The Traveller Mediation Service is to visit a number of men in jail in an attempt to broker a peace deal between two feuding families which has resulted in five men being charged following armed clashes at a busy Cork supermarket.
In Cork District Court on Tuesday, Charlie Faulkner (18) of Meadow Park Avenue, Ballyvolane; Michael James Faulkner (26) of Garrydhu, Carrigaline; and Jamie O’Brien (33) of Ardmore Avenue, Knocknaheeny, all indicated through their solicitors they would reserve their applications for bail until they meet the mediation service.
All three are charged with violent disorder at Singleton’s Supervalu, Hollyhill, Cork on January 6th.
Solicitor Frank Buttimer, representing the two Faulkners said that his clients had agreed to meet Christopher McDonagh of the Traveller Mediation Service while on remand at Cork Prison.
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Shane Collins Daly, representing Mr O’Brien, said his client would also meet Mr McDonagh.
Mr Buttimer said the meetings were due to take place at Cork Prison on Thursday, but Mr McDonagh would need some time to prepare a report on the outcome. He suggested adjourning the matter until Monday.
Mr Collins Daly agreed, and Judge Mary Dorgan adjourned the matter until Monday but warned that the mediation process in the feud between the Faulkner and O’Brien families may need time to progress. She said the issue of granting bail to the three accused was separate to the mediation process.
Last week, Judge Dorgan queried reports that a peace deal had already been agreed between the two factions and she directed that Pavee Point be contacted and requested to verify the report and if they could not to that, to mediate in the dispute.
But when the matter was called on Tuesday, Mr Buttimer told Judge Dorgan that he had contacted Pavee Point who informed him that they no longer carried out mediation due to cuts in State funding and they referred him instead to the Traveller Mediation Service.
At last week’s hearing when the accused were first charged, Det Garda Aidan Forrest told the court that gardaí only learned of the reported peace deal after they had arrested Charlie Faulkner and four others on Friday morning.
Det Garda Forrest of Blarney Garda station had earlier outlined garda objections to Charlie Faulkner getting bail, saying that there was strong evidence against the accused as the incident at Supervalu Hollyhill in Cork on January 6th had been captured on CCTV.
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