A number of roads around the county will close for short durations of not more than five days from next Wednesday November 4th to November 30th to facilitate road resurfacing works.
The closures will take place from 8am to 6pm with diversions in place.
Amongst the local roads affected include the Rock Road in Blackrock from the junction with Seafield Road to Sandy Lane and from Carrickarnon to the boundary with Northern Ireland via Edentober.
A teenage boy has died after a van which had been stolen just outside Dundalk crashed in Belfast last night.
The 17-year-old was killed after the silver Transit van, which had been stolen from alongside the N1 near Carrickarnon earlier that evening, collided with a barrier on the M1 between the Blaris and Saintfield junctions at around 10.50pm.
The teenager has yet to be named although the PSNI have seized a red Ford Mondeo from an address in Lagmore, west Belfast. It is believed it was travelling with the van at the time of the accident.
The PSNI have appealed for anyone who saw either vehicle before the crash to contact them.
The old Garda Barracks and Half Door Restaurant
The old Garda Barracks at Dromad is set to be demolished as part of a plan to open a new café, deli and shop close to Junction 20 of the N1 at Carrickarnon.
The old barracks was one of the busiest stations in the country during the Troubles, with the road fronting it – now by-passed by the N1 – one of the main routes across the border.
Now though Kieran Byrne has secured conditional planning permission from Louth County Council to demolish the Half Door Restaurant and and replace it with an extension to an existing building to form a café, deli and shop.
The old barracks will also be demolished as part of the plans to form an additional vehicular access point.
Also as part of the plans an existing diesel pump will be relocated and an additional single sided diesel pump added, as well as two 40,000 litre underground fuel storage tanks.
An existing store/workship will also be partly converted to form an office.
A cube of toxic sludge leaking onto the roadside at Faughart earlier this year
New figures have revealed that the amount of oil laundering waste dumped in Co Louth in the first three months of the year has more than doubled on the same period of last year.
Figures from Louth County Council have revealed that there were 156 cubes of the toxic sludge dumped around the county between January and early March. That is up from 60 cubes in the first quarter of 2014. Each cube contains approximately 1,000 litres of fuel laundering waste.
The cost of disposing of the waste so far this year is around €138,000, a jump of €56,000 from the same period of last year.
Earlier this week 35,000 litres of the waste was found dumped in a trailer at Junction 20 of the N1, near the Jonesborough/Carrickarnon exit.
Commenting on his Twitter page recently, Cllr Mark Dearey branded those behind the dumping as “environmental terrorists”.
A trailer with an estimated 35,000 litres of oil laundering waste has been found abandoned close to the border.
The trailer carrying the toxic sludge was discovered this morning on the N1 dual carriageway at Junction 20 Jonesborough/Carrickarnon, close to the Carrickdale Hotel.
Louth County Council’s contractor hopes to have the trailer and its contents removed by this afternoon.
This is one of a number of similar discoveries at this location in recent months with those responsible for fuel laundering dumping the waste at expense to the taxpayer.
Close to 1,200 litres of toxic sludge has been found north of Dundalk.
The discovery was made at a lay-by close to the border with Northern Ireland on the M1/N1 motorway.
The sludge is the waste of illegal fuel laundering which is rife in the area. It was found in large plastic cubes in an ‘Ulster Distribution’ trailer left near the exit for Jonesborough and Carrickarnon.
Louth County Council said the trailer was holding 11 1,000 litre cubes of waste, as well as four further barrels containing just over 200 litres.
Contractors are set to remove the sludge later today.
Approximately 40,000 litres of toxic diesel sludge was discovered abandoned in a curtain-sided trailer just north of Dundalk yesterday.
The trailer was left in a lay-by on the northbound carriageway of the N1, just before Junction 20, the exit for Jonesborough and Carrickarnon.
Louth County Council contractors have removed the trailer and its contents in what is one of the biggest ever discoveries of the oil laundering waste.
Dundalk-based fuel group Morgan Fuels climbed back to profitability in the six months to the end of March, despite a significant drop in sales.
Accounts filed to the Company’s Office show the firm’s turnover declined markedly, even allowing for the differing accounting periods covered by the latest set of accounts and those filed in September 2013, which encompassed an 18-month period.
The six months to the end of March saw the company record turnover of €71.4m, compared to €244.4m for the previous 18-month period.
The company said sales declined in line with expectations and attributed the decrease to strategic decisions taken by the directors in respect of bulk deliveries business which contributed €11.9m to revenues to the end of March, compared to the €54.8m recorded in the previous year and a half.
The company’s fuel card sales business also declined in the six-month period to just under €60m but remained broadly in line with the previous period when sales from that business segment amounted to €188m.
Despite decreasing revenues, Morgan Fuels Ireland Ltd turned a profit of more than €325,000 in the six months to the end of March, compared to the €385,760 loss in the previous period.
An exceptional item arising from a €2.99m revaluation of investment property contributed to the deficit recorded at the end of September last year.
Falling sales costs, which declined broadly in line with decreased revenues, also helped the company back to profit this year.
The directors’ report lists the “highly competitive” fuel card market in Ireland, the UK and Europe and tight margins among the group’s principal risks and uncertainties.
Operating profit stood at €577.9m in the period covered by the latest accounts. The company recorded an operating profit of €3.63m in the previous 18-month period, helped significantly by €2.4m debt forgiveness.
The number of employees at the group owned by Hugh Morgan fell to 40 from 53 with staff costs of €496,800 recorded to the end of March, compared to more than €2m for the previous 18-month period.
Directors’ remuneration for the six months to the end of March was €30,440.
The company had net assets in excess of €1.05m at the end of the accounting period, an increase from the €739,700 recorded in September last.
Morgan Fuels, based at Carrickarnon, are the primary sponsors of the Louth GAA and Dundalk IT GAA teams.
The annual Edentubber Commemoration will take place this Sunday afternoon, with assembly taking place at 12.15pm at the Carrickdale Hotel.
The event on the Armagh/Louth border remembers five Republicans who were killed during the 1956-62 IRA border campaign when a landmine exploded prematurely in 1957.
The five who died at Edentubber, a few hundred yards from the border crossing at Carrickarnon, and since known as the Edentubber Martyrs, included the owner of the cottage, 54-year-old Michael Watters; Paul Smith, 19-years-old, who was born and lived at the Gardens, Bessbrook; Oliver Craven, from Dominic Street, Newry; and Patrick Parle and George Keegan of Wexford.
A Newry man has been jailed for abducting a woman in Dundalk in December 2012.
Jailing 23-year-old Daniel Carroll at Newry Crown Court today, Judge Kevin Finnegan QC said that to describe the case as “disturbing would be a massive understatement.”
“This was a brave and resourceful young woman who underwent a night of horror,” said the judge adding that at the time the “world lay at her feet, until she came across the accused.”
Carroll, from Francis Hughes Park, Belleeks, Newry had, on what the judge said was a “staggered” basis, pleaded guilty to offences of kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, causing actual bodily harm, driving while banned and without insurance all on 21 December 2012.
Judge Finnegan said the “very attractive young lady” – who was not named – was walking close to the Market Square in Dundalk on her way to meet her boyfriend when she saw a drunk man watching her and crossed the road to avoid him.
He followed her, however, and she was bundled into the back of a car with Carroll repeatedly punching her in the face and head and lying his full weight across her as the car sped off and headed to the car park of the Carrickdale Hotel at Carrickarnon in Ravensdale
The young woman tried to escape, but was hauled back and the car drove over the border into Northern Ireland.
That car was driven by Carroll’s accomplice 27-year-old Aileen Gray whose case was deferred until next year to monitor her behaviour.
At one stage, their victim pretended to lose consciousness and heard the couple “discussing what to do with her body if she died”.
Judge Finnegan described how Carroll’s victim told him she was struggling to breathe, was asthmatic and needed her inhaler – but her pleas fell on deaf ears, adding that at one stage, she screamed in an effort to get the attention of passing motorists but to no avail.
“The victim was subjected to an increased level of violence,” said the judge, telling the court that Carroll grabbed his victim with one hand while punching her with the other.
When Gray got out and left, Carroll took over the driving and his victim “tried to befriend him,” chatting to him and asking questions to “curb his aggression” until they got to Carroll’s home where he told her she could “sleep in any room she wanted.”
The charge of sexual assault arose when he kissed her in the mouth and rubbed her thigh with his hand – but she pushed it away “and he accepted that” and even offered to give her a lift back to Dundalk.
The woman’s ordeal ended – and he was arrested – when Carroll “left her alone for long enough” that she fled the house and managed to summon help from a neighbour.
Turning to the various reports, Judge Finnegan said that “all too often,” the circumstances of victims are overlooked before recounting how Carroll’s victim had had “distinguished academic progress,” a happy domestic life and a boyfriend – but that what happened to her “has destroyed” that academic progress and potentially her career.
“Very courageously she had made strenuous efforts to pick up the pieces of her own life,” praised the judge adding: “The physical injuries may have cleared to reveal her as a very attractive young lady – but it is clear…that the psychological effects of this are deeply scarred to this day and may remain with her for the rest of her days.”
In relation to Carroll, Judge Finnegan said he had shown genuine “remorse and shame” for what he had done, telling the court he was not assessing him as a dangerous offender because of his previously clear criminal record.
He said it was also to Carroll’s credit that he “desisted” in the sexual assault when it was made clear to him that “she was not available or willing to participate in anything of that nature”.
Judge Finnegan told Carroll that if he had been convicted after a trial, he would have faced a 12-year jail term but that he was giving him credit for pleading guilty, saving his victim from having to relive her ordeal.
As well as the eight year jail term, split into half in custody and half on supervised licence, the judge also imposed a lifetime Sexual Offences Prevention Order which prohibits Carroll from living anywhere without approval, travelling to the Republic without approval and from being in a car with a female without approval.
He must also complete drink and drug counselling sessions and notify probation of any developing relationships he has.
Carroll was ordered to remain on the police sex offenders register “indefinitely”.
Neither his victim nor her family wished to comment on the sentencing afterwards.
Source: UTV Media
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