Roscommon eviction leads to violent reprisal

A still shot from an RTE drone film of the farm showing burned out vehicles

 

By Anthony Neeson

Eight men have been injured and a dog killed after a gang viciously assaulted them at a recently repossessed farm in County Roscommon.

Gardaí are investigating after the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning at the farm in Falsk near Strokestown when men in hi-vis jackets descended on the scene.

The men who were attacked were security personnel, believed to be from Northern Ireland. Four vehicles were also burned out and the dog killed was a security dog.

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The attack took place at 5.30 a.m. and the farm has been sealed off as a crime scene.

Three men have been released from hospital, one of whom was kept in overnight for observation.

Last Tuesday, three people were evicted from the farm and Gardaí have confirmed that an allegation of assault that took place during the eviction was reported to them.

Independent Roscommon TD, Michael Fitzmaurice, condemned the attack.

Last week in the Dáil, he had also condemned the eviction saying that gardaí blocked off the roads while twenty to thirty men from the North “pegged three people out of a house, two of them elderly, and left them on the side of the road.”

He added: “They were aided and abetted by An Garda Síochána, which is disgraceful.”

Mr. Fitzmaurice warned that “Irish people need to wake up, especially if people are coming from the North. We must take them on and stop what is happening.”

He said that in his opinion “the banks involved are scum.”

Fianna Fáil TD Eugene Murphy described the incidents this week as “quite disturbing.”

“I suppose the whole episode has upset a lot of people and while there seems to have been a very bad handling of the eviction, I have to condemn the violence of last night [Sunday].

“Most people I have spoken to today do not want that type of scene.

“However, it is absolutely essential that the bank would deal with this matter very urgently and come to some sort of settlement with the family.”

 

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