Category: News

AN inability to effectively collect payment and perceived unfairness were the main arguments against increased charges at the Lees Road Sports and Amenity Ground, put forward at a meeting in Ennis last week.

Speaking at the January meeting of Ennis Town Council, Councillor Johnny Flynn (FG) described the facilities available at Lees Road as “first rate”.

However, he added that it would be unfair to introduce charges for the cross-country track at a time when many people are experiencing financial difficulties.

Cllr Flynn said he opposed the charges as the area to which they would apply was not fenced off. He claimed this would make it “virtually impossible to police”.

He said the fact that the charge doesn’t grant an individual or team “exclusive” use of the track was another reason for leaving the current system unchanged.

He said, “The cross country track has generally been available and has been free.”

Cllr Flynn, who submitted a motion calling on the council not to introduce new charges, said it was important the council do nothing to discourage people from taking up walking or running.

Outlining her opposition to the proposed charges, Cllr Mary Howard (FG) questioned how the area would be policed and how the charge would be implemented on a fair basis to all.

Clr Howard also expressed concern over how the council would distinguish between clubs and individuals when charging for the use of facilities.

She said she had discussed the proposal with Clare Sports Partnership and Marian Athletic Club and other users of Lees Road.

In a statement yesterday, John Sweeney, co-ordinator with Clare Sports Partnership, said he had “no comment to make regarding Lees Road at this point”.

Responding to comments from Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) that charges should exist given the availability of dressing rooms and showers, Cllr Howard said that most walkers and runners using the cross country running track go straight home afterwards anyway and “don’t use the showers”.

Cllr Paul O’Shea (Lab) told the meeting that he was also opposed to the charges.

A CLARECASTLE man who scored a multi-million euro windfall during the property boom has said he will run as a candidate in the forthcoming General Election.

73-year-old JJ McCabe told

RESIDENTS have echoed calls made by the mayor of Ennis for certain details of a lease agreement between Ennis Town Council and Clare Youth Service over a new youth and community building to be made public.

The centre, which is under construction at Cloughleigh Road, has been the subject of two public protests, while last year almost 90 people attended an unscheduled meeting at the Council Chamber in Waterpark House, presided over by then mayor of Ennis, Cllr Frankie Neylon (Ind).

Residents in the Cloughleigh area are opposed to the location of the building and were also disappointed by the council’s approach to the consultation process that led to the site being chosen.

While Ennis Town Council is the contracting authority for the € 531,581.70 construction project, it is intended to lease the building to the Clare Youth Service who will deliver a range of programmes to teenagers and young adults ranging from 13 to 21 years.

The lease agreement was raised at last week’s meeting of Ennis Town Council. According to the residents’ spokesperson, Geraldine Dinan, many people living in the area were surprised to learn the matter had come back before the council.

She said residents had met with the council on three occasions between September and December 2010, to discuss concerns over the “general running” of the building.

“We were surprised that it came up at the meeting. We would’ve hoped that we might’ve been informed about the lease,” she said.

Ms Dinan explained that residents did not have an issue with the length of the 10-year lease but added that many elderly residents are worried about the proposed opening hours of the building.

She said, “Most buildings like this are in the middle of a town or in the middle of the community, but this one is different. The concerns are not unreasonable. We would hope that they would be taken into account.”

Speaking at the January meeting of Ennis Town Council, mayor of Ennis Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) repeated his call for details of the building’s opening hours to be brought before the council before the lease is signed.

“We gave a commitment to residents in opening hours,” he said.

Cllr Brennan added, “I would insist that we see the lease. I was the one who insisted that the terms on conditions be brought before the council…We gave a commitment to people about the conditions and they are the people who elected us.”

A LOCAL councillor is advocating the importance of a healthy and active lifestyle after surviving a major health scare last year.

Pat Daly, a Fianna Fáil member of Clare County Council, suffered a stroke while at work in Ennis in September 2010.

Cllr Daly, who has worked for 18 years as a personal assistant to the outgoing Minister for Defence and Clare TD, Tony Killeen, was subsequently diagnosed as having an irregular heartbeat.

He recalled, “I was at work and coming up to lunch hour, I got a bit of dizziness and my voice slurred and I couldn’t speak straight. I put it down to a cold but I wasn’t 100 per cent sure. I went home, my wife was there, a few neighbours came in and medical people. My wife rang the ambulance. I was hospitalised and I was diagnosed with a stroke. I was out of work for almost three months.”

He said, “It was a desperate shock, traumatic. I didn’t expect it. The family were great. Brothers and sisters and their family and my own family, my wife, two sons and a daughter. They were great in the hospital and when I came home.”

The 56-year-old father of three was treated at Ennis General Hospital and is currently on a course of the blood-thinning agent, Warfarin.

The Ennis native admits he was fortunate to survive the incident. He said, “I was very lucky because I made a full recovery and a lot of people don’t.”

Cllr Daly explained that his lifestyle has changed since his recovery from illness.

He said, “There’s been a big change in my life. You have to watch the diet. I eat a lot of fish now. I go walking. It’s the best form of exercise, walking. I’m watching the diet and drinking plenty of water.”

Cllr Daly is now encouraging more people to stay healthy and active.

He explained, “I wasn’t a great man for walking. People in their late 40s, 50s, 60s, they don’t get enough exercise and they need to walk a couple of miles every day, which I do now. I played a game of golf on Sunday morning – that was all I did. I thought that by playing golf on a Sunday morning, I was fit. But you need to do more. You need to do a bit of walking.”

Cllr Daly, who topped the poll in the Ennis area when he was first elected to Clare County Council in 1999, receives regular treatment at the outpatient’s clinic at Ennis General Hospital. “It’s a fantastic facility, a great facility,” he said.

TOWN manager Ger Dollard has said he his happy that all “checks and balances” are in place with regards to the running of a new € 500,000 youth community and resource building in Cloughleigh, Ennis.

Some details of the lease agreement worked out between Ennis Town Council and Clare Youth Service were revealed at Ennis Town Council’s January meeting. The council is proposing to lease the property to Clare Youth Service for a period of 10 years at a consideration of € 10 per annum.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Michael Guilfoyle (Ind) expressed concern over the length of the lease and proposed that the € 10 yearly charge be increased to € 1,000.

Town manager Ger Dollard said he was quite satisfied that Clare Youth Service are prepared to “act responsibly” and will run the facility very well.

He told the meeting that a council- lor and a member of the council executive will sit on an advisory board.

“I am satisfied that all the checks and balances are in place and that we have a responsible operator,” he said.

Mr Dollard added that he did not agree with increasing the charge as the youth service is not a business or commercial orgaisation.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said the history of the building is well known. He said that in the initial consultation process, local residents “felt they were deceived and not listened to”.

He added, “A lot of good aims and objections were put at risk because the council didn’t listen to the concerns of the elderly”.

Cllr Flynn was then asked by Cllr Peter Considine (FF) to withdraw his remark about residents being deceived.

“I certainly never deceived anyone. I would like ‘deceived’ removed from the record,” he said.

Cllr Flynn agreed, and sought to clarify his comments, saying there was a lot of “anger and frustration” among residents who felt they were deceived by the process.

Cllr Brian Meaney (GP) said the Clare Youth Service had an excellent record over 52 years operating services and facilities in Clare. He said he had no problem with the lease and the charge. He said the youth service had “corrected an awful lot of lives that could have gone astray” and had been regularly highlighted as a model of best practice in reports by the Mid West Regional Drugs Task Force.

Cllr Paul O’Shea suggested that the charge be increased to € 500 and that the sum be used to fund a Young Person of the Year award.

Mr Dollard said he would discuss the charge with the youth service, a comment which drew a strong reaction from Cllr Frankie Neylon (Ind).

Cllr Neylon said the youth service was getting a “pretty good deal” from the council and that Mr Dollard should “tell them” and not “ask them” about the proposed increase.

HIS motto in life is ‘Give it a lash’ and that is exactly what Tony Mulcahy intends to do in his quest for a seat in Dáil Éireann.

As had been widely expected, the 51-year-old was added to the Fine Gael general election ticket in Clare at the weekend by the party’s headquarters.

This followed the party’s convention in December in which sitting TDs Pat Breen and Joe Carey were selected to run for the party in the forthcoming election.

Mr Mulcahy, a native of Newcastlewest in Limerick, received 3,408 votes when he ran in the general election in 2007. Speaking to The Clare People following his addition to the ticket at the weekend, he said he is confident that he can secure 6,000 votes this time around and win a seat.

The father-of-four, who runs his own catering business in Shannon, has been a member of Clare County Council since 1999 and Shannon Town Council since 1994. He has enjoyed spells as mayor of both the county and town councils.

While his intentions to contest the election were not formally announced until just days before Christmas, in reality there was always a possibility that he would allow his name to go forward.

He thoroughly enjoyed the campaign four years ago and although he has had some health difficulties since then, he has recovered and endeavours a good challenge.

Two years ago, he had a kidney rebuilt, while last year he had issues with blood pressure, but has now declared himself “fighting fit and mad for the road”.

Mr Mulcahy explained the situation, saying, “Just before Christmas, I was asked would I be interested in letting my name go forward by a very senior figure in the party’s management structure after the convention. At the convention I was there to support my two colleagues.”

After he was approached, he discussed it with his wife, Carmel, and “I decided I’d give it one lash. It was a long campaign the last time. I got tired in the end. This one will be shorter.”

Mulcahy will pick up a huge vote in the Shannon area, where he has lived for several years. In the last election, he secured more than 55 per cent of the vote in Shannon and won 33 per cent of votes in the Shannon Electoral Area, which takes in Newmarket-onFergus, Sixmilebridge and Kilmurry. “I believe I can and I believe I will win a seat for Fine Gael in Clare. It will take 6,000 votes,” he said.

Since his entry to politics, he has polled consistently well. His vote of 440 in his maiden election campaign for the county council in 1999 increased to 1,200 in 2004. He secured 1,350 votes in the 2009 local election and while these tallies were impressive, he is acutely aware that winning a seat in the Dáil is a totally different ball game.

Pat Breen is poised to focus on win- ning votes in north and west Clare, while Joe Carey will zone in on mid-Clare and Ennis. This means that Mr Mulcahy is likely to focus on the lion’s share of his campaigning in Shannon and south-east Clare. While the creation of geographical divisions leads to angst in some circles, he embraces it.

“We will have to look at a divide like we did the last time. We would be well placed. The key for people voting for Fine Gael is the balance vote,” he said.

Indeed, he believes that geographic reasons played a key role in him being added to the ticket ahead of Madeleine Taylor-Quinn and Martin Conway.

“No disrespect to Madeleine and Martin but they live in different areas. I ran the last time, I was the may- or since and I am living in the second biggest town in the county,” he said.

He also dismissed speculation that he was added to the ticket merely to help get Joe Carey cross the line. Both live on the same side of the county and votes would be expected to transfer between them.

“Joe Carey won’t need any help from me to get over the line. He wasn’t idle over the past three-anda-half years. Neither was Pat Breen. I’m there to get a third seat for Fine Gael,” he said.

SIXMILEBRIDGE Mart could reopen in as little as three months following the decision by a large local consortium to purchase the mart from Golden Vale Properties (GVP) at last Thursday’s public meeting in the town.

An estimated 400 people turned out for the meeting where the bid to purchase the mart was given the unanimous support by those in attendance.

This move comes following the surprise move by GVP to drop the asking price for the mart, which has been closed for more than a year, to € 300,000 last month.

The five-man purchasing committee, who were given the responsibility of negotiating with GVP on behalf of the local community, will now go “full steam ahead” to push through the paperwork in an effort to get the mart up and running again by March or April of this year.

“There was really only one thing up for debate and that was whether we wanted to go ahead with purchasing the mart or not. In this we got the unanimous backing of everyone who was there,” said local farmer Jim Enright.

“Everyone now wants to get this up and going as quickly as possible. It is full steam ahead from here on out and we are hoping to have the mart up and running by March or April. We have done what we needed to do and now it’s about getting the paper work sorted as quickly as possible and getting the mart ready to go.”

While hundred of farmers and local residents have already signed up to be shareholders in the new mart, it is hoped that more people will come on board in the coming weeks.

Mr Enright continued, “We are delighted with how this worked out. There was great support for the project, both from the local community and also from the wider farming community. This was a real community effort – we have people involved from across five or six local parishes.

“We had a sale of shares last year and a lot of people have already bought into the mart. What we need now is for anyone who is interested to come forward and become a shareholder.

“If people do become shareholders we feel that they will be more loyal to the mart and will be more likely to use it. A lot of people also promised that they would come on board if the deal went through and now is the time for that to happen.”

ALMOST 40 pubs closed in Clare in the last year, making 2010 one of the worst years on record for pub closures in the county. According to figures released last week a total of 36 pubs closed in Clare over the last 13 months resulting in the loss of more than 100 jobs in the local economy.

The majority of these closures were in rural parts of the county where cheaper alcohol in supermarkets, the smoking ban and the stricter drink driving legislation is driving many rural publicans out of business.

One rural pub which has been hit badly in recent years is Cassidy’s in Carron, where a 60-year-old weekly card game died out last year as a result of the stricter drink driving legislation.

The pub has had to drastically cut back its winter opening hours and according to owner Robert Cassidy, it would not be able to survive it if wasn’t for the summer tourist and food trade.

“One of the big things that effects us here is the drink driving laws. We have only one customer who is close enough to actually walk to the pub. Everyone else has to drive because of the distances involved,” Robert claimed.

“We are in the middle of the Burren so we are talking in a catchment area of nine miles all around us and the people just can’t get here. The peo- ple who are being hurt by this are the older people who might have come up here for a couple of glasses on an evening and they just can’t get here anymore,” said Robert.

“The problem is that we have people up in Dublin making laws for rural people who live out the country where there is no possibility of getting transport. Then there is the same penalty for someone going down the road at 30 miles an hour after drinking two pints as if you were caught on a dual-carriageway doing 70 miles an hour with six or seven pints taken. It is the same penalty for both things which I think is totally wrong. If people are living within a certain distance from the pub and are obeying all the other rules of the road there should be some adjustment made on the penalty.

“The young people are going to the big pubs in the big urban centres and that is where the damage is being done but we are taking the brunt of it. I agree that people should not drink and drive but in circumstances like this there should be some allowance made.”

Carron is located in the centre of the Burren – in a 300 square mile rural area where only 400 people live. The pub has been the traditional meeting place for the local community for more then 100 years and its difficulties are leading to a marked increase in rural isolation in the area.

“We had a game of cards going here for 60 years every Thursday night and it just died away because people could not take a task. This is older people, older bachelors who could come down, have a few glasses, play the cards and have a bit of craic with their mates. If they didn’t meet them for cards, the next time that they would meet them would be mass on Sunday or cards again the following week. This is a big big loss for those people,” continued Robert.

“You can’t make rules and tie the judge’s hands. There should be some discretion and some understanding for the man who is caught driving home at 30 miles an hour, in a rural area with no taxi and no other social outlet. These people should be allowed to make a case. This is not to say that people should be let off with drinking and driving but the guards and the judicial system should have some level of discretion – things shouldn’t be as clear-cut as they are.”

According to Clare TD Joe Carey (FG), the Government has not had the bottle to deal with the problems faced by rural publicans.

“The pub holds a unique place within Irish culture. I am a firm believer in the conscientious publican as a good dispenser of alcohol within tight legal age qualifying regulations. The problem we have now is that you can buy a bottle or can of beer cheaper than a litre of milk or bottle of water and that is killing the pub trade,” he said. “In each of the recent budgets, Government have lost their bottle in this regard and have not tackled this issue. As a result we are seeing good businesses go to the wall and a sig- nificant loss to the Irish tourist product with it.”

NEW anti-bullying legislation was last week enacted in thousands of public schools in Massachusetts, just days before the one year anniversary of the tragic death of Fanore teenager Phoebe Prince.

In total 390 or the state’s 393 public school districts began enforcing the new legislation, known as Phoebe’s Law, in schools when they returned from their Christmas break last week.

Fanore teenager Phoebe Prince took her life on January 14, 2010, after suffering a prolonged period of bullying at the hands of a number of schoolmates at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts.

This new anti-bullying law is designed to protect victims of bullying and will draw a legal link between bullies and the actions carrier out by the people who they bully.

Speaking on American television last week Phoebe’s aunt, Eileen Moore, said the best way to get justice for Phoebe was to speak out against bullying and raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention.

“We are coping how any family copes when it has been affected by tragedy: You do the best you can as many other people are trying to do in their own life,” she said.

“I think there has been some change in peoples attitudes to bullying [since Phoebe’s death] but it is in people’s awareness of suicide and suicide prevention that people need to be more aware.

“Our children are in desperate pain. The rate of suicide has increased to the point where it’s the second or third highest cause of death among teenagers. We are not listening or we are not hearing their pain. We need to start a conversation.

“I feel that the school has let these kids take full responsibility for their actions – there are many facets to this and need to look at every aspect of this.

“I think that the truest justice for Phoebe is to speak out on her behalf against the despair and the pain that our children are holding inside and to make it better for another child. We need to better.”

Felony charges have been brought against six South Hadley High School students in relation to Phoebe’s death. Separate pre-trial hearings for all six students took place in October and November and full trials are expected to take place in the coming months.

PROJECTS LIKE the € 10.5 million development of specialist health services at the Mid Western Regional Hospital have become possible thanks to the support of the Mid Western Hospitals Development Trust and the assistance of its philanthropists, and the hard work of charities supporting the health services.

Founded in 1986 the trust has raised well in excess of € 16 million for public hospitals in the region. The trust has benefited from the support accrued from the JP McManus Invitational Pro-Am’s since 1990.

Chairperson of the Mid Western Hospitals Development Trust Louis Creavan explained, “This funding makes such a significant impact on developing health services in this region. We also sincerely thank the public for their committed support and tremendous generosity over so many years to the Trust. The money so generously donated has provided specialist equipment and services such as CAT scanners, a radiotherapy centre, Cath laboratory, MRI centre, hydrotherapy centre, urology, renal, endovascular, intensive care, neurology and ophthalmology equipment.”

In addition to the € 16 million already spent on equipment for midwest based public hospitals, the Mid-Western Hospitals Development Trust is now providing a € 4 million construction costs Dermatology Unit and Specialist Breast Unit. This unit, which is part of the € 10.5 million initiative, will dramatically change the way dermatologic and breast care disease services can be delivered to patients in the mid-west region.

“We are delighted to be associated with the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland and Cystic Fibrosis Association – TLC4CF – in setting a new headline for health service development,” aid Mr Creavan.

Una Anderson Ryan, Chairperson of the Parkinson’s Association said, “It is impossible to describe the dif- ference the new Neurological Unit, which includes an Acute Stroke Unit, will make to the lives of so many of our members and their families. A unit like this should be provided in every hospital in the country. Some patients have very difficult symptoms that require privacy and the smaller wards and private rooms will provide this. Overall, the new unit will be an invaluable resource that will make a significant difference in improving patient care and quality of life.”

Owen Kirby, chairperson of TLC4CF, added, “This is a very positive move and a critical next step in TLC4CF’s goal of achieving a world class facility for CF Adults in the Mid Western Regional Hospital. TLC4CF would also like to acknowledge the other very positive fact that the staff complement at MWRH dedicated to CF patients has increased as part of our overall drive.”

“The number of adult CF patients attending MWRH is increasing all the time as people living with CF are surviving longer. There is a dedicated Paediatric CF team at this hospital, but at present the facilities in the mid-west for adults with CF are very basic, which is why this announce- ment is so important.”