03/11/2024
I wasn't going to comment on this but as someone who is very actively involved in our community and who deals with alot of kids from the affected area I feel I have a duty to say something.I have seen all the posts from various people and other community groups/pages and read all the comments both positive and negative about the events of Halloween night.Let me just start by telling everyone that there was a major discussion in the boxing club on Friday evening and I spent most of the junior and senior classes listening to stories from all the kids about all the bad things that happened. From hearing all this I learned 2 things, firstly that all the kids were really angry and ashamed of what had happened in their area which made me very proud of them and secondly that not all but a good portion of the young lads involved were not from the Connolly Park/Greenane Drive area.My own opinion on what happened on Thursday night can be summed up in one word "RESPONSIBILITY " . Firstly with the parent/parents of those involved, it is YOUR job and no one elses to know where your kids are and what they get up to at all times. Secondly our government ran agencies which our many taxes pay for, namely the council who should be removing the mountain of rubbish gathered up for the bonfire on the day of Halloween thereby removing the reason for those involved to be in the area at all and if they need a garda es**rt to do it then do that,next to our gardai, it's probably the busiest and most troublesome night of the year so why is there not a full force on patrol that night ? You have a year to prepare and organise for it,also why don't all the fathers who live in the area form a community group and help the gardai patrol the area on the night,no good moaning about what goes on if you're not prepared to stop it happening and again you have a year to prepare and organise and if you're not prepared to get involved for whatever reason then again it's your responsibility to know where your own kids are and if anyone thinks it's easy for me to say all this coz I don't live in town and I don't know what I'm on about you couldn't be more wrong as we had the same problems years ago with 2 local kids who used to hang around with a crew from other areas and bring them around every Halloween to do massive damage in our area and it wasn't until all the other parents got together and made it clear to them and their families that it wasn't happening again that it actually stopped, no violence needed just strong words from the right people about what would happen if it did along with some visits from the community gardai. This behaviour can be stopped if the good people in the community stand together and work with and have the support of the gardai and other groups. Like I said RESPONSIBILITY someone famous many years ago once said " evil only triumphs when good people do nothing " that statement will always be true no matter how old. There's alot of good things about Tipperary and I for one am fed up of only hearing and reading the bad.
