Donegal Cllr seeks CCTV for park after vandalism

A Letterkenny Municipal District councillor is again calling for CCTV cameras in Bernard McGlinchey Town Park after human excrement was found smeared on a children’s slide on Monday morning.

“If it’s a money issue, we need to find the money,” Sinn Féin Cllr. Gerry McMonagle said. “Simple as that.”

Cllr. McMonagle said he will raise the issue of CCTV cameras next Tuesday, at the January meeting of the Letterkenny Municipal District. He said he will call for standing orders to be suspended, to allow all councillors to speak on the issue.

Council staff were on site Tuesday morning morning to power-clean and disinfect the play apparatus. 

The councillor got a call on the Bank Holiday Monday morning to inform him of the vandalism at the play park, and arranged for the slide to be closed off until it could be cleaned.

He said there were many parents and children at the popular park on Monday morning and again on Tuesday. “They really were disgusted,” he said.

There are CCTV cameras in Ballymacool Town Park and Cllr. McMonagle said he could see no reason why Bernard McGlinchey Town Park did not have cameras as well. He said the park already had the infrastructure for a system and he did not believe the cost would be significant.

“I just think it’s a no-brainer, something we need to do as a council,” he said.

The councillor said he believed the cameras would serve as a deterrent to anti-social behaviour and vandalism, and would help with detection in those instances where such behaviour occurred.

”We need protection for our citizens and our young people, especially,” Cllr. McMonagle said.