Motoring

A POTENTIALLY devastating accident was averted on a county Clare motorway on Monday evening after a motorist drove the wrong way into oncoming traffic. Traffic was brought to a standstill after an elderly man drove up an off ramp travelling north into southbound lanes. A quick-thinking motorist stopped her vehicle when she saw the car driving on the wrong side of the motorway. The woman’s car was then struck from behind by another vehicle. The woman and the driver of the second car escaped injury while the errant driver did not collide with any of the vehicles. The elderly man driver realised his mistake when he saw vehicles stopped in front of him and pulled safely into the hard shoulder. The incident happened shortly before 6pm just north of junction 10 at Carrigoran near Newmarket-on-Fergus. Emergency services rushed to the scene and found that an elderly man had entered the motorway at Carrigoran by driving up the off ramp and …

GARDAI have advised the Clare public to be more careful about security saying one third of cars broken into are unlocked at the time. The advice comes in the wake of a spate of thefts from parked cars around the county. On November 9, at 2.40am a resident in the Glassan estate on the Lahinch Road rang Ennis Garda Station to say that a male was acting suspiciously in the driveway of a house. Gardaí went immediately to the scene and a male in his mid-30s who was seen leaving the estate on a bike was arrested and detained at Ennis Garda Station. This male was found to be in possession of a black Samsung phone which had been stolen on the previous date from an unlocked car on the Kilrush Road in Ennis. This male was subsequently charged and brought in custody before Ennis District Court where bail was refused. In another incident that occurred between 5pm on Wednesday …

A BUNRATTY teenager is part of an all-girl team of Transition Year students in Laurel Hill Secondary School FCJ Limerick, taking part in a competition to design, engineer and manufacture a model Formula 1 car, writes Conor Clohessy. Maya Rooney (16) is the engineer for the the “Formula 1 in Schools” project, in which they will , blueprint the miniature car through computer design programmes; it is her responsibility to work around prototypes. The project is headed by the team manager Aaliyah Coughlan (15), who is responsible for ensuring everything runs smoothly across the board throughout the complex process. Other members include resources officer Lara Sheehan, designer Eva Kiely, fundraising and sponsorship officer Andrea Forde, and social media manager Ameenah Husseini – all 15. Maya explained: “First of all, me and Eva have to design our prototype on paper, and we work together to put it into design. While we do that, the rest of the team work on finding …

A DRIVER who hit a speed of 200km/h on a motorway in Clare could have caused “devastation and death,” a judge has warned. Judge Mary Larkin was speaking at Ennis District Court where she imposed a two year driving ban on Frankie Mongan (25). Mongan, with an address at Thornfield Drive, Lisnamult, Co Roscomon, was before the court on a charge of dangerous driving but was convicted of careless driving after the State accepted his plea to the lesser charge. In evidence, garda Cyril Page said he and a colleague were operating a speed checkpoint at the M18, Carrigoran near Newmarket-on-Fergus on July 5, 2021. The garda said that at 7.35pm he detected a car travelling at 174km/h in a 120km/h zone. The court heard gardai pursued and the car driven by Mongan hit a speed on 200km/h. The pursuit came to an end when Mongan pulled in, the court heard. Judge Mary Larkin said, “I can’t imagine getting my …

AFTER years of campaigning residents of Corrovorrin “see light at the end of the tunnel” with confirmation that a mini roundabout is set to be installed on the Tulla Road, writes Jessica Quinn. It is expected this will mean an end to frustratingly long delays for residents trying to exit Kevin Barry Avenue onto the busy Tulla Road. A special meeting of the Ennis Municipal District heard details of the plans for a Low Cost Safety Scheme on the junction with Kevin Barry Avenue at Corrovorrin. The improved junction layout on the R352 will facilitate “safer access and egress from Kevin Barry Ave” through a mini roundabout, removal of parking spaces, installation of bollards, refurbishment of road lining and marking and realignment of footpaths, the local authority has outlined. Speaking after the meeting in which councillors gave the plan their backing, local resident Tom Verling said, “This is absolutely brilliant, it’s been a long time coming, going back to the …

In Make A Difference, given cars will remain in our lives for some time yet, Bridget Ginnity explores the options ELECTRIC cars are hailed as the new kid on the block but in fact they aren’t that new. Back when the environmental challenge was getting rid of horse dung from the streets, the main contenders to replace horse-drawn carriages were electric and internal combustion (petrol) cars. Henry Ford of Model T car fame and the inventor Nikola Tesla put a lot of effort into developing electric cars with a longer range but to no avail and the internal combustion car took over. It wasn’t until Elon Musk took over the mantle that batteries really improved. His Tesla range includes the Model 3, named in honour of the Model T. Musk shared his battery technology with the major car manufacturers to get them moving and all the major automotive companies now offer electric cars. As part of the climate action plan, …

THIS year’s Budget has been labelled ‘a giveaway’, though it appears most of the concessions by the government are modest ones. If not that, then they are so thinly spread as to make little difference to anyone. In the area of personal taxation, in an income tax package worth close to €520 million, the standard rate band will increase by €1,500 and will also see the increase of each of the personal tax credits, employee tax credits and earned income credits by €50. Meanwhile, a full-time worker on the minimum wage will remain outside the top rates of the Universal Social Charge and the ceiling of the second USC rate band will be increased from €20,687 to €21,295. Workers will be able to earn €36,800 before hitting the top rate of income tax, up from €35,300. Also, the income tax credits to rise by €50.#Budget2022. — Charlie Weston (@CWeston_Indo) October 12, 2021 The exemption from the top rate of USC …

BUS Éireann has confirmed there are no current plans to allocate staff to Ennis bus station. The national transport company was responding to a Dáil Question from Independent TD Michael McNamara. The lack of staff at the station had also been raised recently by Councillor Mary Howard who had expressed fear that the station could become a “hotspot of anti-social behaviour”. “It can be a scary place and we want to ensure that we don’t have those issues in Ennis.” Deputy McNamara had asked the Minister for Transport his plans to allocate staff to Ennis bus station “given the very high number of staycations around the county and the lack of services available to them at Ennis bus station.” The Department of Transport referred the question to Bus Éireann which responded, “There are no current plans to allocate staff to the station. “Bus Éireann, is currently working on a nationwide upgrade to all our information displays in stations including Ennis, …