Category: News

ENNISTYMON woman Kate McGlennon says she is ready to take on the world following a great performance in the Miss Ireland Competition over the weekend.

Kate, who is this year’s Miss Clare, represented the county with pride in the Dublin grand final on Saturday, narrowly lost out to Jessica Hayes for the overall title. Indeed, Kate was one of two Clare women to perform well in this year’s competition with Sarah Jane Dunne, daughter of the late Kilrush traditional musicians, Pecker Dunne, also giving a good showing.

Despite missing out on the top spot, Kate, who will begin the third year of her midwifery training this September, says she is determined to make the big break as a model.

“It was an experience of a lifetime, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was to be honest. My mam, my dad and by brother were up from Ennistymon to support me and it was a great night. But as well as my family being there the support I got from home was unbelievable. I am overwhelmed by the support I received,” said Kate.

“I definitely want to keep going in modelling. Just because I didn’t win Miss Ireland doesn’t mean that it will be the end of me. I have a few photo shoots lined up so I’m looking forward to getting started with those and then I have some meeting with a few agencies in Dublin. Hopefully something will come of it but if not I will keep going, I won’t stop.

“I’m now going into my third year of midwifery in Dundalk this September so it’s going to be busy one way or the other. But I love being busy, I love being kept on my feet.”

THE new West Clare Municipal District has been described as unmanageable and a thinly cloaked attempt to downgrade Clare County Council.

Councillors at last Friday’s meeting voted to write to the Department of the Environment and insists that the old electoral boundaries be restored.

In terms of geographical size, the West Clare Municipal Area is now the largest electoral area in the country, taking up just under half of County Clare. In a joint motion put forward by three councillors from the area, it was claimed that the council will not have the resources to meet the needs of such a large area.

“I think the boundaries as set out are wrong and I cannot see them working on the ground. The overall size of the area is unmanageable, there is just one senior engineer in Kilrush now, we lost one in Ennistymon. The idea behind this is to downgrade local government as was done with the NRA and Irish water. We should go back to the old system.

According to Ennistymon Cllr Richard Nagle (FF), the council will face major budgetary difficulty in the years ahead.

“What we are facing as we go about preparing a budget for 2015, is that we are now totally dependent on the Department of the Environment to provide the finances that the people of this county have rightly come to expect,” he said.

“When the property tax was first introduced we were told we would get 100 per cent of the money. This year we are getting none, next year we are getting 80 per cent. We need to make sure that we don’t end up getting 80 per cent of the property tax but with the ministers from various departments taking back the funding we recieve – leaving us with the same level of funding or less.

“My fear is that we won’t be left with the money to live up to the promises that were made. These promises were made by the Department of the Environment and not Clare County Council.”

Independent Cllr Christy Curtin said the situation wasn’t ideal, but councillors had to work with law.

“I share the frustrations but the law is in place. There is now a challenge on us to use this as best we can to serve the people,” he said.

THE Government has been accused of treating rural Clare like a game of Jenga – and dismantling it one block at a time.

The comment was made by former Fine Gael councillor Ian Lynch (IND), while speaking on a motion regarding possible changes to the way in which social welfare is paid, which could put the future of dozen of Clare post offices in jeopardy.

The motion, which was put forward by Cllr Bill Chambers (FF), is seeking to prevent the Government from passing the new Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, which, if adopted, would remove An Post as the designated payment services provider for Social Welfare benefits.

“If this bill goes through Dáil Éireann, something like 500 post offices will be under threat and I would like to think that that won’t happen,” said Cllr Chambers.

Speaking on the motion Cllr Lynch told the Government to “back off” and stop threatening rural services.

“They are playing a game of Jenga with rural Ireland. They’re pulling out the blocks one by one and it’s time we told the Government to back off,” said the former Mayor of Kilrush.

The motions comes as discussion are ongoing about the future of the Cratloe Post Office with a number of other Clare post offices understood to be under threat.

“They are trying to close down a post office in our area at the moment. It will have a devastating effects on our community,” said Cllr PJ Ryan (Ind).

“It seem that someone up in Dublin just makes a decision to close down a post office and does not have any consideration with the local community at all.”

The future of Cratloe Post Offices is set to be decided in the coming weeks. A local group made a submission to an post 10 days ago and are awaiting a response from the company.

COUNCILLORS in Ennis have called on the Minister for Transport to release funds for the development of a € 250,000 roundabout on the Tulla Road in Ennis.

Clare County Council is proposing to develop a roundabout near Oakleigh Woods and Cappahard to alleviate traffic issues in the area.

Residents have long campaigned for the measures to improve safety on the road.

At the July meeting of the Ennis Municipal District Committee (MDC), councillors agreed to write to the Minister for Transport to see if funds are available for the project.

The discussion stemmed from a motion tabled by Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF). Cllr Colleran Molloy wants the council to address the need for “additional signs for Ennis town centre on the northern part of the motorway at the current Tulla / Scariff exit”.

She is also seeking brown exit signs at the current Quin exit for Quin Abbey and Knappogue Castle.

In his reply, Eamon O’Dea, Senior Executive Engineer, stated, “Junction 13 on the 18 is not intended as a primary access road to Ennis and provides a means of direct access at R352.”

He continues, “I would not be recommending the inclusion of Ennis on the signs at junction 13 until the Cappahard Roundabout is constructed.”

Mr O’Dea told the meeting that any motorway signs encouraging traffic to access the town centre via the Tulla Road would put “severe pressure” on the route.

Mayor of Ennis MDC, Johnny Flynn (FG) proposed the committee write to the minister’s office to seek funds for the roundabout.

Cllr James Breen (Ind) said the roundabout is badly needed. Cllr Pat Daly (FF) described the project as “very important”.

Cllr Ann Norton (Ind) said there are a lot of families living in the area. She called on the committee to write a strongly worded letter to the minister.

In May, Director of Service, Ger Dollard told a meeting of the former Ennis Town Council that funding for the roundabout project is unlikely to be available in the short to medium term.

MORE than 16 families in the Cloughaninchy area of Quilty face an anxious wait this winter as it is now seems virtually certain that no fresh flood defenses will be in place before next year.

Residents of the area, which bore the brunt of severe storms in January and February of this year, face an anxious winter with little protection from a similar storm or high tide event. According to local councillor Michael Hillery (FF), Clare County Council have had its hands tied on this issue – as central government have yet to respond to a funding request following St Bridget’s Day Storm last February.

“There is no firm date for works to start in the Quilty, Tromera and Cloughaninchy coastline.

“We are currently awaiting a response from central government in relation to the February storm damage assessment and coastline protection works. When this response is received we will be able to progress with a fully resourced programme of coastline repair work for the entire county,” said a council spokesperson last week.

According to Cllr Hillery, people in the area are already starting to get nervous ahead of possible storms this winter.

“The council has put in a request but the Government has not responded so money can’t be allocated and work can’t be done. The council’s hands are tied, there is nothing they can do until they get some response from government,” he said.

“The residents are very concerned, especially for their homes, but the local roads and farms were also badly effected last year. It’s already too late, nothing will happen this year.

“The whole area are concerned but especially the residents of Cloughaninchy. These people are facing next winter with nothing in place to protect them if something happens again this year.

“We had a number of Ministers down here and they all made promises. It really was just a PR visit and nothing has actually happened.”

A WOMAN whose home is due to be repossessed by a financial institution has been told she will be able to stay there for Christmas.

The woman was one of a number of debtors who appeared at a sitting of the County Registrar’s court at Ennis Courthouse on Friday.

A financial institution is seeking possession of the woman’s house in Clare. Details of the application were not heard, as this was the first time the application was before the court.

County Registrar Pat Wallace asked the woman who was living in the house. The woman said she and her two children were still in the property. She said she would not be contesting the application. Mr Wallace adjourned the application to November 14.

“Do you think I’ll still be in the house for Christmas,” she asked the registrar. He told her she would.

In another case, the county registrar advised a couple seeking to adjourn an application for repossession to “stop this mumbo jumbo for legal aid”.

The couple owes € 74,795 to AIB for a mortgage in South East Clare.

The defendants, who were not in court and not legally represented, have failed to make monthly repayments.

Solicitor for the bank said attempts to make the couple re-engage with the process have proved unsuccessful.

Mr Wallace said, “I don’t know what is going on with these defendants. The money is not insurmountable.”

The court heard that couple are attempting to get legal aid and have sought an adjournment of the application.

The registrar said he believed the application was a “waste of time” as he believed legal aid would not be granted.

He told the bank’s solicitor to make contact with the debtors. He said it was time for the couple to start engaging with the process. “Tell them facts of life and that something is going to happen”.

“They have to stop this mumbo jumbo with legal aid that will probably be refused,” he added.

He directed the bank to make contact with the debtors. He adjourned the application to November.

EIGHT orders for repossession of properties in Clare were ordered at a sitting of the County Registrar’s court last week.

A total of 98 cases were before the court on Friday. Some of the applications were made by financial institutions seeking possession of properties from owners who have failed to make re-payments.

Cases that were before the court for the first time were adjourned in line with the practice direction.

In one case, county registrar Pat Wallace made an order for possession of one home on which he said “a ginormous amount of money” was owed.

The man had an overall debt to Ulster Bank € 668,000. The court heard that in 2005 the man secured a mortgage of € 552,000 from First Active.

Solicitor for the bank said the man agreed to a 30-year mortgage but fell into arrears in 2008. Ulster Bank subsequently took over the business of First Active. He last made a pay- ment to the bank in 2010.

Ulster Bank sought possession of the property.

The man, who was in court, had previously left Ireland to get work. He had worked in the construction sector.

He urged the registrar to adjourn the application. He said he was going to hire a solicitor to represent him in the case.

“My business got closed here. I had to go out foreign to work,” he said.

Mr Wallace put it to the man that he owed a “ginormous amount of money”. He said this was the second set of proceedings brought by a financial institution against him.

The court heard the man’s partner and a child are living in the property.

The county registrar granted the bank’s application for possession but put a stay of three months on the order.

He also ordered the debtor to pay costs of € 2,000. Outside Ennis Courthouse afterwards, the man said he intends to appeal the decision. He said he is still looking for work abroad.

THE dog days are coming to an end on two of Clare’s flagship seaside resorts as a new loud-speaker system, designed to prevent dog fouling, has just been installed on Lahinch and Kilkee beaches.

The new high-tech tannoy system, which was installed on both beaches yesterday afternoon, will give beach users an audio warning, asking them to obey the beach bylaws and clean up after their dogs.

The system is motion activated, with a message being played every time a member of the public, or indeed a dog, comes close to the sensor array, which is located on the promenade of both beaches.

Contrary to local speculation, the system will not include a high frequency warning that can only be heard by dogs, but will be powered off at night to prevent the warning from becoming a nuisance to local people trying to get to sleep.

The public address system is the latest part of Clare County Council efforts to change public attitudes towards littering and is the brainchild of new Irish company, Riteview.

The company have been in Lahinch and Kilkee for the past two weeks, conducting a survey of dog use on the beach and the level of dog fouling. Company founder, Aidan McDermott, yesterday predicted an 60 to 80 per cent reduction in dog fouling over the next month.

“It’s a small unit which is attached onto a poll on the promenade in Kilkee and Lahinch. When somebody walks past it triggers an audio message.

“This audio message is customisable so it can whatever the local authority want, so in Lahinch and Kilkee it will focus on cleaning up after your dog fouling.

“It’s about changing people’s attitudes and the culture generally. The idea is to make it socially unacceptable for someone to turn a blind eye as their dog leaves fouls in the beaches. It is about tacking the unsightly nature of dog foul and the health ef- fects, it can be a dangerous thing for children, especially in seaside areas when they are digging in the sand. It will also shut down at night. So if people coming home from the pub want to have some fun by triggering it off over and over again, they won’t be able to.

“We are tracking the results in Kilkee and Lahinch. We have been doing an analysis over the past number of weeks and assessed things like the number of dogs on the promenade, the peak times of the day for dog walkers and the level of dog fouling. We will be tracking the results from the Clare beaches and we would hope to see improvement of at least 60 per cent but it could be as high as 80 per cent or higher.

“This is a preventative measure. It a positive message about changing people’s behaviour and saving money, both for the dog owners themselves and the overheads for the council who won’t have as many prosecutions to follow through on.”

Riteview is an Irish start-up company based in NUI, Maynooth.

QUESTIONS have been raised over the ability of the newly-formed Irish Water to deal with the county’s water supply following a serious water disruption in the Doolin and Lisdoonvarna area last week. One local man, who reported the fault to the new state water agency, said that the agency could not find Doolin on the map and had no record of a fault the area, despite dozens of reports made by local people. Irish Water took over the management of the local water system from Clare County Council in January. Residents in sections of Doolin and Lisdoonvarna reported that their water turned a dark-brown colour on Tuesday last, and became smelly and undrinkable. According to Doolin resident James Corbett, Irish Water could not locate Doolin when he contacted them. “The water was brown, dark brown, and you just couldn’t drink it. It was the same all over Doolin and Lisdoonvarna. At first I called Clare County Council, they said they had received more then 400 complains about the water but it was no longer their responsibility, it was Irish Water,” he said. “So I rang Irish Water myself and they didn’t know anything about it. They couldn’t find Doolin on the map. The person I spoke to thought it was down beside Kilkee. There was no notification that this was going to happen. “We have two newspapers and a radio station and yet the people were given no warning.” A spokesperson from Irish Water yesterday confirmed that the water supply in North Clare was now back to normal. “Maintenance work was carried out in the last number of days on the distribution network by Clare County Council and this activity may have caused discolouration on the network. “Both Doolin and Lisdoonvarna were affected by this issue which has now been resolved,” said the spokesperson.

CLARE is set to remain a crematorium free zone, as councillors from Clare County Council voted against plans to construction two separate crematoriums at Clarecastle and Shannon in the past eight days.

The latest proposal, which came before a specially convened meeting of the local authority on Friday, included plans for a € 5 million development including a crematorium and a massive graveyard capable of accommodating up to 4,000 graves.

The project, which was proposed by Fenloe Properties Ltd, came be- fore the council because the land earmarked for the development had been zoned residential and a material contravention of the Clare County Development Plan was required in order for the planning to go ahead.

Indeed, a planning application for the proposed facility was already at an advanced stage with the CEO of Clare County Council, Tom Coughlan, stating before the debate that planing would almost certainly be granted – if the councillors had voted for the re-zoning.

A large crowd packed the public gallery during the debate, which lasted for nearly an hour. A number of councillors raised issues in rela- tion to the proposed Clarecastle site including the potential for pollution reaching the local water system, the traffic management of the site and a previous planning application for 250 houses on the site.

A number of procedural issues were also raised in relation to the proposal, including the proposal being advertised in the national and not the local media, with some claiming that more locals would would have made submissions on the proposal if it had been advertised locally.

Councillors also questioned why the zoning issue was not brought before the council before the applicant entered into the planning process.

“I would have though it unusual for planning application to be made on lands that was known not to be appropriately zoned. I don’t see why this has taken place in this way,” said Cllr Michael Begley (Ind).

“I don’t understand why a decision was made on the planning before a material contravention was granted. Would it not have been more appropriate for a material controvention to be made before this go so far in the planning process.”

Before the vote Clare County Council CEO, Tom Coughlan, said that the would be no change to council policy towards local burial ground no matter what the outcome of the Clarecastle facility.

“The council’s policy regarding the development of burial grounds is community driven. Unless there is a change of mindset at community level, we don’t see this changing. There will be no bylaw passed by Clare County Council to say that people cannot intern their loved ones in their local community,” he said.

The matter was put to a vote with 11 councillors voting to grant the material contravention and 15 voting against it. There was no party whip applied to the vote and councilors from all political party’s both supported and opposed the crematorium.