Month: December 2011

TWO Clare men, who killed 26year-old school teacher Brian Casey after an unprovoked attack on St Stephen’s night two years, ago are facing further time in prison following a successful appeal by the State.

Harry Dinan (31), of Waterpark Heights, Ennis, and his nephew Kevin Dinan (24), of Clarehill, Clarecastle, were jailed for five and four years respectively having pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Brian Casey on O’Connell Square, Ennis, on December 26, 2009.

Following an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday [Monday] determined that the sentences imposed by Judge Carroll Moran at Ennis Circuit Court 13 months ago were unduly lenient.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Liam McKechnie said that the appeal court wished to extend its deep sympathy to the family of Mr Casey, who was a “totally and utterly innocent” bystander attacked in a “cowardly and reprehensible” manner.

However, the three-judge court deferred imposing new sentences so as to allow each of the accused men time to collate evidence on their conduct in prison.

Ennis Circuit Court heard last year that Harry Dinan, who has 64 previous convictions, was on temporary release from prison at the time of the unlawful killing, while Kevin Dinan, who has 17 previous convictions, was on bail and awaiting sentence having pleaded guilty to a burglary charge.

Mr Casey was looking on at a scuffle with his hands in his pockets when he was caught off guard by a single severe “haymaker” punch inflicted by Harry Dinan at about midnight on St Stephen’s night on O’Connell Square.

The blow from Harry Dinan broke Mr Casey’s jaw in two places and the Lissycasey man hit the ground with the back of his head. He never regained consciousness and died two days later.

Mr Casey fractured his skull on impact with the ground and the court heard that Kevin Dinan then punched Mr Casey repeatedly to the face and head while he lay prostrate on the ground.

Counsel for the State, Deirdre Murphy SC, told the Court of Criminal Appeal that Judge Moran had erred in principle by placing excessive weight on the contention that the attack perpetrated by Harry Dinan was essentially a “one punch case”.

She said that this was not a classic “one punch case”, where a victim dies following some event after the infliction of a single punch or blow, but rather an unprovoked attack on an innocent bystander who was entirely unprotected.

Ms Murphy said that, having regard to concept of a one punch case, Judge Moran correctly identified an appropriate sentence of 10 years for each man, but then proceeded to err and effect a “double counting” exercise by further reducing the sentences imposed on account of this factor.

She said that Judge Moran also erred in law by failing to give his reasons for the differentiation in sentence imposed on each of the ac- cused.

Counsel for Harry Dinan, Isobel Kennedy SC, said that the case was indeed a classic manslaughter case involving one blow, as the medical evidence before the court was that Mr Casey was struck in the face, fell backwards, struck the back of his head and sustained a serious head injury.

She said that rather than beginning with a 10-year sentence, Judge Moran identified a sentence of seven years as an appropriate starting point and was perfectly entitled to reduce this down by a further two years having regard to additional mitigating factors in her client’s favour.

David Sutton SC, for Kevin Dinan, adopted Ms Kennedy’s submission and added that Judge Moran correctly identified his client’s lack of violent history and his youth as differentiating factors between the two accused men when imposing sentence.

Mr Justice McKechnie said the court found that the State’s assertion was correct and that Judge Moran must have considered the concept of a “one punch case” to be a “vital ingredient” when deciding that the appropriate starting point for sentence was 10 years.

He said that, having already considered this factor, it was therefore not permissible to further reduce the sentence from this point and to do so was an exercise of “double counting”.

COROFIN is celebrating today following an historic victory at the All Ireland One Act Play Finals which took place in Glór over the weekend. The Corofin Drama Society has emerged as one of Ireland’s foremost amateur dramatics group over the last decade – with this victory coming hot on the hells of the Three Act National Championship in 2008 and the first success in the one act play finals in 1993.

Sunday’s victory was the first time that any Clare drama group has ever picked up a national title on home soil – something which made the victory even sweeter for director Eileen Lahiff.

“I am delighted with the victory, absolutely thrilled. When we started this show, one of our main aims was to do our best to reach the All Ireland final. We knew that it was going to be in Ennis this year and we all said that it would be fantastic to take part in the All Ireland final in Glór,” said Eileen.

“I am so pleased with all of the actors who took part in the show – they did absolutely brilliantly and did a great job for us.”

The winning show was a comedy called ‘What’s For Pudding’ and featured Sandra Cox as Mary, Peter Daffy as Jack, Kevin Glynn as Ted, Maria McCahill as Maureen and Pat O’Reilly as Denis. The show is also one of the first comedies to win the All Ireland Final in the last number of years. “It is very difficult to do a fast paced comedy and to do it right. Timing is absolutely everything and everything needs to be done exactly right every night to make the show work prop- erly,” continued Eileen.

THE ELDERLY living in isolated parts of the county are being warned that a scam is in operation, after a woman in her 80s was targeted in North Clare.

The woman, who lives in the Kilfenora area, was visited by a group of men last week. They looked for scrap and when she told them that none was available, they offered to take away rubbish, at a cost of € 10 for two bags. They took bags of rubbish and offered a receipt. The rubbish was later found dumped in Waterford. Gardaí are warning that the actions are not legitimate and say that gangs are taking rubbish and dumping it illegally on the side of the road or on lands. Personal documents found in the rubbish establish that this has taken place.

“It is a scam. People should not give rubbish to unauthorised people. They tend to target country houses. It could be a once-off but we want to alert people,” said the Crime Prevention Officer in the Clare Garda Division, Sergeant Joe Downey.

“It’s just an excuse for them to legitimise their presence. They could be surveying the house for a further crime,” he added.

Meanwhile, gardaí are investigating an incident in which a gate on lands at Monmore, Kilrush, was cut into three pieces, over the weekend. The incident happened between 4.30pm on Saturday and 11am on Sunday.

The theft of a van from an address at Bealcragga, Connolly, is being investigated by gardaí in Ennis. The white Toyota Hiace was stolen between 10am on Saturday and 10am on Sunday.

Gardaí across the county are investigating a number of burglaries over the past week.

In one incident, four drums of cable were stolen from the Eircom building on Drumbiggle Road in Ennis, between 6pm last Tuesday and 8am the following morning. The premises was broken into possibly through the boundary railings of Ennis National School.

In Clarecastle, a house on the Lissane Road was targeted when thieves gained entry through the back door between 3am and 8am last Monday. Both the house and a car parked outside were targeted. A ladies handbag, which contained a small sum of money, was taken from the home, while a radio sat nav, car mats, an iPod and Oakley sunglasses were taken from the car.

Anyone with information on any of those crimes should contact their local garda station or Ennis Garda Station on 065 6848100.

NEARLY 1,000 jobs have been lost in the Shannon Free Zone since 2009 – a crisis that was brought sharply into focus once more last Thursday when it was revealed that 100 more jobs could be lost in Sykes Enterprises.

The technology support firm is set to close its Shannon operation a quarter of a century after locating in the Free Zone and only four years after it was one of the fastest growing companies in the mid-west region as its staff numbers soared close to 400.

The impending closure with the loss of the last remaining 100 jobs comes only two months after 75 redundancies were announced when the company lost a major contract with Sony, one of its biggest clients.

Sykes established in the Shannon Free Zone in 1987 and at its peak of operations employed 380 at the facility, which is one of the company’s 80 global centres.

Sykes’ biggest growth phase came in 2006/2007 when it was one of the fastest growing companies in the mid-west region, with the company’s general manager for Europe, Colin Mitchell saying at the announcement of 100 new jobs, “Sykes Shannon has invested several million in equipment; furniture and fittings and leasehold improvement over the past ten years. This expansion, whilst increasing head count, will also provide an additional revenue flow to the Irish economy in terms of employer/employee contributions, and local spend on professional services, telecommunications and general domestic expenditure.”

Now, five years later comes Sykes’ imminent departure from Shannon, with a spokesperson for the company’s headquarters in Florida confirming that it was trying to consolidate its businesses worldwide, and that plants in Shannon and in South Africa would “face closure as a result of that process”.

It’s understood that these two plants have been singled out because of a decline in client demand for their services, which is to provide technical call centre services in a number of European languages.

The latest round of job losses at Sykes, which employs over 50,000 people worldwide, represents the fourth time in the last three years that the company has sought to scale down its Irish operation, with the final downsizing expected to bring about a closure in early 2012, 25 years after the company established in Shannon.

The jobs losses will bring to 955 the number have been lost in since in the last three years. Meanwhile, the latest figures secured by The Clare People reveal that in 2010 there was a net loss of 461 jobs at the Shannon Free Zone, while from a five-year period from 2003 to 2008 there were the figure stood of 250 net job losses.

These contrasting figures hammer home the extent of the hemorrhage of jobs from the county’s flagship industrial base, with the latest round of job cuts coming in the same week as government figures revealed that 15 jobs had been created in the county from the Dell European Globalisation Fund that was established for the region in 2009.

A CHRISTMAS video that sees the people of Ennis come to the rescue of Santa Claus has become an internet hit with almost 10,000 views so far.

Ennis Town – Share the Feeling sees Santa Claus turn to Ennis ‘The friendliest town in Ireland’ to help him after all of his elves fall sick on Christmas Eve.

Directed by local man Gavin Gallagher, the 2min 54sec video was shot in locations around the town and features a number of well-known politicians and businesspeople. To watch the video simply log onto Youtube and type in ‘Ennis Share the Feeling’.

The video is the brainchild of the Ennis Development Forum and Ennis Chamber and is part of a Christmas Shop Local campaign, which has been entered for RTE’s The Business Show competition.

9,375 people have so far watched the video on the video sharing website Vimeo with a further 1,000 people viewing on You Tube.

The video was shot on the streets of Ennis during last Tuesday and Wednesday night. A cast of hundreds joined the production and despite the weather, all persevered with patience as the various scenes were shot, all over the town. A viewing of the impressive short film reveals plenty of ‘extras’ who took part in the shoot and even the local gardaí joined in, closing off Abbey and O’Connell streets to allowing filming take place.

“It was a wonderful idea and a positive event for all the people involved,” commented Gearoid Mannion of Tom Mannion Travel, who donned his own ‘Christmas jumper’ for the video. “Anything that generates goodwill and business for the town right now must be supported, this shows just what we can achieve when we pull together. The Youtube clip is fantastic and I’d urge everyone in Clare to watch it,” he added.

Businesses have donated over € 8,000 to the project including thousands of euros worth of giveaways to customers. The prizes will be distributed through another part of the initiative – the Ennis Street Radio which will play Christmas and upbeat music on the streets of Ennis for a full week before Christmas. The project is also part funded by Ennis Town Council in a partnership with the businesses.

The video’s release coincides with Ennis Town Council’s to suspend parking charges during Christmas.

Free parking will be applicable to the town’s 759 off-street and 783 on- street public car parking spaces up to 12pm daily from this Saturday, December 3, 2011, to January 7, 2012, inclusive.

Ennis Chamber of Commerce president John Dillane said the free parking initiative represents a proactive coming together of the town council and the local business community.

He explained, “The key focus of the parking scheme is on promoting what the customer wants as opposed to what serves Ennis Town Council and the traders best. Providing a high quality and value for money shopping experience is central to the initiative. It should also be noted that every euro spent locally remains in the community and helps to sustain existing and create new employment within the retail sector and elsewhere.”

Ennis town manager Ger Dollard noted that the provision of free parking, in conjunction with the annual street pedestrianisation initiative, is designed to accommodate visitors to Ennis, increase footfall on the streets of the town and boost consumer spending.

“Ennis Town Council is appealing to those working in Ennis to ensure, where possible, that public car parking spaces in the core town centre area are left vacant for shoppers,” stated Mr Dollard.

AN ENNIS business has been recognized for its innovative approach to the promotion of the Irish language. Last week the Rowan Tree Hostel and Restaurant were named the winners of the 2011 Gradam Gaeilge an Chláir award.

At an awards ceremony in Glór on Thursday evening, proprietor Brian O’Neill was presented with a specially commissioned plaque by Seán Ó Ceallaigh, Cathaoirleach of An Clár as Gaeilge Teo, the language promotion group who organise the award scheme. The scheme, now in its fifth year, is specifically directed at companies and organisations in the commercial sector who do most to promote the use of Irish both internally and externally.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, An tUas, Ó Ceallaigh praised the Rowan Tree for the innovative way they had increased the visibility of Irish, not alone on the outside of the premises, but extensively inside throughout the bar and restaurant. Furthermore, the menus were all available bi-lingually and there was, according to the adjudicators, an Irish ethos permeating the entire premises.

“We are delighted with the way the link between the Irish language and the tourist business has been achieved. This gives a complete cultural experience to the visitor and more importantly to tourists from overseas, particularly through the weekly classes on an introduction to Irish Culture which were held weekly during the Summer season.” he said.

“This is a prime example of what can be achieved with good will and imagination, and the result is to be highly complimented.”

Accepting the award, Brian O’Neill said that he was honoured that the Rowan Tree had been selected for the award. “Irish culture has always been at the heart of our business and we aim to develop it further. Chomh maith le sin anois, beidh an Ghaeilge le feiceáil agus le chloisteáil sa Bhrú Chrann Chaorthainn,” he said.