The Limerick Blogger: latest Limerick news and Limerick events

Members of the Civil and Public Services Union are staging a one day strike in protest at the introduction of a pension levy for public sector workers.

The levy is being introduced as part of a plan by the government to save €2bn this year.  However, pubic sector workers claim that the levy is unfair, particularly to lower paid civilservants.

There are picket lines accross the city, including Roxboro and Henry Street Garda Stations, the Courthouse, as well as the social welfare office.

The strike began at 0700 hrs and will continue until 1900 hrs.

13,000 CSPU workers are on strike nationwide.

Gardai have been given more time to question ten of those arrested yesterday (Tuesday) as part of their investigation into the murder of Shane Geoghegan.

The ten for which the extensions were granted include five men and five women.

It is expected that an application to extend the detention period of the remaining four people will be made to the district court tomorrow morning.

As many as 70 Gardai were involved in the arrests yesterday, and 200 are involved in the entire Shane Geoghegan murder investigation.

Two convicted murdererers who attempted a jailbreak similar to one depicted in the movie Shawshank Redemption were foiled when their chosen beauty, Kate Winslet, was unable to keep her secret  as well hidden as Raquelle Welsh in the movie.

The two Tipperary killers, Kevin Prendergast and Anthony Buck, were sharing a cell in the C wing of Limerick prison, and had managed to cut away a perspex window, as well as completely cut through one bar and half cut through another.   They had managed to hide their plan from prison officers by concealing their handywork behind a poster of actress Kate Winslet.

But their Titanic plan came to nought after officers became suspicious of the pair’s activities around lunchtime yesterday.

After searching the cell, officers found items including hacksaws, makeshif tope, made from towels and torn duvet covers, as well as maps of Germany and Ireland.

An investigation is now underway to determine how they were able to gain possession of hacksaws.

It is believed that they were to use the makeshift rope to exit the prison building from the window of their fourth storey cell.   It has also been suggested that they would have had to take a hostage to get past the prison’s perimiter wall and out onto Mulgrave Street.

Both men have now been separated and moved to a more secure location.  They are now likely to face further disciplinary action.

The Irish Examiner reports that one of the two men had already been busted for attempting to cut his way out of Arbour Hill prison in Dublin on Christmas Eve.

Kevin Prendergast is serving a life sentence after he murdered his girlfriend, Joanne Mangan in a drink and drug fuelled frenzy in Grange, County Tipperary in October 2007, while Anthony Buck is serving life for the 1996 murder of David Nugent in Clonmell.

An interesting feature on news channel France 24 about Dell’s decision to move to poland. Some small innaccuracies though, It showed business premises closed on O’Connell Street claiming that they were closed due to the recession, whereas they had closed ages ago in preparation for their demolition to make way for the Opera Centre.

From the website

Outside the long queue at the social welfare office, one man told FRANCE 24 that the situation had “changed drastically”.

“I’ve never seen a queue like this,” he said to reporters, “It reminds me of something from the 1930s in America. Perhaps we’ll have soup kitchens next.”

The video can be watched here.

Video of last Saturday’s Save Nenagh Hospital march. recorded by Celtic Video

Time for a musical interlude. Theres work to Be Done, performed by White House Poetry Revival’s Dominic Taylor and Chris Wood. The song is inspired by a speech given by Barack Obama, and has received praise from the writers of the “There’s No One as Irish as Barack Obama” single, the Corrigan Brothers,

If there are any other local musicians out there, send us a link to your youtube videos and we will give them a mention.

For those of you who have Lette’s Blog on your blogrolls, just to let you know that it has a new address.

Those subscribed to RSS and XML feeds should also update these links.

The new blog can be found by clicking here.

Twelve people have been taken in for questioning in relation to the murder of Shane Geoghegan last November.

The number is reported to include six men and six women.

The arrests were made in counties Clare, Limerick and Tipperary.  A small quantity of drugs, believed to be heroin was found in the Tipperary raid.  Eleven of those arrested are being held in Limerick, Clare and Tipperary while a twelfth is being held in Dublin.

All are being detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.

UPDATE: Two more people, a man and a woman were arrested at approximately 1100 hrs this morning, bringing the number in cusody to 14.  These two are being held in Garda stations in the midwest of the country.

Fianna Fail’s Maire Hoctor was given a fine welcome in Nenagh on Saturday  .. OK, she was booed off the podium at the Nenagh Hospital protest,  but when your a Government TD, that should be considered a good thing, at least they know who you are.

Anyway, 4,000 demonstrators gathered in the town to protest at the moving of the hospital’s A and E services to Limerick Regional Hospital in Dooradoyle.

There were even claims by those protesting that staff at the Midwester regional hospital re-use dirty linen as they don’t have enough to cope with the numbers they are taking in.  The HSE have denied this of course.

The protest comes as the HSE scramble to fill a €1bn hole in their budget.

As these meetings take place, the labour party is seking for middle management to to bear the brunt of cuts rather than front line services.

Labour has maintained that savings in the HSE should be made first and foremost by reducing the numbers employed at middle management level, rather than by reducing or scrapping front line services.

When the HSE was set up in 2004, we were told that by merging the former Health Boards, significant savings and efficiencies could be achieved, but it’s clear now that we were sold a pup.

It has become a huge centralised bureaucracy with hundreds more senior and middle-management personnel than ever existed in the old Health Board systems.

Cian Prenderville, Head of the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service, whose activities include the protesting against the health cuts, have also called on the Government to”bail out” the health service

“In the Midwest the reality of the HSE’s ‘cost-saving’ is shown in their plans to shut the A&Es in Ennis, Nenagh and possibly St.John’s, as well as talk of closing the in patient beds (425 of them) in those hospitals along with Croom & the Maternity. They want to cram everyone into the already overcrowded Regional Hospital at Dooradoyle (Limerick). I was out in Nenagh on Saturday to support the protest their against these plans, and discuss with the organisers about next steps and I was inspired by the turnout and anger on the protest. We need to see this throughout the country – turn the anger into action.”

A man is in a stable condition in the Regional Hospital after a shooting incident in Ballinacurra Weston.

Shots were fired at a house in Raheen Square in the early hours of this morning.

Gardai at Roxboro are investigating,  Anyone with information are asked to contact the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111