This article is from page 3 of the 2011-12-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
A FORMER Fine Gael Senator and former running mate of Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been appointed the district court judge for Clare.
Westport native Patrick Durcan, who was appointed to the Seanad in 1983, ran unsuccessfully for the Dáil on four occasions – 1981, twice in 1982 and 1987 – and served a term on Westport Town Council from 1999 to 2004.
Mr Durcan, who was recently appointed a district court judge, will replace Judge Joseph Mangan who retired in October.
He has practised as a solicitor in Westport for several years, prior to his recent judicial appointment.
He studied at University College Dublin and the Law Society and qualified as a solicitor in 1973.
Mr Durcan is not likely to take up the role as district court judge in Clare until March as he will spend the next few months in judicial training in Dublin. In the meantime, the county’s district courts will be presided over by judges from a panel. Since Judge Mangan’s retirement, Judge Aeneas McCarthy has presided over most of the district courts in the county.
A spokesman for the Courts Service told The Clare People that a decision to locate a newly-appointed judge in a district court area “is unusual but it’s not unheard of”.
The President of the Clare Law Association, solicitor Mairéad Doyle said the new judge will be most welcome to the county.
“We are delighted at the appointment this week of Judge Patrick Durcan to the District Court in Clare as successor to Judge Joseph Mangan,” said Ms Doyle.
“Judge Durcan had a long and distinguished career in the district court in Mayo and as a native of the West of Ireland he will be familiar with the type of cases that will be coming before him during the course of his work here in Clare. We welcome Judge Durcan to Clare and look forward to working with him,” she added.
Meanwhile, changes to court sittings across Clare have been rubberstamped and will come into effect in January, as part of a centralisation process.
Under the changes, there will be specific dates for crime hearings, separate dates for civil hearings and other listed dates for hearings related to traffic offences. Crime sittings will take place on Wednesdays, with road traffic matters and civil cases heard on Fridays. Also, most of the hearings will be centralised to Ennis. Kilrush cases will continue to be heard in the west Clare town, while cases from north Clare are to be moved to Ennis. Shannon cases are already heard in Ennis.
East Clare district court sittings will return to Killaloe in January, for a trial period of three months. O’Donovan’s bar and restaurant, Derg Court, Ballina, Killaloe, will host the sittings from January 3.
The court will sit on the first Tuesday of every month and will also sit on extra days – on the six second Tuesdays (January, March, May, July, October and December).
It will sit at O’Donovan’s for three months initially, with the option of extending the lease on a monthly basis.