Category: News

A TOTAL of 67 applications for repossession came before the Clare County Registrar at Ennis Courthouse on Friday.

The vast majority of the cases were adjourned to July with 23 of the 67 cases adjourned because the banks and financial institutions can’t locate the homeowners or have their registered letters returned.

In the cases before the court, the largest number of repossession applications came from Ulster Bank at 26; 17 from the EBS; and eight from the AIB; with a single application from the Bank of Ireland.

In one case, Ulster Bank was seeking to proceed with the repossession application.

That application, heard before County Registrar Pat Wallace, involved a West Clare man who owes Ulster Bank € 128,428.35. The figure includes arrears of € 26,011.

The court heard that 10 years ago, the man received a loan for € 110,000. He later got a top up loan of € 15,000.

The man, an unemployed machine operator, said that he missed a repayment in December because he had to carry out roof repairs. He said he outlined his difficulties in a letter to the bank.

The man told the County Registrar, “I am not working. I’m on so- cial welfare.” The man said that after missing the December repayment he received a letter from the bank saying his monthly payment had jumped from € 195 to € 668. He said the value of the house was now somewhere between € 65,000 and € 70,000.

The court heard the man was made redundant four years ago. He told the County Registrar that he is now considering renting out the house. Mr Wallace said that would be a good idea.

Mr Wallace told the man he was adjourning the application for two months but wanted to see some progress the next time the matter came before the court. He said the property is in negative equity. “If there is no repayments, there is no point hanging around,” he added.

Mr Wallace adjourned the case to July. He said, “I’d like you to do something concrete and increase the payments. If you got a job, you might surmount this debt.”

MORE than 110 Bur ren locals, including 60 local businesses, have come together to help force the creation of better broadband services in rural Clare.

The group have formed a co-operative style organisation to bargain directly with broadband providers, and entice them to build a better broadband network in the Bur ren area.

The group will meet with representatives from Airwire today, March 18, who have al ready committed to building one new signal boosting repeater station in the Burren region. Group organiser and owner of the Bur ren yoga Centre, Dave Brocklebank, believes that if he can prove an even greater local demand he will be able to negotiate for better broadband right across the area.

“It’s not rocket science to boost these signals but the companies don’t do it because they don’t see a market for it in the more r ural areas. But if we get together and show them there is a market then we can get repeaters stations built all over the Burren,” said Mr Brocklebank.

“I am a member of the Burren Ecotourism Network and I used that as a platform to get it going. At the moment we have maybe 60 businesses signed up around 50 individuals. I think if we can get a couple of hundred people to sign up we should have proved the demand for them to build repeater stations right across the Bur ren. The more numbers we get the better chance we have of getting the service boosted.”

Airwave will conduct a technical survey in the Burren area tomorrow with a view to constructing a new repeater station. This station will receive a direct, heavy duty, internet connection, which is will then transmit to the local area.

“These stations receive a di rect connection, so the signal strength will not degrade no matter haw many people are using it. Something like this will help maybe 15 or 20 users in that area, so we need to entice the providers to build more of these in the Bur ren,” continued Mr Brocklebank.

“The aims here is to get more and more people to sign up and then we can boost the signal for the entire area. This is just the beginning; if this works for broadband and can see us getting together again to work for other services.”

To sign up to the broadband initiative visit www.bur renyoga.com/ broadband.

CLARE gardaí will be loosing their hair on the streets of Ennis on Friday but it’s all in aid of a good cause.

Members of the force, including Clare’s most senior Garda, Chief Supt John Kerin, will participate in a ‘Shave or Dye’ event in O’Connell Square, Ennis on Friday, March 21, between 12 noon and 4pm.

A total of 18 members of Ennis Garda Station will take part in the event, which is being held to raise money for the Irish Cancer Society.

The Shave or Dye event is part of a nationwide campaign run by Today FM aimed at raising funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

Ten gardaí are expected to shave their heads on Friday. A further eight have opted to dye their hair purple – in recognition of Ennis’s bid to renew its Purple Flag status.

Last February, Ennis became the first Irish town to receive the Purple Flag. The award aims to broaden the appeal and improve the standard of nighttime destinations.

Over 35 English town and city representatives attended the workshop in Ennis on October 23. The Purple Flag award is seen as the benchmark for good evening and nighttime destinations. At present, over 40 towns and cities in UK and Ireland have been awarded Purple Flag accredita- tion.

Friday’s Shave or Dye event is supported by Roots Hair Salon, The Temple Gate Hotel and the Rowan Tree Café and Hostel.

Students from Rice College secondary school will also be giving their support on the day.

Community Garda and event organiser Deirdre O’Doherty said Gardaí are grateful for the support they have received from the business community.

“A couple of businesses have helped us out and if anymore want to come on board they are more than welcome. We’ll be at the Square up to 4pm. We’re hoping to do the shaving at around 3pm so there should be a good crowd around,” explained Garda O’Doherty.

People can contribute on the day or by logging onto the www.mycharity. ie web page.

Funds raised through the event will go towards the Irish Cancer Society.

THE amount of funding awarded by the Irish Arts Council to local arts festivals in Clare has dropped to its lowest level in almost a decade.

Just € 20, 500 was awarded to Clare festivals under the Festival and Events Scheme (formally the Small Arts Festivals Scheme) for the first half of 2014 – a drop of more then 16 per cent [€ 4,000] on the same scheme for 2013. This is the joint lowest first round funding offered to Clare festivals in more than a decade – equalling the previous funding low which was allocated in 2012.

The Inishcealtra Arts Festival was the worst hit, with a year-on-year funding drop of 64 per cent. The festival’s 2013 Arts Council funding of € 7,000 was slashed down to just € 2, 500 for 2014.

This is the second major funding blow for the Inishcealtra festival, which saw its funding cut from € 9,000 to € 7,000 last year.

Both the Corofin Traditional Festival [€ 6, 500] and the Doran Piping Tionol [€ 3,000] maintained their funding levels this year with the Ennis Book Club Festival actually recording an increase of € 500 – to € 8, 500.

This funding also represents a de- crease of almost 65 per cent from the € 57,100 awarded to Clare festivals under the first round of the Small Arts Festivals Scheme on 2007.

There was also bad news for Glór, which saw a 7 per cent cut to it’s programme funding – down from € 86,000 to € 80,000 for 2014.

The Arts Council’s annual funding scheme saw a slight decrease for Liscannor’s Salmon Poetry, down by € 1, 250 to € 40,750 this year, while the Willie Clancy Summer School remained the same at € 80,000.

There was a slight increase under the Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme with Padraig Rynne [€ 30,000] and the Hunka, Dunne, Robinson Trio [€ 8, 500] receiving a combined total of € 38, 500 compared to the € 37, 500 guided to Guidewires and Nicola Henley of the Wise Ways Projects last year.

UNTREATED raw sewage is being discharged into rivers and bathing areas at five locations in Clare, including key tourist towns such as Kilkee, Ballyvaughan and Liscannor. A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed that the discharge of raw sewage is still a major problem in Clare, with nearly 20 percent of all offending towns – five of the 28 towns nationally – located in Clare. Five Clare towns, with a popula- tion of more than 500 people, were identified as discharging raw sewage. The report also reveals a lack of progress made in recent years in tackling the problems each of the five Clare towns – Kilrush, Clarecastle, Kilkee, Ballyvaughan and Liscannor – already identified as having on sewage infrastructure by the EPA in their 2006 report.

The Shannon town sewage system was also identified in the report as not reaching mandatory effluent quality and sampling standards. The system, which was identified as the source of a mysterious odour, late last year, will undergo a € 1.02 million upgrade of four pump stations later this year.

It is hoped that this upgrade will bring the system up to the standards set by the EPA and also rectify the ongoing odour issues in Shannon town.

A campaign to construct a sewage treatment system at Kilkee has been underway for more then a decade, with an investment promised by the Government as far back as 2005. The wait looks set to continue for the time being however as the transfer of responsibility for the project from Clare County Council to Irish Water adding an extra layer of uncertainty to the project.

The Kilkee sewage system was included in the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government’s investment programme for 2010 to 2013 but remains a number of steps away from development.

While Clare County Council will be involved in the day to day provision of water and sewage services for a number of years through a Service Level Agreement with Irish Water, all responsibility for funding new schemes now rests with Irish Water.

THE vast majority of people signing on the live register in Ennis are young people – under the age of 25.

A whopping 85 per cent of the of the people signing on the the live register in Ennis last month was aged 25 or under. A total of 5,085 people signed on the live register in the county town in February – of these only 751 were over the age of 25.

The percent of younger people on the live register in Ennis has increased since the start of the recession in 2007 – but not dramatically. Of the 2,459 who signed on in Ennis in February 2007, 2,011 or 81.7 per cent of the total were under the age of 25.

Gender also appears to be a factor in unemployment in Ennis since the start of the recession, with more men winding up on the live register than women.

Between February of 2007 and February of 2014, the number of men signing on the live register in Ennis increased from 1,351 to 3,051 an increase of 125 per cent. Over the same time period however, the number of women on the register increased from 1,108 to 2,034 – representing an increase of just 83.5 per cent

Overall however, it does appear the the unemployment problems in Ennis are improving – but the improvement is slow. A comparison of the live register figures for Ennis in each February since 2007 reveals that the register hit its peak in 2010, when 6,165 were on the live register.

These figures have dropped each February since and now stand at 5,085, which is still more than double the 2007 figures of 2,459.

PRIESTS in the Killaloe Diocese contribute more than € 74,000 from their own personal resources to fund the running of the diocese in 2012.

The payout comes as parish donations to the diocese dropped for the second consecutive year forcing priests to dip into their own pockets to keep the diocese afloat.

According to the diocesan accounts for 2012, which were released last week, contributions from Killaloe’s 58 parishes were down 2.5 per cent in 2012.

This comes on the back of a 4.3 per cent fall in donation in the previous year.

It is not clear from the accounts how much was donated by each priest, or if each priest donated the same amount, but it is understood that the current basic salary for a priest in the diocese stands at € 22,000 and rises to just € 27,240 after a number of years of service.

The figures reveal that in 2012 parish donations totalled € 742,000, while in 2010, the figure was € 795,000. Bishop O’Reilly expressed concern at the year on year fall as these parish donations form the most significant proportion of diocesan income.

Despite the drop in donations from individual parishes, the overall financial situation of the diocese was positive with the Killaloe Diocese recording a net surplus of € 162,750 for 2012, when gross income for property and other investment portfolios were taken into consideration.

While the diocese’s overall accounts have shown surpluses in recent years, this has only been possible because of the additional contributions from Killaloe’s priests and donations and bequests.

“Such generosity cannot be taken for granted or predicted in future years,” said Bishop O’Reilly.

The contributions from priests was also supplement by a bequest of € 54,000 but even that sum is a massive drop from the nearly € 152,000 the diocese received in 2011 from such gifts.

THE number of pubs, clubs and hotel bars operating in Ennis has dropped by nearly 30 per cent over the last five years, with a number of pubs expected to go under when the rates bills are delivered to premises later this month.

According to Clare head of the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), Charlie O’Meara, at least 11 pubs have gone out of business in Ennis since 2009, with just 29 currently operating in the county town.

Speaking yesterday Mr O’Meara said that the economic recovery spoken about in parts of the country had yet to reach Clare.

“Christmas was okay but January and February have been very poor. This expected turn around in the economy has not been seen in Ennis yet, certainly not in the pub trade,” he said.

“Our biggest difficulty is multiples [large supermarkets] selling drink in Ennis at prices that we just can’t compete with. We have serious overheads and running costs but what can we say to people to who come and and say they can buy a bottle of vodka for for € 8 or € 9 and we are charging € 4 a shot for it.

“You can’t blame the punter on the street for looking for the best price that they can but it is a tough struggle for pubs at the moment just to compete. You are going to see more and more pubs disappearing.”

Mr O’Meara has warned that a number of pubs and other businesses are on the verge of going under in Ennis at the moment.

“The rates will be due in the next few weeks and we could be a few businesses going under then. If you are teetering on the brink, trying to keep your business afloat, the rates can actually bring you down,” he said.

“I might not seem like a lot but it you are just hanging on, a bill of a couple of thousand can be the final straw.”

A DOZEN shops and businesses have closed in the county town in the past month, causing concern for the county’s commercial sector.

Ennis Chamber of Commerce said that while it is particularly concerned about the number of older, often family-run businesses, that could not keep the doors open, it does not believe the town is dying.

The most recent spate of closures has hit a variety of business from the food sector to retail to the service industry.

CEO of Ennis Chamber of Commerce Rita McInerney said that a lot of business people hold out for Christmas in the hope of an upturn, but for many there are many pressures during a recession.

Uncertainty about commercial rates as the town council merges with the county council, is of particular concern to businesses. There is currently an 11 per cent difference between both area rates, which must be evened out in the next three to ten years. As much as 50 per cent of Ennis Town Council’s income comes from these rates, compared to the national average of 38 per cent.

There are also pressures to those businesses with an older renting lease that allows only for an upward rent review. Online shopping has also impacted on the retail business.

Despite the businesses closures Ms McInerney refuses to believe that the town is dying. “It is all relative. We are saddened that businesses and jobs have been lost, but compared to other towns around the country we are performing well, but we are not at the top in terms of occupancy and there is an unemployment rate,” she said. “Investment in the town centre needs to take place.”

The Chamber CEO also pointed out that a number of new businesses have opened in Ennis in the last few months that will help address the issue. “We are conscious however that there is a challenge out there,” she said.

THE M18 will remain closed northbound between Barefield (Junction 14) and Crusheen (Junction 15) until Friday to allow the National Roads Association (NRA) to carry out a safety assessment following a spate of recent accidents.

The northbound carriageway of the motorway between Barefield (Junction 14) and Crusheen (Junction 15) closed yesterday morning and will remain closed until Friday, March 14, to allow for “drainage assessment and improvement works” to take place.

This closure follows months of pressure from Clare County Council, Clare Gardaí and the local media, following a spate of accidents on the road over the Christmas period. The NRA had previously rejected calls for a safety audit to be conducted and speed restrictions to be introduced, but had a change of heart last week, confirming that a safety “engineering assessment” would take place in the coming months.

The move was welcomed yesterday by Cllr Pat Hayes (FF).

“I’m happy that the NRA are finally seeing some sense about this and I hope that the assessment will lead to the problem on the road being rectified,” he said.

The closure will commence at 9am on Monday and run until approximately 2pm on Friday. Traffic will be diverted from the existing M18 Northbound onto the R458 (the old N18) at Junction 14 Barefield and then returning to M18 Northbound at Junction 15.

“During the period June to September 2013, the NRA assumed responsibility for maintenance on the M18. Since this time, routine maintenance works have been undertaken including road sweeping and cleaning of gullies, slot drains and outfalls in addition to other general maintenance activities which assist with rapid drainage of water from the road sur- face,” said an NRA spokesperson.

“In addition, the NRA monitors and assesses the network under its direct control with a view to carrying out any maintenance or remedial works which might be required to improve road drainage and maintain the design capacity of the drainage system. However, the possibility of the occurrence of surface water due to extreme weather events cannot be fully eliminated.”