Tag Archives: Cathal Crowe

WITH a range of challenges mounting for Clare, there was disappointment this week, as not only was the county denied a seat at the Cabinet table, there won’t even be a representative from the wider Mid-West Region. Cathaoirleach of Clare County Council Mary Howard said that while ability should be the first criteria, the lack of West of Ireland representation in the new Cabinet is striking. “The other night, when you looked at the map and there wasn’t a senior minister from Donegal down to Limerick, it wasn’t a nice thing to see. I’m hoping that the west of Ireland will have the majority of the junior ministries now. “It was glaring when you saw there was two ministers in Wicklow, three in Cork, six in Dublin and nothing at all from Donegal down to Limerick.” At the moment the Mid-West’s health services are a shambles, Shannon Airport seems to lurch from crisis to crisis, while there are fears that …

Clare Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe has expressed alarm at today’s (Friday) announcement by Aer Lingus that 500 jobs are to go at the airline. The flag carrier has blamed the global halt in air traffic due to COVID-19 on the move and Deputy Crowe is seriously concerned for workers at Shannon Airport. In a statement to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Aer Lingus outlined plans for redundancies for these workers, pointing to the fact that they are operating at less than 5% their usual capacity. “Management at Aer Lingus has been cavalier with Shannon staff,” Deputy Crowe said. “Unions haven’t been given sufficient time to engage with the workers here and to date, no acknowledgement has been made of the fact that many of the Shannon-based staff rank higher in seniority than their counterparts in Cork and Dublin. “The process appears not to be ‘last in, first out’, but rather a targeting of Shannon-based staff. “My …

FIANNA Fáil TD for Clare Cathal Crowe is calling on privately run third level student accommodation providers to follow the example of some campus accommodation services in issuing refunds to students for this academic year. As things stand, several providers including City Campus in Limerick and Glasan in Galway have said they will not be issuing refunds to any students who have been unable to be in their tenancies for months due to COVID-19. While acknowledging that private landlords come under a different remit to campus accommodation, Deputy Crowe believes accommodation services, which are specifically endorsed by their colleges, should not be treated as fully privatised. “I appreciate that owners of these buildings are being hit by this pandemic but what seems to be forgotten here is that students who struggle as is to make ends meet during their college year are being left out of pocket,” said Deputy Crowe. “In some cases, they or their parents may have lost …

  THE plight of asylum seekers living in the dilapidated Direct Provision centre in Miltown Malbay has been brought the attention of the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan. Rodents, leaking bathrooms and substandard food, are among serious problems that have been identified at the Central Hostel on the Main Street, resulting in a call for its closure. However, on Wednesday of this week (June 3), Mr Pat Kelly, owner of the Central Hostel, said he didn’t wish to make any comment on the issues raised on behalf of the asylum seekers other than to say “these are all false allegations”. A letter has been sent on behalf of the 12 men to the minister by the Miltown Malbay Welcome Group, outlining health and safety issues at the hostel where the asylum seekers are being housed. The letter has been copied to Clare TD Cathal Crowe, who is calling on the minister to deal with the issues as a matter of …

THE issue of Clare Bus has been raised in Dáil Éireann, with three of the constituency’s TDs appealing directly to Minister Shane Ross to intervene in the dispute with the National Transport Authority (NTA), which resulted in new contractors being appointed to the rural transport service in March. Deputy Cathal Crowe outlined the importance of the service saying, “We are not a leafy suburb with DARTs and Luas trams going down through it. We rely very much on rural transport.” The Fianna Fáil TD described the dispute over funding as “shambolic” and, referring to the staff of Clare bus said, “They are the only group of workers I can think of in the State at present who have been made redundant, not by the Covid crisis but by Government body hard-balling.” In her maiden speech in Dáil Éireann, Sinn Féin TD, Violet-Anne Wynne asked, “Will the Minister also step up and engage an independent mediator to resolve contractual issues between …

THE importance of Shannon Airport for Clare was stressed in the Dáil last week, with calls for it to be helped through the Covid-19 crisis. “Shannon Airport is the driving force in Clare and the Mid-West Region. At this time of crisis, it has been deemed essential and has accepted many cargo flights of personal protection equipment, PPE. “When the crisis is over, there will be an acute need for the Department to provide the airport with a capital expenditure fund,” said Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe. “For too long, the airport has had to self-finance all major projects, including a recent €15 million upgrade of the runway. “All such outlays seriously eat into the airport’s financial resources meaning that it has very little funding left over for marketing the airport, attracting new routes and retaining existing routes. There is urgent action needed in that regard. “The funding needs to be ring-fenced for the airport to safeguard it in the …

A total of €138,000 in funding is to be rolled out to three separate harbours in Clare for essential works. Clare County Council has been granted the funding for works in piers at Carrigaholt, Ballyvaughan and Bournapeaka. The grants are part of an overall €3.1 million package for coastal local authorities to carry out improvement works at these developments. The biggest sum of €51,750 has been granted to Bournapeaka Pier in Ballyvaughan, which will go towards underpinning the mid-section of the pier; removing and replacing a cracked section; the removal of a section of deck and removing and relaying a cracked stone along the pier edge.Nearby Ballyvaughan pier has been awarded €48,750 for the installation of flood gate and three flap valves, as well as the provision of rock armour to protect the pier wall. The final grant of €37,500 has been awarded to Carrigholt pier for essential repair work and the reconstruction of section of old pier wall. “I …

HEALTH Minister Simon Harris is coming under pressure to ease some of the Covid-19 restrictions in Clare following official confirmation the incidence of the virus is the second lowest in Munster. According to official figures, Waterford has the lowest number of confirmed cases in Munster on Wednesday with 138 compared to 229 in Clare, 288 in Kerry, 370 in Tipperary, 518 in Limerick and 1,126 in Cork. Even when population is taken into account, Clare has the second lowest incidence of Covid-19 per head in the province. As frustration grows over how many weeks Clare people will be forced to remain in a restrictive national lockdown, Deputy Michael McNamara has presented a strong case for the need to apply a different level of restrictions in different regions subject to public health guidance. New EU guidelines for the control of Covid-19 have proposed that national lockdowns could be replaced by targeted regional measures. However, the new EU guidelines also recommend that …