Less than a third of drink driving cases in Louth lead to convictions

Less than a third of drink driving cases before the courts in Co Louth since January 2013 have resulted in convictions.

That’s according to figures published in today’s Irish Times, which show that just 32% of drink drivers had been convicted between the start of 2013 and May 2015.

Only Kerry, at 29%, had a lower conviction rate than Louth, which had the joint second lowest figure alongside Waterford.

The national average was 40%, with Offaly having the highest conviction rate at 68%. England and Wales both had a 97% conviction rate in comparison.

In Dundalk, there were 134 convictions for 392 offences (34%) while there were 118 convictions for 385 offences in Drogheda (31%). It was revealed that in Ardee of those convicted of drink driving, none had their licence numbers recorded.

The same judges would be present in the District Courts in Dundalk, Ardee and Drogheda, with neighbouring Cavan and Monaghan also having low conviction rates of 41% and 42% respectively.

O’Dowd calls for pre-Christmas General Election

Fergus O’Dowd

Local Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd has called for a snap General Election.

The Drogheda man told The Irish Times today that he believes a pre-Christmas election is the best option for the current government.

This was despite the majority of the 34 TDs spoken to by the paper saying they did not expect an election to take place until early 2016.

O’Dowd said: “It is better for us to go as soon as possible, before Christmas.

“The only show in town is the budget. It is the right moment to go,” he said.

O’Dowd will once again be on the Fine Gael ticket, along with fellow TD Peter Fitzpatrick.

Dundalk 1916 Project looking for volunteers

Paul Hayes of An Táin Arts Centre

With 2016 not far away, we can expect to see many centenary projects gearing up and preparing for performances and events to mark the Centenary of the Easter Rising. Among them is a new initiative from An Táin Arts Centre in Dundalk which will see a new piece of theatre devised by participants in a process which will start next Wednesday night and culminate with performances in An Táín at Easter next year.

Managing Director, Paul Hayes explains: “We’re conscious that the Town Hall, where An Táin is based, is a building which has a special resonance with the events of 1916 in Dundalk. It was here that Pádraig Pearse was to have addressed an audience around the time of the Rising, and it was here that Dundalk Urban District Council discussed the events in Dublin and Dundalk at their subsequent meeting. With that in mind, An Táin Arts Centre is inviting people from the town and throughout Louth to work with us in devising a new way of looking and recounting what happened in Dundalk nearly 100 years ago.”

The genesis of the initiative was meeting between County Arts Officer, Brian Harten, Paul Hayes from An Táin Arts Centre, and Declan Mallon, Upstate Theatre project, based in Drogheda. At that meeting, it was decided to create a new recounting of the events which took place in Dundalk in 1916. Upstate Theatre Project has long experience of working with communities to develop film and drama productions, where the stories, and the way of telling those stories, are shaped by the community participants themselves.

As Declan Mallon says: “We don’t do re-enactments. What we aim to do is to unearth people’s stories, and present these in new and innovative ways.”

Declan Mallon and Paul Hayes were behind the acclaimed Ship Street Revisited, which saw a dilapidated street in Drogheda transformed into an outside stage for stories and performances informed by the memories of past residents of the street. Another of Upstate Theatre’s productions, The Far Side, was described by The Irish Times as “hilarious and heartbreaking, simple and surreal.” And so the people behind these productions are behind the new initiative for An Táin Arts Centre.

“We’re inviting people to join us in the Arts Centre in Crowe Street on Wednesday October 7^th at 7pm”, says County Arts Officer, Brian Harten.

“What will eventually be presented in April will be informed, to a large extent, by the views, stories and questions of the people who come along. If you can sing or act, great. If not, but are interested in 1916 in Dundalk, come along anyway. We want people to be involved and to help mould a re-telling of a momentous event in Irish history”

Louth has lowest allocation of special needs teaching hours in the country

Louth has the lowest allocation of special needs teaching hours relative to the student population, according to new figures.

An article in today’s Irish Times examining Department of Education figures showed that there were 9.8 students in Louth per resource hour, well ahead of second placed Cavan (8.9).

In total there are 16,781 pupils in Louth, according to the data, with 1,708.5 resource hours allocated to them.

That leaves just 6.1 resource minutes per student. Only the Dublin postcode areas of Dublin 9 and Dublin 15 fared worse than Louth.

You can read the article on irishtimes.com here.

Ireland’s risk status for BSE changed following local case

The McArdle farm in Louth Village where the BSE case was discovered

Ireland’s risk status for BSE has been reclassified to “controlled” following the recent discovery of an infected animal in Co Louth.

The change, which had been expected, comes only weeks after Ireland had been granted a “negligible risk status” for the disease, the lowest possible designation.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) confirmed to The Irish Times that following the detection of a new case, Ireland would now revert to its previous “controlled” status.

“In response to the information provided by the Irish authorities, the [OIE’S] Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases conducted a review and reclassified Ireland from negligible status – as accorded at the general session, in May, in advance of the detection of the new case – to controlled risk status, its previous designation,” a spokesman said.

The organisation said it had notified the Department of Agriculture here of the change in status in June.

The department’s investigation into the local case at a farm in Louth Village, the State’s first in more than two years, concluded the affected animal, a five-year-old dairy cow, had contracted classic or typical BSE.

This strain normally occurs in animals that have consumed contaminated feed or in the progeny of animals that have contracted the disease.

The department’s investigation ruled out the “vertical transmission” explanation after tests on the cow’s mother and grandmother proved negative. Tests on feed used at the farm were also found not to contain meat and bone meal, which has been banned in the Republic since 1990, resulting in the classification of the latest case as sporadic and unexplained, which is not an uncommon finding.

However, because it can take four to six years for cattle to show signs of BSE, it may take some time for the State to reclaim a negligible-risk status for BSE.

The case represents a setback for the beef industry in Ireland, which had only regained access to the lucrative US, Chinese and Japanese markets for the first time since the infamous BSE crisis of the 1990s.

However, given its apparent once-off nature and the relatively swift detection protocols, the new case is not expected to damage the State’s €2 billion beef trade.

In addition, the recent agreements with the US, China and Japan were signed when the State had a controlled-risk status.

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney is expected to lead a delegation to China later this year to mark the formal reopening of the market to Irish producers.

College applicants from Louth amongst the most likely to receive a student grant

College applicants from Co Louth are amongst the most likely in the country to receive a means-tested student grant, according to new data.

The information, provided by Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) to The Irish Times, shows that of the 2,242 CAO applicants from the Wee County last year, 65.9% of them received a grant.

Only six counties fared better, namely Longford (71.5%), Carlow (70.8%), Cavan (69.1%), Monaghan (68.6%), Donegal (68.1%) and Mayo (67.9%).

Indeed, Louth’s figure was even higher when just new applications to SUSI were taken into account. Last year there were 2,184 new applications to SUSI, with 1,478 grants awarded, an award rate of 67.7%.

Meanwhile, Dundalk IT have also revealed that they have doubled the number of offers it has made to school-leavers in the North following changes to its scoring system to attract more students south.

The college now awards additional points for each grade at A-Level and extra points for BTEC, another school qualification in the UK education system.

Previously the maximum points a school-leaver in the North could achieve was 450 points, compared with 600 in the South.

President Denis Cummins revealed that 97 offers had been made to students from the North, double that of last year.

Source: The Irish Times

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital spends more on agency staff than any other hospital

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda

A report in today’s Irish Times has revealed that Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is spending millions of euro on agency staff without confirming they have Garda or medical clearance or have training in health and safety.

The Co Louth hospital is also breaching HSE rules by failing to use a competitive process to select some of the recruitment agencies it deals with and putting in place a service level agreement as required.

The process for recruiting and paying for agency staff requires strengthening in significant areas and the effectiveness of internal controls is limited, according to a HSE audit report.

The audit of Our Lady of Lourdes showed the requirement to fill out a request form where a post was being filled by agency staff was not fulfilled in the 25 cases examined. Meanwhile, the rates charged by the agency were not always verified against supporting documentation. The hospital spent €16.8 million on agency staff in 2013, up from €12.6 million the previous year.

While service level agreements were in place with the two companies that provide the majority of agency staff to the hospital, this was not the case with two other companies which have been paid €3.8 million in the past six years.

Hospitals are increasingly reliant on agency staff because of restrictions on recruitment and a failure to attract candidates for permanent posts after years of salary cuts. However, agency workers paid on an hourly basis end up being far costlier than permanent staff. Drogheda has higher agency costs than any other hospital.

Nationally, €238 million was spent on agency staff in 2013.

Fitzpatrick spent the most on getting elected of local TDs in last election

Peter Fitzpatrick TD

Peter Fitzpatrick spent more money campaigning for the last election than any other TD in the county, new figures have revealed.

A new analysis of election spending by The Irish Times shows that successful TDs spent an average of €18,746 campaigning, equivalent to €2.25 for each first-preference vote received.

However, Fitzpatrick was well above that with Fine Gael pumping €33,428 into his campaign. That equates to €4.26 per first preference vote.

The former Louth GAA boss wasn’t the only local TD to spend above the national average though.

The next biggest spend in Louth was by Ged Nash, with the Labour Party pumping €23,210 into his 2011 campaign. That equates to €2.66 for each of his 8,718 first preference votes.

Meanwhile, poll topper Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin spent €20,896 on his campaign, which worked out at €1.39 for each of his 15,072 first preference votes.

At a cost of €1.13 per first preference vote the best value for money was Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd’s who spent €15,867 on his campaign. The Drogheda man secured 13,980 first preference votes and like his three other Dáil colleagues from Louth will stand again in the next election.

Fianna Fáil’s Seamus Kirk – who is retiring at the next election – is not included because, as Ceann Comhairle, he was returned to the Dáil automatically in 2011.

A full breakdown of figures can be found here.

Louth has one of the fewest number of Seanad voters in the country

The breakdown of Seanad voters per 1,000 of population by county

Louth has one of the lowest number of Seanad voters in the country, according to new figures published in today’s Irish Times.

The figures show that just 19.7 of every 1,000 people in the Wee County have a vote in the Seanad elections – the fourth lowest total in the country.

Only Donegal (17.4), Laois (18.1) and Cavan (18.8) fared worse with Wexford and Monaghan having similar figures.

The paper revealed that people in more than 100 countries had votes in the Seanad elections. Of the 161,000 people elegible to vote though, 94 per cent of them are in Ireland.

Louth currently has three Senators in the Seanad – Mary Moran, Jim D’Arcy and Terry Brennan.

Ravensdale businessman Larry Goodman firms over 7.5% share of Baggot Street site

Larry Goodman

A local businessman has brought legal proceedings claiming he is entitled to a 7.5 per cent share of the former Bank of Ireland site at Baggot Street in Dublin.

Andrew Griffith has sued for specific performance of an alleged agreement with companies in Larry Goodman’s Parma Developments group, which reject his claims as “opportunistic” and without “substance or merit”. His claim was brought after media reports about proposals for refurbishment of the Baggot Street property and the rise in property values in Dublin city centre, it is alleged.

Rossa Fanning, for the Parma side, said Mr Griffith began from 2013 to make claims sporadically relating to agreements of 2006 and 2008. Mr Griffith was looking for a 7.5 per cent interest in the Bank of Ireland site on which his side has spent €100 million, counsel said.

There was “no basis” for Mr Griffith’s claim and the Parma side wanted the case fast-tracked in the Commercial Court list, counsel said. The case concerned construction of an option agreement and, while an employment law issue was raised by Mr Griffith, this was ancillary to the main issue, he also argued.

Stephen Moran, for Mr Griffith, opposed transfer on grounds the matter included an employment law aspect which was not an appropriate matter to be addressed in commercial proceedings.

The disputed site on Baggot Street, former HQ of Bank of Ireland

Refusing transfer, Mr Justice Brian McGovern said the Commercial Court was intended for urgent matters and this case related to agreements dating back to 2006 and 2008. The refusal means the case will now proceed in the ordinary High Court list.

Mr Griffith, with an address at Ravensdale, Dundalk, Co Louth, has brought the proceedings against four companies: Parma Investments BV, based in the Netherlands; Parma Developments, Milestown, Castlebellingham, Co Louth; Parma Developments (Jersey) Ltd and Remley.

He claims he had agreements in 2006 and 2008 involving Parma companies and wants orders for specific performance of those. He claims the agreements incorporate the acquisition, through Remley, of the former Bank of Ireland headquarters. Alternatively, he is seeking damages in addition to, or in lieu of, specific performance.

Mr Griffith alleges he entered into an option agreement in December 2006 with Parma Investments BV and Parma Developments. He also claims he entered into an employment agreement at that time with Parma Management Services Ltd (now Parma Management Services) to advise and assist various Parma companies on various matters, including in developing its property portfolio and identifying lands with potential for development with a view to selling them on at a profit.

The agreement provided he was to subscribe for 7.5 per cent of each new property development site acquired by the group, including the Bank of Ireland site, he claims.

The defendants deny his claims. They also plead some companies which are not part of the Parma Developments Group hold a portfolio of investment properties which is “entirely separate” to the development portfolio, for the purpose of long term rental and/or capital appreciation. The defendants’ case is the former Bank of Ireland property falls within this investment portfolio and not within the development portfolio and, as a result, Mr Griffith’s claim is misconceived.

Source: The Irish Times