Gardaí are searching for a teenager allegedly responsible for a spate of incidents in an Ennis housing estate at the weekend.
The 17-year-old boy is understood to have successfully secured bail in the High Court recently after he was brought before Ennis District Court on other alleged charges.
Gardaí are following a definite line of inquiry following several incidents that occurred in the Dromard area of Ennis over the weekend.
In one incident, a woman and her 10-year-old child managed to force a teenage boy out the front door after he tried to break into their home. Gardaí are treating that incident as an aggravated burglary.
The same teen is also believed to be behind another alleged burglary in the same area earlier while the windows in two homes and several cars were also smashed during the incident.
Gardaí mounted a ‘routine’ checkpoint at the entrance to the estate yesterday checking vehicles passing and entering or leaving the residential area.
The same boy was arrested along with another teenager in July after a hoax call was made to the fire brigade. Firefighters were threatened by a youth wielding a knife when they arrived at the scene in Dromard.
One woman said: “There is no way I want to be identified but many of us here are really living in fear. We have been for months and it’s got to stop. We just don’t know what’s going to happened next.”
“This fella has been arrested a few times and now we hear he was on bail when this happened at the weekend. The guards are doing what they can to be fair but the courts just aren’t,” she added.
A meeting of local residents was due to take place last night to discuss the long-running issues with the same teenager.
Gardaí have asked anyone who witnessed any of the incidents or has any information that could help with their investigation to contact Ennis station on 065 6848100.