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LOCALS IN COUNTY Clare have hit out at their council over a range of new measures which they say are prioritising profit over community welfare.
The complaints come after heightened efforts by Clare County Council to charge people for using the Cliffs of Moher walk and a bid to ban swimming and water activities in the bay off nearby Doolin.
The council is hoping to develop the pier for commercial activity as part of a masterplan for the area, which relies on a successful tourism industry.
The chairwoman of Doolin Community Council, a local representative group, said the situation has caused “huge frustration” for locals who accuse the council of putting “commercial activities ahead of improving the quality of life” for people living in the area.
Locals angered by the move to end swimming in the bay told The Journal the area off the Atlantic coast has been used for bathing, sailing and surfing for generations.
Green Party councillor Liam Grant, a veteran surfer and former lifeguard, said the move has caused “outrage” in some circles in the region.
Grant said there has been further frustration over plans for the nearby Cliffs of Moher, where the council has stepped up efforts to charge people who take in the sights of the Cliffs of Moher by walking along the coast.
This has been done by hiring ‘wardens’ to check the incoming road for people dropping off visitors instead of using the onsite car park.
There is a charge of €12.50 for anyone using the car park or entering the council’s visitors centre – but this charge is now being applied to people who are dropped off by car outside the site.
The charge has long been a source of displeasure for locals – owing to the cliffs technically being a public right-of-way – and the development has added to tensions.
“It just feels very unclear what the council are legally allowed to do at the cliffs. They’re charging people who are dropped off outside the cliffs, but how about people who are dropped half a kilometre down the road?,” Grand told The Journal.
Hikers and people who arrive at the site by bus continue to be allowed in without charge but the council has sought to tighten this for others, Grant said.
The thing is, it’s a public right-of-way and I don’t think this would happen in any other public right-of-way in the country.
“There are cases where someone who has dropped off a group of four people near the site are being told you have to pay for the full five people. That’s over €12 a head so it’s going to cost you,” Grant added.
Grant said there were recently two ‘car parks’ opened in fields by local farmers who undercut the council by charging €2 for entry. This was done without planning and they have since closed.
The chairwoman of Doolin Community Council, Sarah Daly McTiernan, told The Journal that the council’s plans for the pier see it “entirely taken away from the public”.
She said there are numerous problems affecting the area, from “rotting” ladders on the pier, to little in the way of public bins, causing “huge amounts of frustration” for the group.
A new pier was built a decade ago for ferry operators, who also use a separate pier around a kilometre outside the village for travelling to the Aran Islands.
In response to The Journal, the council said it is running a public participation process to identify bathing waters in the county, which closes on 28th September.
It said it is asking swimmers to tell them if “they think they should maintain existing designated bathing waters designations or give a new official bathing area designation to areas that are commonly used for swimming, but not identified at the moment”.
Daly McTiernan claimed there is a risk of contravening directives in the government’s Rural Development Policy that state bodies should deliver key projects that will improve the quality of life, social and economic wellbeing of people in local communites.
“Commercial development can benefit everyone but we want to do it mindfully and sustainably, but keeping in mind all people living in the area and of course the visitors to the area,” she said.
Daly said a prime example of the council pushing ahead with its development of the area without consultation was in a risk assessment document for swimming at the pier.
She said a risk assessment of the old pier “wrongly contained information” that any swimming in the area was “prohibited” and locals are now contesting the document.
The publication, recently released to the community council and seen by The Journal, was commissioned by Clare County Council in 2021. It noted that upwards of 50 people use the pier daily in good weather and that it’s “extremely busy” at the height of the tourist season.
A petition has been launched by locals seeking the correction of aspects of the report. To date it has 800 signatures online as well as dozens more from a door-to-door campaign conducted by the community council, Daly-McTiernan said.
“The inaccuracies present in the published risk assessment undermine the efforts to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all individuals using Doolin Pier. This group has also applied for designated bathing waters and this is not referenced in the report,” the petition reads.
Clare County Council told The Journal it attempting to work with local councillors and the Doolin community to ensure that there is “clarity around the works” in the area and to ensure that the “best service is delivered for all”.
“Additional resources have been delivered to the Doolin pier area in recent years to help to deliver an improved service and there are plans currently to increase these resources to expand the services to the wider Doolin area shortly,” the council said.
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May she rest in eternal peace,a wonderful lady
Class act brilliant writer and now history maker R.I.P.
Wonderful woman and writer. May she Rest in Peace.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis
Like Sinéad O Connor she was an Irish woman who held up a revealing mirror to the hypocrisy of an Irish Society controlled by the Catholic Church and was punished for it.
@Matt Rogers: Sinead O’Connor was a massive hypo crite herself.
@Ger Whelan: You can’t see the good in anyone or anything though.
@Jack Hayes: what about what I said is I correct?
@Ger Whelan: ***incorrect?
@Ger Whelan: Aren’t we all on some level? It becomes amplified when someone is a public figure and we feel we know them. Every bit of progress, missteps or change of mind is laid out in a seemingly simple line for the rest of us. Add in mental health issues and a troubled life and it’s not exactly a surprise that her life wasn’t an exercise in perfection.
If any of our lives were conducted in the blare of public life we’d quickly be accused of the same things no doubt. It’s impossible to be completely virtuous and avoid all of the contradictions and irrationalities that come with being human. It’s a bit of a low blow to have a pop at her now. She was a troubled soul and she should be left alone in death. She took enough of a hammering while she was alive.
Michael D a great man for the funerals
Beautiful simple send-off, rip.
The Church and their willing and compliant lackeys pursued and lambasted this woman for years, pontificating about their self righteousness. We now know who was morally pure. RIP Edna O’ Brien.
Miraculous medal time soiling this infectious lady’s time.
I guess we need to keep moving.
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