The Clare People Archive

US TRIPS from North America to Ireland show a drop for the second month in a row, sounding alarm bells for Shannon Airport in the aftermath of Open Skies.

Figures for September show a drop of 8,900 in the number of trips from North American to Ireland. The Au- gust figures showed a drop of 4,100 such trips.

Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen has warned that this fall-off in visitors from North America this September, compared to the same period the pre- vious year, Should sound alarm bells for Government and for Tourism Ire-

land.

“It is not sustainable to have a trend of decreasing trips from the impor- tant North American market,’ he said. *“These individual figures come in the context of slowing growth in the number of overseas visitors to Ireland. Comparing year to date fig- ures, numbers of overseas visitors erew by 2.8 per cent in 2004, by five per cent in 2005 and 11.2 per cent in 2006. But the level of growth has dropped back to 4.1 per cent so far in 2007. This is becoming a trend and one which we must arrest,” he said.

“CSO figures relate to the number of trips only and do not address other industry concerns about declining

length of stay and average spend, as well as the regional imbalance in vis- itor spread. Figures for the summer of 2008 indicate that transatlantic seat sales into Shannon from North America are projected at 355,226 another significant drop. Yet no Gov- ernment initiatives have been put in place and promises and guarantees given have been reneged upon.

“The previous Minister for Trans- port Martin Cullen told us that he had sought and received guarantees that Aer Lingus would deliver 400,000 passengers post Open Skies. Shan- non Airport will be the real loser if yet another Government promise is broken,” he said.

UP TO 500 elderly people from east and south east Clare are to lose their local HSE centre that provides serv- ices such as home help, physiother- apy and other aids for independent living.

Staff at the care and case manage- ment provision centre in Raheen who had 500 east Clare people on their database are now being centralised to Ennis.

Clare Fine Gael TD Joe Carey has written to the HSE General Manager in Ennis expressing his concern at the withdrawal of direct care and case management provision from the residents.

“Care and case management is vital in allowing many elderly resi- dents receive the home help and care they require. The plan to centralise services in Ennis will mean that resi- dents in east Clare will have longer journeys to travel for assessment and consultation appointments,’ he said.

“This project has been running suc- cessfully in Raheen for many years,” said Deputy Carey.

Care and case management is in- volved in many areas of home assist- ance from arranging physiotherapy sessions, assessing clients for home help, providing aids for independent living and organising respite in day-

care centres.

‘This scheme has provided eld- erly people with invaluable resources since its inception in 2001,’ said Deputy Carey.

“It is not acceptable that elderly people will now be asked to travel to Ennis for these services. Trans- port will be a major issue for many of these elderly residents. In my view

the system wasn’t broken, so why is there a need to fix it?”

“What we have here is another ex- ample of the HSE using the current recruitment freeze to rush needless changes through the backdoor of our health service. Front line patients will be most affected.”

A MAN who admitted possession of drugs at his home for the purpose of sale or supply has been jailed for two years.

Kenneth Daly (36), of Oakwood Drive, Ennis, pleaded guilty to pos- session of cocaine and cannabis res- in, for the purpose of sale or supply.

He also admitted possession of co-

caine, cannabis and cannabis resin, at his home, on November 19, 2005.

Garda Paul Crowley told Ennis Circuit Court that the accused told gardai, “Everything I have is in this drawer,’ referring to a drawer in the vanity unit of his bedroom.

Gardai then found white powder in a plastic bag, a brown substance and dried green leaves in the drawer.

Garda Crowley said that analysis

showed the white powder was co- caine, the brown substance was can- nabis resin and the dried green leaves contained herbal cannabis.

The street value of the drugs seized amounted to over €2,500, said the garda, while €6,170 in cash was found in Daly’s jacket pockets.

Daly told gardai he got a loan from the credit union, for work purposes, a few days earlier.

Defence barrister Pat Whyms pointed out that the analysis showed the powder was found to contain co- caine, “so we don’t know the value of the cocaine”.

He said his client “sought to sup- plement his income by trading in cannabis and cocaine. He was not a big operator.

“He was simply trying to fund himself and fund his own addiction

FL) Lnsmad

Judge Carroll Moran said, “It is very unusual to get a loan from the credit union and be walking around with that amount of money in your pocket.”

“You would have to be living on another planet not to realise that so- ciety regards the dealing of drugs as very serious,’ he said and imposed a two-year jail term.

AN Ennis man, who is currently serving a four-year jail term in Lim- erick Prison has been charged with having a mobile phone in his cell.

Mark McCarthy (22), with an ad- dress in Ennis, was jailed at Ennis Circuit Court in April 2006 for a burglary offence in Ennis.

Last Tuesday he appeared before Limerick District Court accused of having a mobile phone and a sim card without the permission of the Governor. It is alleged the items were seized on June 24 last, during a

search of McCarthy’s cell by prison eee

Inspector Gerry MacNamara said directions had not been received from the Director of Public Prosecutions and he asked for a brief adjournment. Judge Tom O’Donnell agreed but said if the directions were not avail- able from the DPP on the next date he would strike the case out.

The Irish Prison Service says there were 210 mobile phones seized at Limerick Prison between October 2006 and October 2007, although most of the seizures have not led to prosecutions.

A JUDGE has warned that taxi driv- ers are entitled to protection, as he jailed a man who robbed a taxi driv- er at knifepoint, for two years. Frank Hassett (21), of Clancy Park, Ennis, pleaded guilty to the offence, at Ennis Circuit Court last week. The court was told that the taxi driver had a float of €405 with him

as he started work on May 26 last.

He received a call to go to an ad- dress on the Kilrush Road in Ennis. He went to that address and picked up a passenger. He asked to go to Kilrush and said his friend would pay when he got there.

The taxi driver didn’t agree to this. A number of locations were also mentioned and the taxi ended up in Drumbiggle. There, Hassett jumped

on top of the driver and held a knife to his throat and stole the €405.

The incident was not reported to gardai until five days later. When interviewed, Hassett told gardai he wanted to pay off drug dealers to whom he owed money. He was ad- dicted to cocaine at the time.

The taxi driver told the court he “tried to talk him down, that I was only after starting working, that I

hadn’t any money.” He said he didn’t go to work for a couple of days after the incident, but later returned. Defence barrister Lorcan Connolly said his client was “in a grave situa- tion” at the time and was fearful. Hassett has several previous con- victions but Mr Connolly said this was “the first time he has been in- volved in an incident where there was a threat of violence involved.”

Judge Carroll Moran said the of- fence was “a pretty nasty thing to do. Taxi men are entitled to protec- tion. They are exposed occasionally to danger and they must expect the courts to protect them.

“In these circumstances I can’t avoid my duty and impose a prison sentence,’ he said. He imposed a three-year jail term and suspended one year.

A 25-year-old man who served time in jail in connection with a fatal road crash which claimed the life of a Lis- doonvarna man over Six years ago has had his driver’s licence restored.

Barry Richards, of Garrybeg, Loughrask, Ballyvaughan, was con- victed of dangerous driving causing the death of John Donnellan (18), from Slieve Elva, Lisdoonvarna. Mr Donnellan lost his life in an accident on the Kilrush Road in Ennis, on May 18, 2001.

He was killed when the car in

Which he was travelling collided with a parked lorry.

In July 2002, Richards was jailed for two years and banned from driv- ing for 10 years.

Richards’ barrister Lorcan Connol- ly told Ennis Circuit Court last week that his client has served time in jail and on his release, spent some time in the UK. He has since returned to tga t-biree

He said his client is particularly tal- ented in the area of woodwork and depends on others to get “from A to B” and hopes to get a licence to drive Zio) UtSe

‘He lives in a rural area without transport. At the time of the accident he was just 19 and had a full licence,” said Mr Connolly.

“A considerable period of time has elapsed. The incident attracted some notoriety at the time. He hasn’t driv- en since,’ he said.

He said his client had been a “mod- el prisoner” and “utilised his time well” in jail.

Judge Carroll Moran said Richards “has served his penalty. He has been off the road for six-and-a-half years. The State does not object to this ap- plication. He has paid his debt”.

THE POPULATION of Ennis is ex- pected to shoot up to 35,000 by the year 2020, members of Clare County Council were told yesterday.

The members were being given a briefing on the progress of plans for Ennis as designated to be a hub town under the National Spatial Strategy.

Town Clerk, Eddie Power brought the members up to date with the is- sues involved at their adjourned monthly meeting yesterday, which was held in Scariff Community College to mark the opening of the nearby new Scariff Area Offices of the council.

Power told the elected members that it is “critical to ensure that En- nis benefits to the maximum extent” from the designation.

The purpose of hub towns, he told the meeting, is to have a supporting role for designated gateways — in this case, Limerick and Shannon.

Among the projects that have gone ahead and which are relevant to the town’s status as a hub are the im- minent start on the town’s new wa- ter treatment plant, the flood relief scheme, which is at tender stage, the

construction of the Ennis bypass and the planned new Northern Relief Road and the next section of the Inner Relief Road which will run from the Station Road to the Limerick Road.

Under the heading of hub towns of- fering a better lifestyle to residents, an extension to the Lees Road sports facility is planned in the form of a synthetic running track, while an extention to Glor is also in the off- ing and a new library is now at the design stage.

Park-and-ride facilities are also planned for Clarecastle and an ap-

plication for a bus service for Ennis has been lodged with Bus Eireann, Power said.

Cllr Michael Kelly said there had been a number of meetings concern- ing a commuter stop for Crusheen on the new Ennis to Athery road.

“This is a fast expanding town and it in extremely important we get this stop,’ he said.

Cllr Martin Lafferty described the designation of hubs as “the death- knell of development in rural areas. How is the population going to ex- pand? We are pushing people into built up areas.”

Cllr PJ Kelly said that he did not believe that a special advantage, such as hub status, can be given to one area “without leaving some other area at a disadvantage”. He referred to a book,

A TV ad that shows a road worker patting filling into a pothole with a shovel instead of re-surfacing a road has caused a major furrore in Clare County Council.

The ad is part of a series drawn up for the Irish Pride bread company un- der the slogan “Pride? You won’t find it in him, but you will in our bread”.

But the ad belittles local author- ity workers, members of the County Council claimed at the adjourned

session of their monthly meeting.

Cllr Joe Arkins called on the coun- ty manager to make a formal com- plaint about the ad to the Advertising Standards Authority.

“It’s derisory and stereotypical. We should be defending and protecting our workers at the lower end of the pay scale who do an excellent job,” he said.

Seconding Cllr Arkins’ call for a complaint to the authority, CUir Colm Curtin said the ad “is misrepresenta- tion which is totally out of date. If

anyone wants to see the quality of workmanship and dedication of our staff, they should come back to west Clare and see the job our own staff have done on the reconstruction of the bridge near Cree. It’s a testament to them.”

Cllr Michael Conway (FG) said that in addition to writing to the author- ity, the county manager should write to the Minister for the Environment, asking him to come up with funding for a counter-campaign that would show the work done by council road

staff in a positive light.

Cllr Sonny Scanlon said that it is “sad and very unfortunate for these workers, many of whom have fami- lies and already contending with the fact that they are let go before Christ- mas and for two and three months at a time. They should be on our full- time payroll.”

Other council members agreed that the ads were offensive and derisory of council workers. It was pointed out that it was all the more inappropriate as a council worker had this year lost

his life while carrying out his work.

The county manager said that he would certainly do as the members had asked. “I have on many occa- sions complimented the work being done by council workers. I have spo- ken to them and they do feel let down by negative comments. But their work is outstanding and it’s not just the ordinary day to day jobs. When it comes to things like trees blowing down in the middle of the night, they are there. We have a magnificent workforce.”

THE PLIGHT of people applying to Clare County Council for planning permission to build homes, who fall foul of the Local Rural Person rule, was hotly debated at a meeting of the local authority yesterday.

Councillor PJ Kelly (FF) said that interpretations by planning staff was giving rise to situations whereby someone who had lived “nine years and nine months in the county can be given planning permission as a local rural person but someone who was born here and went away for the last couple of years and then came back is deemed not to be a local rural per- son’.

The councillor quoted High Court judgements against other local au- thorities which showed, he said, that planning staff were “precluded from interpreting the county development plan. It is the courts’ preserve”.

He told the meeting that in one case for which he was giving reference details to the officials, “a non-local can get planning permission in 33 days but a person whose family has been living here for four generations can’t. What interpretation resulted in those decisions?”

Meanwhile, Cllr Bernard Hanra- han (FF) raised the issue of people seeking permission who had been lo-

cal rural people but who had been re- classified as urban after the extension of town boundaries under “decisions which are outside their control.

“They have been rural people all their lives but when they want to build a house in a rural area, they are turned down because a line on a map was moved.”

Mayor of Clare, Cllr Patricia Mc- Carthy (Ind) said that the committee which had been set up to examine the issue and definition of a local rural person had been meeting regularly. They had been debating that question with the planners over the last two months and were “working very hard to come up with a solution which we can live with and which the ordinary people of Clare can live with”.

She asked Cllr Hanrahan if he would agree to defer the motion he had on the issue before yesterday’s council meeting until that commit- tee finished its debate. The council- lor agreed but said that he wanted to see a report in the near future as the issue had “caused untold suffering to people around this county”’.

Councillors told the officials at- tending the meeting that the issue of what constituted a local rural person was one with which they were faced regularly, particularly where people had fallen foul of the planning proc- ess.

TWO Clare businesses have been named among Ireland’s top retailers at the FBD Crest Retail Awards Ex- cellence Awards 2007.

Patrick Bourke’s Menswear and Collins Jewellers were both singled out for recognition at the awards cer- emony held in Dromoland Castle on Saturday.

Patrick Bourke’s Menswear, O’Connell Square, Ennis, was a final- ist in the Best Large Store Western Region category. Collins Jewellers, meanwhile, was a finalist in the Best Small Store Western Region category.

The first Patrick Bourke’s Mens- wear opened in Kilrush in 1928. The family-run business has since ex- panded with two stores now open in Ennis, the first opened in 1996 and the second and biggest store, opened 12 months ago. Proprietor Patrick Bourke had been keen to launch a more up-market store while the other two stores would still serve the busi- eSMAWLod 0B

Employing 22 people, Bourke has two in-house tailors running the al- teration services. He also holds many in-store promotions and charity fash- ion shows. The store caters for almost 300 weddings a year.

Collins Jewellers again performed

strongly in the competition, having previously won the FCD Crest Best Small Store in the Western Region in 2005. Collins’ was also ranked among the top 50 stores in Ireland in 2006.

A family business, Collins Jewel- lers has been in the trade for the past 35 years. Spanning 1,600 sq feet and with a 30 ft shop front, Collins Jew- ellers is one of the most recognisea- ble shop fronts in Ennis.

The high-value attached to the Col- lins brand, in particular the stores- own Collins diamond, has seen busi- ness develop a strong reputation and attract shoppers from all over the eer eleas

The FBD Crest Retail Excellence Awards were established in 1997 to promote best practice standards in the Irish retail industry. It is now the largest awards programme of its type boasting over 400 entries annually.

This year, 429 stores entered awards and the competition was as intense as ever. The ceremony was hosted by RTE presenter Miriam O’Callaghan. Minister of State and Chief Whip Tom Kitt TD, presented the awards which were sponsored for the sev- enth consecutive year by FBD.