GALWAY City Council this week pledged funding to help keep Galway Airport operating but it is claimed that it isn’t going to compete with Shannon in the foreseeable future.Galway Chamber is the majority shareholder in the Carnmore facility and its CEO, Michael Coyle, said that while he believes the airport has a future, it won’t be cutting across Shannon.“We’re trying to buy time, retain it as a licensed aerodrome, we don’t see it competing in any way, shape or form, with Shannon or Knock.”While Galway currently has no scheduled services run by airlines, it is still used on a certain scale. “It received no subsidy in 2012 but still managed to survive with small charter flights, private aircraft, private company aircraft and the Air Corps using it for emergency air ambulance services and training and so on.”He said the last few years have been tough for Galway. “It was in receipt of a PSO (public service obligation funding) on the …

BUS Éireann services in Clare and around the country are likely to cease on Sunday, due to a dispute regarding cost-saving measures.The company plan to reduce overtime rates from 1.5 times to 1.25 times; reduce shift, premium and rota payments; cut allowances and expense payments by 33.3%; reduce annual leave and increase the working week for clerical and executive staff from 36 to 39 hours.The measures are due to come into effect on Sunday but Dermot Healy, who represents the Mid-West Region on the national executive of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) warned that if such a move is made, members will strike.Speaking to The Clare Champion on Wednesday, Mr Healy warned, “All I can say to you at this stage is that if the company persists in putting through these pay cuts on Sunday, our members will not be at work.”He said that at the moment there are no talks taking place to reach an agreement.Mr Healy …

KILKEE town councillors have again queried why no Fás Community Employment Scheme is based in the resort town. They raised the matter at Monday’s January meeting of Kilkee Town Council, when Councillor Lily Marrinan-Sullivan said she had received correspondence from a local TD on the issue. However, she expressed dissatisfaction with the content of the letter. “I received another letter from one of the local TDs. It’s just lip service. If you read the letter, it’s really saying nothing, only telling us what we do have. What is quite clear is we do not have a Fás scheme in Kilkee, like they have in other towns throughout Clare. If there was mistakes made in Fás schemes the town should not be penalised for it,” Councillor Marrinan Sullivan maintained. “Sending back letters telling us how many schemes that there are in Clare, how many places we have in Kilkee and where it’s being directed from, to me is of no value …

AN increase in respiratory and other illnesses has been blamed for a seasonal surge in admissions, which resulted in 12 in-patients being accommodated on trolleys at Mid-Western Regional Hospital Ennis on Wednesday.The current overcrowding at Ennis hospital has prompted the Mid-West Health Service Executive to request Clare patients to avoid attending the hospital unless it is absolutely necessary.A HSE spokesman confirmed on Wednesday evening that Ennis hospital was extremely busy coping with the seasonal rise in post-Christmas illnesses.He said the increase in Norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, was putting acute hospitals throughout the country under strain at the moment.Meanwhile, as a precaution, a full ban on visiting is in still in place at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Dooradoyle, Limerick to curb the winter vomiting bug.Visiting to all wards at the hospital is prohibited with the exception of critically ill patients but in no circumstances should anyone attempt to visit a critically ill patient without first contacting nursing staff.Only …

GARDAÍ in East Clare have described a pipe bomb found at a house on the Main Street in Tulla as a “viable, experimental device” and although it was not a very elaborate device, “had it activated, it had the potential to cause damage”.According to Inspector John O’Sullivan of Killaloe Garda Station, the discovery was made on the back of arrests made earlier on Tuesday in the Tulla area.In addition to the discovery of a pipe bomb, further follow-up searches conducted in the Sixmilebridge area on Wednesday resulted in the seizure of €1,700 worth of cannabis.“Two gardaí from Scariff were on a routine patrol in and around Tulla. They stopped a car. There were two males in the car, one a juvenile and the other aged 22. In the car they found drug paraphernalia and they also found some shotgun cartridges. “The car was seized and the two were brought to Killaloe Garda Station, initially for a search, and they were …

ALMOST a year to the day after a controlled explosion had to be carried out on a gas canister that washed up on one of the county’s most popular beaches, members of the army bomb disposal team were called back to Lahinch on Friday to examine a similar object.A member of the public noticed a long metal cylinder in the water at low tide at Lahinch beach around 2pm on Thursday last and reported it to gardaí in Ennistymon. Gardaí contacted the Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit but the bomb disposal experts were unable to examine the object until low tide on Friday. The area was sealed off while the bomb disposal specialists inspected the object but was quickly reopened when the item was deemed to be an industrial gas canister. The item was removed from the beach by members of the Doolin unit of the Irish Coast Guard.Last year, on January 7, the army bomb disposal unit carried …

FOLLOWING the shock announcement of the closure of the Woodstock Hotel in Ennis, hopes have been expressed that the expected boost in tourism from Shannon Airport’s independence could attract a new owner for the hotel.Staff at the four-star hotel on the Shanaway Road were called to a meeting last Friday afternoon where they were told that the hotel would be shutting its doors, with 60 staff losing their jobs.No official reason has been given for the closure of the hotel, operated by Fortwilliam Catering Ltd and part of Great National Hotels. However it is understood that a substantial sum was owed to creditors, with a creditors meeting set to be held later this month.President of the Irish Hoteliers Federation and Lahinch hotelier Michael Vaughan described the closure as “absolutely shocking”. He believes reopening the hotel is a possibility in the long term and that it could benefit from a more ‘family run’ management structure.“Everybody in the tourism business would be …

ALTHOUGH Kilkee Town Councillors had just one motion between them on the agenda for the January meeting of the council, the meeting heard that restricted time in December prevented them from forwarding more motions for their first monthly gathering of 2013. “Just for the record, in case the word goes out that we’re sitting back and doing nothing and that’s why we’ve no motions, to have a motion in for today’s meeting we would have had to have it in by December 19,” Councillor Paddy Collins explained. “It was only a week and a half after the last meeting,” he added. The sole motion on the agenda was brought forward from the December meeting. It pertained to The Gathering and asked that Kilkee Town Council invite members of Kilkee Chamber of Commerce to have a discussion on the Kilkee Gathering.  It was forwarded by Councillor Michael ‘Hopper’ McGrath, who admitted that he hadn’t spoken to anybody about the motion since …