A round-up of today's other Irish news stories in brief
Woman bitten by rat while on Tunisian holiday
A Dublin woman was bitten on her face and neck by a rat while she slept in a Tunisian hotel. The first that Fidelma Allen (57) knew of it was when her daughter screamed when she saw the rat.
Ms Allen, Knocknashee, Goatstown, Dublin, yesterday settled her €38,000 damages claim for an undisclosed sum against holiday firms Budget Travel and Sunway Travel.
Following talks between barristers Rossa Fanning, for Ms Allen, and David Richardson, for the defendants, the Circuit Civil Court heard the case had been settled.
Public court documents revealed that early on August 11th, 2004, Ms Allen was woken by a slight pinch to her forehead which she had disregarded and had gone back to sleep. Later her daughter had screamed when she had seen a large rat on the top of her mother’s bed.
They had been on a week- long holiday to the Bel Air Hotel in Hammamet, Tunisia.
Expert on standby for Foster inquest
An expert medical witness is to be put on stand-by notice to be available to give evidence at an inquest into the death of Dwayne Foster, a suspect in the fatal shooting of young mother Donna Cleary, if required by the Dublin city coroner.
Foster (24), Woodbank Avenue, Finglas, Dublin, was discovered unresponsive in Coolock Garda station on March 7th, 2006, and was taken to Beaumont Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A postmortem by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found Foster died as a result of methadone intoxication.
Dr Carl Gray, a UK based pathologist who was retained by the Foster family following Mr Foster’s death, may be called to give evidence at the full hearing of the inquest into Foster’s death in November.
Man deposited stolen cheque
A Dublin man will be sentenced later for his role in fraud involving cheques worth over €69,000 from a newspaper.
Stuart Kearns (21), Balgaddy, Lucan, let a person to whom he owed €600 for borrowing a car, deposit a stolen €13,500 cheque into his current account.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft of the Independent Star Ltd cheque worth €13,500 between April 2nd and May 9th, 2007.
Det Garda Ronan Clogher said that there were two people awaiting sentence for theft of the remaining €55,550 stolen from the Terenure-based newspaper.
Kearns claimed his debt was dropped and that he got €400 for withdrawing the €13,500 on April 4th, 2007, and giving it to a co-accused.
Woman brought heroin into prison
A woman has been given a two-year sentence with one suspended at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for smuggling drugs into her boyfriend in prison.
Wendy Gifford (32), Sean O’Casey Avenue, Summerhill, was planning on “kissing over” the heroin when she visited her boyfriend in Mountjoy Prison. She pleaded guilty to bringing in €200 worth of heroin on September 8th, 2006.
Judge Katherine Delahunt accepted that Gifford had “worked very hard to become drug free” and backdated the sentence to when she entered custody in July.
Gerardine Small, defending, said her client was not a heroin addict herself and had a seven-year-old child. Gifford has since broken up with the boyfriend who is serving a lengthy sentence.
Appeal over attack on department
Gardaí in Dublin have renewed an appeal for information about a man who threw a suspected petrol bomb at the Department of Finance last month.
The man approached the building on Merrion Street at about 10.50pm on September 27th and threw a bottle containing an accelerant through one of the front windows, causing a small amount of damage.
Anyone with information is asked to contact gardaí at Pearse Street on 01-666 9000 or the Garda confidential line on 1800 666 111.
Motorists urged to repair cars
Money-conscious motorists who postpone car maintenance work are “dicing with death”, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said yesterday.
Mr Dempsey was speaking at the launch of CarAware.ie, a motor industry website offering advice on car care and other motoring issues. Mr Dempsey said he understood people had to be more careful with money but said this couldn’t be at the expense of road safety.
“People are putting off getting work done, but they really are dicing with death.”
South Dublin hit by power cuts
ESB Staff were last night attempting to repair a major fault which left about 1,600 customers in south Dublin without electricity.
The areas affected by the outage were Blackrock, Monkstown and Stillorgan.
An ESB spokeswoman said the cable fault occurred at a transformer substation in Monkstown at a 8pm.
2m house sale cuts debt to Nationwide
The €2 million raised at a forced auction for a home in Sandymount, Dublin, has been paid towards a €5.7 million debt to Irish Nationwide Building Society, the Circuit Court was told yesterday. County registrar Susan Ryan was told that the society's application for repossession of the house of John Mara and Clare Murphy on Claremont Road could be struck out. With mounting interest and legal costs, Mr Mara, son of former Fianna Fáil press secretary PJ Mara, and Ms Murphy still face a shortfall of almost €4 million.
Security alert at Border crossing
Gardaí and the PSNI were last night mounting a security operation at a Border crossing where a vehicle was abandoned. A bomb warning had been received by the PSNI, and two men were arrested for questioning.
A white Renault van was left near a bridge at Clady, Co Tyrone, on the Border with Co Donegal on Wednesday evening. Local families were asked to leave their homes, and there has been widespread disruption.
The alert was continuing last night after a controlled explosion was carried out.