CITY TRIBUNE
Burglar with 99 convictions ransacked house as mother and child slept
A burglar used a child’s schoolbag to carry a laptop away from a house he had just ransacked while the child and its mother slept upstairs.
John Mongan (31), of 24 Gaelcarrig Park, Newcastle, had already clocked up 99 previous convictions, including 18 for burglary, by the time he broke into the woman’s home in Hazel Park on May 3 last year.
The woman and her little boy were asleep in their bedrooms upstairs when Mongan smashed a window at the rear of the house shortly after 11pm.
He pleaded guilty to the burglary and his sentence hearing took place at Galway Circuit Criminal Court.
The court heard that luckily, the woman’s brother happened to be staying in the house that night.
He was awoken by the sound of what he thought was someone letting a glass fall downstairs. He went down to investigate and came face to face with Mongan in the kitchen.
The kitchen cupboards had all been turned out while a €1,200 laptop was stolen from another tenant’s bedroom upstairs. She was not in the house that night.
The child’s schoolbag, containing the laptop, was later found behind a wall near the house.
Two students later told Gardai they were looking out their bedroom window on the night in question and saw a man running down an alleyway, while carrying a laptop which he dropped on the ground.
Mongan fitted the description of the burglar given by the woman’s brother and he was subsequently arrested. He denied any involvement in the burglary and told Gardai to “f**k off”.
The court heard Mongan had 99 previous convictions, 41 of which were for thefts and 18 for burglaries. The remainder were for robberies, handling stolen property, taking cars, criminal damage, taking bicycles, drinking driving, Public Order offences and driving without insurance.
Detective Maria Conneely read victim impact statements, which she had taken from the mother and from the female tenant.
The mother said she and her young son had been deeply traumatised and they no longer felt safe in their home.
She said her son could no longer play alone in his bedroom and she was afraid to be alone in the house herself.
“Our lives have been deeply altered by the burglary. It’s not just about our possessions being taken and I’m terrified to be alone in my own home. I’m afraid of every little noise. It has completely taken over my life and up to this day, I cannot justify any of this to my young son. He faces a long road to recovery, psychologically,” the woman said in her statement.
The other woman, whose laptop was taken, said she had been a tenant in the house but had since moved out and now lived in a different area in order to feel safer.
She said the loss of her laptop had both economic and emotional repercussions.
In reply to prosecuting barrister, Conor Fahy, Det Conneely said Mongan’s last conviction for burglary was recorded in January 2013 when he received nine months in prison for a burglary which was committed in October 2012.
He subsequently received a five-month prison sentence for another burglary committed in November 2013, while he received a total of eleven months in prison in May 2015 for a string of thefts.
Defence barrister, Geri Silke said Mongan had a heroin addiction and his family were concerned he receive treatment. She said he had thought the house was empty and he fled out the back door once he saw the woman’s brother in the kitchen.
On the application of Mr Fahy, Judge McCabe agreed to adjourn sentence to March to give the prosecution time to study the law with regard to the possible consecutive sentencing of repeat burglars like Mongan, who commit similar offences within a certain time frame.
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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