Ned Mahony, Mary & Lar O’Connor ‘Gone to the Dogs’
Peggy Dalton, Knocknagorna pictured with her granddaughter Marina Dalton before the Coláiste Íde Debs recently.
Thank You
The Brothers of Charity, West Limerick Services, would sincerely like to thank all those who helped in any way in our recent 6th Annual Charity Cycle. At the Brothers of Charity Services in Newcastle West and Abbeyfeale, we provide day & residential services for adults with an Intellectual Disability in West Limerick. We currently provide services for 64 people and their families. To all those who cycled, helped in our bucket collection, sponsored food, water and refreshments, as well as those who contributed to our collection, we wish to say thanks for your continued support.
Coffee Morning
The annual Coffee Morning in aid of Milford Hospice will take place on Thursday, September 17th in the Con Colbert Community Hall. As always your support would be greatly appreciated for this very worthy cause.
Athea Community Council Ltd. A.G.M.
The AGM of Athea Community Council Ltd will take place on Monday, September 21st at the Top of the Town. Nomination forms are available at the Community Council Office in Colbert Street for anyone who would like to join our council. The forms must be with the secretary on or before Friday, September 11th.
Athea Ladies Basketball
The basketball club are looking for senior ladies to join up and all juveniles are welcome too. Contact: 087-6591655
Comfort Keepers Home Care
Comfort Keepers Home Care are now recruiting for Home Care Assistants in the Athea area. Please call 061 490760 for more information, apply online at www.comfortkeepers.ie/careers<http://www.comfortkeepers.ie/careers or post your CV to Comfort Keepers, Charlotte House, Charlotte Quay, Limerick
We Deserve Better
Imagine the scene: it is almost midnight and there is a knock at the door of the of Martin Callinan, Police Commissioner. There is no advance notice of this visit by a high ranking official in the civil service. He informs the Commissioner that there is a cabinet meeting in the morning and due to recent events the Taoiseach may not be in a position to say he has confidence in him. No pressure there. The Commissioner decides he will retire to avoid legal conflict and will go in two to three months. The Taoiseach says no, you must go immediately. No pressure there, yet when the Fennelly report comes out it states that it accepts the Taoiseach’s statement when he said that he did not intend to put pressure on Martin Callinan to resign. This leads to him going on TV and radio to say the report totally exonerates him.(This is just 30 minutes after the broadcasters got hold of a 300 page report)
During the following day government ministers are wheeled out to give their support and cling to that one statement in the report. The opposition naturally take a different view and the word “untenable” is repeated time and again but they would say that, wouldn’t they? In the meantime it transpires that the Attorney General was informed of illegal taping in Garda Stations around the country by the Commissioner six months previously. Apparently no one saw fit to inform the Minister for Justice or the Taoiseach. To add further intrigue, the Commissioner shreds documents and phone records the day he leaves office. It is like a cross between Agatha Christie and Monty Python. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that both Martin Callinan and Alan Shatter were sacked, maybe not directly but they were left in no doubt as to what their course of action should be. They had become a political liability and had to go.
Did they deserve to go?. That is not the point, it is the fact that we, the public, are again being treated like idiots who are incapable of making up our own minds. There will be a hue and cry for a few days and when the Dáil reconvenes there will be a motion of no confidence in the government. The government will table its own motion of confidence and we will go through a day of debate with the opposition jumping up and down trying to do as much damage as possible and the government parties sticking to their guns. In the end the backbenchers will not be turkeys voting for Christmas and they will row in behind the government. Another waste of time. After that other things will take precedence and the whole debacle will gradually fade away but we should never forget how we have been let down by the people who promised openness and transparency. We thought Fianna Fáil were bad but they wouldn’t hold a candle to this lot. We deserve better.
Refugee Crisis
I am delighted that the government have finally decided to take our fair share of the refugees who are fleeing from the terrible wars in Africa, there are those who say we should look after our own first but these are exceptional circumstances. It took the image of a three year old boy’s body being taken from the water to finally bring it home to our leaders that we cannot stand idly by.
Our emigrants have been accepted all over the world and it is now time for us to show that we are prepared to play our part in this human tragedy. People who disagree should read the history of the famine in Ireland and the coffin ships that took the starving and dying from our shores.
Domhnall de Barra