Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Serving Cork for 120 years
Edition No: 36474
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Tributes for peacemaker McGuinness
Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness share a joke. Kyle Paisley, Ian’s son, today paid tribute to McGuinness..
Hurler caught with €750,000 cocaine ■ By Fiona Ferguson A TALENTED Cork hurler caught bringing more than €750,000 of cocaine into Dublin Airport from Brazil has been jailed for five years. Cian Leahy, aged 26, wrote a letter of apology to the court in which he described how during his time on remand in Cloverhill Prison he had seen the damage done by drugs and said that he was grateful that the cocaine he was transporting never hit the streets. Leahy of Waterloo House, Blarney, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of cocaine for sale or supply at Dublin Airport on June 27, 2016. He has five minor previous convictions. ■ Continued on Page 2.
New unit encourages reporting
The statistics were presented by Chief Superintendent Barry McPolin at yesterday’s meeting of the Cork City Joint Policing Committee. The city’s top cop presented data which shows that between December and February there were reports of 27 sexual assaults and 10 reports of rape. This was then compared to substantially lower figures for the
same three month period for the previous year — between December 2015 and February 2016 there were 15 reports of sexual assaults and five reports of rape. While Chief Supt McPolin said the figures are “of concern” to the gardaí, he said that some of the reports are historical instances that have only just been reported. He said that over the last few months, gardaí have ramped up ef-
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lieve that peace must prevail, he committed himself to working tirelessly to that end,” said the Taoiseach. “Martin was one of the chief architects of the Good Friday Agreement and he worked resolutely in the years that followed it in pursuit of its full implementation. I got to know Martin well in recent years, including through our working together in the North South Ministerial Council.” Among those to pay tribute to Mr McGuinness was Kyle Paisely, the son of the late Ian Paisley, who said he was always grateful for the care that Mr McGuinness showed his father while he was ill. ■ See Pages 2 and 3.
THE number of people reporting sexual assaults and rape is on the rise in Cork city, according to new figures.
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■ Audrey Ellard Walsh
Sex attacks up
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MARTIN McGuinness was today remembered as one of Ireland’s great political leaders who made an immense contribution to ending The Troubles that had devastated Northern Ireland. Mr McGuinness, aged 66, died early this morning at Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital with his family by his bedside. The former IRA leader turned peacemaker worked at the heart of the power-sharing government following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he was deeply saddened to hear of his death today. “His passing represents a significant loss, not only to politics in Northern Ireland but to the wider political landscape on this island and beyond. “Martin will always be remembered for the remarkable political journey that he undertook in his lifetime. Not only did he come to be-
■ Kelly O’Brien
forts to get people to report such crimes, even if they are in the past. “We are encouraging people to report incidents. We have also established, over the past six or seven months, here in Cork, a special Protective Services Unit which is running in tandem with a national initiative to tackle crimes like sexual assault,” he said. “You can see we’ve obviously been very successful at encouraging people to come forward to report crimes, and a lot of the crimes
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being reported are historic in nature, which has no doubt added to the increase in the figures.” The new Protective Services Unit is part of a pilot project currently operating in three areas of the country. Here the unit, which is made up of specially trained personnel, will deal with every case of sexual abuse, child abuse, or domestic abuse reported to gardaí in the Cork city division. Similar units are being set up in Dublin and Louth and, if successful, the programme will be rolled out to other areas. ■ Continued on Page 2.
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