KERRY NORTH Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris has called for the intervention of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and the Department of Social Welfare to end a feud between Traveller families in Tralee.
Mr Ferris also said exclusion orders, whereby the courts were excluding members of the families from Tralee, were not working and were being openly ignored. Great leniency was being shown in the courts.
He claimed business people and residents in Tralee were suffering.
Mr Ferris said the feud had escalated to a stage where guns were now being confiscated, and the town was getting a bad name because of a small minority of Travellers. Six illegally held guns were seized in recent weeks by gardaí.
“It’s necessary that the gloves come off,” Mr Ferris said.
He was putting down a motion in the Dáil in relation to the issue.
He claimed most job seekers were subject to minute scrutiny yet some of those involved in the feud in Tralee in receipt of unemployment assistance were leading “a fairly affluent lifestyle” with vans and other trappings. This was while they had no visible means of income. This needed to be investigated.
The unemployed in other communities were treated “like criminals”, such was the scrutiny they had to undergo to obtain benefits.
He said people surrounding the Mitchels area, where the feud is at its height, were living in fear, and the feuding families were doing a terrible disservice to Travellers, the vast majority of whom were “excellent people”.
“Huge amounts” of taxpayers’ money was being spent on trying to contain the feud, yet it was out of control, he said. A multi-agency approach such as he was suggesting had contained a similar situation in west Limerick.
Mr Ferris was speaking on local radio early yesterday.
Some 45 people have now been brought before the courts in Tralee in relation to the feud, which has been going on since early summer. The regional armed response unit of the Garda has been called to Tralee three times to deal with tensions.