Month: August 2007

TWO west Clare communities have been awarded with Local Heritage Grant Awards from the Heritage Council.

Celebrating the good news are Doonbeg Community Development Limited and the Leon XIII Commit- tee in Quilty.

SWRI MCCA ioeMmENITUIGT Um EeestT nition for its “Leon Walking Trail” which is being created as part of the Leon XIII commemoration year.

The work will encompass a seven- kilometre walk around the Quilty area of west Clare.

In supporting the new initiative the Heritage Council awarded the group a research-based grant to help gather the folklore and facts associated with locations along the proposed route.

Led by researcher Cora O’Grady,

the data gathered so far is producing an insightful look at the area over the last 100 years. Once the research is completed, a guide to the Leon Walking Trail will be published which will coincide with the official launch of the trail in September. According to Caroline Egan of the Leon Committee, “Developing a walking trail associated with the Leon XIII, was a priority for our group. The area is beautiful and we wanted visitors to the locality to have a guide that not alone showed them some interesting places off the main roads, but also a guide that would give them a flavour of the area. There are a lot of interesting stories asso- ciated with the place, and it’s these types of stories that visitors love to hear about and talk about when they go home. Developing the Leon Walking Trail is part of our plan to

put Quilty on the tourism map in Clare and we are delighted to have received the support of the Herit- age Council. The walking trail is one of several developments we will be rolling out throughout 2007 and 2008 with the Leon XIII Festival from September 28 to 30 being the big event this year.”

In Doonbeg the Heritage Council were keen to support the work of Doonbeg Community Development Limited that are currently develop- ing a biodiversity park.

“In Doonbeg we have a very fertile territory. Many species of wild birds are coming in and feeding in that area,’ said Paddy Murrihy from the development committee.

The group plan to develop a wild- life park in a commonage area that will allow people to watch the rare birds that feed in the area.

While the group plan to make very few changes to the land, so as not to disturb the wildlife, plans are in place to construct a bird watching hut close to the water where the birds feed.

The Heritage Council provided a grant that will allow the develop- ment committee to erect two colour display boards that will illustrate the different species of birds.

“The birds are unique to the area due to the vegetation,” explained Mr Murrihy.

The group must also convince REPS that the land will continue to be left fallow.

ALL senior citizens in the Newmar- ket parish have been invited to come along for a day at the seaside as part of the Newmarket Senior Citizen Organisation’s last ‘trot out’ of the year.

The senior’s day out will take place on Saturday, August 25, where a eroup of up to 80 people from the parish will spend a day on Kilkee strand. The day out will also include shopping in Kilrush before heading to the beach and will end with high tea at the Boree Log being entertained by PJ Murrihy in the evening.

“The people come along, meet up

and have great craic. They make new friends and meet up with people who they haven’t met before, maybe from the other end of the parish, and meet with people who they probably wouldn’t meet except for on these outings,’ said Michelle Quigley, Committee Member of the Newmar- ket Senior Citizen Organisation.

“It gives them a sence of being somewhere else and not sitting at home all day every day. The out- ings are great for getting them out of themselves — they go to the seaside, put their feet in the water, eat peri- winkles along the promenade and things like that.

“Some of them might be a bit immo-

bile too, they mightn’t have the use of a car or be able to drive and travelling in a coach is much more comfortable for them than getting public trans- port. So they may not necessarily do these things themselves, but with the day out they go with their pals and have a great time.”

The Newmarket Senior Citizen Organisation host around four trips away each year. Most recently a group from the parish made their way to Knock last May.

“We have a fairly good group, the parish is quite big so we would get a good number. Normally at any of the outings that we would have had in recent times we would have up-

wards of 60, 70, 80 people,’ contin- ued Michelle.

“We organise regular outings maybe about four times a year. We had an outing to Knock there a few months ago and we would like to have one last trot out before the end of the year.

“We get people from all over the Newmarket parish, which extends down to the wells, Drumline, Bal- lycar and the full of the Newmarket or bursys mae

The trip to the beach departs from the Green in Newmarket at 10.30am on Saturday, August 25 and costs €5. Please contact any senior citizens committee member if interested.

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.”

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 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 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 HSE has this week admitted that there is an internationally recog- nised difficulty in recruiting medical scientists with a specialty in cytology, vital in accessing cervical screens.

The admission comes as a Limerick woman, Elaine Price, reported how she had to wait 19 weeks for the re- sults of a follow-up smear in autumn 2006.

During a routine smear in 2005, CN2 cells (pre-cancerous cells) were found and she was told she would re- quire a colposcopy — a scraping of the cervix. Her doctor told her that an appointment would take weeks so she went private. Her follow-up smear in September 2006 took 19 weeks for a result. Both smears were sent to the cytology laboratory at University Hospital Galway.

All smears taken at the Mid West- ern Regional Hospital Limerick are sent to University Hospital Galway for analysis, while a portion of GPs from the mid-west send smears from their patients to the same hospital. The remaining GPs in the mid-west are directed to send the smears to Dublin.

A spokesperson for the HSE said that last year the cytology labora- tory at University Hospital Galway converted from the conventional cer- vical smear technology to a liquid-

based technology.

“This technology is in keeping with best international practice. This con- version involved a significant body of work and commitment from eve- ryone working in the laboratory. The process to convert the technology was a complicated one and it began in February 2006 and was complet- ed ahead of schedule at the end of paul etes

“All staff in the laboratory required training in the use of this new tech- nology and for the period of that training last year there was on aver- age a turn-around time of 10 to 12 weeks at the most. That has now been reduced and cervical smears are reported on within the four-week timeframe.”

The cytology laboratory at UHG is currently located in a prefabricated building which, according to the health service, “is of no relevance in terms of its functionality. The hospi- tal is at present finalising a brief for the development of a new laboratory for submission to the HSE Capital Projects Steering Group.

“The national required turnaround time is four weeks for a cervical Smear, from the time it 1s received in the laboratory to when the report on the smear is issued. Since the end of June 2007, smears . . . are reported on within this four-week timeframe,’ mel END a elereR

THE regional director of cancer serv- ices in the west, Professor Rajnish K Gumpta, has said that the progress in developing the network of cancer cen- tres “is hampered by the lack of re- sources and the employment ceiling”. As a result, he believes that patients and their GPs are seeking access to tests for breast cancer through routes other than the Specialist Breast Unit and a multi-disciplinary team.

Last month, the HSE announced that the mammography unit at Ennis Gen- eral Hospital would remain closed as it had decided to concentrate all mam- mography services for the mid-west at the Regional Specialist Breast Unit in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, claiming more than 1,000 mammograms a year were necessary for the maintenance of the required level of professional skills in read- ing the x-rays. Professor Gumpta now says these units are not being properly resourced.

He was speaking after a second woman from the mid-west was mis- takenly given the all-clear for breast cancer. The case of this Tipperary woman is “Separate to the circum- stances and investigation” involving Killaloe woman Rebecca O’ Malley, who was also mistakenly cleared of breast cancer.

She went through a mastectomy and removal of glands and referred to Professor Gumpta in April and is currently undergoing intensive chemotherapy.

“Although I accept…that there was

a diagnostic error in the Pathology Laboratory at University Hospital Galway, this lady should have been referred to aregional specialist breast unit and a multi-displinary team at her original presentation in 2005,” said Prof Gumpta.

“Personally I am extremely disap- pointed, sad, angry and concerned that this has happened, was allowed to happen and I/we did not stop this from happening,’ he said. “I have raised concerns about the treatment of patients with cancer outside spe-

cialist units and regional hospitals for at least the last three years.”

Minister for Health, Mary Harney has apologised to the lady and an in- dependent review has been commis- sioned into pathology services at the hospital, which is being conducted, by the Health Information and Qual- ity Authority.

VETERAN Fianna Fail councillor, Peter Considine will have to wait until 2008 to learn whether he will receive planning permission to con- struct four homes on his landholding outside Ennis.

A decision was due last Thursday on the application by Cllr Considine for outline planning to construct four homes at Drumadreheid, Ennis.

However, Cllr Considine sought an extension to the time in which the council would make its decision until February 7, 2008.

In a note to the council’s planning department, Cllr Considine request- ed the six-month extension to allow the council consider the application. Usually, when applicants seek an extension, it indicates that there are planning hurdles associated with the application.

Cllr Considine purchased 25 acres of land at Drumadrehid in 1993. The sites are not subject to strict council planning rules that apply to lands in the open countryside on the outskirts of Clare’s main population centres. There are a series of such “develop- ment clusters” across the county that allow the lands to be zoned for hous- ing development. Clusters are usually designated when there are already a number of homes built in the area.

Ironically, because of the coun-

cil’s tough planning rules to inhibit one-off homes in the countryside, Cllr Considine can expect a pre-

mium price if he decides to sell on the sites when planning permission 1s secured.

An Taisce has recommended that one of the homes be moved else-

where as there is a ringfort adjacent to site four.

The national trust also states that “the elevation of the site is high and concerns of drainage problems and visual obstruction need to be ad- dressed”.

The Department of the Environ- ment has recommended that an archaeological impact assessment be prepared to assess the potential impact, if any, on archaeological re- mains in the area.

The department has made the rec- ommendation as the development site 1s within the zone of archaeo- logical potential established around a recorded monument.

“The assessment should detail the visual impact of this development on the recorded monument. This assess- ment shall also define the buffer area or area contiguous with the monu- ment which will preserve the setting and visual amenity of the site.

“It should be borne in mind that, if significant archaeological remains are found or there is a significant negative impact, refusal might be recommended and/or further pres- ervation in situ or by record may be required.”

A decision is due on the application later this year.

A 29-YEAR-old man who appeared in court to provide a cash surety to secure bail for a friend, found him- self in custody after it transpired a warrant for his arrest has been in force for almost five years. Romanian national Jon Gratian Serban of 5, Sundale Lawn, Tallaght in Dublin, appeared at Ennis District Court to provide an independent cash surety of €2,000 for Cereasala M1-

halaiche, also from Romania, who faces a charge of theft following her arrest in Miltown Malbay County Clare. Ms Mihalaiche, with an ad- dress at 1, Phibsboro Drive, Dublin 7 appeared in court in Ennis last week in relation to the theft charge. She was remanded in custody with con- sent to bail on that date.

At Ennis District Court yesterday, Judge Leo Malone was told that a friend of the accused was in court and was in a position to provide a

cash surety to secure bail. Howev- er, during questioning by Inspector Michael Gallagher, it emerged that the accused had previously been ar- rested and charged with burglary, al- leged to have taken place on 18 July, 2002, 1n Dublin.

Solicitor for Ms Mihalaiche, Wil- liam Cahir, said he was not aware of this turn of events and the matter was adjourned briefly. Ms Mihalai- che was, however, allowed take up bail and after signing the necessary

documentation was released from custody. She is due to appear at En- nistymon District Court again on 5 Yo) oles 00lolos matey. a

Mr Serban was arrested outside the court and brought before the Judge Inspector Gallagher told the court that a warrant for Mr Serban’s arrest was issued on 30 September, 2002, at Kilmainham District Court after he failed to appear in court. The inspec- tor sought to have the accused re- manded in custody to Dublin District

Court on 17 August next.

Mr William Cahir, now acting for Mr Serban, said, “This is an unusual case. I would ask the court to accept my client’s bone fides in the matter and that he was not aware that a war- rant for his arrest existed.”

Judge Leo Malone agreed that it was an unusual case but after hear- ing details of the accused’s bank Statements, remanded the accused in custody with consent to bail in the sum of €1,000.