Vandals attack home set to house Traveller family
A vandalism attack on a council-owned bungalow reportedly due to house a Traveller family has been described as “despicable” and “incitement to hatred”.
Gardaí in Clonmel are investigating the incident which happened sometime on Tuesday night or early on Wednesday morning and involved significant damage to the inside of the house, as well as broken windows.
Security personnel are now on duty outside the detached bungalow, which was renovated in recent months and was due to be handed over to Tipperary County Council Council by the contractor shortly.
Gardaí are trying to establish if there are any CCTV cameras in the area, although that’s believed to be unlikely, and have been carrying out door-to-door inquiries in a bid to establish what exactly happened to the house.
The vandalism was reported to the Garda station in Clonmel at about 8am on Wednesday morning by council staff who were made aware of what had happened.
Tipperary County Council’s director of housing Sinead Carr said there was “no definitive decision” yet as to who was due to move into the house. “Regardless of who it was allocated to, it’s an unacceptable act,” she said of the vandalism. “This house was only purchased recently by us, and refurbished.”
According to the Tipperary Rural Traveller Network, a Traveller family from the Clonmel area was due to move into the house in the near future, but it’s unclear now if this will go ahead.
“They were ready to move in,” said Margaret Casey of the Tipperary Rural Traveller Network. “It’s just despicable... This is incitement to hatred, that’s the kind of act that this is.
“I hope whoever did it is found and gets justice for it.”
She said such an incident “is not isolated” in Ireland. “These incidents have been happening for the last 30, 40, 50 years.”
Ms Casey said the family in question have been “pulled from pillar to post” in recent years, trying to get accommodation.
“It’s going to be very difficult for this family to move in there with the amount of fear. You or I wouldn’t want to move into a place where you know people didn’t want you.”
