Jarveys urged to suspend action during conference

A GROUP of jarveys, who have been protesting for the past month at one of the main entrances to Killarney National Park, have been urged to suspend their action during an international conference in the top tourist town this week.

The Killarney Soroptimists yesterday called on the jarveys to withdraw from the entrance to Muckross House while the important DERTOUR conference of 800 German tour and travel agents is taking place.

The jarveys are protesting against a decision of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to deny them access to the park because of their continuing refusal to attach dung-catchers to their jaunting cars.

The Soroptimists, the world’s oldest organisation of professional and business women, also called on Killarney mayor Michael Gleeson to appeal directly to the group of jarveys and to take a lead in facilitating discussion.

“We feel strongly this issue has to be resolved locally and not passed off to higher government,” they said in a statement.

“We ask the group of jarveys involved in this protest to suspend their actions for the sake of the good name and prosperity of everyone in Killarney.

“We fully acknowledge everyone’s right to protest, but we also recognise that the majority of Killarney jarveys are not taking part in the protest,” they said.

The Soroptimists reiterated their support for Environment Minister John Gormley and the NPWS at finally moving “to address the festering and entirely unacceptable issue of horse droppings in the Killarney National Park”.

“It is more than a decade since complaints from groups such as ourselves, as well as the major tourism and commercial groupings in Killarney, along with brave individual councillors and an increasingly disgusted public, were first lodged,” they said.

“The complaints, vocal though they often were, were met with stony silence, indifference and indeed downright derision by the jarvey sector alongside a failure on behalf of local politicians to face up to the matter,” they said.

“It is incredible to us the device has not even been tried, despite the offer of training and other supports over the past two years.”

So far, the jarveys, who have called for mediation, have rejected all requests to suspend their protest.