February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
In recent weeks Aer Lingus has been serving Shannon with a flight that stopped over at the County Clare airport en route to Dublin.
That service will continue but will be augmented by the Shannon-only flight. The third flight out of Kennedy Airport is the daily non-stop to Dublin.
“We’re back to normal,” an Aer Lingus spokeswoman said.
The reduction in service followed a collision on the ground between two Aer Lingus A330 aircraft after what three separate inquiries into the incident described as a “freak gust” of wind.
One plane suffered relatively light damage but the second took almost three weeks to repair.
Aer Lingus said that both aircraft were properly parked, chocked and braked. Nevertheless, the wind was severe enough to push one into the other.
IRISHMAN AIDING
CHICAGO PROBE
A County Galway man has been indicted in a federal investigation of a scandal-plagued city trucking program in Chicago.
Martin McDonagh, who’s 36 and from Connemara, is one of a number of individuals named in a federal indictment made public last week. The indictment stems from an investigation of the city’s Hired Truck Program launched by Mayor Richard Daley.
The $38 million-a-year program distributed city contracts to private truckers.
Federal prosecutors allege that companies were given business under the program in return for kickbacks and campaign contributions to political candidates.
The program was run by a former gang member who became prominent in a Hispanic political group formed by Mayor Daley.
The indictment also names a former mob bookie, Nick LoCoco, who once supervised the program and who died in a riding accident last year.
Also named is a former city employee named John Boyle. Boyle, known as “Quarters Boyle,” was convicted in 1992 for stealing $4 million in change from Chicago area toll stops.
The indictment also names a Chicago Alderman and McDonagh, a concrete contractor, who allegedly paid money in 2003 to secure a slot in the lucrative program at a time when the city was not accepting any new applicants.
McDonagh is cooperating with the federal investigation, his attorney, Corey Rubenstein, told the Chicago Sun Times.
PLEA FOR
MCALLISTERS
A New Jersey congressman has made a direct plea to President Bush on behalf of Malachy McAllister and his family.
Rep. Scott Garrett, A Republican representing the state’s fifth district, said that he did not believe that onetime INLA member Malachy McAllister, or his family, posed a threat to national security.
“I request that you give every appropriate consideration within United State law and policy to suspending the ongoing deportation proceedings of Mr. McAllister and his family,” Garrett wrote the president.
McAllister’s wife, Bernadette, died of cancer last year.
FBI DETAINS
IRISHMAN IN L.A.
THE FBI has detained a Galway native in California on charges alleging unlawful export of defense items to Russia.
Denis Sugrue, who lives in Moscow, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the Irish Independent.
The paper reported that Sugrue had been “tailed for a week by FBI special agents around Silicon Valley” where he met with various technology companies.
Sugrue is a partner with his brother Eoin in a Limerick-based telecommunications company, Amideon Systems. Eoin Sugrue said he was confident that his brother would be fully exonerated.
The FBI seized a package being sent by Sugrue to Amideon Systems. The FBI said it contained high-tech equipment that the bureau alleges can be used to assist in the sending and interception of signals known as carrier waves.
Calls to the FBI office in Los Angeles and the Irish Consulate in San Francisco had not been returned by presstime.