Call for increased garda presence following violent brawl in Laytown

Fine Gael councillor Sharon Tolan has slammed a lack of garda resources in east Meath after a vicious brawl broke out in Laytown on Monday.

The fight which was caught on camera, took place outside Pat's Supermarket at around 4.20pm on the hottest day of the year as shocked beach goers looked on in horror.

A group of people can be seen in the video, which circulated on social media, with one man holding a hammer as he walked up the road.

Tolan said that she had requested a greater garda presence in the seaside area as the summer season kicked off but despite her pleas, no resources were deployed to the area allowing an incident such as the one on Monday to occur. She added:

"The attack that happened on Monday was violent and vicious, it was in the middle of the afternoon.

"The reports that received were that two individuals had been rowing earlier in the day and one went off and got family members and it was clear for a number of hours that something was going to kick off and it did.

"The video is pretty horrific viewing. If you are a family and were to bring your child to Pat's Supermarket in Laytown for an ice cream to witness that is just horrific.

"It's not on and it's time that this is addressed once and for all."

The Laytown Bettystown councillor said that in previous years when gardai focused attention on the area at busy seasonal times, there was little trouble at the beach.

"We were promised a zero tolerance approach to both parking and public order issues back at the beginning of June.

"Every year since I was elected I have contacted the Gardai about two issues leaving cert students and the summer months and the influx of people who come on sunny days and on weekends.

"For a lot of years we would have had issues with crowds of leaving cert students arriving on buses and trains from other areas and causing a lot of trouble.

"We had two years in a row where the Gardai were at the train station and bus stops and turned the leaving cert students right back around and it was great and we haven't had that issue in the last number of years

"At the beginning of the summer I emailed the Gardai and outlined my concerns and asked what were the plans for the summer ahead and I was promised a zero tolerance approach to both illegal parking and public order issues.

"Mountain bike patrols were to be deployed and a request had been submitted for the mounted unit to attend. Every year we seem to have one big incident."

Last June, a teenager was brutally attacked after being set up by a group of up to 100 youths on Bettystown Beach. Following the attack, a campaign was launched have a full time Garda station opened in the area.

"Following that we had a great response from the Gardai," added Tolan. We had the mountain bike patrols we had the mounted unit, we had gardai on the streets walking, it was a lovely summer for the rest of the summer and people really felt safe.

"I'm disappointed that despite assurances that another incident occurred.

"We are almost a population of 33,000 people here in east Meath so our own population alone coupled with the seasonal visitors really should indicate that we need a community policing plan all year round but particularly for our summer months.

"I understand that you can't predict where or when a row is going to start but they can predict large volumes of people visiting the beach on sunny days and on weekends."

The local politician added that she wants to set the record straight about reports that teens were responsible for the raucous.

"I want to dispel the myth because there was a bit of narrative about teens being out of control.

"There were large crowds of teens enjoying themselves, if people are intimidated they shouldn't be, we all had to be a teenager at some point in our lives, just because you are in a group, doesn't indicate that you are causing trouble."

"A Garda spokesperson said:

"Gardaí are investigating a public order incident that occurred on the Coast Road, Laytown, at approximately 4:20pm, Monday 18th July 2022. No arrests have been made, investigations are ongoing."