Independent TD, Michael Fitzmaurice, has appealed for calm in the Co Roscommon town of Ballaghaderreen after an incident during the week, and called for Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris to “come down” to the town to allay people’s fears.
He told Shannonside radio that the Garda station in the town seemed closed “a lot of the time” – asserting that the station needed to be “open on a continuous basis”.
“The promises that were made over the last number of years – Roderic O’Gorman made promises, Fine Gael made promises – what was going to be done in the line of extra policing, extra integration, extra services being brought to Ballaghaderreen, have not been delivered on, and we are now getting phone calls from people, especially from elderly people who aren’t comfortable walking the streets and that’s not the way any town or any society should be,” the TD said.
A teenager was seriously assaulted in Ballaghaderreen’s Main Street this week. The assault, on a person under 18 years, took place just after midnight, and garda investigations are ongoing.
Gardaí said they were investigating a report of a serious assault at on the main street of the town at around 12:10am on Friday, 1st November, 2024.
Local councillor Micheál Frain told Gript that the issue was not with a particular group of people but with the failure of the government to provide extra Gardaí to the town. He said that a protest which has been called for 5pm this evening sought to send a “message to the powers that be”.
“We were promised resources in Ballaghaderreen, and they were not delivered,” he said. As an example, he said that: “Roderic O’Gorman pulled the promised child care facility despite the fact that we have no permanent such facility in the town.” He said that a childcare centre was left half-built after the Minister’s Department – the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth – cut promised funding and that the Council had persisted and managed to obtain funding from a separate source, the Community Recognition Fund.
“This town could have been a good news story” for integration Cllr Fraine said but “the resources weren’t provided”. He said that the population of the town had seen a “huge increase” in the past seven years but that there was no corresponding increase in support or resources.
He said additional infrastructure had not been provided, citing schools at capacity, and a failure to assist integration with what he called “balanced regional development”.
“Instead we’ve had diktat from a government department deciding what happens in regard to placing people in the town with no negotiations with locals,” he said, adding that town had no capacity and that this had led to plans for 200 modular homes being rejected.
On policing, Cllr Fraine said “eight years ago, we would have had ten Gardaí, now we have about half that number”. He was also critical of the policing model introduced by Drew Harris which he said had changed how Gardaí were embedded in the community.
When he was in the town the night of the assault, he said, there was “not a Garda or patrol car in sight”. He said there had been a recent spate of break-ins, and that some criminals seemed “to act with impunity”.
“That’s not the country nor the town I grew up,” Cllr Fraine said.
The local radio station reported that a Concerned Citizens group said they had planned a silent protest this evening in the town to call attention to what it described as “serious neglect by those in power.
“We’re proposing to hold a peaceful, silent, candle light protest on Sunday evening in town,” the group said in posts on social media. “”We need to highlight the fact that the town is seriously neglected by those in power.
“We are seeing an unprecedented rise in crime, antisocial behaviour and even serious crime, whilst we have barely any garda presence, or let’s face it, NO real garda presence at all.
“We cannot tolerate this any longer. Please show your support on Sunday evening, meeting at 5pm at the cathedral car park, Pound St.
“We will then walk in silence to the garda barracks.”