News from Ireland - news from around the 32 counties

What's going on around Ireland

Offaly

Crime fell by 26% in the first four months of this year in the Tullamore Garda District.

Figures presented by Tullamore Inspector Kieran Keys to a meeting of the Joint Policing Committee last week showed that overall crime in the area had seen a notable drop since the start of the year.

Garda records show a dramatic drop of 22% in the number of assaults while public order offences decreased even further. They were down by 29% to the end of April this year. Damage to property fell by 13% and there was a drop in burglaries of 6%.

However it was not all positive as there was a rise in robberies by a worrying 33%.
(Source: Offaly Express)

Roscommon

The annual conference of the Psychiatric Nurses Association has been told that retirements have resulted in horrendous problems in maintaining the country's mental health services.

Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, PNA General Secretary Des Kavanagh said that more than a quarter of the nursing workforce has been lost in the last few years.

He said that this is affecting specialist services which in some cases have disappeared completely.

"In Roscommon, family therapy is totally gone, addiction services are halved, cognitive behavioral therapy, I think, has reduced by one quarter, and that's just one County alone," Mr Kavanagh said.
(Source: The Roscommon Champion)

Sligo

Video footage of what appears to be an over water tornado has been recorded off the Co Sligo coast.

Images of the apparent tornado were captured by Graeme Salter at Rosses Point at about 3.50pm last Monday afternoon.

The weather phenomena, also known as a seaspout, occurs over a body of water and is connected to a cumuliform cloud formation.

Seaspouts are often associated with active weather fronts and can appear during periods of thunder, lightning or strong winds.
(Source: RTE News)

Tipperary

Former President of Ireland Mary McAleese and her husband Senator Martin McAleese are to be jointly honoured as the 2011 recipients of the Tipperary International Peace Award, at a red carpet ceremony in Ballykisteen Hotel, on Thursday July 5th.
(Source: Tipperary Star)

Tyrone

Relatives of the Omagh bomb victims are to hold talks with Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson on a new report they commissioned into the atrocity.

They believe they have uncovered fresh evidence on the security force response to the Real IRA bomb plot which killed 29 people in the Co Tyrone town more than a decade ago.

Representatives of some of those who lost loved ones in the bombing will meet Mr Paterson in Belfast to discuss the findings. Campaigners have previously demanded a cross-border inquiry into whether the authorities in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland could have done more to prevent the bombing.
(Source: Belfast Telegraph)

Waterford

An unlicensed landfill believed to contain up to 40,000 tons of rubble, paint tins, cement, timber and plasterboard, has been discovered on the outskirts of the city and is currently under investigation by the Council. Just yards from T&C Motors and Riverwalk student accommodation on the Inner Ring Road an eight-foot high fence and metal gate shields the now largely overgrown dump from the public gaze.
(Source: Waterford News & Star)

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