Category: News

THREE thousand Clare people were unaware that they were close to becoming citizens of Limerick last week as amendments were made to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2012 at Dáil committee level.

Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins attempted to add an amendment to the bill that would in essence bring in the proposals of the controversial Limerick Local Government Com- mittee (LLGC) report more commonly known as the Brosnan report.

He put forward amendment nine, which stated, “The administrative area of the new Limerick Local Government Authority shall be extended to include the residential areas of Shannon Banks, Westbury, Carrig Meade and Athlundard in Co Clare and shall also include that part of the campus of the University of Limerick also in Co Clare.”

The new Limerick Local Government Authority that would take over from Limerick County Council and Limerick City Council was one of the Brosnan proposals accepted by Government last year.

The proposal to extend the boundary of this new authority into Clare was rejected however after much protest from the Banner County by the Government last year and by the committee on Thursday.

Labour Junior Minister Jan O’Sullivan, who was chairing the committee meeting, told Mr Collins that the Government would not be accepting the amendment after those in attendance voted to reject it.

Among them was Clare Labour TD Michael McNamara who described it as an attempted land grab.

“In Government, Fianna Fáil transferred Aer Rianta International in Shannon to the Dublin Airport Authority and privatised Aer Lingus so that it can leave Shannon on a whim. In opposition, Fianna Fáil now wants to move part of the campus of the University of Limerick and the residential areas of Shannon Banks, Westbury, Carrig Meade and Athlundard out of Co Clare,” said Deputy McNamara.

Flan CUNNINGHAM
, Sallus, Quilty East. Suddenly. Funeral mass today (Tuesday) at 11 o’clock at The Star of the Sea Church, Quilty, with burial afterwards in Mullagh Cemetery. Family flowers only please, donations, if desired toThe Irish Heart Foundation. May he rest in peace.

Kieran FAHY,
26 Lower Main St.Tulla and late of Lahardan. Peacefully at home. Funeral mass today (Tuesday) at 11 o’clock at Ss Peter and Paul’s Church,Tulla, with burial after in local cemetery. May he rest in peace.

John GALVIN
of 32 Liosard,Tulla Road, late of 2 Chapel Street, Longford town. Laid to rest in Drumcliffe Cemetery, Ennis. Donations, if desired, to Milford Hospice. May he rest in peace.

THE Mid Western Hospital group had exceeded its budget by as much as 13 per cent at the end of March, while € 30 million goes uncollected from health insurers.

Ennis and Nenagh general hospitals were breaking even during the first quarter of this year, however the Mid West Maternity Hospital and the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick was surpassing all budget alloca- tions, having overspent by € 6,869. This is the largest deficit among hospital groups in the HSE West.

Meanwhile as much as € 20 million has not been collected from health insurance companies due to consultants lack of paper work in the HSE West, with a further delay in the payment of another € 10 million.

Liam Minihan, Assistant National Director of Finance HSE West, said it takes the HSE 145 days to collect its income from these companies. He added that a private company would not survive this practice.

“Insurance companies have slowed down paying us. € 20 million is also waiting for consultant signatures so that it can be processed,” he said.

Mr Minihan explained that the biggest drain on the HSE’s budget was the nursing home Fair Deal programme. The HSE’s nursing homes must have more than 95 per cent occupancy to receive payment from the Government. In total the HSE West was € 26.3 million over budget by the end of March, with the hospital budget over by € 20.4 million and the community sector bursting its budget by € 5.5 million.

The 361 retirees from the HSE West will save the health service € 34 million this year, and travel costs are down by € 300,000 according to the financial expert, with a further € 3 million saved by cutting the agency nurses bill from € 9 million to € 6 million.

Hospitals are already implementing seasonal closing in a bid to cut their spending but a cut to the overall budget at the beginning of the year has put them under serious financial pressure.

Bill Maher, CEO Galway Roscommon Hospital Group, said, “Year on year spending has been reduced, and there was a significant reduction in our allocation this year.

“The money follow patient system has been mentioned for the last five years and that it is always around the corner,” he said adding that such a scheme would make it easier for hospitals to break even.

LIVES could be lost on Lahinch beach as a result of new parking bylaws which will force all the town’s surf school to trade in one area of the promenade. That is the opinion of surf school operator Ben Bennett, who believes that the schools provide the first line of defense for people who get into difficulty while in the water at Lahinch.

Mr Bennett, who operates Ben’s Surf Clinic in Lahinch, was responding to the introduction of the new bylaws which he says will not fix any of the difficulties experienced by beach users at Lahinch.

The bylaws force the surf school to operate and to enter the beach at the northern end of the Lahinch Promenade. They were put in place after a number of complaints were made by members of the public about overcrowding at the beach.

“There seems to be a confusion between surfers and surf schools,” said Ben.

“None of the surf schools allow the surfers into the swimming zone but it is the inexperienced surfers that do drift in there. The surf schools are getting blamed for what the surfers are doing.

“Surfing is keeping Lahinch alive all winter long. It is not just a summer thing – the car park will be filled with surfers in the middle of the winter and all of them will be paying parking fees to Clare County Council – we are getting a really bad rap here.”

According to Ben, the surf school also provide a year round safety net for people using the beach at Lahinch.

“I personally rescue about seven to eight people a year at Lahinch because I am on the beach all the time. I would imagine that every other surf instructor would do something similar,” continued Ben.

“The council are putting us at the furthest point possible from the beach. We can’t see the beach. I am located at the first ramp down and from there I can see the beach and advise the people who are there about the tides and the currents.

“There will definitely be more accidents and more incidents due to the fact that surf schools are being placed at the back of the prom. I think the safety issues are very serious and I believe that some day, someone is going to be stretchered off very badly injured just as a result of moving the surf schools back. Someone is unfortunately going to drown.”

FIANNA Fáil Director of Elections took the treaty campaign to his home county this week supported by party leader Michéal Martin.

Deputy Timmy Dooley walked the street of Ennis on one of the sunniest days of the year campaigning for a yes vote at Thursday’s Stability Referendum.

Deputy Martin was still confident that the treaty would be passed as he met the public.

“People are very concerned at the moment about the future of the country about their own futures as families, individuals, mothers are very concerned about prospects for their children, so they are looking at everything through that prism. Many people’s lives have been changed as a result of this recession which is the worst since the 20s,” he said.

“Up to last week or so there were more definite yeses than nos because people see it as a step that is safer than no, because they are not sure where no leads you to, and because of the crisis there is a fear about go ing down that road.

“On balance they feel that yes is a better than option than no,” he told The Clare People .

Asked if the shadow of Éamonn Ó Cuiv still hung over the party’s campaign he said, “I think Éamonn’s position is well known it has been well articulated on a number of occasions and I suppose that brought a degree of authenticity to the debate.”

He was also in the unusual position of campaigning with the Government as an opposition party leader.

“I think people do appreciate the fact that as an opposition party we are not playing games with the treaty. We are not trying to undermine the Government through the treaty. We have taken up the fact that we are taking an honest broker approach on the issue,” he said.

“I suppose there is less pressure in some respects in the terms of the nature of the campaign. What we have found is that there has been plenty of engagement.”

Through that engagement on the streets of Ennis he said, “The big lie from the beginning of the campaign has been labelling this treaty as the austerity treaty because the actual reality is that the rules contained in the treaty are there anyway under the stability and growth pact and the regulations the Government agreed to last year.

“Our reasoning is that actually if you vote for the treaty then you are giving yourself as a country a better chance to access money at a cheaper rate over the year.

If you vote no you could end up with more cut faster because you are not sure where you are going to get your money from and at what cost,” he said.

WITH just two years until the local elections, Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin believes his party in still strong in Clare.

Traditionally a Fianna Fáil stronghold the party’s vote in Clare fell by 32 per cent during the last local election in 2009, while it was reduced to just one Dáil seat after the General Election in 2011.

As Fianna Fáil had no candidate in the Presidential election last November, the leader of the party made his first canvass of Clare on Friday last as he campaigned for a yes vote in the Stability Treaty.

During his visit he said, “I am under no illusion as to where people are. People are very, very upset with the turn of events.”

“I don’t expect transformation in attitude overnight so what we have to do as a party is renew and regain trust for people by honest politics, by changing the way we behave and the way we act as politicians. That is a big challenge for us and that is what we have to do. And actions speak louder than words and in many ways our stance on the treaty reflects that.

“Over time we will regain trust but also we want to bring new people into the party and younger people into the party in addition to what we have already. And what I have detected around the country is that people are offering themselves. We are witnessing people who are coming forward who want to stand and who want to contest the local election. That is encouraging and that is very reassuring and we need more women and we need more younger people and that is the key.”

“We have already appointed area representatives in areas we don’t have councillors and these people are already beavering away meeting with local organisations and community groups and working on the ground,” he said.

ENNIS General Hospital’s radiology department, which faced closure 12 months ago, has won the prestigious Biomnis Healthcare Innovation Awards.

In a rags-to-riches story, the department, which had come under much criticism in the past, was recognised for its ‘Innovation in Quality of Service Delivery’.

The new x-ray service has cut result waiting times from 10 days to just 15 minutes in the case of emergencies, cut costs by 29 per cent and has seen more than 1,800 patients.

Hospital manager Frank Keane explained that when the x-ray department faced closure last year, as a consultant radiologist could not be recruited, the hospital team began to “gingerly” consider the option of introducing teleradiology technology.

In April 2011, Ennis General Hospital (EGH) partnered with Global Diagnostics (Global) and through the deployment of new and innovative teleradiology technology and new enabling processes positively transformed the operations, efficiency level and the standards of patient care and responsiveness at the Radiology Department.

The x-rays continued to be taken at the Ennis hospital but then they were immediately sent by telelink to one of the nine consultant radiologists available to read them.

One of the biggest successes within this pioneering system is the quick response of the department.

Now an emergency x-ray is read and reported on within 15 minutes, while an accident and emergency x-ray’s results are with the patient within 90 minutes.

Inpatient x-rays are read within three hours, while the hospital now guarantees that GP referred x-rays will be read and the results with the GP within 48 hours, although most are with the family doctor within 10 hours.

This compares more than favourably to an older system where patients were waiting an average of 10 days to have an x-ray read.

The team of radiology experts from Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and the UK include specialist paediatric and neurology radiologists, and bring added expertise to the hospital service.

Mr Keane said he was delighted with the win at the weekend, especially as the competition was so stiff. All of the other eight entries came from Ireland’s leading teaching hospitals.

CONCERNS have been raised over the i mpartiality of technical information received from the University of Aberdeen which appeared in the Envi ronmental Protection Agency (EPA) study on hydraulic fracturing or fracking, released last week.

The Clare Fracking Concer ned Group have raised questions over the par ticipation of the Scottish university, who they believe are heavily backed by the oil and gas indust ry.

The Clare organisation did give the study a cautious welcome, saying that a more detailed repor t currently being compiled should shed more light on the prospect of fracking taking place in the Clare basin.

“Aberdeen is ver y much the hotspot of the North Sea oil exploration and a lot of things in the university are funded by Shell. You would have to question how objective the information gained from them is,” said Susan Griffin of Clare Frack- ing Concer ned.

“But you would have to assume that the person putting the repor t together would be aware of this and would t ake it into account and, so far, that seems to be the case.”

Clare Fracking Concerned have also said that more detailed research is necessar y before any decision can be made in Clare.

“It [the EPA repor t] was quite vague and I think we have to keep in mind that this is only a preliminary repor t. When Pat Rabbitte commissioned this, I don’t thank that he realised the extent of the opposition that he would meet. I think he thought it was a cheap enough repor t, it only cost them € 6, 000, so they should do it. I think that it is clear that we need something more substantial than this,” said Sarah.

“I think that it was quite cautionar y, which is good, and ver y objective. They do give time to both sides of the argument. It is a balanced repor t and it does admit that a lot more peer-review research is needed.

“I regret that the report did not look to the data compiled from other countries where fracking has already been banned, such as in Bulgaria and in France. They were mainly looking to studies done in the US and we don’t really compare to the US, in Ireland we have to abide by the European Water Framework so looking to European counties would have been much more appropriate. Often in Irish politics, we tend to follow the English speaking world – America and the UK – and I hope that in this situation, we can broaden out from that.”

programme.

Since the allegation the person who made the claim in the programme has not contacted any authorities nor the school in question, despite various attempts in South Africa to ask him to substantiate the allegation.

Indeed in the immediate aftermath of the allegation the Dillon family were pleased to note that a number of his former pupils made themselves avialable to refute any alleged stain on Brother Dillon’s character.

The family of the now deceased Clare Christian brother along with members of the clergy have maintained that as the documentary was discredited it must be investigated in its entirety, including the allegations against Brother Dillon.

At an Oireachtas Joint Committee meeting on Communications last week, Labour Deputy Michael McNamara told RTÉ Chairman Tom Savage and Director General Noel Curran that the whole programme appears to have been flawed.

He said that the investigation into the Fr Reynolds segment occurred because a defamation case had been successfully taken but the dead cannot bring defamation cases.

It is understood however that RTÉ has already conducted its own internal inquire into this element of the documentary.

“The programme has been utterly thrashed, the programme team has been pretty thrashed, rightly or wrongly, maybe they are carrying the can for others, maybe not,” said Deputy McNamara.

“Why not have an independent inquiry even outside the remit of the BAI (Broadcasting Authority of Ireland)?

“Why not bring in Anna Carragher or somebody else of that stature to carry out an investigation into the allegations made against somebody who is dead?” he asked.

Deputy McNamara said he hoped that RTÉ would reflect on the situation over the next few days.

“The whole programme is now tainted and natural justice requires that the allegations against the late Brother Dillon be investigated by an independent competent authority. Brother Dillon’s family are entitled to this,” he added.

The issue is expected to come before the Oireachtais committee again today (Tuesday).

THE work of a recently established community development group in Clarecastle came in for praise at a recent meeting in Ennis.

At last week’s meeting of councillors in the Ennis East Electoral Area, Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) urged the council to work with the group on projects that would help enhance the village. Eamon O’Dea, Senior Executive Engineer, stated that the council has already met with representatives of the group and has been directly liaising with members on individual issues.

He continued, “The council very much welcomes the proactive, positive approach taken by the community in undertaking such a visioning exercise and is very complimentary of the energy and passion that has been displayed to work in partnership with local authority is effecting further improvements in the Clarecastle area.”

He added, “The council will continue the engagement on the basis of the relationships already established with a view to positively progressing the many initiatives that have been brought forward for consideration by the group.”

Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) praised the work of the group. Cllr Pat Daly (FF) said it was important that the positive work of the group continue in Clarecastle.

Town manager Ger Dollard said the work of the group represented a “great example” of community led development. He said there appeared to be a great energy, passion and commitment around projects in Clarecastle at the moment.

He added, “It has been a joy to work with them and we will continue to do what we can in terms of the resources. That is something that the group are conscious off.”

In May 2011 a public meeting was held which identified positives and negatives about Clarecastle and produced ideas for developing the village and its environs. The then Acting Development Group made a recommendation in September 2011 that a Selection Committee would nominate a new Development Committee. An interim Board of Directors of the new Development Company was nominated and met for the first time in October 2011. The new company will aim to access government grants and funding streams. The company will also seek to develop crucial links with stakeholders and key influencers as well as urging feedback from members of the local community.

SINN Féin leader, Gerry Adams, has left the door open for a number of former party members in Clare to return to fold, but has closed the door on expelled members such as Shannon Cllr Cathy McCafferty (Ind), saying she was expelled for a “good reason”. The Louth TD, who was in Ennis last week to campaign for a ‘No’ vote in the upcoming European Fiscal Treaty, refused to give a reason why the Shannon councillor was expelled from the Sinn Féin party earlier this year.

“After the last election we initiated a review right across the island of Ireland, looking at where we need to shape our organisation – looking at where we were strong and how we could change things where we were weak. We did this in Clare and some local people objected to what was brought forward,” said Deputy Adams.

“It was all done democratically. Some people left and some people were dismissed. We are in a new era. We have a sizable vote in the county, I think that is seen in European elections, it is seen when Martin McGuinness stands, but we have no local representative and we have to crack that. It isn’t a matter of cracking that for a ego trip, it is a matter of correcting things so we can start to serve people in a matter that we think is best for the people of this county.

“I am very hopeful and very confident that the changes that we have made [in Clare], which have been done in consultation with local people, will lead to greater traction to the party in Clare.

“All parties have their democratic process and their disciplinary process. The fact is that a small number of people who were expelled, were expelled for a good reason. We don’t want to end up being complicated for all or any of that. It has happened, people part company in every organisation and every political party. It is done, it’s dusted, it is regrettable, but sin é, that’s it, we move on.

“Those who have not been expelled, there is a process for anyone who wants to come back into the party. There is a process in place for those people. That is a decision for them, it isn’t a decision for us. We can’t altogether blind ourselves to the fact that part of the lack of the development of the party [in Clare] is the refusal of some to go with the way that the party is building itself across the island. If it works in County Antrim, if it work in Kerry and in Donegal, it can also work in Clare. But it needs a full hearted involvement by the local members. A political party, at least one like the one we want to build, can only be built from the bottom up.”