EDITORIAL

Clare Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley walked the walk last Sunday when he participated in the public protest against the proposed Limerick City boundary extension into South-East Clare.
However, he went a step further when he told The Clare Champion he would oppose the proposed boundary extension into Clare in any future vote in Dáil Éireann.
“If there is a vote in the Dáil, I will not support a boundary extension into Clare,” he said.
Clear and unequivocal, Deputy Dooley will be expected to follow up on this commitment when Environment Minister John Gormley’s proposals are put to the House in the near future.
Speaking after Sunday’s protest, Mr Dooley claimed drawing a new line on a map to bring 3,000 Clare people into Limerick City would not create one new job. He said there is no justification for extending the boundary into Clare to solve issues in Limerick City.
Lest there be any suggestion that Deputy Dooley got caught up in the excitement of the protest and had a sudden mental aberration, he reiterated his position on Tuesday at a meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, attended by Taoiseach Brian Cowen and members of the Cabinet.
In what could be seen as an own goal on the part of the Fianna Fáil Press Office, the office issued a statement on behalf of Mr Dooley on Wednesday, in which he outlined how he told parliamentary party colleagues that “he will not support any legislation that looks to move the Limerick boundary into Clare”. Deputy Dooley was speaking on his motion rejecting the proposed extension of Limerick City into Clare.
The motion, which received unanimous support from the parliamentary party, said, “That this parliamentary party supports the decision of Clare County Council to protect its boundary and rejects the proposed extension of Limerick City into South-East Clare”.
In his statement, Mr Dooley said, “Given how strongly I feel about this subject and how sensitive an issue it is in Clare, I felt I had to leave the Taoiseach and the Government in no doubt as to where I stood. I told everyone at the parliamentary party meeting that as far as I was concerned, the proposals brought forward to extend the Limerick boundary into Clare were illegitimate, unnecessary and farcical in the extreme.”
Supporting a motion in a Fianna Fáil conclave is one thing but Deputy Dooley can hardly expect the same level of support when the real test comes in Dáil votes. When the party whip is applied, he won’t find too many standing by him.
Nevertheless, Mr Dooley’s remarks represent yet another significant challenge from within party ranks to the embattled Taoiseach, who has received similar shots across the bow from a number of other Fianna Fáil deputies in respect of issues in their areas.
But if Mr Dooley doesn’t hold firm, there will be a lot of very disappointed people in South-East Clare, many of whom walked from Westbury to Athlunkard Bridge on Sunday with a simple message, “Clare says no to Limerick boundary”.
The same expectation of support from Defence Minister Tony Killeen is not there. He was not at the demonstration, citing Cabinet confidentiality as the reason why he can’t outline his personal views after the boundary extension was briefly discussed at a recent Cabinet meeting.
That’s not to suggest that Minister Killeen is not concerned about the prospect of part of his constituency being annexed or that, behind the scenes, he’s not trying to do something about it. The burning question is, however, will Minister Killeen be able to influence a change at Cabinet level that will quell the anger at what many Clare people view as a Limerick City land grab, irrespective of how the benefits to be gained for the city and region are explained in the Limerick Local Government Report?
Local Councillor Cathal Crowe has expressed every faith in Mr Killeen’s powers of persuasion, noting he has the same standing as John Gormley in terms of political clout at the Cabinet table and is ideally placed to protect Clare’s interests.
Mr Crowe believes, “The Government can easily adopt the main thrust of the Limerick Local Government Report without the recommendations affecting Clare and send it back to the committee with a new direction”.
But it must surely be wishful thinking to expect things to pan out like that. It is highly unlikely that Denis Brosnan and his team would be asked to go back to the drawing board to reconsider such a fundamental element of their comprehensive report. The best one could hope for would be minor changes.
The reality is that if Mr Killeen does not win concessions, as a Government minister he will have to accept collective Cabinet responsibility in whatever decision is arrived at. Unlike Deputy Dooley, he won’t be able to consider crossing the Dáil chamber or abstaining on any vote forced by the Opposition on the issue.
Clare voters might be inclined to forgive Minister Killeen because of his Cabinet responsibilities but Deputy Dooley might well suffer if he doesn’t quite literally hold his line on the Clare boundary controversy. He hasn’t left himself too much wriggle room and his political future may be at stake.

Talking up Shannon

SHANNON Airport director, Martin Moroney, is presenting a positive outlook for the airport despite the fact that several Ryanair and transatlantic services are coming close to being axed or scaled back for the winter.
This week, he discounted claims that the airport’s future is in question and said he expects to see a number of very positive developments soon. A number of major routes are being chased and Mr Moroney said a long-term plan is being developed for Shannon, which will deliver a sustainable route network.
He’s optimistic about resuming links with a number of destinations.
“The routes that we would love to see in Shannon, and which we believe are attainable, are Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Barcelona, Faro and Alicante.
“A key business aspect of Shannon Airport right now is that we’re loss-making; we have one company running the three airports, Dublin, Cork and Shannon, and as a piece of that, on a standalone basis we are significantly loss-making and that can’t continue because the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) operates as a commercial operation, fully self-financing without funding from Government,” he said.
He cautioned that even if the Government wanted to put money into Shannon, this couldn’t happen as the Government expects dividends from semi-state bodies. Shannon must be self-financing.
Mr Moroney is under no illusion about the difficulty of the challenge facing Shannon Airport in trying to reclaim lost ground. He and his team are braced for it.