Month: August 2011

THE NUMBER of cars seized by gardaí has increased by almost a third so far this year, compared with last year. So far this year, 304 vehicles have been seized by gardaí, compared with 240 during the same period in 2010.

The cars were seized mainly due to them not being taxed, if those driving them were not insured, or because they had serious mechanical defects.

“A lot of those would be driven without insurance or defective or company cars being driven by crimi- nal gangs. There is no doubt this has resulted in preventing serious crime. The legislation is there to seize cars without insurance or tax,” said the head of the Clare Garda Division, Chief Superintendent John Kerin.

He said that gardaí are considerate when seizing cars that are not taxed and drivers are given every chance to ensure the tax is paid.

“The tax would be out a long time before the gardaí would seize a car. If the tax was out for one or two or three months because of the recession, there would be an understanding,” he said.

He said that the increase in seizures is “partly due to the recession. People can’t afford to tax them. There are a lot of young people who were working on building sites and who are now unemployed but still have the cars,” said Chief Supt Kerin.

The figures have emerged in the wake of figures from Clare County Council showing that 102 cars were abandoned during the whole of last year.

“Clare County Council has a procedure in place from receipt of complaint to resolution, involving the issue of a warning letter to the relevant vehicle owner and removal if the abandoned vehicle remains in place past a specified period of typically seven days,” said a council spokesperson.

Meanwhile, thefts from cars are on the decrease in County Clare, by 28 per cent. So far this year, there have been 89 thefts from cars, compared with 123 last year.

Gardaí are attributing the decrease to increased vigilance.

“We have placed a lot of emphasis in the past couple of years in putting patrols in place in tourist areas,” said Chief Supt Kerin.

A BELARUSSIAN infant who’s life-saving operation was paid for by money raised by the Burren Chernobyl Project in Clare has finally returned home this week – safe and well after her year-long ordeal.

The parents of baby Eva Razenkova were told last November that their 17-month-old daughter would be dead before Christmas if more than € 20,000 could not be found to fund a life-saving operation for their daughter.

After spending their life savings to get Eva the tests which diagnosed the condition, her parents, Yuri and Veronika Razenkova, came to the Burren Chernobyl Project for help. The couple had already raised more than € 20,000, or the equivalent of 15 years’ salary for the average worker in Belarus, to go towards the operation but had exhausted all their avenues of fundraising.

After an intensive fundraising effort the Burren Chernobyl Project were able to donate € 20,000 to help save Eva’s life – € 10,000 from money raised in Clare in just two weeks and a further € 10,000 from the group’s own emergency response fund.

Baby Eva went under the knife in a Belgian hospital Wednesday, December 8, in an attempt to correct a cholestatic hepatitis along with a number of cardiac abnormalities which, specialists say, would have killed the infant before Christmas if left untreated.

The operation, which was risky in its own right, was a success and after recuperating in Belgium for the last number of month, Eva, who has just turned 2 years old, was able to return with her family to Belarus last week.

Eva’s patents, Yuri and Veronika, have expressed their thanks to the Burren Chernobyl Project and to the people of Clare for their support that they have received.

“It was such an incredible response. We knew that we could always rely on the people of Clare to come up with the goods in an emergency situation like this, but Eva’s parents just can’t believe that so many strangers from Ireland have given so generously to help their daughter,” said a spokesperson from the Burren Chernobyl Project.

THE Clareman, who is Ireland’s Consul General in New York, can play his part in stimulating economic growth through job creation and tourism, a Civic Reception that was held in his honour in Kilrush was told on Friday night.

On what was his first official visit to his the west Clare capital since his appointment as Consul General for Ireland, the Kilrush-born Noel Kilkenny heard his achievements and many years service in Ireland’s diplomatic corps lauded by the local town council.

Surrounded by family and friends, the Mayors of Clare and Kilrush as well as agencies such as the West Clare Task Force, Shannon Development, the Mid West Regional Authority and members of Kilrush Town Council, Mr Kilkenny said it was “a very special occasion to be honoured in my native down as Consul General”.

Mr Kilkenny’s role in helping foster an economic upturn was highlighted by a number of speakers at the Civic Reception that took place in the Vandeleur Walled Garden in Kilrush.

These included current Mayor of Kilrush, Cllr Ian Lynch, his precedessor Cllr Liam Williams, who moved the motion that Mr Kilkenny be honoured with a Civic Reception and Clare County Manager, Tom Coughlan.

“I am confident that many opportunities will materialise into sustainable job growth,” said Mr Coughlan. “I want to thank the Consul General personally for affording so much of his time to the Clare delegation when we visited New York as part of the St Patrick’s Day Festival. “Our time there was spent meeting with business people and devel- opment agencies, in our continuing efforts to seek enterprise development for county Clare. Already I am heartened by the number of business enquiries. I am also very pleased to note that tourism figures for the first half of this year are up considerably on last year’s figures and this is very encouraging. “The key to Irish economic growth, particularly in the short term, will be foreign direct investment. US investment is, and will continue to be, a critical element of the Irish economy. It is imperative that the representatives of the Irish government abroad reinforce the message that Ireland is open for business,” the county manager added. “When the Clare delegation visited New York last St Patrick’s Day, the Consul General took a lead role in introducing the delegation to many business executives and hosted a number of meetings to ensure that business contacts would be maximised,” said Cllr Williams. “The Consul General was extremely generous with his time and ensured that every avenue for business development, job creation and tourism potential was explored. The Consul General has an insatiable appetite for all things Irish, as is evident from his current role in assisting Irish people and promoting Irish culture and the arts in the United States,” added Cllr Williams.

AN ENNIS woman now living in London has recalled the “psychotic” scenes that developed near her home when riots flared across England last week.

Actress Denise Gough (31) lives in the Hackney area of London, which suffered from rioting and looting last week. Speaking on Wednesday, as law and order was being restored to the city’s streets, Denise described the damage done to homes and properties as “awful”.

She said, “I was at home on Monday all day and I noticed there was lots of helicopters and it was kind of noisy. I didn’t leave the house ‘til about 4pm and when I walked out my front door there were loads of buses that had been abandoned, lined up on the street. Then further down there were rows of police in riot gear.

“It’s quite grim. There is a really strange atmosphere. People don’t re- ally know what to expect. Yesterday there were people boarding up their shops. It was really sad to see all these small shop owners having to board up their buildings. It was really depressing. Then I heard last night in the area near me, London Fields, there were people being pushed off their bikes and being robbed. It just kind of seems like a free-for-all.”

Denise has lived in London for 16 years, acting in a string of theatre and TV roles. She said the scenes of last week’s riots were unlike anything she has ever seen in the city.

She explained, “The damage was awful. There’s a shop near the area where I used to live, which is on a place called Clarence Road, they just destroyed it. They even took his milk and his microwave from the back of the shop and these are people that have worked for years. That’s the sad thing. It’s not big conglomerates that these guys were targeting, these were small family shops.”

Denise added, “People say it’s young kids with nothing to do and I do understand the frustration of the government cuts in the poorer areas. The Government has slashed the funding for initiatives for keeping young kids out of gangs, but you can’t justify a mass mugging. That’s what happened. People stealing things like cigarettes, alcohol, phones, trainers; they’re all going down the sports shops nicking trainers. It’s so bad. It just looks psychotic.”

GARDAÍ in Clare are advising home owners across Clare to be more security conscious, in the wake of burglaries in Ennis, Kilrush and Kilkee over the past week.

In one incident, an assortment of electrical goods was stolen during a break-in to a house on the Gort Road in Ennis, overnight on Friday.

Among the items stolen were a flat screen television, a dvd player, a hifi, laptop, several pieces of gold and silver jewellery, coins and savings stamps. Entry was gained after glass in a back door was broken.

A house at Lenabeg on the Lahinch Road in Ennis was broken into overnight last Tuesday. A kettle and two tins of paint were stolen, after a back window was broken.

In Kilrush, upstairs rooms in a house were ransacked after thieves broke into a house on Burton Street overnight on Friday. However, gardaí say it appears that nothing was stolen.

Gardaí in Kilkee are investigating a break-in to the local golf club at around 1.45am yesterday (Monday). The alarm activated and a number of people fled. An individual was seen running across the golf course.

Meanwhile, the theft of lead from a house being built on the outskirts of Ennis is being investigated by gardaí. The house, which is currently being built at Edenvale on the Kilrush Road, was targeted between 6pm on Friday and 8pm on Saturday.

Kilrush Superintendent Gerry Wall is advising home owners to exercise vigilance.

“People are not securing their property. They are going out for short periods of time and don’t take an extra couple of minutes to secure their property. It’s obviously opportunistic burglaries. People have alarms on their homes but don’t turn them on,” said Supt Wall.

A 53-YEAR-OLD man is to appear in court today, charged in connection with the seizure of drugs at Shannon airport over the weekend.

The defendant, a UK national living in Spain, was arrested after € 12,000 worth of cannabis herb was seized by Customs officers at the airport in the early hours of yesterday (Monday).

The man had arrived at Shannon on a Ryanair flight from Malaga and the drugs were discovered in a suitcase.

He was detained at Shannon Garda Station throughout yesterday and will be brought before Galway District Court this morning, charged with possession of drugs and possession for the purpose of sale or supply.

GARDAÍ ARE investigating an attack on a 19-year-old man who was on holidays in the seaside resort of Kilkee over the weekend. The victim was struck, while his mobile phone and cash were stolen.

The incident occurred shortly before 2 o’clock on Sunday morning. The alarm was raised when a 19year-old man stopped gardaí who were on mobile patrol on O’Curry Street, alerting them to an incident in which he was attacked.

He told gardaí that he was set upon by two young men and that his mobile phone and € 40 in cash were taken from him. He was also struck a number of times, during the incident.

The victim, who is from the Midlands, was taken to Limerick Regional Hospital as a precautionary measure, and was later discharged. He is expected to make a full recov- ery.

As part of their investigation, gardaí recovered the stolen property in Kilkee.

“It was an unusual incident. We are treating it as serious. We believe there were two people involved. We are following a certain line of enquiry,” said a senior garda spokesman.

“This was the first incident we have had in Kilkee this year,” added the garda.

A 31-YEAR-OLD man charged with the false imprisonment and sexual assault of his partner last month has been remanded in custody until next week.

The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of falsely imprisoning and sexually assault- ing a female, on July 30 last.

The incident is being investigated by gardaí in Killaloe.

The accused initially appeared in court earlier this month and re-appeared before Ennis District Court yesterday. In court yesterday, Judge John O’Neill directed that the defendant be remanded in custody to appear again in court next week.

THE people of Turnpike are preparing to celebrate the homecoming two years ago of their most famous son, Muhammad Ali.

The former three time world champion boxer and one of the most charismatic and brilliant sportsmen made a famous visit to Ennis in September 2009. At the time Ali was named the first Honorary Freeman of Ennis in recognition of his career achievements and his ancestral links with the Clare county capital.

Over 15,000 people watched ‘The Greatest’ receive a Civic Reception before embarking on a drive through the streets of Ennis and a personal visit to the ancestral home of his great grandfather Abe Grady.

Though issues surrounding the rights to the Ali name and trademark mean the celebration will not be an official event, Turnpike residents and businesspeople are aiming to organize a community fun day to mark the day when Ali took an unplanned walk around the area two years ago.

Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind), who is helping to organize the event on August 28, says local groups and performers including the Ennis Brass Band will take part on the day.

Roads in the area are expected to be closed off to facilitate the celebration, which is being held on the same day a vintage car rally organized by Ennis man Peadar White is expected to pass through the town.

Ennis Town Council proposes closing a section of the Limerick Road and the Turnpike Road (from its junction with Dalcassian Drive L4530 to the St Clare’s Close entrance) on Sunday, August 28, from 3pm to 6pm.

Last year, Irish boxing legend Barry McGuigan planted a tree in an area of ground close to sculpture commemorating the first anniversary of Ali’s visit to Ennis.

The former world featherweight champion later took part in a public interview conducted by broadcaster Caimin Jones at Glór.

CLARE marriages are bending under the strain of the economic recession with a record number of Clare couples seeking marriage counselling in 2010. Abuse of the internet is also being highlighted as a recent cause of marital disharmony.

Figures obtained by The Clare People reveal that the number of counselling hours providing by the ACCORD agency in Ennis skyrocketed last year – growing by more than 85 per cent compared to the previous year. Counselling hours provided by the Catholic Marriage Counselling Agency grew dramatically faster in Clare than in any other county in 2010 – with the national average growth in hours provided standing at just 8 per cent.

A total of 517 hours for 100 couples were provided at the ACCORD offices in Ennis in 2010, compared to 278 hours for 68 cases on 2009.

The increase in counselling hours is being blamed on the effects of the recession on couples as well as a number of difficulties being caused by the internet.

According to the agency, the number of relationship difficulties brought about by addictions to internet pornography, online gambling and the abuse of social networking sites increased dramatically in 2010.

“I’m not surprised by these figures for Clare, we have been hearing this from the counsellors in Ennis for a number of months and we had expecting this sort of dramatic rise,” said ACCORD counselling manager Stephen Cummins.

“I think this is a combination of many different factors [which have brought about the increase]. I think trouble in a relationship is rarely brought about by just one factor except maybe in a case of someone having a drink or drug problem perhaps.