Month: December 2009

A 40-YEAR-OLD woman who had been accused of stealing cash by making several ATM withdrawals has had a string of charges against aes ae UES ea b Ester ms

The woman had denied 10 charges brought as part of a Garda investi- gation which was launched after a family reported that money had been taken from an account over a three- week period last summer.

Initially 10 charges were brought and three of those were struck out in court last Wednesday. After hearing submissions from the defendant’s

solicitor, Judge Joseph Mangan ad- journed ruling and on Friday he dis- missed all charges.

Of the seven charges on which the judge made his decision on Friday, the woman had been accused of making withdrawals – ranging between €50 and €300 – totaling €1,450 from an ATM machine in east Clare.

A 16-year-old girl told Ennis Dis- trict Court that she went to the bank on September 20, 2008 to withdraw money from her account. However, she was dismayed to discover that there was no money in the account. “There should have been over €2,000 in it,’ she said. She said she did not

give anyone permission to withdraw money from the account she held jointly with her mother. She said her mother kept the ATM card either in her purse or in a press at their home. The girl’s mother told Judge Mangan that she did not give the ATM card to anyone and did not give anyone per- mission to use the card. She told the court that she has known the defend- ant for many years.

Under cross-examination from defence solicitor Tara Godfrey, the woman denied that she had ever bor- rowed more than €2,000 from the defendant. “No I didn’t and I never would,” she said.

“You supplied her with the ATM card for repayment of that loan,” said Ms Godfrey. The witness denied Wek

The defendant told the court that she had been friendly with the other woman for many years.

She said she had been involved in an accident a number of years ago, for which she received several thou- sand euro in compensation. From this, she said she loaned €2,200 to the woman (who made the com- ete ee

She said the other woman gave her access to the bank account, which contained €2,300. She said that an

ATM card, PIN number and note was furnished to her at her home ad- dress.

She told the court that she used the ATM card with the woman’s author- ity. She said that she wasn’t happy making the withdrawals, but did it because “it was money that was owed to me’”’.

She said that she was owed €2,200, but “I took out €2,300, which was a mistake on my part”.

Ms Godfrey submitted that the charges should be struck out. “In ef- fect, there isn’t one summons where evidence has been adduced,’ she Said.

THE last two weeks will define the life of Mike Finn – for better or for 0) Toe

Like many other people on Gort’s Crowe Street he has lost everything in the flood. The undiscriminating waters took it all, his livelihood and the business that has been in his fam- ily for generations. A life’s work sim- ply washed away.

Like most other people on Crowe Street Mike has no insurance – no insurance company would have him after the floods in 1995 – and he now stands to loose an estimated €1 mil- lion from the latest set back.

‘The business in closed and I have no appetite at the moment to ever open it again. It’s heartbreaking to see it all. Heartbreaking,” he said.

“It’s not getting any better, not for the near future anyway. Long term it is still not good. We have great work done here, everyone is helping out, everyone wants to help get us out of this mess – but it’s frightening.

“We were let down at the start of this. We were let down by our local engineer and the local guards but I don’t think they realised the scale of the problem. Since then though they have come on board.

“T’m tired of giving out, I’m not go- ing to give out anymore, we need to get on with it and do the best that we can. It’s a natural disaster in the area,

it should never have happened and it should never happen again. But there is nothing being done to prevent this happening next year or the year af- oe

“If we can get some sort of drain sorted out between here and Kinvara then that would be a solution. There

are houses marooned under 12 feet of water, cattle gone out of sheds, the fodder is gone and the sheds them- selves are gone.”

For many people affected by repeat- ed flooding there is simply nowhere to turn, as the insurance companies will refuse to re-insure someone who

has previously made a claim.

According to Mike, the €10 mil- lion allocated by the Government to tackle the flooding will be just a frac- tion of the eventual cost.

“It’s bad, I need something from somewhere, I need to sort out myself and I need to sort out my family. I

need funding, and I don’t need it next month, I need it now,” he continued.

‘There doesn’t seem to be any an- Swers out there. Brian Cowen going out around the country in a pair of shoes is not the answer. He doesn’t need to go around the country, all he needs to do is turn on his TV – he needs to go out to Europe and get funding to fix this.

“We are sending out funds to every country in the world and we can’t Support our own people. It’s the peo- ple on the ground who are working very, very hard to sort this out and we are not here to be giving out.

“We are in the middle of a reces- sion and the last thing that we needed was to be hit by this natural disaster.

“We have no flood insurance here since the flooding in 1995 but we still pay high rates. I pay nearly €14,000 a year in rates and what happens? The place is distroyed for a second time. That shouldn’t happen. The council needs to protect the town from some- thing like this.

““T have no insurance, no one would insure me after the last time, I’m to- tally wiped out. I don’t think that a million euro would be enough to sort me out at this stage; the building has to go.”

THE flooding disaster in Gort was only prevented from turning into a catastrophe through the actions of a small group of volunteers, who have carted away more than 70 million gallons of water from the town over the last two weeks.

Despite the intensive flooding in parts of Crowe Street, large sections

of Gort remain largely untouched by the disaster. Had it not been for this effort, it 1s believed that more than 100 houses and businesses located on the Galway Road out of Gort would have been destroyed by the rising water.

A number of pumps have been go- ing round the clock in Gort since the flooding started and a small army of volunteers have been carting the wa-

ter away using tractors.

‘The situation on Crowe Street – we didn’t realise what we were doing at the time but we saved half the town. We thought we were saving our own street but by doing that we saved half the town by pumping away all that water,” said Mike Finn.

‘There is more then 70 million gal- lons of water pumped out of Crowe Street in the last 10 days. We thought

we had lost the battle on a few occa- sions but we pulled through.

“The gardai were good and the council workers. The community reaction here has been brilliant. We just can’t let it beat us now, we are nine or 10 days into it now and we will stay going – we will fight it all the way.”

Despite the terrible conditions, lo- cal people have been offering their time and support to the flood relief.

“It’s a huge community effort here. We have so many people working voluntarily here, so many machines working voluntarily. It’s not just in Gort, it’s all over the area,’ said Cllr Gerry Finnerty.

“It’s unbelievable the effort that people have made and only for it south Galway would be gone.”

Despite the flooding, locals have been keen to emphasise that Gort is still open for business.

‘There is a lot of good people here in Gort who have been doing their best to help. We need to emphasise to everyone out there that Gort is not closed, it is still open for business,’ continued Mr Finn.

‘This is a bigger disaster than peo- ple realise – if things don’t change all the shops will be closed by the Christmas.”