Category: News

THE Kinvara Farmers market will continue trading in 2011, even if difficulties in obtaining a license to trade in the town’s square cannot be overcome. The future of the market had looked in jeopardy earlier this month due to ongoing delays in completing legislation to clarify the standing of markets hosted on public areas.

The market, which has proved a huge success since it was first set up in 2009, has up until now traded on private property at Johnson’s Garden but this area will be unavailable to traders next year. The market had originally been designed to trade in the Square in Kinvara but delays in drafting market legislation had forced them to take up residence in Johnson’s Garden.

With this legislation still some way off, the future of the market for 2011 had seemed in doubt. However, an innovative new approach by the market has secured the market’s future whether the market legislation is drafted in time or not. Last week, the Kinvara Farmers Market successfully secured a road closure license which allowed them to trade at the Square in Kinvara without the need for the farmers market license. A meeting of traders will now take place next month, where the various options available to the group will be outlined.

“I think we proved that a market can work well in the Square in Kinvara. Despite difficulties with the weather, we got great feedback from customers” said Antoinette Hensey of the Kinvara Farmers Market. “What we can do next year is apply for a road closure for every Friday morning during our trading season and that will allow us to trade each week. This would, we think, cost less that a license and we are not at present able to get a license so there is a solution to our problem. The market will be back next year, one way or the other.

“This is a very unusual route that we have taken and we think that it could be used by other markets who are in difficulty with the licensing regulations. There are lot of conditions to be met but, once you have achieved this, it is relatively straightforward.

“We need to have a stall-holders meeting to see what we will do for next year. There are many who believe that business will be better in the Square but there are other who have an emotional attachment to the space in Johnson’s – which might still be available to us for next year.”

Anyone who wishes to find out more about getting a road closure licence can contact Antoinette Hensey on 065 7078042.

THE people of Clare will be given the opportunity to invest in the largest renewable energy project ever undertaken in Ireland through a local share issue being offered by the West Clare Renewable Energy (WCRE).

The co-op style company, which is made up of more than 30 local landowners, was yesterday granted planning permission to build a € 200 million wind farm in Mount Callan. According to company spokesperson Padraig Howard, the company has already been contacted by a number of international investment companies looking to bankroll the project but WCRE have decided to fund construction locally, as much as possible, by issuing a “local share” which would allow the people of West Clare to buy a stake in the company.

“We are very strongly of the opinion that we do not want to sell on the project to outside investors. We started this so that we could create jobs and as a resource for the wider community in west Clare,” he said.

“There will be debt on the project and we will be borrowing from investment funds and banks to get this off the ground but there will also be the chance for people to invest. We are hoping to put out a share offer for the local community and the wider community in west Clare that can buy into the project if they wish. If that happens then that will be absolutely fantastic, because that means that the return from the project will be shared among the wider community in west Clare.”

Construction work on the giant wind farm cannot begin until a connection to the national grid can be secured – something which could hold up the wind farm for up to five years.

“The next step is securing an offer of a grid connection from Airgrid and the Commission for Energy Regulation. That is a very slow and cumbersome process at the moment and we will have to wait for a number of years,” continued Padraig.

“The new government has promised to reform this process and speed it up – especially for projects who have a certain scale, have strong wind resources and are close to an existing grid connection – we tick all three of those boxes. So we are hopeful that we can get over the grid connection difficulty as quickly as possible.

“Without a firm grid connection offer we can only guess when we can start the process. But today is still a day to savour – we now know that this will go ahead sooner than later. We are anxious that this go ahead ASAP but we have been patient in the planning of this and we will continue to be patient.”

Mr Howard also thanked all the people of west Clare who had backed the project and also invited anyone who might have been against the planning permission being granted to further engagement on the progress of the wind farm.

THE construction of a new € 200 million wind farm in Mount Callan will stem emigration from West Clare – not just by the jobs it creates but also by showing the young local population that anything is possible.

That is the opinion of local farmer and member of West Clare Renewable Energy John Talty, who believes that the wind farm will keep West Clare communities alive.

“This will keep the next generation here. It will keep the young people here in West Clare not just by the employment that it generates but also because this will show people that anything is possible,” he said.

“What this was about right from the very beginning was generating employment in our community, in West Clare. Anyone who knows this area know that this is an area that is crying out for local employment. People are taking the Hand road down to Ennis and Shannon every day for jobs and this can now open a real opportunity for people in West Clare.

“It is not just about the construction and operation of a wind farm this will have major spin-offs for the whole region. Part of the plan is to build proper walking trails and cycle ways into the design of the windfarm and we believe that this project will become a big draw for tourists coming into the area.”

The wind farm, which has been a local project for more than 16 years, began to take shape properly in 2006 when West Clare Renewable Energy was first established. It was given the green light by An Bord Pleanála yesterday who actually increased the number of turbines allowed on the wind farm to 29, from the 28 which Clare County Council granted permission for earlier this year.

“We’re delighted today. This has come about after a lot of hard work and struggle by a lot of people and we are all really over the moon with the decision,” continued John.

“What we really want to do now is to thank all of the landowners and the wider community for the support that they have given throughout this process which has been brilliant – people like the Traders Association in Miltown Malbay who have been so supportive of this project from the very beginning.

John also paid special to the late Robert Tottenham, one of the groundbreaking thinkers in forestry in Ireland and the person who first conceived of bringing wind energy to Mount Callan almost 20 years ago.

AN AMATEUR west Clare DJ has built up a cult following for himself on German radio, with around 8,000 Germans tuning in to hear his programme each week.

Kilkee DJ Patrick Linanne began his career at Radio Corca Baiscinn around six years ago and, after taking a number of training opportunities, he began to podcast an hour-long Electrohouse show over the internet.

The podcasted show, which was entitled ‘Groove On the Loop’, built up a small cult following of listeners, which gave Patrick the inspiration to submit his shows to German dance station Wheee FM.

“I heard about Wheee FM, which is a radio station based in Munich, and I sent them a few of my sets. I didn’t think anything of it but a few weeks later I got an email telling me that I was going to get a regular weekly slot, which was amazing,” said Patrick.

“It you look at the figures from the show, we know that we are getting more than 8,000 listeners a week in Germany. The radio station has some really big-name DJ’s contributing. The ethos of the station is all about promoting new talent and putting them alongside big name DJs. Anyone can join it and if you are good enough you can get a show.

“The station broadcasts online 24 hours a day across the world. It is mainly online but it does broadcast on a frequency in Germany although there is no real way of knowing how many people are tuning in for that.

“The show is really a 60-minute set. I have put some talking between the music on some sets but sometimes I don’t even bother. When I do talk, I talk in English. Myself and Sebas- tian had that conversation back at the very beginning and we decided that, because so many German people can speak English and because they will hardly be able to understand my west Clare accent either way, that there was no point in my trying out the German.”

‘Groove on the Loop’ can be heard on www.wheee.fm/cms each Saturday at 2pm and repeated on Wednesday’s at 12 noon.

THE FUTURE of Shannon Airport can’t be about profit and can’t be about Ryanair – these twin messages were sounded out by Fianna Fáil this week as the county’s international airport prepares to unveil a new blueprint to chart its future over the next decade.

The party’s transport spokesperson, Clare’s own Deputy Timmy Dooley has told The Clare People that “pandering to the whims of Ryanair” should have no place in Shannon’s new business model.

Deputy Dooley has also warned the Dublin Airport Authority that any new drive “for profitability” or “break even situation” at Shannon Airport could signal the death knell of its seven-decade status as an international airport.

“We shouldn’t be focusing on Shannon in itself being a profitable entity,” said Deputy Dooley ahead of the publication of the first masterplan for the airport since 1999.

“The airport from a regional point of view has to be seen as critical infrastructure to allow the region to thrive, develop and grow. Dublin Airport is the cash cow and it should always be the case where Dublin Airport should be in a position to provide subvention to Shannon.

“It has got to be about cost control and cost containment, but the bottom line should not be about profitability for an airport like Shannon.

“If you reduce Shannon to where it is only at a break even point, then you have to reduce the level of facilities and services to a point that it’s not going to be able to retain its in- ternational status.

“There is a certain level of service and staffing that you need to maintain to keep status in place,” said Deputy Dooley.

Continuing, the county’s only opposition member of the Oireachtas said the key to Shannon’s future lay in “getting its cost base right” and looking to new markets. “Clearly it has been next to impossible to get an appropriate deal with low cost carrier Ryanair,” he warned.

“He [Michael O’Leary] has played ducks and drakes with Shannon for a long time. Pandering to Ryanair’s needs might seem appropiate on occasions and welcome, but it hasn’t proven to be sustainable on a longterm basis. It’s not time to forget about Ryanair, but it’s time to forget about pandering to the whims of Ryanair.

“What the airport has to do is focus on more sustainable business with airlines that are prepared to invest in routes and stick with them during difficult. It’s the path that will provide the best path for long-term sustainability,” he added.

A NEW masterplan for the development and safeguarding of services at Shannon Airport is set to be unveiled in September, just ahead of the 75year anniversary of when the first sod was turned to start the construction of Ireland’s first transatlantic gateway.

In consultation with Dublin Airport Authority chiefs, the Shannon Airport Authority are now believed to be putting the finishing touches to the blueprint that will be expected to chart a new future for the former hub of the aviation world over the next decade.

The plan’s publication will be the culmination of a consultation process between the Dublin Airport Authority, SAA and the public, by way of taking submissions on the airport’s future from key partners in the wider airport infrastructure and catchment area, before finalising the key points of concern and concentration in Shannon’s drive to usher in a new era of profitablity.

“A key element in drafting such a plan is to elicit the opinions of airport stakeholders,” a Shannon spokesper- son revealed in April, after business groups in the mid-west region were invited to a think-tank aimed at coming up with new ideas for the airport going forward.

The masterplan is being formulated against a backdrop of figures contained in the recently released Dublin Airport Authority annual report, which revealed that passenger numbers through Shannon in 2010 dropped by one million over the previous year.

This drop represented a 37 percent decline in passenger traffic, a 12-year low at Shannon.

Only 1,755, 885 passengers used Shannon in 2010, a figure that’s now lower than 1998 levels of 1,840,008 passengers when the airport was still reeling from the loss of its transatlantic gateway status in 1993.

The drastic fall-off in numbers, from 2,794,563 in 2009 represented the fourth year in a row that Shannon’s passenger count when into sharp decline.

Between 2004 and 2005 passenger numbers increased by a record 37.9 per cent as Shannon’s numbers grew to a record 3,639,046 from 2,395,116 over a two-year period.

It’s expected that the new blueprint will concentrate on stabilizing Shannon’s finances – rather that directly addressing the passenger decline with the transformation of Shannon into a worldwide cargo hub development seen as a potential saviour for the airport.

Into this category comes the Lynx Cargo trans-shipment facility, which is to be grant aided to the tune of € 6m by the DAA, while Shannon Development chairman, Dr Vincent Cunnane has said “the airport will not survive on passengers alone and needs a cargo hub”.

A 53-YEAR-OLD man is to appear in court today, charged in connection with the seizure of drugs at Shannon airport over the weekend.

The defendant, a UK national living in Spain, was arrested after € 12,000 worth of cannabis herb was seized by Customs officers at the airport in the early hours of yesterday (Monday).

The man had arrived at Shannon on a Ryanair flight from Malaga and the drugs were discovered in a suitcase.

He was detained at Shannon Garda Station throughout yesterday and will be brought before Galway District Court this morning, charged with possession of drugs and possession for the purpose of sale or supply.

CLARE is one of eight counties in the State to have experienced a drop in unemployment figures over the past year, a new statistic report on employment has revealed.

However, the drop of just 86 people who are claiming some sort of unemployment benefit has been attributed to an increase in those turning to emigration when finding themselves out of work.

The Central Statistics Office has confirmed that the numbers of people claiming unemployment benefit in the county has dropped from 10,796 in July last year to 10,708 12 months later.

But behind these figures, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people who are unemployed in the county over the past month – with the figure of 10,708 for the end of July representing an increase of 223 within a four-week period.

And the unemployment figures for the end of July represent the highest in the county since February of this year when the Live Register numbers in the county stood at 10,814.

Figures released by the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed (INOU) show that for the first from February to May this year there was a progressive drop in the numbers of people on the Live Register.

Figures for January 2011 were 10,833, a jump of 264 on the previous month, but by May this had dropped by 547 to 10,286.

For the months of February, March, April and May, Live Register figures had decreased by 69, 191, 204 and 133 – a slide which represented an overall drop of five per cent.

The biggest drop experienced in the county over the past 12 months was experienced in September 2010, when Live Register numbers decreased by 681 from 10,720 to 10,117.

The INOU figures for the county show that there are nearly double the amount of men out of work when compared to women.

The figures, taken from Live Reg ister figures up until June of this year, have revealed that there are 6, 598 men without work, while the figure for women stands at 3887.

Clare is one of three west of Ireland counties to have experienced a drop in unemployment numbers in the last 12 months – the others are Galway (down 183) and Limerick (down 791).

GARDAÍ in Clare are advising home owners across Clare to be more security conscious, in the wake of burglaries in Ennis, Kilrush and Kilkee over the past week.

In one incident, an assortment of electrical goods was stolen during a break-in to a house on the Gort Road in Ennis, overnight on Friday.

Among the items stolen were a flat screen television, a dvd player, a hifi, laptop, several pieces of gold and silver jewellery, coins and savings stamps. Entry was gained after glass in a back door was broken.

A house at Lenabeg on the Lahinch Road in Ennis was broken into overnight last Tuesday. A kettle and two tins of paint were stolen, after a back window was broken.

In Kilrush, upstairs rooms in a house were ransacked after thieves broke into a house on Burton Street overnight on Friday. However, gardaí say it appears that nothing was stolen.

Gardaí in Kilkee are investigating a break-in to the local golf club at around 1.45am yesterday (Monday). The alarm activated and a number of people fled. An individual was seen running across the golf course.

Meanwhile, the theft of lead from a house being built on the outskirts of Ennis is being investigated by gardaí. The house, which is currently being built at Edenvale on the Kilrush Road, was targeted between 6pm on Friday and 8pm on Saturday.

Kilrush Superintendent Gerry Wall is advising home owners to exercise vigilance.

“People are not securing their property. They are going out for short periods of time and don’t take an extra couple of minutes to secure their property. It’s obviously opportunistic burglaries. People have alarms on their homes but don’t turn them on,” said Supt Wall.

MORE than two decades after the beginning of bitter fight to construct an interpretive centre at Mullaghmore in the South Burren, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has established its first tourism base to serve the world famous national park.

Up until last month the Burren was the only one of Ireland’s six national park’s not to be served by either a information point or an interpretive centre operated by the NPWS. That all changed two week ago when three Burren guides were employed by the NPWS to offer tourism advice and free walking tours from a base in Corofin.

Plans to construct a controvertial interpretive centre at Mullaghmore, which was to be built the Office of Public Works (OPW) and managed by the NPWS, were abandoned in 2000, after a nine-year legal battle to decide planning permission for the site. The new NPWS facility is currently operating from a section of the Clare Heritage and Genealogy Centre in Corofin and poses none of the environmental threats which prompted the campaign against the Mullaghmore Centre.

According to head guide Sheila Murphy, visitor numbers to the facility have been good throughout its first two weeks in operation, with an encouraging number of visitors and local people using the service.

“We have six national parks in Ireland and the Burren National Park is the only one that hasn’t has an information point or an interpretive centre and this is the first year that we have an information point available to the public,” she said. “It is nice to have a place that both locals and tourist can come in and get information and have that service available to them. A lot of the shops in the village and the locality are often asked for information about the Burren and the National Park and they have nowhere really to direct them to.

“I think that this is a complementary development to the Burren Centre in Kilfenora. At the moment we are just an information point but there are plans to have more interpretation in the centre in the future. The Burren is a big area and everyone want to work together to promote it.

“We have three guides in the centre and we can organise free walks on demand if people come in and ask for that and we will also host a free walk every Sunday, which is more aimed at families. It’s a free service and open to anyone who want to use it.”

The new NPWS information point will continue, seven days a week, until the end of September but plans are already in place to run the service for the entire summer season in 2012.

The information point is open from Monday to Friday from 9.30 to 6pm and on Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 6pm.