Last night.
New Street, Longford town, Co Longford.
Eamonn Farrell writes:
Armed Garda Units back up uniformed gardai assigned to try and deal with increased levels of criminal violence which is making life difficult and dangerous for local residents.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the violence is believed to be between a number of families engaged in criminal activities and settling their scores on the streets of Longford town.
Members of the local business community and politicians have called for more sustained Garda action with the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) being introduced into the fray.
The recent violence has involved guns, knives and arson.
Longford is a clean, tidy town, acting as a gateway to the North West, but the sight of armed gardai on its streets draws parallels with the worst of gangland crime in Dublin city’s black spots.
Name that weapon, anyone?
HK MP7 with trimmings
trimmings being a Reflex sight it looks like
What’s with the big riot visor? Would that not get in the way if a gang of scobies showed up and started shooting?
That’s to protect your face from being contacted by a slash hook.
“contacted by a slash hook” is a terrifying sentence. I shall be using it.
The group of people responsible for all this violence & trouble do themselves no favours while demanding we don’t treat them differently to anyone else.
and then demand special treatment for… ‘reasons’.
Wimmin again, is it?
Hell’s Grannies.
It’s a fair point, the drugs war in Drogheda is between two traveller families, one settled, one traditional.
Limerick itself was put through hell in the 2000s by groups of traveller families.
Aren’t the Hutches and Kinahans travellers, settled or otherwise, certainly many of their associates are reported to be travellers.
Is it time we had a bit of an adult conversation about travellers and if there’s more to it than the perceived deprivation/crime loop.
Is there a solution though? Travellers have their ways of living. This is normal for a section of their community. From cradle to grave. There are other sections who live without the need for this, and who have embraced settled living.
I don’t know how the criminal section can be stopped. Pavee Point are only heard of complaining about rights but are notably silent on these type of situations. There is a role for Pavee but my opinion is that they like to take state aid and are not interested in tackling what is a bad section of their community.
Is there a solution? Oh there is, but a lot of people won’t like it. There are 40,000 travellers in our country of 5m. Drown them in education, decent housing and decent healthcare, enhanced employment opportunities and you’ll cure 90% of it over a decade, the rest alas will be crime prevention. And the (5m minus 40,000) will resent special sums, and it’s in the €2bn+ ballpark that would be required, being spent on a group that is seen as the bane of society. But if we don’t address the problem, it will only grow and it’s bad enough as it is today. And yes, I agree with you, Pavee Point is a waste of space, but then again it’s just a sticking plaster on a butchered limb.
How can you push education on a constitutionally protected itinerant culture with an instinctive contempt for settled institutions? I agree with you, education is the silver bullet cure for all that ails the travelling community and thus the rest of us. Education brings jobs prospects, which bring life prospects, which go toward preventing depression and so drug abuse and drug-related deaths, it’s the key to unlock the whole thing. But a child can’t get a good education if they’re always on the move and even when they’re settled the parents aren’t all that pushed about it. You’d have to march in and start applying the law to them to make kids go to the same school every day at which point you’ll have all their advocates coming out of the woodwork screeching about oppression and forced integration. They’ll violently resist the one thing that will solve all the problems they’re demanding be solved.
But how do you drown them in that. They have to want to participate. If you get an enclave of this particular section of their community, it’s going to be difficult to get them into education etc.
Perhaps the ones that have done their education could be trained and recruited as teachers – they would be accepted to teach in their own community say in the early years, and the students could then in first or second class join in to the existing education system? Basics laid.
“How can you push education on a constitutionally protected itinerant culture with an instinctive contempt for settled institutions? “
No social welfare payment, of any description, unless the kids are enrolled and attending school. They can save their constitutionally-protected wanderings for the school holidays (I think a large proportion of Travellers are mostly settled in one place anyway these days).
Has anyone compared Longford to Limerick yet? That gets right up their noses, so it does.
they’re fupping annoying with their “it’s getting like Dublin around here” poo
you fupping wish, boggers*
(* does not include andyourpointiswhatexactly)
Ah now, no need for that attitude, you might begin to sound like that Dublin woman who demanded a €795 refund from a dating agency after they tried to set her up with a man from Westmeath.
https://www.herald.ie/news/courts/woman-looking-to-meet-dubs-tries-to-sue-dating-agency-who-matched-her-with-man-from-westmeath-38239658.html
I hope she got her money back ;)
That’s a shocking thing to say Janet, fantastic peoples the Westmeathers, strapping men and women all, better standards of personal hygiene than you frequently encounter in Dublin and they’re up for the craic. Refund indeed, hmmph.
She didn’t.
In here defence she sang ‘I’ve been to Paradise but I’ll never do Westmeath.’
Obviously it doesn’t as I’m from the proud city of Cork.
meh
past bray, you’re all the same to us
Watch it Brudder
Reminds me of the Dylan Moran line “Mobile phone cancer is more common in the city than the country – but then so is everything else, including sex, coffee and conversation.”
+5 (in a row)*
* he said optimistically
sure as frillz herself said: “Dublin have it in the bag this year, next year and the year after… and long may it continue “
has anyone ever seen or heard of travellers doing something positive or good?
I bought a “lightly used” generator off one once and it didn’t break down until after 3 and a half years of intermittent use
So that was pretty good, better than I expected
I’m sure that the person it was stolen from would be delighted to hear of your levels of customer satisfaction, Termagant.
deleted hate
Not all. But anyone who takes a slash hook to a wedding shouldn’t be walking the streets.
I’m not sure what the official policy is to address the multiple problems Travellers face and cause, but whatever it is, it ain’t working.
When anyone in a position of power brings the matter up he/she is deemed racist instead of anti criminal. This is partly why this problem escalates. Peter Casey being the obvious example.