Ireland's Eye - A round up of top Irish news stories

A look at news from around Ireland

More than half of individuals, 58 percent, presenting to ACCORD in 2012, rated financial difficulties as a problem.

Levels of emotional abuse reported by clients have risen in the three-year period from 54 percent in 2010 to 59 percent in both 2011 and 2012. 

Concerns about separation have risen over the past three years, from 52 percent in 2010 to 57 percent in 2011 and 58 percent in 2012. The number of clients reporting infidelity as a problem has risen slightly over the three-year period, from 24 percent in 2010, to 25 percent in 2011 and to 26 percent in 2012.

Reports of physical violence in relationships have shown a decrease over the three-year period, ranging from 19 percent in 2010 to 14 percent in 2011 and to 13 percent in 2012.

Clare Champion

Calves for Prison
BOTHAR, the Irish international development agency, is calling on Tipperary farmers to send a calf to prison -- literally -- this spring in a project that will turn lives around in some of the poorest regions of the world.

The chief executive of the development agency, which was co-founded by the late farm leader and Tipperary native TJ Maher and uses livestock to lift over 6,000 families out of destitution each year across the globe, has asked farmers to consider donating a dairy calf over the coming weeks to Shelton Abbey open prison where inmates will rear it before it is sent as an in-calf heifer abroad.

Launching its Call for Calves appeal, Bothár CEO Dave Moloney said that the Shelton Abbey experience over the past four years has been a “win-win” for all concerned.

“The Shelton Abbey project is one of the best we have been engaged in over our 21 years in operation. The dairy calves donated by farmers are superbly cared for by inmates under supervision by the farm managers at Shelton, whose support has been amazing,” Moloney said.

“The inmates themselves get a lot from the project as they get to give something back to society, which is an important part of their rehabilitation. Then there are the most important beneficiaries -- the families living in the most abject poverty who are gifted the in-calf heifers. This simply changes their world.”

Tipperary Star

Conviction Number 216
A 25-YEAR-old Newbridge woman with 215 previous convictions has been given a suspended sentence for a handbag robbery.

Martina O’Connor pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbery at Johnson Court, Dublin 2 on March 6, 2010.

Garda Paul Gray told the prosecutor that a young woman was on her way home after a night socializing and was walking through the Johnson Court area when O’Connor came up behind her and twisted her hair.

O’Connor pulled her by her hair to the ground. A second girl hit the woman in the face, and she handed her handbag to her attackers.

The woman followed the girls and asked for her bag back as her keys were in it, but they laughed and the second girl struck her forcefully into the face again.

​
Nster.com