Month: October 2006

THE Garda overtime bill for County Clare for 2006 has amounted to €1.4 million – a rise of €200,000 on the bill for 2005.

According to statistics provided by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, the annual cost of policing the county has now risen to €14 million.

In response to a Dáil question from Green Party leader, Trevor Sargent, Minister McDowell confirmed that numbers in the Clare Garda Division had risen from 219 at the end of 1997 to 318 to October 12 this year.

He said, “This represents an increase of 99 (or 45 per cent) in the number of personnel allocated to the Clare Division since 31 December, 1997 and an increase of 59 (or 23 per cent) in the number of personnel allocated since 31 December, 2004.”

The figures also show that since the start of the year, numbers in the Clare Garda Division have risen from 261 to 318 – a rise of 57.

In the breakdown of the overtime figures, Minister McDowell said that the overtime bill for 2004 was €1 million and this increased to €1.2 million in 2005.

However, due mainly to the enhanced security operation at Shannon Airport, the overtime bill to October 12 this year was at €1.4 million.

The figures show that €12 million has been paid out in salaries this year, compared to the €14 million for the entire of 2005.

Minister McDowell said, “It is the responsibility of Garda management to allocate personnel to and within divisions on a priority basis in accordance with the requirements of different areas.

“These personnel allocations are determined by a number of factors including demographics, crime trends, administrative functions and other operational policing needs. Garda management state that such allocations are continually monitored and reviewed along with overall policing arrangements and operational strategy. This ensures that optimum use is made of Garda resources, and that the best possible service is provided to the public.”

Pointing out that the Government was engaged on a recruitment drive to bolster Garda numbers to 14,000, Minister McDowell said, “The Garda Commissioner will now be drawing up plans on how best to distribute and manage these additional resources and, in this context, the needs of the Clare Division will be given the fullest consideration.”

STAFF and patients of Clare’s mental health services are to hold a party this evening (Tuesday) to mark the end of admission of patients under the 1945 Mental Treatment Act.

The long-awaited Part II of the Mental Health Act of 2001, which comes into force on November 1, significantly reforms existing legislation concerning the involuntary admission and treatment of patients, bringing Irish legislation into conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

This legislation safeguards the rights of individuals who are detained for mental health care and introduces greater protection, providing additional safeguards for detained patients and also protects the clinician in their decision to detain.

When Part II of the Mental Health Act of 2001 is implemented tomorrow (Wednesday), the Mental Health Tribunals Division of the Mental Health Commission will be responsible for organising mental health tribunals for all patients admitted on an involuntary basis. Under the new legislation, patients involuntarily detained will have the right to attend and be represented at the mental health tribunal by a free legal representative who is appointed by the Mental Health Commission.

The commission will also arrange for an independent medical examination of the patient to be carried out by an independent consultant psychiatrist. The tribunal, which can either detain the patient or revoke or affirm the admission, will issue its recommendation within 21 days of the admission in most cases.

OBJECTORS to the site of a proposed homeless hostel in Ennis have vowed to intensify their campaign against it.

Residents on the Clare Road, where the €2.1 million transitional hostel is being mooted, have said they are will appeal the case to An Bord Pleanála if planning permission is granted.

Last week, Ennis Town Council delayed the planning decision when it requested the St Vincent de Paul to supply further information in relation to the project. If permission is granted, the hostel would have the capacity to accommodate 13 men.

In its request, the council states that any proposed development must adhere to policies set out in the Ennis and Environs Development Plan 2003.

These policies state that development proposals for new or extensions to residential institutions will be permitted provided that they do not significantly detract from the amenity and character of the area.

Under section 11.5.2 of the plan, residential institutions are generally suited to existing residential areas and properties should have adequate amenity space and room for parking.

Objectors to the proposal have outlined in a submission reasons against building the hostel on the former site of the Laurel Lodge B&B.

The council has asked the St Vincent de Paul to submit proposals on how it plans to address residents’ concerns.

ENNIS Town Council has requested Clare County Council to address the concerns of residents opposed to the establishment of a homeless hostel in the town.

Earlier this year, Clare County Council lodged plans to convert the existing Laurel Lodge on Ennis’s Clare Road to a hostel for 13 homeless men.

The cost of the project is estimated at €2.1 million and the St Vincent de Paul will operate the building.

Local residents Patrick Donnelly, Ann-Marie Donnelly, Helen Broderick and Christopher Walsh have lodged an objection against the proposal, claiming that the plan will attract a significant anti-social element to the locality.

Now, the Town Council has requested further information on the proposal from the County Council, throwing into doubt the timescale set by Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) to have the hostel open early in the New Year.

In its request, the town council has stated it has received a letter of objection signed by a number of objectors who argue that the proposed development will have a negative impact on the residential amenity of nearby properties by virtue of noise and nuisance and loitering, which may be associated with the proposed development. The town council has stated that development proposals for new or extensions to residential institutions will be permitted, provided that they would not significantly detract from the amenity and character of the surrounding area.

The town council has also stated that it considers it appropriate that where possible residential institutions relocate within defined settlement boundaries.

The objectors said that they had “deep and well founded concerns” over the proposed development. They state, “We may be accused of acting in a NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) manner, but this proposal is virtually in our backyards. . . There has been no consultation with local residents by the St Vincent de Paul and they refused to have a public meeting regarding the matter. We are left with no option but to object in the strongest possible manner to the location of this homeless centre.”

In their objection, they say, “We do not cause any of the ills of society and we do not want them foisted upon us by others in a residential area.”

CLARE Green Party candidate for next year’s general election, Brian Meaney, looks likely to garner votes from an unexpected source following a Green Party policy document calling for legislative change to allow for same-sex marriages and legal rights for couples who live together.

While a spokesperson for the county’s leading gay organisation, Gay Clare, stopped short of an outright endorsement of Meaney, he did comment that the Green Party’s announcement would influence gay voters in Clare.

“The Gay Clare group would welcome the Green Party’s release on civil unions,” said a spokesperson.

“We hope that if the Green Party do form part of the next government that this will be included in the programme for government and that it won’t just be used for election purposes.”

With an estimated 3,000 gay men living in the county, the gay vote could be very influential in the outcome of next year’s election. In the 2002 election, Pat Breen was elected with just 4,541 first preference while Meaney himself polled almost 3,000 first preference votes.

“I am not indifferent to the need to introduce legislation in relation to same-sex couples, but it also has to reflect the majority opinion,” commented Cllr Meaney. “We do live in a democracy but, at the same time, that does not mean that the rights of minorities can be trampled on.”

DRUGS seizures in Miltown Malbay and Killaloe over the past five days have been described as “significant” by gardaí in Clare.

Five hundred ecstacy tablets and a small quantity of cannabis, along with a stungun, were seized at an apartment in Killaloe on Friday night.

Some of the haul was recovered in the apartment, and the rest was located outside the dwelling. A man in his 30s was questioned at the scene. The drugs have been sent for analysis and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Meanwhile, €1,000 worth of cannabis resin, a cannabis plant and a quantity of unidentified tablets were seized during searches of a business premises and two homes in Miltown Malbay on Thursday afternoon.

A 22-year-old man was arrested at the business premises and detained at Ennistymon Garda Station. He was released without charge later that night. A file is being prepared for the DPP, while the drugs will be sent to Dublin for analysis.

“This was part of an ongoing initiative, under Operation Anvil, the operation investigating crime and drug-related activity,” said a Garda spokesman.

Both searches were carried out by local gardaí, along with the Clare Garda Divisional Drugs Unit and the Garda Dog Unit from Limerick.

Separately, a man was found in possession of a bag of cannabis, at Twomilegate, Killaloe, on Thursday night. A 19-year-old woman was questioned, after a quantity of cocaine was seized in Sixmilebridge on Saturday night.

SÍLE deValera is looking forward not back, albeit with a bit of trepidation, a tiny bit of sadness but most of all with excitement.

Come the next election, the woman who has dedicated three decades of her life to politics can look forward to fulfilling ambitions of a normal social life and looking at politics with an objective eye.

As the Junior Minister at the Department of Education prepares to step down from her position on December 8, she said that resigning was not as big a decision as deciding not to run in the next election.

The Clare TD told The Clare People that she suggested the step down to the Taoiseach last November when she told him she was not running in the next election.

The former Minister for Arts was first elected to the Dáil 30 years ago.

As she approaches 52 years of age, she has few regrets about the 30 years of sacrifice she has made for her career.

“I would have liked to have gone into more study. I was elected at 22 and maybe if you could plan to go in at 30 you could build a life outside before entering.”

She admitted, however, that her early years in politics gave her opportunities that she may not have otherwise had if she made her way into that career later in life.

Come next summer, she will leave that life behind to fulfil her educational ambitions.

The grand-daughter of Eamon deValera already holds a degree in history, politics and psychology, a higher diploma in history and is a postgraduate in career guidance. She is a qualified psychologist.

“There will be a certain amount of sadness. I have been in Clare for 25 years, and represented Clare for 20 years in February.

I will continue to keep all my contacts in Clare. It has meant too much to me to cut all those ties,” she added.

Minister de Valera laughs as she recalls how some TDs now approach her with a wry smile as they tell her how they envy her life change.

“I look forward to a life I can plan and I am looking forward to privacy. I found it hard to plan a private life. I am very lucky to have friends. I have often promised to meet up and find I can’t at the last minute.

“It (politics) is very tough and I can say that now. It is all-consuming time-wise,” she added.

STACEY Haugh was just 16 when she and her younger brother Karl left their family home and walked to the local chip shop in Kilkee on an October evening, three years ago. There they met their friend Lorna Mahoney (13) for what would, sadly, be their final evening together.

Ennis Circuit Court heard that Stacey’s mother Brigid’s “whole world came to an end,” when she got the dreadful phone call on the night of October 17, 2003.

She went to the scene of the crash. Stacey had died and Karl (now 14) had sustained critical injuries.

“I could not bring myself to go to the mortuary as I felt Karl was going to die too. I was in a state of shock,” were Brigid’s words, contained in her Victim Impact Statement.

Brigid was torn between burying her “beautiful, vibrant” daughter or travelling to Dublin to visit her son, who underwent emergency surgery.

The heartbroken mother remembered her daughter as a teenage girl who loved music, dressing up, cooking and walking.

Brigid has struggled with her life since the tragic accident and she has been left facing a life sentence. “Life has been a struggle since,” she said.

Lorna’s mother Geraldine Mahoney told the court her daughter was a “bright, bubbly, Mammy’s girl, the youngest of five.”

Lorna was “in love with life” and aspired to become a vet.

“Bye Mum. I love you,” were her final words to her mother at 7.30pm that evening. Two hours later, she was dead.

“No doubt Mr Naughton coerced Lorna and Stacey into that car.

“The fear Lorna felt in that car will haunt us for the rest of our lives,” she said,

Mrs Mahoney then addressed Naughton. “Lorna and Stacey asked you to slow down but you chose to ignore them. Why?” she asked.

“What puzzled us was that the accused was granted bail for the second time after absconding the first time. We felt abandoned by the legal system,” she added.

“We have gone from a close knit family to a group of individuals struggling with our grief. We live with the memories because that is all we have left,” she said.

The court heard that the parents of the two girls disputed suggestions that the accused had been going out with Stacey, while his friend had been going out with Lorna.

THE judge who sentenced a young man to three years in jail for dangerous driving causing the deaths of two young Kilkee girls said the accident was “waiting to happen”.

Ennis Circuit Court heard that David Naughton was “rallying around” Kilkee, in the minutes leading up to the tragic crash which claimed the lives of Stacey Haugh and Lorna Mahoney, at Moyarta, Carrigaholt, on October 17, 2003.

Judge Con Murphy said there was “more than ample evidence that this young man was involved in a campaign of dangerous driving. It wasn’t just inadvertence that caused this DAVID Naughton is a young man who has lived “an extraordinary unstructured life,” deprived of family support from a very young age.

His sentencing hearing heard he has had little or no support from his parents who had separated. This was taken into account by the judge, in imposing sentence.

His barrister Martin Giblin said an “apology was not within his range accident, but a campaign of a long stretch of dangerous driving.”

Naughton (18), with addresses in London and Galway, was just one week short of his 16th birthday when he purchased an Opel Kadett car in Galway for €60.

He then drove to Kilkee with friends, picked up Stacey Haugh, her brother Karl and Lorna Mahoney, and headed for Carrigaholt. Naughton was driving, a friend was in the front, while Stacey, Karl and Lorna were in the back of the car.

Naughton overtook a car “very aggressively” between Kilkee and Carrigholt, at a speed of up to 80 mph.

He was unable to take the bend and of social skills,” and “running away was the result of a panic attack he suffered” in the aftermath of the accident.

Mr Giblin said Naughton had always denied driving dangerously, never set out to kill or injure anybody and now accepted he must be punished.

Naughton was born in the UK, where he had spent most of his short life.

He was brought to Westside House, hit a wall at Moyarta, Carrigaholt. The car crossed the road and hit a ditch on the opposite side. The girls lost their lives in the severe impact, while Karl was taken to hospital for emergency surgery. He survived. A short time earlier, gardaí received a complaint that Naughton was driving dangerously, at 60 mph, around the carpark of the Kilkee Bay Hotel.

Naughton told gardaí that he had been travelling at 55 mph and was blinded by lights of an oncoming car. Naughton – who had previously lived in Kilrush – said he had been driving in fields since he was 12.

Prior to the fatal accident, Naughton had no previous convictions. a unit for homeless adolescents in Galway by the social services in the UK, in June 2003, just four months before the accident.

Naughton’s father is from Galway, while his mother has spent some time living in Kilkee.

The court heard that Naughton had claimed he was sexually assaulted by a relative in the UK at a young age and that he had shown “clear signs of suicidal ideas” since the accident.

Mr Giblin said that while the famiThat subsequently changed, as he has since been convicted of a number of offences in the UK. His barrister Martin Giblin, SC, said the two girls asked Naughton to take them for a drive, but according to their families, he pressurised them into getting into the car.

“They weren’t grabbed by the scruff of the neck and thrown into the car,” said Mr Giblin.

Judge Murphy said the case was “most harrowing” and was on the “graver scale” of dangerous driving causing death. The three year sentence was backed to July 26, when Naughton was extradited from the UK to Ireland. lies of the deceased might believe he had run away to avoid the charges, the reality was he was “incapable of dealing with the stresses of what he had done, because of his upbringing.”

“He lacks the social skills to apologise. He doesn’t know how to do it. He ran away because he couldn’t cope.”

He said it was accepted that a 15year-old should not be behind the wheel of a car. “It’s like putting a loaded gun in his hand. Tragedy is bound to happen,” he said.

Several psychological reports relating to Naughton were presented to the court, one of which stated that he did not receive the necessary assistance from the social services, because he was “moving backwards and forwards” from the UK.

Another report stated that Naughton had a “vivid” recollection of the crash which killed two girls who he referred to as his “friends”.

He has had nightmares about the accident and never intends to visit the location of the crash.

Naughton had a clean record before he fled to the UK, but has since amassed a number of convictions.

His barrister said his behaviour was “post accident reaction for offences he wasn’t in the habit of committing before the accident.”

A 24-YEAR old Clare victim of child sex abuse has called on Fine Gael deputy, Pat Breen to apologise for his “crass insensitivity” in tabling a Dáil question enquiring into the possible early release of a convicted sex offender.

Last week, Deputy Breen caused a political storm after it emerged that he lodged a query into the possible early release of 74-year old bachelor farmer, Joseph Nugent who is due to complete his jail term in February 2008.

In his reply, Justice Minister, Michael McDowell ruled out the possibility an early release given the circumstances of the case.

Deputy Breen came under fire from party general election running mates, Cllr Madeleine Taylor Quinn and Cllr Joe Carey and in response, Deputy Breen accused them of making a political football out of the controversy.

But the 24-year old sex abuse victim says that Deputy Breen should apologise for the crass insensitivity in putting the question down in the first place.

“Did he not realise the negative impact and message tabling the question sends out to victims of sex abuse? No leeway should be given to sex abusers and instead of asking if this person should be released early, Deputy Breen should be asking for an extension to his sentence”.

“In this case, there were two male victims and the man received concurrent sentences. These sentences should have been consecutive. Why are people like Deputy Breen then asking questions about why they should be let out early?”

Arising from her own case, the 24-year old wrote to a number of Oireacthas members and councillors in Clare and said she didn’t even receive an acknowledgement from Deputy Breen’s office.

She said that she only received responses from Minister for State, Tony Killeen, Justice Minister, Michael McDowell and Cllr Brian Meaney in relation to the letter she circulated.

“I was furious when I read about the Dáil question being asked. The perpetrator didn’t even acknowledge the damage he caused.”

Deputy Breen was unavailable for comment last night. However, last week, he defended tabling the question, stating that he was not making representations on behalf of Mr Nugent and wouldn’t be in favour of an early release in the case.

He said that he was aware that Mr Nugent was a sex offender, but wasn’t aware of all of the facts in relation to the cases.