Latest news with #Tramore
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Tramore community rally around Albanian family facing deportation
Dozens of parents and children gathered under the hot July sunshine on Saturday morning in the seaside town of Tramore calling on the Minister for Justice not to deport an Albanian family and to grant them permission to remain on humanitarian grounds . Students from Tramore Educate Together national school, including classmates of Luna, the six-year-old daughter of the family, took part in the rally outside Ocean View Guest House, where the family has lived since they moved to Co Waterford in 2022. The family has been told they must return to Albania by the end of August or they will be removed from the State. Participants in Saturday's rally chanted 'deportation no way, we want our friends to stay' and held up posters with messages including 'trá mór, grá mór' and 'our friends belong here'. 'The fact that we're rallying support around a six-year-old is horrendous,' said parent and organiser Aoife O'Driscoll. 'Our kids are sitting around making posters to stop her being taken away. It's lovely but it's awful.' READ MORE Ms O'Driscoll launched a campaign for the family last week after discovering her child's classmate had received a deportation notice. Nearly all the parents in the 180-pupil school have since offered their support for the family, says Ms O'Driscoll. 'Luna's entire life is in Tramore, her friends are in Tramore. We saw her running out of school recently with Réalt na Seachtaine for the best Irish that week. She doesn't know any of this is happening.' Luna's mother, who requested not to be named, says the family was 'forced to leave' Albania in 2022 because of threats to their safety. They were particularly concerned for their daughter due to the risk of child trafficking, she said. 'We heard Ireland was safe and it was very far from Albania. I was sure that person looking for us would not find our family here,' she said. 'No one wants to talk badly about their country of origin but Albania is not safe.' Albania is one of 15 jurisdictions designated as safe countries of origin by the State for the purposes of international protection applications. The family spent a few months in the Balseskin accommodation centre in Finglas, Dublin, before being transferred to Tramore in late 2022. Parents and students from Tramore Educate Together National School on calling on Saturday for an Albanian family not to be deported. Photograph: Aoife O'Driscoll They were refused permission to remain and were notified in April they had to leave Ireland by May 17th, 2025. They secured an extension until the end of August because Luna's younger brother, who was born in Ireland with complex medical needs and underwent surgery earlier this year, had a hospital appointment in July. The mother, who worked as an English-language teacher in Albania, works as a cleaner and her husband is in construction. The suspense of not knowing what will happen to her children 'is killing me', she says. 'I'm trying to be strong but there are days I feel I cannot breathe, you feel your time is ending. Sometimes I just want to give up but I have to go on for my children. It's not their fault that we had problems and were forced to leave Albania.' The Tramore Educate Together parents association contacted the Department of Justice on July 1st, saying its decision to deport the family 'knowingly put a child's life at risk'. The two-year-old 'requires complex care that will simply not be available to him should this family be deported', read the letter. The family have 'built a life' in Tramore and deporting them will 'inflict irreparable trauma on each of them', it said. An petition , signed by more than 500 people, calls on the Government to treat the family's situation with 'the nuanced, discerning approach that is required when human lives are at stake'. A Department of Justice spokesman said officials 'aim to process families in a holistic manner' but 'a child's immigration case is highly dependent on the status of their parents'. He added: 'Each child's circumstances are examined in detail before a deportation order is made and voluntary return is offered.' If families do not engage with gardaí and leave the State within a prescribed time frame, 'they can be arrested and detained in order to make the arrangements for their deportation,' he said, adding that 'children are never detained'. Enforced removals of children are only carried out 'as a measure of last resort when the family concerned has not removed themselves from the State as they are legally required to'. Some 106 people have been deported from Ireland on chartered flights so far this year, while 69 were removed on commercial airlines and another 30 people left unescorted. These included 106 Georgians, 36 Nigerians, 18 Brazilians, seven Algerians and five Albanians, according to Government data. Thirteen of those deported so far this year were children. Last week, Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said he had no plans to cease the deportation of children. 'Any such policy would make Ireland an outlier in Europe and could encourage more people to come here with children, knowing that they could not be removed regardless of the outcome of their case,' he told the Dáil.
BreakingNews.ie
3 days ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Funeral of man who died in Waterford collision to be held on Tuesday as man remanded on bail
A funeral service for a father-of-four who died in a road collision in Co Waterford last week is to be held on Tuesday. Michael O'Sullivan (55) of Cullencastle, Tramore, died last Friday at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) as a result of injuries he sustained when the motorbike he was travelling on collided with a jeep. Advertisement The collision occurred in Tramore at 7.35pm in the Cullencastle area of Tramore. Mr O'Sullivan's Requiem Mass will be held at 10am at The Church of the Holy Cross, Tramore. A private cremation will take place on Wednesday, July. He is survived by his wife Lillian, his son Nicholas, his daughters Fiona, Heather and Rebecca; and his treasured grandchildren Mya, Maisie, Dolly, Frankie, Gustav, James, Katie and Finn. The O'Sullivan family thanked all the emergency services, medical carers and all the staff in UHW in funeral details on Meanwhile, a 67-year-old man was remanded on bail, charged with alleged dangerous driving causing death in relation to last Wednesday's crash. John Fitzgibbon, with an address in New York City, appeared before a special sitting of Waterford District Court on Friday night. Judge John Cheatle set bail at €10,000 cash to be presented to the court on Tuesday. Bail was granted on the guarantee that both Mr Fitzgibbon's Irish and his American passports be handed into the court. Mr Fitzgibbon was also ordered to reside in Co Waterford until the conclusion of court proceedings.
BreakingNews.ie
6 days ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Man (60s) arrested after Waterford crash leaves motorcyclist in critical condition
A man has been arrested after a road crash in Co Waterford left a motorcyclist fighting for his life. The collision between a car and a motorbike happened at about 7.40pm on Wednesday at Monvoy in Tramore. Advertisement The motorcyclist, who is aged in his 50s, is in a critical condition at University Hospital Waterford. Gardaí said the driver of the car, who is in his 60s, has been detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. The road remains closed with diversions in place. Gardaí are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
President Trump and the peace prize
Sir, – I turned on the radio this morning to hear a voice telling me that Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu had nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. I wondered which comedian had come up with this line, but to my amazement, this was the news. I would have laughed, except that I was crying. – Yours, etc, DR TERESA GRAHAM, Tramore, READ MORE Co Waterford.
BreakingNews.ie
15-06-2025
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Swimmer rescued off Waterford coast after being heard shouting for help
An exhausted swimmer who got into difficulty off the Co Waterford coast is recovering after an ordeal which lasted several hours. Tramore RNLI managed to rescue the swimmer in the early hours of Saturday morning in Tramore Bay. Advertisement The lifeboat came to the aid of the swimmer after the crew received a report from the Irish Coast Guard that an exhausted swimmer was in trouble and was seen clinging to rocks in the bay. The inshore lifeboat was launched a short time later with three crew members onboard. The crew found the swimmer submerged in water and holding on to a rock surrounded by water, exhausted and unable to return to shore close to the Guillamene platform in Tramore Bay. A passerby heard the swimmer shouting for help, and made an emergency call to the Coast Guard. The swimmer was subsequently brought to shore by the lifeboat crew and taken by ambulance to University Hospital Waterford (UHW) for treatment.
