Residents to fight back against thuggery

Date Published: 24-Nov-2011

by Liam Corcoran

A Galway city community group is hoping to lead the charge to bring in changes to national legislation on anti-social behaviour after residents decided that they were ‘fed up’ with attacks in their neighbourhood.

The Ballybane Community Forum is calling for Galway’s national politicians to address the issue of anti-social behaviour in the Dail and Seanad, after a series of incidents involving anti-social behaviour in the area.

In one extreme example, an unidentified elderly lady was forced to request a housing transfer from Galway City Council after suffering sustained anti-social abuse at her home in the Ballybane area.

It’s understood that the woman had her house broken into several times, was subjected to severe verbal abuse and had human excrement smeared across her front door and windows over a number of weeks. She made several reports to Gardai and eventually requested the housing transfer on the advice of a doctor.

Chairman of the Ballybane Community Forum, Tommy Flaherty, said that while this was an exceptional case and anti-social behaviour in Ballybane is in general no worse than other parts of the city, residents have simply had enough of the thuggery.

“It’s time to do something about this behaviour that goes on across Galway. A lot of it is very subtle and we don’t hear anything about it. It’s the instances like the one with the lady in Ballybane that brings the issue into the spotlight, and what’s going on is just not acceptable.”

Mr Flaherty said that the only effective way of dealing with the problem was for strict national legislation to be introduced to punish the perpetrators and not the victims.

“There are rogue landlords who need to be punished, as well as tenants. Effective legislation needs to be enacted on this issue and that is why we have decided to act.”

The Ballybane Community Forum has arranged a meeting on the matter in Galway next week and has invited community representatives from across the city.

Senator Fidelma Healy Eames said that she is supporting the group’s initiative and agreed that action is needed.

“The current manner of dealing with anti-social behaviour is largely inadequate. The Gardai need to act much sooner and more needs to be done to ensure that those who cause anti-social behavior are the ones who are punished and not those on the receiving end of it."

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.