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Regional

€2.4m in uncollected local authority rates

MORE than 70 court summonses have been issued by Ennis Town Council in respect of uncollected rates, it has emerged, with the local authority vowing that “every effort” will be made to recover outstanding monies owed. At this week’s meeting of Ennis Town Council, it was revealed that €2,427,374 in rates is temporarily uncollectable by the local authority as of March 23 of this year. This represents more than one-third of the rate demand, at 33.73%.As of December 31, 2011 the amount of temporary uncollectable rates balance stood at €2,901,374, representing 40.32% of the rate demand for 2011. However, €474,000 has been collected in rates to March 23, 2012.In 2011, Ennis Town Council had irrecoverable rates, of €502,755 which represented 6.99% of the rate demand for that year. These irrecoverable rates related to rates which were not legally collectable, such as demolished/vacant properties, charitable organisations and properties owned by the HSE.According to town clerk, Leonard Cleary, the current temporary uncollectable …

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Big wave award nomination for Ollie

Lahinch man Ollie O’Flaherty was last week nominated in the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards. This is an annual event where surfers world-wide vie for the biggest wave of the year. His wave, caught off Mullaghmore Head, County Sligo in March, has been short-listed in the biggest wave category.Ollie started surfing at age four under the tutelage of his uncle, Lahinch surfer Alan Coyne. In the last few years he has pushed hard to reach the forefront of Irish surfing, with photographs of him appearing regularly in Irish and British surf media.On March 8, Ollie rose before dawn to make the drive from Lahinch to county Sligo. “I kinda knew going up that day it was gonna be big, real big,” he explains. What he did not realise was that he would soon be surfing the biggest waves ever ridden in Irish waters.Once waves reach a certain size it becomes impossible to catch them using the conventional paddle-in method: …

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Abbey conservation progress slammed

The old Franciscans seem to have built the Ennis Franciscan Abbey quicker than the Office of Public Works ongoing conservation works, a local county councillor has claimed.Clare County Councillor Tony Mulqueen has criticised the OPW for its failure to complete conservation works on the historic 13th century abbey, branding it a “disgrace”.Councillor Mulqueen expressed grave concern about the closure of the abbey for the last three years to facilitate works being completed by the OPW.The Fine Gael councillor told an Ennis East Electoral Area meeting the whole abbey was boarded up, which meant that tourists who wanted to stop off in a visit to a medieval site in the centre of town couldn’t even see the building.His late father, Frank, had the keys to the abbey at his adjoining flower business during the 50s and would open the abbey for visitors.Councillor Mulqueen said the amount of tourists standing outside the building was amazing yet they couldn’t even take a photograph …

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Difficulties with Clarecastle development highlighted

Clare County Council has been requested to clarify whether a planning bond will cover an unspecified list of outstanding issues concerning a relatively new housing estate in Clarecastle.Concern about the delay in resolving a number of problems affecting Inis Clair, Kildysart Road, Clarecastle, were highlighted by Councillor Paul Murphy at a recent Ennis East Electoral Area meeting.With 59 houses and a large number of apartments in this estate, the Fine Gael councillor considers the issue is a matter of urgency.Councillor Murphy requested the council to brief him on any attempts that may have been made by the developer or receiver in having this estate publicly taken in charge. “I am led to believe that this has been a problem for over two years and that there are several issues to be resolved, such as public lighting, sewerage problems and general work within the development. “The residents committee has contacted the receiver on several occasions, trying to get these works carried …

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Garda presence necessary for pedestrianisation

NEW plans for the pedestrianisation of the main streets in Ennis at weekends will not work unless there is a visible garda presence, Councillor Tony Mulqueen has warned.“If you close the streets to traffic, you need a visible garda presence. You also need to have parking for shops to facilitate deliveries and collections,” he said.Councillor Mulqueen said some shops in Ennis had to close their premises on St Patrick’s Day because of children engaging in anti-social behaviour, using spray paint and shaving foam.His comments came following a proposal from Councillor James Breen to pedestrianise the streets in Ennis for the month of June and July between 5 to 10pm on Fridays; 5pm to 9pm on Saturdays and 11am to 6pm on Sundays.Councillor Breen explained that most shops in Ennis are closed at 6pm, which provides ample time to facilitate collections or deliveries.Even in large cities in other counties, he explained that local authorities had managed to remove all cars to …

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Cloughleigh kids are literally top of the class

WHEN it comes to spelling, first-class pupils at Scoil Chríost Rí in Cloughleigh are top of the class.The pupils came up trumps by scoring excellently in the recent World Spelling Day event, earning the accolade of Ireland’s ‘Top Class’ at spelling.World Spelling Day is a competition where children can play 100 games, 20 games at each level and then answer as many questions in 60 seconds. This year, 5.3 million children from 218 countries, including hundreds of schools from all over Ireland, participated. The event encourages pupils of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to have a go at spelling in a fun, interactive and accessible way. Best of all participation in World Spelling Day is free, all pupils need is internet access.Cloughleigh pupils competed in real time against others from around the world playing spelling games on the World Spelling Day website www.worldspellingday.com. In the lead-up, pupils in Scoil Chríost Rí were very busy practising their spelling skills. All classes …

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Mentor Graphics invests $15m in data centre

EAST Park-based Mentor Graphics has opened its newly constructed regional data centre, which was developed at a cost of some $15 million.Seven jobs have been created to date and a similar amount of jobs are set to follow in the next few years, according to site manager Martin Gennery. “We’ve spent $15m installing a new consolidated regional data centre. This facility is to host up to 6,000 servers, which will be used by the 1,000 software development engineers that Mentor Graphics has in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.“We’ve added about seven [employees] so far and in the next three years we’ll probably add another seven. The rate of growth is something that’s hard to predict because there are so many other factors. There’s a technology change called virtualisation, which is driving a lot of growth. We’ve built two halls in the data centre and in the next three years we’ll fill hall one and then spill over into the …

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