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Limerick Chamber unravels employment law

MICKEY ‘Ned’ O’Sullivan knows more about Clare and its football than most. In the °80s, Clare Football Board chairman, Gabriel Keating, invited the Kenmare man across the Shannon Estuary to conduct coaching courses in the county.

It was in the early ‘90s that the fruits of those coaching initiatives were harvested in the Gaelic Grounds when Clare beat Kerry in the Munster rete

Mickey Ned knows all about that 1992 day too. It was his last day as Kerry manager.

In °91, Mickey Ned had led Kerry in from the cold to win a first Munster title in five years — a year on his bags were packed after Clare shook up the football world. Fourteen years on, Mickey Ned smiles about it all. It’s Mickey Ned’s way.

“I know from first had experience what Clare footballers are capable of in the Munster championship,” says the 1975 All-Ireland winning cap- tain. “That was then, now I’m back for more against Clare in the Munster championship and I’m looking for- ward to it.”

Much has changed in those 17 years. Clare aren’t shaking up the world any

more, while Mickey Ned is now a Limerick man and manager when it comes to football. And, a successful Limerick manager at that.

He’s been with them for the past four years, a term of office that can be explained away as something of a re- building process for the county.

The team that Liam Kearns built came tantalisingly close to winning the county’s first provincial decider since 1896 – the challenge for Mickey Ned was to build a new team to chal- lenge to uninterrupted duopoly that Kerry and Cork have enjoyed in Mun- ster for the past 16 years.

“The way it 1s, the only way we will

be judged is on the championship,’ he said after Limerick’s shock relegation to Division 4 in April.

That meant Tipperary on May 24 in Semple Stadium in Thurles, when the Shannonsiders edged past John Evans’ side that was cock-a-hoop af- ter winning Division 3.

“T told you not to count us out,’ he said after lowering the Tipperary col- ours. Now, he looking to Clare, but taking nothing for granted.

“Championship football is cham- pionship football – it doesn’t matter the opposition. Clare will have the advantage – they have had us in their sights for six months while we had Tipp. They have the benefit of seeing our strengths and our weaknesses. OIE Tccma a0 Ml olomn (oom a elt tcd seem vs (oA Ya OE AY @ had the benefit of dissecting us and looking at us.”

O’Sullivan believes that the pain of relegation in the National Football League was the catalyst for Limer- ick’s win in Thurles.

“The lads knew that they weren’t that bad and they were determined to show what they could do,” explained O’Sullivan in reference to the league relegation.

‘“That’s part and parcel of being in- volved in football,” said the manager of the criticism after the league. You are going to get stick and you have to turn it into a positive”’.

Limerick raced from the blocks and were 1-8 to 1-1 ahead at half time with Tipperary’s goal coming in in- jury time in the first half as Limerick dominated.

Then all went wrong as the lead was down to two points entering the final quarter.

“That was an outstanding first half – perhaps we were too far ahead at half time, the intensity begins to drop. Tipperary gathered momen-

tum and that is very hard to stop. At half time the big danger is to get lads head right because we went in with a similar lead in Kilmallock in the league and within 20 minutes Tip- perary had it down so we were very conscious of that.”

The Munster final will take place on July 5. If it’s Limerick v Kerry, the venue would be the Gaelic Grounds, while a Limerick v Cork final would be in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

Of course, Clare are lying in the long grass, hoping to spoil the party.

MANAGING Director of The Pallet Network (TPN), Seamus McGowan, today welcomed Eoin Gavin Trans- port as the Clare member of Ireland’s most innovative transport network. As the newest member of TPN, Eoin Gavin Transport will provide Clare area businesses with access to a high quality, reliable, fast and flexible service with same and next day na- tionwide, UK and European delivery services. The Pallet Network (TPN) is a Wholly owned Irish company and the leading distributor of palletised goods in Ireland. TPN recently an- nounced revenues of €9.2 million for 2008, up from €7.8 million for the previous year.

Mr. McGowan said, “Our vision is to offer local hauliers like Eoin Gavin Transport an opportunity to have a service to rival multinational transport operators. Despite the cur- rent economic situation, TPN’s busi- ness model is relatively recession proof. Eoin Gavin’s addition to our

network will develop and improve freight forwarding options for busi- nesses throughout Clare.”

Eoin Gavin Transport is a family owned business and they have been involved in the haulage industry for over 30 years. Now in 2009, they have a modern fleet of trucks serv- icing sectors such as agriculture, en- vironment, waste, food and the con- struction sector. “I am very pleased to be the latest member of The Pal-

let Network,’ said Mr Gavin. “I am confident that the services I provide to local area businesses in Clare will continue to improve in quality. As a member of the Pallet Network, my customers can now be provided with this additional service, thanks to the infrastructure provided through sere

CLARE hurling is bracing itself for an exodus of leading club players from the county over the next few weeks as they avail of a mid-season break from senior championship ac- tivity to ply their hurling trade in the North American Championship.

That’s what one leading club player told

PARTEEN may have beaten Broad- ford twice in last season’s champion- ship, but they’ll remember Broadford for a very different reason this term — Glenomora Park may well have sounded the death knell of their championship hopes as they were taken apart by a rampant Whitegate team on a balmy Saturday after- noon.

Both sides needed something from this game after first round losses, but it was Whitegate who steamed to victory to finally ignite their cham- pionship challenge after a shock first round exit to Ennistymon.

It was over at half-time really as Whitegate built up a 2-9 to 0-6 lead, having slipped into an early two- point deficit after Colm Quinn and Dara Yelverton found the range for Parteen.

However, Whitegate never really looked back once they settled with points from George Waterstone and Brendan Bugler by the sev- enth minute. Then goals from Pat Minogue and George Waterstone in the ninth and 22nd minutes effective- ly killed Parteen’s challenge.

Minogue profited from clever play by Terence Fahy to score the first, while Waterstone’s was a brilliant individual effort when he slalomed past three Parteen defenders to put Whitegate on the high road.

There was more to come from Wa- terstone and company in the second half, while before the break Terence Fahy, Eric Minogue and Stephen Malone extended their lead to nine points.

By this stage Parteen had lost their most potent forward Dara Yelverton

with a hand injury, while their last point of the first half came from Ivan Conway in the 17th minute.

It got no better for Parteen in the second half as Whitegate piled on the misery, outscoring their opponents by 2-11 to 1-1 over the half hour. The

first goal came five minutes in when Waterstone again sauntered through the Parteen defence and hammered to the net.

Ivan Conway hit back with a goal for Parteen inside 30 seconds, but any hopes that this strike might kickstart

a storming comeback were quickly extinguished inside another 30 sec- onds when Terence Fahy kicked to the net from close range.

From there on it was a canter, while Parteen’s misery was completed when sub Padraig O’Doherty was

red carded.

Whitegate reeled off seven unan- swered points from Terence Fahy, Pat Minogue, Brendan Bugler (2), Michael O’Brien (2) and Raymond CFT TIE

James Long registered Parteen’s last score in the 52nd minute but before the end Whitegate moved through the gears once more to score four more points before the end.

Whitegate’s championship 1s final- ly up and running, even though they now face an 11-week hibernation.

Arrests after break-ins

HIGH noon in the intermediate ver- sion of the “Group of Death’ as Kil- lanena began the campaign in positive fashion to take an early lead in the pool. It wasn’t exactly a performance that will send the rest of the cham- pionship into a frenzy but in such a competitive group, securing victory by whatever means necessary is the most important aspect that Killanena will take from this game.

Bogged down for the first 35 min- utes of this tie, Killanena finally came to life to brush aside Sixmilebridge’s challenge, hitting seven points in the remainder as the Bridge faded under the energy sapping sun.

With both centre-backs Enda Col- lins and Stiofan Fitzpatrick domi- nating throughout, it was only when Mark Flaherty was switched from corner-forward to centre-forward that Killanena found that extra gear and that was essentially the differ- ence as the Bridge had no such tar- getman in their front six.

This was a far different Bridge team from the one that had beaten Killanena at the same stage of last year’s championship on their way to contesting the intermediate decider, with only half the side still remain- ing. Instead, the Bridge’s second string had to rely on a new crop of young players to lead the way and along with the experience of Stiofan Fitzpatrick, David O’Meara, Keith Walker, Kevin Phelan, Christy Grif- fin, Declan Murphy, Joe and Mike O’Halloran and Tommy Liddy, they certainly matched Killanena for al- most forty minutes.

The scrapiness of the game suited the Bridge better and while Killanena hit 14 wides over the hour, the Bridge just kept plugging away before their challenge eventually faded.

The opening half went blow for blow, with the sides level on five oc- casions by the 24th minute before Killanena finally found some leeway with a three point unanswered burst through Alan McNamara, Mikey Noone and Liam McNamara to lead

by 0-8 to 0-6 at the break.

Incidentally, that first half was also noted for the surprising lapse in freetaking with Mark Flaherty and Tommy Liddy’s normally unerring accuracy from placed balls suffering under the midday sun.

Killanena almost caught the Bridge napping immediately after the re- start when Ronan Flaherty raided down the left flank before handpass- ing to Liam McNamara but his shot for goal to thunder off the crossbar to frustrate Killanena further. Two more wides followed for the north Clare side and the Bridge took ad- vantage of that lapse to level up the game for the sixth time by the 35th minute through Tommy Liddy and a great score from Ronan Mullane.

That was to be their last real say in the game as they opted to go for goals when picking off points would have been much more beneficial and once Killanena switched county sen- ior Flaherty out to the forty, they be- gan to regain control. Two Flaherty frees and an Alan McNamara point

in a four minute spell began the surge and while Liddy again con- verted a free in the 43rd to put just two between the sides, it was to be their final score of the game.

Instead, Killanena piled on the pressure and while the wides contin- ued to hamper them, their constant shooting eventually yielded further points from Fintan McNamara, Mark Flaherty and a superb long range ef- fort from Enda Collins to give them a five point cushion.

Sixmilebridge should have grabbed a lifeline when Declan Murphy picked out Joe O’ Halloran unmarked at the back post with five minutes remaining but the corner-forward struck his shot into the ground and Killanena cleared the danger, finally cementing the win with a Liam Mc- Namara 64th minute point.

Not only was it a great start to the championship for Killanena but as the sides were due to play in the Clare Cup this weekend, the game also doubled up as a league and championship game, with the victory

putting Killanena on top of both ta- bles.

SERIOUS questions have been raised over plans by Doolin couple, John and Helen Browne to develop a vistor centre at the Pol an I[on- ain cave which contains one of the world’s largest free hanging stalac- tites.

This follows an appeal to An Bord Pleanala from An Taisce, the Pol an Jonain Action Group and the owners of the rival Ailwee Cave over Clare County Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the visitor centre at Pol an Jonain.

In his appeal, An Taisce’s Herit-

age Officer, Ian Lumley said that the applicants have failed to justify the development and the council did not evaluate the application in an inte- grated manner by properly evaluat- ing cumulative impact.

‘Even if the water pollution issues were deemed to be resolved, there is a multiplicity of impacts including traffic generation and physical and visual impact of the proposed struc- tures and parking area.

“The fundamental difficulty of this application is that it completely un- dermines the entire basis on which the previous permission was granted which is that there would be no direct

visitor access of facilities to the site, the visitors being directed through a mini bus service via Doolin.

Mr Lumley states that the appli- cants failed to demonstrate that the park ‘n’ ride from Doolin was not workable.

In its appeal, the Pol an Ionain Action Group asks how could the planning authority which rejected a proposal on four very strong points of planning regulation in 2008 now grant full permission for a similar proposal one year later?”’

“We appeal to Bord Pleanala to try and understand the element of injustice we have had to endure as

participants in the planning proc- ess. While we regard the granting of permission in 2005 as a tragedy, we recognise the conditions laid down by Bord Pleanala limited impacts.”

The action group ask that the ap- peals board uphold the appeal and that all the reasons for refusal of permission in 2008 be upheld; all of our points of our objection to the council are soundly reasoned based on planning regulation and prec- edent and that An Bord Pleanala should uphold its own conditions of permission granted in 2005.

A decision on the appeal is expect- ed later this year.

A POLISH man accused of punching another man in the face has had the charge dismissed after his legal team argued there was an issue with iden- WUAYAU Item OslomeL UU Toy U LE

Polish native Cezary Pachucy (27), of Bri na Sionna, Shannon, was accused of assaulting Cristian Du- mitrescu, in Shannon last year.

Mr Dumitrescu told Ennis District Court that he was walking towards his apartment in Shannon at 9.40pm on April 20, 2008. He said he saw two men and they were “zig zagging. I didn’t know if they were drunk or having fun. Their behaviour looked suspicious to me.”

‘“T couldn’t avoid them really. It was too late. One of them, who was a tall guy, he basically threw his fist into

my nose without any reason. He also said a bad word,” he said.

He said he was afraid that he would be further assaulted and continued on to his apartment, before reporting the matter at Shannon Garda Station. He said that he was brought by gardai to the town centre and he spotted the two men in Supermac’s. “I indicated to gardai these were the guys. Only one of them assaulted me,’ he said.

However defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said that her client denies hitting Mr Dumitrescu. She said the complainant took part in an “infor- mal identity parade” and never point- ed out the defendant to gardai.

He replied, “I pointed out exactly to the guy who hit me.”

Garda Gary Farrell told the court that Mr Dumitrescu had a red mark on his face when he arrived at the

garda station that evening. “I decided to take Cristian with me to find these males and identify them,” he said.

Ms Godfrey told the court that the garda had no notes in his notebook of the accused being pointed out by the complainant. She said there was a doubt in the case. “We are not say- ing this man wasn’t attacked. We are saying my client didn’t attack him,” she said.

Judge Joseph Mangan said the court has to be extremely cautious. “That is one of the cornerstones of crimi- nal law. There have been, in the past, extraordinary miscarriages of justice in relation to mis-identification. The evidence is too vague to identify the defendant positively,’ he said.

He said he was left with a doubt, “not the strongest doubt I’ve ever had, but I have to dismiss.”