Garda chief fears upsurge in stray horses will lead to road tragedies

GALWAY’S top Garda has warned of potential road tragedies unless the County Council ‘steps up to the plate’ and removes stray horses when contacted.

Chief Superintendent Tom Curley told the Connacht Tribune that for the past two months a serious problem had arisen in relation to the removal of wandering horses.

“Stray horses on our roads present a clear and present danger of serious injury or death on our roads. We are now in a situation where Galway County Council say that they are not in a position to impound those horses – this situation cannot be allowed to continue,” said Supt. Curley.

Up until late last year, the Gardai had an arrangement in place in relation to stray horses wandering on the roads, whereby they would contact the County Council during normal office hours, while out-of-hours they would directly contact the contractor employed by the Council for horse removal.

However the Connacht Tribune understands that the County Council are currently in the process of putting in place a new arrangement with a contractor, as part of a multi-county approach to the problem. In the meantime though, there is no interim arrangement in place, the Connacht Tribune understands.

“The problem is that as things stand, when the Gardaí get a report of wandering horses on a public road, and contact the Council, we are told that they are not in a position to deal with the situation.

“Quite frankly, this is just not good enough on such an issue of road safety. Stray horses on a public road are a lethal threat to road safety – the County Council must take responsibility for the removal of those animals,” said Chief Superintendent Curley.

He said that over the past two months or so, he had been receiving regular reports from different parts of the county as regards horses straying onto public roads – in some cases they had to rely on the goodwill of local farmers to put the animals into a field or yard on a temporary basis.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.