CITY TRIBUNE
Heroin dealer jailed for four years
A dealer was found with almost €20,000 worth of heroin in his car five weeks after he had tried to rob a petrol station at gunpoint.
Chris Goldbey, Fana Burca, Knocknacarra, set fire to the Audi A4 he had used during the attempted armed robbery at Monaghan’s garage on the Tuam Road in the early hours of May 10 last year.
Swabs taken from an imitation ‘Desert Eagle’ 6mm pistol – which was found near the burnt-out car – matched a DNA swab taken from Goldbey following his arrest later that same day.
The 26-year-old, who is currently serving a three-year sentence imposed on him by a court in Dublin last February for drug dealing, appeared before Galway Circuit Criminal Court last week for sentence in relation to the Galway offences.
He had pleaded guilty to having heroin in his possession which was for sale or supply to another at Cappagh Road on Friday, June 23, 2017.
He also pleaded guilty to two charges of attempted robbery at Monaghan’s garage on May 10 last year.
Sentence was adjourned to this week for the preparation of reports on Goldbey and to obtain victim impact statements from two members of staff at Monaghan’s 24-hour filling station.
Detective Gerry Carroll told the hearing Goldbey entered the petrol station shop at 3.27am and pointed a handgun at two male members of staff.
He demanded they hand over money but they refused and told him to “clear off”.
Goldbey left the shop and threw the handgun onto the floor behind the driver’s seat of his black Audi A4 which was parked in the forecourt. He then took out a length of iron bar, believed to be a piece of scaffolding and went back into the shop, where he again threatened both men. They stood firm and refused to hand over any money, telling Goldbey to “clear off” again.
Goldbey fled the scene in the Audi, which was found burnt out near the Menlo Park Hotel, a short distance away.
Det Carroll said Gardai used the registration on the Audi to trace Goldbey, who had recently bought the car.
Det Carroll said both staff members had not been adversely affected by the attempted robberies and were still working in the shop.
He said Goldbey had 76 previous convictions, 42 of which were for road traffic offences. The remainder included ten for burglaries, four for criminal damage, six for thefts, three for drug dealing, two for possession of drugs and the remainder for public order offences.
He said the accused was currently serving a three-year sentence imposed last February in Dublin.
Mr Bernard Madden SC, defending, said the gun was clearly an imitation and the staff in the shop knew that and had not taken his client seriously.
Garda Rob Molloy gave evidence in relation to the separate heroin-dealing charge. He said he stopped a blue Avensis being driven by Goldbey at 12.45am on June 23 last year on the Cappagh Road.
A search of the car revealed a black plastic bag which contained nine bags of heroin weighing almost 140 grams with an estimated street value of €19,474, or €140 per gram.
This offence, he said, occurred five weeks after the attempted robberies at Monaghan’s garage.
Mr Madden said his client had started abusing substances aged 13 and had spent half of his life since then involved in criminality to feed his addictions.
“He was completely ‘off his head’ on drugs when both of these offences occurred. He needs help,” Mr Madden said of his client.
The court heard that Goldbey’s prison release date for the Dublin sentence will be March 2020.
Judge Rory McCabe said Goldbey had been “busy breaking the law for a long number of years” and these recent, serious offences merited lengthy custodial sentences.
He said Goldbey had been referred to the probation service on no less than six occasions by various courts in the past – at the taxpayer’s expense – in an attempt to get him to deal with his addictions but this clearly had not worked.
The judge also noted Goldbey remained at a high risk of reoffending according to the latest probation report before the court.
He said the headline sentence for both the drug-dealing and attempted robbery charges was nine years, before mitigating factors were taken into account.
Goldbey’s early plea was identified as the only mitigating factor and Judge McCabe gave him a third off for that, bringing the sentence down to six years for each offence to run concurrently.
He suspended the final two years of each sentence for five years with the aim that Goldbey come under the supervision of the probation service for 18 months on his release from prison and undertake all rehabilitation and training courses as the service saw fit. He also directed Goldbey be afforded all necessary treatment and counselling for his addictions while in prison.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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