At Ennis District Court, Judge Patrick Durcan said 20-year-old Jonathan Shane O’Donoghue, of Bog Road, Tulla, Co Clare, should carry out 120 hours’ community work for the offence.

At the court hearing prior to yesterday, Judge Durcan said that he had “in mind a lengthy prison sentence” for O’Donoghue who pleaded guilty in connection with the disappearance of the 15 steel manhole covers from the Ennis to Gort motorway.

He said O’Donoghue was caught “red-handed” when gardaí saw him remove a manhole cover from motorway works and put it in a van on March 5, 2014, at Tubber.

Garda Catriona Mangan said O’Donoghue “claimed that he met a man at the side of the motorway and this man told him he could buy all the manhole covers from Ennis to Gort and he had permission to take them”.

She said O’Donoghue told her the man also arranged to sell him two tonnes of cats’ eyes and this was included in the €110 price.

Yesterday, solicitor John Casey, said his client had suffered “embarrassment and humiliation”.

He said the case has hit O’Donoghue — a member of the travelling community with no previous convictions — very hard.

However, Inspector Tom Kennedy, who described O’Donoghue as “a cunning thief”, said “the taking of manhole covers shows total cheek of the highest order”.