Call for increased garda presence along vandalised woodland trail in Cork town

A call has been made for increased garda patrols in Carrigaline following recent incidents of vandalism along the Waterpark Woodland Trail.

Alan Desmond of Carrigaline Tidy Towns, manager of the Waterpark Woodland Trail project, told The Echo that volunteers have repeatedly undertaken repair works within the park over recent months as incidents of vandalism persist in the area.

Last weekend, two new wooden stairways, which were erected in the woodland to provide for a more accessible trail, were “smashed to pieces” by a group of vandals.

"The woodland is an area we started developing last year as part of a three-year Tidy Towns project," Mr Desmond said.

“It was an overgrown woodland area that we went into, carved out pathways and opened it all up – but we’ve had continued issues with vandalism."

“There are three areas inside where we put staircases made from railway sleepers, but these vandals decided to go in last weekend and smashed two of them to pieces.

“It’s not about the cost, but more so the time and effort we’ve put in – our pride is being hurt the whole time by this happening.

“It's a great amenity for the public, so all we can do is keep our chin up, go back in and repair them,” he added.

“It took four of us up to eight hours to repair them on Wednesday evening – we were only able to repair one, so we must go in and repair the other one still.

“We deal with vandalism on a regular basis – even in the public park, there's a free children’s bookcase, where people can swap books, that was set on fire recently.

“Anti-social behaviour in Carrigaline has started to get beyond a joke,” said Mr Desmond.

“There are plenty of clubs and organisations in the area, there’s loads to do, so there is no excuse for this.

“It comes down to garda resources, there’s not enough of them around to patrol the community – if they had an increased presence, these people might not be so fast to do something like this.”