Month: June 2013

A SHANNON man has been convicted of having cannabis for sale or supply in the town last December.

Aaron Connolly (22) fled after he was seen carrying a weighing scales and cannabis near the Rossbracken estate on December 5 (2012).

Mr Connolly, who was described in court as suffering from an intellectual disability, was pursued by a detective garda into his home at 19 Rossbracken where he was arrested on suspicion of having cannabis for sale or supply.

At Ennis District Court on Tuesday, Mr Connolly denied a charge of having the drug for sale or supply.

Detective Garda David Laing told the court that Mr Connolly “turned on his heels and fled” after he was seen carrying a bag containing weighing scales, zip-lock bags and cannabis.

Analysis subsequently confirmed that the substance was 8 grammes of cannabis, the court heard. Mr Connolly told the court the cannabis was for personal use.

Solicitor Caitriona Carmody said it was the defence’s case that the evidence was illegally obtained by gardaí.

In evidence, Mr Connolly claimed Detective Laing could not have known what was in the bag because it was a non-see-through Dunnes Stores, lined plastic bag.

His mother Christine Connolly also told the court that the bag was non-see-through.

Under cross-examination from Inspector Tom Kennedy, Mr Connolly admitted having cannabis when first seen by Detective Laing.

He said he had removed the drugs from home because he though the house was going to be “raided”.

Mr Connolly did not give an explanation for having the weighing scales.

Addressing the accused, Insp Kennedy said;

“I put it to you that you did not have the weighing scales for baking a cake.”

Judge William Early said if gardaí observe someone committing an arrestable offence, they are entitled to go into that person’s house for the purposes of arrest.

He said he did not believe the evidence of Mr Connolly or his mother. He convicted Mr Connolly of the charge. The accused has previous convictions for public order offences. Solicitor Caitriona Carmody said her client suffers from an intellectual disability and is a “young man who is easily led.”

She said Mr Connolly would benefit from the intervention of the Probation Services.

Judge Early remanded Mr Connolly on continuing bail to appear again at Ennis District Court on July 3 for a pre-sentence report.

He said he would recommend 120 hours of community service. A POLIS H mechanic was “extraordinarily reckless” when he bought stolen quad bikes from a man in Ennis last year, a court has heard. Lukas Staszynski (30) purchased the bikes for €800, around an hour after they were stolen from theWoodstock Hotel, Ennis. Mr Staszynski, with an address at 79 Dromard, Ennis, Lahinch Road, appeared before Ennis District Court onTuesday. He pleaded guilty to two charges of handling stolen quad bikes at the Doora Industrial Estate, Quin Road, Ennis on November 16 (2012). He was not charged in connection with the theft of the bikes The court heard that Mr Staszynski runs a breaking shop for spare vehicle parts in the Doora Industrial Estate. Gardaí received a report that two quad bikes had been stolen fromWoodstock at around 9amon November 16. Garda Adrian Diviney of Ennis Garda Station explained that a GPS systemfitted on the bikes enabled gardaí to track the vehicles to Mr Staszynski’s garage. Garda Diviney said he arrived to Mr Staszynski’s buisness premises at around 10am. He told the court that the accused brought himto a lorry that contained a number of vehicles including the quad bikes. The court heard that Mr Staszynski intended to transport one of the quad bikes to his brother in Poland as a present. Garda Diviney said the accused told himthat a man showed up at his premises that morning offering to sell the bikes. He said Mr Staszynski could not provide any information on the seller.The court heard this was a one off transaction. Mr Staszynski has no previous convictions except for road traffic offences. Defence solicitor John Casey said his client cooperated fully with gardaí. He said his client told gardaí that he“thought there might be something wrong” with the bikes. Mr Casey added,“He did pay for thembut he was somewhat anxious about them.” “He should have been more careful.” The court heard that Mr Staszynski’s business is still in operation. Mr Casey said,“He realises he has to be more careful particularly in dealing with the merchandise he is dealing with.” JudgeWilliamEarly said Mr Staszynski had been “extraordinarily careless and reckless” in accepting the bikes. He said if people were not willing to receive stolen property then the incentive would not exist to steal property. Judge Early imposed fines totaling €800. A MA N has appeared in court charged with handling property allegedly stolen during a burglary of a premises in Ennis town centre in March. Martin Donovan (37) is alleged to have handled a stolen Apple MacIntosh Pro laptop valued at €1200 at 14 Carrig an Oir,Tobertascan, Ennis on May 21 (2013). Inspector TomKennedy told Ennis District Court onTuesday that it would be alleged that the computer was stolen during a burglary of Wilson’s Camera shop on O’Connell Street in March. Mr Donovan, with an address at 14 Carrig an Oir, Ennis, is not charged in connection with the burglary. Insp Kennedy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has directed summary disposal of the case. JudgeWilliamEarly requested an outline of the alleged facts to consider jurisdiction of the case. Insp Kennedy said it would be alleged that Mr Donovan brought the laptop to the CarphoneWarehouse shop in Limerick.The court heard that it would be alleged that a security signal was activated after the laptop was switched on. Gardaí went to the store and identified Mr Donovan fromCCTV footage, it is alleged. Judge Early accepted jurisdiction. He also granted a statements order for defence solicitor Daragh Hassett. Mr Donovan was remanded on continuing bail to appear again at Ennis District Court on June 26.

A MAN who head-butted a Clare garda and told him he would “put two bullets in his head” has been sentenced to four months in prison.

Paddy Harty (40) pleaded guilty to assaulting Ennistymon Garda David Keneally at Roughan, Kilnaboy on February 8 (2013).

Gardaí were responding to reports of a car crash in the area when the assault occured.

Mr Harty, with a former address at Lisheen Park, Patrickswell, Limerick, appeared at Ennis District Court on Tuesday. He pleaded guilty to assault and possession of two stolen handbags at Roughan Kilnaboy on February 8.

He also pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a mechanically propelled vehicle.

The court heard that the car Mr Harty was traveling in was stolen in Ballinasloe on February 7.

The court heard that after being handcuffed, Mr Harty issued threats to Garda Keneally and head butted him.

Insp Kennedy said the accused appeared intoxicated. He said Mr Harty was subdued with assistance from gardaí from Ennis Garda Station.

The Court heard that the handbags found in the car had been taken during a burglary of a house in Inagh on February 7. Insp Kennedy told the court that Mr Harty has 93 previous convictions.

Defence solicitor Fiona Hehir said her client, a married father of five, is a chronic alcoholic who has never received treatment.

She said a doctor has told Mr Harty that if he doesn’t stop drinking “he won’t see 50.”

In a letter to the court, Mr Harty apologized for his actions on February 8.

He wrote, “I can’t remember the incident and I’m very sorry to all parties involved.” The court heard Mr Harty is attending meetings of Alcoholic’s Anonymous in prison.

Judge William Early said Mr Harty appeared to be making good use of his time in prison.

However he added that the court judges people on their behaviour. Judge Early said it was “totally unacceptable” to assault and threaten to put two bullets in the head of garda.

He imposed sentences totaling 12 months in prison. Eight months of the sentence were suspended for two years on condition Mr Harty be of good behaviour. The sentence was backdated to May 3 (2013). Mr Harty thanked Judge Early as he was led away from the courtroom.

A FATHER of three has pleaded guilty to assaulting a man at a house in Ennis almost two years ago.

Martin Joyce (22) was one of two men who entered 56 Clancy Park uninvited on June 7 (2011). On Tuesday, Ennis District Court heard that the men cornered Thomas McDonagh in the sitting room of the house. Mr McDonagh, who lives at Ballymurtagh Cross, Shannon, was visiting relatives in Ennis on the day.

Inspector Tom Kennedy told the court that Mr Joyce threatened Mr McDonagh and warned him to stay out of Ennis. The court heard that threats were made to burn down the house if Mr McDonagh called the gardaí.

The court heard Mr Joyce punched the man into the face and side.

He is currently serving an 18-month sentence imposed at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court in April for witness intimidation. Mr Joyce has 33 previous convictions.

Defence solicitor Tara Godfrey said her client has no previous convictions for assault. She said the incident at Clancy Park arose from a confrontation that developed between members of Mr Joyce’s extended family.

The court heard Mr Joyce has over- come drug addiction and is attending the education unit at Cork Prison.

Judge William Early said it was “outrageous” that Mr Joyce, in the company of another man, would go into a house and assault Mr McDonagh.

He said this was the type of offence that deserved a custodial sentence.

Noting the guilty plea and the efforts Mr Joyce is making in prison, Judge Early imposed a four-month sentence.

The sentence is to run concurrent to the sentence Mr Joyce is currently serving.

The court also heard that it is alleged that Thomas McDonagh sus- tained head injuries as a result of blows received from a wheel-brace during the incident.

Martin Joyce is not charged in connection with the alleged wheel-brace assault.

Another man appeared in court charged in connection with the incident. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Judge William Early had indicated he would re-consider jurisdiction of the case.

After hearing an outline of the alleged facts, Judge Early accepted to hear the case in the District Court. The case of the second accused was adjourned to June 12 for mention.

A KILRUSH man has emerged at the centre of a diplomatic row which has seen the Republican movement in Ireland accuse the British government of violating the ‘Good Friday Agreement’.

Sixty-one-year-old John Downey, who is originally from St Patrick’s Terrace in Kilrush, was arrested in Gatwick Airport on May 23 last and charged with four counts of murder and conspiring to cause an explosion in the infamous Hyde Park bomb- ings of 1982.

In the attack four members of the Household Cavalry – Roy John Bright, Dennis Richard Anthony Daly, Simon Andrew Tipper and Geoffrey Vernon Young – were killed in the IRA attack.

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly has said the decision to arrest and charge the Kilrush man “is vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful. It will cause anger within the Republican community.

“This development represents bad faith and a departure from what was previously agreed by both govern- ments,” he added.

Now the case has been taken up by the local Sinn Féin organization in Clare, with party spokesperson Anne Hayes describing it as “an attack on the peace process”.

She also said, “Republicans have been asked many times to say the war is over and we have acknowledged that fact.

“When are the British going to say their war is over? We are now 15 years on from the Good Friday Agreement and 31 years on from the Hyde Park bomb.

“We negotiated a deal for those thought to be wanted by the British and in 2007 John received a letter assuring him that he was no longer wanted by any British police force. He has since travelled to England several times.

“We have been concerned at the attitude of the Tory government in London for quite some time now. Sinn Féin have lived up to any commitments we have given but the British have not. However, none of us saw such a blatant breach of agreements coming. Vindictive actions like this have no place in a peace process,” she added.

THE new West Clare area will be the largest local election constituency in the county, almost mimicking in size a small county such as Louth.

The eight new councillors will represent 34,449 people spanning an area from Kilballyowen on the tip of the Loophead peninsula to Gleninagh on the constituency’s most northerly point.

The 96 kilometre-long local electoral area was designed by merging the current Kilrush area and part of the Ennistymon Electoral Area.

This new area will also absorb not one, but two, town councils, Kilrush and Kilkee – coastal towns with very distinctive identities who looked af- ter their own needs for more than 120 years.

In its report the Boundary Committee said, “It is proposed that there would be a local electoral area covering the western side of the county along the Atlantic seaboard to be titled West Clare. This would include the towns of Kilkee, Kilrush, Lahinch and Ennistymon.” Despite having a number of urban centres to base the name of this new constituency on, as it the preferred option, West Clare like West Mayo and Cork is unique.

“In a few cases the committee felt it more appropriate to recommend names that reflect a wider local community identity attaching to a geographic location. This situation arose, for example, in the case of the recommended new local electoral areas of West Clare, West Cork and West Mayo.”

It is hoped that this all encompassing name will merge all these very cultural distinctive areas, which have been traditionally considered North and West Clare.

To cover this vast area the eight new councillors will require a quick study of new towns, villages and parishes and a reliable car.

Each councillor will represent an average of 4,306 people. WEST CLARE

WHEN it came to designing the new Ennis constituency it wasn’t exactly rocket science; the boundary committee took the current local electoral areas of Ennis East and Ennis West and stuck them together.

“The committee is recommending a configuration that would provide for a local electoral area for Ennis that would include its hinterland,” the report said.

It added that in making the recommendations it was also mindful of the position of Ennis as the county town with a town council.

This town council will of course be absorbed up by the new Ennis Electoral Area leaving nine redundant town councillors, and nine county councillors (five from Ennis East and Four from Ennis West) vying for eight seats.

Most of the 33,010 people in this area live in the urban area of Ennis town, but rural areas such as Kilnamona, Quin, Doora and Templemaley will also be looking to have their say in this highly populated, low geographically spread area.

There will be a ratio of 4,126 people to every local representative elected to this area. ENNIS

WITH the other three constituencies built up around an urban centre or identity, at first sight it would appear the Killaloe Electoral Area is an amalgamation of everything else that is left over when Ennis, Shannon and West Clare were constructed.

The Boundary Committee Report refers only to this electoral area as “A fourth local electoral area is recommended for the eastern side of the county, to be titled Killaloe.”

It has been given its name from the area’s largest town, Killaloe, on the Tipperary border, but spans an area that borders County Galway at the north.

The new Killaloe Electoral Area will cover most of the current Killaloe electoral area, but will also include parts of North Clare traditionally in the Ennistymon Electoral Area.

Questions remain as to what commonality lies between East Clare areas such as Clonlara and Killaloe and the traditionally North Clare areas of Tubber and Boston.

If the guidelines set out by the boundary committee in drawing up these new local electoral area boundaries hadn’t stipulated that no area could be smaller than six councillors with an average of 4,830 people per councillor, then this area could have been very different.

Putting areas like Cappavilla and Kiltenanlea in the south of this constituency into Shannon or part of the north into the West Clare constituency would probably make more sense locally, but this would also result in a five seater Killaloe Electoral Area, which is not allowed under the guidelines. As a result, the six councillors elected to this are next summer will cover an area spanning from O’Briensbridge to Tubber and beyond.

Six county councillors will cover this expansive area that extends from Cappavilla in the south to Abbey in the north, and they will represent 22,940 people or 3,823 people per local representative. KILLALOE

AND SO it begins. Since Phil Hogan announced a new structure to local government there has been a cold war of sorts over the local elections next summer.

The town councils were going to be dissolved, so there were potentially 36 new candidates with experience of elections already circling the county council seats.

It was also known that those county council seats would be fewer in number, the only question was by how much.

All was to be revealed in May, and on the second last day of the month all became clear.

There would be four constituencies or Local Electoral Areas in Clare as opposed to the six that are currently in place. The areas, particularly two, would be larger with fewer councillors to serve them as the county council membership is to be cut from 32 to 28 after the 2014 local election.

In total the number of local elected representatives in the county will drop from 68 (including town councillors) to 28. That is 40 elected representatives that will retire between now and next summer, or risk swimming in a much bigger shark infested pond.

Those overseeing the next election for the major parties know they have a busy few weeks ahead, but all agree that at least now they know what they are dealing with in terms of the boundary.

The “war” can begin – and nowhere is that more fierce than the battles within political parties.

Ask anyone in the world of politics, the most difficult part is not the election, but the selection process to make it on to a party ticket.

As well as the young guns already signing up and showing an interest, and other councillors changing party allegiances, the incumbents will also be concerned about the impact their party colleagues decision to re-run will have on their own chances of reelection.

There are significantly less seats, and this is even more of a concern when you include eager and in many cases accomplished town councillors in the race.

There will be a lot of soul searching during the coming weeks and months as councillors decide if there is a place for them in their newly-designed electoral area, and if a move to a new one would increase there chances of survival.

When surveyed by The Clare People in February, the majority of county councillors said they would contest the next election.

I would suspect there will be a number of minds changing with the changes to the boundary in the coming weeks, and the reality that two thirds of the town councillors have expressed an interest in the 2014 contest.

The major parties must now decid- ed strategies. Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have admitted that they will be drawing up strategic plans as soon as possible.

Conventions will need to be held soon, but a long summer ahead will probably postpone the majority until September at the earliest.

The independent candidates will also have a lot of soul searching to do. In many cases the area to canvass has become significantly larger, and the people behind the doors are no longer neighbours and friends. The added financial cost of this election must also be a consideration for independents as they have more area to cover and people to connect with.

Whatever decisions are made by councillors and potential candidates, there will be some interesting times ahead for political anoraks.

Let the 2014 games begin.

A CLARE artist will travel to the Kennedy Foundation in Boston with one of his three paintings of John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland, just weeks after he sold a second for well over the asking price at auction and presented the third to the late American president’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

Michael Hanrahan, Lahinch, was inspired to paint the trilogy after reading Ryan Tubridy’s book on the 1963 presidential visit to Ireland.

Remembering his own sighting of John F Kennedy in Ireland, he wrote to Caroline Kennedy explaining that he was an artist in Clare, and a few weeks later he was sent archival images of Kennedy in Ireland from the Kennedy Foundation.

“I did three pictures, photographed them and sent the photos back to the foundation,” he said.

The foundation was impressed by the work and was particularly interest in the painting of Kennedy in Cork in 1963, so Mr Hanrahan offered it to them.

He will be flown by Aer Lingus to Boston in the coming weeks to present the painting to Tom Mc- Naught, CEO of the Kennedy Foundation, where the picture will be put on display.

Whytes Art auction then expressed interest in a second painting – Kennedy addressing the Dáil – and this was sold for € 2,500, with a guide of between € 1, 500 and € 2,000 on the piece. The buyer remains a mystery.

The third painting depicting John F Kennedy speaking at New Ross will be presented to Caroline Kennedy by New Ross Town Council when she visits Ireland to mark the 50th anniversary of the late president’s visit, on June 22.

Mr Hanrahan, a former bank manager, is no stranger to providing paintings to significant art collections.

His painting is the only one by a living Irish artist in the private collection of Queen Elizabeth II.

One of his paintings of Mary Mc Aleese is part of Aras an Uachtaran’s art collection, while another of his paintings of Barack Obama hangs in the White House following the American President’s visit to Ireland in 2011.

MORE than half (51 per cent) of all Clare people over the age of 75 in 2012 considers themselves to be disabled – one of the highest percentages in Ireland.

These figure, which was obtained from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), come at a time of widespread cuts to supports for people with disabilities.

Research compiled is the Clare People’s Life in Clare 2013 study reveals that much has changed in the county over the past decade. This change can be see in the way we live our lives – how we live and even who we are.

More than 11,000 non-Irish born people now call the Banner county their home. The majority of these new Clare people come from UK and other EU national, but the county is now also home to 940 people who were born in Africa and more than 700 people who classify themselves as being Asian born.

The way in which people in Clare has also changed dramatically with three out of every 10 people choosing to live by themselves – the highest level on record. The technology serving these houses has also changed dramatically with 68 of Clare households now containing at least one computer.

Detached houses are by far the most popular homes owned by peo- ple in Clare. Of the 46,000 houses in the county – almost 60 per cent (59.1) are detached, with 22.9 being semidetached and 11.9 per cent terraced.

Four in every ten Clare people own their own home (39.8) without any outstanding loan or mortgage. This in one of the highest levels of debt free ownership of houses in Ireland. Almost 37 per cent of Clare peo- ple own their house but have an outstanding mortgage and just 22.2 per cent of Clare people rent their home – one of the lowest percentages in Ireland.