Elderly victims left ‘terrified’
A SPATE of burglaries in Lorrha and Rathcabbin has left some elderly victims terrified, according to a local councillor, who says the recent move to amalgamate the Tipperary and Clare garda divisions is not working and has further exposed rural communities like those in Lower Ormond to thefts, break-ins and other forms of criminality.
“The amount of break-ins [to properties] in the last few weeks has been absolutely huge,” Cllr Michael O’ Meara informed councillors as he outlined the impact of the burglaries in the relatively isolated rural areas encompassing the two villages.
“I am hearing of different incidents all over the parish,” he said, adding that the amalgamation of the Clare and Tipperary garda districts had further exposed rural communities to crime. He said a flagging garda force just could not effectively police an area that stretched a 140 kms distance from Lorrha in north Tipperary to Kilkee in County Clare. “The system is just not working for our community at the moment.”
Speaking at the November meeting of the Nenagh Municipal District authority, Cllr O’ Meara said gardaí trying to cope with a lack of proper resources were doing the best job they could in the circumstances. However, people in his community were “very angry” at the way they had been left exposed to criminals.
He said among the many victims of break-ins and thefts were elderly people. “These are older people who up to now have had happy lives. But now they have suffered a huge invasion on their privacy and are suffering stress and mental torture over what has happened to them.
“Some of these people are living in fear that these people will come back to their homes. We are in the eye of a storm in Lorrha and Rathcabbin at the moment.
“It’s an awful thing to say that people returning to their homes after attending Mass discover that their jewellery and wedding rings are gone. The effect on people has been huge.” Cllr O’ Meara said that lumping relatively isolated rural communities into one very large garda district was completely unacceptable.
He called for Lorrha and Rathcabbin to be taken out of the Clare/Tipperary division and put under the auspices of the Birr or Portumna districts.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
While he was “no detective”, he suspected that there was an element of local knowledge involved in a number of the thefts and burglaries.
Cllr O’ Meara, noting that some officials and elected members of the Nenagh Municipal District authority were shortly due to meet the local garda superintendent, asked that the situation in Lower Ormond be put on the agenda.
“These thugs are targeting these isolated areas because they know when people are away from their properties.”
He said criminals knew that such areas were soft targets because they were a long distance away from the district’s central garda stations in Nenagh and Ennis.
“The gardaí that are there are doing great work, but they are stretched on the ground with lower numbers interested in joining the force.”
Cllr Joe Hannigan said there was definitely local knowledge involved in a number of the burglaries and thefts.
One property targeted had been owned by a local person who had passed away. In another case the owner of a house had been attending Mass when the house was burgled.
It was time to put a renewed focus on Community Alert schemes to try to tackle the situation. One big problem was that garda numbers were currently insufficient to effectively police areas like Rathcabbin and Lorrha. “Criminals are so well informed now that they know when the guards are off duty.”
Cllr Hannigan said people in other areas of Lower Ormond were now living in fear over what had happened. “This has had a rippling effect.”
County Council Cathaoirleach, Ger Darcy, said effectively working Community Alert schemes had proven to be an extremely powerful way of tackling rural crime in the past.
However, some the committees involved had been “decimated” by the Covid pandemic. Giving new impetus to such schemes could be an unbelievably powerful way of countering crime in rural areas.