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CLARE’S Green Senator has shared her experience of trying to help a woman who was experiencing suicidal feelings during the lockdown earlier this year. Speaking at the meeting of the Joint Policing Committee (JPC), Senator Róisín Garvey said she was concerned for the woman, as well as the time it took to access emergency support services. She called for more detailed figures to be made available to members on the number of mental health issues Gardaí had responded to. “There has been an increase in the number of people experiencing mental health crises because of Covid-19,” she native said. “I met a woman who was suicidal and after speaking to hear for an hour, I phoned the Gardaí. I rang one of those stations that we have spent a lot of money on. The Garda couldn’t come out for 40 minutes and after that, the woman was seen by a GP. I found the whole situation deeply disturbing.” Senator Garvey …

EMERGENCY measures, to manage overcrowding, has been used at the region’s main hospital, on average, every second day of the year to the end of September. The situation has been compared, by a member of the HSE West forum, to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Figures, obtained by the Irish Patients’ Association, show that the Full Capacity Protocol was deployed at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) on 184 days. The protocol involves putting extra beds on wards and in corridors, and only the acute facility in Waterford invoked this so called ‘last resort’ more often. Councillor Cillian Murphy described the protocol as “a nice fancy name for overcrowding”. “When I hear of a solution being described as ‘low cost, high impact’, my cynicism button lights up,” he said. “When something is low cost, it is rarely high impact in a positive way. We need to get to the root of the problem and, in my view, that means getting more …

IF there is one thing to take from this pandemic, according to Father Harry Bohan, it’s that we cannot return to what was ‘normal’, the future has to be different from the past. Rearing The Future: Is The Future Our Responsibility? Reflections on Irish Society and its Institutions During And Post Pandemic is the title of a new publication from Fr Bohan. A distinguished observer of Irish society for many years, he feels that Covid-19 has thrown the country off the path it was on, and that it was necessary. “Covid-19 was an unwelcome visitor in the spring of this year. This long later it looks like it’s going to continue for some time to come. Any attempt to fully interpret it is premature, but something that struck me straight away is that our post Covid world should be very different to what we came from. I think most people would agree that the future has to be different from …

OVER 5,000 penalty point notices were issued to Clare drivers last year, with close to two-thirds of those being incurred by male drivers. The figures, released this week by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), show that the vast majority of points notices issued to Clare motorists in 2019 – 71% – were for speeding. The second most common offence incurring points, at 14%, was driving while holding a mobile phone. In relation to both of these motoring offences, men incurred a higher percentage of the points. A total of 3,620 points notices were issued last year in Clare for speeding. 60% of those were incurred by men and 40% by women. The data, which is outlined in the CSO’s latest Transport Omnibus, show that 4,838 Clare drivers got penalty points last year. The vast majority of those motorists, at 84%, clocked up three points. However, there were four drivers who incurred a total of 12 points over the course of …

A CLARE woman parted with a “substantial” sum of money after falling for a fraudster, sparking local gardaí to warn the public to be on the look out for potential ‘romance scams’ while looking for love. It has emerged that the woman met a man purporting to be a German engineer living in Galway on an online dating site. The relationship developed and they began privately messaging each other. The man told her he was involved in a project for work and needed money for materials which he would repay, however it emerged that this was a scam. Clare Crime Prevention Officer Sergeant Triona Brooks explains, “Between September and October this year a lady developed an online relationship with a man who said he was a German engineer living in Galway – the relationship started on a dating site and progressed to What’s App messages. He was very persuasive and told the lady that he was involved in a project …

WEAK broadband infrastructural across Clare has been condemned by the county chairperson of the IFA, after online mart trading collapsed recently due to pressure on the system. Level 5 restrictions have severely curtailed the operation of marts across the country with all transactions now taking place virtually. Tom Lane of Parteen said that the inadequate state of broadband infrastructure in the county had been exposed and that speeding up initiatives like the National Broadband Plan was now an urgent matter. A technical glitch, outside of the control of Clare Marts, who use an external supplier for their streaming and online sales, meant that trading was interrupted for a time last Saturday week. “There was a major problem nationwide,” Michael McNamara, the manger explained. “One of the software providers that offer livestreaming, their server crashed or was unable to handle the volume of business. Thankfully, that got resolved. It was out for two to two-and-a-half hours, but got up and running …

WELL known Ennistymon musician and actor, Steve Wall shared his personal experience of attending CBS Ennistymon in a school video to promote their open evening, which will be held next Tuesday night at 7pm. Last year, Steve was involved in a Creative Engagement Project with Transition Year students where he helped them to write lyrics for different music genres with a view to producing a song. Steve was following in the footsteps of well known entertainer Luka Bloom who has also worked with students in the school while local musician Jon O’Connell is overseeing this project this year. In fact, the collaboration between Luka and students resulted in the production of a compact disc. While CBS Ennistymon has a strong sporting tradition, principal, Mary Lyons stressed they also nurtured creativity of students who may not be interested in sport. As a former past pupil, Steve is no stranger to the school and he was delighted to contribute to the video …

THE Clare Champion’s Owen Ryan has been nominated for mental health charity Headline’s media awards for 2020. Owen’s article, The Importance of being Jamie, highlighted the experiences of Shannon’s Jamie Walsh, who after years of depression and inner torment has now embraced his transgenderism. Jamie, the son of local councillor Donna McGettigan, told Owen of his hopes for the future and the positivity he has gained from being able to be himself. The article has been nominated in the Mental Health Journalism Local Print / Online category for a single print or online news report or feature, published in a regional or local news outlet, that deals with stories, topics or issues in, about or related to mental ill health. Reacting to the nomination, Owen said, “I’m very pleased that the article has been shortlisted. It’s Jamie Walsh and Donna McGettigan’s story and I’m very grateful to them for sharing it. It is great that there is so much more …