EDITORIAL

IRISH people are generally house-proud. They like things to be spick and span inside and out; it’s part of the enjoyment one gets from one’s home.
So why should a family home be blighted by unfinished neighbouring houses, unfinished footpaths and roads, unfinished green areas and, to cap it off, a sewerage system that doesn’t work and no street lighting? The so-called ghost estates are a legacy from the Celtic Tiger years when house building far outstripped demand and now they can’t be sold. The developers have cut their losses and moved on.
Householders bought into the idea of idyllic living from artists’ impressions and architectural drawings but they were far removed from the reality of what they now face every day. It is a horror story, especially for families with young children who have nowhere safe to play outside the confines of their own gardens – for those who have them.
This is, unfortunately, a familiar story for householders right across the country. It’s no different in Clare, where the county council has identified seven unfinished housing where construction activity has come to a complete standstill and the developer cannot be contacted.
Clare County Council’s priority list of ghost estates, which require Department of the Environment funding to complete, includes three in South-East Clare and one each in Bunratty, Shannon, Newmarket-on-Fergus and Sixmilebridge. Surprisingly, no estates in Ennis, North Clare or West Clare have made it to the list.
The estates identified by the council are classed as category four, in line with the department’s recent circular on unfinished housing. Estates are only included in this category where there is no construction activity on the site, efforts to contact the developer or site owner have been unsuccessful, serious public safety issues are present and efforts to secure compliance from the developer/site owner have been unsuccessful.
The council has no funds to address the required remediation works and has stressed to the department the necessity for adequate resources to be made available. The next step in the process is for the council to identify the remedial works required to deal with the safety aspects of each site, including a cost estimate and to prioritise the estates within this category.
Formulating the priority list will inevitably lead to considerable friction as, even if money is forthcoming from State coffers, it will take a long, long time to filter down to estate number seven.
Of course, there are many other estates around Clare that must be running very close to a category four listing and at the moment, these are way over the horizon in terms of being attended to.
Councillor Brian Meaney, at a meeting of the local authority this week, said category four might have to be extended to include developers who were in correspondence with the council but were not being fully cooperative.
Councillor Patricia McCarthy called on the Department of the Environment to put the necessary mechanism in place to complete all unfinished estates in the county. She proposed that a certain percentage of the price of a new house in an estate should be retained in a holding fund until the estate was fully finished.
The points are well made, as the issue of ghost estates is something that cannot be tolerated in respect of any developments from here on out. Families living in ghost estates have suffered enough without seeing the problems extended to others.

Making the most of opportunities

IN these straitened times it is crucial to seize on every possible opportunity to bring investment and employment to an area. God knows, in the Mid-West we’ve a lot of ground to make up following closures and substantial redundancies across a wide spectrum of industries and businesses in recent years.
We must welcome anything which hints at light at the end of the tunnel. Such is the case in respect of a strategic Mid-West company that has given new impetus to the long-running campaign to fully exploit the money-making potential of the Shannon Estuary.
Ireland’s second largest port authority, Shannon Foynes Port Company, has called for the designation of the Shannon Estuary as an official European hub for manufacturing, assembling and servicing of ocean energy equipment.
Shannon Foynes Port Company has signalled its own intent by planning for a €20m investment in the creation of the West of Ireland’s only specialised quayside handling and storage area to facilitate investment in renewable energy resources. This is effectively adopting the same principle as Dublin Port Authority, which this week outlined plans to substantially increase capacity in the coming years.
Addressing a Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland conference titled Developing Europe’s Ocean Energy Hub – Securing Ireland’s energy future? at Thomond Park this week, Shannon Foynes Port Company chairperson, Kay McGuinness called on the Government and the EU to immediately designate the estuary as the preferred location for a future, large-scale ocean energy hub.
This is something many of Clare’s General Election candidates averted to, so all four TDs should be singing off the same hymn sheet when it comes to rowing in behind this proposal. Clare local authorities and Clare County Development Board are also committed to this. Now is the time for industry and business organisations to come on board and see exactly how developing the estuary could benefit them into the future.
The Shannon Foynes Port Company chairperson believes a huge economic and job creation opportunity lies in wait by virtue of the explosion in renewable and other energy activity in the West of Ireland and, allied with the natural deepwater shipping resource provided by the estuary, the Shannon Estuary is uniquely positioned to be the engine room of this rapid growth sector for Irish industry.
The capacity to turn the Shannon estuary into a focal point for employment is limited only by the imagination of the investors.
If the port company’s proposal is to come to fruition, petty rivalries and jealousies between interested parties on either side of the estuary must be set aside. Development must progress in a strategic manner, no matter which side of the Shannon a facility is built on.
Meanwhile, we can look to another positive development on Friday as the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton visits Shannon to confirm that electronics firm, Zagg will be creating 300 jobs over next four years.
The commitment of the US company to expand at Shannon is certainly a practical demonstration of the value of the 12.5% corporation tax rate in giving Ireland an edge over other countries in attracting overseas investment.