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A KILRUSH mother of a former drug addict has told The Clare Champion that drugs have been available in the town for as long as she can remember. “Drugs have been in this town since I’ve been a kid, starting from LSD to ecstasy. That’s going back to when I was 11. I could see it then. When I got into my teens, it became more prominent, as my brother had got into it. I remember passing a comment to a then councillor, who is no longer there. I said ‘you’d want to start doing something about drugs in the town.’ I was told back then, ‘will you go away and stop talking rubbish. There’s no such thing as drugs in Kilrush’,” she recalled. Aside from her son, the mother has other younger children whom she is trying to ensure do not take drugs. “You can’t be there holding their hands all the time. The one thing I instil into …

By Peter O’Connell A Kilrush mother thinks people who seek treatment, locally, for heroin addiction have obstacles placed in their way. “There isn’t a methadone programme in Kilrush. Kilkee is only a small seaside town and they’re getting methadone up there,” she said, before detailing what is involved, locally, in the programme. The woman, whose son has received treatment for drug addiction, said, “It’s normally a two-year programme. To get you off the heroin, they’ll put you on a dosage of methadone and, over a period of two years, they’ll lower the dosage. Once a week, you’ll pick up your prescription. I think you take it in liquid form on the premises. Then you have the after-care, which is in Limerick. “So if you’re on heroin and you want to go on the programme, you can’t get the methadone or the after-care in Kilrush. “While you’re doing the programme, you have no facility in Kilrush to help you to come …

The playground in Lahinch, which was badly damaged by storms earlier this year, will be one of the beneficiaries of a white collar boxing event taking place in Ennis next month. Tide versus Pride is being organised as a joint fundraiser for Lifford AFC and Lahinch Playground Rescue Fund. Lahinch playground has been closed for months because of the severe storm damage and the committee behind it are hoping to have it reopened before the summer. “We need to get the ground works finished in it to install the accessible equipment. We wanted to do this before the storm damage and had started fundraising for that but if we don’t have a playground, we can’t get more equipment. Accessible equipment is quite pricey. It would be about €20,000 for that alone, just for the equipment and its installation,” said committee member, Nicola Hartigan. “Unfortunately, the playground is still closed and we have signs up indicating that but people are not …

ELECTED for another five years late this evening, Fine Gael’s Gabriel Keating said his vote climbed during the day like a jumbo jet. He said he was always confident. “I had the work done and I felt it would come right. My vote this morning was low, it was two or three hundred behind some of the lads that I thought would get there, but it climbed and climbed and climbed.” It was a very different campaign to 2009, he claimed. “It was a different campaign because five years ago I was really taking the seat that had been held by Madeline Taylor Quinn. This time we had two candidates, an ex Fine Gael and a Fine Gael candidate from Kilrush. But I had great support, great canvassers with me. “As the day went on I was climbing, it (his vote) was like a 747 going up all the time,” he added.  

There are signs of a Fianna Fáil resurgence in West Clare as party men will occupy four out of the eight council seats in the electoral area for the next five years. Sitting councillor Michael Hillery (FF) was elected in the 11th count. He puts part of his vote down to the elimination of Fine Gael’s Corofin-based candidate Gerry Kennedy. “When the tally came in yesterday and I had almost 1400 votes I thought I was in fourth position so I thought I was quite safe. Looking at the overall tally I knew there were a lot of candidates in the Southern section of the area and when they would be eliminated I wouldn’t get many votes from that particular area and that is what would happen but when Gerry Kennedy was eliminated that is when the thing changed around and it looked good from there on in and I’m delighted that it resulted in me being elected in Clare,” …

CLARE TD Michael McNamara has launched a scathing attack on his party’s front bench saying that  all but one of them need to go as soon as possible. While the rivalry between Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton has been simmering for at least three years now, he feels that neither of them should hold the leadership of the party. Speaking to The Champion tonight, he said that it’s time for a huge clear out. “If we remain in Government I think there’s a case to be made for Brendan Howlin given his portfolio but for the rest, everyone’s time comes, mine will come too.” He says that Labour must heed the election results and not dismiss them as part of a normal electoral cycle. “We have to listen to the people and it’s not just a mid term thing, there’s a lot of disillusionment about promises that were broken. ” While he acknowledged that Labour would probably have suffered from …

Councillor Richard Nagle, (FF) has been re-elected to Clare County Council. Shortly after 6pm Councillor Nagle was elected as the second councillor to West Clare, after Christy Curtin (NP). Councillor Nagle paid tribute to his canvassers and all who had helped him get elected, especially his family, “who have seen very little of me over the last three months and did everything possible to support me and put up with my moods during the campaign.” “It is equally as tough on family members as it is on the candidate because during a long campaign, extending over three months candidates have various mood swings going from highs to lows and the people living with them have to put up with those mood swings and everyone in my family helped out in several ways, not just in one way and it is as difficult, if not more difficult, for family members as it is for the candidate. Today is one of the …

Gerard Kennedy (FG) didn’t get the birthday present he was hoping for today after a recount of the West Clare electoral area saw him eliminated. Mr Kennedy requested the recount after he was eliminated on the fifth vote with just six votes separating him from Fianna Fáil’s Pat Keane. “The advice I got was that it was worth having a recount because at that stage we didn’t know what the story was. I was always under pressure in the position I was in because so many of the candidates around me were all from the Southern end of the constituency so I was unlikely to pick up any transfers,” he told the ‘Champion. Yesterday (Saturday) it looked like Mr Kennedy had polled much worse than his 1,010 first preferences. Tallies showed him more than 200 below this. “I was very disappointed because I thought that 780 was a poor enough reflection on what we had done on the canvas, and …