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THE DATA Protection Commissioner has written to a Clare school demanding that it turn off CCTV cameras in operation in a classroom in the school.

The school installed the CCTV system recently and within days of installation a complaint was received by the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). Within the complaint it is alleged that the school in question installed the CCTV cameras in classrooms without consulting parents of children in the school.

In a letter sent by the DPC to the Chairperson of the Board of Management of the school, which has been seen by The Clare People , the officer stated the DPC “will not tolerate the use of CCTV cameras in the classroom”. The letter stated that an investigation of the complaint is underway.

The school have been given two weeks to respond to the letter, which lists four areas of concern, one of which is why the cameras were installed. The letter does not identify the complainant who brought the matter to the attention of the DPC.

A TEENAGER has been ordered to stay away from parts of Ennis town centre after being released on bail.

The 16 year old pleaded guilty to multiple charges of burglary and theft at Ennis District Court in April

He was one of two people who stole a car from Castlewood Park, Ennis last summer. The teen pleaded guilty to trespassing on a farmhouse in Lemenagh, Kilfenora last October. He admitted stealing items from a house in the Lifford area of Ennis, also in October

He also pleaded guilty to his role in burglaries at houses in Westwood, Ennis on dates unknown between December 25 and 26 and at Showground’s View, Ennis on dates unknown between December 26 and 27. He appeared back before Ennis District Court on Wednesday having been remanded for a month to Oberstown detention centre.

Reports handed into court offered contradictory views on the teen’s behaviour, the court heard. Inspector John Galvin said it was hard to be “optimistic” given the boy’s attitude to bail conditions previously imposed by the court.

Defence solicitor John Casey said his client was fully aware of the consequences of not abiding by the court’s orders.

He added, “If he betrays this trust, he will be putting himself away. He will be throwing away the keys.”

The court previously heard that the boy had been led astray by a man described in court as a “Fagin” type character.

Judge Patrick Durcan said he was willing to give the boy a chance.

The teen was ordered to abide by the directions of gardaí; stay away from named individuals; stay away from parts of Ennis town centre. He was remanded on bail to appear again at Ennis District Court on June 28.

DORIS Akujobi’s face shines with pride when she talks about her children.

Eldest son Victor recently graduated from Dublin City University with an honours degree in Biomedical Science. Doris smiles as she tells how Victor now works in the nutrition sector in Dublin. It’s no surprise to Doris or her husband Anselem that their 22-year-old son pursued a career in science. The former Ennis Community College student represented Ireland at the Junior Science Olympiad in Brazil. Like her brother, Jennifer Akujobi (23) has a talent for science. She holds a degree in chemical science and medicinal chemistry.

“They are very good, I thank God for them,” says Doris.

Anselem, Doris and their seven children – Victor, Jennifer, Chris, Alex, Sandra, Stephanie and Michael – have made a happy life for themselves since first coming to Ennis from Nigeria in 2002. The weather was of course a shock but the family soon settled into their new life.

Doris speaks warmly of her children’s time at Scoil Chriost Rí and Ennis Community College.

She says, “We have been so lucky with the schools and our friends. Life is good. It is calm. It is quite compared to Dublin. Dublin is crowded.”

Anselem worked in the Dell factory in Limerick for five years up to 2009. He now works as a taxi driver. “It’s very quite,” he says, “There is no nice job but it is better than staying idle,” he adds with a wry smile. Doris has worked with the Brothers of Charity since 2008. Last year she graduated from the Open Training College with a qualification in social care with disability. The family were granted citizenship in 2003 after a two-year wait. This was an important step for Doris and Anselem. The family are proud to call themselves Irish citizens. Doris says, “We have been responsible for ourselves. We always wanted to set a good example for our children. When the mother and father are working it sets a good example for the children.” It does sadden Doris though that some people retain a negative perception of African immigrants. She explains, “Sometime I am in the shopping centre with a big trolley of food for my family and people are looking at me. They see you and they kind of give you a second look. They don’t know who you are. They don’t know you are working. They don’t see that we pay tax, work hard. We are doing something to contribute to the country.” Like many Irish parents, Anselem and Doris have seen their children move abroad to look for work. Doris says, “All Irish children, when they finish school, should be able to stay in the country and get work. Every day I pray for the country.”

IN THE last three years the Loophead peninsula has gone from one of West Clare’s best kept secrets, to attracting thousands of visitors every year and being shortlisted as one of the top five places in Ireland to visit.

Much of the credit for the prominence of the Loop has been attributed to the local community who is working hard to promote the area and the opening of the lighthouse as a tourist attraction during the summer of 2011.

The numbers of tourists visiting the lighthouse has increased steadily since, and figures release yesterday (Monday) shows that despite the inclement weather conditions of the past two months, more than 2,000 tourists passed through its doors.

That is an average of 250 people every weekend.

The 19th century lighthouse’s opening hours will be extended to weekdays from the June bank holiday weekend and will remain open up to the end of September, attracting even more tourists.

The speculation of a local ghost is also adding to the mystery at the westerly lighthouse, with modern day ghost busters currently writing up a report of their findings in the historical building.

And the peninsula has been shortlisted in the last number of days as one of the five finalists in the The Irish Times Best Place to Holiday in Ireland competition.

For the competition – which has been running since March – members of the public were invited to nominate the places they love to holiday. The shortlist features three remote areas of natural beauty: the Glen of Aherlow, Co Tipperary; Inishbofin island, Co Galway; and Loop Head peninsula, alongside Derry city and Killarney, Co Kerry.

The Mayor of Clare, Cllr Pat Daly, congratulated the people of Loop head and said;

“The fact that Loophead has made the shortlist from an entry list of more than 1,400 destinations throughout Ireland is testament to the quality of the tourism product on offer. A huge amount of work is being carried out by local community groups, supported by Clare local authorities, to promote the peninsula as a visitor destination to both domestic and international tourists.”

CLARE County Manager, Tom Coughlan, has been appointed to the board of the new Shannon Airport Authority. Mr Coughlan is one of two new appointments to the SAA board, the move coming on the back of Clare County Council being a staunch supporter of the airport being given its independence from the Dublin Airport Authority.

Mr Coughlan’s appointment to the board, along with that of Tony Brazil of Limerick Travel, came into effect this Tuesday and completed the new SAA board.

“I welcome these appointments as they bring additional and relevant experience and expertise to the board,” said chairman of the SAA, Rose Hynes.

“Tony Brazil’s knowledge of all aspects of the tourism industry will be extremely valuable as we continue to grow passenger services at Shannon Airport. Tom Coughlan’s dynamism and energy as manager of Clare County Council, and his focus in that role on regional development and promotion, will also be a very positive addition to the board.

“I look forward to working with both of them towards delivering further on Shannon’s potential as a key economic driver for the wider region,” she added.

Mr Coughlan’s appointment honours a commitment given by Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar that there would be local authority involvement in the new Shannon Airport. As county manager, he as been in the vanguard of Clare County Council’s support of Shannon during and after the process that brought about its independence from the DAA.

“We are ready, willing and able to work with NEWCO and work with whoever we have to work with to try and make this a success,” he said when independence was finaly granted last December. “I think it can be the new start for Shannon – I think it has to be the new start because we cannot stay where we are. We have to make a new start, we have to move on from where we are. I very much echo the sentiment that doing nothing was not an option,” he added.

A NORTH Clare committee has been set up to organise local opposition to the construction of massive twin fish farms off the Fanore coast. This follows a meeting in Ballyvaughan last Friday night, which attracted more than 100 concerned locals as well as people from as far away as Cork.

Details of the local committee will be formalised in the coming week an organised opposition to the fish farm is likely to intensify this month. Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the state agency who are behind the development, were invited to send a representative to the meeting but were unable to do so.

Representatives of Clare TD’s Pat Breen (FG) and Michael McNamara (LAB) attended the meeting but the North Clare group expressed its dis- appointment that none of the county Dáil representatives were there in person.

“We are setting up a local committee later this week and we will be following up on everything that was said at the meeting. Pat Breen and Michael McNamara both sent representatives to the meeting. Many of the politicians in Galway, including the mayor, have come out publicly against the farm, so it was a shame that none of our local representative could be there in person. But maybe they can come on board in the future,” said a North Clare committee spokesperson.

“There was more than 100 people there at the meeting and not one them was in favour of the fish farm. There was a lot from North Clare but we had people from all over the west coast. There is now an issue for anyone along the western seaboard.

“This concerns everyone involved in who lives along the coast. It is not just the commercial fishermen, it’s people who are involved in the tourist industry – it’s all of us really.

“We invited the BIM and it was a shame that they could not get a representative there. They contact us at the eleventh hour and said that they would meet us if we cancelled the meeting and held it again on another day.”

THE town of Kilrush is back in the national eye, one week after it hosted the National Famine Commemoration, as it has been shortlisted for Best Kept Tidy Town in Ireland.

The Heritage town is one of just four nationally in the final stage of the competition.

Chairman of Kilrush Tidy Town Committee Paul Edson said that winning the award would be “a great stepping stone for the national Tidy Town Awards”.

Mr Edson said that while the town has never looked as good there are still some contentious areas that need addressing. He explained that the town could not become complaisant. Boundary walls in areas such as Pella Road, O’Gorman Street, Grey Street, and St Senan’s Terace needed to be addressed he said.

The Tidy Town’s committee is tak- ing the issue in hand by going door to door to residence and offering to help them to paint their wall if they wish to take on the project.

In what is likely to be the last every report to Kilrush Town Council the Tidy Town’s chairman said, “This might be our last ever meeting with the town council so we want to achieve as much as possible in the next 13 months.”

The council contributes € 4,000 to the Tidy Town fund.

Mr Edson fears that such funding will not be available from the amalgamated Clare County Council.

He said the Tidy Towns also want to concentrate on Francis Street, the largest and widest street in the town.

“It is like a beautiful around a painting that is not completed,” said Mr Edson.

He said the committee were seeking extra funding to put a three tier planter and hanging baskets for the street.

IRELAND’S oldest matchmaking festival is going pink this September with a gay and lesbian weekend being added to the month-long Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival.

This year’s matchmaking festival will begin with The Outing – a lesbian and gay weekend involving concerts, matchmaking and other events, all hosted by drag-queen Panti.

The event is the brainchild of local hotelier Marcus White who has contracted the organiser of the Dublin Pride Festival, Eddie McGuinness, to manage the event. According to McGuinness, the event will the biggest gay and lesbian matchmaking event ever to take place, anywhere in the world. It is not as yet clear if Ireland’s last matchmaker, local man Willie Daly, will be directly involved in the gay and lesbian festival.

ALMOST 6,000 patients from across the mid-west, which includes county Clare, have been waiting more than four years for an outpatient appointment. The most serious offender in the region, and country, is the Mid-Western Regional Orthopaedic Hospital in Croom. Here 10,347 outpatients are on waiting lists; 4,109 or 39.7 per cent have been waiting more than four years to be seen by a consultant. According to the Department of Health’s Patient Treatment Register the Mid Western Regional Hospital, in Dooradoyle, Limerick, where most Clare patients are now referred, has the second highest number on a waiting list, with 1,716 outpatients waiting over four years. Nationally, there are now 9,784 patients waiting more than four years for an outpatient consultation in a public hospital, most of whom have been waiting between three and four years for an appointment. The total number of people on outpatient lists, according to the PTR figures for the end of January, is 386,643. The HSE West vowed to reduce this figure significantly back in January, bringing the waiting list in line with the Health Minister James Reilly’s pledge that no patient would be waiting more than a year for an outpatient consultation by the end of 2013. The HSE West claims that they can achieve this by November. The health service has been validating waiting lists to ascertain which patients still need appointments. In October last year 10,970 orthopaedic out patients in the mid-west were waiting for an appointment with a consultant. By May that figure fell to 7,477. “It is our objective to have the entire list validated by the end of May and to have no patient waiting longer than 12 months by the end of November for an outpatient orthopaedic appointment,” it said.

A PUBLIC meeting concerning the construction of a controversial fish farm off the Clare coast will take place in Ballyvaughan this week.

The meeting, which has been organised by local fishermen and others in the local community, is the first formal opposition meeting to take place against the fish farm on Clare soil.

The meeting follows on from a general meeting, organised by Clare Labour TD, Michael McNamara last month.

At that meeting, which was held at the Russell Centre in Doolin, a pro- posed talk about ways of improving the local fishing trade was overtaken by a large number of complaints about the proposed fish farm.

The project is the brainchild of Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) and will be the largest fish farm of its kind in Europe if they are given the go ahead. The Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney (FG), will decide on whether to licence the development later this year.

The twin fish farms will be located around six miles off the coast of Doolin and Fanore and locals are worried that the farm will have a negative impact on the existing local fish trade and have a negative impact on the Burren’s tourism industry.

A number of different studies have been presented by BIM and other group including Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) about the possible impact of the farm.

The chairman of the World Register of Marine Species last week sent a letter to Minister Coveney warning him about what the described as “incorrect data” released about the potential effect of sea lice from the farm on local wildfish.

“Salmon lice from aquaculture farms have proven difficult to control on farms, especially large farms and have been linked to mass fatal parasite infestations on wild salmon and trout in Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Canada,” said Mark Costello, who is also a Marine Ecology Professor at the University of Auckland.

“If there are a million fish on the farm with one egg-bearing louse each, the farm may release 500 million lice larvae. A key consequence of this is that on large farms, it is possible to keep the number of lice below what is harmful to the farm fish but they may still be producing a lot of lice larvae.”

The meeting will take place from 8pm at St John’s Hall in Ballyvaughan this Friday, May 17. Local politicians as well as a representative from BIM have been invited to attend.