Category: News

ENNIS Town Council is facing legal bills of over € 500,000 arising from two separate High Court cases.

The local authority says it is “seriously concerned” regarding the number of High Court cases, which are falling to the council.

Following a number of High Court hearings, the council last year secured a settlement in relation to a case taken on the Ennis Casual Trading Byelaws 2011, which represented a challenge to the Casual Trading Act 1995. The case concerned the status of casual trading vis-a-vis market rights. According to the council’s 2014 budget report, the overall cost in this case amounted to € 147,000.

The council is also currently involved in a High Court case regarding the de-regulation of the taxi industry.

In his report, town manager Gerard Dollard states, “The case has been in process for a number of years and commenced in November 2013. The case has been taken against the State (Minister and Attorney General). A number of sample cases are being heard including three involving Dublin City Council and one involving Ennis Town Council.

Mr Dollard said the council has made efforts to run the case on a cost effective basis. However the case is still at hearing and Mr Dollard told the council’s annual budget meeting that the costs at this point are in excess of € 400,000. The council recently received an interim bill from Counsel for € 191,000.

Mr Dollard states, “The council has firmly put the view to both the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport that the costs of cases involving challenges to national legislation and regulation should not fall on the local authority.”

Mr Dollard told Tuesday’s meeting the council will receive € 250,000 from the Department of the Environment towards the cost of the court cases.

Cllr Peter Considine (FF) described the bills as “crippling” and asked if the council can challenge the Department’s decision not to cover the cost of the entire legal process.

Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) said the decision by the Minister for the Environment to part fund the legal bills represented an admission on his part that his office was responsible for the total cost. “I would go back to the Minister and say pay for all of it,” he said.

AMAZING film from CCTV cameras at the playground in Lahinch during the early hours of Monday, January 6, shows massive waves sweep away recycling bins weighing half a ton as the playground disappears under water.

Clare County Council’s Paul Moroney, who monitored the footage explained that no human could have survived the ferocity of the waves and a car would have been crushed with the impact.

The senior engineer with the council’s water department showed the film to county councillors at a special meeting on Friday last in an at- tempt to depict the terrifying weather conditions the people living along the county’s coast were exposed to during the end of December and early January.

Shortly after 3am on the fateful morning a wave dislodged the bottle and can banks weighing 250kg each.

Three minutes before 5am all of the bottle banks were dislodged and moving at speed with the force of a wave across the playground.

Half an hour later the film captured the playground now under water and the final bank – the half tonne back containing wet clothes, being swept across the screen.

Just 20 minutes later, at 5.50am, the playground was full of water with none of the play equipment visible.

Mr Moroney explained that in flood hazard terms the area was calculated to be “extremely hazardous”, “making it hazardous to life”.

Just seconds later a wave took out the streetlights, and even though the cameras kept running the screen was black and the only sound came from an angry sea.

ENNIS’ effor ts to become Ireland’s tidiest town have been boosted by a € 4,000 increase in funding from Ennis Town Council.

At the council’s annual budget meeting last week, members unanimously voted in favour of a motion to allocate extra funds to the Ennis Tidy Town’s Committee.

Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) proposed cutting by half money allo- cated for the mayor’s allowance in 2014.

The Ennis councillor told the meeting the money could instead be given to Tidy Towns as Ennis would only have a mayor for another six months.

It is expected that the town council will be replaced by a municipal authority after this year’s local elections.

Cll r Brennan’s proposal came in response to a suggestion put forward by Cll r Brian Meaney (GP).

A Fianna Fáí l candidate in the 2014 local elections, Cll r Meaney called on the council to increase the increase the cost of using the town’s automated public toilets from 25 cents to 50 cents.

The meeting heard the proposal would generate additional income of € 2, 000.

The council estimates it will cost € 70, 000 to maintain and service the two ‘superloos’ in 2014.

Cllr Meaney’s proposal was supported by Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) who said some of the extra income should go towards tackling the “graffiti epidemic” in the town.

However it was strongly opposed by other councillors. Cllr Brennan said, “For anyone even to suggest it is disgraceful.”

The council will give a contribution of € 16, 000 to Ennis Tidy Towns. Cllr Brennan said an extra € 4,000 could be found by cutting the mayor’s annual allowance. Cll r Brennan’s motion was unanimously voted through by all nine members. Cllr Meaney’s motion was defeated by five votes to four.

Town manager Gerard Dollard told the meeting the council would also look favourably on any application from the Ennis Defibrillator Committee for community grant funding. This was after a request from Cllr Paul O’Shea (Ind).

Going down on his knees as Tuesday’s meeting neared conclusion, Cllr O’Shea urged the council to provide financial support to the committee.

IT WILL cost almost € 24 million to repair storm damage to 60 kilometres of coastline and 35 specific areas of Clare County Council managed infrastructures, with bills for the Office of Public Works, to private individuals and community groups expected to run into millions of euros more.

According to the Preliminary Storm Damage Report submitted to the Government by the local authority on Friday, it was the “worst experienced in living memory”.

More information relating to infrastructure the council maintains is the responsibility of the OPW will be forwarded to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in the coming days.

These areas in question include Kildysart, Ballynacally, the Shannon embankments at Shannon Airport and Doonbeg at the site of the golf course.

“Clare County Council accepts there has been further significant damage to infrastructure not under the control of the council, in particular to estuary embankments along the Shannon Estuary and strategic tourism enterprises. An assessment of this damage will now be completed for the Government’s consideration,” said the county manager Tom Coughlan following a special meeting of the council.

The largest cost to the council will be repairing the promenade and dealing with the compromised rock armour at the seaside resort of Lahinch at € 5.84 million.

The county’s most westerly village of Kilbaha was also extensively damaged with repair work estimated at € 3.42 million, and a further € 622,000 estimated for Kilcredaun where six families were isolated from the main land for days.

Cloughaninchy, Quilty, which was the sight of devastating damage to homes is estimated to cost € 2.58 million.

Damage at New Quay is also over a million euros estimated at € 1.84 million with € 1.12 million of damage estimated to the N67 road at Moneypoint, Kilrush.

Senior engineer Tom Tiernan, who compiled the report, warned that the figures are as realistic as they can be at this early stage and are subject to change. He explained the vast bulk of the report relates to the destruction caused by the high winds and surging tides throughout the length of the Clare coastline through the first week of 2014.

“The vast bulk of damage caused by the first of the aforementioned three storms was most severely impacting inland – within 10 miles of the north and west coasts of the county. The vast bulk of the impact of the latter two events manifested itself at several locations along the county’s entire coastline and their respective severities are explained by the coincidence of very high tides, extremely low pressure centres moving in a south-west to north-east direction off the west coast of Ireland and severe south-west to west winds gusting at speeds of up to 150 km/hr onto the coastline,” he said.

YEARS spent studying the ocean off the North Clare coast paid off for Lisdoonvarna student Stephen O’Connell last week after he took first place in the Biological and Ecological Category of the BT Young Scientist Exhibition.

Stephen was one of six students from Mary Immaculate Secondary School to receive an award at this year’s Young Scientist. Indeed, nine of the 10 Clare projects at this year’s event came from Lisdoonvarna, with one project from Scoil Mhuire in Ennistymon also making the final.

Stephen, whose father fishes off the coast of Doolin and Liscannor, has entered the competition on two previous occasions, with each project exploring different aspects of fishing in the area.

Stephen profiled more than 1,200 crabs caught off the Clare coast and developed a method for separating low quality and high quality crab meat. His work could have a major impact on the quality of crab being produced by the Irish crab industry.

The school also had great performances from Rhianna McMahon and her brother Keelan who took second place in their category as well as winning the EMC Data Hero Award.

Second year students Tess Casasin Sheridan and Aoife Doherty received the Geological Survey of Ireland Award for their project while David Sims was Highly Commended for his project.

“This is Stephen’s third year in the exhibition and they all have been building in the same area. His father and his uncle are both fishermen so that is what Stephen knows best. It is a great advantage to have a project that the student has an interest in and has a lot of knowledge around,” said John Sims of Mary Immaculate Secondary School.

“Keelan and Rhianna did very well as well, coming second in their category and also winning the EMC Data Hero Award. This award is for data analysis and they had 20,000 lines of data in their project which was a great achievement.

“The standard was so high this year and I think everyone did really really well. It was above my wildest dreams that everyone did so well. It was a great achievement.”

ONE hundred per cent of the € 23.76 million requested by Clare County Council from central government must be forthcoming and soon if the local authority is to begin restoring the storm ravaged county. That was the message from county councillors at a special meeting on Friday, during which warnings were issued that lives will be lost if the infrastructure is not repaired immediately.

Cllr Richard Nagle (FF) said that one such urgent case was the main thoroughfare to the tourist attraction – the Cliffs of Moher.

“If something isn’t done at that location and other locations highlighted in this report, what is going to happen? Is it that that road will simply collapse and it is very close to that now? And if the road collapses, without ever talking about loss of life, it is going to result in a huge loss to the local economy, the main way to the cliffs will be collapsed and it will cost millions then. Whatever it is going to cost now that the road it there it will cost a lot more to be rebuild,” said the North Clare councillor.

He added however that priority must be given to people displaced by the storm and sea swells.

“We need a swift response from central government and a swift allocation of funds to start this work as a matter of urgency,” he said.

Cllr Michael Hillery (FF) was not confident that the close on € 24 million will cover the cost of the “damage I have seen along the coast line”.

Senior engineer with Clare County Council Tom Tiernan said the coun- cil will be working hard to restore local authority infrastructure.

He said the council’s focus would also be in making serous inroads into the village of Kilbaha in the coming weeks and Clahane north of Liscan nor “where serious damage has been done and a number of other areas where access is seriously curtailed”.

“We are a long way from having Lahinch ready for what is needed for the tourist season, but we will achieve it. This is something that is obviously very important to the county during the tourist season.”

THERE have been calls to remove beggars from the streets of Ennis after concern was raised that women are being “trafficked” into the town to beg.

Cllr Paul O’Shea (Ind) has requested the council “work with appropriate authorities such as social welfare inspectors to ascertain if those who continue to beg on the streets of Ennis are in receipt of social welfare payments”.

He called on the council to endeavour to make Ennis a begging free zone n 2014 so as to encourage tourism in the town.

At the council’s January meeting, town clerk Leonard Cleary said the issue of begging was recently discussed at the Ennis Joint Policing Committee on December 16.

He stated, “Ennis Town Council will work with the Gardaí and other agencies in relation to this matter. In addition the JPC discussed the importance of balancing support for local charities with national charity collections visiting Ennis. Again, the council will liaise with the relevant agencies.”

Cllr O’Shea told the meeting he had seen the same people begging on the streets of Clonmel and Ennis.

Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) said women are “rotated” in and out of the Ennis area. He said some of the women are often forced into “other activities”. Cllr Flynn told the meeting there were reports locally that the women are dropped into Ennis by a man driving a Mercedes car.

“There is abuse of women and children in this,” he added. Cllr Mary Howard (FG) said gardaí believe women are being “trafficked” into Ireland for the purposes of begging. She also criticised the activities of some charity collectors or “chuggers”.

Cllr Howard said some of those collecting money around Dunnes Stores and the Post Office can be “intimidating and abusive”.

THOMAS Burke is fighting for his livelihood and facing the stark possibility that it may no longer sustain him following the storm and sea swells of early January.

The Kilrush farmer is one of just many dependent on the lands of West Clare for survival, now in serious trouble.

The suckler farmer is facing the real possibility of selling a portion of his herd as three quarters of a mile of his land along the coast at Shannakyle in now covered in gravel. More than 100 metres more has been washed into the sea.

Each day more and more land is eroded away as the sea walls he built to protect his land were also victim of the storm and high waves.

Mr Burke’s land is in the form of a mini peninsula that juts out into the sea, across from Scattery Island. As a result his 80-acre farm has been damaged on all sides.

During the height of the bad weather at least 30 acres, more than one third of his land was under water. This land will now have to be reclaimed from the damage of the seawater and all the debris that has been washed up.

He has also suffered thousands of euros of damage at three other points on his farm, including the loss of the sea wall he built.

“A half of mile of fencing was also destroyed and about 100 metres of land sucked out to the sea,” he told The Clare People . “The days that followed the storm caused more problems as the sea continued to erode the land that was no longer protected,” he said. “It will take three weeks with a digger to clean up,” he added explaining that the repair work will then begin. Even when the repair work is complete there will still be under-lying damage that will take years to rectify itself. “I am looking at the possibility of selling stock this year because the land won’t be recovered,” said the worried farmer. “There is no help coming as of now.”

LAST year was a record year for trgan transplants in Ireland, with at least six transplant recipients from Clare. One third of the Clare transplants were from living donors.

Four Clare people received kidney transplants last year while another was the recipient of a kidney and pancreas transplant.

There was at least one lung transplant recipient in the county.

Among the success stories were two living kidney transplant recipients in Clare both of whom received their transplants from family members.

Both transplants were carried out at Beaumount Hospital Dublin and both the donors and recipients have recovered well.

“The gift they have received has given these people a second chance at life as they now have a life free of dialysis. It’s the gift the recipients are so grateful for, as prior to been transplanted they were depending on machines to survive,” said Peggy Eustace of the Clare branch of the Irish Kidney Association.

“Sadly there have also been many donor families in Clare. We thank them for the generosity they have shown in donating their loved ones organs at a very difficult time for themselves.”

In 2013 as many as 293 organs were transplanted in Ireland compared to the previous record of 275 in 2011.

The highlight achievement was the growth in lung transplantation in the Mater Hospital from a record 14 in 2012 to a staggering 32 in 2013.

This is more than the equivalent of the previous four years of lung transplantation from 2009 to 2012, which totalled 31.

The second highlight is the consistently record-breaking living donor kidney transplant programme in Beaumont Hospital, which had 38 living donors and resulting transplants.

It brings the total living donor kidney transplants to 155 since the start of the service seven years ago.

The generosity of the 86 deceased donors and their families in 2013 dramatically altered and saved the lives of 245 people, 10 of whom received two organs.

There were 55 liver transplants performed in St Vincent’s Hospital and 11 heart transplants also conducted in the Mater Hospital.

In Beaumont Hospital a total of 195 transplant operations took place. 185 kidney operations, of which 38 were from living donors and 147 from deceased donors, 10 of the 147 also had simultaneous pancreas transplants.

A MAN has been charged after he was stopped by gardaí in an area of East Clare in possession of a fuel siphon pump.

It is alleged that Ennis man James Connors (33) had the pump for the purposes of theft, Ennis District Court heard on Friday.

Mr Connors, with an address at Achabaille, Lahinch Road, Ennis, was stopped by gardaí in an area of O’Callaghan’s Mills on November 26, 2013. The offence he is charged with states that when not at his resi- dence, Mr Connors had in his possession an article – to wit – a siphoning pump and equipment with intention that it be used in the course of or in connection with a theft.

Mr Connors denies having the pump for purpose of theft. During the course of a bail hearing, Mr Connors told the court he uses the pump in his work scrapping cars.

“The pump was my own and not used for any crime,” he said.

Garda Darren McLoughlin of Scariff Garda Station gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution. He told the court he arrested the accused at his home on January 2, 2014. The father of six was later charged and made no reply to charge after caution, the court heard.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said the State would consent to bail on condition Mr Connors abide by a curfew between 9pm and 7am.

Insp Kennedy said the State does not accept Mr Connors’ reason for having the pump.

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client objected to the curfew condition. Ms Godfrey said her client intends to contest the case. She said a curfew would be “excessively punitive” given the length of time it would take for her client’s case to be heard. She said it was open to the State to re-enter the case if Mr Connors came to Garda attention.

Insp Kennedy said the curfew was a “reasonable request”.

Judge Aingeal Ni Chonduin granted bail on condition the accused observe a curfew between midnight and 7am.

Insp Kennedy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had directed summary disposal of the case, meaning it will be heard in the District Court.

Mr Connors was remanded on bail to appear at Killaloe District Court on January 7, 2014.