SHEER terror has forced a middle- aged woman to hand back the keys of her house to city council.
Driven out by physical threats, horrific intimidation and damage to her property, the grandmother is now residing in a privately owned house in another area.
Two weeks ago, the Limerick Post reported on the sense of abandonment that a young girl and her mother were experiencing as victims of extreme harassment from neighbouring gangs.
As owners of their home, they cannot seek relocation from the city council and their only hope of regaining a sense of security and safety is that an eviction order is not only served on the offending tenants who are traumatising their lives, but that the courts proceed with evictions.
However, an informed source told this newspaper, eviction orders are being vigorously opposed in the High Court and Supreme Court by solicitors who know the legislation is weak and unfortunately, Limerick’s record is deemed the worst in the country.
Local politicians are all too aware of the bullying many of their constituents are subjected to by neighbouring families or gangs.
And while they liaise with the Garda Siochana and City Hall, in the words of one councillor, who recently received a serious threat to the safety of his own family, “the Garda Siochana are doing their best to apprehend people, but it’s when the fight is taken into the courts the battle is often lost”.
This week, the grandmother who has quit the house she was renting from the city council, claims that even the best efforts of the community gardai failed to improve the situation. She paid special tribute to Sgt Ollie Kennedy, Henry Street Station.
Her pleas to be relocated have been ignored, despite her doctor’s warning in a written letter to City Hall, that if she continued to live in the location, “her mental and physical health would further deteriorate”.
She has had to commence Anxiolytic medication and was referred to a psychiatric day hospital where the doctors, reportedly, are of the opinion that her anxiety is precipitated and perpetuated solely by the environment in which she is living.
This woman is now forced to seek rent allowance to enable her pay for the private accommodation.
While local politicians convey varying degrees of optimism for a successful outcome to the regeneration programme, they are unanimous that “tough new measures are brought in to protect victimised tenants”.
Said one councillor: “There has to be a tightening up – more thorough checking of tenants before assigning them a house – and effective measures must be taken to deal with them when they undermine the quality of lives of neighbours”..
Just two ASBOS were issued nationwide in the past two years, and the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has called for a review by the Garda Commissioner.
