On the 31st of January this year, thirty years will have passed since a 15-year-old girl called Anne Lovett was found semi-conscious, bleeding and suffering from exposure in a Grotto to the Virgin Mary in the small town of Granard in County Longford.

The Government is facing bills of over €46m from Clare and Kerry councils for the damage caused by the storms that ravaged the counties.

The shock departure of three registrars from Ennis Hospital has been described as a “crushing blow” for local acute services in the county.

I write in response to your article entitled “20 women’s claims linked to one doctor” (Dec 5).

Prominent Green Party member Brian Meaney, one of the party’s three remaining county councillors, has confirmed his application to join Fianna Fáil has been accepted.

The green light has been given for the construction of a private €60m hospital in Ennis that will create 700 jobs.

Now the boot is really on the other foot.

Four houses built as part of a Traveller accommodation programme, which were already refurbished following previous arson and vandalism attacks, have been targeted again.

The HSE is spending over €2,600 per week on taxis ferrying staff between two hospitals in Limerick city.

A local authority is almost €100,000 out of pocket over a fruitless pursuit for cash spent on repairing the roof of its €25m base in Ennis.

The HSE has refused a request by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation to carry out an external review into the high absenteeism rates at Ennis General Hospital.

The €1.2m costs relating to a new land use and transportation plan for the Mid-West came under fire yesterday.

A Co. Clare councillor says overspending in the health service could be reduced by curbing medical card holders' access to erectile dysfunction drugs.

A senior member of the HSE West Forum has urged dampening the sex life of couples on medical cards in order to addressing the HSE’s €500m shortfall for the year.

A local authority is spending almost €3,500 weekly on 24-hour security at a Traveller site that cost €2m to complete.

The Greens’ spokesman on Europe says the party is “still so toxic” in the public eye that it should play no role in canvassing for the fiscal treaty.

The HSE spent €511,260 in the mid-west on providing wheelchairs last year — four times more than a neighbouring old health board area.

Clare County Council is set to stop building accommodation units for Travellers.

The HSE could make huge savings if it streamlined payments made to priests providing chaplaincy services across its acute hospital network in the West.

A private consortium is planning to establish a €60m hospital that will create 600 jobs in Ennis.

Concern has been expressed about the safety and reliability of HSE ambulances in the Mid-West following a series of incidents in recent months.

A Clare County Councillor is calling on the HSE to reduce the amount of money it spends on viagra for medical card holders.

The HSE spent €6.3m on Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs in 2010 — an increase of 8% of the year before.

ENNIS has been portrayed as a racist town in the aftermath of the assault on a Nigerian taxi driver, the mayor of Ennis has claimed.

A MOTHER-OF-12 is dreading “a sad, lonely Christmas” after her Traveller family is being forced to vacate a roadside encampment.

THE Green Party celebrated its 30th anniversary yesterday with leader Eamon Ryan unveiling a new front bench and a return to politics of former parliamentary party members.

THE absenteeism rate among nurses at Ennis General Hospital is almost four times over the HSE target level, a report shows.

A LOCAL authority is facing legal bills running into hundreds of thousands of euro over harassment and discrimination claims taken on behalf of Travellers.

ELDERLY care in Clare has been compared to a “ticking time bomb”.

A LOCAL authority is seeking ministerial approval to permit farmers to bury deceased relatives on their home soil.

A LOCAL authority has spent almost €4 million on a 450m “road to nowhere”.

CLARE county council has spent over €150,000 on legal fees for Traveller-related issues this year.

MORE than 5,000 HSE staff are out sick every day, with management saying the absenteeism rate is “too high”.

THE overdue roll-out of the smoky fuel ban in Ennis “has been muddled and confusing”, a local councillor has claimed.

CLARE County Council is to spend almost €300,000 on providing CCTV on three Traveller accommodation sites — almost three times the original estimate.

THE members of Clare County Council last night stopped short of restoring the ‘iconic’ Ballyvaughan tourist sign in spite of impassioned pleas from councillors.

THE iconic Ballyvaughan signpost will be restored and given state-protected status if moves by members of Clare County Council are successful.

AN Taisce was last night labelled a secret society.

A BID by one of the country’s surviving Green Party public representatives that cyclists be exempt from one-way directions on certain streets in Ennis has hit the buffers.

MEMBERS of Ennis Town Council have stopped short of erecting a 12-foot fence around new €450,000 playing facilities in response to continuing anti-social behaviour.

CONTENTIOUS plans for a €40 million private hospital for Ennis have been thrown out by An Bord Pleanála.

THE average cost of maintaining Traveller accommodation group scheme units in Clare is seven times the unit cost of standard local authority accommodation.