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A 61-year-old north Clare man ac- cused of 10 counts of indecent as- sault in the 1960s has been returned for trial to the Circuit Court.

The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is facing nine charges of indecently assaulting a

female and one charge of indecently assaulting a male, in north Clare.

The alleged offences occurred be- tween January 1, 1964 and June 6, RTese2

At Ennis District Court on Friday, the Book of Evidence was served and the accused was returned for trial to Ennis Circuit Court.

AN €8.5 million development of housing for the elderly and people with special needs is being planned for Killaloe.

Cluid Housing in association with Clare County Council and North Tip- perary Council are working together on the project at Shantraud.

The proposed development is to be located behind St Anne’s Com- munity College and will include 34 one and two bedroom apartments.

The scheme will provide residents with facilities such as a 24-hour scheme manager, a day care centre, hot meals, care and support services, laundry facilities and medical treat- ment rooms allowing all residents to live a full life which will include daily contact with their neighbours.

Cluid is a dedicated housing as- sociation which provides homes for people on modest incomes.

“Projects such as the one we are proposing allow the elderly to retain their own individual space which is

manageable even with reduced mo- bility,’ a spokesman for Cluid said. “The scheme enables senior citizens to remain as active participating members of society.”

The scheme is for people aged 55 and over or younger people who have a special need. However, the major- ity of tenants are older people or cou- ples who no longer want the expense and worry of maintaining their own house and garden.

While the development is to be lo- cated in Killaloe it will also be open

to applications from Ballina, and from other parts of Clare, Tipperary, and Limerick. People wanting to re- turn from England can also apply as can people from other parts of Ire- land who may have family links with Killaloe or the surrounding area.

An open day will be held in the Lakeside Hotel in Ballina today (Tuesdsay) from 10am to 6pm. Representatives from Cluid will be present on the day to discuss the de- tails of the scheme and to answer any queries interested people may have.

SINN Féin in the county was in jubi- lant mood this week, despite losing the local battle on Lisbon.

While the referendum was narrow- ly accepted in the Banner County, an overall “‘No’ throughout the country gave the party much reason to cel- Ce) elkon

Sinn Féin’s county spokesperson Cathy McCafferty thanked the par- ty’s members and supporters.

Ms McCafferty said, “We are de- lighted with this result. The people

have spoken and their views must be respected. Our activists in Clare and throughout the State have put in an enormous amount of work in recent months to secure this result and I would like to thank them all on be- half of all the party in Clare.

“In addition, our supporters who helped with canvassing, pestering, did a wonderful job and deserve to be commended.

“It would have been the icing on the cake of this win if we had won in Clare as well, but given the size and resources of the larger parties,

it was a major achievement to have come so close to securing a ‘No’ in Clare,” she said.

‘Politicians are duty-bound to both provide leadership and to reflect the wishes and opinions of the electorate and it now falls to the Government to address the concerns of the peo- ple instead of trying to push through proposals which are not in the peo- ple’s interests.

“This result has shown that the electorate share our concerns over the direction of Europe and also that they agree with us that our place in

Europe is secure and will continue to be. The Government now has a clear and strong mandate to renegotiate this treaty.

‘They need to use the opportunity to get back around the table with our EU partners and secure a better deal,” she added.

“Throughout this referendum cam- paign, three key issues came up over and over again – Ireland’s loss of power in Europe, neutrality and the lack of information.

‘People were also concerned at the race to the bottom in wages and con-

ditions and the opening of key public services to competition. The Govern- ment now have a huge responsibility to secure a better deal which will ad- dress these areas of concern.

“We believe that a better deal is possible and Sinn Féin will give any assistance we can to Government as they undertake this task and we will also be engaging with the trade union movement, farmers, business and civic society to encourage them to use their influence to ensure that the Government secures the best deal possible.”

A POLISH man who has spent the past two months in custody has been granted bail after a court heard that a voluntary group for homeless people would support him.

Piotr Baran (30), of no fixed abode, appeared before Ennis District Court on Friday, on public order charges.

The court was told he has spent the past two months in custody and was seeking bail.

Josephine O’Brien told the court that she set up a voluntary organi- sation called ‘Help’ and supports homeless people in Ennis.

She said that she was aware of a place where the accused could stay, over the weekend, if granted bail. It was hoped that the Health Service Executive would then be in a posi- tion to find accommodation for Mr Baran.

“T’ll take responsibility for him. He will have to stay away from his old drinking partners. They don’t do him any good. I’m certainly not giving him any more chances,” she said.

Defending solicitor Daragh Has- sett said that Ms O’Brien had made a very good point in relation to the company the accused keeps.

Inspector Tom Kennedy said he supported Mr Hassett in his applica- wlOyee

“Mr Baran has a dreadful addic- tion to alcohol. He seems to be off it now,” he said.

Judge Joseph Mangan granted bail to Mr Baran, to re-appear in court on Due hs

THE family of murdered Clare wom- an Emer O’Loughlin have begun a campaign to bring the Ennistymon woman’s killer to justice.

To mark the third anniversary of Emer’s killing, her sister Pam – now based in the UK – and her brother Raymond have appealed to the pub- lic to help solve the long-running mystery.

The pair have compiled a video fea- turing images of Emer and details of how members of the public can come forward with any information that might be of assistance. The video has received almost 2,000 viewings since it was uploaded on the Youtube website just seven weeks ago.

As part of the campaign a Facebook site has also been created in which members of the public are warned against taking action into their own hands.

“The third anniversary of my little sister’s murder has just passed. Her killer is still out there shielded and helped to escape by his family and friends. Myself and my brother have decided to do our best to achieve via the Internet what Interpol, the gardai and the Irish media have failed to do and that’s track him down,” it says.

“There are hundreds of people on these lists and they know hundreds of other people, maybe someone might spot him. It is a long shot but it is the only shot we have. Remember, this is a call for information leading

to an arrest and not for action.”

The body of Emer O’ Loughlin (23) was discovered in a burnt-out cara- van in Ballyborna close to Tubber, on the Clare/Galway border in April of PAU thy

The chief suspect in the case, a Galway man in his 40s, disappeared some time after the murder and gardai investigated the possibility that he may have fled to the UK.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Gort Garda Station at 091 636407. The video tribute to Emer is available to view at www.youtube. com/watch?v=Hm5BJKCKPQ¢g

THE General Secretary Designate of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, Eamon Devoy has welcomed the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish people. “The na- tional executive of our union recom- mended a ‘No’ vote in the referen- dum and it now seems clear that this has happened,” he said.

“The TEEU favours a social Eu- rope, but unfortunately recent key judgements by the European Court

of Justice show that the pendulum has swung against workers’ rights and in favour of big business. In the circumstances, it would be foolish to provide the institutions of the Euro- pean Union with any more power,’ | aTemncy-N (6

Devoy added that the union’s con- cerns were heightened by the refusal of the Government to give any com- mitment to SIPTU to vindicate the right to collective bargaining of Irish workers if they voted for the treaty.

“We have seen a sustained attack on

working conditions since the adop- tion of the Nice Treaty. Why would workers vote for more of the same?”’

He added that until such time as the Irish Government is “prepared to recognise the right of workers to collective bargaining and the con- comitant right to organise and take industrial action in defence of their living standards, the TEEU will not support institutional reforms that only strengthen big business.”

The TEEU is the country’s largest craft union with 45,000 members

and the largest such union in manu- facturing, construction, energy, engi- neering and electrical contracting.

Meanwhile, SIPTU is expected to talk to the members before making any official statement on the matter. Union sources said yesterday that the fact that the Taoiseach Brian Cowan “was able to give assurances to the IFA but couldn’t reassure trade union members speaks volumes”.

The source said that SIPTU’s posi- tion is still that the treaty as is stands is flawed in relation to issues such as

collective bargaining.

‘People’s suspicions were re-in- forced that this was going to be a treaty in which business interests would be fast-tracked and workers’ rights put on the back burner,’ the source said.

SIPTU made its initial recommen- dation on the treaty after consultation with members “and taking on board their concerns in relation to workers’ rights”, the source added.

It is expected SIPTU will make no immediate public statement.

AN Irish soldier has told the trial that he contacted a website advertising contract killings because he thought it was a joke.

Private Brian Buckley told prose- cuting counsel, Una Ni Raifeartaigh he had found the site Hireahitman.us while searching for cheat codes for the Hitman computer game.

Pvt Buckley said he was using the computer at his mother’s house in Ennis when he came across the web- site. It was top of the list of Google

search results so he assumed it was the site he was looking for.

He said the homepage of the site made him think is was an internet prank. “I saw a cartoon animation of a man with a gun. He was wearing a hat, sunglasses and had a pistol. It was a cartoon drawing.”

Pvt Buckley said he looked further into the website until he came to a kind of application form. “Out of my own curiosity or my own stupidity I decided to fill out the form.”

Using the email address Judas69@gmail.com he filled out

the form, giving a false telephone number and a false name, Will Buckimer.

He said there was no significance in either name and the number 69 meant nothing.

Using the application form on the website he filled in fictitious skills. He listed handgun, rifle, sub machine gun, shot gun, sniper, heavy gun, heavy machine gun, grenades, basic booby traps and limited poisons.

He said this was not a true answer, with the exception of rifle and gre- nades.

He said he made first contact with the website on July 29, 2006 and re- ceived a reply from a Tony Luciano on August 10.

The reply read, “I have a job for you if you are interested. Two males in Ireland and one in Spain. ASAP. Let us know. We will try and call you. Thanks. Tony Luciano.”

Pvt Buckley agreed that he had provided his mobile number, but had never at any stage thought the website was serious. He said he “just wanted to see where it would go”.

On August 28 he received another

email from Tony Luciano. “Please help us out for this. I need some strong poison. One of us will be in Shannon. We cannot shift this stuff for security reasons – you know that – so please help us out. Will pay and I will owe you favourite. Thanks brother. Tony.”

Pvt Buckley said that this email made him feel uneasy and he decided to distance himself. He received sev- eral communications from the man calling himself Tony Luciano but would not talk to him and kept tell- ing him he had the wrong number.

has scooped a major medi- cal journalism award, ahead of stiff competition from writers and broad- casters in the national media.

Claire Gallagher won the Young Irish Journalist of the Year award, winning a specially commissioned sculpture by leading silversmith Sea- mus Gill as well as a financial prize, at the seventh annual GlaxoSmithK- line Irish Medical Media Awards.

Gallagher won the award for her sensitive treatment of the controversy surrounding breast cancer screening services in Clare.

Announcing the win, chairman of the judging panel and MC, Dr John Bowman said she won the award “for her sensitive treatment of the contro- versy around breast screening serv- ices in Clare and for well-researched articles which provided her readers with all sides of the argument”.

This is the latest in a long line of awards for the newspaper, which is celebrating the third anniversary of its first edition this week.

The newspaper’s managing editor, Gerry Collison, paid tribute to Gal- lagher’s standard of journalism in the publication.

“Claire is an extremely dedicated and talented journalist. She constant- ly raises the bar in terms of journal- istic excellence with her work. We

have a very talented, hard-working staff of whom we are very proud,’ he said.

THE countdown is well and truly underway for the biggest farming event so far this year as FarmFest and BioEnergy ‘08 threatens to enve- lope Athenry in County Galway this week.

An estimated 40,000 farmers are expected to invade Teagasc’s 30 hec- tare Mellow’s Campus on Friday, with the highlight for many likely to be Ireland’s first ever BioEnergy ex- hibition.

More than 400 exhibitors will showcase all aspects of Ireland’s ever changing countryside in a spectrum of attractive tented villages and ex- hibition spaces. The BioEnergy ex- hibition is being presented jointly by Teagasc, Coford and Sustainable En-

ergy Ireland (SEI) and will feature a tented village and outdoor exhibition space where displays, from biomass stove and boiler and equipment and fuel suppliers, will be central.

Bioenergy experts will also set up workshops and give practical dem- onstrations and field excursions to visitors.

Bioenergy and wood based fuels have a key role to play in finding workable and cost effective solutions to fossil fuel dependency in Ireland and so FarmFest & BioEnergy ‘08 will be of interest to land owners, home owners, businesses, forestry managers professionals and entre- preneurs alike who want to find out more about bioenergy crops and the emerging forest fuel market.

With Biomass having the potential

to meet up to 10 per cent of our en- ergy needs by 2010, to redirect hun- dreds of millions of euro to the Irish economy, create over 4,000 new jobs and assist in rural development by providing new markets in the farm- ing and forestry sectors, the BioEn- ergy Village at FarmFest & BioEn- ergy ‘08 promises to be a focal point for visitors.

“Equally important to the finan- cial benefits are the environmental benefits of developing Ireland’s vast bioenergy resources as they will also contribute to meeting national and international renewable targets, cli- mate change mitigation policies and waste policies which is good news for everyone,’ said Nuala Ni Fhlatharta of Teagasc.

As well as the BioEnergy Exhibi-

tion, Farmfest & BioEnergy °08 will see a variety of tented villages and Open-space exhibits on dairy, cattle, sheep and tillage enterprises and en- vironmental and sustainability.

A forestry village will also be set up where exhibitors will be on hand along with the forestry development unit to show visitors how forestry can be used as a land use option, how to improve genetic source and timber quality and there will also be live demonstrations of forestry harvest- ing and chipping all day long.

DETECTIVE Sergeant Michael Gub- bins told the trial last Friday that he forensically examined an Advent computer which was stolen from the office of Howards’ property business.

He said he had found certain files corresponding to keywords relating to the case. Some were documents stored in the computer’s temporary memory cache during internet us- age. These files related to the email address Lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie and showed an increasingly flirtatious correspondence between Lyingeyes and hire_hitman@yahoo.com.

Det Sgt Gubbins said a file show- ing the inbox of Lyingeyes98 showed a welcome email from Yahoo, dated

August 2, 2006.

Also on August 2, an email had been sent from sharoncollins@eircom.net.

On August 3, a file cached from the website Hitmanforhire.us showed a form filled out. The name was given as Sn Cronin with an email address at Lyingeyes98. The country was listed as Ireland and the space criminal ex- perience had been filled in “no”. At “criminal record” the reply had been given “Not yet”.

Whoever filled the form in said they wanted to “make money doing some- thing useful”.

Det Sgt Gubbins read out the text of several emails that had been found in the computer’s memory, showing pages from the web-based email ac- count for Lyingeyes98.

Successive emails between B Lyons at Lyingeyes, some of which were signed Sharon and Tony Luciano at hire_hitman were found.

On August 8, the computer user booked a flight to Malaga in the name of Sharon Collins and ac- cessed the Eircom email account for Ms Collins. The Lyingeyes email ac- count was logged into seconds after the user logged out of the Sharoncol- lins account.

He said the user also visited the AIB website several times, getting a quote for a personal loan for be- tween €17,000 and €20,000. They also bought a three-month supply of the weight loss drug Reductil from an online pharmacy website in the name of Sharon Collins.

At 10.0lpm the user visited a page on the Hitmanforhire.net website which gave details “how to order a contract killing”.

The user kept searching for the terms “assassins for hire, assassina- tion’, revisiting the Hitmanforhire. us site at 10.11pm and clicked on the Submit button on the contact page.

In one email dated August 15, Lyin- geyes asked hire_hitman about a dis- claimer at the bottom of the website Hitmanforhire.us, which said that the website was a “parody”.

On August 14, an email from Tony Luciano asked B Lyons to send mon- ey to T Engle at 6108 Camden Cove Street, Mr Eid’s Las Vegas address. The court previously heard from Mr Eid’s partner Teresa Engle, who lived

ALO MODUOOMcIimDOr-lmr-Ke(60ucntour-lm Neem BDOOISs

The email gave bank details for an account in the name Essam Eid.

A reply written in the inbox of Lyin- geyes98 mentioned being nervous about sending a package. “I have de- cided to parcel up the money. I will probably put something else in it so it looks like a present. I will also put in the photos and the keys.”

Det Sgt Gubbins said he had also found several photographs in the computer’s memory. There were photographs of PJ, Robert and Niall Howard as well as Sharon Collins. There was also a photograph of Mr Eid in an open top car. Det Sgt Gub- bin said that this file name corre- sponded to an attachment to an email from Tony Luciano to Lyingeyes.