Terrified residents of Limerick housing estate fear antisocial behaviour will worsen
Residents of Garryowen in Limerick city are afraid the antisocial behaviour they have seen over the past two weeks is moving towards a “powder keg” situation as teens continue to burn bins, furniture, and trees.
Gardaí and the fire service have been called out to the Limerick city estate nearly every night over the past 14 days as youths continue to start fires and post videos of the vandalism on social media, such as TikTok, according to the terrified residents.
John Nugent, a member of the Garrywowen Residents Association said residents are being terrorised as a group of youths has started fires using “anything they can get their hands on”, including garden furniture and wheelie bins.
“As it stands, it’s a powder keg down here. There has been a few instances where residents have been abused after they have confronted the young people stealing the bins. We are worried that is going to kick off big time. It is horrible on the elderly people. We have one old fella who is getting up at three in the morning to put his bin out, to save it getting burned,” he said.
Another resident, who wishes to remain anonymous due to fears of retaliation, said several people in the area are considering selling their homes due to the behaviour.
“The elderly people here are terrified. They won’t go outside the door. The fire service was called out 13 times over 11 days. A few weeks ago, they even had two young lads going around in a horse and cart, stealing bins from houses to burn them in the green.
"The area is being destroyed. It’s lawlessness,” the resident said.
Mr Nugent believes this sort of behaviour is having an extremely negative effect on the way people see the neighbourhood.
“There is so much positive in Garryowen, and it is being destroyed by one small element,” he said.
Mr Nugent said that many of the residents in the are nervous the behaviour this will escalate, or that any interference with the youths antisocial behaviour will be met with reprisal.
He said: “We are worried that will be the next thing they do, light up a car in a driveway or a bin in a driveway. That’ll be what they do next instead of dragging it into the green. The people who challenge them are nervous, that they will come back after and put in the windows. That’s no way to be living."
When questioned, a spokesperson for the fire service was unable to give an exact figure of how many call-outs they had. They did, however, confirm that they had been called a considerable number of times, over 14 days, and in some cases two or three times a night.
A spokesperson for the gardaí confirmed that gardai are aware of recent anti-social behaviour incident in the area.
"A high visibility policing response will be provided to reassure the community and attempts made to address the issues. Gardaí carried out increased high visibility patrols in the area over the weekend with a number of people being searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act, however no arrests were made. There were no reports of any fires over the weekend. Gardaí will continue this operation throughout the coming weeks," they said.
