Month: December 2013

BUNRATTY was the place to be in April as a small school of dolphins took up residence under the famous bridge. The dolphins drew large crowds for weeks – and prompted much concern over their safety before if became clear that they were there by choice and had not become trapped.

An attempt to rescue the bottle nose dolphins was planned early in April but never went ahead. Speak- ing ahead of the proposed rescue missing, the Clare based Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG), said the dolphins appeared “relatively healthy”.

“In my opinion something will have to be tried this week. They are healthy at the moment but with the low tide coming on Wednesday, something will probably have to be tried,” said Simon Berrow of the IWDG in early April.

“The longer this goes on the more stressed the animals will get. They are in fresh water and that is damaging their kidneys right now and it will also start to damage their skin as well.

“We have also heard reports of kids throwing stones at them when they get close to the shore and we would appeal to anyone who comes to visit the dolphins, not to engage in this sort of behavior.”

The dolphins were discovered on March 31, in murky water close to the old bridge over Bunratty River, close to Durty Nelly’s Pub. The last time that dolphins became stranded in this area was in 1995, when Clare recorded one of its finest summers in recent memory.

Some locals are hopeful that the return of the dolphins are a sign of a good summer ahead. Hurling fans are also hopeful that the return of the dolphins to Bunratty may also be on omen suggesting a hurling season similar to what took place in 1995.

THE Health Services Executive came under fire in April amid mounting claims that there’s now a growing drink and drugs problem at the Acute Unit at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Ennis.

Controversy has erupted within the Clare health services after a patient and a nursing representative confirmed to The Clare People that drink and drugs represent an ongoing “problem” at the 38-bed unit that houses psychiatric patients. The Clare People has learned that patient and nursing fears about drink and drugs being smuggled into the unit by visitors has led to the gardaí being drafted in for illegal substance searches.

“There are people smoking cannabis in the Acute Unit in Ennis,” one patient from within the unit told The Clare People on Monday. “There is a garden adjacent to the unit and a number of patients were offering drugs to other patients.

“There was also alcohol being consumed – wine and cider that’s being offered to patients. The doors open from the garden into the ward and the smell of the cannabis comes in when the doors were opened. This has been reported to the nurses by two different patients,” the female patient added.

“Drugs have been an issue in the Acute Unit,” admitted Denis Meehan, a local representative of the Psychiatric Nurses Association. “The staff in the unit have done their absolute best to curtail this problem, but it’s very hard to do anything with it. Staff have called gardaí on occasion and patients have been searched. “In every prison in Ireland there are drugs, so you would expect them to be in the Acute Unit in Ennis. If this is reported to us, all we can do is search people and that’s what we have done,” he added.

A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE bachelor farmer and former general election candidate was revealed as the mystery buyer of two Clare hotels.

JJ McCabe from Clarecastle confirmed to The Clare People that he paid a total of € 625,000 for the Ashford Court Hotel in Ennis and the Kilkee Bay Hotel.

The Ashford Court was sold at auction at the beginning of this month for € 305,000 – € 90,000 more than the reserve.

The Kilkee Bay Hotel remained unsold at the end of the same Allsop Space auction, with auctioneers stating it failed to make its reserve of € 315,000.

Mr McCabe, whose land sold for € 18.8 million in the biggest deal in Clare during the property boom, told The Clare People he was at the auction in the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin and regretted not purchasing the West Clare hotel when he returned home.

He later called the previous owners and purchased the 41-bedroom property with bar and function room facilities for € 5,000 over the reserve – € 320,000.

The colourful Clarecastle man, who also has property in France, said he had plans to have the Kilkee Hotel open for the busy summer season.*

“We are working feverishly and hope to have it up and running for the quickest possible time. We take it over in April and will begin work then. The interior décor is the main problem that we will deal with,” he explained.

The 74-year-old also had plans to hold discos and other entertainment in the hotel during the summer months.

“There is no recreation in Kilkee. People need recreation and entertainment,” he said.

He estimates there will be ten fulltime jobs at the hotel to begin with, which will expand with the business.

The need for more local employment was one of his platforms when he last ran for election in 2011, which he contested as an Independent candidate.

“I am fulfilling a promise made during my failed general election campaign,” he said.

Plans for the Ennis hotel were not as clear-cut.

“I will be opening it alright but in what capacity I don’t know yet – maybe as a bed and breakfast or hostel, something along those lines,” said the eccentric property owner and farmer. Mr McCabe said he is not a complete novice when it comes to the hotel business.

His first ever job was in the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly, London.

“I worked from the kitchen up. It was the first job I ever did. I wasn’t management but I got to know different areas of the business from the kitchen to the rooms and so on,” he said. *Mr McCabe opened the Kilkee Bay Hotel during the Summer.

MORE than 300 disabled Clare people faced a future of “darkness and isolation” as the axing of the Mobility Allowance and Motorised Transport Grant sentenced them to being prisoners in their own homes.

In March disabled Clare people prepared to wage war against the Department of Health in a last-gasp effort to protect their independence. Campaigners claim that the cuts will prevent Clare people with disabilities from reaching their full potential and lead to isolation, depression and suicide, especially in rural parts of the county.

The Department of Health decided to axe the schemes after Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly repeatedly warned the age limit on the payments was in contravention of equality legislation. It claimed that extending the schemes along with Ms O’Reilly’s recommendations would cost approximately € 170 million per annum.

This claim was disputed by campaigners in Ennis, who said the additional cost of including those over the age of 66 in the scheme would be minute.

The criteria for qualifying for both schemes is currently very strict. Candidates must prove that they were profoundly disabled and undergo a means test in order to be considered. Just 300 of Clare’s 9,000 disabled people currently qualify, meaning that the number of elderly Clare people coming onto the scheme, if it was extended to them, would likely be small, they argued.

“Elderly people would have to prove that they are profoundly disabled and show that their income is so low that they would pass the means test. So, if the existing scheme was extended to older people, there would be a tiny amount of extra people who would qualify,” said Anne Marie Carroll, who qualified for both schemes until she entered full-time employment.

“The legal issue here is a red herring. In my opinion, this is the Government trying to put manners on the Ombudsman because she has been outspoken on a number of issues. We are the fall guys in this, because disabled people are seen as a group who won’t stand up for themselves.”

Disabled people from all over Clare were worried that the loss of the schemes would make them prisoners in their own home.

“If this goes, it means I cannot get out,” said Ennis man Thomas Connole, who is visually impaired. “This allowance will go, and I am worried I am going to be housebound. I will effectively be trapped in my own home.”

According to Tom King, the former chair of Disabled People of Clare (DPOC), disabled Clare people are ready to fight the Government for these allowances. “This takes away the possibility of employment and a social life, but the main thing that it takes way is independence. This is going to leave disabled people isolated, in their homes, alone,” he said.

“There is an appetite on the ground to fight this. People with disabilities are feeling the recession as much as everyone else. We don’t have the money in our pockets to cover this and we are ready for a fight.”

A JUDGE branded as “crazy” the lack of places in facilities for juvenile offenders in Ireland.

Judge Patrick Durcan made the comment after being told that there were no beds available anywhere in the country for juvenile offenders.

Judge Durcan was imposing sentence on a 16-year-old Clare boy who pleaded guilty to a public order offence committed at a Health Services Executive (HSE) in Ennis last January. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of theft from Dunnes Stores last April.

Judge Durcan said he was compelled to agree with the recommendation of the Probation Services that a detention order be imposed on the teenager.

He said he would impose two detention orders of four months each.

However, Bláthnaid Connolly of the Probation Services, told Judge Durcan that no custodial beds were available anywhere on the day of the hearing.

Judge Durcan said, “This is a crazy situation.”

He said it is a matter for the State to provide facilities for young people.

Inspector Tom Kennedy urged Judge Durcan not to finalise his order without a place being available for the boy.

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey requested that the Court finalise its order. She said that if sentencing was adjourned for a week, there was a danger her client “would run away or kill himself ”.

Ms Godfrey added, “The court should make this order today.” The court heard that the boy had suffered from drug abuse problems and suffers from ADHD.

Solicitor for the HSE, Aisling Carr, said a significant number of resources had been allocated to the boy over the past year.

Ms Carr said the boy had missed appointments and not co-operated with his addiction counsellor. She said the teenager must co-operate with the services to a certain degree.

The boy’s father told the court that he did not want his son to attend a particular service in Limerick City because issues had arisen with some people from the area.

Ms Godfrey said her client suffered from a “bad form of ADHD”.

She added, “His father has tried to stand by his son every step of the way.”

Judge Durcan said the boy had to realize he could not be the sole determining factor of his own immediate future. He said the boy had “abused” any level of freedom afforded to him in the past.

Judge Durcan remanded the boy on continuing bail to appear again at Ennis District Court at the end of the month for sentence.

He said the HSE had a “particular responsibility in this matter”.

CLARE’S six TDs and senators declared a variety of commercial interests to the Dáil in 2012, including eight rental properties, two farms and a trip to France paid for by the Alternative Iranian Government in Exile.

North Clare senator Martin Conway (FG) listed a trip to an international conference in Paris, paid for by the Iranian group, in the official list of interests submitted to the Dáil for 2012.

The conference, which cost € 395 between hotels and flights, was attended by former Taoiseach John Bruton (FG) as well as members of former US president John F Kennedy’s family.

“It was an informative and important event but it didn’t cost the Irish taxpayers, high up or low down, for me to attend,” Senator Conway told The Clare People yesterday.

“We stayed in extremely basic accommodation. We flew in on Friday night, spent all day Saturday at the conference, and flew home early on Sunday. So it certainly wasn’t a holiday.”

Senator Conway also declared his interests in Conway’s Shop in Ennistymon, in addition to four rental properties in Quin, Tobertascain in Ennis, Woodview in Ennistymon and Ard Donagh in Ennistymon as well as his family home in Ennistymon. Fellow senator Tony Mulcahy (FG) lists two rental properties in Shannon and a property for sale in Bal- lycasey among his commercial interests. Senator Mulcahy also listed his business property in Smithstown Industrial Estate in Shannon and his directorship of Clare School Meals and Catering Ltd among his assets. Senator Mulcahy also amended his declaration in November of this year to include statutory gratuity payment received from his time as a member of Shannon Town Council and Clare County Council. Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley listed two rental properties in Dublin among his declared interests. The properties are located in Charlotte Quay in Dublin 4 and Moyville in Rathfarnham. Deputy Dooley did not list any Clare properties among his interests. East Clare Deputy Michael McNamara (Lab) declared income from occupation as a barrister at law and from his farm in Tuamgraney amongst his declared interests. Deputy Pat Breen (FG) listed the income from his farm in Lisduff, Ballynacally amongst his assets while Deputy Joe Carey (FG) listed no commercial or property interests besides his family home at “the Land” in Clarecastle.

CLARE’S dark history at the centre of the Magdalene Laundry system was laid bare by the McAleese Report, which was published in February.

The report identified 261 Clare women who spent time as unpaid slaves in these institutes between the 1920s and 1980s – the fifth highest of any county in Ireland.

The real number of Clare women in these asylums was likely to have been far higher, however. No Clare laundries were identified in the report, despite the insistence by many Clare people, including the Kildysart-born former trainee nun Patricia BurkeBrogan, that a laundry operated in Ennis for many decades.

Two decades ago, Ms Burke-Brogan turned whistleblower on the Magdalene system through her acclaimed play ‘Eclipsed’ and in February she claimed that the McAleese Report only scratched the surface of a nationwide problem, where women were subject to slave labour conditions by Church and State.

According to Ms Burke-Brogan, the report failed to “grasp the real horror” of what went on in laundries around the country.

“This report went into what happened in 10 or 11 laundries – there were 42 of them around the country. They were in Galway, they were in Clare, they were everywhere,” she said.

“It softened the story. That’s my main complaint. For someone who hasn’t experienced or seen what was going on in those places. I find it distressing. In some ways what’s in this report makes it worse.” The Clare People also discovered an account given by one woman, who claimed to have been physically apprehended by nuns at St Joseph’s Hospital in Ennis when she was just 15, and brought away to work in a Magdalene Laundry.

This woman’s story was part of a submission by the Justice for Magdalenes Group to the United National Committee Against Torture. The woman, who was not identified in the report, said she had worked as an unpaid maid in the hospital at the time and was targeted by the nuns when she was discovered speaking to a male hospital porter.

“One nun came in this side entrance [of the chapel in St Joseph’s] and she calls out to me. And I could see the other nun coming in the other door. And I felt strange – somehow I felt, something within me, something was going to happen to me,” she said.

“They grabbed me. And they bundled me into this car outside the chapel… I was crying. And I remember them saying to me, ‘you’re going to the Magdalene Laundry’.”

The McAleese Report also detailed the stories of three Clare girls, age 16 and 17, who were ordered to a Magdalene Laundry because their foster parents no longer wanted them. According to the report, this was common at the time as State payment for foster children ended once the child turned 15.

SUICIDE continued to take a large number of lives in the county in 2013, with a number of local organisations being formed to deal with the issue.

In February it was reported that a person living in Clare is 10 times more likely to die by suicide than on our county roads, yet preventing death by suicide seemed to be way down the Government’s list of priorities when it came to funding.

There was just one resource officer for suicide prevention in the mid-west region – looking after three counties including Clare.

This professional with a vast wealth of experience was described by HSE area manager Bernard Gloster as “one of the HSE’s most valuable resources”.

However those dealing with people at risk of suicide on a daily basis said more resources are needed.

Concerns had already been raised that the psychiatric nurse specialising in assessing patients out of hours is often redeployed due to staffing issues in other areas of the mid-west region’s hospitals.

Pieta House said that not only should that specialist nurse not be redeployed, but more were needed.

As the recession ate more into public funding, figures suggest that there were also more people at risk of suicide, as life got significantly more difficult.

The Samaritans in Clare received more than 40 calls in confidence every day from people in crisis.

The organisation, which received no Government funding and is manned by up to 100 volunteers in Clare, also met in confidence with 295 people face to face last year.

The newly-appointed director of the local branch said that the numbers of calls have increased significantly since the recession.

“Everyone is different. Some people are very anxious, distressed, lonely, in financial difficulties or have relationship problems,” she said.

Pieta House – the suicide and selfharm crisis centre – received just 15 per cent funding from the Government.

Tom McEvoy, Funding and Advocacy Department, for the organisation in the mid-west said that the charity is being strongly supported by the community, an indication of how much the service is needed.

Pieta House opened four more houses in the coming year, bringing the number of houses to nine. However more needed to be done at national level to tackle the issue, according to former psychiatric nurse and member of the HSE West Health Forum Cllr Tom McNamara.

“We are going to have to take it on the same way as we tackled the road deaths.

“There are more people losing their lives through suicide than ever died through the road deaths,” he said. The councillor said that an organisation similar to the Road Safety Authority needs to me employed to deal with the issue,” he said.

TOOTHLESS, € 10,000 talking shops were taking place in this HSE region every two months, while stressed and worried older people watch powerlessly all over County Clare as their home help hours are savagely cut. In figures released to The Clare People under the Freedom of Information Act 1997 and 2003, expenses paid out to councillors in the HSE West region who attend forum meetings were as high as € 8,600 per meeting.

One member of the forum admitted to The Clare People that the cost of one meeting would pay for the lifetime home help needs of one older person.

Under the FOI request, The Clare People learnt that the bi-monthly meetings of the HSE West Regional Health Forum cost € 154,104.92 during the last three years in councillor expenses alone.

Of this, € 12,179.29 was collected by the four Clare members on the 40-person forum covering the nine counties in the HSE West.

Clare councillors received up to € 240 per meeting in expenses, with one councillor in Donegal claiming as much as € 625.87 per meeting.

Members travel to meetings in Galway, Limerick and Manorhamilton, but have no say in health legislation, nor can they propose changes or make any representations. They can merely question the health authority.

Former Clare members of the health forum resigned from the body put in place to replace the former health boards as they described it as no more than a “talking shop”.

Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) found it “very frustrating because we couldn’t get answers or information from the HSE. I saw no point in travelling that far and claiming those expenses when we couldn’t actually get any- thing done.”

Even current members of the forum admited it is far from value for money.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) argued that the HSE must be kept accountable through some public forum, but said there must be a more cost-effective and efficient way of making this happen. And while councillors continue to claim for their expenses, it also emerged that at least two meetings in the last three years were abandoned, as they did not have a quorum – in other words not enough councillors stayed until the end of the meetings to make them viable.

THE number of civic receptions and other civic functions ordered by councillors at Clare County Council skyrocketed in 2012 – reaching its highest level on record, it was revealed during the first week in February.

Councillors ordered eight different social events in the year, compared to just three in 2011.

These eight ceremonies included four civic receptions, two civic recognitions, one mayoral reception and one civic welcome.

Figures obtained by The Clare People showed that the number of civic ceremonies asked for by elected members has increased year on year since the beginning of the recession.

According to Clare County Council’s own annual reports, councillors hosted three civic receptions in 2006, four in 2007 and five in 2008.

In 2009 there were six ceremonies, including four civic receptions and two civic welcomes, with seven events in 2010, including five civic receptions and two mayoral receptions.

This number fell to just two civic receptions and one civic recognition in 2011 before the eight different events which were hosted by councillors in 2012.

The events were generally hosted in the offices of Clare County Council, Áras Contae an Chláir, and involved an amount of food and drink and sometimes entertainment. It was unclear what the costs are from staging these civic events.

The largest civic reception held in 2012 took place on June 14 when President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, was officially welcomed to Clare following a motion put forward by Cllr Christy Curtin (Ind).

Other ceremonies in 2012 were held for the Inagh Camogie Team, the Environment Committee of the Committee of the Regions and a civic welcome to those taking part in the Shinty Hurling/Camogie International Festival.

There were also events to honour the Samaritans for 30 years of service in Clare, to the unveiling of a plaque in memory of the passengers from Clare who were on board the Titanic, a reception to honour Keeva Corry who won the Under 11 and Under 12 World Dancing Championships and a civic recognition ceremony to honour Noel Pyne who has competed in the South of Ireland Championships each year for the past 50 years.