'I took it upon myself to go down and take away the plastic stuff out of a bonfire'

NUMEROUS incidents of anti-social behaviour have taken place at Castleconnell Community Park since Halloween. There have also been a number of bonfire incidents and two domestic rubbish bins were burnt on New Year's Eve.

Former councillor Michael Murphy has raised the issue, saying he was “disappointed to see this activity” particularly at an amenity that could develop into something very valuable for the community.

“It's disappointing to see the antisocial behaviour and this burning... Hopefully, it'll stop now and the community can get behind it and build it up into a nice community space.”

Mr Murphy added that he would rather not be highlighting these events in a new amenity where nearly all the new trees planted have been vandalised. He said a line of trees planted by Limerick City an County Council were broken and the majority haven't been replaced.

Mr Murphy said there are a lot of “feral youth” around the Castleconnell area. “I see it in other communities, I see it around town, but it comes home to roost in a nice amenity that the council provided and it could develop into something.

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“It would've helped if the council had come and cleaned it up. I had given the council a bit of notice to clean it up so there has been about four incidents of burning in the park since Halloween.”

The former councillor continued: “I would've hoped if the council had cleaned up after Halloween that it might have put a curb on it... I was going down there doing a litter pick once a week, and it was looking fine up to Halloween, but since Halloween, it has fallen down fairly badly.”

Mr Murphy was disappointed that the council didn't organise a clean-up after Halloween and was hoping that the Tidy Towns group might take an interest in this area.

At Halloween, he pulled away five wheelie bins from the makings of a bonfire. “I took it upon myself to go down and take away the plastic stuff out of a bonfire.”

He also cited a problem with scrambler bike racing in the area. “You can see the remnants where bikes are cutting up green spaces.”