Donegal sees big profits at bottom of the sea

IT'S going to be a "U"ge moneyspinner, predicted the Donegal People's Press. In July, "the biggest salvage operation ever" will recover the 115 U boats of the dead light fleet - the German submarine fleet scuttled off Donegal by the British at the end of the second World War - with an average estimated value of £400,000 each.

Two British companies, Anchortape and the Russell Development Corporation have received a licence from the British Ministry of Defence to carry out the project and are seeking investors. Local fisherman welcome the salvage operation, as they repeatedly lose nets and other gear which get caught in the wrecks.

"People need not worry about disturbing graves of any lost seamen, either, because all these ships were scuttled while they were empty", the project director, Mr Mark McIntyre, told the newspaper.

Abandoned ships aren't all they are finding around Donegal. The Donegal Democrat reported a "huge rise in drugs seizures" in the county from just one in 1987 to 161 last year. Customs officials giving a drugs awareness seminar disclosed the figure, also telling amazed delegates that in the first three months of this year, 128 people have been searched in Donegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act, 33 arrested and 28 prosecuted.

"We are breeding a new generation of senile adolescents", anti drugs activist Ms Grainne Kenny of Europe Against Drugs told the seminar.

The approved social drug - alcohol - made lots of headlines all over the place, not least due to the behaviour of Councillor Hugh McElvaney of Monaghan on an Aer Lingus flight, the subject of a meaty report in his local newspaper, the Northern Standard, which regarded national media coverage of the affair as "sensational".

The Anglo Celt reported that a judge dealing with seven cases of drunken behaviour censured the "excessive drinking on the weekend of last year's Granard Harp Festival", while in Sligo, the Garda objected to a move to extend drinking hours for nightclubs by one hour. Supt Jim Sheridan told Sligo Court that last year there were 142 public order offences and 79 assaults in the town, many of them late at night after discos finished, the Sligo Champion reported.

"Lot My Husband Out of Jail", said the Mayo News's front page. Looking forlorn, Ms Margaret Conroy, pregnant with her fifth child, was pictured with her four sons, Michael, John, Thomas and Edward. In a nationally publicised case, their father, Eddie Conroy, was sentenced to five years in jail by Judge Harvey Kenny at Castlebar Circuit Court for stealing food and fuel worth £31.

Ms Conroy "would not be able to manage on her own and would not be able to leave the caravan because of the children", the newspaper said.

JUSTICE and charity go hand in hand in the Athboy court of Judge John Brophy, who has, ordered £2,050 to be contributed towards the forthcoming visit of almost a dozen children from Chernobyl to Kells, Co Meath. The money came from defendants who had their summonses marked proven, not proceeding to conviction. The largest single contribution was £1,000. Mr Pat Rogers, a solicitor and member of the group hosting the children's visit, thanked the judge for "an embarrassment of riches", said the Meath Chronicle.

The 91 residents of Inishturk are angry at having been "shifted" from Mayo to Galway by a State tourism organisation, reported the Connaught Telegraph. The west coast island, which is nine miles off Mayo, is shown as part of Co Galway in glossy new brochures produced by the Western Regional Tourism Organisation, Ireland West.

The chairman of Ireland West tourism, Mr John Walkin, apologised for the "error in giving one of our finest assets to another county".

Who wants the Eurovision? Everybody. The Anglo Celt reported that Cavan is hot to host the contest next year, while the Clare Champion said both Limerick and Shannon want to stage the event.

Longford and Leitrim are "new partners in Arts and Garbage", said the Longford Leader, now that the two counties are to share an arts officer and a "mega dump".

The waste crisis in Longford is so bad that one man discovered the jaw bone of a cow in his garden last week and residents of Congress Terrace claimed that some children were playing in a drain with a dead dog, said the Longford Leader.

As for the roads ... "Some of us are afraid to go out anymore, to enjoy a drink or to go to a dance for fear of people coming up to us complaining about the state of our roads", Longford county councillor Mr Mickey Doherty claimed at a local authority meeting, according to the Longford Leader.

In parts of Co Meath, the potholes are so bad that one local organisation has threatened to stop its tourism development work unless the "deadly" roads are fixed because it is afraid tourists will be killed, the Meath Chronicle reported.