Month: July 2008

LOBBYING of councillors by three Ennis-based companies has resulted in Clare County Council reversing rezonings that would have wiped millions of euro off the value of the companies’ lands.

However, planners have warned that by reversing one of the proposed rezonings the council could, in the future, be open to compensation claims over flood damage.

The draft Ennis plan is due to go on

public display next week. An earlier draft of the plan, circulated to coun- cillors in recent weeks, showed that lands owned by Michael Lynch Ltd, Tom Hogan Motors Ltd and T Sheils and Co Ltd had inferior zonings.

The businesses involved scrambled to lobby councillors ahead of a series of meetings behind closed doors. The draft put before the July meeting of Ennis Town Council yesterday shows that they have been successful.

Last year, Tom Hogan Motors Ltd paid in excess of €10 million for

an eight acre site incorporating the One Mile Inn on the Lahinch Road in Ennis. That was zoned “local cen- tre” in the 2003 Ennis Development Plan, conferring on it the ability “to sustain and strengthen the area as a centre of commercial, retail, cultural and community life’.

However, in the new draft Ennis plan, planning officials removed that zoning and instead moved to have a large proportion of the site rezoned to “open space” and “flood risk” with the remainder zoned “commercial”.

In recommending that the flood risk zoning remain, a report put be- fore the meeting yesterday stated: ‘The portion of the site to the south of the property is known to be a flood risk area for which photographic evi- dence of winter flooding exists.

“It is strongly recommended that the lands should be zoned as per the draft development plan to protect the council against any future claims.”

But the councillors countered that flooding problems “due to blocked drains during by-pass construction

(are) now resolved. Flood risk on site should be determined by experts at time of any planning application.”

The councillors also ruled that the Michael Lynch and Co Ltd site near St Flannan’s roundabout should re- tain its “Proposal Site” status. Plan- ners had sought to rezone the site to “other settlement land” and “residen- tial” to protect the amenities of adja- cent properties.

Councillors also ordered that “com- mercial” zoning be reinstated on the site owned by T Sheils and Co.

d planning permission to Brian McGoey and Niall Cunningham to construct 75 homes in Doonbeg but insisted that they only be used as

principal places of residence.

This prompted an appeal to An Bord Pleanala, with the developers claiming that the condition is “‘oner- ous and that at least a proportion of the dwellings should be available for use as holiday homes’”’.

They state that the imposition of the condition “is not in compliance with the proper planning and development of the area”.

“It is acknowledged that there are concerns regarding the provision of further holiday homes in Doonbeg potentially resulting in the village becoming seasonally quiet. How- ever, because of the quality of the proposed scheme, it is unlikely the houses will be purchased by people who only wish to live in the area for a small portion of the year as they are suitable for people who will reside in

them on a more continuous basis eg retirement homes. This means that there will be a high rate of occupan- cy in the development throughout the year with resulting benefits for the local economy”.

The appeal also cites a policy of the West Clare Local Area Plan, which states that the provision of visitor ac- commodation should be encouraged in areas such as Doonbeg.

The developers also point out that the Local Area Plan acknowledges that there is an opportunity to expand the existing tourism base “through the provision of holiday homes and tourism related accommodation’.

‘The proposed scheme is capable of providing suitable holiday homes to cater for this shortfall and to contrib- ute to growth of the tourism product offered in Doonbeg.”

THE ever increasing fame of the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival could be its eventual downfall with copycat festivals beginning to sur- face right across the world.

Over the last eight month two new festivals modelling themselves on the Lisdoon festival have been an- nounced in America and in Asia.

Just last week the Chicago Irish Fest announced that it would be hosting its own matchmaking event entitled the Hooley Happy Festival.

Event organisers have claimed that the Lisdoonvarna Festival was the inspiration for the Hooley Happy Festival and have employed 86- year-old Irish matchmaker Maureen O’Looney, to oversee the romance.

Last year Lisdoonvarna matchmak- er Willie Daly, and festival organiser Marcus White travelled to Singapore and Thailand to consult with the na- tional tourist board wishing to set up matchmaking festivals in those countries. Daly believes that these new festivals will help and not hurt the Lisdoonvarna Festival.

“I think that Lisdoonvarna is prob- ably the best festival in the world. The music is so great and there is just so many places for people to meet,” he said.

“The atmosphere that we have in Lisdoonvarna is something hard to capture. I’d have no worries about festivals in other parts of the world taking people away from Lisdoon- varna. It’s all a help and there is plen- ty of room for all of us.

“We went to Singapore and Thai- land last week and there is great pos- sibilities out there for matchmaking.

The women out there are so very beautiful and they are shown from a very early age how to do all they can to help and support their man.

“That is something that most wom- en in the west have yet to properly realise.

“T think that a new festival in Thai- land would have huge possibilities and we could even see a Situation that people from Lisdoonvarna were going out there for their festival and people from there coming here for ours.”

Willie, who is Ireland’s foremost

matchmaker, also believes that peo- ple matched by matchmakers are much better couples than those who meet through the Internet.

“There are lots of people walking around now who would not be here if it wasn’t for matchmaking,” contin- ued Willie.

‘‘T have seen people matched up by a computer that I would never have put together – not in a million years.”

The Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival runs each year during the month of September. For more check out www.matchmakerireland.com.

SWS l Smear yibicr IHCOeM ONO MDM OM ADNTCaNKO establish a drop-in centre in Ennis for homeless people and people with social difficulties are holding a fund- raising dance on July 31 in the West County.

The Homeless Educational Learn- ing Programme (HELP) volunteers – who have been working with peo- ple in the town since January – have decided the new centre will be called the Sara Finn drop-in centre, in re-

membrance of Sara who died tragi- Creuse neh

“We want the centre to be a place where people can come and talk or get advice about their entitlements, or just have somewhere to go,’ said Josephine O’Brien.

Josephine now has 11 helpers work- ing with her and is adamant that the drop-in centre will be different to anything that has gone before.

“Tt will be somewhere that people can talk and be listened to, especial- ly young people and people who are

having mental health difficulties.”

The aim of HELP is to provide as- sistance to homeless people strug- gling to find accommodation.

Information on housing and resi- dents rights along with guidance on issues associated with renting prop- erty will also be available.

HELP was set up by local women Josephine O’Brien and Ann Quinn after hearing about the difficulties faced by the homeless.

The spark for HELP was provided by a Christmas Day dinner organised

for the homeless at Fahy Hall.

Josephine explained that after talk- ing to people on Christmas day she recognised the extent of the difficul- ties faced by homeless people.

“A lot of them were living in B&Bs and were finding it very hard to find permanent accommodation. In many cases, particularly where renting was concerned, they were having difficul- ty dealing with landlords. Phonecalls weren’t being returned”.

She continued “What we are aim- ing to do with HELP is to provide

some sort of guidance, show them what their rights are, what kind of forms have to be filled out, that sort Oma av eercaae

The group has had a Playstation do- nated and are hoping that someone will donate a TV.

“We’re also hoping people will give us spot prizes for the dance and of course, donations are always wel- come,’ said Josephine.

Tickets for the dance can be had from the West County Hotel or from Josephine at 065 6891596.

THE executive of Clare County Council was last night accused of pulling a stunt by reversing a deci- sion by councillors to grant planning permission for a one off home to an Ennis businessman in the Burren. CUlr Tommy Brennan (Ind) made the charge during a tense one hour debate at the council’s July meeting. He said that the 27 members of the council who voted in favour of the application from businessman Gerry

Danagher and Cllr Brennan, himself, had been wronged and hoodwinked.

At the council’s June meeting, councillors believed that they had secured planning permission for Mr Danagher to build a home at Bally- cullinan, Corofin after they voted 27- 3 in favour of contravening the Clare County Development Plan.

A planner’s report before members recommended that planning be re- fused on a number of grounds.

However, on the foot of legal advice from county solicitor, John Shaw,

county manager Alec Fleming re- fused planning permission.

Mr Danagher was refused on two grounds. The council ruled that he did not qualify as a local person as he was not born in the area and that the proposal would give rise to a risk of water pollution affecting the qual- ity of the surface waters.

Cllr Brennan said last night that the decision to refuse planning permis- sion to Mr Danagher “defies logic and common justice”.

Mr Shaw said that there was no

evidence in the report he received on the June meeting that the councillors had considered all material issues re- lating to the application that formed part of the planner’s report.

He said that he had been provided with a full record of the meeting and the conclusion was that all material matters were not considered.

Mr Shaw said that proper procedure was not followed in the material con- travention process and any objector could have overturned the decision by way of judicial review.

He said that his advice to the council was based upon the need “to protect this body from a judicial review”.

Cllr Brennan said that the report that Mr Shaw based his legal advice upon was itself based on an incorrect record of what was said at the June meeting.

However, senior council official Michael McNamara said that there was a note taken by a council em- ployee and he stood over that the record of the meeting was accurate.

An animated Cllr Brennan said: “All I want is justice, not vengeance for me, the applicant and council- lors.”

Acting County Manager, Tom Coughlan said notes of the coun- cil official would be provided to Cllr Brennan and that a legal report would be prepared by Mr Shaw on the overall issue.

THE amount of summer chartered flights flying into Dublin Airport has passed out those flying into Shannon Airport for the first time ever.

That was the startling revelation at last nights meeting of Clare County Council where calls were made for the local authority to redouble it’s efforts to market the county to tour- ists abroad, especially to the United NF tee

Commenting on a motion put for-

ward by Cllr Pascal Fitzgerald (Lab), Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind) blamed the loss of the Aer Lingus’ Heathrow slots in Shannon as one of the chief reasons for the decline in tourism nga t Kone

“The Clare Tourist forum is work- ing very hard but we have to recog- nice that there were fierce impedi- ments put in the way of the Clare tourist forum, not least of which is the loss of a connection,’ said Cllr McCarthy.

“The current system with flights

coming into Ireland is favouring Dublin and the greater Dublin area and not Shannon. The number of chartered flights going into Dub- lin has passed out those going into Shannon for the first time ever. This is very bad news for the tourism pro- duce in Shannon.”

The council also heard that a number of hotels in the county were working three-day weeks as a result of the widspread downturn in tourist numbers.

“I’d like to see more initiative used

in promoting the county. There are no incentives or advertisements to bring people in. We are looking at putting out a brochure but we re- ally should have done that last year. There are no enticement for people to come into the county this year,’ said Cllr Fitzgerald.

“Some hotels are now down to a three day week to get people in. The Americans are not coming. Especial- ly in to the Shannon slots.”

According to Fianna Fail councilor Pat McMahon, the tourism industry

is suffering not just in Clare but also throughout Europe.

“The situation is getting worse by the month. You hear of hotels going into receivership and down to a four and three day week – the whole in- dustry is in serious trouble,” he said.

“It’s not just in Ireland. People are scared to go abroad and move be- cause of the state of the global econ- omy. It should be up to us to take the initiative and put forward a new programme for bringing tourism into OE Tome

ENNIS Town Council’s ban on new housing development because of the poor sewerage infrastructure has claimed its latest victim.

More worryingly for developers, the latest refusal 1s for a relatively small development of only 26 houses. Pre- vious refusals related to projects in excess of 100, 200 and 400 residen- tial units.

The situation is expected to contin- ue for another four years at least until anew €75 million sewage treatment plant is commissioned at Clareabbey. The timescale for the plant was an- nounced prior to recent speculation on Government cutbacks.

The plan by Mairead Murphy for 26 homes at Claureen on the La- hinch Road was refused after the Council ruled that “the development would be premature by reason of an

existing deficiency in the provision of sewerage facilities and the period within which the constraint may be expected to cease”.

In an internal memo, Town En- gineer, Tom Tiernan said his main concern over the application relates to the capacity of the main sewerage treatment plant at Clonroadmore.

‘The capacity of this plant has been evolving as an issue for some time and this stage, it has been determined

that it is stretched to the extent that it would be inappropriate to approve any further significant developments which would be dependent on it.

“Given that the new plant at Clare- abbey will not now materialise until 2012 at least, the concept of an in- terim upgrade of the existing plant to accommodate envisaged require- ments over the next five years or so is feasible at a cost of between €1.2 million and €1.5 million.

“Tf this conclusion 1s confirmed, the only means of funding the upgrade works will be in association with prospective development which will be approved via the planning process with any funding to be levied under the council’s approved contribution scheme”’.

The Claureen development was op- posed by residents associations from the Brookville and Dun na hiInse housing estates.

CONCERNS have been expressed over the level of service for cystic fi- brosis (CF) sufferers in Clare.

Fine Gael TD Pat Breen told the Dail that around 30 cystic fibrosis patients in the county are attending for treatment at the Mid-Western Re- gional Hospital in Limerick.

He said that a full time consultant was needed to enhance the level of available care.

“The present consultant is due to retire and when the position is adver- tised, a consultant with a speciality in CF should be appointed. The pro- vision of a dedicated adult outpatient

unit 1s also essential. Such a unit is available for children but adults can- not avail of same,’ he said.

“Progress has been made in some areas and funding was allocated in 2006 and 2007 to put in place a full medical multidisciplinary team, fol- lowing an audit by the HSE in 2005 of the staffing levels at the hospital. However, while a number of posi- tions have been filled, there is seri- ous concern regarding the position of two CF nurse specialist positions, which have not been advertised, even though funding has been allocated. When will these positions be adver- tised and filled?” he asked.

“I recently met representatives of

the Clare branch of the Cystic Fi- brosis Association of Ireland and they outlined the stories of the bat- tles they fight every day for services. I met a woman whose son died six weeks ago, aged 23, and I admire her courage in playing a part with the association to highlight the plight of other sufferers. I was amazed by her strength in speaking about her son’s plight. She wants to do something for other CF sufferers in County Clare.”

In response, Minister for State, Mary Wallace, said that the HSE had advised that “An audit of CF staffing at the Mid-Western Regional Hosp1- tal was carried out in 2005. The HSE has since earmarked funding for the

creation of 8.5 additional posts to en- hance both the adult and paediatric CF service.

“The additional staff include a con- sultant respiratory physician with a special interest in cystic fibrosis and a consultant paediatrician with a special interest in respiratory medi- cine, supported by specialist nurses, a physiotherapist, a dietician, a social worker, a pharmacist and a medical scientist post. The HSE has advised that the dietician, the social worker and 0.5 of the physiotherapist post have been filled, the consultant posts are under consideration and it is in the process of recruiting the remain- ing posts.”

said that the homes were being targeted during the day when they were unoccupied.

‘A lot of the houses are on the main road. They just drive up and break in,’ he said.

People in neighbouring Kildysart have also reported theft from boats.

Gardai say that a group of travel- ling criminals are responsible for break-ins to several houses in north and west Clare over the past two TneCOy ele stse

The thieves targeted the unoccupied homes during the day and among the

items they stole include jewellery, cash and computer games.

Five boat engines, valued at up to €6,000 each, have also been stolen from Crovraghan Quay, Kildysart, area over the past few weeks.

These boats were used by local farmers to access the island.

Two boat engines, stolen in Car- rigaholt and Kilkee earlier this year have been recovered by gardai in Sligo.

“There has been a marked rise in burglaries while people are out of their homes during the daytime. These are opportunist crimes involv- ing a gang of travelling criminals,” said a garda spokesman.

A non-national was arrested in con- nection with a burglary in Inagh and detained for questioning.

He was later released without charge and a file 1s being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecu- tions.

No one has been arrested in connec- tion with several other burglaries in Cranny, Ballynacally and Kildysart.

Local County Councillor Oliver Garry (FG) said there 1s a lot of con- cern in the local area about the large increase in the number of house usr onny

Warnings for people to be vigilant have even appeared in parish news- ato ne

‘People who live alone or people who would leave their house for the day are now putting in house alarms and electric gates,” he said.

“There is a lot to be said for the Garda on the beat and they are miss- ing from the country areas. That is what will control crime in the rural areas,” said Cllr Garry.

A community alert meeting is now being planned for the area. The lo- cal superintendent has been invited to attend to offer people advice on home security.

The final component of Dromoland Castle’s €30 million expansion has secured planning permission. An Bord Pleanala has dismissed an ap- peal by a local resident against a golf facility at the five star hotel.

Last year, Clare County Council granted planning permission for 32 short-rent apartments, a 38-unit ac- commodation block for staff and the provision of a golf course operations facility.

The Lynch Group had initially op- posed the luxury apartment plan, but chose not to appeal the decision to An Bord Pleanala. However, local resident Ken Power objected.

In his appeal, Mr Power said: “The buildings will be at least 27 feet high

and will be visible from the front of my house…the proposed building will devalue my houses and should be relocated in a different site within the Dromoland Castle which has a lower landscape sensitivity.

“The mixing of pesticides and her- bicides on a large scale for a golf course in the vicinity of households with young children is not accept- able… .”

The board ruled that “having regard to the zoning objective for the area and the pattern of development in the area, it is considered that the pro- posed development would not seri- ously injure the amenities of the area or of property in the vicinity, would not be prejudicial to public health and would be acceptable in terms of traffic safety and convenience.”