A roundup of today's other home news in brief
Pay dispute hits passport service
The Passport Service has said it can no longer guarantee a 10-day turnaround for applications submitted through Passport Express, due to the ongoing public service industrial action. The 10-day service has been suspended until further notice, the office said in a statement last night.
Applications would now be processed on a first-come first-served basis, it added.
Meanwhile, services at Garda stations across the State were interrupted yesterday as industrial action by public sector union members targeted the Department of Justice.
The action included the Courts Service, immigration centres and the Probation Service. Public counters in Garda stations operated by civil servants were closed for the first half of the day, while phone services were hit in the afternoon.
The following Government departments will be affected today: the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Revenue Commissioners, the CSO, the Chief State Solicitor’s Office, and the Departments of Health, Defence, Agriculture, and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.
Ford to explain Saville comment
Alliance leader David Ford travelled to Derry last night to meet some of the Bloody Sunday families to explain why he described the Saville inquiry as “pointless”.
Mr Ford, who is in line to be appointed the North’s minister of justice next month, was yesterday criticised by Sinn Féin, the SDLP and relatives of the 14 people who died after the British army opened fire in Derry during a civil rights demonstration on January 30th, 1972.
Mr Ford made the “pointless” comment in a private briefing note he provided for Alliance’s sister British Liberal Democrat party last November, an e-mail which was allegedly leaked to the BBC by the SDLP. Mr Ford said he regretted if his e-mailed comment caused any offence to the families. He said the comment was “unfortunate and hastily written”.
The Alliance leader, however, said he was not the only individual who felt there were questions to be answered over the estimated £200 million cost of the Saville inquiry.
Injunction on shop extension sought
Twenty jobs would be lost if a Centra store in Dalkey, Co Dublin, was closed down because of an alleged unauthorised extension in its back yard, a barrister representing the shop said in court yesterday.
Michael O’Donnell told Judge Jacqueline Linnane that an injunction would have devastating consequences for the business. He disputed the need for planning permission
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council had asked the court to restrain the use of eight temporary buildings which had been used without planning permission to create an open-plan extension to Marie Centra, Barnhill Road, Dalkey.
Judge Linnane said that in everyone’s interests, the most appropriate manner of dealing with the case was to have an early hearing date for the substantive trial of all issues.
She adjourned the matter to March 18th by which time a trial date may be available.
Website advises on repossessions
A new Citizens Information Board website – www. keepingyourhome.ie – has had more than 3,500 visitors since it was set up in recent weeks. It supplies information for those with mortgage and rent problems.
The website was formally launched yesterday by Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin at Dublin Castle where she attended the Money Advice and Budgeting Service national conference. She said the new website supplied information “on a wide variety of topics including social welfare payments, tax reliefs and legal processes including issues around home repossession . . . in an easy- to-access manner”.