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 One person has been arrested following a Garda drink-driving checkpoint set up in Thurles.
To date this year 152 people have been arrested for drunk driving, in comparison to 148 in the same comparative period last year.
Here in Thurles, 149 vehicles passed through the checkpoint, with 102 drivers being breath tested, resulting in just one suspected arrest.
The high visibility checks are understood to have been set up as part of a roads operation begun late last year called Operation Surround, where Gardaí have promised to conduct Mandatory Alcohol Testing (MAT) checkpoints, targeting intoxicated drivers particularly at weekends, throughout the country.
In Waterford, 612 vehicles passed through Garda checkpoints, with almost 400 breath tests conducted, resulting in one person being detained.
Checkpoints were also mounted overnight in areas of Kerry and Limerick, but no drivers were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.
 A Co Clare developer who was found guilty of raping a Brazilian woman, he had solicited to clean his house in Tipperary, has been sentenced to 7.5 years in jail, with the final 3.5 years of the sentence suspended, after a judge stated that he could not “buy himself out” of a custodial sentence.
The father-of-four named as Mr Thomas Egan, aged 47, of Cahermurphy, Kilmihil, Co Clare, paid over €10,000 in court, same to be forwarded to his victim, latter who has since returned to her native Brazil.
Mr Justice Barry White, noted that Mr Egan had previous to this event an“unblemished record” apart from a minor road traffic offence.
Mr Egan was originally convicted last May by a jury at the Central Criminal Court, of raping the 23-year-old woman at a house in Tipperary on July 5th 2010. Mr Egan had denied the charge of rape, but had admitted having sex with the woman, informing Gardaí that the act was consensual and that she had not shown any fear.
Mr Egan is understood to have approached the victim on a street in Gort, Co Galway and asked her to clean a house. They had travelled to the house in Tipperary in his car and he had set out a number of cleaning tasks for her to undertake.
Sexual advances then made to the victim left the woman afraid to say ‘no’ to him for fear it would make matters worse and afterwards the woman, having replaced her clothing, had asked him to drive her home. The following day, she made a complaint about the incident to Gardaí.
Defence Counsel put it to the court that the woman did not put up any resistance. He also stated that Mr Egan was prepared to offer further sums to the victim of €5,000 a year for three years, with the first payment to take place in December. The court was informed that Mr Egan would not be able to follow through on these additional payments if his circumstances were altered by his being sent to prison.
The judge directed that €50.00 given by Mr Egan to the woman, at the time of the offence, be sent to the St Vincent de Paul.
 A Tipperary dairy farmer, who stands accused of assault, may face even more serious charges, according to a Gardaí Sergeant attending Tipperary District Court.
Mr Pat Quirke with an address at Breanshamore has been charged with assault causing harm to Mrs Mary Lowry, a widowed mother of three and the former partner of Mr Bobby Ryan, whose remains were located in a disused slurry tank last year.
The 44 year old is also accused of burglary and the handling of stolen goods at Fawnagown, on December 3rd, 2012.
As stated, the alleged victim of this accused assault was the former partner of Mr Bobby Ryan, latter a father of two, who had been missing since June 3rd, 2011, having left his home shortly after 6:00am to go to work at Killough Quarry, close to Thurles.
Mr Bobbie Ryan was subsequently located by the now accused, who alerted Gardaí, following his discovery of human remains at Fawnagowen in April of last year. The accused had been leasing farmland from Mrs Lowry, whose husband Martin had died previously in 2007.
The hearing has now been adjourned until next May, while Gardaí await the directions of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on the matter.
 Five people have been arrested by Gardaí, from the Tipperary, Limerick and Clare Garda divisions, following investigations into organised crime and burglaries in the Limerick region.
Of those arrested, four are men aged between 19 and 27 years old and one female understood to be just 17 years old. All suspects were detained this morning following a series of searches in the counties of Tipperary and Limerick.
These arrests came about as part of Operation Fiacla, a Garda plan put in place some two years ago, which has proven extremely successful at gathering intelligence on travelling gangs that traverse the motorways around Ireland, carrying out often large scale burglaries.
The five are now understood to be detained separately at Nenagh, Roxboro Road, Newcastle West, Henry Street and Shannon Garda Stations.
Operation Fiacla was instigated initially following a continued period in which burglaries continued to rise significantly, despite a decline in almost all other forms of crime, since the onset of the Irish recession.
 Revenue Commissioners The Revenue Commissioners have yesterday (03/01/2014) become aware of fraudulent emails. Same purport to come from Revenue and seek personal information from taxpayers in connection with supposed tax refunds.
These ‘phishing’ emails may be headed ‘Notice of Tax Return,’ ‘Tax Return for year 2013,’ or ‘Notice of Tax Refund.’
Phishing (Pronounced Fishing) is a scam where bogus emails are sent to people in order to trick them into revealing personal or financial information. If an unwary person follows a link in the email, they will be taken to a fake web page, which will try to trick them into entering personal information such as a PIN, a password, a PPS number or other bank account information. That information may then be used in various ways, e.g. to apply for credit card in the person’s name, or write cheques from their bank account.
Phishing emails may pretend to come from various government departments such as Revenue, Social Welfare, Banks, Credit Card companies and Online Shops. They may contain what appears to be realistic logos and very official sounding text. They may even carry a warning about phishing.
Note: Revenue officials are forbidden to send emails which require their customers to send personal information via email or pop-up windows. Any person therefore who receives such an email which purports to be from a government department like Revenue and suspect that same is fraudulent or a scam should simply delete it the content from their mailbox. Anyone who is currently awaiting a tax refund should now contact their local Revenue Office to check its present status immediately.
Note: Anyone who may have already foolishly provided such personal information in response to these fraudulent emails, should now contact their bank or credit card company immediately.
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