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MARGUERITE O’Dwyer died as a result of severe blunt force trauma to the head, while the 90 stab wounds inflicted were a secondary cause.

That was the conclusion reached by State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, who addressed the jury on Tuesday morning.

“This young woman had been the victim of a violent assault, with at least 90 wounds to the head, trunk and legs and at least six blows to the head,” she said.

“This type of injury would cause rapid death and was irrecoverable,” added Dr Cassidy.

She said the majority of the stab

wounds were inflicted after death and the victim had possibly been knocked unconscious by the first Ke) YA

The hazel-eyed young woman had been subjected to 20 stab wounds to the head and neck, including to the cheeks, eyelid, nose and jaw line. Another 64 wounds were inflicted over the front of the trunk and 14 stab wounds to the thighs.

“There was no evidence of any typical knife defensive injuries to the upper arms,” said Dr Cassidy.

She agreed with Defence Counsel Patrick Gageby, SC, that the absence of defensive injuries suggested the young woman had been “completely taken by surprise.”

THE blazing sunshine may have departed but a wave of good cheer ereeted the hundreds of walkers who took to the roads of Liscannor for the annual Burren Chernobyl Walk which took place on Sunday.

This year’s walk, which is the main fundraiser for the Ennistymon based Burren Chernobyl! Projects, attracted a large and enthusiastic crowd to walk and help support the people suffering as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 21 years ago.

“We had a really great turnout and everything went so so well,” said Carmel Mescal of the Burren Cher-

nobyl Project.

“We would really like to thank all of those who turned up for the walk, the people who sponsored them and all of those who contributed badly needed funds for the ongoing work in Belarus.

“The work is ongoing over there. There is a group going out from Lis- cannor later this Summer. The will be mostly doing construction work in Tarasiki, some general structural repair as-well-as the upgrading of a few facilities like showers.

“There is a group from Ennis over there at the moment. There are al- ways new groups of volunteers going over and offering their skills.”

The annual walk is the Burren Chernobyl Projects main fundraiser for the project each year. At present the charity organisation helps to sup- port children at Gorodishche and Chevron as well as adults in Cylb, Tarasiki, Cosovo and Yazouk1.

Besides providing basic care and assistance for the people living in the orphanages, the project is also set to begin a day care programme which will allow children to return to their family during the evenings and spend their days in the institutions.

The walk takes place this Sunday, April 22, leaving from the Liscan- nor Hotel. Registration takes place between 12 noon and Ipm and all are

welcome to come take part.

Meanwhile, counting is well under way following the Annual Dunleavy Walk which took place in Doolin earlier in the month. Gerry and Toni Dunleavey led more than 200 people in the walk which was one of the best supported in recent years.

“It was very successful, the sun shone and there was great fun and commitment from everyone who came out on the day,” said organiser Mary O’Connor.

“The local people were brilliant. We raised a lot of money and there is as much to come in. The Michael Dunleavy Foundation are so grateful to everyone for all the help.”

PATRICK Joseph O’Dwyer was born on July 3, 1985. He was the sec- ond-born child of Paddy and Claire O’ Dwyer, a factory worker and bank official, respectively. His older sister Louise is a graduate of NUI Galway and his young sister Marguerite was studying for her Leaving Certificate at the time of her killing.

Patrick obtained 395 points in his Leaving Certificate, at Ennistymon CBS in 2003.

This secured him a place in Civil Engineering at Galway Mayo In- stitute of Technology. He moved to Galway and stayed in student accom- modation with two other young men from Mayo. However, he dropped out of college that Christmas and re- turned to his home town.

“I did not enjoy my time up in Gal- way. I wanted to get out of there,” he told gardai.

He had previously worked part- time as a labourer, a golf club cad-

die and took up weekend work at the Atlantic Hotel and Coast nightclub in Bseeen

After dropping out of college, he be- gan working with his father at Tyco, Shannon. In June 2004, he took up an apprenticeship as a butcher with Bernard Roughan in Ennistymon. He earned €230 a week and contin- ued to work there, until the killing of his sister.

He enjoyed this work and Mr Roughan told the trial that Patrick was “a great worker,’ “got on well with everyone” and appeared happy on the day of the killing. He planned to open his own butcher’s shop, some WU Seto UOMBO CM RUIADDKoM

“Marguerite had called in often to talk to him. They got on well. He would often give her cigarettes,” he ene m

Patrick had a huge interest in sport and played football and hurling, un- derage, with Ennistymon.

He had a number of friends, mainly from Ennistymon and Inagh, and had

AISA AEc DUDE TOI OTOL

“A few, nothing long-term. They cost a lot of money,” he said, during an interview with gardai.

He had his first drink prior to his 16th birthday and said he would feel “bad” the day after he drank shots or (ere <2 He dabbled in drugs whilst in col- lege. “Hash. When I was in college. Maybe once a week, twice a week,’ he said. The trial heard several incidents which showed that alcohol was his downfall. He enjoyed a good rela- tionship with his parents, the odd ex- ception being a row over drink. On one occasion, in January 2004, he asked an English woman in her 40s for a kiss on the street. She rejected his advances and he hit her and bit her fingers. He was acutely drunk at the time. On another occasion, he became ageressive with his father, after he spoke to him about his drunken be- haviour at a family wedding.

THE — globetrotting Lismorahaun singers return to their home patch this week for a special concert in Lisdoonvarna.

Having just returned from a highly successful outing to Italy, the 100- strong choir will offer a wide variety of choral music – ranging from the old classics to the contemporary, and even a little Polish.

In an effort to entertain the area’s erowing Polish community, the sing- ers will be performing a number of pieces by Polish composer Joreck1, including “The Broad Water’.

The programme will also include songs from Mozart and Vivaldi, as

well as a number of traditional airs and a few surprises.

All proceeds from the performance will go towards helping to fund the Access All programme at St Enda’s Primary School in Lisdoonvarna, Where the Lismorahaun now prac- tice.

“There are a lot of Polish people living in the area and we would love for them to come along,” said John Hehir, St Enda’s principal and mem- ber of the Lismorahaun.

“The music is very lively, it’s al- most like a Clare set except it is sung. There are a lot of Polish people living and working in Lisdoonvarna and in the surrounding area.”

The Access All programme is an

initiative set up to help the school become 100 per cent user-friendly to students by providing things like ramps for people in wheelchairs and disabled toilets.

The Lismorahaun are just back from a hugely successful journey to the Italian town of Pozzeleone. Locals from the north Italian town, which is twinned with Ennistymon, were So impressed with the perform- ance that they will be making the journey to Lisdoonvarna for this Fri- day’s concert.

“It was a fantastic journey over there, we were given a really great reception,’ continued John.

“Archie Simpson has really done something wonderful with the Lis-

morahaun. There was latent talent in this area that he tapped into. We have people who come from south Galway and up from Ennis and Bodyke.”

The concert will take place this Friday, April 27, at 8pm in the Lis- doonvarna Church. Tickets, at a cost of €10, are available on the door or from St Enda’s at 7074231.

A NUMBER of barristers operating in the Clare and Limerick area were among the top earners in the €15.7 million paid out through the Crim1- nal Legal Aid Scheme last year.

Figures showed that Brian MclIn- erney BL, who carries out much of his work in the Limerick and Ennis Circuit Court, was once more the top earner in the region.

The figures were released by the Department of Justice in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Mr McInerney was the _ high- est earning barrister-at-law in the

country last year and was the fourth top earning barrister overall when he received €330,103.

Well-known senior counsel, Brendan Nix, figured at 15 in the overall list after receiving €187,932.

Other barristers operating in the Clare-Limerick area to feature high- ly on the list included Mark Nicho- las BL who received €169,629; John Edwards SC €149,382 and Michael Fitzgibbon who received €39,673.

The figures also showed that Lor- can Connolly BL last year received €25,494 and Pat Whyms BL re- ceived €17,325.

The amounts are gross figures with VAT included and do not include the income the barristers would earn from civil legal work or work in the criminal court for clients who do not qualify for legal aid.

Barristers rarely operate in the district court and the vast majority of their work is carried out in the higher courts.

In Clare, the circuit court sits four times a year in Ennis, while it also sits in Kilrush during each session.

County Clare is located in the South-western Circuit, which also includes Limerick and Kerry. The presiding judge in the South-west-

ern Circuit is Judge Carroll Moran.

The table also shows that the bar- rister who has defended Ennistymon man Patrick O’ Dwyer, Patrick Gage- by SC, received €140,112 last year.

Nationally, the senior counsel to receive the top amount were Brendan Grehan who _ received €462,099, Michael O’Higgins who received €380,099, Isobel Kennedy who received €339,103 and Luigi Rea who received €319,953.

The tables also show that Martin Giblin SC received €305,701, while Anthony Sammon SC received €284,631 and Roderick F O’Hanlon SC received €279,174.

THE battle to ensure that farmers get proper notice before on-farm in- spections ignited this week as Mary Coughlan, the Minister for Agricul- ture and Food, called for 14-days of notice to be given before inspections.

Speaking at the Council of Agri- culture Ministers in Luxembourg last Wednesday, Coughlan said that she is very much opposed to the re- tention of unannounced inspections in the areas of animal identification and welfare and feed controls as pro- posed by the commission.

“I believe that this approach is ex- cessive and unnecessary. I favour a 14-day notice in the case of all in-

spections,” she said.

“T fully accept that it is a critical element of any control system that the inspection visit is implemented in such a way that its purpose is not jeopardised. In my view, however, systematic unannounced inspections are not necessary to achieve this ob- jective but add significantly to cost and inefficiencies at a time when simplification is the aspiration.

“They are also totally impractical in the case of farmers who increas- ingly are part-time and are engaged in off-farm activities.

Minister Coughlan said that while she fully supported the concept of cross-compliance in the context of the Single Payment Scheme and its

extension to the CAP Rural Devel- opment measures this year, it is clear that the system was far too compli- cated and placed an intolerable bur- den on farmers and administrators.

“I believe the approach to cross compliance needs to be dealt with in a “joined up” way at Commission level and therefore the full engage- ment of Commissioners Fisher Boel and Kypriano will be needed to re- Solve these issues,” said the minis- ae

Coughlan said she welcomed the commission’s proposals on toleranc- es for minor infringements, the “de minimis” proposal and the use of the results of existing controls – the so- called “bottlenecks” proposal.

The minister went on to say that, while she noted the proposal for har- monisation of the control rate at one per cent, she is not convinced that this particular proposal is of any benefit in practice, given that the results of checks under the sectoral legislation have to be taken into account and should be further investigated.

“I accept that there should always be a possibility of carrying out some unannounced controls and _ histori- cally Ireland has always adopted this approach where it was deemed nec- ISTE D AA

“IT would therefore ask the com- mission to re-consider its proposals for systematic unannounced inspec- tions,’ she continued.

AN ENNISTYMON couple last night said that justice had been done, after their 21-year-old son was ac- quitted of the murder of their teenage daughter.

There were emotional scenes at the Central Criminal Court after a jury found Patrick O’Dwyer of Shrohill, Ennistymon, not guilty of the mur- der of his sister, Marguerite (17), at the family home, on November 29, PAu s

He claimed a defence of dimin- ished responsibility, in that he suf- fered from a mental disorder when he killed his sister, a Leaving Certifi- cate student.

The jury agreed and found him guilty of manslaughter, by reason of diminished responsibility.

O’Dwyer, who showed no emotion during the six-day trial, smiled as he hugged his mother and sister, mo- ments after the jury brought in the verdict.

He then spoke briefly to a friend on a mobile phone, before being led away into custody.

His mother Claire tightly clenched his hand in hers and fought back tears of relief, before she embraced her husband Paddy.

Their sole comment came from Patrick’s sister Louise (22) moments ETC merc KM Uolome-DOOBU NAN (oJMMmOelomerelUb am

“We are just relieved that justice has been done,” she said.

The jury reached its majority 10-2 decision at 8.05 pm, after deliberat- ing for seven hours and 33 minutes. It had earlier failed to reach a unani- mous verdict.

Trial judge Mr Justice Paul Carney remanded O’Dwyer in custody for sentencing on May 21.

“This is the first finding in this ju-

risdiction of diminished responsibul- ity on the new insanity statute,” said the judge, referring to legislation brought into effect just last year.

O’Dwyer hit his sister six times on the head with a claw hammer and in- flicted more than 90 stab wounds to her body in a frenzied attack which lasted just 15 minutes.

He told gardai he had contemplated suicide and attacked his sister while

She watched television, as he feared she would get in the way of his sut- cide attempt.

“It’s like being inside a room with a video and I can’t turn it off,” he told ee KOrNE

Mr Justice Paul Carney told the jury the “battleground” of the case was Whether Patrick O’Dwyer was suf- fering from a mental disorder. The prosecution argued that he wasn’t,

while the defence claimed he was, said the judge.

in response to a Freedom of Information request show that the gardai concerned received €478,000 — an average pay out of €23,900 each.

The single greatest generator of overtime payments was the opera- tion at Shannon Airport last year to prevent any further incursions the Department of Justice stated that

the bill for the Shannon operation was €1.25 million.

“It 1s most unfortunate that there is a large amount of gardai tied up on duty in Shannon because of a few people who have made threats over the security of the airport,” said Councillor Madeleine Taylor-Quinn GaCoF

“These gardai would be far better used on the highways and byways of OFT ione

Cllr Taylor-Quinn said that the high overtime payments resulted from the failure of the current Gov- ernment to recruit the promised ad- ditional gardai for the force.

“It would be far more prudent to recruit the additional gardai rather than be paying out these sums in overtime,’ she said.

Nationally, the Government paid out over €100 million in overtime. The €102.6 million overtime bill in 2006 represents a 32 per cent in- crease on the €77 million spent on Garda overtime in 2005.

Operation Anvil last year led to sig- nificant overtime costs, according to a Department of Justice spokesman. The operation commenced in Dub- lin in May 2005 and was rolled out across the country in January 2006 targeting gun culture.

“Operation Anvil has been highly successful,” he said.

In Dublin, the operation resulted in 54,526 checkpoints; 6,250 arrests in connection with murder, seri- ous assaults, burglary, robbery and other serious offences; 26,497 drug searches; 1,543 firearms searches; 643 firearms seized or recovered; 10,520 vehicles seized and stolen property to the value of €17.2 mil- lion recovered.

A Garda’s payscale goes from €24,551 to €44,116 after 17 years service; a sergeant’s salary scales from €44,543 to €51,281, while an inspector can earn from €51,571 to

IN THE face of increasing pressure from hunting groups the government has backed down on the proposed li- cence fee increase for hunters.

The National Association of Re- gional Game Councils (NARGC) this week welcomed the Govern- ment’s decision to postpone the pro- posed licence fee increases which was announced in early April.

These increases were described as ‘exorbitant?’ by NARGC Director, Des Crofton, and following a heated public debate, and subsequent con- sultation with the Department of Jus-

tice, it has been agreed to postpone WeLomB NL@)Rereksone

“In addition to the postponement, and even more important, the Gov- ernment has commitment to con- sult with NARGC over the next 12 months, when the matter will be discussed in detail and prior to any new fee structures being finalised,” said Mr Croften. “As matters stand, licence fees will be renewed at the current levels and in the normal Fh

NARGC stressed that this political back down should be viewed as posi- tive and a reflection of the Govern- ment’s on-going commitment to the

Irish shooting community and ac- knowledgment of the important role it plays in Irish rural life.

Instrumental in the governments decision was an announcement by the Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSTA) last week, pledging the support of its members to NARGC.

The Finance Bill 2007 reveals plans to increase licence fees by an average of 56 per cent without consultation with the representative bodies for shooting. “Shooting people all over the country are unbelievably angry with widespread threats to use their votes to punish the government,”

said a statement from FISSTA.

“The annual shotgun licence, which currently is €25, will rise to €115 for three years and the current annual rifle licence of €38 will rise to €170 for three years. Worse still, a new training licence for young peo- ple who wish to take up the sport, but which will not allow them to own or possess a gun, has been rendered un- workable because of the cost.

“For a young person to undergo proper training in the safe use and handling of a shotgun and rifle, the licence fee will be €285. Yet a fire- arms dealer’s licence will be only €340.”

A CLARE accountant who was un- fairly dismissed from a Limerick firm has been awarded a total of more than €18,000 in compensation.

Gerard White, from Woodbrook Lodge, Fountain, Ennis, took a case with the Employment Appeals Tri- bunal against the firm he had worked for for almost 33 years.

O’Hurley Blair Irwin, of Mount Kenneth House, Henry Street, Lim- erick, denied they had unfairly dis- missed White, citing gross miscon-

duct and breach of trust as the reasons for him losing his job.

The tribunal was told that in April 2005, the company received a call from a bank in connection with sub- stantiating a loan application. No- one in the company knew anything about the loan applicant and he was not a client of the firm. White told the partner in the firm who had dealt with the call that the person named was a friend of his.

The partner asked that copies of documents relating to the named per- son be sent to him and it transpired

that the bank had received accounts for three years relating to the person as well as a letter for the tax affairs of the person, which indicated that the company was representing him and that his affairs were in order.

The firm suspended the claimant with pay and, subsequently, White told them it had been his intention to intro- duce the person to the firm as a client. White told the tribunal that he had met with the business person, who was a friend, in January 2005. He called to White’s home with the papers neces- sary to apply for a bank loan. White

said he did not submit accounts.

White said the home visit was not unusual as he often brought work home. He had put a note in his diary as a reminder to set up an account with the firm for the man.

The tribunal determined that there was an unresolved conflict of evi- dence but the dismissal was unfair because of deficiencies in procedure on the part of the accountancy firm.

Under a claim for minimum notice, White was awarded €5,692.32 and he was awarded €12,500 in compensa- tion under the Unfair Dismissals act.