By Claire Corrigan
Mullingar shop workers are receiving abuse, on a daily basis, from a gang or gangs of teenage and pre-teen delinquents on bicycles, it was revealed this week to Topic. And local shop owners blame parents for this ongoing problem, and say that unless the Gardai are given power to detain the children, until parents come to claim them, and pay a fine, the trouble will continue.
Speaking on the ongoing anti-social behaviour at present in Mullingar, one business owner said that she had seen the gang congregate on bikes on the footpath, where they often intimidate pedestrians.
“If you are walking and they are cycling, they will go through you. I’ve seen them hit people, while on the bikes. They are teenagers or younger. What they are doing is illegal. They are on the footpaths, not on the roads. Nobody is calling them into line or reprimanding them,” she said.
The business owners revealed that a number of customers have complained to them about the “bike” brigade who have been causing problems in and around several shops throughout the town.
“One man told me that the next time he gets hit with a bike on the footpath, he’s going to knock the young person off the bike. He said what’s the point in phoning the Gardai, because you can’t have them running to you every time something so small happens. But one would ask, where are the parents?
Maybe if the parents were brought up to the Garda station and made pay a fine, it might help them keep an eye on them,” declared the business woman.
She has asked to remain anonymous, but informed us that the gang seem to be most often in the Pearse Street area and around the Town Park. “If you go down there, there can be 20 or 30 bikes at any stage. One guy told me he was hit in the arm by a young cyclist passing by him and then he was told where to go,” she said.
Another person met three cyclists in Dunne’s Shopping Mall, who were “up to no good” at the time.
HIGH NUMBER OF THEFTS
A shop worker in Pearse Street reported a high number of thefts, as well as verbal abuse from the gang. “We’ve had robberies and roaring and shouting from them. They are always roaring abuse at the staff and even customers. Once they threw a bottle, that they found in a bin, through the door and nearly hit a customer. They mainly hang around the Park,” she said.
“They come in and rob things and then run away. They don’t get caught and there’s nothing that can really be done about it. It’s been getting worse, and in the last year, it has been really, really bad. They use the bikes to escape, usually, or run down the road, or down the alleyway, or through the Town Park.”
The woman, who also asked to stay unnamed, said that she has witnessed children as young as five years old taking part in the anti-social behaviour.
“We used to have a security man here and he rang the Gardaí quite a few times, but there isn’t really anything they can do, because of existing laws. All they can really do is warn them. The young people range from five to about seventeen, all doing whatever they like around town. We have honestly seen five year-olds. It’s a joke,” the visibly upset woman told Topic.
SHOP CUSTOMERS ROBBED
Topic was told that customers have informed staff in the shop that they have been robbed. “I’ve heard they have been really vicious in the Park on the bikes. On the footpaths, you would be intimidated by them,” she added.
Another staff member at the shop said that his brother was driving home from work recently, when one youth from the gang, who lives nearby, actually head-butted his car while he drove by. Everyone is having the same bother. They all seem to be the part of the same group who hang out together in the Park and think they can do as they please.”
The woman said that she didn’t believe that the youths’ parents were aware of what their children were up to.
Another business owner warned that a collision between one of the youths and an elderly person could prove fatal. “If someone unsuspecting walks out the door of the shop and a bike whizzes past at 20 miles an hour, it could kill an older person. It’s happened to me, actually, where I have come out of a shop and a fella scoots past on a bike. In the last year, I’ve noticed this behaviour starting to get worse. What they are doing on the footpath, I just don’t know,” he remarked.
