The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A PROTEST is planned for Shannon Town Council’s next meeting, against the continued closure of the local leisure centre.
A Facebook campaign has been established seeking its reopening and hundreds of people are backing it.
The centre was closed in January of last year and expected to open again around 20 weeks later. However, it is still closed now and no date has been given for its reopening.
The situation is particularly difficult for workers, according to Mary O’Donnell of SIPTU.
“Going back to 2008, the company wrote to staff and were told that it would be closing for 21 weeks. We wrote to the secretary and we stated that we were not accepting it. We offered an option to allow the work to go ahead with the centre staying open, which would have allowed people to stay at work.”
She said that while management had initially indicated that they would accept it, ultimately, the decision was taken to close the centre entirely.
Ms O’Donnell also said that attempts to find out what was delaying the reopening had failed. She claimed that workers’ stamps have now run out, while they haven’t received redundancy. “They really have been treated very badly,” she commented.
Shannon Town Councillor Gerry Flynn said that he will be bringing a motion before the town council meeting regarding the closure.
Regarding the protest, he said that people shouldn’t be “piggybacking” on what he said was a serious matter for workers.
“It’s a very serious issue; a considerable number of people have been out of work for 14 months. Letters have been sent by the union on behalf of the workers but they’ve received no response whatsoever. I’ve a motion for discussion and I’ll be asking for answers from Clare County Council. They’re the landlords and they supply a substantial amount of money to it.”
He said that workers had been treated very badly. “The bottom line is that the workers there are being blackguarded. Their stamps have run out and as of yet, they haven’t been told what’s going to happen with the leisure centre.”
