Month: January 2008

A WEST Clare solicitor has said a decision by a judge to forfeit a de- fendant’s bail should be challenged in the High Court.

The comment was made in the case of a 19-year-old Limerick man charged in connection with a road traffic accident in Kilkee on June 30, 2007.

When the case was called at Kilkee

District Court last Tuesday, solicitor Gearoid Williams said he was acting as agent for Limerick solicitor Ted McCarthy who could not attend as he was in Limerick Circuit Court at the same time. He sought an adjourn- ment.

Judge Joseph Mangan remarked, “This is the fourth adjournment. Does Mr McCarthy have any assist- “0 wae

Mr Williams said he did not know,

adding that Mr McCarthy is “nor- mally very organised”.

The judge told him the case was preemptory against the defendant, who was not in court.

He said he was forfeiting the bail and issued a bench warrant for the arrest of the accused.

The solicitor pointed out that the accused had been in court on every other occasion and had contacted the gardai last Monday – the day before

the court sitting.

Mr Williams said, “I think that matter should be challenged in the High Court.

“If I (accused) am not here and you are forfeiting the bail, you are not giving me the opportunity to say why I’m not here. Failure to appear could be caused by anything.”

Judge Mangan replied, “That’s a very interesting argument. The High Court might be interested in hearing

it.”

Mr Williams said it was “Mr Mc- Carthy’s call.”

“If you are up for having no light on your bike, would you take the same view if the court fined you in your absence?” asked the judge.

The solicitor replied, “The question of forfeiture of your bail does not arise unless an application is made.”

Judge Mangan said, “It’s for the Four Courts.”

ALLEGATIONS that a war was threatened between locals in Kilmi- hil and Polish people living in the vil- lage were heard in court last week.

The suggestion that a local man pledged to start up a war between the Irish and the Polish was made at Kil- kee District Court on Tuesday.

The revelations came in the case of Robert Jernokow (22), formerly of Church Street, Kilmihil, who plead- ed guilty to possession of a knife and engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour, at Main Street, Kilmihil, on August 13, 2006.

Garda Paddy Coughlan told Kilkee District Court that Jernokow was in-

volved in an altercation with locals from Kilmihil, at 3.20am.

“In a pub earlier, a dispute arose over a game of pool. They decided to take matters into their own hands,” said the garda.

He said that the accused held “the sharp side” of a knife to the throat of a local man, for five seconds.

Garda Coughlan said the accused told gardai he had previously carried out a job on a house nearby and knew there was a knife in the front garden of the house.

“He didn’t have the knife in the pub. He acquired it after the initial row, he said.

Defending solicitor Eugene O’Kelly said there had been an incident be-

tween Polish individuals and a local family in Kilmhil previously.

Garda Coughlan said that while he was aware there had been a previous incident, it had not been reported to gardai.

Mr O’Kelly said that his client and a number of other Polish men rented a house and a local family resented this. The solicitor said his client would allege that a member of the lo- cal family threatened to kill “all the Polish in the house”’.

Mr O’Kelly said the accused would say that the door of the house had been kicked in. In July 2006, he said a member of the local family had said he was “going to kill us and start a war between the Polish and

the Irish.”

Mr O’Kelly said his client came to Ireland to work in July 2006.

He said he was living in the house in Kilmihil just one week when the windows were broken and the door was kicked in. He said he had been intimidated twice by a local man.

He said his client heard that another Polish man had been hit by a local man and he “snapped.”

‘He knew the knife had been in the garden he had been working on. He got the knife and produced it and said he wanted no further trouble. It was a very foolish thing to do. He didn’t have the experience to go to gardai. He felt if he gave a stern, strict warn- ing to people that would be the end

of it,’ he said.

‘He couldn’t stand the intimidation in Kilmihil any longer so he moved to Limerick. He has no wish to return to Kilmihil,’ said the solicitor.

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that gardai made enquiries of the Polish police, who said that Jer- nakow was known to them in relation to several thefts, breaking and enter- ing, punishable threats, damaging property, forgery of a document and causing bodily injury.

Judge Mangan jailed him for six months for the knife offence and six weeks for the public order matter, both sentences to run concurrently. He fixed a bond in the event of an appeal.

A DECISION by a motorist to over- take on acontinuous white line would have led to a fatality were it not for the vigilance of another driver who pulled in to create space.

That was the view expressed by a garda, during evidence in a court case in Kilkee last week.

Darren Grant (22), of Marian Es- tate, Kilkee, pleaded guilty to dan- gerous driving, at Lisdeen, Kilkee, on August 7, 2007.

Garda Charlie Killeen told Kilkee District Court that he came on the scene on the night in question.

He said that Grant, who was travel- ling in the direction of Kilkee, was overtaking a car on a continuous white line. The car he was overtak- ing managed to manoeuvre.

“It happened on a hill crest where the road was veering to the left, on a continuous white line,’ said Gda Ona

‘Had the other car not been able to manoeuvre, we would have been

dealing with a head on collision and we would probably be dealing with a fatality,’ said the garda.

Defending solicitor Eugene O’ Kelly said his client was an inexperienced driver. He said he “misjudged” the speed at which the car in front of him was travelling. He was afraid he was going to hit the rear of that car and “took the chance of overtaking,” said Mr O’Kelly.

He said as he commenced the ma- noeuvre, the other car came around the bend in the opposite direction.

He accepted that there could have been “a very Serious accident” were it not for the ability of the car in front of Grant’s car to pull in and create space.

“TV’d ask you not to deal with this case on what might have happened. There were no fatalities. ’’d ask you to deal with it on the basis of how he was driving,’ said the solicitor.

Judge Joseph Mangan disqualified Grant from driving for a year and fined him €1,000. He fixed a bond in the event of an appeal.

that the council

was surprised that a blockage of this

size could result in such a problem with the water supply.

He said the weather also played a

part in the water problems.

The age of the system also made it more vulnerable, with Mr Tiernan admitting that the council expected the new water system to be in place lea IO

The new, permanent system, 1s ex- pected to be up and running in Feb- ruary next year.

“The supply is more vulnerable be- cause it does not have a fully fledged multi stage treatment process,” said Mr Tiernan.

While the most recent tests of the supply show that traces of the E-coli are no longer present, residents of En- nis, Clarecastle, Barefield, Crusheen and surrounding areas are warned to continue boiling the water which is to be consumed.

A number of clear water tests must be recorded to the satisfaction of the HSE before the boil notice is lifted.

Residents are advised to boil all water for human consumption, in- cluding food preparation and brush- bOTeaa Kore ee

CLARE’S county manager has ad- mitted that Clare County Council will “have to up our game consider- ably” if it 1s to reach the targets set for it in the first report on the Provi- sion and Quality of Drinking Water in Ireland, 2006 – 2007.

Alec Fleming said that while the re- port was favourable in many respects the council has a lot of improvement works to carry out.

He said that the three areas re- quiring improvement included the upgrading of the county’s treatment plants, the operation and mainte- nance of the water schemes and the

monitoring of the water sources.

All of this will require more staff and money; money the manager said he does not have.

Clare County Council, like other local authorities, no longer receive 100 per cent of the capital fund- ing required for such projects. This means that the council must find €80 million from its own coffers.

While such money is collectable through levies, the county manager fears that such funding will be dif- ficult to find.

“IT welcome the report. It brings out issues. They are serious issues and they have to be addressed urgently and quickly,” he said.

Published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the report gives an overall favourable report to the drinking water in Clare, while highlighting a few serious concerns.

The EPA was particularly con- cerned with the low level of compli- ance with the trihalomethanes stand- ard at 88 per cent.

Trihalomethanes remains on the surface of the water when it is treat- ed only with disinfection rather than UI Kouce

Supplies in Ennis, Ennistymon, West Clare New and West Clare Old reported concentrations that were unacceptably high.

The standards for trihalomethanes

are tightening later this year, making this a number one concern.

Compliance with the indicator par- amedic values was above the nation- al average in water supplies in Clare, but there was a notable improvement required in the iron concentration in the water.

Water supplies in Clare were fully compliant with 23 of the 26 chemi- cal standards, with just one failure to meet fluoride standard and two fail- ures to meet lead standards recorded. Compliance with water regulations for the county were above national average at 98.2 per cent although concerns were expressed about the Ennis town supply.

For the report the EPA analysed 529 check and 54 audit samples dur- ihnteaA 0) Oley

Although private group’ water schemes in Clare were generally of a higher quality than those in the ma- jority of local authorities, the report found that there was still a number of quality deficient schemes dur- ing 2006 whether three or the 11 schemes monitored contaminated. Two of these were also contaminated during 2005. Compliance with the coliform bacteria parametric value in private group water schemes re- mained problematic and dropped from 63 per cent compliance in 2005 to 58 per cent in 2006.

AFTER a two year delay, plans by An Post to move mail sorting and de- livery services from two Clare post offices to Shannon are now likely to go ahead in March.

Staff at the offices in Sixmilebri- dge and Newmarket-on-Fergus have been in dispute with the company since it announced its intention to permanently redeploy them to Shan-

non.They have now been advised by their union to accept recommenda- tions issued by the Labour Relations Commission following conciliation Fe EM Wioled ©

While further talks are scheduled to take place between the Communi- cations Workers Union and An Post, it is expected the sorting and deliv- ery services at Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus will move to Shannon from early March. It is

understood a number of outstanding issues in relation to the move will be discussed at that meeting.

At present, letter and parcel post for Newmarket and Sixmilebridge is sorted on site at the respective post offices. Ten delivery staff are employed between the two offices and moving them to Shannon would see a doubling of staff at that sort- ing centre. It is also understood that some redevelopment of the facility at

Shannon will have to be undertaken. Three separate dates were set in 2006 for the relocation of services, however the move did not go ahead because the matter was in dispute. Following talks at the LRC on Tuesday, recommendations were is- sued to both sides for consideration. Staff from Newmarket-on-Fergus and Sixmilebridge met with their union representatives in Ennis last Thursday night to discuss the LRC

document. Although the details of the arrangement have not been made public by either side, staff at the meeting were advised by the CWU to accept the LRC recommendation.

Commenting on the LRC talks, a spokesman for An Post would only say, “We went to the LRC last Tues- day for conciliation talks and after- wards recommendations were 1s- sued. Both sides are now considering those recommendations.”

A CONTRACTOR to begin work on the new sewage scheme in Corofin should be in place before the begin- ning of April, but little progress has been made on the Doolin scheme, the North Clare Area Meeting of Clare County Council heard yesterday.

Responding to a motion put for- ward by Ennistymon Cllr Richard Nagle, Senior Engineer of the Water Services, Walter Walshe, said that a new proposal to connect the Doolin scheme to the existing Lisdoonvarna scheme is being examined.

He also said that the Department of Communications, Marine and Natu- ral resources had recently granted a foreshore licence for the Bally- vaughan scheme.

Regarding Ballyvaughan, Cllr Na- gle said, “I am delighted about the eranting of the foreshore licence. The licence has been one of the main obstacles blacking the scheme for a long time.

“Doolin, unfortunately is still un- der consideration. | know that the council is looking at the possibility

of pumping it into the system in Lis- doonvarna system and hopeful some progress will be made on that soon. Doolin 1s in chronic need of a sewer- age system.

“The new proposal of pumping the sewage to Lisdoonvarna could be a lot cheaper than the previously men- tioned stand alone facility in Doo- thee

Cllr Martin Lafferty (Ind) criti- cised what he described as “mislead- ing” information circulated about the Doolin scheme.

‘That proposal to pump the sewage from Doolin up to Lisdoonvarna was made ten years ago. There is a huge need for this in Doolin and there is Spare capacity in Lisdoonvarna,” said Cllr Lafferty.

“There was a confused article in one of the local papers regarding the funding for the Doolin scheme re- cently. It was announced that €6.04 million has been made available for the Doolin scheme. However, it didn’t mention that there was a fund- ing deficit of €5.388 million for this project. This would have to be made up by the local people.”

CALLS were made for a more bal- anced approach to development in north Clare at yesterdays North Clare Electoral Area meeting of Clare County Council in Ennistymon.

Commenting on a motion propos- ing the upgrading of the main Crush- een to Ballinruan road, Cllr Michael Kelly (FF), suggested that all areas of the county should be looked after in terms of funding and development.

The area meeting took place direct- ly after an in-camera meeting where the multi-million euro development of the Lahinch promenade was dis- cussed.

“We have just been talking about a significant investment in Lahinch and, while that is a welcome invest- ment, I feel that we have to acknowl- edge that a more balanced approach to development needs to be under-

taken,’ he said.

“Investment need to be made in places like Ballyvaughan and Corofin.

‘These are areas of big population and areas that are not looking for much money. If we are to have equi- table system we must look at invest- ment in these areas.”

Meanwhile, in a separate motion Cllr Kelly raised concerned that slip- pery road conditions have caused a number of car accidents on the N67 in New Quay, with one car possible even entering the nearby Turlough.

In his official response to the mo- tion, Senior Executive Engineer in the Ennistymon Area Office Hubert Newell, said that tests on the road said it was satisfactory.

“Improvement works were carried out along the section of the N67 near New Quay School in recent years,” he said.

“A high quality asphalt road sur- face with appropriate camber, lining, signing and cats-eyes were installed. The NRA carried out a recent analy- sis of skip residence of the road. The skid resistance along the section of the road in question was shown to be satisfactory.”

Details of flooding at Deerpark West, to the rear of the Ennistymon Hospital, were also released at the inalexel mu etee

Responding to a motion put for- ward by Cllr Richard Nagle (FF), council officials commented that the situation was caused by “the instal- lation of inadequately sized pipes along the frontage of the developed size by some developers has led to an increased incident of road flooding””.

The meeting was adjourned early, with a number of councillors being oN ETSre Rr hehe

CLARE County Council is to write to the Department of the Environ- ment, Heritage and Local Govern- ment to amend planning guidelines sO necessary upgrades can be carried out on waste water services.

County Manag- er, Alec Fleming agreed that there was general con- sensus to write to the department after the issue was raised in a motion put for- ward by Councillor Madeleine ‘Taylor Quinn (FG).

Speaking after the debate, Mr Flem- ing said, “The only other thing I would say is that unless we get the sanitary services into various towns and vil- lages, then not a whole lot is going to happen.”

Cllr Taylor Quinn called for the county manager to outline the ef- fect of recently announced housing planning guidelines with specific reference to rural villages and those still awaiting waste water treatment services. She said, “Rural villages have been handicapped by a lack of infrastructure. To impose these

guidelines on towns and villages still waiting for services would be, in my opinion, penal. I propose an amend- ment to these guidelines that, until these places are up to critical mass, then they not be enforced.”

Cllr PJ Kelly (FF) said communi- ties in Clare were paying for the mis-

takes made in hous- ing plans in urban areas. “These were first called regula- tions and when it emerged that peo- ple weren’t entirely happy with them, they were changed and it suddenly be- came a consultative process. If mistakes are made in plan- ning in places like Moyross, then it shouldn’t be places like Scariff and Cooraclare that have to suffer.”

Cllr Martin Lafferty (Ind) said recent focus on the impact on plan- ning in urban areas had ignored the problems facing rural towns and vil- lages. He said, “There was nothing in these articles about regulation and the impact they had in rural areas. I don’t know what kind of spin doctor- ing this is.”

CLARE County Council has warned the National Roads Authority (NRA) to “keep its nose out” of planning is- sues in County Clare.

A heated debate erupted at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council where council members at- tacked the NRA and other Govern- ment-sponsored agencies for hanging rural Clare dwellers out to dry.

This followed a motion put for- ward by Cllr PJ Kelly CFF) in which he accused the NRA of engaging in

an “anti-rural campaign” against de- velopments beside national second- ary routes.

“This will result in hundreds of miles of road in Clare where no houses will be built. This is a crazy situation.

“If you continue with this logic, then the road to Kilrush will end up being the road to God knows where. This regulation doesn’t make sense, and if something doesn’t make sense, then it shouldn’t be there.”

Commenting on the motion, Tom Prendeville (FF) said that other agen-

cies such as the Environmental Pro- tection Agency (EPA) and An Taisce and An Bord Pleanala were all also cuilty of interference.

“If you want to talk about rural bias, then each of these organisations would have something to say on this matter,” he said.

Cllr Madeleine Taylor-Quinn called on the Government to take action to ensure that these agencies did not in- terfere with local planning issues.

‘We must remember that the NRA are an agent of the Government. They are appointed by the minister and the

minister has responsibility for them,” she said.

“If the NRA is getting involved in planning applications, then this must be brought to the attention of nation- al Government. In my view, the NRA are going beyond its remit.

“We have about 130 miles of na- tional secondary roads in Clare. This is a huge part of the county which is being adversely affected by the NRA.

“We need to send a message to the minister on this.”

Independent councillors Christy

Curtin and Martin Lafferty also criti- cised the role played by the NRA.

“The NRA’s role is overplayed in this county when it comes to plan- ning. They are mitigating against good decision-making.

“The legitimate planning authority for Clare is Clare County Council,” rem GubsunnO

“They are statutary consultees. It wasn’t Santa Claus who promoted the NRA into their position.

“We should get on to the minister and ask about the remit of the NRA and all the other consultees.”