Turf thieves take winter fuel stock

A number of householders in the Ballinasloe area received a rude awakening this week when they discovered that thieves had stolen the banks of turf they had stashed away for the winter months in the dead of night.

The thieves used the cover of darkness to break a lock and chain at the entrance to a private road at Poolboy and proceeded to steal the banks of fuel which at least three householders had put aside for the Christmas and New Year.

At least eight families own plots at the bog near the Poolboy recycling centre, a five minute drive from the town, and many of them leave their turf under plastic sheeting at the side of the road because they have limited storage area at their houses in Ballinasloe town.

Three of the families had their winter fuel haul “cleaned out completely” and are now facing the grim prospect of having to fork out hard earned cash for fuel in order to heat their homes over the festive season.

“The road down to the turf banks is gated and the people who own the banks have access to the lock and chain,” said local man Gerry Devlin, who discovered that the lock had been broken while out walking his dogs earlier this week.

“There’s only eight or nine banks of turf there and the site is only a five minute drive from the town. At least three turf banks were cleaned out. One man told me he spent the whole summer up there saving turf and now his entire clamp is gone.”

Mr Devlin said that some of the plot-owners lived in local authority houses in Ballinasloe. They did not have much storage space in their homes, so they tended to leave much of their fuel under cover at the side of the private road.