Dumping disgrace, tribute to Joe and landmark housing - April 2024 Laois news review

Hard working  Clean Up Laois Week volunteers discovered a shocking site of mass illegal dumping in Mountmellick early in the month.

Over 100 black refuse bags filled with rubbish were found in the ditch beside the Portarlington approach road into Mountmellick.

The discovery was made on Saturday, April 6 by a group that included Mountmellick Tidy Towns chairperson Kitty Creighton, and local teenagers carrying out community work to attain their Gaisce  Award medals.

Kitty spoke to the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

“We are absolutely shocked and disgusted. It’s an ocean of waste,” she said.

There was good news on the jobs front in Portlaoise where retail giant Tesco opened a new supermarket on the Mountmellick Road in the Fairgreen Retail Park at Gandon Court. 

Tesco confirmed to the Leinster Express / Laois Live   more than 40 jobs in the unit that was formerly occupied by Iceland.

Meanwhile, the draft local area plan for  Portlaoise Local Area Plan 2024-2027 went on public display listing a range of targets for the town.

It predicted that Portlaoise would grow to some 26,400 residents by 2027, a huge jump from the 12,000 who lived there in 2002.

A special tribute was paid to Joe Drennan at a journalism awards ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin on Wednesday, April 10.  The former fourth-year University of Limerick journalism student from Knocknagad, Camross, died in a hit and run in Limerick on October 13, 2023. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

He had been the Editor of the University’s newspaper. There was a standing ovation at the awards in the Mansion House after it was announced that from next year, the Journalism Relating to Road Safety Award would be renamed The Joe Drennan Award for Journalism Relating to Road Safety. 

A Garda investigation was launched after multiple cars were reportedly smashed by rocks thrown off an M7 motorway bridge at the Borris-in-Ossory Junction 21 exit on April 20.

Gerry Kelly, who lives in Portlaoise, was hit just as he arrived to the area, to rescue a family whose car had also been smashed, as part of his job in a motorway breakdown rescue service.

"There were people dropping rocks onto cars, not stones, rocks,” he said.

The sod was officially turned at the multi-million euro redevelopment of Portlaoise Presentation convent and it  "couldn't come at a better time", said Sr Francis Crowe, a former resident of the convent.

Sr Crowe was speaking to the Leinster Express/Laois Live during a visit by Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien to the county for the launch of the  Church Avenue 52 social homes project. 

 "We're 25 years trying to offer this site for social housing, and for all the obstacles and difficulties that we encountered, we're only getting there now. But maybe it was never a better time," said Sr Crowe.