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PEOPLE charged with criminal offences who are released on bail are now facing more regular inspection under a new regime of bail enforcement.

Gardaí in Clare have taken what has been described as “systematic approach” to the enforcement of bail conditions set down by the court.

The number of applications to the District Court from the State seeking to revoke the bail of persons accused of breaching conditions has markedly increased in recent weeks.

A senior garda last week told Ennis District Court there has been a “seachange” in the monitoring of people released on bail.

Insp Tom Kennedy was speaking after a man accused of burglary told the court that gardaí are calling to his home on a daily basis.

Judge Patrick Durcan asked Insp Kennedy if a daily level of vigilance was not counterproductive in terms of ensuring people on bail abide by conditions.

Insp Kennedy said it is unlikely inspections are carried out on a daily basis. But he said gardaí in Clare are maintaining a high level of vigilance.

“It wasn’t too long ago that we were being abused for not enforcing bail conditions but you can see there has been a sea-change,” he added.

His comments come in a week when a local Fine Gael councillor said more restrictive bail conditions could help address the issue of antisocial behaviour in the town.

“Really as a community we should be looking at very restrictive conditions put on every bail for offences on public order, theft or anything that is a threat to the quality of life in our community,” said Johnny Flynn.

Cllr Flynn added, “In our business we have 11 people employed and one day a seven year-old took out a knife demanding quicker service. That was about two years ago.”

He was speaking at a public meeting in Ennis on Thursday night. Ana Bella Alvarez, the Director of the upcoming Ennis Street Festival, said anti-social behaviour by teenagers is affecting tourism.

“When tourists come to the town and they see all this messing in the town, their experience is not positive, it’s negative,” she said.

Chairman of Promote Ennis, Brian O’Neill told the meeting “it is a statistical fact that Ennis has a very low rate of crime in comparison to other towns of its size and population in the country.

“It does superbly well. I think the gardai need to be applauded for the fantastic work they are doing. I suppose we also note that we would like to see an additional presence on the streets and additional community gardaí to assist in the reduction of anti-social behaviour,” he added.

GARDAÍ are investigating early morning armed robbery at a business in Ennis town centre yesterday.

The incident occurred at around 7.30am at the Xtra Vision store in the market area of the town.

A man carrying a weapon entered the home entertainment and electrical goods store and made away with a quantity of cash. A member of staff was opening up when he was set upon by the assailant at the front door of the premises.

It is understood the man who carried out the robbery was carrying a hammer. Gardaí in Ennis are investigating the robbery and are looking at CCTV footage from the area.

The incident follows a similar robbery at a family run shop in Ennis last month

Gardaí have urged business owners in the town to be vigilant and take appropriate security measures such as lighting and security cameras to protect their premises.

A 15-YEAR-old boy charged with the false imprisonment of a teenager in Ennis last year is to be sent forward for trial to the Circuit Criminal Court. Jurisdiction of the case was refused by Judge Patrick Durcan on Wednesday after he heard an outline of the alleged facts of the case against the boy.

The Ennis boy – who was accompanied by his mother at Ennis Children’s Court – is charged with falsely imprisoning a 17-year-old at Quin Road, Ennis on August 19 last contrary to Section 15 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.

He is also charged with unlawfully taking possession of a car without the consent of the owner or without lawful authority at the Quin Road, Ennis on the same date.

The boy is one of a number of people gardaí say were in a car that went on an “escapade” around Ennis last year. Three teenagers have been charged in connection with the incident. Inspector Tom Kennedy said it would be alleged the 15 year-old pushed the driver and forced him to sit in the car.

Judge Durcan refused jurisdiction. A book of evidence will be prepared and the case will be heard in the Circuit Court.

He adjourned the case for mention to tomorrow, June 11.

The boy was remanded on continuing bail. Two other teenagers have also been charged in connection with the incident on the Quin Road.

Patrick McCarthy (18) is charged with the robbery of a Sony mobile phone and € 5 worth of tobacco from a male on August 19.

Mr McCarthy, with an address at Westbourne, Watery Road, Ennis, is also charged unlawfully taking possession of a vehicle without the consent of the owner or without lawful authority. Insp Kennedy told Judge Durcan the DPP had directed summary disposal of the matters in the District Court. He outlined a summary of the alleged facts of the case to allow Judge Durcan consider whether or not to accept jurisdiction.

The court heard Mr McCarthy was one of a number of people who got into a car they waved down on O’Connell Street on August 19 last.

The court heard the driver was asked to go to a number of different housing estates and areas around the outskirts of Ennis.

Insp Kennedy said people were drinking in the car. He said the driver was assaulted at one point on the “journey” but not by Mr McCarthy.

Of the robbery charge, Insp Kennedy said that at one stage of this “escapade”, the car stopped on the humpback bridge on the Quin Road.

He said it would be alleged Mr McCarthy got out of the car and demanded money from a pedestrian.

Insp Kennedy said it is alleged the accused put his hands into the alleged victim’s pocket and took items.

He said Mr McCarthy then got back at the car, which at this point was being driven by another man.

Judge Durcan refused jurisdiction, meaning the case will now proceed to the Circuit Court.

Mr McCathy was remanded on continuing bail. The case was adjourned for mention to June 11.

A 19 year-old man also charged with an offence arising from the alleged incident on the Quin Road on August 19 last is also to be sent forward for trial to the Circuit Court.

He is due to appear before Ennis District Court tomorrow.

MOTORISTS accused of speeding offences on Clare roads have been told their cases will not be dealt with until a High Court case on the Go Safe speed camera network is resolved. At Ennis District Court on Friday, Judge Patrick Durcan ad- journed 17 speed camera prosecutions to September 19.

A total of 18 people faced prosecutions for alleged speeding offences allegedly captured by cameras mounted in Go Safe vans.

Judge Durcan struck out a case against one person following an application from the State. The privately run Go Safe has operated speed camera vans in Ireland since winning the Garda contract in 2009.

The cameras operate on sections of road, which have a history of collisions occurring where speed was a contributory factor.

In recent months, Judge Durcan has been critical of Go Safe and has struck out a number of speeding charges brought against motorists in Clare. On Friday, Judge Durcan told all those who had answered summons issued by Insp John McDonald, that the law with regards to issuing of fixed charge penalty notices is the “cause of some controversy in the land”. He said a colleague has sent a case to the High Court seeking clarification of the law under-pinning the speed camera system.

He said he was adjourning all cases until the issue in the High Court has been dealt with.

He told those people facing prosecutions their cases were adjourned to September 19. He told them they are not required to be present in court on the day.

There was a brief exchange when the Judge told a Cork man facing a Go Safe prosecution he would get “brownie points” for being present in court on Friday.

To laughter in the court, the man replied, “Which points?”

Judge Durcan said, “Brownie points, a different category of points to the ones concerned with here.”

Five Go Safe Inspectors were present in court for the adjournments. As they left the courtroom Judge Durcan asked them to convey to Inspector McDonald “that it is a total waste of time and public money you guys turning up here until after September 19. Any prosecutions before then will be adjourned.”

“I don’t like to see State money wasted seeing five strapping men sit here all day,” he added.

THE number of front-line outdoor workers employed by Clare County Council will remain broadly the same as the numbers previously employed by the local authority and the now defunct authorities Ennis, Shannon, Killaloe, Kilrush and Kilkee.

At yesterday’s June meeting of Clare County Council, County Manager Tom Coughlan said that the council has been instructed to put in place a single management system for the entire county but services will continue to be delivered by workers based in their own municipal area.

The change will see some of the management functioned centralised to Ennis, while the front-line services will be delivered by staff based out of local offices.

“We are very clearly directed by government that there will be a single authority.

“There has to be a county-wide structure, without duplication of services. That is the bottom line,” said Mr Coughlan.

“There will be no reduction in the outdoor staff.

“The outdoor staff will be working in the same areas as they are at the moment.

“There is no suggestion that staff in Loop Head, for example, will be assigned to work in other parts of the county.

“There is a limited number of staff in the organisation. My job is to manage the staff that I have as best as I can.

“We are recording the levels of activities in each municipal district and if there is insufficient staff in some areas, then we will have to deal with that.

“Let’s see how things work out for the first six months – if it is necessary to take staff from the central area and redeploy them to the municipal districts then that is what we will do.”

It was confirmed yesterday that large-scale projects, such as road works, will not be bound by the municipal boundaries.

A GROUP that represents retailers in Ennis has said that pedestrianisation will not work and is bad for business in the town.

Michelle Madden, a member of Ennis Chamber’s Retail Committee, described pedestrianisation of the town centre as an “impediment to business”.

“It doesn’t help business, I’m afraid and I don’t think Ennis town is actually geared for pedestrianisation,” Ms Madden told a public meeting in Ennis on Thursday night.

The former Ennis Town Council has on several occasions attempted to introduce pedestrianisation on a trail basis in the town centre.

In recent years, a limited system of pedestrianisation has been in place during the weeks before Christmas.

Ms Madden, a former President of Ennis Chamber said, “Pedestrianisation is a big impediment to trade in Ennis.

“Four years ago we did a survey over the summer months. It was meant to last for six months on Saturdays. It lasted five weeks.

“I have a report here from Ennis traders, particularly O’Connell Street traders. Over the five-week period, 22 of them were strongly opposed to pedestrianisation on a Saturday. Only five of them were in favour of continuing.”

Ms Madden was speaking at a meeting on proposed measures to stimulate job creation in the town.

She put forward a “shopping list” of measures, including reduced parking and better motorway signage for Ennis that retailers want local councilors to deliver upon.

“That’s a big impediment to retail,” said Ms Madden on the current cost of parking in Ennis.

She continued, “We’ve done sur- veys ourselves on it. People are not happy paying € 1.40 an hour. I think € 1 an hour is plenty and maybe the first hour every morning free.”

Ms Madden praised the former council’s free parking policy brought in last December alongside pedestrainisation of the town’s streets in the week before Christmas.

“It was great. It brought people into town. They spent money in town. They stayed in town. That creates jobs, it retains jobs,” she said.

The meeting was attended by 67 business people from industry, retail, hospitality, construction, town centre management and other key sectors.

The aim was to provide initial enterprise and job creation input to the Clare Local Enterprise Office’s (LEO) six year economic plan as well as to compile a result-driven report asking the LEO’s and the Ennis Municipal District Council’s support in the implementation of measures outlined.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG), an elected member of Clare County Council and local businessman, told the meeting it is important that Ennis and Clare is “not left behind” when it comes to job creation.

“We need to pull back job creation to the West of Ireland,” he added.

CLARE County Council is to write to Health Minister, James Reilly (FG), demanding that A&E services are reopened in Ennis until a new state of the art building is opened at the Limerick Regional Hospital.

This comes in the wake of a damning report of services at the Limerick facility by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) which described the Limerick A&E as “not fit for purpose”.

At last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, councillors voted unanimously to contact the Department of Health demanding both the temporary reopening of A&E services at Ennis General Hospital and the fast-tracking of funding for the promised state of the art A&E services at Limerick General Hospital.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) also confirmed that local Fine Gael councillors held a meeting with TDs Pat Breen (FG) and Joe Carey (FG) yes- terday morning – and requested they secure a meeting with Minister Reilly and Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

It was also claimed at last night’s meeting that the Limerick A&E was “cleaned up” during a recent visit by Minister James Reilly, with 35 people on trolleys on the day before the meeting and only 10 during the meeting.

Last week’s HIQA review found serious delays and risks for patients and staff due to persistent overcrowding in A&E in Limerick.

It also found that there were delays in transferring patients from the Emergency Department to the Intensive Care Unit and the High Dependency Unit, partly due to the absence of a single clinical governance structure.

The report found that there was just one toilet in the Emergency Department for all patients, adults and children, and there were no single rooms to isolate patients with communicable diseases.

“The review also found that people in Clare were not using the minor injuries units in Ennis General Hospital.

In a statement to The Clare People

THREE marine experts from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) will be in Doolin this Wednesday evening to oversee explosive detonations at Doolin Pier and ensure that Dusty or any other marine mammals are injured.

The detonations, which are part of the construction process for the new Doolin Pier, were due to take place last Thursday and Friday but were delayed for operational reasons.

This is the first time that the sonic impact of major coastal blasts on marine mammals has been taken into account during maritime construction and follows new guidelines being put in place by the Irish Wildlife Services in December of this year.

According to recent sighting, Dusty the dolphin has been basing herself on the Aran Islands in recent days and should be safe from harm unless she decided to return to the mainland.

Although based in Doolin, Dusty follows the local ferries to and from the Aran Islands and often spends a number of days off shore.

“Dusty is off the Aran Islands at the moment and she should be very safe out there but there are a whole array of marine mammals in the area.

“Dusty is just one, granted she is the most famous, but there are a large number of mammals that we are looking out for,” said Simon Berrow of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.

“Our objecting is to make sure that no mammals are harmed in the explosions.

“It is a good plan, we have spent a lot of time working on it, and we are hopeful that it will be successful.”

An exclusion zone will be put in place around Doolin Pier on Wednesday evening to ensure that no one gets too close to the detonation works.

Construction work on a new € 6 million pier got underway last month and it is expected to be completed by the middle of next year with Kilmaley based construction company, L&M Keating, carried out the complex build.

A new pier for Doolin has been in the pipelines for more than a decade but the development was subject to an extended planning process following objections by local surfers who felt the pier would damage local waves.

The new pier will also ensure that Doolin is accessible in all tidal conditions, which will be of particular benefit to Doolin Search and Rescue as well as the ferry operators, who currently have to trans-ship passengers onto their boats during low tide.

THE acclaimed debut album from two Clare men has caught the ear of one of the biggest rap stars on the planet.

John Lillis and God Knows will perform the biggest gig of their lives tonight when they share the stage with hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg in Dublin.

Ennis DJ John (mynameisJohn) and Shannon MC God Knows are among the support acts for the veteran rapper’s shows in The Academy, tonight and tomorrow.

John and God Knows landed the prized support slot at one of the most eagerly anticipated rap shows of the year on the strength of their acclaimed debut album, Rusangano/ Family.

A copy of the album found its way to Snoop’s management team who were said to be very impressed by John and God Know’s thrilling blend of grime and hip-hop.

“We’re delighted with it. We’re buzzing. I remember listening to Snoop when I was 13. It’s hard to believe we’re going to be playing with him,” said John last week.

Rusangano/Family has attracted huge critical praise since it’s release in May.

Hot Press described the album as a “hip hop stunner”. Influential music writer, Nialler9 hailed Rusangano/ Family as “a game-changer in the way it drags Irish hip-hop into a fully-formed album/mixtape format with a confidence and skill that is unfamiliar in this country’s rap output”.

Music blog The Point of Everything said Rusangano/Family is the “best album of 2014 so far.”

“The reaction to it has been absolutely amazing. Its something that we definitely didn’t see coming” says God Knows, “When we started out, we just wanted to make music for ourselves.

“We’ve enjoyed every minute of it. The amount of support we have got from people in Clare and Limerick has been brilliant.”

The pair describes themselves as a “Zimbabwean Christian and Irish Pagan who sat down with a cup of tea to discuss making an album.”

“We’re two people who really enjoy making music. We’re gob smacked at how it’s been received so far,” said John.

John has been involved in DJ’ing and music production for the best part of a decade. In 2013 he released ‘The Struggle’ EP with Limerick producer Graeme S.

God Knows moved to Ireland with his family from Zimbabwe.

The former St Caimin’s Community School student is a founder member of the music collective Random Acts of Kindness (RAOK).

The pair will hold an album launch at Limerick’s Belltable theatre on July 4.

A MAN who admitted driving a car with four bald tyres in Ennis last year has received fines totaling € 975 .

At Ennis District Court on Friday, Judge Patrick Durcan also banned Stefan Coustrain from holding a driver’s license for six months.

He told the 22-year-old he “was driving around the town of Ennis a most dangerous vehicle” when he was stopped by gardaí in the town on October 7 last.

He said the motoring offences occurred at a time of the year when conditions are wet and roads are covered with fallen leaves.

Mr Coustrain, with an address at Aisling, Shanaway Road, Ennis, was convicted of failing to wear a set belt, having a type that was not maintained in a condition so as to be fit for use.

He was also fined for unpaid excise duty on a vehicle contrary to the Finance Act.

The court heard Mr Coustrain has a number of previous convictions including one for a hit and run offence in Ennis

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client had previously worked as a chef and a computer repair man but is now out of work.

She said he is currently doing a training course in Limerick.

Acknowledging her client has a “bad record”, Ms Godfrey said any disqualification would hurt Mr Coustrain and affect his ability to support his family.

She said her client was going through a difficult period in his life when he committed the offences.

Judge Patrick Durcan struck out a number of road traffic offences against Mr Coustrain.

However he imposed fines totaling € 975 for the remaining charges. He also disqualified Mr Coustrain from holding a license for six months, by way of ancillary order.

Judge Durcan said he was cognizant the accused had a young family. “He just has to wake up”, he added.

The Judge said Mr Coustrain had shown total disregard for his children by driving them around in a “rattletrap”.

He said parents who behave in such a way should be referred to the Child and Family Welfare Agency (CAFA).