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THE HEALTH Service Executive is preparing to announce that accident and emergency departments at three hospitals in the mid west are to close and be replaced with “nurse lead mi- nor injuries units.”

According to sources, the depart- ments at Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s voluntary hospital in Limerick City will be named as the three casualties of the Teamwork report, a review of accident and emergency departments nationwide by the British-based con- sultants. The announcement is ex- pected in the next three weeks.

The news comes just two months

after a document leaked to the media revealed that accident and emergen- cy departments in the north east of the country are also set to close.

The Teamwork report will recom- mend that accident and emergency services at Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s be moved to the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick. The facilities will instead be replaced by “nurse lead minor injury units.” It is not clear, however, whether these new units will be open on a 24-hour basis.

Clare Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen, has called on the Government “to shred this report, live up to their election commitments or lives will be lost.”

Deputy Breen said, “If these reports are true, then Ennis hospital will ef- fectively become a 12-hour nurse-led injury clinic. Whilst acknowledging the outstanding role that nurses play in the hospital and the care and atten- tion given by them to their patients, the failure to provide 24-hour con- sultant-led accident and emergency will mean that lives will be lost”.

“Of course, it 1s no coincidence that the Dail is in recess when this report is set to be published.”

Meanwhile, the PRO of the Ennis General Hospital Development Com- mittee Councillor Brian Meaney said, “They are suggesting putting in an injuries unit and they should do

but it should operate in tandem with the existing 24 hour accident and emergency department which is al- ready stretched…

“We will fight this and if means marching on the Dail we will but we also have a number of imaginative civil disobedience protests we could mount,’ Mr Meaney said.

“If they think the HSE can intro- duce this policy unilaterally, without consulting politicians, like they did with the mammography unit in En- nis earlier this month, they will have to deal with a different reality in due course,” the councillor added.

A comment was still awaited from the HSE last night.

KILBAHA is a small west Clare vil- lage that is proud of its history and traditions.

The tight-knit community has now made that unique history avail- able to tourists and visitors with two projects that bring the past to life and celebrates the creativity of the areas many artists.

Looking out on to the Atlantic is the newly completed Garden of Re- membrance and the year old Five Pi- lot Memorial.

The projects are the brainchild of the Kilballyowen Development Company and the work of the Rural Resourse Development Scheme.

Local men Eddie Fennell, John O’ Dwyer, Gerard Collins and Pead- ar Keniry are proud of the stonework that will ensure the two projects live

on for generations to come.

The beautiful stonewalls are built from local stone, with limestone flags underfoot.

The top of the wall is encrusted with beach stones giving the struc- ture a rope like effect.

The men’s stonework skills were also used to create a water feature in the shape of a milk churn at the front of the garden, and an open fireplace at the back.

A bog oak tree from Tulagher Bog makes up the centre of the bronze Diarmuid and Grainne sculpture.

The piece representing the two lov- ers whose story is part of the Loop- head folklore was designed and cre- ated by father and son team, Jim and Seamus Connolly.

Along the right hand wall, that has been created to look like a scroll, is the wroth ironwork of local man and

former teacher Paddy Murray.

The ironwork is made up of eight pieces reflecting seven moments in history for the peninsula.

Not surprising the Little Arc Church makes up part of the sequence under the title of “Religion”.

“Fishing” features artic explorer Captain Michael Brennan, while “music” features the late John Kelly and the Clare Set.

Two of the scenes depict traditional farming methods, with the scene on the “Irish language” featuring por- traits of Seamus O’Dea and Eugene O’Curry.

“Emigration” tells its own stark sto- ry aS women on the shore wave good bye to their sons and daughters.

It is his final scene entitled “Sport” that begins to tell a lot of the penin- sula’s hidden history. Depicted in the iron is Peter Foley who was a record

holding weight thrower from 1889.

Yet to be added to the garden are two pieces by Michael McTigue, re- flecting the history of the “yellow men” who perished in a shipwreck approximately 150 years ago and all who lost their lives at sea.

The second pieces is “the flame of freedom” remembering all of those involved in the Irish move towards Independence.

The Sides family, who have a hol1- day home nearby, donated the piece of land on which the garden was een ne

IT seems that the European Om- budsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, is going to have to brush up on all things Irish, as it was revealed last week that at least three of the Irish Farming Organisation have lodged official complaints with his office.

The ICMSA and Farmers for Fair- ness in Europe (FFE), lodged a join complaint with Ombudsman, target- ing both the European Commission and the Council of the European Union on grounds of maladministra- tion by failing to ban Brazilian beef imports.

The complaint, which was drawn up in ICMSA Head Office, centres on what ICMSA President, Jackie

Cahill, has described as ‘the incon- trovertible evidence’ that the failure to ban beef imports from Brazil is in breach of EC law.

“We think we have identified the Commission’s vulnerable spot on this issue, which infuriates us all. The European Ombudsman func- tions in a similar way to the ombuds- men in member states – he must now undertake a full investigation of all the trails and reports drawn up by the Commission — including any that are as yet unpublished. He must then present his report with recommenda- tions to the European Parliament.

“The complaint is to be issued in the name of FFE and the presidents of the 12 associated farm organisa- tions and according to Mr. Cahill the

‘wriggle-room’ that the Commission have been using on the issue of Bra- Zilian beef will be severely circum- scribed by the formal complaint.”

The formal complaint is of the na- ture of a double-whammy in that the ICMSA/FFE complaint will also argue that the maladministration on the question of Brazilian imports coupled with the onerous regulations imposed on native European beef farmers amounts to an infringement of the rights of those farmers as Eu- ropean citizens as established and guaranteed by the European Court of Justice under the Treaty that estab- lished the European Community.

As a part of the FFE, the ICSA has also echoed the dissatisfaction of the ICMSA with the situation surround-

ing Brazilian beef.

“The Commission is failing in its legal duty to EU citizens by continu- ing to allow beef imports from Bra- Zil,’ said ICSA president Malcolm Thompson.

“The combined efforts of the or- ganisations in FFE are targeted at forcing the Commission to act on the clear veterinary evidence and other information collected by the Food and Veterinary Office of the European Union arising from nu- merous official missions undertaken by that office. In addition, FFE is confident that the Ombudsman will have to factor-in to his deliberations the complete ban on Brazilian beef imports operated by both the US and Australia.”

UP TO 190,000 bednights and 25,000 car rental days will be lost as a result of Open Skies and there will be 40,000 fewer US visitors to the Shannon region, a startling new industry report has predicted.

The report, featured on the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) website, 1s based on flight figures and current information from tourism industry players, many of whom are moving their interests to Dublin Airport.

Based on recorded visitor behav- 1our, an increase in the number of

US visitors flying into Dublin won’t make up for the Shannon losses as Americans who fly in through Shan- non stay longer, spend more time outside Dublin and are more likely to hire a car to get around.

Shannon will see a reduction from 59 flights per week in each direction last winter to 34 for the coming win- ter – a 40 per cent decrease in maxi- mum available seat capacity.

‘The net impact of a possible shift of between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of US holiday traffic from Shannon to Dublin in the short term, without any appreciable increase in overall capacity on direct routes to Ireland

in 2008, could see an estimated net loss of between 150,000 and 190,000 bednights in the country, a reduction of up to 25,000 car rental days and at least 25,000 fewer Americans visit- ing in Cork/Kerry and up to 40,000 fewer Americans visiting the Shan- non region. The Galway west region could see at least a drop of 15,000 US holiday visitors’, the report states. The ITIC study predicts a “redistri- bution of mobile services – car rental fleets and coaches from Shannon to Dublin, with added congestion issues in Dublin together with higher oper- ating costs for most”

“These changes have potentially

very significant implications for the tourism industry, particularly busi- nesses based in the west’, it states.

ITIC is calling “as a matter of ur- gency” for the implementation of “a tourism and economic plan for the region, to include funds for the promotion of the west of Ireland in the US market so as to overcome the short-term impacts of open skies.”

It also argues that a special budget allocation to Tourism Ireland for each of three years (2008-2010) should be directed at heightening the motiva- tion to visit the western seaboard and to at least sustain the level of services to Shannon Airport.

THE Miltown Malbay E-town is on course despite the bad weather af- fecting building projects across the county.

That’s according to Shannon De- velopment E-Town Project Leader Paul Ryan, who said that the project is On course for opening in October.

The Miltown Malbay E-town will give a “turn key” working and living space for families and single people wishing to avoid the rat race and set

up business in the west Clare town.

The 12-unit E-town is expected to attract micro business to the area and cluster them so that they in turn could grow from each other and pro- aCe ComAUUUM sloiumoreel O)Cenranetounle

Miltown Malbay has a hard work- ing community and a history of in- dustry, which made it attractive for this project.

The population of the town is about 1,000 people with another 3,000 in the area.

In partnership with the local au-

thorities, local communities and the Ibrickane network Shannon Devel- Opment is pioneering this new rural town renewal initiative, a €4 million investment by the development com- Orv aNYA

Among the many attraction likely to entice people to the west Clare town and its e-town are the nine pri- mary schools and secondary school in the area.

It also has a vibrant community, surfing, golf, drama, Irish music classes, créche facilities, 15 bars, and

a dozen restaurants within a couple of miles, and the sea.

It is just 30 minutes from Ennis and less than an hour from Shannon In- KoouirleCeyer Diane Oe) um

The primary aim of the pioneering approach of the e-town is to enable people to achieve a live/work bal- ance in tailor-made accommodation, create clusters of businesses and bring new economic activity back into local communities.

IT WAS a tale of two teams, two managements too.

Clare players and the backroom of Paidi O Sé, Vincent O’Connor and Kieran Kelleher made a hasty retreat to the dressing room. They wanted out of Cusack Park after the end of what has been a very disappointing year for Clare football.

Apart from the early National League wins over Carlow and Lei- trim, it was a harrowing year, poll- forked by some very disappinting displays.

Take your pick: Monaghan in Cu- sack Park, Roscommon in Hyde Park and worst of all Waterford in Fraher Field. Throw in this Tommy Mur- phy Cup semi-final before a couple of hundred, hence the rush for the dressing room.

Antrim were in no hurry. Play- ers gathered at midfield — first they warmed down, then manager Enda Gormley talked about the road to Croke Park.

Antrim are on that Dublin road and this was a big win, went Gormley’s line as his side exacted some revenge for their defeat to Clare in an All-Ire- land qualifier in Casement Park last year.

Then Gormley broke away to field questions and talked about the importance of this victory for the development of Antrim football. “Certainly at half-time we had a lot of work to do,” admitted the former Tyrone star.

“Clare definitely had the lions share of possession in the first half when

we got caught too deep at times. But in the second half our defence did very well and coped with what Clare could throw at us. We broke well from defence and set up some great attacks.

“A big this for us was midfield in the second half. Joe Quinn put on a great display in the middle of the park and fielded eight or nine ereat balls. That gave us a platform. We were putting good ball into the spaces and forwards ran on to it very well,” he added.

And, no forward impressed more than Conor McGourty who finished with a personal tally of 1-5. Gormley wasn’t surprised. “Conor McGourty is an outstanding talent and we knew that this performance was in him. He’s just one of a number of out- standing players in this team.

“We take a lot of heart from this result and are looking forward to the final. It’s great for these lads. It’s a long time since these footballers played a game in Croke Park. Many people have made little of the Tommy Murphy Cup but for this team and its development it’s very important.

“It’s a big stepping stone — we’ve said that we’re using this year’s Tom- my Murphy Cup to build for next year’s National League campaign. The fellas have responded really well and we’re looking forward to our day out in Croker.”

Clare, meanwhile, look towards a very uncertain future.

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.