‘Stricter penalties needed for those engaged in feuds’

Stricter penalties need to be introduced for members of the Traveller community engaged in violent feuds “to force them to comply with normal standards”, a local councillor has said.

Cllr Andrew Duncan issued the call after four people were arrested following a physical altercation in a Mullingar housing estate on Saturday evening involving members of two feuding Traveller factions.

The four are remanded in custody at Cloverhill and are due to appear at Thursday’s sitting of Mullingar District Court on charges connected to last Saturday evening’s confrontation in Ardleigh Park.

Videos of the altercation were circulated widely on social media at the weekend showed members of the feuding factions, some armed with what appeared to be sticks and gardening implements. The altercation was broken up by gardaí who arrived on the scene quickly. Three of the four males currently remanded in custody were arrested at the scene, while a fourth was subsequently detained.

Speaking at yesterday’s online meeting of the Westmeath Joint Policing Committee (JPC), Cllr Duncan said “increased penalties” could deter those involved in feuds.

“It’s on a regular basis. Every six to eight months we seem to have a problem. I don’t know what can be done, but it is unfair to residents in those areas [where the incidents take place].

Cllr Duncan said the incidents often occur in “high profile estates” where there are “loads of ordinary decent people working their butts off and are having to put up with this nonsense”.

“There has to be some form of increased penalties. Is there anything from a political perspective we can do? Because they can’t be allowed to go unchallenged. There is a minority of people involved on a regular basis and from a minority background.

“I don’t accept it for one minute and I would say it straight to their faces. I think that it is absolutely abhorrent, this behaviour, which they seem to think is reasonable. They are going to have to be forced to comply with normal standards.”

Responding, Superintendent Alan Murray said Mullingar gardaí investigations into the incident are ongoing. “There are still a number of other arrests we want to make over the next few days,” he said.

Supt Murray added that in tandem with the criminal proceedings currently under way, gardaí are working with the Traveller Mediation Service to try to bring the feud to an end.

Chief Superintendent Fergus Healy told the JPC that it is a “select few” involved in the feuds and that arresting participants is a “huge deterrent”.

Cllr Duncan said that it was the “quick actions of the guards that resolved the issue from escalating into something where someone undoubtedly would have seriously injured”.