Councillor ’disappointed’

Councillor ‘disappointed’ with gardaí

Michael Duffy

A Castlebar town councillor has said he is ‘disappointed’ at the Gardaí’s failure to continually implement the by-laws adopted by the Council in relation to drinking alcohol in a public place.
Speaking at the Council’s monthly meeting, Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said that there was ample evidence of the by-law being constantly flouted and ‘not a fine evening went by when someone in the town had not seen a group drinking in the Lough Lannagh area’.
“There is absolutely no point bringing in by-laws if they are not going to be implemented. It is not our duty to implement them but it is us who will get the blame from the public if the problem persists. Gardaí may say they have a problem with resources, but, again, that is also a problem outside of our control. There are fellas up there drinking bottles of Buckfast and nothing is being done about it,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.
Cllr Johnny Mee raised the problem initially, stating that although the Council staff were doing a great job trying to keep the Lough Lannagh area tidy, it was ‘in a state’ every weekend as up to 40 youths could be up there drinking.
“The reality is that a lot of these youngsters are under 18 and they are breaking the law twice, firstly by getting the alcohol and then by drinking in areas where we deemed it illegal to drink alcohol, in a public place. A lot of people, locals and tourists, love walking at Lough Lannagh but a lot of them have contacted me because they feel the area is being destroyed,” said Cllr Mee.
The meeting also heard that a Community Police Forum, initially set up to involve both the councillors and members of the general public in policing matters, had received a poor response and had not met in months.
Cllr Kevin Guthrie, who was asked to be on the forum along with Cllr Blackie Gavin, said he went to one meeting and the only people present were himself, Cllr Gavin and three gardaí.
“The response was poor from the public and the forum has not met since Supt Pat Byrne left so I would like to ask the new Superintendent, John Quirke, whether the forum has been disbanded. We are in the dark on this issue. I think the Gardaí are probably doing their best, I saw four of them on the beat last Friday night, but the reality is that it is very hard to stop youth getting drink. If they don’t get it from a store, they get it at home,” said Cllr Guthrie, who added that he felt a lot of these problems stemmed from the fact that the Gardaí did not know the youth of the town.
“The gardaí working in Castlebar no longer live in the town. When I was young, everyone knew their local gardaí, but that is no longer the case.”
Mayor of Castlebar, Cllr Brendan Henaghan, said the superintendent was attending at next month’s meeting of the Council and these matters could be put to him.