A community where violence is part of the local scene

PINEVIEW Gardens, Moyross, is an address emblazoned across the media, since Sunday’s car fire in which Millie, six, and Gavin, four, Murray received horrific injuries.

It’s a neighbourhood where violence is taken as part of the local scene.

Clashes between gangs of youths and gardaí are common place.

This is a community where the odds are stacked against locals from the day they are born.

But people get on with their lives, as best they can.

Of all the estates in Moyross, Pineview has the most physical scars. It’s a depressing spot.

But home for about 600 people who live in the estate’s 188 houses.

Pineview stands in stark contrast to other parts of Moyross, where gardens are maintained and which demonstrate a sense of pride.

In Pineview, young lads in their teens hang around with no apparent purpose in life. Fodder for trouble. And fodder for the courts down the line.

Pineview is an isolated community. Standing at the most westerly end of the sprawling Moyross network of estates, it is a place without a political voice.

A bizarre line on the political map has thrown Pineview Gardens into the Bruff electoral area of Co Limerick, along with Delmege Park and Craeval Park.

This very urban community has its only local platform in a county council which seems a million miles away. To compound this mismatch, the area does not have a county councillor; no voice politically at local level. In fact, there is only one member of Limerick County Council on the western side of the Shannon, and that councillor is based in Caherdavin.

To make matters more complicated, while these Moyross estates are politically attached to the county council, the houses in the estate are owned by Limerick City Council, who look after the day to day management and maintenance of the estates.

And it is clear Limerick City Council is not doing much to try and keep the estate in reasonable shape.

The place is a total mess.

There are 188 houses in Pineview Gardens, 79 in Craeval Park and 165 in Delmege Park.

Truth is, most of the 735 Moyross voters in the Bruff electoral area don’t have a clue where Bruff is — never mind what constitutes the Bruff electoral area.

One local woman, Tina O’Gorman, ran for Fine Gael at the last local elections for Limerick County Council but did not get elected.

Many families would like to vacate the estate. Many say they have had enough.

But the residents of Pineview are people with little choice in such matters.

The events of recent days have made up one man’s mind. Niall McNamara, father of the children burned last Sunday, said his children will “never, ever” again set foot in Pineview Gardens.