Month: June 2007

THE circumstances surrounding the death of a north Clare man were recalled at an inquest last week, ex- actly one year after the fatal accident which claimed his life.

Michael Nagle (59), a stonema- son, from Caherbarnagh, Liscannor, died in a single-vehicle accident, in Kilshanny, on May 29, 2006.

Ennis Coroner’s Court heard last Wednesday that Rita Flaherty worked

in Tully’s bookmakers in Ennistymon on the afternoon in question. She said that Michael Nagle went in and out of the premises a number of times. He seemed to get “very drunk, very quickly” around teatime.

Another man, Michael Murphy, recalled meeting Mr Nagle in a pub in Ennistymon that evening. He said he asked him did he have his car and Mr Nagle replied, “That’s too much information you are looking for.” He said Mr Nagle drank a can of

Heineken and left the pub.

Andrea Guerrer recalled seeing Mr Nagle outside the Holywell res- taurant in Ennistymon, shortly af- ter 8pm. She said he appeared to be fumbling in his pockets and looking at his hands. She was the last person to see him alive.

Daragh Considine said he was driv- ing near the former ESB shop in En- nistymon that evening. A car pulled out in front of him and “was all sides of the road.” He said there was steam

coming out of the car.

“Just before he crashed, he was on the wrong side of the road… The car flipped,” he said.

He said the accident happened at around 8.40pm near the pub in Kilshanny.

Garda Louise Casey attended the scene of the accident. She saw a car on its roof and a man was being put into an ambulance. He was bleed- ing and had severe head injuries, she said. He died in hospital at 9.45pm,

as aresult of his injuries.

Pathologist Dr James O’ Driscoll carried out a post mortem on Mr Na- gle’s body. He noted that death was due to cardiac respiratory failure, as- sociated with an extensive fracture of the skull.

A verdict of accidental death was reached by the jury. Coroner Isobel O’Dea sympathised with the Nagle family and said, “I am conscious of the fact it is just a year and a day since the accident.”

LAHINCH residents are fearful that the resort will become like the Costa Del Sol with large scale monolithic apartment blocks running along the beach front.

Lahinch Community Council is backing local objections against a five-storey apartment block planned for Lahinch promenade.

Developer Seamus Carroll is seek- ing to build a €3 million complex that involves the existing McDon- alds amusement arcade. He wants to construct a five-storey building, including 20 apartments, 18 duplex units and six ground floor retail units overlooking Lahinch promenade.

In its objection, Lahinch Commu- nity Council state, “The erection of thirty six residential apartments and six retail units in a dense develop- ment will place an intolerable bur- den upon the sewerage facilities in Lahinch which are already a source of grave concern. I would draw your attention to the fact that on a constant basis on the Main Street and Kettle Street, Lahinch, the smell of raw sewerage is a constant problem.

The objection adds, “Lahinch is a renowned tourist location and is a place of outstanding scenic beauty. Over the last number of years, Clare County Council has granted plan-

ning permission to a number of large developments which have not been adequately maintained and have de- tracted from the beauty and heritage of the surrounding area.”

The community council adds, “The creation of six retail outlets at the proposed development will cause a significant increase in traffic for which inadequate consideration has been given in the developers applica- tion.

“The construction of a development with the capacity to house 36 resi- dential apartments together with six retail outlets and parking facilities 1s, given its scale, size and bulk, entirely inappropriate for the promenade.

“The number of apartments and retail outlets to be built on the site raises serious concerns regarding the density of the development given the limited size and location of the site upon which the development is to be constructed.

Even the family who sold the site to Mr Carroll have expressed concerns about the proposal to the council.

In a submission to the planning authority, Eric, Mary and Isobel Mc- Donald stated, “The upper floors of the development have been reconfig- ured as such that there will be sub- stantial overlooking of my clients’ private apartment at the first floor of their property.”

PHILIP O’Reilly Property Plus has just taken on the sale of a develop- ment site with full planning permis- sion in the heart of Ruan, which they say will “truly change the shape of the village”.

The corner site, located in the cen- tre of Ruan, is on the market with full planning permission in place for five houses, three first floor apartments, a bar and off-licence, two retail outlets, 24 car parking spaces anda service treatment plant.

According to the selling agent, “the

development site is ideally situated in the heart of Ruan, approximately 12km north of Ennis town centre. The property forms a pivotal position within the village, at the main Ennis Road and Toonagh Road junction. Ruan – a rural picturesque vil- lage, currently offers its residents

two pubs, a grocery shop, a primary school and a church. The village has grown considerably in recent years due to its close proximity to Ennis and further growth is anticipated.

OTe)

For full details

er rare toe

contact

THE Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, last week an- nounced the publication of the An- nual Review and Outlook for Agri- culture and Food 2006/2007.

“The all-encompassing nature of the agri-food sector 1s very much ev1- denced in this publication,” she said. “It continues to be one of the most important and dynamic indigenous manufacturing elements in the Irish economy, consisting of over 130,000 family farms and around 700 in- dustrial units spread throughout the Coa

“Tt plays a vital role in the Irish economy through provision of direct

as well as indirect employment and constitutes the backbone of rural de- velopment from both an economic and social perspective. The annual review reflects the level of impor- tance and the wide ranging nature of the sector.”

Despite increased international competition agri-food exports reach- ing a record level of more than €8 billion in 2006.

Within the export sector, there were notable increases of 26 per cent for beverages, 14 per cent for beef and 10 per cent for prepared foods. Overall, the agri-food industry is estimated to account for 9.8 per cent of total ex- ports, 8.1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.1 per cent of

employment.

“The food, drink and _ tobacco (FDT) sector continues to play a vital role in the Irish economy. It remains one of the largest indigenous indus- tries both in terms of manufacturing and consumer spend,’ continued the minister.

The FDT sector, with just over 15 per cent of units located in Dublin, exhibits a wider regional spread than the manufacturing sector as a whole where one quarter of units are con- centrated in and around the capital.

Among Irish enterprises the FDT sector has consistently outperformed the manufacturing sector as a whole in terms of the proportion of expend- iture attributable to Irish goods and

ots one

This is highlighted by the fact that Irish Economic Expenditure (IEE) accounts for over 75 per cent of ex- penditure in the FDT sector com- pared with less than 50 per cent for the overall manufacturing sector.

Coughlan emphasised the Govern- ment’s commitment to the sector with public expenditure of €2.9 bil- lion in 2006.

She believes that the National De- velopment Plan (NDP) and Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 will ensure that adequate resources are made available for improving the structure and competitiveness of the Sector, in line with the vision set out in the Agri-Vision 2015 Action Plan.

THE prices that farmers are receiv- ing for their produce continues to dominate across every sector of the industry this week, with a growing sense of dissatisfaction beginning to eaKO A

Last week, the ICMSA met with senior representatives of Meat In- dustry Ireland and stated clearly to them that the prices being returned to farmers at the present time are unsustainable and threaten the very future of winter finishing in Ireland.

“With significantly increased feed bills, nitrate directive investments and the losses already suffered this year, many farmers who tradition-

ally finished cattle during the winter period will change their system of production,” said Martin McMahon, Clare farmer and chairperson of IC- MSA’s Beef and Cattle Committee.

“These farmers have guaranteed meat plants a year-round supply of beef which has been critical in build- ing up high-value markets. The un- fortunate reality is that these high value markets are, at present, not leading to acceptable prices for win- ter finishers and these farmers are now being effectively penalised for providing the raw material for these markets.”

The ICMSA delegation told Meat Industry Ireland that unless beef prices increase immediately, farmers

will either scale back production or move to a system of finishing ani- mals off grass.

“The hard choice is for the meat plants, to either raise beef prices 1m- mediately or irreparably damage the long-term future of their own busi- ness. Farmers cannot be blamed for this; they cannot continue to supply beef at a loss,’ said McMahon.

Meanwhile, the IFA National Dairy Committee Chairman, Rich- ard Kennedy, has said EU markets for SMP and butter were continuing to be firm, pulling away ahead of even the historically high prices of €2,/00/t for butter and €3,100/t for SMP paid in May by the Irish Dairy Board.

However, only a fraction of this, he says, has been passed back to farm- ae

“EU market quotes have contin- ued to rise for both SMP and butter. I have no doubt that the Irish Dairy Board will reflect this further in- crease, worth a further 4.5c/l over the coming weeks. When they do, this will increase returns to co-ops from the current 38.8c/I to over 43c/l,” he said. “EU market returns have now increased by a total of 15.1c/l (68.7c/ gallon) since last July, of which the IDB has passed on 12.7c/l (58c/gal- lon) so far. Farmers have only been paid, at best, 2.6c/l (12c/gallon) — just about 1/6th of the actual market improvement,” he added.

SHANNON Airport is equipped to cater for more than 5 million passen- gers and will continue to develop in order to cater for any future expan- sion in passenger numbers, according to Airport Director Martin Moroney who was speaking after Ryanair’s announcement of eight new services from Shannon.

“If we see that passenger numbers will exceed five million, which we are well able to take, we will expand accordingly. We are expanding as it

is and we have already started to in- crease the number of departure gates for airlines including Ryanair,” he said.

“We are developing and expanding ahead of growth while Dublin Air- port is behind growth.

‘We are geared to take five million passengers and if we See it expanding beyond that, we will certainly invest. It will be difficult with the popula- tion base but with new road networks set to be finished by 2010, we will be very well placed,” Mr Moroney added.

“With the development of these roads we will try to draw passengers from Kilkenny, Kildare and Mulling- ar because the roads will make Shan- non more accessible than Dublin.

“We are better placed than most other airports and when the Ennis to Galway railway link is completed we will take advantage of that too.

“Galway people are the luckiest people in the world regarding inter- national connections with their own airport, Shannon and Knock but people still tend to travel to Dublin. We believe Shannon can take the

vast majority of this business in the future once the roads are completed and once we have increased both the short haul and transatlantic serv- Cone

Prior to Ryanair establishing its base at Shannon, the airport catered for approximately 2 million passen- gers every year.

“Galway is an important part of our catchment area for both inbound and outbound traffic, and we look forward to working with the tourism and business sector in harnessing support for these new Services”.

RYANAIR boss Michael O’Leary has confirmed that the airline will never operate a long-haul or transat- lantic flight but is in the process of establishing a sister company which will do so but not for a number of years yet and definitely not from Ire- land.

Suggestions that Ryanair would commence transatlantic flights were first mooted in 2001 but resurfaced last month following confirmation of the scrapping of the Shannon stopo-

ver and the introduction of a US/EU Open Skies policy.

Mr O’Leary said however that while such flights would not oper- ate from Ireland, some of the new company’s aircraft could be based at Shannon and that the mid west air- port could be used as a hub for these transatlantic services. Speaking af- ter he announced eight new services from Shannon Airport he said there was no possibility Ryanair would ever operate a long haul flight.

‘‘However, we are looking at a sep- arate stand-alone company that will

not be Ryanair, which in the next downturn in the industry, will pro- cure a fleet of long-haul aircraft to provide low fare point-to-point serv- ice across the Atlantic but they will not be from Ireland to the US.”

“We are talking about €10 or $10 fares from Europe to the US. It will not be from Ireland to the US but what we have in mind is with a fleet of 30 to 40 long haul aircraft, we would base two or three in about six or eight of Ryanair’s larger base air- ports in Europe and Shannon could be one of those.”

The most likely European bases would be Barcelona (Girona), Stan- sted in London, Frankfurt Hahn and probably Brussels and Stockholm Skavsta. There is a possibility that we could link Shannon with six or eight very exciting destinations and bigger cities in the US. Wherever we have a large base in Europe there is every likelihood that some of those long-haul planes could be based at Shannon.”

Mr O’ Leary stated however that all of this would not happed for “three or four years yet.”

IRISH beef farmers struggling to remove potentially dangerous and sub-par Brazilian beef from the EU market received a timely boost this week from an unlikely source.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed to the IFA last week that, based on sci- entific assessments, the USDA con- sider the risks too high and are not prepared to import fresh beef from Brazil.

Both Brazilian and Argentine beef has been underfire in recent times because of doubts over the safety of production methods as well as the documented foot and mouth problem in the region.

IFA National Livestock Chairman John Bryan last week contrasted this strong position of the USDA with that of the EU Commission which adopts the opposite policy on risk and imports 331,000 tonnes of beef from Brazil.

The IFA livestock leader had just returned from a visit to the USDA head office in Washington where he met with senior policy and veterinary experts to discuss the US approach

in not accepting fresh beef imports from Brazil.

“It is clear the USDA have a strong and robust policy when it comes to food safety and animal health risk assessment,’ he said.

‘They are not prepared to take un- necessary risks with their consumers and livestock sector. The US do not import fresh beef from Brazil be- cause they consider it too high a risk to take, both from a consumer and livestock point of view. We simply cannot afford to risk allowing fresh beef imports from Brazil into the ON ie

The IFA Livestock leader said the USDA are very proud of their robust policy on risk assessment and point to the fact that they have not had an outbreak of FMD since 1926. They put this down to not accepting fresh beef imports from Brazil and other abhcd eto Wh) ere Busts

He said the EU Commission must reassess its policy on imports from high-risk regions such as Brazil, where there are FMD outbreaks on a continuing basis related to the lack of standards and controls, particularly a lack of traceability and an absence of movement and border controls.

IRISH farmers are one of the most likely groups to be deprived and liv- ing in poverty, according to results of a study launched last week by the Economic and Social Research Insti- tute (ESRI).

The study, which was based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) sur- vey, looked at social inclusion from a number of different approaches.

It looked at five different areas of deprivation including consumption, housing, health and neighborhood or environment factors.

Farmers were found to be one of the groupings at risk, alongside the unemployed, lone parents and those

with less than a Leaving Certificate education.

‘There is an urgent need to imple- ment immediately the key farm sup- ports in the Rural Development Plan, which include an improved REPS Scheme, an increase in disadvan- taged area payments as well as other key rural development measures,” said the IFA’s Rural Development Chairman, Padraig Divilly.

‘Farmers also need social welfare supports through improved pension provision and farm assist assessment. Every farmer should devote some time to thoroughly reviewing his or her pension cover under both state pensions and supplementary private pensions.

“This review should also include

the pension provision for the spouse working on the family farm. The few hours spent by a farmer this week in planning for retirement income could be the most valuable time spent at work for the year.”

Less than one in four Irish farmers have any private pension provision at “Ne

“Low-income farmers, whose tax returns show that they have no net li- ability to pay income tax, and wrong- ly think that they do not have to pay PRSI, should do so,” he continues.

“The law requires that everybody with an income above €3,174 must pay PRSI. Farmers in this low-in- come category should pay the flat- rate PRSI contribution of €157 per year to secure their pensions.”

Overall, less than one per cent of people are deprived on all five of the criteria set out by the ESRI. Indeed, only eight per cent of the population were found to be lacking in three of WtoRGulKout.

‘For maximal deprivation, labour market inactivity and illness or dis- ability are powerful predictors,” said a spokesman for the ESRI.

‘Education is also a strong influ- ence and so is being an urban local authority tenant.

“The fact that multiple depriva- tion and multiple disadvantage are relatively rare acts as a counter to the sometimes despairing tone of com- mentary focusing on a so-called un- derclass entirely detached from the mainstream of society.”

PARENTS of the Under 14 football team at St Joseph’s GAA Club in Miltown Malbay face a formidable battle against time to raise funds for the team’s trip to the Peil na n-Og All Ireland finals in Sligo this June. Upcoming events- to add to a table quiz and church gate collections in Miltown Malbay and Moy- include a poker classic and a sponsored walk. The team is the only Clare football outfit to go west for the finals, taking place over June 29-30 and July 1, and around €7,000 must be raised to pay

for transport, accommodation and kit.

The poker classic will take place in the golf club in Spanish Point on the night of June 15. The walk will follow on June 17, leaving Miltown Malbay at lpm on a planned five mile route to Spanish Point. Participants of all levels and children can take part. Entrants will pay a registration fee of €20.

Pat Keane, a parent and volunteer at the club said that the team had done exceptionally well in qualifying for the finals.

“This 1s a big deal for the club.

We’ve been in three county finals in four years. It has been seven or eight years since a local club got to the final stages of the competition. The coach- es, John Sullivan and Gerry Curtin, have done trojan work and so have all the players. We will have to do well against the eight teams in our group to qualify for the semi-finals and overall final so it’s fingers crossed.”

He added that all the team mem- bers’ parents were very proactive in collecting and getting involved.

The finals take place at various ven- ues around Sligo, Leitrim and Ros- common and the team will also take

part in a parade on the opening night in Carrick-On-Shannon.

Another parent, Noreen Ryan, said that the club is up against the clock with six weeks to raise the money for the panel of 22 to travel. But she was confident that the call would be an- Woke eo

“The lads are all excited to be going and itis a great achievement. The fun- draising will be no problem because there is great goodwill in the area. We have to keep the colours flying so if anyone wants to make a donation that would be greatly appreciated.”