City gets tough with street beggers

A LEADING tourist city is promoting a zero tolerance stance on the handful of homeless people who are begging and drinking on the streets and causing a general nuisance to the public and visitors.

Problems caused by vagrants in Waterford city have reached the point where the city’s chamber of commerce, through its CEO Frank O’Donoghue, has written to its members and asked them to refuse to serve them alcohol or give money.

They should also report such panhandlers to their local Garda station if they witness what he has termed “unsavoury behaviour.”