The Limerick Blogger: latest Limerick news and Limerick events

DEVELOPING: The region is currently being battered by storm force winds. In it’s latest report, Shannon Airport recorded a wind gust of 50 knotts( (58mph)

If you have any reports of power outages, debris, flooding, or any other storm damage, you can post them in the comments section on this post for the benefit of other readers.

I hope to have more updates later…

UPDATE: Kilcornan is out of power at the moment according to Live 95FM

UPDATE: Blog readers reporting debris between Limerick City and croom. Also fallen trees en route between Bruff and Limerick.

We kinda guessed he would be pleased with this.

Maurice Quinlivan, Sinn Féin representative in Limerick and Limerick East election candidate, has reacted positively to John Fitzgerald’s proposal to extend the City boundary past the three areas of Moyross, Pineview, Craeval and Delmage.

In a statement received by the Limerick blogger he welcomed the request by the new Czar for Moyross, who suggested the extension, which Mr. Quinlivan has consistantly proposed since May of this year.

“The preliminary plan presented to County Councillors represents significant progress in the quest to end the unique and somewhat absurd situation whereby these three Limerick City Council housing estates are in County Limerick despite the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the residents. In the door-to-door Survey we in Sinn Fein carried out in the 3 estates this Summer we found that 93% of respondents wanted to be in the City. People had no affiliation whatsoever to the County and indeed felt their needs were never addressed by the County Council. They also felt that as things stood they had no political representation and almost 97% of them didn’t know who their local County Councillors were. I would now call on Limerick City Council to issue a clear statement that they are willing to incorporate this area into the City’s jurisdiction.”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank Limerick County Council for responding positively to the approach to them from John Fitzgerald and indeed to our approach to the County Council in May with the findings of our survey in relation to this matter that we conducted in the areas concerned. Therefore, Sinn Fein once again calls on the Minister to move with some urgency to resolve this anomalous and bizzare situation by transferring these three estates into the jurisdiction of Limerick City Council. We also wish to reiterate our gratitude to the local residents for their co-operation in the carrying out of the survey. It is the intention of Sinn Fein to do all that we can to pursue this matter to a successful conclusion.â€? “

Alan Kelly (19) from O’Malley Park, who is currently on remand for threatening another man, was refused temporary release from Limerick Prison to attend the funeral of his son.

On Friday, the District Court rejected an emergency application for bail to allow Kelly to attend the baby’s funeral on compassionate grounds.

On the day Kelly was arrested, his girlfriend miscarried and it was hoped that Kelly could get a few hours out to attend the funeral.

Judge Tom O’Donnell told solicitor John Devane, representing Mr. Kelly, that he did not have the power to grant a temporary release as it was in the hands of the govenor of Limerick Prison.

The Prison authorities were also unable to release Kelly as he was on remand, and legally, they were unable to release him.

Mr. Devane, who is also running for the upcoming general election, has described the turn of events as “heartless.”

JP McManus has been splashing out to help educate the kids of Limerick in areas where the Government can’t be arsed.

In the first of his gestures reported this week, he has assisted in the provision of a mini bus for the kids on the Northside Learning Hub, a project which encourages children to stay in school rather than leave early.

One of the first groups to use the new mini bus were the Corpus Christi school Under 13s Gaelic Football team.

In another donation, Mr. McManaus purchased new electronic whiteboards for the Rosbrein School for the hearing impaired. The boards were initially requested by the school from the Department of Education, but they were refused.

Now all five classrooms of the 28 pupil school have an electronic board each. The boards cost €5,000 a piece.

These will be a great advantage for the students as, having little or no hearing, they depend more on visual stimulation than those of us who are able to hear.

Limerick City Council has reached an agreement with one of it’s tennants that he and his family quit one of their houses in the first week in February.

Paul Foran, who was renting a house at Whitecross Gardens in Moyross, has agreed to take himself and his eight kids out of the house.

City Council had initially applied under Section 62 of the housing Act to boot Foran out for repeated instances of antisocial behaviour at the Circuit Court, which was granted.

During an apeal at the High Court, Justice Eamon De Valera struck out the apeal after the court was told that Foran had agreed to move out in February.

Only time will tell how long he will be able to let himself or his kids act the bolix in the private rented market.

This act should be used more often in this part of Limerick.

Cals bridge at a time when people didn’t have to worry about scumbags in Limerick

In days of yore, one could take a shortcut from Hyde Road to Roxboro via the Cals footbridge, which transverses the cement factory railway line between Caladonian Park and Hyde football pitch.

Limerick City Council has finally decided that the access route is to be closed off permenantly. thus cutting off this shortcut.

According to Limerick – A Stroll Down Memory Lane Volume 5, the bridge was originally red, and could be seen packed with football fans watching games in either of the football pitches it overlooks. The railway line it crosses used to also be very busy, with the last passenger train using the line in 1964.

The bridge was painted grey in 1980, and we knew it as the bommin bridge, don’t know where it got that name though.

I am also not sure if the Council are going to tear the whole bridge down, or just block it off and leave nature take it down for them. Being Liemrick City Council, and their reputation for doing a half arsed job, I would opt for the latter.

But the bridge has become a hot spot for anti-social behaviour, with youngsters dropping rocks on passing trains from the bridge and it has also become a place where scumbags generally like to hang out, free of the prying eyes of the Gardai.

Michael McDowell, taking questions for the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday put on a pretty lame performance, defending the government’s inaction on suspected extraordinary rendition flights at Shannon Airport.

Addressing the chamber, the Justice Minister re-iterated that the Government had the word of the US administration that there were no illegal rendition flights passing through Shannon, and to question the word of the Americans would mean that they would not be invited to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day.

I guess the opportunity to give some rich American in Washington, a bowl of dead grass is more important to the Government than the human rights of people who are lifted in one country and dumped in another

Ireland has hosted the third highest number of secret CIA flights in the whole of the EU.

The debate continued in the Seannad. But Fianna Fail senators tried to sidetrack the debate.

Dermot Ahern is said to be livid over the revelation by an EU parlimentary committee’s investigating CIA flights that the Irish authorities failed to properly inspect 147 of them.

The claim has gone out that the release of the report two days before the Taoseach is due to speak to the committee, was designed to embarrace him. But the Americans said that there was nothing untoward on those flights, so why would Bertie be embarraced?

Over 10 percent of all CIA flights within the EU under investigation, passed through Shannon Airport.

The aircraft known as the “Guantanimo Express” has made several stops at Shannon, and groups such as Amnesty International want to know if there were detainees on these flights. However the government has consistantly refused to inspect these flights, claiming that they have assurances from the Americans that there is no shenanigans going on at Shannon.

These are the same Americans who stated that Saddam Hussein was buying yellowcake uranium from Niger, a claim which was discounted by the man they sent to investigate it.

The Irish Examiner has the story on Dermot Ahern’s fury at how the Government have been made look like propper gobshites to the rest of Europe.

Limerick County Council may be asked by the man appointed to sort the area out, John Fitzgerald , to hand over the three estates of Craeval Park, Delmage Park and Pineview Gardens to the City Council.

This would give the residents of the area representation on City Council, and the area of Moyross would then be under one local authority rather than two.

County Councillors are said to have been in favour of handing over the estates to Limerick City Council.

The Irish Examiner has a report here.