Articles in the General News Category

PETER HUGHES A member of Co Monaghan Joint Policing Committee told a meeting of the body on Tuesday that she was almost run off the road by speeding motorists while she was making a potentially lifesaving journey to transport blood to a hospital. Community representative on the JPC Linda Moore, who is a Controller with the Cú Chulainn Blood Bikes service, said that she was recently on an emergency blood run and was travelling at the speed permissible to the service but on three occasions she was nearly moved off ...

The members of the Monaghan Municipal District are to seek a meeting with representatives of the Uisce Éireann utility (formerly Irish Water) in an effort to expedite progress on sewerage connections to parts of Monaghan Town where significant lands for potential housing and other development are located. The MD members agreed the strategy at their monthly meeting last Monday, when calls were also made on Uisce Éireann to speed up assessments necessary for the process of the taking in charge by the local authority of housing estates to be completed. ...

PETER HUGHES Local councillors in Monaghan want answers as to why promised ambulance service improvements for the county have never materialised. At the time of the controversy over the downgrading of Monaghan General Hospital, there was much talk of enhanced ambulance service provision – of ambulances with midwives and ambulances with paramedics – that would cushion the blow of the hospital being stripped of services. While there was disagreement at Monday’s meeting of the Monaghan Municipal District as to whether this talk took the form of firm commitments or mere ...

Both the Ardee to Castleblayney and Clontibret to the Border road development projects have been included in the 2023 national road allocations which were announced by Transport Infrastructure Ireland on Thursday last. The Ardee-Castleblayney upgrade is to receive €600,000 to meet current project commitments. The Clontibret-Border project will get €2.5 million for planning and design, in the form of match funding for a Trans-European Transport Network or TEN-T grant from the EU. Monaghan Co Council has made a funding application to the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility which is being supported ...

When in Rome… Threemilehouse has become something of a personal fitness and wellbeing Mecca in recent times thanks to judicious investment from Government Department funding streams to enhance the community offering made by Seán MacDiarmada GFC and the Kilmore and Drumsnatt Sports Activity Hub. So a tour of the village for local politicians who visited on Friday had to include a stop-off at the recently installed outdoor exercise equipment, which several of the guests felt obliged to try out. Our photograph by Rory Geary shows, from left: Cavan/Monaghan TD Matt ...

Monaghan folk-acoustic musician Ryan Sheridan has been announced as winner of the Overall Grand Prize, and the prize for Best Male Artist, at the 19th annual IAMA or International Acoustic Music Awards. The singer-songwriter, who started his career as a busker on the streets of Dublin, said he was “shocked, humbled and deeply grateful” at his awards success. “It is an incredible honour to be recognised among such musical talent,” he stated. Ryan won the overall award for his song Fine Wine, which has been released digitally and is due ...

National refugee and migrant rights organisation Doras said this week that a recent anti-refugee protest in Cootehill, as well as similar events in other parts of the country, were “fuelled by misinformation and fear-mongering that exploit people’s legitimate concerns”. Doras CEO John Lannon called on local citizens, community groups and politicians to come together to counter what he described as “the scourge of hatred and division”. Responding to statements made at the recent Cootehill protest, Mr Lannon said he understood that many people felt let down by the Government but ...

The implementation of future road safety measures in Co Monaghan should take particular account of pedestrians, Sinn Féin representative Noel Keelan urged at Monday’s meeting of Monaghan Co Council. Of the 40 people who lost their lives during 2013-2020 on Co Monaghan roads, 20% were pedestrians, it was stated in the Co Monaghan Road Safety Plan for 2023-2024 which was presented to the meeting by Road Safety Officer Adrian O’Sullivan. The report stated: “Pedestrians are one of the most vulnerable groups of road users, particularly older people. Census data (2016) ...

Funding of €16,222,270 has been allocated to Monaghan Co Council to invest in the maintenance and strengthening of regional and local roads in 2023, it was announced this week. The announcement was made the day following Monday’s monthly meeting of the local authority, during which some concern was voiced by the elected membership that the Council still had not yet been notified of the funding it was due to receive for national roads expenditure in the current year. The grants for non-national road expenditure detailed on Tuesday include €7,681,500 for ...

By Veronica Corr This week, Nuremore Hotel management were hopeful that all wages outstanding would be in their accounts as we went to press today, Thursday, February 15th. Hotel management and a spokesperson for International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS), both stated that the hotel was not earmarked for Direct Provision. On Monday, February 13th, the management of the Nuremore Hotel issued the following statement to The Northern Standard newspaper: “The hotel management deeply regret that staff wages are not paid on time, however, wages are not processed in-house, but a ...