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FORMER customers of Smart Tel- ecom in Clare, who are owed money by the telecommunications company, can expect to be reimbursed in the coming weeks.

Around 1,500 people nationwide are owed money almost nine months after they moved to other providers after Smart’s widely publicised row with Eircom late in 2006. There is no exact figure for the number of people owed money in Clare.

Last October,

Eircom ceased

providing whole-

sale services to

Smart Telecom

NACo MLS) DOLCE SC eLO!

that the company owed eircom sever- al million euro. Almost 45,000 cus- tomer voice lines were cut off leav- ing the majority of Smart customers unable to make outgoing calls except those to emergency numbers.

It was reported at the time that Smart owed Eircom €4m including arrears of €1.7m. Shortly afterwards, the then Communications Minister Noel Dempsey intervened, calling on Eircom to reconnect a full telephone service to Smart customers.

In a statement, the company said

that less than 1,500 customers are due refunds of up to €20 each. Re- payments have already commenced and are expected to be completed within the coming weeks. A small number of customers will receive monies over and above their entitle- ment where excess credits were at- tached to their bills last October.” Last month, Smart announced the appointment of Paul Talbot as its new Chief F*1- nancial Officer completing its new manage- ment team. The appointment of a CFO completes eComp an MU CCHRUDM DOTS of Smart ‘Tele- com which com- menced last au- tumn and which has seen numbers employed by the company reduced from 380 to 95. The company statement added, “Smart Telecom is now focused on data, broadband and Voice over In- ternet Protocol (VoIP) services to the Corporate, SME and Residential sec- tors. The company has indicated that it is part of a bidding consortium in a public tender to provide broadband services in areas that have been un- economic to date. If successful, this would see Smart roll out its services over an extended footprint”.

WOMEN across Clare are being encouraged to attend an awareness evening, organised by “Take Thirty Women Fitness Centre’ on the issue of heart disease.

The event will take place at the “Take Thirty Women Fitness Centre, located above Liam Cleary Car Sales, Kilrush Road, Ennis, at 7.30pm on Thursday July 19.

The aim of the event is to raise awareness and _ provide an under- standing of the problems associated with heart disease.

Several health professionals will be on hand to explain how simple pre- ventative measures can help reduce

the risk of heart disease.

According to the Irish Heart Foun- dation, approximately 10,000 people die each year from cardiovascular disease (CVD), including coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and other circulatory diseases. CVD is the most common cause of death in Ireland, accounting for 36 per cent of all deaths.

The largest number of these deaths relate to CHD, mainly in the form of heart attacks. 22 per cent of prema- ture deaths (under age 65) are from CVD.

“Take Thirty’ manager Celina Kil- leen said the purpose of this aware- ness evening is to encourage people to lead a more active lifestyle.

She said “The main aim of the evening is to try to get people to be nee) Kemr-LOLB Aon

“We want to show that by lead- ing a more healthy lifestyle you can combat and reduce the risk posed by heart disease”.

Celina’s own interest in the subject was fuelled by the death of a fam- ily member from heart related prob- snake

“It was all sparked off when a member of my own family died. I had been involved in health and fit- ness for most of my life and yet was surprised to see the stats about how many people are affected and the amount of problems it causes”

Attendees at the awareness evening

will have the opportunity to have their blood pressure checked and find out their body mass index, body fat per cent, and hydration levels.

Ennis based chiropractor Dr. Heather Thompstone will address is- sues relating to heart disease, while Jim Fives of the Irish Heart Founda- tion will give an overview of his or- ganisation’s work.

Members of the Health Services Executive will offer advice on how people can make their lifestyle a healthier one.

Celina added, ““We want to encour- age people to be more active. All it takes is 30 minutes exercise a day, so you see it doesn’t take that much ef- fort to prolong your lifespan”.

SATURDAY proved that the Gods must be smiling down on Tony Con- sidine at the moment.

After seeing his Clare team top their qualifying group, narrowly beating favourites Galway along the way, Considine even avoided the re- lentless downpour which marred the Opening stages of the Laois game on Saturday after being barred to the stand after what he admitted himself was “an altercation in the Antrim game’ and instead had the luxury of watching his other mentors feel the brunt of the apocalyptic attack. And it was this severe deluge which he attributed to Clare’s inconsistent performance after the Laois match on Saturday.

“It was a desperate game really but the conditions were absolutely brutal. I suppose it was a day for lifeguards really, it wasn’t a day for hurling. It was like a day at the beach or some- thing. I’m glad I wasn’t on the field today because I kept dry but the hur- leys were twisting in the guys’ hands when hitting the ball. I know we missed a lot of frees and we missed them last week as well and that is a major concern but I suppose at least we were getting shots in. Basically, we wouldn’t beat anyone like that. Let’s be honest, it was a poor game.”

Considine and his fellow selectors have had to endure some serious se- lection headaches in recent weeks due to a mounting injury list and again on Saturday, Clare were required to make two further alterations to the starting line-up due to injuries to Kevin Dilleen and Gerry Quinn sus- tained in the Galway game.

“It’s a major concern about Kevin, a major concern about Bernard Gaff-

ney. Conor Plunkett had an injury and Fergal Lynch had an injury so you don’t like fellas getting injured coming into the championship. If you have to have injuries, I suppose you would prefer them early on in the year but we tend to be getting them now so hopefully things will improve but I would definitely rule Gerry Quinn out at this stage, I don’t think there is any hope.”

So now that Clare have topped the eroup to qualify for a quarter-final place against neighbours Limerick, surely he feels that Clare are finally where he wanted them to be at this stage of the season?

“I didn’t want to come this route | can tell you, I wanted to go the other route but we are now in the quarter- final and I suppose that’s where we wanted to be but look, we are com- plete outsiders. You would have to say that today with a performance like that. You know, there are eight teams left in it now and we are prob- ably the outsiders of the eight at the moment but we will have to improve an awful, awful lot on the perform- ance of today. Everyone was saying that last Saturday was a bad enough game as well and maybe the 1m- provement will come in a week or two, I don’t know.”

It is debatable whether drawing neighbours Limerick in the quarter- final was the most desirable option but regardless of that fact, Clare can have no better assessor of Limer- ick hurling than the Cratloeman in preparation for that match as Consi- dine spent two years as manager of Limerick side Garryspillane, guid- ing them to a senior final in his first year in 2004 before clinching the club’s first ever senior championship in 2005.

“T had a couple of great years in Limerick hurling and I suppose they are like ourselves, they are trying to make the breakthrough as well. Lim- erick have been the team of the year in the Munster championship so far really. They have played very well, they had three terrific games with Tipperary and they went down then and played Waterford and I don’t think they were a nine point worse team than Waterford. No way at all. I suppose only in the last five or six minutes that Waterford just got a few goals and Limerick lost their way a bit. But Limerick are a really good team and at the moment, you would have to say that Limerick are com- plete favourites to win.”

An additional intriguing ingredient to the mix is that Considine could well have been on the opposition bench on July 29 as he was offered the role as Limerick manager last October and only after a failure to agree final terms with the county board, Consi- dine was offered the Clare manager’s position in an attempt to guide Clare in a new direction.

“We won’t talk about that now,’ he said. “Everybody knows about that but look, there is a good man- agement team in Limerick now. Fair play to them, they have done a good job this year and it will be a great occasion when Clare and Limerick meet. It’s always a great occasion. As I said at the Galway game last week, there will be houses divided. I should know, I even have family divided for the Limerick game.”

Let the real games begin.

THE roll out of the Breastcheck serv- ice to Clare is imminent, according to organisers, but a date has not yet leroy eM-DeneLOleNeTesrem

The national breast-screening pro- eramme has been available to wom- en in the east of the country for a number of years and plays a key role in early identification of cancer.

There are 30 new cases of breast cancer in Clare every year, and 13 deaths according to the most recent figures available for breast cancer

patients in Clare in 2002. Early de- tection is vital for the successful treatment of this cancer.

A spokesperson for the Breastcheck service would only confirm that the service would be available to women in Clare “later in the year” through a screening unit in Galway or mobile USD RSE

Initially the programme will sys- tematically screen women aged be- tween 50 and 65 years, eventually being expanded to women aged 70. Women will be screened on a two- year basis.

MOTORBIKE enthusiasts in En- nis are on the road again aiming to break records and at the same time highlight the important work of the Simply Said project.

A group that previously re-stored a vintage motorbike as part of project to highlight adult education programmes in the county are now setting their sights on another chal- lenge.

This time the plan is to restore an- other motorbike from scratch and then race the finished article around Mondello International motor racing circuit.

Its all to do with the Simply Said

– a collection of writings produced annually by students attending Clare Adult Basic Education Service (CABES).

An active member of adult educa- tion programmes in Clare, Jacko McMahon wants to restore the mo- torbike in time to mark next year’s 20th anniversary of Simply Said.

The first stage of that process be- gins in Ennis this month with the launch of a four-team soccer tourna- ment involving teams from around the town.

The teams captained by local men Tommy Leahy, Jim McMahon, Ed- die Walsh and Basil Whelan will play-off against each other for the Paddy Coughlan trophy.

Money raised from the event will go towards the purchase of parts for the motorbike restoration project.

Community and voluntary bod- ies such as Clare VEC, Clare Youth Service and the Congress Informa- tion Opportunity Centre all co-oper- ated on previous restoration projects.

A previous contributor to Simply Said Jacko wanted to mark the 20th anniversary of the project.

He also hopes to enlist the help of people like Jimmy Meere, Engi- neering Instructor with Clare Youth Service Terry Considine, Adult Edu- cation Organiser with Clare VEC Dr Sean Connellan, who donated time and effort to previous projects.

Jacko said, “It was an opportu-

nity not be missed. Simply Said is a great project and I hope to be able do something to mark the 20th an- niversary ’.

The 19th edition of Simply Said was recently launched by Bishop Wille Walsh and featured contributions from over 100 students. CABES pro- vides one to one voluntary tuition to adult learners to improve their read- ing and writing skills. Over 1,000 people avail of the service in Clare each year.

Mr Hession also said that the radiol- ogy staff in Limerick has agreed to take on extra work, when Clare wom- en are referred there from September ‘‘on the promise from the HSE that all this is going to get sorted out in terms of we get a proper breast centre”.

Mr Hession said that there would be no preferential treatment for women from Limerick and any woman pre- sented with a lump will be seen with- ht Wiere) ©

Meanwhile he is supporting Lim- erick as a centre of excellence. Mr Hession fears that there are a lot of misunderstandings about the service.

“Radiology is the diagnosis of breast cancer or the exclusion of breast can- cer after that our job is essentially done. The treatment is basically on- cology, surgery, radiotherapy,” he said.

He said that there are two differ- ent types of screening. The screen- ing breast service is the Breastcheck service, which has yet to be rolled out in the west offering mammograms to women in a certain age category.

“Tt is like going to the dentist with no symptoms,” said Mr Hession.

“What we are dealing with is sys- tematic breast disease. It is basically a woman either in between her invi- tations to Breastcheck or before she would even be asked, she developed symptoms be it pain or a lump or something like that. It is that group of patients that would be referred to the systematic breast service,’ he said.

Approximately 3,000 women a year go through the radiology department in Limerick, while 500 to 600 were receiving mammograms in Ennis every year.

Breastcheck will reduce both of

these numbers significantly accord- ing to Mr Hession.

“There is a significant waiting list for mammograms here as people are requesting screening mammograms, which GPs have a right to ask for. Un- fortunately we don’t have the slack in the system that we can facilitate them in the time scale they would want,’ he said.

‘“T am not speaking on behalf of the HSE, I am the person in charge of administration with the department of radiology and the advice we have been given is to make a systematic service work, a radiologist needs to be reading a thousand mammograms

a year. The technician doing them should be doing at least 20 a week.”

“The purpose of that is that these people get very experienced at what they are doing and very good at what they are doing. It also allows for the policing of results. So if a tumour is missed or it is a delayed diagnosis, it is all centralised and it is all open to analysis as to what happened and why did it happen. It 1s to put everything in one area, to pool the expertise, not just radiologists and breast surgeons. You are meant to have more than one surgeon as well, a pathologist, the doctor who looks at a specimen un- der a slide.

“The triple assessment clinic is Where a lot of women with lumps should go so they can be seen by a surgeon that day. That surgeon will refer them for imaging, which will be a mammogram or ultra sound, that depends on the woman. Cytolo- gist would be taken at that stage,” he said.

“The unit at Limerick 1s not a dig- ital system but the next system we hope to put in would be digital,” said Mr Hession.

“Technically it is very exact and it is policed and certainly no one is shy in breast screen washing laundry.”

“Unfortunately not all cancers are detectable. A mammography is not a clean bill of health,’ he said. “And they should not be taken as that. Cer- tainly if a woman has a mammogram and still feels a lump, and it is not rare, that still needs to be pursued. It does not mean it 1s missed, it just means it 1s invisible. Mammograms extenuates certain characteristics in a tumour but if that tumour does not have it or that lump does not have it, it is invisible.

“The real thrust of it is you are go- ing to a service that is designed by international best practice to deliver that service. It is not that we will have a little bit out in Nenagh and a little bit in Ennis. It 1s inconvenient, we were aware that it is less than conven- lent,’ he said.

THE CONSTRUCTION Industry Federation (CIF) has rubbished re- ports of a major collapse 1n the build- ing sector, claiming that the current downturn is part of a natural cycli- cal pattern and will correct itself shortly.

CIF Secretary for the Mid-West Region, Conor O’Connell, said yes- terday that even though he did expect redundancies following the builders’ holiday, the figures had been blown out of proportion.

‘There is no doubt about it, all the anecdotal evidence suggests that there will be some lay offs around the holidays, but if you look at the figures there has always been a cycli- cal pattern,” he said.

“The run up to the builders holi- days has always been a time when contractors review their staffing lev- els, that has been the case year in and year out.

“So it is very hard to know until af- ter it happens what will take place on the ground. It’s very hard to predict how long a down cycle will take to

run its course, and I’m not sure that we will even see the downturn that a lot of people are predicting.

‘There is an awful lot of scaremon- gering going on at the moment and people are being scared off from making that first purchase. I’d nearly bet my bottom dollar that come next spring there will be a turnaround in the market again.”

While the CIF predict a downturn, the organisation believes that work- ers will simply transfer to the com- mercial sector.

“The outlook for the industry is

still very good. It has boomed over the years and this talk of a big down- turn and a lot of people getting laid off is a bit too dramatic. It is a cycli- cal market and always will be.

‘That said, we do expect to see a significant amount of workers to transfer from house building sec- tor to the general contracting sector. This country is still playing catch about on the services and infrastruc- ture being built up. For example, the provision of a wastewater and sew- age infrastructure,’ Mr O’Connell concluded.

A NEW group is being formed to fight to retain a mammography service in Clare.

Following a meeting called by the Ennis General Hospital Development Committee, more than 20 people signed up to be part of a committee that will organise a campaign to have the county’s only mammography unit reopened.

The group will seek a new digital mammography unit at the Ennis hos- pital. It is proposed that the results can then be read from Limerick reduc- ing the travelling time for women and maintaining a vital health service in the

county. Chairperson of the Ennis Gen- eral Hospital Committee Peadar Mc- Namara said, “It has to be pointed out that the power rests with the two Fianna Fail deputies in Clare.

“This is an example of the whittling away of our health services.”

He said Limerick was over stretched at the moment and and stated con- cerned about the waiting time for Clare women.

“We had a service in Clare. We had a new room build for it and the day it was ready to open, the service was discon- tinued,’ he said.

The first mammography unit was opened in the 1980s following a fund- raising campaign by local women.

yesterday that the

worst could still be ahead for the in- dustry.

With building contractors plan-

ning projects two years in advance,

he believes that a real collapse in the

industry could take place in Octo- ber 2008 unless corrective action is Cote

“The problem goes back to last Oc- tober and the stamp duty. McDowell opened up a big debate and people began to realise it 1s an unjust tax,” said Mr O’Reilly.

‘He took the genie out of the bot- tle. The situation has been resolved for first time buyers but not for the rest of the market and there has been stagnation in the market for the last nine months.

“Builders plan two year in advance

and how could they think about start- ing projects with the uncertainty in the market from last October. It has been a soft landing so far, prices haven’t dropped too much except in the higher end but there is a ticking time bomb there for October 2008 if the stamp duty situation is not sorted out quickly.”

Meanwhile, Ulster Banks chief economist, Pat McArdle, has pre- dicted that 30,000 jobs will go in the construction industry nationwide be- fore the end of 2009. If this proves to be the case, between 1200 and

1500 Clare builders will be forced to leave the industry over the next 2 to 3 years.

Speaking at an economic briefing last Friday, McArdle also predicted that the unemployment rate would erow to more than 5 per cent before the end of 2008.

However, McArdle also predicted that the Irish economy would con- tinue to grow over the next two years and that European Central Bank (ECB) would only increase interest rates once more in the foreseeable JULRU Ken

A POLICY to charge schools and community groups for water on a metered basis has drawn criticism from councillors.

Clare County Council are replac- ing the fixed water charge currently in place with a new metered system based on the volume of water usage. Domestic houses are excluded from the scheme.

Senior Executive Engineer, Wal-

ter Walshe, told last night’s monthly meeting of Clare County Council that water consumers would be charged a basic fixed water charge and a vol- ume charge where applicable.

He said the council would adopt a “reasonable attitude’ when it came to collecting outstanding charges. Mr Walshe added that many schools in the county had already started to ENA

Mayor of Clare Patricia McCarthy (Ind) also queried the implications

for local authority employees result- ing from Clare County Council’s ex- pansion of the contract to Treatment Systems Ltd, which includes admin- istration as well as fitting water sys- 3 00te

Independent councillor Gerry Flynn suggested that schools and community groups be charged de- pending on the level of water usage and welcomed the non-metering of domestic houses.

Fianna Fail councillor Pat Hayes

said, “In no uncertain terms can this council be seen to be supportive of the charging of schools and volun- tary groups for water.”

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) expressed concern about the involvement of private companies in the provision of essential service.

“Certainly if you look at the expe- riences of countries like France and England where this has happened, quite frequently it has been appall- That