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members of the Clare farming community could well have to travel to Naas in County Kildare to talk directly with staff in a Department of Agriculture District Veterinary Office (DVO), it emerged this week.Amid considerable controversy, Clare’s DVO in Ennis was closed in April 2010 and services have since been provided from Limerick. A senior IFA figure has now warned that any reduction in services at the Limerick DVO would be “a step too far”.Clare IFA chairman Andrew Dundas made the comments after administration staff, working in Limerick DVO, said they were told at a meeting on Monday that they are to be redeployed to Revenue within four to six weeks.The Department of Agriculture has, however, contradicted claims by staff saying that while the Limerick office is being reviewed, “no final decision has yet been made”.June Danaher, secretary of the Limerick general branch of the Civil Public and Services Union, who works in the Department of Agriculture, said, “If our …

PASSENGERS on a bus from Kilkee to the late Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe’s removal in Louth on Tuesday, fell totally silent as they approached the Lordship Credit Union where he was shot dead.That’s just one of the poignant images that Mayor of Kilkee Claire Haugh recalled when speaking of West Clare people’s journey to pay tribute to a man they knew as the husband of local woman, Caroline Deloughrey.“As we got nearer to where it happened, people fell silent on the bus. We had read about it and seen the Lordship Credit Union on TV over the weekend but to see exactly where this tragedy happened, that was the defining moment for me personally,” Councillor Haugh said.Hundreds of people travelled from West Clare on Tuesday and Wednesday to pay their respects at the removal of the remains and the funeral mass and burial.“Adrian was laid out in his own living room, surrounded by his family on Tuesday. His mother, father, …

THE hopes of tens of thousands of Irish-born people in the US have been raised after President Barack Obama threw his weight behind an overhaul of the country’s immigration system, which would include a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

SENATOR Marc Mac Sharry has claimed Shannon Airport is receiving a cash injection of €6.7 million from the Dublin Airport Authority, a claim that has been flatly denied by the DAA. The Sligo senator claimed the payment he referred to “may violate State aid regulations”.In a short statement to The Clare Champion on Wednesday, Dublin Airport Authority said such a payment is not being made. “DAA is not injecting any cash into Shannon Airport. The separation occurred on a debt-free basis.”The claim that Shannon is receiving the money was included in Senator Mac Sharry’s complaint to the European Commission but when questioned about it this week, the Sligo man refused to give any details.“Some of that information fell off the back of a truck in that I won’t be able to quote sources for you,” he claimed.While initially he had indicated he would provide some information on where he had obtained his information, he later said he couldn’t do so, …

EXPECTANT mothers in Clare, Limerick and North Tipperary were exposed to “a moderate risk” of healthcare-associated infections, according to a “snapshot of the hygiene levels” at the region’s maternity hospital.The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) carried out the unannounced inspection at the Mid-Western Regional Maternity Hospital, Limerick on November 7 last but the results were only made public on Wednesday.The report shows that while healthcare risk waste was managed effectively at ward level, it was not managed centrally in line with HSE guidelines, posing “a moderate risk to service users of healthcare-associated infections”.It also revealed that in the hand hygiene instances observed by HIQA inspectors at the hospital, just one-quarter complied with best practice.Speaking after HIQA published 12 reports on unannounced inspections at Irish hospitals, the organisation’s director of regulation, Phelim Quinn, commented, “A good hand hygiene practice is the single most important measure to protect patients from healthcare associated infections. Staff at all levels within our hospitals deserve …

THE Cliffs of Moher Visitor Centre was closed to the public on Wednesday due to concerns about strong wind. Management at the popular North Clare attraction advised against travelling to the centre as high winds continued to batter the county.Meanwhile, stormy weather this week resulted in an increase in the number of reported faults on the eircom network, with Clare among those seeing high fault volumes.As of Wednesday, there were more than 4,500 reported faults on the network and both broadband and telephone services were impacted.The storm damage has affected most of the country with particularly high fault volumes not just in Clare but also in Laois, Offaly, Westmeath, West and East Cork, Mayo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Donegal, County Cork, West Galway, County Limerick, Waterford, Meath, Wexford, Cavan, Louth and Kildare.According to a spokesperson for eircom, “All available staff have been diverted to repair teams across the country to restore service to customers as quickly as possible. Customers are reminded, where …

MULTINATIONAL drugs company Roche, which has a manufacturing base in Clarecastle, have seen an increase in profits and a rise in group sales with demand growing for cancer medicines and an increase in sales of diagnostic tests to clinical labs.The Swiss company described their results for 2012 as “strong” with group sales rising by 4% to 45.5 billion CHF (Swiss francs). The group’s core operating profit increased to 17.2bn CHF, attributed to solid sales development and an increase in royalty income. The group’s core earnings per share rose 10% to 13.62 CHF. The net income for Roche increased to 9.773bn CHF from 9.544bn CHF.Roche chief executive Severin Schwan said, “We met our financial targets, grew faster than the market and our strong pipeline positions us well for further growth”.The company stated its three top selling products, MabThera/Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin, all performed strongly in 2012.