Community rallies to victims’ relatives aid

COASTAL communities had raised €17,000 by last night to help those affected by the sinking of doomed Kinsale trawler, the Honeydew II.

The Kinsale Trawler Tragedy Fund was set up on Tuesday to help Annetta, the wife of missing crewman, Tomasz Jagla, and their two children.

Mr Jagla, and Honeydew II skipper, Ger Bohan, have been missing since their boat sank off Mine Head on

January 11.

But fund spokesman, Virgil Horgan, said organisers had been overwhelmed by peoples’ generosity in such a short time.

Money is flooding in from all over the country, he said.

While the focus of the fund is on helping Ms Jagla and her family, Mr Horgan said money would also be used to support Viktor Lozev and Vladimir Kostyr, the two Lithuanians who were rescued from a liferaft.

Ms Jagla travelled from Kinsale to Dunmore East yesterday as the search for the body of her husband and that of Mr Bohan continued.

Several buses and cars ferried almost 60 people from Kinsale. They were joined by up to 100 others in Dunmore East, who together with members of the Irish Coast Guard, scoured miles of cliffs, beaches and coastline between Dungarvan and Rosslare Harbour.

But no new items of debris were found, Irish Coast Guard coordinator Chris Reynolds, said.

Bad weather prevented boats from resuming the sea search. And with strong gales forecast to continue today, the recovery operation isn’t expected to resume until this afternoon or tomorrow at the earliest.

The Irish Lights vessel, the Granuaile, is expected to return to an area off Hook Head early next week to act as a diving platform for naval divers, hoping to gain entry to the wreck of the Pere Charles, which is lying in about 35 metres of water.

They are hoping to find the bodies of its skipper Tom Hennessy, his uncle Pat Hennessy, Billy O’Connor, Pat Coady and Andriy Dyrin, from Ukraine, who were all lost when their vessel sank on its way back to port at

Dunmore East at about 6pm on January 10.

The Kinsale Trawler Tragedy Fund has been opened at AIB, Kinsale. The Account number is 04161182.

Meanwhile, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has announced that it is offering a free and confidential counselling and support service to anyone in those local communities who has been affected by the recent tragedies at sea.

From today counsellors will be available to listen, offer support, advice and information, daily, from 12 noon to 4pm.

The trained counsellors will offer a ‘drop-in’ service at the Ocean Hotel, Dunmore East. In Kinsale anyone who feels they would like to make use of the service can do so, in complete confidence, by calling a HSE counsellor on 0872995913.