News

REPRESSIVE restrictions surrounding the visit of Muhammad Ali to the county town on Tuesday were lifted just hours before he was received at Waterpark House, where he was conferred with the Freedom of Ennis.Until a close family associate intervened on the morning of the event, Ennis town manager, Ger Dollard, admitted that Ennis Town Council had found it very difficult to organise the civic reception and the former world heavy-weight champion’s visit to Turnpike, where his great grandfather Abe Grady was born.

CLARE IFA has called for the total removal of badgers from tuberculosis blackspots following the revelation that the county has the highest number of bovine reactors per 1,000 tests in Ireland.Official figures obtained by The Clare Champion reveal that tuberculosis (TB) is on the increase in Clare herds since 2006. Of the 6,361 herds in Clare in 2006, 173 had to be restricted from selling at marts or private sales, apart from slaughter, following 1,342 reactors. It breaks down to 3.58 reactors per 1,000 tests.

A SOUTH-East Clare publican has vowed to drop the price of a pint to just €3, in a desperate bid to halt a dramatic 40% decline in business over the past year.The proprietor of The Mill Bar in O’Briensbridge, Kathleen Sciascia, actually closed her pub early at 10.30pm on Monday night because there were no customers.Concerned about the fall off in business over the summer months, Ms Sciacsia, who employs eight full-time and six part-time staff, has warned that if trade doesn’t improve she will be forced to curtail working hours for employees and rates of pay.

WITH a month left to go until the second Lisbon vote, it’s looking like the yes side will reverse last year’s result and this week, the Ireland for Europe group launched their Clare campaign. Former hurling star, Brian Lohan lent his support to the launch, which was held in Shannon on Wednesday but declined to speak about the upcoming poll. Scariff based Michael McNamara – who ran as an independent candidate in June’s European election – was also at the launch and he said the referendum hasn’t been won yet. “I’m very hopeful that it will pass but there’s no room for complacency. It is a very difficult document to sell and I think we have a large absence of trust in the country at the moment. There are no moral forces that are trusted any more. Politics is crumbling, the church has its problems and people are very reluctant to trust anybody. And people are very disenchanted, they’re unhappy …

EVEN in death, the late Dr Brendan O’Regan can be a peacemaker and bring rival neighbours Clare and Limerick closer together by naming the €500 million Shannon tunnel-connection in his honour.So says Clare Fine Gael Deputy, Pat Breen, and his suggestion would have the support of the Irish Peace Institute, which was one of the conflict resolution bodies founded by the late Dr O’Regan.

A MULTI-million-euro housing development, which if it goes ahead will be the biggest to date in the mid-Clare village of Sixmilebridge, was given the green light this week after an appeal to An Bord Pleanála failed. The application for 223 homes in Sixmilebridge was granted planning permission in October 2008 by Clare County Council, a decision affirmed by An Bord Pleanála subject to revised conditions. The original application was for 233 homes, comprising six three-bedroom detached houses, three four-bedroom detached homes, 38 three-bedroom semi-detached houses, 25 three-bedroom townhouses, 75 two-bedroom duplex units, 22 three-bedroom duplex units, 10 three-bedroom stepdown garden apartment units, 34 two-bedroom garden apartment units and 10 one-bedroom garden apartment units. However, An Bord Pleanála, as one of its conditions, scaled down the development omitting 26 housing units, bringing the total number of homes in the proposed development to 197.  

MEMBERS of Clare’s three Community Development Projects will this week march alongside their colleagues from across the country at Liberty Hall in Dublin having come out against the possible implementation of the McCarthy Report.

WITH the stroke of a pen someone in Dublin can wreak devastation for the vulnerable members of Clare’s rural community by signing off on the rural transport programme.That’s the opinion of Councillor PJ Ryan, who stressed that the community-based transport service responds to the needs of today. It keeps communities alive and, if anything, the network needs to be more extensive rather than faced with fighting for what they have, he said.