Morning Focus – Tuesday 14/08/18

Hundreds of Lissycasey locals turned out for a meeting at the Community Hall in an effort to save their post office.

While Lissycasey’s post office is one of many scheduled to close due to An Post’s recent redundancy offers to post masters and mistresses the populace of Lissycasey is determined to see it remain open. It’s thought that the post office might be integrated into the local shop. Lissycasey’s meeting has inspired a meeting in Cooraclare to discuss its post office and the post office in Cree. This meeting will take place on Thursday. Clare FM’s James Mulhall attended the meeting in Lisseycasey and put together a report for the show this morning.

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Today’s show began, however, with Minister Pat Breen. He talked about the new cross Government strategy aimed at the next phase of Ireland;s economic development, the Future Jobs Programme. According to the blurb this means ‘ensuring the hard-won gains of recent years and the progress we have made is sustained for the long term.’ But what does this mean in real world practical terms?

Next on the show we revisited a controversial issue for Ennis at the moment, the proposed plans to build a Supermacs motorway plaza along the M18 on the outskirts of Ennis. Opinion is mixed with Pat McDonagh, MD of Supermacs has defended the plan at every turn while Ennis Chamber retailers have come out strongly against the plan believing it will take business away from Ennis town. However on today’s show we heard the opinion of Nuala Mulqueeney, the director of Ailwee Cave and Bird of Prey Centre. Nuala has worked with the Supermacs Galway plaza to showcase her own business and believes a similar situation could be achieved with the Ennis plaza. She also believes that Clare is largely regarded as a ‘drive-through county’ and the Supermacs plaza could be a step towards fixing that. We also asked the local people of Ennis what they thought of the proposed development.

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Moving into the second hour we spoke to Lahinch hotelier and former President of the Irish Hotels Federation Michael Vaughan. After a letter from an 80 year old Lahinch man living in sheltered housing in London was published in the Clare Champion and later went viral Michael decided to help the man out. The man Jim Logan had written requesting contact with anyone who remembered him. Now with Michael’s help Jim is on the way back to Lahinch.

Then, Doolin and Kilkee responded to the IBAL survey which saw Doolin labelled as a ‘litter blackspot’ and Kilkee as simply ‘moderately littered’. Doolin Tourism issued a statement saying that the term ‘litter blackspot’ was not reflective of their beautiful village. They went on to say Clare County Council ‘have to date, failed to implement appropriate facilities or maintenance programmes’ and called on the local authority to re-invest the funds it has earned in Doolin in ‘basic facilities at the pier and in the village.’ Eugene Garrahy from Doolin Ferries and a member of Doolin Tourism went into more detail. Meanwhile Kilkee is planning to become ‘plastic free’ and has unveiled a number of solar bins. Cillian Murphy a tourism consultant based in Kilkee spoke more about that.

Then we heard about the Clare Youth Service Synergy Festival. The festival saw over 120 attendees and is one of few of the events of its kind catering for young people. The festival was set up six years ago to give young people a chance to enjoy themselves without the ever present influence of drugs and alcohol. To find out more about the festival and about the work of Clare Youth Service Clare FM’s Ryan Hanton went down to Clare Youth Centre in Ennis to talk to youth leaders Jordan Cassells and Siobhán Rose.

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Finally the show ended with our animal welfare update from Clare County Dog Warden, Frankie Coote.