Closing the gates won’t solve a grave problem
Now, sadly, we are told that the cemetery gates are to be closed from six o'clock on winter evenings and eight o'clock in the summer all because of vandals and people drinking alcohol and taking drugs there.
Locking the gates is not the answer as it only prevents people from visiting the graves of their dead while those who are determined to have cider parties there will just climb a wall or the gates.
Some of the money collected by Sligo urban council for parking, rents, etc, should be used to employ a security company to patrol the cemetery, day and night.
The council could also install CCTV cameras and lighting because, as things stand, the good people who have business there are being shut out while the anti-social kind are getting in anyway.
Maybe the courts could compel those convicted of misbehaviour in the cemetery to clean up the graves on community service.
After all, they too will end up there permanently some day.
Martin Ford
27 Saint Anne's Terrace
Sligo.
