According to the front page of this week's Limerick Chronicle, our fearless Mayor is jumping to our rescue from another great peril.
He wants new laws brought in to give powers to GardaĆ to stop people begging on the streets of Limerick City. He has the backing of the manager of Brown Thomas!
The mayor says that he had been approached by three beggars and found them "a complete annoyance to shoppers and it is time something was done about them".
I'd also prefer if there were no beggars so what's the wonderful cure, Mayor?
Mayor Kiely intends talking to the city manager and the GardaĆ to see if new bye-laws can be brought in to prevent begging, and urges the TDs to see if legislation is needed.
Really? To do what? Tell them it's illegal, move on or be arrested? So that they can end up in court and prison (costing over 300 /day and being around criminals and drugs in our already overcrowded prison system).
In Limerick city, we have beggars, some are simply homeless, some are Romanian gypsies, begging while selling old copies of Big Issues, others are homeless because they are addicted to alcohol or another drug.