This article is from page 36 of the 2007-03-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 36 JPG
ILLEGAL parking of caravans in Shannon is posing huge problems for the people of the town and flies in the face of the county’s Traveller Accommodation Programme.
That was the view expressed at a meeting of Shannon Town Council last week, where councillors hit out at the trend of illegal parking.
Councillor Patricia McCarthy (Independent) called for a height restriction barrier to be placed at the entrance to the laneway, ad- jacent to the Shannon Olympic yiKe ee
She said while she does not want to see the town being “fenced off”,
parking restrictions should be put in place there, as it is “too easy to open the gate and get in there”.
“There is very obviously a loop- hole in the legislation, where some- body who has accommodation can up and leave,” said Cllr McCarthy.
“Unauthorised and illegal park- ing is detrimental to Clare County Council’s Traveller Accommoda- tion Programme,” she said.
Cllr Gerry Flynna (Independent) said, “There is a huge problem of illegal parking all over the town. There doesn’t seem to be legisla- tion there to deal with it at a local level. I think it 1s a huge problem.”
Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG) said it appears that some areas are ex-
posed to “this type of behaviour” which is not acceptable.
“If there are areas with a history of this type of parking, we should be protecting these areas,” he said.
Clir Greg Duff (Labour) agreed with this view and pointed out that there was “a long history” of this type of behaviour.
He said if a barrier was put in place beside the Shannon Olympic pitch, he would be afraid that the problem would just move a short distance down the road.
Cllr Mike McKee (Independent) agreed with this and said he felt that if one area was blocked off, then another area would be used to park caravans.
Clir Sean Hillery (FF) made the point that Travellers should be in- tegrated, “but in a controlled man- ner”.
Shannon’s mayor, Cllr Tony Mc- Mahon (Labour) said Shannon ap- pears to be getting “a right lash- ing’, in relation to illegal parking.
‘The whole issue needs to be re- visited. There is no use in us trying to provide accommodation, if we have new people on the block next week looking for accommodation,” he said.
“It has to be addressed at national level. It is doing no good for either the settled community or the trav- elling community,” said Cllr Mc- Mahon.