CITY TRIBUNE
Judge: Organised begging ‘racket’ in Galway City
Organised begging has become “a racket” in Galway City, according to Judge Mary Fahy, who convicted two people of the offence at Galway District Court and issued bench warrants for the arrest of others.
Elena Feraru (25), a Romanian national of no fixed abode was the first to be prosecuted.
She pleaded guilty with the aid of an interpreter, to begging in the city on May 18 last year and again on April 1 this year.
Defence solicitor, Olivia Traynor, said her client told her she had come to Ireland four years ago hoping to get work, leaving her children with her mother in Romania.
She said it raised a question the court had often asked before that if a person could not secure employment why did they not go home.
Ms Traynor said Feraru was using COPE Galway day services for homeless people to shower and so on, and was sleeping rough at night.
She said her client was in a dire situation and probably one that the court sees too often. “Everything she owns is in her rucksack,” Mr Traynor observed.
“We all know there is a system in place. We don’t know if this lady is involved but there is a system in every city where they are being used by other individuals.
“It’s something that should be looked out for, with people being dropped off by people from Dublin and other places, for professional begging,” Judge Fahy said.
She fined Feraru €100 for the first begging offence and imposed a one-month sentence, suspended for twelve months for the second on condition she be of good behaviour.
“I want to give her an incentive that if she is being exploited or potentially going to be exploited, that she does not partake (in professional begging),” Judge Fahy said.
The second accused was Laurentiu Neculau, another Romanian national, who pleaded guilty to begging at Wolfe Tone Bridge on July 13 last.
Ms Traynor said he too had everything he owned in his rucksack, was in Ireland eight months, was homeless and was availing of COPE day services.
Judge Fahy said she again had to ask was he involved in organised begging.
“Anecdotally, we have heard of vulnerable people being dropped off from cars early in the morning and others are using these people who have no previous convictions for obvious reasons,” Judge Fahy said.
Sgt Rodgers said it was an extremely difficult offence to detect.
“In other words, they are professional beggars,” Judge Fahy replied.
“The suspicion is in the city they are professional beggars. That is what they are doing Instead of trying to get work or get social welfare. They are under the radar and they are colluding with these people by agreeing to work for them. Some are more vulnerable than others,” Judge Fahy observed.
She imposed a one-month sentence on Neculau as well, suspended for twelve months to be of good behaviour.
“It seems that when some of them are sentenced, someone else takes their place. That’s the implication but we have no proof of it,” Judge Fahy added.
Two more Romanian nationals failed to appear on similar charges.
“It’s so obvious. There are so many of these. These are professional beggars. These are not just random people, that are down on their luck. It’s a racket,” Judge Fahy said before issuing bench warrants for the arrest of both men.
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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