Councillor Nicky Kelly and fellow Councillors accept petition at Redcross Commumity Hall.
The following is from a discussion on www.politics.ie regarding a mother and her four children who have been hounded out of four houses in Co Wicklow because her husband was convicted of a sex offence against a minor 18 YEARS AGO! (He got a suspended sentence of six months at the time).
Labour Councillors Join Mob Harrassment of Innocent Family
The family have been hounded out of Kilcoole, Redcross, Rathnew and Ashford. I think they are all in the Archdiocese of Dublin which covers most of Co. Wicklow as well. Ashford certainlly is and that is where their house was burned down.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has become a great hero of the liberal media because of the way he has dealt with allegations of child sexual abuse. He cannot make a speech without denouncing the evils of abuse and apologising for the way the Church dealt with them in the past. He even put pressure on Bishop Martin Drennan to resign even though NO criticism had been made of him in the Murphy Report. (Like the Wicklow mob, the Archbishop seems to believe in guilt by association.)
http://www.irishsalem.com/individuals/Politicians%20and%20Others/archbishop-martin/index.php
Would it be too much to ask the Archbishop to condemn the behaviour of the people who hound an innocent mother and her four children? The mob are abusing these innocents. Moreover the hysteria and fanaticism generated by the mob will rebound on real victims of child sexual abuse in the future. Cynicism is what normally follows after Hysteria.
This is a news article regarding the story. Almost unbelievable in a society that claims to be "caring and compassionate" and to have thrown off the chains of a "repressive" past!
ReplyDeleteCouncil Takes Sex Offenders Off Housing List
Irish Times 6 July 2010 by Eanna O Caollai
WICKLOW COUNTY councillors have passed a motion to remove convicted sex offenders “and those who consort” with them from the local authority housing list.
The move follows the weekend fire at a house in the village of Ashford which was due to be occupied by the family of a convicted sex offender.The motion was passed at a special meeting of the council yesterday afternoon following repeated failed attempts to house the family.
Proposed by the Labour Party’s Conal Kavanagh and seconded by Jimmy Shaughnessy, also of Labour, the motion stated that current policy be amended to ensure that those with a conviction for sex offences are removed from the housing list. It also stated that “those who consort” with those convicted of sex offences would also be “excluded” from the housing list. The measure will have to be approved by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government before it can be implemented.
A second motion tabled by Labour councillor Nicky Kelly and also passed unanimously asked that councillors be informed of all housing allocations and transfers being proposed by the council 10 days before they are implemented.
Standing orders were suspended at yesterday’s county council meeting to allow the councillors to debate the two motions.
As councillors arrived for the meeting, more than 100 people from Ashford and other areas staged a protest on the matter. The demonstration later moved to the HSE office in the town.
The residents were quick to point out that they had nothing to do with Sunday’s night’s fire that damaged the house on the Woodview Estate in Ashford shortly before midnight. It took almost two hours for appliances from Wicklow and Rathdrum to bring the fire under control. Gardaí investigating the fire said the blaze started in the sittingroom area.
The end-of-terrace house, which was empty at the time, was due to be occupied by the family of a man who has an 18-year-old conviction for a sex offence. The man was given a six-month suspended sentence in 1992 for having unlawful carnal knowledge of a minor.
He cannot be named in order to protect the identity of his victim.
Michael Nicholson, director of services at the council, told yesterday’s council meeting that a background check and an assessment by the Granada Institution found the man to be in a “low-risk” category.
Mr Kavanagh, who proposed yesterday’s motion, said he “totally condemned” the fire which he described as “a terrible turn of events”. He said the situation had been exploited by “a small group of vandals” whose actions resulted in “one house less” being available for social housing.
However, he defended the views of the local community, who met at a public meeting on Friday to voice opposition to the family moving in. He suggested a “sheltered housing-type arrangement” managed by the HSE could provide a solution for the family.
Wicklow County Council has attempted to house the family several times in recent months but, on each occasion, local opposition has prevented the family from moving in.
And this was a PREVIOUS attempt by Wicklow County Council to house the family. If this had happened in Ireland 50 years ago, our historians (and anti-clerics) would be wiping our noses in it still - and demanding that we face up to the truth about Ireland's terrible past. Well this episode occurred at the beginning of the current decade and it is already forgotten!
ReplyDelete'No Home For Child Abuser'
ANGRY MEETING VOWS TO PREVENT COUNCIL GIVING PAEDOPHILE A HOUSE IN CO. WICKLOW
Wicklow People 30 June 2010 by Myles Buchanan
PHOTO: Kalinda Healy hands over a petition to Cllr Nicky Kelly and fellow councillors at the meeting held in the Community Hall in Redcross.
ANGRY people, attending a hastily-called meeting in Redcross on Monday night, have vowed to do everything they can to prevent the county council finding a convicted paedophile a home in the county. There were furious scenes in Redcross Community Centre as close to 300 people, from across east Wicklow, vented their disbelief at the council's actions.
'Why are they trying to move him into an area with so much schools around?' asked one parent. Another warned: 'We don't even know what he looks like. He could have moved in already and we wouldn't recognise him if he walked down the street.'
The alarm was raised after residents discovered that the council were in the process of purchasing a house in Redcross for the sex offender and his family to move into.
That deal has since fallen through, but parents are still fearful that the council will attempt to move him in elsewhere.