CITY TRIBUNE
Muggers face jail threat after random Galway City attacks
The threat of a three-year sentence hangs over a couple who violently mugged three young women in separate attacks as they walked through the city on their way home from work and college on a winter’s evening.
One of the victims sustained a fractured elbow as well as extensive bruising to her body as one of the muggers dragged her along the ground at Eyre Square in an attempt to steal her handbag. She also suffered a deep gash to her left knee and had to be treated at UHG for her injuries that evening. The other women suffered minor injuries when they too were attacked from behind and dragged along the ground.
While their physical injuries have healed, all three continue to suffer from the mental scars left by their attackers, all stating in their victim impact statements to a court this week that they no longer feel safe to walk the streets of Galway alone at night.
Rosanna Cawley, who is now 23, and from the Bog, Poolboy, Ballinasloe, and her then-partner, Willian Toohey, now 20, from Mountrath, Co Laois, pleaded guilty moments before their trial was due to begin before a jury at Galway Circuit Criminal Court in February 2020 to robbing a Canadian medical student’s handbag, her iPhone and iPad worth €735 at St Nicholas’s Street on November 5, 2018.
Toohey also pleaded guilty to attempting to rob another woman at Bóthar Breandán Uí Eithirr on the same evening and to assaulting a third woman, causing her harm, outside the entrance to the shopping centre in Eyre Square, also on the same evening in 2018.
Judge Rory McCabe directed probation reports on both accused and remanded them on continuing bail to November 4 last for sentence. They brought €1,000 compensation to court for the victims on that date but the court was told they had missed several appointments with their probation officer and were not co-operating. It also heard Cawley had given birth in the interim.
Judge McCabe adjourned sentence to March and then to last week’s court to give the pair another chance to comply with the probation service.
Garda Michael Gallagher told the sentence hearing this week that at 5.30pm on November 5, 2018, Gardaí were alerted to a woman whose bag was pulled from her shoulder in Eyre Square. She was attacked from behind and knocked to the ground, sustaining injuries to her elbow and body in the fall. Gardaí received a report a few minutes later from a Canadian medical student who had been injured when she was dragged along the ground after her bag was pulled from her shoulder near St Nicholas’s church.
The bag contained her laptop, iPhone, lecture notes and bank cards.
Shortly afterwards, Gardaí received yet another report from a third woman who said she had been the victim of an attempted robbery near Prospect Hill but had managed to hang onto her shoulder bag, even though she had been injured in the attack. Cawley was found in possession of one of the victim’s handbags when the couple were arrested a short time later.
Garda Gallagher read the victim’s separate impact statements into evidence.
The woman who was mugged in Eyre Square said the attack affected every day of her life since. She said she was dragged along the ground towards a steel pole and tried to move her head out of the way. The muggers ran when her head hit the pole.
She sustained a deep cut to her knee and damage to her neck and back. She had to seek counselling afterwards and can no longer walk alone in Galway City. She no longer carries a purse or handbag and will not go out in the city on her own after dark.
The medical student’s mother had to travel from Canada to care for her daughter after she was attacked. Her head hit the ground hard, she said, and her medical notes were taken as well as her phone and iPad.
The third victim said she had just finished her first day at work in a new job and was almost home at 6.30pm when she was attacked. She let out a roar and managed to stay upright while hanging on to her handbag which was ripped apart during the attack.
To be attacked outside her home was unnerving, she said, in her statement and she no longer trusts people. She too had to receive counselling after suffering panic attacks in public.
“I’m afraid to be alone in public anymore and I’ve no independence left,” her statement concluded.
The couple offered no explanation for their actions that evening, although Cawley claimed she drank two naggins of neat vodka and two cans of beer earlier.
The court heard the couple had brought another €1,000 to court for the victims.
Judge McCabe said the pair were looking at a three-year sentence as the victims had been left ‘out of the blue’ with physical and mental scars.
However, he said he would adjourn finalisation of sentence to November 3 to see how the pair continued to rehabilitate while under probation supervision.
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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