News

REPRESENTATIVES from the Irish Heart Foundation visited Ennis Golf Club this week to present a plaque for display in the clubhouse that recognises the club as offically ‘Heartsafe’. It is the first golf club in Clare to have achieved this award.The Heartsafe Community Programme aims to provide Ennis Golf Club members and staff with the information, support and motivation to strengthen the ‘Chain of Survival’ in the club in the event of a cardiac emergency. According to club secretary John Cullinane, “The club is committed to improving survivability of members, staff and visitors from cardiac events by laying down policies and procedures to this effect. The polices include promotion of heart healthy lifestyle habits, raising awareness of basic lifesaving techniques through training and keeping as many club and staff members as possible up to date in the approved methods of CPR and AED use. “We have made a very good start this year and thank the 97 members who have …

CLARE County Councillors have agreed not to proceed with the construction of any new permanent group housing schemes for Travellers and to continue excluding the provision of transient sites.An amendment to the 2009 to 2013 Traveller Accommodation Programme was passed without a vote at a recent meeting. This was despite claims from Pavee Point the decision not to build any more Traveller dwellings in group schemes, which were identified in the 2009 to 2013 programme, was in breach of the 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act.Martin Collins of Pavee Point has pledged to refer the approval of a new draft amendment to the council’s existing 2009 to 2013 Traveller Accommodation Programme to the National Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee.The committee, which includes representatives from the Department of the Environment, oversees the implementation of the 1998 Traveller Accommodation Act by local authorities.Traveller Accommodation Committee chairman, Councillor Brian Meaney, stated Travellers did not want to live in group schemes and noted other accommodation types are …

“You find unexpected friends on both sides and in order to protect them – and keep them as sources of private information – you wind up knowing a lot of things you can’t print, or which you can only say without even hinting at where they came from.” – Hunter S Thompson (1937 – 2005) THERE was a moment on a recent episode of Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3 which caused me to shrink with embarrassment on the part of one of the guests. The health policy analyst and journalist Sarah Burke implied on air that something had been said during the break which radically contradicted what was being said on air that night. Vincent Browne immediately jumped in and stated that it was “unfair” to repeat what was said during the break. He was clearly flustered by what had happened and I’m sure I was not alone in my cringing reaction to it. The incident became the launch …

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) is facing renewed calls from the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) for the provision of a renal dialysis satellite centre at Ennis hospital after spending over €1.2 million transporting patients in the Mid-West to hospital appointments last year.

HISTORIAN Paul Markham, who hosted an American Wake in Kilmurry McMahon last Thursday night, has calculated that approximately 10% of the population of two adjoining parishes has emigrated inside the last three years.

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MICROBIOLOGICAL compliance in Clare County Council’s public water supplies was 100% for the second successive year in 2011, according to a new report published today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).