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THE Clare Association in Dublin is to honour Kilfenora Céilí Band leader, John Lynch as the Clare man of the year for 2010. The award will be officially presented to John at the association’s annual dinner in the Red Cow Hotel, Dublin, in February.

THE role of emergency services and volunteers who helped evacuate people from their homes throughout Clare during the flooding crisis last month will be officially recognised by President Mary McAleese when she visits Ennis on Tuesday.

THERE are few hopes that Aer Lingus will renege on plans to cut 102 cabin crew jobs at Shannon in 2010 after a meeting between management, including CEO Christoph Mueller, and staff held at the Park Inn on Wednesday morning.Niall Shanahan of the Impact Trade Union said there was disappointment among workers that the outlook was so bleak.“They’ve said they’re going to forge ahead with 102 job losses under the so-called greenfield plan. That would leave between 20 and 25 cabin crew in Shannon and the plan for 2010 would be that they’d work on the Heathrow route. There was a lot of emotion and some people were devastated because they had hoped that something would be done to save more jobs.”Mr Shanahan said that, as yet, there is no definite time frame for job losses at Shannon and the fact that management went to Shannon for the meeting is an indication of their seriousness.He also said that the loss …

Before storming out of the December monthly meeting of Kilrush Town Council last Thursday night, Fianna Fáil town councillor Tom Prendeville warned the council executive and his fellow councillors that they should think twice before trying to stop him talking for more than five minutes on a motion. “God help the one that tries to stop me from making a contribution for more than five minutes,” Councillor Prendeville advised.The former county councillor made his comments in the middle of a heated exchange dealing with a change to the town council’s standing orders.The meeting voted by five votes to two, with one abstention, to curtail councillors from talking for more than five minutes on one of their motions. Until last Thursday, councillors could speak for up to 10 minutes under standing orders.The change to the standing order was proposed by Fine Gael Mayor of Kilrush, Marian McMahon Jones and seconded by Independent town councillor, Mairéad O’Brien.“I think it’s very wrong of …

SCHWARZ Pharma has declined to comment on claims that job losses are looming in the company. A company spokeswoman told The Clare Champion on Wednesday that it would not be making any comment on the situation. Just over a year ago, the company also announced the loss of 55 jobs, resulting from a global restructuring of parent company, the UCB Group.The pharmaceutical company has been based in Shannon for over 30 years, manufacturing drugs for a variety of ailments.

Shannon workers have long been used to being embroiled in industrial relations problems with Aer Rianta, now Dublin Airport Authority, and Free Zone companies but their latest cause for concern comes from within their own union. Local SIPTU figures are deeply worried that, under a restructuring plan agreed by the union at a recent conference in Tralee, Shannon Civil Aviation Branch official, Tony Carroll is to be relocated to the Cork-Kerry region and the full-time official responsible for the Shannon Free Zone is to be transferred to the Limerick City regional headquarters.Concerns also exist regarding SIPTU’s future in Ennis, with the revised regional plan proposing that the Clare branch official would move to the Galway regional centre.SIPTU’s head of communications, Frank Connolly, has dismissed claims that a decision on the restructuring proposals has been made. While a restructuring of the organisation and its premises had been agreed, he said discussions were ongoing with those who would be involved in the …

THE Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey has done a partial climb down in his nominations for the new Shannon Airport Authority but has not as yet gone back on the decision to reduce worker-director representation, which has held up the formation of the new board since mid-September.