Author name: oisinkelly

  Officers investigating an arson attack on a primary school in the Central Drive area of Derry on Monday night  have interviewed three young people in connection with the incident. Two 10 year old boys and an 11 year old girl voluntarily attended Strand Road Police Station today. They were interviewed and subsequently released pending

  Detectives from Serious Crime Branch investigating the murder of Paul McCauley in Derry in 2006 are questioning two men in the city. The suspects, aged 27 and 28, had been arrested last year and were released on police bail but are now being further interviewed at Strand Road police station. Applications for warrants of

  A public meeting has taken place over the future of animal welfare in Donegal following the closure of Donegal Pet Rescue. Issues discussed during the meeting included the need for a re-homing centre to be set up in the county and the need to organise a co-op to act as the umbrella for all

    There’s still no clarity on a timescale for the long awaited three school campus in Buncrana, with this week’s meeting of the Donegal Education and Training Board being told that costs are still being evaluated. The campus is listed on the Department of Education’s Capital Investment Plan 2016 – 2021, but the fear

The Health and Safety Authority is investigating the death of a man in his 30s who died in hospital last night after falling from scaffolding in Falcarragh. The man has been named locally as Michael Carr from Derryconnor, of Gortahork. It’s understood he was working on a roof yesterday morning when the accident occurred.

A judge at Derry Magistrate’s Court has ordered the manager of a social services team to appear before him this Thursday. Judge Barney McElholm was speaking at a sitting of the local youth court after he was told that a bail package that was to be prepared for a 17-year-old who has been in custody

There’s little hope of a Taoiseach being elected today when the Dail reconvenes, 40 days after the General Election. Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin have finally agreed to talk face-to-face for the first time this evening. But it remains to be seen if the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders can come to an arrangement

  Michaella McCollum is set to take an Irish daily newspaper to court. The Tyrone woman has issued legal proceedings over what her solicitor says was an incident of intimidating harassment in the Miraflores area of Lima, Peru on Sunday. Ms McCollum was released from jail in the South American country last week and is

The total number of patients awaiting admission on trollies and on wards at Letterkenny Univeristy Hospital at the end of last month was 191. That’s down 90 on March last year, and down 27 on 2006 when the INMO’s Trolley Watch began. Letterkenny has bucked the national trend, which has seen the figures rise. There

Donegal County Council has been accused of wasting time discussing matters it has no power over, and should instead focus only on local issues. The comments come after a motion calling for the council to recognise the 1916 proclamation was for a 32 county Ireland, and calling on the British to give up any claim

The Letterkenny Institute of Technology student whose body was recovered from the River Swilly close to the Port Bridge yesterday was 22 year old Edward Connell, from Sunset Drive, Cartron Point in Sligo. The second year nursing student had last been seen at around 4 o’clock yesterday morning. A search was initiated after a passing motorist

The membership of the expert panel to examine the presence of MICA insome homes and buildings in Donegal and Mayo has been completed . In January, Dennis McCarthy was appointed to chair the expert panel to investigate the issue, but the panel had yet to be established with recenr local concerns raised that little progress

  A body of a young man has been recovered from the River Swilly this afternoon during a search conducted by Gardai. The search was carried out following the discovery of clothing and identification  in the vicinity of Letterkennys Port Bridge by a passerby earlier today. Gardai have confirmed that the body is that of

Two councillors have confirmed today they have resigned from the SDLP and are contesting the assembly election in West Tyrone on an Independent Social Democrat ticket. Derry and Strabane Cllr Patsy Kelly and Omagh Cllr Josephine Deehan says they both attempted to resolve what they regard as serious internal issues within the party as recently

Donegal County Council has heard calls for the Fire Service to be used when necessary as first responders in cases of cardiac arrest. Councillor Martin McDermott points out that every fire station has a defibrillator and staff trained in cardiac first response. He says his call should not impact on the ongoing campaign for a

Gardai are examining clothing found in the vicinity of Letterkenny’s Port Bridge this morning, along with personal items understood to include some identification. The clothing was seen and reported by a passing motorist this morning, and gardai have been at the scene for some time. Gardai have stopped short of declaring a search, but we

  A senior Failte Ireland official says the gap between Donegal and other tourism counties is narrowing significantly. It follows claims from veteran tourism promoter and Donegal Councillor Sean Mc Eniff that Donegal has not been reaching its tourism potential as a result of centralised decision making. Joan Crawford, Team Manager on the Wild Atlantic

Over 90 per cent of Irish Bathing waters have met minimum EU standards for this year. The latest report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows just six of our 137 bathing spots are of a poor level. In Donegal, 19 beaches were assessed – 16 were graded excellent, two Portnablagh and Rathmullan were deemed to

There have been claims that Donegal is suffering a loss in the tourism sector with Failte Irelands latest reports suggesting there is significant gap in numbers visiting the county. When compared with other counties, Kerry receives over 1m overseas visitors per year as against 250,000 in Donegal whilst Galway attracts 775,000 domestic visitors as against

A Derry councillor has hit out after a fire was started at Holy Child primary school in Derry last night. Building materials at the school were set alight, the roof of the Creggan school was damaged. Councillor Kevin Campbell says there is shock in the local area that anyone would even contemplate starting a fire

The family of double informer Denis Donaldson has issued a statement marking the 10th anniversary of his murder, requesting that private documents be made available to those investigating his murder. Donaldson, 56, was shot dead by gunmen in a rural cottage near Glenties on April 4, 2006. The Real IRA claimed it was responsible. No-one

  It’s claimed that as the May 31st dealine approaches for a report on MICA blocks in Donegal to be delivered to Government,there is no evidence that the investigation has advanced at all. Thousands of homeowners in the county are thought to be affected by the issue, where their homes are crumbling and described as

A ten -year-old boy has appeared at Derry Magistrate’s Court accused of assaulting his mother. The boy, who cannot be named because of his age, is charged with common assault, criminal damage and assault on police. He is further charged with possessing an offensive weapon, namely a saw. The charges relate to an alleged incident

A Grandmother says she is in no doubt that her two young grandchildren were the victims of an attempted abduction in Drumkeen last Friday. The young girls were walking with their grandmother when a man in a red van stopped and asked them to get in the van with the offer of sweets. There grandmother

Workers’ Memorial Day will be formally observed in Ireland on the 28th of this month. A special event will take place involving the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, IBEC, the Construction Industry Federation and the Health and Safety Authority. Workers’ Memorial Day Ireland remembers workers lost and injured and highlights the importance of health, safety

A Donegal Deputy says the HSE must ensure that the temporary closure of Dungloe Hospital does not Impact on Patient Care. The HSE announced last week that the Hospital has been temporarily closed to new admissions after the discovery of the antibiotic resistant bacteria ‘CRE’ at the unit. The Executive says none of the hospital’s

There were nine patients awaiting admission at Letterkenny University Hospital this morning, four on trollies in the Emergency Department and five on trollies or chairs on the wards. Nationally, there were 437 people awaiting admission to hospital, 337 of them on trollies.