Ireland's Eye: What's going on in the old sod this week

A look at news from around Ireland

The court heard McCallion was arrested and told officers, “This is a joke. It was just a fight.”
As he was being taken into custody, a small package of cannabis fell out of his pocket.
McCallion claimed that he bit his brother’s ear in self-defense and “didn’t mean to bite it off.”

A defense barrister conceded it was an “extremely serious assault” and her client was “horrified and disgusted” by what he had done.

She said McCallion is not usually an aggressive person but had consumed a lot of alcohol on that night.

The barrister said the defendant is now abstaining from all alcohol and drugs and hopes to rebuild his relationship with his brother.

Suspending a six month jail term for three years, District Judge Barney McElholm also fined the 22-year-old £150.

Donegal Democrat

No Mortgage Worries

ALMOST half of all homes in Mayo are mortgage free.

The county has the highest portion of houses without a mortgage in the country, as 45.2% of householders own their home outright, according to analysis carried out on the 2011 census by property consultants CBRE. The number of homes in the county without a mortgage is up on the 2006 figure of 45%.

Co Roscommon has the second highest proportion of households that own their homes outright, with 44.6% having no mortgage on their residence.

Western People

Dangerous Ghost Estate

RESIDENTS of a Monasterevin housing estate say that it’s only a matter of time before there is a serious accident or fatality in the area.

Brocan Wood estate is located on the Cowpasture Road. It was to have been a housing estate, to be built in three phases, with a crèche and a shop included in the development.

At least that was what the eight families who bought their homes at the end of 2009 and early 2010 believed. However it wasn’t to bem and a receiver has been appointed leaving the families living in what is virtually a building site.

Some families are living beside nearly finished houses. But these buildings have not been sealed properly so rats, mice and birds can get in.

Other families have mere foundations as their neighbors. The foundations have metal sticking up out of the ground and are dangerous, particularly to children. The families say they cannot allow their children outside to play because it is simply too dangerous.

Another serious issue for the residents is the sewerage system as another resident, James Dooley, explained.

“A temporary sewerage system was put in place by the builder and this is the case to date. There is sewerage piping above ground level, which is completely exposed. There is a foul smell that comes from this temporary sewage system, which is especially bad in the summer,” he said.

Some of the residents can’t use their downstairs toilets, as the smell from this temporary sewerage system travels back up the sewer pipe. This smell ends up in the homes of the residents, which is especially bad in the downstairs toilets, but also affects the upstairs toilets.”
In addition to problems affecting the estate as a whole, individual houses have their own problems.

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Nster.com