GARDAÍ HAVE worked more than 12,000 hours overtime at an estimated cost of about €400,000 during the past two months in an effort to keep the peace between four feuding families from the Travelling community in Waterford city.
Supt Chris Delaney told a meeting of the city joint policing committee earlier this week that gardaí have worked more than 12,000 hours overtime to deal with the feud which erupted in the city in July.
Supt Delaney did not disclose the cost of the policing operation at the meeting and when contacted yesterday, he declined to reveal the cost but The Irish Times has learned from informed sources that it's likely to have cost about €400,000.
Supt Delaney confirmed that handling the feud between the four families has been one of the biggest policing operations ever seen in the southeast with officers being drafted in from Kilkenny, Wexford and Tipperary to assist in patrolling the city.
Officers at garda, sergeant and inspector rank all qualify for overtime payments and one Garda source described it as a major operation.
"It's been huge operation — at the height of the feud, we had fellows drafted in from as far away as Nenagh and Gorey," said the Garda source.
The operation involved armed detectives patrolling the city day and night as the feud between the Burkes and the Delaneys on the one side and the Mongans and the Stokes on the other threatened to spill over into serious violence in a number of locations around the city.
According to one Garda source, both sides give differing versions of what caused the initial row but matters seemed to have been inflamed when one side were ambushed by their rivals en route to a bareknuckle fist fight which had been arranged to settle the matter.
The dispute then escalated and among the more serious incidents were separate shootings in which first a 14-year-old boy was shot in the stomach and later a 16-year-old girl was shot in the leg and stomach. About 10 houses have been torched in arson attacks.
Supt Delaney told the joint policing committee that there had been more than 100 recorded incidents including public order offences, assaults, arson attacks and gun attacks since the feud erupted on July 12th.
And Supt Delaney told the joint policing committee, which includes city councillors and representatives of residents groups, that 47 people had been arrested and the majority of these had been brought before the courts for a variety of offences.
Supt Delaney told The Irish Times that a mediation process has been initiated involving the families involved in the feud and gardaí remained hopeful that it may defuse tensions and bring a resolution to the dispute.
Former mayor of Waterford and local Labour councillor Seamus Ryan said that he was not surprised that gardaí had worked over 12,000 hours overtime over the past two months to try and keep the peace between the rival factions.
"It's a lot of overtime but unfortunately it's the level of resources that have been required to to deal with this matter," said Mr Ryan.
He echoed Supt Delaney's hope that mediation can bring a halt to the feud.