Month: May 2008

SHARON Collins claimed to gardai that she had been the victim of black- mail and denied being part of a con- spiracy.

However, Prosecution for the State, Tom O’Connell said, “The State says this was a lie. She admitted filing pictures that Essam Eid had in his possession. She admitted obtaining a proxy marriage certificate that was unknown to PJ Howard.”

In her statements to gardai, de- scribed by Mr O’Connell as “volu- minous’, Ms Collins said a woman named Maria Marconi visited Ennis in June 2006.

She said that Ms Marconi visited her at the Howards’ office in Ennis, where she was left on her own at re- ception. She said that Ms Marconi had asked to use the computer at the reception.

“She claims she received emails that she would pay €20,000 so that

an attachment would not be sent to her husband.

‘That was an email she had sent to Maria, saying things about PJ that She didn’t want PJ to see,’ said Mr O’Connell.

“She got in contact with Maria Marconi, who told her her computer had been stolen,’ he added.

He said that Ms Collins sent money by FedEx. She denied that she knew Essam Eid and told gardai she no longer had an email address for Mar-

1a Marcon.

Mr O’Connell said that Ms Collins “denied anything to do with ‘lyin- geyes’ email”.

He said she had taken steps to change her name by deed poll to Howard.

He said that in April 2006, Ms Col- lins had a row with PJ Howard “over personal matters”.

“She told Maria on email and the attachment was about this and she was afraid if PJ found out, it would

end their relationship and that was why she sent the money,” said Mr O’Connell.

The trial was told that Essam Eid claimed to know Sharon Collins and told gardai he used to date her.

“He then changed his tune and denied having certain communica- tions with Sharon Collins,” said Mr O’Connell.

“A lot of what was said by Sharon Collins and Essam Eid was confabu- lation and lies,” he added.

FLANKED by her sons, Gary and David, Sharon Collins sits at the back of the packed courtroom. Wear- ing a black trousers suit and white blouse, the petite blonde clutches a bottle of water and chews gum. She looks around, regularly focusing her gaze on Prosecutor Tom O’Connell, as he outlines the bizarre details of the case.

Just a few people separate her from her co-accused, Essam Eid, who sits to her right, wearing a cream-col- oured shirt and red and blue striped tie under a Nike sports jacket.

And another couple of bodies sepa- rate him from the alleged targets. PJ, Robert and Niall Howard sit together quietly in the middle of the single row of seating.

Like the other 50 or so other peo- ple in courtroom number 16 on the second floor of the Four Courts, they listen silently as the court hears that Ms Collins had been “anxious and agitating” to marry her lover, busi- nessman PJ Howard.

Ms Collins, who turned 45 just 10 days before the trial opened, wanted to wipe out the Howard family in or- der to gain from PJ’s inheritance. Or so the prosecution claims.

References to ‘the devil in the red dress’, a mysterious woman called Maria Marconi, killing ‘three birds in one stone’ for $US90,000, com- puter searches for a hitman, email discussions on how best to wipe out a family, the discovery of ricin in a prison cell and plans to poison two young men in their 20s, all cap- ture the attention of the jury over a lengthy opening statement.

Even before the outline of the al- legations 1s presented to the packed court, Mr Justice Roderick Murphy

warns the 12 jurors — sitting diago- nally across the room from the ac- cused — to refrain from reading the

newspapers and instead concentrate on the evidence presented. And given the extraordinary de-

tail contained in Prosecutor Tom O’Connell’s opening statement, there is no doubt but that this case will cre-

ate a high level of publicity.

Silence descends upon the packed courtroom as Mr O’Connell tells the jury it is ‘an unusual and rather com- plex case with many elements’.

He acknowledges that it has taken ‘unusually’ long to open the case, noting that “because of the complex- ity of the case it’s essential’.

Repeated Keds Ks Neh Ke) hitmanforhire@yahoo.com prompt Mr O’Connell to tell the jury it will be engraved in their memories by the end of the case. The eight men and four women seated in the jury box listen intently as Mr O’Connell describes, in detail, email contact between ‘hit- man’ and lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie and agreement on how the three Howards were to be murdered.

Such is the level of detail that sev- eral of the jurors begin to take notes, only for Mr O’Connell to point out that they will be supplied with copies of the exact contents of those emails at a later stage.

And all of this presented in a court- room where space is in short supply. Seated behind the jury box is the me- dia area, which accommodates up to a dozen journalists each day.

Several of the gardai involved in the case are forced to stand close to the witness box, as the single row of seating in the room is occupied by both accused, the alleged targets and the few gardai fortunate enough to have seats.

But, after three days of the cramped conditions, the presiding judge makes it known that a more spacious courtroom, court number two in the Round Hall of the Four Courts, will be available for the remainder of the vated

Relief all round.

ROBERT Howard told the trial yes- terday (Monday) that following a series of phone calls, he arranged a meeting with the man who had called to his house seeking €100,000 to cancel the contracts on the three Taerse

He told the court that “Tony’ phoned him at around 12.15pm on September 27 – the day after he had called to his

house – and again at 4.45pm.

“At 12.15 he asked me what time I finished work at and had I started getting the money together. I said, ‘The usual time’,’ said Mr Howard.

He said that during the 4.45pm phone call, ‘Tony’ asked to meet at the bus station at 5.15pm.

Mr Howard said he suggested an alternative location, the Queen’s Ho- oe

Asked by prosecution Counsel Tom

O’Connell had he been in touch with the gardai during this time, he said, “Yes I was.”

He said he went to the Queen’s Ho- tel, as arranged, and sat in the bar. He received another phone call from ‘Tony’ at 5.40pm, telling him to go to the bathroom to meet a lady and she would count the money.

“TI told him, no, I wouldn’t go,” said Mr Howard.

“T contacted Detective Garda (Jar-

lath) Fahy and in turn he told me to go to the lobby of the toilets to meet this lady. I did,’ said Mr Howard.

He said the woman was in her late 40s or early 50s with dark hair and wore a leather jacket.

“She said, ‘Have you got the enve- lope?’ I said, “Have you got the com- puter?’”’ he told the trial.

“At that stage, a plain-clothes garda came past the lobby and she took off,’ said Mr Howard.

Asked had he seen the woman pre- viously, he said, “A few minutes ear- lier I might have seen the lady in the hotel walking past me.” He had never seen her before that day.

He said he never received calls from “Tony’ after that and all the calls made to him were on his mo- bile phone. Much of yesterday was taken up with legal argument, in the absence of the jury and the trial con- tinues this (Tuesday) morning.

TRACES of the poison ricin were found during a search of Essam Eid’s cell in Limerick prison in April 2007.

The traces were found in a contact lens case under his bed, according to the prosecution, and the find was made on foot of intelligence from the sdk

“It was taken for testing by the army and was found to contain the ricin poison,” said Prosecutor Tom

O’Connell.

“That in a context where poison- ing had been discussed as one of the methods of assassination. The case against Mr Eid, the prosecution says, is an overwhelming case,” the Pros- ecutor said.

Mr O’Connell told the listening jury that the “conspiracy was hatched” between August | and September 26, 2006.

“A conspiracy is in essence an agreement between two or more per- sons to do an unlawful act. It will be

the State’s case that the conspiracy was to kill these three persons,” he nee

Included in the information to be presented to the jury will be evi- dence from the FBI, who carried out investigations in Las Vegas, details of computer and phone traffic and statements made by several people.

Mr O’Connell told the court that Essam Eid claimed to know Sharon Collins and “claimed to be her lover and that she had paid for tickets for him to come to Ireland”.

He said that an Irish soldier came upon ‘hitmanforhire’ on the internet and after email exchanges, Tony Lu- ciano rang him and asked him could he get him a gun in Ireland. The sol- dier panicked and said it wasn’t him who had sent the emails, but that it was a flatmate.

Mr O’Connell told the jury that after the alleged burglary and de- mand for cash from Robert Howard, he spoke to his father PJ, who at the time was on a boat with Sharon Col- lins in Spain.

“Later that night, Sharon Collins told PJ for the first time about Mar- ia Marconi, who was tutoring her about becoming a novelist,” said Mr O’Connell.

He said she told Mr Howard that Ms Marconi had visited Ennis.

“There is no trace of Maria Mar- coni. She has disappeared off a com- puter, even though she said she had been in almost daily contact.

“The prosecution regards this as a fabulous lie. She is a phantom,’ he said.

A MULTI-MILLION euro construc- tion project in Kilrush is on the verge of collapse following the revelation that sub-contractors on the site have not been paid since before Christ- ate he

According to union representatives, more than €100,000 is now owed to a number of contractors working on the construction of a private nursing home on the Killimer Road in Kil- rush with one painting sub-contrac- tor alone owed €46,000.

In addition to this, two plastering sub-contractors are reportedly also owed more than €41,000 between Wetoeen

An all out strike was avoided yes- terday, Monday, May 26, when over- all contractors Siteline Construction Company Ltd from Limerick, made commitments to pay sub-contractors any arrears before the close of busi-

ness tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28.

Unions have agreed to postpone a picket schedued to take place yester- day until after the Wednesday dead- line.

“A strike may be the only means that we have left in this case, the de- velopment is practically finished and once it is completed we have very Iit- tle leeway,” said Paddy Kenneally of the Clare Plasters Union.

“People would have major reser- vations about the situation with this development. Sub-contractors have been told before that they are about to get paid and it hasn’t happened so we will just have to wait and see.

“The current building climate is very difficult for everyone and it’s nearly impossible for sub-contrac- tors who have to pay their employees to keep going when they are not be- ing paid themselves. People are very worried.

“We are very hopeful that this situ-

ation will be sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction as soon as possible. All our members want is to work and to be paid for the work that they do.”

WHY NOT give your fledgling business lift-off with the help of a €280,000 prize fund from the Seedcorn Business Competition 08 — that’s the message from InterTra- delreland.

Small companies North and South have leveraged €65m of additional equity investment over the past five years through Seedcorn, which of- fers the biggest prize fund of any business competition on the island.

“‘Treland is rightly renowned for its spirit of entrepreneurship and that 1s something we want to continue to support, So we would encourage even more young firms to sign up for this year’s competiton,’ said Liam Nellis, chief executive of InterTradelreland.

Pat Lucey of Aspiracon, last year’s winner of Emerging International Company, Munster region, said: “We

entered Seedcorn to help drive our business development and it gave us a framework for our business plan as

well as valuable feedback through expert judging panels and Master- ESNet

‘“Seedcorn forced us to address ar- eas which we had been missing — I Suppose you could say we took a step back in order to look forward. Ulti- mately, it accelerated our develop- ment by about six months and we are now engaged in negotiations with the VC community. The publicity has been very positive as well, as it all helps to get your foot in the door!”

All entrants to the competition must be able to demonstrate new equity requirements in excess of €75,000. Entrants to the Emerging Company category must be in existence for less than three years by September 26, 2008, and have sales targets of less than €5m. Entrants to the Emerg- ing International Company must be in business less than five years by September 26, 2008, and have sales targets of more than €5m.

Following the scoring of written business plans, the top entries from

each region and category are selected to make a short presentation to a pan- el of judges, followed by a question and answer session.

Winners are selected in each cat- egory in each of the four regions and all eight will be asked to make their presentation again to a separate pan- el of judges at the final in Belfast on November 26, 2008. The panel will then select the overall all-island win- ner in each category.

To register your interest in entering the Seedcorn Business Competition, log on to the new dedicated website: WWww.seedcorncompetition.com. Business plans must be submitted by Spm on the closing date of Septem- ber 26.

40 per cent of farmers now Say that they are ready to vote Yes in the upcoming election.

The number of farmers now com- mitted to voting No stands at 33 per cent with a sizeable 27 per cent still undecided.

The Irish Farmers Organisation have been on the verge of endors- ing the No campaign over the last number of weeks following increas-

ing anger over the handling, by EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson, of the WTO.

Galway MEP Sean O’Neachtain spoke out on Thursday last calling on the farmers of Clare to Vote Yes for the EU Lisbon Reform Treaty.

O’Neachtain has been one of the treaty’s strongest advocates and has spoken out at many public meetings over the last month.

“IT strongly believe that it is in the future economic and political inter- ests of the people of County Clare and the people of Ireland that the EU Lisbon Reform Treaty is ratified,” he Sr nLee

‘This treaty is about ensuring that the EU institutions reform how they

will take decisions into the future so as to ensure that the European Union becomes more effective and more efficient in how it will carry out its business into the future.

A more effective European Union will help to ensure that the EU can bring forward new laws which will help to develop the European econo- my to a stronger extent. The ratifica- tion of this treaty will guarantee that the EU will be able to address new problems such as climate change and the security of energy supplies in a more structured manner. No one country alone can tackle all these problems on their own.”

Specifically targeting farmers, O Neachtain said that a yes vote will

help Ireland to effectively address the concerns of Irish farmers in the context of the CAP Health Check 2008 — 2013

“We welcome any measures at an EU level which will simplify the actual operation of the CAP, and, in particular, the administration of the single farm payment,” he said.

“But we clearly do not support the proposal to increase compulsory modulation from five to 13 per cent, which means that farmers will lose eight per cent in the value of their annual single farm payment from the year 2012, and it is proposed by the European Commission that these monies will be re-directed to other rural development programmes.”

TEAGASC claimed last week that the increased cost of artificial ferti- lizer this year 1s impacting on farm- ers’ profit margins and could squeeze many Clare farmers off the land. Depending on stocking rates the higher cost of fertilizer in 2008 could increase production costs by up to €50 per hectare on beef farms, or up to €100 per hectare on dairy farms. This increase is the equivalent of 0.75 cent per litre of milk or 16 cent per kilogram of beef live weight. “Even though production costs have increased grass remains the cheapest form of feed on dairying and drystock farms, and nitrogen

remains the main driver of yields. On tillage farms, even at current fer- tilizer prices and based on expected grain prices, applications are justi- fied economically,” said Teagasc en- vironment specialist Tim Hyde.

Changes in the price of fertilizer have implications for usage and the management of other valuable nutri- ent sources such as slurry on farms. These changes have refocused at- tention on the benefits of clover as a source of nitrogen. In monetary terms a thousand gallons of slurry is now worth €25, while clover can fix nitrogen to a value of €120 per hectare.

Among the factors to be consid- ered when responding to the change

in fertilizers prices is the enterprise type and the level of efficiency. On farms fertilizers, particularly nitro- gen, drives farm output, and used ef- ficiently also drives profit.

Nitrogen is the main determinant of high yields and artificial fertilizer sources should only be reduced be- low crop requirement if it can be re- placed by alternatives such as clover swards and organic manures.

“While the increased cost of ferti- lizer will add €10 per head to feed costs associated with a winter fin- ished animal on good grass silage plus concentrates an intensive feed- ing system based on concentrates would only become more competi- tive, if concentrate prices dropped by

€80 per tonne,” said Siobhan Kavan- agh, Teagasc nutrition specialist.

In relation to tillage crops, nitrogen fertilizer prices would need to rise, or grain prices drop significantly, before current nitrogen application rates would not be justified econom1- cally.

“Despite dramatic increases in prices fertilizer applications remain a cost effective input for profitable crops.

“With current fertilizer nitrogen prices and the projected price of grain the economic optimum for cereal crops has not changed and is similar to that of 2007,” said Teagasc soul and plant nutrition specialist Mark Plunkett.

AN Ennis sculptor is in a race against time to find a home for two man-size squirrels to avoid their destruction. Earlier this year, Barry Wrafter received a text message without any warning to say ‘stop working on the commission’ of the red and grey

squirrel after the developers who commissioned the work pulled out of the project.

Mr Wrafter was three-quarters way through the work but now, with no takers, the wet clay of the red squir- rel is falling off, leaving the squirrel vulnerable to the same fate suffered by thousands of red squirrels in Ire-

land in recent years.

Mr Wrafter, who won an open competition for the project, secured €55,000 of the €80,000 commission before the developer withdrew from the project. He is now offering the work for one-third of the initial com- mission in order to secure a home for the two squirrels.

“It is a bargain. I have been work- ing on the piece for the past year and I have put off other jobs in order to concentrate on this.

“Tt would be a terrible waste if they would have to be broken up. It breaks my heart really and I would love to get a home for the piece, so if there is any developer or body out there that would be interested in buying the piece, they should get in touch with none

A bronze plate has yet to be placed on the red squirrel and this will cost €20,000. The squirrels are currently at Mr Wrafter’s workyard near Shan- non and he said the wet clay on the red squirrel is cracking and it could completely crack up within a month unless work recommences.

The sculpture was commissioned for a shopping centre in Longford and the piece marks the struggle of the red squirrel against the grey squirrel.

Three breeding pairs of grey squir- rels were introduced to Ireland in 1911 by a US national as part of a present for a wedding in Longford and since then the grey squirrel has wreaked havoc on the red squirrel population in Ireland

The grey squirrel has colonised large parts of the country to the det- riment of the red squirrel and Mr Wrafter said, ““The grey squirrel has overran the country and the sculptor was bringing attention to that.”

re- vealed that the county council and Ennis Town Council refused permis- sion for a total of 800 homes in the

eastern and northern environs of En- nis because the town’s sewage system is operating beyond full capacity.

A new €7/5 million treatment plant at Clareabbey is not expected to come on stream until 2012 — the plant got planning permission four years ago and the council has already paid out €7 million to three landowners for the site.

An Environmental Impact State- ment into the scheme was published at the end of 2002 warned that if noth- ing was done, “the existing problems will be exacerbated over the next few years as increasing demands are put

on the drainage system and treated plants due to expanded environ- ment”.

In relation to the latest planning application by Al Callanan — which faced strong local opposition — the council stated that while the princi- ple of housing on the site would be suitable, the application was prema- ture pending the construction and commissioning of the new Clareab- bey plant.

The Environmental Protection Agency told the council in April that it was informed by the local authority that the current demands on the sys-

tem is 26,000 houses and the treat- ment capacity of the Clonroadmore plant is 17,000.

The EPA stated, “The plant is therefore already operating above its design treatment capacity and would not be capable of accommodating this development.”

The council also refused planning due to deficiencies in the public water supply and the period within which these constraints would be reason- ably expected to cease. The council also ruled that it would have signifi- cant negative effects on the existing ecology and hydrology of the site.