Month: September 2012

ANTI-HOUSEHOLD tax campaigners in Clare are claiming a victory today after Clare County Council decided to stop asking grant applicants for proof of payment of the house- hold charge. This is despite Clare County Council’s insistence that the letters were discontinued because they had worked – and allowed the local authority to reach the 65 per cent compliance rate demanded by the Department of the Environment.

“At the beginning of the week, Clare County Council implicitly threatened to withhold or delay student grants to those boycotting the unjust household tax, but following a protest by the Clare CAHWT, we have secured in writing a commitment from the council that they will not discriminate in any way against such students,” said Paul Whitmore of the Clare Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes.

“We marched into the council offices to demand a clear written promise from them that they would not in anyway discriminate against non-payers, and would stop sending these threatening forms to grant applicants.

“As a sign of the huge impact of people power, we have now received these guarantees in writing. This is a huge victory for our campaign. Hopefully in the future, the council will think twice before attempting such scare tactics.”

Students form NUI, Galway, GMIT, UL and LIT also staged a protest again the warning letters at the of fices of Clare County Council last week.

“The decision of Clare County Council is short-sighted and ridiculous,” NUI, Galway Student Union president Paul Curley last week.

“Students don’t own houses and linking the payment of the Household Charge to their grants is a cheap shot. We call on Clare County Council to abandon this badly thought out plan and process students’ grant applications as a priority.”

ONE in every eight second-hand cars in Clare have been clocked and reads significantly less mileage than they have actually travelled.

This means that almost 6,000 Clare motorists are driving vehicles which are worth much less than they think – and could also be close to a dangerous equipment failure.

According to figures compiled by Cartell.ie, 5,357 Clare cars have had their mileage tampered with. It is not illegal for a person to change the mileage on their own car – which means that the equipment to tamper with odometers is easily available within the industry.

It is illegal to sell a vehicle under false pretenses however, but it is difficult to assertain the true mileage of a vehicle without carrying out a full diagnostic on the vehicles engine.

The figures were obtained by calculating the number of Clare drivers who discovered a mileage discrepancy in their vehicle when the checked against official records on the Cartell.ie website.

“I think the number of cars that have been clocked in Clare would shock a lot of people, but you have to remember that it is not illegal to clock a car in Ireland. If it is a private sale, there is very little danger for a person who wants to clock their car and sell it on to someone else,” said John Byrne of Cartell.ie. “The equipment is easily available and it is a lot more prominent that people realise. Some people don’t see the problem with it, it has become the accepted standard in a lot of places and they don’t see it as being an issue.

“Clocking in itself is not illegal. But it is illegal to sell a car as one thing, when it really is something else. But that is very difficult to catch. The National Consumer Agency manages to prosecute approximately one person a year, which is a drop in the ocean.”

Cars which have been clocked are potentially dangerous to the driver.

“There is a safety element in all of this. You could be driving along the motorway and all of a sudden you have a drive failure on your car. That is a dangerous situation to be in and it is something that you won’t expect if your car has 100,000 more kilometres on the car than you think,” continued John. A win t ry fe e l t o t h e we e k, d u ll, win d y a n d we t a t t im e s, b u t we sh o u ld e sc a p e t h e b ru n t o f t h e lo w o ve r t h e c o u n t ry.

THE current chief executive officer of County Limerick VEC will head up the new board that will take over the functions of Clare VEC.

Sean Burke has been named as CEO Designate of the new Education and Training Board for Clare and Limerick.

The new board will be an amalgamation of VECs in Clare, Limerick city and Limerick County.

The September meeting of Clare VEC heard that that the new Education and Training Boards (ETB) would be established in the early part of 2013.

The current CEO of Clare VEC, George O’Callaghan has been named CEO Designate of the new city of Cork and Cork county ETB.

Mr O’Callaghan, who has worked as CEO for seven years, said he is looking forward to his new role in Cork.

He said, “It will be a challenge. There will be a lot of work involved, amalgamating the new VECs, they are two fairly large VECs. It’s not going to happen for another six to eight months at the earliest so I’ll still be in Clare for that length of time.”

Mr O’Callaghan said he enjoyed his time working in Clare.

“It was fantastic. The staff are fantastic and the people here are great to work with. The committee have always given me great co-operation down the years.”

Implementing the 2001 Vocational Education Act, the growth in adult education and improvements to school facilities, are among the main changes Mr O’Callaghan has helped oversee during his time with Clare VEC.

He said, “All the schools have very modern facilities. That was part of our objective as well. We were very anxious to get that up and running and I’m very happy that we have got that done. We have achieved three major extensions for three of the schools in the county as well.”

Mr O’Callaghan will be leaving Clare VEC as it prepares to undergo major structural change. He believes the county will have a strong influ- ence on the new ETB.

He said, “The challenge for Clare will be to maintain what it has got. It’ll be a large part of the new entity as well. There are 110,000 people living in Clare. There are over 2,300 post primary school pupils in the VEC here and we have something like 4,000 to 5,000 adults here as well. It will make up quite a large part of the new entity as well. So it will have quite a large influence on the new entity as well.”

A REPORT that found litter problems at a secondary school in Ennis has been criticized as “ridiculous”. Ennis Community College received a Grade C in the latest report from Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL).

According to the report, “A wide variety of litter was present at this site, particularly over the stone wall. As well as being littered the overall impression was of a poorly maintained environment. It is quite unu- sual to have schools score so poorly in the IBAL Anti-Litter survey.”

The IBAL report was raised at the September meeting of Clare VEC by committee chairman, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind).

CEO George O’Callaghan said he understood that the survey was conducted at a time when works, including tree felling, were underway at the college. Cllr Peter Considine (FF) described IBAL’s remarks on the school as “ridiculous comment”.

Committee members Michael Cor- ley said there was a lot of disappointment that the school had been mentioned in the IBAL report.

Clare VEC is to write to Ennis Town Council about the report.

IBAL also identified a litter problem at Ennis bus and rail station.

Staff at the school were shocked at the report’s findings. Speaking at the time, school principal John Cooke said he would like to know when the inspectors visited the school and the criteria used by An Táisce.

He added, “Generally the school is kept very well and litter free, as much as is possible. The students don’t litter. In the school we train and educate them not to litter…As for the litter problem, I can’t understand where they are coming from.”

Ennis has held onto its ‘Clean to European Norms’ status in the IBAL survey, despite dropping 15 places to 31st, among 42 towns surveyed.

There were just five top ranking sites out of a total of ten surveyed in Ennis – combined with two seriously littered sites, this puts Ennis in the bottom third of the towns / cities surveyed.

Speaking last month following the release of the survey, town manager Ger Dollard admitted that Ennis Town Council are often “baffled” by IBAL’s findings. He said that Ennis is regarded as a clean town.

Last month Ennis was named Ireland’s tidiest large urban centre at the annual Tidy Town awards. It’s the fourth time that Ennis has scooped the prize, having won the award in 2006, 2008 and 2009.

FOUR groups have so far expressed an interest in taking over patronage of a primary school in Shannon.

Shannon has been identified by the Department of Education and Skills as one of 44 areas nationwide to be surveyed with a view to determining parental preferences regarding school patronage in those areas.

It is proposed that surveys will be conducted in by the Department during the autumn in 44 identified areas to determine parental preferences regarding school patronage.

Clare VEC has already expressed an interest in assuming patronage. Three other groups – Educate Together, An Foras Pátrúnachta and The Redeemed Christian Chruch of God – are interested in becoming school patrons in Shannon.

CEO George O’Callaghan said, “Shannon is designated as one of the areas, which primary school we do not know. That has not yet been identified.”

The issue of school patronage was raised at the September meeting of Clare VEC.

Mr O’Callaghan told the meeting that the Department would run a number of public advertisements prior to the start of the survey process. He explained that the surveys would also be conducted online.

In June, Minister for Education and Skills Ruairi Quinn, announced an action plan in response to the report of the advisory group to the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector.

The survey process is expected to take up to 12 months and any patron age application would be taken up by the new Local and Education Training Boards, that will replace VECs.

IT HAS been confirmed that from late October, Shannon Airport cutbacks meant that US immigration pre-clearance won’t be available to British Airways on one of its daily all-business class flights from London City to New York.

The airline currently offers two daily all-business class flights, with both services routing via Shannon on the outbound journey for refuelling, before returning directly from New York.

At present passengers can avail of US immigration pre-clearance at Shannon during the stop, meaning that they arrive at JFK as a domestic passenger, thus avoiding immigration queues.

BA has confirmed that from October 28 pre-clearance will only be available on flight BA001. This change has been forced by cutbacks at Shannon Airport, which will see US officials working fewer hours.

“Our business class-only service between London City and New York, which stops at Shannon, is about to enter its third year of successful operation,” a BA spokesperson revealed.

“Changes in the staffing regime at Shannon Airport, by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has shortened the opening hours of their pre-clearance facility in Shannon.

“Therefore, we have made changes to the double-daily service for the winter schedule, beginning in October 28.

“Following consultations which explored a range of different options, and feedback from our corporate customers, we have rescheduled the BA001 to depart earlier at 0950 to allow continued access to US preclearance facilities in Shannon.

“The BA003 remains departing at 1600, but customers will not benefit from pre-clearance in Shannon and will instead arrive in New York at International Arrivals,” the spokesperson added.

BIGGER houses and more houses in Clare than every before, with fewer and fewer people living in them.

This is the latest picture painted by the 2011 National Census of Population returns, which was revealed in the fifth bulletin report released by the Central Statistics Office in the past week.

Figures for the county that fewer people per household than ever before.

In 2011 when the census was compiled, the average number of people per household in urban areas was 2.61, a figure that increased slightly to 2.78 in rural areas, while the over- all figure for the county stood at 2.71.

These figures reflect the continuing overall trend of fewer people living in houses – a phenomenon that is explained by the building boom during the Celtic Tiger years being at a much faster pace than the population increases in the same period.

Earlier this month it was revealed that there were over 24,000 houses constructed in the county in the last 20 years, while in the same two-decade period the population of Clare only increased by 15,000.

There was a 76 per cent increase in the number of houses in the county between 1991 and 2011, from 31,606 to 55,616, but in the same period the average size of households in the county continued to drop.

The drop in the number of people per household in the county over the last 65 years is contained in the census returns.

The average size per household was 4.14 in 1946 as compared with 2.71 today, a slide that has continued in the 12 census reports compiled in that 65 years.

By 1966 the average size of households in Clare had dropped to 3.84, while it went under 3 for the first time in 2002 census when the average was down to 2.92.

The 2011 figures also show that for the first time in 20 years the average household in bigger in rural Clare than it is in urban areas of population.

THERE are now more people over 65 living alone in the county than ever before, the latest statistical report from the 2011 census which is entitled ‘Households and Families Living Arrangements in Ireland’ has revealed.

According to the Central Statistic Office figures, it means that 29.3 per cent of people in the county over 65 are living alone, a figure that jumps to 34 per cent for over 70s in the county. The figures show that women make up the majority of people who are living alone in the county. Of the 3,904 over 65s who are liv- ing alone, women make up 2,354 of these, which represents 34.1 per cent of all women of pension age. There are 1, 550 men of pension age (29.3 per cent) living alone.

When it comes to over 70s, women are also in the majority with 40.1 per cent of the 4,618 in the county over that age living alone which gives a figure of 1,853. The figure for men is 26.8 per cent, which represents 1,066 out of 3,976.

This figures are in line with earlier statistical evidence which points to women living longer than men in the county. The 2006 census returns for the county showed that there were 12, 519 people of retirement age, which represented 11.5 per cent of the total population of 110, 590.

Five years on there has been a jump of 2,065 in the numbers of people of retirement age living in the county, with the increase to 14, 519 meaning that 12.4 per cent of Clare’s 117,196 population are now of pension age.

In releasing the breakdown of figures of those of retirement age, the CSO has split the post-65 generation into five different groups – 65-69, 70-74,75-79, 80-84 and 85 and over.

The biggest gap between females and males is to be found in the 85 and over category, with females outnumbering males by more than two to one. There are 1,581 of 85 and over in the county, 1,070 of them being females to only 511 males.

THE latest statistical report taken from the 2011 National Census of Population has revealed that divorce is on the rise in Clare, with a record number of divorced people now living in the county since the measure was introduced to the statute books in 1996.

The census returns have shown that there are now 2,252 divorcees living in the county, with the divorces figures on the rise in keeping with the nationwide 800 per cent increase in the numbers of divorces between 1996 and 2011.

Of this 2,252, women are in the majority, with 1,280 female divorcees living in the county as compared to 972 men.

And, from the overall figure there is almost an equal divided between urban and rural, with 1,110 of divorcees living in urban areas as compared to 1,142 in rural areas.

In August it was revealed that despite the cost of divorce thought to be a deterrent in most parts of Ireland, Clare saw a rise of 40 per cent in the number of couples getting divorced in the county in 2011.

According to the figures for the county released by the Central Statistic Office, 69 divorces were granted to Clare couples last year – with a further 66 applications for divorce being made.

Experienced Clare-based family law solicitor Marie Keane said the rise could be attributed to the type of divorces being negotiated as well as the age profile of couples getting divorced.

“The vast majority of divorce cases are now being settled before going to court, with both parties consenting. From my experience I would guess up to 95 per cent of cases settle in this manner,” she told The Clare People .

Meanwhile, other census figures show that 1,375 divorcees in Clare have remarried – the breakdown of the figures being 776 men as against 629 women.

In addition to this, there are now 1,577 separated women living in the county as compared to 1,294 men.

AS REGARDS the majority in County Clare, it’s the women that hold sway over the men for the first time since the 1871 population returns, but the men are still in the majority in one department the latest bulletin report of the 2011 National Census of Population has revealed.

That’s when it comes to married v single folk. There are more singletons amongst men than there are amongst women. This statistic was among the latest set of facts and figures to be released by the Central Statistics Office on Thursday that have been taken from the census that was taken in April 2011.

The figures show that there are now 60, 565 single people living in the county, which represents just over 50 per cent of Clare’s record 110-year high of a 117,196 population. Of this figure, 31,716 are single men as they outnumber their opposite sex by just under 3,000 as there are 28,849 single women now in the county.

The number of females in Clare grew substantially in the five years between the 2006 and 2011 population returns, a growth that was reflected in the breakdown of female numbers growing by 4,098 as against male numbers growing by 2,298 in the same period.

The figures also show that there are now more single people living in the county than there are married, with the breakdown showing that there are nearly 25,000 more singletons in the county that there are married people.

The number for married people stands at 46,241, with the females in the slight majority with the census figures shows that there are 23,137 married women in the county as against 23, 104 men.

The breakdown of women and men in the county from the overall population of 117,196 is 58,898 females to 58,298 males.