News from Ireland - news from around the 32 counties

What's going on around Ireland

The organizers of this year’s surf-and-music festival, Sea Sessions, which takes place in June have confirmed that President Higgins is due to attend this year’s event on Saturday, June 30, and make an address to the concert goers.

His appearance will see him take the same stage as The Happy Monday’s and The Kaiser Chiefs.

The announcement has been welcomed by local tourism officer for Bundoran. Tracey Ferguson, who says he will be a welcome visitor to the town.
[Source: Donegal Democrat]

DOWN

A 14-year jail term handed to a member of a gang that killed a policeman in Northern Ireland has been referred to the Court of Appeal by the region's director of public prosecutions.

This came hours after the judge in Constable Stephen Carroll's murder trial said he would back a review of the sentencing guidelines that he was obliged to follow in the case.

The officer's widow, Kate, had hit out after John Paul Wootton (21), who drove the getaway car, was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years by Lord Justice Paul Girvan, on the basis of factors including that Wootton was under 18 at the time.

The jail term was nine years less than that handed to Brendan McConville, whose coat may have been wrapped around the murder weapon.
[Source: Belfast Telegraph]

DUBLIN

A 16-year old Dublin boy has been spared a custodial sentence after he was twice caught dealing crack cocaine.

The teenager was placed on supervised probation for six months after he pleaded guilty at the Children's Court to possessing drugs for sale or supply in Ballymun in north Dublin.

Judge Bryan Smyth ordered the teenager, as a condition of his probation, to attend addiction counseling, to continue taking part in a training course and not to commit any further crimes.
[Source: Evening Herald]

FERMANAGH

The announcement that up to 100 public sector jobs could be relocated from Belfast to Enniskillen has been universally welcomed locally.

It follows confirmation that the Forestry Service is to move its headquarters from its current base near Stormont to offices in Fermanagh.

Ironically, one of the sites in the reckoning is the now empty Water Service complex on the Killyhevlin Industrial Estate, one of the many public agencies locally from which some 500 jobs were transferred out of the county over a six-year period.

The transfer of public sector jobs to Fermanagh is seen as a massive boost the local economy and evidence of the Stormont government’s determination to decentralize jobs, where possible, to rural locations.
[Source: Fermanagh Herald]

GALWAY

The IDA will consider re-designating its 60-acre industrial park in Oranmore for use as a hub for multinational company data centers, with the potential to create hundreds of new jobs.

With a new transatlantic high-speed cable set to deliver huge broadband capacity to Galway, the Science & Technology Park is seen as a key site to attract investment.

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Nster.com