Kerryman
[Today’s Kerryman, not online]

Councillor Danny Healy Rae this week defended payments of close to €300,000 by Kerry County Council to his family’s plant hire company, saying contractors are not stealing the money but working very hard for it. Healy Rae plant Hire Ltd, of which Cllrs Danny Healy Rae and Johnny Healy Rae are directors, topped the list of Kerry County Council payments to plant hire and haulage contractors in 2013, with payments totalling €294, 192. The Kilgarvan plant hire company has consistently been among the top earners from council contracts and has been paid almost €1.9m by the local authority since 2008.

Jaykers.

Hillgrove

[Hillgrove Hotel in Co. Monaghan]

You may recall in how an internal probe was launched in October 2010 after Sgt Maurice McCabe claimed Assistant Commissioner Derek Byrne assaulted and falsely imprisoned Sgt McCabe in the Hillgrove Hotel in Co. Monaghan on October 11, 2010.

Sgt McCabe alleged this happened after he revealed he had removed hundreds of files from Pulse which showed gardaí had falsely claimed that certain people were involved in criminality.

Sgt McCabe claimed Assistant Commissioner Byrne would not let Sgt McCabe leave the hotel with the files. Assistant Commissioner Byrne took the files from Sgt McCabe.

Further to this, Edmund Heaphy, of the University Times Magazine, reports claims from Garda whistleblower John Wilson that the seized files led to records being altered retrospectively.

John Wilson, another prominent Garda whistleblower, known for last year’s penalty points scandal, gave some brief additional details regarding the event, although he insisted that as he was not at the meeting, it was second-hand knowledge.

…

Wilson used an example of falsification in relation to an illegal lock-in in a pub, and the expunging of records to remove evidence of such an event, to explain the type of falsification in the Pulse system that McCabe had evidence of. Regarding the specific evidence that McCabe had, he said:

“Hundreds of records were allegedly falsified. The material that Byrne seized was sent back to the various Garda districts and then after that they were allegedly all altered.”

Digging in Hillgrove (University Times Magazine)

Penalty points to be overhauled after damning report (Irish Independent)

Previously: The Thin Blue Timeline

Thanks James Bennett

90333553-1

A display at the Aislinn Education and Support Centre, Jervis Street, Dublin in memory of its co-founder Christine Buckley.

Mark writes:

“As part of the display is a doll which was washed and dressed by Christine every week, symbolic of the fact that children in industrial schools had no toys or playthings, a card signed by survivors by a thumb print as many would have been unable to write due to illteracy, a picture of Christine with her European Volunteer of the Year Award, and flowers brought yesterday  by children of a survivor who has left the country.”

Previously: Christine Buckley Dies

(Mark Stedman/Photocall ireland)

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