Month: October 2007

A ROAD fatality is unavoidable at a dangerous junction in Shannon, un- less steps are taken to address traffic eyuele) (othe

That was the stark warning uttered by local councillor Tony Mulcahy (FG), who spoke of his concern re- lating to the Aidan Park junction in SJerVeveeyee

He said last week that there had been four accidents at the junction

over the previous seven days.

“We are going to have to come up with a permanent solution. Someone is going to be killed there. There are peak times, morning, lunch and six o’clock in the evening. We have to come up with a freeflow system. It has to be resolved sooner rather than later,’ he said.

Senior Executive Engineer Donal Hogan responded by suggesting a short-term solution.

“In the short term, we can see what

improvements we can make with traf- fic lights. There are no opportunities to put in extra phases on the traffic lights that are there, but we can get a larger traffic controller, which would allow improvements,” he said.

“It is the right turn movements that is causing the problem,” he added.

Cllr Mulcahy replied, “The Station Road in Ennis is one of the busiest roads in the county, if not the busi- est. There are no lights there, but the traffic flows through. There is talk of

roundabouts. Basically it is a lump of tarmac in the middle of the road.”

Cllr Gerry Flynn (Ind) said the question of improving existing traf- fic lights has been mentioned before.

“T’ve heard that before, about the frequency of lights, but that won’t change the amount of traffic com- ing through. Maybe you could get the road section to draw up some proposal for the Aidan Park area and then let us try and come up with the funding.”

THE details of this year’s winter Cultural and Heritage Programme at Coole Park will be announced later today at a ceremony at the Coole Park Visitor Centre in Gort.

The Friends of Coole will host the official launch of the programme, which has been compiled in part- nership with the National Parks and Wildlife Services, Galway County Council, Galway Rural Develop- ment, Galway Education Centre and Failte Ireland West.

Each year the Coole Park Cultural Programme aims to provide a series of quality multi-disciplinary arts and

heritage events to as wide local au- dience as possible in a site that has national and international cultural Status.

This is the second cultural pro- gramme to take place in Coole this year following the highly success- ful spring programme earlier this year. Both the winter and spring programmes endeavour to showcase locally based artists and provide lec- tures on locally based topics.

The programme was initiated in 2005 on a pilot basis and it’s success to date is largely due to the strong partnership of agencies and active community involvement in its organ- isation, delivery and support.

This year’s winter programme will focus on integrating arts, culture and education with a series of events for adults, young people and families. Drama, heritage, music and poetry will feature in the new programme of events taking place between now Neem @isbuneettane

Coole Park is a nature reserve and former home of Lady Gregory. The park contains extensive woodlands and a series of turloughs with six kil- ometers of signposted nature trails plus a formal walled garden.

The walled garden contains an au- tograph tree that is engraved with initials of many of the leading fig- ures of the Irish Literary Revival

who were personal friends of Lady Gregory including William Butler Yeats, Edward Martyn, George Ber- nard Shaw, John Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey.

Coole Park is part of the Coole- Garryland Complex Special Area of Conservation and the whole of the park is designated a special protec- tion area for birds.

The winter Cultural and Heritage Programme 2007 will be launched today, Tuesday, October 23 at the Coole Park Visitor Centre in Gort at 3.30pm. Details of the winter pro- gramme brochure will be available at the ceremony later today. All are welcome to attend.

IS IT A BIRD? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superman and his mates, and they’re pushing a engine-less Mini Cooper through the streets of Gort.

No, it’s not a scene for Tim Bur- ton’s latest film, instead this Friday two teams of local lads will dress up and push two Mini-Coopers through the streets of Gort.

This daring deed, which will see a team of heroes race a team of vil- lains, is all in aid of this year’s Peo- ple in Need telethon.

“It started with myself and Ross O’Donnell, a guy I work with. We were having a bit of a laugh and we said that we would do something for the ‘Telethon,’ said Brian Bourke

(hero).

“The idea came about pushing the two mini-cars. The idea went from there and we decided that we would have a bit of craic with it and dress up. I don’t know where the idea of the super heroes came from but I Wee ULM oom OMA RETIT OLA

“We are going to have a good team and a bad team, good versus evil, and we will raise as much money as we can.”

The teams will race from the Gort hurling field on the Tubber Road and are expected to arrive in the square in Gort at 4.30pm this Friday, Octo- ber 26.

“Oh ya, it’ll be a competitive race. We should have five or six heroes and villains on each team in full cos-

tume. It will be competitive, there is no doubt about that. We will have Su- perman and Spider-man on the good team and the Joker and the Penguin on the evil side.

“There is a guy in the town called Seamus Daly and he has a number of Mini Coopers and he is going to give us two of them. One of them is driveable but I don’t think there is an engine in the other one so that will be lighter to push, I think the heroes will be pushing that one.”

The heroes and villains will be raising money for the people in need dev uelUtcaam aslo bupe-leen

“There will be plenty of buckets around on the day for people to do- nate money. We have cards and buck- ets in the local businesses around the

town and people can just call into them if they want to donate money,” continued Bourke.

“The money raised locally around the area stays local which should be an incentive to donate. We would like to thank the people from the Tel- ethon for all their support, the Gardai who are helping us and blocking off the streets for the race and the people of Gort for all the support they have given up.’

The Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, has raised the possibility of a sell-off of Church-owned lands across the diocese, though stressed that there will be no sudden sale.

Dr Walsh has revealed that he has initiated a consultation amongst the diocese’s priests, a diocesan pastoral council and “asked a small sub-com- mittee to look at that whole issue of how do we apply Gospel values to our property and whatever finance we may have available to us”.

After confirming that the diocese had donated 15 acres of land for the

development of a daycare centre and housing for the elderly in Ennis, Dr Walsh said that the Church “is not in the business of profit-making”.

After giving away lands valued at €10 million to provide services for Ennis’s elderly population, Dr Walsh said, “I am perfectly sure that the Church holding a lot of land for itself is not in any way part of the Gospel.

“What I’m sure of is that it has an obligation to act responsibly. We are not going to be disposing of all the property suddenly.

“There is the whole question of the employment of lay people in our Church with the diminishing number

of priests.

“We have already increased the number of lay people, but there will be more lay people employed by the Church. Some of the finance needed for that will be got from the sale of some property.

“It was a past generation that passed this land onto us. We have an obliga- tions to future generations to in some way pass on some of that property to future generations.

“At the moment, the discussions are in initial stages, but I would visualise that it would be ongoing and these people would be regularly asked for their views and those views would be

fed into the diocesan trust who are ultimately responsible for decision- making in this area.

“One would need the wisdom of Solomon in some ways to be sure to know what to do in particular situ- ations.

“I haven’t a fully formed view of the long term and I would prefer to wait and let people mull over these things, discuss them and look at the continuing needs of the diocese.

“If someone 20 years ago decided to sell off all the property, we would have a serious difficulty in employ- ing more people nowadays,’ Bishop Walsh added.

GORT women are being offered the chance to influence public policy, both locally and nationally, by taking part in a study focusing on women’s needs in the area.

The Gort Women’s Equality Net- work (GWEN) will host two public meetings this week in the Lady Gre- gory Hotel, where they hope to iden- tify barriers to women being able to participate in decision-making proc- esses at a local level.

The study, created by Dr Niamh Clune and Douglas Johnson of the Gort Regional Alliance for Community and Environment (GRACE) in partnership with the Family Resource Centre, will also examine why more local women do not avail of further education or participate in the workforce.

“It 1s a study into women’s needs. The target is unemployed women, women who are not on the live reg- ister. The purpose of it is to find dif- ferent ways of getting them back into the jobs market. We are trying to tar- get venerable groups, single mothers

or people who are having difficulty finding a job for whatever reason,” said Mr Johnson.

“We are holding two separate public meetings – an evening meeting and a morning meeting. The purpose of this is to accommodate people who cannot make one or other of the meetings.

“We are also using one-to-one inter- views on an ongoing basis. We train- ing some of the women as interview- ers and they then interview the other women on a one-to-one basic. This is in order to make it a more comforta- ble experience for the women, so they feel comfortable and we get a more

spontaneous answer.’

The research has been ongoing all year in Gort and all available data will be compiled next month and presented to interested parties lo- cally and nationally.

“We are hoping to have the report finished for the second week in De- cember. We will be presenting the information to interested parties and distributing copies of the report to people like the local VEC and Health Board,’ continued Mr Johnson.

“We will also look at mainstream- ing the findings so they can be used in the formation of Government policy in different departments. We will look to influence local employers, encour- age them and examine their practices and, 1f possible, change them to fit with the needs of these women.”

GWEN will host two public meet- ings, on Wednesday, October 24 from 7.30pm to 9pm and on Thursday, Oc- tober 25 from llam to 12.30pm in the Lady Gregory Hotel in Gort.

CRATLOE man Eamon Dillon is hoping that his goose will be cooked on Saturday October 27.

But far from that being a peculiar anticipation of his downfall, Eamon and his fellow members the Wild Geese Barbecue Team will be cook- ing a goose as they represent Ireland at the World Barbecue Champion- ship in Tennessee.

Lynchburg, a sleepy backwater and home of the famous whiskey, will provide the backdrop for the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Competi- tion where over 10,000 spectators will flock to watch 65 international teams pit their culinary skills against each other. Team entry is by invita- tion only and competitors are re- quired to have won a recognised state or national championship. The Irish team comprises of Tara Harti- gan, Gerry Dillon, Patrick O’ Sulli- van (Capt.) and Eamon Dillon.

The Wild Geese Barbecue Team was formed in Limerick in 1999. From the outset the team has com- peted at the highest levels in Ger- many, Switzerland and the United States. Following their success at the World Barbecue competition in 2001, and again in 2003, the Irish BBQ Association was established to promote best cooking practice and from this, the genesis of Limerick’s highly successful annual Riverfeast International BBQ event.

Each team is required to cook a

whole pork shoulder, two racks of ribs, a chicken and a whole beef bris- ket. The meats chosen are specifi- cally designed to test the skills and expertise of the most avid BBQ en- thusiast and can take between 5 and 10 hours to cook and prepare.

Every cook knows how difficult it 1s to cook a goose even in a convention- al oven as the bird spits gallons of fat under heat making it a very volatile choice for the barbie.

“IT have roasted 20Ib turkeys in the past but a goose 1s different” said Ea- mon. “Unless you are very careful, the fat will drip on to the hot coals and the whole thing will spontane-

ously combust, transforming the goose into a phoenix.”

The Irish goose will be stuffed with traditional Irish garden vegetables, walnuts and berries which have been soaked overnight in local Bunratty mead. The team of experienced bar- becue chefs has been in training for several months to cook their goose just right.

show that there are more clerical or administrative staff employed in the hospital than “medical staff’.

Nursing staff made up 134.07 of the August staffing numbers, 22.47 of the whole time equivalent staff were defined as Allied Health Care, 34.77 as Medical staff, 43.07 as cleri- cal/admin and 51.86 as Attendant/ patient services staff.

The number of support service staff was 23.7, making up 310.08 staff in Ole Ne

When the HSE imposed a recruit- ment freeze at the beginning of Sep- tember, it did so because the national budget was exceeded by €245 mil- lion.

At the time it was critical for the Ennis hospital’s overspend claiming that it exceeded its staff ceiling of 292 by 19.

The most up-to-date figures from

August also show that the per cent- age of staff missing due to sick leave was as high as five per cent.

The percentage of people absent due to sick leave was highest among the support services where 13.46 per cent of staff went absent as reported by the HSE.

Cllr Meaney said that no assump- tions should be made however as to why absenteeism is so high in certain areas but the underlying cause could be the pressure of work coming on staff in a health system that is con- stantly under pressure.

The figures did not include holiday leave. The only area in the August spend that came under budget was education and training.

€70,000 was allocated for educa- tion but just €50,000 was used for this purpose.

Although there were more cleri- cal staff listed than medical staff the budget for clerical staff went over by just €10,000 compared to medical staff pay which went over by €440,000.

The budget to pay paramedics went over by .03 million, catering and housekeeping by €.1 million and others by €.01 million.

Clinical cost were half a million euro more than predicted, with ca- tering and cleaning another half a million over.

TWO young men who stole cider from an apartment in Ennistymon have been warned if they offend again they may face time behind bars.

The warning, from Judge Michael White, came at Ennis Circuit Court as Noel Mullane (25) and Robert Molloy (19), of Ardnaculla, En- nistymon, pleaded guilty to stealing a guitar bag and cans of cider at an apartment in Ennistymon, on August 17, 2006.

In the district court last April Mul- lane had pleaded not guilty and opted to have the case heard in the circuit Co) U ae

Garda Colm Collins told the court that Andrew Hertz left his apartment in Ennistymon at 6am with friends. He didn’t lock the door of his home, but had assumed that the main door of the apartment block was locked.

His neighbour woke at 8am and heard noise from the apartment block. She saw the two accused walking into Mr Hertz’s apartment and then leaving it, with what she thought was a black bag. She alerted the owner of the apartment and the ee KOre

When gardai arrived at the scene, the two accused were sitting on a bench near the apartment block. They were highly intoxicated, said Garda Collins, and he arrested them under the Public Order Act.

“I conducted a quick search of the area and found a black guitar case

on top of a shed close to where they were sitting. It was full of cans of Bulmers,” said the garda.

The guitar case was used to hold the drink, the court heard.

Mullane’s barrister Lorcan Con- nolly said his client was “heavily intoxicated” that night, having been

on a “complete drinking binge in La- hinch and Ennistymon”.

Molloy’s barrister, Michael Fitz- gibbon, said his client had also been drinking for several hours.

“The burglary was solely todo with drink. It could hardly be regarded as a sophisticated crime. The gardai came on the scene. They made no at- tempt to make a getaway. They were caught drinking the cans of Bulm- ers,’ said Mr Fitzgibbon.

Addressing the two accused, Judge White said, “Mr Mullane, this is your fifth conviction since 2002. You are skating on thin ice. There’s one way you will go if you offend again. You’d want to be very careful. Drink isn’t an excuse for this type of behav- elu e

“Molloy, you’re only 19 years of age. You’re in a similar situation. A judge is going to have very lit- tle choice but to send you to prison. That’s the direction you’re going.”

He imposed a one-year jail sentence on Mullane and a one-year detention term on Molloy. Both sentences were suspended for two years.

A YOUNG girl has told a court that her father turned into an “unkind evil daddy” and hurt her a lot.

The girl was giving evidence in the trial of her father who is accused of sexually assaulting his two daugh- ters. The 36-year-old man, who is originally from Clare and cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual as- sault on the girls on dates between September 2001 and December 2004 in a County Offaly town.

Dublin Circuit Court last week heard evidence via video-link from

one daughter who told prosecuting counsel, Una Ni Raifeartaigh BL, that she couldn’t remember how her father behaved when he was minding her while her mother was at work.

The man’s other daughter told the trial that her father used his penis to put cream on a rash on her bottom.

She said she was aged between four and five when the alleged offences took place. She said her father used to lie on top of her on the bed and push her head onto the pillow.

She said he would do this to her every night her mother was at work. She said she noticed that her father used to be kind to her, but that he

became “evil” and “turned into an unkind evil daddy”.

‘“He’d hurt us a lot and he didn’t used to,” she said.

She told defence counsel, Mr John Phelan SC, in cross-examination, that she had previously said her fa- ther used the cream when she was “a baby” and in further reply to counsel she replied: “A baby is until the age of two.”

The accused’s wife told the trial that both she and her children were petrified of her husband but that they loved him. When asked by counsel if she still loved him, she replied “Yes.”

She said she first went to gardai af- ter one of her daughters told her that her father “pretended to put cream on my bottom” but had hurt her. “She said, ‘Mammy, he really hurt me’.”

She explained that she then went to the Garda station two days later to make a report.

Ms Ni Raifeartaigh told the jury in opening the case that a medical examination was performed on the children and gardai took bedclothes from the house for forensic analysis.

The trial continues in legal argu- ment and will resume on Thursday, before a jury of five women and sev- eee

CLARE is in line to become com- pletely self-sufficient for energy in less than a decade through the con- struction of a state-of-the-art wave energy system off the county’s west coast.

An area of water some 15 miles off Spanish Point has been earmarked by the Irish Marine Institute as an ideal location for the creation of the world’s first full-scale wave energy testing centre.

The institute will next month choose from three shortlisted sites for the test centre, with locations off the Kerry and Mayo coast also in the running.

A Galway-based company is likely to be the first to put its technology to the test in the centre and has already expressed an interest in developing a 200-megawatt wave farm off the Clare coast.

Wavebob is one of just 90 wave en- ergy companies worldwide, and one of just three who have managed to produced electricity in large-scale eet hS

“There is a recognition out there that Clare has huge potential in Ire- land for wave energy. Clare is a very attractive area, not just because of the waves, but also because of the strong erid connection at Moneypoint,” said

Andrew Parish of Wavebob.

‘The ESB have also said that they have an interest in developing a wave energy facility off the Clare coast.”

The construction of a Wavebob farm off the Clare coast would pro- duce up to 200 megawatts of energy, or roughly twice the domestic annual energy required for the county.

Moneypoint currently produces some 900 megawatts of electricity annually. However, the Government has committed to producing 75 meg- awatts before 2012, and 500 mega- watts before 2020 from wave energy, with Clare likely to produce a large proportion of this.

“Even if the Marine Institute de- cide to go elsewhere for the test cen- tre, private companies like ourselves will be looking very closely at the undoubted potential that Clare has for wave energy,” continued Mr Par- 0

“Any farm in Clare would be locat- ed roughly on the horizon, so people will be barely able to see them, if at all. At worst they would look like a fishing boat at the very tip of the ho- rizon.

“As well as this, Wavebobs have no impact at all on surfing. Unlike other facilities, like the Wave Dragons in Cornwall, the Wavebobs are much smaller and won’t impact on the waves at all.”