By Eoghan MacConnell
Three people were arrested and questioned about a series of gun attacks in Tullamore, Co Offaly, yesterday, with a woman being hit by shotgun pellets in the latest incident.
The chairman of Tullamore Town Council has threatened to evict trouble-making families following three separate gun attacks in the town in the past nine days.
In the latest and most serious incident, a 24-year-old woman received pellet wounds to her leg when two shotgun blasts struck the front window of a house at 11.30pm on Wednesday night.
Although badly shaken, the woman's injuries were not serious and she was treated by ambulance crews at the house in Kilbrook, Tullamore.
Her partner and two children who were in the house at the time were not injured in the shooting.
The attack comes just three days after a shotgun was used to blast the front door of a house at the Cluain Darach estate on the Daingean Road in Tullamore.
A third gun attack took place on Monday, April 19 when a shot was fired through the bedroom window of a house at Arden View in Tullamore.
The attacks prompted gardai to step up patrols and to operate a number of armed checkpoints in Tullamore in recent weeks.
Arrest
Gardai arrested a man in his 20s in the town at 2am on Thursday and he was questioned at Tullamore garda station yesterday.
A second man and a woman in their 20s were arrested a few hours later. They were questioned in connection with last Sunday's gun attack on the house in Cluain Darach.
All three were detained under the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. One of the men was released without from custody without charge yesterday and a file is prepared for the DPP.
Tullamore Town Council Chairman, Cllr Tommy McKeigue (FG) called on those involved to "step back" and consider their actions before lives are lost.
Urging the community to support the gardai, Mr McKeigue said: "The gardai need the co-operation of the people of Tullamore, why should one or two families be allowed to wreck lives in the community".
Mr McKeigue said Tullamore Town Council will do its utmost to evict trouble making families from local authority housing.
"If they are tenants of the council and they are wreaking havoc they will be evicted.
"The council will do its utmost to rid the estates of these people," he said.
- Eoghan MacConnell
The Irish Times
