The number of Irish workers being sponsored by Australian companies rose in 2011. Figures released by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) show that Irish citizens were granted 3,100 primary 457 visas up to December 31 last year.
A Sydney District Court has awarded a Tyrone man over $350,000 in damages for injuries he sustained in an unprovoked attack outside a pub in December 2008. Patrick Crilly, 25, sued The Bumble Group, who employed a security guard working at the Moore View Park Hotel in Waterloo.
President Michael D Higgins will be urged to take the unprecedented step of calling a referendum if the Irish Government rules against a vote on the new European treaty. Amid claims Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his EU counterparts crafted the pact to avoid the electorate, 16 left-wing TDs vowed to lobby the former Labour man if a public vote is ruled out.
Well-known Irish businessman Mick Daly was laid to rest yesterday at Castle Hill Cemetery in north-west Sydney. Hundreds of friends, relatives, work mates and members of the Irish community packed into St Bernadette’s Catholic Church for the funeral mass. Concelebrant Fr Tom Devereux, Sydney’s Irish community chaplain, said that it was one of the largest gatherings of mourners he had seen.
Digital TV provider Sky has announced the creation of 800 jobs in Dublin. The company will open a customer contact centre in Burlington Plaza in the city centre in August. Recruitment is to start immediately and the positions are expected to be filled over the next two years.
Britain’s Conservative Party will set up a new party in Northern Ireland to deliver “mainstream, national politics”, it has been confirmed. Conservative Party co-chairman Andrew Feldman announced that the party had approved plans for the formation of the new Conservative and Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.
Some 25 EU nations have agreed upon a fiscal compact to bolster the euro by toughening the bloc’s budgetary rules. The UK and the Czech Republic are the only two members that will not sign up to the German-inspired pact.
A Meath woman living in Sydney has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition of her services to the community of Manly. Madeleine Le Surf, 72, is originally from Kells.
Events have been held to mark the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry. Relatives of the victims attended a memorial service at a monument in Derry’s Bogside.
Gardaí are investigating whether two former directors of an Irish nursing home were properly vetted before they were hired to work with elderly people in Melbourne.
