Month: September 2008

KILRUSH’S longest serving public representative has called for the res- ignation of the CEO of Aer Lingus.

Clir Jack Fennel (Ind) was back in the council chamber on Thursday – quiet literally fighting fit after a short illness.

The father of Kilrush Town Coun- cil had one opponent in mind – Der- mott Mannion.

“T thought we would never reach this day again,’ he told councillors at Thursday night’s monthly meeting, referring to the current recession.

““T know two families at the moment

whose members are working in Lon- don, and come home every weekend. The only way they have back into Shannon is at 12 midnight on Friday night,” he said.

“You have to go to Cork on Monday to leave Ireland for London,” added Cllr Fennell.

The Independent councillor said that the afternoon flight from Lon- don into Shannon was no good to workers as they could not work a full day and get that flight.

‘“T would like to see them fly out on Monday morning from Shannon and back in early Friday evening to see eles Dam e-NOe ND Blon ie

The Independent town councillor criticised Aer Lingus’s decision to move the Shannon-Heathrow slots to Belfast for what it described as com- mercial reasons.

“It is in Belfast now and at the stage where it is offering free flights,” he HOE

“T call on Mr Mannion to resign for coming out with a statement that it was a commercial move,’ he said.

Cllr Fennel told the meeting that the economy in the county had been damaged significantly, and a lot of non-national workers that had lived in Kilrush had now gone to London to find work in the build up to the

2012 Olympics.

“If you look in the shop windows you will see how many apartments are for rent,” he said.

He proposed a motion that Kilrush Town Council call on the Miunis- ter for State Tony Killeen (FF) and Deputy Timmy Dooley (FF) to put a motion to the Dail that would recall at least two daily flights from “our national airline, Aer Lingus to Shan- non Airport”.

He also asked that this motion be sent to the other local authorities in the county for support.

The motion was supported unani- mously.

IT was gold, silver and bronze for west Clare in this year’s Tidy Towns competition as the west of the county proved it was most definitely awake when it came to showing what is best about its towns and villages.

Kilrush was awarded a gold medal award in Category D of the National Tidy Towns Competition for the sec- ond year running.

The west Clare capital led the way by scoring 297 marks – just six marks behind the national overall winner. Kilrush has long since been progressing through the competition having won a bronze medal in Cat- egory D of the Tidy Towns Compe- tition in 2003 and 2004 and a silver medal in the same category in 2005 and 2006.

“Retaining the gold medal is a mas- sive achievement for everybody in- volved,’ said Mayor of Kilrush Cllr Liam O’Looney (FF).

He added that the award marks the

culmination of months of hard work by local volunteers and members of the Kilrush Tidy Town’s Committee to improve the appearance of Kil- Tatts ep

According to Murt Collins, Chair- person of the Kilrush Tidy Towns Committee, “The key to our progress in the Tidy Towns scheme has been the partnership approach that we adopted some years ago. There is a broad range of groups and organi- sations now involved in promoting and enhancing the appearance of the town including the local Tidy Towns Committee, FAS schemes, outdoor and clerical staff from Kilrush Town Council, the local business sector, and the community of Kilrush.”

He also paid tribute to Queally’s Supermarket Kilrush.

In Ballynacally the Tidy Town’s Committee were celebrating silver.

The village was third in Clare, after Ennis and Kilrush and got silver in Category B.

Chairman of the committee, John

Maher, described the silver medal win in the national competition as “an astounding result for Ballyna- cally”.

“We are up 43 marks in two years,’ he said paying tribute to all the vol- unteers, schools, residents, local business, clubs and FAS.

“It is very much a team effort. It takes a lot of long winter night plot- ting and planning to achieve this,” he said.

The seaside town of Kilkee secured a bronze medal in Category C.

The committee’s hard work paid off with an extra 15 marks this year, that is 29 extra marks in the last two years.

The committee under the chairper- sonship of Cllr Lilly Marrinan-Sul- livan and Secretary Pauline Barry paid tribute to the residents for the work on their homes, and the busi- nesses, schools, town and county council workers, different groups and organisations and FAS for their support.

While Lissycasey may have been new to the competition it started its career with the tidy towns on a high by securing the best new entry AMEN EOR

Fine Gael TD Pat Breen paid trib- ute to all of those that took part in the Tidy Towns competition.

“The work of Tidy Towns requires a dedicated group of volunteers in our communities; these people are the unsung heroes/heroines of our various parishes without whom we would not have achieved this suc- cess,” he said.

PLANS are in place in Kilrush for a state-of-the-art multi-purpose build- ing that will house an array of serv- ices and business in the west Clare Cree

The ambitious multi-million euro project has been described by the council’s Senior Executive Archi- tect, Ruth Hurley, as “very exciting and great to be a part of”.

Presenting the design of the new building, she said, “the campus en- capsulates a number of functions that are community and enterprise based”’.

Currently the council plans to de- velop the campus on the proposed new link road and at the edge of John

Paul Estate.

Town Clerk John Corry said the town council would be “strongly pushing for this facility to be consid- ered in conjunction with the second phases of the rejuvenation project in John Paul Estate.”

The local authority applied to En- terprise Ireland for a grant in Au- AU

The enterprise and business units are earmarked for street frontage in a building that must take into account the local streetscape.

There will be six enterprise spaces in total, designed to a brief worked out with Shannon Development.

The units will vary in size from 30 to 60 square metres with clients also having the option to extend verti-

cally.

Units and offices for community groups would also be provided at the opposite side of a general reception and shared area.

Kirush Town Council has already been in talks with organisations such as Clare Youth Services, Clarecare, Kilrush Family Recourse Centre, Eiri Corca Bascinn and Radio Corca Breentvee

As well as offices, it 1s also pro- posed that the new campus would house training facilities, meeting rooms and social and community space such as sports areas, play areas and a community garden.

The shared central reception and waiting area would also act as a evening gathering place for the peo-

ple of Kilrush for launches or exhibi- tions.

There are a number of limitations or challenges facing the council on this ambitious plan.

The current zoning of the proposed land will have to be changed by the council members if the project is to Kee eere ms

The current master plan for John Paul Estate would have to be re- viewed by the Department of the En- vironment.

The project would also take a cer- tain amount of space in the housing estate, but Ms Hurley explained that it was not taking away any space that had not already been dealt with in phase one of the regeneration pro- eramme.

UP to 90 per cent of teenagers in west Clare feel that there is nothing for them to do.

That was the finding of the West Clare Youth Ministry Group who carried out a survey of a cross sec- tion of the county’s teenagers, to see what it could do to reach out to young people.

Two years ago almost half a dozen people signed up to be part of the youth ministry group in Kilkee. They are currently coming to the end of a two-year diploma course, which they undertook with the Redemptrist’s or- der to prepare for their work.

Parish Priest in Kilkee, Fr Donagh

O’Meara, said the group initially carried out a survey among students in first year through to third year in schools in Kilrush, Kilkee, Kilmihil and Kildysert.

The survey asked the students what were the positive and negative aspects of being a teenager in west Clare. It also asked about the difficulties they faced, if faith was important and if they felt they belong to their parish.

Up to 35 per cent of students said that exams and study were major as- pects of their lives. A total of 34 per cent admitted that drugs, alcohol and smoking played a major part, while 19 per cent said peer pressure had a huge role in their lives.

As many as 15 per cent of the teen-

agers said that bullying is the biggest problem currently facing teenagers, while 11 per cent said dangerous driving was the biggest problem.

The majority – 90 per cent – said there was nothing to do.

As many as 58 per cent of the young students surveyed believed that faith was important, while 28 per cent be- lieved it was not.

When asked what was best about their lives they said freedom, sport, lack of responsibility, family and to be “fit and able”.

Following the survey the West Clare Youth Ministry Group made a bookmark with all of the support services and their numbers on it.

The bookmark also contains words

from scripture “I’ve carried you on the a palm of my hand.” Some lines from REM’s

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese paid tribute to the Brothers of Charity Services in Clare for helping to lead the way in providing services for people with intellectual disabilities.

Speaking yesterday (Monday) at the organisations conference enti- tled “Transforming Services – Our Journey so Far” the President said, “Treland has come quite a journey in terms of services for people with disability and, if we have, then the Brothers of Charity Services here in Clare can say with considerable jus- tification that they have helped lead the way.

“From a largely institution based approach to a community based ap- proach, from a patchy set of services designed from above, to a nation “nothing about us without us” proc- ess Ireland, thanks to your advocacy and experience, begun to grow up when it comes to dealing with dis- ability issues,” she said.

In her address to the conference she added, ““We have come to see clearly that people with disabilities can and do make a major contribution to the social, artistic, sporting, political and economic life of their communities and of our nation.”

During the past four to five years, the Clare services have been under-

going a radical change in how we provide supports and services to people with intellectual disability. The traditional approach to service provision created a ‘disability world’ Whereby individuals with intellec- tual disability were placed with ‘one of their own kind’ resulting in little chance to experience life opportuni- Wee

In order to change from support- ing people with disabilities in con- eregated, segregated settings The Brothers of Charity in Clare under- took a number of initiatives to enable people to have valued and inclusive lives with meaningful relationships in their local communities.

It no longer builds special day cen- tres, group homes, training centres and respite facilities and instead uses its resources to create opportunities for people to build, create and main- tain lifestyles of their choosing and self determination.

From the conference in Ennis President McAleese, escorted by her husband Martin, made her way to In- agh where she officially opened the Annagh Duin and Inagh Ark Com- munity Creche.

This state of the art creche was built by Inagh Development Ltd and ac- cepted its first children in November. It caters for 64 children and employs eight staff.

Annagh Duin is a social housing scheme of 12 houses, which have been built purposely for the elderly.

The President then made the short journey to Miltown Malbay to of- ficially open the Spraoi Family Re- source Centre.

The brainchild of a number of lo- cal women, Spraoi Family Resource Centre, has the capacity to care for 80 children in total.

The centre contains a baby sleep and awake room for nine babies, 20 ‘“waddlers” for children aged from nine months to two years and pre- school facilities for 40 children and after school facilities for 20 more Obi lehnone

PHONE in hand, the Abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery in Ennis, Sr Bernadine stood ready to be made aware of any changes to the Presi- dent’s schedule.

Inside the monastery, everything sparkled for the return visit of an old friend, who this time would be mak- ing a short visit in an official capac- ity to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Poor Clare’s in Ennis.

At llam the helicopter flew over the monastery and minutes later the state car drove into the grounds – there had been no change to plans.

When the President emerged from the car, Sr Bernadine and Sr Gabriel greeted her at the door.

The chatty women had welcomed the gardai, presidential security and the press with open arms, but for the President and her husband there was a special and familiar welcome.

While most present greeted the spe- cial guest as her excellence or Mrs McAleese the sisters in the enclosed order greeted her as Mary, and she in turn called each nun by name.

The President of Ireland has been a private visitor to the monastery in Francis Street for the past 11 years, and just weeks before had visited the

monastery for one of her retreats.

Now she was back to help celebrate the sister’s Golden Jubilee in Ennis.

In what were familiar surrounds to Ireland’s first citizen she prayed with her friends, the dozen sisters in the order, and the seven friars from the neighbouring friary.

Reading the scripture and singing along with the Poor Clare sisters dur- ing the psalm the President fitted in with ease.

In a jovial celebration the presi- dent’s husband Dr Martin McAleese joked at the tea party after, “I would like to thank you personally because you don’t know the great craic I

have when she goes on retreat every year.”

President McAleese had nothing but praise for the women of the or- der. “You are great custodians of the tradition in Clare, great friends, great sisters.

‘I know from times down here how many times the phone rings, how many times the bell goes,” she said.

“You can’t take the burden of sor- row from them but you can go on the journey of life with them and that matters so much – the courage, the faith, the hope. Your prayers give them the little bit of energy to keep looking forward to tomorrow,

keep hoping for tomorrow. That is SO important, just bringing the joy of Clare, the joy of Christ into their lives,’ she added.

In the visitor’s book the President inscribed, “Congratulations on 50 years of prayerful, loving care of so many people whose sorrows you shared, whose joys you enhanced. God bless this lovely community as it sets out into the deep of the rest of the 50 years.”

For the neighbouring Franciscan order, yesterday was also a day of celebration as two new members were preparing to join the Frnacis- can order.

THE County Manager has defended the Ennis water supply.

Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of Clare Council, Alec Fleming said the temporary filtration plant at Drum- cliffe, Ennis “produces an excellent quality of water”.

Mr Fleming said that since the sys- tem was introduced two years ago there has been a massive reduction in the risk from cryptosporidiosis.

Mr. Fleming also revealed that when the permanent treatment fa- cility comes on line in Ennis, the Council will be spending €1 million a year in providing clean drinking water to the citizens of Ennis.

However Green Party council- lor Brian Meaney has called for the council to stop using the temporary facility to filter Ennis water.

Cllr Meaney said reports by the En- vironmental Protection Agency have revealed that between 15 and 30 per cent of the water supply bypasses the filtration stage. He said that by opt- ing not to use the system, the council would be sending strong message to the Department of the Environment.

“It is apparent that the membrane filtration system hasn’t worked. Giv- en the strident economic conditions I don’t think we should be throwing bad money after bad money. If we say we don’t use it, it would send a clear message to the government. We are paying for something that isn’t working,’ added Cllr Meaney.

Mr Fleming said, “It 1s my job as County Manager to bring the risk down as far as I possibly could. We are working as best as we can”.

He said that expenditure on water in the year has been “considerable”.

A THIRD level Regional Learning Centre is to be established at the Clare Museum in Ennis.

A consortium of four existing third level institutions – University of Lim- erick, Mary Immaculate College, Tralee Institute of Technology and Limerick Institute of Technology – will operate the centre.

It is expected courses will be deliv- ered in 2009. Tom Coughlan, Ennis Town Manager, made the announce- ment at yesterday’s meeting of Clare Soi Geniale

He said the consortium had commit- ted to the programme for three years and that its viability depended on lo- cal support. Information on courses will be available at the County Mu- seum in the coming weeks, said Mr Sree TEN

Fianna Fail councilor and Chair- man of the governing body of TIT, Flan Garvey, who was involved in negotiations with the consortium, Ned exer ne MN ATOM OLea/odO)oyeetNL

However some councilors said the use of Ennis, as a base by outside third level institutions would have

implications for the establishment of an independent learning centre in OE Ker

Fianna Fail councilor Tom Prendev- ile said, “There is a lot of talk about the re-introduction of third level fees, which in my view would be a retrograde step. Nonetheless there is evidence to suggest that the numbers going to third level are dropping. I would be fearful that our ultimate goal of establishing an IT in Ennis in the short and medium could not be attained. Hopefully it could be done in the long term. Ennis is perfectly geographically situated”.

Fianna Fail councilor PJ Kelly said the “more we go down this road, the more other institutions are making sure that an independent college can- not be established in Ennis”.

Green Party councilor Brian Meaney said it would not be possible for and independent third level cen- tre in Ennis until Ireland had more internationally recognized 3rd level institutions. “We should play to what is feasible and what is achievable’, he said.

A NEW model for the delivery of health care in the county could see Clare people getting the majority of their health care services in the local town or even in their own home.

Representative from the North Clare Primary Care Team addressed last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, and asked for the council- lors to help them develop primary care units throughout the county.

“It’s about providing health care in the community rather than acute hospital services. Where you have a strong care system as part of your health service it has been shown that people live longer and are healthier. We also fell that this 1s a much more cost effective way of delivering a health care service,” said Dr Fergus Glynn of the North Clare Primary Care Team.

The North Clare Primary Care Team covers the Ballyvaughan, Corofin and Lisdoonvarna areas and provides a forum for practitioners in these areas to work together when dealing with patient illnesses.

To date a the service team have found that the waiting times have

come down significantly for anumber of services including physiotherapy.

The group was asked to address the council meeting by north Clare Councillor Martin Conway (FG).

‘The work that they are doing for the most part has been going under the radar. The best strategy is to help people in their home, in their com- munity, to get well,’ he said.

“It’s cost efficient, it’s innovative and it’s what communities are all about. We need to forge links be- tween the health care which is being delivered around the county and the local authority. If this gets proper Support, if it is financed it could revolutionise the provision of health care in north Clare.”

Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) also proposed that Clare County Council should write to the Health Service Execu- tive requesting that primary care be properly funded in Clare.

“There has been a lot of talk about primary care and in a lot of areas there has been little action so I am glad that north Clare is taking the lead. I’m not sure if people realise it but 60 per cent of funding goes to non-hospital services. It’s about joined up thinking,” he said.

DEVELOPMENT contributions re- ceived by Clare County Council have fallen sharply, figures in the financial reports for the first six months of 2008 reveal.

The council received €750,000 in contributions for the first six months of 2008 compared to €3 million for the same period last year.

It is forecasted that the 12 month figure will not be higher than €1.5 million, compared to €10 million in 2007. The report states that “this will adversely affect the council’s ability to fund projects which require matching funding from Clare Coun- ty Council”.

The report concludes that “the buoyant income experienced from some sources in recent years can no longer be relied upon to compensate for any expenditure in excess of the YOO) o) Kee mol U(OLome

Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of Clare County Council, County Man- ager Alec Fleming outlined a bleak financial picture for the year ahead.

He said, “Things are looking ex- tremely tight next year. It’s looking like the local government fund will be flat out at around two to three per cent. Our take from the fund is al- ready one of the lowest in the coun- (ry.

“I do think we have prepared quite well but the conditions this year are

particularly challenging. The budget for 2009 is going to be very difficult indeed.”

Mr Fleming said that the depart- ment-issued directives to cut payroll costs had already been met in part by some staff taking up a volountary re- dundancy scheme.

“We are going to be under tremen- dous pressure. Income streams have dried up and there are extra pressures on our cash flow,” added Mr. Flem- ing.

The reports also stated that the Department of the Environment has been “slow in approving new loans”.

The council has not received ap- proval for a loan to carry our reme- diation works on Doora and Lisden

JE TaYetGO USI Kone

“In the absence of loan approval, the council must carry the costs and this will have a negative impact in cash flow,” the report states

Independent councillor Patricia McCarthy said the council criticised the Department of the Environment for failing to meet financial commit- ments, despite the council’s policy of prudent financial management.

“Every time we practice good housekeeping we get a kick in the you know where. They are kicking us with contempt. The better we man- age our affairs, the worse we seem to be treated. Let the message go out, there is no fat in County Clare. We have trimmed to the last”.