CITY TRIBUNE
Burglar defecated on sitting room floor
Burglars broke into a woman’s home where one of them defecated on her sitting room floor before both made off with blankets, cushions and curtains along with some cheese and beetroot from her fridge.
Gardaí found both homeless men on the steps of the Claddagh church a short time later, well wrapped up and tucking into the food.
48-year-old Richard O’Brien, a native of Killarney and of no fixed abode, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison with the final 18 months suspended at Galway Circuit Criminal Court for his role in the burglary.
He pleaded guilty last April to breaking into the house in the Claddagh on August 14 last year. Sentence was adjourned for the preparation of reports.
A bench warrant was issued for the arrest of his accomplice, 44-year-old Martin Ward, 29 The New Glebe, Tuam, after he failed to appear before the court for sentence.
Sergeant Diarmuid Cloonan gave evidence he responded to a call around 6.30am and met a woman in her sixties at her residence, who was in a distressed state.
She told him she had been asleep when she was woken by the light being switched on in her upstairs bedroom. She saw a man in the doorway. He looked at her and then switched off the light and left the room, closing the door. She stayed in the room but could hear him and another man in the room next-door. She heard them go downstairs about 20 minutes later. She got up and went to the top of the stairs where she saw them leave through the front door.
Someone had defecated on the sitting room floor and she noticed blankets, cushions, and a curtain had been taken along with Edam cheese and beetroot from the fridge. The front door had also been kicked in and was damaged.
The woman gave Gardaí a description of both men and they quickly located them outside the church.
The woman declined to come to court but she did give a victim impact statement.
She said she had not suffered any lasting psychological trauma but she sometimes felt vulnerable while in the house.
She also felt intimidated by their entering her property and the violence used to do so.
“They spent 15 to 20 minutes in the upstairs room next to me and that is what I find most frightening. They excreted on the floor and sofa in the main room downstairs too. I was left feeling helpless and low,” she said in her statement.
The court heard O’Brien had 535 previous convictions and was currently serving an eight-month sentence imposed on him in Kerry..
Sgt Cloonan confirmed O’Brien had several convictions for other burglaries going back as far as 2009. There were 37 for thefts, 405 for public order offences, with 339 of those for being drunk in public, and ten for assault. He received a seven-month term in Cork in 2014 for sexual assault, had six convictions for the possession of drugs, six for causing criminal damage, while the remainder were for road traffic offences and failing to appear in court.
Conall MacCarthy, defending, said his client came from a very respectable, hardworking Kerry family. He had a wife and children too who welcomed him home whenever he chose to go there.
However, he said, criminality flowed from O’Brien’s alcohol addiction and when it took hold of him he would leave home and get involved in crime to feed that addiction.
Mr MacCarthy said O’Brien was sleeping rough and in the throes of his alcohol addiction at the time of this offence.
His client wished to apologise for the damage done to the woman’s sitting room but denied he had been the culprit, suggesting his co-accused was to blame.
There was nothing sophisticated about the break-in, he said, and, in fact, it had been crudely executed. Within minutes of the alarm being raised both men were found by the Gardaí on the steps of the church with food and blankets around them, he added.
“They had effectively bedded down with the Edam cheese and beetroot and blankets,” counsel observed.
He said his client had never meaningfully addressed his alcohol addiction but was now on a waiting list to see a counsellor while in prison.
Sergeant Cloonan confirmed O’Brien had been out on bail on other matters when this offence was committed.
Judge Brian O’Callaghan agreed O’Brien’s appalling list of previous convictions “all boiled down to his alcohol addiction.”
He said the most aggravating factor was the length of time the men stayed in the room next-door to the woman’s bedroom knowing she was there and during that terrifying time she had no idea what was going to happen to her.
He said the accused was entitled to “serious credit” for entering an early plea, but there had to be an element of deterrent in sentencing when it came to burglary of people’s homes.
He set the headline sentence at five-and-a-half years, which he reduced to three-and-a-half years for the early plea.
In mitigation, he said O’Brien was sorry and according to a medical report handed into court, there was potential for him to rehabilitate.
The judge said he would incentivise that rehabilitation by suspending the final 18 months of the sentence, leaving a net two-year sentence to be served – to act as both a deterrent and a punishment for what he did to the woman.
The 18 months was suspended for two years on condition O’Brien keep the peace, come under the supervision of the probation service for 18 months on his release, remain sober and submit to random toxicology screening by the probation service.
Photo: Defendants were arrested on the steps of Claddagh church.
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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