BComm Group
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Gameplaying day pays for
Crumlin eye equipment
22/03/2004 - 4:20:13 PM
Vital eye-testing equipment for
children with diabetes has been donated to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children
in Crumlin.
More than €70,000 in funding was raised for the project through a national
School Game-playing Day, organised by toy and games company 'Hasbro'.
The new technology will be critical in the early diagnosis of Diabetes
Retinopathy, a condition, which if left untreated, can lead to permanent loss of
vision.
Opthalmic surgeon Donal Brosnahan said the equipment was a great boost to the
hospital's facilities.
Minister announces plans for
‘pay-by-use’ waste charges
22/03/2004 - 11:39:28 AM
Environment Minister Martin Cullen
has announced plans to introduce a nationwide system of "pay-by-use"
waste charges.
Mr Cullen said today that, from next January 1, all local authorities would be
required to offer a waste collection service with charges based on weight or
volume.
The minister said the move was designed to encourage people to reduce, reuse and
recycle.
"Pay-by-use means the householder will have the power to influence the
extent of their total waste charges," he said.
Mr Cullen said he was proposing two methods of implementing the plan - a
weight-based charge or a charge for every bag/wheelie bin left out for
collection.
Former bouncer jailed after
cocaine find
22/03/2004 - 4:12:15 PM
A former bouncer found with almost
€25,000 worth of cocaine in his car has been jailed for five years by Judge
Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Gerard O'Neill, aged 24, of Castleview Road, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to
possession of the cocaine worth a total of €24,280 on May 21, 2003 on Malahide
Road, Coolock.
Damien Colgan BL, prosecuting, said gardaí, acting on confidential information,
intercepted O'Neill while he was driving on the Malahide Road with a female
passenger on May 21 last year.
Mr Colgan said he admitted to possession of the drugs with intent to supply but
refused to give gardaí information on who had given him the drugs or where they
were destined for.
It was accepted by gardaí that O'Neill was afraid of those for whom he had been
working as courier.
Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, defending, said O'Neill was from a large and respectable
family who continued to be supportive of him.
His involvement in the drugs trade had arisen from his own addiction to "a
cocktail of drugs" which began when he was 17-18 years of age.
Judge Hogan said there were mitigating circumstances such as O'Neill's early
admission of guilt; his previously good character; his fear of the individuals
for whom he was acting as a drugs courier for; and his current efforts to
address his addiction which had started his offending.
He suspended the last two years of the sentence in consideration of those
factors with the intention of leaving O'Neill "some light at the end of the
tunnel" as he tried to reform his life.
Brennan unveils €3.5bn
public transport plan
22/03/2004 - 3:03:54 PM
A
guaranteed investment package of over €3.5bn for public transport has been
unveiled by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan.
Over the next four years, the new multi-annual financial envelope will deliver
investment in the railways, bus services and other areas of public transport.
Brennan said the multi-annual capital envelope would provide a total of €2.3bn
for public transport projects for the period 2004 to 2008.
The Exchequer will provide over €1.7bn of this figure and the Government say
the rest will be raised through other financing mechanisms.
Capital expenditure over the period will be invested mainly in the rail network
on projects like rolling stock and services on intercity lines, upgrading the
DART system and the Luas expansion.
Minister Brennan made the announcement today at the official opening of the
€117m redevelopment project at Dublin's Heuston Station.
The new-look Heuston will now have nine platforms instead of five, with all new
computerized signaling and remodeling of the track work to allow for more
flexible operations.
Journey times on nearly all Inter-city services into Dublin from Cork, Galway,
Limerick and Waterford had been reduced by up to 30 minutes.
Workers group plans
transport row meeting
22/03/2004 - 2:46:41 PM
Workers from Dublin Bus, Irish
Rail and Aer Rianta have been invited to a meeting on Wednesday in Dublin to
plan a response to recent events as the transport row continues.
Union representatives, including Bill McCamley of Dublin Bus and Barry Nevin of
Aer Rianta, will be among the speakers to address a joint meeting for transport
workers under the title of "Stop the destruction of our Semi States".
Workers from both company’s are concerned that Government plans to break up
the semi-states could be the first step to eventual privatisation and the
introduction of competition with non-union companies.
The meeting will take place at 8pm in the ATGWU hall in middle Abbey street on
Wednesday and is hosted by the Busworkers Action group, a union group based in
Dublin Bus.
Families to picket
Hillsborough tomorrow
22/03/2004 - 2:06:44 PM
A group campaigning for families
who believe their relatives were killed as a result of collusion between the
security agencies and loyalist paramilitaries announced plans to picket
Hillsborough tomorrow.
Firinne spokesman Mark Sykes, who was wounded in a UFF gun attack which claimed
the lives of five people in a bookmaker’s shop on Belfast’s Ormeau Road in
1992, said those in the police who “controlled, directed, armed and
resourced” paramilitary gangs were still serving.
“The apparatus of collusion is still in place,” he claimed.
“The British government has never accepted its responsibility for the deaths
which resulted from this policy.
“Enormous efforts are being made to conceal the truth about collusion. The
truth needs now to be told and the structures which operated this policy need to
be dismantled.”
