CITY TRIBUNE
Shoplifters jailed for thefts on first day in Ireland
Two Bulgarian women who were arrested for stealing on their very first day in Ireland wailed loudly when they were told at Galway District Court that they were both being jailed.
The women had the services of an interpreter and calmly stood during evidence of how they preyed on two elderly women in two different supermarkets and stole their wallets.
Both Mariya Ivanova and Dochka Minkova, both of No Fixed Abode pleaded guilty to a theft at Tesco in Oranmore on May 24 last when they followed an 80-year-old customer, distracted her and took her handbag from her shopping trolley which contained a wallet worth €100 with €280 cash inside.
Ivanova also pleaded guilty to stealing a jacket worth €25 from Dunnes Stores on the same day. She had taken off her own jacket, put on the new one from the rack and walked out of the store, the Court heard.
They both pleaded guilty to following a 68-year-old customer in Dunnes and taking her wallet, worth €100 and containing €120 cash. The defendants were identified on CCTV cameras in both stores.
Judge Mary Fahy said that the women, aged 46 and 20, had obviously come to Ireland with a purpose and had used a modus operandi of targeting older, vulnerable customers and distracting them so they could rob them.
The Court was told by prosecuting Sergeant Aoife Curley that the 80-year-old woman wasn’t sleeping since she was robbed and was afraid to return to Tesco.
The second victim was quite nervous since. On the day, she had her ten-year-old grandchild with her and she had initially thought she had lost her purse and had retraced her steps to find it. She also had to go to her bank to get cash to pay for her goods. She hadn’t realised she had been robbed.
Judge Fahy said nobody expected to be followed and targeting in that manner in a supermarket.
Sgt Curley said that the wallets and the cash as well as the jacket had not been recovered.
Defending solicitor, Brian Gilmartin, said he understood a sum of money had been taken from his clients when they were arrested and they were willing to hand this over to the victims as compensation.
Judge Fahy said it was also much more than about compensation as people often had personal items in wallets other than bank cards and cash. She said she would accept their money to pay compensation but that it didn’t cover the stress or the panic involved in losing or having a wallet robbed off you. She further praised the Gardaí for the prompt way in which they solved the crime.
On hearing the women had just arrived in the country that day, Judge Fahy said they had certainly got right down to business and wondered if anyone else gained from their crimes.
She said she could understand – but quickly added she wasn’t condoning any crime – how people down on their luck might resort to crime, but said she was appalled at the way this crime had been premeditated and carried out.
Mr Gilmartin said Ivanova was aged 47 with seven children and divorced while her 20-year-old cousin, Minkova, was seven months pregnant.
Judge Fahy imposed a nine-month sentence on each of the women for the Tesco theft and further imposed a one-month concurrent sentence on Ivanova for stealing the jacket. Minkova was also given a five-month consecutive sentence for the Dunnes theft. All sentences are to be backdated to June 1 when they were first arrested.
Judge Fahy said it was up to the State to deport them and granted Mr Gilmartin’s request that recognisances be fixed at their own bail of €400 each and independent bail of €1,000.
The two women and their interpreter then went downstairs to the cells where the details of their sentence was explained to them. As Judge Fahy moved onto the next case, the loud wailing of the women downstairs could be heard for a few minutes as the business of the Court continued.
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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