PERSISTENT intimidation and attacks on her home have driven a 19-year-old Limerick student to seek medication to help her “live through this nightmare.”
Confiding details of the persecution that she, her mother and an elderly neighbour have been subjected to on one of the city’s older housing estates, she said they are now at breaking point.
They have been subjected to plastic bottles filled with stones flung at their patio door and windows, hanging baskets filled with earth and flowers, pulled from the walls and hurled at the windows, loud banging on doors, bricks and beer bottles filled with eggs thrown at the house and gangs shouting abuse and obscenities.
“People will be reading about me in the newspapers or I’ll be a patient in St Joseph’s Hospital after I suffer a nervous breakdown. I resent, that at my age I’ve been put on Valium and Zimovane sleeping tablets.
After numerous incidents, the Garda Siochana called and a statement was submitted.
However, they continue to live in fear.
“It’s terrible to say but we’re looking forward to the winter when we can keep the curtains drawn and when it won’t be so attractive for those persecuting us to go out in the dark and the cold.
“This is no way to live – we’re victims and because we own our house, we can’t look for a relocation, but we should be able to see those responsible dealt with by the law”.
A source close to City Hall said they are finding it almost impossible to secure evictions through the courts. This was corroborated by a solicitor, who said there is “very real concern and dissatisfaction with what he claims is “the judiciary’s leniency towards young perpetrators,” and a city councillor claims that “Limerick has the worst problem in Ireland in securing eviction orders”.
The mother and daughter do not open their hall door. Instead, they look out from a hall window. Recently, a woman whose head and face were almost completely covered with a hoodie, said she was looking for the mother.
“My mother told this woman she must have the wrong house – she then reached into her pocket and removed what I’m almost certain was a screwdriver and lunged at my mother, who stepped back. The woman was screaming that she was marked by a gangland family.
“The woman joined some youths at the rear of the house, and afterwards, a beer bottle was thrown up on to our rear extension. A garda arrived, listened and said he would report to the community garda.
“We’ve not been contacted by the community garda,” she alleged.
An elderly neighbour is subjected to similar abuse, corroborated by her nephew, who has had to repair broken doors and windows in his aunt’s house.
“She has a physical handicap and has had to endure not only these thugs breaking into her yard and having sex, but then having to sweep up condoms.
“This is totally unacceptable behaviour, and law-abiding citizens shouldn’t have to live like this- we feel helpless and abandoned”.
Minister of State, Peter Power, said he has been worried about the situation on this particular housing estate for some time.
“I am deeply concerned about this young girl and her mother’s case – it is shocking in its own right but is a symptom of the escalating problem of anti-social activity in the area. I’ve asked the Gardai for a major crackdown there and I’m hopeful that this will show positive results”.
