The Limerick Blogger: latest Limerick news and Limerick events

July 4th will see the final of the Order of Malta First Aid and nursing competition take place at the Paleskenry Agricultural School.

Over 600 participants between the ages of 10 and 16 will take part in the contest, after they were selected from their regional finals.

From the blurb

The Midwest will be in safe hands during the weekend of July 4th when over 600 first aiders arrive in Pallaskenry Agricultural College, Limerick, to take part in the National Cadet First Aid & Nursing Competitions of the Order of Malta for 10 to 16 year olds who have qualified from their respective Regions throughout the country.

“The planning that goes into such a weekend is immense. A team has been working hard in the background to ensure all runs smoothly. I am especially pleased to see representation from the local units at the weekend especially the host unit, Limerick which celebrates 70 years of service the people of Limerick.” said Comdt Martin Purcell, Regional Director.

The Order of Malta Cadets is a national voluntary youth organisation with a membership of about 1,500 young people organised in units throughout the island of Ireland. Cadets meet weekly and are trained in Basic Life Support, First Aid and Home Nursing. Cadets also assist in First Aid Duties, Ambulance Aid & Community Care under the supervision of senior members. Outdoor activities, various sports, crafts and hobbies, competitions and social activities are all part of the Order of Malta Cadet Programme.

The Order of Malta Ireland is a major provider of voluntary first-aid, ambulance and community care services. It also provides first-aid training to the public and to industry. The Corps has over three thousand voluntary members and one hundred and fifty vehicles located in 77 communities throughout the island of Ireland.

See also

Order of Malta (Ireland) website

The first ever discovery of ricin in the history of the state was discovered in the cell of a man who now stands accused of conspiracy to commit murder, it has emerged in an Ennis Courtroom.

The trial has been running for a couple of weeks, but it is now being claimed that the ricin was discovered in the prison cell of one of the accused.

Essam Eid, an Egyptian national who was living in Las Vegas United States, as well as Sharon Collins of Kildysart Road in Ennis, are accused of conspiracy to murder her partner PJ howard and his two sons.

Both deny the charges.

Today in court, retired army commandant, PJ Butler, told the court in his evidence that he had carried out tests on a contact lens case and how a swab from the case tested positive for the deadly substance. The sample was sent to the UK for further testing.

The court had previously heard claims that two members of the Gardai as well as two members of the Army bomb disposal unit, fully kitted out in biohazard suits and respirators, searched Eid’s cell and discovered the contact lens case as well as an unidentified clear liquid, under a bunk.

This is a rather odd case considering some of the claims being put against the defendants.

These include

A claim that Collins used her partner’s computer to search for someone to kill him.

A claim that Eid demanded €100,000 to cancel the contract on PJ Howard and his sons

A claim that a computer was used to search for “hitman” and had received an email from the address killers@hitman.us

Below is a summary of what it is claimed, two computers were used for as submitted in Garda evidence. This comes from breakingnews.ie

Detective Sergeant Michael Gubbins told Ms Una Ni Raifeartaigh, prosecuting, that an Advent desktop computer, stolen from the offices of Downes & Howard, had been used to search for the terms hitman, assassin and contract killer on key dates in August 2006.

On August 2 Det. Sgt Gubbins said that the user of the Advent searched using the term hitman and accessed the site Hitman.us, and receiving an email from killers@hitman.us.

They also searched for information on inheritance rights for both married and cohabiting couple and for information on domestic violence.

They visited the Revenue website and the Government information website looking for inheritance information and also called to Irishwills.com.

Det. Sgt Gubbins said that the user also accessed the registration page for a Yahoo email account and soon after accessed the email account of Lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie.

The computer was also used to access an Eircom email account for Sharon Collins and an email was sent from the Sharon Collins email account to Lyingeyes.

On August 8th the user booked a flight to Malaga in the name of Sharon Collins and accessed the Eircom email account for Ms Collins.

The Lyingeyes email account was logged into seconds after the user logged out of the Sharoncollins account.

He said the user also visited the AIB website several times getting a quote for a personal loan for between €17,000 and €20,000.

They also bought a three month supply of the weight loss drug Reductil from an online pharmacy website in the name of Sharon Collins.

At 10.01pm the user visited a page on the Hitmanforhire.net website which gave details “how to order a contract killing”.

The user kept searching for the terms “assassins for hire, assassination”, revisiting the Hitmanforhire.us site at 10.11 and clicked on the Submit button on the contact page.

On August 16 an email was sent from Lyingeyes to Tony Luciano, a contact from Hitmanforhire.us, and signed with the name “Sharon”.

Det. Sgt Gubbins said he had also examined a Toshiba laptop belonging to Mr Robert Howard, which had also been stolen from the offices of Downes & Howard on September 25th 2006.

He examined the internet usage for the 24 hour period the laptop was missing. He told Ms Ni Raifeartaigh the person using the latop had searched for American baseball scores.

They had also accessed the email accounts of Hire_hitman@yahoo.com; tonyluciano2001@yahoo.com; esssameid@yahoo.com and tengle2005@yahoo.com.

A man in his 20s is being questioned by Gardai after the discovery of a man’s body on the Dublin Road yesterday.

The deceased is in his 50s and is originally from Carlow, but had been living in the Limerick/Tipperary area for the last number of years.

A post mortem was carried out last night, however further tests are reported to be required before a cause of death can be determined, however it is being reported that Gardai are investigating the possibility that the man had been assaulted.

RTE news has named the man as Brendan McEvoy from Carlow.

For the first time in it’s 46 year history, there will be no Limerick Rose in the Dome come August.

A new regional selection round saw Limerick’s hopeful, Rebecca O’Hare was booted out at the last hurdle by Tipperary Aoife Kelly.

So, for those of you eagerly awaiting the Rose of Tralee, there is an alternative contestent for you to cheer on. Emma Dwane, from Raheen is representing Dubai.

The party is not imploding, at least not according to Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan anyway.

The attempt to allay fears that the party is in crisis come as a second councillor in the City left the party this week.

Councillor James Houlihan, told the Limerick Leader that the party has now become a vehicle for the party’s Dail deputy Jan O’Sullivan and her “annointed successor” Joe Leddin.

In response to the news, party PRO Joe Kemmy said:

“I welcome the fact that he’s made a decision to leave the party. Both councillors failed in their duty to represent the people who elected them.”

Councillor Joe Leddin has called on both, now independent councillors to resign their seats. “They are Labour seats” he is quoted as saying in the paper.

Both councillors appear intent on staying put until the next local elections.

More from the Leader.

Ryanair’s trans-Atlantic customers might have “beds and blowjobs” to look forward to, but there will be no such frills attached to three new services from Shannon to Eastern Europe.

The twice weekly service from Gdansk, Katowice and Lodz will bring 90,000 passengers through Shannon and it is hoped to create 90 jobs for the region.

The three new services will begin in the first week in November.

As if the feathered nests of local politicians havn’t been upscuttled enough by the recommendations to change national electoral boundaries, the commission charged with looking into local electioal boundaries have dropped another bombshell on them by recommending changes to the City Council electoral areas.

It is recommended that where there were once four electoral wards in the city, numbered 1-4, there will now be three, Limerick City South, Limerick City South, and Limerick City East.

Limerick City North will consist of what was once ward one. and it shall be given an extra council seat to take into account the larger population brought about by the addition of lands acquired by City Council following the limited boundary extension earlier this year.

Limerick City north will have six council seats as opposed to the existing five representing Ward One.

Ward Two will simply be renamed Limerick City East.

The biggest change is the merging of wards three and four, which will become a seven seater constituency called Limerick City South.

There will be noses out of joint, particularly in Ward Three and Four, which up until now had eight seats between them.

Essentially, the increase in population following the boundary extension has resulted in Ward 3 and 4 paying for Ward 1’s extra representation.

The mayoral elections in Limerick have been as predictable as the result of the Eurovision Song Contest for a while now, and this year is no different, with selected parties getting their “turn.”

After the behind-closed-doors horse trading and negotiating it looks as though Fine Gael’s Kevin Keily will be the next Mayor of Limerick City.

It is reported in the Leader that John Gilligan may challenge Keily for the Mayor, however, having watched Mayoral Elections for most of my life, it is plain to see that it will be a cold day in Hell before Gilligan is ever elected mayor.

He’d make a good Mayor too.

The sooner we have directly elected Mayors the better as far as I am concerned. Come local election time, when the results are in, we will be able to predict the next five mayors. Just you wait and see.

From the Leader.

The planned Beacon Medical Group private hospital has been given the go-ahead by the planning office of Limerick County Council.

With the fall off in the construction industry, the news that construction will begin in September will be a bit of a boost of those in the building industry looking for immediate work.

The hospital, which will take two and a half years to build, will be seven storeys high, and will be located adjacent to the existing Midwestern Regional Hospital.

After construction, the hospital will employ 400 people and will have the capacity for 183 patients.

More from the Leader.

The 6-year old girl who was killed in a traffic accident in Ballybunion, County Kerry has been named as Katelyn Liston, from O’Malley Park, Southill, Limerick City.

Katelyn was struck by a car as she attempted to cross the East End road from the caravan park she was staying to a nearby shop.

She was with a number of other youngsters when she was struck by the vehicle.

In the Limerick Leader newspaper today, her mother, Shirley, paid tribute to the members of the emergency services who came to Katelyn’s assistance and their efforts to save her life.

“I couldn’t begin to tell you the amount of effort from people in Ballybunion. From the emergency services and gardai, they did everything they could to try to save her, but couldn’t. All our friends and family have been fantastic,” she is quoted in the paper as saying.