at risk of a fine. These details are not required of sole trad- ers or Standard partnerships.

Confidentiality notices come under the optional heading, said Hely.

“Some organisations add a confi- dentiality notice to every outgoing email. If the disclosure of the content of an email becomes the subject of a dispute, it can be argued before a court that the recipient should have known to not disclose the informa- tion,” he said.

THE summer may have been a wash out but that hasn’t stopped the En- nis Farmer’s Market from thriving. Located in the upper Market Street public car park on Friday mornings, the market is a hive of activity. Traders offer a wide range of foods, fresh produce, cut flowers and crafts. The Farmer’s Market has been up and running since 2004 and consists of a eroup of dedicated food producers and traders with a wide range of lo- cal, artisan and organic foods includ- ing meats, cheeses and local honey,

to name but a few. Most of the pro- duce is sourced in Clare with some coming from nearby Tipperary.

Market trader Aoife Ni Giollacudda said, “A special atmosphere exists on market day.

Customers love coming down to the Farmer’s Market as much for the atmosphere as for what’s on sale. It’s bright and cheery whether there’s rain, hail or sunshine’.

She added “the producers and stall- holders love to chat to customers and will answer any amount of questions about their produce. A lot of it is or- ganic but is not necessarily so. How-

ever, there 1s one common thread throughout, it is nutritious, fresh and completely traceable.”

Traders pride themselves on offer- ing a wide range of fresh and nutri- tious products that are directly trace- able back to producers. A wide range of products can be found at the Mar- ket. They include: local goat, sheep and dairy cheeses; organic beef and lamb; organic seasonal vegetables; free range pork, rashers and sausag- es; homemade breads and cakes; free range eggs; handmade chocolates; local honey; homemade jams; olives; sun dried tomatoes and pesto; fair-

trade tea coffee and crafts; pottery; cut flowers and garden plants.

Aoife said, “The experience of shopping in a farmer’s market is much more enjoyable than shop- ping in a supermarket. So take a trip down sometime to sample what’s on offer”.

AFTER three hours of heated discus- sion, Clare County Council adopted two compromise motions on the Shannon crisis following an emer- gency meeting of the local authority last night.

The emergency meeting had threat- ened to boil over into party bicker- ing, as a number of possible motions were discussed by Government and opposition councillors.

A number of motions, including one calling for a vote of no-confi- dence in the Minister for Transport proposed by Joe Arkins (FG) and another calling for a 24-hour, two- person council vigil to be set up at Shannon Airport proposed by Colm Wiley (FF), were rejected in favour of an all-party compromise.

The council adopted a motion stat- ing that Clare County Council would remind the Minister for Transport of his reponsibility to the development to the west of Ireland and the bal- anced development of the country as a whole.

A second motion called on the Minister for Transport, the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach to take immediate action to resolve the situ- ation in Shannon.

County Manager, Alex Fleming, emphasised the negative impact that a loss of business rates due to the Air Lingus pull out would have on the lo-

cal authority.

“Unlike most counties, this county really depends on the commercial rate base.

“Any impact on this will impact seriousely on the rate base in the county,” he said.

‘“T have invested very heavily on the assumption that things are coming together with connectivity. Our ex- pectation is that connectivity would increase, the fact that it might de- crease is a real surprise.”

Fleming also called on the council- lor to continue an approach of soli- darity and progress with a ‘simple and actionable objective’.

All 32 council members are also to spend a half-day in Shannon Airport, to show solidarity with the workers of Shannon and coincide with the visit of Air Lingus Chief Executive, Dermot Mannion later this week.

Meanwhile, Cllr Brian Meaney (GP), confirmed to the council that party leader and Minister for the Environment, John Gormly, would be travelling to Ennis on Thursday to meet with a council delegation on the subject.

North Clare Cllr, Martin Conway (FG), also told the council that he iS organising a meeting of all Fine Gael councillors in Clare, Limerick, Kerry and Tipperary to take place in Shannon later in the week and discuss a joint proposal to be put to party leader, Enda Kenny.

THE newly opened Shannon Re- cycling Centre is being hailed as an overwhelming success just two weeks after it opened to the public.

Clare County Council said it was “very pleased with the level of activ- UA Yaer: | Neocon A Kos

The facility has so far shipped out one 35m skip of clean timber each week since opening.

“The public have been very coop- erative in ensuring that the timber is clean of any glass or metal,’ a spokesperson for the council said.

As many as 24 cages of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and five boxes of used car

batteries have been filled in the two weeks of operation. “The cardboard and plastic bailing facilities are prov- ing very popular with the public with a daily production of one cardboard bale weighing half a tonne and one plastic bale weighing quarter of a tonne,’ she said.

‘Feedback from the public has been very positive.”

The majority of general queries currently being fielded by the coun- cil relate to the type of materials ac- cepted and opening hours.

Items accepted include glass bottles and jars, aluminium cans, steel or tin cans, plastic bottles, newspapers and magazines, cardboard, Tetrapak, waste oil, oil filters, batteries, metal,

textiles, waste electrical and elec- tronic equipment, and timber.

Composters are also available for purchase at the site.

Recyclable items are accepted from domestic householders only.

While the facility is closed on Sun- day and Monday it remains open from 10pm to 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, 12pm to 2pm on Thurs- day, 12 to 6pm on Friday and Yam to 3pm on Saturday. Please bring only those items listed above to the recy- cling centre.

The facility cannot accept domestic or commercial waste.

The Shannon Recycling Centre was completed at a cost of €1.2m.

At the official opening of the cen-

tre Mayor of Clare Cllr Patricia Mc- Carthy (NP) said, “Shannon Town Council and Clare County Council need to continue to support and en- courage everybody in the area to manage their waste. With the range of recyclable materials accepted at the centre it should significantly im- prove the already impressive recy- cling rates achieved by householders in the county.”