A round up of today's other home news in brief
Man arrested over Kilkenny fire deaths
A man was arrested yesterday in connection with the investigation into the death of Sharon Whelan (30), and her daughters Nadia (2) and Zarah (7), at Roscon, Windgap, Co Kilkenny, on Christmas Day.
The two young girls died as a result of smoke inhalation following a fire but postmortem results suggest that Ms Whelan was already dead by the time the fire destroyed her remote rented home near the village of Windgap on the Kilkenny-Tipperary border.
The three bodies were pulled from the house at about 9am on Christmas Day when locals saw the property engulfed in flames.
A man in his 20s was arrested yesterday and was being held last night under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act at Kilkenny Garda Station.
This allows him to be detained for up to 24 hours.
Gardaí renewed their appeal for anyone with any information to contact them at Kilkenny Garda Station on 056 777 5070.
EU legal opinion against State
Ireland’s transposition of an EU directive on the making of environmental impact assessments has been criticised in an opinion by the advocate general of the European Court of Justice, writes Tim O’Brien.
The opinion, delivered yesterday, found Ireland was wrong in not requiring such assessments to be carried out in the case of private road developments.
The case was taken against Ireland by the European Commission.
While the advocate’s opinion is not a final judgment of the Court of Justice, the ultimate rulings rarely differ from the advocate’s determination.
Buckley backs Haiti charity
Businessman Leslie Buckley has donated €1 million to his new charity, Haven, which has been set up to build houses in Haiti, writes Alison Healy.
The charity, which was launched in Dublin yesterday, aims to build 1,000 new homes and improve 2,000 more by the end of 2011.
It is seeking 250 volunteers to travel to the Caribbean state at Halloween and take part in “Build It Week”, similar to the building projects organised by the Niall Mellon Township Trust in South Africa.
Hugh Brennan, former chief executive of Niall Mellon’s trust, is chief executive of Haven.
Mr Buckley is a co-founder and vice-chairman of Digicel, the largest mobile phone operator in the Caribbean. He said he had visited Haiti many times in recent years and was “really horrified by the appalling poverty that pervades this country”.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said organisations such as Mr Buckley’s were very valuable in increasing public awareness of volunteering.
“As people volunteer, they will bring communities with them around Ireland in support of the project. And that, for us, reinforces the appetite for volunteering.”
Mr Martin highlighted the code of practice drawn up to guide people doing voluntary work and said it encouraged volunteers to stay involved when they returned home from overseas work.
For more information, see www.havenpartnership.com
NUJ opposes INM pay-cut plan
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has urged members at Independent News and Media “not to sign up to a company-wide campaign to reduce wages”.
The company has given some employees a week to accept a 10 per cent pay cut. It is also seeking to enforce a pay freeze and has been accused by the NUJ of refusing to abide by the industrial relations machinery covering the national agreement.
NUJ representatives agreed to hold local meetings in coming days to demand that the company negotiate directly with the union instead of seeking to impose unilateral cuts.