by Andrew Carey
FIANNA Fáil Justice spokesperson Niall Collins petitioned a Circuit court judge not to jail a Castleconnell drugs dealer because of concerns over the welfare of his children following the tragic death of his wife earlier this year.
Hugo Porter (40) was caught coming from a field in Castleconnell with a quantity of pre-bagged cannabis ready for individual sale while his friend, Alan Lysaght (39), from Scanlon Park in Castleconnell, waited in his jeep checking off a list of customers.
They both pleaded guilty to the drugs offences and made admissions to Gardaí during interviews after their arrest.
At the sentencing hearing earlier this week, Judge Carroll Moran was told that the Porter’s wife died tragically last January and he was now the sole carer of his four children aged 10, 9, 6 and 5.
Castleconnell-based Peace Commissioner Frank Ryan said that Hugo Porter was a terrific father to his four children since their mother died. It was a tragic outcome and the whole village had rallied around them in support.
A letter from Limerick Fianna Fáil TD, Niall Collins, who is his party’s spokesperson for Justice, was handed to to Judge Moran but prosecution counsel John O’Sullivan asked that the court would not “attach any weight to a letter sent from a public representative”.
He said that while it was once common practice, it had thankfully stopped. Independent of the letter, the court had enough evidence to consider what is appropriate”.
Judge Moran said that sentencing the two men had a considerable amount of difficulty attached to it, as he was being “asked to differentiate between the two men and their circumstances, even though they had been described as working in tandem”.
Lysaght was jailed for three years with the final year suspended and the sentence backdated to last January.
Adjourning Porter’s sentencing, Judge Moran said he had to consider the possible activation of a suspended sentence for a previous assault case and an appropriate sentence for the drugs charge.
The case was adjourned until October 10 with the judge saying that Porter was “not out of the woods yet”.
