Category: News

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.

THE achievement of the Cuimhneamh an Chláir, Clare’s oral history project, will be celebrated later this week when Ireland’s second ever Oral History Conference comes to Ennis.

The Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI) conference will take place at the Temple Gate Hotel this Friday and Saturday with subjects such as the pro-choice movement and the and peace process in Northern Ireland down for discussion.

Clare has proved a popular hunting ground for the folklore collectors over the decades while Cuimhneamh an Chláir have recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with the older generation of Clare people.

“The decision to hold the conference in Clare, following the inaugural conference in Kilkenny Castle in 2011, is a tribute to the rich oral heritage of the Banner County,” said Tomás Mac Conmara, a founding member of both Cuimhneamh an Chláir and the Oral History Net- work of Ireland.

Mac Conmara will deliver a paper at the conference entitled ‘War of Independence Commemorations and their meaning for social memory’.

One of the world’s best known oral historian, Alessandro Portelli, will also be in Ennis for the conference.

“Portelli will be talking about his latest work ‘They say in Harlan County’, which describes the struggles of miners in a depressed and disadvantaged area of the United States through their own eyes,” said Regina Fitzpatrick, OHNI chairperson.

“Anthony McIntyre will be giving a paper on his work in the Boston College Belfast Project. The oral history interviews that were collected have been the subject of a major court case in the United States following the British government’s determined efforts to get access to some of the more controversial interviews.”

To view the full conference programme or for more information on making a book visit www.oralhistorynetworkireland.ie or find the OHNI on Facebook.

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.

CLARE patients destined to attend the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick can prepare for a winter of even more bed closures, cut backs and staff shortages as the HSE battles to maintain the hospital budget.

The hospital in Dooradoyle, which now caters for seriously ill patients from Clare and Nenagh, has a budget over-run of € 14 million from the first seven months of this year.

The HSE was remaining silent on the affects this over-run will have on services, but those close to the hospital warned of “more of the usual end of year cuts”.

The latest Health Service Executive performance report, dated the end of July, pointed to an 18.4 per cent overspend for the Limerick hospital compared to a 1.5 per cent over-spend for Ennis General Hospital, the equivalent of € 162,000.

The publication of the report came the morning after the vote of no confidence in the Minister for Health James Reilly.

During the course of the debate, Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Timmy Dooley questioned what he described as “his litany of broken promises to Clare”.

“Two years ago, the Minister and Taoiseach, who was then leader of the opposition, visited County Clare and made firm commitments regarding the delivery of health services in the county,” said Deputy Dooley.

“The Taoiseach talked about the retention of medical and cardiac services at Ennis General Hospital but, in recent weeks, the HSE has admitted that they will not be maintained. The best the Minister has been able to do is provide two local Fine Gael TDs with a firm letter saying no decision has yet been taken, while our Labour Party constituency colleague has said he is aware that the medical services the Taoiseach promised would be retained will be taken from Ennis General Hospital and the cardiac services that have been part of the service delivery mix will also be taken.”

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.

FORTY thousand euro has been put aside to directly compensate families most affected by the Central Waste Management Facility at Ballyduff beg in Inagh.

The independent community board, which oversees the allocation of the Central Waste Management Facility’s community fund, has taken the unprecedented step of putting € 40,000 on ice from the fourth tranche of community funding — and has asked Clare County Council to change the way in which funding is allocated.

The facility, which stopped taking landfill waste earlier this year, has been hugely controversial in the locality, with a large number of complaints about ongoing odour and pest problems. While a number of community organisations have benefitted from funding from the community fund, a number of families living closest to the facility have been unwilling to interact with the fund because of their ongoing opposition to the facility itself.

This has created a situation where those affected most by the facility have benefitted the least from the community development fund.

“This has been a festering issue in Inagh for a number of years. The fund should have targeted the individuals most affected by the landfill. This has not happened with the previous tranches of funding and I agree with the notion of putting some of this tranche of funding on ice with a view to making it so the people who were most affected by the landfill in the past get some benefit out of this,” said Cllr Joe Arkins (FG).

“One has to wonder how some of these projects, which are six or seven miles away from the landfill, have a benefit to the people in Ballyduff beg. I think that the fund lost track of itself from day one and I am pleased to see that it is coming back to what it was supposed to be.”

Eleven applications totaling € 388,000 were submitted for the fourth tranche of the community fund. The independent local group recommended that seven of these projects are granted funding totally € 100,000, with € 40,000 being ringfenced for future allocation.

Their recommendation must be rubberstamped by a full meeting of Clare County Council but, if accepted, it would mean that the fifth and final tranche of funding would amount to € 152,000, with € 40,000 of this being ringfenced for Ballyduff beg projects.

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.”

TWENTY jobs will be on offer at four Clare-based companies who are taking part in the Skillnet recruitment fair in Galway next month.

The fair, which is one of the first ever events of its kind to take place outside of Dublin, will feature representatives from 30 different companies based in the west of Ireland, with 300 jobs on offer between them.

Similar events in Dublin have drawn massive crowds with eager job seekers even camping outside the venue overnight to be first in the queue.

The event is free and will also include a number of workshops and seminars for job seekers as well as concrete jobs to apply for.

Ennis-based company Microsemi Ireland, is one of four Clare-based companies taking part in the event.

“Participation in the Skillnets jobs fair will provide Microsemi with an excellent opportunity to promote current job vacancies for our businesses in the West of Ireland,” said HR Director of Microsemi Ireland, Denise McCoy.

Skillnets CEO, Alan Nuzum, is encouraging Clare job seekers to take part in the jobs fair.

“This event is a real opportunity for job-seekers in the west to meet local companies with local jobs. There will be a range of jobs on offer in a variety of sectors including medical devices, IT, healthcare and financial services to name a few and we are encouraging all job-seekers to come along to this event to see what’s on offer and also to take the opportunity to access information on a diverse range of free training courses available locally through our networks,” he said.

“We offer training in technical skills, customer service skills, information technology, health and safety, communications skills, sales and marketing, social media, planning and strategy and finance.”

The jobs fair will take place Radission Blu Hotel in Galway on Sunday, October 14.

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 Office of Pubic Works (OPW) has failed to respond to an urgent request by Clare County Council to fix one of Clare’s busiest roads, which is in danger of falling into the sea.

It was revealed at yesterday’s North Clare Area meeting in Ennistymon that the Government agency, which last year assumed responsibility for all flooding and coastal erosion funding, has yet to respond to an urgent request for funding to protect a section of road between Liscannor and Lahinch from being washed into the sea.

The road is one of the main access roads used by tourists to access the Burren and also carries more than 700,000 people to or from the Cliffs of Moher each year.

“We have conveyed to them [the OPW] that we consider this work to be urgent. We have taken the step of getting an engineer to do a design of a retaining wall and the others works needed,” said Stephen Lahiffe, engineer with Clare County Council.

“We applied for this funding in 2012 and we have still to get a response – 2012 is nearly over and we have still to get a response. We have taken the step of getting a consultant engineer to come up with a design – so we are ready to go if we get a positive response.”

Ennistymon-based Cllr Richard Nagle (FF) asked for the council to invite down a member of the OPW to view the road, to ensure that Clare County Council would not be blamed by the government agency, if the road is lost to the sea.

“We need to emphasis to the OPW the importance of coastal erosion works at this location. The sea is rapidly eating the coastline away, it is undermining the road at this location and sooner or later that road will collapse,” he said.

“If it does collapse, then a lot of funding will be needed. This has been going on for several years and is getting worse and worse. It is an exposed and vulnerable area – we need to invite an officer from the OPW to come down and visit the site. This could be solved with a small investment now, it we wait until it collapses it will take a huge amount of money to replace it.”

It was also confirmed yesterday that € 40,000 allocated to strengthen the sea wall in Liscannor cannot be diverted to the road.