10 September 1997
Calls to demolish "horror" estate in
Ballyhaunis
By Tom Shiel
A Priest has joined demands for the demolition of a "horror" housing estate in Ballyhaunis where windows are broken, doors smashed and mounds of scrap litter the entrance roadway. Local curate, Fr. Seamus O'Grady says many of the houses in controversial Tooraree Estate lack proper sanitary facilities and the social conditions in which some residents live are absolutely abominable.
And Mr. Pat Higgins, a member ofMayo County Council, put it even more strongly: "There is dynamite beneath the surface which could yet explode in our faces. The whole question of how travellers can be facilitated without impinging on the local community needs to be addressed if an emergency is to be avoided".
Like Bosnia
Ms Mary Smyth, who is involved in a Meitheal Mhaigheo Support Scheme for traveller women, said: "Quite frankly, the place looks like a scene from Bosnia."
Sister Geraldine Farrell, a Support Teacher for Travellers based at St. Joseph's Primary School in Ballyhaunis, said: "The whole estate should be demolished and rebuilt.I have been in estates all over Mayo but nowhere in the county are conditions so appalling. Apart from dilapidation, some of the houses are damp and there is open sewerage at the rear of the houses in places".
Although the Department of the Environment has sanctioned £220,000 for the refurbishment of the estate and the environs, there is still no sign of the long awaited cleanup.
Perhaps the worst blight on the unsightly Tooraree landscape is the fact that travellers are running an unsightly scrap merchant business there.
Some residents were so fed up that they moved despite the cost of transferring to rented private accommodation. One woman who left the estate with her husband after 30 years and moved to a house in Ballyhaunis now has to pay £35 weekly rent instead of the £14 which they were paying to the County Council.
Scrap and Dirt
The woman, who does not want to be named for fear of a backlash, said: "The people in Tooraree are nice but the scrap and the dirt is awful. The Council did clean up the place once but it soon was as filthy as ever again".
One person still living on the estate is 97 year old Mrs. Mary Regan who stated: "The area is an absolute disgrace. When I came here in 1951 the houses were beautiful".
Mrs. Regan's daughter, Winifred Kort said the reason some residents wanted to leave was because their children could not bring friends home because of sheer embarrassment over the rundown state of the area. One of Mrs. Mary Regan's sons, Sean, home on holiday from Massachussetts, stated: "I once brought friends here from the States. To be honest it was quite embarrassing".
Yesterday, Fr. Seamus O'Grady issued a plea to all sides to come together and try to make the estate presentable although he felt the ideal solution would be to demolish the houses altogether."I think the whole place should be demolished, razed to the ground", Fr. O'Grady stated. "Society is partly to blame for this nightmare".
Less Houses
Councillor Pat Higgins, meanwhile, feels that a less drastic solution, the demolition of some houses in order to reduce the housing density, might be adequate."If there were less houses it would make for a better environment", Councillor Higgins stated."After that, there would be a need to impose acceptable social behaviour".
Councillor Higgins pointed out that the traveller population in Ballyhaunis is the third largest in the county and there is a need for an urgent initiative to tackle the overall traveller situation.
"Firstly", Councillor Higgins added, "we have to control the scrap situation in Tooraree. You cannot expect to change attitudes if you don't improve the physical environment in which people are living".
Councillor Higgins says he's disappointed at the delay in implementing the County Council plan to revamp the estate and is fearful that if the matter drags on too long the sizeable Government allocation might be lost.
A spokesman for Mayo County Council said yesterday the department for the Environment had asked for technical information and this was being put together by their architects section.
After this information had been furnished to the Department and section given, contracts could be sought for the remedial works. It was expected that the Department would provide in the region of £250,000 for this work.
The spokesman agreed that Tooraree was in a atrocious condition at the moment and when improvement and remedial works were carried out it was hoped that tenants would become more involved in the upkeep of the estate.
