Residents demand CCTV to combat antisocial behaviour

Strolling up Castlepark Road on a Thursday afternoon earlier this month, workers were busy installing long overdue shelters at three bus stops.

Swinging right at Ballybane Community Garden brings you to the sole vehicular entrance and exit to the Merlin estates.

On the left, as you enter, is the Clós na Coille Traveller-specific accommodation, and further in are Bóthar Waithman, Sruthán Mhuirlinne, Coillte Mhuirlinne and Léas na Coille.

A mixture of privately-owned, affordable and social housing, there are around 400 homes in the neighbourhood that backs onto Merlin Woods.

Merlin Neighbourhoods Residents’ Association chairperson, Donal Lynch pointed to lampposts that were kitted out for CCTV cameras.

“When the estates were being built, the infrastructure was put in. The fibre optic cables were put in underground and connected to the poles for the cameras,” he says.

Housebuyers were promised the safety cameras when it was developed, back in 2006.

Newly planted flowerbed in the Sruthan Mhuirlinne Area, Ballybane.

The property crash came and the security was never installed. “We’re still waiting,” he adds.

On the face of it, CCTV doesn’t seem needed. Last week, the estate was positively tranquil. It’s a busy, family-oriented area with children playing on greens and bicycles, and teens chatting and hanging out.

There’s a fully-equipped playground, and in the distance is Merlin Castle. Adjacent to Bóthar Waithman is a green area, which has recently been granted funding to develop a multi-purpose sports facility.

So far, so good. Except, like many urban areas, it has problems.

“Two weeks ago my car was broken into, there was nothing taken out of it, just ransacked. It was an opportunistic crime. There is definitely a need for cameras,” says Róisín*, a young mother who lives in the estate.

“You see these cameras,” she says, pointing to privately installed CCTV on nearby homes in Coillte Mhuirlinne.

“It’s great to see them. There was a night last week I was woken up at 5.30 to screaming. It was madness and it’s frightening.”

The estate is open plan. Green spaces, roads and pathways blend into one another. This permeability can create a community and sense of belonging, but it has its downsides in terms of anti-social behaviour, says Donal Lynch.

He says people involved in petty crime and anti-social behaviour can disappear without trace into Merlin Woods.

“It’s one big open prairie, no divisions, so you can run through it, from one to the next . . . we back onto the woods at Doughiska, and it’s used sort of as a rat-run. It’s a lovely estate, with a lot of very good people but they’re coming from other areas, and if the cops come and chase them, they’re gone through the little rat-runs in the woods,” he says.

Residents sought fencing to close-off all bar the official walkways into the wooded area, but they haven’t been provided. “The City Council takes you so far, just to keep you happy, but . . .”

Mary*, who has lived for nearly four decades in Castlepark, the estate opposite Merlin, wants CCTV, too.

When asked if there are problems in Castlepark, Mary gives a sort of side-eye facial expression that screams: ‘Are you kidding? Of course we do!’

“Definitely,” she says. “Dumping and anti-social behaviour.”

The City Council, she says, won’t clean the alleyways backing onto the gardens of homes in Castlepark. Green areas are regularly used as dumping grounds for all sorts of rubbish – just recently, heads of rabbits were thrown in one alleyway, as well as nappies and sanitary pads.

“We’ve done the clean-ups ourselves,” she says. “We looked for cameras years ago, and got a petition that went all around Castlepark, but the Corpo (Galway Corporation now City Council) said they’d no money. That’s nearly 20 years ago. It was bad then, but now it’s 20 times worse,” adds Mary.

When the topic shifts to policing, Donal, Mary and Róisín agree that the location of the new Garda HQ on the Dublin Road hasn’t improved matters on the ground.

“Not really, sure that’s only offices,” says Mary. Róisín agrees: “If you ring the guards, you’re ringing Mill Street.”

Donal adds: “We’ve a very good community Garda at the moment; she’s excellent. She’s not long here but is very tuned in to what’s going on.”

The difficulty is, one community Garda – no matter how excellent – is not enough to police such a large area in Merlin, Castlepark and Ballybane.

“I remember when the community guard would walk the beat. Then we got two, and they were absolutely brilliant and they’d drive around at night, in their own cars. They used to get involved with the kids, and played football on the green, but then they retired,” recalls Mary.

Róisín agrees a greater Garda presence would help. “Now it’s just the odd drive-by in the patrol car. I wish they were here all the time, I really do,” she says.

Closing the Garda station at the Ballybane Gala store was a mistake, Donal believes. “There were two Guards there and they knew everyone. They’d nearly know when they (criminals) were going to make a move. It’s closed three years. It was right in the heart of the community. They moved the office into the new Garda station but we’ve only one community Garda for this whole area and you’d need three or four,” he says.

Community activist Donal Lynch.

Probably the biggest problem facing residents of the area is illegal dumping.

“When you look over this wall, you’ll get a shock,” says Donal, pointing to a stone wall separating Coyne’s field from the estate. He wasn’t wrong. The field is overflowing with rubbish.

An unofficial audit reveals bike frames, old plastic toys, plastic bins, wooden chairs, paint cans, car tyres, benches, galvanise, buggies, mattresses, and quite a lot of general household waste all thrown over the wall.

“It’s like the city dump,” says Donal. Mary adds: “They pull up and throw it over the wall, then it blows out on the road, and there are rats.”

Along the roadway leading towards the old Hillside estate are high walls, which create a blind-spot where people pull up in vans and trailers and dump indiscriminately, while out of sight.

It’s on an industrial scale, says Donal, as he points to scores of dumped car tyres in the field.

“That’s commercial, that’s not a guy getting a puncture and throwing one tyre away. The people up here are disgusted, people are doing their best but to have that at your back door is terrible,” he says.

Just like at the front of the estate, Donal Lynch and the residents’ association believe CCTV in lampposts could be an important tool in improving life on the estate.

“In every major city in Europe there’s an area that the authorities don’t take as much heed of. There’s a minority of anti-social behaviour here. Cameras would at least be a deterrent, and then if there is a problem, the Gardaí can use the footage. CCTV would just add to the security and peace of mind,” adds Donal.

*Names have been changed