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BreakingNews.ie
6 hours ago
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Supreme Court decision on compensation over power lines could affect thousands of landowners
A Supreme Court decision that compensation can be awarded for depreciation of the value of lands due to having electricity power lines installed across them could potentially affect thousands of landowners. The five judge court rejected arguments by the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) that a property arbitrator was not entitled to include compensation for land depreciation – referred to in the relevant 19th century law as 'injurious affection' – in an award of €39,500 statutory compensation to a couple over power lines installed across their farm. Advertisement Arbitrator Peter Good, since deceased, had made the award to Peter and Rose O'Reilly concerning lands owned by them at Crubany, Co Cavan. Compensation for 'injurious affection' formed a substantial part of the award, and its inclusion was successfully appealed by the ESB to the High Court. The couple appealed the High Court to the Court of Appeal, which decided the matter raised issues of public importance requiring determination by the Supreme Court. On Friday, Mr Justice Brian Murray, giving the court's main judgment, upheld arguments by Peter Bland SC, with barrister Michael O'Donnell, instructed by solicitor Gabriel Toolan, that the entitlement to compensation includes for 'injurious affection'. Advertisement The case arose after the couple entered landowner agreements with the ESB in 2011. In return for unobstructed access to their lands to construct electric lines, they were entitled to compensation under the Electricity Supply Act 1927. The main issue in the Supreme Court appeal concerned the extent of the right to compensation. Mr Good decided that, as well as compensation for the loss of value of house sites on the land holding across which the lines travel, they were entitled to compensation for injurious affection, or general loss of value of their entire holding. Among his findings, Mr Justice Murray said none of the legal authorities demand a 'perfect equation' between the compensation mandated by the Constitution for interference with property interests, and the compensation enabled either by developments of the common law or by early Victorian legislation governing the compulsory acquisition of property. The ESB was correct in saying the exercise of powers conferred by section 53 of the 1927 Act did not give rise to the transfer or creation of interests 'in land', he said. There was therefore no basis on which it could be said that the 'injurious affection' provisions of the 1845 Land Clauses Consolidation Act were automatically incorporated into the procedure for deciding compensation under the 1927 Act. Advertisement No significance could be attached to the fact that the 1927 Act did not expressly include or exclude those provisions, he said. Ireland 'Author' of property fraud scheme faces prison ter... Read More He said the High Court had erred if it found the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act 1919 operated in any way to preclude a claimant seeking compensation for injurious affection or depreciation of the value of their holding caused by the presence of the electric lines, poles and pylons, he said. In other findings, he held Mr Good erred when he fixed compensation for the anticipated exercise of the power of re-entry onto the lands. He upheld the High Court decision that there was no breach by Mr Good, in his handling of the matter, of the ESB's right to fair procedures. The precise amount of compensation was referred for decision, in line with the court's findings, by a new arbitrator. In a separate concurring judgment, Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe agreed with his colleague on all issues other than the constitutional issue and said he was reserving his position on that issue to an appropriate case.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Pizza maker invests €12.5m on extended Tesco deal
Pizza maker Crust & Crumb is spending €12.5 million on boosting production as it extends a deal with supermarket chain Tesco . The Ballyconnell, Co Cavan-based company will hire 120 more workers and double the size of its production facility to 7,430sq m after agreeing to supply Tesco with new premium pizza varieties. Crust & Crumb already employs 282 workers and makes 30 types of pizza for the supermarket chain, including five new lines that began selling in recent weeks. The pair's relationship began five years ago when Tesco sought to move production of its own-brand pizza range to Ireland. READ MORE Ford chief Lisa Brankin on accelerating the switch to electric vehicles Listen | 41:35 The contract is worth more than €10 million a year to Crust & Crumb, which increased production 35 per cent on the previous year in 2024. Tesco commercial director Joe Manning said the deal highlighted the chain's commitment to using Irish suppliers and growing jobs locally. Crust & Crumb chief executive Mark McCaffrey noted that his company's relationship with Tesco had grown over the past five years. 'Brexit presented many challenges as we know, but also offered some great opportunities to home-grown Irish suppliers like ourselves,' he said. Mr McCaffrey confirmed that support from groups such as Tesco allowed the firm to invest and expand.
Irish Times
29-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Garden centre owner and another man appear in court over €5.3m drug seizure
Two men aged in their 60s have appeared in court in connection with the seizure of heroin and cocaine valued at €5.3 million. Joseph Sherry (61), of Allagesh, Smithborough, Co Monaghan, and Matthew Farrell (63), of Lisagoan, Kingscourt, Co Cavan, appeared before Judge Eirinn McKiernan at a special sitting of Navan District Court on Thursday. The men are charged with unlawful possession of drugs and possession for sale or supply at a premises at Leggagh, Castletown, Navan, last May 27th. Mr Farrell, a garden centre owner, made no reply when charged, Detective Garda Paul Cullen told the court. READ MORE Detective Garda Ben McGarry gave evidence of having charged Mr Sherry, who made no reply. Judge McKiernan said she was refusing bail due to the seriousness of the charges. She remanded both in custody to appear by video link before Trim District Court on June 3rd.
Irish Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
New Irish albums reviewed and rated: The Would-Be's, Varo, Curtisy and Pete Holidai
The Would Be's: HindZeitgeist (Roundy Records) ★★★★☆ The Would Be's were stalked by several big record labels back in the 1990s, but notions of mainstream commercial success quickly unravelled. The Co Cavan band persevered fitfully, split up and then returned with all their original members almost 15 years ago. Some bands are best left to memory, but HindZeitgeist shows that there's always room for indie-pop melodies that linger in the sunshine. Stay Tuned is a superb James Bond theme song in waiting. That's How It Gets You is a shoo-in for a song of the summer, and Stupid Little Heart is a love anthem that Johnny Marr would be happy to have written. It continues with a persistent DIY superiority: three Finnegan brothers (guitarist Matty, bassist Eamonn, drummer Paul), one sassy saxophonist/trombonist (Aidine O'Reilly) and one quality singer (Julie McDonnell). Varo: The World That I Knew (Self-released) ★★★☆☆ Varo – Lucie Azconaga and Consuelo Nerea Breschi – have been integral to Ireland's trad/folk scene for about a decade. During this time they've gathered like-minded musical friends and delved into the song archives. The aim of this resourceful collaborative album, which sees the Dublin-based duo perform with John Francis Flynn, Ruth Clinton, Niamh Bury, Junior Brother, Ian Lynch, Anna Mieke and Lemoncello, among others, is to highlight the value of authentic human experiences, good and bad, across the centuries. Between elegant versions of Green Grows the Laurel (with Flynn), Let No Man Steal Your Thyme (with Lemoncello) and Work Life Out to Keep Life In (with Bury), Azconaga and Breschi have achieved that and more. Curtisy: Beauty in the Beast (Brook Records) ★★★★☆ Hot on the heels of last year's RTÉ Choice Music Prize nomination for What Was the Question, his debut album, the Dublin rapper Curtisy releases a collaborative 12-track mixtape that sieves happiness out of hopelessness. Working with the producer Hikii (who arranged several tracks on What Was the Question), the new songs flow smoothly across a blend of sample-heavy soul/jazz-influenced hip-hop. There's a particularly smart cinematic sensibility on tracks such as Fuss, Milk & Honey, Eyes, RIP2ME and The Necessary Evil, the collection's standout track, which includes a sample of Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Curtisy's lyrics and delivery are equal to those of any contemporary rapper you care to mention. Pete Holidai: Electric Jukebox Volume One (Pilgrim Sounds) ★★★☆☆ Anyone who fancies playing a game of spot the glam-rock music act can safely listen to Electric Jukebox without fear of boredom. The latest solo album from the stellar musician and producer Pete Holidai pays homage to the music that foreshadowed punk rock. A New Revolution is such a New York Dolls tribute that you can almost taste the lipstick, Daydream Girl has David Essex channelling Roxy Music, and We Had a Vision is the cheekiest blend of two David Bowie songs you know very well. In other words, this is good, clean fun delivered by someone who knows what's what every which way and inside out. Volume Two soon, if you don't mind.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Irish Times
Who felt informed enough in those first few days to call Alan Hawe a cold-blooded murderer?
A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself, said playwright Arthur Miller . And in the hours after Alan Hawe brutally murdered his wife Clodagh and three young sons before taking his own life in their Co Cavan home almost 10 years ago, newspaper coverage was probably a fair reflection of a horrified, bewildered national conversation. 'Why did he do it?' How could a well-liked, churchgoing family man, a primary schoolteacher and GAA stalwart commit such a heinous crime? The sheer ordinariness and apparent decency of the perpetrator, and what seemed to be a total absence of warning signs, were an obvious focus for early reporting. Journalists reported the scraps they knew, notably the fulsome tributes to Alan Hawe from neighbours, the priest and community: 'A kind and decent person with an overriding need to look after those around him'; 'the most normal man you could meet'; 'a brilliant dad'. And so, in the absence of any deeper knowledge or insights, it was framed as a 'family tragedy'. A mental health issue. A 'murder-suicide'. He just 'snapped'. Because how else could the righteous family man's heinous final acts be explained? One columnist speculated that he might be the key to 'finally breaking the stigma around mental health', a view that threatened to heroise him as a kind of martyred stoic. Articles carried calls for increased mental health funding. They often carried the Samaritans' helpline number at the end, but not the number for Women's Aid. [ 'Alan Hawe was a wolf in sheep's clothing who fooled us all': Clodagh Hawe's sister on her fight for the truth Opens in new window ] By this narrative, Alan Hawe was simply another tragic victim. His butchered wife and sons were collateral damage. The hashtag Twitter response – #HerNameWasClodagh – tried to rectify the omission. READ MORE Thanks to Clodagh's remarkably brave and dogged sister Jacqueline Connolly and their mother Mary Coll, we know that Alan Hawe had meticulously planned the murders and had exhibited signs of coercive control – now a criminal offence - for many years. No one knew that in the early days. Reporters, as always, relied on leaks from the investigation while others tried to navigate the febrile, delicate bonds of a small community in trauma, grateful to anyone prepared to speak to them, while their editors champed for new angles. But 'it can take up to six days before the full details of a case have been ascertained', says the 2023 Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews. Such early reporting often begins with the construction of a 'crime narrative' but while the Hawe case was framed as a 'family tragedy', the 'masking' effect of any such narratives holds true. Larger societal patterns – such as the average of 1,250 domestic violence incidents every week in 2024 and 41 prosecutions for coercive control in two years – are masked by speculation about motive or the likelihood of mental health issues, and take precedence over an understanding that many domestic homicides are an extreme form of domestic violence. No trained journalist is obtuse enough to deliberately omit a woman victim from their reporting – think of the media frenzy around murdered women such as Rachel O'Reilly or Celine Cawley . But look up the 275 women killed since 1996, named on Women's Aid Femicide Watch; eight out of 10 of those cases have been resolved. Yet it's striking how few of the victims' names are familiar. Of the resolved cases, nearly nine out of 10 of the women were killed by a man known to them. In almost all murder-suicide cases (23 out of 24) the killer was the woman's current or former intimate partner. [ Stolen Lives: 239 violent deaths of women in Ireland from 1996 to today (2022) Opens in new window ] Maybe the question is not why a woman's identity can be omitted from reporting of her own murder but why only a certain type of victim – or killer – gets the coverage. Another might be why Helen McEntee 's dogged focus on domestic violence as minister for justice was regularly characterised as a preoccupation with 'woke' by some political colleagues. What was that meant to convey? The study's authors asked bereaved family members what they want from reporters. They want them 'to stand back and impartially identify different categories of death by describing the fact that the perpetrator murdered a partner or murdered children prior to dying by suicide'. In murder-suicides there are no legal issues; the perpetrator is dead, no criminal prosecution will occur. But in those first days, decent media professionals are constantly balancing principles of privacy against the public's right to know and the freedom of the press. Strangers with microphones are accosting local people – 'Did you know them?' 'What was HE like?'. No, he was a lovely man, of course we never saw it coming. What else are people to say when the bodies are not yet buried, they don't know the facts and they must face those broken relatives for the rest of their lives? Who felt informed enough to stand up in those first few days and call Alan Hawe a cold-blooded murderer? Jacqueline has said it was only the day after the funeral, when they had accompanied Alan Hawe and his murdered family to be buried together, that she and her mother wondered what they had been thinking. Were outsiders entitled to know that at the time? Many questions are examined by the study, which is well worth a read. But perhaps society should start asking itself a larger question: why, even in such extraordinarily sensitive cases as multiple deaths, do we feel we deserve all the answers, instantly? And what does 'do your job' mean when bellowed at journalists in a catastrophe? Women's Aid support services are listed at
