Category: News

THE Mayor of Ennis, Cllr Tommy Brennan, has called on the incoming Government to make good on promises to upgrade the sewage treatment network in Ennis.

Plans to upgrade wastewater treatment plants in Ennis were first announced in 1995 but the project suffered a major setback in 2001 when the Department of the Environment refused funding.

Gerry O’Donnell of Clare County Council’s water services section, told the meeting that the council is currently working on an overall strategy for the waste water treatment infrastructure in Ennis.

He said that while previous plans had been drawn up, the new strategy had to take into account the “raft of environmental legislation” that has been published in recent years.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said that the Clondroadmore project opens up the potential for commercial and residential development in Ennis.

Cllr Brennan (Ind) said that Clondroadmore formed part of the overall strategy and that the incoming Government had given funding commitments to the council.

In supporting the upgrade to Clonroadmore, Cllr Brennan called on the council to seek funding for the overall wastewater network scheme.

Cllr Neylon was skeptical about the project, describing it as a sticking plaster and claiming councillors will still be talking about in “30 years time”.

“We might never get the chance again. The plug was pulled in 2001. We’ve said it before, but if an industrialist were to come to town we would have to refuse planning because we don’t have capacity,” he added.

The council intends to upgrade the existing waste water treatment facility at Clonroadmore. The current design capacity of the treatment plant is 17,000 pe. According to Town Manager Ger Dollard, the proposal will allow for a design capacity of 30,150 pe. The project will improve stormwater capacity and treatment at the plant as well as increasing the plant’s hydraulic capacity.

AROUND 50 groups are expected to participate in this year’s St Patrick’s Day parade in Ennis.

The announcement was made yesterday by town clerk Eddie Power who said that currently 30 groups had registered to take part in the parade on Thursday, March 17.

Mr Power told yesterday’s Ennis Municipal Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that more community groups and associations are expected to sign up in the coming days.

Mr Power said the parade offered the perfect opportunity to promote the vibrant and active community that existed in Ennis.

The parade will commence at 11am on March 17 from the Courthouse in Ennis and follow a route along Newbridge Road, to Abbey Street, O’Connell Square, O’Connell Street and to terminate in the Market.

The organising of the parade is well underway at this stage. Community groups and associations are preparing for what has become a significant community event in the local calen- dar.

Mr Power added that the parade would last for roughly an hour.

MPC chairman Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said that St Patrick’s had assumed greater significance for many famillies due to the high number of young people being forced to emigrate to look for employment.

He described the multicultural aspect of the Ennis parade as “extraordinary”.

Cllr Paul O’Shea (Lab) praised the work of the Ennis St Patrick’s Day committee but added that there was “room for improvement”.

He urged the council to consider inviting groups from England, Australia and American to perform at next year’s parade.

Mr Power said that a delegation from the German town of Langenfeld had attended last year’s parade in Ennis.

Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) said there was a cost factor associated with inviting groups from abroad to perform at the event.

“They don’t come on a volountary basis,” he added.

CLARE can become the nationwide leader in fighting the recession, thanks to a new initiative being launched this week to make the county capital Ennis the friendliest town in Ireland.

The Ennis Development Forum and Ennis Chamber of Commerce is launching its ‘Create the Magic’ campaign this week, by bringing in international consultant Kathleen Sullivan, whose company KT Sullivan & Associates is based in Charleston, South Carolina that was voted America’s favourite city in 2010.

“Ms Sullivan lives between Charleston and Ennis,” says Aoife Madden of the Ennis Development Forum “and she has gladly come on board to give a seminar to Clare businesses this Thursday,” he adds.

“Her company focuses on inspired leadership and customer service excellence and we want to draft up a customer charter for Ennis business that can help them going forward and make Ennis the friendlies town in Ireland,” says Cllr Johnny Flynn, who is also one of the driving forces behind the forum.

“This is Ennis refusing to sit back,” says Aoife Madden. “We are watching other towns fall down around them and we’re not the worst in Ireland, because with the recession we’re six to 12 months behind other towns and a determined to fight the recession and the goal of the forum is that Clare will become the first county to come out of recession. We are determined to do that.”

Thursday’s seminar, which takes place in The Old Ground Hotel at 6.15pm follows on from the Business Forum held with the General Election candidates last month with the aim of retaining and creating jobs.

And, this interaction with public represenatives will be taken to the next stage when members of the Ennis Deveopment Forum meet with Clare’s newly elected TDs.

“The business community want to meet with them every three months that they are in office during the lifetime of the new government,” says Cllr Flynn, “to see what they’re doing for the town and the county.

The first meeting with Deputies Pat Breen, Joe Carey, Michael McNamara and Timmy Dooley is scheduled to take place on March 28.

AN ENNIS man has been brought before a special sitting of the district court on Sunday, charged with threatening to kill his ex-partner.

Michael McDonagh (20), of Ashline, Kilrush Road, Ennis, is facing three charges of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to his former girlfriend Amanda Malone.

It is alleged that he telephoned her last Friday, March 4, and that he sent her two text messages, containing threats, the following day.

Garda Marie Burke told the court that she charged the accused on Saturday evening. Free legal aid was granted by Judge Joseph Mangan, on foot of a request from defence solici- tor Daragh Hassett.

Mr Hassett told the court that his client “denies fully the allegations in this matter”.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said that gardaí were opposing bail and said gardaí were concerned for the safety of Ms Malone. “She was in a relationship with the defendant which has now broken down,” said Inspector Kennedy.

Gda Burke told the court: “According to her [Ms Malone], she received a phone call from Michael McDonagh in which he threatened to kill her, at 18.54 hours on March 4. Ms Malone alleged he asked her where she was and that he was going to kill her.”

Gda Burke said that Ms Malone made a complaint about this to gardaí. While the complainant was at Ennis Garda Station on Saturday, she received a text message which she said was from the accused.

The garda said that she spoke to the accused on Saturday afternoon in relation to the allegations. “When I alerted him to the allegations; once I told him I was arresting him, he took a mobile phone out of his pocket, snapped it in two and smashed it into a number of pieces,” said Gda Burke. She said that gardaí were unable to retrieve information from the broken phone.

Amanda Malone told the court that she had a child with the accused, but that the relationship has ended. She said the defendant phoned her last Friday evening and was “roaring” at her. She said he told her he was “going to get me”.

Mr Hassett put it to her: “You are not happy this relationship is over.” She replied: “I’m very happy.” The solicitor said: “You pleaded with Mr McDonagh to take you back into his life.” She denied this, adding: “I’m afraid of him.” Mr Hassett said: “You have been jilted and you have made all of this up.” She denied this.

Michael McDonagh told Judge Mangan that he did not phone or text Ms Malone, as had been claimed. He said that he met her on Friday and she asked him to get back with her, but he declined. The judge remanded the accused in custody to appear in court again later this week.

FOR only the second time in the history of the State, Clare will be without a full cabinet ministry, while having three government TDs elected in the county.

This state of affairs will be confirmed on Wednesday when Enda Kenny becomes the country’s 13th Taoiseach and selects a Cabinet that won’t have any Clare representation.

The only other time when a government with three TDs in Clare failed to win a seat at Cabinet was during the ill-fated 1992-94 coalition between Fianna Fáil and Labour.

Now, almost two decades on, Clare’s failure to win high office is being blamed locally on “internal Fine Gael politics” that came between the party and a history-making haul of three seats in the constituency.

“The fact is,” one Fine Gael councillor told The Clare People this week, “that had Fine Gael shown the ambition to win three seats and blow Fianna Fáil out of the water altogether and then gone out and done it, Clare could not have been denied the right to sit at Cabinet.

“This is what Fianna Fáil did in 1997. They had a vote strategy and managed their vote brilliantly rather than having a situation where every candidate was out for themselves and as a result they won three seats. The reward was a full ministry. Fine Gael could have that now,” the councillor claimed.

Now Fine Gael are clinging to the hope that a junior ministry will come the county’s way, but both Pat Breen and Joe Carey could be left disappointed as the massive majority that see the combined Fine Gael/Labour numbers at 113 means huge competition for Minister of State positions.

“We have returned three Government TDs here tonight and three Government TDs can make a difference. I would hope also that the Taoiseach would take the opportunity to give one of us in Government a ministry,” General Election poll-topper Pat Breen told The Clare People last week.

However, Clare’s failure to gain any type of post would leave former TD Dónal Carey as the only politician from the Fine Gael or Labour benches to have held down a government ministry, having served as Minister of State during the lifetime of the Rainbow coalition from 1994 to ‘97.

COUNTY Clare is lagging behind the rest of the country in terms of job creation, with the recession now likely to linger in the Banner County when job growth returns in other areas.

New figures releases from the Central Statistic Office (CSO) revealed that 10,814 people signed on the Live Register in Clare last month, the second highest amount recorded in Clare since records began.

The number of people signing on the Live Register nationally has fallen by 22,624 or 4.51 per cent since the peak of the unemployment crisis in August of 2010. However, the number of people signing on in Clare has actually increased by almost one per cent (0.81 per cent) over the same period.

This means that the rate of change in the numbers signing on in Clare is more than 5 per cent worse than the number signing on in the rest of the country.

According to CSO figures, 10,814 people signed onto the Live Register in Clare last month, a drop of 69 peo- ple from the January figures.

More than half of all those people signing on were located in Ennis, where 5,998 people signed on last month. This represents a small drop of 0.34 per cent or 21 people since January.

Similar small drops were recorded around the county with offices in Ennistymon, Tulla and Kilrush reporting 1,747, 1,568 and 1,501 people signing on respectively.

While the news is bad in Clare, Seán Murphy of Chamber Ireland believe that the figures indicate a stabilisation of the unemployment levels nationally.

“The seasonally adjusted Live Register figures provide another indication of an ongoing stabilisation in the economy. While this suggests that we are slowly turning our economy and jobs market around, clearly much needs to be done to reduce unemployment levels further,” he said.

Chambers Ireland has called on the new Government to abolish Employment Regulation Orders (ERO) and Registered Employment Agreements (REA) as a means of prompting jobs growth.

THE Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard has thrown its support behind Clare County Council’s plans for a € 6 million development of Doolin Pier.

The planning department of Clare County Council has received more than 30 submissions from members of the public in relation to the project, which is due to be decided in the coming days.

Plans for the pier had been opposed by local surfing groups on the grounds that the development would damage two world renowned waves located at Crab Island and Doolin Pier.

A decision on Clare County Council Part 8 planning permission was due in December last but the elected members of the council asked for more time to be allowed for submissions to be made. A final decision is due to be made at next Monday’s March meeting of the local authority.

In his submission to Clare County Council, Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard said that the new proposal would make the pier safer for use.

“It will make it much safer for commercial craft to use the new pier while Doolin Coastguard will have the space it needs at the existing facility with reduced congestion,” he said.

The project also received supportive submissions from a number of local organisations including The Russell Centre and Doolin Tourism, while a large number of submissions were also received from local and national surf organisations.

In a submission lodged by Cliodhna Fawl of the West Coast Surf Club in Lahinch it is claimed that the pier will be a “serious danger” to surfers in the area.

“Apart from the damage that the proposed work will undoubtedly do to the world famous wave environment, the design poses a serious and significant health and safety threat to the surfers accessing the waves at Doolin Point and Crab Island,” she says.

“Surf tourism is a highly important and valuable income stream for west Clare, throughout the year, and to proceed with the proposed works without any assessment of the impact on these waves or without any input from surfers sends the wrong message not only outside of Clare but also outside of Ireland.”

A BOIL notice will remain in place in Ballyvaughan until the new multimillion Ballyvaughan Water Scheme comes on line later this month. The Clare People has learnt that Clare County Council plans to bring the new € 5 million scheme on line within the next two weeks. The development was originally due to come on line before the end of 2010, but a number of small delays have delayed completing the project until this month. Once the scheme is fully connected, the local authority will then enter into a period of consultation with the Health Service Executive (HSE) with a view to possibly lifting the boil water notice.

This latest boil notice came into effect at the beginning of February and is the third boil notice to be put in place in Ballyvaughan in the past nine months. A spokesperson from the local authority confirmed to The Clare People yesterday that the boil notice would not be stood down until the connection to the new water supply is completed.

However, even if the new scheme becomes operational before the end of March, it could be mid to late April before the boil water notice itself is lifted.

“It is anticipated that water supply from the new scheme will be made live in the next fortnight. Once commissioning is complete we will meet with the HSE with a view to removing the boil notice. This may take a further number of weeks at which point we would officially advise consumers,” said a council spokesperson.

The new € 5 million project will connect the Ballyvaughan water supply with the local Ennistymon water supply drawn from Lickeen Lake. A number of local groups in Ballyvaughan campaigned against the development, requesting instead that measures be put in place to improve the existing water supply in the village.

Clare County Council also confirmed yesterday that it still taking numbers from north Clare residents who wish to be informed via text message if there is any future disruption in the water supply.

The innovative new text service was introduced in Ballyvaughan earlier this year after a number of local residents and businesses complained at not being informed that their water was not fit for human consumption.

The current boil water notice effects all homes on the Ballyvaughan Public Water Supply including the Muckinish, Gleninagh, Gregans, Knocknagrough and Newtown group water schemes.

Anyone who receives water from these schemes is asked to boil all water used for drinking, cooking, making ice-cubes and brushing teeth before using it.

GARDAÍ have launched an investigation after three people were injured following a two-car collision in Gorteen on Saturday night.

One man in his sixties and two men in their thirties are being treated in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick following the incident which took place at around 12.30am on the Quin Road.

It is thought that the driver of the van involved in the incident of the scene fled the scene on foot after the collision occurred.

One of the injured men managed to release himself from the car and call for assistance.

The three men, a father, his son and a friend, were travelling towards Ennis at the time.

Meanwhile Gardaí have issued an appeal aimed at preventing forest fires.

In Clare in 2010 there were eight fires resulting in 18 hectares being damaged.

According to private forestry business Woodland, at least 500 hectares of private forestry were destroyed by fires in 2010 resulting.

Sgt Joe Downey, Crime Prevention Officer in the Clare Garda Division, explained, “If fires are lit near or adjacent to forests and not properly controlled they can get out of control and cause sever damage to forests and possibly damage homes that are built too close to the forests and in extreme cases to serious injuries.”

He explained that apart from the risk of injuries there is also a significant cost factor to be taken into account.

Sgt Downey is urging any landowners intending to burn land to clear scrub to contact the fire services before doing so.

He explained, “Under certain circumstances, and based mainly on tradition, the burning of land to clear scrub and unwanted vegetation has become and accepted practice. Members of the community who engage in this practice should make themselves aware of the necessary precautions relating to controlled burning by contacting the local fire services.”

Sgt Downey added, “We want to emphasise the threat that land and forest fires present to people’s lives and property. You must comply with the legislation and undertake burning in a controlled manner. It is also advisable to contact the fire services the day before you intend to burn so that they are aware if any phonecalls come into their office.

AS MANY as 4,200 Clare citizens from the east of the county were required to cast their votes not in the Clare constituency, but the hotly contested new constituency of Limerick City.

As many as 3,270 of those Clare people cast their votes in nine boxes in a school in Parteen and a Scouts Hall in Shannon Banks.

The Clare vote reflected that of the constituency as a whole with Fine Gael’s former leader Michael Noonan receiving almost 30 per cent or 967 of the votes cast on the Clare side of the ever-contentious boundary line. This was just a few percentage points shy of what the Fine Gael stalwart received in the constituency as a whole when he topped the poll for the very first time.

Despite such supporters in Clare as Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF), Willie O’Dea (FF) saw his vote drop to 16.89 per cent or 545 votes.

Despite being elected on the seventh count after failing to reach the quota Labour’s Jan O’Sullivan polled strongly in east Clare, coming in as the second most popular candidate with 21.44 per cent of that vote.

In the only Clare area with a Labour Clare county councillor in the form of Pascal Fitzgerald, the Clonlara native secured 705 votes.

The second Fine Gael candidate and TD Kieran O’Donnell was also the second TD elected following a healthy transfer from running partner Michael Noonan.

Deputy Noonan, had increased his first preference vote across the constituency by 77 per cent.

Fianna Fáil’s Deputy O’Dea’s first preference vote had fallen however by as much as 64 per cent.

Former mayor of Limerick City and former Fine Gael councillor Kevin Kiely, who has long since been an advocate for moving the Limerick City boundary into Clare, did not poll well in the Clare area he believed should belong to Limerick city.

The now Independent candidate received just 36 out of a possible 3,270 Clare votes or one per cent of the vote.