Judge activates sentence after 'jail or job' warning

A settled Traveller who previously had been warned by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court judge “it’s jail or a job” has had a suspended sentence reactivated after he failed to get work in the last four years.

Martin McDonagh (aged 36) had received an 18-month sentence from Judge Donagh McDonagh in June 2007 after he pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Dr Stephen Lynch at Tallaght Hospital on November 8, 2004.

McDonagh had thrown a chair at the accident and emergency doctor while he was being treated for cuts to his face.

Judge McDonagh had ordered McDonagh of Bawnlea Green, Tallaght, in December 2006 to have “a permanent and meaningful job” and proof of employment before his sentence was finalised.

Mr Kieran Kelly BL, defending, told Judge McDonagh at the sentence hearing the following June that his client had secured employment with the Tallaght Travellers Youth Service.

Judge McDonagh then imposed an 18-month sentence which he suspended for five years on condition that McDonagh stay in this employment or get a better paid job during this period. He also ordered that he engage with the probation service and attend for regular appointments.

Mr Kelly told Judge McDonagh today that McDonagh never actually started that job.

Mary Trainor, probation officer, told Ms Marie Torrens BL, prosecuting, that McDonagh had also failed to attend for scheduled appointments with her and had not turned up for meetings for the purpose of compiling a report.

She agreed with Mr Kelly that McDonagh was a father of eight and said she was aware that he had attended a psychiatric clinic but added that specialists there concluded that he did not have a psychiatric illness.

She told Mr Kelly that his client was extremely difficult to interview. “It depends on his mood if he will engage with you or not,” Ms Trainor said.

Mr Kelly told Judge McDonagh that his client is now in custody again after he pleaded guilty to a road traffic offence at the District Court.

Judge McDonagh told Mr Kelly that McDonagh had “cocked a snook at you, me, the prosecution and everyone else” before he said he would not review his sentence from June 2007 and reactivated the suspended term.