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Time to make tourism our priority?

This article is from page 29 of the 2008-06-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 29 JPG

ma dite councillor said these are among his priorities for the coming year.

Pat took over office from council- lor Colm Wiley (FF) at the last area meeting of the council.

“I’m very pleased with the progress that’s been made in areas such as the

Scariff sewerage scheme but I want to see these facilities rolled out for other areas. In parts of east Clare, there has been little or no develop- ment because of the lack of this type of infrastructure and we must keep on working to provide and upgrade water and sewerage schemes for eve- ry area of east Clare.”

Cllr Hayes said that he 1s also con- cerned that there has been a huge fall-off in angling tourism in east Clare, a slice of the market which played a major role previously.

‘There was a time when a lot of people made their living solely from the angling tourism trade. Now that

has fallen off the page entirely,’ Cllr Hayes said.

The councillor said that he ap- plauds the work being done by the East Clare Tourism organisation: ‘But we need to be part of a bigger promotional picture and we also need to integrate cultural tourism into the picture. If you look at the east Clare area in the coming months, we have a myriad of different festivals with a cultural emphasis.”

Pat wants to see a meeting of the key people involved in tourism and tourism promotion to set out a plan of action. The newly elected chair says he is also anxious to see more

co-operation with council colleagues in neighbouring areas, including Tip- Oe DAA TIOm Or NAVE hs

He is hopeful that when the elec- toral boundary commission unveils it’s plans in the coming weeks, east Clare will remain intact.

“Rural and urban areas have differ- ent needs and places like Scariff and Tuamgraney need representation on different issues to developed urban areas.”

The councillor said he will also be placing a lot of emphasis on road up- grades “particularly main link roads such as Limerick through Broad- ford’, he said.

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