News

Suicide rates are up, there are more homeless people on the streets and many people face financial stress, work worries and relationship breakdown. The challenges of this recession are impossible to avoid and the damage to mental health is now evident.

THE WEEK IN POLITICS We need a general election now like we need a hole in the head. A general election would certainly put an end to Fianna Fáil’s long years in power. It would almost certainly provide us with a new Fine Gael/Labour coalition and probably with Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.

The residents of Cappa Lodge in Sixmilebridge have created a sense of pride and cultivated greater community spirit through their efforts to improve their estate but their hard work has earned them the title of Clare’s best kept estate.

CONCERN Worldwide’s director of public affairs, Richard Dixon likes to consider himself a Clare man. He’s not from Clare. He belongs to that group of Clare exiles living in Dublin who believe in their hearts that they are from Clare.

EDITORIAL NOT for the first time, political promises have a hollow ring to them, particularly those vouched for the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Ennis.

THE CIAN EDGE The results of the Irish Times Behaviour and Attitudes poll published recently make for very refreshing reading. The stats reveal a tolerant, mature nation with clearly formed ideas on morality, ethics and social progress.

THE promoters of a proposed windfarm development in West Clare, believed to involve an investment of about €100 million for the local economy, have insisted there is “nothing sinister” in the provision of a confidentiality clause in its lease agreement with prospective landowners.

RESIDENTS of a house in North Clare were this week found to have been living with levels of cancer-causing radon gas equivalent to having 12 chest X-rays per day.