Month: August 2009

Clare hotel sector reaches crisis point

CRIPPLING local authority rates emerged as a key issue causing se- vere hardship for hoteliers at a recent crisis meeting held by the Irish Ho- tels Federation (IHF).

Clare members expressed outrage at the exorbitant rates imposed and de- manded that, due to their inability to pay in the current climate, an emer- gency provision should be brought in to immediately reduce rates by 30 per cent for hotels and guesthouses. This would be in line with the recent result of the revaluation of hotels and guesthouses in the South Dublin

County Council area completed by the Valuation Office.

Hoteliers condemned as outrageous and extortionate the levels of local authority rates paid by hotels. The IHF bases the call for a rates reduc- tion on the fact that the revaluation carried out by the Valuation Office of all commercial premises in the South Dublin County area resulted in a re- duction of approximately 30 per cent in the local authority rates liability of hotels and guesthouse.

Therefore, it maintains that this level of reduction should be applied across all local authority areas until the revaluation process is completed

in each local authority area through- out the country.

According to Michael Vaughan, Chairman, Shannon Branch of the IHF, hotels and guesthouses are dis- proportionately subsidising the rates liability of other business premises. He states that hotels and guesthouses are being penalised by an antiquated taxation system of commercial rates that sees local authorities extract taxes relative to the size of premises without any recourse to the level of turnover or overheads of the business.

“Our members have been paying rate increases year on year without recourse to independent assessments. We have been asking too long for this issue to be addressed, and it hasn’t been addressed. Excessive local au- thority rates are having a devastating effect on hotels which are already struggling to deal with decimated revenues and cost bases that have not yet adjusted to the changed economic reality on the ground.

“Our members are willing to pay a fair and equitable level but simply can no longer bear the current rates that are imposed in this unprecedent- ed environment when a revaluation process should be completed,” says Mr Vaughan.

“We are calling for the introduction emergency provisions to allow for a 30 per cent reduction in local au- thority rates applicable to hotels and guesthouses until such time as these properties have been revalued as pro- vided for in the Valuation Act 2001 Act. Only one local authority area in the entire country has completed this process in seven years — we can no longer wait for the Valuation Office to complete this countrywide proc- ess given the dire circumstances our members are facing.”

Among the other issues discussed at yesterday’s meeting were a need to manage the substantial excess capac- ity that exist in the sector; distortion of the market with unfair competition as aresult of hotels under the control of the banks operating at below cost prices; severe difficulties faced by hotels and guesthouses in obtain ad- equate bank credit to survive through the recession.

They also discussed a need for the cost base of hotels to adjust to the worsened market conditions; exces- sive public sector charges to which hotels are subjected; potential for NAMA operations to introduce mar- ket distortions and unfair competi- none

SHANNON residents will present Clare County Council with a peti- tion against the closure of a number of walkways around Shannon town as aresult of a new housing develop- ment being undertaken by the local authority.

More than 300 local residents have already signed the petition, which will also be accompanied by dozens of individual protest letters against WeToMOCoaVod Coy oyee torn

The local group claims that the fencing could obstruct the emergen- cy services from reaching the area and was erected without any prior notice from the contractors or Clare County Council.

“We were under the impression that this development was not going to go ahead because of the recession but we woke up one day and work had already started. All the fencing went up overnight and the whole area is penned in. It is very restrictive steel fencing and is around the whole development,’ said local resident Nicole Murphy.

“The fact that this fencing was up for a week and a half before we got any official notification about it is very worrying. Are we going to come home some day and find that our water or electricity has also been cut off without any notice?”

The petition is the result of a mass meeting which was held in the area last Tuesday. Another meeting will take place this weekend to decide the next step in the local groups opposi- tion to the development.

According to the group, the devel- opment will remove one of Shan- non’s few remaining green areas. In addition, they claim that a fully serv- iced site located nearby by would be cheaper and less disruptive for the lo- oF NMe- Luin eLoywinanKomeloa(od le) 0p

The group has also expressed its disappointment with some of their local politicians, who they feel went back on their word by failing to op- pose the development at the planning SR eLon

“This 1s one of the last green areas in all of Shannon and they want to

build all of these houses on it – right on our doorstep,’ continued Ms Mur- phy.

“We were told by some of our local election candidates that they would stand by us on this issue and they haven’t done that. I won’t say who I am talking about but the people know themselves.”

CLARE’S local authorities are to get a much-needed cash injection, as second homeowners are asked to pay up.

The Government has estimated that the newly introduced Non Principal Private Residences (NPPR) fee will bring in as much as €40 million na- tionally.

It is not clear, however, how much of this second home tax will be col- lected in Clare, as there is no com- prehensive list available as yet.

NPPR fees collected in town coun- cil areas will revert to those towns, however, confirmed Ms Carmel Greene, Senior Executive Officer, Finance Department of Clare Coun- WA Grolennete

The NPPR charge is set at an an- nual rate of €200 for 2009 per resi- dence, and must be paid by October Ue

Late payment will incur a fee of €20 in respect of each month or part of a month during which the charge remains unpaid.

The charge applies mainly to own- ers of private rental property and holiday homes. It also applies to vacant residential property, unless newly built.

Ms Greene said the payment is es- sentially for a non-principal private residence, which is not the owner’s normal home.

She added that any unpaid charges and penalties might adversely af- fect any future sale or transfer of the property.

The council has the authority to view Revenue and ESB records, as well as records of rental accom- modations in a bid to identify such Te bisen

Any person in any doubt about the lability of their property should contact Clare County Council at 065 6821616 or nppr@clarecoco.ie.

WHILE Clare’s representation on the playing fields is all but finished, save for the Under 21s All-Ireland adventure this weekend, the county’s representation on the refereeing front continues to soar with the news that Newmarket-on-Fergus native Seanie McMahon has been appointed to referee the All-Ireland Intermediate final between Cork and Kilkenny in Dungarvan on Saturday week.

With almost 25 years experience behind him, this is McMahon’s third national intermediate decider, hav- ing already officiated in the 1997 and 1999 finals.

His impressive CV also includes the 1993 All-Ireland minor hurling final, 2004 Munster senior hurling final and most recently, the Munster senior camogie final between Cork and Tipperary last year.

Despite such a glowing back cata- logue of prestigious matches behind him, McMahon, who is also cur- rently part of the Newmarket senior hurling management team, is hon- oured to have been chosen for such a high-profile decider.

“T’m delighted to have been ap- pointed and really to be asked to ref- eree any All-Ireland final is great,” admits McMahon. “Apart from doing a Senior, Minor or Under 21 All-Ire- land, the intermediate final would be the next in line. For any referee get- ting an All-Ireland final is like win- ning a county final for your club.”

McMahon’s appointment follows on from an unprecedented year for Clare officials after Eire Og’s Rory Hickey was the man in the middle for the Munster senior football fi- nal between Cork and Limerick last month while Ennistymon’s Michael Rock refereed the provincial minor decider between Kerry and Tipper- ary on the same day.

DAVY Fitzgerald was never going to have an idle autumn following Waterford’s exit from the All-Ire- land championship at the semi-final stage to Kilkenny, but his return to the Clare fold had come much sooner than many expected.

He wasn’t in Cusack Park last Fri- day for Inagh/Kilnamona’s meeting with Scariff in the second round of the Clare Senior Championship, but he’ll be manning the sideline for the team affectionately known as “The Combo’.

Fitzgerald has agreed to join the Inagh/Kilnamona backroom team as they crank up their campaign to

reach the quarter-final stages of the competition for the second succes- sive year.

After an opening round defeat to county champions Clonlara_ they bounced back with a 0-16 to 1-11 win over Scariff and now face into their crunch final two games against Tulla and O’Callaghan’s Mills armed with the coaching acumen Fitzgerald will bring to their preparations.

And, Fitzgerald’s involvement with Inagh/Kilnamona could just be the first step of a much greater involve- ment with Clare hurling, with specu- lation rife that he could form one half of a partnership with Mike Mc- Namara to lead Clare senior hurling in 2009.

Fitzgerald himself has moved to distance himself such speculation, dismissing it as “gossip”, but such an arrangement would not be unprec- edented in the history of Clare hurl- ing.

In 1993 Ger Loughnane agreed to come on board as a Clare senior se- lector under Len Gaynor’s watch as manager on the understanding that he would automatically succeed the Tipperary man as manager. That changeover occurred a year later when Gaynor stepped down after Clare’s defeat to Limerick in the 1994 Munster final.

Now a similar arrangement could be brokered between McNamara and Fitzgerald. McNamara has said that

2009 “will definitely be my last year” if he’s reappointed for the coming season, while Fitzgerald has made no secret of this desire to become Clare manager.

Add to this that current senior se- lectors Alan Cunningham and Ollie Baker could be on the cusp of leav- ing the Clare fold and the door to Fitzgerald’s involvement is opened further. Fitzgerald has another year left on a two year arrangement with Waterford that was struck after the Deise reached the 2008 All-Ireland nue

Both the Clare senior hurling and football management positions are to be the subject of a special county board meeting later this month.

FOR a while now, Darach Honan’s name and word of his talent has been seeping through to the wider hurling public. That goal against Waterford confirmed Honan as a genuine hurler of class on the big stage and even though that passage of play spoke volumes of his character and ability, it would be unfair to usher Honan as some sort of saviour for Clare hurl- ing, as some kind of great hope.

Those who have watched him progress through the grades will tell you he has yet to even come close to his potential and with the calm and wise influence of his father, Colm, it’s unlikely that he will be rushed through to the senior set up.

Right now, it’s enough to bask in the sizzle of excitement that rumbles when Honan is in possession for the Clare Under 21s or for his club, Clon- lara. That sizzle 1s something which Jim Gully, manager of Clonlara when they won the senior title last year, has seen first hand.

‘“He’s a unique hurler in that there’s always the potential of a goal with

him,” says Gully. “I’ve actually never seen a finisher like him. When he’s on the ball, it reminds me of when DJ Carey was playing. There’s the same rumble of excitement from the crowd. Even the opposition know what he’s capable of now, so there’s a sense that when he’s in possession, he can make things happen.”

Having been over the Clonlara when Honan first lined out for the club sen- iors, Gully says he was not surprised by his decision to go for goal against Waterford in the Munster final.

“Once he made that turn, I knew he had goal on his mind. And the thing is, he doesn’t score a bad goal. Even the goal he scored on Saturday [against O’Callaghan’s Mills in the club championship] was a cracker.”

That goal was born out of a wristy and instinctive finish and powerful wrists are a commodity that Honan enjoys and makes great use from. On top of this, a background in bas- ketball has also provided him with a sense of space and the ability to turn into and away from the tackle.

‘He has a very fast sprint,’ contin- ues Gully. “Those big strides of his

can leave a defender for dead. And the thing is, Darach can be out of a game for 58 or 59 minutes and he can still end up with a couple of goals. When he’s on the field, you’re never out of the game.

“T remember when we played Lor- rha in the intermediate Munster semi final. He mightn’t have touched the ball for 15 minutes or so and I heard later that some of the Tipperary sup- porters who had heard of him were wondering what all the fuss was about. Well, he finished that game with 2-4 and helped us get to the final and none of those Tipp sup- porters are going to forget the name Darach Honan.”

This weekend sees Honan on yet another large stage but you somehow get the feeling that the journey is only Starting and though his name will be up in lights one day, he will take his time in getting to that place.

IN the early throes of the champi- onship weekend, some supporters in Cusack Park were debating their accumulator bets. Meticululously sifting through the games, there was much parley over several of the third round matches but all reached com- mon ground that Clonlara were the ‘banker’. In truth, their certainty was not without merit either as the south east Clare side. The current double champions had built up a 17 match unbeaten run along the way over the past year and after two opening vic- tories in this year’s campaign, were odds-on favourites to ease into their second successive quarter-final.

That remarkable run was based on a never-say-die attitude that meant they could never be written off, regardless of the scoreline. But on Saturday, O’Callaghan’s Mills out-Clonlaraed Clonlara at their own game, full of raw desire and determination while the champions appeared to have tem- porarily lost their appetite.

The reason for this turnaround? Well, there is no doubt that the Mills had a point to prove. A young side, it was always going to take time to mature as a squad but after coming so close last year against Clarecastle and Kilmaley and leaking soft goals against Scariff at the beginning of this year’s campaign, they would have felt that they hadn’t done them- selves justice in the top tier. That pent up determination to succeed began to SJeVDaleam Gav KOLer¢d0mBbO MOS (oib am orcIROUDOTcMmelechyy with Tulla last time out but on Satur- day, it finally came to the surface and for once, the defending champions had no answer to the challenge.

It appeared to be all going to plan for Clonlara for the first 35 minutes of this tie, having weathered the early Mills storm to push five points clear after the break, albeit that they were now facing into a stiff breeze. How- ever, uncharacteristically they were only to score one more point until the finish as the Mills added a massive 13 points to their tally and Clonlara went into total meltdown.

In hindsight, there were signs even in the opening half that Clonlara were not at full tilt. A hand injury kept John Conlon out of the starting line-up but while they were always in front in the early stages, the strong wind in their favour should have al- lowed them to tally up a significant lead at the break. However, repeated- ly indiscipline cost them that luxury as Adrian Flaherty kept the Mills in touch with placed balls, pulling level by the 23rd minute. Indeed, the Mills should have been ahead at this stage only for some poor wides and a full length Ger O’Connell save from Brian Donnellan that kept Clonlara ticking over. The Mills did finally breach O’Connell’s goal-line in the 25th minute when Declan Donovan’s low effort broke kindly for James McMahon to pull to the net and give his side a 1-6 to 0-6 lead.

Clonlara didn’t panic and after Donal Madden and Nicky O’Connell had pointed, Darach Honan popped up with yet another stroke of bril-

liance to instinctively seize on a break to pull to the right corner of the net. Another Madden free right on the stroke of half-time resumed their control at 1-9 to 1-6 and another brace from the full-forward on the restart handed Clonlara a healthy five point advantage.

Effectively, that was to prove the end of Clonlara’s afternoon however, as the Mills shuffled the pack, bring- ing Brian Donnellan back to wing back to tighten up the defence and it worked wonders as Donnellan, along with Adrian Healy and Niall Dono- van were not to let the ball pass them

for the next fifteen minutes. Aided by midfielders Diarmuid Hehir and Patrick Donnellan, the Mulls shut up shop and with a constant supply of ball now going into their forward line, Clonlara simply wilted under the pressure.

Adrian Flaherty (3), James Mc-

Mahon, Diarmuid Hehir and Alan Duggan all pointed to overturn the advantage and while Clonlara did attempt to change things around by moving Darach Honan to centre-for- ward and introducing John Conlon on the wing, it couldn’t halt the Mills onslaught.

Growing in confidence with every score, the Mills punished the in- creasingly ragged Clonlara with Fla- herty (2), Fergus Donovan (2), Alan Duggan (2) and Declan Donovan all pointing with ease, and with no ex- pected kick from the champions, the Mills easily ran out seven point vic- tors.

Still, they cannot get carried away with the win as they still need some- thing out of their final game against Inagh/Kilnamona if they are to make this result count. For Clonlara, this was realistically a blip and like the Crusheen group game last year, could be the catalyst they need to re- gain their championship hunger. And as for the accumulators, they are long since resigned to the bin.

As darkness descended on Cusack Park on Friday evening, it welcomely hastened the completion of this life- less struggle of an encounter. For what had preceded it was a substand- ard slog that failed to inspire any claims that either side could realis- tically be contenders for the Canon Hamilton.

Indeed, there was more murmuring of Davy Fitzgerald’s latest coaching role for the Combo and possibly even a Sven Goran Eriksson like director of hurling position than any of the quality on show here. The overall significance of this result however is that Inagh/Kilnamona are finally off the mark and with the Mills’ inspir- ing win over Clonlara succeeding it the following day, the group is now wide open for any of the five sides to claim the two quarter-final spots. Realistically this game could have gone either way and for the majority, it seemed that both sides were des- tined to share the spoils as the match was on level terms no fewer than eight times before Inagh/Kilnamona finally upped the ante with a three point burst in the final quarter.

In the end, the Combo just had more options up front with Ger Arthur, Niall Arthur, Tony Carmody, Tomas Kelly, Cathal Lafferty and Conor Tierney all contributing in patches

whereas Scariff largely relied on Conor McNamara at centre-back, and Ross Horan for inspiration and OK

Ger Arthur was impressive in his new role at midfield; Tony Carmody inspired with four points as well as aiding the defence late on; Kelly was the workhorse; Lafferty was the ball- winner and Niall Arthur was the fin- isher while county Under 21 player Tierney came alive with two of that

three point decisive scoring burst ap- proaching the finish.

The sides went blow for blow in the opening quarter at 0-4 to 0-4 before Scariff got a significant boost with a Diarmuid Nash goal in the 20th minute, finishing off a move that involved Jim Minogue and Kenny McNamara. They didn’t build on it though and by half-time, Carmody and Niall Arthur had grabbed a brace of point each to go in on level terms

at 1-6 to 0-9.

The punch-counterpunch format continued after the break with Ho- ran’s frees cancelling out anything Inagh/Kilnamona could throw at them. Then in a rapid flourish Conor Tierney grabbed two points in a minute and when Niall Arthur con- verted a superb lineball from the “45, the Combo looked to have done enough. Scariff, changed things around pulling out Kenny McNa-

mara to midfield and it was he who grabbed a point along with another from Horan to cut the deficit to the minimum once more.

Tony Carmody had a pull saved by Brendan McNamara but the insur- ance score did finally come through a Niall Arthur free and with daylight finally giving way, with it went Scar- iff’s brave challenge.

AS a result of Kilmihil and West Clare Gaels match ending in a draw on Saturday they are joint top of their senior championship group and have to play off this Wendesday night at 6.45pm where extra-time will be played if necessary. The winners will play Fergus Rovers in one semi-final with the losers playing The Banner in the other semi-final. Both semi- finals are scheduled for next Sunday evening while the B semi finals are down for Saturday evening: Coora- clare v Crusheen and Coolmeen v St. Joseph’s, Miltown.

The Intermediate Final, Shannon Gaels v Liscannor is fixed for next Saturday at Miltown at 2p.m., Shan- non Gaels were beaten in last years final by Kilmihil and will be the fa- vourites. Colette Corry is a huge loss to them, she picked up a knee injury with Clare in the Munster Intermed1- ate final v Waterford. Sarah Bohan- non and Doonbeg’s Mairead Madi- gan have been in great goal scoring form all year. Michelle Madigan, Adrieane Nugent, Edel Madigan, Sharon Meaney, Imelda Kennedy, Mary Ruth Neylon, Carmel Bohan- non and Ger Corry are just some members of the panel who have had

a fine season to date. Liscannor have the Considine sisters Carmel and Marie and six years ago contested the senior final where they took Kildoon Gaels (an amalgamation of Kilmihil and Doonbeg) to a replay.