Sir, - Congratulations on your excellent editorial on urban horses (November 7th). Over the past six months I have been involved with local enthusiasts in North Clondalkin who have founded the Quarryvale Horse and Pony Club. There are more than 40 young members and there have been several meetings with community gardai, local councillors and TDs including Austin Currie and Joe Higgins. Local teachers and community leaders support the club and have praised the founders' initiative. The children themselves worked on a design for an equitation centre, like those planned for Gallanstown and Fettercairn, and local agencies helped to draw up a business plan which has been submitted as an application for a youth anti-drugs project. The club has featured on a Teilefis na Gaeilge documentary and on radio programmes. Everyone who visits agrees the animals are healthy and well cared for. Certainly, our members have nothing in common with unscrupulous dealers who mistreat animals and allow them to roam the roads.
A voice of sanity like yours may help readers not to tar everyone with the same brush. In Quarryvale's case, there is a long tradition of working with horses and, for the sake of building the community, it is vital such skills are valued and handed on. This requires management and investment.
Even in midsummer we dreaded the possibility of an incident like the one on the Chapelizod bypass. It was waiting to happen if the situation was allow to continue unaltered.
But confiscating and killing horses is not the answer. The club has identified many opportunities in equine-related employment for young people. North Clondalkin has 13 separate housing estates where unemployment has been endemic for up to three generations in some families, and is over 70 per cent in some areas. Horses are not just pets: they represent the only lifeline to hope for many young people, an alternative to the catastrophic drugs problem.
The basic problem is land. Some local authority personnel have stated that "the horse is not appropriate in a suburban environment", and, more bluntly: "If you can't afford an acre to keep your horse, that's tough." But if an area even the size of two football pitches were provided, a centre could be built very cheaply using voluntary labour where appropriate.
At present, the club is using land awaiting development, and members are very grateful to the builder for providing this. But a permanent site is urgently needed.
All the current talk of partnership and inclusiveness rings hollow when the one area of enthusiasm and enterprise emerging in the community is stymied. The divisions in our society were never more starkly illustrated than in the vision of the "haves" speeding along a bypass in air-polluting pollutant cars, while others battle against huge odds to create communities. Rather than alarmist hysteria, we need planning and dialogue. We need to develop a culture of listening, of doing things with local communities, instead of for or to them. - Yours, etc.,
St Brigid's Road, Dublin 22.