Teenagers make Nenagh streets their ‘playground’
Unruly teenagers have made Nenagh's streets their “personal playground” and are putting people in fear, a local representative has claimed.
Cllr Hughie McGrath raised the subject of antisocial behaviour in the town at last week's meeting of the Tipperary Joint Policing Committee.
“We have a group of teenagers and the main street and adjoining lanes are their playground for the summer,” said Cllr McGrath, who told the meeting that locals feel the gardaí are “losing the battle with these teenagers using the streets as their personal playground”. He wanted to know how many “ASBOs” (antisocial behaviour orders) have been issued in Nenagh this year, and asked about additional tools available to the gardaí in dealing with such behaviour.
Chief Superintendent of the Tipperary Garda Division Derek Smart was surprised to hear about this situation and said he would follow up on it. There had been an antisocial behaviour issue in Nenagh last year that was dealt with by the proactive local gardaí, Chief Supt Smart said, adding that gardaí are patrolling the streets regularly.
He said he would furnish updated figures for antisocial behaviour orders and also spoke about the Juvenile Liasion Officer (JLO) system that gardaí use for dealing with young people. Arresting and charging young offenders is a “last resort”, Chief Supt Smart said.
Deputy Martin Browne observed the 80% increase in crimes against the person (41 up to 74 incidents) in the Nenagh district this year and wondered if there has been a general increase in antisocial behaviour. But, while he appreciated where Cllr McGrath was coming from, Deputy Browne warned against anything that would “frighten” people about going in to Nenagh.
“We need to be careful about the message going out here,” he said.
Cllr McGrath replied that he had a duty to represent the views of the public. People have told him that they are “afraid” of what is going on and concerned that older people could get knocked over by the teenage offenders. “I make no apologies about how I speak about my town,” Cllr McGrath said.
Chief Supt Smart said gardaí in Tipperary are not seeing an increased level of antisocial behaviour in general. But he said people are reporting crime more so now than before, which he welcomed as it enabled gardaí to do something about the problem.