Latest news with #MichaelMcNally
BreakingNews.ie
6 days ago
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Will with handwritten changes did not amount to revocation, High Court rules
Handwritten changes to a former publican's homemade will dealing with the bequest of a valuable Dublin property did not amount to a partial revocation or destruction of the will, the High Court has ruled. Ms Justice Siobhan Stack said the will of Michael (Mick) Joseph McNally, who died in June 2019, could be admitted to probate after she found the handwritten changes were invalid. Advertisement The judge said the circumstances of this case "demonstrate once again the importance of taking legal advice on all aspects of the drawing up and alteration of a will". Her decision means the bequeathed house on South Circular Road, Dublin, has been left to the estate of his brother Eamonn, who died in 2020. If the changes had been found valid, it would mean the property would be divided up between his three remaining siblings and Eamonn's widow Monica. The court heard Monica had not objected to admitting the will to probate on the basis that the bequest of the property to Eamonn had been validly removed and should therefore be regarded as blank. She expressed some disappointment however that Michael always promised to leave it to Eamonn, the judge said. Mr McNally, who was unmarried and had no children, ran the Headline Bar in Clanbrassil Street, Dublin, before returning to live until his death in his native Virginia, Co Cavan, with another brother Malachy. He was one of ten children, six of whom predeceased him. Advertisement The will, dated April 29th, 1981, was made out on a preprinted form and completed by Michael in manuscript. The only asset was the Dublin house, other properties and assets having been apparently disposed of during his lifetime, the judge said. The original bequest of this property to Eamonn was the subject of an attempted obliteration. There was also an alteration in which the bequest of the property was replaced with a bequest to Eamonn in the sum of IR£1. The executor of the will has since died and in 2023, Malachy sought to have the will admitted to probate which means the proceeds of the will could be distributed. The judge said that although Malachy's application did not explicitly refer to it, it was, in reality, an application to admit the will to probate on the basis that the destruction of the bequest meant it should be admitted to probate and that the property now falls to be dealt with by way of a partial intestacy. Advertisement She said it was in August 2009 that another since deceased brother, Tom, gave Malachy the will along with other personal effects of Michael. Malachy remembered this because Tom died two days later. The judge said the original will was witnessed by two bank officials who it had not been possible to trace. She accepted Malachy's evidence that he (Malachy) did not open the will and it was not altered between 2009 and 2019 when Michael died. However, that still left a period of 28 years from the execution of the will, during which the attempted obliteration and alteration could have been made, she said. The judge said it seemed to her that as the purported obliteration did not render the words underneath indecipherable, it could not be regarded as an act of 'destruction' and it therefore cannot amount to a partial revocation. Advertisement As a result, she said the attempt to change the will so as to replace the bequest of the property to Eamonn with a bequest of IR£1, was invalid as a matter of law, she said. In coming to this conclusion, the judge stressed there are very sound policy reasons behind the relevant law (Section 86 of 1965 Succession Act). Ireland Trading results at Sean Quinn's former Cavan hotel... Read More These aim to prevent any dispute as to their execution by the testator and, in particular, operate to ensure that alterations are not made by another person, whether before or after death, she said. She also stressed she was not suggesting that any person who had custody or of access to the will would have attempted to alter its terms and in fact it seems likely it was Michael who made the alterations himself. However, she said she could not be sure of this but it was clear the changes were not executed and witnessed. The judge will deal later with who is to be appointed to take out the grant of probate.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
Handwritten changes to homemade will dealing with South Circular Road property were invalid, judge rules
Handwritten changes to a former publican's homemade will dealing with the bequest of a valuable Dublin property did not amount to a partial revocation or destruction of the will, the High Court has ruled. Ms Justice Siobhan Stack said the will of Michael (Mick) Joseph McNally, who died in June 2019, could be admitted to probate after she found the handwritten changes were invalid. The judge said the circumstances of this case 'demonstrate once again the importance of taking legal advice on all aspects of the drawing up and alteration of a will'. Her decision means the bequeathed house on South Circular Road, Dublin, has been left to the estate of his brother Eamonn, who died in 2020. If the changes had been found valid, it would mean the property would be divided up between his three remaining siblings and Eamonn's widow Monica. READ MORE The court heard Monica had not objected to admitting the will to probate on the basis that the bequest of the property to Eamonn had been validly removed and should therefore be regarded as blank. Mr McNally, who was unmarried and had no children, ran the Headline Bar in Clanbrassil Street, Dublin, before returning to live until his death in his native Virginia, Co Cavan, with another brother Malachy. He was one of ten children, six of whom predeceased him. The will, dated April 29th, 1981, was made out on a preprinted form and completed by Michael in manuscript. The only asset was the Dublin house, other properties and assets having been apparently disposed of during his lifetime, the judge said. The original bequest of this property to Eamonn was the subject of an attempted obliteration. There was also an alteration in which the bequest of the property was replaced with a bequest to Eamonn in the sum of IR£1. The executor of the will has since died and in 2023 Malachy sought to have the will admitted to probate, which means the proceeds of the will could be distributed. The judge said that although Malachy's application did not explicitly refer to it, it was, in reality, an application to admit the will to probate on the basis that the destruction of the bequest meant it should be admitted to probate and that the property now falls to be dealt with by way of a partial intestacy. She said it was in August 2009 that another since deceased brother, Tom, gave Malachy the will along with other personal effects of Michael. Malachy remembered this because Tom died two days later. The judge said the original will was witnessed by two bank officials who it had not been possible to trace. She accepted Malachy's evidence that he (Malachy) did not open the will and it was not altered between 2009 and 2019 when Michael died. However, that still left a period of 28 years from the execution of the will, during which the attempted obliteration and alteration could have been made, she said. The judge said it seemed to her that as the purported obliteration did not render the words underneath indecipherable, it could not be regarded as an act of 'destruction' and it therefore cannot amount to a partial revocation. As a result, she said the attempt to change the will so as to replace the bequest of the property to Eamonn with a bequest of IR£1, was invalid as a matter of law, she said. In coming to this conclusion, the judge stressed there are very sound policy reasons behind the relevant law (Section 86 of 1965 Succession Act). These aim to prevent any dispute as to their execution by the testator and, in particular, operate to ensure that alterations are not made by another person, whether before or after death, she said. She also stressed she was not suggesting that any person who had custody or of access to the will would have attempted to alter its terms and in fact it seems likely it was Michael who made the alterations himself. However, she said she could not be sure of this but it was clear the changes were not executed and witnessed. The judge will deal later with who is to be appointed to take out the grant of probate.
CBC
26-01-2025
- Business
- CBC
Not enough traffic — or speed — on Alberta's internet 'highway,' critics complain
With about $1 billion invested over a quarter century in the Alberta SuperNet, the province still has some of the worst rural broadband availability in Canada. The project was well-intentioned and showed foresight but the investment has not paid off, says Michael McNally, co-chair of the Alberta Rural Connectivity Coalition's policy committee. "We have about 40 per cent of rural homes with access to high-speed internet, and that puts [Alberta] last," said McNally, an associate professor with the University of Alberta's School of Library and Information Studies. "In Quebec, close to 85 per cent of rural homes have high-speed." According to 2022 statistics from the CRTC, Alberta ranks lowest among all provinces in reaching federal benchmarks for internet speed — 50 megabits per second for downloads and 10 megabits per second for uploads. Back in 2001, the province pledged to connect rural communities to a high-speed internet "highway" network called the Alberta SuperNet, a broadband network of fibre-optic cables, wireless towers and other equipment connecting 4,200 schools, hospitals, libraries, government and municipal offices in 429 communities. The idea was for SuperNet to act like an internet highway to connect communities, while internet service providers would build the "last mile" connections to homes or businesses, McNally said. He and others question if the investment in the project has been worth the reward. McNally suggests the once-promising project has become an expensive failure. McNally recently co-authored an article on the SuperNet for the digital magazine Policy Options, and spoke to CBC's Edmonton AM. Household connections 'never materialized' McNally said the relative lack of internet connectivity in rural Alberta is partially due to the shortcomings in how the SuperNet project was implemented. "The thinking was [the SuperNet] was going to put us at the cutting edge of the digital economy and society. It kind of did in that early phase, but what never materialized were the smaller connections to households, especially in rural communities," he said. "The idea, theoretically, was that SuperNet would enable small providers to build local networks and then connect through the SuperNet to Calgary and then into the main internet exchange and the global internet." However, smaller internet service providers found connection costs were too high to use the network, he said. "In 2018, the auditor general of Alberta said we've invested over a billion public dollars on the SuperNet … Yet, it's not clear that we're getting all of the benefits from that network." That year, Bell Canada acquired the contract to operate the SuperNet, but McNally said he is concerned about how much money the province has spent on the project, and how little is known about the details of Bell's contract. In the Policy Options article, McNally and co-author Gregory Taylor argue that not all of Alberta's internet challenges are related to SuperNet. In 2022, the province launched the Alberta Broadband Fund (ABF) in partnership with the federal government's Universal Broadband Fund. The UBF was started in 2020 with the aim of connecting all Canadians to high-speed internet by 2030. Together, the federal and provincial funds are providing money for new broadband projects in underserved areas of Alberta. Eligibility requirements for the Alberta fund are similar to those for the federal fund. WATCH | Connectivity problems in Alberta: Rural Alberta struggling with lack of high-speed internet 1 day ago Duration 3:13 An Alberta government report on the provincial strategy in 2022 found that 67 per cent of rural Albertans and 80 per cent of Indigenous communities didn't have access to reliable high-speed internet at federal target speeds. McNally and Taylor said in their Policy Options article that both the Alberta and federal broadband funds have shown "slow results" in getting internet to households. An August 2024 news release from the province said that in 2021, 489,000 Albertans living in 201,000 households lacked access to internet at federal target speeds. It said Alberta "continues to work to get more projects approved by the federal government so more households and communities have access to better connectivity." The same release said 62 projects supported by the Universal Broadband Fund were underway in Alberta, bringing connectivity to more than 51,000 households in 328 communities. In a statement to CBC for this story, Alberta's Ministry of Technology and Innovation said that to date, the province and the federal government have jointly invested over $370 million in 54 broadband projects in Alberta. 'A massive failure' Red Deer County is using $10 million from the Universal Broadband Fund and another $20 million of its own money to develop its own broadband infrastructure. The county is going its own way "so we're not beholden to the SuperNet," said assistant county manager Dave Dittrick. "In our minds, [SuperNet] was a massive failure on the province's part." Dittrick said the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for better rural broadband connection in his community. He said many county residents struggled with poor internet connection for online work and schooling during the pandemic and had to find ways to adapt. "When the pandemic hit, we had one Wi-Fi hotspot at a truck stop, and people would drive to that truck stop, and they would be doing their [online] homework in the parking lot," he said. He said it's important that Red Deer County residents have the same level of internet access as their urban counterparts. "We now value the internet the same as you value electricity, gas, water, and sewer. It's a needed and valuable utility, and it's not a 'nice to have,' it's a 'have to have,'" Dittrick said.
