A Roscommon county councillor has told Gript that levels of crime in rural Ireland are “very serious” and that many people “who have worked hard all their lives” are now “in fear in their homes” due to what is largely a high rate of burglaries affecting rural communities in parts of Roscommon, Galway, and parts of Mayo.
Independent Cllr. for Roscommon, Anthony Waldron, said that the closure of rural Garda stations was making the problem worse, adding that some residents were so frustrated by the situation that they were considering “taking the law into their own hands”.
Waldron, who set up community action group ‘Enough is Enough’, says he wishes to meet with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris in order to discuss the issues, but claimed that he was having difficulty within the council because he is non-party.
A meeting is due to be held in Glinsk at 8:30pm tonight to discuss the issues.
Sinn Féin TD for Clare Kerrane wrote to Commissioner Harris asking him to stop draining Garda numbers from the area.
The Galway-Roscommon representative said, “People in our communities are living in fear. This is never acceptable”.
He explained that “a combination of factors” has contributed to the situation where “daylight robbery” was being committed by criminals who “have no fear” of the law.
“The worrying feature about all of this is that people are becoming so frustrated,” he added, saying that for some this was to the point where they were considering “taking the law into their own hands”.
“They feel threatened in their own homes,” he said, adding that these people “have worked all their lives” and “made sacrifices” to “create the type of country that we have”.
A local news outlet recently reported on a community red alert issued after a spate of burglaries and anti-social behaviour in the Galway area.
Galway Beo reported the comments of a resident in the Moycullen area who said, “I am sick of these fireworks going off every day near the playground and Gardai never do anything about it. It’s a disgrace! Tomorrow if Gardai don’t sort it out I will have to go in there myself and things will get ugly.”
Waldron said hundreds of people had participated in a March in Castlerea town in hopes of raising awareness about the situation in their area.
Waldron said that during the march victims of crime had spoken about their own stories, many of which he said had been referred to the Garda Commissioner.
He said that “urgent action is needed” in order to tackle the problem.
Waldron referred to an incident last year in which a woman in her 90s who runs a local shop in Ballintubber, County Mayo was targeted by screwdriver wielding assailants.
During the incident, which Gardaí referred to as “aggravated burglary”, one of the woman’s sons – a man in his sixties – was attacked but did not require hospital treatment.
Waldron said that the shop owners were “tied up” and that the attackers had been “very abusive” towards them.
It was reported that the assailants made off with a small amount of money after targeting the well known shop.
Waldron said that people who are “serial offenders” should be “dealt with in a very severe way” but that this did not appear to be happening under the watch of the current government.
He said that the Irish state should not be responsible for covering the cost of housing foreign offenders in local jails and that such individuals should be sent back to their countries of origin to serve their sentences.
He asked whether Ireland was being “seen as a soft touch” saying that people coming into the country were “not being assessed properly”.
He said that these issues are “on the lips of everybody all around us here” and that the “escalation” in rural crime “particularly over the last number of months” was being driven by “people travelling from outside” who were “not locals”.
“The closure of rural Garda stations was a massive mistake,” he said, adding, “some of these people who make those decisions [to close down rural Garda stations] don’t understand rural Ireland at all because the local Garda was always in touch with the people and they were in touch with him.”
He said that this close relationship with the local Garda had given people in rural areas a sense of “confidence ”that they were being looked after and that this was now not the case due to policies coming from government decision makers.
“There was very little crime when the Garda knows the people and the community,” he said, adding that criminals “don’t go near” places like that.
Waldron referred to a recent case in County Mayo where a farmer who had been targeted by a gang of burglars shot at a get-away vehicle.
The Sunday World reported on the case saying, “After the farmer opened fire, the two men abandoned the grey van and were seen fleeing across fields near the farmer’s home.”
“The suspects had been at the back of the van when the shots were fired, where they were trying to load chainsaws, pots and other stolen items.”
The suspects -who were not injured – are understood to be well known to Gardaí.
Waldron reiterated that closing rural Garda stations “was a massive mistake”, commenting that the population in areas of rural Ireland was increasing and needed a larger Garda presence to deal with criminals.