A round-up of today's Irish news stories in brief
Man jailed for heroin possession
A young Dublin man with no previous convictions has been given a seven year sentence with two suspended for possessing nearly €4 million of heroin in his car.
Daniel Davis (22) of Sandyhill Way, Ballymun, claimed he “jumped at the chance” to earn money to offset a €1,200 cocaine “bill” by transporting a sportsbag full of drugs from Navan Road Travelodge to a nearby pub carpark.
He said a “fella” had told him he’d be a rich man once the job was done.
Judge Katherine Delahunt described Davis as “a young man looking to make easy money” because he had a new Toyota Avensis car and the remainder of a personal injury claim to “discharge” his drug debt at the time.
She said Davis’s early guilty plea and co-operation with gardaí were “to his credit”, despite the aggravating factor of a financially motivated crime.
Davis pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing nearly 20kg of heroin worth €3,865,400 at the Halfway House pub on the Navan Road on July 7th, 2008.
Elderly urged to ask callers for ID
A number of elderly people in Dublin have fallen victim to a pair of thieves posing as local authority employees in recent weeks.
According to gardaí, one of the suspects calls to the door and distracts the resident, while a second person enters the house and steals any cash or valuables.
Gardaí are calling for elderly people to ask any callers to produce proof of their identity.
South Dublin County Council has also warned that bogus callers claiming to be checking water pressure are targeting residences in the Tallaght area.
They are urging residents to beware and to request identification from anyone claiming to be a council worker.
Dublin-based scientist honoured
A scientist working at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies has won a prestigious award from the American Astronomical Society.
Prof Felix Aharonian received the Rossi prize, the highest honour given by the astrophysics division of the society.
He shared the award with Werner Hoffmann, Heinz Voelk and others working on the Hess telescope, which detects high-energy particles that reach the upper atmosphere from deep space.
The institute announced the award yesterday.
Prof Aharonian is originally from Armenia. He is an astrophysicist who worked in Moscow, Yerevan, Chicago, Paris and Heidelberg before joining the institute in 2006.
Press Council seminar on privacy
The Press Council is hosting a seminar on the relationship between the press, the internet and privacy at Jury’s Western Hotel in Cork on Friday.
Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes, businessman Ben Dunne and Irish Daily Mirroreditor John Kierans are among the speakers at the seminar, which hopes to generate an exchange of views between members of the media and the public.
The seminar, which is free and open to the public, begins at 2pm.
New speed limits in south Dublin
A new speed limit structure for motorists in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area came in yesterday.
A 30km/h pilot scheme has been adopted in a number of areas in order to better match maximum speeds to local road conditions, the council said.
Several roads in Glencullen and Ballybrack have also seen their speed limits reduced from 80km/h to 50km/h.
The main N11 route from Foxrock church to Loughlinstown roundabout now has a speed limit of 80km/h which is an increase in some sections.