INTIMIDATION, anti-social behaviour in Ennistymon plus a lack of Garda resources across North Clare have been brought to the attention of the Minister for Justice.
During his visit to Co Clare on Friday, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan (FF) spoke at the President’s lunch of Ennis Chamber after attending meetings at garda stations in Ennistymon and Ennistymon. He was joined by Superintendent John Ryan.
Retailers from Ennistymon outlined growing anti-social behaviour problems when meeting the Minister in the conference room at Ennistymon Garda Station on Friday morning.
Clare TD, Cathal Crowe (FF), Senator Martin Conway along with North Clare councillors, Bill Slattery (FG), Joe Garrihy (FG), Shane Talty (FF) and Joe Killeen (FF) were present for the briefing where the need for a stronger more visible policing presence in North Clare was also stressed.
Concerns on anti-social behaviour, intimidation of local business owners, the loss of community Garda Deirdre Scanlan and the failure to replace her plus the recent thefts of six cars in Ennistymon were all flagged with Minister O’Callaghan.
Cllr Talty told The Clare Echo the main focus of the meeting was to put the issues on the ground across in the hope they would be taken on board to impact Garda management decisions with the allocation of more resources in the coming months and years. “It was important for local businesses to know they got a listening ear of both the Minister and more practically the Superintendent himself, they were happy to get that opportunity and reflect as broad as possible the issues affecting North and West Clare, it is the same in East Clare and Shannon what people are experiencing in the sense that there is less and less Garda visibility”.
“Locally there has been anti-social behaviour and intimidation over the last number of months and a spike in car thefts, we have the usual issues of rural crimes and burglaries, opportunistic yard thefts and a fear of gangs coming from further afield at night a time and running amok from location to location,” Cllr Talty added.
Anti-social behaviour has “escalated a little bit,” the postmaster noted. “I can’t say I’ve had a terrible bad experience but it has escalated in darker winter months and there is an element of fear and the stress around closing shops in evening time in particular some of the female shop owners and staff are feeling more vulnerable where youths were loitering and gesturing, it is low level stuff and intimidating for people trying to get to their shop or car in the dark of evening, I can’t say it escalated into not too many serious incidents though”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Cllr Slattery said “there has been six cars stolen in Ennistymon recently, two of them were since crashed and one of them was span new. It has gone out of control and we have no Garda on the beat in Ennistymon, they are being pulled elsewhere into Shannon for security reasons but they are being pulled from Kilrush and Ennistymon as a result”.
He added, “We are concerned that the Garda barracks is open from 9am to 1pm with two Gardaí present and similarly from 5pm to 9pm, I’m not looking for a Garda to be there to sign passports, we need two Gardaí to have the barracks open and that they are available to come out for criminal damage, there is an increasing amount of burglaries in isolated areas of rural Clare but there is Gardaí to police it”.
On whether he was confident the Minister would take their concerns on board, Cllr Talty stated, “On the resources I can only be hopeful, I think the Minister has been proactive in trying to increase numbers but when the Commissioner directs resources the emphasis has been on cities in response to what happened in Dublin two years ago so we hope to get they can a handle on the cities and then we’ll see an improvement”.
Garda recruitment will determine resources, Cllr Slattery acknowledged. “He’s waiting for Garda recruitment and next tranche of allocations. We were also looking for separation from the Clare division from Tipperary but he did say distribution of Gardaí was a matter for the Commissioner”.
