A Murder inquiry is launched in Donegal after a shooting incident in Buncrana
A 24-year-old man has died following a shooting at a house near Buncrana in Co Donegal. The incident happened at Links View Park, Lisfannon The victim has been named locally as Andrew Allen
A murder inquiry has been launched after a 24-year-old man was shot dead near Buncrana in Donegal.
It is understood the victim, who was a father-of-two, was shot through a window of t a house at Links View Park in Lisfannon at around 9.20pm last night.
He has been named locally as Andrew Allen, who was from the ”Top of the Hill” area of the Waterside in Co Derry.
Mr Allen’s body remains at the scene, which has been preserved by gardaí pending the arrival of a State Pathologist and garda technical team.
A second scene has also been preserved a short distance away at Fahan, where gardaí found a car on fire shortly after the shooting.
An incident room has been set up at Buncrana Garda Station and gardaí are appealing to anyone with information to contact them.
Sinn Féin condemns attack
Sinn Féin has condemned the murder, which it says has caused shock in the border area.
“There is shock tonight in the community on hearing the news of the murder of this young man in Buncrana,” said Sinn Féin MLA for Foyle Raymond McCartney.
“His life has now been cut short and a family has now been plunged into grief and despair.”
Mr McCartney added: ”People north and south have rejected these actions; they need to stop immediately.
“I would appeal to anyone who noticed anything unusual or suspicious before or after the shooting to come forward to gardaí immediately.”
Galway ranked as ‘the least healty’ business environment in Ireland
’Refuted by Galway Chamber’
Galway Chamber has refuted claims that Galway was the county with the least healthy business environment in Ireland in 2011 as reported in an index survey.
Information services company Experian’s first ever Irish Business Health Index this week ranked Galway lowest of the 26 counties, with an index score of 114 and the highest percentage of companies in the high or maximum credit risk groups, with 52.47 per cent of companies falling into that category.
In determining the index, Experian claim to have analysed factors including credit ratings, and the number of businesses formed and dissolved in each county during 2011.
“Key variables that go into our credit scoring are such variables as strike-offs, struck-offs, legal notices, judgments, examinerships, satisfactions, liquidations, creditors meetings, receiverships, petitions and a few more,” said a spokesperson for the company.
These figures were then ranked against a national average to determine which counties had what the company called “a healthy business universe”.
With the national index score at 100 points, Galway’s score of 114 means it has a “higher proportion of businesses at risk of failure than any other county”.
However, Howard Lewis, Managing Director of Experian Ireland added that in today’s highly changeable financial market “a business that looks good today could be a risk tomorrow”.
Reacting to the survey, Galway Chamber CEO Michael Coyle pointed to the amount of startup activity in Galway City as a factor which may have skewed the results, placing Galway lower than other counties without a large city area.
“When you talk about startups and dissolutions…take a place like Galway, where you have lots of people starting up new businesses and not all of those businesses succeeding. The more startups you have, the more failures you have. Two startups and one failure will look great on this particular table; 220 startups and 180 failures won’t look as good,” said Mr Coyle.
He also called for further explanation of the formula used for the calculation of Experian’s index.
“There really isn’t too much to go on in terms of the basis on which this analysis was carried out. I’d like to know what all of those variables are. If you look at the year-on-year unemployment statistics, more often than not Galway is below the average.”
Google Plans its First Retail Store at the European Base in Dublin
Google Inc. plans its first stand- alone retail store at its European headquarters in Dublin after a trial at a computer shop in London as pic. above shows, according to a filing by the world’s most popular search engine.
The Google Store would be open to the public and sell unspecified Google merchandise, the company’s Irish unit said in a local planning application. Located in the Montevetro office block on Dublin’s Barrow Street, the store would have about 123 square meters (1,323 square feet) of space including an added mezzanine floor designed to draw attention from passersby.
Retail may be a new front in Google’s competition with Apple Inc., whose 361 stores have fueled sales of iPods, iPhones and iPad tablet computers. Google, the world’s biggest maker of smartphone operating software, is in the process of buying handset maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion to help it compete with Apple’s phones and Microsoft Corp.’s mobile software.
“We’ve not made any decisions, it’s simply a planning application,” the Mountain View, California-based company said today by e-mail. Google already has an online store selling merchandise such as t-shirts and pens, it said.
Google opened a store inside a London branch of Currys and PC World, units of Dixons Retail Plc, as a trial for selling laptop computers running the company’s Chromebook operating system, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in October.
Google Logo: Google has a store selling products with a Google logo at its headquarters in California, which isn’t open to the public. The company also offers merchandise at www.googlestore.com, featuring merchandise such as baby bibs and notebooks with the logo.
The planning application, prepared by consultants John Spain Associates for Google Ireland Inc., was approved by Dublin City Council on Jan. 23. The document also describes a staff swimming pool in an area designed for use as a restaurant.
Google plans to add a 53-square-meter mezzanine floor to the store space for use by “business partners and contributors” who visit and don’t need full access to the building, according to the document. “The unit will be clearly visible from the public street and will create additional interest and animation,” Google said in the filing.
The Dublin office is Google’s largest location outside of the U.S., according to the filing. Google bought the two buildings that make up its existing headquarters in March for an undisclosed price. It also leases space at two other properties in the area. It purchased the Montevetro site in April for about 100 million euros ($133 million) from Real Estate Opportunities Plc.
Dublin Expansion: Google will have more than 3,000 employees in the Dublin area after it expands into the building and refurbishes its existing headquarters across the street, according to the document.
The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust arm, will rule on the Motorola Mobility deal by Feb. 13 and can either clear it or open an in-depth probe. Mobile phone subscriptions in Ireland increased to 5.4 million through June, up from 5.27 million in the previous quarter, according to the government’s Commission for Communications Regulation. The population was 4.58 million last year, according to census figures.
Clannad’s Moya Brennan
Sings to Ireland’s emigrants in a online concert in Donegal
Clannad singer Moya Brennan who was among 200 people who gathered at a Co Donegal hotel last night to take part in a live online concert.
The live traditional ‘Donegal Gathering’ broadcast was the brainchild of Mayor Noel McBride who is hoping to reconnect the county with ‘our wider family overseas.’
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Clannad singer Moya told viewers on the website livetrad.com: “I am pleased to be part of the Gathering and it is really important to me because I am a real Donegal lass. I’ve never been shy about talking about my home county when I’m abroad.”
Mayor McBride hopes the Donegal Diaspora Project will help people from the county who have gone abroad keep in touch with home, and help to generate jobs back here.
“This was the first thing I set out to do when I was elected Mayor last year,” he said.
“Our diaspora is huge. I want to link with our Donegal family from Culdaff to California from Milford to Montreal through what is a tourism initiative.
“We want people to come home for their holidays and that applies to people whose parents or grandparents have connections to the county.”
Politicians from all parties were at the Radisson Hotel in Letterkenny to support the Fine Gael mayor as email messages of support came in from Tehran, Auckland , New York, Sydney,Hong Kong and all over Europe.
Sarah Meehan from the project added: “We are showcasing events throughout the year and adding to them to help put Donegal on the tourism map and tap into the tens of thousands of people overseas who have a connection to the county.”
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