Broken window murders
Going to veer slightly from the normal tone of posts you would typically find on SV Ireland but I thought it would be remiss of me and in very bad taste if I posted the following images from Google Streetview without makging some kind of comment.
The next time your playing the back nine at the Limerick County Golf Club be careful not to slice your liathróid because you really don't want to go searching for it in the adjoining housing estate's of Castle Oaks / O'Malley Park, the scene of a brutal double murder this weekend.
Images below are of the house were the two bodies were found with fatal gunshot wounds.
Link to streetview
Hearing estate names like Southill, Moyross, or O'Malley Park mentioned in the same breath as reports of murders, violence, drugs, drug gangs, gang violence, shootings and gun crime is nothing new. But how did these estates become a hotbed for this anti-social behaviour? I'm a great believer in the broken windows theory which claims that disorder invites even more disorder-that simple things like broken windows or graffiti, if left unaddressed, can set in motion a self-perpetuating spiral of anti-social behaviour to a point where vandalism, violence and criminality become endemic in a given area.
President McAlease, to much fanfare, back in January 2008 launched two separate "vision plans" for Limerick's Moyross housing estate and the Southill / Ballinacurra Weston areas of the Limerick city. Social and economic regeneration of Limerick's most downtrodden and neglected housing estates was the vision. The demolition of 2,000 derelict houses was to pave the way for this regeneration.
In 2010 plans (the vision) had to be scaled back due to "sharp down-turn in the National Economy" and the revised allocated budget went from €627m to €924m to €337 Million.
So 3 years on what's been achieved? Well out of the proposed 2,000 demolitions only 250 have been carried out. So that's another 3 years where the conditions continue unabated. Where disorder has been fostering more disorder, where people have been living in an atmosphere of constant fear and where anti-social behaviour set against the existing backdrops of run-down derelict houses seems almost expected and appropriate.
Across the road from the house where the shootings took place.
Link to streetview
A tour of the estate gives you an idea of how run-down the area really is.
They also seem to have a rat problem in the estate!
Link to streetview
This looks like a stashed robbed car to me. Very suspect.
Link to streetview
Token shopping trolly.
Link to streetview
Still they'll always have Munster i guess.
Link to streetview