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THERE have been calls for public walkways to be developed along the River Fergus while work is underway on a major flood defence project in the town.

Work on the estimated € 7.1 million project from Bank Place Bridge to Doora Bridge has already commenced at locations around Ennis town centre.

It is anticipated that the works will take approximately 18 months to complete and will lead to the protection of 849 residential and 425 nonresidential properties on completion.

Defences including enhanced river walls, pumping stations and new drainage systems are included in the project, which is aimed at protecting Ennis against a 100-year flood event. Among the feature of the project is the installation of a pumping station in the park in front of Ennis Courthouse.

The issue of walkways was raised at yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis East electoral area.

In a motion, Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) stated that, subject to agreement with residents and landowners, walking and cycling paths could be put in place along the bank of the River Fergus.

He said this could be done in conjunction with the current flood protection works from Bank Place to Doora Bridge.

He added, “If this path was constructed it could ultimately be continued down to Clarecastle, linking the village with Ennis.”

Cllr Flynn told the meeting that the planned car park development near Cusack Park could create an opportunity for a river walk in the area.

Senior executive engineer Eamon O’Dea stated that the provision of walkways on the river embankments would be separate project from the Lower Fergus Certified Drainage Scheme.

He continued, “The new embankments will have a wider embankment crown than the previous embankment. Environmental assessments, consultation with landowners / residents adjacent to the embankments, risk assessments formal public consultation process and funding stream will be required for this project.”

Mayor of Clare, Cllr Pat Daly (FF), and Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) both welcomed the proposal. Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) said the Gardaí may not permit a public walkway so close to the Garda station.

Cllr Flynn also requested that regular meetings be held by the Contractor Wills Brothers Ltd with public businesses and residents affected by works.

In reply, Eamon O’Dea stated that the OPW Lower Fergus Certified Drainage contract provides for a community liaison person for the OPW and the contractor.

He continues, “The community liason persons have been in contact with householders and businesses. They recently met with businesses in the Newbridge Road and Abbey Street car park and further meetings are being arranged with residents and businesses.”

Council officials have also met with the contractor.

A CLARE local development company that has invested € 86.5 million in the county over two decades has described Government plans to dissolve it as little more than a “grab” for its resources. Clare Local Development Company (CLDC) has hit out at plans to give local authorities control of community-led programmes, such as LEADER.

CEO of CLDC Doirin Graham said, “There is no credible justification for this change other than a grab for the resources of LEADER. Minister [Phil] Hogan has failed to back up his contention that a local authority-led model will deliver a better service to the public and will save money.”

According to figures released yesterday (Monday), almost 1,200 local businesses and community projects have benefited from communityled development funding, totalling € 86.5 million since the first LEADER contract was awarded in Clare in 1992. During this time, 1, 550 jobs have been created or sustained and training provided to 3,000 people in County Clare. A further 250 people were assisted into employment.

Further spin off jobs, especially in the building sectors, were created locally as many of the projects required buildings or outdoor areas.

Currently the company in Clare employs 68 people on a wide range of programmes, including LEADER, Local Community Development Programme, Rural Recreation Local Training Initiatives and community work schemes.

This year, the company will also be responsible for the employment of a further 312 people on community work placement schemes including, Community Employment, the Rural Social Scheme and Tús.

CLDC has vowed to “fight tooth and nail” against Minister Phil Hogan’s proposed local government reforms, which would allow new County Council-led bodies replace local development companies as the organisations responsible for LEADER and other local development programmes. It also rejected what it described as “efforts by the Minister to discredit the contribution made by local development companies and their staff across the country”.

“Our organisation has 21 years experience of bottom-up development, a huge voluntary input, strong relationships with communities and people on the ground, and provides better value for money,” said Ms Graham.

“The European Commission and the OECD have praised Ireland’s local development organisations strongly for their ability to deliver EU supports and policies on the ground. CLDC and the 49 other Local Development Companies around the country will fight the Minister’s proposal tooth and nail.”

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.

DISABLED people in Clare are preparing to wage war on the Government in an effort to protect themselves from “the big squeeze” which many believe is coming their way this year.

A public meeting will take place in Ennis on Friday, May 24, and disability activists are hoping to send out the message to government that disabled people living in rural areas will not be swept under the carpet.

According to co-organiser Anne Marie Flanaghan, many disable people in Clare have in the past been too scared to stand up to the Government – for fear of being given even deeper cuts.

“We are seen as a quite group in society who can be easily targetted. There are disabled people in a position to speak out, so that is why it is important for everyone who can and the family of friends of disabled people – to speak out now,” she said.

“There are a lot of disabled people in Clare who are scared. People are on the very fringes of society already and they are afraid that if we speak out that we be cut even more – that is a horrible siuation to be in.”

Clare disabled people have seen a cuts to their Personal Assistant Services and are currently bracing themselves for cuts to the Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant.

Meeting co-organiser Dermot Hayes believes that the time has come for disabled Clare people to take the fight to the Government.

“For people to live independently you need to be able to get out and about. Disabled people are not living in any kind of luxury; we are just about surviving,” said organiser Dermot Hayes.

“There is a feeling that there is a big squeeze coming down the road for disabled people. There are sneaky cuts, and you don’t realise how much of an impact they have until they are gone.”

The public meeting will take place on Friday, May 24, at the West County Hotel in Ennis. All people with disabilities, their families, friends and interested citizens are asked to attend.

AN AREA of Ennis should be pedestrainised to prevent traffic “choking” the town centre, a meeting has heard.

Cllr James Breen (Ind) raised the matter in a motion submitted to yesterday’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis West electoral area.

He called for the “street from the Friary car park to Abbey Street to be pedestrianised on a permanent basis.”

Cllr Breen claimed that most cars turning onto Abbey Street travel though the town centre before leaving Ennis without stopping.

He said the number of cars travelling through the centre of Ennis is causing major traffic congestion. He said, “We are choking our town with traffic needlessly.”

In reply, senior executive engineer Eamon O’Dea stated that the pedestrainisation of this section of Francis Street could not be considered on its own.

He stated, “This section of the road is closed by Gardaí for short periods of time at weekends in the interest of public safety. Ennis Town Council would have to evaluate the adjustments to the road network and traditional traffic flows in the town. This would require consideration of alternating the Francis Street car park layout to provide a turning area at the end of a cul de sac or provision of an exit into Friar’s Walk car park. This section of Francis Street is used during pedestrianisation of Abbey Street to turn traffic out onto Lower Abbey Street.”

Mr O’Dea told the meeting that some businesspeople in Ennis would say there are advantages to allowing traffic through the town centre. He explained that visitors to the town might come back after passing through.

Town manager and director of services Ger Dollard said pedestrianisation of Ennis is a “difficult issue”. He said the exit from Francis Street is important for traffic flow in Ennis. He added, “There is a long way to go before we can achieve a solution.”

Mr O’Dea said the council may consider signage around Tescos advising shoppers of alternate routes to exit Ennis.

Cllr Tony Mulqueen (FG) said the council could consider reversing traffic flow in Ennis. He told the meeting that the original Ennis Development Plan contained a proposal for cars to travel from O’Connell Street down Abbey 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.

MORE than two thirds of people in Clare with disabilities are out of work and are more likely to face challenges and barriers when it comes to finding, securing and retaining a job.

That is according to the Clare Irish Association of Supported Employment (IASE), who say people with disabilities are less than half as likely to be at work when compared to the rest of the working age population.

According to figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), as many as 14,775 people in Clare have a disability.

Working age people within this group, which makes up 12 per cent of the county’s population, are more likely than the rest of the general population, to be out of work.

36 per cent of people with disabilities are active in the labour market compared to 77 per cent of other adults.

Pat O’Neill team leader at EmployAbility Clare, and Census 2011 supervisor for Clare explained the latest data from the CSO shows people with a disability face challenges in securing job placements.

“The emphasis in Clare is on inclusion and expanding the range of placement opportunities,” he said.

The IASE is hosting a major European conference next month to address some of the challenges, innovations and latest developments in the area of supporting people with disabilities and other marginalised groups into jobs.

Clare is to play a central role in this conference.

The artistic endeavours of a group of artists, who are clients of Employ- Ability Clare, will be showcased.

Mr O’Neill worked with clients of EmployAbility Clare to design the delegate gift for hundreds of people travelling to Ireland the conference.

The design and creative process was hosted by the Burren College of Art.

A video documentary has also been produced and will be shown for the first time in Croke Park to the international audience.

EmployAbilityClare will also present their experiences on supporting clients into self-employment opportunities.

THERE have been calls for a ‘wet’ hostel to be set up in Ennis to help alcoholics.

Ennis councillor Paul O’Shea says the need for such a service, as Ennis can’t keep “exporting” people with alcohol problems to Limerick and Galway.

Wet hostels provide shelter for street drinkers while allowing them to continue to consume alcohol on the premises, unlike other homeless hostels that enforce abstinence. Cllr O’Shea said there are 324 people waiting on the local authority-housing list that are presenting as homeless.

He said a growing number of young people are ending up homeless caused by drink related problems. Speaking at the May meeting of Ennis Town Council, he said, “We don’t have wet hostels in Clare but we have Clare people that are using them in Limerick and Galway.

Councillors were discussing issues raised by the death of Czech national Josef Pavelka (52) who died on the streets of Ennis earlier this month.

His plight came to national attention when District Court Judge Patrick Durcan described as a “scandal” the fact that Mr Pavelka had spent tie living in a toilet.

On Wednesday, Ennis Town Council again insisted that it had no evidence that Mr Pavelka or his Polish friend Piotr Baram (36) had been living in the toilet.

Town manager Ger Dollard said the council never received a report that people were sleeping in the town’s two public toilets. He said, “It doesn’t seem plausible” that the men were sleeping in the toilets. Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Peter Considine (FF) said he had sympathies for Mr Pavelka’s family. He said the story was “badly handled and a bad representation of the town of Ennis”. He said he was “very doubtful” the men had slept in the toilets as the doors open at 20minute intervals. He said the fact that Mr Pavelka had no access to services after his recent surgery was “shameful”. However, Cllr Considine added, “You can’t help people that don’t want to help themselves.”

Cllr Mary Howard described the men as “lovely craters”. “At the end of the day, he’s somebody’s son, somebody’s brother.”

Business man Kevin Keenan who runs, Formacompany.ie on O’Connell Street, said businesses had experienced problems because of people drinking in the area.

He said, “I wouldn’t wish what happened on that man to anyone. Its not they’re fault they’re alcoholics. But people are feeding their habit. They are stopping on the street to give them money. If you knew someone with a heroin habit you wouldn’t go and buy them heroin.”

Mr Keenan says he has noticed an increase in the number of people drinking in the area. “There was an Irish contingent that caused a lot of bother. They were gone for a while and now they are back. There is so such goodwill out there that people are milking it.”

PRIMARY and secondary level students are being called on by Ennis Tidy Towns, to enter their school in the Ennis Schools Sustainability Challenge 2013.

Schools who do their best to reduce waste, recycle and who are environmentally sustainable will be included in this year’s Tidy Town’s entry to help Ennis shine.

Feídhlim Harty of FH Wetlands System Ltd, has said Ennis Tidy Towns are looking for schools who have begun “composting apple cores, who have started a school vegetable garden, or who have even organised a second hand book sale”.

Being environmentally friendly means taking pride in your hometown, school and environment. The involvment of schools is of great importance to Ennis Tidy Towns and is critical to the future of Ennis.

“It’s really important that we can read and write but we must be able to look after the world around us. It is vital that young people get a sense of what it means to reduce waste and be environmentally sustainable,” according to Féidhlim.

“By doing this we can protect the environment and also help the pockets of our local schools.”

To enter your school into this year’s challenge, write a short description of your waste minimisation or sustainability project, when it started and what the results have been.

“We need you to keep it brief,” according to Feídhlim, “time is short, so from one line to half a page with bullet points will be perfect.

“The more initiative the better but it’s about highlighting the work students have done this year. It’s probably a bad time with exams and school trips around now but we want to give students the recognition they deserve for their hard work.”

Féidhlim has said that there is great hope for Ennis in the Tidy Towns competition this year and “each year the town has been going from strength to strength”.

Entries must be sent to reeds@wetlandsystem.ie. before May 17 to take part in the Ennis Schools Sustainability Challenge.