*Photograph: Brian Arthur
ABSENCE OF a bus stop outside the new HSE Outpatients Department in Ennis has been labelled “a miss”.
An appeal for the West Clare Municipal District to work with their Ennis counterparts and road engineers was issued by Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF) to put a bus stop in place outside the HSE’s Outpatients Department on the Kilrush Rd in Ennis “to service those patients coming in from West Clare”.
Communication has been made with the Ennis MD on foot of the request, acting senior executive officer in the West Clare MD, John O’Malley stated. A whole assessment of the road is needed, he said.
Speaking at a recent sitting of the West Clare MD, Cllr Murphy explained that he was approached “by someone who would shoot me if I called him an elderly man”. The man in question has to get the bus from West Clare to the bus station in Ennis which is located 2km from the outpatient department. “He has to walk or get a taxi to the outpatient department from the train station, the walk is a bit of a stretch and it is a €20 return via taxi,” Murphy highlighted. “That there is no bus-stop servicing the people of West Clare to bring them to the door of outpatient department is a miss,” the Kilkee man added.
Support was voiced by Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG). “We have an excellent bus service from Ennis as far as Kilkee. The one thing I would request, when you’re getting this bus stop that you look for a shelter because it is most important with the climate we’re in”.
Clare County Council’s planning department will also have to be alerted of the proposal, Cllr Ian Lynch (IND) commented “so there is consideration for change of use of the building so it is on their radar going forward”.
Cllr Murphy who is Cathaoirleach of the West Clare MD observed, “it falls between two stools”. He admitted, “I thought it would have been one of the principle things from a planning consideration”.
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