Gardaí visit schools in bid to stamp out street trouble

Date Published: 11-Mar-2013

 BY FRANK FARRAGHER

GARDAÍ are to visit second level schools in the city area over the coming days to try and prevent unruly teenage gatherings in Salthill – last Saturday evening, up to five young people were arrested in the area for public order offences.

Several complaints of public drinking and unsocial behaviour were made to Gardaí in Salthill about the conduct of a small number of young teenagers in a crowd of more than 300 – split into different groups – many of whom were out ‘celebrating’ the finish of their Junior Cert mock exams.

The ‘gathering’ is understood to have been organised through Facebook and other social media networking outlets through Friday and Saturday. There have been a number of similar, though smaller gatherings in the area on several occasions in recent months.

One eyewitness told the Connacht Sentinel that he and his friends were ‘confronted’ on Saturday evening by a ‘gang’ of about 10 male teenagers who were gesturing with empty Buckfast bottles in a threatening manner.

“Another pulled a carpet knife from his tracksuit bottoms. We called the Gardaí, but they told us they were busy on another call-out with someone who was unconscious up the road,” said the eyewitness.

He described the atmosphere in Salthill as ‘very tense with people just waiting for something to kick off’. “It was very intimidating,” he added.

The Centra supermarket in Salthill also closed their doors at 9pm on Saturday night – two hours earlier than normal – although the proprietor, Michael O’Connor, stressed that he just did this as a precautionary measure.

“The last thing I want to do, is to give the impression that gangs were running amok in the area. This wasn’t the case, but given the numbers that were on the street, we decided to close down,” said Michael O’Connor.

He praised the efforts of the Gardaí in their handling of the large numbers of teenagers on the streets, due mainly he added, to the conclusion of the Junior Cert ‘mocks’ last week.

“There is only so much the Gardaí can do and the vast majority of those young people were causing no problem to anyone. But I really think that the issue of parental responsibility has a big role to play when looking at things like this,” said Michael O’Connor.

A Garda spokesman confirmed to the Sentinel that there were ‘four to five’ arrests on Saturday night last in the Salthill area, all for relatively minor public order offences. Most of those incidents would be dealt with by way of caution and consultation with parents, although he didn’t rule out prosecutions being taken also.

There was also concern for a time on Saturday about the condition of a 14-year-old girl in the Salthill area who appeared to have been taken quite ill shortly after 7pm, apparently due to the amount of alcohol she had consumed.

“We will be visiting every second level school in the city over the coming days and weeks to get the message clearly across that unruly behaviour on the streets and drinking in public places will not be tolerated.

“In the run-up to St Patrick’s Weekend, we are also making a special appeal to parents to make it their business at all times to know where their children are, what they are doing, and what time they are to be picked up at,” said Sgt Shane Cummins of Galway Garda Station.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel