Underage drinking is a problem throughout the county, according to Galway’s top Garda.
Consumption of alcohol is not only confined to third level students, Chief Superintendent Tom Curley said, but children aged 13, 14 and 15 were drinking illegally.
He said the problem of underage drinking was one that needed to be addressed by parents, and it was also an educational issue.
Chief Superintendent Tom Curley confirmed to the Joint Policing Committee (JPC) that Gardaí visit nightclubs and underage discos to crackdown on youngsters getting served and consuming alcohol.
He said Gardaí have a good relationship with the Galway Races and the operators of underage discos – buses transporting young people to these events are regularly checked by Gardaí for alcohol.
He was responding to Cllr Joe Byrne who described the underage drinking scene as frightening.
The Fine Gael County Councillor said a video clip posted on YouTube over Christmas, depicting a scene from the main street in Loughrea at 3am was “really scary”.
The video, which is supposed to be humorous, was actually quite frightening, he said, because underage children were clearly very drunk in it.
“They’re well underage and obviously, there were served drink,” he said.
As a parent of a child who was in the town on the night in question, Cllr Byrne said it was frightening. He asked Gardaí to visit bars and nightclubs to ensure underage drinking is policed.
In his Garda report, Chief Supt Curley noted how public order offences decreased last year by 9%.
There were some 407 public order offences recorded in 206 down from 448 the previous year.
There was one additional assault causing harm in 2016, up 2% to 66 offences; but minor assaults had fallen by 18%, down by 56 incidents to 259.
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