As most of us know, life at this moment in time is hard and most of us are struggling to pay the bills and just get by. We work hard for the things that we have, so the last thing we need on top of this is anti-social teenagers in the village trying to cause problems/damage property belonging to local residents just for kicks or because they are bored.
We have been informed by a local resident that they saw a few teenagers playing with bangers and then they heard a bang against their car or garage door. When they went out, the boys had gone but they found a banger in their drive, so the boys where obviously either firing or throwing the bangers at neighbours drives. 
What did they want to happen? Set the car on fire with the banger? Was that their aim? Why else would you throw a banger at a car but to try and cause damage in some way?
A few months ago, we had a few teenagers actually going up to a couple of doors in the village belonging to residents (one elderly couple), they jumped up and kicked their door for no apparent reason. There has also been other reports of vandalism in the village in the last few months. Did these teenagers do it? Are these the same teenagers?
It always seems to be a couple of bad apples in the barrel that start the demise of a community and this behaviour is all it takes to bring down a community. A couple of anti-social, teenage trouble makers who are just hell bent on damaging or upsetting the local residents.
So what is next for these bored, uncontrollable teenagers? How about mugging elderly neighbours? drug dealing? robbing cars? Isn’t that the way it goes. They get bored with doing the basic anti-social petty “crimes”, so they have to up the game and dare each other to do more and more serious anti-social “crimes”.
What can the Gardaí do about it? Nothing as they are probably too young to commit crimes according to the law and they have their hands full as it is. So what is the solution?
Do the parents know what their kids are getting up to? Do they care?
It is not for me (the editor) or anyone to tell another parent how to bring up their kids, but something needs to be done before they start to go further down the rabbit hole of anti-social “crime”.
As the parents/guardians are responsible for their teenagers actions, they are also legally responsible. This means there is no reason why a local resident cannot bring the parents to court and sue them for any damage that their teenage child have caused.
This is not to be seen as legal advice but more of an option should be explored should these anti-social teenagers damage your property.
If you see any suspicious behaviour in the village, please contact us and we can raise this to Kells Gardai as part of the neighbourhood watch scheme.
The last thing I would like to see is volunteer neighbourhood watch wardens patrolling the village, but with this kind of anti-social behaviour on the increase, it just might be going that way!