Tag Archives: Trump

WEST Clare will see the most extensive security operation in its history next week, when President Donald Trump arrives in Doonbeg. An area close to Trump International will be completely closed off to the public, apart from people living in the area, who will have special passes. The restrictions will be in place from Monday until Trump leaves again, probably on Friday, but possibly as late as Saturday. There will be a huge security operation at Shannon also, but it is expected that it will be largely business as usual at the airport, although people arriving there at certain times may have to take a short detour. Companies in the Shannon Free Zone are expected to stay open throughout. Detective Garda Ollie Downes said there will be traffic restrictions on access to the entrances to Trump International and only those who have been granted passes (such as residents and care staff) will be granted access. Some distance further back there …

THE biggest security operation seen in the Banner County for at least 15 years will begin on June 5, when US President Donald Trump touches down at Shannon Airport. At the moment, details of Mr Trump’s visit are relatively sketchy but it is understood he will meet with Taoiseach Leo  Varadkar at Shannon Airport on June 5, spend the night at Trump International in Doonbeg, fly to France for D Day Commemorations on June 6, return to Doonbeg that evening and depart from Shannon Airport on June 7. Garda sources confirmed to The Clare Champion on Wednesday that it will be the most significant undertaking in Clare since George W Bush’s visit in June of 2004. However, on that occasion, they had months of notice, whereas the Trump visit was confirmed just a fortnight before his arrival. It is understood that extra gardaí from other parts of the country will have to be brought in to assist during the visit. …

PRESIDENT Trump could be on his way back to Clare, later this year. Mr Trump met with An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar today in Washington. Subsequently the Irish Times reported that he had said he is likely to make his way to Clare before the end of 2019. President Trump is reported to have said:“I will be coming (to Ireland) at some point this year. I missed it last year, and I would have loved to have been there. It’s a special place and I have a very warm spot for Doonbeg, I will tell you that. It is just a great place.”

OVER €6 million was spent on staff costs at Trump International last year, while it employed an average of 213 people. While President Trump is very unpopular in Ireland, the Doonbeg business is now perhaps the most significant employer in West Clare, a region which has suffered from major economic disadvantage for many years. Today, West Clare is almost totally devoid of large industry, with Government agencies having no track record of bringing foreign direct investment to the region. However the recently filed accounts show that Trump International was employing an average of 213 people during the 12 months of 2017. It is understood that this number rises to around 300 during the summer. The accounts show that wages and salaries for the year came to €5,435,373, up from €4,719,000 in 2016. Social welfare costs were €576,146 for the year, up from €542,238 in 2016, giving total staff cost of €6,011,519. Although it was loss making in 2017, the Directors …

WHEN Donald Trump comes to West Clare, one house he shouldn’t call to is Janet Burke’s, even though she is a fellow American abroad. Trump might not be a popular president anyway, but when Janet talks about him it is very clear her dislike of The Donald is very acute. Even when he was just a celebrity billionaire she didn’t care for him, and her attitude only hardened as the Trump presidential campaign proceeded, and Janet says his two years in office have been much worse than she feared. “Living through that election process, the things he was saying and the way he was behaving, at first it seemed like a joke. From the beginning it was terrifying to think that this man might get that job. He was so erratic, he was so divisive and hateful. “I was worried when he got it, but he has far surpassed how bad I thought he could be. I didn’t think he …

IN a wide ranging interview with The Clare Champion on February 28, 2014, the then business man, Donald Trump, said that wind-farms were “destructive, destroy tourism, depreciate property values and kills birds.” He made his comments during a telephone interview from his office in New York following his purchase of Trump International Doonbeg earlier that month. Up to that point, he had been unaware that Clare Coastal Wind Power had submitted revised plans to Clare County Council for the construction of nine wind turbines, two kilometres south of Doonbeg village. The now President Trump outlined his deep concerns for bird life, focusing specifically on the Bald Eagle. “They wipe out the birds,” he said of wind-farms. “You might as well be standing at the shore with a shotgun. They just wipe them out. In Arizona we have the Bald Eagle. If you kill a Bald Eagle, they put you in jail and yet the windmills have killed all of them. …

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar is under intense political pressure today, after claiming he had sought to help Donald Trump prevent a windfarm being built near Doonbeg. At a lunch in Washington yesterday, he spoke about receiving a phone call from Mr Trump three or four years ago, at which time he was Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. In the call, Mr Varadkar said that the future President told him he had a problem near the golf course, where a wind farm was being proposed. Afterwards, Mr Varadkar said he tried to assist Mr Trump. “I endeavoured to do what I could do about it,” Mr Varadkar claimed. “I rang the County Council and enquired about the planning permission and subsequently the planning permission was declined and the windfarm was never built. Thus the landscape being preserved. The President has very kindly given me credit for that. Although I do think it probably would have been refused anyway. But I’m very …

RUSSIAN mafia figures may have become involved with Donald Trump in Doonbeg, it has been claimed at a sitting of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In an interview with the committee in November, a transcript of which was published this week, researcher Glenn Simpson detailed links between US President Trump and Russian organised crime figures. Mr Simpson also said that in the course of carrying out research on the US President at the time he was a candidate, it had been found that the development of Doonbeg was one of several unusual deals. A former journalist, Mr Simpson works at Washington commercial research firm, Fusion GPS. In the autumn of 2015, it was hired to take an open-ended detailed look at Trump’s business career, litigation history and his relationships with what were described as “questionable people”. Asked about deals of interest involving the now US President, Mr Simpson said, “Some of the things that we have…looked …