Other stories in brief.
Man charged with ramming patrol cars
A Donegal father of three charged with ramming two Garda patrol cars at Burtonport at the weekend was yesterday remanded in custody at Donegal District Court after gardaí raised concerns that he might try to abscond.
The court heard how 23-year-old Sam McGinley, with an address at Greenfields, Convoy, yesterday tried to flee Letterkenny General Hospital after swapping clothes with a friend.
He was arrested on Sunday after the car he was allegedly driving failed to stop at a checkpoint in Burtonport as it came off the Arranmore ferry on Sunday afternoon.
The car rammed two patrol cars and was chased before crashing.
Donegal District Court was told yesterday that Mr McGinley was arrested in the accident and emergency department of Letterkenny General Hospital.
Judge Desmond Zaidan remanded Mr McGinley in custody to Castlerea Prison to appear at Harristown District Court this Friday.
Fire disrupts Galway traffic
A chip-pan fire brought traffic to a standstill in Galway city yesterday morning.
The small fire broke out in Conlon's seafood restaurant on Eglinton Street at about 10.30am. Four units of Galway Fire Brigade went to the scene. Gardaí closed the busy street to traffic while the fire was quickly dealt with.
There were major traffic disruptions before the road was reopened. The fire caused a small amount of damage to the premises.
Two charged with burglary
Two youths have appeared before a special sitting of Limerick District Court after being charged with breaking into the office of State solicitor Michael D Murray on O'Connell Street in Limerick last Friday.
The two male teenagers, who cannot be named, have been remanded in custody at Trinity House in Dublin until today, when they will appear before the court again.
Aged 14 and 15, they were arrested by Garda Brendan Stokes on Broad Street in the city last Friday and were charged at Henry Street Garda station with burglary, trespassing and handling stolen property.
The two made no reply to the charges and were accompanied by their parents in court last Saturday.
Workers claim pay overdue
The 108 staff and management at three Gaeltacht-based call centres have not been paid five weeks' salary owed to them when the centres closed suddenly over a week ago.
Redundancy payments are also owed and pension contributions made for the past four months have not been paid to their pensions company, staff representatives claimed yesterday.
Wages were due on the day of the closure but workers had been promised their five weeks' salary and redundancy payments would be paid to them on Friday last, March 7th.
The three centres, in Donegal, Kerry and Mayo, all subsidiary companies of the Glasgow-based Contact 4 financial services company, shut down with just an hour's notice on February 28th.
The Scottish company blamed a slump in the mortgage market for the closure of its Irish operations.
Late last week it told workers it did not have the money to pay the Irish workers.
Staff are owed about €2,000 each for wages, said Imelda McGrattan, the manager of the Dingle centre where 38 people were employed.