What it Says in the Castlebar and Mayo Papers

24th of January 2001

Connaught Telegraph

The Mayo News

The Western People

Long Haul flights from Knock a possibility a front page story in The Connaught Telegraph this week.

A new airline, FreshAer, founded by Irish expatriates in the UK, is in talks with the Board of Knock Airport to establish a daily link to London. The company has been granted landing rights at Heathrow, commencing this summer. FreshAer plans to develop other routes out of Knock and are hoping that the Western Development Commission will take equity in the company. Initially concentrating on Ireland - UK routes, FreshAer's long-term plans will be into long haul destinations such as Australia, Japan, China and South America using Knock as their hub. A FreshAer spokesman said "Knock Airport with its superb runway and state-of-the-art landing system, is ideally placed to take advantage of these opportunities to increase air traffic to Ireland from these parts of the world. Preliminary discussions with the management board of Knock Airport have taken place seeking to re-locate to Knock from our original base of London." He said that over 250, high quality, well paid jobs will be created within the airline in its first year of operation - the majority of these in Mayo. Knock Airport Board Chairman, Mr. Cathal Duffy confirmed they have held discussions with John Riche of FreshAer.

Fianna Fáil raise questions over TG4 poll findings The Connaught Telegraph this week.

The Fianna Fáil organisation in Mayo has raised questions over the findings of a poll carried out on the Mayo constituency by the Market Research Bureau of Ireland on behalf of TG4, the Irish language television channel. The study, which was conducted between January 4th and 12th last indicates that the party's support since the 1997 general election has dropped by a worrying eight per cent. In revealing that Fianna Fáil's chances of winning a third seat were remote, the poll predicted that outgoing Junior Minister, Dr. Tom Moffatt, was in danger of losing his seat. Mr. Iarla Duffy, public relations officer of the Mayo F.F. Dail Ceantair, said that his members were not unduly worried by the findings. "It has to be considered that the poll was carried out in a week when over 300 job losses were announced at factories in Ballina and Ballyhaunis. There was always likely to be a backlash from such a setback, and it appears that Dr. Moffatt did not come out well in the poll as a result. I would argue, however, that his position is over-stated in the survey I think he is much stronger than indicated." Mr. Duffy accepted that his party had a lot of work to do. "A general election is 18 months away and we possibly have to look at improving our profile in the county. There is no question that the present government has invested heavily in Mayo and created a lot of jobs. We will have to question whether our message is getting properly across."

£2M gold claim against County CouncilThe Connaught Telegraph this week.

The dust from a goldmining ban imposed in Mayo nearly nine years ago still hasn't settled with a claim for £2 million against Mayo County Council fixed for hearing in the Supreme Court next month. Mining companies Glencar/Andaman Resources, which discovered a gold deposit in the Cregganbaun area near Westport, are appealing a High Court decision made in favour of Mayo County Council. In August 1998, the local authority won what was described as a landmark victory in its battle with the prospecting companies. Glencar/Andaman had sued the Council for almost £2 million damages. The damages claim had been filed in the High Court following a ruling by Mr. Justice Blaney in 1992 that Mayo County Council acted illegally in imposing a blanket ban on goldmining over a 300 square mile area. In his judgement, Mr. Justice Kelly held that the ban on mining was illegal. However, he said that this did not give an automatic right to damages by Glencar/Andaman Exploration ruling that no case for damages had been made, Judge Kelly pointed out that mining for gold was a high risk, speculative, enterprise. The Judge said that at the time the ban was imposed there was only a one in ten chance that the gold found was going to be commercial deposit. And even if the gold was deemed to be commercial, planning permission was going to have to be sought and in the Judge's view that was never going to be easy.

BMW area ' slow to use EU funds ' - TDThe Mayo News this week.

The Border, Midlands and West Region (BMW), which covers thirteen counties including Mayo, and has ongoing Objective 1 status for the spending of EU funds, has been slow to date drawing down the significant pool of funding allocated to it last year. That's according to Mayo Fianna Fáil T.D. Beverly Cooper-Flynn who has called for greater urgency to be injected into the spending of such funds in the BMW region. "The region has £13 billion to spend between now and 2006. This money has been in place for a year now and the draw-down of the money to date has been very slow" she said. The Castlebar based T.D. warned that if the BMW allocation was not spent by the year 2006, what was left over would go to the rest of the country. "We don't want excuses then as to why it was not spent. The challenge is there for all involved in the development of the BMW region to make sure that all approved funding is drawn down. For anything else to happen would make a mockery of all the effort that went into ensuring that Mayo and other counties in the BMW region were able to retain Objective 1 status."

Mayo County Council vow to reverse Henniges closure in Ballina The Mayo News.

Mayo County Council has vowed to work to reverse the decision by the parent company to close the Henniges Elastomers plant in Ballina with the loss of 220 jobs. The plant, which manufactures components for the motor industry, is scheduled to close next September, in cost-cutting measures brought about by fears of a recession in the US economy. Reports suggest that the Ballina jobs will be relocated to another company plant in Germany. Among the measures proposed to save the Ballina jobs was for the Cathaoirleach Cllr. Annie Mai Reape and the County Manager Des Mahon to spearhead a delegation to the Henniges Headquarters in the U.S. The issue was raised by Deputy Michael Ring who said the news had come as a terrible shock to the Ballina area and especially to the workforce who had done everything requested of them and who met all targets. Senator Frank Chambers agreed the Council should take the initiative and seek to save the jobs. They would have to involve the local UDC, the IDA and the government in the bid to make the company have a change of heart.

Corrib Gas declared commercialThe Mayo News this week.

The Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr. Frank Fahey, T.D. has welcomed the declaration of commerciality for the Corrib Gas Field off Achill by Enterprise Energy Ireland and partners Statoil Exploration and Marathon International Petroleum Hibernia. The group has now applied for a petroleum lease over the field with a view to its development and has submitted a detailed plan of development to the Minister. The Corrib Gas Field lies in 350 metres of water in the Atlantic Ocean to the West of Ireland and is located some 70 km west of the nearest coastline of Co. Mayo. The field's production life is estimated at approximately 15 years, with the first gas supply in 2003.

European theme for Castlebar's Patrick's Day Parade The Western People this week.

Arrangements are now well under way in Castlebar for the staging of the annual St Patrick's day Parade which will go ahead on Saturday 17th of March. The theme of the parade this year is "Euro Winner", which will highlight the town's associations with Auray in Brittany and Hochstadt in Germany, twin towns with Castlebar and will also focus on the highly successful Castlebar International Four Day s Walks Festival, which attracts walkers from all over Europe and different parts of the world. The organisers are appealing to local groups and firms to enter floats in this year's parade which will, as usual feature a number of novelty events. The Castlebar parade has now grown into one of the biggest and most attractive parades in provincial Ireland. It generally merits coverage on national television and draws in thousands of people to watch it pass by. Several bands will take part in this year's parade and the organisers are confident it will be even bigger and more colourful than anything in the past.

Ring is poll-topper Higgins guaranteed Moffatt in troubleThe Western People this Tuesday.

An MRBI poll of voter intentions in the Mayo constituency, commissioned by the Irish language station TG4, has given Westport based deputy Michael Ring a massive 22 per cent share (excluding undecided) of first preference votes as the country counts down to the next general election. The poll is good news for Fine Gael with Deputy Jim Higgins also amassing a very creditable 19 per cent (an increase of 8% over '97). While Enda Kenny's share of the vote is down 3 percentage points (11% as against 14%) the outcome of the poll guarantees FG three seats with 58% of the first preference votes. The poll is bad news for the Fianna Fail team of Tom Moffatt (outgoing), Beverly Cooper-Flynn (outgoing) and aspiring candidates John Carty and Frank Chambers. Fianna Fail's share of first preferences has dropped 8% since the last election. The outcome will be particularly disappointing for Junior Minister Tom Moffatt. He has been unable to make his Ministerial merc pay and is languishing at 6% below Carty (8%) and Chambers (7%) and well off the pace required for comfort; Beverly Cooper-Flynn has remained static on 14%. Another to show improvement is Independent Richard Finn. He has improved two percentage points (from 3% to 5%) and is most popular among young and middle-aged voters. The poll surveyed 400 voters as to their election preferences and was taken between January 4th and 12th last.

Chambers Web-Site to break the million mark? The Western People this week.

Castlebar's community Internet site www.castlebar.ie is set to create a record this month if current trends for January continue. The website, regarded as one of the most successful on the Internet in Ireland, is set to attract over 1,000,000 hits for the month of January. Up to last Friday, nearly 700,000 people had logged onto the Castlebar page, and now Castlebar Information Age Town committee is keeping its fingers crossed that the magic million mark will be reached by the end of the month. The hit statistics for the Castlebar site have been growing at an impressive rate over the past year, but the phenomenal jump in the figures over the past three months has even taken the committee by surprise.

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